CaptainManbeard

The Secret World of Faeries

I'm still getting all my character stuff together, but to give you guys a chance to start working on yours, I figured I'd share the character sheet template I'm using for mine. I'm using LimeGreen for Sully, Thistle for Cammy, and LightSteelBlue for my third character, Kamran Qaarn.

Here is the incomplete sheet for Sully as an example:

Sullivan “Sully” Zucco

Age: 18
Birthday: May 15th
Height: 6’3”
Body Type: Athletic
Eyes: Green
Hair: Dark Brown
Pronouns: He/His
Orientation: Pansexual

Voice

Musical Theme

Personality

(No explanation needed)

Talents & Skills

(Non-magical stuff of note here)

Faerie Powers

(The abilities they gain after being exposed to the magic of the Crystal Battery)

Biography

(No explanation needed)

The Secret World of Faeries

If you guys want, feel free to start working on your intro posts now in a word doc or something. My first post will have Sully, Cammy, and whoever my third character ends up being standing outside the industrial plaza with a huge crowd of people while we are waiting to be let in. Then the scientist - posing as a masked party man named Mr. Dude - will come out and let everyone into the atrium. We can have a few posts back and forth of our characters mingling at the party, give us a chance to portray their various personalities pre-shrinking, and then Mr. Dude will usher them into his "holodeck."

The Secret World of Faeries

Sounds good!

So, it seems we have me, CrimsonFlame, Dragonfly, and LuckyBlackCat on board for sure. I'm gonna give it the weekend to see if we get any more co-writers, and then I'll post the IC and Character Sheet template on Monday.

The Secret World of Faeries

@CaptainManbeard Or I could have it as a completely original "personality" that just seems to want to torment the teen at first, and then has an identity crisis as its personality starts to develop beyond its original "purpose".

Decisions, decisions. xD

@Dragonfly 9

Maybe an inner sense of guilt manifested? You could add some past trauma, like a loved one dying in a car crash, and he has internally blamed himself for years, which gave birth to the hallucination of a tormentor who then gains sentience? Like, when he was in school trying to focus on a test, there could be the silhouette of a man standing in the corner who whispers hateful taunts at him, telling him it's his fault their loved one is gone. Then when he begins to gain sentience, he could have severe anger issues at first until he works through them. Prior to him getting his own permanent body, he could take on the external form of a floating misty wisp-like thing that follows the group around, but he has to stay close to your character as long as the gland is still in his head. Or the entity could be something like a wizard's familiar to him until they are fully separated. If you go with the dragon egg idea, it could hatch and the other personality is in the body of a baby dragon. Once the dragon begins to grow, your character could eventually ride it as a flying mount or something, lol.

Just some ideas, ultimately it's up to you XD. But I'm excited regardless!

The Secret World of Faeries

Sounds pretty cool! :D

I'll probably do that, then.

Honestly, though, I'm pretty interested in how the dynamic between the teen and their schizophrenia would play out. I'm assuming that the teens are at least 18, yes? So, if the teen is male, then that means that the teen has had to deal with schizophrenia for three years.

How would their relationship play out, when the teen has resented their schizophrenia for years at this point and now has to deal with them somehow becoming sentient? There's also the point that the schizophrenia could cease becoming, well, schizophrenia at some point in the sentience process, and basically end up as a small child that the teen would have to become a guardian/friend/big brother to. How would the teen handle that, and slight tangent, but how would the schizophrenia deal with slowly losing control over the teen's mind?

Overall, I'm excited to answer all these questions, and also hear your thoughts, of course.

@Dragonfly 9

Yeah, around 17-18 since they just graduated high school. And yeah, you could use the schizophrenia almost as a separate personality, like a fictive in someone with DID. For instance, you could say the biggest symptom of the teen's disorder is that he keeps seeing and hearing a fictional character that isn't there, like maybe a favorite adventurer in films or something. And then once he has shrunk down and has been exposed to the growing magic in himself, it begins to cure the part of his brain that is causing the misfires in his neurological activity that trigger hallucinations/delusions/psychosis. But the magic could also give a spark of life to that character he kept seeing, turning it into a fictive personality within the new gland he has been subconsciously gathering matter into, sort of like a second, mini-brain.

I don't know how much you know about DID (Dissociative Identity Disorder, formerly called Split Personality Disorder), but here's a video explaining what Fictives are. In the case of your character, since it's Schizophrenia and not DID, it wouldn't be exactly the same, but it still gives a good idea of the term:

I have autism and ADHD, and it probably bleeds over into my characters, but I’m not going to confirm Conner has it to.

@Crimson Flame

I have never been officially diagnosed with anything as an adult, but I do exhibit symptoms of Autism/Asperger's and ADHD as well, in addition to OCD and Bipolar Disorder. And likewise, it probably bleeds into my characters too XD.

The Secret World of Faeries

Other ideas: The teen could create hard light constructs like Green Lantern and use this to create a body, or illusion powers to manifest thoughts and dreams externally, or the ability to gather and condense magical energies to create clones, and the schizophrenia could eventually take over one of the clones. Just some ideas XD.

The Secret World of Faeries

Hmm...

This idea is very experimental, but I was thinking, and here's what I have so far:

A teen with schizophrenia who gets shrunken down with the others, as you brought up already. However, due to some magic hoo ha which probably has to do with a whole lot of dead souls of faeries powering the machine, the teen's schizophrenia, over the RP, will become more and more sentient, eventually becoming my extra character and getting a body of their own(?). Another idea is that the teen unlocking their powers makes this slowly happen.

If you're worried about how I would handle this concept, I have schizophrenia myself, and will probably base the teen's schizophrenia and their experience with it on my own. If you still refuse it, however, I'm perfectly fine with that! This is just an idea in my head that won't go away, that's all. :')

Oh, and also, I can give you some information about schizophrenia if you're unfamiliar with/know little about the mental illness! :D

@Dragonfly 9

That sounds awesome! I have a few friends with schizophrenia and have done a lot of research on it in the past, and I have no doubts that you will handle the concept well in the RP XD. One idea is to say your character begins to develop self-matter transmutation after they are shrunken, meaning they can like shift their hands and arms into tools or weapons or long tentacles, kind of like the T-1000 from the Terminator. Perhaps they can also absorb small amounts of matter from their environment to transmute into objects that can then be used by everyone, and through this process, the teen begins subconsciously condensing matter into a gland within their brain where the schizophrenia begins to gain sentience. Ultimately, once it gains a mind of its own, the teen could expel the gland in the form of a dragon egg or cocoon something and then nurture it until the new body emerges. This type of idea would also work well with a character with DID and have multiple eggs or cocoons form.

The Secret World of Faeries

Alright, sounds cool! I dig that!

@Dragonfly 9

Sweet!

I don't think I'm interested after all, but thanks for your time.

@Gisk

No prob! But if you change your mind later and want to join after the RP starts, feel free to send me a PM to discuss ideas. I'm going to include the option towards the end of the first arc for people to create extra characters that are actual faeries, so that may be a preferred path for you if you choose to join later on. Since you have specific traits you prefer to see in them, you could say your character is in like a faerie version of a foreign exchange program, and then you'd have complete creative freedom to determine how his native village developed and runs. Perhaps he is from a village out in the wilderness, and he is a bit taken aback at first to see city faeries so familiar with human society, and even more bewildered when they respond to the strange energies and discover tiny humans.

As for how the faeries look physically, I'm going to give everyone complete creative freedom. In this RP, they are magical creatures who don't necessarily always have a uniform fixed appearance. In the same way humans will change hair colors and styles, the faeries will often take on extra traits such as tails, cat ears, fangs, wing styles, wildly colorful skin, eyes, and hair, etc. Sometimes, they just want to look the same as tiny humans. As for how they do this, we'll say most faeries have some innate transformative capabilities, and so their appearance can alter based on emotion or will. They need stronger magicks to change size or a major form shift though, as their innate abilities don't extend beyond their normal height and humanoid shape.

Once we have at least five co-writers on board (including myself), I'll start the IC. Since there will be that backdoor option for people to continually join throughout the first arc, I don't feel a need to wait until we have a larger group to start. So, we have me, Crimson Flame, and Dragonfly on board for sure, with LuckyBlackCat interested. If she confirms she's still a go and then Gisk decides to stay or we get a fifth co-writer, I'll get the IC going.

The Secret World of Faeries

I am reconsidering how the RP starts. Instead of there only being people from one group of friends, I'm thinking maybe the scientist has been kidnapping teenagers from all over Los Angeles, and there might even be other groups of shrunken people at different locations. As for the group that the RP will focus on, instead of it being just a few friends at a Starbucks, it could be dozens of people who were at a secret graduation after-party that was held in a large abandoned industrial plaza. The scientist owns the property, but presents himself as merely Mr. Dude. He lures the crowd into what he claims is a prototype holodeck like in Star Trek that he's been working on, but it's actually his Morph Chamber. The crowd is shrunk down and they lose consciousness almost immediately.

When they awaken, they are in the backyard at his house, the entire crowd trapped in a plastic bug container, and have been changed into outfits similar to Squid Game. After his video chat speech that was previously discussed, one side of the container drops down to form a ramp out into the yard. When some of the people are hesitant to leave the safety of the container, the scientist laughs and is like, "I thought you might be reluctant to venture out into the dangers of the yard, so you need a little more... incentive. Say hello to my little friends!" He flips a switch, and another wall within the container opens, revealing a second chamber holding several aggressive mutated Mantises. This causes everyone to scream and flee the container, but a bunch of people are either ripped to shreds by the creatures or scatter into the yard and get killed by other things.

My idea for changing it to this is twofold: One, so that we have some "expendable" characters for the sake of the story; and two, so there is a backdoor into the RP if other people show interest after we've started. For instance, let's say after a bunch of people are killed or scattered, our main characters form a solid group of ten people. Let's say we're already many posts into the RP and someone else wants to join. Well, that new character can be someone who fled into the yard at the beginning and got lost and is just now finding our group again. There could be several other characters scattered about who can join up with our group later on. I think this is a wise idea as it leaves the option open for new co-writers throughout the entire first arc, but what does everyone else think?

Also, if you're curious for size comparison, here is a video from on of my favorite YouTubers preparing for a fight against the Mantis in Grounded:

The Secret World of Faeries

@CaptainManbeard can you tell me a little about the faeries in this?

I ask because I too love fae folk stories, but there's certain traits that I like to see.

For instance:
Failure to follow or understand the same logic as humans.
Inability to knowingly lie(and sometimes a lack of understanding that other beings can do so).
Taking things very literally.
A great concern with manners, though they follow a set of etiquette rules quite foreign to humans.

And my favorite is a combination of all of the above: a love of making deals, but with terms that don't seem to make sense. (Can I have your name? Sure it's Gisk. Not anymore it's not!)

I'm definitely interested regardless, but I'd like to know what to expect on that front.

@Gisk

To be honest, I'm not a fan of saying all the people of any culture are all the same or have certain aspects they all follow. Even with magical creatures like faeries, I enjoy inserting as much diversity as with humans. I would say these faeries are quite familiar with human society and human logic as they've spent centuries observing their destructive habits. The Elders of the various faerie villages are a bit like elf or vulcan leaders in that they are incredibly intelligent and wise but terribly distrustful and skeptical of humans.

As for faerie society as a whole, it would probably differ depending on whether a village was based in a human city or out in the wilderness, kind of like the difference between Ferngully and Arietty: