NewSun — Roleplayer Guild

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Hold on to your memories, weary traveller. 
T h e y  A r e  A l l  Y o u  H a v e  L e f t

B e t w i x t

–t h e–
E t e r n a l

༒
L i g h t

You are entirely unsure as to how you came to be here. Like the rest of we wretched souls, you awakened here without warning. You opened your eyes and were greeted with the sight of this dying world, not the lush lands of home; but even of that most treasured place, you remember little. You find yourself holding on to memories that are fading rapidly to the timeless winds of this silent hell, like a dream, you flit between lands of relentless and harrowing sorrow. These lands are vast and disheartening, they seem to encroach upon you as you saunter through the valleys of ashen sand and bone. The days are a lingering twilight, a doubtful sun never gathering the resolve to peer across the horizon and lay light upon the world; the nights are an endless scramble for some semblance of safety. Horrors of the most eldritch, sinister kind stalk the plains and slither the halls and, like looming ghosts of some time past, silently transit the sky. 
Transience in this world is hard to come by; ephemerality existing only in companionship found amongst the rotted trees and crumbling citadels. It is somewhat heartening to know that others endlessly struggle against the same fate as you, but hark, take heed, eventually all fall prey to this relic of a land; that no King calls his own, and where no lowly peasant tolls the fields.  

You conclude that you have died. You have unknowingly wandered into the land beyond at the hands of an unmerciful soul or something just as ruinous. You have walked for months, undying, through all manner of hellish conditions, simply to continue to the horizon. You have found yourself cowering in the deepest dark to avoid the malicious, hungering gaze of the denizens of this world, and you have found yourself battered by the unrelenting cold of a starless sky. You are fading, you are becoming empty. A husk of what you previously were, and you find your very essence weakening. Every day becomes a struggle to step forward... Until you, seemingly without hope, spy the tracks of another trailing into the hazed horizon... A mountain always resides on the dusty skyline, never coming closer, nor lurching away. You know now that this is where you must go – you know now that these tracks are your road to salvation. But for all your resilience, you do not know why.  

Hold on to your memories. They are all you have left. Mortal iron only lasts so long in these lands.     

གཐ༸༧༦ག ༱༯༲གཐ༸ ཀྵོཋཨཧ༸ཬེ རཐ༸༦༧༲ག ཐ༸

༱གཬ ས༸༦༧ ༯༲གཐ༸ ས༱ཐ༸ཬེ ཨཧཀྵོཋ རཐ༸༦༧

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Premise

The premise of Betwixt the Eternal Light is simple. You have died; you are alone and terrified within the undeniably hellish and disturbing world of beyond. You are lightly armed, but that alone will not be sufficient to defend yourself against the beasts that walk the land. This is a roleplay that is about the characters, and how a cast of individuals who are only just discovering themselves come together (or indeed break apart) in such nightmarish conditions. Your character is essentially without hope, until he or she stumbles across the tracks of another: surely the one of, if not the first other lost soul you have yet come across during your time in this otherworldly land. Perhaps they have answers? Perhaps they know a way out? 
You will be led on an adventure of unrelenting darkness and brutality. Everything will be done to ensure the utmost misery in every character involved; they will die and reawaken and likely die again. You will meet a host of NPCs who will test the resolve of the characters, and you will discover the unsettling truth of the world you have been forced into. You will explore the darkest of ancient castles from a bygone era, stumble through the deepest crypts of demonic souls, and scale the heights and descend the depths of the land's filthiest swamps and frigid mountains.

But what creatures lurk in the haze of this sickened realm? Perhaps some of unimaginable power lie dormant in the squalor and sand; perhaps the most chilling fiends of this place are the answer to the questions you may have.  

But remember that there is a fine line between retaining your sanity, and loosing all that connects you to the world you came from before.

གཐ༸༧༦ག ༱༯༲གཐ༸ ཀྵོཋཨཧ༸ཬེ རཐ༸༦༧༲ག ཐ༸

༱གཬ ས༸༦༧ ༯༲གཐ༸ ས༱ཐ༸ཬེ ཨཧཀྵོཋ རཐ༸༦༧

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Characters

Characters in this ragged, forsaken world are with little hope, they are equipped with no more than the most basic of mortal items. They do not recall their names, nor their full pasts; most do not realise the tragic fate they have succumbed to, many simply believing themselves to be trapped in a corporeal realm of twisted abandon. You are mere men and mer, and you were nothing special in life – at least not that you can remember. You are all the same in this place, sheltered by naught but the furs upon your back, perhaps with nothing but a dilapidated wooden shield to hide from the horrors of night.

While humans are the primary focal race of the RP, player characters can be implied to be races of mer, under the strict compromise that they in some way defy the archetypical standard and have some unique twist to them. You could write your sheet like that, but seeing as race isn't actually a field in the CS skeleton itself and characters don't really know what they are, it's more of a fluff factor than anything that needs to be truly expanded upon. 

Given Name
No character can truly recall their name given to them in the world from before. This field indicates only the name that your character has given themselves, or that which others refer to them by.

Appearance
Every soul that is lost in this hellish world has characteristics by which they can be distinguished. Detail them here. Pictures are accepted, but must be accompanied by a written description. No anime.

Equipment
What worldy possessions has your character awoken with? Every lost soul finds themselves in this world with at the very least a few – armaments included. This also extends to things like food rations and the like. Keep it mundane, nobody wakes with magical items.

Memories
The lost souls in this world retain but a few, fleeting and dreamlike memories of the life they lived before, but such memories are obscure and puzzled. List them here, presented in whatever format you choose. Keep it vague and mysterious, though! Try to list at least three.
Upon death, a character will lose one (or more, depending on number) of these at random, as to be specified by the GM.

Awakening
Characters here do not have recallable histories, so use this field as a space to sample writing and give us a feel for your character. Give us a taster of the very first moments of your character's awakening in this world. It is important to really detail the kind of character they are in this section. Nail it and you're on your way to an amazing character!

གཐ༸༧༦ག ༱༯༲གཐ༸ ཀྵོཋཨཧ༸ཬེ རཐ༸༦༧༲ག ཐ༸

༱གཬ ས༸༦༧ ༯༲གཐ༸ ས༱ཐ༸ཬེ ཨཧཀྵོཋ རཐ༸༦༧

Death

You may not pass from this world. Your life force cannot be released. You are living in an eternal Hell, every death is merely a reawakening at a cost of a piece of yourself. If you find your fate sealed in this immortal land, you will merely awaken once more, as you did upon entering, with more memories faded into the ether and your wounds glaring and more painful than when they were fresh. Your body however, still needs food and water to continue to function; sleep is a necessity too. Without such physical complements, your very flesh will begin to pale and wither, but your mind will be aware of the suffering you endure. Be careful not too lose grip of your life in these lands, for your memories are all that you have left.

Functionally, death in Betwixt the Eternal Light will have one major function: to strip characters of their memories (ergo, their remaining humanity). While characters cannot permanently die, if an individual were to loose to much of themselves to this land, then they would become little more than a mindless beast wandering the plains for eternity. 
Be wary, instakills are a distinct possibility should your character put themselves in danger, but do not be disheartened, it is all a part of the roleplay's premise. 

C u r r e n t  D e a t h  C o u n t
7

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What Lurks in the Land Betwixt

There are no grunts in this world, no 'basic' sword-fodder monsters. Everything and anything is capable of ending your character in one fell swing; take no chances, and do not overly aggress in situations unwinnable. There is no plot armour in this land. 

Perhaps on your travels through this world you have seen indicators of what exactly inhabits the plane alongside you? A shadow cast by a great ten-winged beast with fourteen scorpion tails and the head of a wailing banshee? A cadre of robed figures marching in the distance, their masks covered in parched flesh of men and mer alike? Maybe you were privy to the sound of the blood curdling laughing of the Tainted Idols? A beautiful angelic creature that turns its own robes inside out to reveal a disturbingly vacant skeleton underneath. Perhaps you caught the tracks of the Weeping Hydra, a creature of colossal, serpentine nature with bloody teared eyes resemble that those of a distraught child's.

Perhaps you have never encountered such creatures in your time here, perhaps you have and have fled. Perhaps you have stood your ground and paid the price. It matters not, for you know there is no glory to be found here. 

B e a s t i a r y

THE SILENCER

S t a t u s
ALIVE

L o c a t i o n
The Blind Forest

T y p e
UNIQUE - LEGENDARY

Woe and dread betide those whose only comfort and company may be the sound of their own voice. Those that enter The Blind Forest would be best advised to stay their tongues and tread softly, for the forest is known to have ears. Rumour has it that a creature lurks within, lured by the voices of careless Wanderers and the crazed Empty. It has no eyes—not anymore—and only listens, waits, and stalks upon its prey, seeking to destroy those who would break its sacred silence.

To those that bear witness to The Silencer, it is a tall being of uncertain shape, bathed in literal shadow until the moment it strikes. It is capable of changing its shape, and lurks behind or beyond vision, obscured by the darkness of the Land Betwixt and the ever-present fog of the Blind Forest. Always, it wears a bone white mask where its head should be, on it drilled a visage vaguely resembling a cynical smile. Its strike is swift and its patience is eternal, and it will always come from behind the unwary traveller to lift from the legs with spindly yet powerful arms and a painful grip. A powerful blow to the back of the head follows, incapacitating the prey before a scythe-like incision is made upon the throat, beginning the slow process of bleeding one dry.

At the verge of death, when the voice is stifled and the traveler with no hope of survival, it turns them around, lifting to look them in the eyes before it lifts its shadows to reveal a gaping maw.

B e a s t i a r y

LAMENTOR

S t a t u s
ALIVE

L o c a t i o n
The Broken Crypt

T y p e
UNIQUE - MYTHIC

Certain legends from the Mortal World speak of such a creature that supposedly guarded the gateway to Purgatory; originating as two, separate elite guards of some unknown God who was charged with the absolute defence of the underworld, his two protectors - after centuries of restless onlooking - are said to have fallen in love and in turn conspired to kill their creator so they could be free together. This malcious, ancient, unnamed God uncovered their conspiracy to be together and promptly put a terrible end to their dreams and their heresy. 
The two were supposedly fused together in some abhorrent ritual, their eyes ripped from their heads and encased within great cages of stone, their tongues mutilated and burned so they could not share a word for the rest of eternity. As the final punishment, they were finally cast into some dark, hellish land to suffer for forever. It is said that they have since been driven mad by the lashes of time. 
This is how they have gained the name that is feared so widely. They are said to lament every moment they rebelled against their God.

B e a s t i a r y

BLOOD GOLEM

S t a t u s
MULTIPLE

T y p e
CONJURED

It is possible, if one searches with enough vigour, that certain obscure and somewhat macabre objects may be found in strange corners of the Land Betwixt. Piles of flesh and blood, from a source unknown, gathered by sinister and elusive Empty men who use such collections for even more sinister purposes. The mechanism by which they conjure forth the so-called 'Blood Golems' is entirely unknown besides to those who are already privy to the knowledge. What is known, however, is the ferocity of their product. Massive and utterly repulsive, the Blood Golems drip with glistening ichor and their bodies are as though they are composed entirely of deep, fresh, strenuous wounds. Sometimes crowns of bone frame their demonic heads, but it depends on the foul Empty who created such a beast. Their roars are the definition of bloodcurdling, and to cross one is nearly certain death; the rebellious individual who does not respect their strength will oftentimes find themselves torn to pieces, and awaken once more far from where they dared cross such an animate monster.

B e a s t i a r y

Corpse Roach

S t a t u s
MULTIPLE

T y p e
INDIGENOUS

Only during the days of the Winter Star, after the Light has Turned to that of the grey stone, will the darkness be further accentuated by the ominous and terrifying beating of wings. The Corpse Roaches will come forth on the darkest of days, and in great number. Ravenous they are, and will stop at nothing to feed upon rotting flesh, killed at their own hands. With six pairs of razor sharp talons and wings constructed of unusual, mucus-lined membranes, topped with a head that seems to resemble that of some malformed human, these beasts truly are creatures to be afraid of. It is said that these are perhaps the once-human victims of some even more malicious force in the Land Betwixt, but some say that they are as old as the land itself, just a demonstration of the venom of the land; that such corrupted beasts could be the indigenous fauna of the poison world.

B e a s t i a r y

Abyssal Spider

S t a t u s
MULTIPLE

T y p e
INDIGENOUS

Why this beast has so many spindly, winding arms and hands is a mystery. Perhaps each one that seems to wave independently from it's grotesque, malformed mass is infact just another that it has removed from its many victims, attaching it to itself out of sheer, repulsive pleasure. Perhaps this creature maintains its sanity by dismembering the wanderers of the Land Betwixt and making them a part of itself so that it, in turn, may better accommodate more hapless lost souls. We can only speculate. However we do know that this beast moves silently through dead forests and across empty plains, stalking prey for miles upon miles before reaching its innumerable hands around them for an embrace... What comes after we dare not think.

B e a s t i a r y

BLINDED MEN

S t a t u s
MULTIPLE

T y p e
EMPTY

The freshly Empty who wander aimlessly in the Land Betwixt are often found by those who have been Empty for unimaginable lengths of time. Such creatures have become so mad with the incompleteness of themselves that they make ordinary insanity seem tame. When fresh Empty Men are found by certain individuals they are dragged to some hellish pit that is nigh unfindable and they are then made slaves to whatever foul creature concocts such nightmarish schemes. Their eyes are ripped from their faces and they are forced to scour the land for their master, unknowing of why.

This section will be updated as more are discovered.

གཐ༸༧༦ག ༱༯༲གཐ༸ ཀྵོཋཨཧ༸ཬེ རཐ༸༦༧༲ག ཐ༸

༱གཬ ས༸༦༧ ༯༲གཐ༸ ས༱ཐ༸ཬེ ཨཧཀྵོཋ རཐ༸༦༧

Magic, Powerful Artefacts, and Memories

What treasures one can find in this world is a fact that is unknowable. Some wretched souls truly believe that they can be released from their torment should they fully realise their past selves, that memories themselves hold power. Some scholarly types who have since devolved into madness would have, once, been inclined to agree. Beasts here siphon memories upon killing as if to stave off madness themselves, and even the mad will kill in a vain attempt to clamour together a patchwork mosaic of foreign memories to stave off the emptiness. Perhaps all creatures that now walk this plane were once like you, but now twisted by the foul nature of their existence. 

Some claim that items of untold power will come to those who remain connected to their world, a physical representation of the power of memories. While there is no magic in this land, the presence of such 'Memeria' is perhaps the closest thing to it.

Perhaps you have heard a passing tale, or read a long carved note, mentioning certain Memeria that have been left by the strongest to have walked this land: 'The Spear of the Doomsayer' is said to lay deep within the deepest crypt at the foot of a lonely mountain, the mighty sword 'Skybrand' is supposedly dormant and buried within the unfindable Tree of Heresy. There are many hidden in the world, some more powerful than others. 

M e m e r i a

J o h n  C l e a v e r  T h e  P o r t r a i t

This is a mirror into perhaps another world, to another time and place; one beyond the poison realm of the Land Betwixt. It is a beautiful locket that has manifested from some unknown force, contained within is a portrait of something that John cannot share, something that he keeps to himself, something he keeps personal. It s a perfect likeness of something beautiful, and gazing upon it gives immeasurable strength to the man who perhaps was a disappointment to those left in his life. The rim of the heart-shaped pendant is engraved with a few words, most of which are worn away or scratched off; only two are still legible: ‘Dearest John’. 

Whilst the painterly child has this locket resting at his heart, the ravages of the world will not touch him, hunger and thirst give way to the power contained within, but to him, and him alone. 
If John were to sacrifice the memory, then perhaps the sickened world he now finds himself in would, for a time, perhaps mirror that of the world John was born into, and maybe it would harbour fruits and game and running water; a small space of a land without hope would become an oasis, a beacon in the darkest of nights… just like the subject of The Portrait so dear to John.
As the group discovers different Memeria, they will appear in full detail in this section.

གཐ༸༧༦ག ༱༯༲གཐ༸ ཀྵོཋཨཧ༸ཬེ རཐ༸༦༧༲ག ཐ༸

༱གཬ ས༸༦༧ ༯༲གཐ༸ ས༱ཐ༸ཬེ ཨཧཀྵོཋ རཐ༸༦༧

Other, Hopeless Souls

You are not the only lost souls wandering the Land Betwixt. Many find themselves here; most go mad within days and lose themselves to the emptiness, but some stave off the end for longer. Many of them hide themselves away to live eternally in fear of this place, and some will be found mindlessly and carelessly trudging through the land of mist and night. Some may even be willing to join you for a time, others will try to kill you for your memories, but they exist and they, like you, are frightened and alone. Tread carefully around these souls, for you can never know truly who is an ally and who is an adversary. 

NPCs will be archived in this section, alongside their own section in the character tab.

N P C  C h a r a c t e r

The Turncloak King
༒

S t a t u s 
Dead / Unknown

གཐ༸༧༦ག ༱༯༲གཐ༸ ཀྵོཋཨཧ༸ཬེ རཐ༸༦༧༲ག ཐ༸

༱གཬ ས༸༦༧ ༯༲གཐ༸ ས༱ཐ༸ཬེ ཨཧཀྵོཋ རཐ༸༦༧

Here is a Man who shows not his face as he walks, and walk long and far does he. His armour is heavy and stifling, yet it phases him not. Few are graced with conversation with the Turncloak Blade, and fewer still are given the honour of traveling alongside him. He seems to have come from no place, and his memories are all but faded. Some say he is a wandering husk, ready to strike out against those who approach on a whim. Others disagree and say he is a gentle heart contained within an irremovable clad of cold steel. His halberd seems to be coated fresh with the blood of a new creature every day, whether the blood is of human or otherwise origin is not known to many. 
Perhaps you have caught the glimpse of his footsteps amidst the dust, or perhaps you have even seen his suit glistening in the horizon, befallen by the thin, wintery light. He seems to have purpose and direction. Those wise souls who have been granted the chance to trace his steps would do well to take the opportunity. But do not anger this hulk of a Man, and do not push him. His blade hungers for the kill, and he is only so inclined to disregard that desire.

N P C  C h a r a c t e r

The Rusted Knight

S t a t u s
ALIVE

He was a man once, wasn’t he? Possibly even a knight, but maybe he had just been a brigand who stole the now rusted armor and claymore. He was a man amongst the living with a life and a story… right? He resembled a man at the very least, although his skin was discolored and drawn tight over his bones from starvation, dehydration, and the many deaths he has suffered. Surely he could have not just been born to this land of death and misery, but there was nothing left of his life if there was a life before this land. Nothing… except for her and the bastard that had stolen her from him. She was his… she was his.HIS.

No… no, she wasn’t. Not anymore. He had stolen her from him, but how? How had he stolen her? Did he kill her or woo her? It was impossible to tell anymore. All he remembered was this land now, the blurred face of a woman and another man, but that bastard was in this land with him. He had reawakened him from his slumber slumped up against one of the petrified trees. He killed him, but his body vanished from beneath his boot. The bastard had returned though and managed to escape with only a gash on his side. Now he must stalk the bastard and make him suffer like he has suffered.

N P C  C h a r a c t e r

The Old Hermit Wanderer

༒

S t a t u s 
ALIVE

གཐ༸༧༦ག ༱༯༲གཐ༸ ཀྵོཋཨཧ༸ཬེ རཐ༸༦༧༲ག ཐ༸

༱གཬ ས༸༦༧ ༯༲གཐ༸ ས༱ཐ༸ཬེ ཨཧཀྵོཋ རཐ༸༦༧

An old man sometimes shows himself to the intrepid wanderers and those oftentimes considered lucky travellers of the poison lands. His name is known to very few, if any at all still remember it; instead he simply goes by an uncomplicated moniker such as 'The  Hermit' or 'The Old Wanderer'. But it is an undoubted and unanimous understanding between all those he makes company with that he is not a man to be trifled with. Whether this is derived from the kindness he shows to his fellow lost souls, or from some other, more esoteric phenomena is unknown. His eyes are incredibly alive for a man of his age - he hobbles instead of walking - which some infer as the clarity of his mind after what one can only assume is a lifetime of being caged in a land such as this.

གཐ༸༧༦ག ༱༯༲གཐ༸ ཀྵོཋཨཧ༸ཬེ རཐ༸༦༧༲ག ཐ༸

༱གཬ ས༸༦༧ ༯༲གཐ༸ ས༱ཐ༸ཬེ ཨཧཀྵོཋ རཐ༸༦༧

A N D  P E R H A P S  W H E N  A L L  I S  S A I D  A N D  D O N E
Y o u  A c c e p t  A  F a t e  T h a t  S h a l l  N o t  B e  R e s p u n

Y O U  S E E  Y O U R  P L A C E  E T E R N A L L Y  F I X E D
T r a p p e d  F o r e v e r  I n  T h e  L a n d  B e t w i x t

༒

གཐ༸༧༦ག ༱༯༲གཐ༸ ཀྵོཋཨཧ༸ཬེ རཐ༸༦༧༲ག ཐ༸

༱གཬ ས༸༦༧ ༯༲གཐ༸ ས༱ཐ༸ཬེ ཨཧཀྵོཋ རཐ༸༦༧

DJ: Precisely! I love those games, so expect similarities :)

Somebody sure likes Dark Souls. You're not alone. ;)

Some more questions here if you'll indulge me, NewSun.

-Do characters age? Life and death are, after all, convoluted in this world.

-By the same token, do characters need food and drink to survive, or are they relieved of those needs since they cannot permanently die?

-How exactly does the whole resurrection thing work? Are their bodies fully repaired when it happens? What of their equipment? And do they awaken in the same spot that they died, or somewhere else? (Near a bonfire? ^^)

-Since you liken it to a fantasy setting in some regards, is magic a thing? If yes, how does it work, how is it limited, etc.?

-In how far are fantasy races a thing? Personally speaking I am not very thrilled by seeing orcs and elves and dwarves, but it's your setting. Did you have anything like that in mind, or is it just humans? Or maybe some more creative species?

-Do all characters actually come from the same world, or is this setting some kind of focal nexus where perhaps multiple realities converge and characters from various places could end up?

This is probably a mouthful, so thanks in advance for your patience and time.@Ashgan

-Yes, characters age, albeit in a way that feels exceptionally slow. Time flows in such a way that wandering the world is perceived an agonising and lengthy process. The idea is that a character's soul (or life force or what have you) cannot escape the realm, but the physical form of a wandering person still degrades with time; the end result being that a fully living wanderers body will fail so much that they eventually they become an inanimate, yet conscious husk of a being after an extraordinary length of time. 

-No, they do not need food and water to survive, only to keep their bodies going. The lack of the physical essentials has the same effect that it would on a living human, with the single difference in that the body will not outright die. 

-The reawakening will work in a way similar to a person awakening from a dream: they are dazed and confused, but ultimately in a similar state to that when they 'died'. Say for instance a character had their head lopped the f*** off, they would awaken again in an agonising state of pain and confusion, unable to completely remember what had happened, with a gash in their neck and their equipment scattered about them, likely certain items lost to the ether. I had not planned for distinct resurrection points, but I will consider it. 

-Not through characters directly, I would imagine magic does not extend to this realm of beyond through normal means if it ever did exist above (that detail, however, is not remembered by the characters, nor does it matter). However, certain magical items that reside in the world would be capable of unleashing magical powers should they be wielded. Each item of course would be specified and have their own pros and cons, ect. 

-Personally, I am an advocate of dark fantasy, so if it were up to me I would limit it only to humans. That said, I know people can be extremely creative when it comes to new interpretations of fantasy archetypes, so I am not going to limit it to only humans, on the condition that all races used are humanoid, and if any version of the standard 'elf, orc, dwarf' types are used, they maintain their own unique style and twist. 

-I envision that all characters come from the same world; but as it is pretty nondescript, you have freedom of definition there. Not as though you will require a character history, though. 

I hope I answered all your questions.

NewSun Member

ᛏᚨᚲᛖ ᛗᛖ ᛏᛟ ᚦᛖ ᛋᚢᚾ ᚨᚾᛞ ᚠᚨᚱ ᛒᛖᛃᛟᚾᛞ ᚦᛖ ᚲᛚᛟᚢᛞᛋ

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