Story
The year of our Lord two-thousand-and-fifteen - science, reason and rationality rule in this day and age, while faith, folklore and fairy-tales come down to everyday men and women through the medium of media; films, television shows dedicated to showing the destruction of all those foul monsters that you believed were real and lurked in the darkness, and books based around terrible representations of fanged predators who once stalked their prey through the shadows of night.
Such things have made contemporary man forget, have made them brush aside old customs and traditions in favour of modernism and the latest technology, and have surely erased from their minds any thoughts of creatures that once terrorised this Earth. No, they can no longer recall the poor wretches trapped in their isolated villages, or the howling of the wolves carried on the wind, until now they remain buried somewhere deep in the back of their psyches.
As time moved forward the lurkers in the dark, the drinkers of blood, and the slayers of demi-gods retreated into the hidden places of the world; dark caves set deep within the mountain chains, the pyramids of Egypt and beneath the once-great temples of long ago deities...but not all of them. There are some that refuse to go quietly into the night, those that once did but now sense that this world of unbelief has not the power to keep them at bay on their return, and those that never cared for anything that humanity was or has become.
There are those mortals that know too much, those dabblers in dark magic, historians of ancient texts, or persons of faith that delved too deeply into lore written before the rise of the ancient civilisations and the beginning of the gradual ascent of mankind. Unknown even to their own kind, these unsung heroes have tried to protect their own for as long as their fragile lives might let them – witch hunters, inquisitors, exorcists, and more – giving even their very last breaths to keep safe those that slumber unknowingly in their beds.
This, however, was not enough.
Unexplained phenomena and attacks by things that had no natural cause began to increase over the years, governments and dictators alike forming their own 'task forces' – experts in the various fields of the supernatural, veteran members of the military and intelligence agencies, and others – sending them out like the witch hunters of old to locate, track down, and exterminate whatever they found, without pity and without a second thought.
This still can only stem so much of the tide beginning to swell in the void between dimensions...
It was here that someone announced the old maxim of keeping ones friends close, but enemies even closer, suggesting that only by dividing and conquering could this secret war be won. At the time he was laughed out of the room, told that his idea was sheer madness, but in time they came to see that it may not be so far fetched after all.
At the behest of heads of state, monarchs and premiers the world over, they put into action an experiment, an experiment called Squad S5 and codenamed Operation Shade. Messages were sent out along covert channels, using information gathered by the task forces to make sure that this supernatural recruiting drive would reach its intended audience. Any who responded, any unnatural being that so much as replied to this pathetic human request, would be considered a traitor to their kind and assuredly exiled by their peers.
One-by-one there were answers, sent by even more cryptic channels than those the task forces used – by tea leaves and mirrors, by rain portents, or simply by an encrypted e-mail. In time they would be gathered, thus far unaware of even the existence of others – others willing to kill or capture others like them, knowing and understanding that the time of man had come to the world, that their place was to remain within the shadows and the fringes of the mind.
That time is now.
Setting
So, after that mini-essay, let's get down to it with a few things here.
As you may now be aware, this RP is set in a version of our own world which is threatened by the resurgence of the unnatural and the inhuman. Although those in the highest positions of power know this all too well, as do their specific task forces, the general human population is as ignorant as you or I would be right now.
These task forces are a more in-depth evolution of the usual 'experts' of the occult – your exorcists and the like – entire underground organisations using these cadres of exceptional persons to hunt down anything they believe may be related to this threat. The problem is that, in spite of this, there are neither enough with the in-field knowledge of such matters nor are the threats being faced getting any less threatening as time moves forward.
Here is where the players and their inhuman characters come in!
Operation Shade is now to be set into operation, individual creatures volunteering and not knowing of one another until the beginning briefing – which will take place during the first post of the IC. Like I said, this would very likely get them expelled, exiled from their own communities, or simply spat upon by those who see them as traitors to a cause that they do not believe in I.E. the reclamation of Earth by their own species.
This is at least where we shall begin, what we do after is something I shall present options for and be decided as a group.
On the Subject of the Supernatural and Occult
I'll make this very simple.
Every 'traditional' creature – Vampires, Lycanthropes and the like – all follow their own folklore, their original folklore; I will, however, allow more Stoker-like vampires, as well as Lycan that can control their shifting abilities as in more modern media representations. If in doubt, just ask me.
Other, less saturated, creatures – those from ancient cultures, or the orient, for example – will also need to follow their own lore and likely require a wee bit more research on the part of the player.
There will be no hybrids, no playable angels of demons, and all characters must be humanoid; that means no centaurs and the like, if your character cant get away with walking down the street – disguised or not – then it's a no-no already.
On the subject of magic, it exists in a form seen in the likes of Supernatural or Constantine, for the most part, any practitioner needing to carry their tools-of-the-trade with them, recite words and so forth. No fireballs from arses or anything like that.
Lastly, if you'd like to act as a human volunteer from one of the task forces, then that's fine as well.
So, feel free to ask any questions – this is an interest thread after all – aaaaaand anyone interested?
