“I have seen the dark universe yawning
Where the black planets roll without aim,
Where they roll in their horror unheeded,
Without knowledge, or lustre, or name.”
-H.P. Lovecraft
Where the black planets roll without aim,
Where they roll in their horror unheeded,
Without knowledge, or lustre, or name.”
-H.P. Lovecraft
The world was not prepared for the end. To be fair, its hard to prepare for an enormous wound to open in the sky and spew out a seemingly endless horde of monstrosities. Much less monstrosities who seem interested only in consuming the entirety of mankind. But the fact remains, we were not prepared. Mmmm… Maybe I need to back up a little.
150 years ago, an enormous tear appeared in the sky over what was once Brazil. Millions of monstrous creatures, known now as abominations, poured out of the tear and began to devour anything with a pulse. The hordes of hideous things spread across the world at an incredibly alarming rate. Maybe if the world had banned together and struck the abominations as one united force we might have faired better, but even at the end of the world, politics still exist.
In an act of pure desperation to stem the tide of abominations, the U.S and Russia fired a bunch of nukes into the portal and the surrounding area. By some sort or miracle not only did this not kill all life on earth, but whatever was on the other side of the portal must have not liked our present, because the portal closed not long after.
Still, humanity barely survived the coming destruction. In a straight up fight, we stood no chances against the abominations. The world fought hard, but in just three years its estimated that over 75% of the world’s population had died. So how are we here now? Magic.
No, like, literal magic. More specifically a magic rock. We call it respite, and we still have no clue where it comes from. Pockets of it just sort of started to..pop up. Usually around the, rare, corpses of some of the bigger abominations. Respite does some weird shit. It can act like a power source for all kinds of odd gadgets and weapons, it also seems to act as a natural ward against the smaller abominations. But what’s really interesting is the effect it has on the human body. When respite is inserted into a human body, that person changes. The changes are seemingly random, but each person gains unique abilities that might let them fight toe to toe with an abomination. Sounds great right? We just shove some respite into every human and BAM, an army of super powered people to fight for humanity. Well…..
The survival rate for respite insertion, a process we now call ‘the bonding’, is about 1 in 4. Yeah, a 25% chance to survive the bonding process, not great odds. On top of that, some people get the short end of the stick. The bonding can cause horrible mutations in some, and blind madness in others. Many who undergo the bonding and survive also have a host of mental and physical issues. It’s not just a few who turn to what drugs, alcohol, or other forms of debauchery they can find in order to survive. But still, we wouldn’t have survived without them.
Over the past 150 years, we’ve managed to claw out way back towards some semblance of humanity. There are a few major settlements that house that vast majority of what’s left of us. The big one in North America is called Respite City, names not only for the enormous piece of respite that powers the city and wards of a bunch of the smaller abominations, but also because it’s close to the place where the first piece of respite was found.
Home to about 600,000 survivors, Respite City is one of the last bastions of hope for humanity. Large walls and a sizable standing army of guard’s help keep the city safe, but what has really helped the city survive are its force of bonded known as ‘Guardians’. Whenever a real threat pops up, it’s the Guardians that push it back. When a new nest of abominations pop up a little to close to home, it’s the Guardians that go crush it.
Led by the…um… beloved(?) Captain Alias, the Guardians are what stand between Respite City and the hordes of man-eating cosmic horrors that stand on the other side of the walls.
This is where you come in, new recruit. You have recently undergone ‘the bonding’ and managed to survive. Congrats! For the past year and a half, you have undergone intense combat and survival training, to make sure you fit the bill for the Guardians. Your class actually had a higher-than-normal survival rate, at about 30%! Now that you have successfully managed to bond to a piece of respite you have to figure out how to use your new abilities in the line of duty. Don’t worry, you’ll probably get a few weeks to figure it out before you’re shoved out into the apocalyptic wasteland that waits outside the walls of Respite. As long as nothing goes horribly wrong……….
TLDR: This a post-apocalyptic world where Lovecraftian horrors wander outside the gates of one of the few bastions of humanity left in the world. You have recently been given random super powers by a magic rock in order to try and combat the abominations that would love nothing more then to devour your still beating heart. It’s a stressful job, you might die. But hey, superpowers!
This is the gist of the RP. I’ll be adding more information about the world, Respite, and the Guardians once I get an idea of how many are interested. A CS will also be coming soon as well. I am probably going to let everyone have a max of two characters, since its entirely possible for a character to die in this world. Guns still exist but ammo is scarce. There may be room for sci-fi weapons but I’ll probably judge them on a case by case basis. I strongly encourage any questions and ideas, as my planning is in the fairly early stages still.
