The reader's guide to The Order of Mayhem.

unanun

Child is born, with a heart of gold
Original poster
FOLKLORE MEMBER
Writing Levels
  1. Adaptable
Genres
I'm wary of magic with lots of rules.
Prologue

Myths and the creatures that inhabit them are born from the human. The collective gestalt of the entire human presence births their diseased imaginations, giving shape, form, and powers to entities that arise from the darkness and squeeze themselves out from the cracks between rocks. The shadows twist upon themselves and solidify into bone. Muscles grow by the sinew from their anchoring tendons. Skin creeps along, the blackness fading into a pastel peach tone. The creature gasps and stares down at his hands, fingers trembling violently as the blackness sloughs off, thick and viscous. He stands in the dark and gazes forward, and knows what he has to do.

The lore concerning such creatures, vampires, has been continuously revised to meet prevailing social mores. There is a certain power to such writings, though. Remember that these denizens of the night were born from such writings. As the populace is converted to a new vision, their collective subconscious bears down upon the younger of kindred, who are powerless to the gradual change. They do not even notice it. Their appetites shift, they become less inclined to blood lust, and they sometimes even fall in love.

But the ancients are mostly immune to change. Back then, human civilization, if it could be called that, was much more savage and animalistic. There are various examples of historically young human societies practicing ritual sacrifice, and other various forms of human torture. The human mind was much more diseased back then. Blood ran so freely that it was the grouting between cobblestones. Heads were ran through, from the trachea to the mouth, by the spear point of enormous halberds and prominently displayed on the castle walls.

What, then, lies at the core of every vampire sired, even to this day? Violence. A vampire is solely defined by their capacity for violence. They have many other abilities that make their terrible reputation well deserved. But to a vampire, the human body may was well be a sheet of paper. Humans are delicate, wondrous works of origami. A vampire sees seems that can be broken, folds and tucks that are easily undone. The human screams as his joints are crushed, tendons plucked from the bone, and his rib cage torn open to reveal the playground for the mad surgeon, but the cries of agony that cause the lungs to feverishly pump fall upon deaf ears. As the surgery concludes, the vampire's lips draw back to reveal a row of pointed, triangular teeth. He laughs! This has proven to be a most interesting jigsaw puzzle.

Save for the first born, today's vampires are sired, created by the Original few for reasons unknown. Their core of violence was smothered underneath their humanity, reduced to embers but never fully extinguished.

Human heritage introduces yet another fatal chink in the vampire's armour. The human psyche can not handle long time spans, compared to the demands placed upon them by human literature. Thankfully, many kindred are extinguished by hunters before dementia sets in, but for the unlucky few, there is a jarring dissonance inside them, a tug of war between two competely antithetical natures.

- Rastul, "Why I am what I am", excerpted from page 991. Original copy, written in blood on bamboo strips.

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For reference:

The Order of Mayhem.

This is a companion to a small set of monologues I am writing for my own interest, and possibly for the benefit of a few who wish to post as well. The main inspiration comes from Tegan's post regarding my own character in Dark Reign (dingaling). It is an interesting concept.

I would like for this series to be a prologue that attempts to preserve continuity between my time on OoM and IWAKU. It has already morphed into a present timeline thingee. Oh well.

Note that I will only be giving details for things I have written, not for things I want to / plan to write.

I am trying my hand at these long posts as further experiments in readability. Small white on black is not exactly the best way to get readers to be interested in what you write, and I am copying techniques I see to improve readability. OK. Let's start!

P.S. I will make edits from time to time. It's hard to catch them in posts. I want you to read the edits, but it's a bit too much to ask for rereads. Your choice. Thanks in any case.​

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(click the orange post numbers to link to the writings)​
Post 1.

Here we dive into metaphors. The first section of this post deals with something all RP sites face: the slow death by emigration and disinterest as the years drag on. Later, Rastul is imprisoned in limbo, where he slowly goes even more nuts than before. Lots of time spent doing nothing tends to do this to people. But hark! Someone offers him a second chance - which he doesn't really take kindly to. Well, anyways.

Post 2.

Here is how I see IWAKU. It's a plane of existence just like OoM was. It is divided into sections by sub forums, all isolated by reality bubbles where characters go about doing their thing. These characters are simulacrums. Because they are trapped in - and will never leave - their reality bubble, they will never transcend, achieve epiphany about their true nature, which is something Rastul has done. He has awoken to his true self. In doing so he is able to travel between RP instances and wreck havoc. Thus the theme for my monologues is transcendence and realization of their true nature. The gift of being able to move into a higher level of existence.

True self is what the .. and here I hesitate greatly to break 4th-wall, what the 'lord' (you) wants to be. I believe that the best characters are always slightly Mary-Sued. You play characters you know well the best. Unless you're a really good actor. Then the world is your oyster, etc.

Here is where I am currently on low tank for inspiration. Writing another post in this theme would be boring. So the next one will take some time.

Post 3.

The answer to FAQ 1. I'm ragging quite a bit on FG, but that's just bad luck on the RP's part. Anyways, this is the style, the scenery, the sort of banter Rastul likes to engage in. He's a pretty philosophical guy, and likes to engage from armchair (read: amateur) discussions when he can.

I am well aware of how easy it is to sound cheesily deep. This is usually why Rastul approachs what he says with a sense of self irony - he is aware of how ridiculous and lame the things he says sounds.

Post 4.

Poor guy has a bit of an existential crisis.

Post 5

In this dialog between a human and a monster, Rastul reaffirms the difference between the two, finding peace in himself. Maybe. I say that word a bit too much. Special thanks to Kitti, who graciously lent her talent to this brief back and forth. I am indebted.

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FAQ​

1.
Why is Rastul such a dick?

I have given thought to this and will write another monologue explaining this.

2. God mode?


Back on OoM power was decided by post count. I had 13,000 or so, while the next best was probably 20,000, a legend Who Shall Not Be Named. Anyways, I don't plan on god moding. That wouldn't be fun. The power a post count granted you could be as descriptive or indistinct as you liked, it was much less structured than how most of Iwaku runs it. That is why a lot of times Rastul simply does things that are close, but not quite, omnipotence.

3. No vampire sucky-sucky?


Vampire lore is outdated. I am trying to modernize it a bit, give Rastul a bit of fresh context.

4. Where is Rastul's original bio?

It sucks and I hate it. I wanted to post it, but I just read through it and lawd almighty do I loathe it.

4.b So what is he like then?

Hm. Rastul is best described as someone who attempts to parody himself and others, taking things to the point of absurdity. It is fun to speculate almost to non sequitur, it is fun to take an idea and run it into the ground. His favourite people to toy with are those who have strong beliefs. It's fun to show them their ignorance. Why does he do this? He likes to see people in psychological turmoil. Maybe it's because he's a malkavian. Questioning of one's core self is always a good exercise.

He's not always like this, though. That would be boring, and it's only fun for certain types of people. Usually, he's just laid back and jocular, if not a bit incomprehensible.

That being said, he's lived for a very long time, and while he likes to stay contextually relevant in whatever time period he inhabits, a vampire is still a vampire is still ostentatious displays of violence.

He is prone to bouts of humanity, and throws himself into the endless, ageless cycle of human drama over and over.

5. Motivation?

I originally rebelled against this deterministic, GM RP style. I've since learned to play with it and have fun, but back then I planned a double cross in just about every RP I signed up for. Here is the grand realization of my wet dreams! Also, Rastul was the only character I was truly good at. And there's a small sprinkle of nostalgia in here somewhere.

6. Attention whore!

If you aren't interested, please read it anyways. I'm trying to determine if I write well enough to keep people interested for the entire stretch. I don't know if I can even do that for a single paragraph. Of course it's easier for, say, people in FG to follow along, and that's also part of my conundrum.

7. Why do you hate Asmodeus so much?

I don't, it just so happens all the RPs I'm are GM'd by him. I plead and claim coincidence.​

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WORLD'S (RPs) RUINED BY RASTUL THUS FAR

- FateGuard
- Broken Rose​

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References I shamefully plundered from

- The Dancers at the End of Time

(Also: I manually hit "-" for all of the breaks AND NONE OF THEM MAY LINE UP. HAHA.)​
 
Please post any criticisms you have of my style and technique. I am most concerned with how well it captures your attention: does reading the first post want to make you read more? Is reading it a chore? Please let me know!