Inside the city, alarms howled.
The city of Cogswall was all dank copper and tarnished brass, iron vents vomiting steam, potholes filled with rancid rainwater, churning machinery, crushing gears, dark-streaked stone, labyrinths of pipes and boilers and clockwork monstrosities.
The Eminence presided over it all, assured the impoverished and desperate that hard work would bring them prosperity. Mechanical giants patrolled the streets with searchlight eyes. Dark wagons carried off the young and the accused, never to be heard from again. The only source of hope was in the markers of graves. The only source of happiness was in needles and vials.
Throughout the city, alarm bells rang and horns howled -- something rare, something that hadn't happened since the forest outside the city burned in a high inferno a decade ago.
A voice spoke over the loudspeakers throughout the city, crackling and monotonous:
ALL ARMED POLICE AND MILITARY TO THE WALL PERIMETER. ALL MECHANICALS TO BE REPROGRAMMED OFFENSIVE. ALL WEAPONRY AT THE READY. ANNIHILATION. ANNIHILATION.
There was a mass exodus to the walls: police, machines, robots, armed citizens. Monstrous mechanical tanks were released from underground bunkers. The top of the wall crowded quickly with firepower of all hellish imagination.
THE PREMISE
This is the City of Cogswall: a proud steampunk city that is as full of corruption as it is of soot and grime. Like all cities, Cogswall is surrounded on all sides by a high wall. No one knows or cares what lies beyond the wall: the citizens gratefully leave adventures to the Travellers.
Throughout this world, the majority of people live out their lives in walled cities without ever glimpsing the outside. No one is forced to remain behind locked gates -- but those that do step out of the Cogswall gates are stripped of their citizenship and residence. The dirty business of exploring and adventuring is the job of the outcasts, the people called Travellers.
Traveller is a title given to those adventurous few who move between cities. They may be messengers, merchants, beast-hunters and storytellers. Almost every city will welcome a Traveller in hope of trading money and supplies for the Traveller's skills and knowledge.
Your character is a citizen of Cogswall; they have lived all their lives within these walls. Travellers are so rare that the gates rarely open at all. So now, when a group of Travellers arrives and has the audacity to warn the city of an incoming danger, no respectable citizen would ever take them seriously.
GAMEPLAY
Heavy influence is taken from Kino's Journey, Mushi-Shi, Undertale, Ico and Shadow of the Colossus, among others. The focus will be on exploration, problem-solving and character interaction. Expect colorful and trippy scenarios, anime physics, tropey plots, and stuff that doesn't quite make logical sense. This is a fantasy world where, outside the secluded city of Cogswall, anything goes.
The RP will progress (at first) based on a series of missions dictated by the Traveller or requested by citizens of foreign cities. Throughout the journey, characters can expect to gain new skills, abilities, tools and allies that will help them become strong and competent Travellers themselves. There will be an overarching plot involving a Big Bad -- traces of that plot will be introduced early in the RP, but it's not the immediate objective. If all goes according to plan, the story will begin happily innocent and slowly progress into something darker. If you're looking for a consistently happy-go-lucky RP, this is probably not for you.
CHARACTERS
Characters originate in the city of Cogswall, which is your average gritty-yet-advanced Steampunk city. Everyone is human. There is no magic. Your character has probably heard tales passed down from long-ago Travellers about sigils and spells and intelligent monsters, but they are only stories. You are free to create locations and cultures within the city where needed to flesh out your character's history.
Antlers
Shifter_Master
Neziul
Iluvtoji
IAmTheIsland
Bugman
Passable Writer
Fetzen
Not a Sayan
Stanifly
