Ohm

THE HOUSE ALWAYS WINS: A Dimension-Defying, Eldritch Battle Royale

THE HOUSE ALWAYS WINS

You wake up in a room, all alone. You have no idea how you got here from wherever you once were. You don't even know how long it's been. Could be hours. Could be years.

The things you find here in the room you're in are a mix of dingy and pristine, ancient and modernized. Things that belong in a museum, that belong in distant-future science fiction novels, that belong in IKEA magazines and medieval castles and dystopian worlds awash with apocalypse—a mish-mash of timelines and histories—they're all here. Some of these things are independent, existing solely by themselves; noumenon. Some exist in combination, merged together as some sort of interchronal chimera, unusual and unusable.

Whatever you find simultaneously draws your curious mind and attention towards it, but also stirs a form of dread that swirls within your core. There's a desire to escape, and soon it overwhelms you. The windows are right there. You can find something to shatter the glass, to escape into the blinding whiteness that exists right outside the walls. On instinct, you grab something heavy—a chair, a free-standing mirror, a lamp, one of the ancient mechanisms you can't seem to place the history of—and you fastball it against the glass.

No effect. The glass remains solid. The dread deepens even more, starts to hollow you out.

You run for the door and find it open. You expect to burst into the hallway of... somewhere. You assume a house, and when you emerge from the room, you find yourself in another room. A library. A mansion? You gun it for the door across the way, speeding past towering bookshelves with jumbled titles across their spines. Your own spine aches as you reach the door and fling it open to reveal...

Another library.

You turn and find another door heading eastward. It flies open at your insistence, only to become the portal to a bathroom with another three doors, oddly placed in the walls, orthogonal and obstructed by a toilet or a sink or a bathtub. The design feels so wrong, and the dread in your body threatens to swallow you from the inside.

More doors. More rooms, each one repeating designs from before, shifting ever so slightly just to instill fear. The more you run, the more terror fills your every step. You're not finding a way out. You're only finding more rooms, until—

The front door. Suddenly, the fear empties from your body, and you rush for the door. This is it. Your escape. Your freedom.

But the door doesn't budge. You try again and again. You kick the door. You try to pry open the jamb, to free the door from its hinges, but no dice. The door won't move, won't come undone. In your hurried and wild attempts, you fail to notice the engraving on the door until it's too late.

You hear a click behind you and your body slowly straightens, the feeling of cold steel pressed against the back of your head. You're too afraid to turn around, and in that moment, you see the engraving.

"LAST ALIVE LEAVES"

You didn't realize you weren't alone.

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WELCOME TO THE HOUSE.

We will be playing this game using a modified variation of the one-page battle-royale system Kill or Be Killed by Carcosa Sightseeing. In the original version, players enter into a house with the intention to loot and kill the other players, in order to be the last one standing. This modified variation plays much the same way, except you're not here to loot. You start within the House, and your goal is to get out. However, in order to do so, everyone else needs to die. You must be the only one left standing by the time you reach the Front Door. The House demands blood.

SO, HOW DO YOU DO THIS?

By searching every room. You can find multiple items—consumables, weapons, armor, perhaps more—in each room, items that will help ensure your survival and the deaths of others. Be careful, though. At any point, you may encounter danger when you're unprepared, which might end in your demise. Another person might be hunting you. Even the rooms themselves are not on your side.

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NAVIGATING THE HOUSE

Each room has multiple doors that lead to other rooms. Whenever you reach a door and intend to move to another room, you'll roll a d6 to determine what room you enter into. I've modified this system to include 20+ modifiers for every room, from Non-Euclidian Geometry to Whispering Walls and beyond. The House isn't beholden to convention.

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YOU, WHO LIVE FOR NOW

Each player starts with 4 HP and 2 SPEED, where SPEED is the number of rooms you can move between. After moving, you can do one of several contextual actions.

SEARCH

This allows you to search a room for an item. Roll a d6. Depending on the room you're currently in, you'll find an item that can grant you additional stats, heal you when consumed, or trigger a different effect.

SPRINT

With this action, you can move to one more room.

FIGHT

This action can only be taken when you're in a room with another player. One player—whoever is initiating the fight—attacks, the other will defend. Roll a number of d6 equal to your ATTACK stat, which is modified depending on the weapon(s) currently in your possession. The defending player will roll a number of d6 equal to their DEFENSE stat, which is modified by the armor currently in their possession. Every 6 on either side is a success. Whoever has the most successes wins the initial encounter. If the attacker wins, the defender takes -1 HP, after which they can either choose to flee to an adjacent room or take their FIGHT action. If the defender wins, they may choose to flee to another room.

EXAMINE

The House holds secrets.

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THE RULES

CHARACTER RULES

• No character sheets are necessary. If there's any information about your character you want to relay, you can do so in the game. The only thing you need is a name.
• No matter who you are, you are human. You are mortal. You can die from anything.
• Only one character per player allowed.
• There is no maximum cap to the amount of players that can participate. The more players there are, the more the House grows.
• PERMADEATH. If your character dies, your participation in the battle comes to an end, but in death, your purpose evolves.
• It's not enough to be the last person standing. You must still escape the House, and escape isn't guaranteed.

POSTING RULES

• With each post, you are required to include the following as a header: Name, remaining HP, your current Speed, your current Attack, and your current Defense. Interaction tags with other players are encouraged. The House only intervenes when necessary.
• If you search or move rooms, you are required to include the result of your d6 roll and tag me. Bonus points if you decide to use the [abbr] formatting in your post, like so.
• Minimum requirements: 5 sentences. A single paragraph, once a week. Participants of all skill levels are invited to the House, from Free to High Advanced, but respect your peers and how they write. Treat them as your equal.
• No romance subplots. The House is devoid of love.
• Adhere to the Guild's guidelines, always.

ETIQUETTE RULES

• Ghosts will be strung up and prominently displayed as evidence of the House's supremacy.

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THE HOUSE AWAITS ALL WHO FALL INTO ITS GAPING MAW.

If enough interest is gathered, I'll make the RP thread and go further into what I've done to modify the system that will be used. Looking forward to what happens next. Thanks for the consideration, regardless of your desire to participate.

Lamplight

No worries. Things have been a bit rough because of the holiday season.

Lamplight

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone. However you celebrate it, make it an enjoyable day.

Lamplight

Hoping they respond. I know Passable Writer is going to post soon. I assume Tokyo and Enmuni are writing their posts. Just a matter of time.

Lamplight

So what is the weather like in Stone's throw today Ant? Also I assume this town has some wildlife around it?

@Tally Dor

Autumnal weather. Think cool breezes, red and green forestry. Stone's Throw is also situated within the Roukeshaw Forest, with two roads leading north and south. South road enters onto a highway; west along the highway, you can see the ghost town of Lamplight. North road fades onto a dirt path that passes along—but not through—the Dark Mile. Considering the dense forestry around it, you can correctly assume there is a presence of wildlife in the region. Deer, birds, fish, maybe even a bear or two.

But they're not the only things out there.

Lamplight

We all tend to be our own worst critics. I'm guilty of that.

Lamplight

Tiffany Graves
Tiffany Graves

@PatientBean

"Mmm... the girl is still so determined. How delicioussssss...

.
. .. . .. . . .
.
.
.
It will make her relinquishment to it all the more s w e e t."

Tiffany steps out into motel hallway, a short passage with more fire exits than rooms. One wall of the hallway opens out into an exterior atrium, at the center of which is a pool, placid waters occasionally interrupted by the burbling of submerged jets. In the back of her mind, she could feel the void in her head crawl across her brain, invading the folds and coloring her every thought.

Somewhere across the way, on an upper floor, she feels a pair of eyes on her. By the time she notices, the figure—a bald man dressed in rags—had turned and started descending a different set of stairs, heading towards the exit.

"WELL, NOW."

"whAT AN INteresting ᙅ ᖇ ᙓ ᗩ T ᙀ ᖇ ᙓ. So full of... secrets."

Before Tiffany is able to control her thoughts, a dark impulse arises.

"Follow it. Break the body, tear it open. It wants to see its insides, the intricacies of the inhuman."

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Alexander Huether
Alexander Huether

@Tally Dor

<sup>Alexander reaches the first floor of the motel, moving down the hallway towards the entrance. He passes numerous rooms in which he can hear some sort of life—arguing, making love, wondering whether life is worth living. With each passing room, the hunger at his core begins to rise even more. There's a part of room that reckons that most of these people are forgettable, if they were ever thought about in the first place. It is a dangerous thought to have in the wake of trying to keep himself together. If he's to stave off the other side, he'll need to find a wandering animal and feed.

It's a mile's walk from the motel up north to Fortesque Street, home of the locally legendary Hopper's Bar. Twenty minutes, give or take.</sup>

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Julie Underwood
Julie Underwood

@Raqueltrper

<sup>"The BPA goes where they're needed, Miss Underwood." Arbor snaps the cigarette case closed and slips it back into his pocket. "And they're always needed. Need I remind you of La Huerta, near Roswell? If it weren't for us, you'd have a large metal rod so far up your ass you'd be speaking languages only heard halfway across the galaxy. If we left it to the small agencies, like... what was it? CASS?"

Arbor takes a long drag of his cigarette, letting the smoke billow out as it scales across his face and into the cool air.

"There'd be no agencies left, and I don't think your father would like that his daughter caused the end of the world."</sup>

Lamplight

On an unrelated note, I envy you guys for your writing ability.

Lamplight

Hello. I said I'd get a post up last night, but then I died. Not really, but I slept. And then got super busy in the morning.

Post up in like maybe a couple hours. I got a job interview later, so we'll see how everything goes. No promises.

Lamplight

I will be making an IC post by the end of the night. Still recovering from work yesterday.