Fandom Judge Dredd: Hot-Dogs and Hellfire 🌭☢️🏜️⚖️

[Murdergurl]

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INTRODUCTION

In the third millennium, the world changed. Climate, Nations, all were in upheaval...
Through means of war, the Earth was transformed into a poisonous,
irradiated wasteland known as "The Cursed Earth".
Those that survived the cataclysm eventually congregated behind the walls
of what would be one of the last bastions of humanity.
800 million people were now living in the ruin of the old world and the mega structures of the new one.
Mega blocks. Mega highways.

Mega City One.

A cursed city of desperation and strife,
stretching from Boston to Washington D.C. in an unbroken landscape of concrete and steel.



Law as we knew it had long ago collapsed,
The justice system of a previous age had no longer been able to quell the chaos and violence of the new era:
Gangs, Plagues, Mutants, and other horrors that lurked in the toxic spaces of the world.

From the decay rose a new order, a society kept in line by an elite force...
a force with the power to dispense both justice and punishment.
Fighting for order in the chaos: the men and women of the Hall of Justice.



They are the Juries. The Executioners...

They are the Judges.

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Hello, and welcome to my advertisement for a Judge Dredd-themed, Group Roleplay. I have been on hiatus for quite some time and decided to come back with a bang!
This RP setting is a loose cohesion of Judge Dredd elements from both movies (the 1995 Sylvester Stallone film and the 2012 Karl Urban film), as well as the comic book iterations originating in 1977 from the 2000 A.D. Magazine all the way through to the fandom's current form under IDW.

I am looking to recruit a small group of NO LESS THAN FOUR OTHER PARTICIPANTS in order to get this roleplay going.
While I do not require participants to be Judge-Dredd-super-geeks in order to participate, I would very much expect interested parties to have a general understanding of the setting. If you've seen either of the movies, or read any of the comic books, you should have a decent grip on the notion of the RP. I believe there were even a couple of video games made, but I have no bearing on the mood or setting accuracy of those.

Now, the comic books are pretty wacky: Everything from Mutants to Alien Robots, to off-world colonies, to ghosts, to flying swarms of wasteland rats, to Undead "Dark Judges" that bear a purposeful semblance to the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, and even rival wasteland gangs that grew out of the Burger King and MacDonalds franchises. The movies are (slightly) less over-the-top, exemplifying Clones, Anti-Gravity Vehicles, Robot Bodyguards, A wasteland Mutant Cyborg, and a Judge with Psychic Abilities as the extent of their fantastical thematic.

For the focus of THIS particular storyline and setting, we are going to forego certain elements and not adhere strictly to the Canonical Timetables/Timestamps. Due to the multiple iterations of the fandom, and what is essentially a re-tell of the old Judge Dredd story with all the dates forward in "real-time", the timeline is... nebulous at best. So, let's clear some things up for this particular RP and outline what IS and what ISN'T.

Setting Guidelines

• Is Joseph Dredd going to be a PC or NPC in the Roleplay? Actually, no. While this setting is made out of the Judge Dredd universe, the Main Character of Judge Dredd will not be roleplayed by anyone, including myself. We are all going to be Original Characters in this RP, using the fandom setting to define our stage.

• No Judge Dredd!? Then who exactly are WE going to be RPing as? I will be RPing as a Senior Judge for the sake of narrative control. The other players will be expected to take the roles of Cadets in their 12th year of training from the Academy of Law. However, if a potential player is familiar enough with the overall setting, I am willing to make an allowance for a Rookie Street Judge character. See the next tab, CHARACTERS, for more details.

• Are there extraterrestrials (aliens)? Technically, Yes. But Including aliens into this story setting will just add a lot of "extra" that we aren't going to acknowledge or use in the narrative. So, for all intents and purposes, aliens will not be mentioned or alluded to in this RP setting.

• Okay. No aliens mentioned, but are off-world colonies allowed to be referenced? Yes. For the sake of character origin, we can include a background that involves an off-world colony. However, let's limit this to labor colonies like mining operations and Agri-Colonies that are on the planet/moon/asteroid solely for the purpose of harvesting materials and sending them back to Earth.

• Are there mutants? Yes. Most definitely. They mostly live in various colonies outside of Mega-city walls. It is commonplace to find small mutant encampments built right up against the outer barrier. However, these camps do not often stay in place for very long, as the irradiated sandstorms of the Cursed Earth will often sweep away the exposed outposts. Mutants are banned from living within the walls of Mega-City One, and discovered mutants are deported to mutant colonies out in the Cursed Earth. That being said, many unregistered mutants live in the Undercity of Mega City One, the old ruins of New York that MC1 was bult over. In many ways, the Undercity is just as lawless and dangerous as the Cursed Earth.

• What constitutes a mutant? Most (but not all) mutants are simply malformed humans. Most of the time these malformations are hideous and debilitating. For this reason, mutants tend to have substantially shorter lives. However, there are less-common mutants that have special abilities that have been unlocked by their warped genetics. These abilities can manifest in things like gangly arms that let them climb across walls and ledges like a spider, large ears that give them super-human hearing, a prehensile tail, etc. The most documented form of mutation, however, is that of psionics. Varying in degree from minor mind-reading to deadly telekinesis, Psi-mutants are systematically sought out by a special branch of the Justice Department. They are detained and investigated to determine their threat level, as well as their potential to be used in law enforcement. The vast majority of these mutants are deported, but in very rare cases, such as Judge Anderson, they might succeed in becoming part of the Psi Judge division.

• Did you say psionics? Noice! I want to make a character with telekinesis- Whoa, whoa! Hold your horses, there! Yes, psionics of varying forms exist. However, these elements are mostly in play for reasons of possible encounters with hostiles and NPCs. The Player Characters are going to be relatively normal human beings. Psi-Judges are definitely a thing, but those are rare cases set aside and trained under completely different circumstances than the regular Cadet.

• Speaking of Cadets... Training a Street Judge takes fifteen long, hard years (although exceptional cadets may graduate earlier through a fast-track programme, usually in thirteen years). Many of the entrants to the Academy of Law never make it to the streets of Mega-City One as a full Judge. The Academy is sometimes referred to as "The toughest school on earth". Cadets are either cloned from proven genetic stock, or are recruited into the Academy, typically at the age of five (we'll give some wiggle room here in the RP). They are then expected to learn the basics of law enforcement very quickly, and any failing during their rigorous training is likely to lead to expulsion. Only two-in-seven cadets graduate. Upon graduating, cadets attain Rookie Judge status and are awarded their half eagle badge and white helmet.
  
  Seeing as how the Cadets will be in their 12th Year of Training, what this essentially means is that no Cadet character should be younger than 17 or older than ~ 20.
  A Rookie Judge would realistically be in their early 20s.
  
  I will NOT be entertaining character concepts that have an OC joining the Academy late in life, such as in their teens or adult years.

• Can my OC be a clone of Joseph Dredd?
  Joseph Dredd is actually a clone, himself. He and his brother Rico were both clones of Chief Judge Fargo. There is a canonical clone of Joseph, a man named Doleman who actually quit the Academy of Law to pursue his own life. No other clones of Dredd have been mentioned and we can assume that after Doleman, they have stopped using his DNA.
  Short Answer: No. You cannot be a clone of Judge Dredd (Fargo).

• The Cursed Earth: This will be covered more under the STORYLINE tab. But let me give you a brief rundown anyway. The Cursed Earth refers to any lands outside the walls of a Mega-City. While the immediate zone outside of MC1 is arid desert much like the Sahara, there are regions further out that transform into various biomes, most with dangerous aberrations and mutants prowling their scape. Civilizations exist out in the Cursed Earth, though most is privy to the lawless savagery of gangs and raiders. However, small towns and settlements populated by mutants and exiles are there for those looking to discover them. Just don't expect their denizens to be welcoming to outsiders.

poiler

Any other questions that you may have can be addressed here in the thread for discussion.

STORYLINExxx
To start, the time that the RP takes place in is ambiguously in the years prior to the Apocalypse War. Judge Dredd himself has already become a personage of awe to Cadets, and a figure of infamy to the criminal scum of Mega-City One.

With that out of the way, most of you are probably wondering what's up with the Hotdog , amiright?
In the Judge Dredd canon, a "Hotdog Run" is the colloquial term for the expedition that twelfth-year cadets take into the Cursed Earth for "Wasteland Familiarization". And that's essentially what this RP is going to kick off with. The players are going to be 12th year cadets, still in training and getting ready to venture out into the Cursed Earth for the first time in their lives. They will be accompanied by a Senior Street Judge (that'd be Me roleplaying my own OC) and possibly one Rookie Judge who hasn't been out of the Academy for very long. If I get enough participants, I will consider opening up a second slot for another rookie. However, I want the bulk of the PCs to be Cadets-in-Training. I will also add-in NPC cadets as needed to fill-out the classroom, so to speak.

The Cadets would already be well-informed of all sorts of Cursed Earth dangers; from various iterations of mutants and wasteland gangs to killer robots, to environmental hazards like the notorious "Death Belt". However, the Cadets are wholly lacking in any real-world field experience, at this point only having trained in live-fire simulations and controlled field "Mock-up's". The Cadets' regular instructor will not be accompanying them on this "Hotdog Run". They are back at the Academy preparing to accept a new class of aspirants. The role of their immediate supervisor has been delegated to one Judge Walsh, a Street Judge with Pilot Training and a decade of experience of running sorties through and into the Cursed Earth under her belt. Those that make it passed this field test can move on to later phases and hope to eventually make it to their final Field Assessment alongside a Street Judge in Mega-City One. Those that do not pass will return home with a FAIL grade and invariable expulsion from the Academy... if they are lucky.

CHARACTERSxxx

When making a character, please keep in mind that Cadets are typically recruited at around 5 years old. Training takes 15 years to become a Judge, and these Cadets are 12 years into their training. A Rookie Judge is probably only in their first or second year of being out on the beat. 5 + 12 = 17 years for the Cadets, with a +/- factor of a year or two for variety. And the Rookie should be no older than 22 or 23.

Another element to keep in mind is that any of the cadets or the rookie can be a clone. The clone is derived from assimilated DNA of prestigious and venerated Street Judges that had proven themselves as paragons of the Justice System. That being said, I'm going to implement some of my own restrictions in making it so that the DNA origins of the clones are classified and are kept secret from everyone but the highest-ranking Judges, such as the Council of Five.

I don't think it needs to be mentioned, but Cadets and Judges readily appear as both male and female. Make whichever of the two that you wish. Oh, and only ONE character per player, please.

Now that we have that out of the way, below is the format that I wish for interested players to submit. Do not add to it. Do not take out fields. If you have any questions regarding background or places that they could be born, please feel free to reply in the thread with your query. Do not worry about mentioning a character's equipment. This will be addressed in-narrative when the Cadets are equipped for their expedition.

When adding an image reference for your character, I would prefer that the image not exceed a resolution of more than 530 x 530. You can manually resize in your post if you can't/won't resize the image beforehand. The ref does not need to showcase your character's entire physique but should definitely have a good shot of their face.
The Judge Dredd pic below is to exemplify size and a more ideal art style, but please have a reference pic that actually shows their facial features and is not wearing a helmet.

One unwavering rule that I have about Faceclaims in my RPs is: No Anime art references. Please respect this. Other art styles are fine. But the less "toony", the better. Comic book styled art is ideal, but not a dealbreaker if you can't find something you like in that particular style. I will tentatively accept photos of non-celebrity faceclaims.

For an example of a properly filled out CS, see the MEET YOUR INSTRUCTOR tab. Keep in mind that Judge Walsh's CS has a bit more to it on account of her experience as a Judge, post-academy.

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(DELETE EVERYTHING IN PARENTHESES)

Name /L-F-M/: (Last, First, Middle -if applicable)

Sex: (Male or Female)

Age: (Cadets 16 - 19 y/o, Rookie 19 - 22 y/o)

Height: (in cm units.) (standard Human range of height, be realistic)

Weight: (OPTIONAL) (in kg units.) (Please be wary not to make your character egregiously over/underweight. Use 3D Body Visualizer if you need to)

Hair Color: (Realistic/Natural Colors only)

Eye Color: (Realistic/Natural Colors only)

Build: (Tall, Short, Stocky, Lanky, Endomorph, Ectomorph, Mesomorph, etc.)

Place of Birth: (Most Cadets will be born in MC1, creative mentions of Hab-Blocks, Mo-Pads, and other habitational designations are encouraged)

Rank: (Cadet/Rookie)

Distinctions: (Fields that your OC has particularly excelled at during their training in the Academy. Things such as Marksmanship, Unarmed Combat, Tactical Awareness, Ethics, Vehicular Pursuit, etc. For some ideas, you can look up Judge Classes. The Cadets are in line for becoming Street Judges, but that does not mean that they could be showing aptitudes for future special duties.)

• Primary Aptitude:
• Secondary Aptitude:
• Tertiary Aptitude: (Rookie only, Delete field if Cadet)

Known Family:

• (list parents and siblings, and a vital status of Alive or Deceased: Name / Relation / Status)

Brief Backstory:
(Mentions of parents, siblings, upbringing, social class, etc. Keep it short and simple. A few paragraphs should suffice. I don't expect an essay for a character that has been training in the Academy for most of their life. Though I expect there to be a lot of similar background elements, please look over other submissions and try to make something different from what others have already offered)

Spoiler: EQUIPMENT

Pending
(Do not fill in, Leave Blank for now)

MEET YOUR INSTRUCTOR]

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Name /L-F-M/: Walsh, Rebecca, Marie

Sex: Female

Age: 32

Height: 166 cm

Weight: 85.2 kg

Hair Color: Blonde

Eye Color: Green

Build: Endomorph

Place of Birth: Mega-city One,

Rank: Street Judge/Judge Pilot

Distinctions:

• Primary Aptitude: Piloting, Low-Atmo Craft Specialization
• Secondary Aptitude: Hunting/Tracking - Cursed Earth Survivalism
• Tertiary Aptitude: Electrical/Mechanical Repair - Low-Atmo Craft Specialization

Known Family:

• Jeramiah Bartholomew Walsh / Father / Deceased
• Magdalena Marie Walsh / Mother / Alive
• Ronnan Kurtis Walsh / Brother / Deceased
• Ryker Malcolm Walsh / Brother / Alive

BACKSTORY:
While living conditions in a Mega-city are stereotyped as being crowded into one of the multitudes of Mega-Blocks, there as yet as many citizens that live their lives outside of the Blocks in nomadic fashion. These individuals sometimes occupy a Mo-Pad, a roving mobile home that can range in size and style from a small, shanty-rig to a luxurious itinerant dwellings complete with pools and other accommodations. Of course, the vast majority of the population living in Mo-Pads fall into the former category. Such was the case for Rebecca, Becca', Walsh. She and her family lived amongst a clan of roving peoples that had crawled their way from the Undercity generations ago, escaping the many nests of fugitives, troggies and more sinister creatures that dwell in that region of old New York. Their peoples never stayed in one place for too long. Their clan caravans circulated the various highways and tunnels that connected a handful of clustered sectors in the Northwest Hab-Zones in gypsy-like fashion. In those sectors, the overbearing gaze of city administration was considerably laxer and left the citizenry relatively neglected.

When Rebecca was six years old, her family had the unfortunate luck to be travelling the Skedway between the Roddenberry Heights and Lucas Lux Hab-Blocks during what they would violently discover to be in the midst of a block war. The clan caravan was waylaid by small arms fire and rocket-propelled munitions, immediately disabling and destroying several vehicles of her kindred and killing the families within the Mo-pads. When their own home came under fire, Rebecca's father managed to run them off the Skedway and crash them down into a Parkarama between the two Hab-blocks. Rebecca, her mother, and youngest brother managed to crawl from the wreckage with their lives, saved by the miraculous skill that her father had displayed in getting them out of immediate danger. Becca's father and older brother had died in the crash, however. Amid the smoke and fire, a crosshatch of bullets sprayed back and forth across the trash-strewn park as the blocks' defense militia exchanged fire upon one another. On several floors, makeshift gangways were extended to bridge the wide gap between the monolithic hab-towers, while on the ground, citizens fled on foot in every direction while gangers took advantage of the situation to wreak havoc.

By the time the Judges had shown up to quash the insurgence, bodies had piled along either side of both feuding mega-blocks; people either having been killed trying to advance or retreat or having fallen out of an upper floor window (or the makeshift bridges). Rebecca's mother had recoiled behind the cover of a flipped over Grav-Hauler, tucking her baby brother to her chest. Rebecca however, had gotten loose from her grip and scrambled to arm herself with a small pistol she'd taken from the fresh corpse of a ganger. As several hostiles approached the family, Becca squeezed the trigger as she swept the weapon in a wild arc at the attackers. She fired and fired until the trigger clicked empty. Some of the attackers had ducked away, two were shot down by the child, but most had been unaffected by her retaliation.

Rebecca's fate looked grim when a quick spate of trained shots rang out and all the remaining hostiles dropped dead. Rebecca looked up to see the imposing and heroic visage of Judge Tanner training his Lawgiver on various perpetrators and doing his part, along with a handful of other Judges, in bringing the Block War to an end. Rebecca caught the Senior Judge's sight before she returned to her mother's hidden form. When at last the region had been pacified, Tanner came to find Rebecca and her remaining family. Impressed with the young girl's bravery in the face of death (and worse), Judge Tanner made her mother an offer to enroll the six-year-old into the Academy of Law, under premise of Bravado. Reluctantly, Becca's mother agreed, seeing the offer as a way for her daughter to escape her difficult existence and also to lighten her responsibilities of having to now look after her infant boy as a widow. Becca and her mother said their goodbye's, promising to see one another again when the girl was done with her training.

Fourteen years later and Rebecca did, in fact, graduate from the Academy of Law into a fully-fledged Street Judge, henceforth regarded as Judge Walsh by her peers. She regards Senior Judge Tanner as a friend and father-figure, but has never forgotten her own father and his valiant sacrifice that saved the rest of her remaining family. Rebecca regularly visits her mother and teen brother in the Hab-blocks, dropping in between her tours through the Cursed Earth and duty rotations in Mega City One. She has become a notable pilot, presenting excellent skills in flying the turbulent skies of the American wastelands. Judge Walsh has been responsible for the safe delivery of various Escort Missions, as well as several Rescue Missions into the Cursed Earth, honing her indomitable survivalist skills to the point that she has been requested from time to time to take classes of Cadets from the Academy on their introductory excursion.

Spoiler: EQUIPMENT

• Standard Judge Uniform/Helmet
  • Wastelander Cloak, Hooded (non-standard equipment)
• Binoculars
• Lawgiver Mk. I
  • Standard Loadout
• Boot Knife
• Arbitrator
  • Ammo Bandoleer
• Grenades
  • Concussive x 2
  • Frag x 2
• Field Dress Med-Kit
• D-RAD Kit
  • P.B. Tabs
  • KI Tabs
  • Blood Test Probe
  • Water Test Strips
  • Geiger Meter
• Mag-Cuffs x2

RULES & REGS

• Don't be problematic in the OOC chat. No Drama outside of IC roleplay, and don't argue with the GM (Me) over events in the RP.

• Don't chat in the IC thread. ((Not even in parentheses)) [or brackets]. Keep any and all OOC chatter to the OOC thread.

• No Metagaming. Just because you, as a player, know about certain information, doesn't mean your PC necessarily knows about it.

• No God-modding: Taking control of other player's characters or predetermining their reactions. This includes auto-hitting in combat.

• Player Characters must be created according to the setting. I have outlined this in spades, so there should be no reason for me to see submissions that are off the rails.

• Original characters only. This really shouldn't be an issue that I foresee. But I'll mention it just in case. Do not make a character that is swapped over/reskinned from some show/movie/game/etc. Try to be original in your submissions, as well. The "orphaned prodigy" trope is tired and overused, for example.

• I've mentioned it already, but I'll go so far as to make it a rule: NO ANIME FACECLAIMS.

• This is a Literate Roleplay. I do not want to see one-liners here. I do not even want to see three liners. I expect regular contributions of at least a paragraph consisting of several meaningful sentences. Multi-paragraph responses are the ideal, here. Dialogue exchange is the exception to this, as I do not expect you to build a story around a casual conversation between two characters. But efforts should be made to give the other players some substance to respond to with your posts.

DISCLAIMER

Due to the extreme and mature content of the Judge Dredd fandom,
to include explicit violence, language, and dark themes,
I am requiring that any and all participants be at least 18 years old.
Please, and Thank You.​