Realistic or Modern Omnia Mors Aequat - Lore Page

[ReverseTex]

Lore will be posted by Mykinkaiser here

 

[Mykinkaiser]

"March 15th 2017, that was the day that the world ended. It started normally, like any other day, with no indication that anything would happen that was out of the ordinary. Then the portals now known as the Gates opened up all over the world. The shock-waves came first, decimating anything around them in a hundred meter radius as if heralding what was to come in the time to follow. Next they came, the Gatespawn, terrible creatures that had never been seen before by mankind. All that was known about them then, as they poured forth from the Gates, was that they were dangerous. In the two years that followed civilization was destroyed and humanity nearly went along with it.

We were saved for two reasons, the first being that, after those two hellish years, the Gatespawn stopped coming through and their numbers stabilized. They still posed a very real threat, but at least that threat wasn’t growing anymore. The second reason was that humanity learned. Even as we died we learned how to survive.

It’s been twenty years since the gates opened, and we’re still surviving. I don’t know if we’ll ever reclaim the place we held in the old world, but at the very least we seemed to have found our niche in the new one.

We are what’s left and this is my chronicle of our story. May it help you if you’ve found it."

- The Journal of Christopher Legrante

 

[Mykinkaiser]

Gatespawn
More to be added as the RP goes on​

• Hounds
• Spikebacks
• Mindrays
• Parasites
• Tallmen
• Stalkers

• 
  We call these things hounds for a couple reasons, the first being that they look roughly like malformed, hairless dogs with grey or black skin. The other reason is because they're relentless trackers. They don't have eyes but rather seem to use their senses of smell and hearing, combined with what I'd assume to be a highly developed pit organ, instead. This makes them damn near impossible to hide from, and I'd recommend fighting or escaping instead, though neither of those are easy to do.
  
  They generally travel in packs of five to ten, though sometimes packs can get as large as fifteen members. Furthermore, I've seen them lay ambushes for their prey before attacking all at once, took out a spikeback like that once and those are some of the toughest bastards I know. If there's a saving grace with hounds it's that their snouts are extremely sensitive around where the nostrils are. Hit that area hard enough and you can stun them for a moment.
  
• 
  Spikebacks are nasty creatures, with a smell to match. They look like a cross between a gorilla and a troll and usually stand around 7-9 ft tall and weigh generally in the 500-600 pound range. Most of their height is made up by their overdeveloped upper body while their legs are relatively underdeveloped. The best way to deal with them is to capitalize on this fact by knocking them down and dealing with them then as their thick skin and fat makes them hard to wound, even with guns.
  
  Spikebacks usually travel alone, though they do sometimes form small groups of two or three. And I've seen them make use of large branches or street poles as crude clubs to aid in hunting, showing that they do have at least some level of primitive intelligence. The stench I mentioned earlier comes from the fact that, when hunting, they tend to impale live prey on their spikes, letting them die there and then begin to rot before consuming them. I'll admit that I don't know why they do this, but at least it makes it easy to know if they're around.
  
  Last word of warning, make sure you stay out of their grasp, as they have extremely strong grips and it's near impossible to get out without help.
  
• 
  
  
  While they don't look like much, mindrays are extremely dangerous and should never be underestimated. These little flying creatures are able to exert a sort of hypnotic influence over people, trapping them within a dream in order to immobilize them. This is done in order to allow the mindray to suck the victim's blood.
  
  Now, this on its own isn't very dangerous, as mindrays are fairly small and the amount of blood they take isn't enough to kill most people. The danger comes from the fact that those under a mindray's influence find it very hard to escape the dream they're put in on their own, leaving them vulnerable to the other dangers of the city. Fortunately, strong external stimuli can help with this, so I'd advise that you always travel with someone who can shake you out of the hypnosis.
  
• 
  There are few among the gatespawn who can match the parasites in terms of their grotesque nature. That being said, they look pretty harmless on the surface, just these fat whitish-grey worms. In all honesty they look kind of like overgrown maggots, generally being the size of one of those fat sharpie markers. Also like maggots, your average person could pretty easily kill them stepping on them or squeezing them to death.
  
  Where the grotesqueness comes in is how they compensate for these weaknesses. As their name suggests, parasites will infest other creatures by entering through their mouth, ears, eyes, or other orifices and then making their way to the spinal cord and the brain. From there, they consume their victim's consciousness, turning them into a zombie-like drone with the sole purpose of protecting the hive. The parasite will then continue to use that host until the body deteriorates before moving on.
  
  Fortunately, they don't spread too far from their hives. Unfortunately, those hives are pretty common. In the end though, as long as someone's careful while near a hive they should be fine. Plus, parasites taste pretty decent when roasted. Good source of Protein too.
  
• 
  Tallmen are roughly humanoid and, as their name suggests, stand at around 8 feet tall. Their entire body is covered with a sort of black exoskeleton, with their arms tapering to sharp points, and they have no apparent sensory organs. However, this doesn't make them any less dangerous as they instead have the ability to sense motion around them regardless of the direction that they're "facing". This does mean that they can be avoided by staying still, though extreme caution is merited as they're sensitive even to very small movements.
  
  Once they find prey, they pierce the them with one of their arms. From there, they inject them with some sort of acid which liquefies their insides which the tallman then sucks out through holes in its arms, sort of like how a spider eats. One thing to note is that their exoskeleton is extremely hard, allowing them to punch their arms through the sides of armored cars. As such, its generally better to avoid them rather than try to kill them. In this regard, one of the few fortunate things is that tallmen tend to be solitary creatures, though exceptions do exist.
  
• 
  No one really knows what stalkers look like, mainly because if you encounter them you're as good as dead. All I can say for sure is that they live in the abandoned subway systems, and that very few people who have ventured down there have ever come back. Those who have come back haven't been in any state to talk about their experiences.
  

 

[Mykinkaiser]

Factions​

• 3rd Street
• The Warrens
• Militia
• Undercity
• The Church

• 
  This one's relatively new, so I don't have too much to say as of yet. What I do know is that it's run by a man by the name of Darren Myers. Seems like he's trying to get things off the ground to establish a new settlement.
  
  They've got a hard road ahead, and I wish them luck.
  
• 
  The best way to describe the Rats is as a gathering of cast-offs, and I don't mean that in a derogatory way. Many of the members of this community were kicked out of their old communities for being too old, sick, hurt, etc. Because of this, the Rats are characterized both by being incredibly tight-knit, and equally mistrustful of the outside world. They engage in almost no trading at all, and the little that they do engage in is for the essentials that they can't procure themselves. Furthermore, they only trade with a handful of specific, trustworthy traders, and even then its always at a secondary location and not at the Warrens.
  
  Ah, I suppose I should explain why they're called the Rats, and why their settlement is referred to as the Warrens. See, they took over a group of apartment buildings and built a labyrinthine network of tunnels and walkways connecting them, thus coining the name. From there, the moniker stuck. From what I can tell from my limited dealings with them, they've embraced the name and turned it into a source of pride in that they were cast off but they're still surviving.
  
• 
  The Militia is probably the closest thing to an army or a government that still exists in this city, though honestly that's not saying too much. They took over the police headquarters downtown real early, and managed to hold it during the first two years after the Gates opened due to the abundance of weapons and the fact that a lot of the members come from the former police force and national guard. Nowadays, they spend their time trying to restore order to the city, protecting settlements and levying taxes for it. Supporters them generally see them as a stalwart, if rather strict, guardian force, critics see them as just another group with guns throwing their weight around.
  
  Ultimately, while they're a bit too authoritarian for my blood, it does seem like they genuinely want to help. At the very least, they serve to keep the Undercity and the Church in check.
  
• 
  To put it bluntly, the Undercity is a haven for the worst of humanity. Rife with drugs, prostitution, and every other imaginable vice, the Undercity is a lawless and dangerous place controlled by various competing gangs. One of the most famous of these is The Dead Men, whose motto "Live well, die grandly" really says most of what you need to know about them. The people there are as likely to stab you as to return your greeting. That said, it's also a place where you can get most anything you want if you have the means and the money.
  
  As for why it's called the Undercity, it's honestly a really literal name. The settlement, if you can call it that, is made up of multiple interconnected subway tunnels and stations, meaning that it's under the city. Not exactly the most creative name, but it gets the job done I suppose.
  
• 
  
  
  We call them the Church but I don't think that they can be considered Christian anymore. By all accounts their leader, one Reverend James Callahan, was a good guy before the gates, always willing to help those around him. He isn't anymore though.
  
  The world as it is now has a way of changing people, the Reverend being a prime example. I don't know what did it exactly, I wasn't there, but he's utterly convinced now that the big man in the sky sent the the gatespawn to earth in order to punish mankind for our collective lack of piety. Now, this wouldn't be too bad on it's own, but he's gathered a bunch of like-minded zealots around him to form a sort of modern day crusade, with the goal of purging the faithless from this land.
  
  What sets the Church apart from all the other similar cults is the fact that they're the most dangerous. They managed to turn the old church near the lake into a fortress due to there being a large gun shop nearby, one of those big mega-mart types, which allowed the Reverend to solidify his rule over the surrounding area. Nowadays, the only people you see around there are the desperate, the foolhardy, or the pious,
  
  The great irony of this is that he'd been protesting that shop for years as a die-hard pacifist.
  

 

[Mykinkaiser]

Locations

​

• The Fog Pit

• 
  The Fog pit is an underground parking garage in the north end of the city. It's named for the fact that it is filled with a poisonous fog, emitted from a plant-typed gatespawn that infests the entire complex. Due to this, visibility is extremely limited and a gas mask is vital in order to enter and not die as the fog is a powerful neurotoxin. If that wasn't enough though, there are various other gatespawn that are immune to the fog that live within the parking garage, hunting those who enter.
  
  All that being said however, due to the extreme danger, the garage is filled with near untouched cars, making it an extremely tempting target for scavengers. All I'll say is, proceed with extreme caution as any mistake can easily cost you your life.