BingTheWing

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@DeadDrop oh f*ck i was supposed to tell you i was pulling out

my bad my bad sorry bro

The Lamplit Men - A Colonial American RP

History of St. Alexander

Before the colonial era, St. Alexander was the island of Pequosset, ‘bloodshed’ in the native Indian tongue. The nature of said moniker was due to the notoriously violent and allegedly cannibalistic Lawcasee tribe, who had made Pequosset part of their territory. Through centuries of violent infighting with neighboring tribes, the Lawcasee were raid-for-raid gradually exterminated, the climax of which occurred on the island of Pequosset itself, where legend holds that the last of the Lawcasee were massacred in a bloody last-stand battle against the neighboring tribes just decades before the first colonists landed. Due to the bloody history of the island, Spanish and French colonizers largely ignored Pequosset until the British arrived. In the early 1670s, as the city of Charleston was founded, Pequosset was incorporated with it and renamed St. Alexander (after the Christian martyr whom the lions of the Roman Colosseum would not touch).

As Charleston expanded economically over the latter half of the 17th century, St. Alexander progressed with it. However, what set the two islands apart was the prevalence of smallpox and yellow fever on the mainland, which, after repeated outbreaks, had rendered the citizens of Charleston practically immune to it. However, those on St. Alexander were isolated from the disease, and so did not develop said immunity. It was thus that a major cultural split developed between town and island: the native Charlestonians would never really consider the St. Alexandrians as geographical natives, and the solitary St. Alexandrians generally considered Charleston an unhealthy and unsafe place to stay in. Nevertheless, St. Alexander earned a reputation for being a good stopover point by visitors and traders to avoid the yellow fever on the mainland, and by 1756 was thriving on the commerce of pine timber, beaver pelts, rice, and (naturally) slaves.

When the Grey Rot started, St. Alexander was a natural checkpoint for the screening of refugee ships for infected, and also temporary housing for refugees. This also naturally made St. Alexander the first territory in South Carolina to fall should an outbreak happen. As the influx of refugees increases and increases, it is clear the island is becoming a giant ticking time bomb - a single outbreak could merit an island-wide quarantine by the colonial authorities.

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Tentative interest.

The Lamplit Men - A Colonial American RP

So I’ve had a bit of luck, and managed to get something finished. I am accepting character submissions now.

Character Creation Guidelines

Playing actual natives of St. Alexander instead of refugees is allowed, but will be limited. I want the story to focus mainly on the outsiders.

Keep in mind that actual social and cultural norms of the period will be present and will have affected your characters. People who aren’t straight white males are going to have a somewhat less privileged upbringing.

A lot of lower-class refugees paid for their voyage by agreeing to become indentured servants, i.e to work in the colonies until travel fare is paid off. You would have arranged a contract with your ship captain from Europe, who is now probably a shambling ghoul in Nassau. You would have then arranged another contract with the captain of the Lioness in exchange for safe passage to St. Alexander.

Characters are encouraged to have combat experience, whether it be from a upbringing in the slums, military service, or being in a profession that requires it (e.g bounty hunting). No secret assassin badasses, though - while capable, your characters should also be human.

Like most real life refugees, your character would have initially planned to escape with family or friends. Said family may or may not have been killed in the Nassau outbreak, though if they aren’t dead bear in mind your character will have to balance caring for them with interacting with the other characters in the RP.

NOTE: Other follow-up questions about character creation will be amswered here.

CS

Name: (Self-explanatory. Make sure to be in line with the naming conventions of the era and of your country of origin.)

Age: (No small children or very old people unless special permission is granted.)

Nationality/Country of Origin: (A good portion of the refugees will be subjects of the British Empire, but the Council of Lyons has made a lot of escape efforts more internationally cohesive.)

Religion: (Religious conflict was very much alive and well during this era.)

Appearance: (Should be brief yet descriptive. Pictures are optional, but are not a substitute for at least a short written counterpart.)

Personality: (I really hate filling out this part, because it’s not that simple to describe what is essentially the entire identity of a person. Keep it short and sweet, 4 sentences will do.)

Biography: (Refer to the Timeline for what could have happened to your character during the plague. Remember, you’ve also just escaped from an outbreak in Nassau.)

Talents/Abilities: (Can you pick a lock? Sing a song? Throw a good punch? Remember to make your skills appropriate to your background - peasant farmers would not have had private fencing lessons.)

Belongings: (Only what you could take with you on the voyage. Weapons would probably not be as highly regulated - a refugee who can defend himself is better than a refugee dead or turned.)

There have also been changes to the lore - the outbreak happened in Nassau in the Bahamas, not Kingston, and St. Alexander is now located off the South Carolina coast, a few miles east of Charleston.

The Lamplit Men - A Colonial American RP

No problem, @Arkitekt. Thanks for letting me know.

As to all who are interested, I'm going to be really busy over the weekend. My apologies, but the CS may not come out until early next week.

The Lamplit Men - A Colonial American RP

Currently making a CS sheet with character creation guidelines. After that I will make an OOC and probably start with a description of St. Alexander itself.

The Lamplit Men - A Colonial American RP

Important: I'm kind of busy for the rest of the year, and though I will do my best to keep things going I am going to need a co-GM. Anyone want to volunteer?

The Lamplit Men - A Colonial American RP

@Jbcool Nope, just people getting excited hahaha. The CS will probably be your generic history/ability/equipment shebang, but at the moment you are free to send me what you would put in your character's 'Biography' field.

@Arkitekt Woah, slow down there pardner! Are you just sending me your character biographies?

The Lamplit Men - A Colonial American RP

First draft of the timeline. Nitpicking of historical inaccuracies/improbabilities is highly encouraged.

Timeline of the Grey Rot

November 1755 - The Transylvanian village of Întuneric, known for the supernatural happenings that occur there and the perceived ‘eccentricity’ of its natives, suddenly goes ‘quiet’. Visitors to the village are never heard from again, letters sent there go unresponded to, and a faint smell of rotting flesh permeates the surrounding countryside.

December 1755 - A coalition of nearby villages, assisted by a small company of Austrian imperial soldiers, is formed to investigate the sudden silence of Întuneric. A party of 50 spends one night in the village and returns a party of 40, panicked, with bite marks all over their bodies and accounts of the villagers attacking them like rabid animals. All of the 40 survivors expire within 8 hours. Minutes after their supposed expirations, said 40 survivors begin to display the characteristics of their attackers. By New Years’ Eve, hordes of the dead are already crossing the borders of Wallachia.

January 1756 - The Holy Roman Empire sends troops into Transylvania as the infection, now dubbed the ‘Grey Rot’ after the complexions of its victims, progresses southward into Bulgaria and Greece. The panic it creates causes a sudden influx of refugees into Ottoman Turkey, resulting in a surprise outbreak in Constantinople that quickly overruns the entire city.

February 1756 - Imperial forces are unable to contain the infection as the Grey Rot has already contaminated the Danube. Outbreaks occur throughout all of the Balkans as the region is thrown into anarchy.

March 1756 - By this time, the infection has a significant presence in southern Poland and the Ukraine. The Rot is held back only by the sheer military might of the Holy Roman Empire, and the effective closing of all rivers to Western Europe. The petty squabbles of Western Europe that would have led to the Seven Years’ War are set aside in the hasty Treaty of Nice to deal with the threat.

April 1756 - Ottoman refugees in the Caucasus discover that the infected freeze when exposed to sub-zero temperatures. Subsequently, a risky attempt is made by the Russian Empire to lure the horde into the northeast cold to perish. Meanwhile, the Grey Rot breaks through the Alps, rendering the German states dead in the water.

May 1756 - Martial law is enacted in France, Spain, and Great Britain as refugees from eastern Europe spill over into those areas, fleeing a dying Holy Roman Empire. As Polish boats cross the Baltic to escape to the Scandinavian cold, British battleships patrol the English Channel, boarding refugee ships at random and sinking those with suspected infected on board. The craze to get to America, long simmering since February, reaches a climax as hundreds of members of the French, Spanish, and British nobility begin to escape across the Atlantic.

June 1756 - Britain, France, Spain, Russia and the Scandinavian states form the Council of Lyons, an ad hoc committee whose ultimate goal is to cease the Grey Rot. The first ordinance of the council is to deploy a coalition force in Prussia and along the Rhine to consolidate a ‘last border’ against the infected horde.

August 1756 - Correspondence with Russia becomes more and more intermittent as the government in Moscow is forced to temporarily relocate to allow for the Imperial Army to lure the dead further into the east. Meanwhile, the North American colonies grow more and more discontent with the massive amount of refugees (and therefore risk of the disease) they are forced to receive by their colonial overlords, with minor riots and civil unrest sparking in French Louisiana.

September 1756 - A ghoul is dispatched aboard a refugee ship docking in New York harbor, adding to the paranoia in the North American colonies. The province of Georgia, in a near-suicidal defiance of British colonial mandate, refuses to accept any more refugees from the Caribbean, and it is clear war will be inevitable if the refusal is upheld.

October 1756 - A huge outbreak occurs in Nassau, the Bahamas, that forces the colonial counterparts of the Council of Lyons to quarantine the entire island. Ships that departed before the official enactment of the quarantine make their way to St. Alexander, North Carolina.

November 1756 - Present day. The Southern Colonies are on the brink of rebellion, nobody knows whether the Russians have routed the eastern horde yet, and you are on the last ship from Kingston into Saint Alexander.

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@Graviloquence I think I may have to back out.