Zeroth

Children of the Otherworld - An Isekai Story

MC? But Yuuno isn't in that picture.

@Xaltwind

How dare you imply Yuuno-sama, the ultimate Sigma, would ever leave the infinite pool of wisdom that is his library for mere THOTTERY!

Children of the Otherworld - An Isekai Story

I dunno, I think the Time-Space Administrative Bureau looks like a pretty good organization to get detained by.

@ERode

Dalton: "Oh God it's the cops!" *throws his hands up* "DON'T SHOOT!"

*megaphone voice* "Surrender peacefully! Our weapons are set to "friendship"--we do not want to harm you!"

Dalton: "...Set to friendship? Did we get pulled over by effing Care Bears or someth--" *he drops his hands*

"STARLIGHT BUREAKAAAAAAH!"

Children of the Otherworld - An Isekai Story

When the light of reincarnation fades... Our characters are suddenly standing face-to-face with Truck-kun, and he's revving his engine!!

@Xaltwind

No, the souls Truck-kun harvests have already seen him. They're simply thrown into the back of his trailer and left in the dark like illegal immigrants crossing the dimensional borders.

At least until the Time Space Planeswalking and Customs Enforcement officers pull them over.

The Gifted (Reborn)

If they don't come back after a month or so, I may be willing to borrow this arc and start a new rp. Nobody would have to do anything other than carry their CS over.

@Lexisheeps

Not to say that starting similar RPs because you saw one you liked is bad or anything, but the implication of "taking one over" is bad form unless you've been in extensive contact with the GM about them handing over the reins. Especially when you're new to the site itself and somewhat "unproven" as an RPer.

"In the future there are superhumans but the government doesn't like them" is a statement that could be applied to over a dozen different stories/games, but you want to at least make an "attempt" not to outright plagiarize someone else's work.

Children of the Otherworld - An Isekai Story

I did forget to mention a few things in her wishes/regrets-bit though, and I didn't get all the bits and pieces about her bullying/everyday life in. But I can always edit those in... Well, at least the wishes/regret part.

@Xaltwind

It'd be impossible to get every aspect of our characters' previous sufferings in life into a single intro post. If Dalton comes off as creepy and awkward now, just wait til he starts having flashbacks or making comparisons between his new life and old one, lol.

Children of the Otherworld - An Isekai Story

In case reading about a sad, pointless and unpleasant everyday existence bores you. ;P

@Xaltwind

Hey if anyone's bored by that, they can just skip Dalton's entire opener XD

If only these two hadn't been born on completely opposite sides of the planet, they'd at least have had a drinking buddy! If Dalton weren't such a straightedge stick in the mud, at least.

Children of the Otherworld - An Isekai Story

Dalton

@TheNoCoKid
^{Unbinding the Social Contract}

---

"I'm very sorry sir, but at this time we're unable to approve your application..." Dalton flinched away from the phone as a tirade of garbled verbal assault poured over him. "I understand, sir, I really do, I know this is frustrating--" He closed his eyes as the caller continued to berate him. When the man finally paused for breath, Dalton tried to cut back in, "Th-the p-policies won't let us approve it, sir, because there are too many open lines of credit. It's just that one thing, other than that you had everything else we typically look for--!"

Dalton noticed one of the vice-presidents (why did the bank need more than one?) leaning on his doorframe and glaring at him as if all of this was his fault. For a fraction of a second the younger man wished he could pass the call off to the disdainful son of a--No, no, just do your best, like you always do, you can still make this right!

"Yes sir, I'm aware you had the down payment ready. Yes sir, I'm aware most of your cards are balanced. It's just, the bank prefers no more than--No, please, sir, we can work this out I'm sure! Could I suggest that you maybe, j-j-just switch one line? You c-could close one of them, and the bank would be more than happy to open one of our own credit accounts with you after you re-apply--Okay, sir. Y-yes, sir, I understand. Again, I apologize for all the trouble, and I'm sorry we couldn't come to an--"

The man told Dalton to do something sick to his own mother, which brought up a whole new surge of deeply repressed emotions, and hung up.

"--or that too, that's fine." He sighed as he put the phone down.

"What was all that about?" demanded the vice-president. The stocky man still had crumbs in his mustache, no doubt because he'd just gotten back from his typical 30-minutes-over lunch break. Which meant Dalton had been told to answer all the calls for him, in addition to already answering all the calls that the tellers and receptionist sent to the loan department because they couldn't be bothered to take messages so that the loan officers could get through a single state-mandated meeting without being interrupted.

"Th-that was Mr. Christophe, the gentleman who was applying for a mortgage loan towards the vacation property near the reservoir--"

"And you DENIED him!?" The man looked at Dalton with a satirical slap-jaw, as the younger man held one hand up in supplication and pointed at his computer with the other. "He had a hundred-and-thirty-thousand down payment ready to go! What were you thinking?!"

"No, I didn't deny him! It came back from the underwriter--"

"Didn't you see that we already approved him last week?!" Dalton frowned. He knew that one of the other officers had been the one to start the whole process with Mr. Christophe, and had been told the details by that same individual precisely because they expected the man to get back in touch with them soon and didn't want to risk putting him off if the other person was out of the office.

"No sir, we recommended him for approval, we don't get the final say-"

"Don't tell me how to do my job when you can't even do yours!" The man huffed and crossed his arms. His jowls wobbled as he shook his head back and forth. "Dalton, we just talked about this with you last month! You can't keep denying people over every little thing--it makes the auditors think the bank is using discriminatory practices!"

_{"Then stop sending me everyone you can't be bothered with..."} Dalton screwed his eyes shut as one hand clenched the arm of his chair in a white knuckled grip.

"What'd you say?" growled the vice president.

"Sir, I said, I've had a lot of clients this quarter--They're being referred to me even though I'm the newest in the office, and--"

"Because you need the most practice, clearly!" The man waved a hand dismissively. "Besides, most of them are people we've dealt with before, so why is it that you're the one they have the problem with, huh!?"

Because this office has been letting people slide left and right! Some of these accounts have been in collections for YEARS, or else we KNOW they're going to get denied and so they get pushed off on me as a scapegoat! Dalton felt sweat breaking out under his armpits and his heart thudding in his chest. He wanted to scream, Because you keep making backhanded deals with people to keep them happy, instead of making them follow the same rules as everyone else! I haven't been here for thirty-plus years, so how am I supposed to grease palms with people I don't go to wine-tastings with every weekend?!

Instead he sighed.

"I don't know, sir. All I'm doing is following the policies and the rules as written. I think the credit line thing is stupid too, but--"

"If we didn't have rules on credit, we'd never make a cent!" This time the higher up jabbed a finger at him, leaving Dalton to raise both eyebrows in shocked confusion. Was the jackass berating him for following the rules or not?! "Every dopehead off the streets would be coming in for quick cash and wouldn't pay us back a cent!" In Dalton's experience, the customers with low credit had actually been the easiest to work with, because they wanted to show score improvement and were motivated to be able to buy their homes or vehicles. It was, typically, the "upper class" types and local business owners who always seemed to think they deserved an exception to the rules. Dalton didn't know what else to say, so he just kept silent. He tried to maintain eye contact--or rather, he stared intensely at the vice president's forehead. The man stared back at him, and after a moment took a step back and pointed at him again.

"Don't get mad at me because you keep screwing up!" The man turned on his heel. "That's your problem, Dalton, you don't have any people skills! Loosen up! Be willing to negotiate! I'm gonna call Christophe back and see if I can salvage this, so you just sit that case out from now on!"

"...Yes, sir. Sorry, sir." Dalton said, as the heavy footsteps plodded down the hall. He settled back in his seat and looked at his cluttered desk. The serrated letter opener in his pen cup caught his eye. He wondered how deep it might go into someone's throat before the fragile blade broke off the dinky plastic handle.

The one blessing of the day was that the twenty minutes left until his own lunch break passed without any more phone calls, though his attempts to catch up on the backlog of record-scanning--again, something left to him by others in the office who'd neglected to keep up with their own records--were still interrupted by people asking him about other accounts he'd worked on, or if they could borrow his stapler, or some other variant of constant inanity. In the time it took the scanner to read the pile of documents he dumped into its feeder tray, he browsed memes on his phone--but even that wasn't free of irritants anymore. Why did everything have to be political these days?

One of those stupid short videos with an artificial voice claimed, "My dad cut this guy off in traffic, you won't believe what they did next!" as the oversized caption obscured the actual footage of an idiot egging on a road raging jerk, before one of them took a nine iron to the other's windshield. Dalton closed the tab with a grumble as he checked the time.

Why couldn't people just...follow the rules? Everyone always thought they should be the exception. People wanted to force others to behave a certain way, but when those standards were pushed back on them it was suddenly not okay? And any time there was an argument about it, people had to be terrible monsters to one another. And because some people were terrible, other people had to be terrible or else they'd just get plowed over and pushed around! Like Dalton always seemed to be.

His lunch break came right on time. As he tried to get out of the stupidly-designed parking lot onto a street that was always under construction of some sort, Dalton's hands tapped an impatient rhythm on the steering wheel. He'd always followed the rules, hadn't he? At least, as much as was humanly possible. His parents had always told him that if he did the right thing, if he was kind to people, if he studied hard and always did his best, that things would work out for him in the end. Now he often found himself wondering why they would've lied to him all his life. Had the world really changed so much in the time he'd grown up? Or had it always been like this--the wicked prospering, and no good deed going unpunished--and everyone had just been trying to pretend against reality?

The young man saw the intersection light ahead of him change to yellow, and slowed down. The car behind him didn't. The last glimpse Dalton had through his rearview mirror showed him a young, pasty-faced teen with one of those stupid haircuts that looked like a head of broccoli and a glittering pin through one of his eyebrows. And he was, of course, glued to a cellphone.

Glass shattered and metal crumpled as Dalton's vehicle was rear-ended. He felt something in his neck pop painfully, and the seatbelt against his chest tried its best to crush his ribs. His tires squealed as he was forced out into the intersection--

And then the truck T-boned him from the left.

The impact didn't feel like the fist of an angry god. Dalton wasn't thrown from the vehicle. But he was hurled, sideways, turning and rag-dolling, into blackness. An empty, soundless void. An unpleasant wind, like giant's breath, pulled at his hair and his tie, causing the collar of his blazer and the button up shirt beneath it to flop and flutter.

...Am I dead? How long did it take him to think that thought? How long had it taken him to become aware that he could still think? Honestly? Kind of a relief. Mom, Dad...is it over? Can I finally see you again? Can I finally...stop trying so hard?

He felt like something was closing in on his chest. Like a cold, skeletal hand. Was he...really okay with it ending like this? With everything being over? Never achieving anything? Never becoming anyone worthwhile? Never getting his just rewards for all the effort he'd put in? He clenched his teeth. Hot tears spilled down his cheeks.

I wish...I wish I could've known, at the beginning. I wish I'd seen the truth, so much earlier--it doesn't matter how hard you work! No one cares how smart you are! No! It's all about...about getting what you want, and damn others!

Dalton continued to tumble. Had he changed directions? Where was he falling to? Did gravity even exist anymore? And...how was the emptiness getting even darker?

I didn't want to spend so much time studying! I didn't want to play nice, and be a kiss-up, to people who deserved to have their teeth kicked in! I didn't want to be bullied, or shunned! Why couldn't I have just been handed the freakin' manual to life that everyone else seemed to get!? Why wasn't I born rich, or handsome? Why was I the only one who ever had to follow the rules?!

A twisted, desperate, animalistic roar tore itself out of his guts. A sound full of rage, and yet, a scream that was so devastatingly sad because it was angry. He started to thrash, his numb, no-longer-physical body spasming and warping and swinging at the cessation of existence. Everything that had once been bottled up came pouring out, a projectile vomit of feelings.

Everyone treated me like dirt, but if I ever stepped a toe out of line, I was the bad guy?! Society lets people who cheat, and steal, and lie, have everything they ever wanted but I was the selfish one for thinking I deserved better?! Why weren't they ever punished?! Why didn't society hold up its end of the bargain? If only...if only...if only I could've made them!

How many times had he wished he could just haul off and punch someone in the face? How often had he wanted to correct someone else's willful ignorance, or make them taste their own medicine, or just plain beat them to death for being so damn terrible!? And yet, he'd always bottled it up! Always tried to be "the bigger person," and what had it gotten him!?

Death. He was dead. So none of it mattered now, right?

If only...if only he could've had another chance...

---

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Children of the Otherworld - An Isekai Story

Ah, so you're saying that she'll fall head-over-heels for the first person who treats her with a modicum of courtesy.

@ERode

... And turn into a stalker-yandere... Yes.. Yeeeeeeeeeeees...

@Xaltwind

Yup, they're match-made. ;3

@ERode

Dalton: *He has bags under his eyes again* "Please, just once, can we have a normal--"

Minami: "No. Now turn into a horse again."

...

...

...

_{(It's cause she makes him pull her carriage during the daylight.)}

How to create a golden age super hero role playing game campaign with any super hero rpg system

Place the setting in 1930s-1950s America, tell stories that lean heavy towards the optimism of the American Dream and "freedom for all," and use villains whose primary motivators are petty revenge (Penguin's gonna get Batman this time!), megalomaniacal desire for power (Hydra wants to win WW3), or vast amounts of non-liquid wealth (aka, Lex Luthor stealing all the gold from Fort Knox, brainwashing all the rare animals in a jungle sanctuary, etc).

Limit sci-fi tech and related concepts to that era's understanding (radiation doesn't make you sick, it gives you superpowers; a society of ice-men lives around the frozen core beneath the waves of Neptune) and take things at face value, with a positive spin, as if shaking a man's hand is just as good as a legally binding contract. Heroes always maintain moral high grounds within the eyes of the law and society, villains are all cowards at heart.

Do not think deeply about anything. Pretend as if the stories you tell are being told for the absolute first time; no one's had enough experience with them to start trying to deconstruct them.

Children of the Otherworld - An Isekai Story

Dalton Grey

Earth Form

"Everyone says, "Look on the bright side!" but I already am. I'm standing here watching a nuke go off."

Age:
26

Appearance:
Dalton is easy to miss in a crowd; it's not so much about how generic he looks, but how easily his presence can just be...overlooked. He's one of those people that doesn't mean to creep around, and yet always seems to scare the bejeezus out of someone when he walks up behind them and asks them a question. He always looks like he's at that point of frustration where something inside you breaks and you just don't have the capacity to care anymore. Yet he's still capable of smiling and laughing--a sick, wobbling grin that makes people a little uncomfortable, and a booming cackle that sounds like ye-olde-super-villain.

Despite that, he's a surprisingly sharp dresser. It's like he's trying to look his best, but there's a "blazer and slacks" spectrum between CEO and homeless person, and life is doing its best to drag him down to the lower end. Even on a casual day, Dalton prefers to look and behave professionally. He makes an effort not to slouch, and over the phone he has a phenomenal customer service voice that can make you believe he actually loves what he does.

Job:
Bank Loan Officer

Cause of Death
Three car pileup caused by a teenager on a cellphone.

Background:

The Unsolved Equation

Drink your milk, eat your vegetables, stay in school, don't do drugs, and get eight hours of sleep. A polite, well-behaved society encourages everyone to follow little rules like that, right? Dalton's parents taught him this very early on in life. Do unto others as you'd have them do unto you. It's like a math equation, really. Get good grades in school, so you can go to college. Get a college degree, so you can get a good job. Get a good job so that you can afford a house and raise a family. It's the everyman's dream! Plug the right numbers in, and you'll get the right answer. Two plus two ALWAYS equals four!

Dalton didn't have many friends, but in the third grade he could read at a post-collegiate level so that was good, right? He got bullied in middle school, and shunned in high school, but that was okay because ignoring the formative years of socialization just meant he had more time to study so that he could be sure to get a scholarship! He could afford to put off having things like a social life or romantic relationships until after he was successful, right? It wasn't like he was a bad person, he still made an effort to treat people nicely...even if it backfired a lot because he was awkward or couldn't read the mood. Geez, it was like he'd missed some kind of handbook on how to fit in...

It's too bad that no one cares who the valedictorian was after highschool. And it's too bad that college is more about social networking among all the guys whose dads have yachts than it is about academia. And it's too bad that companies don't want to hire anyone who doesn't have experience, but you can't get experience without being hired. And it's too bad that the housing bubble popped and now the house your dad could've bought on a blue-collar part-time job and raised three kids in is now valued at ten times the amount while the yearly wages are the same they were thirty years ago.

And it's too bad that being nice to people just means you're a doormat, and the people who REALLY succeed in life are, as confirmed by uncomfortably large bodies of research, LITERAL sociopaths. But that doesn't mean doing the right thing is wrong. That doesn't mean all the morals and "good old traditional values" weren't relevant anymore, right? Dalton knew he could still accomplish what he wanted in life, he just had to keep doing the "right" things!

But for some reason, other people wouldn't. There were a lot of examples throughout Dalton's life, but one in particular really stuck with him. Not long after he'd just started at the bank, working as a lowly teller (a job completely unrelated to what he'd spent four years in college for, but a paycheck was a paycheck), his mother had a heart attack. His parents had him later in life than was usual, and both of them lived laid back lifestyles without getting as much exercise as they should, and so forth. So she had a heart attack, and his father called the ambulance. On the way to the hospital, she had to be resuscitated multiple times. Dalton received a call from his father and immediately asked his boss to leave...but was told that the teller line was too busy, that it was a regular payday for local businesses and the afternoon rush had just started, they needed him to stay. When Dalton explained the situation, his supervisor gave him a stern look and asked, "Well, what're you going to do about it? You're not a heart surgeon. You wouldn't be doing anything useful there."

After work, Dalton raced to the hospital. His mother had undergone a double bypass, and after being released from the CCU she was placed in a private room just down the hall from the nurse station. He couldn't be there with her except for the early mornings and late evenings. But one night, before his father had returned to the hospital room, his mother began acting strangely. Dalton called the nurse, who dismissed the random spikes in blood pressure as "surgical pains." But it continued, and Dalton continued to hit the nurse call button. After thirty minutes of back and forths, the nurse growing increasingly more agitated, she stopped answering the button entirely. His mother grew worse, until Dalton grew desparate enough to run down the hall. The same nurse sat at the station, snapping a mouthful of chewing gum and painting her long, witchlike nails, was in the middle of a phone call. When Dalton begged her for help, his voice echoing the sterile hallways, she "shh'd" him and pointed at the phone. He yelled that his mother was dying. The woman told him, in a very stern voice, that she was on the phone and would get to him in a moment. Dalton looked at her nametag--Shaniqua--and addressed her personally, pleading for help. He leaned over the counter and grabbed one of her hands. She jerked away from him, her nails raking his arm in the process, and told him to "calm yo ass down!"

Dalton doesn't remember what happened after that, just that security escorted him out of the hospital after his mother died. He was never prosecuted for anything.

Life went on. He went back to school and got promoted at work, but that just meant they started demanding even more from him. His dad passed away too, so he finally had a house to himself, but everything was still too expensive. He never found a girlfriend, but that was because he swore off dating apps after several bad experiences and had no idea how to meet women the "normal" way.

He started to ask himself a few very simple questions, in the years to come.

"If everyone knows the difference between right and wrong...why does no one do what they're supposed to do?

I tried my best to do all the things I was supposed to do...so why does my life suck?

And why...why do I hate other people so goddamn much?"

Vecta Form

DALTON

(Minus clothes and general happy demeanor, plus loincloth and pointier ears)

"Reborn as a...caveman elf? Eh, not as bad as it could've been, I'll take--Wait why do they all have fursonas OH GOD--!?!"

Appearance:
Dalton maintains an unusually rigid posture and better-than-usual hygienic habits, making him stand out like a sore thumb among the more feral Merrick race. Somewhat elvish in appearance, yet with the more robust build of hunter gatherers and strong jaws filled with pronounced fangs, the Merricks are normally hunched and take care to maintain a scent that blends in with their environment--so obviously Dalton finds it disgusting. He still has the freckles he used to have as a human, though they're much paler than they used to be and only really show up when he's been in the sun for a while or when he blushes--which is frequent, because the semi-savage Merricks are quite lacking in what he'd call modesty.

As hunter-gatherers, the Merricks aren't exactly what one would call couch potatoes. Next to them Dalton looks svelte, but compared to an average human he probably looks like a starving child.

Race:
Merrick (Omega) - Considered by some as "wild elves," the Merricks are distinguished by longer, unruly hair, their fangs, and pointed ears. They typically carry no weapons and travel light, living a nomadic lifestyle. To fight, they instead channel the power of the pelts they wear to absorb the essence of the beast within. As the Omega of the tribe, Dalton is considered the weakest among the males and the bottom of the social hierarchy--so pretty much the same environment he had at the office, only with slightly less poo-flinging.

Deity:
Drasil

Weapons/Tools:

• Currently N/A

Likes:
- Seeing people he likes try their hardest and succeed; cathartic payoff.
- Seeing people he doesn't like or agree with be humiliated and obliterated.
- Being able to enjoy simple things without feeling like you're being unproductive, or like a bill is looming over you with every purchase.

Dislikes:
- The idea of a 60-hour work week.
- People that blame a singular economic or political structure for the various facets of what's utterly wrong with human civilization.
- Being vulnerable to the whims of others; the feeling that his own decisions are mandated by something "over" him.

Quirks:
- Talks to himself as if he's multiple people in order to work through his own thoughts or make big decisions; has been caught more than once referring to himself as "we" by accident.
- Reads at 450 words per minute with 74% retention rate.
- Unknowingly intimidates people sometimes because he tried to fix his inability to make eye contact by staring at their foreheads instead, and never realized people don't usually hold total eye contact.

Skills:
[Combat Sense] - ???
[Pack Leader] - ???
[Primal Rage] - Legendary: ???
[Hunter's Trap] - Racial Trait (Merrick): ???