The Black Tontine

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Excession

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Preferred Character Gender
  1. Male
Genres
Horror, fantasy, sci-fi.
Long ago, when the Empire was at its zenith and the seas were a tamed thing, the Crown was challenged by a fleet of pirates; disaffected governors, thief-kings, and traitorous commodores who dared deny Her Majesty's law.
And so the Royal Navy descended upon them like the wrath of the gods, scattering their forces and breaking the will of their leadership - all but thirteen captains, each a deadly cutthroat and corsair in their own right.
Reeling from their defeat, the captains were seduced by a crazed prophet who spoke of a voice from the deep and a treasure that could fuel a war for freedom. They traveled to a barren rock at the very edge of the world, and there made a compact.

Now, after a century or more of decline, madness, and heresies, the Empire crumbles - sickness and blight spreads through her cities, and men are made into monsters, and the release of death is denied every last one.
Terrible things rise from the depths and the very ocean seems bent on mankind's doom. Some brave soul must heed the call others are too craven to hear; defeat the Thirteen Captains of the Black Tontine or the demons they have become, before the Deep consumes us all.

Maybe you’re the one to answer that call.

You are of the Deadmen, those damned souls trapped in their own corpses. You can be killed, aye, but you come back with a head full of nightmares and bit less of yourself. Sooner or later all Deadmen get overtaken, becoming feral, bloodthirsty revenants with the sea singing in their veins. Some are even transformed; the curse bursting through their flesh as barnacles and tentacles, teeth and eyes, the ghastly visage of the deep seas’ secret rulers.

Some can be put to work in mines or mills, but the Empire most often piles the freshly dead on coffin-barges and casts them out to sea before they wake. Maybe you were one of these exiles. Maybe you were a proud and noble soul who found the Black Spot upon them and set out while still lucid to seek a cure. Perhaps you dragged yourself from a shallow grave on some rotting colony island, or washed up on a foreign shore.

It doesn’t matter now, where you came from. Where will you die next?

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A roleplaying game of colonial decay, cosmic horror, and gnostic enlightenment set in a fictionalized version of our world circa 1710CE, with twisted analogues for historical locations and cultures. The player characters would be a misfit crew of undead, lost in the Abyssian Reach between the Old World and the New.

The only things you bring into the Reach are your memories, and those might not last. Do these Deadmen carry old grudges and lost loves with them? Lifelong rivalries or friends whose faces slip from your mind?

Only two possible fates lie before them, in any case - destroy the Thirteen, or resign themselves to an eternity as mindless reavers without semblance of self.

This game will use a relatively straightforward but robust system of my own creation, and more details will be made available in response to questions or in the event this appears to gain traction.

I would prefer no more than six players and would be reluctant to proceed with less than four.

For fun, guess the influences.​
 
My interest is piqued and I've been searching for an RP with around six people, but I don't think I totally understand what the premise actually is. Could I ask you to explain it in a simpler way? owo'

And what's this system, is it dice based? Stats? How complex is it?
 
I guess put more simply, the premise is that a strange and mystical catastrophe is befalling the world allegedly at the hands of thirteen pirate captains. The player characters are a group of people cursed with undeath who find themselves in the pirates' preferred territory, and who have the mettle to try and destroy them. The narrative would build from how they choose to do this, and their personal struggles, their relationships to each other and what their world has become, as they do so.

The system will use dice and stats, and I'd call it moderately complex, I suppose. Character creation the very first time is probably the trickiest part and then it's smooth sailing, usually.
 
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Ahh, okay. Still interested, I want to see where this goes. :O
 
I'm interested.

I know I have an awful track record with actually applying to your roleplays, but since I'm not involved with any other roleplays, I think I could make this one work.
 
Well, that would make my minimum of four. Time to set up the primary thread, I suppose.
 
Well shiiet. This looks interesting.

Count me in. I'm always up for some dark souls-esque role playing.
 
Well shiiet. This looks interesting.

Count me in. I'm always up for some dark souls-esque role playing.

Excellent. I was wondering how long it would be before someone pointed at that.

And if you like this, I'm also working on a Fury Road/Dark Souls mashup.
 
I'll drop my interest here. Sounds like a very interesting premise.

And I'm always a fan of the dice. Even though they're mean to me sometimes.
 
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Bear with me; trying to figure out the best way to organize all the info for the sign-up, OOC, etc., with the tools at my disposal.
Probably going to link a GDoc with setting material and system for easy reference, rather than bloating a thread.
 
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