The Pyramid of Jokes and Crowns

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Headphones

Зимна Жарава
Original poster
LURKER MEMBER
FOLKLORE MEMBER
Invitation Status
Posting Speed
  1. One post per week
  2. Slow As Molasses
Online Availability
My timezone is GTM+2. I could be seen in the evening.
Writing Levels
  1. Adept
  2. Advanced
Genres
If I must be honest, it highly depends on the plot at hand. I am an adaptable person, one who easily takes genre swings, but I mostly prefer fantasy, modern, medieval, mystery and mind-benders.
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How did it come to this? When did it start?
No one can say for certain.
It is as thought it has always been there, like any natural part of life - The Pyramid
In the northeastern part of the United Kingdom, situated in the woods just outside the town of Hamel, stands Reguis Academy, an institution of learning and class. Here it matters not from which linage one comes from or how loudly one's pocket rings, only those with the blessing of the mind can be accepted and taught by this establishment's highly ranking staff. Knowledge is power, after all, and those with the passion and thirst for it can easily climb the social ladder and make a name for themselves by proving their worth through study.
In that and another way...
For an unknown number of years, presumably for several decades, there has been an... event, so to speak, an organization, which apparently only the students known of.
The Pyramid.

Also known as "the Caste Game", "Castle" and "Ladder", The Pyramid is a social game, however, no popular device is used in order to play it. Rather, it spreads like wildfire the moment the sign arrives throught the entire domain of the academy, with every youngster being aware of the situation less than an hour after the initial beginning. Once the game has started, every student must scour the school grounds in search of a card.
A treasure hunt it is, indeed, but the treasure at the end is one many dream of.
At sunset the students are called at a specific location in the forest where they must present their cards in front of the "commitie", a group of thirteen annonymous individuals, who wear different outfits and masks at every single "gathering", yet always have the same hierarchy. Depending on the card in their possession, each student is granted a status in society, a role they must follow to the letter until the next game is announced. The cards one may obtain are in the following order of power from highest to lowest:
The King;
The Queen;
The Jack;
The Ace of Spades (The Prep), The Ace of Hearts (The Pleaser), The Ace of Diamons (The Wannabee), The Ace of Clubs (The Messenger);
The 10 of Spades (The Slacker), The 9 of Hearts (The Geek), The 8 of Clubs (The Goth), The 7 of Diamons (The Brain);
The Joker [ The Target ].

Of course, no student is ever forced to play the game and there are two possitions that may freely be assumed by an unlimited amount of people. However, the decision to take up one of the two optional "outlaw" roles, those of the "Deliquents" and "Floaters", must be done prior to the decision to participate in the "treasure hunt". All who fail to present a card at the gathering, yet have participated in the event, are labled as "Targets", the same as the person with the Joker card. They are the subjects, or objects, of torture, humiliation and utter terror under the boots of those higher than them.

Now, what shall you do?
Will you go against the system, fighting for the moral rights of others, standing up for rightiousness?
Or will you just have a good time?
No one will blame you, regardless of what you chose. But know one thing:
Society shall never fall simply because of one idealistic wish.
It exists in order to create order itself and thus there are those who oppress and those being oppressed in some shape or form. But even if the strcuture of society was not as it is presently known, human nature itself has a certain immorality to it, an inner part that dictates to crush those around you so that you may rise and be crowned king or queen of the castle.
Are you ready see just what kind of monster sleeps hidden inside you?



[btn=moda|http://crownofbones9.wix.com/caste-game-rp]Informational Site!!![/btn]​
 
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~Hello and thank you for your interest in this modest role-play.~


[dash=red] || The basics || [/dash]

Welcome to the mortal world of the Pyramid. I sincerely hope you shall have a pleasant time reading and/or participating in the upcoming games and mind-tricks.​

Now that all the formalities have been dealt with, allow me to explain the complex simplicity that is this role-play's objective. The core of the story is made of the desire to explore the depths of human nature, morality and its breaking point, in what way and just how far a person can go in a world where an extreme social system rules with an iron fist before and if they lose themselves to their inner instinct for self-preservation and self-elevation. We shall be delving into deep psychology and philosophy here, creating a complex painting where every character is a different shade with a different understanding of right and wrong, with paths that might clash or be parallel to one another.

This being said, melodramas and lovely-dovely romances must be toned down and give the stage to the more intricate details of social interactions. Romance and drama by themselves are not forbidden and are, in fact, encouraged, yet they must not be exaggerated in any sense of the words. As we are on the note of passionate relationships, even if this is an academy and even if you may be tempted, the consumption of love is forbidden in this role-play, one of the several reasons being, as mention prior, that this story's focus is more on psychology.

Regarding the language level you may use, offensive words (starred after the first letter) and dialects are allowed only when a character is speaking. Vile verbal attacks out of character and illiterate writing will not be tolerated. Remember, the roles given out in character in no way give you the privilege of assaulting others out of character.

As mentioned in the first post, the main structure of the story is encased within the social pyramid of the academy. The position a specific character will be given, in other words, the card a character will find, will be determined by a roll of dice and they will have to act out their role until the next round of the game. During "core period" of the game, when each individual will behave as their card dictates, there will be those with rights and there will be those without them. The Joker isn't the only one at risk, since any person standing below another can become a subject of humiliation.
[dash=blue] I believe this is the moment when I should state that I hate bullying and just how real such unspoken social picking orders are in some
(if not all) parts of the world, however, simply because I, or any other person, just dislike it doesn't mean it's going to go away. Anyone, who is a target of bullying in reality, should seek help and not be afraid to voice out their problems. Those, who see someone being bullied, should do the right thing by either intervening directly or notify someone about it, in order to stop the harassment. Never be afraid to fight back. Never be afraid to tell someone of your troubles.[/dash]​
In this role-play, though, help can not come from where you can usually find it. You can not tell any outsiders about the game, because that is one of the rules of the Pyramid, and harsh punishments will befall you, if you choose to do so. Teachers, guards, parents, the police. They won't be able to do a thing. The only source of true protection are other students, other players. An a staff member [NPC] might somehow save you once, but in the long-term the only profitable action is to make connections, just like it is in the real world.

When it comes to the punishments, orders and overall bullying those higher than others can make due with... anything other than grave physical injuries is allowed. There are many things one can get away with, but even the King and Queen have their limits. If a limb is cut off, a nose is sliced off, an eye is gorged out or, worst of all, if someone's life is taken, there will be no escaping the police. The academy's guards are true watchdogs and will sometimes interfere in a fight, if it goes out of control, but their main functions are to make sure nothing comes in uninvited, that nothing goes out without permission and that no sexual assaults are made. When the roles are distributed, you can do what you wish with your power as a participant, but warn others beforehand in the OOC thread before attempting something severe.



    • Shall be decided by a roll of dice once there are enough participants.

    • [ w.i.p.]



    • Players in the Pyramid
      Number: 12
      || Character name || gender || age || height || orientation || User ||​

      1.|| Vladimir Petkov || male || 17 years old || 178 cm (5'8") || Heterosexual || @Headphones
      2.|| Cassia Jay Morelli || female || 16 years old || 152.5 cm (5'0) || Unsure || @Cwolf0615
      3.|| Benjamin Renee|| male || 17 years old || 150 cm (4'11") || Polysexual || @Tart
      4.|| Rohan Willow Herbertson || 16 years old || female || 164.5 cm (5'4") || Bisexual || @Rin Mico
      5.|| Masaki Kurou || male || 17 years old || || Homosexual || @Mr.Scales
      6.|| Mei Matsuoka || female || 16 years old || 164.5 cm (5'4") || Heterosexual || @DANAsaur
      7.|| Alexander J. Raid III || male || 17 years old || 186 cm (6'1" 1/2) || Heterosexual || @un coil de soleil
      8.|| Hideki Naomi || male || 18 years old || 158 cm (5'2) || Homosexual || @Gladis
      9.|| Malaika Gilligan || female || 16 years old || 178 cm (5'8) || Bisexual || @Polystical
      10. reserved for @Vio
      11. reserved for @Yokai
      12. Open

      Outside the Pyramid
      Number of Delinquents: unlimited
      Number of Floaters: 3​



    • || Yuki Yoshida || female || 16 years old || 158.5 cm (5'2") || Unsure || @gen101394
      || Hagen / Khan || male || 17 years old || 173 cm (5'7") || Heterosexual || @parkpyro


    • || @N/A || Elian Weisz || male || 17 years old || 179 cm (5'9) || Pansexual ||
      || @WishfulNemo || Laura de Jong || female || 17 years old || 170 cm (5'6") || Bisexual ||
      || @Wicked || Nathan Magnus Hale || male || 17 years old || 185 cm (6'1") || Panromantic bisexual ||
      Delinquent || Etheldreda Mallory Palmer || female || 17 years old || 173 cm (5'7") || Heterosexual || @firejay1


  • Alexander - 14th February [ Aquarius ]
    Mei - 18th February [ Aquarius-Pisces cusp! - The cusp of sensitivity ]
    Rohan - 19th June [ Gemini-Cancer cusp! - The cusp of magic! ]
    Hagen / Khan - 10th July - [ Cancer ]
    Masaki - 19th July [ Cancer-Leo cusp! - The cusp of oscillation ]
    Benjamin - 28th August [ Virgo ]
    Cassia - 2nd September [ Virgo ]
    Malaika - 15th September [ Virgo ]
    Yuki -13th October [ Libra ]
    Vladimir - 27th November [ Sagittarius ]
    [Nicholas] Mr. Vail - 1st December [ Sagittarius ]

 
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testing, testing, one, two, three...
 
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Looks interesting indeed. Is there only one of each card, or can there be multiple Preps/Geeks/whatever? Cos I mean, that means that there are only going to be 8 or 9 high castes, so the torture wouldn't be particularly heavy.
 
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@Yokai Thank you for being interested~ Yes, there will be one card per type, the appearance and abilities of which can be found in the informational site [ If you have managed to find your way to the register there, please ignore that ]. However, this doesn't mean that all of the bullying will fall upon the Joker. The Geek (9), Goth (8) and Brain (7) are at a great risk of being bullied by those above them and the Slackers (10) are at a medium-high risk. All of the players are, in a sense, servants to the King and Queen, who can bully and torment anyone. This being said, if by some chance the Joker is good friends with the King, the latter may forbid everyone from picking on the Joker, which would inevitably lead to a search for a better target to play out one's role better.

Oh, and I'm not banning love plots. Romance can truly be a powerful tool in the right hands and a wonderful contribution to a story. What I am forbidding is the "Kissing book", the characters who are all about finding "the one" and do nothing but search for their perfect sweetheart, start or beg for love triangles and overall have no reason to exist other than their droolly soap love drama. So long as it is not exaggerated as I described, romance is indeed allowed. =3
 
Oh yeah I understand then. The way it was worded sounded like all romance was out of the question. So basically, you can bully anyone with a number lower than yourself or something? Also, where do the delinquents stand in all of this? Who do they get to bully/get bullied by? Or do they just get a month extra holiday?
 
@Yokai
The Delinquents are, as the name implies, the ones that cause general mayhem at the academy, from petty tricks to serious school violations. They are considered "souls free from any bound of reason", thus are outside the Pyramid and are not direct subjects of the King and Queen. Think of them as tribal rebels in a kingdom. Together they are a force to be reckoned with, yet rarely truly band together as a whole for long before splitting apart into small units, since each and every one of them is a free soul that wishes the world could run as they say. A single Delinquent does not have the power to order others around, not in the game at least. If they wish to, they may stand up for those being bullied or join the bullies, but can never truly receive appreciation for what they have done.

Allow me to put it like this: There are two types of "attacks" or "powers" - verbal and physical.
Those in the Pyramid receive a certain amount of verbal power from their cards, meaning their words have much more weight and can crush those weaker than them. They also possess physical power, however, it is directly under the verbal attack and can not overrule it. This means that even if you can lift 20 kg with ease, you must still cower and tolerate bullying from a sickly little brat, if you are the Joker and the brat is the 10 of Spades.
Those outside the Pyramid have absolutely no verbal power, but their physical power is unbounded. So even if a King keeps yelling and trying to order you around, you can still punch him without breaking any rules (except the academy rules, but kids nowadays...XD). But if a Joker's punishment must be decided or a certain task must be handed to someone, they have no possibility to attack. Their voices and opinions will generally go unheard and they will more or less be shunned by society, who consider them wild and far too rebellious. That is the prise they pay for their freedom.

I hope it makes sense =3
 
No it doesn't really make sense but I'm going to pretend it does anyway! Basically, it all makes sense up until the point that I think the delinquents could probably ruin a lot of the experiment if they're essentially immune to anything that the people within the pyramid can do, but there's nothing stopping them from taking down the pyramid.
 
Do we have to repost our CS's?
 
Yeah i was wondering about that as well
 
I'm kinda concern about the King being freely beaten up by a Delinquent. Wouldn't that defeat the whole purpose of the Caste system? Not only will it be embarrassing for the current King but what will the point be as a whole? It's kinda weird if you think about it.

Correct me if I am wrong but the Caste system/game was made so the 'King' could gain absolute power/control overall of the students without fearing about any retailation from the lower students in a weeks time? So if a delinquent has the "power" to not follow the current "King's" orders so what the whole point? Again, just wanted to state my own opinion.
 
Honestly, I like the idea of delinquents. I mean, think about it. If you look at this whole thing as an experiment, you're creating this dynamic of a very strictly enforce hierarchy in a very small, close setting, modeling a certain type of government, per se, but there are always dissidents. Without them, the model would be incomplete, but even with them, the power they have is limited. I think it's mentioned that delinquents don't usually band together. So they don't have the power of a group like the rest of the class does. Do you really think the King could freely get beaten up by a delinquent when he or she has at least 10 other students behind them? I think it creates an interesting and sort of realistic tension. On top of which, there's also the question of what people choose to do with the power they're given. Most people would want to play the game, I'd think, because people want other people, and that is one thing neither the delinquents nor the floaters really have. It also gives them the chance at power over most of the other students. Delinquents (and maybe floaters) have this power to go around beating people up, but if they had wanted to dominate, they would have joined the game, because even if they beat the shit out of the king him/herself, the other students are still required to support, love, and listen to the king, and the delinquent will still be forced out eventually. Knowing this, those who choose to be delinquents show a certain level of apathy for this system, the people in it, and the adoration involved, which gives them practically no incentive whatsoever to specifically target the king and ruin the system. As a matter of fact, I think the roles of delinquents and floaters was created so that these apathetic people wouldn't end up ruining the system by being forced to take part until they got so pissed off they lashed out.

Sorry, I was speaking in a kind of roundabout way, but does that kind of make sense? Iono, like you said, this is just my opinion.
 
Right, but they're not real delinquents. Anyone can opt to be one, which makes you exempt from the system for that week. Thus, all the physically strong people will just become delinquents and forcefully create a new hierarchy with them above everyone else. It specifically states that delinquents don't participate in the game, so there's nothing stopping them from breaking the whole system by planning to have a group choose to be delinquents and then use that immunity to start a new rank system.
 
But your forgeting one important detail @firejay1 (and if @Headphones had included it), there are no permanent position to the caste game, ergo, no true alliance to anyone that plays the caste game. This week your the king the next you'll be the joker. And let's not kid ourselves here... there is NO such thing as REAL friendship or bond between players playing the caste game, its survival of the fitest. If you show any form of weakness, it will be used against you. That is what I think how this roleplay is anyway. No one is genuinely a 'nice' person here. So, giving the delinquent the power to not be able to follow the king's command is somewhat silly, really. And to put it bluntly... completely ruin the fun of whoever is the current king.
 
That's only to those who play though. People who choose to be a delinquent every week are free to make alliances as they want. At least for the purpose of this RP, I think everyone playing ought to be people who didn't choose to be a delinquent.
 
Certainly it would be less "fun" to have delinquents running around, but I don't actually think the alliances thing would happen. It's true that none of the relationships formed by the caste are in any way real, but that doesn't change the fact that those who play do, week after week, have to maintain specific social interactions as dictated by the cards. I don't know, the way I see it, having the delinquents and floaters is almost a way to protect the caste system. If you force people to play who really don't want to play, there are four ways I can imagine it going:

1. The person just shuts up and plays.
2. If the person is rebellious and physically strong: They become joker week after week for refusing to play, and eventually get so pissed off they start becoming violent. If you get enough of these people, you can eventually get a casualty, and a casualty means an investigation into the school, and an investigation means a huge scandal, and a huge scandal means less funding for the school, etc.
3. If the person is rebellious and charismatic: They become joker week after week, and eventually decide to destroy the system from within, gathering followers from other refuse-to-play jokers and unfortunate people who are consistently low-ranked until they become the king by pure force, and render the card system useless.
4. If the person is really clever and wants revenge: They begin obsessively documenting every second of their torture in concrete forms such as video and picture, and once they're home for vacation, leak the entire thing to the media, which will pretty much destroy the school.

Giving a place to these people who really don't want to play seems... more beneficial to me than not, and it robs them of the power to destroy the system from within, since they are officially not within it. I'm not saying the above situations can't happen with regular jokers or delinquents, I'm just saying it's less likely to get situations that threaten the system when those willing to fight for a chance to destroy it are already out of it.
 
Honestly, I'm surprised someone hasn't already pointed out the problems of the school even with the delinquent system in place. I thought the whole point of the experiment was to analyse the psychological effects, and an uprising of the peasants against the king is a fully valid psychological effect. To balance it you'd give whoever was king access to better equipment for that week so they can pay non-rebellious peasants to guard them.
 
hmm... if they wanted to analyse the psych effects of peasants uprising against hte king, they wouldnt' change it every week. Definitely not. Uprisings happen over long periods of time, but I agree wth you, I'm surprised the problems of the scool haven't already come to ligh.t AGH. typos.
 
Well just to throw in my two cents o think the ones in the caste would keep quiet, hopefully waiting for their charge to be on top
 
Is this still open?

Also you know what's funny? I was just reading Caste Heaven like two days ago!~ xD
 
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