Malevolence from Beyond
Introduction
The year is 2085. Fifty years ago, the Ashcroft Foundation shocked the world by revealing that magic was real, and they had harnessed its principles in new technology. The old gods have also taken notice, and now their cults are more active than ever. Operating in secret, they threaten to destabilize society and bring about the return of the Old Ones in a new era of madness. Fighting in a shadow war against them is the Eldritch Society, an international secret society dedicated to protecting the mortal world and driving back the advances of horrible deities. Their greatest warriors are tagers, people who have survived a powerful magical ritual and been bound in symbiosis with a "higher being," gaining incredible power.
A group of young women are about to be in the right place at the wrong time. A ritual gone out of control leaves them the unwitting subjects, and they have been found worthy by the alien beings summoned forth. They will have to learn how to use their new powers, and find allies in the shadow war quickly if they want to survive in a world of monsters. Because they are tagers, holy warriors, and they are destined to fight.
Welcome to the Strange Aeon.
Information
The Characters
Your characters will be young women who have been granted incredible power, and dragged into what would normally be the concern of adults. Until they became tagers by accident, your characters probably didn't even know there was a secret war against the Old Ones, but now they won't be able to avoid it. And they still have to go to school and maintain a normal life.
Your characters are still exceptional people on some level. Not anyone can be judged worthy by the "divine" beings that join with them to become tagers. It requires a certain amount of willpower and conviction.
In addition to your character, you will also get to create their form and abilities when they change into a living, power-armored monstrous warrior. This isn't a monster girl sort of thing so much as just a full-on monster. Tagers are more like the Guyver or Tekkaman Blade.
The Setting
The world is essentially a cyberpunk dystopian world, if everything in the Cthulhu Mythos was real. Humanity has developed arcane technology powered by magic, and the cult of Nyarlathotep has gone corporate. Megacorporations wield as much power as the New Earth Government, and cities are replaced by ultramodern arcologies. Environmentalism and conservation efforts are going strong. So is organized crime.
The RP will take place in the Kojiki arcology. An ultramodern city in Japan, Kojiki is a safe and beautiful place, on the surface. But like the rest of the world, cults, sorcerers, and monsters lurk just beneath the surface. Your characters can move around discreetly in mortal society, and will need to do so to survive.
Themes and Style
This RP is something of a bizarre pastiche of both magical girl anime and Mythos fiction. While there are definitely themes of Lovecraftian horror, the horror aspect may not be front and center. You're an eldritch super hero, after all. The overall expectation is also hopeful. Rather than despair and madness at humanity's insignificance, the focus is on humanity's ability to push back the night.
There will be violence. There will probably also be graphic descriptions of gore. There may be swearing and depictions of drugs and alcohol use. This RP won't be extremely grim and gritty all the time, but it certainly has the potential to get dark at times.
Themes of insanity will be at a relative minimum for the genre. The focus will be less on "you saw a deep one, roll SAN" and more on things like "When you tell people the guy next door is a monster, they think you're crazy." It's not that one is insane, merely that one knows some of the hidden truths of the world. There will be opportunity for introspection and the mental effects of the characters' situation on them. How do you react to fighting monsters? How does your symbiont influence you?
The writing style I'm aiming for is somewhere around the casual level. Be able to write a paragraph or two, although feel free to write as much or as little as you want or need to. As a writer, I tend to go for shorter posts myself. I'd prefer posts be written in the third person. Collaborations for long conversations or other opportunities are fine, but there probably won't be a large focus on needing collabs.
I expect a posting rate of about once a week. I'm not sure exactly how to describe things between a linear plot and a sandbox, but it's probably that you will have some freedom, but there will be some plot beats you'll need to choose how to confront and NPCs with their own agendas that will play out in certain ways if the PCs don't interfere. I will try to post at least once a week to try and move things along or start a new scene. I will not, conversely, wait for everyone to post if it would risk things staying quiet for too long.
I'm looking for around 4-5 other people total.
If you have any questions that I haven't answered, feel free to ask them.
Some questions and things
Some questions to spur discussion for prospective players:
Do you want a discord server for the RP?
How much of a focus would you want on action versus horror?
How much focus would you want on planning things and being careful not to be caught?
