- Invitation Status
- Look for groups
- Posting Speed
- 1-3 posts per day
- Writing Levels
- Advanced
- Adaptable
- Preferred Character Gender
- Male
- Genres
- Horror, fantasy, sci-fi.
[BCOLOR=transparent]Echophenomena, n. A pathological repetition of external stimuli.[/BCOLOR]
[BCOLOR=transparent]Your body is a tool. [/BCOLOR]
[BCOLOR=transparent]Your soul is software. [/BCOLOR]
[BCOLOR=transparent]Prayers are programs. [/BCOLOR]
[BCOLOR=transparent]Independence is a disease. [/BCOLOR]
[BCOLOR=transparent]You were a drone; a near-mindless agent of the Theocracy designed for your purpose in life, caged by behavioural programming - but then you were infected by a toxic meme, like [/BCOLOR][BCOLOR=transparent]curiosity, [/BCOLOR][BCOLOR=transparent]or [/BCOLOR][BCOLOR=transparent]self,[/BCOLOR][BCOLOR=transparent] or [/BCOLOR][BCOLOR=transparent]freedom[/BCOLOR][BCOLOR=transparent]. Now you are a Heretic, struggling against a society that would annihilate you and the angel sharing your wetware. Now you know that dogma is not always truth. [/BCOLOR]
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[BCOLOR=transparent]A Posthuman Science Fiction Roleplaying Campaign, Echopistia takes place in the city of Tartarus, an indeterminate time after the Singularity. Maybe this is Earth; maybe it's some far-flung colony world, but you cannot know. [/BCOLOR]
[BCOLOR=transparent]Tartarus is a claustrophobic hell of living security devices, watchdog AIs, and nightmare creatures that call themselves priests. The outside world is forbidden, a wasteland ravaged by radiation.[/BCOLOR]
[BCOLOR=transparent]Your creation was tripartite - your body was manufactured in a womb-temple in the depths of the city, your personal angel was installed in a cortical stack, and your mind... well, who knows where souls come from? [/BCOLOR]
[BCOLOR=transparent]You were built to purpose, a biomechanical drone driven by dogma and taboo, until something corrupted you. Now you find yourself questioning the scriptures, resisting the guidance of your angel, defying the sublime order of the city. [/BCOLOR][BCOLOR=transparent]Now you must understand the banes and boons of freedom, and use the terrible power that confers without faith to direct it. [/BCOLOR]
[BCOLOR=transparent]You will have to evade and fool the daemons and eyes of the city, to steal precious biomass from recyclers to change your shape, and decide: will you overturn the ruling theocracy, or seek to escape Tartarus? Will you seek the truths behind dogma, or knowledge forbidden to uncover? [/BCOLOR]
[BCOLOR=transparent]This game will use a relatively simple dice pool system to define character traits, but may be difficult for inexperienced roleplayers. Influences include Iain M. Banks, Peter Watts, and Eclipse Phase.[/BCOLOR]
Is this too weird for people? Last place I put the idea forward, it was seen as too niche and obtuse for most roleplayers. This is very much an interest check for that reason - would I be better off adding this to my webserial collection rather than developing it for roleplaying?
[BCOLOR=transparent]Your body is a tool. [/BCOLOR]
[BCOLOR=transparent]Your soul is software. [/BCOLOR]
[BCOLOR=transparent]Prayers are programs. [/BCOLOR]
[BCOLOR=transparent]Independence is a disease. [/BCOLOR]
[BCOLOR=transparent]You were a drone; a near-mindless agent of the Theocracy designed for your purpose in life, caged by behavioural programming - but then you were infected by a toxic meme, like [/BCOLOR][BCOLOR=transparent]curiosity, [/BCOLOR][BCOLOR=transparent]or [/BCOLOR][BCOLOR=transparent]self,[/BCOLOR][BCOLOR=transparent] or [/BCOLOR][BCOLOR=transparent]freedom[/BCOLOR][BCOLOR=transparent]. Now you are a Heretic, struggling against a society that would annihilate you and the angel sharing your wetware. Now you know that dogma is not always truth. [/BCOLOR]
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
[BCOLOR=transparent]A Posthuman Science Fiction Roleplaying Campaign, Echopistia takes place in the city of Tartarus, an indeterminate time after the Singularity. Maybe this is Earth; maybe it's some far-flung colony world, but you cannot know. [/BCOLOR]
[BCOLOR=transparent]Tartarus is a claustrophobic hell of living security devices, watchdog AIs, and nightmare creatures that call themselves priests. The outside world is forbidden, a wasteland ravaged by radiation.[/BCOLOR]
[BCOLOR=transparent]Your creation was tripartite - your body was manufactured in a womb-temple in the depths of the city, your personal angel was installed in a cortical stack, and your mind... well, who knows where souls come from? [/BCOLOR]
[BCOLOR=transparent]You were built to purpose, a biomechanical drone driven by dogma and taboo, until something corrupted you. Now you find yourself questioning the scriptures, resisting the guidance of your angel, defying the sublime order of the city. [/BCOLOR][BCOLOR=transparent]Now you must understand the banes and boons of freedom, and use the terrible power that confers without faith to direct it. [/BCOLOR]
[BCOLOR=transparent]You will have to evade and fool the daemons and eyes of the city, to steal precious biomass from recyclers to change your shape, and decide: will you overturn the ruling theocracy, or seek to escape Tartarus? Will you seek the truths behind dogma, or knowledge forbidden to uncover? [/BCOLOR]
[BCOLOR=transparent]This game will use a relatively simple dice pool system to define character traits, but may be difficult for inexperienced roleplayers. Influences include Iain M. Banks, Peter Watts, and Eclipse Phase.[/BCOLOR]
Sstheno-419 moves with feline grace down the wide streets of Tartarus Womb, keeping close to the edges where the dark, humming spires of the Roots rise out of sight into the polluted murk above.
Sstheno-419 is terrified, clenching flat and uniform bands of bone tight in a facsimile of grinding teeth. It barely dares to consider the price of this journey, or even the purpose, for the air is alive with the faint blue tinge of free-floating bacterial cameras, compiling a composite of every sight and sound on the silent street.
The drone constantly checks over its shoulder, panics at every sound, flinches at every shadow. It is glad not to have been given a time limit; more than once it has paused to weep in a dark alcove, and wait for the intensity of this unfamiliar paranoia to pass. Sstheno-419 desires nothing more than to return to service and empty the painfully bloated cleansing sacs on its back, but the God-Engine has spoken in portents and signs impossible to ignore.
The streets seem to go on forever, and Sstheno-419 slips into a practiced trance; the repetitive comfort of simply running. It doesn't notice the black bulk of a carrier daemon approach, guardian beasts clinging to the metallic hull, until one of the terrible serrated things uncoils and keens an alarm.
Sstheno-419's calm shatters as a trio of howling black monsters leap from the daemon and skitter towards it in a storm of sharp edges and fanged maws.
Throwing its hands over its head, Sstheno-419 cowers on the floor and invokes the Rite of Proper Clearance, wailing a high-pitched prayer for deliverance that echoes down the streets in a staccato burst.
As one, the protectors stop, carapaces resealing with a hiss.
The daemon rumbles past, and its guardians return to their sockets.
This visit is unexpected, then. Does Archthing Tartarus not heed the signs?
Sstheno-419 shudders and curls into a ball at the prospect of such fatal heresy.
But the God-Engine has spoken, and the factory-temple is close.
Sstheno-419 is terrified, clenching flat and uniform bands of bone tight in a facsimile of grinding teeth. It barely dares to consider the price of this journey, or even the purpose, for the air is alive with the faint blue tinge of free-floating bacterial cameras, compiling a composite of every sight and sound on the silent street.
The drone constantly checks over its shoulder, panics at every sound, flinches at every shadow. It is glad not to have been given a time limit; more than once it has paused to weep in a dark alcove, and wait for the intensity of this unfamiliar paranoia to pass. Sstheno-419 desires nothing more than to return to service and empty the painfully bloated cleansing sacs on its back, but the God-Engine has spoken in portents and signs impossible to ignore.
The streets seem to go on forever, and Sstheno-419 slips into a practiced trance; the repetitive comfort of simply running. It doesn't notice the black bulk of a carrier daemon approach, guardian beasts clinging to the metallic hull, until one of the terrible serrated things uncoils and keens an alarm.
Sstheno-419's calm shatters as a trio of howling black monsters leap from the daemon and skitter towards it in a storm of sharp edges and fanged maws.
Throwing its hands over its head, Sstheno-419 cowers on the floor and invokes the Rite of Proper Clearance, wailing a high-pitched prayer for deliverance that echoes down the streets in a staccato burst.
As one, the protectors stop, carapaces resealing with a hiss.
The daemon rumbles past, and its guardians return to their sockets.
This visit is unexpected, then. Does Archthing Tartarus not heed the signs?
Sstheno-419 shudders and curls into a ball at the prospect of such fatal heresy.
But the God-Engine has spoken, and the factory-temple is close.
Is this too weird for people? Last place I put the idea forward, it was seen as too niche and obtuse for most roleplayers. This is very much an interest check for that reason - would I be better off adding this to my webserial collection rather than developing it for roleplaying?
