I have an idea.
But, as with many ideas, this one comes with some doubts.
One of them, the more boring and mundane one, is that of simply time - from mid-April to early May, I'll be out of country, and since it is work rather than vacation, I may just come to be that I'll either be only able to cram in a short reply or two, or not be able to reply at all. Would that be something you can work with? (Alternatively, would this RP be open for applications later on?) What do you expect the average turnover for posts to be in general? I personally only dare to promise roughly one post per week to take account of all possible times of excess preoccupation. At worst, I will still post once in two weeks.
The other doubts are more related to the RP itself, and the world it takes place within. I have a very distinct type of character in mind, as well as a potential progression through subsequent awakenings, should any come to occur in the story (naturally depends on whether said character of mine gets themselves killed or not ... I'm actually rather inclined to start out with my character's second or third awakening, not the first - but I fear it might go too far from the intended purpose of the RP, so I'm not sure whether I could actually do it).
Without revealing too much, I'd focus less on hopelessness and fear (not all people are the same, and thus won't react even remotely the same, either) and more on transformation, for the lack of a better term. Progression. Would that eventually lead to a monster like those described wandering the planes - who might not be as mindless as implied - or something else entirely, not even I know yet. It all depends on the IC and what said character is subjected to.
Now, some integral questions. Is it possible for the physical form to change from one awakening to the next? Same - is it possible to the personality to alter in ways it simply could not in living beings? Do beings generally retain the memories from previous awakenings, or are they "wiped" after each? I would like my character to only retain some (brief scenes or images of whatever left the strongest impressions on them in IC), and for those to mingle with the "living" memories and perhaps contort them, slowly replacing rather than erasing them. I'll also hint that not all memories may necessarily be true to begin with, but rather snippets of dreams or imaginations - even the human brain simply makes things up all the time without us realizing it, after all... Finally, would it be feasible for me to start out with a non-first awakening (to ... further along things a bit)?
...Also, what is a "mer"? I do pardon myself if it is a silly and ignorant question.
Those things said and asked, should it be at all possible for me to fit in my character as I intended and envisioned them, I'll put together a CS by next Monday the latest.
To address your first question: yes, I can indeed work with your down-time. I understand that all people have different circumstances and are able to post at different frequencies. I'm sure we can find a way to explain the absence of your character during that time. If you wished to present an application
after being away, that would also be agreeable. It really depends on what would be preferable for you. I think it would be bad to essentially lock the RP to new cast members after the initial influx. You've got to keep it fresh, right?
Like Ashgan already mentioned, his/her character is already past the state of first awakening, and I imagine several other characters are too. The Awakening field in the CS is a historical recount of the character's first moments, and is no way indicative of the actual amount of time any given character has been trapped in the world. That is a fact that is left to each player's design.
Okay, so memories, awakening, and reawakening happens in a couple of stages that I, so far, have left mostly to imagination. A newly awakened character will have a whole bunch of memories intact because they are the closest to their world, and every subsequent 'death' strips characters of their memories. This leads to them getting madder and madder at this disconnection to themselves. When all memories have been depleted, they become 'Empty', just wandering husks of people who will kill just to attain the memories of some other creature so they can once again feel like
somebody. If an empty soul is killed, they will reawaken again, but their reawakening is not like before, as they have no memories to sustain them. From here they begin to deform and change – they become the myriad of creatures that walk the land, depending on who they were, of course. From this point, one cannot revert themselves back to their human form, and memories gathered through the act of killing –once they have become these horrific creatures– simply serves to temporarily sate an otherwise insatiable hunger.
Whether or not your character could 'change forms' between awakenings depends really on how drastic these changes were.
And you're right, after a time, not all memories will be true. You will eventually find yourself with a score of false memories, taken from others (on purpose, or accidentally) that will seem real but do not seem to fit in with the other, true memories your character retains. You could start in IC as far along this cycle as you saw fit.
Mer, as Ashgan pointed out, refers to other humanoid races. It was only really added in to cover the RP in case anybody wanted to play a non-human, but I fully expect the cast to be 95-100% Human.
