Futuristic Arcadian Dreamers

[Ambiloquous]

I was thinking of the Hamaedron as being near human in appearance with some clearly aquatic adaptions. Probably more fish or amphibian like in a stylized, aesthetically pleasing way. If you want to be a floating jellyfish (Hanar gang represent) or a plant person you should create one of those races. The Association is vast.

I love the questionable shopfront angle, it reminds me of this one fish supply store in my city that illegally sold turtles (I think?) out of a back room. Lots of opportunity for story lines about the specimens. You could even be working with the rogue corporate outfit in your neighborhood, supplying them with rare product and all that.

Hm, good to know. I feel like it would be interesting for a plant to sell pets, but I don’t think they’d want to live on a world that’s mostly sea. So jellyfish aliens are a go.

Pfft, questionably sourced turtles, that just sounds so funny. Of all pets, it had to be turtles. Oh yeah, black market business buddies, lesgo.

 

[YohhananArbuckle]

I was considering who would be able to live in such a world, and it seems like the most liable people to survive would be nomadic people. The initial gut reaction is a tribal, human-esque species, perhaps with some animalistic features. They'd probably revere Alastair as a god, and he'd probably take the form of a leopard prowling the forest. The people would probably bear cat-like features: claws, digitigrade legs, short fur, tails, all in varying arrays of mix between human and animal, some with very grotesque combos that look more like a monster than a cat or human.

I dig it, and you can imagine a very crisp theology where they understand the struggle between Alastair and his brother as a literal good-vs-evil metaphysical struggle that changes the nature of their planet. I wonder if I should write a bit about the idea of 'shared' Dream worlds - if it's happened before you'd kind of wonder what occurs when one party to it dies or is otherwise rendered incapable of dreaming, or what happens if the two are never asleep at the same time. Do their avatars just appear at different times? That would imply the Dreamers persona 'vanishes' when they're sleeping, which other phenomena indicate is not the case. Hmmm, maybe to keep things mysterious It Just Varies. At the least I think shared Dreams should be incredibly rare.

Hm, good to know. I feel like it would be interesting for a plant to sell pets, but I don’t think they’d want to live on a world that’s mostly sea. So jellyfish aliens are a go.

Pfft, questionably sourced turtles, that just sounds so funny. Of all pets, it had to be turtles. Oh yeah, black market business buddies, lesgo.

Haha, I think all the truly exciting illicit pets require more space than a basement backroom in the middle of Chinatown. My lawman (arguably you could call it that) is going to turn a blind eye to your illegal pet store with vim and gusto.

Status update: I've written character profile template and about seventy five percent of the lore page that I want to post to get things started. Should be going by end of this week! I would post the profile stuff but I think it's easier to fill out if you can peruse the lore while you do that, there are a couple things I want to get written down/clear.

 

[Noivian]

I dig it, and you can imagine a very crisp theology where they understand the struggle between Alastair and his brother as a literal good-vs-evil metaphysical struggle that changes the nature of their planet. I wonder if I should write a bit about the idea of 'shared' Dream worlds - if it's happened before you'd kind of wonder what occurs when one party to it dies or is otherwise rendered incapable of dreaming, or what happens if the two are never asleep at the same time. Do their avatars just appear at different times? That would imply the Dreamers persona 'vanishes' when they're sleeping, which other phenomena indicate is not the case. Hmmm, maybe to keep things mysterious It Just Varies. At the least I think shared Dreams should be incredibly rare.

I feel like outside of twins and other very closely bonded peoples, shared dreamworlds just don't happen? As such, there might not be enough material for the scientific world to catalog or study. Surely out of every instance of twins, there's even fewer of them where both twins are dreamers, and even fewer still where both dreamers share a world. I like to imagine it's not just good vs evil theology, but a life vs death theology as well, with Octavius' more hellish landscape being near impossible to survive in. I think he'd take the form of a fire elemental, or something of the sort: something bright and attention-grabbing, necessary for survival but destructive nonetheless, as he views most things in life. The lesser of two evils, but still evil. The nomadic peoples probably pay some kind of homage to Octavius (I like to think they'd refer to their gods as something other than their human names) because as bad as fire is, they'd need it to cook. To contrast this, Alastair would be associated with water. Jungles would probably spring up around rivers, and torrential downpours probably frequent the land as well, as a precursor to new jungles springing up.

I also like to think that the dream world persists outside of the dreamers' dreams, so theoretically if one dreamer is awake while the other isn't or if one dreamer is dead, their dream avatar would probably be overtaken by the other. With all the water on Arcadia, it wouldn't be too much of a stretch to say that Octavius wants Alastair dead so he can presumably absorb his twin's control over water from his dreamself. If he could harness that power, then it'd give him a very large bargaining chip to basically force his way to the top of the global metaphorical food chain. Alastair wants Octavius dead because he knows what Octavius would do with his power, and morally cannot allow Octaivus to continue his destructive path.

 

[YohhananArbuckle]

I feel like outside of twins and other very closely bonded peoples, shared dreamworlds just don't happen? As such, there might not be enough material for the scientific world to catalog or study. Surely out of every instance of twins, there's even fewer of them where both twins are dreamers, and even fewer still where both dreamers share a world. I like to imagine it's not just good vs evil theology, but a life vs death theology as well, with Octavius' more hellish landscape being near impossible to survive in. I think he'd take the form of a fire elemental, or something of the sort: something bright and attention-grabbing, necessary for survival but destructive nonetheless, as he views most things in life. The lesser of two evils, but still evil. The nomadic peoples probably pay some kind of homage to Octavius (I like to think they'd refer to their gods as something other than their human names) because as bad as fire is, they'd need it to cook. To contrast this, Alastair would be associated with water. Jungles would probably spring up around rivers, and torrential downpours probably frequent the land as well, as a precursor to new jungles springing up.

I also like to think that the dream world persists outside of the dreamers' dreams, so theoretically if one dreamer is awake while the other isn't or if one dreamer is dead, their dream avatar would probably be overtaken by the other. With all the water on Arcadia, it wouldn't be too much of a stretch to say that Octavius wants Alastair dead so he can presumably absorb his twin's control over water from his dreamself. If he could harness that power, then it'd give him a very large bargaining chip to basically force his way to the top of the global metaphorical food chain. Alastair wants Octavius dead because he knows what Octavius would do with his power, and morally cannot allow Octavus to continue his destructive path.

Yeah, I'm guessing its just very uncommon. The odds of both of them having a world and those worlds being entwined in that way is astronomically slim - slim enough that even on a galactic scale it kind of just doesn't happen. It makes sense that the nomads would use non-human names for Octavius and Alastair, since in the dream they aren't really themselves, they would 'know' they're supposed to be called something else. A very churlish dreamer could insist that No, My Name Is X, and I guess if they were adamant about it most dream beings would go along with it, because why wouldn't you?

I like the idea of merging dream abilities on death, but I think the practical implications of the powers swapping hands based on sleep cycle are interesting but mechanically a big albatross around your neck. You'd like, have to be really careful about syncing sleep cycles if you didn't want the other guy strategically staying awake/going to bed to time for being able to run rampant. If you're interested in that it's fine, it can totally work that way, but I just think I'd go crazy trying to write about how to manage that.

What's Octavius' deal from like a waking-world position of power perspective? Is he someone important who would be using those abilities to advance a legitimate seeming interest or is he effectively a wanted criminal/terrorist guy? If he's got a bad enough rap it's probably the case that there's a lot of interest around him being on Arcadia, could be something for others to hang plotting off of as well.

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ALSO - the most important good news: I have posted all of the RP threads for this (Main Thread/OOC/Characters/Lore). You can peruse all that and make a profile, post it in the OOC channel or DM me if you want to join.

Here is a link to the main thread: Futuristic - Arcadian Dreamers (Accepting but not yet open). I figure once we get a few profiles (and my profile > >) I will get a main post up and we can start!

 

[Noivian]

Yeah, I'm guessing its just very uncommon. The odds of both of them having a world and those worlds being entwined in that way is astronomically slim - slim enough that even on a galactic scale it kind of just doesn't happen. It makes sense that the nomads would use non-human names for Octavius and Alastair, since in the dream they aren't really themselves, they would 'know' they're supposed to be called something else. A very churlish dreamer could insist that No, My Name Is X, and I guess if they were adamant about it most dream beings would go along with it, because why wouldn't you?

I like the idea of merging dream abilities on death, but I think the practical implications of the powers swapping hands based on sleep cycle are interesting but mechanically a big albatross around your neck. You'd like, have to be really careful about syncing sleep cycles if you didn't want the other guy strategically staying awake/going to bed to time for being able to run rampant. If you're interested in that it's fine, it can totally work that way, but I just think I'd go crazy trying to write about how to manage that.

What's Octavius' deal from like a waking-world position of power perspective? Is he someone important who would be using those abilities to advance a legitimate seeming interest or is he effectively a wanted criminal/terrorist guy? If he's got a bad enough rap it's probably the case that there's a lot of interest around him being on Arcadia, could be something for others to hang plotting off of as well.

----

ALSO - the most important good news: I have posted all of the RP threads for this (Main Thread/OOC/Characters/Lore). You can peruse all that and make a profile, post it in the OOC channel or DM me if you want to join.

Here is a link to the main thread: Futuristic - Arcadian Dreamers (Accepting but not yet open). I figure once we get a few profiles (and my profile > >) I will get a main post up and we can start!

My initial interpretation is that they wouldn't have each other's powers until the other died, regardless of who was asleep when. For Octavius, he's always been a business magnate, with seemingly good intentions. He does a good job retaining an outwardly benevolent appearance to the general public. What better way to get rid of a pesky twin than to demonize him to the general public and frame him as a criminal? He and Alastair's parents owned some large business, and the huge scandal is that Octavius killed his parents to steal their position of power, and framed Alistair for it. So he theoretically gets off free while Alastair is the wanted criminal. It very well could be a plot point for other people to bank on if they wanted to - I imagine Octavius now runs some big business, like oxygen transport to the underwater cities or something else that's a necessity like the food industry or something. He's essentially supposed to have his fingers in everything, though I imagine his brand would be more of a household name than he himself is.

 

[Auda]

Hello! Everything about this world interests me and I'd like to be a part of it if you'll have me.

 

[YohhananArbuckle]

My initial interpretation is that they wouldn't have each other's powers until the other died, regardless of who was asleep when. For Octavius, he's always been a business magnate, with seemingly good intentions. He does a good job retaining an outwardly benevolent appearance to the general public. What better way to get rid of a pesky twin than to demonize him to the general public and frame him as a criminal? He and Alastair's parents owned some large business, and the huge scandal is that Octavius killed his parents to steal their position of power, and framed Alistair for it. So he theoretically gets off free while Alastair is the wanted criminal. It very well could be a plot point for other people to bank on if they wanted to - I imagine Octavius now runs some big business, like oxygen transport to the underwater cities or something else that's a necessity like the food industry or something. He's essentially supposed to have his fingers in everything, though I imagine his brand would be more of a household name than he himself is.

Yeah, I dig the sound of all of that. He'd be someone who lives in the mansions in the best secured portion of the city, definitely a hard target to reach. I think what's interesting is that proving he's a murderer, a usurper, and a thief would only kind of annoy the Association - to their minds he's doing an okay job of running the business and another big messy scandal is worse than just maintaining the status quo. It's his desire to use Alastair's power to become ascendant on Arcadia that would draw their ire - stealing another Dreamer's power stinks like starting a Dream Cult does. It demonstrates too much ambition along an avenue that can't be trivially countered.

Hello! Everything about this world interests me and I'd like to be a part of it if you'll have me.

Welcome! We are definitely still accepting people, pop on over to the OOC thread, peruse the lore, make a character.

 

[Noivian]

Yeah, I dig the sound of all of that. He'd be someone who lives in the mansions in the best secured portion of the city, definitely a hard target to reach. I think what's interesting is that proving he's a murderer, a usurper, and a thief would only kind of annoy the Association - to their minds he's doing an okay job of running the business and another big messy scandal is worse than just maintaining the status quo. It's his desire to use Alastair's power to become ascendant on Arcadia that would draw their ire - stealing another Dreamer's power stinks like starting a Dream Cult does. It demonstrates too much ambition along an avenue that can't be trivially countered.

On top of all that, he doesn't plan to just stop at Arcadia. He doesn't foresee an upwards limit, but he'll grab for any power he can until he's running the Association itself. Alastair knows all this, and knows that the only way to stop it is to kill his twin. Hence why he's hellbent on death and not going to the authorities with this. Not that they'd believe him anyways - evidence points to Alastair being the murderer, and his recent actions don't exactly refute that.