The vast, untamed wilderness of Kularr -what modern humans would call Europe- with all it's peaks and forests, magnificent lakes, frozen northlands, verdant flatlands and deltas, and squalid fens, is no longer a safe cradle for you or your kind. You and your band once roamed far and wide in search of food of the soil and flesh of the beast, in search of shelter and sustenance. You befriended and waged war on your fellow man; you raided and pillaged, you hunted, you survived.
Your fate was forever changed the night that the dark sky was tainted the colour of sickened leaves, and trunks of fire cascaded into the mountains on the horizon. Since then, your hunting trails yield little but the half-eaten bodies of your brothers and sisters. Eviscerated cadavers line trees and lakeshores; packs of once-predatory animals cower in their dens for fear of the same end as your ill-fated cousins. You often hear terrible howling in the distance on quiet nights. It is like nothing you have heard before. Your band huddles around a campfire as the icy season begins to set in, telling tall tales of sightings of gargantuan bladed beasts now stalking the forests and highest mountain tops. Your blood runs as icy as the season as you become aware that your survival may indeed be cut short just as all ruined settlements you have passed through seem to foretell.
You grow weary as days pass, as food becomes scarce, water becomes tainted with rotten corpses. You sharpen your spear and your hunting bow. The hunger makes you brave; the fear makes you strong. You walk paths not travelled in generations in the hope that your band will happen across more fertile, uninfested lands. What happens along the way, however, will be a matter of life or death. You will do what you must to ensure your own survival, to build up mankind once more. There can be no other path.
Welcome to
From Afar, and thank you for taking the time to us out! This role play is a one part prehistoric/stone aged survival, and one part alien infestation madness. We will be assuming various roles within a band of Humans who are humble hunter-gatherers turned desperate survivors in an epic quest to find lands unaffected by the alien scourge, or to perhaps carve out a fresh existence in a new, hostile world.
-S U R V I V A L & C H A R A C T E R S-
I mentioned that this role-play will be survival heavy with a looming presence from dangerous antagonists. As such, characters are going die often, whether from outright alien attacks, starvation, or infection. It will not be a forgiving tale. For this reason,
From Afar will feature character impermanence: instead of everybody creating one character in a CS prior to the start to the role play and solely commanding this character's actions through the course of the story, each player is imbued with the power to organically introduce new characters at will through the IC, with no need for CS’. Characters will be described, developed, and characterised in the IC.
To accompany this gameplay style, it goes without saying that players are free to jump between many different characters’ perspectives between posts (though please limit this to one perspective per post - jumping back and forth between characters at pace can quickly get confusing). Any created character (unless specified by the player introducing said character that they wish to maintain sole control of the character) can be controlled by any player, giving our band of survivors a dynamic and well developed network of connections to one another.
This gives the GM the power to kill off and otherwise fuck with a large number of characters without grinding the RP to a halt. This story will span the lives of many characters, and perhaps even a generation as our band struggles in this new world. The chance of us finishing with an entirely different cast of characters from the one we started with is huge.
A list of characters will be kept in the Characters Tab, possibly alongside a list of all their current equipment and status. This tab will also contain information about which characters are in the ‘public domain’ and able to be played by anybody in any particular post, and which characters are reserved by request for a single player.
This information will be vital in ensuring the survival of the band. Alerts will be created by the GM on a character-by-character basis about specific threats (such as hunger, thirst, disease, ect) that threaten a specific character. These should be addressed contextually by the next player to make a post from the POV of said character. Either act to keep them alive, or let them die.
You sick fuck. Characters can and will be killed via GM intervention should they be at risk. This includes by alien attacks. Be cautious, lest characters be killed in droves.
-T H E W O R L D , T H E P E O P L E , A N D T E C H N O L O G Y-
The world of prehistoric Europe is one of mystery and wonder. It encompasses looming, ice-capped mountains and cliffs, temperate forests, verdant lowlands, networks of caves and fens, and harsh highlands. The playing field is vast, and, for our purposes, infinite. A band could spend years walking from one side to the other and see all kinds of biomes along the way. Roaming this land are classic megafauna such as mammoths, sabre-toothed tigers, and bears, but of course our greatest threat is presented to us in the form of the alien invaders.
The people of the palaeolithic era are limited in their technologies. Technically speaking, the time period is defined by the use of stone-based and wood based tools. This means that any metal objects are off limits. Spears, clubs, slings, bows, and other sorts of basic hunting tools are permitted, alongside any objects that can be fashioned with relatively unrefined materials from the land and animals. If you can get creative to fashion something of extreme value, feel free to do so providing that it is contextually appropriate to do so.
The people of this time period are undoubtedly focused on the survival of themselves and their band, first and foremost. Currency hasn’t even been conceived of. Hunting and gathering is (or was) the main lifestyle. Any commerce between individuals is likely achieved via fair trade of commodities, so use this to your advantage when dealing with any NPCs or other player characters.
-T H E A L I E N S-
The creature from the sky are unlike anything before seen on Earth. They vary massively in shape, size, function, and form. However, given this variation, there are still some common elements that all aliens share.
They are always insectoid-like creatures, with chitinous exoskeletons, always with six limbs or more. Their usual method of attack is via bladed talons that all aliens seem to possess in some manner or another.
All aliens have at least six, glowing eyes. It is understood that the eyes are weak points. Blinding aliens showing a threat of attack often offers the best chance of survival.
The aliens can vary from pack hunters the size of a large wolves to hulking monstrosities that loom over treetops; each one is dangerous, each one has a taste for human flesh, and is almost single minded in it’s hunger. Engaging aliens head-on is a likely way to ensure the death of a character.
As each ‘breed’ is discovered, they will be added to a growing bestiary in the characters tab of the OOC. Vital information pertaining to their behaviours and weak spots will also be added upon their discovery.
If you wish to join the RP, the lack CS requirement prevents application in the normal way.
Leave a message in this thread if you want to apply, and i’ll get back to you with a couple of questions and we can sort out adding you to the list of players.
I look forward to seeing you all in the brutal, alien infested palaeolithic era.
Happy hunting.
