• If your recruitment thread involves completely going off site with your partner(s) then it belongs in the Off-Site Ad Area.
  • This area of the site is governed by the official Recruitment rules. Whether you are looking for players or looking for a roleplay, we recommend you read them and familiarize your self with them. Read the Recruitment Rules Here.

Multiple Settings Behind Concrete Bars | ACCEPTING

Haru Rivers

Full-time DM
Doing a quick interest check on an intro I wrote as an idea. If you have any questions please feel free to ask. It's a touch long, so thank you for reading!

I'm looking for fairly advanced roleplayers, a paragraph minimum for postings.

City J18, a city unlike any other and a city exactly like every other. Gray and expressionless, a true monument to order and conformity. The people that walked the streets were mostly the same as well. Shades of black and white with small splashes of color hidden in the ties of men and accessories of women. Individual expression wasn't much of a thing when the only clothing stores were government owned or regulated. The idea of race has been made archaic to an extent. After the government mandated genetic therapy there really was no such thing as race. White, English, and middle class described just about everyone you would ever meet. Government officials make up some portion of the population, but most people don't get involved with them considering they aren't really part of the civilian population anyway.
Still though, life has always been comfortable. Small luxuries are afforded to everyone who contributes. No one really travels unless it's government mandated. Still though, people find ways to entertain themselves. No one really struggles to provide for their family and no one really has any more than anyone else. Truly, there isn't really a reason to complain and people are happy. And as they say, a happy population doesn't complain.

None of this is the reason I write this though. Today I document my recent experiences so that it was real. So that it happened and I can read this and know it all wasn't just a dream or a horrible nightmare. As I walked the city today, J18 looked even grayer than ever. Everywhere I looked I saw the iron bars of the prison we all live in, so carefully hidden from us by our own ignorance. There are others who can see through the fog and I have found them, or rather, they found me.

A little more than a week ago, my life was normal. Being 20, I was on my own, away from my parents. Not having found someone to spend my life with yet, I lived alone. My life was absolutely the standard. With my education finished for the time being I had been assigned a job. While advanced machinery was never my passion, I was quite good at performing maintenance on the city infrastructure.

It was all going just as expected until that day. I received a knock at my door, an event entirely contrary to my usual life. I moved to open the door only to find two very well dressed men on the other side. They reeked of government agency and the badge on their arm confirmed my initial suspicions. The badges were the standard shield shape, but the thing that caught my eye was the acronym, I didn't recognize it.

"Iblic Toruk, you are to come with us." It was the larger of the two that spoke.

"What for?" I asked, "Have I done something wrong?"

That was the usual reason for unexpected visits from the government. Sometimes there were whispers of the government showing up and carting people off, never to be seen again. Rumors of the reasons were always different and no one really knew why. Surprise visits from the government were always a bad thing.

"We needn't answer that now, we'll explain on the way."

On the way. They were taking me. I had done nothing wrong to my knowledge, but there was no use fighting it. They escorted me to a black vehicle waiting outside the building. It looked different than the usual cars, the window panes were heavily tinted and looked to be bulletproof, which suggested the rest of the car would be too. Either that meant I was worth protecting or worth preventing an escape.

I sat in the back seat as the two men entered the front. I wondered where they'd be taking me. There were always whispers of where people would go when they were carted off like this, but no one ever really knew.

I decided to break the silence in hopes they would answer my previous question. "So," I hesitated, hardly capable of speaking around the nervous lump in my throat, "where exactly are you taking me?"

"Do you know of the I.D.F.?" The man in the passenger's seat turned to look at me as he spoke.

"Sure, it's part of the small military we keep, right?" I didn't know what I.D.F. stood for, but I had heard of it during schooling.

"Yes, the Inter-city Defense Force is charged with protecting and serving on a larger scale than the local police force. We are sent to larger conflicts and can be mobilized as a coordinated force to cities during major events."

"Conflicts? What conflicts, I haven't seen any reports on the news of such a thing," I said.

"That's because they aren't reported on. Sends the wrong impression, you see. Gives people the idea that people are unhappy or that there is reason to be unhappy when there is not. Some people will always be unhappy and disgruntled and some of them group together in an attempt to sow discourse. We prevent and discourage that directly."

What he said made some sense. I had known a person with a similar disposition to what he spoke of. He had always spoke out against the government and its actions. It wasn't too long before he simply stopped showing up at school. No one really paid him too much attention in the first place though, he didn't participate in any of the school organized activities so there was no reason to interact with him.

"Okay, but what does this all have to do with me?" I asked.

"We think you could be a valuable asset to the I.D.F.. The reason why, however will have to wait for another time."

What could I do that anyone else couldn't? I wasn't particularly athletic. I wasn't experienced enough to call myself a master machinist and I had no experience with the military.

I was ripped from my thoughts by an abrupt stop to the car and words from the driver. "Well it looks like we got to him first, but they found us on the way." He turned back to look at me. "Stay here, we'll be back once we eliminate the threat that's after you.

How they were planning to eliminate a threat was beyond me. They were visually unarmed. Looking out the window yielded only a small amount of information. I could only see one assailant, but I assumed there must be more.

My questions about the fight were answered very quickly. The first ball of fire went roaring past the window. I vaguely remember yelling a variety of profanities before looking forward. Another fireball was en route, this time aimed towards the car. This part I remember in slow motion. I fumbled for far too long with the latch to the door of the car, trying desperately to make my way of the doomed car. I remember getting out of the car and looking back before the car violently exploded. I was thrown by the blast. I don't know how the fight resolved exactly, I blacked out, but from what I heard it wasn't much of a fight.

When I awoke, I was in a room, not outside by a car where I vaguely remember passing out. I was alone so I examined the room. It wasn't like any apartment or home I'd ever seen, it looked a bit run down. The bed I had been laying in was a bunk bed. There were a few other small furnishings, but this was so minimalist that it could hardly be called a room. I tried the only door out and found it was locked.

I don't know how long I was in that room before I heard a knock. A young man entered, a few years older than me perhaps. No older than 22. He looked vaguely familiar, then it clicked, he was the assailant I saw, the one that attacked the car. I backed away instantly.

"Whoa there, I'm not here to hurt you," he said. "I'm sure you've got some questions and I'm here to answer them. I'm sure you were given some amount of information by the I.D.F. and I'm here to clarify. You will be free to leave after we are sure you understand the situation."

"Let me start by introducing myself, my name is Viktor. You were picked up today by the I.D.F. for a specific purpose. We intercepted you to give you a choice. A luxury you were not afforded until now. You were drafted because of your gene therapy. The gene therapy you were given at birth and again at age 12 was not just to ensure you were healthy and normal. The government also experiments on all of us for helping to advance the human race. The genes for super intelligence, strength, even supernatural abilities are all inserted at birth. The overwhelming majority are failed attempts with no complications to the child. A small percentage miscarry. The even smaller percent succeed. You following me?"

I sat down on the bed in stunned silence for a moment, trying to absorb everything that I was just told. It all sounded so ridiculous and I would have said so if it wasn't for the blatant proof I had seen earlier. That fireball that got hurled at the car didn't come from any weapon. The question was, what did this have to do with him?

"You mean I..." I trailed off not knowing how to complete that sentence.

"Yes, if the I.D.F. was after you then you were most definitely a success. What degree of success you are and what it was they succeeded at is a bit more difficult to answer. We might find out sooner or later or you might find out on your own what it is. If you choose to leave, you could go willingly to the I.D.F. or if you try to return to your normal life you will be hunted by the I.D.F.. You will join them or they will eliminate you. The alternative to those two options is joining us and fight."

"Fight what and who is us?" I asked.

"We are Idris State and we fight it all." Viktor smiled and gave himself a chuckle. "It's funny because you probably don't even know what that means. Most people don't even know there's a world outside of their assigned city. Nobody knows that the government is all reaching, the whole planet is one nation now and it's sick. Any illusion of choice we are given in our lives is exactly that, an illusion. We are all the same, just cogs working. You probably don't even know that there are those who don't live well, those that don't have enough. They are second class citizens and they are kept down. We fight for freedom, a word you've probably never heard."

"Follow me." He must've been able to see how upset I was. This was all so incredibly upsetting, to know that I had been lied to and it all made so much sense. It all made so much sense.

He led me through the compound they had nestled themselves away in. It was impressive in a way, but small. We passed people as he led me through the halls and he stopped to chat and introduce me to a few people. In total, there couldn’t have been more than two hundred people here by my guess, but they all seemed happy to be there. Happy in a way I don’t think I had seen before. They were working for an impossible goal, but still seemed to be happier than almost anyone I had ever seen.

Eventually, he led me into a workshop of sorts. Some of the machinery I recognized from my work for the city, though I had only a cursory idea of what some of them did. "This is Patrick, our R&D lead. He's developed a lot of the technology we have needed in our fight." Patrick waved a friendly hello with his nose still in a piece of micro-machinery. "Our most used is the wrist mounted line launcher, works a bit like Spiderman." I gave him an inquisitive look and he laughed. "It's a pre-government comic, they kinda got rid of most of it, but we've managed to recover artifacts like that around."

"So what do you think, will you join us? Find out what it is that makes you so special? Help us find out what it is that makes humanity so special because right now, none of us are special. We might not be physically imprisoned, but we may as well be. We are all living behind concrete bars."

I looked at him for a moment, I knew there was only one answer.

They said I should probably start doing a journal. As squad leader I should leave behind a record of what I've done. It seems weird, today is the day that it all begins again. Last time, I was just a soldier, now I'm a leader. It feels weird to think about, I guess. It wasn't all that long ago that Viktor died.

I think I'm getting ahead of myself. I should start with my last entry, even though it was a little over a year and a half ago. When I joined the Idris State I was assigned to Viktor's squad. I was issued a standard wrist line launcher and given my training. This is a military of sorts, but it never felt that strict. We were all in over our heads, fighting a worldwide and all powerful government was no easy task. We perform missions to help Idris State and try and strengthen ourselves. We aren't ready for an all-out war yet. Our numbers are limited by our ability to hide in plain sight.

The line launcher was amazing, and over time I enjoyed its use, swinging from the power lines that crisscrossed the city like a spider's web. It was an efficient form of travel to say the least, quiet as well. The line launcher even made an excellent weapon, used as a whip at close range was far more deadly than hand to hand combat. It was through the use of the line launcher I discovered my power was that of metal manipulation.

It was an eye opener being with the Idris State. Our headquarters was hidden very carefully in plain sight, in the poorest districts of city E1. City E1 was one of the oldest cities in the world apparently, what was once a city called Shanghai apparently. Being in the poor district was risky though. There is a not insignificant government presence in this district, largely to keep an unhappy and poor population in check. We are in a large abandoned factory, or at least the entrance to our compound is.. We are squirreled away underground, there is a small labyrinth underneath the factory that we had turned into our facilities for the time being.

After settling in, I found myself with free time between missions. Sometimes missions wouldn't happen for weeks, so I occupied myself with machines around the factory and helping where I could. Eventually Patrick decided my talents would be of use in R&D so he invited me to help him in the lab. This is where I created my own personal weapons, my own specialized line launcher. The line launchers were usually limited to one cordage simply because it was difficult enough to control one. I however, with my power, am capable of controlling many. So I modified mine to launch three lines and extended the range of it's whip capabilities by a lot. It was then that I found my love for the cause.

Things happened normally from then on, we rescued new experiments, we took what we could from the government and fought them where we could. I found myself a part of something greater and it felt good. Eventually I was a trusted member of Idris State, performing vital tasks no one else could. We didn't really have ranks, we were too small for that but I was respected among my peers and that was enough.

Four months ago Viktor died. I'm not sure if I'm ready to put it down on paper, I still feel like it's my fault. He had become a good friend to me. An excellent leader and a good friend. We were out intercepting a small arms convoy, but it was a trap. They were learning our patterns, when and where we'd strike I guess. They ambushed us, there were no weapons except the ones used to gun down my fellow squadmates. I was one of two to make it. The other ten perished and I could only carry one back. I chose Viktor, even though he was probably already gone. When I put him on my back to get him out of there I think he was already dead. His eyes didn't recognize me as I called his name, but that didn't matter to me at the time. Sometimes at night, I can see his eyes staring blankly back at me. He was dead on arrival to Idris State, there was nothing they could have done. I should have taken someone else, someone who could've lived.

They've made me the new Squad Leader now, or Squad Captain, as it's formally called. I took a break for a couple months, did some training and thinking. I’ve been told my squad is ready to begin training. We’ve been selected because of our abilities. We won’t be a regular squad and so training must begin again for all of us. Some of them are veterans and some of them have barely passed the basics. Educated in the use of the wrist line launcher and some still exploring the uses of their power. We’ve got some time before missions begin for us again, some time to ensure we work well as a group.

my squad is ready now and they're waiting for me. They will have received the most basic of trainings at least, those that aren't veterans will need additional training in the field. Educated in the use of the wrist line launcher and some still exploring the uses of their power. I don't know that I'm deserving of this and I don't think I'm ready. Still though, I'll do what I can, I refuse to live my life behind these concrete bars.
 
Last edited:
This sounds interesting. I would join.
 
Absolutely still room. I'll leave it open for more to join up, but I'll get started on creating a character sign up thread.

Start considering powers. As a general rule of thumb, the more directly powerful an ability is it needs to be more specialized and have drawbacks.

I'm available for collaboration as well. If you have ideas about story or character that you need extra info on shoot me a DM and we'll work out what we need.
 
If people are still interested I need people to submit character sheets in the character sign up thread found here

 
Haha nice bump. Maybe you should repost it with @[the 4 people who posted here and were interested], so it gets their attention?
 
Again that's up to Haru, but I'm guessing the answer will be yes? ^^
 
Last edited:
just want to make sure i don't step on any toes. and i gotta make sure i get a 100% answer because i go pretty hard on creating a character
 
I have no issues with you making a character and jumping in as soon as it's approved. The intro will be easy enough to jump into without creating any problems.
 
I have no issues with you making a character and jumping in as soon as it's approved. The intro will be easy enough to jump into without creating any problems.
then i'll get on my CS tonight or tomorrow (depending on if tiredness kicks in and influences my creativity).
 

Users who are viewing this thread

Back
Top