Children of the Otherwold (An isekai rp with a twist!)

[RisingRobin]

The Beginning

Ok so... This is easily going to be the most 'unique' idea I've ever submitted on this site and it's the one that's going to take the most exposition to actually explain. This concept takes heavy inspiration from the anime "That Time I got Reincarnated as a Slime", but it's not going to make overpowered and unbeatable protags. As the title says, this is an isekai story, but in order to get to this incredible new fantasy world... you all have to die first.

The Setup

Imagine a world parallel to our own. It's like ours except this world - Vecta - is built on magic in place of science. Various races of monsters coexist with the 'Morai' (More-I), Vecta's equivalent of humanity. This world is overseen by the Twin Gods: Drasil and Morganna. A brother and sister pair who rule over darkness and light respectively. While their relationship is amicable at best, both seek to outdo their sibling in creating the 'ideal' Vecta. One day, Morganna took notice of how certain people in our world were having their lives cut tragically short. Feeling pity, she decided to reincarnate these people in her domain, giving them new bodies so they may continue their lives anew. When these "Children of the Otherworld" were discovered to have great potential for magic, creation, and destruction Drasil took notice and sought out Otherworlders of his own to challenge his sister's creations.

While the arrival of an Otherworlder is an uncommon occurrence, it causes a stir in Vecta when one is discovered. Naturally, the humans brought into Vecta aren't all created equal. A human from our world could be reincarnated as a Morai, an Orc, a Vampire, or even an Elf! The respective god chooses the form based on the last wishes and desires of the human's soul before it is taken. This way, the soul is allowed to live out their most 'ideal' life upon arrival in Vecta. In addition to appearance, the human can gain skills and abilities with their last desires, not unlike building a character for a video game!

How it All Works

If this sounds like a confusing concept to you, here's how it would work in the RP context. Your characters are all humans living on Earth. Your opening posts will start with a "day in the life" of your character BUT they will die in some random and unexpected way. As they breathe their last, your characters will be visited by one of the two gods (which one will be a part of your CS). Then, you'll have a chance to tell them your last desires, regrets, and wishes upon being offered a new chance at life. Based on what you write, your new race and abilities will be created by ME your lovely GM! The "challenge" of the RP will be seeing how you fare at writing your character in the new world with the skills and abilities you've been assigned. There may be an overarching story thread here and there, but the world of Vecta is a fun sandbox to sort of mess around in and see what chaos you get up to.

NOTE: Just because they're the gods of "Light" and "Darkness" that does not mean either god is wholly good or evil. There can be good creatures of darkness just like their can be evil beings of light. It's genuinely all in the way that you look at things.

The Gods

Some Quick Blurbs about the rulers of Vecta

Morganna

Morganna

Appearing as a beautiful young woman, Morganna is the epitome of angelic grace. She prides herself on providing the best for Vecta's people both Morai and Monster alike. Incredibly giving, Morganna will rarely refuse an upturned hand so long as her followers remain pious and dedicated to bettering the world around them. While many view her as a warm and benevolent goddess, she has a wicked side to her that comes out if she feels slighted in any manor. The gemstone Plata around her neck grants her incredible magical abilities beyond those of any mage or witch in Vecta

Drasil

Drasil

Drasil appears as a gruff young man in his early thirties. His personality couldn't be more opposed to his sister. Unlike her warm and giving nature, Drasil believes in leaving his followers alone and letting them figure out how to solve their problems. Typically he prefers to intervene in their affairs when he feels there's no other option. Most of the time, said intervention comes in the form of beating the problem into submission. His cold and aloof nature might rub some the wrong way, but it's more of a tough love situation and Drasil's followers are all the stronger for it. His weapon Oro, a blade forged from the scales of the First Dragon, is said to be the mightiest weapon in Vecta.

That's about the long and the short of it. If this sort of writing challenge RP would appeal to you, leave a reply and let me know. I can start working on character sheets and fleshing out the larger world of Vecta so you guys and gals can have a better idea of the sandbox you're being (randomly) dropped into! Have fun dying!

[Letter Bee]

@TheNoCoKid, I am not sure I have the time, but if my existing games slow down, I'll post something.

[Crimson Flame]

I’m interested

[Xaltwind]

I was a bit interested up until the poihnt where the decision for what you reincarnate as/into was decidedly out of my hands. While I don't mind RNG or having skills/abilities assigned to me and then trying to figure out how to use them - I actually quite like that concept - the thought of having someone else decide for me what race/gender my character is a bit too much for me.

Plus it'll make searching for a proper face-claim really frustrating.

Unless of course this is negotiable, to some extent, of course.

[RisingRobin]

@Xaltwind It is negotiable if you know how to word your opening post. The whole point of the reincarnation aspect is your character’s respective god will grant you a new life based on your last wishes, desires, and regrets. These together will combine into who or what you’ll eventually be turned into.

[Zeroth]

Potentially interested! Personally I don't mind the idea of "rolling the dice" to see what my character becomes since turning lemons into busted OP exploits is a challenge I'd love to attempt, but I have a few questions! And maybe a suggestion?

The whole point of the reincarnation aspect is your character’s respective god will grant you a new life based on your last wishes, desires, and regrets. These together will combine into who or what you’ll eventually be turned into.

@TheNoCoKid

If Players were reincarnated as creatures traditionally considered "monsters," (slime, goblin, etc) would they be capable of leveling up and "evolving" over time into stronger or more specialized variations? Like, Goblin > Hobgoblin > ???-X-number of times > Goblin King or something of that nature?

If Players were reincarnated as "non-monsters," the usual Human/Elf/Dwarf fare, would they simply learn abilities or grow into new powers as time goes on, free-form? Or would they be sorted into some kind of Class or Job system?

Do you have any particular rules/features of an EXP system, some examples of the types of skills/spells characters might use, or other "generally known" meta-info within Vecta itself that you think would help prospective players get a feel for the RP? Like, do the natural denizens of the world also have levels, or know how their own status screens and such work?

As for the suggestion, sort of tying it into the first question about non-standard racial choices: Maybe it would help people who want more "choice" in what they reincarnate into if they had a general idea of creatures' traits in your world? You could list something like, maybe the five most common "families" of monsters (for example, "Beastkin," "Undead," "Goblinoids," etc) and some short snippets about how they behave or their cultures? That way, maybe a Player has a little bit more to work with even if they don't know exactly what creature in that category they'll end up becoming?

[RisingRobin]

As for the suggestion, sort of tying it into the first question about non-standard racial choices: Maybe it would help people who want more "choice" in what they reincarnate into if they had a general idea of creatures' traits in your world? You could list something like, maybe the five most common "families" of monsters (for example, "Beastkin," "Undead," "Goblinoids," etc) and some short snippets about how they behave or their cultures? That way, maybe a Player has a little bit more to work with even if they don't know exactly what creature in that category they'll end up becoming?

@Zeroth

I was actually planning to something similar to this once I posted the first OOC. When it comes to doing the interest check, I just wanted to get the base information and concept out before I started fine tuning the details. There will be a list of “light” and “dark” affiliated races that each god would preside over.

As for the “evolution” system you mentioned, this is another thing I want to implement as growing and building a new life is a major part of the story I’m adapting this from. “That time…” actually has a really cool concept in the first episode, but we only ever see it with the MC. This rp is more about utilizing the concept on a bigger scale.

[Xaltwind]

@TheNoCoKid
That's good to know, albeit that does lead to one needing to be very specfici and very careful about what one writes and says in their initial IC post. And, from an immersive standpoint, I don't personally feel that it maeks a lot of sense that a person who is dying, unless they're absolutely sure that nothing's going to change that outcome, would be so calm and rational as to just lie there and go: "Oh man, if I get reborn I really wish I'll get X, Y and Z and be able to do A, B and C."
But the knowledge that I can, at least attempt to, somehow influence what my character gets reborn as/into has made me more interested again.

Another question though is about the free-form aspect of the RP.

Since there's no overall "plot" and people are free to do whatever they want - more or less, what's the end goal? How do we know when we've reached the end of the RP? Are we just gonna keep going until people say they're no longer interested in continuing, or do you have some kind of epilogue or final chapter planned for eventually wrapping things up?

Also, as this is listed to have the Nation-tag, are we required to start a nation/group/faction of our own? OR can our character just run around and be a loner for as long as the RP is running?

EDIT:

Oh, and don't mind me if I sound overly critical or negative. I don't mean to, I just have a natural penchant for coming off that way.

That Time I got Reincarnated as a Slime is actually one of my favorite series from the past few years, so I am very interested in this RP as its based on it. :)

[ERode]

Will be keeping an eye on this.

[Zapdos]

I'll watch this thread. Depending on how it's implemented, this could be interesting!

[RisingRobin]

Since I've had several questions about the RNG nature of the reincarnation mechanic, I'm going to make a GM move and offer an "opt-out" for players that really want to do something specific. If you'd rather pick what you want to be, you can message me in DMs or put it in OOC when the RP goes live. We can work something out as GM and players. The random reincarnation element was more an idea for people who wanted to try something different as a writing challenge. That being said, if any players still want to go that route, the option is MORE than open. I think it could be fun :)

[ERode]

When do you plan on busting out the OOC and CS hijinks out? As well, it'd be useful if you could answer Xalt's questions regarding the end goal of the RP and whether or not it's mandatory to start up a nation/faction/group as an individual player.

[Duthguy]

This could be interesting

[Xaltwind]

@ERode
NoCo did answer them, albeit in a PM with me. I usually would never reval private convo information to others, but since what we talked about was just questions about the RP, I don't think there's any harm in it.

So, let me know if any of this is faulty re-telling of information, @TheNoCoKid

- We don't have to start our own group/faction/nation if we don't want to, apparently.

- The end-goal/final chapter/wrapping-up-point is still being worked out.

- When our toons die, time will apparently slow down a la "Tanya the Evil"-mode and we get to chat with our prefered deity before we croak, so there's apparently no need to worry about bleeding out or dying before we get a chance to discuss things about what we want in the new life.

Hopefully that wasn't out of turn or rude of me, and I really hope I diidn't get any of the info wrong. Feel free to slap me with fish if I did though.

As I am happy with the answers I got though, I will be going all-in on my interest for this RP. :)

[ERode]

Interesting to have answered that in PMs, but thanks for sharing, Xalt.

Now my question: do all PCs come from the same era? Are we all modern-day humans? Are we all humans from the same world?

[Xaltwind]

I got impatient waiting for a reply in the thread, so I sent a PM as well. ^-^;

[RisingRobin]

@ERode@Xaltwind Apologies for weird updates. Schedule has been out of whack recently and I’m trying to get back to posting regularly.

[Xaltwind]

Life be life, some of us just have inordinate amounts of free time in our hands. At least when not working. *cough*
Though I do believe that the ERode would like answers to theirlatest querries.

[RisingRobin]

Now my question: do all PCs come from the same era? Are we all modern-day humans? Are we all humans from the same world?

@ERode

I’d prefer if they were all modern day tbh. My idea is that both worlds run on a parallel timeline so there would have already been humans from the past that have crossed over. And yes, you would all be from the same Earth as it were.

[Digmata]

I'm curious as well especially with uncertainty offered by the character creation.