YohhananArbuckle
New Member
-- THE FAST VERSION OF THE PITCH --
This is a soft science fiction/space operatic setting where all players possess the power of Dreaming - in their dreams they consistently visit the same unreal place, inhabiting the same unreal form, and they can partially manifest that private reality into the real world. This is the only confirmed paranormal phenomena in the universe, and it is relatively recent. The players start on the tropical island megalopolis of Port Gladys, on a somewhat lawless ocean world known as Arcadia. While a world changing plot device will be used to keep moving the setting and ultimate narrative forward, this RP should mostly be about players writing stories that are interesting to them.
-- INITIAL PITCH --
Our story begins on the ocean world of Arcadia, population six billion, ruled by the interstellar and at best unevenly benevolent Association. It was colonized thousands of years ago, and is now inhabited by a multicultural, multiracial stew of Association species. Some choose to live in floating arcologies, while others live in dome bound cities beneath the waves. Air barges and ultra fast aquatic craft ply from habitation to habitation, transporting goods and people across the open sea.
You live in, or at least you are currently visiting, an archipelago bound metropolis called Port Gladys. PG was the first settlement on Arcadia and is now the largest, housing two hundred million souls across a single enormous island chain. The warm tropical climate, killer beaches, and vibrant cultural attractions of the city bring in hundreds of thousands of visitors every year, and the safe parts of the city are delightful. You could be a desk jockey on a good island and never see a body or hear a gunshot.
Of course it being an enormous city (two hundred million people!), conditions in certain areas are much worse. Poorer islands or neighborhoods are de facto ruled by criminal outfits or questionable corporate interests. The Association, which always has bigger fish to fry elsewhere, tolerates this so long as mayhem doesn’t become the norm. When things become untenable teams of cleaners are sent in, and by hook or by crook order is restored.
Here are some other details that are not quite the point. But they do provide color. In the Association cybernetic and biological augmentations are standard fare, not exceptional. On a nice day the piers ringing Savoy Island are packed with people drinking at cheap patio tables and watching a touring vessel dock one isle away. Public transit is accomplished via a fleet of fast and generally reliable air barges. At night magnetic interference turns the sky streaky indigo and gold, and you can tell who isn’t a local because they walk around looking up with their mouth open.
Here are some details that are the point. You are anybody, but you aren’t just anybody. You are a Dreamer. The phenomena you control is recent, having first been recorded a millennium ago. It is the sole paranormal phenomena that anyone has discovered and it manifests in around one in one hundred thousand people without pattern. No satisfying scientific explanation has been forwarded.
When you sleep you dream of a different world, and in the dream you are not yourself but you are always the same. You may find yourself moved forward chronologically in the dream but you always understand what you are doing and how you got where you are. It is not jarring. In the dream you wield power that commands respect or fear, if other living things are inside your dream they know you or know of you. These dream worlds vary endlessly in composition and character and defy classification. They do not correctly reference places or historical events, but are occasionally and obviously influenced by such. The temperament and character of the dreamer appears to matter. What is hard on most dreamers is that the dream and the world seem concrete and real to the same degree. Various philosophies are adopted. I don’t know what you’ve decided to do.
If you focus you can manifest your dream powers in the real world, not forever but long enough to be useful. If you choose to be a violent person you are a frightening one indeed.
If you are lucky or a hard worker your abilities will go beyond that. Some dreamers can turn a space around themselves into their dream, and be more perfectly both selves in that location. Others can pull living beings out of the dream and into the world and make use of them. Some learn to permanently and effortlessly maintain some small aspect of their dream self that is useful.
An immoral dreamer who finds others willing to believe in their dream draws strength from that belief. While they do so they drive their supplicants insane. This is in the main not a socially useful trade off and it is illegal in the Association.
Dreamers always recognize other dreamers. The best way to describe the feeling is like seeing someone you remember from university forty years later but then realizing right away that they haven’t aged a day. Every hair on your body stands on end and you get icy cold at the extremities. You don’t magically know the other guy’s name but you know what they’re about. For a very confused second you can see their dream and feel how it makes them feel. This tends to pull dreamers right together or push them right apart.
What is happening the literal moment this story starts is that a fixer is stepping off of an unmarked Association vessel with his kit bag and verbal only orders to bring to heel a dream cult that has started to take hold in a sorry, by-the-wayside section of Port Gladys. You are not necessarily involved in this, perhaps you have happier business elsewhere. If it is compelling other dreamers might be pulled into your ambit - I hope you will welcome them. To start there isn’t more to it.
-- ABOUT ME BRIEFLY --
-- SOME ADDITIONAL OOC NOTES --
-- WHAT WOULD NEED TO BE TRUE FOR THIS RP TO START --
Happy to answer questions or hash out character ideas, don't be shy if you're interested!
This is a soft science fiction/space operatic setting where all players possess the power of Dreaming - in their dreams they consistently visit the same unreal place, inhabiting the same unreal form, and they can partially manifest that private reality into the real world. This is the only confirmed paranormal phenomena in the universe, and it is relatively recent. The players start on the tropical island megalopolis of Port Gladys, on a somewhat lawless ocean world known as Arcadia. While a world changing plot device will be used to keep moving the setting and ultimate narrative forward, this RP should mostly be about players writing stories that are interesting to them.
-- INITIAL PITCH --
Our story begins on the ocean world of Arcadia, population six billion, ruled by the interstellar and at best unevenly benevolent Association. It was colonized thousands of years ago, and is now inhabited by a multicultural, multiracial stew of Association species. Some choose to live in floating arcologies, while others live in dome bound cities beneath the waves. Air barges and ultra fast aquatic craft ply from habitation to habitation, transporting goods and people across the open sea.
You live in, or at least you are currently visiting, an archipelago bound metropolis called Port Gladys. PG was the first settlement on Arcadia and is now the largest, housing two hundred million souls across a single enormous island chain. The warm tropical climate, killer beaches, and vibrant cultural attractions of the city bring in hundreds of thousands of visitors every year, and the safe parts of the city are delightful. You could be a desk jockey on a good island and never see a body or hear a gunshot.
Of course it being an enormous city (two hundred million people!), conditions in certain areas are much worse. Poorer islands or neighborhoods are de facto ruled by criminal outfits or questionable corporate interests. The Association, which always has bigger fish to fry elsewhere, tolerates this so long as mayhem doesn’t become the norm. When things become untenable teams of cleaners are sent in, and by hook or by crook order is restored.
Here are some other details that are not quite the point. But they do provide color. In the Association cybernetic and biological augmentations are standard fare, not exceptional. On a nice day the piers ringing Savoy Island are packed with people drinking at cheap patio tables and watching a touring vessel dock one isle away. Public transit is accomplished via a fleet of fast and generally reliable air barges. At night magnetic interference turns the sky streaky indigo and gold, and you can tell who isn’t a local because they walk around looking up with their mouth open.
Here are some details that are the point. You are anybody, but you aren’t just anybody. You are a Dreamer. The phenomena you control is recent, having first been recorded a millennium ago. It is the sole paranormal phenomena that anyone has discovered and it manifests in around one in one hundred thousand people without pattern. No satisfying scientific explanation has been forwarded.
When you sleep you dream of a different world, and in the dream you are not yourself but you are always the same. You may find yourself moved forward chronologically in the dream but you always understand what you are doing and how you got where you are. It is not jarring. In the dream you wield power that commands respect or fear, if other living things are inside your dream they know you or know of you. These dream worlds vary endlessly in composition and character and defy classification. They do not correctly reference places or historical events, but are occasionally and obviously influenced by such. The temperament and character of the dreamer appears to matter. What is hard on most dreamers is that the dream and the world seem concrete and real to the same degree. Various philosophies are adopted. I don’t know what you’ve decided to do.
If you focus you can manifest your dream powers in the real world, not forever but long enough to be useful. If you choose to be a violent person you are a frightening one indeed.
If you are lucky or a hard worker your abilities will go beyond that. Some dreamers can turn a space around themselves into their dream, and be more perfectly both selves in that location. Others can pull living beings out of the dream and into the world and make use of them. Some learn to permanently and effortlessly maintain some small aspect of their dream self that is useful.
An immoral dreamer who finds others willing to believe in their dream draws strength from that belief. While they do so they drive their supplicants insane. This is in the main not a socially useful trade off and it is illegal in the Association.
Dreamers always recognize other dreamers. The best way to describe the feeling is like seeing someone you remember from university forty years later but then realizing right away that they haven’t aged a day. Every hair on your body stands on end and you get icy cold at the extremities. You don’t magically know the other guy’s name but you know what they’re about. For a very confused second you can see their dream and feel how it makes them feel. This tends to pull dreamers right together or push them right apart.
What is happening the literal moment this story starts is that a fixer is stepping off of an unmarked Association vessel with his kit bag and verbal only orders to bring to heel a dream cult that has started to take hold in a sorry, by-the-wayside section of Port Gladys. You are not necessarily involved in this, perhaps you have happier business elsewhere. If it is compelling other dreamers might be pulled into your ambit - I hope you will welcome them. To start there isn’t more to it.
-- ABOUT ME BRIEFLY --
- I have been role playing since high school, so over fifteen years now, and am just getting into things on this forum. Hello!
- I am a grown lad with a day job and am not super available until east coast evenings as a result.
- As you can probably tell from this write up, I am not big on beautifying my own posts. The words are apposed to be the beautified part in my opinion.
-- SOME ADDITIONAL OOC NOTES --
- I have a few ideas with this roleplay that I think are interesting from a connection and setting perspective:
- I would like all character profiles to include a Motivation that is a short description of what your character is trying to accomplish in Port Gladys. This should be purposeful - no idlers. These will be added to the top line description of the RP and will become a story hook that folks can hop in on.
- Over time I will advance a mechanic that alters the world in a hard to miss, global way. This will also be kept track of on the front page of the main roleplay. This will create some shared context between story threads and be disruptive enough to shake things up and hopefully keep them interesting.
- You should feel free to add to the setting and really make it your own. If people are interested in this roleplay idea I will write up additional setting notes for color, but those are for guidance - they don’t establish the boundaries of the universe. Invent species and traditions, go deep on hypothetical technology you find interesting, add secondary or tertiary plot lines that are as galaxy brained as the primary plot line will probably wind up being. I love that stuff! Just try to avoid writing anything that makes it impossible for others to also do what they want.
- To the extent that I am the pace car for this stuff, I expect this to be a slower RP with folks posting once or twice a day tops. I no longer have the free time to do much more than that.
-- WHAT WOULD NEED TO BE TRUE FOR THIS RP TO START --
- I think if four other people are interested we have a stew going and I’ll get the rest of the threads/world written up. We can start at that point but it’ll be with the RP open to anybody who wants to join. I wouldn’t start capping entrants unless we had like fifteen people active and I don’t see that happening.
Happy to answer questions or hash out character ideas, don't be shy if you're interested!
