Lets Play / Utterly Mad Zone

A Succession Game for Cataclysm started up by members of the Utterly Mad forum, largely comprised of current and former members of the Dark Days Ahead community. A few different worlds and characters went around, most worlds not lasting very long.

Eventually, a succession was made that gradually ascended to become a full-on forum roleplay, involving multiple characters and even outlasting the world it initially started in (due to transferring characters over, following an incidence of map corruption). With player-characters in CDDA not actually able to interact, the resulting encounters were simply roleplayed out in-story.

The end result is a (currently on-going) tale centered around the adventures of various survivors, some having found themselves in a post-Cataclysm world different from the (equally post-apocalyptic) one they once new.

In the beginning, a few disparate survivors struggled on, rising to the challenge and watching the world around them steadily struggle with rebuilding. One of these survivors, a lab mutant known only by the name Catnip, had a grand project in mind, and a prophecy that would aid in accomplishing it. Working with the fledgling community of the refugee center, she sought three survivors she saw in a dream.

A "knight in a modern time" riding armored cavalry. A "murderer who has chosen mercy," her body enhanced by lethal bionics. A wizened post-apocalyptic cowboy, riding a horse of steel.

What followed was map corruption, the resulting character transfer being played out as an in-universe event, alternate universe shenanigans, numerous interactions between player characters and NPCs, character art made by the players, and multiple collaboratively-written stories, the first and most notable covering an assault on a bandit camp.

Work in progress, and still ongoing. The thread for the succession game itself can be found here, though some details unfortunately only exist (at least initially) in discussions on the forum discord server. This page covers the events occurring in the worlds titled Blame Blitz and Utterly Mad Zone, the latter lending the title to this page.

See also The Winds of Memories, a thread used to post background stories, and Catnip's Odd Trip, a sidestory chronicling what happened to Catnip after she was teleported far from the New England setting of the succession game.

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This succession game provides examples of the following tropes:

• Action Girl: Roxanne, the bionic assassin. While she relies more on her CBMs to make up for a lack of formal combat training, she still's still quick on her feet even without the CQB bionic, a good shot, and has bionic-enhanced (later mutation-enhanced) strength. Helen the mage-hunter as well, swinging around a warhammer and having the training to make use of it.
• All There in the Manual: The Winds of Memories thread details a lot of things only hinted at in the thread itself, though a lot of things only come up during discussion in the forum's discord server, before being alluded to in the thread.
• Almost Lethal Weapons: The symbol of judgement. Early on several direct hits merely bring Helen to her knees, while later on it's described as flaying and burning flesh when it hits, consistent with its in-game damage being over 3 times that of the chain lightning CBM. While this was due to Depending on the Writer, it was subsequently justified by a mention of specific magic needed to make it use less energy, with the only other option being to wing targets with the lightning left in its wake.
• Angels, Devils and Squid: Various deities have been mentioned in the story and/or affected events, along with at least one outright devil, and a few notable otherworldly beings. The last group muddles things up a bit, between Astor being an otherworldly monster pretending to be a representative of God, to He From Beyond The Veil being a deity from some other faraway realm, to Illiana being the outright physical representation of Deus ex Machina.
• Artifact of Doom:
  • The arch-slabs are shown to be dangerous and potentially corruptive, with most having been destroyed by the Cleansing Flame at some point in the past. Just one remaining slab was able to tear another hole in reality and almost killed Astor, and still required careful handling afterward even after being drained of most of its power.
  • The four Pieces, each containing a fragment of a dangerous diety that was sealed long before the cataclysm, with Despair (prior to becoming independent enough in Melody's possession to no longer want to join the others) and Assimilation being the most overtly dangerous.
  • The cursed sword, in contrast, is the most mundane of the lot, merely being addictive if overused and driving the user into a bloodlust when active. Still, Horace demonstrated that the long-term effects can permanently wear away at the user's sanity and memories.
• Ascended Extra: Sergei and Taji were originally just minor characters for flavor at Hap's bar, but Helen's arrival led to the two getting roped into helping her take on God's Army, playing a larger role in the story. Once Helen's actually in-gameplay turn started, Sergei was outright canonized from being an "RP-only" NPC to being an official one, by implying him to be her starter NPC.
• Aura Vision:
  • The mask of insight is written this way in-story, being able to sense people within a certain radius, detecting magic effects and sensing spirits. Victor is also shown to have an innate form of this, most notably seeing a spirit of death unaided when Helen's mask only revealed him due to aftereffects of a different magic item.
  • Likewise, Mica's hidden eyes are capable of seeing auras in some form or another, so long as they are uncovered, as well as swapping between different forms of vision.
• Awesome Personnel Carrier: Roxanne's vehicle of choice, dubbed the Armored Scouter. A heavily modified APC, even having the main gun from a tank rigged to it.
• Badass Army:
  • In theory, Division XIV, an armored division trained for urban warfare, and given the latest sci-fi tech to test, is this. In practice, they pressured anyone they thought they could get away with into joining, accepted the likes of Nathaniel (who, thanks to that 5 strength, likely was barely passing fitness tests), and was ultimately designed to clean up undead and civilian alike in the event of a crisis. On top of all that, as Nathaniel elaborated, most of their units failed in that attempt due to various events from in-game lore, in particular the Face–Heel Turn of their military AI.
  • Division IV, of which a company was assigned to the necropolis, handled themselves much more competently. It's established that all 5 "topside" divisions (including XV, as seen above) were a poorly-planned attempt to avert the impending apocalypse, while the first 10 are implied to be genuine elites.
  • The CAF or Canadian Armed Forces pushed their way south in an effort to contact what was left of any American force they could in the south using bombardment tactics and a machine called "The Midgard."
• Badass Normal:
  • Sir Loin/Hector. Single-handedly cleared out an entire town full of zombies, did the same with a spacial-anomaly-wracked, zombie-infested school (even with only a third of the structure still existing, there were over 100 undead), took on Bio-Weapon Apophis and won (albeit via Tank Goodness). Eventually dabbled in bionics to a limited extent, becoming an Empowered Badass Normal.
  • Floyd. Has dispatched countless undead on his own, cleared out a small gang of would-be-bandits with just a revolver, and has done all this without the kind of armor that Hector has. On top of that, he's a competent mechanic and knows his way around heavy firepower, making him the go-to gunner for the Siege Tower.
  • Sharlene, the NPC that acts as Lilith's handler. An ordinary woman turned bizarre bloodmage with a tazer, she pretty much singlehandedly keeps Lilith from flipping out and killing anyone while also summoning up horrors from other dimensions and bullying them into helping her.
• Batman Grabs a Gun:
  • Roxanne's preference for her bionic sword means she's only used other melee weapons out of desperation. The first time it pays off, marking the turning point of the battle. The second time it goes a lot less well, almost getting her killed.
  • Helen ends up having to use magical items that are forbidden by The Cleansing Flame when needed.
  • Hector taking up a rifle in addition to his sword. While not averse to firearms, having used the weapon mounted on the Siege Tower to great effect before, he's more competent at close combat. The first time he does so, it turns out to be less effective than simply hacking the enemy apart, but the second occurrence proves more effective.
• Beast Woman:
  • Lilith, the hulking tigerwoman mutant. Despite her appearance, while she's extremely dangerous if provoked or if she feels Kathrine is threatened, she otherwise acts like an overgrown cat if not riled up.
  • Mica, the lithe spider/rat. Has a reputation as a delightful individual as well as being a nearly mindless beast until cured of her insatiable hunger. Still behaves monstrously, but mostly in the sense that she bullies Butt-Monkey Mohammad Stuart and her sister Catnip.
• Big Good: Amusingly, both He From Beyond The Veil, Lucy, Illiana Dheva D'horis have served this role to some extent. The former seems more concerned with major threats to the stability of the various realms, while the second is partly responsible for Anomon being sealed in the various pieces, and the latter outright intervening in matters when no other escape is possible.
• Blinded by the Light: Used by both God's Army and The Cleansing Flame. The former notably used flashbang grenades to ambush and kill Mica's handlers, while Helen provides multiple examples of the latter using the hammer of the hunter against the former, in addition to its use on monsters.
• Blood Knight: Hector, Donovan, Lucian, and numerous other characters. Nathaniel has noted that despite the fact an unwillingness to join Division XIV being what sets Hector apart from the version he knew, Hector seems to enjoy battle more than he does.
• Blue-Collar Warlock: Given the 20 Minutes into the Future setting of the game, every arcanist character has at least some understanding of the modern world.
• Born in the Wrong Century:
  • Hector's the main example, favoring a sword, shield, mail, and great helm when fending up the undead, and early on put on a more overt knight act.
  • Floyd. He's an old post-apocalyptic cowboy, with a thing for classic Western movies and Johnny Cash, which would be perfectly expected for someone his age. That is, normal for someone his age today, but in the 20 Minutes into the Future setting of Cataclysm, these are all way before his time, possibly as much half a century.
• Both Sides Have a Point: Helen's opinion of her order, The Cleansing Flame, versus the splinter faction Shadows of Arcana. As much as she considers her order to have let caution give way to hatred, she believes that caution is still warranted.
• Brought Down to Badass: Roxanne after being swapped from her mutated cyborg body to that of her counterpart, which still had the same loadout of cybernetics she started out with.
• Buffy Speak: Catnip tends to resort to this, frequently not knowing the correct terms for things, especially regarding the names of tools and parts she works with regularly.
• But I Would Really Enjoy It: Male example in the form of Nathaniel and Lilith. It's made clear that Nathaniel has feelings for her, but her being a supernatually strong cyborg tiger woman means he does little with regards to acting on that attraction. Eventually something happened, though.
• Butt-Monkey:
  • Nathaniel Ford. Being an NPC with low strength and few useful skills, Nathaniel immediately became the butt of jokes among the players. His involvement in Dirty Business didn't help. So far he's been effortlessly bowled over by an affectionate Kathrine (who has below-average strength), given the chair by Dee when he found out about Nathaniel's involvement in Division XIV, and been given the smallest bedroom on the farm's shanty.
  • Mohammad Stuart. He was found and basically bullied into joining up with Sharlene and Lilith, who push him around. A developing case of Stockholm Syndrome and the overbearing Sharlene are all that keep him from taking off. Due to a mistake, Mohammad was given a bra and has since developed a taste for wearing too tight clothing and thigh high boots. This changes later when he finally grows a backbone and meets someone new.
• Came Back Strong:
  • Roxanne's predicament eventually led to her ending up a spirit bound to one of the Pieces, first Void then Assimilation due to various mishaps.
  • Horace, being the closest thing He From Beyond The Veil could find as a Chosen to perform important tasks for him. Aside from being bound to a suit of armor, the most notable benefit to being brought back is no longer being a mindless berserker, due to no longer suffering the effects caused by chronic use of a sanguine blade.
  • Abraham, revealed in a flashback to have been killed a long time ago and brought back by an embodiment of greed to reclaim something stolen by the bounty hunters that ran into him. It predictably went wrong, but his misuse of the artifact he was supposed to reclaim has served him well since.
• Canon Immigrant: Several concepts thought up during the story have gone on to influence the background of Arcana and Magic Items mod, due to the mod's creator being one of the players involved.
• Chairman of the Brawl: See above, Nathaniel gets a folding chair upside the head when Dee finds out about his background.
• Combat Pragmatist:
  • Most of the characters don't fight fair with bandits or other threats. Dee threatened by a bandit? Used a remote-control car to run the guy over. Catnip? Careful, she bites and has a penchant for booby traps. Roxanne? She's an assassin, that's to be expected.
  • As for Hector? Despite the sword-swinging and (at one point) charging right through gunfire to cut down bandits, he's also used the tank to run down unarmed, fleeing bandits. He's also outright threatened to use Mica's Trigger Phrase against her if she attacks the farm or any of the survivors there again.
  • Helen is yet another character that prefers overwhelming the enemy and keeping them unable to fight back. Her and her old order's MO involves abusing the flashbang-like properties of their hammers, along with their masks granting immunity to the effects, with nearby crossbow-users picking off anyone that can still fight back.
  • God's Army seems to be a whole group of this, being willing to put aside their zeal if it means they can lure a couple intended victims away from their protectors. Much like The Cleansing Flame they've initiated ambushes with blinding weapons before, and when attacking Hap's Bar they pick off the guards before approaching.
• Cool Train: Rails or not, Catnip personally built a massive behemoth of a vehicle in imitation of a train, running out solar arrays and minireactors, and equipped with downright absurd amounts of firepower. Both in-game and in-story, its first test run easily demolished most of a necropolis, and in-story it ate a 120mm HEAT shell with only minor damage to the front ram.
• Cozy Catastrophe: As in-game, supplies usually aren't an issue for the major characters, though the need to resupply on food, ammo, and fuel comes up on occasion. But notably the main group has an array of vehicles in working order, several self-sustained tools running off of solar power, a radio network for communication and broadcasts, and a rudimentary computer network gets mentioned on occasion. Having Catnip and Dee on board seems to help a lot.
• Cruel and Unusual Death: Anyone getting hit by the tank. Especially anyone going under the treads. While it was described in-story as being more merciful that the other bandit who (barely) survived being hit, Salt presented a good counter-point:
  Saltmummy: Unless he went legs first. Imagine a tube of tooth paste, when you squeeze it from the bottom forward. Or rather, stomp on it.
• Crew of One: Hector's tank is usually operated by himself. Moving to the turret takes a moment, both in-game and in-story. A few times this is averted in-story when Hector, Floyd, and Nathaniel crew the Siege Tower together.
• Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass: Nathaniel's usually regarded as a bit useless, being based on an NPC that was generated with awful strength and with perception as his only above-average stat. That said, in-game his sole competence is pistol use, and when Hector first encountered him Nathaniel was busy shooting a swath through a whole mob of zombies. In-story, his background as a tank commander proved useful during the assault on the bandit camp.
• Curse Cut Short: Dee started trying to avoid his usual habit thanks to Kathrine objecting to profanity.
• Dangerous Forbidden Technique:
  • Helen using magic forbidden to The Cleansing Flame, most notably a scroll of sundering used to collapse a floating temple. That particular example led to completely unexpected permanent consequences.
  • Both the sword of entrophic harvest and the cursed sword are dangerous to overuse, the former notably almost killing Roxanne when she used it. Which led to...
  • Victor deliberately giving a spirit of harvest his soul so it could manifest and heal Roxanne, leaving him a Soulless Shell. This would've been eventually fatal (or left him vulnerable to Demonic Possession) had Death not intervened.
  • Brynna Knight, a small sub villain, possessed an old book from a dead cult. The book of hates who's pages inflicted on the cultist a recurring madness. She attempted to use the knowledge gained from the book in a quickly thwarted attack on the refugee center.
• Dangerous Phlebotinum Interaction: It's implied that an accidental interaction between magical items is what caused Helen's raid to go south, leading to the deaths of several of her friends and a fight with alt-Roxanne. Later on, use of a scroll of sundering (an item forbidden by The Cleansing Flame) left lingering aftereffects that showed up when she accidentally caught a glimpse of the spirit of death.
• Deadly Euphemism: The scientists at the lab Catnip grew up in had "christmas" every so often, and it always involved "presents" but Catnip never got any, and there were always less of her fellow experiments after each "christmas" happened.
• Defector from Decadence: A few defectors from God's Army show up on occasion, Father Maple being a notable example. Lucian and The League are additionally a splinter faction of the Sanguine Order.
• Devil in Disguise: Archbishop Astor is not just implied, but outright stated to be a being from between the worlds called Ahz't'ur inhabiting the body of an evangelical-come-prophet.
• Did Not Getthe Girl: Quinn, repeatedly due to having frequent personality clashes with other characters, most notably Minx and Dr. Maskens.
• Dirty Business:
  • Roxanne was part of an order of assassins operating pre-Cataclysm, an offshoot from the Cleansing Flame (a faction from the Arcana and Magic Items mod). Roxanne killed numerous people, and it wasn't until her last target that she relented.
  • Hector and Nathaniel both had different degrees of involvement in Division XIV, a unit designed for urban warfare and testing experimental weaponry. In his timeline, Hector declined an offer to join them based solely on the rumors of what they were involved in, and was discharged long afterward due to this. Even that was enough that Hector was unwilling to discuss it until a post-Shifting encounter with Nathaniel forced the issue.
  • Nathaniel in both universes joined anyway, and the one from post-Shifting world was thus part of an operation meant to clean up rioters and "rioters". Whatever he did before the Cataclysm still affected him, but the operation itself was a disaster for his particular unit, with his world's version of Hector being among the casualties.
  • Helen is notable for having killed the counterpart of another player-character in the past. She led the group that Victor and alt-Roxanne encountered when an unknown magical interaction caused chaos, losing several of her fellow mage-hunters due to both monsters and fighting with The Order. She's expressed mixed emotions to having killed alt-Roxanne, a member of The Order and thus technically her brethren.
• Draconic Humanoid: Aurelia, a former blood mage with mutations of this sort. It's revealed early on that she had obtained some knowledge of what happened during the summoning ritual that nearly wiped out the Sanguine Order, and that knowledge is in some way responsible for her current state, referencing similar content in Arcana mod itself.
• The Dreaded: Hector and Roland are both trying to instill fear in Hell's Raiders and God's Army, and it's certainly starting to take, especially regarding the bandits. Helen's order, The Cleansing Flame, was also this among other arcanist groups, though by the time she entered the scene they'd faded into obscurity.
• Early-Installment Weirdness: Early on there were a lot more screenshots, and the style tended to more resemble the partially-in-character writing of a succession game instead of a forum roleplay. This was essentially dropped after Chaosvolt's first turn. Later still, writing became less forum roleplay, and more forum collaborative book writing with Wilson and Mrnocamera being the only ones still adhering to the roleplay format.
• Empty Piles of Clothing: The result of Bishop Casdin's wand, during the attack on the refugee center. Figuring out what actually happened to the victims becomes a plot point once Helen and Quinn arrive.
• Expressive Mask: Dee, being one big reference as noted below, had an electronic mask mimicking his facial expressions, until a fight with a bandit damaged it. Helen also has her mask of insight, but its emotions are limited to two expressions, and tied to whether it's activated rather than her own facial expression.
• Expy: Thanks to Wilson, Dee is depicted as one big reference to Wrench from Watch_Dogs 2, complete with Expressive Mask. The differences are mainly in making him inexplicably Dutch and a reptilian mutant. Likewise, Smithwick was modeled (thanks to the same player) after Foster from Killing Floor.
• Evil Has a Bad Sense of Humor: Archbishop Astor Sends Dee a dream while in a recovery coma in which he becomes the top of his field, but neglects every other aspect of his life. For Dee, this dream seems to last a lifetime. At the end of this dream, he realizes that his accomplishments are meaningless in the face of everything he neglected to obtain it and kills himself. The moment he pulls the trigger though, he awakes into another dream.
• Fate Worse than Death: Dee, rather than executing the bandit that attacked him, left him to the wolves with his legs crippled from being hit with the SLS. Catnip later returned to the site to inflict further injury on the bandit in question. Later on Hector decided to inflict the same fate on one of the surviving mutant-hunters.
• Feed It a Bomb:
  • How Roland finally manages to kill off the other version of Apophis. In this case it entailed jamming the charge into its exposed guts.
  • Catnip tosses her Vortex stone into the screaming engine. The result is a massive explosion and the temporary breakage of Catnip's spirit.
• Femininity Failure: Mica has tried several times to be less monster and more maiden, often with strange results due in part to her appearance or her penchant for becoming over excited.
• Forced Transformation:
  • Atomos/Jennifer's mutations are eventually revealed to have been magically-induced, and Catalina's reluctance to inform Atomos of this in the years since then have caused the remaining Site 4 personnel to distrust her. Worse, it led to...
  • Astor was already mentioned inflicting this on a few of his minions before, but his use of this to turn Atomos into a fox demonstrated this ability far more overtly, sending her on the run and nearly getting her killed until she ran into Horace.
• Freakiness Shame: Hector ends up involved in two such moments within the span of a day. First he completely brushes off Drake's hidden tentacle, then later on he reacts to Roxanne's self-conscious about her bionics by complimenting her and giving a few philosophical remarks to try and re-assure her.
• Friend or Foe?: the local mutant-hunting fanatics mistook Hector for one of their own, because who else would go around dressed as a crusader in a post-apocalyptic future? The first time it happened, he brushed it off and attempted to force them to explain themselves, but the second time he used that confusion to get ahold of the remote controlling Mica's shock collar, promptly crushing it.
• Alternate-Universe Me Scares Me:
  • Several of the characters have found out unfortunate things about themselves. Hector, Roxanne, and Catnip found out their "doppelgangers" have all died at some point in the past, with alt-Hector having joined Division XIV and been killed in action, and even worse Roxanne was confronted with her own equivalent's dead body. While not possible to confirm, it's joke among the players that Lilith is essential alt-Kathrine.
  • The NPCs meanwhile don't get much better. Nathaniel is implied to not be much worse off, but was shaken by the Hector he knew, a close friend of his, having died in the same mission he narrowly survived. Victor knew alt-Roxanne as a comrade and had to deal with her dying clearing a monster-infested temple he narrowly survived, while Roxanne never met Victor in her world. Catnip meanwhile learned that a sister of hers, Mica, survived when the Mica she knew was put down, and was eventually further mutated and turned into a living weapon.
• Eye Scream: Helen doles this out twice in one fight. First, the effects of the hammer of the hunter have predictable effects on a scoped-in sniper, then she inflicts a more deliberate example on the surviving templar, both during and after interrogating him.
• Genius Bruiser: Quinn, world-weary scientist and expert on anomalies. With a base strength of 13 (when 8's considered average) and strength-enhancing bionics, Lilith is one of the few player-characters stronger than him.
• Glamour Failure: A combination of magical effects led to Helen perceiving the spirit of death while he was chasing a naked ghost. It's implied that what she saw (death's form, not the naked ghost) was shocking, leading to her still perceiving him even with the mask off, and only partly resembling A Form You Are Comfortable With.
• Grand Theft Me: Randael's inevitable betrayal led to his finding and possessing the body of Roxanne's counterpart, then returning to inflict a Freaky Friday Switch on Roxanne.
• Gratuitous Latin: Plenty of Latin gets thrown around, while Hector's preferred invective of "sanctus merda" (lit: holy shit) being rather common. Hector and Roxanne at one point had an extended bit of back-and-forth teasing in Latin, until Hector stumbled over translating one of her remarks. Helen meanwhile makes even heavier use of it, when she isn't slinging profanities in Old Norse instead.
• I'm a Humanitarian:
  • Roxanne had an interest in the idea due to her experience with the occult, with Hector making jerky out of cannibalistic bandits ultimately enabling this.
  • Mica, a horrifying chimeric mutant that Catnip once knew as a mere bully, fellow experiment, and sister, isn't so much a cannibal as willing to eat anyone or anything she gets her hands on, and would've eaten Kathrine had Catnip not bested her in a duel.
  • The Hell's Raiders are already implied to be this due to the faction description in-game, but the story rolls with it, making that element more overt.
• Inept Mage: Victor, thanks to the reputation his meddling in the arcane, even things forbidden by his order, has left him with. Or as Helen put it:
  Helen: I swear, The Order seems to attract people who toy with magic like children compelled to lick electrical sockets.
• Interfaith Smoothie: The Arcana mod already has The Cleansing Flame implied to be this, to varying extents. While this wasn't explored much in the mage-hunter character during an earlier save, with the succession in full swing Helen provides a good look into a group that counts Catholics and Norse neo-pagans among its founding members.
• Invisibility Cloak:
  • Catnip owns one of these. It is often used as a means of escape when things don't go her way, or she intends to do something that would probably get her killed. A second one is obtained later on, in the other world's equivalent to the lab Catnip found it in.
  • Roxanne Luna is also in possession of one of these integrated into herself as a bionic. It drains power at such an extreme rate that it can only be used for very brief periods of time.
  • Lucian's use of a mantle of shadows, as well.
• Knight Templar: God's Army, a religious post-apocalpytic faction that hunts mutants and cyborgs. For bonus points, high-ranking members of their order are outright titled Templars. Some confusion was had due to Hector, in his usual outfit, bearing a shield resembling the design their templars use, which was exploited for all it's worth the second time it happened.
• Last of His Kind: Catnip and Mica are the last members of their group of mutagenics subjects, Nathaniel is the last known member of Division XIV, Roxanne and Victor are the last members of The Order, and Helen is the last member of The Cleansing Flame. For all of them save Catnip and Mica, they later learn they aren't really the last.
• Luckily, My Shield Will Protect Me: Courtesy of the Medieval and Historic Content mod, Hector's kite shield is a large part of why he's waded right through so much close combat in-game. Later on, Catnip brings him a new shield carved from the bone plating of one of Arizona's rare giant armadillo. The shield, she claims, can stop an anti-tank round.
• Made of Iron:
  • Most NPCs in-game, in a straight fight. Predictably, few of the player-characters fight fair.
  • Sir Loin of Beef, the first character in Blame Blitz to actually end up adding to the RP. Both in gameplay and in-universe, his combination of above-average strength and full armor has allowed him to shrug off absurd amounts of punishment.
  • Catnip has taken beatings from bio-weapons from the Cataclysm++ mod (including Apophis), had a roof collapse on her, and had a booby-trapped tank of compressed air send her flying through a windshield. None of this has stopped her in the long run.
• Mage Killer: Helen is trained as one, as expected for a member of The Cleansing Flame.
• Mama Bear: Lilith acts this way towards Kathrine, both of them being feline mutants. This reaction almost caused a Total Party Kill when she first encountered Kath.
• Mercy Kill: Hector putting down a bandit that was still alive after being hit by the tank.
• My Horse Is a Motorbike: Floyd's ride of choice, dubbed the Steel Horse. Technically a quad bike, with multiple mounted weapons installed and a large ram on the front.
• My Significance Sense Is Tingling: Helen having the occasional bit of intuition regarding magic, and when it comes to Victor she's described it as "sensing something stupid happening" on one occasion. Played for heart-wrenching effect later on when she senses much more dire things affecting Victor.
• Nay-Theist: Blood mages are stated to lean this way, with a notable disdain for holy symbols. Helen is caught off-guard by a renegade blood mage not only working for God's Army, but also brandishing a symbol of judgement.
• Never Learned to Read: Catnip, Mica, and Kathrine are both illiterate due to having been raised as experiments in a lab. Despite this, Catnip developed an affinity for machines, going solely off of her observations as well as any technical schematics and pictures. Later on the others started helping Catnip learn how to read.
• Ninja Pirate Zombie Robot: Among the player-characters are an elf cyborg assassin, and a cyborg tank knight.
• Not Evil, Just Misunderstood: Mica's behavior changes drastically when she isn't hungry, left curling up in a ball and crying out about the loss of her handlers after being rescued from the group preparing to have her crucified. Having not seen Mica in this state before, the result shook the others opinions of her, even the resident tank knight that had vowed to kill her if she tried to hurt anyone else.
• Papa Wolf: Floyd and Hector. Floyd calmly and efficiently took out a group of would-be bandits that would've harmed Catnip as part of their plan, and acts like a father figure towards Kathrine and Dee. Hector meanwhile has a habit of reacting to people harming his fellow survivors at the farm by vowing to kill those responsible, and has acted on it repeatedly.
• Pay Evil unto Evil:
  • Hector developed a habit of butchering and cooking slain Hell's Raiders, in response to their cannibalistic tendencies. The resulting question of how to dispose of the evidence once he calmed down eventually lead to his finding out about Roxanne's interest in cannibalism. After Roxanne, Hector, and Mica wiped part of a group with a habit of crucifying mutants and cyborgs, he returned the favor by putting up an (already dead) member of the group on the cross they'd set up.
  • Despite her rather friendly demeanor, Catnip hides a darker side. Upon being given her freedom (being abandoned in the woods) she murdered her handler. Later on, she would have a run in with a prominent surgeon from the lab where she was created and raised, at which point she dropped what she was doing to exact brutal revenge on him. Later still, upon leaving a bandit which had accosted Dee, Kathrine, and herself, she went back to brutalize him and make sure he wouldn't become a loose end.
• Playing with Syringes: Holy shit yes, as expected given the game lore. Nearly very mutant player-character in the succession has been the result of some unethical experiment, with Catnip seeing the worst of it. As a result some of the survivors, Hector in particular, have developed a deep suspicion of any scientists involved in mutagenics research.
• Put on a Bus: Luis is dropped off at the refugee center then never mentioned again. After the attack on the center, the players forgot outright at first:
  Mrno: Oh hey. Luis is probably fucking dead.
  Chaosvolt: We JUST NOW realized that?
  Vulnus: Hey you didn't point it out either.
• Rainbow Speak: Chaosvolt, Noctifer, and Wilson have all picked up the habit of using different text colors for their characters dialogue, though the first had a habit early on of only coloring Hector's dialogue for radio transmissions. Exaggerated in The Collab, where everyone except a few nameless bandits are consistently written with specific dialogue colors (and fonts in some cases).
• Rasputinian Death: What it takes to finally take down the other Apophis. Whereas the other one died the same way it did in-game (a single hit from a tank shell), this one either survived or narrowly avoided being nuked by Roxanne, a shot from Helen's symbol of judgement, an explosion to the face from missing its plasma shot, wading through fire to get out of the bunker, a LOT of fire from bullets, lasers, and wraithslayer bolts, getting its leg cut open by a berserking Hector, getting stabbed in the chest by Victor's even stronger Evil Weapon, a damaging near-miss from a tank shell (the same sort that instantly killed the last Apophis), getting its cannon arm sheared off by a flying humvee door, some .50 BMG fire, and being disembowled by Hector's cursed sword. It took a bomb being crammed into its open wounds to finally kill it.
• Rat Men: Catnip fills this role. Basically an anthropomorphic rat, lacking special abilities of any kind beyond her knack with machines. Later on, New Englands population is bolstered by Misling immigrants from Arizona. Basically a slave race made up mostly of anthropomorphic mice.
• Replacement Goldfish: Nathaniel and Victor both lost their world's versions of Hector and Roxanne, respectively. The implications of this come up occasionally, with Roxanne worrying about how she compares to the version of Victor's friend he knew. Nathaniel and Hector's friendship seems to be less problematic, other than the two having wildly different stories to tell about the old days.
• Retcon: It tends to happen a lot with how long the RP has been going on, but Retcons are numerous and common.
  • Previously, it was explained as impossible for any sufficiently advanced mutant to conceive. This changed with Mislings who were designed to be quick breeding, as well as Mica and Lilith becoming pregnant with their own close to impossible children.
  • In the early days of the RP, Catnip was not capable of reading. This was altered later on to be that she simply didn't know how.
  • Quinn's majors and minors have been switched. When he was first made, Quinn majored in the Occult studies and Minored in Bionic medicine. Later on, when Medeina criticizes/pokes fun at Quinn for it and they were switched. This has been shrugged off and explained by the community as a result of the shifting, with Alt-Quinn having majored in Occult while the pre-shifting Quinn did not.
• Sexy Discretion Shot: Used every so often. Given the way the players are, usually events afterward end up alluding to canon and non-canon Lemons written and intermittently posted in the forum's Discord server.
• Shellshocked Veteran: Drifter, Floyd, and Nathaniel. Floyd in particular is strongly implied to have been a veteran of some modern conflict given his approximate age and background, later confirmed during a conversation with Nathaniel.
• Sinister Minister: Early on Private Baker gives the farm residents the creeps, and it's soon revealed the group he's with intended to lure Catnip and Kathrine away to crucify them. Archbishop Astor, their leader, is noted by two different defectors to be a particularly nasty example.
• Tank Goodness: Courtesy of the Tanks and Other Vehicles mod, with Hector driving a light tank (given the fictional model of M701A1) dubbed the Siege Tower. In-game tanks use a Merkava-style hatch in the back due to limitations of the vehicle system, and multiple V8 engines instead of a proper tank engine. These quirks are retained in-universe, with Hector referring to it as an "engine array" that can be configured for more or less power as needed, and subsequently ran at minimal most of the time, reflecting the in-game ability to select which engines are running on a multi-engine vehicle.
• The Grim Reaper: Turns out there multiple spirits of death, and one in particular is stuck having to deal with the farm survivors and their shenanigans. Notably though he has a thing for trying to guide Roland along, Helen regards him as one of the few things that outright scares her initially, and Victor's actions irritate the hell out of him. In his case he's a Beleaguered Bureaucrat who ends up saving Roland's life due to needing him for a future task, and saving Victor to avoid the problems that a Soulless Shell can cause from dying.
• The Heretic:
  • The Cleansing Flame and The Order mutually regarded each other as heretics after they had a schism, while off-and-on hostility between The Cleansing Flame and The Keepers of The Oath has been mentioned.
  • Helen regards herself has one due to having had to rely on magic The Cleansing Flame would've objected to, and has expressed a belief that her brethren went the the opposite extreme that The Order did. This does however lead to her being the only known survivor, and making amends with Victor.
  • Most of the religious characters that have had run-ins with God's Army developed this opinion of them. As Helen put it:
  Helen: I level the following accusations against you and your brethren. Brigandry, persecution of the defenseless, and corruption of the faith.
• The Quest:
  • Catnip's desire to build a massive train is seen as this in her eyes, seeing a prophecy that ultimately started the story down its path. Despite the absurdity of it, those she sought out contributed what they can to the project, despite setbacks such as The Shifting. It's further been sidetracked by the search for new survivors (i.e. most of players making yet more characters), and dealing with meddlesome bandits.
  • Hector's original objective in-game was to retrieve a flag for his shelter's quest-giving NPC, Beau Brooks. In-story his military background was later revealed to be the reason why, Beau being his only known link to the Old Guard. While he soon got wrapped up in Catnip's own grand project, he'd planned to return and finish his task, but The Shifting prevented that. Once the alternate-universe nature of the post-Shifting world was known, he'd later find out that this version of Beau died sometime before the Cataclysm.
• "The Reason You Suck" Speech: Trying to talk sense into a mutant-hating fanatic didn't go very well, but Hector certainly made an attempt. It didn't end well for the recipient.
  Hector: With the dead rising to feast on the living, and things not of any sane world threatening mankind with extinction, this is your concern!?
• There Is No Kill Like Overkill:
  • While running down unarmored bandits or lighting them up with machinegun fire is only overkill in-universe, the tank guns on Roxanne's Armored Scouter and Hector's Siege Tower are absolutely this. The latter in-game doled out 12925 damage◊ to Bio-Weapon Apophis (which has 500 Hit Points), and later on 6863 damage◊ to a zombie hulk (480 hp).
  • Not to be outdone, after confirming that Bio-Weapon Apophis was still alive after The Shifting, Roxanne decided the best option was to break into an abandoned missile silo and launch a tactical nuke at the Abandoned Laboratory it was residing in. Alas, it didn't take.
• Throwing Your Sword Always Works: Done once early on by Hector, against a fleeing deer. Predictably it finished it off.
• Trigger Phrase: "Blightwalker." Used to incapacitate Catnip and others from the same group of mutants. Since it relies on a surgical implant, it no longer works on Catnip, but it's one of the few things keeping Mica under control.
• Unequal Rites: Helen's distrust of blood magic and many other forms of magic her order doesn't approve of, while even The Order has forms of magic it forbids. Piercing the veil, the sort of thing described as the worst offense to The Order, is also the entire purpose of the ritual blades used by The Keepers of The Oath.
• Unexplained Recovery:
  • Catnip undergoes this a few times after each of her rather harrowing near death experiences. The first time she suffered near full body burns, bites, bludgeoning, and even a crossbow bolt to the side along with wild mutation only to be near fully recovered upon the hero's moving to there current home on the farm.
  • Donavan undergoes a short and unexplained recovery after detonating his power core in the mainframe room of insane AI, C.I.D. Before this point, he'd already ripped out a large number of his bionics, including several connected directly to his brain.
  • Dee's recovery after awaking from his recovery coma is fluffed away and even ended prematurely via liberal application of RX12
• Unholy Holy Sword: Both the cursed sword and the sword of entrophic harvest. The former was corrupted from a ritual blade used by The Keepers of the Oath, while the latter was former an incorruptible sword common to The Cleansing Flame. Notably, the ability to purify the former was added to the mod it hails from, while the latter was partially cleansed by Victor.
• Unusual Euphemism: "Prepare two place settings at the table." from The Collab, Nathaniel's method of Breaking Bad News Gently.
• Violently Protective Girlfriend: Mica and Lilith, both of whom are prone to flying into a feral rage when their men are endangered.
• Watch the World Die: The various survivors got a chance to sit back and enjoy a nuclear missile launch, with varying reactions to it. Nathaniel completely freaked out, Hector ran out to try to radio Roxanne to make sure she was okay (not knowing she was in the silo and didn't hear the radio), Mica had to be practically forced to look away by Lilith. And all the way at the bar, Helen decided to make use of her mask of insight to safely observe the explosion^note  Though the in-game limited sight radius was downplayed, by implying that beyond the range of its clairvoyance the nuke was literally the only thing visible.
• What Measure Is a Humanoid?: Zig-zagged with Hector, who (like most survivors) sees no problem with killing undead by the hundreds and didn't see the (living) failed bio-weapons as human, but did consider the cybernetic monstrosities he encountered in an Abandoned Laboratory to be the first people he's ever killed. That said, he brushed it off just as pragmatically as his eventual bandit-hunting.
• What Measure Is a Mook?: Dee was shaken for some time after crippling and leaving for dead a Hell's Raiders bandit that accosted Catnip, Kathrine, and him. Hector and Roxanne's casualness about it didn't help much, in fact it made the two of them realize something was abnormal with how little they felt about killing. Eventually though, the threat of more people being hurt by a well-organized gang of cannibal bikers led to him being okay with joining in the eventual assault on a bandit camp.
• Will They or Won't They?: A bit of back-and-forth of this sort went on with Hector and Roxanne, in addition to Nathaniel and Lilith. Also, after finally moving in together and hitting a rocky patch in their relationship, Dee and Mica finally get around to it. Catnip and Kathrine also get down to business once rebuilding the farm after a big storm is finished.
• Wrecked Weapon: Hector getting his shield trashed tends to be a bad sign. Roxanne also had an instance of her bionic sword CBM being damaged, and her dependance on it was part of what led to her training to use other weapons.