Mecha-admin
Post by Surreptitious Cardboard Box on Jun 16, 2007 16:32:51 GMT
The Premise
Over the centuries, there have been many views regarding what happens to you when you die, many of these views having been influenced by religious beliefs. However, the truth doesn't quite match any of these ideas precisely to the letter ... The afterlife is very much a real place, a physical location that stretches on infinitely. It is without time - though the many people there have adopted a calendar similar to those they were used to on Earth - and nothing lives or grows, but simply is. As always, there are mysteries. Nobody knows how there came to be plumbing in their village, or who built the grand old buildings they occasionally come across. No one understands how trees and plants can exist when they’re not growing, or why they get tired but not hungry. Most importantly, nobody knows why, when they ‘awake’, they are immediately aware that they have just died and been reborn in a strange, new world. It is simply revealed to them in a way that is impossible for them to explain, and instantly, they all accept it. In the small village of Kichi, Felix Angelus wakes up early one morning and continues on his journey of discovery …
Some Explanations Regarding the Situation and Environment
Because this RPG is set in the afterlife, there are people present there who date back to the first humans to roam the Earth. Essentially, every single person who has ever died is there, such as the Romans, medieval knights, ancient Egyptians, and so on. People from all other the world go there once they have died. I'm sure you'll all agree with me that it's impossible to comprehend how many people that might even be. As a result of the huge numbers of people, the amount of land is vast (it's imagined to be an infinite amount of land, I suppose, though I can't really get my head around that, to be perfectly honest).
There is minimal 'technology' available in the afterlife. For some unknown reason, whatever objects you were holding, carrying or wearing at the time of your death you wake up with when you awake in the afterlife. However, these objects are only things that are manageable for one person to carry (obviously relative to the individual's size and strength) so if somebody is carrying something with someone else when they die, that object will not be transferred with them to the afterlife. To prevent complications in our world, when the object is transferred to the afterlife, it is essentially a copy of it - the object doesn't just suddenly disappear when the person carrying it dies, and neither does the person's body. So, technically, you could have a computer monitor, or TV, or sword, or chair or
bookcase, providing it can be carried by a single human being. Of course, radios and phones and so on do not work, and there is no supply of electricity; you cannot use many electrical items. Batteries are present, but very very rare, and used sparingly, apart from by greedy, selfish idiots.
In terms of what species are present in the afterlife, the majority of beings are humans or homo sapiens. Cro-Magnons, Neanderthals and other types of human ancestry are not present. There are some young animals, because it's possible that some people will have been holding or carrying a smaller animal when they died, but anything larger than a dog must be quite hard to carry, so there's nothing bigger than that present.
In order to get around the language barriers, I've thought of a concept similar to the babel fish from The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy and the ability of the TARDIS in Doctor Who - the afterlife atmosphere allows everyone to understand whoever they are speaking to. Whatever is said is automatically said in the language they understand. For example, if two characters from different countries are talking to each other in the afterlife, they will hear everything said in their own mother tongue.
It is impossible to die, be killed, injured or gain an illness in the afterlife. If you died of an injury, when you ‘awake‘, that injury is gone, as are all traces of it. If you died of an illness, that illness is gone, as are all its symptoms. The only bodily limitations are that you grow weary, just as you do in the real world, but you easily regain your energy simply by sleeping (in the afterlife, it is not necessary to eat or drink, and generally, food is very hard to come by anyway); and you are also affected by temperature - if it drops, you will start to feel the cold, and vice versa.
There are weapons around, and eventually, all our characters will come into possession of one (or two) but I will explain about this at a later stage. When we start off, we are weapon less (unless we are somebody who was a soldier who died in combat or whatever, but obviously that has to be very closely linked with personality and history and suchlike, and really I'd prefer it if no one chooses an ex-soldier as their character).
I have a rather simple map drawn out here to help clarify the general lay of the land. The dotted lines show the old pathways, while the yellow-ish thick lines are the new pathways that are slowly being built. The names of the settlements are weird and unoriginal, because often the first inhabitants took random words from life on Earth and used them as names). As our party progresses, the map will expand and we will come to more settlements. The towns and villages are pretty small and even the biggest don't have a population of more than about 500, because many people find it hard to start life over again and forge new relationships, so they’re quite antisocial (when you wake up in the afterlife, you are placed randomly somewhere, so it is very very very rare for you to actually come across somebody you know from your previous life).
Q&A
Question 1. (Verius): Now, I have a question that doesn't affect my character, but: if a character sustains a non-fatal injury, and it is in some way disfiguring (even so much as a scar), are those things gone in the after life as well? If you lost a leg and didn't die in real life, would you still be missing that leg in the afterlife, or would you have gotten it back? (Just for potential clarification.)
Answer: I forgot to clarify this earlier, but basically: all illnesses, all injuries, all handicaps (mental and physical) and all disabilities disappear when you 'awaken' in the afterlife. So if, say, you were mentally handicapped in your previous life, your afterlife would be very different. Hope that helps.
Question 2.: What sorts of materials and resources are available in the afterlife?
Answer: In terms of building materials, there is clay, sand, soil, wood and water. People have managed to build shelters or homes, but not like what we have. There are some buildings that are architecturally amazing, and just as impressive as the sorts of structures we have on Earth. However, these are mysteries, and nobody really seems to understand how they came to be built, let alone who built them.
Question 3. (Unleashed Madness): Could a character that died 200 years ago come to this world at the same time as the recent ones? Since it's a different world, are times and all that different? Also, could they come from alternate
dimensions or something? Like my character was born on the same world as yours, but things happened differently on it and stuff?
Answer: I'm afraid we can't have people from parallel universes/alternate dimensions, because that would just create far too many parameters for me to try and control. Just our earth, basically. And very rarely, there is delay in people awakening in the afterlife, but in almost every circumstance, you wake up at a time that is in relation to the time you died. Although the afterlife does not follow the same timescales as our world does, a lot of the people there have adopted the same method so that they at least can have a sense of normality.
(If anybody else has any other questions, please feel free to ask them. I understand that this world may be quite confusing to get used to for a while, so I’m here to answer any queries or concerns you may have.)
Rules
There are, unsurprisingly, (because this is me we're talking about, after all) some conditions we all have to stick to, if you wish to join this RPG. For starters, I would like you to read all of the above at least twice to ensure you're fairly familiar with the situation. Secondly, I would like you all to ask at least one question, because as you should have noticed, the whole concept is pretty deep (even I'm not that sure what all the answers are, but I'm going to try) and I want everyone to be fairly clear about what's going on. In addition, you have to accept that I am essentially in charge, because I'm the only one who knows where the plot is going. If I need a character to be somewhere, I hope you'll have them there, because I need to craft the story just right. If I ask you to rein them in a bit, you need to do that, and if I want you to provide more description, you need to, because description is one thing we really need in this RPG world. A fair bit of thought needs to go into your character creation. Nobody is allowed more than one character until I state otherwise.
1. Maturity is pretty much mandatory. I have a fantastic sense of humour and most definitely do NOT want the RPG to be humourless, but I would like for everyone to be sensible and to take this seriously. It’s a proper story, and deserves dedicated authors.
2. As I’ve just mentioned, this is more of a story than just some doss-around game where you chat about sodas and ice-cream, posting a few sentences every now and again, jumping your favourite character regardless of their gender, and pointing a giant finger towards your character ‘enjoying the vibrations’. Write it like you would a novel. Posts require detail and depth.
3. If you weren’t expecting this, then clearly you don’t know me, and therefore ought to be extra cautious. I’m an absolute stickler when it comes to grammar, spelling and punctuation. If you can’t be arsed to make an effort, then I’m not going to feel bad about asking you to make an improvement. If people persist with their laziness, I may be forced to ask them to leave. Whenever I write something, be it fanfiction, homework or original fiction, I always have a dictionary out in front of me. I use a thesaurus to widen the vocabulary I’m using and to make sure I don’t repeat words (which, by the way, I would advise you all to do, because if there’s one thing I hate, then it’s when the same verb, adjective or noun appears more than twice in the same sentence). Admittedly, I have Windows Vista, so I can have a [very well-compiled] dictionary/thesaurus pop up at the click of the mouse, but even if you have a different operating system on your computer, that shouldn’t stop you. www.dictionary.com is a very good resource and also includes a thesaurus. Use it wisely. Have it open in a separate tab every time you post in the RPG. In fact, if you’re that devoted to writing your replies, start them in a new word processor document so you can easily edit them before posting. If you’re smart, and keen to improve you’re writing, I know you’ll use this advice.
4. Absolutely no offence intended, but I don’t really want any under-15 year olds participating in this. I don’t think we have any members of that age anyway, but in case we do, my reason is simple: unless you can prove to me otherwise, I honestly don’t think that people under that age are serious or mature enough to contribute to such a project. I know I sound arrogant and pretentious to say so, but I really think that you need to have experienced more in life to be able to grasp the scope of things we’re dealing with in this RPG, and if I think back to when I was 14, however mature I was back then, I was also SO naïve and so unaware of everything going on around me. So it’s not that I have a personal vendetta against young teenagers, it’s just that I don’t think you’d have as much to contribute to this sort of story as our older members would.
I thank you all for having enough patience to read through all this, and sincerely hope that you enjoy participating in the RPG. If you decided to skip through most of the above and only skim-read it, I request that you please go back and read through it all. If somebody who has not read the rules starts posting in the RPG, it will be immediately obvious to me that they have not done as they were supposed to, for the rules really are rather specific and I most definitely will not stand back from upholding them.
Once character profiles have been posted, I will assign each participant a location for their character to start in, whether they have just ‘awoken’ there, or were there already. Expect individual PMs with a rather detailed explanation of what to do.
Good luck.
Over the centuries, there have been many views regarding what happens to you when you die, many of these views having been influenced by religious beliefs. However, the truth doesn't quite match any of these ideas precisely to the letter ... The afterlife is very much a real place, a physical location that stretches on infinitely. It is without time - though the many people there have adopted a calendar similar to those they were used to on Earth - and nothing lives or grows, but simply is. As always, there are mysteries. Nobody knows how there came to be plumbing in their village, or who built the grand old buildings they occasionally come across. No one understands how trees and plants can exist when they’re not growing, or why they get tired but not hungry. Most importantly, nobody knows why, when they ‘awake’, they are immediately aware that they have just died and been reborn in a strange, new world. It is simply revealed to them in a way that is impossible for them to explain, and instantly, they all accept it. In the small village of Kichi, Felix Angelus wakes up early one morning and continues on his journey of discovery …
Some Explanations Regarding the Situation and Environment
Because this RPG is set in the afterlife, there are people present there who date back to the first humans to roam the Earth. Essentially, every single person who has ever died is there, such as the Romans, medieval knights, ancient Egyptians, and so on. People from all other the world go there once they have died. I'm sure you'll all agree with me that it's impossible to comprehend how many people that might even be. As a result of the huge numbers of people, the amount of land is vast (it's imagined to be an infinite amount of land, I suppose, though I can't really get my head around that, to be perfectly honest).
There is minimal 'technology' available in the afterlife. For some unknown reason, whatever objects you were holding, carrying or wearing at the time of your death you wake up with when you awake in the afterlife. However, these objects are only things that are manageable for one person to carry (obviously relative to the individual's size and strength) so if somebody is carrying something with someone else when they die, that object will not be transferred with them to the afterlife. To prevent complications in our world, when the object is transferred to the afterlife, it is essentially a copy of it - the object doesn't just suddenly disappear when the person carrying it dies, and neither does the person's body. So, technically, you could have a computer monitor, or TV, or sword, or chair or
bookcase, providing it can be carried by a single human being. Of course, radios and phones and so on do not work, and there is no supply of electricity; you cannot use many electrical items. Batteries are present, but very very rare, and used sparingly, apart from by greedy, selfish idiots.
In terms of what species are present in the afterlife, the majority of beings are humans or homo sapiens. Cro-Magnons, Neanderthals and other types of human ancestry are not present. There are some young animals, because it's possible that some people will have been holding or carrying a smaller animal when they died, but anything larger than a dog must be quite hard to carry, so there's nothing bigger than that present.
In order to get around the language barriers, I've thought of a concept similar to the babel fish from The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy and the ability of the TARDIS in Doctor Who - the afterlife atmosphere allows everyone to understand whoever they are speaking to. Whatever is said is automatically said in the language they understand. For example, if two characters from different countries are talking to each other in the afterlife, they will hear everything said in their own mother tongue.
It is impossible to die, be killed, injured or gain an illness in the afterlife. If you died of an injury, when you ‘awake‘, that injury is gone, as are all traces of it. If you died of an illness, that illness is gone, as are all its symptoms. The only bodily limitations are that you grow weary, just as you do in the real world, but you easily regain your energy simply by sleeping (in the afterlife, it is not necessary to eat or drink, and generally, food is very hard to come by anyway); and you are also affected by temperature - if it drops, you will start to feel the cold, and vice versa.
There are weapons around, and eventually, all our characters will come into possession of one (or two) but I will explain about this at a later stage. When we start off, we are weapon less (unless we are somebody who was a soldier who died in combat or whatever, but obviously that has to be very closely linked with personality and history and suchlike, and really I'd prefer it if no one chooses an ex-soldier as their character).
I have a rather simple map drawn out here to help clarify the general lay of the land. The dotted lines show the old pathways, while the yellow-ish thick lines are the new pathways that are slowly being built. The names of the settlements are weird and unoriginal, because often the first inhabitants took random words from life on Earth and used them as names). As our party progresses, the map will expand and we will come to more settlements. The towns and villages are pretty small and even the biggest don't have a population of more than about 500, because many people find it hard to start life over again and forge new relationships, so they’re quite antisocial (when you wake up in the afterlife, you are placed randomly somewhere, so it is very very very rare for you to actually come across somebody you know from your previous life).
Q&A
Question 1. (Verius): Now, I have a question that doesn't affect my character, but: if a character sustains a non-fatal injury, and it is in some way disfiguring (even so much as a scar), are those things gone in the after life as well? If you lost a leg and didn't die in real life, would you still be missing that leg in the afterlife, or would you have gotten it back? (Just for potential clarification.)
Answer: I forgot to clarify this earlier, but basically: all illnesses, all injuries, all handicaps (mental and physical) and all disabilities disappear when you 'awaken' in the afterlife. So if, say, you were mentally handicapped in your previous life, your afterlife would be very different. Hope that helps.
Question 2.: What sorts of materials and resources are available in the afterlife?
Answer: In terms of building materials, there is clay, sand, soil, wood and water. People have managed to build shelters or homes, but not like what we have. There are some buildings that are architecturally amazing, and just as impressive as the sorts of structures we have on Earth. However, these are mysteries, and nobody really seems to understand how they came to be built, let alone who built them.
Question 3. (Unleashed Madness): Could a character that died 200 years ago come to this world at the same time as the recent ones? Since it's a different world, are times and all that different? Also, could they come from alternate
dimensions or something? Like my character was born on the same world as yours, but things happened differently on it and stuff?
Answer: I'm afraid we can't have people from parallel universes/alternate dimensions, because that would just create far too many parameters for me to try and control. Just our earth, basically. And very rarely, there is delay in people awakening in the afterlife, but in almost every circumstance, you wake up at a time that is in relation to the time you died. Although the afterlife does not follow the same timescales as our world does, a lot of the people there have adopted the same method so that they at least can have a sense of normality.
(If anybody else has any other questions, please feel free to ask them. I understand that this world may be quite confusing to get used to for a while, so I’m here to answer any queries or concerns you may have.)
Rules
There are, unsurprisingly, (because this is me we're talking about, after all) some conditions we all have to stick to, if you wish to join this RPG. For starters, I would like you to read all of the above at least twice to ensure you're fairly familiar with the situation. Secondly, I would like you all to ask at least one question, because as you should have noticed, the whole concept is pretty deep (even I'm not that sure what all the answers are, but I'm going to try) and I want everyone to be fairly clear about what's going on. In addition, you have to accept that I am essentially in charge, because I'm the only one who knows where the plot is going. If I need a character to be somewhere, I hope you'll have them there, because I need to craft the story just right. If I ask you to rein them in a bit, you need to do that, and if I want you to provide more description, you need to, because description is one thing we really need in this RPG world. A fair bit of thought needs to go into your character creation. Nobody is allowed more than one character until I state otherwise.
1. Maturity is pretty much mandatory. I have a fantastic sense of humour and most definitely do NOT want the RPG to be humourless, but I would like for everyone to be sensible and to take this seriously. It’s a proper story, and deserves dedicated authors.
2. As I’ve just mentioned, this is more of a story than just some doss-around game where you chat about sodas and ice-cream, posting a few sentences every now and again, jumping your favourite character regardless of their gender, and pointing a giant finger towards your character ‘enjoying the vibrations’. Write it like you would a novel. Posts require detail and depth.
3. If you weren’t expecting this, then clearly you don’t know me, and therefore ought to be extra cautious. I’m an absolute stickler when it comes to grammar, spelling and punctuation. If you can’t be arsed to make an effort, then I’m not going to feel bad about asking you to make an improvement. If people persist with their laziness, I may be forced to ask them to leave. Whenever I write something, be it fanfiction, homework or original fiction, I always have a dictionary out in front of me. I use a thesaurus to widen the vocabulary I’m using and to make sure I don’t repeat words (which, by the way, I would advise you all to do, because if there’s one thing I hate, then it’s when the same verb, adjective or noun appears more than twice in the same sentence). Admittedly, I have Windows Vista, so I can have a [very well-compiled] dictionary/thesaurus pop up at the click of the mouse, but even if you have a different operating system on your computer, that shouldn’t stop you. www.dictionary.com is a very good resource and also includes a thesaurus. Use it wisely. Have it open in a separate tab every time you post in the RPG. In fact, if you’re that devoted to writing your replies, start them in a new word processor document so you can easily edit them before posting. If you’re smart, and keen to improve you’re writing, I know you’ll use this advice.
4. Absolutely no offence intended, but I don’t really want any under-15 year olds participating in this. I don’t think we have any members of that age anyway, but in case we do, my reason is simple: unless you can prove to me otherwise, I honestly don’t think that people under that age are serious or mature enough to contribute to such a project. I know I sound arrogant and pretentious to say so, but I really think that you need to have experienced more in life to be able to grasp the scope of things we’re dealing with in this RPG, and if I think back to when I was 14, however mature I was back then, I was also SO naïve and so unaware of everything going on around me. So it’s not that I have a personal vendetta against young teenagers, it’s just that I don’t think you’d have as much to contribute to this sort of story as our older members would.
I thank you all for having enough patience to read through all this, and sincerely hope that you enjoy participating in the RPG. If you decided to skip through most of the above and only skim-read it, I request that you please go back and read through it all. If somebody who has not read the rules starts posting in the RPG, it will be immediately obvious to me that they have not done as they were supposed to, for the rules really are rather specific and I most definitely will not stand back from upholding them.
Once character profiles have been posted, I will assign each participant a location for their character to start in, whether they have just ‘awoken’ there, or were there already. Expect individual PMs with a rather detailed explanation of what to do.
Good luck.
Oh noes! XD
