This didn't attract enough interest to launch.
Apart from the mangled corpse of a helicopter, the clearing is unremarkable. Birdsong and the babbling of a nearby stream sound across it; a wild hare takes cover under one of the rotor blades from the noonday sun overhead. The crash must have been some time ago for nature to have returned to such a state of normalcy - but not that long ago. Here and there, a patch of dead grass or a deep rut in the soil remain as evidence. There's no sign of the pilot or any passengers.
Presently, a large drone approaches the crash site; its approach is slow and cautious, like it's looking for something. It comes to a stop a safe distance away and sends a transmission. "I'm holding position near the speculative border of the AZ," it says. "I cannot detect any active phenomena."
In a field command post half a kilometer away, the drone comes through as an emotionless, genderless transcription, very clear but lacking any humanity. This is entirely intentional, of course: its control software is little more than a glorified LLM, scarcely more advanced than what was available on the consumer market and constrained by the drone's limited hardware. It was in no way intelligent, and the Anomalous Zone Command didn't want their officers to feel any compunctions should self-destruct protocols be called for.
The drone's handler gave it a terse acknowledgement and cross-referenced its summary with its sensor feed. The team assigned to this incident has a simple working theory: that a civilian helicopter had lost control as it crossed the border of an undocumented anomalous zone and crashed on the inside. Other explanations are possible, of course, most simply an ordinary mechanical failure. That's what they're here to find out. The view from the drone's scope provides little evidence. Even at its highest magnification level, the crash site is hard to make out. What can be seen suggests the helicopter had been flying fairly low; perhaps there are survivors, but that does little to establish whether the AZC needs to get involved. The drone's other sensors are similarly unhelpful. The computer was right: there isn't anything out of the ordinary on any of them. Unfortunately, most anomalous zones seem normal until one went inside them - so, that's the plan. The handler comes to a decision.
"When I say go, head inside the zone and collect sensor readings. If you encounter any trouble, leave the zone immediately. Loss of contact constitutes trouble. Go." The drone's handler is an old hand at this; the precise, semi-redundant way of phrasing commands is second nature. The drone obediently tilts its rotors forwards, and a moment later, the feed goes blank.
Twelve seconds later, sensor telemetry comes back. The drone had retreated as ordered - almost back to its starting point, but significantly lower. One of the gauges on the control panel promptly turns red, skipping yellow entirely: the drone's shield, a piece of paratech intended specifically for occasions like these, is almost drained. So, too, are its batteries. It's a toss-up whether it can make it home, or whether someone's going to have to go back and lug it back.
For the first time since initial deployment, the other person in the room speaks. "Crap," she says. "I think we've found ourselves a faerie ring."
A ghost factory, a library of authors, a hungry train, a graveyard for the living: these are only a select few of the places under the purview of the Anomalous Zone Command. With chapters across the country and partnerships with similar organizations abroad, the AZC is dedicated to maintaining normalcy, keeping the rest of humanity away from the dangerous anomalies, and, when possible, exploiting the safe ones for the common good. Its containment teams might be called on to cull a population of werewolves, negotiate with a community of sapient koi, keep the Bermuda triangle fed, or invent a cryptid myth to discredit the real deal. It's often a dangerous job, at least for the operators on the ground, and a thankless one, but absolutely essential for the continuation of human society.
Of course, the AZC's commitment secrecy does complicate recruiting. Perhaps you're one of the special ones. Maybe you got caught up in an anomaly and were given the chance to join on and keep your memories. Maybe you come from somewhere else within the organization, the last survivor of your previous squad or the victim of a scandalous demotion. Maybe you're here as part of an exchange program. More likely, however, you were recruited from prison: a very bad person, or someone who was mistaken for one, with a set of skills that caught the eye of an AZC recruiter. Or, maybe - just maybe - you're one of the few conspiracy theorists who was onto something. However you ended up here, you're now an operator, one of the AZC's boots on the ground, deployed into anomalous zones in hopes that they'll survive long enough to report back. Pick a callsign for yourself, and make it a good one: this isn't the sort of job you can just retire from.
This roleplay may touch on some intense themes, so I'm going to ask to limit it to adults. Please make sure to list any lines and veils you may have.
Beyond that, I don't have a particular character sheet template I want you to use: just give me a few paragraphs about your character, and a faceclaim if you're so inclined. I'll be playing your squadron's handler, an AZC officer back at base who helps coordinate you. My role in the story will be fairly indirect: many anomalies interfere with radio signals, so you can expect to be on your own most of the time. As a fun little embellishment, I'll also give us a wiki to record AZC jargon and slang as we come up with it.
And no, you don't have to write in present tense; that's just how I like to do my intros!
- anomalous zone: A region of space governed by alternate laws of physics, often of a hazardous nature. See also: AZ, haunting, faerie ring, ward.
- Anomalous Zone Command: A secretive paramilitary organization dedicated to the discovery and containment of anomalous zones. See also: AZC.
- operator: An employee of the Anomalous Zone Command tasked with exploration and containment operations, often recruited from prison populations. See also: grunt, faerie fodder.
- Troubleshooters: A newly formed operator squadron.
The Index of Maybe Places
Apart from the mangled corpse of a helicopter, the clearing is unremarkable. Birdsong and the babbling of a nearby stream sound across it; a wild hare takes cover under one of the rotor blades from the noonday sun overhead. The crash must have been some time ago for nature to have returned to such a state of normalcy - but not that long ago. Here and there, a patch of dead grass or a deep rut in the soil remain as evidence. There's no sign of the pilot or any passengers.
Presently, a large drone approaches the crash site; its approach is slow and cautious, like it's looking for something. It comes to a stop a safe distance away and sends a transmission. "I'm holding position near the speculative border of the AZ," it says. "I cannot detect any active phenomena."
In a field command post half a kilometer away, the drone comes through as an emotionless, genderless transcription, very clear but lacking any humanity. This is entirely intentional, of course: its control software is little more than a glorified LLM, scarcely more advanced than what was available on the consumer market and constrained by the drone's limited hardware. It was in no way intelligent, and the Anomalous Zone Command didn't want their officers to feel any compunctions should self-destruct protocols be called for.
The drone's handler gave it a terse acknowledgement and cross-referenced its summary with its sensor feed. The team assigned to this incident has a simple working theory: that a civilian helicopter had lost control as it crossed the border of an undocumented anomalous zone and crashed on the inside. Other explanations are possible, of course, most simply an ordinary mechanical failure. That's what they're here to find out. The view from the drone's scope provides little evidence. Even at its highest magnification level, the crash site is hard to make out. What can be seen suggests the helicopter had been flying fairly low; perhaps there are survivors, but that does little to establish whether the AZC needs to get involved. The drone's other sensors are similarly unhelpful. The computer was right: there isn't anything out of the ordinary on any of them. Unfortunately, most anomalous zones seem normal until one went inside them - so, that's the plan. The handler comes to a decision.
"When I say go, head inside the zone and collect sensor readings. If you encounter any trouble, leave the zone immediately. Loss of contact constitutes trouble. Go." The drone's handler is an old hand at this; the precise, semi-redundant way of phrasing commands is second nature. The drone obediently tilts its rotors forwards, and a moment later, the feed goes blank.
Twelve seconds later, sensor telemetry comes back. The drone had retreated as ordered - almost back to its starting point, but significantly lower. One of the gauges on the control panel promptly turns red, skipping yellow entirely: the drone's shield, a piece of paratech intended specifically for occasions like these, is almost drained. So, too, are its batteries. It's a toss-up whether it can make it home, or whether someone's going to have to go back and lug it back.
For the first time since initial deployment, the other person in the room speaks. "Crap," she says. "I think we've found ourselves a faerie ring."
A ghost factory, a library of authors, a hungry train, a graveyard for the living: these are only a select few of the places under the purview of the Anomalous Zone Command. With chapters across the country and partnerships with similar organizations abroad, the AZC is dedicated to maintaining normalcy, keeping the rest of humanity away from the dangerous anomalies, and, when possible, exploiting the safe ones for the common good. Its containment teams might be called on to cull a population of werewolves, negotiate with a community of sapient koi, keep the Bermuda triangle fed, or invent a cryptid myth to discredit the real deal. It's often a dangerous job, at least for the operators on the ground, and a thankless one, but absolutely essential for the continuation of human society.
Of course, the AZC's commitment secrecy does complicate recruiting. Perhaps you're one of the special ones. Maybe you got caught up in an anomaly and were given the chance to join on and keep your memories. Maybe you come from somewhere else within the organization, the last survivor of your previous squad or the victim of a scandalous demotion. Maybe you're here as part of an exchange program. More likely, however, you were recruited from prison: a very bad person, or someone who was mistaken for one, with a set of skills that caught the eye of an AZC recruiter. Or, maybe - just maybe - you're one of the few conspiracy theorists who was onto something. However you ended up here, you're now an operator, one of the AZC's boots on the ground, deployed into anomalous zones in hopes that they'll survive long enough to report back. Pick a callsign for yourself, and make it a good one: this isn't the sort of job you can just retire from.
This roleplay may touch on some intense themes, so I'm going to ask to limit it to adults. Please make sure to list any lines and veils you may have.
Beyond that, I don't have a particular character sheet template I want you to use: just give me a few paragraphs about your character, and a faceclaim if you're so inclined. I'll be playing your squadron's handler, an AZC officer back at base who helps coordinate you. My role in the story will be fairly indirect: many anomalies interfere with radio signals, so you can expect to be on your own most of the time. As a fun little embellishment, I'll also give us a wiki to record AZC jargon and slang as we come up with it.
And no, you don't have to write in present tense; that's just how I like to do my intros!
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