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Hello, I've been role playing for over 10 years and I'm looking for 3-6 players to participate in this story. I can generally post once a week and posts vary from 500-1,500 words. Whatever the roster looks like in the end establishing a post order will probably be necessary to keep things tidy. If interested please post in this thread to let me know.
An ancient evil is unleashed upon the land when excavations unearth and open the sealed tomb of a vampire lord. From his decrepit castle the freed vampire begins to assemble an army of the undead and others, aiming to restore his lordship over the land even in undeath.
Our characters find themselves drawn into a web woven by the arisen vampire lord, each having personal cause to come to the town the story opens in to seek answers for recent events. Occurrences in and around the town seem to indicate it is the focal point of increasing disturbances the nature of which remain mysterious but become increasingly clear as our characters piece together what is going on.
Over time our characters will hunt for the source of attacks on locals, thwarting one aspect of the plot after another and defeating increasingly dangerous threats. As such their path will be difficult, fraught with dangers that pose a realistic chance of killing anyone and everyone outright - or turning them into one of the undead. Progress will be slow, cautious and require careful observation and use of limited resources. Eventually our characters will discover the source of all the disparate incidents and search for the vampire lord's castle, infiltrate it and defeat him once and for all.
This story is intended to be played out by a party of players who will work together to survive, expanding and revealing itself according to player actions. However supplies and resources found by the players will be determined by myself to maintain a sense of tension and scarcity. Similarly when combat occurs I will be flipping a coin for each character involved and they may die at any time and have to be replaced by a new one from the player. If they are killed by vampire or zombie bites there will be a chance they will become monsters themselves that must be killed by their former comrades.
Miscellaneous plot points, ideas etc:
All instances of combat will involve an element of chance, a coin flip determining if any given character will be killed and replaced as well as one determining if they are turned into vampires/zombies if any such enemies are involved in their deaths.
With combat being costly and dangerous players are encouraged to avoid it and find more advantageous ways of slaying their foes, outwitting them as much as possible rather than fighting them directly.
Any characters killed in the course of events may be replaced by the player with another, adding to the group and keeping themselves involved. Players are encouraged to consider this a natural part of the story adding a real sense of tension and danger and the replacement of characters as a natural part of the flow of the plot.
No vampire/half-vampire characters or anything else of the sort.
The story will have a survival horror vibe, focusing on slower progress, mysteries being unraveled, dangerous combat with our characters at a decided disadvantage with limited resources. Death will be around every corner.
Vampire and zombie bites will have a real chance of infecting the victim. Those who perish by these means will be hunted down and killed by their former allies.
World - Soera, the world, is covered by five main continents and many prominent islands and island chains. To the north lay the warm lands nearer to the equator, ranging from steppes, sahels and savannas to deserts. To the south lay cooler lands farther from the equator eventually becoming frigid lands of icy peninsulas and islands. Within and between these two extremes lay many kingdoms, empires and various other realms. The story will begin in the western-centrally placed kingdom of Oshigura, a land destabilized and weakened by internal strife leaving its inhabitants without proper protection.
Oshigura has a large coast in its western end and includes several islands, a traditional cultural-political split existing between the mainland and the islands with less pronounced divisions between its north-south divisions where it shifts from rolling sands in the north to plains and steppes toward its center and south.
Politically Oshigura is ruled by an elective monarchy which has led to a period of uncertainty in an interregnum which could last years.
Players should of course feel free to introduce elements to the story they wish to but the land is generally intended to be influenced but not strictly based on southern Europe, MENA, central and far Eastern Asia.
Bestiary - This list will be expanded as necessary and players should consult it whenever a new creature is introduced.
Vampires - Either feral or noble, both sensitive to sunlight and strongest during night and susceptible to holy symbols, garlic, fire and stakes to the heart. All vampires are twice as strong and fast as the average man. They require blood, feeding on the living and turning them into the undead by this means. Vampires possess the ability to implement magic, commanding wolves, assuming the form of a bat or wolf or mist, enchanting and enthralling humans, generating mist. Salt weakens and keeps back vampires. Must rest in the soil of its grave.
Feral vampires have fallen prey to their own predatory instincts and been consumed by their blood lust. As such they are still capable of more magical means of attack but often only with the cunning and planning of an animal rather than a man. Their strength is increased by a feverish desperation. Tend to congregate in ruins, caves, caverns and wildernesses in general. Often hide their presence with signs of animal attacks, a particular sign of their cunning. Often do not have thralls. Often roam around their general locality and can sometimes create multiple homes for the purpose depending on the extent of their ranging. Tend to appear more corpse like and animalistic.
Noble vampires retain their more human aspect, often plotting their schemes rather than rushing in, sometimes blending into human society or forming isolated groups all their own. Often have thralls to guard them and disguise their own presence. Cunning and careful, capable of enacting complex plots and succeeding to a frightening extent. Habitats vary widely.
All vampires are weakened by sunlight but are not destroyed by it. All vampires may assume the form of bats, wolves or mist as well as generate mist and command wolves and enthrall humans as well as turn them into one of their own. All are weakened by holy symbols, injured by holy water, repelled by salt and silver, the latter of which also injures them more greatly than plain weapons, are especially susceptible to being burned and can be killed by a hawthorn stake through the heart.
Zombies - The shambling undead. Quantity is their chief quality and tireless persistence a close second. Though often slow and shuffling they are unconcerned with fear or pain, though also prone to walking right into traps and ambushes. Zombies are infectious and transfer their disease most frequently via bites. Raised from the dead by evil sorceries they are unreasoning and unflinching. In the absence of direct control and orders by their creator they act in general instinct inflicted by their magic disease and seek to consume the living, multiplying as they go.
All zombies are immune to fear, pain and hunger beyond their insatiable need to devour the living. They are dim witted and physically slow but tireless. Destruction is achieved by incineration, severe electrocution by magic means or destruction of the brain including decapitation.
Ghouls - Deformed humans corrupted by cannibalism, often but not exclusively thralls to vampires by origin. They retain a degree of human thought and reasoning though their behavior and communication has regressed to that of beasts. Ghouls generally move about in small packs and favor stealth and ambush. Ghouls are capable of using tools and weaponry but the more animalistic of them have lost any interest if not capability of doing so and often live more like wild beasts.
Ghouls usually congregate in rural hideouts, caves or wherever their master dwells if enthralled by a vampire.
Ghouls are vanquished by the same means as mortal men but have a greater tolerance for pain and general resilience.
Wolves - Mere beasts often controlled by a vampire to do their bidding, as much as such creatures can. They lack higher reasoning and are entirely normal beyond an increased persistence, pain threshold and the like.
Thralls - Humans enslaved by a vampire and made into its slaves, though not turned into one of its kind. Used as sentries and servants of all kinds. Some dark cults willingly serve vampires and becomes thralls. Killed by normal means but are fired by fanaticism and a willingness to perish for their lord or lady.
An ancient evil is unleashed upon the land when excavations unearth and open the sealed tomb of a vampire lord. From his decrepit castle the freed vampire begins to assemble an army of the undead and others, aiming to restore his lordship over the land even in undeath.
Our characters find themselves drawn into a web woven by the arisen vampire lord, each having personal cause to come to the town the story opens in to seek answers for recent events. Occurrences in and around the town seem to indicate it is the focal point of increasing disturbances the nature of which remain mysterious but become increasingly clear as our characters piece together what is going on.
Over time our characters will hunt for the source of attacks on locals, thwarting one aspect of the plot after another and defeating increasingly dangerous threats. As such their path will be difficult, fraught with dangers that pose a realistic chance of killing anyone and everyone outright - or turning them into one of the undead. Progress will be slow, cautious and require careful observation and use of limited resources. Eventually our characters will discover the source of all the disparate incidents and search for the vampire lord's castle, infiltrate it and defeat him once and for all.
This story is intended to be played out by a party of players who will work together to survive, expanding and revealing itself according to player actions. However supplies and resources found by the players will be determined by myself to maintain a sense of tension and scarcity. Similarly when combat occurs I will be flipping a coin for each character involved and they may die at any time and have to be replaced by a new one from the player. If they are killed by vampire or zombie bites there will be a chance they will become monsters themselves that must be killed by their former comrades.
Miscellaneous plot points, ideas etc:
All instances of combat will involve an element of chance, a coin flip determining if any given character will be killed and replaced as well as one determining if they are turned into vampires/zombies if any such enemies are involved in their deaths.
With combat being costly and dangerous players are encouraged to avoid it and find more advantageous ways of slaying their foes, outwitting them as much as possible rather than fighting them directly.
Any characters killed in the course of events may be replaced by the player with another, adding to the group and keeping themselves involved. Players are encouraged to consider this a natural part of the story adding a real sense of tension and danger and the replacement of characters as a natural part of the flow of the plot.
No vampire/half-vampire characters or anything else of the sort.
The story will have a survival horror vibe, focusing on slower progress, mysteries being unraveled, dangerous combat with our characters at a decided disadvantage with limited resources. Death will be around every corner.
Vampire and zombie bites will have a real chance of infecting the victim. Those who perish by these means will be hunted down and killed by their former allies.
World - Soera, the world, is covered by five main continents and many prominent islands and island chains. To the north lay the warm lands nearer to the equator, ranging from steppes, sahels and savannas to deserts. To the south lay cooler lands farther from the equator eventually becoming frigid lands of icy peninsulas and islands. Within and between these two extremes lay many kingdoms, empires and various other realms. The story will begin in the western-centrally placed kingdom of Oshigura, a land destabilized and weakened by internal strife leaving its inhabitants without proper protection.
Oshigura has a large coast in its western end and includes several islands, a traditional cultural-political split existing between the mainland and the islands with less pronounced divisions between its north-south divisions where it shifts from rolling sands in the north to plains and steppes toward its center and south.
Politically Oshigura is ruled by an elective monarchy which has led to a period of uncertainty in an interregnum which could last years.
Players should of course feel free to introduce elements to the story they wish to but the land is generally intended to be influenced but not strictly based on southern Europe, MENA, central and far Eastern Asia.
Bestiary - This list will be expanded as necessary and players should consult it whenever a new creature is introduced.
Vampires - Either feral or noble, both sensitive to sunlight and strongest during night and susceptible to holy symbols, garlic, fire and stakes to the heart. All vampires are twice as strong and fast as the average man. They require blood, feeding on the living and turning them into the undead by this means. Vampires possess the ability to implement magic, commanding wolves, assuming the form of a bat or wolf or mist, enchanting and enthralling humans, generating mist. Salt weakens and keeps back vampires. Must rest in the soil of its grave.
Feral vampires have fallen prey to their own predatory instincts and been consumed by their blood lust. As such they are still capable of more magical means of attack but often only with the cunning and planning of an animal rather than a man. Their strength is increased by a feverish desperation. Tend to congregate in ruins, caves, caverns and wildernesses in general. Often hide their presence with signs of animal attacks, a particular sign of their cunning. Often do not have thralls. Often roam around their general locality and can sometimes create multiple homes for the purpose depending on the extent of their ranging. Tend to appear more corpse like and animalistic.
Noble vampires retain their more human aspect, often plotting their schemes rather than rushing in, sometimes blending into human society or forming isolated groups all their own. Often have thralls to guard them and disguise their own presence. Cunning and careful, capable of enacting complex plots and succeeding to a frightening extent. Habitats vary widely.
All vampires are weakened by sunlight but are not destroyed by it. All vampires may assume the form of bats, wolves or mist as well as generate mist and command wolves and enthrall humans as well as turn them into one of their own. All are weakened by holy symbols, injured by holy water, repelled by salt and silver, the latter of which also injures them more greatly than plain weapons, are especially susceptible to being burned and can be killed by a hawthorn stake through the heart.
Zombies - The shambling undead. Quantity is their chief quality and tireless persistence a close second. Though often slow and shuffling they are unconcerned with fear or pain, though also prone to walking right into traps and ambushes. Zombies are infectious and transfer their disease most frequently via bites. Raised from the dead by evil sorceries they are unreasoning and unflinching. In the absence of direct control and orders by their creator they act in general instinct inflicted by their magic disease and seek to consume the living, multiplying as they go.
All zombies are immune to fear, pain and hunger beyond their insatiable need to devour the living. They are dim witted and physically slow but tireless. Destruction is achieved by incineration, severe electrocution by magic means or destruction of the brain including decapitation.
Ghouls - Deformed humans corrupted by cannibalism, often but not exclusively thralls to vampires by origin. They retain a degree of human thought and reasoning though their behavior and communication has regressed to that of beasts. Ghouls generally move about in small packs and favor stealth and ambush. Ghouls are capable of using tools and weaponry but the more animalistic of them have lost any interest if not capability of doing so and often live more like wild beasts.
Ghouls usually congregate in rural hideouts, caves or wherever their master dwells if enthralled by a vampire.
Ghouls are vanquished by the same means as mortal men but have a greater tolerance for pain and general resilience.
Wolves - Mere beasts often controlled by a vampire to do their bidding, as much as such creatures can. They lack higher reasoning and are entirely normal beyond an increased persistence, pain threshold and the like.
Thralls - Humans enslaved by a vampire and made into its slaves, though not turned into one of its kind. Used as sentries and servants of all kinds. Some dark cults willingly serve vampires and becomes thralls. Killed by normal means but are fired by fanaticism and a willingness to perish for their lord or lady.