Archie
Not even my final form
| Is all that we see or seem
But a dream within a dream? Edgar Allen Poe |
Nearly everyone has a dream within a dream at some point. You think you've woken up, just to wake up again. At each level, the dream is shorter than the last one.
Since ancient times, some humans have known that this life is also just another dream. There is a dream above that, one above that, and one above that. The only thing that stays constant throughout all levels is us- our consciousness - our souls.
This knowlege poses a serious problem for anyone who knows it. You don't know who you will be when you wake up. Maybe a King? Or maybe you're not so lucky, and you wake up paralyzed. However, since prehistoric times, people known throughout history as shamans, oracles, monster hunters, and exorcists have been improving their luck on the "other side" by stealing souls.
Soul Power
In modern martial arts, it's often said that fighting multiple opponents is almost impossible. So, how did so many people in recorded history do it? How did some people fight and win 60 duels without a single defeat? And why can't they do it now?
Because when a person kills another creature with a melee weapon, a process called reaping begins where he or she takes part of the soul power of the killed person. The killer's soul gets stronger, while the victim's soul gets slightly weaker - a condition that carries on into the next dream.
Soul power is everything. Your dreams tend to come to a convenient end when it's time to wake up - if it's a nightmare, you die. If it's a drama, everything comes to a sudden resolution. This world works the same way. There is no "death" - someone starts to die as soon as their body on the "other side" starts to wake up. There is no such thing as "luck" or "fortune" - just billions of human souls writing a story. How much authorship they have in this story depends on the power of their soul.
Sorcery
In ancient times, societies clustered around shamans, oracles, and witch doctors who gained almost magical powers from sacrificing animals. These mages were able to see visions - sometimes of the "next world", and sometimes of this world. They were able to cure people without modern medicine. Some became aware that it was the act of sacrificing animals that gave them these powers - not some gift from the Gods.
Some mages preferred to be more "scientific". Through incantations made on unconscious victims - usually through the help of drugs or hypnotism - some mages discovered that you could suck the souls out of people without destroying the body, a process known today as siphoning. Reaping - killing someone at close range - only absorbed a fraction of their soul power. Siphoning could absorb all of it.
Husks, Mutants, and Ghosts
The victims of siphoning, the husks, were alive in body, but dead in spirit. They acted apathetic, completely disinterested in everyone and everything. All their passion, their joy, their fear, and their love was gone.
Some husks, however, found a way out of their predicament. Some became invigorated by eating live animals, and became addicted to it. Others were invigorated by drinking human blood. Soon, it was discovered that the consumption of living things, a process known as devouring, absorbed the soul power of that thing.
Of course, without a soul of their own, husks started to take on the likeness of the things they devoured. Those who ate dogs and wolves gained the ability to transform into wolves and started acting like them. Those who consumed birds could grow wings, soaring through the skies. Those who drank blood combined the personalities of all their victims, turning their victims into husks as well.
And then there was another problem: what happens if you die in this dream before your body on the "other side" wakes up? Your soul becomes a "ghost", haunting the places you used to live, unable to communicate with the world and being imprisoned in those lonely, barren locations. Some ghosts responded by reaping, siphoning, and devouring the living, growing in power and becoming demons.
The Reapers
Of course, reapers created problems of their own. After slaying a few powerful creatures, a reaper became one of the most powerful beings on the planet, and became a target for reapers who wanted their soul. Some rich people, to get started in reaping, sacrificed dozens of slaves, while some among the poor resorted to mass murder to gain enough soul power to get into the "business". Throughout history, numerous governments have tried to consolidate the reapers into a single organization - the most successful attempts being the Roman Frumentarii, the Catholic Inquisition and the Chinese Jingwei.
However, with the Great Schism, the Protestant Reformation and the collapse of the Catholic Church's authority in half of Europe, the Western reapers again splintered, leading to a wave of murders. At the end of the Thirty Years War, the reapers in Western countries outside the influence of the Catholic and Orthodox Churches united in a single organization to police eachother and prevent these murders - the Guild of the Hunt. Soon, the Guild started rounding up and "regulating" all of the West's mages as well, creating a Mages' Academy to prevent mages from siphoning and performing human sacrifice, as well as to make them useful.
Today, the Guild is one of the most powerful organizations on the planet. It produces no income and does not kill mythical beings for "contracts" - there is no need for this when powerful mages can manifest money in the real world just by imagining it. The Guild owns a number of idyllic properties around the world, including its own hidden city of Camelot deep within the Welsh mountains, lake castles that serve as training grounds for new reapers and mages, and as bases of operation. The guild also has numerous hidden towns in the mountains of North America and Europe, as well as in the ocean.
The Haunting
Of course, the reapers have their enemies. In the Western world, these include:
- The most powerful demons - they have managed to stay hidden for centuries in some cases through demonic possession, when they siphon a creature's life force then possess it, effectively taking over its body. This is commonly done on goats to stay hidden.
- The Sorcery Council - an ancient group of mages outside the regulation of the Church and later the Guild.
- The vampire covens - of all mutants, vampires are the most organized. Covens often are able to take control of entire cities by turning politicians into "husks". They often fight reapers with "double armies" - first, siphon the souls of humans, turning them into obedient husks. Then, they use those souls to animate corpses, creating packs of undead. Each city generally has a "Count", each province/state a "Duke", and sometimes a vampire manages to vassalize all the Dukes in an area and proclaim himself King. Twice in human history, there have been Emperors who vassalized all the Kings in the world.
- Packs of werewolves, flocks of harpies and vampires, forests of ents, and other mutant/mythical creatures - while less organized, these are numerous and at times have formed coalitions against the Guild.
- Rogue reapers - They refuse to obey the laws of the Guild and seek to kill other reapers to increase their soul power.
Fortunately for the reapers, these factions are divided and constantly make war on each other. However, this is no longer the case.
On February 14, 2020, a spy planted by the Guild rushed to Camelot, reporting that the Sorcery Council, the King of the British vampires, and the demons Abaddon and Angra Mainyu had created a pact to destroy Camelot.
After centuries of being the predators, the Guild are now the prey, and have grown complacent. The current leadership is corrupt and focused on internal politics. The Grandmaster, Leona Rutherford, is dying, and all her lieutenants are squabbling over the succession.
Nobody is quite sure how three warring organizations came together, but mages at the academy identified a powerful soul almost "warp" into existence, like it came from the next dream into this one.
Setting
This RP will involve travelling and span much of Europe and North America.
All of us play one of the following:
- Reapers at apprentice and journeyman ranks, maybe one master for the local chapter.
- Mages in the Guild's employ, or in training at academy.
- Mutants unaffiliated with the conspiracy.
- Offspring of reapers/mages who decided not to reap or cast themselves (see below) and live "normal" lives in the hidden cities.
As we witness the conspiracy's plan and try to stop it. This is a long quest and will involve having to depose the current leadership of the Guild, as well as uncover who the "warped soul" is.
Notes
The following are unplayable:
- Demons, as they don't really have a mind of their own. Unlike mutants, who retain their brain and memories, just not their "spirit" and will, demons have no body and are really just an angry collection of all the souls they devoured.
- The Sorcery Council. This is an extremely secretive organization and more will be revealed about it as the plot goes on.
- Vampires high up in the European or North American hierarchies. They are in on the "plot".
Some other things:
- Mages increase in power by "othersiding" and animal sacrifices. They are not allowed to siphon, or sacrifice humans. Othersiding is the most common way, always by enduring near-death ordeals. This is a torturous process.
- Reapers and mages come from two sources: some are born into it, and grow up in one of the "hidden cities". Reapers start "othersiding" in their teens before going out to hunt. Others are recruited among runaway and homeless youth. Since mortality rates are extremely high in the first few "reapings", reapers take in a constant stream of recruits.
- Reapers can be very powerful, but use their powers as additions to their physical combat abilities, not as a replacement. This is because they train to reap - to kill at melee range - and not to cast spells like mages.
- While reapers and mages can have the same "soul power", mages are able to use it with more versatility because they train to channel it in different ways. They can be "jacks of all trades". Reapers, meanwhile, are specialized in combat.
- There is a pecking order in the guild. Reapers by birth are usually given "easy" first reapings and their and their parents' connections let them advance up the ranks quickly. "Recruits" are not as lucky. Mages have a parallel hierarchy. Both hierarchies are run by the Grandmaster.
- Lots of children of reaper and mage families choose not to follow in the dangerous footsteps of their moms and dads, instead settling down and living "normal lives" in the hidden cities. This isn't discouraged by the Guild because it's absolutely vital - the cities would collapse if there was no one to bake bread, run stores, and so on.
- The Guild controls most of the "reaping grounds" around the world, but there are other organizations. The Frumentarii still exist in Eastern Europe and Greece, run by the Orthodox Church (the Orthodox Church was created by the remnants of the Roman Empire, based in Greece at that point, in 1054). Catholic countries still have the Inquisition, except Ireland, where years of English persecution eliminated much of the Church's power, and France, where the revolutionaries abolished it. Both these organizations are much less transparent and democratic than the Guild. China has the Jingwei, who have always been controlled by the state since the imperial period. Japan has the Dai Nippon Budokai, a loose organization of "Ryus" (dojos/schools) who recruit top kendo and judo athletes to hunt demons, (truthfully) promising spiritual powers. The Budokai is much more decentralized and volatile than any other reaper organization, and prone to out-right wars between Ryus. Members of these organizations won't be playable unless we get a lot of players.
- The most powerful demons are in Mexico due to Aztec human sacrifices. Throughout the global reaper community, Papal Inquisitors who have "been to Mexico" and survived are accorded immense respect.
- There is no limit on magic. Keep in mind that this life is a "dream" and everything is being "authored" by your mind in the "real world" based on the power of your soul. Anything is possible if your soul is strong enough, so be creative.
- However, your soul power is dependent on how many people you've reaped, devoured (for mutants) and how many times you've "othersided". Some 19 year old kid who's been reaping for 5 years is not going to be able to defeat Angra Mainyu himself.
- The RP will offer a lot of opportunities for "powerups". What you decide are your "powers" now can expand as we go on.
Let me know if you all are interested or have any suggestions!
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