Pandora's Inheritance OOC - Modern Fantasy RPG (Recruiting)

Hah, that ties in nicely. I was about to start my next section off with a dream sequence. Course, not sure when that'll be up, because I'll probably be drugged most of tomorrow (I'm going to the dentist. Yay.), but I still think it's an amusing coincidence.

So ... are we going with it being afternoon or evening at the Camp now, at this point? I'm not sure really, with everyone posting flashbacks and in different time zones and whatnot. ^^;

vitamin_kitten wrote:So ... are we going with it being afternoon or evening at the Camp now, at this point? I'm not sure really, with everyone posting flashbacks and in different time zones and whatnot. ^^;

The idea, in my mind, is to get to the next day, July the 8th. To that end, we should all make our posts as if we're at early evening in the camp.

Glad you asked.

Okay, cool; I was planning on making another post, but I wasn't sure how far ahead I needed to timeskip. Thanks.

I think me and Kaitlyn are the only ones in different time modes right now, and I'm just gonna assume that when I show up, I'm suddenly in the present. I don't really have a time frame for my little walk planned.

Are we saying that the tour is in the evening after the doctors are done with their tests for the day, or will it be the next day?

No, it'll be July the 8th sometime, afternoonish. All posts should concentrate on getting to the morning of.

I need to make a post to set the scene, which I intend to do now.

This is not par for the course in this setting, but I just need to sort of coordinate the date, OOCly and ICly, for what I'm considering a pivotal event. After this, I will become loosey-goosey again, I swear.

Posted. Hope I didn't hold anyone up, I tried to pump that out in about two hours flat so as to give everyone a good reference point to work from chronologically.

Sorry about the sudden bit of regimentation, but it is strictly for plot purposes to get everyone on the same page, temporarily.

Second part is up. You may notice a similarity to Heyseuss' dream. This is entirely accidental, but still funny.

buzzwulf wrote:Second part is up. You may notice a similarity to Heyseuss' dream. This is entirely accidental, but still funny.

Not that one necessarily has to dream of a desert. It's up to the individual player to decide how their character will dream. It just happens that both of us had superficially similar dreamscapes for our characters. I think that the coincidence will become more apparent as the dream theme gets taken a little further.

So feel free to find something entirely off the beaten path or to work with the desert thing or whatever.

Incidentally, it's not just emergents having dreams in the Las Vegas region. It's everyone. No one, at least no one that is considered credible in mainstream news sources or academia, has caught onto the potential implications of that (<-- another plot hook, down the line.)

Name: Paul Michael Bjornsen
Age: 32
Hometown: Minneapolis, Minnesota
Appearance: He stands roughly 6'6" with long, dirty blonde hair falling to mid-chest/back. He has a thick main of dirtier blonde hair hanging from his chin to his chest, kept moderately in-check in a curly forest around his jawline. He has a barrel chest, with raw muscle rather than a defined 'beach body'. Other than a few minor knicks and scars, the only noticeable mark in his skin is a large tattoo of a bear in mid-swing, with the word Bjornsen written on his lower back, beneath the beast.
Normal Human: No

Bio:

Born to two loving parents, Aalo and Eric Bjornsen, Paul came into the world with all the love and support he could stand. He always remained very close to his parents growing up, especially so with most of the other kids intimidated by his unnatural size and strength. The typical group to befriend him were the average parent's nightmare type. What Aalo and Eric didn't understand was, they were just like their son.

Growing up with the 'class rejects', didn't stop him from easily underachieving with average grades. He went to school with little ambition in mind until classes like wood and metalshop opened up. Happily he put his hands to work, it seemed his growing collection of leather and jean clad friends shared the same interests.

On the offchance someone was disagreeable with Paul or any of his cohorts, they soon learned that a broken nose or losing teeth just wasn't worth it. Though...he always had the common decency to escort them to the school clinic and explain the disagreement in a completely civilized manner. This unwritten code of honor, combined with fear and respect, made him a natural choice for the leader of their new "gang", affectionately dubbed "Dying Breed".

After some years had passed and Dying Breed Motorcycles had been opened, Paul's club had become something of a landmark. By trade, he was a mechanic, certified for motorcycles, trucks and cars. He worked personally on each and every member of the club's bike, even if the other mechanics rode with the gang, Paul officially fine-tuned everything.

Often enough he got into a bar fight with someone wanting to prove they were tougher than the big-bad leatherclad guy whose enormous stature damn near commanded a stare...Often enough Paul carried half-drunk and bleeding men to his bike and drove them to the hospital, or at the very least, escorted his group of suddenly sober friends.

Eleven years after celebrating his official license to buy booze - and in the very same bar that had let him for 13 - a particularly nasty fight broke out. Someone knocked out one of his best friend's over a game of pool. A fucking game. This beast of a man drew his fist back, unaware the stares he had gotten, unaware the sober look of pure terror, Paul put his fist through the man's skull. With a sickened howl of pain, the now-faceless man's friend drew a gun and fired.

The bullet fell to the ground, no sooner than the one who pulled the trigger flew through the wall.

On his 32nd birthday, he was reported to the police for the first time for murder and labeled an emergent.

In his silence he wondered how he got there and remembering only the blinding rage pushed one word into his dry mouth....Berserker

Cool, welcome aboard.

Be aware that he'd be an alpha-class emergent, and therefore in solitary confinement until recently. All alpha-class emergents have actually harmed someone with their abilities. The only reason they got released out of solitary (and experimentation) was because of some political wheeling and dealing up high that they don't know about.

I'm sure you've read through some of the stuff, but I wanted to summarize that as a whole.

Cool. I think things are speeding up here. I'm starting to get a good feeling about this.

Got it!

I actually read through the whole thread, haha. Glad to be aboard!

Yeah, I realize the character list has gotten long, but I justify the continual recruiting as follows; some people are going to slow down and maybe lose interest, and I'd rather not lose the thread to that. Others will be able to slide right into it and take up the slack and keep up the pace. That, in turn, will keep people interested and inspired to write.

So if you have buddies that want in but think we're not recruiting, or are a person reading this that is worried that there are too many people, worry not. We're still taking people.

Can we clarify for a second? Is this a supers RP? Because it's beginning to look less and less like a "modern magic" RP and more and more like a twisted sort of X-men. or it could be both, I suppose.

Don't get me wrong, I'll be happy either way, but I just think it deserves some clarification.

I won't speak for Heyseuss, but for my characters, it's "modern magic." I also know that Ars' character also falls under "modern magic."

buzzwulf wrote:Can we clarify for a second? Is this a supers RP? Because it's beginning to look less and less like a "modern magic" RP and more and more like a twisted sort of X-men. or it could be both, I suppose.

Don't get me wrong, I'll be happy either way, but I just think it deserves some clarification.

It's magic dude. I know some abilities may be confused for X-men type stuff, but that's only the tip of the iceberg.

And yes, people are no doubt tired of hearing this but, things will happen to reinforce that it's magic, and not the X-gene.

Trust me, proceed with the assumption that's it magic, the spirit world and all that jazz. Further events are going to very sharply differentiate this from the X-men type of stuff.

Well, I've certainly been under that assumption so far, but I just really wanted to hear it from your mouth. I didn't really think that there was a scientific cause for all this, but everything we've seen so far is powers, and if the magic only manifests itself as powers, it's pretty much a Powers RP. Since that's not the case... well, it makes everything more open to interpretation, at least in my mind.

buzzwulf wrote:Well, I've certainly been under that assumption so far, but I just really wanted to hear it from your mouth. I didn't really think that there was a scientific cause for all this, but everything we've seen so far is powers, and if the magic only manifests itself as powers, it's pretty much a Powers RP. Since that's not the case... well, it makes everything more open to interpretation, at least in my mind.

Well, magical powers that are inherent rather than learned are going to be what shows up at first. Ritual magic, spells and so forth...well, characters that can do that may well need time to develop it all properly and learn how to use the potential they have, how to work around it. So a innate talent requires a lot less of that necessity of having to arrange the energies to work a certain way first.

All the same, some emergents will have a combination of the two going, where they show a trait here and there in some fashion, but don't have much until they learn it. Or it comes out at times of great stress where the subconscious takes over and handles the manipulation of the energies. So on and so forth.

Since it was brought to my attention, let me clarify my character a bit -- I do ascribe to the theory that sufficiently advanced technology will look like magic. Heck, a lot of it is like magic to me already -- all arcane and bizarre. But the reason I am using scientific principles at the moment is he is taking baby steps and an approach to figuring out how to use things is often scientific. Okay, that didn't work, so let's try that type thinking. But also, let's take into consideration how people who are non-emergents or are for the moment "Omegas", our modern society -- at least the academic portions of it would try to understand the manifestations in terms of scientific process. Don't worry, it'll get more magical. I'm working up the origin story now more than anything.

Getting my post ready to bring my character current in time. Now are the reporter/cameramen/etc being picked up in a close by town on the bus? Or driving out to the facility and having to board the bus there that will that them through on the tour?

Kaitlyn Wild wrote:Getting my post ready to bring my character current in time. Now are the reporter/cameramen/etc being picked up in a close by town on the bus? Or driving out to the facility and having to board the bus there that will that them through on the tour?

I'd say bus from the hotel. Makes it easier to get them in and out of the base without as much paperwork and security checking. I think that the Air Force SP's would run the show that way. More efficient to bus all the reporters into the base from the hotel.

Hey-lo!

I'm looking to join this RP, and have read over the OOC as thoroughly as I can bring myself to with a six year old child in the house . I've got a character in mind and most of profile put together, but I'd like to clarify a thing or two first.

The first regards something that may have been pointed out and passed up by my speed-scan. The kinds of things emerging from their dormancy--can they only be powers, or would it be acceptable to create a creature as well? Perhaps as things escalate, things are manifesting on their own rather than finding a host and altering them? If you haven't thought that aspect of things over but think that it will be alright, I'd be more than happy to help you come up with an explanation. It's not a particularly big deal in the long run, but it changes how much I have to tweak my character for the RP.

Secondly, what kinds of powers are we allowed to have? Or should I be creative and reasonable and present them to you as a finished package rather than in vague concept?

Meanwhile, away to read over the IC!

I had a few similar concerns and the post I just made might be taken to assume a few things about things manifesting on their own, although since it's a dream sequence I reckon I have plausible deniability if that starts to clash with anything. I guess that's the joy of playing on the whole 'real or not' aspect of magic.

A lot of people so far haven't taken the 'mythological basis' thing as far as I expected, but as Haar says, there's still plenty of room for building more of a magical background into everything, and it probably pays not to rush it. It took me a good few fascinated hours of research on wikipedia and various other websites to feel like I had a good angle to come at regarding my character's powers, for a start.

OmegaPancake wrote: The kinds of things emerging from their dormancy--can they only be powers, or would it be acceptable to create a creature as well? Perhaps as things escalate, things are manifesting on their own rather than finding a host and altering them?

It's not necessarily a matter of spirits finding hosts in the form of humans, the human themselves may have some sort of genetically linked heritage back...or any number of other explanations. For now, the emergents started as humans, however. Things have not manifested on their own, so far.

As to powers, I suggest keeping it vague for now, or at least, getting the idea in your head. Powers is vague as well, since we're also discussing the latent potential for spellcasting and so forth. There is a wide latitude on how things work on the magic front here.

Kesteven wrote:A lot of people so far haven't taken the 'mythological basis' thing as far as I expected, but as Haar says, there's still plenty of room for building more of a magical background into everything, and it probably pays not to rush it.

I know that in my case and others, the mythological basis will be revealed by the player in their own time. It's hard for people to really figure out what they are while they're incarcerated and cut off. So there's an IC reason why these people don't know what the heck is going on and there's a lot of confusion on the part of scientists/pseudoscientists/experts/pseudoexperts and people proclaiming everything from the X-Gene to psych phenomenon to the return of Gozer for a third sequel.

And, to be honest, I'm fine with letting everyone play their cards close to their chests on this one a bit, to heighten the suspense. We already had to quiz one of the players on 'what is the mythological basis of your character?" and I honestly wasn't too happy with having to do it.

So from here on out, the trust principle is back in play.

This is very much a setting where things are unfolding, so bear in mind that things are being revealed as it goes along. We know the setting's supposed to be more mystical than it may seem at times, particularly as our characters aren't really able to go around saying, "I'm a faerie!" but that doesn't mean that in the back of our heads, there isn't some sort of logic and framework.

Alright, I have just posted. Obviously since my character is aiming to rock the boat and slip past the military guarded system I don't want to seem to unbelievable. However, in my mind with the stress of the guards focusing on the tour, extra security on the prisoners to make sure that they behave, extra security on the protestors to avoid the sort of situation that they had the previous day. Plus if the protestors get all riled up hoping for media coverage, the prisoners are acting out at the indignation of being showcased in their humiliation and one of my guys throws a fit on the bus, the chaos would be enough for her to manage to slip into the facility, since the larger worry would be anything getting out.

Anyway, as usual, if you would like me to edit this, rethink a concept, feel free. I don't want to come off as too unbelievable.

I haven't had a chance to read the whole post Kaitlyn, yet, but I might have a way to help Eva get in at the very least, if it's acceptable to you and Heyseuss. Jason Evans, after all, has been waiting eagerly for any opportunity at all to get inside as well.

Up to you all, of course. We can work it out in PMs or other if you'd care to.

Sounds like I'm missing a lot. ;-; I hope I'll be able to catch up when I get home tomorrow night. -doesn't have time to read the posts right now-

Igraine - Sounds good to me. Whether Jason and Eva work together or ones actions help the other. PM me with what you had planned!