Mokley

Echo

NPC descriptions and approved characters shall be posted here!

Eventually something more interesting will be in this spot, haha!

Echo

@RedXCross Awesome! Thanks for stopping in! :D

@c3p-0h I see you there. ;)

@UberBlutwurst@Dud@Briza@Tojin

OOC IS UP!

It may have warped a bit from the original concept. Absolutely ask any and all questions, and I'll refine the descriptions accordingly. To be honest this is the most explanation I've ever had to do for a single concept, and I hope it's not confusing. @_@

Echo

You wake up to a light shining in your eyes.

"Ah, good! Consciousness. Excellent." With a click the light is gone, leaving spots in your vision. While your surroundings come into focus, you hear the whirr and hiss of steampowered machinery, bubbling water, and the scribble of pen to paper. A coppery, burning smell fills the air.

You were sure you had died. Is this a hospital?

"Open up. Say 'Ah!'" A tongue depressor invades your mouth. "Very good. Move your fingers? And your toes. Full motor capability, good. Echo one one six, successful transmutation, body intact, subject is conscious and retains understanding of language."

Your vision clears. You're lying naked in a glass-and-metal pod, staring up at a stone ceiling crisscrossed by pipes and gears, dimly illuminated by dusty caged bulbs. There are bigger machines around you and more pods like yours -- some of them filled with unmoving bodies.

"Now then, hello! Please don't panic." The sprightly voice belongs to a small sandy-haired man wearing thick funny goggles with a dozen interchangeable lenses. "I'm Doctor Kelodie. You're quite safe and very much alive. What do you remember? Let's start with your name."

concept

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The land of Roon is under attack by the enormous and powerful Monsters of Draconic Origin (MODO) which appear and disappear unexpectedly, leaving swaths of death and destruction in their wake. Conventional weapons and elemental technologies have no effect on the MODO, and the monsters' unannounced appearances render all evacuation efforts useless.

Out of desperation, researchers and mechanikers have turned to the ancient myths for help: the story of the origin of all things created out of Nothingness, the Dragon Ashig-Morool who hungered to devour the Nothingness, and the unnamed hero who returned to life from death, who drew upon the power of Nothingness itself to shatter Ashig-Morool into nine lesser monsters that were imprisoned and laid to sleep, scattered throughout Roon.

It had been just a story, until the MODO began to wake.

In theory, a person who is brought back from the dead will retain a connection with the Between: a plane of existence between life and death, where ghosts and daemons reside. Using this connection -- in theory -- this person could call those daemons into reality, to utilize their inherent magics and power to combat the MODO. In theory, this person might even trap and control the MODO themselves by the same methods.

By abandoning morality, the mechanikers have devised a way to return the dead to life. They are called Echoes, and they are the only hope of civilization.

character

---

You were dead. Now you're alive. Your body is flawless and new, but it is undoubtedly your own.

The mechanikers have no means of choosing which souls they bring back from the dead. The only restriction is the person must have died within the previous twenty years, and within a radius of one hundred miles of the laboratory.

Characters will have grown up in the Kingdom of Sink, in a time of clockwork technology and budding steam-powered machines. The kingdom is enormous: it encompasses several towns and numerous villages, each with its own history and flavor, as well as a vast mountain range, deep forests, a dead wasteland in the south and the coast along the sea.

Character histories may be based on any number of possible environments that could exist within the kingdom, but please note that anything and everything that you come up with outside the character itself -- including places, organizations and NPCs -- are forfeit to GM control and manipulation. As GM, I retain the right of full creative power over everything but your own character. Please keep this in mind before you create your own NPCs and towns.

Characters may be of any age, but must be human. Characters will start out with no possessions whatsoever. Characters who are disinterested in the storyline and are not inclined to participate in the storyline whatsoever are not prohibited from doing so, but You're Gonna Have a Bad Time. Please take note as you're developing your character's personality.

gameplay

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Your character is an Echo: someone brought back from the dead, who can see into and interact with the Plane Between Life and Death (referred to as "Between"). This means your character can see ghosts and daemons. Ghosts are exactly what you'd imagine them to be. Daemons are strange and sometimes powerful creatures that can't interact with reality and are invisible to everyone but the Echoes. To your character, they are as alive as any other animal -- your character can see and touch and hear them, and they can see and touch and hear your character.

As an example, let's say your character is walking down the road in the company of another person who is not an Echo. Suddenly, a little beast with scales and fur and long teeth leaps out of the foliage and attacks your character. To your character, it is a fight to the death. To the person walking alongside, however, it looks like your character is swatting at nothing, and probably thinks your character is more than a little crazy.

At the beginning of gameplay, your character will be given a bag of pebbles: uneven little colored stones that are made of pure Nothing, the source of everything. By touching a weakened or willing daemon with a pebble, your character can bind that daemon into the pebble. With a little concentration, your character could then summon the daemon out of the pebble and into reality.

So, back to the road example. Your character captures the daemon into a pebble. Just as your friend starts to call your character crazy, your character summons the captured beast -- and now it exists in reality, and the friend can see and touch and hear the creature just as well as you can.

These summoned daemons are the only things that are capable of harming the MODO. It is possible to capture a MODO in the same way, if you'd rather not kill it -- but perhaps you'll need a bigger pebble.

Characters may want to travel to new areas to find different types of daemons, or daemons with greater power. They will have to be vigilant and aware of their surroundings, willing to follow clues and solve mysteries to piece together what's happening and why.

They will chase down the MODO and prevent them from further destruction, but the core of the story lies in the reason the MODO are waking in the first place. Something is Happening, and it's up to your characters to figure it out and decide what to do about it.

rules

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Questions and ideas are always awesome. The OOC is a friendly and happy place at all times. Any concerns, complaints or objections should be sent via PM to the GM, and I'll do my best to help you out directly. I maintain a no-tolerance policy against hostile or hateful comments in the OOC.

c.s.

---

Please post character sheets in the OOC, to be copied to the Characters tab upon GM approval.

Name:

Age:

Abstract: (sum up your character in a sentence)

Detail: (anything and everything we should know about your character; be as succinct or as detailed as you like)

Moonfiend

I'm sure the Grit have that soulstone by now, sorry to say!

Poor Otto. ;-;

Lantern

It was quick like a blow to the head.

Hot, crippling pain exploded in Erin's skull. A piercing light flashed behind her eyes. A terrible, trembling horror ripped through her like knives of ice. Blinded, she felt as if she were falling, falling from an impossible height, down and deep into a hungry hot chasm stretched wide to receive her like the great maw of a beast. Its damp swirling breath smelled bittersweet, like chocolate laced with a hint of cinnamon --

"What do you mean, she stole the gryphon?!" an elderly woman's voice snapped in the distance.

Erin awoke at night, sprawled on a dusty, warped wooden floor, surrounded by a chaos of books and bones and dried herbs and splinters of wood; everything was bathed in a soft red light. A shattered mug lay beside her, alongside an open torn book on herbology and a stiff squirrel with hollow eye sockets.

All around her, the little one-room cabin was in shambles: mirrors, apples, jars, and shattered and broken metallic devices were flung everywhere. A closet at the back was propped open, and masses of armor and weapons had spilled out of it onto the floor: breastplates and helmets, boots and gloves, swords and staves and bows. All of the equipment was etched with odd sweeping symbols. A mechanical, owl-sized bird sat in a corner, whirring quietly.

Above her, the wall and roof appeared to have been recently invaded by thick tree branches and sprawling roots; the wood panels were freshly shattered around the bark of the trespassing tree, as if it had suddenly attacked the cabin. Wood dust was piled on the countertop, and a deep cut had been made in the largest of the branches that thrust in through the kitchen and poked out of the broken ceiling. A glimmer of a starry night sky shone dark through the holes in the roof.

At the center of the cabin, on top of the sturdy table that was the only thing that had survived the attack, sat the source of the eerie red light: a lantern with iron casing etched with symbols that seemed very different from those that were carved into the piles of armor. The iron enclosed a glass encasement, within which there was no flame -- instead, the source of the red light appeared to be an egg, protected within the lantern, the size of a small melon.

"I'm telling you the gryphon flew off with that girl on its back!" a male voice growled outside.

Two people were outside, in back of the cabin; their voices carried over the nighttime sounds of crickets and toads and a faint gurgle of running water.

"Well you'll need another way to get back, then. Your brother's under the spell of that sun-child who's calling herself the Lady of Light, and who knows what she'll do to him. Don't fuss at me, just let me sit down."

"The legend says they're supposed to help us, Baba," the man raged in frustration. "What's happening?"

"Everything's going to pot, that's what's happening," the old woman wearily griped.

---

Oseely watched with great humor, his arms folded, as Artemis discovered a new and unconventional way to mount an unruly gryphon. Her triumph brought a hearty laugh and a few big-handed claps of applause; it was refreshing to see someone actually being resourceful around here.

"Hah! You wanna summon the fire-god, hah? Use your connections to your benefit, then? Hum!" His white grin flashed with humor; Artemis was nothing if not entertaining. "I tellya what, I'll do ya one better. Hold out yer hand."

He stepped forward -- when Nura started fidgeting, he calmed her with a quick "Sh!" -- and he simply tapped Artemis' palm with one finger.

After a moment, Artemis would feel a gentle burning sensation in her hand, as if she'd just touched a hot coal. It faded after a moment, and a jagged rune glowed orange on her palm. After another few seconds, that too faded away.

"There. I'll share a bit of my power with ya. Fire and smoke, yeah? You'll figure that out on your own. If ya still wanna call me up, you'll have to make a fire and dance around it, and chant 'Orim Allin Siridu Say' until I appear in the flames." He said this very seriously, though he was trying very hard not to smile. None of it was necessary to summon him, but he thought it would be funny to see her try.

He pointed out over the trees. "Oyagun Nai is straight that way, you'll see it. Watch out for wolves." He gave her a wink and immediately vanished -- as if he had never been there at all.

The dead forest loomed cold and dark around her, the burned trees like white bones sticking out of the ashes. The moon was low on the horizon, and the stars shone deep in the endless sky behind the mountain; the wind and the lights from before were all gone, and there was no sound.

The shadows seemed to be moving -- undulating like ripples in water -- but then, it could just be a trick of the light.

The first Artemis would see of Oyagun Nai was the sharp spire of a bright white lighthouse that flashed over the beach and the glistening ocean, highlighting the silhouettes of fishing boats and schooner sails. The village was clean white and bright blue -- all stone and glass and seashells -- their white round houses and long docks spilling out into the cove. People rushed and shouted in the dark, holding fire-flickering lamps that cast shadows on frozen gears and pulleys, dark glassy bulbs and still wires.

Streetlamps hung dark over the docks; huge mechanisms over the ports were still and lilted, as if they'd collapsed; a panicked group of people in fishing boats chased after a barge that floated sideways away from the port, released from the machinery that had suddenly stopped working. A box of fresh bread and milk swayed suspended on one of the many dead pulley lines that crisscrossed above the village.

The only light -- besides that of the lighthouse -- shone from a squat domed building that sat on the beach a small distance from the village itself, connected to it only by a straight stone road. Billows of white steam puffed out of several smokestacks that riddled the smooth roof; occasionally the light in the windows flashed green or blue or silver before dimming to the dull orange of firelight. The white stone building was covered in blue sweeping runes.

---

Peck remained quiet and frightened, a few paces behind Anise, not daring to interrupt or even to look the Lady of the Pond in the eyes. His upbringing had taught him to never trust the Lords and Ladies, and to always show them the highest form of respect: complete and utter fear. When Anise spoke to him, he met her eyes for only a moment before he nodded silently, so intent was he to assure the Lady of the Pond that he wasn't here at all. He bowed his head again in respect, and waited for the conversation to be done.

The two Kith, meanwhile, murmured between themselves and kept a close eye on the Lady of the Pond and the mysterious tattered girl who commanded two of the five Lanterns, both at the same time. They were entranced and enamored by the sight, and never once considered that they could be spotted.

The Lady of the Pond peered into Anise for a moment, considering her words. "You're concerned for my safety, at the hands of the Lord of Shadow?" Her perfect lips formed an amused smile. "He is powerless against me. The water is unaffected by darkness; it flows in light, it flows in pure shadow. He could send the dead into my waves and they can gather at the bottom of the lake for eternity for all I care. He cannot threaten me, no matter how angry he might be. The Lord of Flame could boil me, The Lord of the Breeze could suck the lake dry; the Lady of the Stone could dam my rivers, and the Lord of the Wood could fill the lake with forests til their roots have devoured it -- but the Lord of Shadow is nothing. Keep that in mind, Lady of Light, as you discover the power I've drawn into your hand."

She stepped back over the surface of the water, smiling dimly. "Touch a circle in the surface of a bowl of water, and I will appear to you," she told Anise. "Should you have need of me, Lady of Light." With that, she dissipated in a shimmer of faint fog, and then there was nothing but the lap of the sparkling water of the lake.

Peck released a breath he'd been holding, and he wiped sweat from his brow. "Well. That went okay I guess? We gotta do that again, huh? The Lady of the Stone?" He was not at all happy about this. "She's probably down in the old caverns under the mountain. That's a forbidden place, where the Dragon used to be sealed up. Haunted, too." He shifted from foot to foot, hoping Anise would just forget about the whole thing but knowing very well she was determined to keep going.

"It'll take at least half a day to walk there. Wish I hadn't sent my gryphon away, we could --"

Peck suddenly fell forward, facefirst in the sand; a tendril of shadow had curled around his ankle, and dragged him instantly into the darkness of the woods. A dozen shimmering spirits -- rippling and bright-eyed -- stood beneath the branches, staring through Anise with a dead, chilling hopelessness.

---

It was quick like a blow to the head.

Hot, crippling pain exploded in Naia's skull. A piercing light flashed behind her eyes. A terrible, trembling horror ripped through her like knives of ice. Blinded, she felt as if she were falling, falling from an impossible height, down and deep into a hungry hot chasm stretched wide to receive her like the great maw of a beast. Its damp swirling breath smelled bittersweet, like chocolate laced with a hint of cinnamon --

She awoke at night on the dusty stone floor of a wide gray tent; a pale violet light illuminated wooden tables full of old books and used dishes, a half-empty mug of what smelled like dishwater beer, and a lumpy old mattress on the floor beside her. There was a spindly old man asleep on the mattress, a sheet wound around his wrinkled legs. He drooled as he snored.

The violet light came from a lantern that sat on the floor by the closed flap of the tent; this lantern was made of iron and etched with strange markings. Inside there was no fire; instead, the light seemed to be coming from inside a melon-sized egg within the glass enclosure of the lantern.

Outside the tent, Naia could hear the murmur and laughter of voices, and the quiet whistle of a flute. There were more people out there, gathered around a bonfire, leaning against their sleeping gryphons as they told stories of dragons and sunlight.

Lantern

Woohoo! Excellent. :D

Hokay, next mod post we'll get Erin situated. Yes! And that post shall be ... soon! I'm feelin' it.

Moonfiend

Heya @Stitches, welcome to the crew! I think Kharees has the potential to add another perspective to the Grit issue, which is always cool.

@drewccapp I kinda feel bad now for basically dumping GM duties on you, hahaha. Absolutely deflect back to me if/whenever you want. ;)

Echo

@UberBlutwurst Hiya! Good to see ya!

I'd assume we're expected to each catch more than one mushimon?

@Dud

I think yes. There are two types of catchable creatures: the average critters that naturally inhabit the plane-between-worlds, and the Ancient Monsters of Godly Origin. You'll need a small army of average critters (who can be pretty tuff in their own right) to weaken the Ancient Monsters of Godly Origin enough to seal them up.

Will we all be human? I mean, we'll be technically undead (reliving?), but will species play a part too?

Everyone shall be human. Just from personal experience, all the RPs I've had where different/unusual species were allowed were the very same RPs that died the quickest. I will go ahead and blame the weird species, haha. But also, it's one less thing I'll have to keep track of, so it's a selfish preference.

Will the characters remember their pasts? Will they still live at home, with the spouse and kids, eating dinner with them every night, but maybe on a special diet of ethereal essences? Or will it be a top secret government conspiracy, giving everyone new identities and sticking them in a sort of witness protection?

The characters will remember their pasts, but they probably will be brought back to life far away from home -- geographically and/or chronologically. The group that brings them back from the dead will probably try to keep their identities as secret as possible, especially from anyone who might recognize that they had died. You guys want code names, like the X-Men? Totally doable. But to answer the question, no, they will not be able to continue their old lives. They're welcome to try, but in that case I will be forced to wave my magic GM wand of doom.

How many evil factions will there be? Obviously there will be other groups, guarding shards and whatever temples they're housed in, like you said. You mentioned various cults cropping up over the years; is there one unified front attempting to obtain the pieces of the dead god, or various groups at war with each other to see who can rule the world first? That could be neat.

There is one unified group whose goal is to find and unify the pieces of the dead god (otherwise herein known as the Ancient Monsters of Godly Origin). This singular group is responsible for the hell that is befalling civilization. You bring up an interesting idea, though -- perhaps a few of the other cults have come to an agreement that this unified organization is running against their interests -- and although these cults are generally bad news for most people, they're also fighting against the Big Bad. Dilemmas abound!

I need to come up with solid names for all this, probably by directly ripping off Lord Dunsany for a lot of it. Will keep you guys updated.

Moonfiend

@drewccapp I leave it to you to describe the mansion, and whether there are any stone people in it. Whatever you say goes! ;)

Also, if anyone wants to chime in on where on the hologram map you might find your friends and family, absolutely do so. They'll just appear as pink dots, though, and there's no way of knowing who's who while the power's out.

Moonfiend

"I suggest we use my family's mansion as a starting point. It's fairly central to the city as my father is one of the primary Rune Mages of Periphery. There are also several exits and it has a decent level of security, so I don't think it's likely that the Grit have entered much more than the grounds. We could all move to where we need to fairly quickly from there."

“Do you think we could use it to keep the people we restore safe as well?” She asked Vincent. Her mind then started to think about how many that would be. “At least to begin with before we could move them somewhere safer?”

"I think--uh, Vince, right?--Vince makes a good point. We, um, we don't know what else the Grit have out there that--that hasn't been unleashed yet, but I want to be somewhere safe before we head to the mines. I think--I think we all do."

"They were right, you know. The top shits on everyone below and we're supposed to think of it as a little rainstorm. My parents are dead because of you people."

Silence. Moth realized who he had spoken to and stared at his boots. "Sorry."

"Whatever you lot want to do, I'm with you a hundred percent. Although I would ask that we move quickly, the faster we can get into and secure the mansion, the faster we can have a rest and go investigate the mines."

The Queen's eyes remained steady on Moth's downturned face; the image of his fiery glare was burned into her mind. It was the flash of emotion that she'd dreaded since she became aware of the experiments -- since the lies and the failures. She imagined the glare of all of Periphery in his face. "I don't defend what has happened," she said steadily. "I don't claim innocence. But I believe your family is alive, or at least able to be saved."

Vincent, meanwhile, had touched the place of the mansion on the sigil on the wall. The streets of the map glowed blue, then white; a swirl of liquid shimmered, radiating out from the central spire. The floating stones throughout the cavern gleamed a little brighter, a gentle blossoming hue that glittered in reflection on the craggy stone walls.

"You're Vincent DeMoore," the Queen said in recognition, mild and curious. A small smile glinted on her pale face. "I feel better knowing someone of your experience will be accompanying this expedition."

The portal rippled and opened wide -- immediately Roy stepped through it to check the other side before any of the humans would be allowed to pass. The portal sloshed and swirled in his wake, then smoothed to a watery shimmer.

The Queen extended one arm and tapped on a metallic bracelet, which detached from her wrist with a click. It looked like an old-fashioned holographic band, such as the type most people wore more than five years ago -- ancient in terms of technology -- but this one had rows of tiny sigils etched into the metallic surface that had never been seen before.

Confidently, the Queen approached Berry and indicated with a gesture that she should hold out her arm, so the Queen could fasten the band around her wrist. Four sigils glowed brighter than the rest. The Queen invited Berry to touch the first one. A holographic map of the city appeared above Berry's arm, with a red dot over the central spire. Berry's location. Tapping again would zoom in, and touching the hologram itself could reposition the map.

The second sigil brought up masses of pink dots on the map. "Those are city folk," the Queen explained. All of them were static.

The third sigil added blue dots to the map. There was a seething cluster of them against the North wall, and more blue dots separating and moving slowly through the streets. "Grit," the Queen said solemnly.

The last sigil brought up larger green dots that were scattered evenly throughout the city. "Those are portals that will bring you back here," said the Queen. "The robots will prepare them for activation."

The hologram showed that Vincent's mansion was entirely empty of Grit, but Roy was making a thorough check to be sure. There was no telling whether the grit's life signature would change after it ate a soul -- they couldn't take any chances.

"Will you show them the way?" the Queen asked of Berry, confident in her decision. Vincent needed to focus on sigils and planning; Liam seemed to be the defender of the group; Maria would be preoccupied with keeping everyone's mental states in a positive light, and Moth's emotions seemed a bit unstable to be given such responsibility for the moment. Berry, however, had a clear head on her shoulders, and the Queen trusted her immediately.

Roy returned through the portal, which rippled around him. His eyes flickered and flashed. "All clear!" He went back to the mansion again to await further orders.

The Queen watched as the others began to traverse through the portal, but she approached Moth before he could follow. "You work for that accounting firm, don't you? Does your calculator still work?" she watched him carefully until he could confirm that it did. "The rune that you need will be filed under imbuement, called Ergo. It will return souls to their bodies. Please also keep an eye on the power grids; they're down now, but a return of power could be beneficial." She stepped back to allow him to follow the others.

Liam was last to approach, and the Queen was waiting for him with a bag of what looked like large marbles. She handed him the bag by the drawstring. "These are a sort of smoke bombs that are harmless to humans but should stop Grit in their tracks." Her mouth set to a slightly worried line. "I say should because they're untested. Please take care. This is all I have."

With that she stepped back, and the remaining robots followed Liam through the portal, their laser guns held at ready.

On the other side, all was quiet and dark. The electricity had blown, and all the mechanisms and comforts of Vincent's home hung silent. The city had never been so quiet.

In the distance, the echo of hammering and booming was the only indication that the Grit were still tearing at the Wall.