[img]http://pre11.deviantart.net/69fa/th/pre/i/2013/298/0/c/post_apocalypse_los_angeles_by_myjavier007-d6rse0b.png[/img]

[hider= Pariah's Log] It has been exactly five hundred days since the complete collapse of global civilization. Exactly four years ago, the world was a much different place. There had been hope. More hope than we've ever had as a species. Four years ago, the first Superhuman had appeared. Zenith, the first man who could fly. He had just appeared one day, stopping a passenger airplane from crashing into Times Square in New York and saving hundreds of lives. Over the course of the following year hundreds, thousands, of superhumans had appeared around the globe. 

Some of them were straight from the pages of comic books and film. Others were more reminiscent of ancient legends and storied myths. A whole swath of the population developed abilities such as telepathy or telekinesis. These men and women were different from other superhumans by demonstrating altered genetic structure and they were called psionics, they were hailed as the next evolutionary step. Magic was soon proved to exist. We discovered the existence of sentient creatures besides ourselves. 

They had many names Kami, Fae, Jinn, Vampire, Werebeast. They had been living among us for generations without our knowledge. And there were many who shared their blood and had supernatural abilities because of it. At the time these nonhumans were mostly eager to integrate into our society and revival of cultural traditions occurred. 

In the United States of America there were over three hundred active costumed heroes, and many other superhumans who used their powers to feed the needy, heal the sick, and any number of things. Lives were saved. Houses were built. Crime rates dropped sharper than they ever had before. These superhumans gave the people of the world a reason to believe in the future. I had been operating for almost two years by the time Zenith and the superhumans appeared but in secret.

 I was the first completely normal vigilante to appear on the scene, others followed after I made myself known to the public. A businesswoman named Cassandra Patel, one of the richest and most intelligent people in the world, created the first working mechanized armor suit. I had occasion to work with Zenith and several other heroes. In time I came to call them friends. 

Of course not every superhuman had good intentions. Just as many used their powers to help people, save lives, and do good there were those who used them to do wrong. Superhuman thieves, murderers, and terrorists became the number one threat to public safety. And there were numerous superhumans who operated in secret. Those with powers of persuasion or invisibility that were extremely difficult to detect and all the more dangerous for it. Mexico was torn apart by conflict between superpowered cartels. The Middle East and other third world regions became further engulfed in violence. Other nations such as North Korea and China integrated superhumans into their militaries. There was both more hope and more fear. 

But at the time things seemed to be looking up. Heroes around the world were stopping natural disasters, keeping refugees safe from warlords, building hospitals in weeks, even healing our scarred planet. And then, just over a year after Zenith appeared, the end came. No scientist or sorcerer can agree on what exactly happened or why. Destiny thought that a rift between our world and the supernatural had appeared, larger and for a longer time than the one that he theorized had allowed some to gain powers. What was important was that we were not alone in our planet anymore.

 It was gradual at first. More people started manifesting powers. More developed magical or psychic skills. The population of beings such as Vampires and Werewolves exploded. The established members of those communities could not hold back the bloodlust of the newborns. More and more were infected, faster than they were killed. Creatures that haven't been seen walking the earth since times forgotten suddenly appeared. 

Many different kinds of beast appeared, from giant boars to manticores and even dragons. Krakens and Sea Serpents destroyed ships and disrupted trade while air travel was suspended because of dragons and other flying beasts. Monsters from our darkest nightmares appeared to plague us while we were struck by natural disasters on an almost weekly basis. Floods, storms, earthquakes, and tornadoes appeared with increasing regularity and severity. 

Sudden outbreaks such as the resurgence of the black plague killed thousands before suddenly abating and then returning. Many of those who were sensitive to magic or psychic abilities had dreams of dark terrors and horrible creatures, more and more people suddenly had psychotic breaks and there were more reported demonic possessions and hauntings than ever before. There were even reports of warlocks making live sacrifices or raising the dead. The number of dead or missing persons flew through the roof.

And the non-humans grew in number and became more restless. Before hand they had been few in number and mostly placid. Now there were more and more, all kinds of different races and breeds appearing in different regions with grudges that had been held for thousands of years. They started attacking each other in supernatural tribal conflicts, catching many humans in the crossfire. It was almost complete anarchy as the economy collapsed and violent riots tore apart the cities. Many cities experienced sudden loss of the power grid.

 Destiny described it as a magical torrent. So many ancient and powerful forces had rushed back into our planet in so little time that it was causing chaos on a global scale. We were  dealing with crisis on an almost daily basis whether it was riots, killing sprees, violent storms, or monster attacks. The continuing crime sprees by the Supervillains did not help matters at all. The combined death toll caused by all of these factors was estimated to be more than 50 million in just that first year, which was almost how many people died in a year on average. And it kept getting worse. 

Around half of the world's nations simply collapsed including North Korea. The world powers soon declined rapidly as unemployment, poverty, and suicide rates climbed. And nobody can say for sure who fired first or why, but we had our own theories about the start of the short lived most destructive war in human history. We thought it was some kind of mental influence that had caused all of the nuclear powers to fire their all of their arsenals at once. We did not know if it was some psionic terrorist or demonic possession. But it would have been the end of everything if not for Polaris and Destiny, who had a vision of the event and alerted the heroes. 

Polaris had been the most powerful metahuman on record, an American scientist who suddenly gained the ability to turn into what amounted to a man-sized star. He had been able to use his electromagnetic powers to divert all of the missiles into space while a global effort by superhumans around the world saw to the neutralization of nuclear bombers and power plants. He destabilized and flew off into orbit. The supernova death of one of my friends had both been the most terrible and most beautiful thing I had ever seen. Several others had given their lives to stop the bombers in flight and the nuclear reactors. We had averted the complete and total eradication of the human species but it wasn't enough. 

While plagues, storms, riots, and monsters continued to kill men, women, and children every day World War 3 still went on full swing. It was as if every major power had gone insane at the same time. World leaders were assassinated nearly every other week. Russia launched a new campaign on Europe while China and India made several incursions into each other and neighboring nations. There were no more nuclear weapons but we killed each other just fine with tanks, jets, warships, and newly acquired superhuman weapons. Even the career criminals had to help us fight off Chinese, Iranian, or Russian superhumans with government backing who could flood cities or rain lightning.

 We became isolated from our allies in other nations as lingering grudges between the world's governments were brought to the surface by secret malignant influences. The President, the old Vice President after his predecessor was found to be possessed and died, went into hiding as American cities were invaded and bombed by foreign armies for the first time in two hundred years. War was being fought in every major city against enemies both mundane and monstrous. 

The government instituted martial law and started conscripting every able bodied man and woman between sixteen and forty five to fight off the human armies and the monsters that continued to feed on us. Africa, the Middle East, and South America was lost to internal conflict by dozens of factions while Western Europe and Russia soaked the ground in blood. Jerusalem changed hands every week. India and Pakistan nearly annihilated each other in the first month. China began conquering the rest of Asia when we sent our fleets into the Pacific and turned Japan, the Philippines, and other places into mass graveyards in the crossfire. 

And we couldn't stop any of it. Every terrorist who fanned the flames or demon who possessed a leader that we stopped was soon replaced by another. In less than a year a billion people were killed. World War 3 killed as many people as the plagues, famines, riots, and predators did. Eventually it became too much. Every single government eventually collapsed. The world as we knew it ended destroyed by both mystical powers and simple human blundering.

 When all was said in done there were perhaps hundreds of superhumans left alive when once there were thousands. I estimate that over five billion humans had died in over just a year. The psionic sub-race had suffered tremendously and was in danger of dying out entirely. Nearly all of the men and women I had called friend were dead in the ground. Including one I had called my love.

Near the end, as the entire Eastern seaboard became a death zone, Zenith looked me in the eye and told me to go west. To Los Angeles where Cassandra and her corporate resources held the city just on the brink from collapse. He would remain in the East Coast to help whoever he could. I would take our surviving associates, including his cousin, and even some of our former enemies and establish a foothold in the city of Angels. There we would hold fast against the chaos and rebuild. That was the last time I saw him and I have not heard from him since. 

We moved west, saving who we could and recruiting who we could, and came to Los Angeles. As owner and CEO of Prometheus Corp, Cassandra had access to nearly unlimited resources. Her paramilitary forces and the Promethean suit had managed to save countless lives and kept the city running just long enough for us to get our new home up and running. The local police and National Guard were soon persuaded, all of the high-ranking officers were dead or missing, and we managed to relocate just over ten thousand civilians to the compound. What we call the Citadel is a square mile complex of corporate facilities that was meant to be Cassandra's western headquarters and lab. It had just finished construction when chaos engulfed the world. Now it would serve as our Ark. 

Twenty foot concrete walls surround the Citadel, and we erected a series of chain-link and barbed wire fences around them for further security. Every free inch of space both inside and outside the buildings was converted to support the survivors. Ramshackle homes and farms appeared in the Citadel while we created our own hospital and other facilities. The Citadel also went deep underground and we amassed an armory from scavenged weapons and stored them there.

 It took nearly a year to get fully settled in while we fought off bandits, monsters, and demons. An aging florakinetic known as Orchid worked herself to an early grave trying to provide food to the populace and left us with unique modified strains of seeds that have kept us alive through the lean months. A former bank robber known as Megavolt keeps the power running. We try to augment with solar panels but we have not gathered nearly enough clean energy sources, he is the main reason we can keep warm. 

Five hundred days into the end of civilization and we are the last bastion of society in the Southwest. But we aren't alone. Warring tribes of nonhumans continue to battle in the city while bandits try to raid our scavenging groups and test our perimeter. Destiny used up all of his life force in a massive ward that protected us from demons trying to possess or influence our minds but other monsters attack us on a near constant basis. The worst of the plagues and storms seemed to have passed but they could flare up again without warning. And there are barely enough of us left to keep order among the civilians. 

They have little privacy, little hope, and live every day in fear. There are even some nonhumans among us, Fae who want to live away from the Faerie Wars as well as some Werebeasts, Vampires, and others. They all live in their own "neighorhood" and the tension between the humans and nonhumans is high. Our bastion hangs by a thread. There are reports of another hostile group of survivors who are ambushing our teams. Reports indicate they have their own superhuman assets. 

I do not exaggerate when I say that the future rests on our shoulders. We must hold fast and rebuild. Or our world will end forever. 

[/hider] 

This is a game of cooperation and survival. You play former heroes, former villains, and everyone in between. You are responsible for working together to support, provide for, and defend the civilian population of the Citadel and rebuild society. Every choice you make matters and it is your combined efforts that determine the success or failure of the colony. Lives can be saved or lost depending on what you do, even your own characters can be killed under extreme circumstances. Whether you're scavenging for supplies, guarding the wall, patrolling the streets, or performing some other support role your contributions matter. This is a long-term roleplay and the consequences of your actions carry over from one phase to another. This roleplay can end in the beginning of a new world or the destruction of the Citadel and anywhere in between. It's up to you to decide the course.

Over the course of the game you can build your relationship, develop your skills and abilities, gain new equipment, and grow as a character. The focus of the roleplay is on how your characters interact and change as people as well as how they affect the survival of the Citadel. You aren't meant to play a static character going from one crisis to another, half the fun should be collaborating with other players and bouncing your characters off of each other. This isn't a game played just to win, the goal is to have fun with everyone else who is playing.

[hider=Rules] 

1. All normal site rules apply. 

2. No trolls please, only the ones in the story. 

3. I want at least reasonable spelling, grammar, and punctuation. I'm not a grammar nazi but we should be able to understand you. No one-liners or two sentence posts. 

4. No explicit sexual content such as depictions of sex on screen. You can make all the dirty jokes you like in character but if you want that super kinky sex scene you gotta fade to black and take it to PMs if necessary. Other than that this is a dark rp so lots of violence is A-Ok. 

5. No god-modding or overpowered characters. You should contribute to making this game fun and interesting, not making it really easy. 

6. Be respectful. I'd like you to work together to solve problems in the game and communicate each other to put interesting ideas in, not petty insult contests or endless arguments. If you have a problem with someone else take it to me or take it to PMs but don't let it bog down the thread. 

Other than that I'll try to be as laid back as possible but if something becomes a problem I will add it here [/hider] 

[hider=Bestiary] (Under Construction, If anyone has any ideas please come forward)

Dwarves: Rarely seen on the surface but can be found in abandoned tunnels and caves. Most Dwarves are extremely pale in complexion and are nearly blind, relying instead on echolocation. They are dimunitive in stature but are fierce warriors, often much stronger and durable than normal humans. Mages are rare but commonly use either earth of magma spells. They can often be found prospecting and Dwarves are often skilled smiths and inventors. Some clans are hostile to humans. 

Elves: The most common race of the Fae. They are of a height with humans and feature the classic pointed ears. They have even more variety in skin-tone than humans, some elves have golden, onyx, and even blueish skin tones. Elves can have eye colors ranging from red to pitch black and their hair has just as much variety. Some Elves are friendly but many others attack humans on sight. They are the primary belligerents in the wars between the Winter and Summer Courts and hold some of the highest positions of nobility in the Fae. Elves are more agile and naturally graceful than humans, have keener senses, and the species has the most versatile arsenal of magic. They are also one of the very few races that can inter-breed with humans and Half-Elves can develop Psionic abilities. 

Goblins: One of the most common sights in the magic wasteland. Goblins are on average three to four feet tall and their skin tone ranges from grey to slimy green. Their eyes resemble that of a lizard and they are often bald with clawed hands. A single goblin is usually quite cowardly but as a group they often harass scavengers or steal their supplies. Goblins can often be seen in conflict with Dwarves and Gnomes. Goblin mages are exceedingly rare and curiously any Goblin mage is a giant among its fellows, reaching five feet in height. 

Ghouls: Ghouls are a sentient carnivorous species. Animal or sentient, living or dead it does not matter. All Ghouls eat their own weight in meat every single day. Some are scavengers and others are predators, some are barbarians that eat meat raw while others are relatively civilized and cook it. More than a few Ghouls have a taste for human flesh, and though not all Ghouls will immediately try to feast on humans they are best avoided. Ghouls are taller on average than humans and are distinguished by their large sharp teeth, solid black eyes, and clawed appendages. 

Ghasts: Ghasts have a closer connection to the Nether than most mythic races for they are simply wisps from the spirit world wandering our own in semi-physical form. Their physical form is a sentient blob of slime. They are often harmless and placid but can be provoked or corrupted by magic into hostile beasts. They will attack and their ectoplasmic slime can be contorted into tentacles and other weapons. Extremes of heat or cold is their biggest weakness and they are not difficult to neutralize. The longer a Ghast spends in the mortal world the more self-awareness they can acquire and long-lived Ghasts can be found living in tribes. They have no need for sustenance for they are sustained by their connection to the Nether. 

Gnomes: Surface cousins to the Dwarves, they can be found scavenging all over the wasteland. On the whole not hostile but many have mischievous leaning and are prone to stealing from other scavengers. Gnome Mages often have earth magic. The average Gnome resembles a diminutive human, having neither the pale complexion or diversity of appearance of the Dwarves or Elves respectively. 

Giants: Giants resemble gargantuan cro-magnons, towering over humans and most races at twenty feet tall. Like most Fae they possess pointed ears and they have the same diversity of appearances as their smaller Elf cousins. They have a primitive culture and wear simple fur garments and wield crude clubs. They herd mammoths and use them for milk, meat, and mounts. 

 [/hider] 

[hider= Character Sheet] 

You can currently have two characters at any time. You can put them on the bench or kill them off at your pleasure and spots open up if your character dies in the game but I'm not aiming to do that deliberately, character death will only occur in very extreme situations or if you want to get rid of them. Any major NPCs or antagonists you'd like to put forth can be submitted for everyone in the thread to talk about though I have the final say. Any characters you put on the bench will be NPCs controlled by me. All PCs, NPCs, and Enemies go in the character tab. 

Name: Self explanatory 

Codename: Choose any you like they can be as cheesy or as modern as you want

Age: I don't want this to be filled with all young characters. A realistic mix of ages is preferable and you can play anyone 14 up, but a seventy year old character might not last long or be as useful. 

Gender: I'd like a nice mix of male and female. 

Place of Birth: As long as it makes sense for them to end up in Los Angeles, put anywhere you like. 

Occupation: What job they serve in the Citadel be it Scavenger, Doctor, Wall Guard, Patrol, Builder etc etc. They can be anything that lends to the defense, logistic, and scouting capabilities of the Citadel. Keep in mind that with a few exceptions technology is basic inside the walls of the Citadel. 

Race: Human or any of the Non-human races. Vampires, Werewolves, and people like them are technically human but are different enough to rate a separate mention. Nonhuman are sentient creatures from all kinds of mythologies. Fae, Kami, Jinn, whatever. However there should be a lot less Nonhumans than Humans and only Humans can be psychics or have superpowers the Nonhumans are limited to magic abilities and whatever physical traits their race has. Nonhumans have a lot of versatility and diversity but they should have some root in myth, fable, legend, or story. It is possible to have hybrids between the humans and mythic races and they might fit better in the story than a fully nonhuman character. 

Appearance: Anything is fine as long as any pictures you submit don't clash with the tone of the roleplay and I would like to not end up with a whole team of Caucasian super models. 

Powers: They can be metahuman, psionic, or supernatural and you can even have no powers at all. I don't want a random mixing of powers, each character has one "power-set" as it were. I'm pretty fluid on power-levels but each powered character should be on a comparable level with every other character, regular humans are of course an exception, and if a main battle tank shows up that should be a significant problem to your character. Just try and use common sense as to what would be fair and fun and you should be fine. 

Skills: Put any kind of skills you want here. Your character can be a jack of all trades, a genius at a few things, or competent in some things, but there should be no characters who are masters at every possible skill. No genius medical doctors and explosion experts in one. Again just try and use common sense here. 

Equipment/Resources: Keep in mind that resources are limited in the Post-Apocalypse. You shouldn't be toting a fully automated chaingun at all times and any special equipment you have is a finite resource. Your equipment should also follow the guiding principle of not being overpowered or game breaking. 

Weaknesses: It's ok to have a bullet proof character but they better have some finite drawbacks to make sure there's an actual challenge. 

Psychological Profile: Your character's personality. I'd like some nuance here there can be a few goody two shoes and some sociopaths but most of them should operate in between somewhere, I don't want a roleplay dominated by one side or the other. And keep in mind that these people are supposed to be a team so it shouldn't be comprised entirely of silent brooding loners. But most of them should have at least a few lingering psychological traumas after everything that happened. 

Biography: I'd like at least two paragraphs here. Write about whatever seems to fit but I don't want your character to be the saintliest and awesomest hero to ever exist or the worst and most vile and prolific villain that ever lived. But they can be fairly prominent. If you want your character to have a personal history with another players feel free to collaborate, feel free to work in some of the big names I created if you like. And all of them have ended up in the Citadel one way or another so their path has to make sense. [/hider] 

[hider= Citadel Status] 

Overall : Fair Condition

Morale: Strained

Population: 10,000 +

Power Grid : Functional

Food Supply : Fair

Medicine : Fair

Ammunition : Fair

Defenses: Adequate 

Community Status : Normal

Special Conditions: Cassandra's Paramilitary forces keep order +, relations between the humans and nonhumans are strained -, Megavolt keeps the power on +, Orchid's seeds keep food supply reliable +, the Superhumans are overworked -, there is little space in the Citadel -, the scavenger runs have been mostly successful +  [/hider] 

[hider=Player List] [/hider] 

[u]Major Events[/u]