Pickled Piper

How Many Kicks To The Center Of An Ass-Whooping?

Mirror mirror would be the game here. Glass pebbles answered by meteors that, as one might correctly assume, exploded on impact with the wall -- from incendiary innards or sheer impact? Probably the former. The mantraps burst, spat their red everywhere.

Here, John thought to continue in his tactic; he pulled his torso forwards from the wall. Morsels of concrete fell at his heels, though the snakeskin seemed unharmed. In fact, when the blood had been spouting from his wounds, now it refrained, held in place by sheer control over that which was his. Then, how to control that which is my opponent's?

He caught his breath as he turned to Nudara. "Nice trick, truly. And you should know I actually like tricks, so take it as a compliment."

He raised his guns and took the same stance. He had a trick up both sleeves even now.

"Wrong order-Oh shit-"

The change in pressure ravaged his stance integrity. It didn't stop what happened, however. John pulled the triggers in unison three times -- he had a trigger finger like the devil, and these shots were sudden like the burst of an assault rifle, of shocking ferocity like any artillery. Nudara had his explosion, and John had three of his own launching himself away. Even if the bullets didn't hit -- relocation was the main priority with these shots, not lethality -- three walls of his guns' own pressure waves would with any luck slow his quarry as he accelerated into the wall.

Just as sudden was the crack when his shoulder busted through. The concrete was what cracked. The change in pressure had still stolen momentum, altered the launch. He didn't hit as hard as he'd have liked and hurt all the more for it. It meant a rougher entry into the space adjacent to the door control room. He crumpled and rubble crumbled all over him, left him to wonder if his shoulder blade had also cracked.

Hall or room, he knew not; with a flick of his wrist, where he lay, he cast the gun from his right hand behind himself. It clattered a fair distance away, fifteen or twenty feet, at the base of a wall.

His arm continued in its motion to his left hip for the charm box. Swift fingers scrabbled to get it open. He propped his left elbow directly on the floor for stability, and to give that aching shoulder an ounce of respite. Preemptively, he shot through the opening he'd made to ward off Nudara, arm angled upwards from the floor and swiveling right to left -- the gun seemed to have far more ammo than spatially possible. The rooms pulsed like subwoofers gone mad. Each round fired, at first held in a stretched space far larger on the inside, gave his elbow a terrible jolt that sent cracks spiderwebbing throughout the floor. He'd have almost as riotous a bruise there as on his back.

Inside the box was his object of hasty retrieval: a black container of hematite warped into the shape of an egg, with a tiny knob for a lid handle at the fatter end and a spout at the skinnier end. It'd fit in the palm of his hand, if his search wasn't soon interrupted by haste on Nudara's part. If Nudara could sense magic, this item could not be hidden from such view when outside its deadening container.

How Many Kicks To The Center Of An Ass-Whooping?

Expectations flew high when your name dripped off the top dog's lips not unlike a second drool. The display caught John's attention; heat waves so perfectly controlled they were clean distortions and not the chaos of normal heat's optical tricks. Raw destruction was expected. This finesse, however, assured John this man's name was as sweet as Babylon's mayor made it out to be.

But is it worthy of the title of 'King of Earth'?

He couldn't help but smirk a cheek-wrinkling smirk. "Impressive. Now make it hurt."

Fah fired a shotgun blast—John would answer with artillery. Withdrawn were two revolvers larger than legalized, gazing like snake eyes with .65 caliber barrels, smooth bore. He stopped one arm, which stopped the other when his wrists collided. The heavy chunking sounds of each gun clacking against the other were like factory machinery. They were blocky and had no hammers (nor, for that matter, visible safeties); in that case, they might've been semi-automatic.

Most curiously, fitted to these silvered foot-longs were chambers of unfortunate shape—neither cylindrical nor hexagonal, but resembling a miniature twin-drum magazine that secured the ammo in a figure-eight or infinity symbol pattern. Unfortunate, of course, because that design realistically wouldn't function and even if it did, there couldn't be room for more than the usual number of rounds anyways. Not if these were mundane weapons, that is...

Right when the glass gusted forth, Rexhep returned fire. Both triggers at once. Spheres, almost nuggets, of tungsten-gold alloy rocketed towards Nudara on winds of blue-white flames that became one and the reverberations quaked through the surrounding walls, the surrounding rooms even. The air pressure, for an instant, increased dramatically. His blood did too, in instinctive preparation for combat. The twinned blast shoved his upperbody away, arms stiff throughout this unreal recoil that carried him back ten feet, and should his shoulder-first flight remain uninterrupted, he would crash into the wall; his bones ached but not in warning of breakage or dislocation.

Somehow, also, the hat stayed on.

The slugs pulverized chance projectiles—the rest of the glass either diverted by the same force that drove them mach-speed onward to Nudara or, as the majority did, passed them by and grazed the slimmed profile of John's midair-proning body; his knees blocked a few from striking the groin but themselves got scraped and dented, and the same unto his other weapons; aforementioned silver rose into the path of headshots, saving his mug—the same for his other gear and hips together hiding his charm box and blood vials.

But his exposed abdomen, pelted and punctured, some glass cubes embedding halfway into his flesh. One tumbled up and took his right ear. Blood exploded out similarly to champagne and some showers of it ruined the snakeskin coat's lining. Unbothered and unblinded by the faux blood mist spritzing into his eyes, but the glass? Hurt like hell. Earlier prayer answered, pain turned his smile crooked.

Still, it was a smile. He wondered how Fah might catch up on the tiled floor where friction sabotaged acceleration. If he didn't move at all, who knows the damage those cannonballs would do, princely strong though he might be, to his ribs.

The double bang alerted John's companion. A roaring, growling engine started up again and heralded an aggressive arrival in the next thirteen seconds. A lot could happen in that short a span of time, John knew. He was going to enjoy this.

"Name's John—prince under Kishar's Crown, the Crust of Mother's Corpse, soon shall She rise again!"

How Many Kicks To The Center Of An Ass-Whooping?

When you strike the physic gardens of a castle, its cures and food supplies, every guard ought to come running that way. The vampires themselves had sent some of their own to deal with the threat.

Humans were inferior, and they -- vampires of the overworld -- were merely former humans.

Any blood bank has your average easy-to-shatter windows giving a peeping tom peeks into the laboratories; this facility, in facilitating vampiric deals and dinings, boasted higher security and privacy to its super storage centers, trademark implied. The path to that ward was long and littered with liters crimson and scarlet that not only could've gone to use saving lives but also put a dent on their food supply, bound to abridge some un-lives. Meals left to waste! Near-heresy that might call for a bloodwite to the local lord of them.

That should've ruled out that the perp was a bloodsucker himself... wouldn't it?

Stealth had called to John, but not for attempts to hide from any guard -- much the opposite. The bike was left half-embedded in a wall behind the front desk, a purposeful crash that observed the receptionist's face become one with the clock hanging above that crash site; the rest of her could be found in the office room beyond. That was no accident. The bodies of slain mortals and vampires alike slung up by their own, or eachother's, entrails was proof. The mess got more artful and the walls more dented with frenzied dances of combat as the halls stretched on. The trail was absolute and impossible to miss.

Around the corner, the hall flared wide to accommodate a pair of mantraps -- circle lock doors, tubestiles, whatever you may call them -- that had been flooded with blood, drowning the poor guards locked within. The left wall had a glass port for the door control room. It'd been shattered. Same with the man who now lied crumpled up in the back corner. The laboratory beyond and its hidden dining areas were likely in disarray.

It was there that the pale rider, who had circled back like a true hunter via the ventilation systems' shockingly large shafts just shy of a minute ago, stepped into view behind Nudara twenty feet away.

He was actually a redhead, wearing a style that might've been spiky if not for how limp it seemed, like the lop ears of a goat. His eyes were, naturally, dark red; this near-glow could be spied even through his browline shades. He had not a speck of blood on him.

Out came an oily voice, though raspy. "Nudara Fah. The 'King of Earth'." He spread his arms wide, and the motion pulled along his coat flaps just enough to reveal some of his kit. The hoses on the sword-hilts and stranger pair of guns were reddened as if muddied by use in a back-alley operation. "What an opportunity. I knew you'd come here. My contacts tell me your lifeblood is... quite special. Are you willing to spare some, for the sake of science?"

Slowly, his arms would lower again, slightly bent so they would brush his hips, forearms brushing his coat at the waist. His muscles tensed in preparation of crossing them. It almost resembled how a raptor, the ancient kind, might hold its arms.

How Many Kicks To The Center Of An Ass-Whooping?

A fight between myself and ahem @Divorarel istg if this mention thing doesn't work-

How Many Kicks To The Center Of An Ass-Whooping?

John Rexhep is his name, and taking blood is his game. In the human world he has no fame; in his father's world he bears all shame -- to be born half-human is to be born a most useful tool, and something easy to discard, dispatch, when all usage has been had.

Asphalt carved an aching valley through dark oak, firs, and kudzu. Two unerringly straight miles of this black path connected a small town and the hospital on the far side of one small city or another; lights from the latter ate into the stars. It was a moonlit night.

A low, growling roar like a dragon's flaming breath left on repeat, and the red-orange glow to match.

A machine, all organic, surged from the dark distance on wheels of callused scales. There was no air in these tires. All the air in this bike flowed through its engine, gasps herded in labored circular breathing to keep the dragonflame alive and give its rider a literal hot seat. From that flame, a glow in the eyes of a deer skull showed the way; and in place of antlers, two bone-obsidian-steel grips, a linear handlebar in total black-out like his outfit.

The rest of the bike was meaty flesh on an esoteric bone structure matching nothing alive -- besides others of its kind -- but the rider couldn't be mistaken for anything but human. Urged by wind, his tar-black trench coat tugged on his shoulders. Over 100 mph with his lax wide-armed grip, that snakeskin alone should've pulled him off his meat-chopper. Yet it failed. He stayed upright and motionless.

He was taller than a door, wider than a doorframe at the shoulders, and longer than a doorknob more stalwart than any security door you could measure. With his gaunt face, from perfect cheekbones to scoop jawline, foretelling trouble underneath the brim of a gravedigger's hat, he stared on, alert.

An ordinary human family swerved to avoid him, because he was cruising along the yellow line haphazardly. In their bewilderment -- or maybe the sleep deprivation that hits hardest on that species so inferior as homo sapiens -- they did not notice the five blood vials and charm box at his hips or the weaponry lining his belt, mostly a pair of guns esoteric and a pair seeming mundane, respectively sable-dark and silvered. Two more hilts looked as if they might belong to swords; no blades sheathed or unsheathed prodded the coat's lining from inside. They and the stranger guns had hoses attached. Like props in a scifi B-movie.

He could see the lights of the city now. Half a mile away, he guessed.

He lifted his foot off the accelerator. Literal pipe organs that spiraled into the back wheel's hubs detached and spat steam in a conjoined plume he left behind, bigger than a car. The blast was deafening. The chopper's flank deflated visibly, like the human torso after a haggard sigh.

All that steam, hot enough to poach eggs of larger birds, had been rotating the wheel as it would in any steam engine mechanical, metal. Now he needed to lay low. Any guards, bewildered as they may be, would be remiss to miss a living motorcycle or its rider attempting to blaze a path into the blood bank. Stealth called to him, as it did any predator.

As he decelerated one mile-per-hour per second, he observed his still-wild surroundings. Any predator, calm as it may be, would be remiss to miss a living being skirt on by undetected. Stealth called to all things of beating hearts.

Orst — Official Roleplay Starter Thread

<ORST - THE INNER SEA - THE MOVING ISLAND>

The low-hanging moon puts its ear to Orst's air—

The unseen moon cast madness with its loathsome stare. This was known. The oracle Tirir quivered atop a stone table, laid there by her fellow Earth Riders, the Skogatti of the Moving Island. Lying under the open sky, she saw the unseeable pinprick hole and uttered nothing-words in nothing-tongues that did not exist, each futile to describe what she saw.

It was a blisteringly hot midnight. Two maidservants tended to her while a third stoked a campfire to cook their game. They'd constructed a roof of leaves the size of men to prevent her deep blue fur from bleaching and save her eyes from the same sunlight. It did not save them from that moon. It scraped across the sky, across her haunted view, and never left; even a moon wouldn't be visible at day, not without a vibrant surface or size great enough to count. But that "black" dot... as camouflaged as any true black moon would be in a starless sky, Tirir couldn't ignore it while her spiritual stupor lasted.

And the moment her stupor lapsed, so would her ability to see that accursed moon.

Visions of a catastrophe on Port Solt plagued her. The rise of a titanic Oblin. Waves crashing against the flank of Vari Ikna—the Moving Island—as it exits its slumber and the Inner Sea. She runs to her father to alert her clan to both giants. Their home will be no more.

—eavesdropping, soon to gossip.

Insanity ceased, and Tirir's murmurs ditched frenzy for focused speech. "Need... talk to..."

The maidservants patted her head and wiped the fever sweat from her brow.

"The island rises... it moves..."

"Sure it will," one said, picking up a wooden bowl. "Now here, drink some water-"

"No!" Tirir slapped the bowl out of her hand and jumped to her feet. Her head spun. The bowl clattered down beside the startled servants; night vision revealed claw marks and that servant's blood marked its bottom. Were her claws so eager to cut? That could not be among her worries right now, she told herself. She started running south to the tribe's home. "I must tell my father!"

The maidservants reared back, agape and afraid to learn that she was lucid—and that the fact that'd left her mouth was truth. The one stood up and shouted, "The chieftain is northwest, at the shore!"

Tirir planted her feet in the dirt. The rest of her body fell forwards into a tumble, though she righted herself facing the three, frowning. "What? That makes no sense. He should be at the... no, he must be at the speaker's cave. I saw him there." And when she said 'saw', she meant her vision: Telling him there about the great Oblin attack, and everyone evacuating from the Moving Island before it may perform its namesake and carry them off to a place unknown.

"He heads north to talk deals with two locals from Port Solt who want the Salt-Hide off their hides." She gestured with her wounded hand to the other direction.

Tirir's jaw and ears dropped. That shore lay miles away. To get there and back would take too long. She had to think fast; it was fortunate she was a fast thinker. "Head back to the heart of the island and spread word: I awakened and my warning is urgent."

They nodded. They started collecting the bowl and other things they'd brought, some baskets drawing her eyes to a tent one began to disassemble.

Tirir took a hold of that one's tail, yanking her close languidly, then shoved her in the direction of home. "It is urgent! Move!"

She had no skill with tooth, nail, or martial art, and little strength for a Skogatti, but her importance—and more importantly, her screeching yet hideously growling tone—made up for it. They abandoned the miniature camp they'd set up around this table. The fire earned no quick extinguishing by water.

Very soon afterwards, she booked it for the northwest shore on all fours. Purple bark and leaves and crimson fruit frenzied her view. She leapt over a ditch and, with a good kick, rebounded off a 4 foot wide stump, shooting herself through a patch of thorny bushes—no prickly nonsense, as the thorns all tugged at her dark blue fur and skin, but her naturally tough flesh tugged harder and ripped out the thorns in her scramble to recover. Her scant cloth carried some thorns away with her. Clacks and clinks she abandoned: she might've lost a few pearls or trinkets. They were of no concern. New ones could be found or made. This home was unique and singular. To lose that would be devastating. It was her duty to her people to prevent that.

The Skogatti definition of "shore" is a little loose. Silhouettes slipped off like a hood, and suddenly she was no longer surrounded by trees or foliage. Tirir skidded to a stop at a rocky cliff overlooking the ocean's surface, a nocturnal mirror. Some of the reflections of visible moons looked... wrong. Too different cycle-wise from when she'd been struck by her anti-eureka. A terrible thought came to Tirir: When was "when"? How long have I been incapacitated?

She took a whiff of the salty air. Her father's incense staff had a particular smell; her nose pointed her towards the east. She loped after the smell. Her hands already ached from traveling this far on all fours. If she had muscle, she could easily overcome the pain. She had grit instead. And desperation.

Thankfully, it didn't take a very long beeline before she clambered on shaky limbs into a clearing where her beefy, bespangled father and his less conspicuous retinue camped.

He recognized who she was and stood immediately. His commanding voice cracked, he seemed that overjoyed. "Tirir, you have awakened! What have you seen?"

She collapsed near their firepit, then pulled herself onto a log, panting. He knelt beside her and waited a full minute for her to recover. She stood in a shadow from the fire cast by his great form and cape. He readjusted to better see her face. Only now did it hit her how much the light hurt.

Once she'd caught her breath, she told him, "Vari Ikna will rise once more and rove! I saw it. And the reason will be a grand Oblin that will pierce-..."

The heavens.

A hellish haze glanced off the peak of a new monument, lighting them up as if by daylight; the forest's purples and reds became orange. Tirir flipped over to watch as it filled the sky and formed an image she'd been fearing for all of... all of...

"How long was I out?" She looked back to her father.

His face was grim, fixated on the beast and its halo of hellfire.

"Father?"

"Months, Tirir."

She stared at him blankly.

"For months you have half-slumbered. Our other shamans could not piece together all the fragments that you said; they were too many and spread too wide in topic. Nothing they pieced together made sense."

Her eyes pried themselves open. That could not be! It had never lasted more than a week, never. The most dire incidents and losses punctuated days-long excursions into the field her mind wandered when she foresaw those events—and she always had time to prevent them. She had no idea how she could sculpt the future now to avert that beast.

She stiffened, as did her hackles. "We must... we must return home! Before there is no home to return to!"

Her father nodded. "We go home!" He waved his hand at the fire; the wisps of ectoplasm marked where spirits forced a bucket up three feet into the air, pushed it over the fire, and poured out water to smother it. The brightness of the area did not drop at all. With a yip, the chieftain took off. They followed. Tirir ran side by side with him.

They didn't even make it back to the stone table in time for the island to start moving. A shockwave from Port Solt brushed through each inch of canopy lit, blasting countless giant fruits off their branches.

A flash of the future: Cascading branches and fruit falling from the trees and striking her father dead, stabbing him with jagged wood and impaling his back and neck. She hadn't the energy to delay its passing or move her father out of the way. No alert would be both fast and complex enough to warn him adequately.

Perhaps her dumbest decision in years, Tirir rushed to the side faster than feasible for her slim frame and shoulder-charged him out of the way. Most of the branches missed her, but a fruit crashed right onto her noggin and split. Weak already, she went out cold.

---

Tirir awoke for the second time that night. Apparently she needed to make up for all the mornings she hadn't woken from her catatonic state.

It was day. She had to sit up to make sure this truly was day and not doom. She groggily scanned the place she'd been carried. Blue-furred skogatti walked or loitered. Wind carried the salt-stench of the ocean in from her left. The rock formations here were complex; she was in a cove. Simple huts, wall shelters, and numerous cave entrances abounded. This was the home of the Cliff Climber clan, who had recently moved in—at her father's allowance, a most gracious man that he was—and made their living in the nooks where cliff sides changed angle, catching glidefins and wall-crawlers with nets. This place wasn't too far from the northwest shore. It was not home. But these people deserved her attention all the same, because her family ruled all the tribe's folk.

Tirir felt an odd lifting that urged her onto her feet. She stood. Somehow it exacerbated her light-headedness. Ignoring it, she started walking towards the edge of the village, feeling uneasy.

Half a minute after the "lifting", she felt something of a burden. No. Literal weight, increasing. Her legs gave out and she got compressed into the ground by an inertia she hadn't realized she'd been beholden to. Everyone else stopped to keep their balance, not casually but as though they knew this weighty feeling was coming. They, before the tribe's oracle? What did they know?

Her gaze gravitated to the unfamiliar horizon. She expected to see Green Peak, the oasis at the tip of the island southwest from the Moving Island. What she got instead proved to be total displacement, not in time but in space. The island was moving, no doubt about it.

She began searching the village for her father. When she couldn't find him, she headed out despite the protests of medicine men and women and their apprentices. She felt a great need to walk home... wherever Vari Ikna was ferrying it.

Orst — Official Roleplay Starter Thread

The Skogatti

About

Natives to Orst, these surface-dwellers brave the harsh overworld and revere its raw, natural strength. Their fur is short and colored according to their environment: Gray in mountainous areas, white in snowy mountains and tundras, or blue in coastal and near-coastal areas. They average 7 feet tall with a few burly brutes reaching over 8 feet. Despite their strength, they tend to have less overtly attenuated muscles owing to their fur and the cold-shielding blubber of some.

Reputation

Cat-orcs. That's what the Skogatti amount to in the eyes of so many across Orst. Not that they particularly resemble cats besides their tails, claws, and sleek faces and bodies, but they display all the strong-headed boasting and warring of an orcish nuisance. At the same time, there's more to them than scrapping and skirmishing: Some Skogatti are capable of stoking the supernatural and otherworldly forces that pervade the world.

Organization — Tribes, each having their own Prowl in some forest, tundra, or mountainous region. The tribes are split into clans; one clan reigns over the rest.

• Technology — Very little. They have not yet worked out anything approximating an Industrial Revolution. Compromising their capacity for tech is a dearth of creativity and guile, which others chalk up to a deficit in intelligence. They know of metalworking, but only use it for weapons, tools, and jewelry; No advanced construction methods.
• Magic — They may rely on spirits, but not all magic is through them. Rituals give the Skogatti a gateway into performing the impossible. The Earth Riders tribe holds supremacy in ritualwork.
• Religion — Shamanism permeates their whole culture. Proficient warriors will seek out spirits rather than tinker and advance technologically. Luddites as they are, they believe the chaotic natural world is as it should be, and attempts to conform it to one's own predilections will only end in mass death.

Tools

The most creatively inclined Skogatti become shamans, revered for their spirit-calling that lets them control powerful forces beyond the mundane. Entire natural disasters have been formed by the greatest shamans -- and many more like to make claim to contributing towards those disasters, themselves directing spirit beasts as loyal minions or forming weapons of energy to bypass simple defenses.

Their weapons and tools are never more than stone, wood, and the occasional steel piece salvaged or traded for. By and large, Skogatti lack the creativity and creational capacity for complicated technologies -- it's a curse that impedes their species, thought by many Skogatti as a literal curse. What they can't create, they simply steal.

Places

Each tribe keeps to its own Prowl, unless they're trying to take another tribe's territory. As the name suggests, they prowl and stalk their borders to patrol for invaders of all species. Only Skogatti are allowed in Prowls. This does not mean they won't trade or send barterers and messengers to marketplaces.

List of Tribes*:

• Earth Riders: The Earth Riders clan laid claim to the Moving Island not too long after it first settled in the sea, and have since grown into a large and prosperous tribe in their own right. In addition, their current oracle Tirir is perhaps the most adept Skogatti priestess -- when she's lucid. The one clan comprises the entire tribe. Most of their fighting ends up being infighting.
• Stone Mounters: The deadliest of the bunch. They confine themselves to forests and mountains west of the Ténèmarais. Many appear in battle riding stone beasts, "chariots", or so on, animated by magic; they're historically the most apt with spirit-calling. The Knife Fingers clan is the ruling family, boasting powerful fighters wielding even more powerful aura-based magics; they earned their name from their signature enhanced claw strikes. Unlike most tribes, their unique location led to them coming in all three common coat-colors: Blue, gray, and white.
• Rift Jumpers: Living in the Ténèmarais itself, the Rift Jumpers keep a safe but variable distance from the Mold, a hazard they view as godlike. The most well-rounded both magically and physical, their clans are named after the manner in which they live: The Haze Breathers formed a quasi-symbiotic relationship with the bio-metallurgic termites known to that region, while the Corpse Cloaker clan have made base inside the hollowed trunk of a mangrove which those termites has evacuated, claiming they drove it out using their might. No single clan can be said to rule the Rift Jumper tribe.
• Salt-Hide: The tribe of Salt-Hide lives north of the Rift Jumpers. They also take to the waters more than any tribe. Their ruling clan, Coral-Armor, lives in a submerged fortress of reefs and caves. Other clans make do with pirating, albeit via animals, board- or body-surfing, and canoes instead of robust ships.
• Snow Reavers: The chilly counterpart to the Rift Jumpers, these Skogatti pay tribute to the Hungering Veil. They span the eastern half of the south, camouflaging in the snow. Many are known to embark on journeys to Hom or to attempt a pilgrimage past the Hungering Veil to live on its west, due to their shrinking territory. Many of the latter perish.

*Not an exhaustive list of tribes by any means; will grow as time goes on.

Orst — Official Roleplay Starter Thread

~The Map of the Inner Sea~

(liable to be updated)

Orst — Official Roleplay Starter Thread

Welcome to a new tale:

ORST! Official Roleplay Starter Thread

What?

What Orst is and what to expect from the setting.
Orst is your home away from home -- or hell away from hell, if that's the sort of environment your characters usually roam. The planet "Orst" is a unique alternative to the usual "Earth deluxe" settings that abound. You can add in your existing OCs (provided their manner of entry is more evocative than "they fell through a portal" or other isekai cliche), or create new OCs that are either native to the planet or alien to it.

This massive planet is dangerous; The surface is buffeted by storms that kill surface-to-space transmissions and earthquakes rising from the depths, but the real danger starts once you go into the wilderness.

The alien wildlife puts Earth animals to shame. Civilization doesn't shape the wilderness; The wilderness shapes civilizations, because areas more concentrated with Chaos naturally suffer more storms, natural and unnatural disasters, strange events, and the depredation of strange and powerful creatures. The Safe Zones are those places designated by populations as less Chaotic.

These zones are where civilizations tend to coalesce, but they're far between, the isolation so great that a noticeable rift between cultures and technological advancements has grown. One city might be industrial solarpunk while the next is arcanopunk; That country over there might thrive on diesel engines and brimstone cannons, whereas the region flanking it is rife with nomads wielding star-metal swords and creating steed-and-rider bonds via old rituals.

Alongside action and survival (including CRP and minor NRP elements), a slew of scifi, fantasy, and hybrid subgenres coexist on Orst -- with room for the supernatural and horror as well.

With a world this expansive and plenty of custom cultures and locations to boot, exploration, faction-building, and group interactions abound. We seek to build a world that you can worldbuild in.

A tiered planet.
The planet is divided into many layers, every tier flatter than the last, as if each layer is its own planetary surface that's larger than the true surface and each one between. No one knows what the deepest layers hold, or whether there's an end to the descent. The only thing certain is that Orst gets even more dangerous the further down you go... and stranger, like the laws of reality are unchecked and unenforced below the surface.

Celestial bodies.
One large sun, one little sun, and over a hundred moons surround Orst. Artificial, natural, exotic, and plain moons alike occupy the sky. They're said to be the eyes of the Fates. Those watchful deities hang above Orst and take note of every detail, so they say.

Natives vs Interlopers
No matter the IC terms, "Interloper" describes any character not of Orst. Interlopers are met with all sorts of reactions, from fascination and curiosity to suspicion to blanket hostility -- just as extraterrestrials may be treated by us Earthlings. There are humans native to Orst, but only in select few populations, minor and semi-recently arisen; Humanity is a recent arrival. Also, many aren't truly Earth humans but happen to be genetically similar or identical.

How?

How you can join, character sheets, basic rules.
Pretty simple! Fill out the sheet, make sure nothing you'll put into play will break the rules, and post in OOC about where and how you'd like to start playing. Feel free to reach out to other players and see if you can't come up with an entrance together -- especially if you're making a character for their faction.

Remember, only some humans are native to Orst. They don't have the same hundreds or thousands of years of history as non-human natives, nor the same prevalence.

Character sheet below:

Our Restrictions, Sheets, & Themes

Rather than hard rules for character creation, we encourage you to join our discord, create a thread under ⁠the #character-reviews channel, and bring up your character concept(s) for discussion.

However, we will list restrictions below to give you an idea of the general power level we're aiming for.

The current power cap will rise as things progress, but for now, your character should not be able to:

• Destroy more than a large building in one fell swoop.
  (skyscraper, cruise ship, smaller but fortified structures like bunkers, etc.)
• Destroy more than a city block with a charged-up or continuous attack.
• Alter or affect a wider range than a city in non-damaging ways.
• Run, fly, swim, or otherwise move faster unaided than a racecar.
• Move your limbs faster than the speed of sound.
• Be more durable/resilient than a city.
• Regenerate more than a minor limb or single organ per post (if the post is a brief span of time).
• Regenerate from (or to negate) death as an innate ability.
• Mystically divine information of someone/something/someplace further than 5,000 miles away, more than a few layers higher/deeper than themselves, or within a pocket dimension.
• Telepathically contact more than a city's population or mind-control more than a village.
  this also goes for necromancy and controlling machines, plants and animals, spirits, elementals, and so on

In addition:

• Force fields and other constructs/projections cannot be more resilient than a medium building; Ideally, the larger and more numerous or complex they are, the less concentrated their resilience.
  (apartment complex, supermarket, space station, airliner, etc.)
• Controlling an opponent's constructs/projections/spells/minions is much more difficult than creating and controlling your own. Note: This does not mean blocking them is more difficult.
• Clones cannot exceed your own capabilities; Ideally, the more you have, the less powerful each should be. Spontaneously spawned clones should not match your strength in the first place.
• Weapons and ships can exceed a character's power cap, but make sure to discuss it with us if you want either.
  includes mass-produced materiel that you'd outfit a faction's forces with

Approaching these limits may cause some Oblins to be more wary of you. Surpassing them will draw the attention, or ire, of the Fates.

Other restrictions:

• Physical intangibility, conditional or otherwise.
• True immortality (that is, cannot die or be defeated). At the very least, they can be incapacitated via enough injury. Unaging/Ageless characters are allowed.
• Unlimited free flight. They must have some means of propulsion, from wings or thrusters to anti-gravity, magic, or anti-gravity magic.

Character Sheet

Name:
Age:
Gender:
Species:
Native or Interloper?:
Description:
Unique Powers/Traits:
History Relevant to Orst:

Roleplay Rules & Reminders
The Usual Stuff:
No godmodding, metagaming, autohitting autoblocking autododging auto-whatever, or engaging in gamesmanship over good fun. We do combat for the sake of story and cool, good fights, not just for the sake of winning.

Setting-Specific:
You may play a god or other deity, demigod, semi-divine character, angel, devil, etc., even a non-deity character that is worshiped for their still-awe-inspiring powers, provided they abide by the usual restrictions.

Regardless of character type, you cannot play a character as powerful as, or more powerful than, a Fate. Fates are the GMPCs that oversee events from an IC perspective, just as GMs oversee things from the OOC side of things. Fates cannot be interacted with unless they allow it. They control destiny and shape reality on a worldwide scale, and they can divine and commentate on things that no one else can. If things get out of hand (aka if someone breaks the rules), there are IC ways to enforce or subvert consequences to prevent any derailing of the setting. We like weaving stories about destruction and disruption, to a point -- not actual destruction and disruption of what we're working hard to create.

If you want your character/faction to possess a power(ful item) that otherwise bends or breaks these rules, do bring it up with the group. If it proves to be too powerful, we may ask that you hold off on using it until a narratively satisfying point in some plotline, event, or the overall story of Orst.

Remember:

• Your character is not invulnerable, immutable, immovable, etc.
• Unless stated in your sheet, they're not impervious to emotion- or willpower-based effects., and they don't have endless willpower, nor an unbreakable will. These are all abilities that must be listed out if applicable.
• That being said, you cannot dictate how your character's fear aura or whatever it is affects another character's emotions, willpower, etc. -- that counts as autohitting! And I say that as the one with the fear-aura-emitting character!
• Unless stated in your sheet, they don't have endless stamina, mana, or other energy.
• If you're unsure about someone's intended meaning, ask them! This includes in combat when you're unsure how exactly someone is supposed to be positioned or any missing/ambiguous details of their actions.
• We aren't asking you to write physics simulations (in fact don't totally limit yourself to correct physics), but verisimilitude and logical outcomes must be respected. Without appropriate and admittedly strong powers as justification, your character cannot:
  • Air-dash or inexplicably change midair trajectory
  • Move in other ways that don't make sense (keeping in mind whatever powers they may have)
  • No-sell a feasible or viable attack
  • React to your own reactions of your reacted reacts due to the opposing character's reacted reacting of your character's reactions... stop. Don't let time and actions become too granular.
  • React instantly (though they may predict an attack)
  • Predict perfectly and completely
  • Juke opponents perfectly
  • Lie perfectly
  • Detect lies perfectly
  • Are you sensing a pattern here?

Where?

A blurb about Port Solt.
This thread, and its event, centers around Port Solt. Both a port and a bazaar for the plain and bizarre alike, this relatively bustling area is located in a particularly peaceful Safe Zone. It rests along the coast of the Inner Sea.

The "Moving Island" is a titanic island-like beast in the middle of that sea. It has sat motionless for over a millennium.

Who?

The factions of Orst thus far.
The most prevalent "faction" is not a faction at all. "Oblin" is the term used for a huge variety of esoteric beings, unified only by their disunity; No two Oblins are alike, and they aren't a part of any species, let alone an "Oblin" species. They're enigmatic, alien, unpredictable, yet individually undeviating because their alien shape dictates their identity. Many inhabitants liken them to an embodiment of the Chaos that abounds.

Factions:

O R S T

Coming soon...

Species:

O R S T

Coming soon...

Why?

Recent rumors of things happening on the periphery.

• Port Solt just got destroyed by a titan! An explosion has crushed the former safe zone's settlement, and the Inner Sea's retreat will pull away much of the debris like a reverse flood.
• Oblin activity has increased twentyfold, and the Moving Island has begun, well, moving! For some reason, the Inner Sea is draining towards the spot where it had settled long ago, forming a whirlpool that's pooling into who knows where.
• Record missing-persons cases near the Prowls of various Skogatti clans, in the tundras, mountains, and some forests. Those cannibal barbarian cat-orc-things, the Skogatti? Yup. Those are them.
• A few less-cannibalistic, more behaved Skoggati speak of great "stars" that crashed in the tundra south of the Rift, in an aetheric ice shelf. A slime mold and fog spreads through its dimmed recesses, and they also fear that these "invading stars" have angered the paranormal "Hungering Veil" that disposes of bark and carcasses.
• One or more other "stars" are reported to have landed in the mountains northwest of the Rift. Little does anyone know, they serve as ships for the Katurans -- vampires and their human bloodbags.