WaywardK

NetOcean: Nightmare Archipelago || Closed

Setting

The Angel’s Eye Archipelago exists in the heart of the Net Ocean, the tumultuous aquatic domain of the digital world. Here the whole power of the world rests on it luscious green shoulders. The gateway that makes all other gateway’s possible, where the very soul of this digital universe lives. So why is it then that so few have ever heard of it...? Is it because the archipelago survives off its secrecy? Or is it because the knowledge of the divine should only be entrusted to few mortals? Maybe the very nature of being an unknown entity is sought after by the most powerful of manipulative forces. Whose to say, maybe you’ll get to meet the mastermind who works behind the scenes.

Until then, we should turn our gaze to the mysterious fog that has begun to roll in. Virtually undistinguishable from the natural, and a little too on the nose for a common trope, people who sail into this fog or encounter it on the archipelago’s islands return speaking of a great, dark ocean and creatures of nightmare gnawing at the edges of their vision. Some among these parties do not show their faces ever again in the waking world, others are so twisted and marred they bare no resemblance to their original forms. It is this very aberrant phenomena that lead to you being drawn into the archipelago in the first place.

Humans by their very nature are resistant to otherworldly powers and the laws of the digital universe, how else would we live so long without ever encountering the magic around us. Digimon make their homes behind the very screens we see day to day and yet we do not see the world that lives at our fingertips and thrives off of our dreams. So it would make sense that to fight against unknown powers you would need soldiers so existentially apathetic to their antagonistic forces that the very essence of it wouldn’t affect them, right? Well, only in theory. It’s never been tried before, new recruit, we’ll see if you can get the job done.

Welcome!

Welcome to Digimon Net Ocean: Nightmare Archipelago! A fandom roleplay set in one of the myriad of digital universes, inspired by unfulfilled plot lines in canon and the ever present occult nature of the stories that appear in the franchise. This will be a widely sea-faring adventure exploring the Archipelago and the mysteries within. You’ll be riding extravagant navel vessels, fending off pirate attacks, and encountering living forests. Don’t be fooled by the grand adventure that awaits as the mysteries within exist by the rules of cosmic level horrors and the equally unknowable essence of our very souls.

Your Story

You’ll be playing as a human brought to the Archipelago by KingWhamon, one of the three lords of the islands, and an island himself. The Lords have taken every precaution to keep the archipelago secret from the rest of the world to protect the source of the powers that be but have met their wits end. The otherworldly dark ocean will not show itself to them and they have been unable to investigate it themselves. Unnerved by secrets they themselves are not keeping, they sought humans as a tool to safely explore this unknown variable. Historically humans have always been brought to the digital world in great times of need, so the Lords of Angel’s Eye took a page from that book and have recruited a few chosen of their own.

Characters will manifest in the digital world with different tools at their disposal based on the states of their personalities and their subconscious. This is of course, a plot digivice to allow players to use whatever mechanics from the canon to design their characters. Enjoy the concept of armor Digimon? Want to punch bad guys in their faces? Want to become a Digimon yourself? All available to you if you can narratively justify it. That doesn’t mean the price you pay for your decisions is just time and creativity for a character sheet, your characters digital manifestations of power will greatly affect how the world and antagonistic forces will act against you.

Digimon and other Digital Entities

The nature of this digital world is an amalgam of inspirited computer files, an infinitely unknowable collective unconscious, and otherworldly forces taking advantage of a deeply manipulative medium to manifest and create life. It is different from the many other digital worlds in existence in that its sovereign entities and protective deities are not collectively responsible for the safety of the whole of the universe, but rather the many regions within, with the gods at the heart of the world unknown to all but the highest of orders. There is no king Yggdrasil, no Royal Knights, no Olympus XII, no recognized group of Holy Beasts governing each direction. Just a myriad of different deific energies controlling their respective regions, some vying for more power, and others content with their increasingly small domains.

The progression and regression of a Digimon's form in this world are greatly affected by the stimuli they feed off of and the nature of their root data. While most Digimon will follow a similar progression to what you've seen in the anime series, many may also follow the confusing interconnected tree(s) you'll find in some of the games. You may start an Agumon but by no means is it unheard of to end up a Lilymon when you follow the right psychological journey, it's just exponentially difficult the farther away from your base nature the desired form is and can takes months to years. Even more importantly, it seems the presence of human stimuli has a great effect on Digimon themselves, with human emotional data invariably having the greatest effect on their progression.

The world itself is wildly influenced by digital trends in the human world and the consciousness of humans that find themselves visiting for some grand task such as yours. Not only the world, but a human's very perception of themselves can alter their digitized forms from one moment to the next. This can range from the tame side of determining your outfit, to a more complex representation of your very own dysmorphic tendencies. The nature of exactly how much the human mind effects the world is unknown, volatile, and adherent to no observable rules. What that has to say about the rules guiding what exists beyond the ever-vexing fog is disturbing to say the least.

Other entities do exist in the digital world. Beings composed of digital matter but harbor no physical form to call their own are extremely common and have no more effect on the world than the breeze. There are natural elements of the world as well such digital copies of small animals such as squirrels and fish or plant lifeto fill up the landscape. Increasingly rare are other manifestations that take on human forms, possess willing hosts, and form the landscape itself.

Why play?

If you enjoy the darker or more complex themes in Digimon stories that appeal to its adult viewers I highly encourage you to participate. Possession, interdimensional travel, unconscious bias, the nature of self pity, Eaters, the dark ocean, and deranged deities are not uncommon to fans of the series, and they’ll not be uncommon in this story. I’m looking for a small to medium sized group of 3-8 characters that can shrink or expand based on extra-narrative needs.

I'm going for a more collaborative story here. There are several overarching narratives present in this world that you'll have the freedom to explore, but just like the effect of your character's psyche has on the world, your desires and writing choices will have an effect on my plots as well. The best stories are about the characters, not the setting.

The Sunday Group - The Flicker Cases

I will try to scratch my application together this evening or tomorrow.

What's the deadline ? If I should fail to deliver until it then please don't wait for me.

@Fetzen

She said she wanted to start next weekend so I'm guessing have it by then

The Sunday Group - The Flicker Cases

Beau Lewis

Name: Beau Lewis
Age: 27
Appearance: Constantly annoyed and perpetually raising an eyebrow.

Beau is a little on the shorter side, reaching only about 5’7”, and gives the vibe that the anger of “short man syndrome” has long been replaced with a dejected acceptance. He sports shaggy, medium length, auburn hair and just enough facial hair to say he has a goatee. Hazel-Green eyes that are always devoid of humor will stare at you from behind thick framed glasses and suggest you have 5 seconds to grab his attention or lose it.

Beau has some very masculine, angular features to his face, a strong nose and small eyes. He’s built like a hipster that drank a lot of milk as a kid. That is to say, he’d look like a fence post if his bones weren’t built like iron pipes. His Northern European heritage comes through very loud in this manner, making it seem like the gods got his height wrong comparatively.

Beau’s wardrobe consists of wrinkled button downs, worn out jeans, and dirty canvas sneakers. There’s an air that he might’ve actually been interested in keeping a well thought-out and consistent style but the fact everything in his closet lives for approximately two weeks before the moths get in the way of that leave the eye wanting more.

Concept: Plague Bearer.
Shouldering a curse as a reminder of his past depravities and just trying to get through life one step at a time without falling apart, again.

Curse: Beau attracts insects, arachnids, mollusks, and other such creatures wherever he goes. Said creatures do not harm him unless he otherwise instigates them. They do however, constantly get in the way of his life. From infesting his kitchen and eating his clothes to being followed around by swarms of bees.

Beau has been cursed since an incident in high school he doesn’t talk about. The most anyone has been able to pry out of him is that he has a lot more money than he lets on and that his father’s death has something to do with it. It’s a sore subject due to both trauma and regret. Everyone has skeletons in their closet, in Beau’s case it’s an urn full of his father’s ashes.

Beau to this day, a decade or more later, doesn’t know who or what cursed him. What he has been able to ascertain is that this curse was meant to teach him a lesson, else he’d have succumbed to death years ago when compared to some of the victims of his particular brand of plague. Not for sure if it was ever meant to be broken, Beau has accepted it as a part of his life and has given up on the idea of getting rid of it.

Powers/Skills:
Plague Bringer: Beau’s curse uses him as a carrier for the concept of “plague.” The creatures he attracts will attack individuals who commit acts of greed in Beau’s presence. The severity of the attack depends on the harm caused by the act. The curse will infect its victims and plague them for a proportional time afterwards, the attracted creatures often being hostile.

Accidental Entomologist: Beau can sort of read the patterns of movement in certain insects and ask them to do simple tasks. This ranges from telling how long a body has been dead to telling you which way a field of dandelions is.

Never Without Friends: Perks of bugs loving you? They’re everywhere. Unless it’s in the middle of winter or the weather is really bad, the sheer amount of flying and crawling pests that can get between Beau and his antagonists is enough to develop spontaneous entomophobia.

That Deep, Primal Fear: Entomophobia, Arachnophobia, and their cousins are some of the most common phobias in the world. The ability to weaponize his curse to conjure some of the most primal fears humans possess is something he shamefully admits to abusing.

What would Beau like to happen?: Some way to purge the negative aspects of his curse and gain more control over his little friends. At this point the buzzing of bees makes a place feel like home, he just wishes the moths would stop eating his damn underwear.
What would WaywardK like to happen?: Intense interpersonal drama, an environment in which character development can thrive, and endless allusions to Innsmouth.

Writing Example/Jeff Goldblum Fanfiction

The light, ticklish feel of stilt-like feet skittering across his thigh rustled Beau out of a light sleep. The smell of fear and sweat pervaded the air as the last remnants of the chittering nightmares faded from his view. Arching his back like a cat disturbed from its nap Beau roared awake with an irritated groan and a mean look on his face. Was he eating something bad before bed or were these dreams getting worse?

Beau kicked his feet over the side of his bed and rubbed the dryness out of his eyes, trying to recall all the details of the night’s latest horrific subconscious movie. He grabbed a notebook off his bed stand and flipped to the next clean page:

“Hundreds of little cocoons, spun like they’d been trapped in a spiders web dotted the sidewalk. It’s hard to walk without stepping on them and it feels increasingly like looking at the smooshed remnants of what I had been stepping on would make me hurl. I notice one looks to be squirming, like something is about to hatch. Some morbid curiosity leads me to pick it up and look at it closely in my palm.

Little black legs poke a hole and start to tear the edges of the silk and I still can’t tell if its hatching or escaping. I get a sense of a reddish brown color starting to make its way through when I finally see that it’s some kind of fly buzzing its way out. I don’t get any sort of catharsis from identifying it before I feel like it looks like it has hair. I poke at the cocoon to turn it over and there on the head of the fly is my face, wide eyed and looking back at me.

My perspective shifts and I’m suddenly in the hand looking up at my body with a fly’s head on my shoulders. It doesn’t take me long to notice, in disgusted fascination, that the very skin of my stolen body seemed to be dotted by hundreds of wriggling eyes arranged in a pattern reminiscent of a pomegranate’s flesh. Realization dawned on me as each wriggling eye revealed itself to be the home of a pulsating larval denizen. Some foul hive of a human body cradled me in its hands, twitching like some horrid creature of undeath and seemed to regard me with the eyes of a necrophile discovering a fresh body in the morgue.”

Beau stopped writing, suddenly unwilling to conjure the images of the latest nightmare and puts down his notebook. Every night was something new and equally disgusting as the last. Parasites, pulsating eggs, and trypophobic images seemed to be constant themes in his dreams these days. As much as Beau had learned to love the more aesthetically pleasing forms of various bees, ants, and colorful winged creatures he thought the parasitic, hole boring, body horrors that invertebrates were capable of made his skin feel like it was begging to slither off and die like some disgusting molt.

The real questions was were these new dreams due to some subconscious rejection of his curse, or a sign that his curse was evolving in a direction he didn’t want to be apart of?

I kind of leaned into some unsettling themes for this character in the name of creeping horror, hopefully it fits the mood you're going for cause I'd love to join :)

The Sunday Group - Paranormal Detectives

Oooh, I'm also interested, will be checking up on this. Already got some character concepts to toss around.

Hopefully it doesn't die after a week I'd really like some long term group rp.

Man Made Gods-IC [2/5 spots available]

:(

Man Made Gods-IC [2/5 spots available]

Eyo, boss, you got your first round of posts complete o7

Man Made Gods-IC [2/5 spots available]

Waking up at Velvet Rouge was the same as every morning. The smell of sweat and alcohol pervaded the air and the whispering beat of some Lo-Fi music kept the place in a state of calm in stark contrast to the nights at the very same place. Such sensations, however, were dampened by the fact that a whole ass floor separated Marshall from the rest of the club. The 30 something lay in a king-sized be covered in mountains of fleece and micro-knit sheets, looking like a teenager that had gotten drunk for the first time and fell asleep in someone’s laundry room.

An alarm was going off right next to Marshall, his face inches from the mechanical rooster call that seemed ridiculously cheesy given his location. He was awake, staring at the alarm clock with a sort of dejected resignation to the start of the day. Marshall was bored of his normal routine, and remembered today was the day everything was going to be different, but he couldn’t really bring himself to the idea that Apex would actually be that much more exciting than the rest of life. To Marshal there were only two speeds to existence: ceaseless boredom and passing interest.

____________________________________________________________________

Hours later, Marshall found himself with a group of Apex new hires. There weren’t many of them, three in his group to be exact. Marshall paid close attention to everyone he encountered, keeping stock of their personalities and their perceived capacity to be interesting. Surprisingly enough, the other two had this air about them that felt… familiar. Maybe Apex was fond of hiring exhausted loner types, who knew? If it come to the point that he’d have to stand out to get noticed, he wasn’t for sure he could really compete. That being said… He wasn’t for sure any of the three could really compete with each other.

Neither had said much of a word as they were grouped together, and the silence persisted even as Allister gave them passing bits of information and lead them to a room in which they’d meet a rather interesting Lorette. It was strange, odds are at least one person tends to be talkative in any new group, and none of them seemed to be that person. Something about that comforted him, that meant he wouldn’t have to listen to inane prattle about his co-workers outside lives or receive unwarranted curiosities towards his own dating life.

In contrast to the silence of his peers, Lorette began speaking in a manner that was both filled with gravitas and a performative quality. She was honestly the first thing in Apex that really drew his attention and interest. The rest had all been your average corporate grandeur and secrecy. To some it may not be average, but when you grow up a rather well-to-do child in a family with dubious business ventures? It was average.

Lorette’s remarks about Marshall’s personal life was met with a passive smirk and a singular, quiet grunting noise that was Marshall’s way of indicating something was amusing. Rock bottom? Marshall didn’t believe in rock bottom, nor did he believe in reaching one’s peak. Marshall had simply chosen the most interesting path to be on, whatever made him not feel like a misguided ghost floating in the winds. She was right on one point though, he wasn’t content with where he was. The people of the club and the endless parade of musical numbers and circus acts eventually lost their interest. After a while you’ve seen everyone’s talents before. Apex in contrast was a mystery, and mysteries are interesting.

It was Lorette’s comment on the discovery of their own weakness that finally wrested Marshall from his psychological slumber. His weakness in such manners were already something known to him, the idea that something was going to actually expose those weaknesses left him with a gut feeling that the statement wasn’t like those countless university professors made to scare students into thinking that only the elite passed their classes. (Which by the way was a lie, it wasn’t the elite that prevailed, it was those with the tenacity to see it through. Even a dumbass can succeed if they never look away from failure’s taunting gaze.) Marshall welcomed any assault on his existence if it could be used as a tool to pique his curiosity into what the other side of the literal and metaphorical wall in front of him.

The assault that met Marshall in that room with his new coworkers was not the kind that he had remotely expected. Zoological fantastica was the phrase that came to mind when the toad seemingly broke the laws of physics just to eat a blade. Creatures that shouldn’t exist, yet do? Marshall raised an eyebrow, crossed his arms, and tilted his head at an angle to get some more visual information on what he just witnessed. There was no glimmer of illusion here, it was true. He turned his head to look at the other two newbies with him, both having been jolted, both having spoken. Marshall tried to hide a smirk.

He succeeded in being the quiet one.

Man Made Gods-IC [2/5 spots available]

Alright I'll get my post up this evening

Man Made Gods-IC [2/5 spots available]

WIll likely tune that up a bit and make it look prettier tomorrow when I'm not sleepy af.

Man Made Gods-IC [2/5 spots available]

Marshall Fletcher

Age: 31

Place of residence: The loft of a club in the entertainment district. Is it loud? Yeah sure. Does he sleep there often? Yeah no, he falls asleep on the job more than he does at home.

Occupation: Sentinel.

End goals: “I just want to fucking chill for once, man.”

Personality:
Marshall comes across unkempt and lazy, acting like everything is such a slog to get through. To everyone else he may just be another lazy recruit barely covering his guard shifts and sleeping all the time. To Marshall? Well the world just doesn’t interest him enough. Very few things get his heart pumping, so the side effect is he always seems lethargic. On the rare occasion he is tested though, it becomes very clear that his mind can be very focused on anything he’s trying to achieve, to the point everything fades to grey and Marshall becomes a terrifying machine full of purpose.

If you were to ask what Marshall actually cares about, it’s a challenge. Whether it be a particularly difficult sudoku puzzle, or a daemon with abilities he’s never seen before, a challenge will activate some sort of switch in him that pushes him into his focused state. The change in demeanor is almost instant when this happens, seemingly switching between two personalities all together. This sort of focus has only ever been seen by a few other handlers and the superiors that scouted him in the first place.

His favorite foods tend to be finger foods or anything he can carry with him without needing a plate. Marshall constantly eats on the go, partially because he always seems late, partially because he doesn’t like wasting time sitting down. Similarly, most of his hobbies seem somewhat mobile as well; gacha games on his phone, small books about random psychological and philosophical topics, he’s even been spotted attempting to juggle and screwing around with a yo-yo. One could say Marshall just doesn’t like being tied down.

When interacting with other people, Marshall tends to be quiet unless someone says something painfully cringey or just plain wrong. He tends to communicate in knowing smiles, raised eyebrows, rude hand gestures, and on rare occasions, rambling if he thinks you will listen.

History:
Marshall was afforded all the luxuries you could expect a cisgender white guy from an upper middle class family to have. He had a nice childhood, got the best schooling, never went without want. He was one of those “gifted” kids you always hear about in schools that never really seem to do much their adult life. Marshall was uniquely intelligent since he was young, but even back then always seemed to get quickly bored of anything he could figure out in a day or two. In contrast, his grades never really seemed to reflect his intelligence because, well, he didn’t really care. Marshall almost never turned in homework, he refused to read books he found boring, and really only math and science ever seemed to catch his attention, but would lose it as soon as any sort of busy work was handed to him.

This trend of not-caring carried into young adulthood, which found Marshall looking for stimulation in all the wrong places. Marshall slept with what seemed like half his college, did drugs nobody has ever heard of, and met people in places so low that sunlight would not reach. Eventually he grew out of his wildly delinquent ways, sort of. He started focusing more on school in the latter years of college, earning dual degrees in Psychology and Philosophy. He never really did anything with them, and really only studied them because they challenged his thinking in ways nothing else really did.

Marshall after college became a bartender to the chagrin of his parents, but of course made wild amounts of money in tips because he only ever tended the spiciest of the red light district’s clubs, a place known as Velvet Rouge. Velvet Rouge, was, well, popular for its wide-cast net of entertainment: exotic dancers, alternative bands, drag shows, magic acts, and even burlesque performances. Every other weekend seemed unique, and the crows every day were enough to put every other place to shame, but of course, it eventually bored Marshall.
Looking for a change, Marshall let his boss/landlord know he was applying for a job with Apex. Nathaniel wasn’t just his boss at the time, but a friend; when he heard Marshall talking about leaving he offered full support, having known the guy long enough to know when Marshall just wasn’t interested anymore.

Magnus

Phenotype: Mythological/Divergent - Draconic Feline

Class: A

Major power type: Spatial Manipulation
Minor power type: Cognition Altering

Personality:
Magnus shares Marshall’s somewhat lethargic demeanor. But unlike Marshall, Magnus is literally just lazy. The Daemon won’t lift a finger unless he thinks he or Marshall will benefit from it somehow. Despite the fact he doesn’t really need to sleep, Magnus will take naps on the regular just because he can. “Little breaks from the slog of existence” he says.

One look from Magnus is usually filled with enough vitriolic boredom to kill a small child. As sarcastic as they come, Magnus’ tongue is like barbed wire, strangling those he talks to with judgement and condemnation; that is 'till eventually they get frustrated and leave him alone (the entire purpose of him acting like that). On many occasions human “superiors” to Magnus, and those on a similar rank to him by proxy, have been taunted into outbursts due to his hatred for formality.

In contrast, Magnus is very kind with Marshall along with any friends the two possess. It’s never been a secret that he has favorites, adopting an almost fatherly enjoyment of their successes and growth. As much as he is filled with vitriol when around strangers and passing acquaintances, he demonstrates the ability to be compassionate by giving criticism to those he cares about in a way that is actually constructive. Usually praising what they did correct, and instead of telling people what they did wrong, giving them options on how to improve.

Magnus hates being cooped up in an object and will stay out for as long as possible while around Apex. When absolutely needed, he resides in a sapphire earring in Marshall’s right ear.

History: Known history about Magnus begins and ends with Apex. It’s been alluded to Marshall that Magnus, at one point, was a feral nasty enough to bring down several handlers before someone finally convinced Magnus to their side, only after being bested by someone that the rumors Marshal hears will not name, and fervently refuse to. Magnus never actually remembered how he got brought down either, a fact he seems oddly coy about.

Powers and skills:
Magnus is the equivalent of a rigged scale. He can manipulate gravity, pressure, and friction in an area centered on him or Marshall. Within this area Magnus can either cause every other creature to be weighed down and sluggish in this area of pressure, or he can release the hold of these forces on Marshall or himself and give an alarming freedom of movement that can at first appear to be physical augmentation if you weren’t also in this area.

By quickly manipulating gravity, Magnus can cause some weaker impacts to become much greater, or lessen heavy impacts to something much weaker. This ability alone is what landed Marshall in Sentinel duty. It should be noted, the area in which he can create these effects can normally only be within 10 feet of himself. Magnus can briefly double this range for about a minute. If he keeps the doubled range up for the full duration it will render him powerless until he gets a chance to rest or consumes something substantial.

To a much lesser extent, Magnus can affect cognition much the same way he can affect physical forces. Within the same area of effect Magnus can force a depressive state on those who enter, slowing their cognitive function and giving them the feeling of lethargy. More unique individuals are mostly just put slightly off kilter, but weaker individuals or those who have never had contact with something similar before can be pushed dangerously close to catatonia. This effect gets weaker the more there are affected, so is usually used subtly or in situations small in number.

Similar to his Spatial Manipulation abilities, Magnus can also flip his Cognitive abilities the other direction. That is to say, Magnus can push Marshall into a hyper-focused or manic state that briefly affords him deadly precision, supernatural reflexes, and the hand eye coordination of a secretary on her third triple shot expresso of the evening. This ability is usually saved for a last stand or second wind as it tires Marshall to an extent relative to how much cognitive function was increased, often times seeming inebriated afterwards.