The world is far greater than we know. Even as far as humanity has come, there are things beyond understanding, and threats that the police cannot handle. And you just learned a lot about that the hard way. A powerful ritual has gone out of control, and through some quirk of fate, you've survived an ordeal meant for another and bonded with an eldritch symbiont from another dimension. Like it or not, you're now part of the occult side of the world, and are on the front line of a secret war. And so, the curtain rises...
The Setting
The setting for this roleplay is Kojiki Arcology. The time is 2085. Your home combines architecture and ecology into a single three-dimensional urban structure. The arcology is more sprawling than most, covering several green spaces and temples. Residences, parks, schools, and workplaces are all designed to be close together, and aside from emergency vehicles, few vehicles are permitted aside from bicycles. Most people get around using public transportation monorails, or by walking. Much of the city's architecture seems to take cues from art deco, and overall there is an odd mixture of the old 1920s style and the ultra-modern holographic displays and so-on. Wireless communication access is near-ubiquitous, and everyone has their ultramodern smartphone handy.
Like all arcologies, Kojiki is built with security in mind. Scanners and checkpoints at every entrance scan for contraband and undesirables, including inhuman or monstrous infiltrators. Contraband still manages to sneak in and there is a black market for everything from weapons to magic tomes, if one knows where to look.
General Setting Info Dump
About fifty years ago, the Ashcroft Foundation shocked the world by going public with the following: magic was real. And they had used it to develop new technology capable of generating steady, clean energy. This Dimensional Engine soon propelled mankind forward by leaps and bounds. Finally, we had the revolution in energy futurists had anticipated would come with the atomic age. Soon after the development of the D-engine, antigravity systems were also developed, and humanity has leveraged them both to usher in a new age of exploration. Powered armor and even larger humanoid mecha have been developed for both peaceful purposes like construction and for war.
Additional advances in fields such as cybernetics, nanotechnology, and biological engineering have led to revolutions in medicine and everyday life. One can generate just about anything with a nanofactory...provided one has access to it. Medical cybernetics exist, although far more common are replacement tissues created using a person's own cells and then attached with the help of nanomedicine or beneficial sorcery.
Founded by renegades among the Children of Chaos who stole the Ta'ge fragments, The Eldritch Society is a loose society of sorcerers, psychics, and others who know of the hidden truths of the world and act to protect it and humanity from these darker influences. The society has developed the Rite of Sacred Union from information contained within the fragments, a ritual similar to the Rite of Transfiguration that does not force one to lose their mortality. Instead, it calls out into the universe, to bring a mortal and a "higher being" together in symbiosis. However, participants in the rite would be "judged worthy". Tagers, as they have come to be called, are mortals who have undergone the Rite of Sacred Union and survived. They are monsters with the hearts of men, and are the Eldritch Society's greatest warriors.
The Chrysalis Corporation is one of the world's most influential and largest megacorporations, often chief competitor to the Ashcroft Foundation itself. It is also rotten from the inside. Decades ago, Chrysalis rediscovered the Rite of Transfiguration, a powerful ritual that transforms a human into...something else. This attracted the attention of the god Nyarlatheotep, and it gathered its mortal cult, the Children of Chaos, and silently took over. Most Chrysalis employees are completely unaware of the cult's existence, or any other darker influences, although eventually cult initiation and promotion are one and the same.
A mortal undergoing the Rite of Transfiguration is changed into a form "more suiting to his masters." He becomes a shapeshifting monstrosity known as a Dhoanoid. Although they walk around like men, their true form lurks just under the surface. Utterly inhuman in body and soul, a dhoanoid is easily discovered by genetic scans or mystical means. Essentially the natural enemies/opposites of tagers. Also essentially the monster of the week villains in a tokusatsu show. Right down to stuff like "snake monster guy" and "bat monster guy" as potential aesthetics. There's some I can and will borrow from the CthulhuTech books, but one can pretty much invent anything appropriate and get away with it because that's more fun anyway.
The Black Lodge is a cabal of sorcerers founded in America that has since spread tendrils of influence across the world. All members of the Lodge are dedicated to the practice of sorcery unrestricted by moral or legal boundaries. Many of its members are powerful maestros of evil enchantment, who have traded away their humanity for even greater heights of power.
A source of weird antagonists who aren't the Children of Chaos, basically. They're probably the source of at least some of the shenanigans going on, and collaborating with the local branch of the cult, but their primary goals are their own weird magic (or science) stuff, more than anything.
Tager common abilities
Tagers can shift instantly between their human and alien forms, and no physical objects or restraints can stop the transformation. The symbiont simply destroys anything in the way. At least your clothing is instead stored in another dimension, instead of being shredded every time.
All tagers enjoy enhanced physical attributes compared to a normal human. Speed, strength, agility, perception, and even mental fortitude are affected. While tagers enjoy a small boost in their unshifted human form, they gain far greater boons when in heir shifted, alien form. The extent to which a tager's attributes are boosted does vary by individual type.
Due to your mystical connection to your symbiont, it influences you in subtle ways. Some of its own personality traits, so to speak, might begin to bleed into your own. When you are in a stressful or dangerous situation, your symbiont may try to manifest itself partially or fully, whether you want it to or not.
Abilities by form
In mortal human form,
Minor enhancement to strength, agility, and so-on.
Regenerate from injury at a slow but steady rate, recovering in only hours or days from most wounds. Any injuries suffered in your mortal form heal at this rate, even if you later change forms.
Detect Dhoanoids and other nonhuman beings. This takes about a minute of observation. While dhoanoids are recognizable as such, anything else will simply be registered as something "Other."
Communicate telepathically with tagers (shifted or not) within 100m. Sense other tagers within 10m.
In their clearly alien battle form, all tagers have the following abilities.
Full enhancement to strength, speed, agility, etc.
Ability to leap great distances with little effort.
Stick to and crawl on walls and other sheer surfaces.
Life support: your mortal form is mystically protected and you can survive in space or the deep oceans.
Armored and more resistant to injuries.
Regenerate rapidly from injury. You cannot shift back until any injuries suffered while in your alien form are healed.
Every tager has a variety of weapons and other supernatural abilities, although the specifics differ between symbionts.
Limit Weapon: A unique and powerful attack that you can use once a day, often to devastating effect.
Communicate telepathically with other tagers within 2 km. Automatically sense other tagers within 100m.
Tagers can also manifest only part of their symbiont. Although this takes an act of will under most circumstances, your symbiont does appreciate the value of discretion. When active, a tager's still appears mostly human, although their eyes take on a clearly inhuman appearance, such as becoming pitch black, blood red, or segmented like an insect's. You gain access to one of your natural weapons or supernatural abilities, can leap great distances, and can cling to walls like in your shifted form.
I'm not sure what else to put here. The info dump sections will probably grow with notable NPCs and their connections or other major plot tokens and things as they come up. Though NPCs and their ilk will also likely go in the character tab. The arcology itself probably deserves a tab eventually, tracking notable locations in it and why they're important. But for now, it's time to become the heroines neither Kojiki nor The Eldritch Society expected, much less wanted.
