[IMG]http://i.imgur.com/uEjwLmR.png[/IMG] [I]Retro title card courtesy of the swanky Captain Jenno![/I] [I]A Dervish Production[/I] [B]THIS GAME IS CANCELLED. THANK YOU TO ALL PARTICIPANTS AND BEST OF LUCK IN YOUR FUTURE GAMES![/B] [I]Accepted Players[/I]: CLOSED [hider=Musical Accompaniment][youtube]yVm_ljDSdwA[/youtube][/hider] [I]The Galaxy’s always been a dangerous place, full of opportunity, adventure, credits and purpose for those of the mind to look for it. The people gathered here today, the only thing we share is skirting galactic law and the fact that some asshole with a lot more money than any of us wants us dead. So shall we get started, or do you want to wait until more of us wind up dead before deciding we should do something about it?[/I] [IMG]https://img.neoseeker.com/ca/mass_effect_3_conceptart_DqEEZ.jpg[/IMG] The year is 2178CE, a time of overall galactic peace and the ending of the batarian threat to Alliance colonial claims. After the Skyllian Blitz of 2176CE, Alliance forces had been systematically hunting down pirates and criminals associated with the ill-fated attack on Elysium, and the Anhur rebellions began, beginning a two year struggle to end slavery on the batarian and human colony, resulting in the abolitionists achieving victory over the pro-slavery Na’hesit factionists. It is a time of law being enforced in formerly lawless sections of space, the Attican Traverse no longer standing independent of Alliance influence. While many grumble the perceived loss of independence of the “suffocating” Systems Alliance charter, most citizens are welcoming the regular military presence, as both the attacks on Elysium and Mindoir were fresh on everyone’s minds. Most recently, the ruthless attack on the moon of Torfan has crippled the threat of criminal activity against human colonies, and Alliance patrols are systematically hunting down the remaining pirate anchorages across the traverse. While most are celebrating the downfall of the pirate menace, there are some who see the sudden aggression against the criminal element of the galaxy as a threat to not only their freedom, but their very existence. Pirates, smugglers, slavers, and guns for hire alike have flocked to the lawless Terminus Systems, entering a competitive and often lethal struggle to ply their trade against other organized groups, many of whom are not keen to share their home turf with newcomers. Others remain in the Traverse, balancing the risks with the increased opportunity left in the vacuum their former competitors left behind. While several groups are soon were caught, there are more than a few that had flourished beyond anything they could have previously imagined. Bolder, larger criminal organizations began to emerge from this, and a stretched Alliance Navy was powerless to watch every corner. The galaxy is a big place, and the rapidly expanding Systems Alliance was beginning to understand just how vast it really was. Along with the law-skirting groups came the demand to do something about it. While some worlds hired security from the big name contractors such as The Blue Suns and Eclipse, there was a demand for a much more widespread and permanent solution. Something that would ultimately bring stability and safety to the colonies. To the surprise of many, an asari billionaire rose to the challenge. Rebekha Gaela, the chairwoman and head of Siame Industries, is the leader of a private military corporation and arms manufacturing firm that has long established itself as a powerful and professional fighting unit and security firm in systems outside of direct Council protection, and even on the fringes of Outer Council space. Gaela, a shrewd matriarch who takes as much after her turian father as her asari mother, has been a rising profile with a rapidly expanding enterprise, annexing and buying out anything smaller than Siame Industries with startling efficiency, largely due to the fact that systems controlled by the security branch are among the most safe and secure in the galaxy, and the PMC branch has been constantly grabbing headlines for the daring, ruthless raids into criminal bases across the galaxy, even deep within the normally lawless Terminus Systems. There are rumours that Rebekha Gaela has several criminal firms under her thumb and unprecedented access to information brokers across the galaxy, and while unsubstantiated, has done wonders to keep her skeptics from meddling too much into her affairs. Very recently, Siame Industries signed an agreement with the Systems Alliance to bolster security in the Attican Traverse in exchange for a hefty contracting fee and the authority to install instillations on any colony world that would accept them, putting pressure on the criminal element even further with more raids, blockades, and other enforcement practices that were previously non-existent. Retreating to the Terminus Systems yields just as few safe havens; using her own forces and the various client outfits under her employ, Rebekha Gaela has taken her personal war against galactic crime into the previously untouched safe havens in the Terminus Systems. Even Omega, the antithesis of the Citadel, is beginning to feel the squeeze. Gaela gets stronger by the day, and for the mercenaries and criminals of the galaxy, there’s a lot fewer friendly faces than there were a year ago. Desperation follows those on the wrong side of the law, from hired guns to smugglers, assassins to drug dealers, no one is safe. However, there are those who aren’t going to lay down without a fight. On Cartagena Station, a gathering of largely unaffiliated men and women from all walks of life gather to discuss one thing: Pay back. [IMG] http://img4.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20091016180950/masseffect/images/thumb/8/82/Cartagena.png/300px-Cartagena.png[/IMG] _ _ _ _ _ [B]OVERVIEW[/B] [IMG]http://www.toptiertactics.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/mass-effect-3-multiplayer-strategy-video.jpg[/IMG] Welcome to Mass Effect: Wanted, an RP about a group of law-loathing, ruthless, and morally dubious mercenaries, smugglers, bounty hunters, drug pushers, assassins, thieves, and just about any other sort one would not wish to run into in a dark alley. Long accustomed to the freedom of the stars to earn fame and riches in often ruthless and morally objectionable manners, your character will be caught up in a galaxy that’s becoming a much smaller and unforgiving place. Working with a loosely affiliated group of (largely) strangers with a singular common interest, it will be up to the players to work together to fight back against the encroaching danger of Siame Industries and increasingly ruthless criminal outfits who have acted as your character’s rivals and enemies for years. If you are a fan of the criminal story lines from the video games, from taking down pirate bases on some uncharted world in Mass Effect 1 to going undercover with the mercenaries in Mass Effect 2 to save Arch Angel to earning their allegiance in Mass Effect 3, this game may just be the right stop for you. As you may have gathered, this game takes place a few years before the first Mass Effect game (five years, to be exact!), freeing us from the confines of the Reaper Invasion, the geth, and the Collectors. This game will focus much more on untold stories using the lore and setting from Mass Effect as a backdrop. While it is an original tale with player created characters and organizations as a continuity of the series of Nova games myself and several players had been running for two years, everything that happens in the timeline and series has and will happen here, and in many ways, will be reacted to in such a fashion: It’s another news headline, unless your character was an active participant in those events. I do ask that when you are creating a character, do take the Timeline into consideration and try to make a believable and relatable individual. Our goal here is storytelling, and this is not a tale about grizzled war heroes with N7 designations on their chests, it’s a tale of people who live in remarkable times on the wrong side of the law. If you think along the lines of Firefly and you’re on the right track, only there’s possibly a chance your character is a remorseless sociopath who has a warrant in 13 systems for murder. The choice, as always, is up to you. The game will be run by GMs, but players are free to control minor NPCs and guards (a privilege I may alter or revoke if I find it’s being abused), but anything story/ mission related is expressly GM territory. However, each player will have a chance to help craft their own personal Loyalty Missions in a similar vein to Mass Effect 2. While the primary aim of this RP is for our characters to be taking the fight back to Rebekha Gaela and her forces in a sweeping underdog story, Mass Effect has always been about exploration and taking on assignments that aren’t strictly related to the main plot (75% of Shepard’s activities revolved around impressing the people he wanted to sleep with, after all). Given the cast of characters this game will feature, many of them are likely to have their own agendas and rivalries that need to be dealt with. This game will eventually feature a vast collection of characters, organizations, and places of interest and it will be because of the collaborative dedication and creativity of the players. All players will start off on Cartagena Station, an out of the way staging area in a largely unenforced corner of space. It will act as a gateway into the story, where the team will quickly depart on the first of many missions together. _ _ _ _ _ [B]RULES AND STANDARDS[/B] 1. You God Mod or your character turns out to be Cerberus Agent Mary Sue, expect a horrific death and no refund. This includes irritatingly perfect characters with relationships with characters from the video games, cheap attention seeking drama, reacts to things based on Out of Character information (e.g. the player knows about a group of thugs up ahead and the character warns people about it and the like), are flawless, and have painfully generic backgrounds that exist only to generate sympathy for that character or to cheaply justify a trait, and are perfect at everything. Be creative, make someone believable. No special snowflakes. 3. Approved races only. This means no geth, yahg, Collectors, protheans, virtual aliens, Leviathans, et cetera that make no sense in the time line or playing capacity. Approved races are; human, turian, asari, salarian, drell, krogan, bartarian, quarian, vorcha. Races such as elcor, volus, and hanar are very unlikely to work, but I’m willing to entertain the idea if it’s a well justified character. 4. Technology is limited to a pre-Mass Effect technology level. Ergo, no thermal clips and weapons from the first game will feature quite a bit. Geth, Collector, Cerberus and Quarian weaponry likewise is prohibited in this timeline, as is anything manufactured after Mass Effect 1. Keep in mind that this isn’t a stats driven game, so a cheap gun will be quite effective, and if your character can’t afford an extremely rare or expensive firearm, chances are they won’t have access to it right away. If you aren’t sure, ask! 5. Original characters only, thanks. Obvious rip offs of established characters will also not be tolerated. 6. If your character is biotic, take into consideration restrictions and social issues coming from having it relative to their cultures. If a race cannot have biotics, don’t pretend they do. Read the wiki pages for more information. I don’t want to see a half dozen biotic turian applications because turian biotics are quite uncommon, for instance. This ties into the whole no special snowflakes thing. 7. If you want to make up an organization or company or whatever for your back story, that’s allowed as long as it doesn’t mess around with canon or contradict the timeline or give your character an unfair advantage that can be exploited. 8. Character deaths are a possibility, but unlikely. Characters will frequently get wounded in fire fights, sometimes severely, but I won’t be completely ruthless with character deaths. Unless there’s no logical way for a character to survive a situation, you won’t have to fear an unexpected and punishing death (for instance, I won’t as a GM say there’s a sniper watching an alley way and instantly headshot the first person who steps out into it). 9. Pre-made characters are permitted, provided you update them to fit this RP and take the time to make them fit into this continuity and timeline. Please no copy/paste jobs without taking into consideration CS formats and the rules. 10. If you need to have a leave of absence or know you’re going to be away/ busy, please let me know. Real life comes first, and I’m not going to boot you out of the game if something comes up. But please inform me as soon as possible you’re going to be away, if I hear nothing after 2 weeks, I will most likely write out your character and look for a new player. 11. Writing requirements are a minimum of 2 well written paragraphs per post, preferably more. Acceptable spelling and grammar and so on so forth applies. It’s an Advanced game, you know what to expect. 12. If someone hasn’t posted for a while and they’re holding everything up after a few days, don’t worry about posting order. It’s going to be a loose order as it is; just give everyone a chance to reply before you go ahead. An exception to this rule is if your characters are in a conversation that doesn’t affect anyone else, which I do ask you refrain from speed posting and consider a collab. 13. Please don’t be overly reliant on collaborations. I know they make dialog more natural, but in my experience, they are a huge reason games get slowed down since you have to wait for everyone involved to reply. Please put a priority on posting in the thread and only do collabs when necessary, I don’t need to see 2-3 weeks of no activity because everyone’s busy PMing each other back and forth. Let’s keep the game moving, guys. 13. Romances are fine and dandy, but try not to make it a personal focus. If you feel the need to be a smut monster, please take that shit to PMs. Likewise, if you’re making a character with the sole intention of scoring, I will hook them up with a volus after a long night of intoxication and they be mocked ruthlessly for all eternity. Character development, people. Make it natural. 15. As mentioned before, this RP will be a cooperative effort and outside of the story arc, everyone is responsible for creating the situations and adding to the scenes and controlling NPCs and enemies. Just keep it reasonable and bear in mind the flow and pacing of situations. If a fight’s coming to a close, I do not want to see a horde of YMIR mechs being dropped off. Likewise, if the situation doesn’t call for something, don’t do it. For instance, if the team’s at a home base, do not randomly have it being attacked. Let the GMs start and conclude battles and we’ll all get along fine. 16. If you do not post in the IC or OOC within two weeks, your character will be moved to the inactive list, and if a third week goes by without any notification, your character will be written out of the story and recruitment will open up to take your character’s place. That said, I am a reasonable guy. Tell me you’re going to be away for a while, that’s fine. Disappear without a trace without an emergency to back it up, then I’m giving your slot to someone who actually wants it. _ _ _ _ _ [B]CHARACTER CREATION[/B] [IMG]http://img4.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20110216211041/masseffect/images/1/15/Evolution_3_Cover.png[/IMG] [B]Profile Reconstruction[/B] [B]Name:[/B] Your character’s name and any nicknames or aliases they may have. [B]Race:[/B] Your character’s race. Please follow the guilde lines established earlier on. [B]Gender:[/B] Male, female, mono-gendered, you know the drill. [B]Age:[/B] Make this race appropriate. For ease of reference, assume most races have comparable life spans, except for salarians (40 year life expectancy), asari (1,000 year life expectancy), and krogan (1,400-1,600 year life expectancy). Keep in mind that chances are your character is younger or middle aged and full of piss and vinegar, so you probably don’t want to make your character a 1,200 year old krogan with space-dementia. If anyone has solid information on race life expectancies, please share with the class. [B]Class:[/B] Soldier, Adept, Engineer, Vanguard, Infiltrator, Sentinel. Feel free to establish a sub-class as well. [B]Appearance:[/B] A detailed description and/or picture of your character. Please, no anime pictures. I will not be able to take your application seriously imagining an effeminate blue-haired boy with flowing long hair and keeper-sized eyeballs taking on the horrors of the galaxy with his stick arms. [B]Background: [/B] A detailed and accurate history and upbringing of your character from childhood to now, with consideration of timeline events and what’s stated for lore. We’re trying to keep this accurate, and this section helps me determine your writing ability and dedication to wanting to be in this RP. As well, the more information you provide, the better [I]you[/I] understand your character and play them better. If your character had a particular role or were special forces or something notable, please describe their time in that service and how they got in/ out of it. I don’t want to see something like ‘And Johnny was a Spectre’ tacked on as an afterthought. If you write a two short paragraph bio, it tells me you didn’t put any thought into it. If you think your character can hold up for a month and a half without a GM, it’s probably good enough. [B]Equipment:[/B] Weapons, armour, and other important bits like Omni-tools and biotic amps and things that aren’t necessarily featured in games but your character takes with them. Check the wiki page for more information. Also, grenades are included in here and not in the power section. There will be certain weapon restrictions given the timeline and availability, but most are fair game, including ME3 weaponry. Just remember this is a Play by Post RP, so weapon stats are not a concern in this game. A cheap shotgun’s going to kill someone just as effectively as an expensive one, depending on barriers and shields. A $200 SKS is just as likely to ruin your day as a $2700 TAR-21. [URL=http://masseffect.wikia.com/wiki/Weapons]Weapon List[/URL] [url=http://masseffect.wikia.com/wiki/Equipment]Equipment List[/url] [B]Powers: [/B] Up to five or six different powers your character will use. Tech powers are restricted to Engineers, Sentinels, and Infiltrators. Biotics are restricted to Adepts, Vanguards, and Sentinels. I’m pretty easy going with the rest of it. [URL=http://masseffect.wikia.com/wiki/Powers]Power List[/URL] [B]Talents:[/B] Indicate your character’s proficiencies that aren’t reflected by powers. Pick up to five or six. [URL=http://masseffect.wikia.com/wiki/Talents]Talent List[/URL] _ _ _ _ _ [B]CODEX[/B] [B]Maps[/B] [hider=Galaxy Map][IMG] http://fc03.deviantart.net/fs70/i/2013/100/b/0/mass_effect_galaxy_map_by_otvert-d5u3tvb.png [/IMG][/hider] [hider=Cartagena Station Location][IMG] http://img2.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20130824105651/masseffect/images/c/ce/MEG_Galaxy_Map.png [/IMG][/hider] [url=http://masseffect.wikia.com/wiki/Timeline]Timeline[/url] [url=http://masseffect.wikia.com/wiki/Classes]Classes[/url] [url=http://masseffect.wikia.com/wiki/Races]Races[/url] _ _ _ _ _ [B]Organizations and People of Interest[/B] [hider=People] Rebekha Siame: The high-profile founder and CEO of Siame Industries, one of the galaxy’s foremost private military contracting and security firms. Taciturn and intelligent, the asari matriarch has spent several centuries growing her firm and spheres of influence. She has security contracts in a few select Outer Citadel Space colonies and space stations and has been in recent years been slowly expanding into the Attican Traverse, and perhaps most boldly, the Terminus Systems. Siame is undoubtedly an enigmatic figure who is known to keep close ties to the political elite in the galaxy, and it is widely suspected that behind the air of legality, she is believed to be involved in some decidedly illicit endeavors. While no concrete evidence has come to light, it’s unlikely to do so anytime soon. Her enemies have a habit of finding themselves in accident, and it pays to have friends in high places. [/hider] [hider=Organizations] Siame Industries: Founded almost 300 years ago following the geth uprising, Siame Industries has expanded from a small one colony security outfit to one of the most foremost private security contracting and security firms in the galaxy, with contracts across numerous worlds, stations, and sporting a very robust client base ranging from poor farming colonies to bustling Mass Relay supporting transportation space stations. Personnel from Siame are drawn from every race and every colony and must pass an extensive screening process and demanding recruitment process in which 1 in 5 are likely to drop out. The resulting employees ranging from support staff to commandos is superbly trained, disciplined, and have access to the best weapons and equipment the galaxy has to offer. One of the few civilian organizations that is licensed to purchase and operate military vessels, Siame Industries has signed into an agreement with the Citadel Council to not exceed the allotted numbers and classes of ships and military hardware. The result of this arrangement is a force that cannot hope to challenge any of the military forces of Citadel member military forces, but is more than ample to supply and protect the various worlds under Siame Industries charge. [/hider] [Hider=Places] Cartagena Station: A semi-secure space station in the Nemean Abyss, Caragena Station is a primarily batarian settled installation that offers many of the comforts of the Citadel, only in a very lawless corner of the galaxy. The local security organization, Cartagena Patrol, is often spread thin and the station suffers the risk of frequent pirate attacks. It is a popular stop for people wishing to elude the law without having to resort to the bustling, ruthless corridors of Omega. [/hider]