Burokun City plays host to two equally unwelcome groups:
The Oni, who are eternally hungry, and violent. Known to take over entire neighborhoods, demanding tribute at the threat eating the citizens and their children.
And the Ronin. Roving street thugs whose only redeeming quality is that they kill the Oni when possible. Local opinion is far more mixed on the Ronin. On the one hand, they terrorize the streets and demand unconditional respect and fealty. On the other, they're human, and rarely actually kill the citizens.
The entire situation is made worse by the reality TV show, Street Samurai, which follows the Ronin and their fights and lives for views and ad revenue. The show is very popular outside of the city, and particularly in America, but is basically taboo to those who live in Burokun. The producers of Street Samurai act as middle men between the Ronin(who for obvious reasons tend to keep anonymity) and sponsors, who seek to capitalize on the Ronin, who will gladly wear their logos in exchange for a nice sword, or fancy gadget. It's the cheapest advertising available, all things considered, and hits a fairly wide audience.
The Oni are ubiquitous in the world in general, but Ronin are largely specific to Burokun. They definitely started to show up as a direct response to the Oni moving in, but until relatively recently they were basically a human version of the Oni presence. Which is to say, they were gangs that set up shop in various neighborhoods. They even used to expect their own kind of tribute and respect.
This started to change when a brave crew of journalists filmed a comprehensive documentary about them(as they were a fairly unique phenomenon). The Ronin featured in the documentary gained a kind of internet fame, and several of them started filming their exploits(particularly themselves fighting Oni) and posting them online. The ones that did started to make some money off of their youtube views, which inspired almost all of them to follow suit.
As always happens, a big company wanted to monopolize on this revenue stream, and so an American production company hired the original documentarian who made the film, and set her up as the director of a new TV show by the same name: Street Samurai.
As the show has gone on, the Ronin have become less violent toward the citizens, but if anything even more agressive with the Oni and with each other. And as sponsors have come into the mix, they've started to get daring and reckless, trying to get fans and online following, to attract benefactors.
Most Ronin are young, as it's a dangerous "job" and you either die doing it, or get out while you still can.
The reason they're considered more akin to samurai than to other kinds of street gangs is that, among them, guns are taboo. They all wield some kind of archaic weapon. This started out because most of them simply couldn't get their hands on guns, but has become a strongly held tradition.
Most are anonymous, and wear masks or hoods to hide their identity, going by pseudonyms.
What are they?
I guess I would say they're akin to devils, but also to like ogres or goblins. They're selfish, predatory and dominating.
Where did they come from?
A hell dimension, or one of many. They don't necessarily all come from the same place, but their worlds are similar to each other. It's not important to the story that we get into more specifics about the hells they come from. They can come and go through hidden portals. They hide their portals jealously, but they can be found by humans on occasion. Humans cannot survive in the hell dimensions, and so crossing the portals is a death sentence.
Generally humanoid, but they don't necessarily have the same proportions or number of limbs. They're red, blue or black skinned, and have masks instead of faces. If you pried one of their masks off, it would reveal a ravenous, endless maw, teeth all the way down the throat.
The Oni didn't appear suddenly or anything. In this world, they've basically always been around. They have only been in Burokun in large numbers for about a decade. Burokun is a poorer city, which is where Oni usually congregate.
Are they capable of emotion?
Definitely. Their emotions are tied mainly around themselves, though. They don't care about anything or anyone very easily. They can feel affection, and if they decide they do like someone, they are intensely and unreasoningly loyal to them. That's not terribly common, though.
So aside from this framework for the story, basically anything goes for this game. Bring me your Mary Sues and self inserts. This here is just for everyone to have some fun free of judgements and restrictions.
The only real rule is to be nice to each other, and as explained below, there is a system in place to make sure the outcome of pvp fights is fair.
Name: Alias: Appearance: Alegiances: this can be blank for now, as these will probably appear during the course of the roleplay. Style: Fast, Strong or Tough. Explained below. Weapon(s): Special Abilities:
Because characters will likely clash, I have a simple system to make sure that deciding the winner is fair. There will be a rock-paper-scissors style stat. Fast beats strong, strong beats tough and tough beats fast.
Unless the two players mutually decide who will win in a fight, the two will have a die rolled to represent them, and the higher roll will win. If one of them wins the rock paper scissors stat thing, they will have advantage, in which their die will be rolled twice, and the higher value will be used.
So if a fast fights a strong, the fast will get the advantage. If a fast fights a fast, they will just roll normally.
Once a winner is decided(either by mutual agreement, or with a roll of the dice) you just RP the encounter as you normally would.
Lemme know what people think, and feel free to voice any concerns.
