Hi, welcome to my sale pitch! This RP is just something I cobble up together from things I like, and hoping it can be greater than the sum of its parts. Mostly just lots of info dump right now, I’ll probably organize it into something that makes more sense once I get the OOC up. [hider=Settings] The year is 2120, and the world is a wretched place. Most governments have dissolved. Scattered city states have risen to take their places, housing the remaining population in fortified metropolis. Megacorporations control most of the cities in the US, while people fight to live in the safety of the cities in exchange for slave wages. Beyond their walls, anarchy reigns. Large swathes of land are deemed inhabitable, crawling with monsters and desperate men to the point where it begins to get difficult distinguishing the two. Lonely settlements tuck into far-off corners of the world, growing peculiar in their solitude. Humanity has waged war against its enemies, some time ago. The dragons, they were called. We had won, and we had lived. But their poison continues to plague the land, making monsters out of beasts and men. We keep them at bay with guns and walls, if only just. Only fire can fight fire, or so it goes. That’s where you come in. Not fully a monster yet, but not something else either. Whereas it was through inheritance, experimentation or contamination, you have the dragons’ corruption within you. Lives are short around here, yours even shorter. It’s a miserable and violent existence, but hey, it’s yours. Until Saint Peter College says otherwise. [/hider] [hider=The First War, or the last war] No one knows where the dragons come from. Some theorize: outter space, the mantle layer, another dimension, or humanity’s collective sins. But no one knows for sure. They just arrived without warning one day, like a summer storm, and plunged the world into chaos. By the time humanity managed to muster any resistance, damage had already been done. The loss of lives had been unacceptable, and so much of what we had built crumbled into ashes. For the first few months, it seemed as if all was lost. The dragons were monstrous and brutal, their powers beyond comprehension. Everything they touch succumbed to corruption, becoming twisted abominations of their former selves. These things made up the bulk of the dragons’ armies, made dangerous by their hive mind and unholy strength. Desperation bred invention, though. When conventional weapons failed, researchers began to think of fighting fire with fire. They harnessed the power of dragon’s blood, creating their own super soldiers to fight the war. This breed of fighters, dubbed Hybrids, was strong enough to stand against the dragons’ forces and even the dragons themselves. With that, the tides turned. Ultimately, humanity emerged victorious. The dragons were either slain or fled back to wherever they came from. Our determination and ingenuity saved the day once more. But the losses were too much, the sacrifices too great. The dragons’ monsters were still left behind, ravaging the world now that the will that unified them was gone. Cities in ruins. Countries wiped off the map. Continents with missing chunks. Some still believed we never won in the first place. [/hider] [hider=What it means to be a Hybrid] There are a lot of names for you. Many are not very flattering. Most are slurs. But here, at the college and on the uniforms you wear, you are called Hybrid. When dragon’s blood mingled with living flesh, it incurs mutation and bestows extraordinary powers. However, there are risks: you can either go mad, die, become a monster serving the dragon’s will or some unholy combination of the three. Good for you, though, because years of research have perfected the process of selecting suitable candidates for Hybrids. Purification and distillation of dragon blood samples have also allowed Hybrids to be relatively free from the dragon’s manipulation. That said, people have lost their minds from overusing their powers before. If you were wise, you wouldn’t push pass that limit. Even the strongest, break. Back in the days, during the war, Hybrids were made in labs, either with volunteers or the not-so-voluntary. Now, that isn’t legal anymore, strictly speaking. You are probably a Hybrid because someone in your family tree was, or you signed up to one of those government programs and was found compatible. Or something else entirely. But at the end of the day, it probably wasn’t an easy choice. Who would choose this, unless they have to? You have it good down here, in the Washington heartlands. Sure, registration is mandatory, Compability test is administered liberally, and mortality rate is high. You don’t always have to become a Hybrid even when you are compatible, but Big Brother can be very persuasive indeed. The cities here need you, and its people are wary but not hostile. They let you live on specialised military colleges (so-called colleges because of their social justice roots, originally built for post-war Hybrids who had nowhere to go). You are given work, training and purpose. All in all, it isn’t so bad. Up in the North, they muzzle their Hybrids, like dogs. In the East, they flay them, sometimes. [/hider] [hider=What does a Hybrid look like?] Like a human, most of the time. Some do have peculiar features (i.e. snakes eyes, tails or even wings), but not all. And not all extra parts are reptilian. [/hider] [hider=What are Dragons? They are not dragons!] They were called Dragons because it was a convenience. After all, what do you call a massive, winged, scaly thing? Our long war with them had taught us much, and we have found that they do come in all shapes and sizes. But by the point, the name had already stuck. Other than that, nothing else about them is really common knowledge. Aside from their burning hatred for anything that live, that is. [/hider] [hider=Classification of Hybrids] The colleges favor the combat-inclined. This is reflected in their rankings: the strongest in terms of raw strength often have S rank. Lower ranks do not always mean weakness though, as utility and healing powers are still important. But that’s the official stuffs. You have a different name to use among yourselves. Beasts are physical fighters. The dragon blood enhances their body, allowing them to perform inhuman feats. Some are faster, some are stronger, some are impossible to wound, and most are dangerous. This class of Hybrid dominates the S rank. Physical mutations are also most common among them. Techs are weapon masters. Their power usually manifests in the form of a weapon, which only them can wield. The colleges often provide them with their own personal armament, and this can take many forms depending on the person. While Techs can still summon their weapons without the armaments, the armaments give their weapons a solid, physical form that enhances its power. Witches are spell casters. They wield magic, and there is a great number of things they can do with it, from bending reality to controlling the elements. They are the most versatile class out of the three, and often underappreciated, really. [/hider] The gist of it: you are a student (freeloader?) at a monster-fighting college in a post-apocalyptic settings but you are also the monster and the college isn’t really a college.