Supernatural Apocalyptic Modern Setting

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Uuko

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Title of the roleplay still pending.

Brief Outline
[spacer]The year 2018 of the Gregorian Calender marked a new era of mankind as they faced a phenomenon they were unprepared for. Sudden an unexplained quakes of tremendous force swept across the globe with frightening power and speed. It only took fifty seconds to shatter the lands, as if they were but a brittle pieces of paper floating on the vast and cruel ocean.[/spacer][spacer]Cities were divided with fissures, taking hundreds of lives and man-made glories to the bottom of the Earth. Mountains were reduced to the ground and canyons formed where cities used to stand; the lands were torn apart, turning continents into islands.[/spacer]
[spacer]Despite the scale of events, there were survivors. Survivors who may have been spared of death, but now faced a broken present and a dark future. The sight of their cities without power, with punctured roads and buildings barely standing. The sight of thousands of unmoving figures sprawled on the ground. The sight of ocean where an island used to be. In the face of such despair there were little one could do but try to comprehend their demise.[/spacer][spacer]After the destruction came the creatures. Their appearance differed greatly to each other, though none were unfit to instill a deep fear into the hearts of men who caught sight of them. The creatures showed no signs of intelligence but only of feral instincts to devour and defile what was left of humanity. Their strength was unmatched to the beings who had lived in the times of hard work and in a lawful society, further reducing what was left of the human population.[/spacer][spacer]From such a scene, a single organization calling themselves the Mariana came into play. They eliminated the monstrous creatures with ease throughout the world while proclaiming the survivors to join their cause of rebuilding the world back to its former glory. [/spacer][spacer]This day later became known as the Sign.[/spacer]
The Mariana

[spacer]A secret organization named after the Mariana's Trench, the deepest part of the world's oceans. Their history, apart from the origin of the organization's name and their purpose, has been lost in time. Their main base is an artificial island located in the area where the Mariana Islands used to exist before the Sign. In case of emergency, the base is capable of submerging under water.[/spacer]
[spacer]The Mariana is not strictly affiliated to any single country or government; rather, they hold a mutual relationship with various countries and have been known by government staff mainly as mercenaries and researchers hired for confidential missions. [/spacer][spacer]The majority of the organization's members who joined before the Sign has served as soldiers or scientists in the past, regardless of their heritage or criminal records. Perhaps due to this fact, the organization's hierarchy has developed into a deformed variation of the military style chain of commands over time.[/spacer]Purpose

[spacer]Broadly speaking, the Mariana's purpose is to prevent the downfall of humanity. Originally this has been achieved with utmost secrecy of the existence of the organization, but the Sign was a situation unlike those in the past. The higher-ups of the organization also saw this as the opportunity to gain more members to further reach their cause.[/spacer]Hierarchy
[spoili][spacer]The Mariana is governed by twelve figures called The Twelve, yet it is common knowledge within the organization that they are not the actual leaders; rather, there is an unknown figure who governs these twelve who is referred as the Leader. The Twelve are differentiated from other members of the organization by their usage of the name of colours instead of their real names to address themselves and wearing unique masks and attire matching to the colour they are named after. They are rarely seen outside of their office unless an emergency happens. Their ability to be unseen outside of their office yet seemingly know everything going on within the organization fueled many rumours amongst the lower ranked members of the organization of how powerful The Twelve are.[/spacer][spacer]Those below The Twelve in the hierarchy are given the title of Sentinel. These members are hand-picked by The Twelve to serve as leaders of different sections within the organization. They are the ones who are usually seen giving tasks and orders to the other members of the organization. It should be noted that the Sentinels are allowed a vast degree of freedom within the organization; that is, majority of their actions can and will be forgiven regardless of how immoral or horrendous as long as the objectives they are assigned to are met. They may be given a notorious reputation within the organization if their methods are consistently endangering the organization or causing the death of many members, yet it is very rare that a Sentinel will face punishment more severe than a suspension of active duty for a short period of time. This is due to the fact that The Twelve will not select someone incapable or absurdly barbarous in the first place. There are a total of thirty-six members with the title of Sentinel - fifteen responsible for the Intellect, fifteen responsible for the Strength and six responsible for the Illusion.[/spacer][spacer]The Intellect is the title of the hierarchy under Sentinel, sharing its rank with the Strength and the Illusion. The Intellect consists of members responsible for intelligence, research and development. Mostly consisting of scientists, researchers, navigators and engineers, they are the members who generally stay at the headquarters or a country branch of the organization with their extensive knowledge and wisdom to provide technological support, replenish armoury, decipher codes and so on. [/spacer][spacer]The Strength consists mainly of dispatch teams. These include the strike force, scouts, mercenaries and escorts. The members of the Strength requires the ability to defeat the creatures as a prerequisite and the ability to follow orders and the capability of identifying and retrieving targeted goods are highly coveted. For the members of the Strength who receives injuries or are considered 'borderline' at fieldwork, they are usually assigned guard duty of the organization's bases. [/spacer][spacer]The Illusion consists of the least amount of members. The main task of the Illusion is to become the 'voice' of the organization, negotiating deals with other organizations as necessary as well as recruitment of new, prospective members. As such, to become an Illusion one must show at the very least an excellent degree of social interaction, the ability to gauge a person's character and a keen sense. It is also rumoured within the organization that certain individuals of the Illusion also serve as assassins, taking orders from the Sentinel or The Twelve to handle a more sinister task. Those who work as assassins usually hide this fact even from each other, and the identity of such individuals is not common knowledge shared amongst the Sentinels ; only those who have used or experienced their services and those who have received the information via certain means are aware.[/spacer][spacer]The title of Rookie does not get used frequently outside of documents. Prospective members who are appealing their abilities in order to join the organization are placed in this rank, though it is a rare case for someone to stay in this rank for long. The majority of the facilities in the headquarters is unauthorized-access for Rookies.[/spacer][spacer]
It is possible to shift from one division to another with the approval of at least three Sentinels; at least one from a Sentinel responsible for the division one wishes to leave and one responsible for the division one wishes to enter.[/spacer][/spoili]

About Mariana's bases
[spoili][spacer]Bases, also interchangeably called branches, can be established by Sentinels. As such, bases outside of the main branch [that is, the headquarters] are created and arranged to the Sentinel's liking. Generally however a base must contain various equipment including a communicator to the headquarters, a creature detector and alarm, a self-destruct sequence and a teleporter.[/spacer][spacer]The headquarter, also called the main branch, is big. More information will probably be added if the roleplay actually starts.[/spacer][/spoili]

Mariana Technology
[spoili][spacer]Mariana's technological advancement improved drastically from the year 2014. This was mainly due to being one of the first organizations to be involved with the creatures and the Goetia Network. It can also be said that the ones who were least affected by the Sign was Mariana thanks to their equipment.[/spacer][spacer]One of the greatest work of the Mariana is the self-sustainable headquarter itself. Its outward appearance above sea level differs little to a deserted volcanic island devoid of human contact. In times of need, however, the headquarter is capable of 'transforming' into a massive vessel capable of submerging. The headquarter has two methods of entry; one is through a hidden passageway at the base of the volcano which can only be accessed when it is not in its submersible state and the other is via teleportation.[/spacer][spacer]Within the heart of the headquarters lies the Babel server, which is an imitation of the Goetia Network that the Intelligence have reverse-engineered. The Babel server processes all the flow of information, transmission and teleportation of the members of the Mariana as well as the power source fueling the bases and remote devices connected to the server. It is reasonable to say that the downfall of the Babel server equates to the downfall of the Mariana. The reason why such weakness exist is because not all of the Goetia Network's architecture is clearly understood by the members of the Mariana. One of the main research topics happening even after the Sign is to find a way to separate the self-sustaining power source and the information relay server.[/spacer][spacer]As mentioned a few times already, Mariana has the technology to realize teleportation. This can be done by standing on the teleportation platform which is a flat and round device required at both the start and end point of the teleportation. This method can be used safely regardless of teleporting objects or people as long as the calculations are done via the Babel server or the Goetia Network. The main advantage of using the Babel server over the Goetia Network is its ability to monitor and grant permissions of access before the teleportation is complete. This allows the Mariana to identify incoming threats and deny their access. When a teleportation is denied or if a teleportation starts but does not receive any permission after a certain amount of time, whoever or whatever was being teleported will rematerialize at or around the vicinity they teleported from.[/spacer][spacer]Mariana's mass-produced arsenals bear resemblance to typical military weapons with improvements. They are created with materials tougher than steel that is capable of slicing through creatures, as well as energy-based firearms or weapons which were once written off as impractical due to requiring large amounts of energy to function correctly, or were too heavy, etc. It should be noted that there are no regulations against custom-made weapons except to Rookies, as long as one is able to find a member of the Intelligence who will spare their time developing to one's needs. This is why the choice of weapon impacts greatly on one's reputation within the organization. Mainly using mass-produced weapon can earn impressions such as being unimaginative or adaptive, while using custom weapons can earn impressions such as talented [especially if the weapon is full of quirks yet it is strong in action] or delusional [if the weapon is so impractical that even Mariana's technology can't do anything about it].[/spacer][/spoili]
The Sign
[spacer]The Sign is the name given to the international incident which occurred at 1101hr on Wednesday the thirty-first of April, 2018 [Mariana Island timezone, GMT+10]. The term was first mentioned and mostly used by the members of Mariana; individuals may refer to it as 'the incident', 'the calamity' and such forth. Quakes which exceeds any records shook the entire globe. [spacer]
  • The majority of coastal cities have become islands or sunk underwater.
  • The continent of North America and Europe faced the most variety of incidents including collapse of mountains, formation of canyons, sinkholes due to the weak foundtains caused be the sheer amount of underground railway and mining, and receiving fissures stretching for several kilometres.
  • Majority of Asia and Oceania were sunk below the oceans, especially the islands of South East Asia.
The Government
[spacer]After the events of the Sign, many had expected to receive aid from their country's government. It was soon apparent that no such help is coming and a mysterious and impenetrable barriers appeared around all government buildings throughout the world. Whether there is anyone surviving within the barriers is unconfirmed as they are not transparent.[/spacer]
Summoners
[spacer]The group of people who are able to utilize the Goetia Network and summon creatures to do their bidding are collectively called 'summoners'. They are largely divided into two categories.[/spacer][spacer]Mariana summoners refer to summoners under the organization. Their Goetia app receives modifications which allow access to the Babel server. They are guaranteed to have food, clothing and shelter every day. Depending on their ranking within the organization, they also have access to futuristic technology designed to combat creatures, sensitive intel and/or have access to various assets which can be used for negotiations and survival. In return, the Mariana summoners tend to require following certain regulations imposed on them by the organization. These include but not limited to: reporting for duty every day; moving out regardless of their situation if the organization calls for them; and obeying the orders of their higher-ups without complaint.[/spacer][spacer]Civilian summoners refer to summoners who are not affiliated with any particular organization. They may move in small groups formed by their comrades, participating in securing a base and food from other summoners, or move solo. Unlike the Mariana summoners they require spending time scavenging and hunting for food, shelter and other necessities. Instead, they have the freedom to do as they please, and their creatures' growth is comparably faster than Mariana summoners. In addition, the civilian summoners gain exclusive upgrades as their creatures mutate and become stronger. The most common upgrade is the ability to control their creatures at will, without needing to give vocal commands. Some other examples of upgrades include controlling an army of creatures or fusing with a creature to gain superhuman abilities.[/spacer]
The Goetia Network
[spacer]A mysterious piece of technology which was discovered along with the first sightings of creatures. The Goetia app which the summoners use is a client model connected to this Goetia Network. The Goetia Network also works as a power source, which allows any machine with the Goetia app installed to function without needing to recharge their battery over a power outlet. While the Goetia Network can be considered an asset to Summoners by providing a fighting force, it can also create chaos and destruction if the summoner owning the machine with the app loses their life or firmly decides not to use the app any more in the future. Once this occurs, the app will forcibly execute the creature creation function at a constant rate; creatures summoned this way will not be under the any summoner's control. The simplest method to stop the app once it enters this stage is to break the phone, but a talented individual may be able to gain ownership of it by hacking to not only prevent any more rogue creatures but also gain access to the app.[/spacer][spacer]Functions of the Goetia App.[/spacer]
  • Bestiary - Initially the Bestiary contains zero entries. When a certain condition has met, a new entry will automatically be updated.

    There are three known methods of receiving an entry.
    1. Encountering a creature, either visually or touching. Additionally if the app is configured to alert when a new entry is added [default setting], this will give an alert as the encountered creature's information is updated.
    2. List sharing. By sharing one's Bestiary with another who has the app and is within visible range, both Bestiaries will be updated to receive missing entries the other party has.
    3. Timed content. Certain entries will appear after a specific time.
  • Instant Messaging and Voice Call - the app allows messaging and calling other app users, even if the phone does not have signal. There are however restricted areas where app cannot send or receive messages and calls.
  • Creature Creation - app users can summon a creature to do their bidding. Unlike other creatures, a creature summoned through the apps obeys the summoner with absolute loyalty. Creatures summoned cannot be de-summoned; instead the app records all and any changes occurring to the summoned creature such that if the creature succumbs to death, the summoner can summon an identical creature after a certain amount of time. Generally lower tier creatures takes less time to re-summon.

Creatures
[spacer]As they do not have a proper name, many refers to the creatures as they wish with some examples being 'monsters', 'demons' or 'beasts'. The members of Mariana generally refers to them as 'creatures'. The first spotting of the creatures dates back to the year of 2014 of the Gregorian calendar on the 15th April. The existence of the creatures were classified from the public in order to prevent chaos; the government bodies mutually agreed on 'silencing' any civilian witnesses involved in the creatures until their identity and a way to prevent them was known. The creatures were sighted on three other instance before the Sign; on 8th October 2014, on 4th April 2015 and finally on 27th September 2015 with the number of sightings increasing at each instance. The Mariana, along with several other secret organizations which the governments had ties with, were tasked with identifying the causes and origins of these creatures since if they reappear with even more numbers, it would be hard to contain them all from the public. [/spacer][spacer]During their research, the Mariana discovered the existence of the Goetia Network. Before reporting the network to the government, however, they attempted to integrate their findings to their technology as well as gaining creature specimens to extract as much information as they can.[/spacer][spacer]The creatures are hostile and aggressive, as well as having countless variations. The majority of the creatures however resemble fictitious monsters from mythology and other works, with low-level intelligence and an extreme blood-lust. They exhibit supernatural powers such as emitting flames or electricity, shape-shifting into inorganic objects, or showing unfathomable power.[/spacer][spacer]The creatures are capable of consuming any organic matter; this includes its own kind. It should be noted however that this is not for their survival as the Intellect division of the Mariana have discovered they can live without sustenance. Instead, it has been concluded that the creatures consume in order to enter a stage of rapid mutation which will make the creatures become stronger.[/spacer][spacer]The Mariana was successful at extracting a classification system of the creatures from the Goetia Network, however the list was incomplete and void of crucial details. They were unable to probe any more information, but realized that upon meeting a creature, its data will be updated to the bestiary.[/spacer][spacer]As a means to make a slightly easier classification, each class name listed on the Goetia Network's bestiary has been ranked with tiers by the organization; hence the class and tier are interchangeable. This classification is considered common knowledge to the members of the Mariana as well as the summoners, however non-Mariana summoners may only be familiar with the classes and not the tiers.[/spacer]
  • Ling - tier 1 creatures which are classified as 'least threat'. Despite having such a status, these generally possess strength or abilities similar to wild animals, albeit a greater endurance to guns. Lings grow at most as big as a typical tiger.
  • Lisk class - tier 2 creatures. They are difficult to kill with typical weapons. The notable features of Lisks are their size; they can grow to as tall as two-storey buildings, although some are as small as Lings.
  • Tor class - tier 3 creatures. Excluding the weaponry created by the Mariana specifically for creatures, weapons do not affect creatures of this tier and above. Their size has no limits, however Tors generally have a critical weakness. These include fatality from a certain material such as silver, or has impenetrable defense but zero offensive capabilities.
  • Aster class - tier 4 creatures. Asters are physically large, the smallest Aster coming up to as tall as three storeys. They also possess almost flawless offensive and defensive capabilities but enough firepower and damage can eventually bring them down.
  • Stella class - tier 5 creatures. These are generally humanoid in shape with varying sizes. These creatures start to show intelligence, some even capable of speech and thinking independently. Their capabilities differ greatly from Stella to Stella, although even the weakest Stella is capable of defeating or stalling Aster class or lesser on a one-on-one battle.
  • Calypse class - tier 6 creatures which are classified as 'maximum threat'. There are no records of creatures of this tier, however their existence is known via the Goetia app.
  • Blivion class - creatures of unknown tier. There are no records of creatures of this tier, however their existence is known via the Goetia app.
Player Situation and Need To Knows

-Roleplayers are all summoners.
-Choose from being a Mariana summoner or Civilian summoner.
-'creatures' refers to any beast-like monsters from any mythology or franchise. Anything from Cthulu Mythos to Pokemon to made-ups are acceptable if changes are made to fit to the creature classifications. Note: there most likely will be a restriction of one franchise per character in order to prevent something like six pokemon creature summoners.
-Character deaths will occur as needed.
-The characters may start off anywhere in the world, but due to plot progression they will be transported to either the Mariana headquarters or the decrepit city of New York.
-Despite their background, all characters must be able to speak and understand English enough not to affect communication too greatly. Heavy accents and not knowing 'big words' is acceptable; as long as they can make general communications, it's all good.
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For those that are interested, I have a question; would this be considered Modern Fantasy or Science Fiction?
Also, if there are anything that are ambiguous, wrong, etc, don't hesitate to ask.

EDIT: 2nd November 2015 2050hr GMT+10
Modified Brief Outline.
Modified the Sign.
Modified Player Situation and Need To Knows.[/spacer][/spacer]
 
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Have to say this is a well thought out concept. It's hard to say what to classify it as. The scenario can work as science fictions but the summoning makes it sound modern fantasy. I guess it depends on how the summoning works. If it's through technology then you can definitely place the rp as science fiction.
 
Sorry, I have no mouse at the moment so I can't open the tabs until later when someone brings me batteries, but I reckon I'm probably interested. One issue though, that you might want to address: At the moment, the volcano part is pretty much entirely irrelevant to the actual apocalypse. The shortest volcanos can go for an entire hour and cause pretty much no actual destruction. The longer ones have been going for thousands of years. It took 10,000 years for a volcano the size of Siberia to wipe out the Permian era, and that needed help from huge quantities of frozen methane. Even if every volcano in the world, past and present, were to erupt for 50 seconds, you're only looking at a few days of ash. You wouldn't get any lava, and actual ash deposits would be maybe 1mm deep. As for the Earthquakes, 50 seconds is pretty short, and it can take several hours for tsunamis to submerge anything, so...

Sorry about that. As a geologist, I have a hard time ignoring things like this :D Since it may be science fiction though, that means that any science used in the setting has to stick close to realistic limits.
 
I found a spare battery. And by found I mean stole from my wii remote. So, I read through it and I'd classify this as Science Fiction. It's quite an interesting setting, but this Goetia System sounds very ominous to me. I can't wait to find out what its plans are. If the roleplay dies, make sure to tell me!

By one franchise per person did you mean "each person may have creatures from one franchise, IE one person may have 5 pikachus and a Mew, but may not have a (insert digimon)" or "Tim already has a pokemon, so John can't also have a pokemon"?
 
I guess it depends on how the summoning works. If it's through technology then you can definitely place the rp as science fiction.
Alright that looks like two votes for Sci-fi, thank you~

One issue though, that you might want to address: At the moment, the volcano part is pretty much entirely irrelevant to the actual apocalypse. The shortest volcanos can go for an entire hour and cause pretty much no actual destruction. The longer ones have been going for thousands of years. It took 10,000 years for a volcano the size of Siberia to wipe out the Permian era, and that needed help from huge quantities of frozen methane. Even if every volcano in the world, past and present, were to erupt for 50 seconds, you're only looking at a few days of ash. You wouldn't get any lava, and actual ash deposits would be maybe 1mm deep. As for the Earthquakes, 50 seconds is pretty short, and it can take several hours for tsunamis to submerge anything, so...
Thank you for pointing things out like this; admittedly there's a lot of stuff about natural disasters in the internet but not exactly anything about how long they usually take [at least from what i've researched...]

What I wanted to portray with the disasters was an instance of a 'power surge' from within the core of the Earth for an unimaginably short duration which in theory would be enough to blow up the planet to dust - but since it would be a power beyond the understandings of science [i.e. magic-is-omnipotent bluff] it would only end up with natural disasters of frightening size.

If there is no other way to portray this with the disasters, I can probably think of a different world-wide crisis.
By one franchise per person did you mean "each person may have creatures from one franchise, IE one person may have 5 pikachus and a Mew, but may not have a (insert digimon)" or "Tim already has a pokemon, so John can't also have a pokemon"?
Unless I get a request for the former, I'll be going with the latter.

By the way if it's not hassle to answer, do you need to use a mouse for spoiler boxes as well? I'm very picky about only using codes which can be viewed by everyone regardless if they're using a computer or mobile or missing a mouse so I'd love to know which codes work and which doesn't.
e.g.
Green is not a creative colour :D
 
Hah, good reference. Yes, I need a mouse/touch screen to open spoilers, but I reckon you'd be hard pressed to find someone who isn't using one of the two :D When I don't have a mouse, all I can do is scroll and activate buttons that are kept within certain limits. It all depends on how they're formatted, really. It's hard to navigate iwaku without a mouse and I usually find myself typing out the URL of the page I want to visit.

If it's a power surge, then eruptions would occur, but to force such a lot of material out of the earth in only 50 seconds, you're looking at physically fracturing huge quantities of rock to the point that it's more an explosion of magma and bedrock than it is an eruption. It would look similar to if you set off a nuclear bomb under water, only the water that gets thrown up would be magma and rock. Volcanos aren't fueled directly by the mantle, they're powered by a seperate containment of magma within the crust, so a normal surge of energy wouldn't really do much in the way of normal eruptions, it would just force the entire segment of earth to break instead.
 
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Hmm, in that case I might just focus on quakes, fissures, continents splitting apart and lands sinking underwater. Those can all happen in a matter of minutes, yes?
 
Most earthquakes last for very short periods of time, yes. 2 minutes is considered phenomenally long. Tsunamis are quite slow though, but if you were to cause actual sinking of continents it would be a bit faster. Tsunamis are the kind of "slow and steady but destroy EVERYTHING" kind of disaster. You're looking at maybe 100 miles an hour on land, random guess? I don't want to cause too many problems and I'm not sure about tsunamis though, so you should probably ignore me on this one.
 
Alright, I gave an attempt of simplifying the events into just massive quakes. Also added two more points to 'player situation and need to knows' which I forgot to add.

-The characters may start off anywhere in the world, but due to plot progression they will be transported to either the Mariana headquarters or the decrepit city of New York.
-Despite their background, all characters must be able to speak and understand English enough not to affect communication too greatly. Heavy accents and not knowing 'big words' is acceptable; as long as they can make general communications, it's all good.
 
Hah, I doubt anyone would willfully make a character that couldn't actually interact with anyone though :D
 
I'll be keeping an eye on this. I'm super interested! I just love dystopian worlds.
 
My favourite is superficial utopias that turn out to be dystopian once you get past the surface.
 
Those are even better! Scifi dystopias are my favourites. @Uuko So how long can we expect a thread to be up? This looks super interesting and very well thought out and the world building looks detailed.
 
My original plan was to see how much interest this thread gets in a week, but I don't mind putting up an OOC/IC as soon as tomorrow if the prospect of around three or four roleplayers are our starting members is okay with you all.
 
I'm OK with that.
 
After on a whim much thought, I decided to place this in the modern fantasy section. This is because while the setting may look like a sci-fi apocalyptic setting, the creatures will most likely play a central role to the plot - and they lean towards fantasy elements moreso than sci-fi since they're not nature's abominations or anything.

I'll start writing up the OOC/sign-up now, but I may or may not fall asleep on my laptop since the sun's rising outside and I haven't slept yet.
 
This Goetia thing is giving off a really mysterious feel. I wanna know what its evil plans are. If the RP dies, you still have to tell me, K?
 
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