Tortoise

Dead South: A Southern Gothic Post-Apocalypse

Killa'

Name

_{Ashley “Killa’” Lost}

Gender, Age, Orientation:
_{Female, 16, Bisexual}

Height and Weight:
_{1.62 m, 46 kg}

Life Before the End:
<sub>Even before the End, Ashley’s life was bad, very bad. She was the youngest of a family of 5, with a mother working 3 jobs and a deadbeat drunk dad who abused them after every bender.

Butch and Willow, Ashley’s oldest siblings, the twins, took care of the house when the mother was working. Their life soon turned even worse when another sibling was born and the father went crazy. In the years that followed, when Ashley was around 3, Butch killed their father after in a drunken haze, killed their mother.

Ashley can’t remember much about the time before the End but time passed and the first cases of the Olive Plague were detected</sub>

Life Since the End:
<sub>The Lost family, like countless others, were infected with the Olive Plague. Despite the initial hope that some might be immune or a cure will be found, the virus claimed all but three. Butch, the oldest brother, Willow, the eldest sister, and young Ashley were the sole survivors.

Butch, alongside a few of his new prison friends, escaped prison and, wanting to protect what remained of his family and take advantage of a world without laws, founded "The Butchers," a ruthless group of raiders. Composed entirely of former convicts or those who should have faced murder charges, The Butchers were relentless. They killed anyone that got into their way, enslaved the rest.

Under Butch's influence, Willow forgot her kind-hearted self and became a self-proclaimed torture master within the ranks of The Butchers, enjoying making others scream for hours upon hours before killing them. Ashley, still a mere child, grew up surrounded by the worst of humanity.

As Ashley grew up, she took her first life at the age of 10. A right of passage they called it to teach her how to be a “woman”. And by the time she was 14, Ashley found herself in charge of a smaller crew within The Butchers, a position that came with its own challenges. The members of her crew, underestimating the young girl, posed a constant threat, kept in check only by the fear of Butch.
By the age of 15, Ashley was a feared raider leader. Using her two blades to cut through anyone that even gave her a sidelong glance and bearing numerous scars, she was given the nickname “Killa’” by the Butchers after she cut down a family of 4, all on her own.
Sadly, for Killa’ her destiny seemed to be different than being killed by someone looking for food. One day during a raid on a farmhouse, a place that served as a home base for other survivors, Ashley found herself separated from her crew and found herself taken hostage. Her captors, wary of retaliation from The Butchers, kept her alive as an insurance policy.
As the group moved south, Ashley bid her time until an opportunity for escape presented itself. She managed to escape, by pure luck after a group of raiders attacked the group which provided enough of a distraction. Finding herself in Columbus, she was lost. Not knowing where the Butchers are, she wandered around and found Mama Jones’s camp. With the survivors at Mama Jones’s unaware of her past or her reputation, this proved the perfect opportunity to scout this group, learn their weaknesses, numbers and hiding spots. Butch would surely come one day, after all and the best way for him to forgive her mistake, would be to offer him something good.</sub>

Personality:
_{Killa’ is what one might have called in the world pre-End a sociopath. She cares little about her fellow man with little to no empathy. Short-tempered and cunning, using her fellow man to get what she needs.}

Spark:
_{Her family. From almost day 1, The Butchers were her family. Always ready to do anything she could to prove herself to Butch.}

Skills:
_{Blade Combat: Killa’ has earned a name as a knife user. Be they throwing knives or straight up machetes, there aren't that many blades she hasn't used to kill or maim.
Con-girl: Before she became Killa, The Butchers were using her to join groups kind enough to save an innocent girl.
Fast: maybe not a skill per se, but Killa knows how to run. Her slim, toned body is a testament to that.}

Role:
_{Scout: using her small stature and speed, the Jonesgroup uses Killa as a scout when needed.
Butcher: If there's no need for her skills, Killa uses her knife skills to skin animals or cut them into pieces.}

Tools:
_{The only thing she managed to take from her captors was her family knife. It is a combat knife with the letters B.L. scratched on the handle.}

Optional: Extra Details

What They Most Want:To be reunited with her family.

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

Do They Follow Their Heart or Their Mind?:Their mind.

Worst Fear:Dying

Favourite Color:Blood red

What animal are they most like?: A Jackel / Hyena

Favorite Song:Aurelio Voltaire - When you're evil

How They Dress: whatever is available

Thing they most miss about the world before the End: her mom.

The Butchers

"Run, run, ruuuunnn! We're comiiiinnnngggg and you'll be dead by the end of it!"

The Butchers are a ruthless band of raiders. They are a force to be reckoned with, with numbers reaching up to 150 individuals without counting their slaves. Founded by Butch, the eldest brother of the Lost family, the group is formed out of former convicts or people the on the other side of the law.

The Butchers, composed entirely of hardened individuals, stop at nothing to achieve their goals. They kill and enslave without regard, leaving a trail of devastation in their wake. The Butchers' loyalty lies solely with their own, and anyone standing in their way becomes a target. They're a nomadic bunch but have been known to have certain places which are considered "their territory".

Population: About 150
Resources: High
Leader: Their leader is Butch Lost, almost known as Butch The Butcher. He's a large man, broad shoulders and muscles that buldge under the tight shirts he's wearing, with an eyepatch that covers up one of his eyes, bald and with numerous tattoos and scars.
Survival Strategy: Slavery, Take everything by force

Appropriate Theme Song: youtube.com/watch?v=K3b6SGoN6dA

@Timemaster

Approved! With some small corrections:

-You might want to drop the [sub] and [i] tags. I had those in the sheet only for leaving small suggestions to the person filling it out. Writing your whole sheet with the text small and italicized makes it hard to read.

-I wouldn't recommend calling Killa a sociopath. Sociopathy is a real condition, meaning that you're not likely to portray it correctly unless you're willing to put in a lot of research. It might be better just to play her as she is without labeling exactly what's wrong with her. (My own character has serious emotional/mental issues, and I did not give him an official diagnosis for precisely this reason.)

I may have had a bit of a headstart on writing this. Alas, even I am not quite this efficient. It's mostly done, but there's still a few WIP bits in for me to polish up and get sparkling.

Caleb Carr, Horticulturalist and Outdoorsman

Caleb "CC" Carr

Nobody calls them a space cowboy.

The Basics
Non-Binary (AMAB), 27, Bisexual
6'4", 172lbs (190cm, 78kg.)

How They Look
Tall enough to be average in the Netherlands, but with a hunch to avoid slamming into doorframes and a figure that sits somewhere between 'rake' and 'slightly bulkier rake,' Caleb was never one to get lost in a crowd, back when those were still a regular feature of life. They cut scraggly and slightly unkempt figure with shaggy, tumbling locks of dark brown hair and an ever-present beard, trimmed down with scissors and the occasional luckily-found razorblade. Perhaps their most important posession is a pair of glasses that have become uncomfortably scratched ever since optician's visits became a thing of the past, which sit over a set of stormcloud grey eyes, graced with near-perpetual dark bags.

The apocalypse put an end to their cheery battle jackets and slimline jeans: now, Caleb wears clothes that are both rugged and practical, and always with a set of braces for their ankles and knees. This is combined with pads for their the latter for when they're out in the field, and they always keep a pair of hard-knuckled gloves in their pocket, just in case. They're almost never seen without a worn, battered, but still very much tough and functional leaather jacket, covered in patches to repair and reinforce the damage its taken, and they usually pair it with old faded band shirts and a never-ending parade of looted and mended cargo trousers, ranging from stolid khaki to urban camo grey. With a solid pair of rugged hiking boots to back it all up, CC looks for all the world like the outdoorsman that they've become in the years since the Olive Plague.

--

What Came Before
CC was born as an only child in London (the British one, not the one in Arkansas, Kentucky or Ohio, ta very much,) to an upper-middle class family with bright prospects in life. They grew up a well-rounded figure, although perhaps a little bit more insular than most with two busy working parents. Despite the concrete jungle that was their home, weekend getaways and time spent in the city's massive parks imprinted an appreciation of the natural world on them from an early age, and by the time university options were on the table their grades were good enough for them to pack their bags and head to Nottingham University, where they started work on an undergraduate's course in Botany and Horticultural Studies, with an option for a year abroad.

During that year abroad, they made the fateful decision to head across the pond to North Carolina State University... The very same year that the Olive Plague swept across the world and ended life as they knew it. The UK closed its borders before Caleb could get on a plane to head home, and so as the disease tore its way through the crowded campus, they were stuck an ocean away from home, with things looking increasingly grim for the young Brit.

But there was, at least, some hope. Even as their classmates and lecturers fell to the plague, Caleb seemed entirely unaffected. A lucky quirk of genetics had rendered them either immune or asymptomatic, and once the dust finally settled and quiet reigned across the continent, they emerged, tenatively, into an utterly changed world.

--

What Came After
During the initial chaos and collapse, CC weathered the storm by staying indoors, stealing the food out of their flatmate's fridges and making the blandest pasta to ever grace a set of cheap walmart plates. Two weeks in their newly-minted lifestyle as a hermit was entirely disrupted by the collapse of the water and electricity, finally forcing them out of the dorms and into the now significantly more depopulated world.

With nobody and nothing tying them to the NC State University, CC did something that most would probably think to be lunacy: they picked a direction and started walking, with little more than a rucksack and a guitar for company. For a while they followed the interstate system, camping at truckstops and petrol stations, heading into cities when they were in desperate need of supplies and using cars whenever they could find a pair of keys, on a trip to nowhere in particular.

Those first few years were the oddest. The world seemed quiet and still: nature had done little to reclaim the urban sprawl, and the wildlife was still accustomed to the peculiar new state of things. They travelled westwards: crossing the border to Tennessee on foot, driving through Nashville and on towards Arkansas. They encountered few people in their travels; mostly small groups that had cautiously began to spring up in the ruins of society, their voices a startling sound admist the quiet of a world reclaimed.

For three years they'd wander, purposeless, eventually turning back east in the Oklahoma panhandle. They saw oil rigs already succumbing to the Texas sands, coyotes battling with domestic dogs in Dallas' streets, and even encountered a group of truckers, still riding the roads using freshly pumped oil. As their journey continued through towards the wetlands of Mississipi, they began to encounter more and more settled groups; those who had survived and joined together to form new communities in this harsh world.

Some of them were friendly. Many were accepting enough to an unaffiliated wanderer such as Caleb, but for every two communities that would let them go along their merry way, there was one who tried to to take advantage of Caleb's lonely journey for their own means. Although they'd never used a gun prior to the apocalypse, they quickly had to learn the basics of operating the M4 they'd scavenged, although fortunately they found that the threat it posed was more than enough to dissuade most casual banditry.

It was in Alabama that they ran into their biggest hurdle. An organised group naming themselves the Gadsen Bannermen had established a stronghold in the ruins of Huntsville, and were not friendly to outsiders. After an intial scattered encounter that left one of the Bannermen dead, Caleb was forced to go to ground, creeping through abandoned buildings and travelling mostly at night, escaping the area by the skin of their teeth. Soon afterwards, they'd have their first encounter with the Mounted Skulls, and it was here that they realised that it was no longer viable for a lone wanderer to make their way across this new world. Uncomfortable at joining the Dixie Brotherhood and with the Neighbours not accepting new members, that just left the Jonesgroup for Caleb to join with, where they quickly fell into their role of horticulturalist, rennovating the property's large greenhouse and setting to work with their newfound community. They've stuck with it ever since.

--

What They're Like
Quiet, often. Almost surprisingly so. A couple of years without very much human contact will do that to you; years hearing nature slowly reclaim the human world gives one an almost medatative outlook on life. Even now that they're back in a society, the call of nature still cries out to them, keeping them in the Jonesgroup's fields and greenhouses and guaranteeing that they'll be the first to volunteer for rekkies or hunting trips.

Back at the base, they prefer smaller, more personal groups to big meetings and group meals. They're not unsociable, far from it: they're happy to get out their guitar and play music, or to help a newcomer to the farm figure out how to handle crops, but more than a few people have gotten a distant impression from Caleb and their quiet, contemplative attitudes.

One other thing assists all of this thinking though: a not insignificant amount of chemical assistance. Caleb's learnt mycology the hard way: by fucking up batch after batch of fungi until they finally got a mycelium network to settle and mushrooms to sprout. All of them are edible, but some of them are more fun than others are. Ditto for their plants: almost all their carefully tended to sprouts and shoots are of the edible variety: tomatoes, maize, beans, peas and the like... But in a little patch, segmented off and guarded as carefully as their own child would be, sits a small crop of broad-leaved cannabis plants, unfeminised plants carried all the way from a legal grow op.

--

Why They Keep Going
They might not give off the vibe, they wouldn't admit it if you asked them to their face, but the real reason that CC wakes up in the morning? Pure, unrestrained spite. For all they know, everyone they loved back in London is dead, their home is gone, and they could be the only Brit in a five-state radius left alive on this godforsaken continent. But here they are, and here they'll remain. If the Olive Plague didn't get them, they're sure as shit not letting this new world do them in.

Oh, and the weed. The weed definitely helps.

---

Unsurprisngly, most of a degree in plant's science can be extremely useful in a world where the farms aren't churning out 96 million acres of corn every year. Because of this, CC has taken on the role of chief horticulturalist, carefully tending to seedlings and shoots in the Jones' rather large greenhouse before transferring them out into the big wide world, to hopefully keep food in everyone's bellies. In the evenings, they're normally more than happy to pull out a six string and play a little music... Not to mention the plants they grow that aren't edible.

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Colt M4: The real deal, at least for civilians. A grand and change's worth of black metal and blacker polymer, taken from the house of someone with fifteen guns but no deadbolt on the door. A bit battered and worn from the years by CC's side, but still a perfectly functional weapon for use against animals and humans alike.

Taylor V-Class Acoustic: A gift from their father back in the UK, this Taylor is one of the vanishingly few posessions they still have from back home. Carried throughout their rambling across the continent to the Jones' estate, still in surprisingly decent condition.

Council Tools Jersey Axe: A real piece of Americana, for what little that's worth these days. Mostly good for splitting logs to feed a fire, although can be used to knock down smaller trees, doors, rotting drywalls and, in a real pinch, people should the need arise.

An Unknown Brand of Leather Stitching Supplies: From a suburban garage in Nowheresville, Arkansas. Has needles, thread, a punch set and everything else one might need to mend and patch leather. Not as common as you might think.

Extra-strong magnifying glass, mason jars, muslin, a set-aside area of the woodshed and neatly organised seed bags: Wait, what the hell do all these random objects and a place have in common? Oh. Oh, yeah, of course.

Optional Fun Extra Things

What They Most Want: "One thing? To get back to the UK. Or what's left of it. Unless someone feels like making another Mayflower though, I don't see how that'll happen."

If They Had a DnD Alignment, It Would Be: "Now that brings me back. Wonder if enough folks would be interested to get a campaign running here? As for myself... Neutral... Chaotic? Chaotic Neutral? I guess that works."

Do They Follow Their Heart or Their Mind?: "What kind of horoscope-arsed question is that? But, if I had to answer... Heart. Gotta keep your noggin screwed on tight though; there's no hospitals to get you back on your feet any more."

Worst Fear: "Shit, at the moment? Getting my head blown off by those bikers. Other things tend to fall by the wayside in the face of the more immediate concerns."

Favorite Color: "A nice deep green. Like healthy, well-watered leaves."

What animal are they most like?: "Another one of these horoscope questions? Uh... Hmm... Badger. European, not the methhead ones over here in the states. Hardworking little buggers they are."

Favorite Song: "You ever heard Dopesmoker back in the day? Done by a band called Sleep? It's over an hour long of pure stoner metal greatness. Can't even get an electric guitar to work these days."

How They Dress: Caleb simply gestures down towards their clothes.

Thing they most miss about the world before the End: "Other than my family? Putting the kettle on, making a cuppa and plonking yourself down in a nice soft armchair. Oh, and warm showers."

@Enigmatik

Approved! Drop in the char tab and start posting whene-

Oh yeah, we're not posting yet. I'm so used to saying that.

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 [NEW PLAYERS WELCOME!]

@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 [NEW PLAYERS WELCOME!]

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 [NEW PLAYERS WELCOME!]

<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