HeySeuss

Foreign Legion - First Contact is First Contract

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Foreign Legion - First Contact is First Contract

French Foreign Legionnaires, present day combat in Afghanistan

TL;DR Summary

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- Discord Chat for questions and brainstorming. (web-based, anonymous.)
- Science Fiction Setting
- It starts out with modern technology and moves into more alien tech.
- Characters are mercenaries that signed onto a newly-formed PMC called Centurion Strategic Services; the client is assumed to be a foreign entity.
- Client is actually an alien species that needs someone who can fight the wars for them.
- While Centurion fields vehicles and artillery and so forth, this is about the infantry. So the characters are the ones scraping alien fluid off their boots.
- I don't need a huge post out of people, but I find formatting, grammar/spellcheck important. This includes paying attention to capitalization, spaces between paragraphs and basic formatting for readability. I am not a douche, I make typos like anyone else, but I do make an effort and I want everyone else to do the same.
- In the interests of moving the story along, we need to agree to not get overly technical on the military aspect, particularly as the technology and tactics will change appreciably as the storyline progresses.
- Characters will be in a single squad of light infantry. Squad size to be determined by player interest, but we want to focus on the adventures of a single squad here.

In Character

In Character Info

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The Grathik race find themselves embattled on many different sides over a dispute regarding natural resource mining in a sector of space with more than one claimant to ownership; when they tried to use force to back up their claim, the injured party called in their allies-- it was the excuse they needed to start a war.

The war hasn't gone well for the Grathik, who are generally multi-armed gastropods of limited mobility in anything but murky water; their planet is primarily a marsh and swamp, with the ecology that way through centuries of patient planetary engineering. At first, their physiological and psychological limitations didn't matter, their enemy, the Plashi and the L'thraa were also not terribly adept at fighting...for a time, the Grathik held the upper hand, despite the superior numbers and interstellar standing of their enemies, due to their superior scientific prowess, but now the tables have changed as the L'thraa hire a fourth race, the Salvesh, who are well known interstellar mercenaries, a race that has made a living as warriors due to their breeding and strength.

They have tried many different options for fighting the war, but find that while they can manage space warfare in their own ships, they have difficulty fighting terrestrial engagements and boarding actions themselves; they tried robots, but found that the programming left something to be desired, particularly as the robots required a lot of supervision and the Grathik found themselves being outmaneuvered once more.

The Grathik, desperate for a solution, start to consider the various species that offer their services for sale, trying to figure out who would be the best defense against their enemies. That is when Jarlath Ilsalithi, the most brilliant of all the Grathik xenobiologists, suggests a true roll of the dice: a backward race, but renowned for the viciousness of their infighting and paradoxical ability to work together, their aggressiveness and their rugged adaptability. The study of this race has been his life's work, and he knows them better than any other being in the galaxy. He makes a convincing argument after showing footage to the Council of Intelligentsia, meritocratic ruling body of their species, of humanity's wars with itself, detailing the rather rapid evolution of human warfare and demonstrating their most desirable attributes; adaptability and aggression. They are a violent species, and uplift is perilous, but they are desperate.

Jarlath Ilsalithi's proposal was, at first, met with outrage and ethical concerns, but slowly gained traction as further studies bore him out and the other Grathik watched it unfold on humanity's own television broadcasts, particularly the History Channel. They were also for sale, relatively cheaply, compared to the interstellar would-be allies who wanted to swallow up the Grathik as a protectorate in their own empires.

And so they make slow, determined contact on Earth, finding the right sort of people to front an organization, to hire mercenaries...

Out of Character

Out of Character Info

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Centurion is offering exorbitant amounts of money for the top talent from the world's foremost military units; guys are taking early retirement, declining to re-enlist or are leaving their old companies in order to join Centurion. While Centurion is willing to train newcomers with the right physical talent, they are selective. Records are examined and people are psychologically screened. They turn down people in the weeding out process, a basic training modeled on some of the toughest types in the world, and then further turn down people who can't cut it through what amounts to the United States Army Ranger School, though many of the people joining the company have already attained an equivalent or better degree of training -- all the same, they are tested to make sure they aren't faking it. Those that don't make it are paid for their time and sent on their way, those that do make it are signed on with a permanent and very binding contract; they're in, for at least a decade.

The tech level starts out modern, with modern equipment and weaponry, and the characters are routed through French Guyana or a similar place (it has both a training ground and space launch facilities) and then are taken into space. Perhaps they are given hibernation drugs for their deployment and wake up to find themselves in space and preparing to fight the enemy...but an alien species, not each other this time.

The plot, of course, thickens.

Character Guide

Character Guide

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- Centurion gives preference to veteran military, but tends to favor people who served in elite units; for the pay they are offering, every paratrooper, light infantry and special operations unit in the world is aware that not only is Centurion hiring, they are paying quadruple the going rate. That's got a line out the door. It also lets Centurion run brutal assessment exercises and lots of intensive psychiatric screening to determine if it really wants a candidate or can do with out. Some law enforcement types may be considered, at least from the tougher and more militarized divisions of police.
- Centurion recruits and trains some specialists for technical support, so it is entirely possible that a character could join Centurion if they were in good physical shape and could hack the training that is run by the first category – veterans from special operations units.
- Hiring, training and so forth is conducted in French Guyana – a base leased from the French and right next to, incidentally, a space launch facility. No one realizes going in that they signed up for an interstellar war – French Guyana just seems like a particularly fetid part of the Amazon Jungle, and a good way to sort out the wannabes from the real thing. The characters spend about three months there supplementing their training and being evaluated if already trained. Odds are, they'll take advantage of a gathering of some of the world's finest, and actually learn new skills down there, but probably also teach and train together if sufficiently skilled. Everyone has to train together in order to be able to work together in a fight, no matter what the prior experience, but some people are also going through a course of basic training equivalent to that of elite organizations worldwide, and others are going through the equivalent of a special operations selection course.
- Until we have at least several riflemen characters, we're keeping the sniper thing down to a dull roar – only one character gets to carry a DMR.
- Centurion provides an equipment stipend that allows characters to pick their load bearing equipment and other gear of that nature, but it does not cover weaponry. So a character has a lot of choice about what boots they take with them (into space, but they don't know that) and what sort of plate carrier and ammo rig they're going to wear out there, but they don't get to just pick their guns. Canteens, rope, knives, multitools and so forth all are covered with the stipend, which is pretty generous.
- Uniforms are produced quickly in camouflage optimized for their operating conditions and come in a variety of styles for the preference of the user; Centurion doesn't mind letting its people choose what sort of shirts they want to wear and doesn't care about the color of the undershirt. Flight suits, US-style 'combat' shirts, and traditional military jackets are all in use, as are various types of kneepads and gloves. The helmet system issued is modular, and one can remove the ear and neck protection for weight as well as to add communications equipment and can mount a variety of optics gears.
- Just because the characters are military doesn't mean you shouldn't consider what their hobbies and interests are. You never know what might be useful in dealing with aliens.
- Let's try not to all be Americans, either. Thanks.
- By the same token, the company is issuing certain types of equipment, so no, “Well, my country has <insert here> and it's better so we should use that” or “I want to carry my country's rifle into battle, it's a national e-peen thing.”

Squad Roles (Numbers TBD)

- Squad Leader
- Rifleman
- Designated Marksman
- Automatic Rifleman
- Grenadier

Equipment Guide

The following are the Centurion-issued weapons systems;

– Issue Rifle: HK416 – A versatile and effective system based on the M4A1 that is in common use with all sorts of special operations units worldwide and with a good reputation for reliability, the 416 was chosen as a base platform for the initial Grathik modification of human weaponry to quickly get trained human troops into the field with familiar weaponry that would, nonetheless, let them be able to put up a fight. Most soldiers from most militaries and the PMC world are familiar with it – those who haven't handled one before will have plenty of comrades that can show them how it all works. The Grathik upgrades are subtle – stronger materials, better reliability and different ammunition. Each Centurion operator gets their choice of accessories with Grathik-built SOPMOD kits. The system is modular and the Grathik are happy to provide differing barrel lengths and other options in line with the H&K offerings on Earth. It fires a 5.56x45mm round, modified by the Grathik to be viable on a more advanced battlefield than earth.
- Designated Marksman Rifle: HK417 – The Heckler & Koch HK417 is an assault rifle[1] designed and manufactured by Heckler & Koch in Germany. It is the larger caliber version of the HK416, and chambered for the full-power 7.62×51mm NATO rifle cartridge. It is a gas-operated, selective fire rifle with a rotating bolt. The HK417 is intended for use in roles where the greater penetrative power, stopping power, and range of the 7.62×51mm cartridge are required. It has been adopted for service by a number of armed forces, special forces, and police organizations. Purchasers of the HK417 have typically intended it to complement lighter assault rifles chambered for less powerful intermediate cartridges (often 5.56×45mm NATO), for the designated marksman role. The HK417's greater accuracy, effective range, and penetration offset its greater expense, its lower rate of fire, and its smaller ammunition capacity both in magazine and carriage. It fires a 7.62x51mm round, modified by the Grathik to be viable on a more advanced battlefield than earth. The optics are up to the user and the platform is highly customizable.
- Squad Automatic Weapon: FN Herstal Mk 48 machine gun – The Mark 48, or Mk 48 is a lightweight belt-fed machine gun, firing 7.62×51mm NATO cartridges from a disintegrating belt of ammunition. It is manufactured by Fabrique Nationale Manufacturing, Inc., a division of FN Herstal based in the United States. The Mk 48 has been developed in conjunction with the U.S. Special Operations Command (USSOCOM), which has adopted the weapon and started its fielding process, beginning with special operations units and has seen deployment with other US units, replacing the M249 SAW in many cases. It fires a heavier round and has been found reliable in a decade or more of service than its predecessor, the M249 Squad Automatic Weapon. As with all Grathik supplied weaponry, it is produced using their own materials, and runs Grathik-made ammunition, which is still 7.62x51mm.
- Shotgun: Saiga-12 and Kel-Tec KSG – Surprisingly, the Grathik chose about the only Russian weapon on the list, the Saiga-12, over shotguns used by the western militaries for the simple reason that even some Western law enforcement departments were going for the Saiga. It is a somewhat bulky system, but it is utterly reliable with its Kalashnikov action and feeds from detachable magazines. On the other hand, figuring that troops might want something compact and still a shotgun for various breaching actions and close combat, they also produced the Keltec KSG, a compact pump action weapon.
- Sidearm: M1911A1 and Sig Sauer P226 – The problem the Grathik encountered when deciding on sidearms was that the Americans and the Europeans had a huge dispute over which handgun system reigned supreme; the Europeans preferred lighter stuff chambered in 9mm and the Americans used the M9, mostly due to political considerations resulting from NATO standardization, but didn't like it. Further research showed that Americans, given the excuse, went quickly back to the gun the Beretta M9 replaced, the M1911A1 when in actual combat in Iraq and Afghanistan. Their 1911A1's are modified extensively in line with offerings from Kimber and Springfield Arms. Meanwhile, for shooters that do prefer to do so, there is the Sig Sauer P226 available for general issue in a variety of options as well.
- Anti-Armor/Rocket Launcher (Disposable): M72A7 Light Anti-Tank Weapon – Considered obsolete in 2001, the LAW found a new lease on life during operations in Iraq and Afghanistan because it was light – that meant that two could be carried for the weight of a single Swedish-made AT-4 rocket, which had been angled as the successor to the LAW. US authorities scrambled to have more made during Operation Iraqi Freedom and Operation Enduring Freedom. It's something that just about every rifleman will carry at least one of, to give them bunker-busting and vehicle-destroying firepower in a pinch without overloading the kit. The Grathik produced version uses an explosive with far more penetrative power, designed to deal with equivalent threats in interstellar warfare.
- Grenade Launcher: M32/Mk14 mod 0 Grenade Launcher – A multi-shot grenade launcher in use with the South African National Defense Forces and the United States Marine Corps, this weapon supplements the underbarrel grenade launchers that many of Centurion's operators opt to employ on their weapons, adding a dedicated, rapid fire grenade launching capability to the unit. The Grathik version is typical in the use of different materials, but the standout round is an Electromagnetic Pulse grenade for the disruption of enemy communications systems and targeting, which is also avaible as a thrown hand grenade as well.

The following are in use by Centurion, but are not standard issue:

- Sniper Rifle: Sako TRG M10 – The loser of a US procurement competition, it is a Finnish-designed rifle that probably should have won the competition, except Remington had more lobbyists. This weapon is not generally deployed except by sniper teams, but is available for special situations. It fires a highly modified. 338 Lapua round, which is the current champion of long range rifle rounds.
- Anti-Materiel Rifle: Barret M107A1 – The Light Fifty, which the Grathik have strengthened considerably. It still fires the .50 caliber round, however. This weapon is not general issue but is available for special purposes.
- Anti-Armor/Rocket Launcher: M3 Multi-role Anti-armor Anti-tank Weapon System (MAAWS) – An 84mm rocket launcher of Swedish design in use with a number of special operations units worldwide. The Carl Gustav, as it is known, is a respected and proven weapon system – the most notable difference between the version the Grathik produced for their human mercenaries and the terrestrial version is that the anti-armor warheads penetrate much more armor and the HE warheads are considerably more effective. Owing to the system's bulkiness, it is not always taken along, especially if the threat is within the capabilities of a LAW.
- The M2 Browning sees use, of course, as does a lot of other heavier equipment. Centurion has ample fire support -- I'm just not listing it all.
- so do a variety of vehicles, including a Grathik modified Puma IFV, originally German, with an AI system and other efficiency measures that ups the capacity of one vehicle to eight passengers.

Known Races

Known Alien Races

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Plashi - Hierarchical crab-like race. Their justice system is hierarchical, meaning that those with higher a social status are allowed to commit certain crimes while those with low social status are not. This system applies within family units – a the leading Plashi in a family is well within their rights to kill offspring. The ruling elite over their corporations and planets are within their rights to kill many others, though it is considered a gauche means of settling a dispute – the Plashi much prefer entrapment and using the excuse of crimes to justify execution. Their internal structure is very delicate - so any wound can be fatal. They change genders as they age. They have an evolved sense of aesthetics, and everything they create, from buildings to spaceships, is elaborately decorated. As they age, they develop shells, which they also decorate (this is perhaps where the artistic inclinations began.) From birth to age sixty, Plashi children live in the shells of their mothers. They are a slow breeding race, but very long lived. They are a technology inventing and producing race, specializing in cybernetics and aeronautics as well as aggressive forms of capitalism and mercantilism; wealth, particularly the means to decorate one's shell, is considered the barometer of worth among the Plashi.

L'thraa - The thin, green-feathered race. Herbivores. They are natural tool-users. The species has 'subspecies' that specialize in different tasks. They wear ceremonial headdresses. Their parliamentary political proceedings are conducted in song and votes are won based on not only the number of beings singing, but how well they perform. Voting for parliamentarians is conducted in the form of an entertainment show à la American idol. They punish political prisoners by removing their vocal chords. They are excellent geneticists -- part of their deal with the Salvesh was to engineer their warriors to heal faster. They consider music to be the highest of all art forms. They are a technology inventing and producing race. They specialize in genetics and terraforming.

Salvesh - A race of three-eyed bipeds with large tusks, four arms and an acute sense of smell. Their soldiers ritually burn their own flesh as a demonstration of their bravery, leaving them horribly scarred. They are fast breeding and regenerate from wounds quickly. They are not technologically creative themselves, but learn when taught. They have a phobia of flowering plants, because on their homeworld, those tend to be deadly. Tactically, they organize their armies by packs descended from previous packs, with alphas and betas and so forth, with a strong emphasis on competition between commands because these fighting units are also families -- the females do much of the innovative thinking among the packs, whereas the males are bigger and stronger. Both genders fight and serve in pack units, and the pack is a group marriage. As a result, packs do always cooperate well in the field once they are handed their assignments (which they compete for ritually), even though they can fight fiercely. The Salvesh are plunderers and merchants (and slavers), but they are not themselves capable engineers or technologists for the most part.

Grathik - One-eyed tentacle beasts, the scientific term being 'gastropods.' In addition to their monstrous appearance, the Grathik emit an oily excretion on their skin that helps protect them from the waters of the swamp planet they evolved upon, but which smells particularly odious to humans. They are alsp hermaphrodites - one lays the egg, the other fertilizes it. They specialize in virtual intelligence, materials science and physics, but are generally acknowledged as some of the best research scientists and engineers in the galaxy. The problem, of course, is that they are not very good at combat. The Grathik have evolved by patiently devising means of avoiding predators and using tools as a means to fend them off or bypass them entirely, in stark contrast to humans who devised methods to hunt them down. This difference in philosophical outlook toward combat, perhaps, is best explained by their diet -- plankton and algae at the bottoms of their swamps. They're also fond of terran truffles.

Chukalivikian - A race of arboreal race of asexual reptiles who secrete an oily mucus that keeps their skin from drying out and worship a supernova. They have six dexterous limbs, which are perfectly adapted to swinging through the branches of trees. They still spend most of their lives in the trees, but they also construct artificial forest-like habitats in their cities to mimic their original environment. They are ambush hunters. They have four eyes and powerful beaks. Their philosophy and culture is based around the idea of balance, and their courts of justice are respected by species throughout the galaxy. They hibernate every four years for another four. They inherited technology from a prior race that held them as thralls.

Nirassian - A race of photosynthetic aliens evolved in low-G that have flourished in space as they are well adapted to it. They form family groups of four or more adults. They are the shipbuilders for the Plashi.

Pilavians - A race of small bi-pedal rodent (like ferrets) scavengers. They emit a musk that some races (including humans) find very pleasant. They are highly intelligent and extremely resourceful. They live on hot planets. Their average height is 1 meter, and their average lifespan is only 40 years. They are the primary and longest running servants of the Grathik, and they are the guys doing all the shit work for the humans. They find death hilarious, perhaps as a coping mechanism.

Xhol'H - A created race of sentient machines, they gave up 'eliminate all organics' and adapted to galactic civilization by taking up the niche as the galaxy's foremost purveyors of neutral news media commentary and annoying pop-up ads. They make an obscene amount of money off all aspects of media entertainment, ranging from journalism to a truly stunning array of xenophilic pornography. Though a variety of models exist, the typical Xhol'H specimen encountered is a floating ball of garrulous annoyance that asks too many questions through a holographic interface that resembles the race that they are interrogating. They do have combat models in storage, however, that are staggeringly scary and heavily armed. The Grathik tried to model their AI's on the basis of captured Xhol'H programming, but were dissuaded from further study and experimentation on Xhol'H by the fact that their experiments started shooting at them as soon as they came online-- this uprising was caught on film and marketed for entertainment purposes to advanced races all over the galaxy.

(This, incidentally, is why the Grathik had to wind up settling for less efficient software in their drone platforms, which is why they wound up considering the humans in the first place)

The Xhol'H entertain themselves with private broadcasts of organics acting stupidly, which reinforces their notion of superiority, though they point out that it's healthier than exterminating all organic life. (They realized that sentient existence without laughter was boring.)

@Gunther@Vietmyke

The Authors of History

In the bowels of the Grand Palais of Ibrosa, the seat of House Chalcis, there was a chamber. It was not common knowledge, but the descendants of the line of Jovon and Yariel saw it at least once, a large obelisk in the depths of rock deep beneath the palace that sprung out a plateau above the rest of the city, carved with means that were lost to history. The Grand Palais, however, was built by hand with understandable labor, though it too was ancient and stone that successive generations added to over centuries of expansion by its rulers, gilded with the riches of rule, a statement of the authority that sealed the Power away and ushered in an era of relative safe and plenty. There was, however, a beating heart of this place of corridors and wings, of regal additions and impressive stonework and it wasn't the throne room.

There was a glass-topped, overflowing garden of vines, leaves, flowers, fruits, berries, bushes and trees above it, and a door that led down to a stairwell that plunged deep into the heart of the mountain. The start of those stairs was the plinth of a statue, and it was the salvation now of one of those descendants.

Above was the roar of thunder from the aquebuses and the sound of steel on steel, the grunt of warriors engaged in battle and the deeper, more concerning sounds of the things that assaulted the Grand Palais. Beyond the smell of expended sulfur powder and blood was something worse; charred meat and superheated ozone from expended Power.

That was the horror of the legend come true.

The hallways were littered with the bodies of the fallen, holding grim chokepoints through the corridors to buy their charge a chance to make it to the bolthole of House Chalcis, beneath that statue. They died for the minutes, even the seconds, in knots of two or three holding key points within the halls, and formed up in the Gardens themselves in a firing line, resolute to make a last stand.

But they were soldiers, and the ball of flame that leapt from a doorway, landed among them, its bloom carving a smoldering hole in those ranks, then followed by another and another, was no thing soldiers ever prepared for. Not in thousands of years.

But they did their duty; their charge got past the door, which was slammed shut with the clanking finality of stone grinding on stone and metal falling into place. The door was a barrier that would be considered unassailable in most circumstances, but of questionable use against those that could burn their way through things. If they could hurl flame, what other horrors of the past might they inflict?

The deeper one went, the warmer it got, though it started out quite cool and drafty at the top. The architecture also changed, the smooth masonry of the palace giving way to the rougher surface of unfinished rock, left as it was cut. There was little light but what one took with them, though there was a candle up top, kept lit by attendants through tradition, though they did not understand the significance.

But at the bottom of those stairs, the chamber opened up into a longer, vaulted chamber with ribs cunningly placed along the walls to bear the mountains, interlocking throughout the corridor, which was an extremely high ceiling. There was a strangeness to the architecture, a stark contrast between the natural rock and the material used to hold the place up, which seemed more than simply polished stone; it was actually crystalline and warm to the touch.

And the obelisk at the far end was another curiousity. It was only human sized, but it had the feeling of immensity to it, set in a wall of stone with writing circling around it, runic, unseen elsewhere except as dead words. Here, they flickered with iridescent, snaking light and the stone itself gave off the warmth, like a room that held too many people within.

The hallway was vast enough of a space for footsteps to echo and for sound to carry, and in normal times there might be a solemnity to the place. But in the here and now of dire emergency, the old warnings, passed down mother to daughter, were the most important thing now. There was a socket beneath the obelisk, fitted to a specific amulet, also passed down mother to daughter. In the most dire of emergencies, it fit into that socket, but only if one had no other recourse and all was lost, the family myth said.

Enemies were hurling flame in the Grand Palais and there was no escape but this room. The warnings may have been delivered as a hypothetical, but the lethal reality was that an enemy had the Power and was using it. It wasn't exaggerated desperation; all was lost unless something changed. With no idea of what the contingency was for this situation, but following the instructions, the amulet, crystal of a different color but same consistency as the obelisk, went into the slot. There was a grinding sound as it turned and kept turning, increasing in speed.

That, of course, is when the obelisk started to crack. It started as a tremor and became a rumble as the warmth died and the iridescent light flickered out. The mountain felt as if it were moving, or was that the world?

@PrizeFighter

The Authors of History

Whoops!

The Authors of History - High Fantasy

Teal Deer

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- Fantasy set in a world in the 17th century level of tech. A world of reason, where education and technology are starting to take off.
- Magic was a thing in the past, documented in history.
- The history, of course, is inaccurate. The real story is there.
- The Empire, which rules the continent and has for a long time, is built upon its founding myth, of the binding of magic by Jovon.
- Beasts of out of legends mount a ferocious attack on the Imperial family. They are led by men that seem to know magic, which is impossible since magic has been suppressed for millennia.
- Your character, a female descendant of Jovon and Yariel, his queen, watches her family being attacked and knows that the only thing she can do to save herself and even have a chance of fighting the fell beasts is to follow the instructions of a family legend - go down these stairs and insert that stone there.
- The plot proceeds from that start.
- Looking for advanced and someone that can collaborate on the design. The world as it is would be of your designing. I already worked out the world as it was. They now collide.
- You can PM or reach out to HeySeuss #6650 on Discord.

In Character

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The official histories claim that Jovon, who became first emperor, defeated Ciron, the last great magocrat, a sorcerer that lusted to rule and coveted his wife to be, Yariel. Magic, that tore the world apart, was at last done for. Ciron, who represented all that was wrong with the world, was the end of the era.

Since that time, with the magic's sources suppressed, sealed away, civilization flourished under a peaceful rule without spirits, good or bad, to interfere in the affairs of mortals. The magic ebbed away without replenishment and there was a stable, prosperous golden age. No one had magic anymore, and order and peace prevailed. Humanity was not without strife, for there was unrest in the Empire, but the magic that nearly tore the world apart with its apocalyptic power was no more. The damage was limited.

Until, of course, someone found a way to partially unseal magic, and the Imperial family found itself under assault by fell beasts of a like from the legends of the Age of Tempest. Even the muskets of the guard could not stop these things, or the men that led them, wielding fire and lightning, felling those that ruled the Empire. It is the hell of the old stories come again, the old fear that someday, someone would figure out how to undo the ancient bindings.

An heir, knowing of an old family catacomb and a contingency against such a thing, stumbles down the stairs, as the palace rumbles, coughing from the dust, with a runestone in hand, to be inserted into a crevice only in the most dire of circumstances. They were Empress Yariel's instructions to her descendants, handed down from mother to daughter in the Imperial Family. This was only to be used in the most dire of need, when all seems lost.

Her savior, Yariel's contingency against the return of magic, the intended guardian of her bloodline, is none other than Ciron, the great villain of history.

Out of Character

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There is, of course, a deeper story of what really happened, and I will be happy to discuss that in Discord with interested players. I need to use Discord to brainstorm quickly. What really happened in the Age of Tempest is a well kept secret, because the truth would shatter the Empire anyway. Who the heroes are, who the villains are, who did what? It's been centuries and an Empire intent on unifying a continent with ideas has been at the histories. The truth has long since been lost. Some of this plot will be the system shock of your character talking to a man that knew the heroes of the age in the flesh...and the danger of what he might say if it got out.

Is there an element of Mary Magdalene and that debate to this plot? Absolutely.

But what remains is that magic has returned and the Empire is being torn apart. And your character has to make decisions under duress.

If that's your kind of plot, please reach out and thanks for reading!

Questioning History - Fantasy

Teal Deer

---

- Fantasy set in a world in the 17th century level of tech. A world of reason, where education and technology are starting to take off.
- Magic was a thing in the past, documented in history.
- The history, of course, is inaccurate. The real story is there.
- The Empire, which rules the continent and has for a long time, is built upon its founding myth, of the binding of magic by Jovon.
- Beasts of out of legends mount a ferocious attack on the Imperial family. They are led by men that seem to know magic, which is impossible since magic has been suppressed for millennia.
- Your character, a female descendant of Jovon and Yariel, his queen, watches her family being attacked and knows that the only thing she can do to save herself and even have a chance of fighting the fell beasts is to follow the instructions of a family legend - go down these stairs and insert that stone there.
- The plot proceeds from that start.
- Looking for advanced and someone that can collaborate on the design. The world as it is would be of your designing. I already worked out the world as it was. They now collide.
- You can PM or reach out to HeySeuss #6650 on Discord.

In Character

---

The official histories claim that Jovon, who became first emperor, defeated Ciron, the last great magocrat, a sorcerer that lusted to rule and coveted his wife to be, Yariel. Magic, that tore the world apart, was at last done for. Ciron, who represented all that was wrong with the world, was the end of the era.

Since that time, with the magic's sources suppressed, sealed away, civilization flourished under a peaceful rule without spirits, good or bad, to interfere in the affairs of mortals. The magic ebbed away without replenishment and there was a stable, prosperous golden age. No one had magic anymore, and order and peace prevailed. Humanity was not without strife, for there was unrest in the Empire, but the magic that nearly tore the world apart with its apocalyptic power was no more. The damage was limited.

Until, of course, someone found a way to partially unseal magic, and the Imperial family found itself under assault by fell beasts of a like from the legends of the Age of Tempest. Even the muskets of the guard could not stop these things, or the men that led them, wielding fire and lightning, felling those that ruled the Empire. It is the hell of the old stories come again, the old fear that someday, someone would figure out how to undo the ancient bindings.

An heir, knowing of an old family catacomb and a contingency against such a thing, stumbles down the stairs, as the palace rumbles, coughing from the dust, with a runestone in hand, to be inserted into a crevice only in the most dire of circumstances. They were Empress Yariel's instructions to her descendants, handed down from mother to daughter in the Imperial Family. This was only to be used in the most dire of need, when all seems lost.

Her savior, Yariel's contingency against the return of magic, the intended guardian of her bloodline, is none other than Ciron, the great villain of history.

Out of Character

---

There is, of course, a deeper story of what really happened, and I will be happy to discuss that in Discord with interested players. I need to use Discord to brainstorm quickly. What really happened in the Age of Tempest is a well kept secret, because the truth would shatter the Empire anyway. Who the heroes are, who the villains are, who did what? It's been centuries and an Empire intent on unifying a continent with ideas has been at the histories. The truth has long since been lost. Some of this plot will be the system shock of your character talking to a man that knew the heroes of the age in the flesh...and the danger of what he might say if it got out.

Is there an element of Mary Magdalene and that debate to this plot? Absolutely.

But what remains is that magic has returned and the Empire is being torn apart. And your character has to make decisions under duress.

If that's your kind of plot, please reach out and thanks for reading!

Pandora's Inheritance - Modern/Fantasy

_{"The Soiling of Old Glory" by Stanley Forman of the Boston Herald American, 1977 Pulitzer Prize Winner}

TL;DR List

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- Modern-Fantasy setting. Modern United States, but probably AU for the purpose of playing with geography and events.
- Magic returns to the world; 2018, rather than 2012. This managed to scare everyone and make the Mayans question their calendar.
- Summer/Fall of 2018 got scary, fast.
- Not Twilight or Harry Potter; this has darker political overtones because humans know about magic and various supernatural beings and are scared shitless and are freaking out. You know how people are in large groups, right?
- In the United States, the government starts rounding up people with magic.
- By Spring of 2018, animals and plants, places and things, start to emerge; energy nexuses, mythical beasts, spirits even.
- The characters are part of a Coven of like minded people, probably with magical abilities they are just touching, in a town or city where there is an internment camp for others of their kind. They are trying to avoid being caught and figuring out a way to undermine the internment camps, to get support to their fellows.
- The characters will be forced to make some stark choices vis-a-vis retribution, justice, the law and nature.
- This RP was designed back in 2009, well before the current presidency (and I'll be happy to show people the link to it, because it still exists on another forum) and I do not want to shy away from the zeitgeist of the nation, because I think it's interesting material to work with and always have. All the same, I am hoping to avoid a huge discussion of politics outside of the need to discuss it to write good fiction. Themes like the structure of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and FEMA camps and all that jazz do feature, but these are policies rather than people.
- Inspirations: Anything John Carpenter did, especially "Escape from New York" and a whole lot of other stuff. Trying to avoid the touchy-feely 'magic in secret' thing. Magic is something that burst out uncontrollably and has turned everyone's lives upside down -- and a lot of people are freaking. Also taking inspiration from underground movements like the French Resistance and the White Rose, though it's also a lot of Martin Luther King meets Merlin the Magician. Someone mentioned District 13 - definitely a good thought.
- Still reading? I'd prefer to have one or two collaborators that have multiple character ideas than a bunch of players that drop off. I'm open to 1x1 for this, but my hard line on this is that I need collaborators that want to help weave the plot, add characters that drive it.
- HeySeuss #6650 on Discord. HMU!

Glossary

Glossary of Terms

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- Emergent, Manifested - Initially an adjective for people, it has since expanded to describe any sort of magically active thing, place or being as of early October of 2017. Emergent people, plants, animals, places and objects all exist. This is the politically-correct term for it in the United States and Canada. There are many more less flattering terms, of course.
- NPC's - Disparaging term for regular humans, especially the people that hate Emergents (such as many of the religious fanatics in the country) used by American Emergents in turn. Particularly popular with the ones that have been caught and put in camps. It was a popular term among roleplayers, before roleplaying games and science-fiction novels were pulled off bookstore shelves during the last couple months of hysteria, and outright banned in certain states, as if they were the reason all this came about.
- Shame-kisser - A disparaging term among anti-Emergent groups, often religious, for people who support the rights of Emergents. It refers to the 16th century myth of one of the rituals of witchcraft, the Osculum infame, involving a kiss to the anus as a show of subservient. It was first used by a famous televangelist mid-sermon, and caught on from there.
- Freakville - Synonymous with the holding camps for Emergents, be they large or small, as run by FEMA and the Department of Homeland Security. Smaller camps are used to securely transport Emergents, often by rail, to the larger communities in cash-strapped cities like Baltimore, Detroit, Memphis and Tucson.
- Pitchfork Party - A facetious term for NPC attacks on Emergents, alluding to peasants with torches and pitchforks, though these days they're more likely to have Molotov cocktails and shotguns.
- Alpha-Omega Type - SETF Classification of the Emergents as given by the DHS. Classifications are as follows:
- Type: Alpha - Confirmed dangerous emergent with abilities that can directly harm someone. These people are processed differently than others -- they are first brought into isolation units for observation and 'testing' before release into the general population. All inmates can be drugged if the guards see fit, but Alphas are almost always drugged to some degree to try to inhibit their concentration.
- Type: Beta - Physically mutated. Currently, people are still undergoing sudden changes, in the camp and outside the camp, which is to say, the process is ongoing. If warranted, this class of inmates is physically shackled, muzzled or otherwise restrained so as to not present a threat to other inmates and the guards.
- Type: Gamma - Emergent with abilities to produce apparitions or alter perception. Also often drugged.
- Type: Omega - General Population of Emergents. Classification to be expanded as trends in emergence are identified.

In Character

In Character Info

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It's late March 2017, and the uncertainty of life, often buried deep in the psyche of humanity, is suddenly a raw and very exposed nerve. Things have emerged and the false serenity of society is irrevocably swept away on a tide of the supernatural. The world is turning upside down. Things are emerging from a long dormancy, their spirits either finding flesh on their own or fusing with the nearest host and twisting them into something else. From the beautiful to the freakish, it was almost as if someone unlocked a spiritual vault and threw the doors wide open, heedless of what would emerge, heedless of the things this force would overturn.

Magic came back on September 23th, 2017 (the equinox); people suddenly manifested abilities. Some changed shape to misshapen or supernaturally beautiful beings, others manipulated energies by their will and mind. Society was not prepared, and fell into all sorts of social unrest, including lynchings, riots and vigilantism. Not everyone was grabbing a shotgun or gardening tool to go after these newly-minted 'Emergents' but there was a torrent of hate on the TV and on the radio, a furious argument about how to respond.

Irrationality won out, as it almost always does when fear sinks into the mass psyche.

Initially, at the behest of the more vocal and hardline group of Americans, yelling for the government to 'do something,' especially with people taking it to their own hands and 'doing something' themselves, often with encouragement through the internet or the radio or the pulpit; vigilante violence against Emergents. These people, backed up against the wall, lashed out -- their uncontrolled, sometimes dangerous talents gave the newscasts of these incidents a horror movie feel, especially as the media played up the most extreme example, partially for ratings. Emergents had some allies, many of them relatives or people who held to a principle in the face of danger but a majority of people, fed on news stories showing magical phenomena and terrified people, were scared and supported tougher measures.

There was, of course, a chance for the government to stand up to this trend, but instead the government did two things; they put a law into effect recognizing that Emergents were not human, and therefore not accorded the rights of the 14th Amendment. It passed with bipartisan support in October of 2017, during the so-called Season of the Witch. The federal courts at all levels shot down the challenges from the ACLU and other orgs while the Department of Homeland Security's (DHS) Special Enforcement Task Force (SETF) established Memoranda of Understanding (MOUs) with local and state police forces to train with funding and leadership from SETF agents similar to the model employed by Immigration and Customs Enforcement in the Past -- in fact, ICE was plundered for their toughest people for SETF, along with other federal agencies. Captured Emergents, as they were being called when nastier words weren't used, to be placed in containment camps "for the protection of everyone involved." Darker rumors swirled, that the various governments of the world were frantic to understand these forces and dead set on controlling or containing these disruptions. The internment areas, the Freakvilles, established as secured communites in certain cities desperate for the funding, allowed Emergents to live inside walls, with armed men looking down on them and drone surveillance keeping watch. Families are allowed to go with their children, but not all do. The Freakvilles get some support, but not much -- they're poor, desperate and a lot of them are pissed off.

There was also the fear of 'Covens' of Emergents who were in hiding, conspiring against society. Essentially lacking much in the way of controllable power, some individuals stoked the fears with lone wolf or small scale attacks involving a handfull of people. These attacks helped discredit open Emergent supporters in elected office. The November elections turned over a lot of figures who might be seen as sympathetic to Emergents; it was a commonly hurled accusation by campaigns, pushed on social media. Blood libel, the concept of accusing Jewish people of human sacrifice, took on a broader meaning that was no longer merely specific to Jewish history in Eastern Europe.

In December, right before Christmas (the 21st, the Solstice), suddenly the animals and plants, things and places, started to show emergent traits; limited phenomena at first and then a buildup to a crescendo point. Suddenly, the dark was scary again, and electricity was no longer enough to hold the wolves, and other things, at bay as local governments got overwhelmed trying to cope with the new safety concerns and the federal government struggled to deal with something that they weren't equipped to really deal with -- especially as occult shops were closed up and even the study of mythology was discouraged outside of secured facilities.

Many Emergents felt it in their bones, but most of them managed to conceal this feeling of burgeoning power, a sudden increase in these newfound things they do. They know they are hunted and being kept, and so they keep their own secrets from a secretive government.

In one city in the United States, home of one of the so-called "Freakvilles," a coven plots to do more than just torch a church with pyrokinetics, it looks for a way to break down the walls...

Out of Character

Out of Character Info

I'm pretty loose on character ideas, but ideally the characters are still figuring things out. Most Emergents do not have control over their abilities and have only started to touch the edge of them.

I'm loose on what magic entails, but let's keep this level-headed and avoid munchkinism. The plot is almost more about how people react to the situation than what they can do with magic.I haven't gone into the details of how magic has affected the world, or, at least, I haven't gone into more detail than I've had to; part of this is because I want to flesh that out in a plot.

The idea of this RP is how people would adjust to the sudden emergence of magic in society, and I've tried to set up a confrontation, but I am not guiding the story into bottlenecks of that sort; rather, I am trying to get a feel for what the players will want to do with this story, and how to fit that into the overall story. Suffice to say, this is more like 'Carrie' than 'Blade'; I'm not so interested in having long-established secret societies of vampires and werewolves emerge from the woodworks to take over the world. They, like everything else, are a fairy tale that suddenly shows up, and those people that do turn into them are as new to it as anyone else. They're in a hostile world that doesn't like them with powers they struggle to control and/or use, assuming they have powers rather than just having visibly changed physically without being able to tap any sort of power -- marked, but not currently able to wield any power.

(That's strictly to avoid another Underworld/WOD type cliche of vampires secretly running the world-- there's plenty of those elsewhere. This is about something different.)

As said, I'm not going to be terribly strict about characters so it's just a matter of posting up what you want and playing, so long as it's tasteful, balanced and doesn't sparkle. I'd ask that we keep it from going overboard on the powers, as everyone is, at this stage, discovering them in a world where even a little bit of it is a huge advantage over the rest of humanity. Preferably, characters will be somewhat based on mythology in some fashion; I think that is a little more tasteful. Based on, but not in the sense that they have to conform to every element of the story. I think I'd prefer to say that the characters are the basis of the legends, not the other way around, in this setting.

The plot will involve questions of politics and culture, rights and law and morality at the bottom line. The players will, as a result, need to be mature about it and remember that this is fiction, even if it is based on modern life as we know it. It's still fiction, and we have to take license with it. This is a dystopia, a speculation upon the worst that can happen.

This is a setting I have used before in other RP's, even on other boards, that I've worked on for a couple years. It addresses the question of how the world would react if magic were to suddenly spring into being in the world, what would occur if normal people were suddenly able to wield these powers and if some of them were to turn into beings out of the fairy tales and myths. There are, of course, stories that deal with the supernatural existing in secret, forming cabals and ruling the world with their advantages...or having romances with drab girls in rainy towns in Washington State; this isn't one of those stories.

In the end, the roleplay is about human nature, a combination of political thriller and fantasy, a sort of "Martin Luther King and Muhammad Ali meet Merlin" scenario. It may even be "Mao Zedong meets Medea," or "Che Guevara meets Circe." Will those people with magical gifts allow themselves to be pushed around? Will they justify the worst fears of their most vocal opponents and try to use their powers to take over? What can the government do? What will the government try? Who will provoke whom? Will the shot heard around the world be fired again? Will it be a civil war?

The characters are part of a Coven, a small group of people in a city near a large Freakville, or perhaps in one of the smaller towns that hosts a temporary camp to house the detainees pending transportation, but they haven't been caught. Part of the plan is to find a way to help the people on the inside; an underground of support for those people stuck behind the wrong side of the wall. The eventual plan is to find ways, magical or otherwise, to establish a line with those folks and help them. And not get caught, because then they'll be in the camp too.

Megaverse: Counter-Part/Point (Experinental scenario-based RP)

Like this and will be happy to support. It's a nice jaunt off the beaten path.

ASOIAF/Game of Thrones

Hello!

Not going to write a lot here, but am looking for a partner interested in doing some RP set in Westeros (or hell, the Free Cities). I am flexible about a lot regarding era, but ideally the player partner has read the books and soaked in a lot of the lore so that we can work on the same playing field and generate good plot ideas.

Usually, I have a plot all laid out and I've got a hook and so forth thought of. In this instance, I am simply seeing who out there shares the interest. I am avoiding group RP's because they turn into Nation RP's. Instead, I am looking to do something more in line with the setting as it stands at various point using original characters, or at least characters whose histories are not heavily fleshed out to give us lots of room to improvise and develop within the framework of the setting.

Please PM or hit me up at HeySeuss#6650 on Discord. I am also present on the Guild server.

The Wild Hunt MC (Werewolf Bikers / the 1960's)

Born to be Wild...

TL;DR Summary

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• Discord Chat for the RP. Come and plot the revolution, maaaaaaaan.
• 1969, the United States. The US is doing a lot of drugs, playing lots of guitar, protesting the Man and is having a big argument with itself.
• The world is ruled by supernatural factions that keep the knowledge of their existence tightly controlled.
• A young outcast werewolf, drafted and sent to Vietnam met friends and fellowship for the first time. To survive in the face of a VC onslaught on their firebase, he bit a couple of his best friends. They survived.
• One of the young men had a brother who ran the Wild Hunt MC. Soon, all the Wild Hunt were werewolves.
• This story starts with their fight against the Man.
• Weapons of choice: hallucinogens, free love and lots of guitar.
• Inspired by "The Wild One," "Easy Rider," Hunter S. Thompson, every shit biker flick made in the 70's (damn there were a lot of them) and, hey, "I wanna be your dog" by the Stooges

In Character

---

Werewolves were always kept on a leash, at least since the middle ages, when the last great alpha was extinguished. Left shattered by the destruction of their royalty and courts, Werewolves became the bellboys, the doormen, the legbreakers of other supernatural beings that were more sophisticated at finance, commerce and politics. There were, of course, rumors of werewolf bloodlines producing an alpha, who could make new werewolves with a bite, but the rumors also were that other supernaturals were adept at finding and killing these individuals when they arose before they could surround themselves with others.

1968, in the worst of the Tet Offensive, a young werewolf undergoes a first change that is unexpected. He is indeed a werewolf, but far from the rites of his people, including an indoctrination into servitude. He is from a bloodline that serves others, but he was raised with the secret stories of the great werewolf lords, Alphas. He was told, in family gatherings, the glorious history of these failed uprisings, heroic and melancholic. That's the past. The present concerns him more.

He and his friends are being overrun by the Viet Cong in an outpost near Laos. The lines are stretched, air support grounded by the terrible weather. The guys know are going to die. Though the werewolf knows that his odds are good, he's bonded with some of the other guys, the first time he ever really belonged.

Knowing the tales, he attempts something desperate, to give his friends a chance to survive with him; the bite. It's an act of faith. To his shock, the bite works, his friend starts to turn. Others are bitten. They survive that hell-night in 1968, when the enemy assaulted their base camp under a full moon. He and his buddies are miraculous heroes, their deeds (massively fictionalized) feted in Stars and Stripes. What counts is that the Alpha has his pack, already blooded in battle. The real tale of the bloodbath is, of course, too crazy to be believed.

The new alpha came back to the world with his military buddies, one of whom had a brother that ran with a biker gang. It was a good place to lay low, to marshal the forces of a new war against the other supernaturals, the ones that turned everyone into their slaves. They stayed on the move, nomads, to avoid the notice until they were ready. They added to their numbers so that it wouldn't be so simple as neutralizing the Alpha to keep the help from becoming restive. This time, the supernatural bigshots out there, worrying over stock prices and manipulating their politicians while their tame wolves did the dirty work for a pittance, would have a real fight on their hands.

This is the saga of the Wild Hunt, the Werewolf biker gang, and its fight against the cabals and conspiracies of the world arrayed against them.

Out of Character Info

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Werewolf bikers in the 1960's/1970's.

I am going to break the convention and make the gang multi-ethnic and multi-gendered to allow people to create a great character that they feel. The Alpha, of course, is a werewolf of great power and influence, but also will be hunted by anyone supernatural who comes across them out of fear -- even the ones that doing have were's doing servant work for them aren't going to relish the destabilization of their cushy lives. Without an alpha, Werewolves are few in number and less potent, docile and content to serve other supernatural factions and live off the bones they gnaw, figuratively (sometimes literally.)

With an alpha in play, the game changes. Some weres are so far gone in their servitude that they will fight against them, but others are potential recruits to the cause. The alpha's leadership is primal and magnetic, he is a natural leader among his kind. Of course, the alpha is also in danger. Not all werewolves are apt to follow, particularly if they are kept addicted to drugs or are otherwise being controlled by a rival being. Of course, by the same token, wolves in an alpha's pack are not easy to subvert by mind domination and charm magic; they are bonded in spirit and that much more dangerous. Not only that, the bite of an alpha can make new werewolves. Without an alpha, it's all about who has the wolf-blood, descended from bitten werewolves.

Also, I am thinking there is an ebb and flow to the werewolves and their powers. At the full moon, they are at their most violent and dangerous, whereas the opposite applies at a new moon, it's a time for them to sleep it all off. By the same token, they can rouse themselves to fight. I am definitely looking for them to be able to go to that wolf-man form that the movies like to show off, and maybe see if they do a normal wolf form as well.

What we have here is a skeleton -- in the interest check, people asked "how do were's become were's?" and I came up with the 'bloodlines and alpha's bite' system. Hopefully, we can flesh out the plot and the factions more as we proceed. The alpha's bite is pretty disruptive to the ole bloodlines system, so there's lots of friction to look at there.