Ashes to Dust (post-apocalyptic fantasy RP)

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UNIDENTIFIED SUBSTANCE
Names: Dust, Grain, dark sand, eitr, wind demon, Ash, pillar salt, death dust, Shadow
Chemical structure: unidentified
CAS No.: 9999-99-9
Molar mass: 0 g/mol
NFPA 704: 040BIO
Appearance: Very fine matt-black dust, glows in low light conditions and when reacting
Additional notes:
  • unidentified extraterrestrial substance
  • categorisation date: 07-18-2018
  • reacts in highly unpredictable ways with nearby substances
  • is not annihilated on contact with antimatter
  • does not react to fundamental forces with the exception of gravity
  • melting and boiling points unknown
  • momentary exposure to single particulate has exactly 50% chance of causing living organisms to instantly die
  • IT CAN THINK
It's 2037. It's been 20 years to the day since the first Duststorm.
The first one was small. A meteorite fell and broke open in Russia. Nobody thought anything of it.
Just over two pounds of Dust spilled out, and a breeze picked it up.
Then people started caring.

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In months, shelters began to be built around the world. It didn't take much. One loose mote could wipe out entire cities, consuming them and their inhabitants in odd fountains of chaos and disorder that laughed in the face of natural laws and common sense alike.

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And people hid and cowered.
Even in the shelters, life wasn't the same. It didn't take long to realise that even the newborn children were somehow different.

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Eight years went by. The fear began to subside.
People grew braver. The Dust wasn't hanging over them anymore.
They opened their doors.
And the Dust was everywhere.
It too had multiplied, permeating the entire atmosphere.
The very air had become toxic, and the world had settled into something new.

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But it couldn't kill everyone.
Just as the Dust had killed, it also brought new life.
And even that merciless Dust which killed millions, perhaps billions, before, could not kill the children.

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New diverse creatures rose from the Dust, who bonded with it, could command it.
The natural laws were decided by the Dust now.
For that reason, these new beings, the Ashen, were more powerful than humans had ever been.

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The world was destroyed, but it was not ruined.
It is only just beginning.
Not all hope is lost for humanity.
Some of us can still walk outside.
The children from after that fateful day twenty years ago have a chance.
Because we too are Ashen.

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From Dust we came, and to Dust we shall one day return.
But until that day comes, the world of our forefathers is ours now.
And we shall make it anew.
I'm going to be honest. I came up with this whole concept about 45 minutes ago, but I think I like it. If anyone's up for it, voice thy reservations here and I'll get to work on an actual RP for this thing.
 
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  • Bucket of Rainbows
Reactions: Boo Girlie BoomBoom
I love post-apocalyptica, fantasy, and the whole "new generation" stuff. Count me in!
 
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Reactions: Random
OOOOOOOOOOOOOHHHHHHH!!!!

K so like Boo has no idea what she just read but like WOW!! Muh brain!! ★BOOM!! ★

L♥vES it!!^,^!!


But! Regular rundown: what is posting level, post frequency, can we play multi charries, dice/stats use, max. number of RPers?

:33~
 
Ooh, practical talk.

Posting level, I don't mind as long as it's coherent and readable. Frequency, at least twice a week, assuming we have around 1-2 paragraphs for each post.

In terms of players, 4-6 seems like a sensible number, and I'm pretty sure I can trust you guys to use a workable number of characters for yourselves.

For dice, I personally find that detracts from forum RPing, so I probably won't use any, and any stats will just be guidelines to make you think about what your characters can and can't do.
 
Fair enough. What about the characters themselves? How different are they from normal humans? Any powers, features, etc, that are different from normal people? Or will we go over that once we get more people?
 
I'll write up a few more details about the setting once I get the sign-ups going, but in short, all life outside shelters is Ashen, because the Dust kills everything else.

The Ashen have power over the Dust, allowing them to exploit its reality-warping properties to manifest special qualities or powers, which means you can find anything from cutie cat-grils to self-taught teenage martial-artist warlocks. The Dust can easily convert back and forth between the mundane and nonsensical, so the fantastic isn't out of the realm of possibility.

tl;dr: It's a fantasy kitchen sink where anything goes, because everything warps reality to some degree.
 
Hmmmm... cools.

K will wait for OoC then^^
 
Sounds like a great time
 
I hope so. Working on the OOC thread now. Expect it in due course (i.e. by at least Saturday if not sooner).
 
All I ask is for an epic adventure across a vast new world warped by the Dust
 
Oh wow, thanks for posting in my thread. I absolutely love this, actually. By far my favorite pitch thrown my way so far. :D I have a few questions about the world if that's cool.

1. Is there any sort of electronics working, still? Could Dust fuel power plants? Old emergency generators that still work? Anything?
2. Is there communication between the different continents, and do people know of the global scale/situation?
3. Am I correct in assuming that the air in general is at least slightly poluted, even if the individual particles are invisible? I feel a constant ash atmosphere would be incredibly unique and very cool as well, so I'm pestering. :P
4. Could the theoretically still be non-Ashen humans inside shelters?
5. Are normal animals still alive in Ashen form?
 
Some electronics are still working. Electricity is a trick beast (hahahahahaha), and especially things such as computers can barely function with sometimes so much as a single electron out of place, so the Dust rewriting natural laws makes it very difficult for that to work properly. The likelihood of the Dust randomly creating fuel as opposed to randomly doing literally anything else is pretty low, but it's not out of the question that so old power plants might be still alive (possibly literally).

There was pre-shelter discussion concerning the Dust and what to do about it, so everyone knows that the entirety of the old world is gone. There's potentially still some radios in some shelters to communicate with others, but as I say, the lack of possibility for an internet or anything like that makes it hard to keep up communications.

Yep, the Dust can't really get much more saturated without darkening the atmosphere. It's still quite temperamental, though, so you may find Dust clouds of all shapes and sizes in the upper thermosphere, to say nothing of the occasional Duststorm.

Not only could there theoretically be, there are. Generally, the shelters are equipped to let a population of 5,000 survive for 50 years, and taking into account breeding, most shelters only have around 4,000 people in them at this point. There are also things like mechanical airlocks that allow Ashen to come and go without everyone inside dying, although I personally wouldn't count on many non-Ashen being particularly happy to see anyone from the outside world.

In terms of the individual animals, no. You are either born Ashen or you aren't, and so everything that was not in a shelter died before the Dust started creating new life. This new life does usually resemble the old life in some way, though, so it's not out of the question to find animals like cats, dogs, birds, frogs, monkeys who say boo, wonderful things like giants and kings, and maybe a Fimble or two. The sheer diversity of Ashen creatures means that if you can think of it, there's likely at least a few of them out there. The main difference is that, like all Ashen, they tend to have their own abilities.
 
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Reactions: sun.
This seems like a fascinating setting. Looking forward to the OOC!
 
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