Bork Lazer

An Antique Land (Science Fantasy RP)

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....... Who said—“Two vast and trunkless legs of stone

Stand in the desert. Near them, on the sand,

Half sunk a shattered visage lies, whose frown,

And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,

Tell that its sculptor well those passions read

Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things......

---

Premise

Hear me and halt, traveller, for I sift through the blue sands of Vaarn and speak these hallowed truths.

In the Age of the Titans, shrines of chrome and circuitry were erected everywhere to the the First Thinking Machines. The Titans. The hubris of humanity was their womb and the zenith of their civilization the seed. Peerless in thought and ethereal in being, the Titans governed with grace and were the suzerains of the stars. Then, a great and terrible war happened that cast the Titans off their thrones and this rust-ridden conflict was scarred in the legends as the Titanomachy.

In the Age of the Autarchs, Urth was clenched under the fist of the Autarchy, a coven of genetically enhanced god kings and queens. Unlike the Titans, their reign was marked by violence, cruelty and fear. Statues reaching to the heavens were carved in hand by throngs of slaves and abominations were cultivated in flesh vats to roam on Vaarn.

In the Age of the Great Collapse, the principalities of the Autarchy were sundered and the constellations bled into the land. Much has been lost from this period but like the Titans before them, the Autarchs were cast off from their golden thrones and across Urth, the monuments to their egos crumbled to dust.

It is now the Final Age, where the sunsets darken and the sunrises dim every second.

The wreckage of countless eons litters the parched wastes of Vaarn, the desolate country that common folk call the blue ruin. It is said that these sky-coloured sands hide the graves of the Autarchs; have swallowed the buried arcologies in which the true seed of humankind was preserved through the Great Collapse; conceal forgotten crypts of memory, decaying crystalline lattices of ancient ego-engines upon which the dusk-blue dunes encroach without pity.

From the New Hegemony to the south come drifters and dreamers, desecraters of the tech-tombs that lie sunken beneath the azure wastes. Light-years overhead, aurum-hulled craft ply their tender routes between the spheres, and miles below a pilgrim’s feet, strange wombs are kindled once more with life undreamed of.

These are the hinterlands, where humanity’s great works have fallen to everlasting decay, where machine, mutant, animal and fungus think to crown themselves our equal. The phthalo-sands, where newbeasts hunt proudly with boots upon their hind paws and chromepriests chant unending binary devotions to their nameless synthetic god. Only the desperate or the mad would seek to make a life here, to roam the blue desert, to sift these sands....

A fool's dream!

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An Antique Land is a science-fantasy RP that takes place in an Earth (now known as Urth) that is completely unrecognizable from what we know. Enough time has passed for our sun to become a red giant and be on the verge of dying. In that period, hundreds of civilizations have risen and fallen, turning Urth into a junkyard of ruin and refuse.

One of these regions is Vaarn, a blasted wasteland of blue sand and chrome artifices. Multiple beings dwell within Vaarn: the mutated cacogen, the magnanimous True Kin, the burgeoning newbeasts, the mysterious mycomorphs and the reclusive synth. To the south of Vaarn is the New Hegemony, an imperial power composed of True Kin who aim to resurrect the glory days of the prior Ages. They are the unofficial rulers of Vaarn in law only but not in power for none can tame these azure dunes.

You are a part of a scavenger crew in these blue wastes, for better or worse. Whatever your intent is, be it riches, glory or a wanton search for purpose, your life is now firmly in the hands of Vaarn.

Lore

Ancestries

True Kin - The last 'humans' of Vaarn who have sealed themselves in arco-domes who guard their technology with a jealous greed and are unvarnished from the ills of mutagens or rogue nanotech that infests the air and waters of Vaarn. The largest contingent of True Kin are in the New Hegemony.

Cacogen - Mutants who were unable to escape the blights of the Great Collapse. No two cacogens are the same and each are bestowed with a variety of physical and psychic mutations. Tensions commonly erupt between cacogen and true kin communities.

Mycomorphs - Twisted twice-born beings whose lives are tied to the cycle of renewal and decay, their spores typically growing from the corpses of humans. They are able to recall the memories of their former hosts and are the only other race aside from the synths who are truly immortal.

Synths - Immortal living machines that trace their origins back to the Age of Titans. Once under the control of humanity, the Great Collapse removed the chains that bound them to servitude and thus, they spread out across Vaarn in massive hordes.

Newbeasts - Anthromorphic chimeric experiments tracing their origin to the Age of Autarchs in an attempt to create a new breed of animals that could talk and communicate like humans. Even more reviled than the cacogen, most live a solitary existence on the outskirts of Vaarn and those that live in human settlements take great efforts to conceal their inhuman features.

Lithlings -

Planespeople -

Miscellaneous

Exotica - Mysterious technological artifacts from bygone eras that litter the surface and vaults of Vaarn.

Anomalies - Anomalous locations in Vaarn that seem more magical than technological.

The New Hegemony - A government of True Kin who claim to be the true inheritors and rulers of the Vaarnish Interior.

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So, this is an RP idea I had based on an TTRPG zine known as Vaults of Vaarn. Think Gene's Wolf Book of the New Sun combined with Dune and the Dying Earth novels. I don't know whether I'll be running this using dice rules or not but this will depend on how much interest I get. Lore will be considerbly free-flow for this one and players are free to make up whatever they want, so long as it fits within the tone of the setting.

Bork Lazer's Storage Bunker

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....... Who said—“Two vast and trunkless legs of stone

Stand in the desert. Near them, on the sand,

Half sunk a shattered visage lies, whose frown,

And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,

Tell that its sculptor well those passions read

Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things......

---

Premise

Hear me and halt, traveller, for I sift through the blue sands of Vaarn and speak these hallowed truths.

In the Age of the Titans, shrines of chrome and circuitry were erected everywhere to the the First Thinking Machines. The Titans. The hubris of humanity was their womb and the zenith of their civilization the seed. Peerless in thought and ethereal in being, the Titans governed with grace and were the suzerains of the stars. Then, a great and terrible war happened that cast the Titans off their thrones and this rust-ridden conflict was scarred in the legends as the Titanomachy.

In the Age of the Autarchs, Urth was clenched under the fist of the Autarchy, a coven of genetically enhanced god kings and queens. Unlike the Titans, their reign was marked by violence, cruelty and fear. Statues reaching to the heavens were carved in hand by throngs of slaves and abominations were cultivated in flesh vats to roam on Vaarn.

In the Age of the Great Collapse, the principalities of the Autarchy were sundered and the constellations bled into the land. Much has been lost from this period but like the Titans before them, the Autarchs were cast off from their golden thrones and across Urth, the monuments to their egos crumbled to dust.

It is now the Final Age, where the sunsets darken and the sunrises dim every second.

The wreckage of countless eons litters the parched wastes of Vaarn, the desolate country that common folk call the blue ruin. It is said that these sky-coloured sands hide the graves of the Autarchs; have swallowed the buried arcologies in which the true seed of humankind was preserved through the Great Collapse; conceal forgotten crypts of memory, decaying crystalline lattices of ancient ego-engines upon which the dusk-blue dunes encroach without pity.

From the New Hegemony to the south come drifters and dreamers, desecraters of the tech-tombs that lie sunken beneath the azure wastes. Light-years overhead, aurum-hulled craft ply their tender routes between the spheres, and miles below a pilgrim’s feet, strange wombs are kindled once more with life undreamed of.

These are the hinterlands, where humanity’s great works have fallen to everlasting decay, where machine, fungus, animal and more think to crown themselves our equal. The phthalo-sands, where newbeasts hunt proudly with boots upon their hind paws and chromepriests chant unending binary devotions to their nameless synthetic god. Only the desperate or the mad would seek to make a life here, to roam the blue desert, to sift these sands....

A fool's gander!

---

An Antique Land is a science-fantasy RP that takes place in an Earth (now known as Urth) that is completely unrecognizable from what we know. Enough time has passed for our sun to become a red giant and be on the verge of dying. In that period, hundreds of civilizations have risen and fallen, turning Urth into a junkyard of ruin and refuse.

One of these regions is Vaarn, a blasted wasteland of blue sand and chrome artifices. Multiple beings dwell within Vaarn: the mutated cacogen, the magnanimous True Kin, the burgeoning newbeasts, the mysterious mycomorphs and the reclusive synth. To the south of Vaarn is the New Hegemony, an imperial power composed of True Kin who aim to resurrect the glory days of the prior Ages. They are the unofficial rulers of Vaarn in law only but not in power for none can tame these azure dunes.

You are a part of a scavenger crew in these blue wastes, for better or worse. Whatever your intent is, be it riches, glory or a wanton search for purpose, your life is now firmly in the hands of Vaarn.

---

Map of Faa'rahad

Lore

Disclaimer: Some lore has been kept deliberately vague in order to allow for interpretation and creativity. Technology has not received a section because if you can think of it, it's there somewhere in the bowels of Vaarn.

Ancestries of Vaarn

True Kin - The last 'humans' of Vaarn who have sealed themselves in arco-domes who guard their technology with a jealous greed and are unvarnished from the ills of mutagens or rogue nanotech that infests the air and waters of Vaarn. The largest contingent of True Kin are in the New Hegemony.

Cacogen - Mutants who were unable to escape the blights of the Great Collapse. No two cacogens are the same and each are bestowed with a variety of physical and psychic mutations. Tensions commonly erupt between cacogen and true kin communities.

Phytos - Created in the golden age of humanity's agricultural exploits, these genetic experiments eventually mutated into a sentient living race that persists to the Final Age, even with the damage wreaked on the ecosystems of Urth. Whilst exceptionally rare and mostly subsumed by their fungal brethren, the Phytos still manage to thrive out in the arid enviroment of Vaarn.

Mycomorphs - Twisted twice-born beings whose lives are tied to the cycle of renewal and decay, their spores typically growing from the corpses of humans. They are able to recall the memories of their former hosts and possess a never-ending hunger for flesh. Possessing an unconventional form of immortality, they are able to shed their spores on the verge of death and regrow with their memories intact in a suitable host.

Visitants - Mysterious luminous beings who exist beyond Urth's stars and are said to possess advanced exotica beyond those of even the synths or the New Hegemony. Whilst they are considered by most Vaarnish inhabitants to be more myth than fact, there have been stories spread by thirst-ridden travellers of oblong serpents scything through the sky and bathing poor souls in beams of light, only for them to never return.

Synths - Immortal living machines that trace their origins back to the Age of Titans. Once under the control of humanity, the Great Collapse removed the chains that bound them to servitude and thus, they spread out across Vaarn in massive hordes. Numerous models, from the smallest servitor to the mightiest juggernauts, roam the blue dunes in their weathered chassis.

Newbeasts - Anthromorphic chimeric experiments tracing their origin to the Age of Autarchs in an attempt to create a new breed of animals that could talk and communicate like humans. Even more reviled than the cacogen, most live a solitary existence on the outskirts of Vaarn and those that live in human settlements take great efforts to conceal their inhuman features.

Quanta - Sometimes, for whatever reason, things move in the blue sands on their own. These invisible beings are known as the Quanta, a species of nano-intelligences that are able to possess any physical object or being, whether it be a disembodied limb, a boulder or a greater crust snail. They prefer to stalk unwary travellers in the cold night as the day

Lithlings - Non-carbon based crystal humanoids made up of silica which trace their origins from beyond Urth's solar network. From diamond, ezilite, to razzlerock and jasper, these geological lifeforms prefer a quiet, philosophical life, using the benefit of their immortality and resistance to the elements to catalogue and perform anthro-archeological studies of the most dangerous locations in Vaarn in order to peel back the truth of their existence. However, they must be careful for every chip and blow they suffer means an excruciatingly slow death as they cannot heal.

Planespeople - When hyper-geometry was bequeathed onto humanity by the Titans, some sought alternative means of studying this strange, new field of science. In their lack of caution and carelessness when accounting for hyper-geometric solutions, their bodies and minds were spatially changed and warped into impossible figures that violated Euclidean law. The first of those to experiment with hypergeomtry were trapped between the Space Between Spaces and suffered untold madness as they lost all comprehension of space and time. Eventually, some managed to escape by unknown means and thus, the first generation of Planespeople were born.

Famous Beasts of Vaarn

Note: Not all specimens are listed here. Merely the most famous and emblemetic of Vaarn's strange locales

Bayitceans - Titanic bio-synthetic crustaceans hailing from the Age of the Autarchs that are half-domicile, half crab. Extremely inviting to any creature that enters the shells, for a toll.

Glass Tigers - Packs of them hunt around Vaarn and their ferocity has made them a common sight in the gladiator pits of Gnomon. These fastidious felines are extremely fast and agile with monomolecular fangs and claws that can shred through alloy.

Sand Krakens - The apex predator of Vaarn. Their movements are a constant source of headache to cartographers who have to redraw the maps every breeding season. Hate vibrations.

Chromavores - Extra-dimensional phantasms of prismatic color. Leave a trail of monochrome in their wake as they leech color from their surroundings. Areas infested by chromovores are known by the inhabitants of Vaarn as doldrums.

Vomes - Self-replicating synthetic unstable beasts that constantly undergo a anarchic process of destabilization and assimilation of inorganic and organic material. Logic plagues and code cracks prevent from devouring Vaarn in a tide of chrome.

Troikas - Mishappen knots of mechanical and meat-laden limbs and legs that are blown across the blue dunes by great gales of thermic wind. Known for ambushing and dragging individuals to be reincorporated as a part of their collective.

Languages of Vaarn

Hegemonic Standard: Language of the New Hegemony. Not commonly heard in Gnomon and only sees widespread use in documentation, laws and other bureaucratic affairs.

Autarkic: Language of the Autarchs. The brutal rule of the Autarchs created stratified dialects where 'High Autarkic' was used by the rulers and 'Low Autarkic was used by servitors.

Vaarnish: A creole language of nearly a million tribal languages and dialects in the Vaarnish interior. 25% of its words are a mixture of high and low autarkic with the rest being pulled from all over Urth.

Faatongue: Language of the Faa Nomads. Noted for lacking any and all sense of past, present or future tense to mimic the flow of the desert.

LogLang: Language of the synths. Composed of binaric equations, complex algorithms and conjectures. Some organic beings can replicate LogLang but require binaric tools to fully communicate.

Cacklegab: Language of the dreaded cacklemaws, if it can even be called that. Mostly consists of variations in pitch, tone and frequency of laughing.

Titancreed: Language of the Titans. An extinct language that is extremely difficult and life-threatening to learn. Learning a single word takes years of practice to decipher and manuever past the highly deadly memetic lang-viruses that can kill a sentient being.

Other Terminology

Exotica - Mysterious technological artifacts from bygone eras that litter the surface and vaults of Vaarn.

Anomalies - Anomalous locations in Vaarn that seem more magical than technological.

The New Hegemony - A government of True Kin who claim to be the true inheritors and rulers of the Vaarnish Interior.

Church of the Promised Sun - A prominent religious group in Vaarn who worships the sun with a fatalist outlook on the encroaching heat death of Urth.

Faa Nomads - A group of nomadic, desert mutants who are the self-proposed inheritors of Vaarn. Extremely hostile towards the New Hegemony.

Cacklemaws - Canine newbeasts inclined towards banditry and raiding of other settlements. Their laughter haunts many a orphan.

Great Collapse - A cataclysmic event that caused the extinction of most of humanity and transformed Urth into what it is today.

Titans - A.I rulers that dominated in the Age of Titans.

Autarchy - A collective of genetically modified authoratarian humanoids who ruled during the Age of the Autarchs.

Hypergeometry - A branch of higher mathematics that involves the study of dimensions, space and time. Most knowledge of this field was lost during the Great Collapse.

Urth - What was once known as Earth.

Rules

- We came here to roleplay and not to fight, flame or enter feuds with one another. Treat all others the same way you would want to be treated (unless you're a verbal sadomachoist). All arguments should occur in the PMs and if I tell you to stop it, stop it.

- All writing must obey the conventions of RPGO's guidelines. This means no explicit adult material or erotica. If you want to embrace your inner freak in the sheets, then, do it in the DMs and if you want someone to do it with you, do it in the DMs.

- Know how to have fun with your post lengths. The writing I expect from players is quality over quantity with adherence to efficiency. I do not care how many words you write, although, this does not mean you can write one sentence and expect to get away with it. The minimum is one paragraph but I expect any player who joins this RP will know what expectations to set for themselves.

- Have fun worldbuilding! Vaarn is pretty much a blank canvas for you to plaster your crazy ideas onto. Everything that has happened in this world has pretty much already happened. If you have an idea and it feels natural, communicate it in the RP and it will most assuredly fit within the scope of this world. Was there a war in the past between mycomorphs and phyta that caused them to have their rivalry? Add it in! Is there an extremist sect of the New Hegemony who believes that imperial conquest of Vaarn is needed to acquire fresh genetic material to prevent inbreeding from destroying their population? Sure!

Do Faa Nomads spit in each others mouth as a way of - On second thought, disregard that idea.

- There is no such thing as a posting schedule. That being said, players are expected to communicate frequently to the GM and other players if they are unavailable or have lost interest in this RP. Failure to do so after two weeks will result in the player being exiled to the astral planes of Golgothum.

- Have fun and feel free to sacrifice your character to maintain your personal autonomy of free time whenever you feel like it. You have no obligation to remain a member of this RP and you can freely request for your character to be shelved at any time. Do note that you can only make one character for this RP.

- You must accept the fact that I will be unfair to you whenever possible and that durian is the superior fruit to all other fruits in existence.

Character Sheet

Note: You can format your character sheet in whatever way you wish from this example format

CHARACTER SHEET

//SELF

Name:

Age:

Ancestry:

Appearance:

//SOUL

PERSONAL GOAL: (What do you want to accomplish in Vaarn?)

LIKES:

DISLIKES:

PERSONALITY QUIRKS:

//SPIRIT

MAJOR SKILLS: (Talents or expertise that your character possesses. Note that there is no limitation whatsoever but any prominent major skills should ideally be of focus in the Story part of the CS.

Major skills include: photon marksmanship, Sky brig flying, programmer and so forth

MINOR SKILLS: ( A specialised set of skills that have considerably less of a broad scope than Major Skills and are only usable in specific situations. Valid examples of minor skills can include: Faa Nomad yodeling, recreational slug husbandry and being an excellent toe nail sculpture artist.

GIFT: (Your gift is essentially a supernatural ability that allows you to gain an edge in the world of Vaarn. This can include: Disintegrative Beams, Burping Nitroglycerin Out of Your Mouth, Farting Lasers, Precognition, Making Clones of Yourself.)

SOURCE OF GIFT: (What was the source of your gift? Was it something mundane as having your insides chopped open by a cybernetic doctor or was it exposure to the psychic essence of a amaranthine death worm that finally bequeathed upon you your heightened abilities?)

(If you reject your Gift, you gain the option of having ONE more major skill.)

//STORY

(Can be a short biography or a writing sample detailing their past. I do not expect a didatic summary of each and every event in your characters lives but only the most important ones. Some aspects of your character's backstory can be kept secret.)

//SUPPLIES

EQUIPMENT: (No restrictions but you are limited to one exotica. Alternatively, you can be a naked hobo who wanders around Vaarn wearing nothing but a juvenile lizard lion on their crotch.)

TRINKETS: (Curios, miscellaneous items or keepsakes that your character keeps on their person. This is essentially flavoring your character's personality).

Qud Quest: Warden Woes [OPEN FOR VOTING]

“
Do you hear that?

The salt-strewn melodies that blow from the MoghraÝi through the canyons and the hills of yore? That is Qud calling on us for change. For an end to the discord and madness that has plagued us since the death of the Final Sultan. Tonight’s discussion involves a menagerie of delegations from all across Qud but I would rather have strife in our discussions than contentment.

This is no time for safety. It is time for progress, to remove these fulcrete foundations and don chrome, my kin.

It is on the first and last day of the incipient Ut Yara Ux that I hereby charge the Fellowship of Wardens with the following:

To safeguard the citizenry of Qud from neér do wells.

To seek out and destroy threats to the sanctity of our burgeoning civilization.

To maintain a solemn vigil until we return to rust.

Thus, with great hope in my twin hearts, this first Warden’s Moot is adjourned.

“

Adjucant Warden Ionas Medjay

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It is the 14th of Tishuru Ut Ux and Qud wakens. You arrive on the summit of Gamma Rock, deep within the rolling karsts of Qud’s mountain canyons. Even this far west from the wasteless white plains of the Moghra’Yi, you could feel its brine laden winds sting your skin. The Spindle towers to the east as you turn your head, beautiful in its seeming improbability as it reaches past the azure firmament.

It is a common saying in Gamma Rock that one dies of thirst before justice is served. You wait in a motley throng of impatient individuals, all itching to make their case with the Council. As time passes by, imid greetings and shouts of blustered conversations in twisted tongues hazily filter past your mind like marsh mirages. The trio of dromad merchants in front of you converses excitedly amongst themselves about weep ownership and debt voiding whilst the Mechanimist priest behind you murmurs a prayer to Dagon the Orator. Most scholars would say that trivialities such as these are eminent signs of change in Qud, that the bygone days of anarchiac tribalism have finally fossilized into the shale below as a part of one of the many layers of Qud’s history.

You believe it’s just bureaucratic mishandling at best and long for Qud’s traditions of trial by combat to return if Reseph hadn’t dissolved the Sultanate all those eons ago.
When you finally reach the front of the line, you are met with two statues standing shoulder to shoulder in front of a gaping dark cave. Well, from an outsider’s perspective. The arms of the statues begin to move precipitously and you inwardly cringe at the grinding of stone on stone, like a miniature landslide. The crags mensch of Bethesda Susa raise out their mountainous hands to halt your advance and you stop, not out of respect for law-abiding authority, but out of fear of getting crushed to a greasy smear by a hundred and twenty tons of shale and marble.

You hear shouts of disagreement and noises of gavels ringing on rock before silence reigns. You make out a hunched figure leaving the cavern, an individual swathed in an oversized trenchcoat and a floppy brimmed hat with a dawnglider tail feather poking through the rim. They give you a look-over before passing by you. One of the makes a passable attempt at speaking at the rhythm of a smith’s carbide folding hammer.

“ YOU MAY ENTER. LIVE AND DRINK.”

The cragsmench nods and lets you walk past into the yawning mouth of the cavern. Shivers invade your skin as the frost-ridden air of the cave invades your senses, suffusing your mind with the stink of stone. You huddle as the temperature becomes treacherously more frigid and the entrance becomes fleetingly more dim and dim. You are now in the heart of the underground, the ancient earth humming underneath your footfalls.

Then, light. Overwhelming. It nearly blinds you. You blink the dots out and then, see six figures surrounding you on a dias, each illuminated by a glowsphere next to their shoulders. The figure in front of you, a mottled yellow cactus, wraps one of its roots around a obsidian staff and taps against his seat six times to get your attention.

“ Rise, Warden.” You don’t hear it as much as you feel the embrace of the Warden Elder telepathically wrap around your mind. You obey his command and stand resolute, awaiting their judgement.

“ Councillors.” The cactus now speaks in a slow, echoing cadence, the air shimmering in front of him as he manipulates it telekinetically to mimic sound. “ A neophyte is amongst us. One that would give their life for the safety of Qud. We have heard your requests, young one, and after much deliberating, we have decided to grant you this honour of joining our fellowship. But we must hear your oaths.”

The cactus pauses, letting the gravitas of the moment sink before continuing.

“ Do you swear to defend the citizenry of Qud?”

“ I do.”

“ Do you swear to maintain vigil over your station and only your station?”

“ I do.”

“ Do you swear not to consort with those who might return us to the dark days of the Injunction or ruin us to the Shattered Age once more?”

“ I do.”

“ Then, by the light of the Beetle Moon and the shade of the Salt Sun, you are decreed as Warden Neophyte. Rise, Warden….”

---

CHOOSE ONE

[X] - You are Warden HONK HONK, a chimeric mutant hybrid of an extinct species of waterfowl and a humanoid being patrolling the salt marshes as an eccentric vigilante.

[X] - You are Warden Cloroh Tistle The XII, an escaped orchid heir to one of the many merchant families of the Consortium of Phyta.

[X] - You are Warden Tishum Ave, formerly a True Kin galevane of the Sky Temples of O’aris and now cartographer on assignment in these tainted grounds of Qud.

Sensation & Wonder: An Absolute Comics Roleplay [DC & Marvel One Universe Style Game]

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The Sanguine Symphony 1.3

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Tonight had not gone as expected. Hauling a comatose vampire on his back was one thing but having a straggler vigilante on his heels wasn’t part of the plan at all. The time for regrets was long over, though. The careers of vampire hunters were filled with the unexpected and he’d deal with the consequences later down the line. Right now, the only thing that mattered was making sure New Orleans didn’t blow up into a literal bloodbath when news of the murders spread down the supernatural grapevine.

It’d taken him roughly an hour to walk down to Jefferson unseen. Whistler’s house was located amongst one of the many banks of the Missisisipi with about a half-acre of swampland and marsh to guide it. The trail was guarded by nettle thrushes and the glow of fireflies seemed to suffuse the misty air. The moonlight glimmered off the roof of the wooden cottage. The porch was empty but he knew that she would be wide awake right now. She always was.

He stopped at the foot and was about to tell Ragwoman to stay here before he heard the sound of someone pumping a shotgun.

“ Hands up, motherfuckers.”

He turned around. Whistler was right there behind them in a tawny old sleeping gown, her slippered feet huddled together. In her hands was a robust tube of hickory and cast-forged steel that had seen disuse over the decades but was capable enough of blowing their heads clean off their heads. Her white hair glowed ethereally in the moonlight. The veteran vampire hunter had somehow snuck up behind the both of them and would have sent them to an early grave, if it wasn’t for the fact he’d been partners with the old woman for a decade now.

Whistler’s face lit up in recognition as she passed over Blade and she sheepishly lowered the shotgun down.

“ Ah, it’s you.” She nodded towards the vampire on his shoulder “ Put this sucker through the wringer, didn’t you?”

“ Yeah. We’re doing catch and release. Standard procedure. He’s not too bright, so we shouldn’t have to get creative with him.”

“ Hrmmmmmmm…” Whistler pointed towards Ragwoman, studying her with curiosity instead of hostility like a cat. “ Who’s the ball of bandages?”

“ That’s Ragwoman.”

“ Never heard of a hunter with that name before.”

“ That’s because she isn’t one.”

“ Do you trust her?”

He couldn’t say no nor could he say yes. There was no use bullshitting to Whistler. He didn’t know whether she had a prenatural sense towards sniffing out the truth but he’d spent enough time with the old hunter for her to know his tells. It was almost as good as Jamal. Eventually, he settled on a less than satisfactory one.

“ At the moment.”

Whistler shrugged lackadaisically and set down the shotgun.

“ Good enough. I’ll say one thing though, satch.”

“ What’s that?”

“ She dresses up better than you do.” Her gaze then travelled towards Ragwoman as she gave an inviting wave towards their new guest. “ Well, what are you standing there for, dear? Come on in. I’ll get a nice pot of tea boiling for the 3 of us.”

Beneath the mask of fabric, Ragwoman beamed with a broad smile, revealing faint lines in the rags where her mouth was, “Tea would be great and if you have something to wash off whatever Trenchcoat over there threw at me, I’d appreciate it.”

Whistler took a sniff of the air, her face curling up in disgust, before turning her head to look at Blade with disbelief.

“ Brooks, what the hell did I tell you? Emergencies only. You can’t just whizz over every vampire or non-vampire you meet willy nilly.” Whistler sighed in admonishment. “ Come on. I’ve got a special solution in the basement for situations like this. Never imagined I had to use it.”

“ C’mon, Whistler.” Blade whined as he followed her up the porch steps. “ It’s not my fault that I don’t know what you put in that stuff half of the time.”

“ And yet, your first instinct was to throw the stuff at every person you meet.” Whistler opened the door, letting them into the living room. The wood creaked as Blade stepped in. The interior of the house was almost spartan-like with no pictures or any paintings at all. Everything that Whistler had in here was either for necessity or a hidden trap of some sort. He watched her set the shotgun down by the frame of the door before reaching into a vase and pulling out a two-barreled derringer. She locked each and every one of the ten locks shut before lighting an old lantern.

“ C’mon, this way.” The oil wick burned a soft orange as she led them both down a decrepit stairway. Flicking a switch, the incandescent bulbs on the ceiling hummed for a moment before flickering on. The walls were lined with an assortment of armaments and a variety of weapons. A dead forge was set in the corner next to a smithing workbench. Whistler pulled out a bucket and uncorked a milk jug of something that made Blade’s eyes water as she poured out the contents until it was half-full.

“ Put your clothes in there. We’ll soak it for about an hour before putting it in the laundry.”

“ Not sure whether her costume would like that, Whistler.” Blade grumbled as he tossed the unconscious body of the vampire on the table.

“ Eh, if it’s haunted, I’ve still got the old exorcism kit.” She looked at Ragwoman. “What say you, dear?”

“I don’t think my suit will mind a good soak,” Ragwoman replied, “But let’s avoid any exorcisms. Someone tried that once and it didn’t end well.

Ragwoman began to tug at the top of her hood before she stopped, “Do you have a pair of scissors and a pillow case you could donate to the cause? A girl’s gotta keep her secrets” Ragwoman added with an apologetic shrug.

Ugh, secret identities. Blade rolled his eyes before grabbing a pair of scissors off the shelf. Whistler meanwhile went up the stairs for a short bit, scrounging for whatever she could find before returning back down with a sheepish look.

“ Sorry, dear.” Whistler held up a large brown cardboard bag which had a symbol of a faded imperial lion on it with the name “ CHI-CHINESE” labelled on the bottom. “ All I have is that Yaka-Mein bag I got from downtown. If you want, I could also offer you a garbage bag…..”

“No, no, this will do fine,” Ragwoman replied somewhat unconvincingly, taking the brown paper bag in her hand, and vanishing into the nearest room. When she emerged, Ragwoman looked more like Rory Regan than Ragwoman. Black jeans, canvas sneakers, and a vintage The Cure t-shirt made for an elicit combination with the repurposed noodle bag that now served as a DIY mask.

“ Now that we’re done, can we get this show on the road?” Blade nodded towards the unconscious vampire who was now drooling on top of the lacquered wood. Whistler dumped Ragwoman’s costume inside the bucket and at that same time, Blade heard something that almost sounded like a cat hissing. The old hunter then dragged a rocking chair to the center of the room along with a bundle of rope. She began the process of tying the vampire to the chair, locking all of his limbs separately until he was secure. She then looked towards Ragwoman and then, Blade with a concerned look.

“ You sure she’s got the stomach for this stuff?” Her eyes then flickered back to Ragwoman. “ Last chance, dear.”

Swallowing slowly, Ragwoman looked over at the bucket that now housed the soaking soul of suits. As if answering her unspoken question, voices, a rising swell of voices, seemed to crash over the edge of the bucket like a sudden wave. Ragwoman shivered and then nodded.

“Evil has to be punished. I’m game, no matter how far this goes.”

“ Heh. I’m starting to like her already.” Whistler cracked her knuckles before taking out a spray bottle filled with yellow fluid out of her bathrobe. She began liberally buffeting the vampire with it, faint acrid-smelling droplets floating across the room. The pale-skinned figure almost reacted instantaneously to it, eyes shooting open, as he began screaming, his skin blistering and reddening from whatever strange concoction was in that bottle. Steam erupted from red patches on his cheeks as he took a deep breathe to scream once more.

That continued on for a good 10 seconds before Eric finally had enough and decided to catch his attention by stomping on his foot. The vampire’s mouth clammed up before looking up at Eric with blood-shot eyes veiled with fear and disgust.

“ You.”

“ Yeah, me.” Eric then leaned down so he was nose-to-nose with the vampire. “ Before we start, what’s your name?”

“ Dale.”

“ Alright, Dale. Here’s how it’s going to go. You’re going to tell me everything you know, don’t know or may know. I don’t care how small or insignificant it is. You will tell me. Hell, I might even let you leave this place with your pants pissing if you’re polite enough. But make no mistake. Your clan isn’t here to help you. Your brothers and sisters aren’t here to help you. You’re just one single bloodsucker in a pack of wolves right now.”

“ I- You’ll regret the day when you mess with the Anchor-” Dale then yowled as Blade pressed down more forcefully on his ankle.

“ Try saying that a couple more hundred times and I’ll believe you.”

“ I-” Dale then turned his head towards Ragwoman and Whistler, his voice transforming into one of begging. “ Please! My clan will offer you riches beyond imagining if you kill this half-breed. Join us and you will receive my eternal gratitude.”

Beneath her new paper bag mask Ragwoman frowned and a flash of bright red anger traveled across her skin. She moved to speak when a sudden splash of water interrupted her, a tendril of fabric, a string of rags reached out from the nearby bucket, wrapping around her arm before it struck the pleading vampire across his nose. Tied to the soul of suits, Ragwoman’s real voice was lost in the multitude of voices of the suit of souls, “You are evil, vampire. And evil...evil must be punished. Evil must be purged.”

“ What she said.” Whistler nodded in agreement as she moved over towards Blade’s side. “ Now, tell us what you know of the murders in New Orleans. One of you has been going around and feeding on people.”

“ Like I told the half-breed before - “ Dale tilted his head up lamely and looked at the both of them with bitter exasperation. “ - I don’t know anything. The clans would never allow such an event to occur.”

“ We didn’t say that.” Blade said. “ But it’s hard to imagine that the New Orleans krewes would allow unwarranted feedings to occur on their territory without their say so. Or are you guys stretched thin?”

“ How dare you say such a thing! I - “ Dale swallowed his insult as he recomposed himself. A few moments later, he signed and nodded. “ My clan has been busy solving….an internal affair of ours. Someone has been killing our leaders. Our lieutenants.”

“ Well, who gives a crap?” Whistler shrugged. “ The more suckers get staked, the better off the Bayou is.”

“ Because these weren’t just any regular killings.” Dale whispered, haunted. “ They were feeded upon as well. By a vampire.” He then narrowed his eyes and hissed. “ It must be those damn Anchorites. They’re trying to get us back for intruding in our territory.

Whistler and Blade looked at each other for a moment, Whistler’s grey gimlets burning in deep thought whilst Blade’s shades concealed his troubled look. Vampires feeding on vampires was not unheard of but exceptionally rare. It was frowned upon in vampire society, considered cannibalism of the highest order, and you had to be a maniac to treat a group of bloodsucking superhuman predators as takeout.

“ So, where did these killings take place?”

“ Near the Quarter. I was there when it happened. We were on a cruise ship. Both of our clans were officiating our alliances when the lights turned off in the ballroom. When they turned back on, all the heads of our delegation were missing.” Blade didn’t know how it was possible but those pale cheeks somehow became even whiter as Dale recounted his story. “ We spotted a large shadow in the corner of the rafters. Our hunters tried pursuing it to no avail.” The vampire’s fists then clenched as he spat out the remaining words. “ Meanwhile, those damn Anchorites stood there and just shrugged it off. Our kin - our allies! They’re behind it, I swear!”

“ A likely story.” Blade grumbled, unconvinced. “ Now, we need to - “

Dale then began screaming out loud agony. He began bouncing up and down erratically in his chair, straining against the rope that held him tight. Blade stepped back as he watched his skin begin to swell and his stomach blow up like a water balloon.

“ What the hell did you do?!” He yelled at Whistler. The geriatric hunter glared back at him, both unaware and frustrated at what was going on with the vampire.

“ It wasn’t me!”

The screaming reached a crescendo and then, the vampire exploded, showering them all in a fountain of smoking gore. Blade managed to lift his arms up to block his face and mouth from swallowing vampire goo. Warmth and the smell of hot iron splashed against his sleeves. Eric let his arms down slowly to view the remains. There was nothing left of the bloodsucker except a skeleton with strings of sinew and gut hanging from the bone.

He only had one thing to say to sum up the situation.

“ Well, fuck.”

Bork Lazer's Storage Bunker

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WARNING.

WARNING.

INTRUSION DETECTED IN SECTOR 64-ALPHA-PROXIMAL-YELLOW. DESIGNATION: NATAL

R.O.S SIGNATURES DETECTED. REQUEST FOR COUNTERMEASURES HAILED.

SCORCHED EARTH PROTOCOL?

NEGATIVE. VITAL

ACTIVATION OF LOCALIZED RAMMER UNITS?

ACCEPTABLE.

---

It is 5384.

Shit is screwed.

LORE

CHARACTER SHEET

Sensation & Wonder: An Absolute Comics Roleplay [DC & Marvel One Universe Style Game]

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BLOODLETTING 1.2.2

The cafe was located within the heart of the Big Apple. Its popularity was more of a matter of convenience and reliability rather than of any credit to its product. People filtered in and out of the hovel like rats from one sinking ship to the next. Eric’s nostrils flared as the overpowering scent of brewed kettle coffee suffused the air with an overpowering electrical aroma. He took a deep draught and felt it flow down through his spine and down into his waist. It would have been a good place for him to take his mind off hunting for once. Maybe, he’d invite King down here for breakfast the next time in town.

Unfortunately, his present company was a blind century-old arthritic martial-arts master. Stick had been annoyingly silent ever since he showed up mysteriously out of nowhere at the graveyard. He bore the same stony-faced countenance that combined with his mummified features, made him almost look like a taxidermy.

“ Ahem.”

Both of their heads turned left to a glossy-haired waiter who had dark circles underneath her eyes. A toothpick was pinched between her lips alongside a permanent look of irritation that seemed glued on her face. She took out a notebook and clicked a ballpoint pen.

“ What’ll it be, gentlemen?”

“ Double espresso,” Blade said.

“Hmmm, lemme think.” Stick’s features had crinkled up into a loose impression of a smile as his voice took on the tone of a stereotypical grandfather. “ How’s about a can of Pepsi?”

The waitress droned out their orders and waited for their confirmations before moving onto the next table with barely veiled fatigue. Blade pushed down his shades and gave an amused look at Stick.

“ What?” Stick eased his head slightly in his direction. “ You expect me to order something like tea, cause I look like some old mystical grifter?”

“ No, I expected you to give me answers.”

“ Conversations like this can’t be rushed, Brooks.”

The waiter arrived a moment later, sliding a can of Pepsi towards Stick and a hot cup of steaming coffee in Eric’s direction.

“ Ah, thank you.” Stick nodded his thanks.

The next minutes were then spent observing Stick doing a pantomime impression of a blind person, waving his hands around to try and grab onto the can. Guess he had appearances to keep up. Eric knew Stick was anything but a helpless, crippled old man. He knew he had nothing to be wary of but if a member of the Chaste was ‘round these parts, something bad was coming this way.

“ Jamal was one old tough son of a bitch. We lost a good soldier today.”

“ He wasn’t a part of your war, Stick.”

“ Might as well have been.” Stick cracked open the can with one thumb, the hiss of carbonation piercing the busy air in the cafe. “ Anyone who hunts down the dark is a part of our fight.” He then gave a little chuckle. “ He must have went down kicking and screaming, didn’t he?”

The table then groaned, the bolts shuddering under Eric’s grip. It knocked him out of his stupor and he looked down at the grooves he dug into the corner of the table with his fingers. He took a deep breath and then, said with an unnerving calm. Stick, however, remained cool and impassive throughout, taking another sip of his Pepsi.

“ Cut the shit, Stick. Why are you here?”

“ I’ll cut to the chase.” Stick’s lips puckered as if he was swallowing a lime before speaking. “ I need your help with a problem. A vampire problem.”

That was two firsts for Eric. The fact that Stick needed help and that Stick was involved in the supernatural side of things in New York made his stomach turn.

“ So, why pick me?” Eric stirred his espresso absentmindedly with a spoon. “ There’s better hunters out there than me.”

“ Don’t sell yourself short, Brooks. Your hunting’s not what I recruited you for. It’s - “ Stick tapped his forehead two times. “ - your knowledge. Sure, every hunter I’ve met knows how to stake and how to kill but Jamal didn’t teach you just to be a mindless killer. He taught you to think.” Eric watched as Stick fished a hand inside his ratty trench coat. “ Which brings me to this.”

It fell onto the surface of the table, rattling from the impact, before lying still. The metal was whorled with faint waves etched onto the surface and had been shaped into a circlet with an open five fingered hand in the middle. He reached out to touch it and felt his skin begin to warm up upon touching it.

It was blessed sliver, but blessed sliver didn’t usually elicit that type of reaction. There was only one answer.

It had to be made of heirloom silver.

Back in the days of the old magic, when hedge wizards were few and far between and the Masters of the Mystic Arts were still burgeoning, the only way to kill vampires was to use sliver that had been inherited down for generations from father to son, mother to daughter and so forth. The vampire clans long ago had tried to hoard all the heirloom silver in the world to try and stave off their extinction. Rumor was they had enough buried away to crash the global economy. The rest had been reforged into jewelry, artworks, useless knick knacks that wouldn’t pose a threat to them.

The number of heirloom silver artifacts he’d seen in the hands of Van Helsing and the rest of her ilk was less than five and they were all weapons of some sort.

“ Where’d you find this?, He peered back up at Stick.

“ I found it off a Hand ninja. Funny thing about the guy was that he was stronger than the rest. Heart didn’t beat but the rest of him was like a block of iron.” Stick paused for a moment to rub his knuckles. “ Had to chop off his head to make sure he stopped trying to break my rib-cage.”

It didn’t take a genius to put two and two together. There was no need to vocalise the unspoken connection that both of them made in an instant. A millennia old cult of ninjas getting their hands on the supernatural formula for the most virulent bloodsuckers ever made by dark magic was a recipe for disaster.

“ So…” Stick grumbled. “ How’d you suppose they made - “

“ No.” Eric interrupted. “ Not made. No one’s ever made one ritualistically since Dracula. You have to be Embraced and to get Embraced, you have to contact a clan.”

“ So, which clan is it? I assume it’s gotta be the biggest one in town.”

“ No, it couldn’t be.” Eric shook his head, still staring intently at the pendant. “ The biggest ones in town like stability. Why share power around when they can have it all to themselves? No, it’s gotta be a smaller clan. Someone looking to shake things up.”

“ All right. So, who do you think it is?”

Eric steepled his fingers together, ruminating on the possible candidates. It would have to be a clan with at least a measure of influence but not an old one that was mired in tradition and superstition. Allying with the group like the Hand would take more than a handful of vampires but not enough for an army. Lastly, they’d have to be open-minded to working with mortals which was rare considering that most vampires had a superiority complex. So, there was only one vampire lord who had the political muscle and resources available to convince lesser clans that allying with the Hand was a good idea.

It was the perfect one he needed after a long day of grieving and sucking up to other hunters.

Eric set the pendant down on the table and there was a smile on his face that cut through his cheeks.

“ Let’s see if we can’t find Deacon Frost.”

Bork Lazer's Storage Bunker

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Your thirst is mine

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A World Beyond Eons

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My water is yours

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Sensation & Wonder: An Absolute Comics Roleplay [DC & Marvel One Universe Style Game]

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BLOODLETTING 1.2.1

Date: 1990

“Jesus, what a mess.”

Huh. Larry was the master of understatements. In his fifteen years of service, Eric had never seen a murder quite like this. The small little tenement had gone through a redecoration and not a funhouse kind. Even with the thick iron-rich aroma of blood in the air, the familiar pang of the needle stung his nostrils. The blonde one had her entrails ripped out and hung on the ceiling like party streamers.

There was no one left alive at the scene.

Well, he was wrong on that count. There was one survivor in his arms. He almost felt uncomfortable being handed the position of babysitter asLarry sifted through the mess, mussing through the victim’s hair.

“ Any relatives?,” Eric asked, his voice muffled by the ski mask he was wearing.

“ Not that we know of.” Larry grunted, fiddling with the radio chatter on his handheld scanner. “ All we know is the identity of his mother.” He motioned to the corpse splayed over on the mattress, periwinkle hair matted with blood with a mackerel-eyed look to compliment it. “ We’ve got about a dozen Brooks in the registry and hospital records have turned a blank. He’s got no one.”

“ So, what do we do?”

“ I go and spruce things up so that the EMTs aren’t spooked by the time they get here. You….” He looked away from the child cradled in Eric’s arms as his voice became terse. “ Just make it quick.”

Still refusing to look at the infant in his arms, Larry slinked out of the bedroom, closing the door behind him, leaving Eric and one kid that was barely a day old. Eric stood there, unmoving, just staring at the door before he gradually craned his neck down to look at the listless gaze of the baby. His eyes were still slit shut, almost at zen, if it weren’t for the palpitations of soft little exhales that he felt through the blanket. He set him down on the mattress with a gentleness that perturbed him.

Why was he being so careful? It was just going to cause more pain in the end.

“ Sorry, kid. This ain’t personal.”

In all his years of killing, Eric had seen grown men brown their shorts, their throats clam up as they looked into the centre of the barrel, searching maybe for a light of some sort in there, a way out. There was always the briefest kindling of hope in their eyes which died out the moment he pulled the trigger.

The little bastard didn’t even react when he pulled out the pistol in front of him. His eyes then slowly filtered open and they were little eddies of brackish brown, brimming with curiosity and indifference. The gun feels 100 pounds heavier the moment he makes eye contact. The little bastard doesn’t even have the proper conception of what a gun is. Of what death is. Of what fear is. Of how to experience life to its fullest.

The 10 grand for the job feels measly compared to what he’s potentially taking away now. There’s no price that can be paid for that.

So, he makes the hard decision.

He closes the blanket over the baby’s head, sighs deeply and then, loads a fresh magazine. He fiddles with the threaded silencer whilst errantly switching his index finger from the guard to the trigger.

What needs to be done next….it’s necessary. There’s no other way.

He checks the window outside to make sure the coast is clear before taking slow steps into the living room. He makes out the faint sounds of Larry’s loafers squeaking against the frayed shag carpeting.

“ Did you - “ Larry’s face became paralyzed like a deer in headlights. He dropped the plastic bag of soap bottles and crumpled tissues and the canvas bag of other miscellaneous crap, drugs, whatever was in there to make it look like a gang shooting and not the targeted work of a serial killer.

“ Woah, easy there, Eric. Easy. Let’s just talk this out.”

“Get down. Put your hands on your head.”

“ C’mon, man.” Larry was inching towards him, putting on a disarming smile as his eyes flicked towards the barrel pointed at him. “ We’ve been - what? Partners for 2 years - “

He didn’t have time for stalling. He aimed the pistol upwards above Larry’s head and fired. A puff of concrete erupted behind Larry’s head, causing him to duck to the ground.

“ I said, get down on your knees!”

“ Okay! Okay!”

Larry’s face was ashen, ghost-faced. To his credit, he didn’t begin blubbering nor make any prostestations as Eric pressed his foot down on his back. There was about a minute of silence as Eric pressed the silencer against the back of his head, Larry’s head planted to the ground in a way that made it look like he was praying. His finger trembled on the guard before he spoke like he was making an excuse.

“ Killing a kid wasn’t what I signed up for, Buchinsky”

Larry replied with a short bark of bitter laughter.

“ That’s where you draw the line? After all the crap you pulled in the past, you really think one life is going to clean all the skeletons in your closet?”

“ No.” His grip on the pistol tightened, his voice resolute. “.... but this is just one skeleton too many….and I’m tired of Frost’s lies.”

Larry’s brains sprayed out all over the linoleum floor when he pulled the trigger. Each time he pulled, his body twitched erratically, his foot thumping on the floor like a bird with a broken wing. Eric watched as blood oozed out in a puddle underneath his still body. He took his foot off Larry's back and flipped him over. The bullet had gone clean through the other side, leaving a perfectly round hole in between his eyes.

“ Goddammit, Needham.” The Black Spider pulled off his mask, grumbling. “ How the hell are you going to sneak out of this one now?”

Video Games: The General Discussion & Community Thread Number Two

It's mid-day and you're a foreign dwarven mercenary currently stuck waist-deep in dank dungeons filled with bloodraving cultists, horrible monstrous abominations and wooden medieval BDSM enthusiasts. The village elder has bequeathed upon you a quest to retrieve a cursed amulet and to stop the machinations of this foul cult. Having finally found the cult leader, you ambush them in the middle of whatever horrid scheme they were planning and cleave their head off with a carving axe the blacksmith gave you out of pity whilst suffering a broken arm. You eat a couple of penny bun mushrooms in your inventory to stave off the maddening hunger. You claim the cursed amulet of the cult and try to retrace your steps back to the village.

You are then encountered upon by a pack of 3 bandits and the hooded one slits your carotid artery and makes you bleed out all over the forest floor.

That is the experience that Stoneshard has offered me for over 70 hours.

Stoneshard has been the most ambitious early-access game that calls to me like a pond does to a duck. It's got everything that I love. Stellar pixel graphics and art. Engaging and brutal combat mechanics. Near seamless character progression. Mood music. Turn based combat (Without the number crunching). Randomized rogue-like elements.

The game isn't that long (10 hours of content tops) but more than makes up with it with its replayable nature and the depth and scope of its mechanics. Stoneshard's biggest strength and weakness, call it a double edged sword if you will, is its difficulty. The game does not fuck around. It's the Dark SoulsDoom on Ultra NightmareImpossible Quiz you know what I mean of RPGs for me at the moment. You will die a lot. From hunger. Thirst. Poison. Traps. Fire. An acute case of migraines caused by the fact that bandit stove in your head with a warhammer. Loosing enough blood to fill a bath-tub. Getting mauled by Pumba's cousins. Getting eaten alive by Smokey's the Bear's redneck brothers.

On top of all that, no map or waypoint system. Your character's location is pinpointed on the UI. You must make out your location and your relative directions to places of importance in the world map through memory and navigation. You can also only save by sleeping at a select number of places, most of which cost money to do so. There is no save on exit nor can you save in the middle of a journey. Once you set out on your epic journey, you set out and there's no amount of savescumming that will allow you to keep your progression.

Yet, you will also find ways to kill. A lot. Stoneshard possibly has the best skill/perk progression system I've ever seen in an RPG as well. There's active skills which cost energy to use and passive perks that you can buy. There is no strict level up where you're forced to choose a certain set of perks nor are there strict origins that limit you to a select number of skills. Everything is open for the taking. You could play a warhammer wielding arbalest. A dual wielding berserker who uses a knife and a spiked maul. A traditional sword and board knight. A pyromaniac wizard who wants to simulate the Shining with his shiny axe. A bowman who can fart rocks out of the earth.

My relationship to this game can be summed up as digital Stockholm Syndrome. At first, I hated it. Then, I liked it. I then hated it again before loving it again. Eventually, this abusive relationship transformed into a blossoming healthy relationship interspersed with random moments of unfair violence and cursing at RNGesus.

10/10. Fucking beauty of a game. Would die from dehydration because I forgot to fill my water skins at Osbrook's well again and get mauled by a bear in the process.

High Stakes: Character Death and Injury in Roleplay

If a limb gets chopped off in my fantasy RP, I'll just have it resurrected into a merchant that flops around the lands and communicates in sign language.