Mokley

Moonfiend

The question has been asked, and I get the feeling everyone's envisioning a different scene, so here's a long-overdue, really crappy map!



Essentially there's a stairwell going up, and there's a separate stairwell going down, and you have to go through the cafeteria to get to the door that leads outside (where all the Grit are clamoring to get in).

Unquiet

Who else is floating around that might be working on a post? Say Aye! Otherwise I'll assume whoever's posted thus far is who we've got, and we'll get this party started. ;)

Mirror, Fox, Key

@Xionist Hi there and welcome! Scarlet seems pretty awesome to me -- totally approved. :)

You could go ahead and post -- the last two mod posts are all there've been so far about Cogswall, so feel free to dive in and respond to that. Once I know where Scarlet is and what he's doing, if need-be I can write him into the plot.

Mirror, Fox, Key

Spook saw them off -- nodded to each one as they said their goodbyes and rushed after the robot that would lead them to safety -- and he turned to face the teeming forest.

The disease -- the Crystalline -- was spreading fast among the wood demons. It drove them crazy, filled them with rage and bloodlust. They swarmed like piranhas at the edge of the forest, screeching and clawing and mangled by dark crystals. Their eyes glowed bright and red. The death of the infected felidrake had spawned the very terror that Spook had been trying to prevent.

All around the expansive perimeter of the wasteland, the demons gathered and screamed: hundreds of them. Maybe thousands. The air was filled with their shrieks.

Spook grinned up at them. The dark crystals crept over his face and tendriled down his arms. He dropped to his knees and, with a knife, began to carve an enormous sigil into the dry ashen ground.

---

A blaring alarm sounded from within the metallic walls, and a voice echoed threatening:

ANNIHILATION. DESTROY INCOMING LIFE FORMS ON SIGHT. THIS IS NOT A DRILL. ANNIHILATION.

With a hurried hiss and a creak, the trundling robot led Lily, Meryn and Emma around the ominous mechanical gates and into a small open side-door. The inside was bare and dark and smelled like oil and smoke; a boiler glowed hot at the far side of the stone room, and pipes hissed along the ceiling.

The robot raced directly toward the back of the room -- but as soon as Emma entered, a guard pointed a bayonet at her chest and led her to an empty side of the hot stone room. "State your name and your business," he demanded harshly, with an undertone of fear. They could hear the howling alarms and the rumbling voice on the speakers within the city. "Are you carrying any weapons?"

Lily was next, and a second guard separated her from Emma at the point of a bayonet, leading her to the opposite side of the room under threat of impalement. "Put the sword down and state your name," the guard growled. "Drop all your weapons. Don't think we believe for a second that you're here for 'safe harbor' -- not when you've brought hell down on us. Why shouldn't we just shoot you?"

Meryn was the last to enter, and the door slammed shut as soon as she'd crossed the threshold. A third guard had been waiting by the door, and shoved her forward into the room toward the boiler. "Please state your name and your business," the guard commanded with a tremble of fear. His musket was pointed steadily at her chest. He gave her a moment, and then raised his voice. "TALK. State your name and your business! This isn't a joke!"

Lily's guard glanced across at his comrade. "Just shoot her if she won't cooperate."

Outside, on the other side of the door they had just come through, the screeching of the infected demons rose to a piercing pitch. Across the opposite door by the boiler, which led into the city, alarms blared and crowds roared and guns popped.

---

From Ronken's vantage point, he had a front-row view of the swelling angry crowds of dirty workmen and half-crazed addicts and violent gangsters looking for something to kill. The uniformed guards crossed their bayonets and held the citizens back from the door in the wall, where the travelers were being interrogated before they might be let into the city. The people of Cogswall demanded to know what was happening, where the threat was, who these people were -- they called for the travelers to be shot, while some groups screamed that they should be let through for safety, while still others were shoving everyone else in hopes of causing a riot against the government. Some of the guards fired their muskets into the air, but it did little but antagonize the throngs of people.

A huge brassy automaton whirred and creaked as it stepped through the parting crowd; it towered over them, and its driver at its head paid them no attention. The clockwork mecha grasped the edge of the wall and -- with a yank of a few levers and wheels by its goggled driver -- hauled itself up and over the wall.

While the city roiled and boomed, Ronken would feel a tap on his shoulder. Someone slightly shorter than himself -- robed and hidden in a deep hood -- spoke in a grinning, feminine voice: "You look like somebody who doesn't give a shit 'bout what the hell's goin' on. I like you."

She produced a small bag of newly minted gold coins, which she held out to him with a delicate brown hand. With the other hand, she extended to him a sealed envelope.

"Tellya what. There's one of those Travelers in there with a brass mask. I'll pay you double to deliver a message."

Mirror, Fox, Key: Chapter Two

^{art by the wonderful skrelp}

OOC is UP!

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.

SAMPLE CHARACTER SHEET

---

^{art by the magnificent Tervola}

Name: Spook

Abstract: A masked Traveller with a permanent grin

Detail:
When Spook stands still and quiet, he is a most menacing figure: the mask and hood and well-used sword give passersby good reason to avoid crossing his path. He looks like something that might spend his free time summoning dark hellions or snatching children in the night.

This, according to the Travellers who know him, is a hilarious idea. The very thought of Spook doing something as productive as summoning a beast of any kind is simply ridiculous. Spook is best known for being cheap, for his endless sense of humor, and for taking nothing at all seriously. He couldn't pretend to be evil if his life depended on it.

The Travellers have asked him why he knows the rare magic runes of the Magi. They've asked him how he learned to fight so well when he barely had the discipline to stand up straight. They've tried, time and time again, to see what he was hiding under that mask -- but to this day none have succeeded.

OOC is UP!

Unquiet

@drewccapp you could do so whenever you're ready! :)

Unquiet

A wild @drewccapp appears! Evelyn looks like a handful -- approved of course. :3

Moonfiend

I dunno, Flor's got it pretty bad I think. xD

Moonfiend

I read that then promptly forgot it, haha. xD Thanks, will edit!

Moonfiend

Flor jumped to the railing the boy sat on, just as he was about to reach him, he leapt again toward Maria and landed behind her. Flor leapt to the railing next to her, but lost concentration as the boy screeched, and nailed the railing, tripping onto the floor Maria and Moth were on.

Moth pushed himself forward slightly, and let momentum carry him as he nearly tripped down the stairs. He barreled into the Grit on Maria's back. He clutched a bare shoulder with one hand, and the small creature pivoted to face him, eyes wild. With his own face showing no sign of emotion, Moth moved in one smooth arc and slapped it as hard as he could across its cheek.

Fueled by instinct and fear, Maria backed up and slammed her back, and the boy with it, against the railing, once - twice - three times. A shred of rational thought managed to escape the blockade of terror, and, using it, Maria slipped out of her jacket faster than a cat could sprint across a room, then tried to pry the Grit-child off of her jacket with all of her strength.

Meanwhile, in the infirmary:

Vincent sat next to the robot. "Hello, hello. Things have gone to hell in a hand basket and we're kinda caught right inside the Wall, and I'm sure your definition of safe may very well be different than ours." He kept his tone light and nonchalant, ignoring the sounds in the stairwell behind him. "Is this whom I think it is?"

"Vincent, we need get moving to the others. I've no idea what that Grit just did, but it doesn't sound like we're going to enjoy it." Walking up to the bot, Kat put her hands on its head, twisted the head and janked it clean off. She flashed a grin, adrenaline pumping through her as she handed Vincent the head. "Now let's go!"

Moth manhandled the Grit child, and the smack of his hand across the creature's face rang out in the stairwell. The boy's head snapped to the side with the impact -- and then he lunged with a terrible speed. The child drove his sharpened teeth deep into Moth's forearm, scraping bone and drawing a mouthful of blood. He would have continued his assault, except Maria thrashed him suddenly against the rail and forced him to release Moth.

The Grit yelped and scrabbled against Maria's coat every time she flung him into the railing, and his claws had ripped long gashes into the candy-filled coat. Maria was suddenly gone out of the coat and yanking at it instead; the boy dug in deeper, latched onto the coat, snarling, claws ripping savagely at it, unwilling to let it go. He spilled candy on the floor, furiously trying to search through the pockets while shoving at Maria. He wanted the pink stone, but all he found were wrappers -- and he was getting madder.

Meanwhile, Kat was rushing down the stairs with Vincent not far behind, a robot-head heavy in his arms.

< Oh it's such a relief to hear a human voice, > the queen's voice said through a speaker in the robot head. < I hear a commotion, are you under attack? What sector of the Wall are you in? I can send you an escort. >

The boy glanced over to where Kat and Vincent approached; alarmed, he flung the coat over Maria's head and shoved her into Flor. While they were occupied he launched himself at Liam, throwing him to the ground, and bounded through a door into the next room -- beyond which was the outside of the wall, where the masses of Grit were howling.

The child rushed and leaped across cafeteria tables and benches, past the open food storage that he'd ransacked earlier, and stopped at the emergency door at the far side, where something huge was scrabbling and snarling on the other side. The boy examined the locks on the door and struggled to yank them open, uncertain how they worked. He screeched a high-pitched wail, and a mass of feral voices howled just outside the door.