Zombiedude101

Priest and Hawthorne Investigations: A Modern Fantasy Adventure!

Intrigued. Will work on something in the background.

Mass Effect: Vigil

We're full for now, @Zombiedude101. Though I can put you on the waitlist if you're interested.

@Gcold

Keep me on, then. I've a touch of history with @Dervish on ME RPs.

Mass Effect: Vigil

Hey, is this RP full up? I saw the premise a while back but hadn't realised you'd gone for a post-ME3 scenario.

Edit: nevermind, I'm blind - hope everyone else here has a good time

The Energy Storm

Kandahar

Name: Dariush Khan - AKA Kandahar
Age: 36
Gender: Male
Height: 5'10
Weight: 162lb
Ethnicity: Pashtun
Sexual Orientation: Irrelevant
Religion: Lapsed Sunni
Occupation: Self-Employed

Appearance:
A light-skinned man of average build, sporting no particularly muscular features barring those of a man not unused to physical labour. Kandahar’s face is one of a man perhaps prematurely aged by the ravages of war - or, in his case, by the experience of torture and death. A short, coarse beard clings to his face and jawline, with a short mass of equally coarse charcoal hair atop his head, with almost perpetually crinkled eyes to match. Normally garbed in a dark leather jacket and cargo pants with a rugged pair of working boots, Kandahar is a man that does not particularly stand out in a crowd. If anything is of note, it is the amputation of his left ring finger past the first joint. His accent is perhaps peculiar as well, bearing inflections of a native Pashto-Dari speaker intermingled with a Pacific US dialect.

Ability:

Immortality?

There isn't any other way to say it - Kandahar can't die. And that goes without saying that he hasn’t tried, or at least thrown himself back into the jaws of death in the aftermath of the Energy Storm. Fatal injuries don't put him down, eventually healing and closing up once sufficient time has passed. Even lost limbs, with time, will recover.

Whether this is true immortality, or merely rapid cellular regeneration is another matter, but the fact remains that Kandahar's mind and memories remain intact, for the most part, despite having undergone substantial cranial trauma. His psyche is a different matter - these regenerative abilities haven't extended to dulling his senses, or the pain of such damage.

Background:
Dariush was born in Soviet-Occupied Afghanistan amidst a bloody, drawn-out conflict as the USSR attempted to prop up the communist puppet government that had replaced the monarchy in the 70s. Though many of the nation's intellectuals and skilled labourers had fled the country, most of Dariush's surviving relatives had remained to fight the occupation alongside the Mujahideen, with Dariush's own father smuggling arms into the nation from neighbouring Pakistan.

Raised along mountain passageways and precarious roads, ever under threat from the Soviets, Dariush's childhood was one fraught with hazard from the moment he could walk. Yet despite this, he survived to outlast the Soviet Occupation, only to see the nation of his birth descend into anarchy and civil war as different factions clashed over who and what sort of government would take the place of the communists. Amidst this, Dariush's father was arrested and executed by the Taliban, forcing his surviving family to flee to the United States to eke out a living there, Dariush among them.

Life in the pre and post-9/11 US proved tenuous at best, though Dariush made do as a displaced person exposed to US culture on the West Coast. Eventually, seeking a sense of purpose (and needing the employment anyway) he enlisted in the US Army as an interpreter, being fluent in both Pashto and Farsi, with a semblance of perhaps doing some good by returning to his nation of birth as a serviceman. Yet this too would be a bitter experience for him - Dariush came to see what a shell Afghanistan had been rendered, between the corrupt US-backed government and security forces who were often more interested in pulling 'dancing boys' off the street than dealing with insurgents, not to mention the weariness and even contempt with which his own countrymen regarded him. When Dariush's service came to an end, he had been rendered disillusioned by his time in Afghanistan.

Returning home, Dariush found himself torn between contrasting cultures, unable to reconcile the differing values he'd picked up in his years. Perhaps it was this who led him under the wing of a fellow Afghan, Gulbuddin, who had once known Dariush's father and indeed had helped his family escape to the United States back in the 90s. Out of a sense of debt and perhaps lacking a father figure, Dariush found work with Gulbuddin as a respected figure among the local Persian community, a mishmash of Afghan and Iranian expatriates that had been driven from their homeland for one reason or another, following a certain ideal - 'Shir o Khorshīd' - Lion and Sun.

Whilst Gulbuddin regarded it as simply a way of life, being part of a community, it was simply another form of organised crime. Where others trafficked sex or hard drugs, Gulbuddin dealt in opium and arms smuggled from the Khyber Pass, alongside local property fronts and protection rackets which harshly dealt with interlopers. Dariush played a significant role in building their community's power, managing associates and lesser members of the organisation - indeed, he took on a new identity in the process, becoming known as 'Kandahar' for the city of his birth.

Kandahar was a man of many things that society would deem reprehensible. He hurt people, even killed some. This identity took the place of Dariush, the sense of place and belonging embodied by the small empire which he and Gulbuddin had built out of their little community. Yet things come to an end eventually - in their case, it came in the form of a two-pronged assault on their 'community' - one on Darius himself, taking place amidst the aftermath of the Energy Storm and the epidemic that had taken hold. Kidnapped, tortured and drugged in an effort to pry some information on Gulbuddin out of him, a feverish Dariush refused to give in. Afflicted with the plague an at death's door, Dariush's last memory was of him being taken out into the wilderness, moments before being shot and dumped in a shallow grave. Anything that remained of Dariush died there.

Kandahar crawled out of that grave, half-mad from the shock of dying and reawakening covered in soil, dealing with withdrawal symptoms. He returned to find their ‘c

The Energy Storm

@Chulance as requested

Kandahar

Name: Dariush Khan - AKA Kandahar
Age: 36
Gender: Male
Height: 5'10
Weight: 162lb
Ethnicity: Pashtun
Sexual Orientation: Irrelevant
Religion: Lapsed Sunni
Occupation: Self-Employed

Appearance:
A light-skinned man of average build, sporting no particularly muscular features barring those of a man not unused to physical labour. Kandahar’s face is one of a man perhaps prematurely aged by the ravages of war - or, in his case, by the experience of torture and death. A short, coarse beard clings to his face and jawline, with a short mass of equally coarse charcoal hair atop his head, with almost perpetually crinkled eyes to match. Normally garbed in a dark leather jacket and cargo pants with a rugged pair of working boots, Kandahar is a man that does not particularly stand out in a crowd. If anything is of note, it is the amputation of his left ring finger past the first joint. His accent is perhaps peculiar as well, bearing inflections of a native Pashto-Dari speaker intermingled with a Pacific US dialect.

Ability: Immortality
There isn't any other way to say it - Kandahar can't die. And that goes without saying that he hasn’t tried, or at least thrown himself back into the jaws of death in the aftermath of the Energy Storm. Fatal injuries don't put him down, eventually healing and closing up once sufficient time has passed. Even lost limbs, with time, will recover.

Background:
Dariush was born in Soviet-Occupied Afghanistan amidst a bloody, drawn-out conflict as the USSR attempted to prop up the communist puppet government that had replaced the monarchy in the 70s. Though many of the nation's intellectuals and skilled labourers had fled the country, most of Dariush's surviving relatives had remained to fight the occupation alongside the Mujahideen, with Dariush's own father smuggling arms into the nation from neighbouring Pakistan.

Raised along mountain passageways and precarious roads, ever under threat from the Soviets, Dariush's childhood was one fraught with hazard from the moment he could walk. Yet despite this, he survived to outlast the Soviet Occupation, only to see the nation of his birth descend into anarchy and civil war as different factions clashed over who and what sort of government would take the place of the communists. Amidst this, Dariush's father was arrested and executed by the Taliban, forcing his surviving family to flee to the United States to eke out a living there, Dariush among them.

Life in the pre and post-9/11 US proved tenuous at best, though Dariush made do as a displaced person exposed to US culture on the West Coast. Eventually, seeking a sense of purpose (and needing the employment anyway) he enlisted in the US Army as an interpreter, being fluent in both Pashto and Farsi, with a semblance of perhaps doing some good by returning to his nation of birth as a serviceman. Yet this too would be a bitter experience for him - Dariush came to see what a shell Afghanistan had been rendered, between the corrupt US-backed government and security forces who were often more interested in pulling 'dancing boys' off the street than dealing with insurgents, not to mention the weariness and even contempt with which his own countrymen regarded him. When Dariush's service came to an end, he had been rendered disillusioned by his time in Afghanistan.

Returning home, Dariush found himself torn between contrasting cultures, unable to reconcile the differing values he'd picked up in his years. Perhaps it was this who led him under the wing of a fellow Afghan, Gulbuddin, who had once known Dariush's father and indeed had helped his family escape to the United States back in the 90s. Out of a sense of debt and perhaps lacking a father figure, Dariush found work with Gulbuddin as a respected figure among the local Persian community, a mishmash of Afghan and Iranian expatriates that had been driven from their homeland for one reason or another, following a certain ideal - 'Shir o Khorshīd' - Lion and Sun.

Whilst Gulbuddin regarded it as simply a way of life, being part of a community, it was simply another form of organised crime. Where others trafficked sex or hard drugs, Gulbuddin dealt in opium and arms smuggled from the Khyber Pass, alongside local property fronts and protection rackets which harshly dealt with interlopers. Dariush played a significant role in building their community's power, managing associates and lesser members of the organisation - indeed, he took on a new identity in the process, becoming known as 'Kandahar' for the city of his birth.

Kandahar was a man of many things that society would deem reprehensible. He hurt people, even killed some. This identity took the place of Dariush, the sense of place and belonging embodied by the small empire which he and Gulbuddin had built out of their little community. Yet things come to an end eventually - in their case, it came in the form of a two-pronged assault on their 'community' - one on Darius himself. Kidnapped, tortured and drugged in an effort to pry some information on Gulbuddin out of him, Dariush refused to give in. His last memory prior to the Energy Storm was one of being taken out into the wilderness, moments before being shot and dumped in a shallow grave. Anything that remained of Dariush died there.

Kandahar crawled out of that grave, half-mad from the shock of dying and reawakening covered in soil, dealing with withdrawal symptoms. He returned to find their ‘community’ aflame, amidst three-pronged onslaught from rivals, the police and the anarchic aftermath of the Energy Storm itself.

Loosely based on a character I played in another setting, everything between meeting Gulbuddin up to the kidnapping actually took place on an RP community I was at way back in 2017. Was good stuff.

@Zombiedude101

Reworked, sorry I took my time.

Kandahar

Name: Dariush Khan - AKA Kandahar
Age: 35
Gender: Male
Height: 5'10
Weight: 162lb
Ethnicity: Pashtun
Sexual Orientation: Irrelevant
Religion: Lapsed Sunni
Occupation: Self-Employed

Appearance:
A light-skinned man of average build, sporting no particularly muscular features barring those of a man not unused to physical labour. Kandahar’s face is one of a man perhaps prematurely aged by the ravages of war - or, in his case, by the experience of torture and death. A short, coarse beard clings to his face and jawline, with a short mass of equally coarse charcoal hair atop his head, with almost perpetually crinkled eyes to match. Normally garbed in a dark leather jacket and cargo pants with a rugged pair of working boots, Kandahar is a man that does not particularly stand out in a crowd. If anything is of note, it is the amputation of his left ring finger past the first joint.

Ability: Immortality
There isn't any other way to say it - Kandahar can't die. And that goes without saying that he hasn’t tried, or at least thrown himself back into the jaws of death in the aftermath of the Energy Storm. Fatal injuries don't put him down, eventually healing and closing up once sufficient time has passed. Even lost limbs, with time, will recover - perhaps a consequence of undergoing such physical trauma while afflicted with the plague.

Background:
Dariush was born in Soviet-Occupied Afghanistan amidst a bloody, drawn-out conflict as the USSR attempted to prop up the communist puppet government that had replaced the monarchy in the 70s. Though many of the nation's intellectuals and skilled labourers had fled the country, most of Dariush's surviving relatives had remained to fight the occupation alongside the Mujahideen, with Dariush's own father smuggling arms into the nation from neighbouring Pakistan.

Raised along mountain passageways and precarious roads, ever under threat from the Soviets, Dariush's childhood was one fraught with hazard from the moment he could walk. Yet despite this, he survived to outlast the Soviet Occupation, only to see the nation of his birth descend into anarchy and civil war as different factions clashed over who and what sort of government would take the place of the communists. Amidst this, Dariush's father was arrested and executed by the Taliban, forcing his surviving family to flee to the United States to eke out a living there, Dariush among them.

Life in the pre and post-9/11 US proved tenuous at best, though Dariush made do as a displaced person exposed to US culture on the West Coast. Eventually, seeking a sense of purpose (and needing the employment anyway) he enlisted in the US Army as an interpreter, being fluent in both Pashto and Farsi, with a semblance of perhaps doing some good by returning to his nation of birth as a serviceman. Yet this too would be a bitter experience for him - Dariush came to see what a shell Afghanistan had been rendered, between the corrupt US-backed government and security forces who were often more interested in pulling 'dancing boys' off the street than dealing with insurgents, not to mention the weariness and even contempt with which his own countrymen regarded him. When Dariush's service came to an end, he had been rendered disillusioned by his time in Afghanistan.

Returning home, Dariush found himself torn between contrasting cultures, unable to reconcile the differing values he'd picked up in his years. Perhaps it was this who led him under the wing of a fellow Afghan, Gulbuddin, who had once known Dariush's father and indeed had helped his family escape to the United States back in the 90s. Out of a sense of debt and perhaps lacking a father figure, Dariush found work with Gulbuddin as a respected figure among the local Persian community, a mishmash of Afghan and Iranian expatriates that had been driven from their homeland for one reason or another, following a certain ideal - 'Shir o Khorshīd' - Lion and Sun.

Whilst Gulbuddin regarded it as simply a way of life, being part of a community, it was simply another form of organised crime. Where others trafficked sex or hard drugs, Gulbuddin dealt in opium and arms smuggled from the Khyber Pass, alongside local property fronts and protection rackets which harshly dealt with interlopers. Dariush played a significant role in building their community's power, managing associates and lesser members of the organisation - indeed, he took on a new identity in the process, becoming known as 'Kandahar' for the city of his birth.

Kandahar was a man of many things that society would deem reprehensible. He hurt people, even killed some. This identity took the place of Dariush, the sense of place and belonging embodied by the small empire which he and Gulbuddin had built out of their little community. Yet things come to an end eventually - in their case, it came in the form of a two-pronged assault on their 'community' - one on Darius himself, taking place amidst tge aftermath of the Energy Storm and the epidemic that had taken hold. Kidnapped, tortured and drugged in an effort to pry some information on Gulbuddin out of him, a feverish Dariush refused to give in. Afflicted by the plague at for all intents and purposes at death's door, Dariush's last memory was of him being taken out into the wilderness, moments before being shot and dumped in a shallow grave. Anything that remained of Dariush died there.

Kandahar crawled out of that grave, half-mad from the shock of dying and reawakening covered in soil, dealing with withdrawal symptoms. He returned to find their ‘community’ aflame, amidst three-pronged onslaught from rivals, the police and the disorder generated by the fruit of thr Energy Storm.

@Xandrya

Call To Action: Marginalized Groups Must Be Recognized In The Rules

<Snipped quote by Zombiedude101>

while I agree with the sentiment, the incessant cursing isn't really helping your case be any more convincing.

@Ammokkx

??

Call To Action: Marginalized Groups Must Be Recognized In The Rules

@Zombiedude101
Hold on, ok. I understand we want to discuss these things and you're welcome to it, but it has made some people uncomfortable with you sort of spilling out all of these slurs/buzz words so next time try not to use blatant examples, or at least put asterisks in there. And when the new rules come up, I won't be able to just give you a talking to. So just keep it in mind.

@POOHEAD189

I think it's pretty obvious I was just giving an example (and I was giving tame examples from personal experience as an admin elsewhere) of the difference between someone saying "aw nigga that's just gay" (and again I find that cringey myself) and saying "man I hate trans/fags/INSERTETHNICSLURHERE" - one facetious twat I knew kept intentionally bringing up the high suicide rate among certain demographics to intentionally provoke trans members.

Deleting the post or using asterisks to censor it doesn't change the fact that it's out there and that there are some egregious cunts out there. Nor should people have to be subjected to it, but you're missing the point I'm trying to make.

Again, use the rules as a guideline and employ common sense to deal with shitmonglers who like to point their shitstained fingers at the rules and gobber "b-but it's not against the rules, I'm only talking generally!!" and context to deal with people joking around/being harmless. I'll happily offer to help moderate for RPG if such assistance was needed.

TL;DR
Rules aren't infallible, don't treat them like laws - toxic people who try to skirt around the spirit of them should get the boot while those dicking around harmlessly with comments like "you gay" should be left alone.

I really don't understand what's so difficult to follow here.

Call To Action: Marginalized Groups Must Be Recognized In The Rules

@Zombiedude101

<Snipped quote by Yankee>

Numerous people through out the talks on Discord have mentioned that they've witnessed people abusing this rule and using minorites like LGBT as a punching bag. Even @Chai, who is currently a chat moderator on the Discord, has mentioned that she has had to argue against people trying to defend their racist, homophobic, misogynistic, etc. comments, saying that they hadn't broken RPG rules even though what they said was incredibly derogatory towards said groups.

And even if you think it's "making a mountain out of a bloody molehill", if it helps minorities like myself feel safer on the guild, then surely it won't hurt to change/clarify it, no?

@Kuro

To be fair, that's the same logic as the Nazis and the Soviets claiming they didn't commit war crimes against each others' POWs because they never signed the conventions surrounding prisoners. Just cunts trying to get around the rules which surely should fall under bigotry/being a cunt and be bannable anyway. These people have been banned, right? That's what you do with those autistic manchildren, you don't try and argue rules with them you just give them the boot for behaving like toxic assholes. Simple.

Call To Action: Marginalized Groups Must Be Recognized In The Rules

Why does there need to be anything special here? Just use common sense and make it clear that genuine bigotry of any sort won't be tolerated, simple as. I feel like this is making a mountain out of a bloody mole hill. No need for a big deal here.