Roleplay / Remembrance

. . . Finally, the Spirit cursed himself for his own part in our downfall. To himself he attached Remembrance, so that humanity would never be able to forget this great tragedy. And that is why even so long after his departure we find this story impossible to escape. Its existence is ingrained in the very essence of who we are.

The last paragraph of the intro.

Remembrance is a game set in a Crapsack World where men are second-class citizens, existing only to do physical labor, die in battle, facilitate reproduction, or, if they're lucky, learn to create the Elemental Weapons that are used to wage the Forever War between the major powers on the central continent (and Lanica.)

The primary group of player characters are all officers in the Holy Army of Katria (sort of), wielders of holy weapons with powers based upon the virtues which they lacked the most when they were obtained. The characters begin scattered about, but they are all destined to be drawn into the main story thread of the game in one way or another.

Currently ongoing on Bay12 and accepting signups, but beware of the many varieties of Late-Arrival Spoiler.

This roleplay contains examples of:

• Addressing the Player: The players have been addressed in-character by the game master on multiple occasions.
• All There in the Manual: A large amount of game lore exists in the OOC thread, various documents and snippets stored in the game's Discord, or simple Word of God that hasn't yet been recorded; examples include Kirari's full backstory and many of the more esoteric rules around holy weapons.
• Anyone Can Die: Any character, including the PCs, could be killed for making a false move (or sometimes, making the obviously correct move.) This happens to one unfortunate Katrian meister, killed off just after being introduced when her superior decapitating a foe nearby causes her to panic at the situation and leave herself open to another opponent.
• Arc Words: Some things refuse to be forgotten.
• Asskicking Leads to Leadership: Invoked. Tyran's Dames are elected for their combat ability, Katrian officers often achieve high rank by simply being too badass to not promote, and while Neridus's internal structure hasn't been explored, the one General shown fights evenly with Monika.
• Backstory Horror: Several horrifying things aren't directly stated in the main body of the game, but exist as a natural consequence of the setting. A particular source of this is the implications of men being treated exclusively as objects, but it exists elsewhere as well; for example, knowing that a holy weapon integrating with the user's body is extremely painful, and connecting that to the fact that Lily's weapon is her skin.
• Battle in the Center of the Mind: Kirari and Marionette/Mia have one as a result of the way their holy weapons interact.
• Blessed with Suck: Emmery has near-omnipotence and omniscience in a radius around her, but her weapon doesn't turn off, and the immense flood of information overwhelms her mind on a regular basis.
  • A lesser example exists with Lily. She's nigh-invulnerable and unstoppable in a 1v1 fight, but she can't even touch another person without accidentally brainwashing them, not to mention the loss of other things.
• Body Horror: Exists in a few forms, mostly of relatively minor magnitudes, but special mention goes to Marionette, who casually disassembles people to use for spare parts.
• Breaking the Fourth Wall: A major part of Remembrance is the interaction of the players with the game itself, and one form of this is frequent fourth-wall breaks, such as when Eilyth reads the forum thread.
• Born-Again Immortality: One cannot truly kill a Steward; as soon as one dies, her reincarnation is born.
• Cain and Abel: Numerous cases of characters having murderous hatred toward their siblings, including Eilyth and the Stewards themselves.
• Church Militant: Downplayed. Katria is explicitly ruled by the Church and maintains a large Holy Army to "defend" their imperial heritage. The arm of the government responsible for the investigation and dissemination of information is called the Inquisition and performs the duties that implies as well as more mundane journalism.
  • Corrupt Church: Played with. Like any government, particularly one with few mechanisms for addressing bad actors at the top, Katria is hardly free from corruption. The people living under the church have been convinced that this is how things are supposed to be, despite Katria falling behind the other nations in living standards and being locked in a multi-front Forever War. The Church also uses their religious values to encourage obedience and inspire soldiers to keep fighting despite the lack of regard the country has for them (in comparison to, say, Tyran.) However, Katria is still a relatively safe and stable place to live, and its people are generally happy, with many well-intentioned people at many levels ensuring it stays a decent place.
• Chronic Hero Syndrome: There are a few characters who seem to be physically incapable of not helping someone in need nearby, with Doc being the most notable example. Given the setting, this is pretty much exclusively a bad thing for her.
• Creation Myth: The "toilet paper" in the first post tells the story of how the world was created and ended up like this. Sort of.
• Color-Coded Elements: Each element has a particular color associated with it; if there are gems visible on a holy weapon, they will glow that color when in use. Flame weapons always have red, Spirit weapons have purple glows, Frost is always green, etc.
• Combat by Champion: There is an unspoken rule in setting that causes most military battles to be decided by each side deploying one to five holy weapon wielders to duke it out in ritual combat. Regular forces are expected to retreat from the immediate area of these duels and refrain from interfering. Violating this unspoken rule is grounds for your enemies to begin violating it as well. This arrangement is justified as having meisters duel often leads to far less casualties for both sides than deciding the battle with conventional forces. It also lessens the chances of meisters being taken out by stray bullets or other common battlefield hazards.
• Cosmic Chess Game: The Stewards compete with one another to reunite Fate and Truth, for the privilege of rewriting the latter. Much of the plot centers around the pieces in the game.
• Crapsack World: The central continent is locked in a Forever War, obtaining an Elemental Weapon requires a Human Sacrifice (though they don't always die), most societies are highly stratified and/or ruled by corrupt governments, and the Cosmic Chess Game existing in the background means that reality itself could be upended at any moment.
• Eldritch Transformation: The stewards have a few tricks up their sleeve, and these tend to be particularly difficult to watch. Any steward can temporarily transform their Knight into their Avatar to do battle, with each steward's avatar having its own variation on a general powerset.
• Elemental Crafting: Holy weapons are made from a mixture of carbon steel, precious metals, crystallized virtue, an offering from the wielder, and a willing sacrifice.
• Embodiment of Virtue: The Stewards are explicitly this for their assigned virtues.
• Eye Scream: Fairly frequent and in multiple contexts. Kira's damaged eye, creating Esteemed Ones, and Lunete's holy weapon all qualify to some degree.
• Freudian Excuse: Several characters are less than moral because of their awful childhoods.
• Groin Attack: How Sola checks if Ambrosia might have a Holy Weapon.
• Hate Sink: Deliberately averted. Even the most villainous characters are intended to be sympathetic on some level, even if they passed the point of no return a long time ago.
• Heroic Sacrifice: Multiple characters. Astarte's intro consists of a Senseless Sacrifice where she puts herself in harms way to set up an attack, only to have her allies run off, and Brigitte's power is basically built on this at a smaller scale.
• Hoist by His Own Petard: Several examples. The most notable one is Verna, whose power turns off the Required Secondary Powers of other meisters.
• Love Redeems: Zig-zagged. There are characters who genuinely grow as people after making a few friends, but sometimes their heroic efforts to fix the person are for absolutely nothing.
• Marriage to a God: Of a sort. The process of holy weapon creation is a substitute for/perversion of marriage, which can be seen in several aspects of it; the process tends to be overall less dangerous and more powerful if the wielder and her sacrifice can actually get along, and the sacrifice has to consciously put in effort to empower the weapon. There is also a literal marriage to a god, when Brigitte marries Leah, a.k.a. Allia.
• No Good Deed Goes Unpunished: The setting has a nasty habit of handing people grievous trauma, whether physical or mental, to people who think they're doing the right thing.
• Oh, Crap!: General Mina's reaction to ||Kirari|| revealing her true identity is stunned silence and terror.
• One Person, One Power: Once one gains a holy weapon, they cannot ever gain another. This means there are no second chances if you receive a weak power or a power that has active detriments to using or simply having it.
• Painful Transformation: When a holy weapon's form causes it to integrate with the user's body, it happens slowly and with hours of excruciating pain. Astarotte was rendered insensate for three hours after her holy weapon replaced her heart, and Lily took upwards of twelve hours.
• Personality Powers: A major part of the setting. The element of one's Holy Weapon is determined by which of the virtues one is most lacking in, and the exact nature of one's power seems to line up with one's personality with high frequency.
• Position of Literal Power: Holy weapons are given to many authority figures, usually military officers, and are the primary source of asskicking potential.
• Power Crystal: Most Holy weapons display at least one of these somewhere in their design; these are crystallized virtue and a necessary component of holy weapons.
• Random Power Ranking: Meisters are sorted into loose classes and looser power levels ranging from 1 to 6, where rank 1 indicates minimal or very limited powers (such as Kira's immovable scarf) and rank 6 indicating the peak of power in the setting (such as Lily's incredible speed, strength, and durability). At least until Kallisto shows up.
• Red Oni, Blue Oni: Monika and Kira. Monika is outgoing, friendly, and generally prepared to face life head-on while disdaining formalities where possible. Kira, on the other hand, is quiet, a bit offputting, and much more grounded and rigorous in her approach to her duties.
• Run or Die: The standard response to Marionette (and most other Rank 6 meisters, depending on whose side one is on) showing up.
• Screw the Rules, I'm Doing What's Right!: Doc has been known to skirt or violate the rules entirely for the sake of helping her patients.
• Reincarnation: A few different forms, including the Stewards being reborn upon death, Pieces recurring as the Game progresses (an example of a "pattern" repeating without actually being the same person/spirit), and "exceptions," where the original person is somehow reborn in the present day; this last is explicitly not supposed to happen, and it is currently unknown what exactly causes it.
• Self-Made Orphan: A few cases, most of which are highly relevant to either the character's personal arc or the overall plot.
  • Kirari Arceneaux's Start of Darkness was murdering her own mother.
  • Each of the Stewards shares a portion of the blame for the death of their brother Ethan, who was also ostensibly the one that created them.
• Sidekick: A few examples:
  • Ascended Fangirl Shinko is equal parts Bumbling Sidekick, Cowardly Sidekick, and Yes-Man, existing mostly to get into the trouble Lunete inevitably drags her into.
  • Kira is The Reliable One to the more hotheaded Monika, at least at the start of the story.
• Start of Darkness: A certain infamous mass murderer's first kill is shown onscreen, and supplemental materials and out-of-character discussion reveal where one of the major antagonists started to fall from grace.
• Tragic Villain: Heaps of them. The audience isn't expected to forgive them, but basically every antagonist has a Freudian Excuse or twenty to explain their behavior.
• Ultimate Blacksmith: More or less the function of Esteemed Ones. They are the only men who can handle living metal safely, and are responsible for creating the exact mix of ingredients needed to shape a particular woman's holy weapon (and creating living metal in general, though anyone could theoretically do this.)
• Wham Episode: A few moments could qualify, but the winner is when Kallisto ascends to godhood once more, significantly shifting the apparent goals of the plot.
• You All Share My Story: All of the primary characters will be drawn into the main plot and present at the finale in some way, assuming they survive long enough.

---