DARKEN THE SKIES
PREPARE THE MAIDEN
CAGE THE IMMORTAL
BEGIN THE HUNT
-----------
-----------
-----------
PREPARE THE MAIDEN
CAGE THE IMMORTAL
BEGIN THE HUNT
-----------
-----------
-----------
An eternal night shrouds Outis. Neon and LEDs are the only things that illuminate the streets. For most of the citizens, wealth is an abstract concept. Those who are lucky toil in the factories that fuel the city's maintenance. They can take solace in the fact they are being paid some pittance. It beats corvée labour or being shipped to carve out the ruins of the city.
The streets are not safe. Not when there are immortals lurking in the shadows. Immortals, beings that go against natural laws, attract the supernatural. The supernatural hungers for life, yet the vessel of an immortal does not allow for it to be drained. Those who are ordinary are prime targets for the beasties of the night.
Of course, the city is not defenceless. Cleaners--adapted from how supernatural events often leave a mess--wield magics and relics to slay the supernatural. Meanwhile, Hylics slake their weapons with their own life to pierce the supernatural.
That leaves one thing: immortals.
Thus begins the hunt.
Immortals will be caged.
The streets are not safe. Not when there are immortals lurking in the shadows. Immortals, beings that go against natural laws, attract the supernatural. The supernatural hungers for life, yet the vessel of an immortal does not allow for it to be drained. Those who are ordinary are prime targets for the beasties of the night.
Of course, the city is not defenceless. Cleaners--adapted from how supernatural events often leave a mess--wield magics and relics to slay the supernatural. Meanwhile, Hylics slake their weapons with their own life to pierce the supernatural.
That leaves one thing: immortals.
Thus begins the hunt.
Immortals will be caged.
Outis is a city-state that, to its citizens, is the only home for millions of humans. The city is comprised of 10 sequential districts in a helical spiral. While the citizens of the inner districts would describe the city as prosperous, those of the outer districts would describe it as anything but. The majority of citizens in the lower districts are conscripted into factories that sustain the city. Those who are lucky enough to escape the menial labour of manufacturing are, in fact, unlucky. Recyclers--as they call them--are sent to the fathoms underneath the city to find anything that can be processed to expand the city.
The city is shrouded in a mixture of eternal night and star-blocking smog. The moon is the only exception to the ink-black skies. An immovable ivory moon stands far above the city and radiates its visage through the smog.
Each district is administered by a crown-magistrate and their steward-corporation. The only exception is the innermost district which is ran by the crown--the immutable lord of the city. Districts are--for the most part--self-sustaining. Citizens of each district are typically not allowed to leave their respective districts without an immigration pass.
The crown-magistrates impose their will using large security forces. In comparison, only a select few groups are allowed to possess anything dangerous.
The underworld is the ruins on which Outis stands upon.
The city had, at one point, violently expanded and built upon the remains of a previous incarnation of itself. The helical nature of the city is inverted within the underworld. The further within the underworld one goes, the further from the surface they become. Away from the watchful eyes of the crown-magistrates, those who are unwilling to wage under a steward-corporation call the shallow underworld their home. Criminals, anarchists, and political enemies form a recusant community. Of course, that's only the shallows. The depths of the underworld hold vast evil: immortals in hiding, supernatural entities, and relics of unknown origin.
Typically, the entrances to the underworld are where they are closest. In other words, the outermost districts. However, longitudinal tunnels and lifts to the depths exist in most districts. For a price, of course.
The badlands consist of the area outside of the city. An impenetrable black fog surrounds the city. Rather than an apocalyptic landscape of monsters and beasts, the badlands simply lacks. Only dry dirt, sand, and identical stones can be found outside of the stones. There are no signs of civilization be it living or ancient. Criminals who escape to the badlands simply vanish. The identical footing and arms-length view makes getting lost too easy. No matter how long of a rope one uses, the footing remains identical.
Magic is the fundamental ability to disregard the logic of the world.
As a result, magic has no standard form. One person may simply intuit flames while another must create constructs using studied formulas. Despite this, magic is not something people are born with. Magic is, simply put, the culmination of one's experiences and self. It can be taught to others, yet it may morph and evolve due to previous experiences. Learning magic when one has already built their foundation of logic holds massive risks. While one's foundation of logic can adapt and evolve to create new magic, it can just as easily crumble under incompatibilities. Due to its side-effects, magic used solely by dissidents and those who oppose the supernatural.
Some practitioners are able to manifest physiological changes. Of course, to do so without a specialized logic is asking for death. After all, how does one change back if they do not consider their body's state to be fluid? The constant burn of one's life occurs upon manifestation. The permanent haunt of the supernatural. Thus, manifestation is primarily an occurrence under extreme psychological duress.
The usage of magic is to alter reality via one's life. Vitas is the fundamental energy of life.
Most humans are born with the same amount of vitas and die when they lack it. If the body is thought of as a cup, then vitas can be thought of as water. As one ages, their vessel cracks, chips, and breaks until it can no longer hold water. Thus, they die. To use magic is to intentionally pour the water from within. This, of course, means that vitas can be refilled. Typically, the elimination of the supernatural is what allows those who perform magic to not have unbelievably short lives. However, the stresses of magic do put wear on the vessel.
Any attempt to use vitas in an attempt to industrialize the city have resulted in generally bad things happening.
A problem occurs when one is born with a near limitless vessel and supply of vitas. They are able to intuit their own immortality and become immortals.
This isn't necessarily a problem. However, the gift of immortality comes with severe penalty: the permanent disruption of the natural order. The natural order is what binds reality under reason and logic. Something should exist, therefore it does. Something should happen, therefore it will. Simply put, immortals call the supernatural to themselves by disrupting the natural order.
Immortals can not be slain. While the nature of their immortality varies, there is a single immutable truth to dealing with immortals: the only way to stop one is containment.
The supernatural results as a manifestation of the subconscious.
Ranging from representations of primal fears to memetic brainworms, the supernatural are being of vitas that innately seek out vitas to subsume by any means. As the antithesis of the natural order, the supernatural call more supernatural. Thus, the supernatural must systematically be purged to prevent a cascade of destruction.
As beings of vitas, supernatural beings have an innate desire to subsume vitas. The vessels of immortals are much too sturdy to be drained. That leaves one reliable target: ordinary humans.
Vitas is not limited to living beings. Rarely, an object known as a relic will accumulate vitas.
Like magic, there is no concrete example for a relic is, save for the fact that they fundamentally do something unnatural. As they flaunt the natural order, they must be kept sealed in a CAT--a specialized holster or container that fully conceals the object. Relics are typically graded from I to V and correspond to the appropriate cleaner rank.
The hunt is the colloquial term for the systematic containment and elimination of immortals and the supernatural.
The process is fairly simple. The supernatural tends to be able to be vanquished by the usage of vitas, be it channelled through relics or via magic. Immortals, however, can not be vanquished by such means. Instead, immortals must be forced into a MAIDEN--a specialized containment device designed for usage against immortals. While the exact design may vary, they can usually be described as large metal coffins.
There are two primary parties when it comes to the hunt: cleaners and the Hylic Order.
Cleaners are elimination for hire. Typically, cleaners are arranged into offices and associations. Cleaners are administered directly by the crown, but have freedom in what jobs they take. Their administration is primarily a way for the crown to reign them in rather than support their cause. As a result, cleaners are separated into 5 grades with associated perks. The most pertinent of them being the right to travel within the city.
- I - No transit or residence besides one's citizenship.
- II - Limited transit and temporary residence to the first eight districts (under the employment of the appropriate office)
- III - Free transit and residence to the outermost four districts; the ability to form an office.
- IV - Free transit and residence to the outermost eight districts.
- V - Free transit and residence within any district.
Of course, the demand for warm bodies in the fight is in flux. Thus, Freelancers fill the gaps between the districts. Freelancers have no office. Rather, they're hired on a job-by-job basis.
The Hylic Order is a fanatical paramilitary with an obsession of keeping the natural order. Unlike cleaners, they do it for free (if you do not count their extending reach in politics as payment). As opposed to cleaners, Hylics refuse magic. They instead rely upon "blessed" weapons and tools--items staked with the vitas of the wielder rather than items innately possessing it. To call the relationship between Hylics and cleaners strained would be an understatement. The only thing stopping total war between the two is the swift force doled out by each crown-magistrate's security forces.
This is where random things I don't want to put into the narrative will go. A good place to define the specifics of technology, too.
If you weren't in the interest check, feel free to still shoot out a character.
Characters will (at the start) be a part of Mel's office as a fairly new cleaner (think rank I and II). From there, characters will have to both protect the streets and deal the underworld as they live and work in the 10th district--the worst place in the city. If you want to do something else, holla at me. This is mostly to make sure people are on mostly the same foot early. If the RP lasts long enough, we'd maybe get into some cheeky metagame about managing your own office.
Character Sheet and Stuff
Musical Playlist
1x Like
