Limbo, An Afterlife with Guns and Rollerblades Options

[Sparrowsmith]

Warning. The following RP takes the laws of physics and says, "meh, that's not really important" then it laughs in the face of Geography, spits in the face of logic, and stabs you in the back for looking at it funny. This is an RP to flex your creative muscles.

Setting:
You're in Limbo. That's not Limbo as in the religious sense of the word, though it might be, but rather because it's neither here nor there. Some people died before they came here, some people just woke up one day, and some people simply don't talk about it. You've been here a while, long enough to know A from B but not long enough to know the whole alphabet. Maybe one or two of you are veterans, and have survived for a while, in which case take five.

Limbo is a dystopia, possibly afterlife, of all things neutral. It is essentially a massive desert with pockets of human civilization thrown onto it messily and without order. If you look hard enough you might find a supermarket full of supplies, and possibly your most treasured possessions, if you're unlucky a graveyard will appear behind you and you'll be eaten by a nightmare, but more on those later.

Time works differently in Limbo. Time is always running, but the sun sometimes isn't. Some places are always day, and can only be found if you walk towards them during the day, other places are always night, same rules apply. The same place that is a town during the day, could be a ruin at night. All you have to do is walk out into the sunset, then walk directly back again. It gets weirder: A town that exists in one place at noon, could exist in a completely different place at night (if that place does actually age throughout the day) but it'll usually be the same two places.

The most common killer in Limbo, and yes you can die here, are the nightmares, but we'll get to them. The second greatest killer is madness, because nothing has to make sense here. A six chamber gun can fire eight bullets without being reloaded, sometimes. No one ever gets ill. There are fresh supplies of meat everywhere, but no one has ever seen an animal (except rumors of a talking rabbit). Because Madness kills so much, only the mad can survive. The people who embrace the insanity. The people who roam supermarkets wearing rollerblades and hacking down zombies with a samurai sword. The people who march into danger and kill it. These people live. The third greatest killer is the mad people.

Plot:
People only ever do two things in Limbo: They either settle down, try to live some messed up "Wild West" apocalyptic nonsense of a life... Or they try to get home. That's us, we're trying to get back to reality. All we've got to work on is a Train with no driver that briefly passes a specific location at a specific time everyday. It's a well known rumor. Whether it's true, we don't know. What we do know is that someone, somewhere, has been boasting about having a map to it.

Important Things:
Upon waking in Limbo you found yourself with something new in your head. For some people in was a sentence, or a memory, or a song, but whatever it was it revealed something. Everyone knows something that haunts them. Some of us know exactly how we'll die (or die again in some cases). Some of us know man's one true weakness. Some of us know the meaning of life. Some of us know the reason we all deserve to rot in Limbo forever. Whatever you know, it's best not to share it. Knowing one of these things is enough to haunt you forever, knowing two is just being rotten.

As previously said, only the mad survive here. It is a common courtesy to invent a new name, dress wildly, and generally be a badass. This gives people confidence that you won't die soon (as almost every person who arrives in Limbo dies within a day) and also hides your past, which few people will ever care about here. Some people claim to have been in Limbo for over a century, but still look young, some people seem to die quicker. There is no rhyme or reason, this place just hates some people more than others.

The Nightmares:
There are a number of horrors walking Limbo. We call them Nightmares.
Most are standard. They simply appear as some abstract human fear. Monsters, vampires, zombies, you name it. They're not shapeshifters, and bullet to one of the buggers will usually kill them.
Other Nightmares are more elaborate. Luring people to their deaths through elaborate tricks, creating mirages, and generally being dicks. If you're lucky, you'll run into one of these. If you're really lucky, you'll run into the first group.
If you're unlucky, you'll run into one of the real bad Nightmares... But since you haven't encountered any real bad Nightmares yet, this section remains empty for now.
[I'll add these as we encounter them. For the record, I have a few planned out.]

Sign up:
Limbo is a place where actions speak louder than words or life stories. I would highly recommend writing yourself a sign up and keeping it locked up at home, in a drawer, where no one can find it. Everything we learn about your character, we want to learn through the RP.

All we need here is:
A Name:
A Description or Picture:
One or Two things about them:


A Name: Elders Graym
A Description or Picture: Elders wears an extremely tall fabric top hat that shades his face almost completely. He sometimes chews on a piece of straw or a cigarette, but usually covers his face and/or neck with a polkodot handkerchief. His body is wrapped in a torn and ragged cloak. Underneath he wears a black vest, hard wearing trousers, and an array of belts for supplies and holsters. He almost always has his gun out, a handgun, custom made, he stole it off a dead guy.
One or Two things about them: He doesn't talk much. He's been here for a long, long time.

[Nicsp]

A name: Addo De Luca
A description or picture:

Addo seems to be always carrying around his rifle, which is an old victorian times musket, it is in perfect conditions, though.

One or two things about them: Addo likes to drink, like, seriously, he usually can't go through one day without ingesting at least a little bit of alcohol. He's pretty cheery and playful, however if that is his normal behaviour or just because of the alcohol, is really hard to tell.

[Sparrowsmith]

Accepted. He's both alcoholic AND has a badass name!
Let's see if we can't get some more players in this freestyle chess game we're penning.

[Ryuga]

Name: Nina Crescent
Picture:

[Show/Hide] pic

The rest of her garments have been stained with blood of both her own, and of others. Her weapon of choice is a butcher’s cleaver.

One or Two things about her: Limbo’s no place for a young girl like her to be wandering around. You could say that she’s developed some psychological issues.

[Sparrowsmith]

Brilliant I'm thinking of making some maps if anyone is confused about how geography works in Limbo, but if everyone gets it then I'll leave it as it is.

[Bill Nye]

Name: Keon Ludwik
Picture:

His weapon's are two small daggers he found. one is engraved with some kind of symbol...

One or two things about him:
Rather fast, he has a bad habit of saying the wrong thing at the wrong time. Feels no shame in taking things from others if he needs it.
He finds Limbo a place of freedom, at least next to the laws back home. But his sister Cisna is what drives him to get out.

This post has been edited by Bill Nye: Nov 8 2011, 08:06 PM

[Sparrowsmith]

accepted 3.0!

depending on my schedule I'll have this up some time in the next five days, hopefully with another RPer or two by then.

[Bill Nye]

Cool, can't wait. It's been way to long since i last took part in an RP.
EDIT: I feel like Johnny's theme from chrono trigger would fit Nicsp's char..

This post has been edited by Bill Nye: Nov 9 2011, 11:59 PM

[Sparrowsmith]

I was just about to set this up, and I have a nice idea how to start it, but I figured it's a sandbox RP so I may as well let you guys get a say in this If you guys have any ideas during the RP, message me or post them here. I love some collaborative world building. I'll probably handle main plot points (though there won't be many).

Anyway, here's a few ways I've thought of beginning this:
1 - Elders Graym (my character) has heard of a map home and sent word through the grapevine that anyone who wants to help him find it should meet him at the central saloon (a western style tavern that, unless you know where you're going, you'll eventually walk back to).
2 - We've all heard of the map on our own (through rumors) and travelled to the same town to try and find it (some hilarity ensues as we race against each other).
3 - We already have the map, and are just beginning the journey.
4 - Whatever ideas you guys can think of.

Whichever you guys are most comfortable doing works for me. If you wanna start with some exposition then move into the action, it's option 1. Want some mild fun to set the scene, option 2. Straight into the main journey, option 3.

Personally I quite like 1, but I'll leave it to you guys.

[Ryuga]

While option 2 is the most natural way to start the story, we really need anincentive for the characters to unite. Option 2 has the potential to durdle which none of us want.

I vote option 1.

[Bill Nye]

I agree with Ryuga. (Who has the best avatar ever.)
1 sounds good to me.
EDIT: I think that 2 would be a good way to re-use this RP after we use idea numbah 1.

This post has been edited by Bill Nye: Nov 15 2011, 06:42 PM

[Nicsp]

Also vote with idea number one.

[Bill Nye]

Just a guess, but i think we're going with number 1.

[Sparrowsmith]

1 it is.

I'll set this up later tonight and we can get cracking, good hustle guys need quick responses like that in the RP to keep it going to.

[Bill Nye]

*Insert image of person waiting here...*

[Sparrowsmith]

sorry my laptop overheated so I decided to get an early night... Up within the hour.

[Sparrowsmith]

Ok! I'm going to start introducing some new concepts as we go along (feel free to introduce some of your own). A lot of these were planned out from the very start, but seemed like too much to introduce initially, so I thought I'd ease you into it. New concepts will appear in bold during the RP, though I may introduce them here first. As said before, you are welcome to introduce your own concepts too.

Fractured Factory
The fractured factory is one of the stranger parts of Limbo. You'll stumble across it during the day in good condition, recently abandoned. Gears will still whir and grind if given motivation. As the day progresses, however, time will take its toll swiftly. Floors will collapse by the hour, walls will degrade, machinery will die out completely. By night the place is a ruin, hundreds, maybe thousands of years old. By morning there is nothing left but sand, and you are once again standing in the ever-changing desert of Limbo. The exact location of the Fractured Factory changes throughout the day, so when you leave in the morning you are in a completely different location to where you entered the previous morning. On the other side of Limbo, however, the Factory will reappear, fully functional again, then slowly travel and degrade until it reaches its resting place again. By leaving the Fractured Factory at a specific time, you can travel to corners of Limbo that no one has seen before.

Generics
[Nightmares]
Generics are your standard nightmare material. They are the manifestation of a random fear throughout time, usually pertaining to folklore or children's stories. They are easily killed, but attack in swarms, making them potentially dangerous. As with most nightmares, they kill by physically harming you with their teeth or claws. Generics are largely inconsistent, due to them being amalgamations of several fears. A horde of undead generics, for example, may be comprised of both slow and quick moving zombies. What must be remembered about generics is that they are NOT fears themselves, merely beings that disguise themselves as common fears. A Generic Nightmare in the form of a vampire does not need to be staked through the heart, a bullet pretty much anywhere will do just fine. More complex nightmares, however, do have rules that must be followed to kill them, but that's a concept to be introduced later.

Impossibility Factors
This is a concept Graym will personally introduce soon, and is very important to Limbo. It is a mathematical scale which tells you exactly to what extent the laws of physics apply at any given time [note, this can change within a matter of minutes].
0 - ALL laws of physics remain intact. The universe is behaving exactly as you would expect it to.
1 - No laws apply at all. vehicles can be driven up the sides of skyscrapers without using any fuel at all. Guns never need reloading. With the right mind set you can defy gravity itself and kill anything you see by blinking. Factors of 1 are basically unheard of, however, and require TREMENDOUS amounts of willpower to actually act upon.
Commonly in Limbo you will find factors of 0.2 to 0.5. At these factors you can expect some reality bending to occur, but not much, and only if you focus on it. You can jump higher, run faster, your 6 barrel gun can fire 9 shots without reloading, your sword can cut through metal, etc
What is VERY important to stress about impossibility factors is that they only work if your mind accepts it. If you refuse to accept that the laws of physics aren't working, then they will continue to take effect for you, while other people are crashing motorcycles into helicopters. Basically, the madder your character is, the better they can take advantage of impossibility factors. Graym, for example, refuses to believe that his hat can ever leave his head, so it rarely does How exactly do we work out the impossibility factor? Well it's really quite simple, and we'll learn how to do it as soon as we reach the next location.

Edit:
After we hit the village we head straight for the factory and then to one of many 'supermarkets' so we can stock up on supplies and do some character building, etc, after that is a surprise but we'll have a bit more action. The next location after that is undecided, so if anyone has any suggestions they are welcome. We could go somewhere nice and welcoming, like a theme park or something, or somewhere more sinister, like a lake filled with undead (generics). I want to get you guys involved as much as possible in upcoming locations. Literally anything goes, further on I plan to include some pretty nifty chases with motorcycles and helicopters for example, so I wanna see some creative juices flowing.

[Thubanus]

Is there still room for new characters? If so, I would like to join.

Name: "Priest" (he can't remember his real name)
Picture: Found here: Found here.

A few things about him:

He remembers little about his past, except that he came to Limbo by choice, in hopes of bringing some sense of hope to a hopeless world.
Other than his robe and collared shirt, he carries a faded knapsack, with his personal effects, and a simple staff.

He is a wandering healer.

[Sparrowsmith]

The RP seems to have come to a bit of a slither, however, if the other RPers express a will to see it pick back up again then I'm sure we could fit you in. Currently several groups of raiders are heading towards our heroes, I'm sure you could arrive as well and want to join us.

Just introduced this concept to RP, I had planned to introduce it later but I thought, what with all the sudden action, this could be fun.
manifesting
When something is made in an impossible place, then taken elsewhere, it usually retains its impossible abilities. There exists a place in Limbo with very high impossibility factors, and someone in this place began creating a chemical roughly five years ago. This chemical is incredibly easy to make, but alters the very reality of Limbo if ingested. It causes one to manifest. Any thought they have can become a reality, and dream, any nightmare, with or without reason. The user often ends up insane, but the strong willed have sometimes been able to use it to their advantage. It is a dangerous drug as it makes all things possibly fake.

[Nicsp]

Dang, I missed a lot ICly. What exactly just happened? I read the posts but i'm still confused...