Nov. 19th, 2013

Beastiary

Nov. 19th, 2013 08:06 pm
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You are not alone. Here is a sampling of the fun things you might run into... or might run into you.

☸ The Bots

Mettaurs

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Mettaurs come in a variety of functions and styles-- the one pictured above is the basic form. Not pictured are the met’s manipulator arms (which appear as slim silver tentacles). Mettaurs’ helmets are very sturdy and pretty much impervious to energy-based attack, though if a physical attack knocks them over they are very vulnerable. You probably don’t want to attack one, though-- mettaurs are the basic construction, maintenance, and housekeeping robot for all but large industrial-scale jobs. Most apartments have a mettaur or two installed to handle the basic chores, and anyone with sufficient experience with code can get into a mettaur’s programming and use them as minions. (Within reason-- the city’s security does respond when too many mettaurs drop off the network at once.)

Bugs

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There is a wide variety of bug robots creeping and fluttering around. They are all small enough to be held in a normal humanoid hand, and do a lot of the cleanup and pest management around the city. Most are modeled after beetles, as above, but there are also mantis, ant, and dragonfly-like models. They are fairly difficult to reprogram because most of their code is hard-wired in the factory, though they are also pretty dumb and can be incited to swarm by large or dangerous messes.

Decorative Models

critter bot photo robotic_pet.png

There is a small population of robots modeled after animals-- mostly birds and cat-sized critters that can’t decide if they’re raccoons or bunnies. They don’t have a particular function, serving as decoration or, in the case of the fuzzies, companion animals. Beacons for the fuzzy-bots can be found in most supply areas, though you will have to catch your own fuzzy yourself.

Military/Security Models

Too many to illustrate-- check out the link.

Military-spec robots are generally humanoid in shape so as to be able to handle equipment originally designed for humans to enter human environments. That said, they’re also generally heavily armored, and often have claws instead of hands. They generally speak in prerecorded sound bytes, though they show evidence of intelligence and strategic thinking. If a bunch of truly uber characters are fighting, for example, they will move to cordon off the area rather than go on suicidal charges to stop the fight.

Generally, these robots keep the peace by quelling any large disturbances. They are programmed to respond primarily to fighting, though if there is a big throwdown going on they are known to wait for backup before proceeding.

Geography

Nov. 19th, 2013 08:15 pm
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☸ The Setting

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You find yourself in a futuristic city, deserted by all but a bunch of robots maintaining order and keeping the lights on. As time goes on, you notice that this place is probably on Earth even if all the constellations are wrong. The days are about 24 hours long, there's only one moon tidally locked to the planet, and seasons happen with about the same regularity that you've come to expect of Earth.

It's weird here. All your citizenship information is stored in your phone-- your ID, your bank account (And how weird is it that you have one of those? You just appeared out of nowhere!), even control of the robots that maintain your home. You don't have to work-- the amount of money in your account is enough for you to buy a brand new car if you wanted, and it never seems to go down.

Your housing is taken care of too-- you've been assigned a place with a roommate, and the address and any keys to enter the location are already in your phone. If you don't like it? There's plenty of room available, both single-family and apartment-style living to suit most tastes. All the mayor seems to care about is that people aren't living alone, for safety's sake.

It's weird. If it weren't so empty here, it'd probably be paradise-- a future world with no need to struggle for the basics and all kinds of leisure open to play with. But the problem is.. where are all the other people?

If that wasn't bad enough? You can't leave, either. The mayor is very sorry about this, but there’s some kind of weird anomaly on the outskirts of town, manifesting as a shimmery field that gives your character a headache if they look at it too long. If they try to walk through this barrier field, they will black out under a feeling of intense vertigo, senses scrambled until they are tasting blue and a jackhammer noise feels fuzzy, and then regain consciousness on the other side of the map. Characters who started out walking south will be on the north side of town, walking east gets leads you to the west side of town.. like being trapped in a bad video game. Trying to use fancy teleporting devices or psychic powers to leave the area or to look beyond its borders leads to the same screaming black vertigo effect. It’s like the whole place is surrounded by something very, very wrong.

The mayor is trying to work on a fix, and in the meantime he'll try to make you as comfortable as he can during your stay.

☸ Key Locations

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The Hub (1)

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Everyone's arrival point Located roughly in the center of town, the Hub consists of a huge collection of stand-up, single-person pods like something a cartoon mad scientist would have laying around. They are actually single-person teleporter units, or they would be if anything was working. Your character (unless they are just too big) will appear in one of the pods upon arrival or upon respawning after death. The pods are not locked and will open automatically after about thirty seconds, though it's still not a fun experience for the claustrophobic.

On the floor below is an arrangement that looks very reminiscent of the transporter room from Star Trek-- these in better days were cargo teleporters. Very large characters will arrive here.

The rest of the Hub complex, aside from the floors of teleporters, resembles any large transit center. There are waiting areas, automated areas for procuring food and drink (though, alas, nothing specialized to non-Earthlike metabolisms), and even a gift shop that sells random touristy kitsch. The general area is well-lit and screams future with its tasteful appointment, track lighting, and touchscreens everywhere. There are directories available scattered through the complex that provide directions out of the building and to various points of interest around the city-- though for some reason the computer thinks you're in a large city at home if you simply ask "where am I?"

Allbright Memorial Hospital (2)

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This facility has the capability of treating most human-like characters with no problem... if there were qualified physicians to supervise the robots. As it is, all the robots are programmed for basic first aid for human-types, though anything beyond stitches is a little beyond them and the stitches are likely to be crooked.

The robots could probably be programmed for non-humans, but it would take a programmer of sufficient skill and a doctor to input the proper medical protocols. As it is, the robots are designed to help, so they'll try to execute their programming anyway. Even if their help really, really doesn't help at all.

Metrorail Station (3)

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The trains still run on time, thanks to being automated monorails... but after a pleasant ride, you just end up back at the station no matter what you do. It's not a bad train ride. You get to spend an hour in a quiet, gently rocking vehicle with comfortable seats (for public transit anyway). Looking out the windows isn't recommended-- but if you really want to ride the train, comment in the relevant thread and we'll give you a synopsis of what your character gets to see. (It should be noted that characters who ride the train too often see their CityPass app deny them access to the station for a while. Hmmmmm.)

The station is notable for being equipped with one of those fancy QR-code based convenience stores in addition to the usual newsstand, weird vending machines, and noodle cart. Download the grocery app to your phone and snap pictures of what you want, and it will be waiting for you at home. Take a train ride to nowhere and then enjoy your ramen when you get back!

Community Center (4)

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Located in a patch of wooded park, this facility is a combination public bath (onsen-style) and normal gym/community fitness center. There are areas for most sports, including an ice rink for skating and hockey and a gym that can host basketball or roller derby. Sports equipment is available on loan if you forget your own, though the mettaurs who maintain the locker rooms get awfully testy if you try to make off with center equipment.

While there are marked guy and gal bathing areas, none of the robots are programmed to care who is where.

City Hall (5)

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While nobody can remember what the city is called, it does have an ultramodern city hall. This is where the mayor holes up with the robot control system most of the time-- while he can be spotted around the building, he seems to prefer staying locked in his offices. As a result, access to the central computer system is prohibited.

While the place is mostly empty clerical offices, there are a few points of interest. The roof is actually a garden, typically planted with a mixture of ornamentals (mostly flowers) and edible herbs. The second floor hosts an automated cafe that serves very nice sandwiches and coffee-based drinks. There are also several large conference rooms designed to hold government meetings and a medium-sized auditorium for larger gatherings that could probably be co-opted pretty easily for plays or movie nights.

Starlight Mall (6)

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It's a mall. It sprawls across approximately four city blocks and has four floors of shops. The food court has a carousel in it.

Some mall-only military-spec robots patrol the area, looking for shoplifters. They will attempt to tackle a thief and steal back the item being stolen, but they can be outrun pretty easily and it's not like the bank balance on your phone ever seems to decrease... or increase for that matter.

Needful Things (7)

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Leland has his own fantastic junk shop in a less-pristine area of the city, far away from the Starlight Mall. It's like every cliche of an eccentric antiques dealer's shop that you can find.. but you can also find just about anything there among the piles and piles of stuff.

One wrinkle: Leland prefers to trade in kind rather than for the meaningless money-- he has apparently been collecting stuff for a long time, and he'd rather not see his work frivolously go to waste. If you can't trade him something, he'll gladly take a future favor instead. Sure, the more desperately-needed or difficult to source the object, the greater the favor, but come on. He's not running a charity here.

He also has a large collection of Stephen King books. Which you are free to sit and read, but not allowed to take out of the store. It doesn't count as trading. The man just really likes Stephen King. So letting patrons read his books just means that Leland will have someone to talk about his collection with.

Cathedral (8)

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Like the city itself, the name of the cathedral is lost. All the relevant signage has been broken, gouged, or otherwise rendered illegible. It's definitely not an old building, though, as even a cursory search through would show that modern conveniences like electricity, heat, water, and wifi are all present. The cathedral itself appears to be multi-denominational, and in the same couple of blocks in the city there are other houses of worship as well. It appears that whatever else this place was, it was pretty darn diverse. There's even a storefront Chuch of the SubGenius!

Riverview Apartments (9)

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The first housing block that the mayor opened for the habitation of newcomers. It's a high-rise apartment building, like most in the city, and it features two and three bedroom luxury apartments. There are very nice views of the river, though those who are a little bit weaker of stomach might prefer the other side of the building since the river also offers a pretty good view of the anomaly too.

The building is thankfully in excellent repair, and there are a gym, pool, and small bar/grill on the first couple of floors.
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☸ Hiatus

Need a break? Fill out the form below.

If you are on hiatus for two weeks or more, you will be excused from AC checks that month.

If you are on a hiatus over the AC period, you have two options-- you can either post early (there will be a relevant early AC thread in each post) or you can have a friend do it for you.



☸ Drop

Leaving? Sadness. Use the form below to make it official.

Modbother

Nov. 19th, 2013 10:12 pm
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Your Mod crew is:

Kat
[plurk.com profile] tehkittykat
tehkittykat@gmail.com

Lead mod, game/event planning, site wrangling.

Phoenix
[plurk.com profile] lostangelssong
lostangelssong@gmail.com

Application mod, site wrangling.

You can contact the mods via plurk at [plurk.com profile] tempestmods

For non-urgent matters, you can also drop a comment below.

Taken

Nov. 19th, 2013 10:28 pm
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[Nobody yet lol]

To add your character to the big list, copy the form below and paste it in a comment with your character's fandom in the subject line.Fill out everything on the form in ALLCAPS.

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Creepy things that go bump in the night are one thing, but we like things OOC to go as smoothly as possible. To that end, please fill out the forms below and post in the comments.

Player Permissions

First, add a comment with your blanket permissions as a player, with your name in the comment's subject heading.



Character Permissions

Second, reply to your player permissions comment with the following character-specific permissions for each character that you play. In the subject heading of this comment, make sure to put down the character's name and the canon they are from.



Misc Permissions

If your character has some kind of power that tends to effect the game as a whole (psychics, hackers, vampires, etc), please put a comment in the MISC PERMISSIONS thread that links to your character's specific permissions. Once again, put the character's name and their canon up in the subject heading. Even if your character has a specific permissions page, make sure to fill out the general form.

Housing

Nov. 19th, 2013 10:42 pm
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Characters start off assigned to a two (sometimes three) bedroom apartment/condo with a roommate chosen by the computers at City Hall. After arrival, characters can opt to apply for other living arrangements (heaven knows there's space) but it will take 4-5 days for City Hall to fully process a relocation application and issue new credentials to match the new address. Sorry, guys, you're gonna be stuck with your random roomie for a few days. Additionally, sorry loners, but you're still going to be stuck with somebody as a roommate because the system will not issue housing credentials for people to live alone. City Hall claims it's for safety purposes since it isn't like there are proper emergency responders anymore. Of course, just because you're listed as living at a particular location doesn't mean you have to be in residence...

Current housing assignments are as follows:

[lol nobody yet]

If you would like to change your housing assignment, comment below using the form.

Deaths

Nov. 19th, 2013 11:32 pm
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You can't just die and get better like nothing happened.

If you want to die in-game, make sure you have the consent of the character playing your killer if this is not a murderer-less crime. Killing can be upsetting, especially for protag types and especially for protag types who didn't mean it. If you want to die to NPC monsters or whatever, go for it.

A dead character stays dead for seven days, and then respawns in the Hub in the condition they were in when they first arrived, down to lint in their pockets, minus a few little... problems.

Characters who die will experience a death penalty lasting for seven days. It seems the universe doesn't like having to respawn you.

Penalties include physical or mental effects and escalate as the number of deaths a character accrues goes. Your character will divorce more and more from reality or become more and more monstrous and out-of-control the more times they bite it and have to be respawned. There are a lot of potential death penalties, too many to exhaustively list here, but there are three broad types.

Monstrous penalties are what they look like on the tin. As your character racks up deaths, they start to slowly resemble and then behave like a twisted beast of chaos and shadows. It starts subtly at first-- an aversion to light here, a craving for the living force of a sentient being there-- and then starts to escalate. Soon your fingers are twisting into claws and you desperately crave flesh to the point you can't eat anything else... then you start phasing through walls and feel an uncontrollable urge to stalk the people you love...

And worst of all, if you are really allergic to living, you seem to spend more and more of your time as a monster...

Break penalties start off innocuous, or at least humorously. To put it in the briefest of terms, you start to see people as popular AU or fanfic trope versions of themselves-- the coffee shop, the swim team, the werewolf pack. Problem is, the more often you die, the more you start to see people as their AU selves, until it starts to effect even those closest to you. It's really quite terrifying if you think about it:

Your memory and perception of people just ends up a little off. You could swear that the battle cyborg you occasionally trade information with is actually a professional tennis player. That the quiet girl in the library is actually a raging alpha-female on the prowl for someone to join her wolf pack. They might correct you, but you can't quite shake the feeling for a few days...

And then the people you're friends with start to seem off too, as your deaths start to mount. Why was your friend carrying a sword? They run a coffee shop! And then it starts to spread to your closest companions... And then it starts to seem like everything is some chaotic jumble of what you think you know about people and what they actually are, and no two people even seem to be from the same kind of twisted reality anymore...

Glitch penalties are the most common for people to experience, particularly if they don't really rack up the death counts. Most of them have to do with messing up one's interaction with reality-- senses, speech, or occasionally vivid hallucinations about the way the world works that have psychosomatic effects. If you hallucinate that the floor is lava? You feel a burn even if you aren't injured. You could start regularly tasting sounds or be constrained to always speak in heroic couplets. (Unless your name is Etrigan. Then you have to speak like a normal mortal. Shudder.) You could lose your vision and have to echolocate or use scans.. or lose your form of perceiving the world and gain sight. It's all rather disorienting, as if the world didn't quite reboot you right when you came back from the dead...

Glitches don't really escalate. Soon enough someone will end up either on the path of becoming a monster or on the path of seeming to break entirely from reality.

And reminder... anyone who is dead in canon and comes back for the game will have one death already added to their register. So if they die again? It's gonna be a bit more interesting...

Comment below if your character is going to die. Include the name, username, and date of death. We will issue a reminder of when you character respawns and the death penalty involved.
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Player Plots:

Fill out the form and post as a comment. Make sure the subject header is "Player Plot". Please reserve this for "big boom" type events that would have an effect on the game's environment. We don't need to approve every little thing, trust me. (But when in doubt, please post.)

Characters mainly involved: Self explanatory.
Open to Game-Wide Involvement?: Y/N?
Time Estimate: When would you like to start this/how long do you expect it to run?
Plot Description: A synopsis of what you’d like to happen - please give as much detail as you can so we have a clear understanding of what you’d like to do.
Questions for the Mods: Do you have any questions about what’s workable? Do you need any assistance from the NPCs? Anything else the mods can do?
Anything else: Any other notes you have.



NPC Request:

If you need to page a particular named NPC into a thread, please fill out and post the form below. Make sure to put NPC Request in the subject header. We will get back to you ASAP.

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