Bloodborne: Dark Dreams of Modernity

It started simple enough.

A new release of Bloodborne DLC, though rather oddly unannounced, and only holding the statement Explore the darkest reaches of dreams and discover the secret that lurks within.

The DLC does not seem to change anything in your game. Not even a change of the opening scene or the gameplay. As usual, you play for a good while, and then when the time suits you, you go up to bed.

Settle into your sheets, think nice little thoughts, and then drift off into sleep.

And dream. Dreams usually come and go, and you can hardly remember the strange little sequences - they say dreams are when your mind goes barking mad every night! - but tonight...tonight, is different.

You find yourself in an eerily familiar nightmare.

Expected to, going by the vials, the weapon of choice and the gun, slaughter your way through the vile denizens of your own darkest dream.

Where do fantasy and reality end? Will they begin to blur together?

Are you simply going through a dark dream that will have no consequences when you wake? Or is this genuine - are you finding yourself truly in another world while you sleep?

And if you die in this dream...what happens to your body? Your mind?

You recognize people from your waking life in this dream, and when they are injured in the dream, they show up injured in the waking world.

"Come now," The old hunter whispers, "Come find me in the Dream, and I'll set you on your path."

X-X-X-X-X-X

Essentially, the nature of this RP is an exploration of fact and fiction, reality and dreaming, and perhaps some meta-textual argument.

An interesting fact is that even if your body is paraplegic in the real world, you will be able to fight in the body of a hale, hearty and healthy Hunter in the Dream.

What this implies will be seen, as well as the nature of what, exactly, is happening to you.

Well, as much as can be expected out of an RP based on a From Software game.

• Name: You have one...maybe.
• Age: How old are you? (Physically...)
• Gender: Be wary later on, gender may become quite relevant.
• Appearance: Describe yourself in the waking world and in the dream.
• Personality: How you act and react...may be subject to change due to effects of the dream...
• Bio: ...What you think you know about your history...
• Weapon of Choice: Choose your instrument of hunting. Best to start with something fairly basic, and find stronger instruments later. There are some weapons in this dream that are not found in your game... A new starting weapon is the Strike-Sword, which starts as a slightly curved but large sword, which you can then change into a lighter longsword and a long dagger.
• Gun: Choose your gun. Keep in mind you have a limit, like in your little game, of how many bullets you can keep on you.
• Other: Anything not covered above? Be sure to list it here. Something seemingly unimportant may come in handy later...

One question on the weapons and guns, are we limited on what is on the game or can we propose weapons and guns that would work in Bloodborne's setting?

Yeah, weapons which would work in Bloodborne's setting are welcome, in addition to weapons found in the game.

• Name: Val Tanne
• Age: 39
• Gender: F
• Appearance: She's a fairly conservative-looking woman. Val is extremely tall, maybe around 6'10", and in pretty good shape for her age. Even in the dream, she wears long brown dresses and leggings, keeping her face free of any headgear.
• Personality: Val is an authority figure and expects to be treated as such. She takes charge and supports doing so with her own lived experiences. When she gets contradicted, she responds with attempts at shaming, followed by discrediting, and eventually violence. She sees this weird shit as something that just needs solved, one step at a time. She doesn't want to figure it out, she wants to get herself into a safe position first. You don't go digging for The Deepest Lore on your first playthrough.
• Bio: Val was raised in the Bronx in a multicultural boarding house of Estonians, Germans, and French folks. Pretty early into her life her main hobbies were playing Settlers of Catan with the old folks living there, and translating for those same people. She got really into game design and languages when she started going to school proper, and eventually became a French teacher, living alone in Missouri. She's lived through like two wars now, and seen all the crazy shit that cops do a million times, and enjoys her job teaching, but is also 100% fine with not having to participate in such a fucked up world anymore. She got back into gaming when she picked up teaching to have something to connect to the kids with and so far it's gone pretty well. She's made a few Twine games herself as well, achieving a modicum of success. Bloodborne grabbed her as much as every other Souls game that wasn't Dark 2 did, and she beat it pretty quickly. Then she got that new DLC.
• Weapon of Choice: Guillotine Shears. A large Katar with a horizontal blade and a spring-loaded mechanism that deploys a rectangular frame about four feet forward. This can either be used to turn it into a large shield to deflect strikes with or as a space to hold someone's neck in, at which point the second switch can be thrown to fling the blade forward, guaranteeing dismemberment or decapitation. Makes a YUH noise when it fires.
• Gun: Startling Pistol. Not a typo. Possesses a barrel flared to be abnormally loud when fired.

edited 26th Nov '15 11:10:05 PM by Taco

Accepted, welcome to the game, Taco.

Seems like a rather fun trick weapon.

edited 26th Nov '15 11:17:55 PM by NickTheSwing

• Name: Theo Olmstead
• Age: 18
• Gender: Male
• Appearance: Theo in the waking world is a black haired boy with grey eyes, very thin and without much meat on his bones, usually seated in a wheelchair due to his paralysis below the legs. He's remarkably quite pale. And usually wears a white shirt and sweat pants. His face is effete and slightly odd in a way that isn't immediately visible.
  • Within the dream, however, Theo is a tall, quite muscular young man, around 190 pounds, retaining his pale skin and black hair, but definitely much more hale and healthy than the Theo that resides in the waking world. He's less effete in the dream and gains a handsome look to him. However, he now also has scars across his shoulders and chest, which he doesn't have in the waking world.
• Personality: Theo is a good-natured boy, though shy and rather withdrawn. Within this however is complication – he desired desperately to be able to walk, and explore the world around him as freely as possible. He harbors a desire to be “strong and daring”, but is afraid of starting any attempt to approach this ideal state due to not wanting to look “stupid and weak”. Theo sees such games as Bloodborne as an opportunity to face danger and threats, in a way he cannot in his usual existence.
• Biography: Theo had some form of accident early in life that crippled his legs and damaged his spine, resulting in him having to move using a wheelchair. His classmates in school made him feel even more like an outsider, to the extent his parents pulled him out of public schooling and homeschooled him via various tutors. Theo found his way to the Souls Series through one such tutor, who let the boy try his hand at the game. Theo was immediately hooked. When the new DLC came out, he downloaded it immediately...
• Weapon of Choice: His weapon of choice is the Beast Cutter.
• Gun: Hunter Blunderbuss
• Other: there are some holes in Theo's memories...

Definite interest - I'll start work on a sheet today.

Thanks, hopefully this one will go well.

I'll post about it in the Bloodborne thread.

Hey, just another question, is it possible to switch genders between the waking world and the dream?

If that is the "true identity" you identify most with.

Interesting. I'll get working on a character sheet soon.

What series is this? I'll read on it.

Bloodborne, read up on it on this link.

Thanks. I'll have another character up shortly - a rather plot important one.

edited 2nd Dec '15 2:12:49 AM by NickTheSwing

Name: Vorgoth (has forgotten his original name.)

Age: 21

Gender: Male

Appearance: He can not wake up,in the dream he is short and wears a blood red coat and a black cloak. His hair is the color of embers,his eyes are grayish blue, he wears red glasses, his skin is pale. Though he mostly covers himself.

Personality: He is kind,clever and unorthodox often focused on saving as many lives as he can.

Bio: ...He cannot remember much of his past expect he was a insomniac scholar studying physics and evolution.

Weapon of Choice: His weapon is The Oath, A long serrated glaive (mix between a sword and spear) that with a press unfurls into a long scythe with the blade attached by a chain making it when swung bend I. The direction it was swung (or around corners)like a claw, Some times it seems almost...organic.

Gun: The Head Nailer, a gun that instead of shooting bullets shoots nails that pierce the target wind cause weakening and bleeding. Useful for barricading as well

Other: Cannot wake up. Some times his cloak and coat seems to move like limbs are beneath them.

By the way link to the RP?

edited 2nd Dec '15 1:02:16 PM by Vorgoth

Fix your grammar and punctuation, and I am willing to tentatively accept you.

Are you still accepting bodies for this game? Because I am quite interested.

Feel free to sign up.

I'm interested

By the way, nice to see a few of you again! That Persona game never took off, but I'm sure this'll go better.

• Name: Reyna Chatali
• Age: 25
• Gender: Female
• Appearance: Skinny, average height, though she appears taller then she is. Her only exercise in the running she does from class to the train. If not in the lab, she wears darker clothes that cover herself up as much as possible.
  • In the dream, she appears more androgynous, with a larger build. However, she finds her features even worse than in the waking world, and attempts to keep herself covered as much as possible. Low-brimmed hats and billowy cloaks are her basic gear. Still, she keeps the darker color scheme, with a little gold added in.
• Personality: Jittery and curious would definitely describe Reyna. If pressured, she tries to switch focus onto something else. If forced to answer, she’ll usually respond or back down, though generally sticking to her opinion in her mind. However, when questioning, Reyna is relentless, approaching her target of curiosity with a single-mindedness. As she’s finishing her master’s in biology, she’s become more anxious. She’s always fascinated with the things she doesn’t know.
• Bio: Raised in Kolkata by her strict mother and father, Reyna escaped to America when applying for college and managing to achieve a ride to Yale. Here she could escape the family breathing down her back, but now…she didn’t really know what to do. Of all the things she loved, ironically the chemistry her parents forced upon her intrigued her the most. A few friends helped her adjust to her new surroundings, and she quickly found her group of quirky people. She still felt the pressure from home though, as her parent’s regularly contacted the school about her. That made her panic a tad, but it wasn’t until she was in graduate school that it really hit her. Her parents wanted her to return for marriage upon finishing. She couldn’t be shaken out of her stupor until a friend introduced to the Dark Souls series in an attempt to get her mind off of it. It grabbed her attention with its hidden stories and dark worlds. Bloodborne intrigued her the most though, with the uses of blood and the old ones. Reminded her of a couple of Lovecraft books she’d read. But even as the DLC pulled her in, the call for a return home tugged at her mind…
• Weapon of Choice: Strike-Sword (Actual meant to create something like this but you already did so…)
• Gun: Hunter Pistol
• Other: She can’t quite recall when she read those Lovecraft books…

edited 7th Dec '15 7:46:19 PM by darrelodin

Ohh, some nice hints toward a plot line.

Accepted.

Hope to hear more from you.