Life on St. Jocelyn's Lament is not easy. It never was. But humans are a hardy people and they made do with what they had when they first landed on the planet in that first, disastrous contact. Through its schizophrenic weather, constant infestations of the local fauna, and constant supply shortages they managed to adapt, to improvise, and more importantly, to overcome. At the turn of the 5th recorded century, mankind stands tall on St. Jocelyn's Lament. His armies have marched across the globe putting down the Rippers in all their forms, and his dwelling places have grown from scattered settlements to towering cities protected from roof to foundation by powerful shields that keep the lightning hail and flaming sandstorms out. As mankind pushes his sphere of influence ever outwards, he finds himself without a common enemy to unite his disparate peoples and ideologies and, typical of his history, he turns on himself and changes what should have been his greatest triumph into his deepest tragedy. What a waste of fine material...
...and with that neat little blurb to set the mood, let's get into the meat and potatoes. St. Jocelyn's Lament was a colony world belonging to old Earth, a planet that nobody remembers or cares about. As you may have gathered, the expedition was a disaster and the colony ships crashed down on the planet, losing all contact with the rest of their kind. In the intervening 500 years (recorded years, anyway), the colonists have been able to recover a lot of technology that humanity used to have access to and used it to prosper on their new homeworld in spite of the harsh environment and various alien gribblies that tried to eat them. Most common among these were the Rippers. Actually several species of animal that coexist in a kind of separate ecosystem, they came to be known as Rippers simply because it was an easy and convenient name for them and there weren't a whole lot of zoologists in the roster of surviving colonists. As humans were able to consolidate their settlements and raise armies backed by modern weaponry, air support, and so on, they were able to drive the Rippers back into isolated pockets of wilderness to the point where they only became a problem for settlements along the frontier.
Incidentally, guess where you're going.
In the current time period, mankind is divided into city-states: loose associations of settlements that eventually grew together into large cities under a common system of government in the interest of mutual protection. The city states had a general agreement to leave each other alone and focus on driving back both the Rippers and the jungle/bush/other nasty and rapidly growing biome, but over time such threats are not so major and as they begin to push outward and expand their holdings, conflicts inevitably occur. All-out war has happened but it is a rare occurrence. Usually conflict is limited to a specific flashpoint and involves small bands of soldiers and mercenaries fighting vicious skirmishes against each other until one side decides that holding on to the flashpoint is no longer worth the effort. They retreat to plot and brood, then raise a bigger army to force their rivals off the turf and so the cycle goes on.
You, the players, will be members of one small band of soldiers fighting for the city-state of New Chicago. Your team is one of many that is deployed throughout the frontier with standing orders to patrol New Chicago's holdings, protect them from any threats that may pop up, and await orders to go over the border and make a land grab. But here's the catch: your team is part of a pilot program that takes convicts, captured slaves, and POWs from the mines below New Chicago and gives them an opportunity. They serve out a four year contract on the frontier and at the end of that time, they will be freed and offered citizenship, in the case of foreigners. A clean slate and military training is a tempting offer and many have signed up, but the selection process is rigorous and many were weeded out. You were different, in one way or another.
The LAW:
The standard RP rules apply.
I'll say this right now: teamwork is key, both in-character and out. It will be rewarded.
Aside from that, my style is to pretty much let people do whatever they want. It's the way I was raised. If you have an idea for some aspect of your character, or the world, or anything at all, I have an open-door policy. You can PM me about it if you don't want to share the idea with others, or discuss it openly.
Signup:
Name: Your name.
Age: How old you are.
Hometown: Where were you from, before you were brought to the mines?
Appearance: What do you look like?
History: What was your life like before you were brought to the mines?
What would you do if you were freed right now?:
Wise Papa Smurf, corrupted by his own power. CAN NO LEADER GO UNTAINTED?!
Life on St. Jocelyn's Lament is not easy. It never was. But humans are a hardy people and they made do with what they had when they first landed on the planet in that first, disastrous contact. Through its schizophrenic weather, constant infestations of the local fauna, and constant supply shortages they managed to adapt, to improvise, and more importantly, to overcome. At the turn of the 5th recorded century, mankind stands tall on St. Jocelyn's Lament. His armies have marched across the globe putting down the Rippers in all their forms, and his dwelling places have grown from scattered settlements to towering cities protected from roof to foundation by powerful shields that keep the lightning hail and flaming sandstorms out. As mankind pushes his sphere of influence ever outwards, he finds himself without a common enemy to unite his disparate peoples and ideologies and, typical of his history, he turns on himself and changes what should have been his greatest triumph into his deepest tragedy. What a waste of fine material...
...and with that neat little blurb to set the mood, let's get into the meat and potatoes. St. Jocelyn's Lament was a colony world belonging to old Earth, a planet that nobody remembers or cares about. As you may have gathered, the expedition was a disaster and the colony ships crashed down on the planet, losing all contact with the rest of their kind. In the intervening 500 years (recorded years, anyway), the colonists have been able to recover a lot of technology that humanity used to have access to and used it to prosper on their new homeworld in spite of the harsh environment and various alien gribblies that tried to eat them. Most common among these were the Rippers. Actually several species of animal that coexist in a kind of separate ecosystem, they came to be known as Rippers simply because it was an easy and convenient name for them and there weren't a whole lot of zoologists in the roster of surviving colonists. As humans were able to consolidate their settlements and raise armies backed by modern weaponry, air support, and so on, they were able to drive the Rippers back into isolated pockets of wilderness to the point where they only became a problem for settlements along the frontier.
Incidentally, guess where you're going.
In the current time period, mankind is divided into city-states: loose associations of settlements that eventually grew together into large cities under a common system of government in the interest of mutual protection. The city states had a general agreement to leave each other alone and focus on driving back both the Rippers and the jungle/bush/other nasty and rapidly growing biome, but over time such threats are not so major and as they begin to push outward and expand their holdings, conflicts inevitably occur. All-out war has happened but it is a rare occurrence. Usually conflict is limited to a specific flashpoint and involves small bands of soldiers and mercenaries fighting vicious skirmishes against each other until one side decides that holding on to the flashpoint is no longer worth the effort. They retreat to plot and brood, then raise a bigger army to force their rivals off the turf and so the cycle goes on.
You, the players, will be members of one small band of soldiers fighting for the city-state of New Chicago. Your team is one of many that is deployed throughout the frontier with standing orders to patrol New Chicago's holdings, protect them from any threats that may pop up, and await orders to go over the border and make a land grab. But here's the catch: your team is part of a pilot program that takes convicts, captured slaves, and POWs from the mines below New Chicago and gives them an opportunity. They serve out a four year contract on the frontier and at the end of that time, they will be freed and offered citizenship, in the case of foreigners. A clean slate and military training is a tempting offer and many have signed up, but the selection process is rigorous and many were weeded out. You were different, in one way or another.
The LAW:
Signup:
- Name: Your name.
- Age: How old you are.
- Hometown: Where were you from, before you were brought to the mines?
- Appearance: What do you look like?
- History: What was your life like before you were brought to the mines?
- What would you do if you were freed right now?:
Wise Papa Smurf, corrupted by his own power. CAN NO LEADER GO UNTAINTED?!