Mitheral
"Growf!"
Oct 17, 2025 0300 EST(about 7 years from now). They called it the Wet Firecracker War. Things in the Middle East and Ukraine never settled down. ISIS flared back up with all new tactics. China and Russia both continued the arms race. China continued to challenge territorial laws by creating new islands. Then it happened. Who launched first? Does it really matter? In the end we all went a little mad.
Just one very, very odd thing. The nukes all fizzled. They were duds - all of them.
Thousands of people witnessed the ICBM’s detonating, producing brilliant points of light in the sky. But the miniature suns never blossomed into mushroom clouds. There was no fallout. There were rumors all around. Aliens. Top Secret SDI programs. The Second Coming. But the simple truth is that noone knows what happened.
Aftermath
Realizing you are still alive after your leaders have all bugged out and entered bunkers ready to kiss their respected arses goodbye can have a very sobering effect. The day after was the first in a very long time on which there was no combat anywhere on the planet. (This doesn’t count a little looting that went on.) There were many reports of suicides as some people simply gave in to fear of suffering from fallout.
The UN held what might very well be the most historic meeting in history to declare peace. It was an uneasy truce though. After all, it was begun in the wake of an attempt by many nations to slaughter one another wholesale with 4000 nukes. And there are still about 11,000 left.
VISR Virus
About 5 months after WWIII, a planetwide biological attack was made. A virus was dispersed that altered human psychological structure, and which affected approximately 80% of the population. This virus produces permanent wide spectrum violent behavioral patterns termed Virally Induced Sociopathic Response. The primary targets were high density population centers and military bases. Noone knows where they came from but automatically driven trucks pulling cargo containers drove around towns with doors hanging open. The cargo containers were marked with the number ‘2’. Inside were cases of assault rifles and ammunition. Naturally there weren’t enough for everyone. Blood was shed.
At present, the planet is in chaos. The entire population is on the move, fighting and struggling to survive. The world as a whole is populated by bands of crazed madmen, but there are a few pockets of civilization made up of small groups of people unaffected by the viral attack.
Storyteller Note: For those who have seen the Purge movies, or the Omega Man, you will have an idea with Vissers are like. Other good examples: Mad Max (any of the psycho members of the gangs). In short, the world has gone mad - literally.
Vissers
Visser is a term used to describe humans who have been infected by the VISR virus. This attack resulted in Virally Induced Sociopathic Response (VISR, or Visser; it rhymes with kisser), a gene altering disease which permanently changes the chemistry of the brain. The results are a group of people incapable of normal social behavior. Varying from violent, unreasoning individuals to those only slightly affected, the victims of this virus have destroyed civilization on Earth.
Vissers are drawn from all sectors of human society. Victims include former military, civilians, tourists, and virtually every other group on the planet. Fully 80% of the population was infected. Although Vissers have destroyed society, they are not unthinking animals; they are simply people incapable of handling normal social organization.
Within their own ranks, they have a primitive social structure. True, it is untempered by mercy, forethought, or compassion, but they understand the need for teamwork and fear death as much as anyone. Vissers simply cannot handle the strain of dealing with a social setting encompassing a large group. In small groups where each individual knows to fear and respect the others, they know their place and function fairly sociably. But place a Visser in a setting in which he does not know his standing, and there is an immediate struggle for dominance. Often these struggles are bloody, especially if the group is well armed. But once dominance is established, a group can be somewhat stable.
The size of the group tends to be self correcting, since as the group becomes larger it becomes more destructive. If this destruction cannot be vented on an outside element, it is released internally. Thus the size of a band depends on the leader's ability to control his members. A capable leader will keep his forces in line by releasing their destructive energy on outside elements and rewarding his band with the spoils of victory.
Victory can then attract more Visser bands, and this is when Vissers become most dangerous. When disorganized, they are roving, dispersed bands of trouble. Under one banner, they form a tidal wave which can crush anything in its path. Once this wave begins, more and more Visser elements will come to serve the dominant leader. As long as his successes continue, his horde will continue to grow, as additional groups wholeheartedly submit to his leadership. At this point the Visser become fanatics and make dangerous enemies, for they fight with a fixated passion and fury.
The arms, equipment, and attire of Vissers vary widely, depending on their original caste, their recent experiences, and how unstable they are. In general they still have the clothing and equipment they had before the Apocalypse, augmented by whatever they have been able to steal, and modified to suit their personal tastes. Many Vissers adopt a hard, violent style, and chains, spikes, and spare knives are popular Visser accessories.
The Current Setting / Plot
The start date of the RP is Mar 01, 2027 (about 1 year after the VISR virus hit).
Really it is all about staying alive. The past winter was a rough one. It is getting harder and harder to find food. Vissers are ill suited to gardening. Gasoline and diesel have gone bad. Fuel lines in cars have been corroded to uselessness.
Characters
Primary characters should NOT be Vissers. They should be uninfected people. The reason for this is very much like why the cast of Walking Dead aren’t walkers.
You may develop companion NPC’s. Try to be realistic about them. I would prefer that your characters be the lead characters of any such group - speaking for the group, etc.
Be a survivor. It has been a year since the Virus hit. If you haven’t learned how to survive by now you have been in a cave or simply not being realistic. If you needed medical aids to survive, you’d be dead. Use some common sense here. If you have no means to protect yourself, you’d be dead.
Posting
This is a DETAILED RP. Use 3rd person past tense please. Make sure we all know which character is in the scene. (Name, pic if small, maybe even a link back the the CS for the character) Make sure we have some idea WHERE and when the scene occurs. No fancy fonts or light colors. Left justify. These should read like a book.
Minimum 3-5 posts per week. This is especially true if you are in a scene with others. I do not want people’s characters waiting a week to be able to make a post.
No animated gifs.
FAQ / RP Specific Rules
Noone seems to know who is responsible for the virus. (I do. But for a while it is going to be the mysterious They.) Those responsible are an antagonist to be introduced later.
There is no cure for the Virus. It has already run its course and should not spread further except through procreation. (One possible exception will involve those responsible for the Virus - ie if they should produce more and attempt to use it.)
Noone knows how the nukes were stopped. (Again, I do. It was NOT the same people that used the Virus, nor the ones who launched the nukes.)
No, you may not have a Visser was a Primary character. Visser’s should be 2D cutouts by comparison. If I get the impression someone is violating this rule, the character will be dead.
Hijacking a Scene: get permission for others in a scene before joining it. Some may not be interested in combat scene or having an antagonist added to the scene. In other words, no you may not create a bunch of vissers and send them to attack another member’s scene without the blessing of everyone in the scene. If this were a dice rpg with rules for character creation and combat, I might feel differently.
Literally billions have died in the space of a year, largely from starvation and loss of infrastructure.
