Birdsie
The God-Emperor of Mankind
The Wheel Turns Once More
Safety Hammer Epiphany Noble Scion Swire Alteras Fable Inheritance June Verles Silver Wolf Hanarei
And probably others I'm forgetting.
- It was the 22nd of February, 2020 AD.
On that memorable day, at the height of noon eastern seaboard time, the world changed forever.
The most common example cited was one of a man in the city - known then as New York - who'd been walking his dog out.
As he crossed the intersection of Bell Boulevard and 48th Avenue in the Queens district of the city, he received a text message from his ex and felt a twinge of intense annoyance at her boasting of her new boyfriend.
After sending her some less-than-wishful replies, he crossed the street and froze in shock as the glass of a thrift store next to him broke.
Alongside with the glass shards, however, what sprawled on the sidewalk in front of him was unmistakably a demon. Not some kind of allegory or metaphor, but a rather literal beast from Hell, with blood-red scales, phosphorescent volcanic eyes, and black curled horns.
It hissed at him then stepped forward menacingly. His dog shied away, running and taking its owner with it.
Soon enough, other windows and glass surfaces across the street began to break as well, spilling other demons in a rainbow of colors, shapes, sizes, and degrees of malice. None of them pursued or were interested in him, although some did observe him with mild affront or curiosity. They started to pop up from other places; teleporting in the middle of the street with a sudden distortion of space, swimming from the shore of the nearby Oakland Lake, swooping in from the clouds on a pair of batlike membranes, feathered wings, or through no visible means of propulsion. Some of them were almost human in appearance, while some others were more like humanoid dragons that hunched over and were given an additional level of ominous character.
In less than five minutes, by all means this man could use to determine it, the entire district of the city had at least a hundred of these demons. Most of which, to his confusion - as overshadowed as it was by his fear - appeared to be surprised and disoriented.
He was quick to go home and inform the police, but he was too late: the police already knew.
In that exact minute, in hotspots across New York, demons started appearing, with a strong focus on initial locations where some kind of negative emotion or particular brand of sin had been displayed, although it quickly spread to other places as well. Most of these demonic incidents were locked into the area of New York, with a handful in Connecticut, Long Island, and New Jersey.
In less than two hours, fourteen percent of the civilian population was dead, and thirty-nine had evacuated the greater area spanning New York. At least ten percent had been captured by the enemy, and would later be enslaved.
This was by no means, however, the only place this was happening.
Fifteen minutes after the demonic attacks began, a skeleton in tattered black cloth robes teleported into the Kreml. Speaking in fluent Russian, he declared himself the new ruler of the Russian Federation on live television. Without much ado, he raised an onyx-wood scepter tipped with a spectral violet gem, which shot out with dozens upon dozens of dark purple cords. These cords connected to the necks of the president, Prime Minister, deputy ministers, federal ministers, and other governmental authorities in the building. They became his slaves, and the population of Moscow would become his army.
Eight minutes before that, the Heavens above Rome began to rumble, as the Earth shook. The white tapestry of clouds split apart as a host of angelic creatures rushed down into the Vatican. Some of them were recognizably humanoid, while others resembled winged lionmen, or beings that weren't humanoid or even animal in appearance. There were spirits of air, water, earth, and fire with them, as well as other entities. One of them, introducing itself as Michael, promptly thanked the pope for his devotion then stepped into him and fused with him, becoming the All-Holy Prince.
In other places, various other events took place, with reports that would have sounded truly insane for someone living back then.
King Arthur rose from Avalon, brandishing Excalibur, and immediately repelled a fairy invasion of London, before reclaiming the throne. Every animal in the Chinese zodiac became manifest as a pack of traveling spirits, each one as large as a high-rise building was tall, and started to migrate across Asia. There were reports of a group of men in chrome-colored armor with reflective blue faceplates, who kidnapped the German president and claimed they were there in order to "stabilize the timeline."
But that was the 22nd of February, 2020 AD.
The current date is the 1st of March, 21XX. - The current date is the 1st of March, in the year 21XX.
The age of enlightenment and technology is long in the past.
The world has devolved.
In the past century, there was no government in the world that could realistically take on vampire infiltrators, changelings, skinwalkers, or demonic armies coming to bleed them. Armies were leveraged, cities were nuked; for a decade or two, the entire world was in an era of pure chaos, and the world population fell drastically.
With chaos, anomalies cropped up. It was as if a mad god was rolling dice on a table to decide what'll happen next.
A dimensional tear over Los Angeles, leading right into the void of space and letting in the children of an elder god. The Aztec gods coming back and demanding a return of their old servants; Mexico City became Tenochtitlan once again and was taken over by a hierarchy of priests who sacrificed men and women to the sun. Napoleon's ectoplasmic ghost, swimming over the mists of La Manche with his army in order to reconquer France.
Now, a century later - the world is not lost. It remains in existence, in various formats. Society has re-established itself, the industrial age has been kickstarted in various places, and now with powers beyond reckoning in humanity's hands, technology has returned on a completely new level: cyborgs walk the streets of Seattle; a man in what used to be Milan, Italy made an army of his own clones as servants and soldiers.
There is no unified world government, and circumstances vary; although western and central Europe remained largely the same, there were some changes in leadership, political climate, culture, education, and the availability of basic commodities. They must also deal with Tsar Koschei the First's burgeoning Russian Empire to the east, its army of soldiers knowing no fatigue or mercy and performing frequent raids on the eastern fiefdoms.
Most of Asia has decayed into its pre-modern state, with Japan being riddled with obeisance-demanding kami, wandering samurai, plotting nobility; everything unified under the aegis of the divine Emperor. China's mainland has been ransacked by sea serpents, wrathful dragons, and nature spirits who had some things to say about the pollution; as a result, the global industry has taken a big hit.
Africa's jungles became Awakened, and began expanding, with human life seen as hostile. Most of the continent below the Sahara had its geography radically changed, and the wildlife became inherently magical and invasive, with rumors of terrible gods dwelling far in the jungles. The people of Egypt became unified as the mummies of the Pharaohs arose and split the country into districts under their rule. One shouldn't ever think to visit Madagascar, for the monsters that dwell there have repelled even the most hardened pirates.
Australia, perhaps expectedly, became home to an assortment of megafauna; scorpions up to nine feet long with deadly stingers poised to strike, spider nests that feast on entire human villages. Uluru became the home of powerful spirits that don't like visitors. As if that wasn't enough, storms began to wrack the shorelines, cutting off most access.
And naturally, the Americas; while Southern America managed to prevail for the most part, only having to deal with hostile jungle spirits, the occasional demon or rogue Aztec deity like Camazotz, its northern cousin wasn't so lucky.
Satan's forces seized New York and renamed it to New Pandemonium; the Statue of Liberty was changed into a mockery, with human corpses hanging off by the hundreds from its crown and torch, the entire figure caked in the blood of the enslaved and tortured. Elsewhere across the country, skinwalkers have started popping up, as well as the spirits of the natives who wanted their land back. Somewhere in the late fifties, the entire government went missing, and the only clue ever found for it was a magical, blue question mark painted on the US Treasury Building. Ever since then, no election could successfully appoint a leader, with most of them dying, being ousted for corruption, or leaving within months of their term; as if democracy itself had been rendered esoterically nonexistent.
Within the crumbling ruins of the United States of America, in the city of Bend, Oregon, an eclectic assortment of individuals with unique skills has been called by a mysterious client; their mission unstated, with the invitation mentioning only a, "participation reward," and "further rewards for additional consideration."
In a place where the economy has gone back to relying on primitive coinage -- most notably the pressed Vaticani denari -- and where most people toil in darkness, a job like this isn't something to pass up on.
At the very least, it seems worth checking out. - Welcome to, "The Wheel Turns Once More."
This idea has evolved significantly past its inception. Originally, this was going to be a story about demons invading New York, but then I decided, "fuck it!" And I did this.
Moving on, the roleplay's going to be pretty chill. This world is basically a fever dream coming to real life, with demons, time travelers, crusades, literal King Arthur, and other bullshit. If you want to make a mountain-biking vampire cyborg whose special power is that he can apply the concept of "edible" to any object, be my guest. That said, I'm expecting a few things from the players:
- A minimal level of realism and rationale. This world is a fever dream, on a major scale. Holistically, everything that's happened is impossible, and that's kind of the point; on a personal level, however, I'd like the characters to behave like actual people (or, erm... creatures,) with feelings.
- The origin of the mysterious events of the 22nd of February are left specifically vague, and I will quite explicitly avoid exploring them in the roleplay. You're free to make allusions to possible origins or things that do not make sense, or in fact, conflict established lore; if your character is from France that's controlled by gnomes in a world that's unchanged, the obvious explanation is they went through a weirdness portal at some point and ended up here, not that you committed a mistake and need lore.
I'm not trying to create an artpiece of logic and understanding here; this is meant to be the same kind of world as Alice in Wonderland; utter nonsense rendered into reality, and then perceived by real, feeling creatures who might not be able to entirely cope and remain sane under the circumstances. Okay, so it might not be like Alice in Wonderland at all; maybe it's more like Tales from the Gas Station. Whatever.
We don't know if it's aliens who tore down the dimensional borders, if it was ghost witches, or occultists, or if it was simply fated to happen like the sun burning out at a certain date in the future. I'll leave it vague. Make your own interpretation, or say that every interpretation is correct; it doesn't matter, because it's not supposed to.
- I'd like all players to post at least once a week at minimum, and quite possibly as much as twice that number. Otherwise, you'll find out I'm not very strict or demanding as a GM.
- You're allowed to create utter nonsense, but for the sake of the story I've got in the woodwork, I'd like proper powerlevels to be maintained. If a character is too egregious to accept, I'll inform you and inform you how the issues can be ameliorated.
- Weirdness is relative. I'm expecting all of you to make an army of freaks, so wouldn't it be even weirder if someone made a normal guy called John, who wears a suit and has nothing extraordinary about him?
- Have fun.
Safety Hammer Epiphany Noble Scion Swire Alteras Fable Inheritance June Verles Silver Wolf Hanarei
And probably others I'm forgetting.