Incorrigible - A 'Dark Elves' Roleplay

[Slamurai]

Incorrigible

This is a cursory announcement to gauge interest in a concept I've had in mind. At this point in time I have only a rough idea and few pinpoint details.

The 'dark elf' archetype is one that I've always found alluring, whether it's through the lens of notables like Warhammer's Druchii or Dark Eldar, D&D's Drow, Michael Moorcock's Melnibonéans, or the Witcher's Aen Elle. I'd enjoy building a roleplay in which elements from these franchises are borrowed, but not copy/pasted, to create a setting in which the 'dark elves' are the focus. Players would take on characters and involve themselves in Machiavellian noble house schemes, or raid other civilizations for slaves and resources, fall into depravity via hedonism and excesses, or just play out a 'dark elf's' slice of life.

I'm afraid I don't have a more concrete offering, but that's where you come in. First of all, I'd like to gauge how many folks would digest such a concept. Then, I'd like some ideas of your own. Would you prefer a roleplay from a single-character POV, or would you rather maneuver a cast of characters of your own noble house and vie with other players for power? Do you like the idea of our 'dark elves' traveling between worlds and other dimensions and raiding as the Aen Elle or Dark Eldar do, or would you rather a more centralized locale? Do you desire a defined plot, or prefer an open-ended playground? etc.

There's a lot to think about for sure. I want to emphasize the darker aspects of the aforementioned civilizations, so this will certainly be an 18+ roleplay. Slaving, violence, torture, hedonism, decadence, sadomasochism are on display, although the Guild's policies regarding adult content must be adhered to.

I'm looking at high casual-advanced standards, in terms of writing ability and effort.

I look forward to reading any ideas or commentary you might have. I want this to be a collaborative effort and something for all to enjoy. I'll most likely create a Discord if enough interest is shown, for a communal space to gather and work, so long as it doesn't detract from actual posting.

[POOHEAD189]

You have my interest. I don't have a lot of ideas atm but I'll think of some.

[Sierra]

@Aristo what, you thought sussing this audience out of hiding would be easy?

Well so far you're 2 for 2 on doing just that so I dunno what point I was trying to make here. :P

[Heyitsjiwon]

Interested as well! I like the idea of a competitive "co-op" RP. Being all Dark Elves, but also having competition between Houses sounds good to me.

[Slamurai]

Awesome, there's hope for this after all.

I'm wondering about the setup most of all: players cooperating under one house vs. competing under different houses, one character vs. NRP-lite, etc.

[Gisk]

I'd be interested in this.

As far as setup goes, I personally prefer to play just one character.

I think we should be playing under the same house, but I think with dark elves that doesn't necessarily mean we would be cooperating. Of course if an external threat appeared, House pride would trump petty conflicts.

Coming from another dimension, or maybe an overlapping plane would be cool, or else living under ground like the drow. They would be a sort of myth or boogeyman for people of the material plane, or the surface world, depending on which way we would go.

[oberonsthing]

Totally interested! I live for dark, gritty fantasy settings.

Regarding setup, I personally would enjoy playing one character, with all of ours working either under a single house or under two conflicting ones (I'm using the term conflict very loosely- I'm all for an all out war between houses, but I feel like maybe some sort of espionage between two allied houses would be pretty interesting...). If all of our characters were under a single house, I think it would be fun to have various assigned roles.

With background for the universe, I like the idea of our dark elves being from another plane of reality, but I feel like that would involve more of a "tiefling" from D&D vibe than the "drow" vibe that you are looking for. Both would be fun to play, though.

Really interested in a discord server if you'd like to make one!

[Gisk]

@oberonsthing@Aristo

In regards to underground(or whatever physical separation) vs another dimension: when thinking of the coming from another plane, I was thinking more like the feywild/shadowfell. Like an overlapping kind of thing.

If it's just physical we could play around with a dark forest that they only leave at night, or a walled city, maybe with like a magical, ever present cloud cover.

[Sierra]

I'll go ahead and make it known that my interest is rather predicated on not leaning into the "houses" notion. Based on my understanding and observations of player mindset ... I'll place a rather confident bet that such would essentially reduce down to "edgy Game of Thrones," which suffice to say is not what I'm signed up for.

I'll also say that "casual-advanced" is something that can actually do quite some harm given the nature of this RP (on top of my other reasons I dislike it). It takes one person being edgy for the sake of being edgy to ruin the seriousness for everyone with what you're going for here. That is to say you should always advertise to the casual audience, but I would still call the advanced section home. Because of the story to be told here, I think that's a better and ultimately safer decision.

[oberonsthing]

@Gisk

If we are going to do an overlapping realms or different planes of reality, I think it would be interesting to take an approach similar to the recent God of War game. If you aren't familiar, what I'm thinking is planes or realms that exist in the same relative "space", with one gateway that connects all of them together. There could be multiple realms based off of the grandeur of this setting, but something along the lines of a "common realm" with humans- a very low-magic realm, an elven realm, though maybe multiple (for the light elves, the dark elves, etc)- most likely very high in magic. There could be a plethora of various "realms".

If the elves exist on the same plane as other races, I like the idea of them living underground, with vast expanses of their kingdom via Skyrim's light elves/dwarves. Tunnel systems for days, crossing continents of the planet.

I think @Sierra is right with her take on the "house" system. Instead of houses between the dark elves, we should just have clashes between races, with all dark elves united under one empire. My interest in this roleplay isn't contingent on that, though.

[Sierra]

I think you guys are vastly overcomplicating the realms notion. I think the simple, yet effective answer is to take a page out of 40K: you have the material plane that obeys physics and the immaterial plane which does not obey physics, is the source of all supernatural power, is home to its own host of (presumably dangerous) supernatural creatures, and is used as a bridge to cross immense distances in the material plane easily (distances not feasibly traversed through any available means).

[POOHEAD189]

I suggest we play two rival houses in the D&D model of Menzoberranzan and we vie for power.

[ReedeThe23rd]

I'm down for this, Dark Elves are one of my favorite concepts in fiction, so I'm ultimately fine with whatever, just wanna be on board.

[Blitzy]

Potentially very interested in this. Keen to see how the idea develops.

[Dnafein]

Ditto.

[Slamurai]

Well, this got a bit of attention while I was away!

How 'bout I make that Discord and we can knock our heads together some?

[Sierra]

I'm gonna quote my comments on the subject from another thread as part of my thoughts here.

It seems like a good idea right now with all this activity but it ends up being counterproductive to keeping the activity going in the longer term. Its also common for people to get carried away and make spaces for IC content which ends up splitting content, creating inside jokes & references, and causing confusion among other things. I've seen it done and even done it myself and seen all these things happen at one time or another.

While I am well aware of Discord's fantastic power to rapidly iterate through ideas and collaborative projects, you often end up with the "in-group" who has entirely too much time to lurk there, and the "out-group" who almost never has time to keep up with it and is often not present when major things are happening.

All of that said, I would simply say to proceed with caution.

[Essie Gray]

I am interested if this is still available, Dark elves are one of my favored races!

[AP Ottovan]

I'm interested and would love to play if you'll have me! :D