ChasmOfOrganicMatter
High Priest of Depravity
Overture:
If any of this interests you, we have a discord server here.
The character sheet repository is here.
The detailed lore document is on google docs.
IC is here.
If any of this interests you, we have a discord server here.
The character sheet repository is here.
The detailed lore document is on google docs.
IC is here.
This is a reboot of the Exile Battalion. As its original GM, I wanted to try and do it justice again. This time, it will have a more particular, structured plot. A new faction has been added to the setting and the lore has been changed somewhat to accomodate them.
The Grand Interstellar War has ended and in its wake, a vast swathe of the cosmos has been lost to ruin and carnage. Belonging to neither the neo-corporatist Unified Celestial League and the ancient monarchial Arkradian Empire it had functionally defeated, two massive swathes of planets lay as monuments to failures of empire and the possibilities of its aftermath. In the Ashen Expanse, the Frontier Solar Assembly carves a new world from the carcasses of what was once the Arkradian Empire. In the Solar Graveyard, the Carnazir have risen to power in worlds long since abandoned by the UCL in its rush to subjugate its greatest enemies. The peace is fragile, the alliances shifting, old hatreds burning hotter still but the illusion of of an end to conflict remains. In the Expanse and the Graveyard, budding colonies beyond the fringes, neutral worlds far from untouched by conflict, and all across the stars a shadowy war is being fought. Special forces, proxy armies, deniable operation units, and all manner of hidden knives are being unsheathed by all as a series of high intensity, low exposure conflicts throw interstellar intelligence groups into high alert.
For the Frontier Solar Assembly, a new threat has emerged to their dream of a new world free from the reign of the indomitable and the entrenched, one hidden behind the faces of old foes. Someone is out there exploiting the false peace and the thousand little wars that have sprung in its wake, hunting for the secrets hidden beneath rubble and wilderness alike. Its enemies may have taken the initiative first but a hidden commando force in the works even before the Assembly's inception has been preparing for this very moment.
This is where you come in.
It does not often matter from whence you came. You may have been a decorated League commando who fought deep in enemy territory with no hope of rescue, cast aside when your actions became inconvenient and sentenced to a quiet death out in the unknown. Perhaps you were an honest Arkradian royal guard who was offered as a sacrifice for the interstellar courts, slapping "war criminal" to your title when you crossed the wrong noble when they sold out your homeworld. Maybe you were a Carnazir guerilla who saw the writing on the wall as corporate backers sold your kind out to their preferred militas, barely escaping becoming a footnote. It's more than likely some of you are hardline believers in the Assembly's goal to bring forth a new era of popular power and end the reign of Empire itself. One way or the other, you proved yourself willing to slaughter again and again for a dream that kept you alive when all others failed.
Cast aside by your families, friends, and allies or dyed in the wool as a true believer, you find yourself here amongst more of your own. Your reward is the peace you seek and the home you deserve. The cost you will pay serving as the lance envenomed and hidden of the FSA; the Hungering Damnation, the Exile Battalion. You are the most dangerous group of people with little to lose and everything to gain, combining your unique skillsets to defeat a threat hiding in the fog of the ambiguous post-war era. Those you once swore to protect as comrades will face you as your enemies. This hostility is a veil concealing the hidden fifth power whose hands pull the strings of countless hidden forces. Yet the Exile Battalion may be the only one their gaze cannot track and hands cannot reach.
Your descent into the spiral of teeth and knives has begun.
Gameplay, Rules, and other important bits.
- Let's start with the unga bunga basic things you should all know. No powerplaying, godmodding, overpowered characters, being a douchebag or a bigot to or around other participants, and so on and so forth. You've heard it a thousand times but one more just for good measure. Now let's get onto the specifics.
- Just comment in the thread or message me over discord if you want to join.
- I will be the GM and essentially handle all of the NPC's except in certain scenarios where you may have limited control over some of them.
- This RP will have you a large part selecting your own missions which will have larger over-arching objectives. However, there will be various optional objectives you can do... some of which may clash with both your handlers and higher ups as well as any allies you have. Your actions undertaken in this RP will affect how the story and even larger scale galactic events play out. Let's say that after a contact gives you the information leading to a hidden listening outpost run by undercover League agents posing as locals. You eliminate them, destroy the outpost, find that your contact is a war criminal and take him out for good measure. In the following days, news agencies state that the Empire's agents are brutalizing civilians and killing war heroes out of spite while at the same time, counter-terror operations in the area will kick up meaning you have to deal with more enemies who are specialized in hunting people like you down.
- At the same time, your enemies will not be as organized as before and there may be protests from the civilian populace against restrictive, invasive measures. Insurgent groups previously suppressed might become more open about fighting security forces in the region. High value targets might start moving around to new safe houses, presenting ripe opportunities to exploit. Don't just focus on the morality of your actions but how it might affect gameplay and the world your characters inhabit. You may be put into many situations you won't necessarilya gree with with what you're doing. At the same time, if you're clever enough you can avoid these situations altogether though it may not be easy.
- As this is a pretty far future soft sci-fi setting, I'm giving all players a lot of leeway with what they kit their characters out with. We even have "magic" in the setting though it manifests in a more cryptic, occult form somewhere between Warhammer 40K's the Warp and Mass Effect's biotics. However, there are some limits on how powerful you can be (ie. you can't bring vehicles off of the bat and I will ask for what weaknesses your character has in some scenarios) and no matter how powerful you are, you still have to be killable. A part of the appeal is meant to be that you will be fighting enemies who on occasion will be as well trained, equipped, and supplied as you are being the hidden weapons of the great powers.
- Speaking of other settings, we are now integrating other settings if a) nobody else has any opposition to it and b) the GM (myself) is cool with it. We are not necessarily implementing EVERYTHING from these settings. It may be a few factions, characters, and tech but if you have a setting you think would fit well to be integrated, please let me know and we can work it out.
- You are allowed to contribute your own original lore. I will have a lore post written up if there is sufficient interest for this RP that further elaborates on all factions and the history of the setting. It is not required that you will be *super* familiar with it but it will help those who are interested.
- This is an RP will touch on a lot of sensitive subject matter and I trust you all to tread a fine line when you can. There will be a number of unpleasant scenarios that emerge and some that might be abhorrent to you but this is part of why I said to view things not so much through the lens of morality but also those of power. If there are ever any parts that you find just too much to handle, please message me and I will see what compromises can be worked out.
- As expected, this RP will get pretty violent. Please be aware that even if you don't intend to outright kill an enemy, a hyper-accelerated slug is going to do some pretty graphic things to human and alien bodies. You have been warned.
- I would say this RP generally requires around two or three paragraphs per post. It will be fairly detail intensive at points and this extends to your actions. If say, you are swinging a knife at a biomechnical soldier, try to specify what part of its body you aim at. If you are investigating an area to steal intelligence files from under the nose of the local government, make sure you specify which parts of a room you are searching. This might be lessened in certain areas but I will reward those who are cunning and creative in their posts.
Name(s): (Include both their current name and their name before being scrubbed from the records)
Age:
Species: (Refer to the species list in the recruitment thread or create your own. Robots also work.)
Physical Description: (Using a picture can help but isn't necessary)
Skills: (Are they good at demolitions? Hacking? Infiltrating? Heavy weapons? Elaborate here. If you have any species-specific perks, include them as well.)
Etherealism: (Are they capable of interacting with the unearthly parallel dimension to our own? If not, are they affected by it or capable of interacting with it somehow?)
Loadout: (Weapons, equipment, other items, possibly even certain companion automata/organisms/etc.)
Prior Associations: (What faction or factions had your character once fought for? The League, the Empire, Carnazir, or something else entirely?)
Background: (Who were they before they ended up with Damnation's Hunger? Who were they fighting for during the war? Make sure you include what specific things caused them to end up in the organization.)
Personality: (What are they like? Do they have any tendencies that might make them a liability to their higher ups? Any habits or practices worth noting?)
Age:
Species: (Refer to the species list in the recruitment thread or create your own. Robots also work.)
Physical Description: (Using a picture can help but isn't necessary)
Skills: (Are they good at demolitions? Hacking? Infiltrating? Heavy weapons? Elaborate here. If you have any species-specific perks, include them as well.)
Etherealism: (Are they capable of interacting with the unearthly parallel dimension to our own? If not, are they affected by it or capable of interacting with it somehow?)
Loadout: (Weapons, equipment, other items, possibly even certain companion automata/organisms/etc.)
Prior Associations: (What faction or factions had your character once fought for? The League, the Empire, Carnazir, or something else entirely?)
Background: (Who were they before they ended up with Damnation's Hunger? Who were they fighting for during the war? Make sure you include what specific things caused them to end up in the organization.)
Personality: (What are they like? Do they have any tendencies that might make them a liability to their higher ups? Any habits or practices worth noting?)
Attachments
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