Tortoise

Caravan: An Episodic Fantasy with Worldbuilding! [Always Accepting]

Terilu

Terilu gazes down his long snout at the people of the street, these Dinnin, who are staring right back up at him. The sight of him makes faces upturn and eyes widen, people not knowing how to reconcile his strange appearance with the normal range of their experiences. How often do you see a bat-boy? There's a poor old man who looks up at the bat with so much shock, his mouth all rounded like a yawn, that he doesn't even notice his turban slipping back. Terilu laughs at him. This scene is not at all unfamiliar: Terilu is often high over others, and he usually does inspire shock in those who don't have the pleasure of meeting Eratie as part of their drear daily routines (whatever those routines are, Terilu has no interest in them), but what's fun about this instance is that he's also inspiring shock because he's riding on top of a giant. That's a new one.

Galaxor turns his head slightly to him. His bat passenger is grateful that motion doesn't knock him off of the shoulder-ride. The giant asks: "Apologies, little one, but I never caught your name and…what are you again? Not human or dwarf, I think. Unless you people do come in different varieties besides being small." Some of the onlooker's brows crease in an even deeper confusion. Not only is there an Eratie riding on a giant, they wonder, but the giant doesn't even know the creature? Terilu laughs at that, too. In normal circumstances the whole question would irritate him. The Eratie are a great race. All should know of them. But this scene is so comical, he doesn't have enough edge in him to care just now.

He pats the giant on the back- an interesting action, when his back is under you- and says "What am I? Oh, my oversized friend, what a giant-like question to ask. I'm Terilu, Ascendant of the Third Caste and Called by the Reaching Hand, in Form of Baítudatu-Thumilie, of New Dawnlit. That's my full name. But you can call me Terilu. Just don't call me Terry, a human did that once and I was obligated by my honor as an Eratie to turn him into a skeleton." The giant's footsteps were so efficient, they were already approaching the arena. When they reached a point where the buildings seemed to clear out a little, one could just see the outline of an amphitheater on the horizon, thronged with souls hungry to see blood. They weren't the only ones. Ivraan had joined the party, too, occasionally dodging off to the side to buy some street-vendor food that was probably disgusting. "That bit about turning a human into a skeleton was a joke," admitted Terilu, forced into honesty about it in case either the giant or the elf-human-whatever had recently tuned up their moral compasses.

An Ainok picks this time to walk through the crowd far below. Terilu points him out. "Anyway, see, that is what I'm like. An Eratie is a beastrace. We're..." How does one explain this in a way that it could be understood even by a barbarian who doesn't know what sand is? Terilu, struggling to sift through the theology and anatomy and history of it all for the easiest to swallow explanation, at last says, "It's like we're part human and part bat, Galaxor. We were created by a goddess long ago- Ad'Itie, my goddess. She lured humans and elves into a cave, she fused their bodies with the cave-bats, she gave them fresh souls and taught them her ways through a mystical dance. That's when they became the first Eratie. Every kind of bat-man creature like me descends down from them. So the story goes."

The amphitheater was close now. It was a huge, open-air circle of stone, lined up with seats where paying spectators could watch their brutal show. They'd be safe up there. Down in the center is where blood would wet the sand. The opening attraction: a fight between a gladiator, and a hungry lion prodded by cruel handlers into a blood rage. Terilu was looking forward to that. But is wasn't the only thing.

"Hey, Galaxor, Ivraan" says Terilu, "look there-" he points with furry finger where, hardly five steps to the side of the grand entrance, between all the vendors selling their exotic food and souvenirs (who doesn't wish to remember the time they saw a man eaten live by a lion?), there was a sign-up for people who wanted to join the show themselves. Non-lethal fights, you get a chain necklace to show you're a contestant. "I am not going to do it, but I suspect one of you will?"

Dead South: A Southern Gothic Post-Apocalypse

So the question is if I join do you want an unhinged mad scientist with a massive arsenal or an unhinged punk lady with an even more massive arsenal

@Antediluvixen

Mad scientist. Your knowledge base and interests will enable that to be a great character. You also know guns, sure, but a lot of people can do gun lady. You're the only one who will build us a rocket-launcher and a generator from scratch with some stuff you found laying around.

Caravan: An Episodic Fantasy with Worldbuilding! [Always Accepting]

Is there potentially room for another?

@POOHEAD189

Absolutely! There's infinite room. The Caravan is bigger on the inside, I swear

Dead South: A Southern Gothic Post-Apocalypse

Tagging the usual suspects

@Enigmatik@TimeMaster@Crusader Lord@Antediluvixen

Dead South: A Southern Gothic Post-Apocalypse

Dead South

The apocalypse came and it went. It was a vicious disease that killed most every soul it touched, leaving only small handfuls of survivors across the world. The US Southeast was hit the hardest, and that's where you have the bad luck of living. You survived the Plague only to end up stuck here, in this nowhere town called Bluffton, straddling the border between Alabama and Georgia, waiting to get yourself blown to bits by raiders. You joined up with this group because you thought you'd finally be safe. The Jonesgroup, is what it's called, led by an old woman named Mama Jones who says she used to own this land you're living on now. Things weren't so bad at first. There's farming set up, y'all are bringing in just enough to keep yourselves fed, but there's no electricity at all- man, you miss having A/C in this heat- and all the nearby stores have been picked clean of anything valuable already.

Not by the Jonesgroup. That's the problem. There are other groups of survivors out there. Farming-scavenging communities like this one, redneck hunters living like wildmen out in the deep woods, and- unfortunately- some cranked-up, desperate raiders. One of those raiding bands, the Mounted Skulls, have been extorting this group for years. They ride up on their motorcycles, pumping their shotguns, sometimes in broad daylight, sometimes waking you up in the middle of the night, and then leave with sacks full of your hard-grown crops. Last week, you watched Mama Jones finally stand up to them. It was a dramatic scene, that old woman silhouetted in front of the campfire when the Skulls ride up to collect their tribute. You didn't think a woman that age could stand so firm. She told them in clear terms that they'd get nothing more from her- except for bullet-holes, if ever they come back here again.

Most of the Jonesgroup celebrated. But as you look into the campfire tonight, you know: that means they are coming back, and this time it'll be a fight for sure.

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General Idea

This RP is a post-apocalyptic struggle with Southern Gothic themes and a bleak approach towards our situation. We're in a fictitious small town right on the border between Alabama and Georgia, if you were to drive for about an hour east from the ATL. Our characters will be attempting to survive in this now empty, bloody South, but- be warned- they can die. They can also become injured, crippled or ill.

I will be GM'ing, making those kinds of decisions, though I also intend to play as a character of my own. (He can die, too. I will have one or two co-GMs who will decide without bias when my own character is in trouble.) As mentioned in the prose above, we're a part of the Jonesgroup of survivors, living on land that used to belong to an old Southern woman named Mama Jones. Recently we've started denying tribute to a group of raiders that have been taxing us, and we're now expecting to have to fight them.

This is a problem, because we are not at all ready for the fight. Our territory isn't walled or fenced, most of us aren't fighters, we have no electricity or good equipment. So, the early stages of this RP are likely to center around us scrabbling to get things in order before I have the Mounted Skulls show up to test how well we've done.

But, rest assured, that's not all we'll be doing, because...

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The Problem System

The Jonesgroup is a poor group in a world where we can't rely on society any more. We always are facing some kind of challenge, even when the Mounted Skulls raiders aren't coming around. I will keep a running list of current Problems that the group has. This may be a shortage of water, a heat wave that's going to melt us where we stand, or stranger things like an unsolved murder or a mysterious infant appearing at our doorstep. Players can pick what Problems they want to pursue working on, or kick back for a while and interact with one another's characters.

I will update this list as Problems are solved and introduced.

The Jonesgroup's current Problems are:

-No electricity, no refrigeration or AC/Heat
-No fence or wall around our territory
-The Mounted Raiders are coming soon

I prefer statless, numberless RP, so I won't be keeping track of things like the exact amount of food and water and whatevers we have. Rather, I will be going by a narrative. I might say "We're low on water right now," and then when a character goes out and finds a Piggly Wiggly store that still has dozens of packs of bottled water in it, the Problem will be temporarily resolved. If you manage to make a system for purifying water from a nearby stream, instead, then it may be resolved forever.

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The Judgement System

The Judgement System! This is a fancy, dramatic-sounding term for a very simple idea. As mentioned already, I prefer statless RP and I do not like juggling numbers. As also mentioned, your characters can get hurt, or get in trouble, or get dead. The combination of these two facts results in the Judgement System. All it means is that when your character is doing something difficult or risky, you shouldn't say in your post whether they succeed in it or not. Me and the co-GMs will use our best judgement, based on the situation and how you wrote it, to decide on whether what you're trying to do works.

So when you make a post where you, say, attack a bad guy, you'll say something like "Jimbob McCharacter charges at the Mounted Skull raider with his machete, trying desperately to cut him down before he can fix his jammed gun," and me or my co-GM(s) will let you know if it worked before you make your next post. You may then start your next post by writing about your Jimbob McCharacter actually succeeding in cutting down the bad guy. We might also tell you that it worked, but Jimbob got bruised when the Mounted Skull took a swing at him.

This system applies not just for fighting, but for anything significant. Trying to fix an engine, hunting in the woods for food. Smaller things like everyday tasks or firing a few shots that don't hit or whatever won't need to go through this kind of check; use your own best logic. Me and the other GMs will also be subject to this system, since we can each judge one another.

But that's enough boring talk about systems, now. Let me tell you a story...

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How, Exactly, The World Ended

It was a pandemic.

There's something abnormal about some kinds of sickness. The ones that don't just kill the body, but take their time doing it, slowly picking you apart with a hint of malevolence. There's something about it that feels supernatural, in a way that isn't quite adequately explained by germ theory or by the coldly clinical words of the doctors who espouse it. In the throes of a fever, delirious as their body fights for its survival, a sensitive man might swear his sickness was the work of the devil.

The Olive Plague that rolled through the world certainly didn't feel like anything normal. It was a virus that killed everything it touched, sure enough, but it killed slow. Real slow. The sick were debilitated on their beds for months before their microscopic tormentors finally let them die. That was almost the worst of it: the infected had to be taken care of, they needed constant tending-to. The worldwide economy came to a halt as people had to stop working to care for their sick relatives, and then as shutdowns were implemented far too late. Hospitals overflowed, out into the streets, out over entire city blocks covered in make-shift tents for the ill. At the end, roofed football stadiums were filled with the sickbeds. On each of them, the moaning body of someone wishing to be dead. Those who tended to them would soon join them.

Boils forming on your skin were one of the first ways to know you'd been infected. These boils were tan, mid-sized little bubbles that grew out of your face, arms, legs, with a dark red dot in the center of each. In other words, they looked like olives. Hence the name.

Only a lucky few could dodge this fate. Media started calling them the Resistant. People who, due to either lucky genetics or from being one of the few people to survive the Olive and develop a resistance, were immune to the disease. Nobody knew for certain why it was that so few could stand against this plague. Nobody even knew where it came from.

The big theory- as spoken by conspiracy theorists and then by news anchors, by old mamas and eventually by everyone else- was that it must have been man-made. "This came out of some lab somewhere" was a phrase spoken ad nauseam, especially down in the U.S. Southeast, where the pandemic hit the hardest. Something about that region, probably the humid swamp-tainted air, was the perfect breeding ground for the Olive Plague. From New Orleans to Savannah it transformed into a world of the dead, filled with the smell of rotting bodies and a few Resistant trying to escape it all. That was the first region to fall. But the rest of the world, in due time, did join it.

It has been seven years now since the plague swept through. The Resistant were cursed to watch as the human race ended not with a bang or with a whimper, but with the moaning of the diseased. There's nothing left now but the them, and the empty Earth they've inherited.

Some of them started to rebuild. But now, with pre-apocalypse goods starting to give in to age and even canned foods expiring, the fighting over resources begins...

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Interested?

If you've read along this far- congratulations! You're probably interested in joining. And why wouldn't you be? It's an awesome RP idea and you obviously have excellent taste.

The character sheet template is below. My own character sheet will be in the Char tab, hopefully in a day or two, and can serve as an example.

P.S. I have an unfortunate fondness for long sheets that ask you about things like your character's favorite color, and their worst fear, and other nonsense. Most people are wiser than me, and so do not care about these things. If you, like me, are a fool, I've included an optional "extra details" hider within the CS that asks such questions. (At the least, it might help you develop your character a bit!)

Character Sheet

Name

_{(If you've got a picture you're using, right here would be the place to drop it. No anime, por favor- it doesn't fit the vibe)}

Gender, Age, Orientation:
_{Trying to get the little details outta the way. You can just write something like "Male, 32, Straight" and that's chill}

Height and Weight:
_{More important than it sounds. Bigger characters are more intimidating and fight harder close-up. But if we start to run low on food, they'll feel it first.}

Appearance:
_{(You can skip this description if you've got a pic, but it is a nice chance to show off your descriptive writing. Describing people is hard! Get some practice in)}

Life Before the End:
_{Unless your character is younger than seven, they had a life before the Olive Plague tore it apart. What was it like?}

Life Since the End:
_{When the Olive Plague began, the world shook and every life in it changed. Think about how your character was when the disease began sweeping through their home city, their own family and neighbors. Think about what they did once there was almost nobody left except for other frightened survivors, and they had to start fending for themselves.}

Personality:
_{Try to think of how it ties into their history, and into the next section:}

Spark:
_{It isn't easy to survive when the world crumbles. What is it that has kept your character going?}

Skills:
_{What are they good at?}

Role:
_{Unfortunately, unless you're a little kid or an invalid, not even dear Mama Jones can let you stay on her land without working. What work do you do for the Jonesgroup to make up for the food you eat? This should ideally tie in with your character's skills.}

Tools:
_{Now that we know who they are and what they do- what do they need to do it? You don't need to include basic living supplies or less important things in here. Just the big stuff. You don't have to tell me they have a coil of rope under their bunk, but please do tell me if they have a gun or a working vehicle}

Optional: Extra Details

What They Most Want:

If They Had a DnD Alignment, It Would Be:

Do They Follow Their Heart or Their Mind?:

Worst Fear:

Favorite Color:

What animal are they most like?:
_{That is, which animal they are most like, not which one they like the most.}

Favorite Song:

How They Dress:

Thing they most miss about the world before the End:

Rules

1.) No godmodding, no controlling other player's characters.
A basic rule in any RP. You know it, you love it.

2.) Cannot kill or otherwise disable another player's character without permission.
Obvious, yeah, but I like having it written out. Hopefully this won't come up much, since we are all on the same team.

3.) Be realistic about how good your character can fight
Often, those of us who enjoy fantasy, sci-fi or superhero RPs get used to our characters been able to wipe out NPC bad guys without taking much of a hit. In those genres, that works. It will not work here. If there are three raiders and your character is facing them alone, I need a solid reason for how your guy survives. That ties in to the next rule...

4.) Character death and injury can happen
As stated above, character death or injury is a real potential in this RP. I will decide when I think a character should be dead or hurt, or starving or sick or whatevers, but I will always hear you out if you think they should be okay.

Also, if you're working on a character, don't forget to join our Discord. It'll probably be the best place to keep up with the community around this RP and discuss arcs/drama/whatevers together: discord.gg/9HQXunpF8X

Caravan: An Episodic Fantasy with Worldbuilding! [Always Accepting]

@Tortoise Finally finished the character I've been talking about in discord, hope she passes muster

Character Sheet

Eriwyn

Alternate Image

Race, Age, Time in the Caravan:

Elf, 223, Newly Arrived

History:

Eriwyn was raised on stories of the noble hero-kings of ages past by her nursemaid, and the ideals these stories espoused landed and found fertile ground in her young mind. She is the 7th of 11 children of the Duke Aegnor of the Emerald Grove. By the Duke's reckoning, she was the most troublesome by far, caring about more than the family's wealth and power. To the Duke's disappointment, Eriwyn was nearly the polar opposite of her father, caring more for the people of the land than the profits they could produce.

This came to a head when, soon after Eriwyn’s 45th birthday, the capital city of the Emerald Grove was struck by a plague that ripped through the common folk while leaving the noble class relatively untouched. Beg and plead as she might, her father sent little in aid to the commoners who worked his lands, instead sending soldiers to enforce isolation and curfews with brutal authority. While effective at eventually bringing the disease under control, the city and Eriwyn both were devastated as nearly a quarter of the city's population lay dead in mass graves, or drifted away as ash from funeral pyres.

The ravages of the plague, and the shoddy efficacy of her father’s reactive measures, lead to a growing interest in medicine within the young woman, leading her to take up the study of medicine and biology alongside her other studies. This eventually culminated in Eriwyn starting a hobby clinic in the central part of the capital of her father’s Duchy, where she practiced and learned through experience and experimentation. Her father was none too happy, seeing this as below his daughter's station to be working amongst those who needed help but could not pay at a proper facility, or those who had an emergency that she was closest to.

As came to all elven girls of noble birth in their kingdom, on Eriwyn’s 200th birthday she came of age and had her official debut into society, alongside an announcement of her betrothal. Duke Aegnor had arranged a marriage for her that would benefit the family, a marriage to the up-and-coming young Count Beleg of Verdant Lake, whose lands bordered the Duke’s. Unfortunately for Eriwyn, the Count was a callous man whose treatment of his servants and serfs left her aghast.

Soon after learning of her betrothal to Count Beleg, and shortly after meeting the man himself, Eriwyn decided to run away. Over the following months, she carefully arranged for a carriage and horse to be readied through the many friends and connections she’d made through her studies and work in her clinic, before slipping away the night before the wedding and making for the Duchy's border.

Eriwyn traveled under an assumed identity of a well-to-do traveling doctor, charging those who could pay so that she could help those who could not. As she traveled, she heard rumors of the Uttering Monks and their Saying ways, and they reminded her of the whispers she would occasionally hear from her patients' bodies. Thus, she decided to visit them in the hopes of learning more of their arts. She spent nearly 10 years living among them and learning their ways before moving on, as rumors of a missing princess and a search party began to reach the Eld Marshes. With that stop behind her, she continued wandering, stopping wherever there were hospitals and places of learning to be found. During her travels, she supported herself by providing discrete services for nobles for anything from a cure for their son’s sniffles, to a powder to solve their marital issues, while using this money to help commoners and other folk. Eventually found herself in the Hold of Clan Buraq, hoping to learn about their unique biology and medicinal practices from their Shamans.

Personality:

At her core, Eriwyn is an idealist and a pacifist. She is driven by a hatred of suffering in all its forms while craving the knowledge and power to do something about it. As such she has a hard time turning a blind eye to those in need, with little attention for her own safety as she works to save lives.

On the other hand, she also has the long memory and longer lifespan of her people, and is perfectly willing to play the long game to get what she wants, persistently (or stubbornly, depending on who you ask) working towards a goal over the course of years or decades if necessary.

Motivation:

Eriwyn travels to expand her knowledge and help those in need, while also avoiding her betrothed. She knows they were searching for her, but does not know if they still are.

Skills and Strengths:

Eriwyn is a Sayer who speaks the languages of the Body and Plants

Body teaches and does in equal measure, as the body guides and is guided by the mind. A body can tell you what ails it and where the aches and pains are, and can help a doctor figure out the symptoms. It can also stimulate the growth of that once lost, or the modification of what is present. At present, Eriwyn has only used this within the bounds of what is normal for her subjects. She has theorized that going beyond may be possible, but is unwilling to try it on another and nervous about trying it on herself.

Plants speak quickly but do much. A plant may be coaxed to grow faster or out of season if provided with the right conditions and nutrients, or be taught to develop more potent versions of its properties, medicinal or otherwise. If properly prepared, a Plant-speaker can create medicines and rudimentary structures, or root their opponents to the ground with grasping vines.

Medical Professional: Eriwyn has spent nearly 100 years learning, practicing, and refining her medical skills with the knowledge available in her home. She can treat most normal ailments and accomplish other mundane medical tasks with what is on hand, and with her Utterance can even perform surgery and other invasive techniques with lessened risk.

Horticulture: With the help of her magic and many years of practice as a lady's art, Eriwyn has a green thumb and keeps a compact but flourishing garden on/in the roof of her wagon. The centerpiece of this garden is what she calls her rapid growth pots, which she uses to grow medicinal herbs and other useful plants as necessary

Unnatural Charisma: Eriwyn was always an outgoing woman, and learning Utterance only furthered this. She has a natural charisma about her that is bolstered by the vibrant aura of life and growth that flows with her every motion, catching and holding most people's attention and making every doctor's dream of a patient that actually listens come true.

Weaknesses:

Pacifist: Eriwyn refuses to kill any sentient creature, no matter the circumstances, and will only defend herself with what she sees as the minimum amount of necessary force. Her fathers rule over his lands and the effects it had on its citizens left her with a deep-seated distaste for violence in all its forms, though her time on the road has taught her that having to defend oneself is sometimes unavoidable.

Naive: Eriwyn is wise to dark concepts like death and sadness, but is often unaware of the darker uses for many techniques and medicines and the finer points of betrayal and sabotage, and even though she has lived over two centuries most of that was sheltered within the halls of her family's holdings or the Royal court.

Stubborn Pride: Eriwyn can change her mind, and have it changed, but if she has firmly decided on a course of action it is incredibly difficult to change her course without physical intervention.

Tools:

Eriwyn has extensive medical supplies within her wagon, and has a pack she carries with her of the essentials. She also carries small balls of seeds packed in with dirt and fertilizers in a separate pack along with some basic sampling supplies. She also has her garden as part of her wagon, and the main room can also be converted to a doctors office when she is seeing a patient.

Optional: Extra Details

What They Most Want:
For her family and her betrothed to forget her.

If They Had a DnD Alignment, It Would Be:
Neutral Good

Three Likes:
Meeting new people
Helping others
Seeing new sights

Three Dislikes:
Violence
Greed
Suffering

Do They Follow Their Heart or Their Mind?:
Heart

Worst Fear:
Losing a patient she could have saved, no matter the reason.

Favorite Color:
Green

Most Like The Animal:
Golden Retriever

Favorite Time of Day:
Morning, with dew still upon the leaves

How They Dress:
At the intersection of fancy and practical

Favorite Season:
Spring

What Gods/Spirits/Whatevers They Worship (If Any):
Eriwyn follows the Wanderer, and holds great respect for Eld Frowen.

@Sylvan

An excellent character. A simple concept at first glance (wandering doctor), but given more depth by your writing and the way you thought her out, and by the way you connect it to the creations of other players. I noticed Expendable's Wanderer deity made an appearance as well as Utterance ;P

Approved. You can dump her in the Char tab and start posting whenevers. We should probably discuss how you intend to introduce her to the Caravan soon, unless you just want to wing it and have her bump into some Pilgrims along the way.

GATEWAYS: THE NEXT GENERATION [CLOSED AND CONCLUDED]

@Enigmatik

Hahaha yeah no worries, I’ll cut the jokes but it’s largely complete tbh. I was just bored and inserted too much humour into the sheet just cause the concept of talking cows is too much of a low hanging fruit. There are obviously the makings of an absolutely dystopian nation being made there, just sprinkled with too much humour

Edit: I mean, I should cut out the nuclear fission based rockets right? Right? Right?

The fun I’ll have with this nation is that they need to breed to make technological progress haha

@SgtEasy

Remember how I nicknamed your last guys the Khanapes before any one else got to it?

Well, this is the Cowllective. I gotta get that in writing before someone else says it.

GATEWAYS: THE NEXT GENERATION [CLOSED AND CONCLUDED]

I've got something else to be considered, sort of a meme yet utterly created for my fun mwahahaha

@SgtEasy

*Moohahaha

GATEWAYS: THE NEXT GENERATION [CLOSED AND CONCLUDED]

<Snipped quote by Tortoise>

If only I had the drive to continue a Khanape story. I always thought about the implications of a nation built up of uplifted cattle where only its upper echelons were aware of the extensive genocide of their predecessor species

That would be funny!

@SgtEasy

Well, without wanting to ruin the moment, I will put on my GM hat again long enough to remind you that we're always open. And since this second take on Gateways has a much slower pace than the first Gateways did, it's a very chill RP to be involved with. You can post once every two or three months and people will barely blink an eye. So, if any smol part of you is at all interested in taking up the Khanapes again, we could have fun with them ;P

GATEWAYS: THE NEXT GENERATION [CLOSED AND CONCLUDED]

Just an old AFKer and former player of the old Gateways popping by to say that it’s nice to see the new Gateways doing well:) If health issues hadn’t cropped up, I would have stayed to the end of the old one!

Good shit @Enigmatik @Tortoise

@SgtEasy

Ah! We were just talking about the Khanapes the other day, believe it or not. I can still hear the people sing, singing the song of angry men...