One Piece: Journey Into The Undersea

[Atlannia]

The meteorite was a stark reminder to us that our world has always been larger and more hostile then we imagined it to be. It lit up the night sky with an unnatural, emerald light and when it landed in the East Blue the resulting explosion and seismic activity was observed from several nearby islands. When the vast steam cloud thrown up by the boiling ocean had subsided and tremors of the earth below had stilled what remained in it's place was a new island. It was tall and narrow, the new island, like some ancient monument and at its centre was a cavernous, gaping maw, a tunnel leading deep into the bowls of the Earth that we named the Helmouth. but it was what the tunnel lead to that stunned the world.

We call it the Undersea, a vast, underground ocean at least as large as one of the Four Blue Seas and it was underneath us this whole time, as if waiting patiently for us to find it. We are only barely beginning to scratch the surface of exploring and mapping this new Ocean but already we have discovered the Undersea has its own islands, its own ecosystems, plants and creatures. In places where the ceiling is high enough the Undersea even has its own weather system.

To those whose heart longs for adventure and mystery the Undersea is an irresistible lure. After all even the deadly Grand Line has been conquered at least once by the unrivalled Gol D. Rogers and his legendary crew, but as far as anyone knows nobody has ever seen the end of the Undersea. What riches might these unplumbed depths reveal? What challenges? None can know for sure. In the immediate wake of the Undersea's discovery Ezelred the Mad, one of the four emperors known as the mightiest pirates in the world lead his vast fleet through the Helmouth into the deepest reaches of the Undersea, but none of them have ever been heard from or seen since then. So if all that sounds like fun then keep reading!

The disappearance of Ezelred the Mad's fleet has done little to staunch the flow of adventurers into the Undersea. Most of the demand for manpower comes from the Undersea Trading Company, a vast mercantile company granted a monopoly charter over the Undersea by the World Government. The UTC has been busy exploring the closer by regions of the Undersea and establishing colonies to begin extracting resources from the new territory. These colonies need colonists and generous incentives have lured thousands already to descend below the Earth in search of a new life. Although the Helmouth has now become Helmouth Station, a fortified marine outpost intended to regulate traffic between the Undersea and the surface, there are still ways for pirates and other renegades to make their way to the new frontier. Bribes or Blackmail will get a pirate past the Marine guards stationed at Helmouth easily enough and many simply apply as colonists and then desert from their assigned colonies to join or form pirate crews once in the Undersea.

This brings us to our business with each other. See I heard you were looking for a way into the Undersea and I happen to know of a Captain looking for crew. She might be inexperienced aye, and a bit reckless yes. But if you're serious about going down there then you're probably a bit reckless too and she might just be your best shot....

Welcome to One Piece: Journey Into The Undersea!

Hello, Hello! Welcome to my latest RP project. Journey Into the Undersea is an AU One piece RP with a heavy focus on original characters, stories and setting. The premise as outlined above is quite simple, a fifth sea has been discovered below the Earth's surface and so Marines, a ruthless trade company and of course pirates are scrambling to be the first to explore it. Our characters will be forming a new pirate crew with the same intention, heading deep into the Undersea to discover fame, fortune and perhaps an ancient mystery or two... Most canon characters will be absent, with important positions like the Warlords, Marine Admirals and Four Emperors being filled by brand new npcs for you to contend with. My intention is very much for this to be "our" One Piece, for it to be a world where we can forge our own path and our own stories

Rules and Expectations

• The NS site rules are in effect: This is pretty obvious and everyone should be familiar with them

• The GM and any potential Co-Gm's are in charge: That would just be me at present, but it's possible I'll take on more staff in response to the needs of the RP.

• Remain respectful of your fellow RPers: Just be cool to each other, even if you have disagreements or find your personalities don't quite mesh do your best to remain civil. If you can't resolve any disputes to your mutual satisfaction I or another GM will step in.

• Let your voice be Heard: If you're not sure about something or just have a great idea for the RP let us know! We can't do anything about it if it stays in your head. We will eventually have a discord server open to all players for easy communication. You can also post anything like that in the OOC and free to PM me if you would rather speak privately, I'll do my best to stay on top of such correspondence.

• No Godmodding: Broadly speaking godmodding refers to controlling someone else's characters by writing their reactions or confirming attacks on them in your own post. This isn't very fun to deal with for the other person and not conducive to good roleplaying. Don't ever do it to another player without their permission and be careful about doing it to NPC's.

• Do your best in terms post length and quality: We are aiming for detailed with this RP, multiple paragraph responses with good spelling and grammar are ideal. We can be flexible about this to some extent, scenarios and situations just aren't conducive to long posts and sometimes people are tired or busy. The bare minimum is a paragraph or so that's been given a good once over for errors. Detailed responses give your RP partners more to work with and make you more fun to RP alongside so it's to everyone's benefit if we all do our best. If I feel like your responses lacking then I'll reach out and we can have a friendly chat about how to extend and improve your writing.

• Post Regularly or Stay in contact when you cant: I'm pretty flexible with this sort of thing, mostly cause I often struggle to stay consistent myself, but hwhat I'd like to aim for is to get a post a week from most people: If you don't post when a scene is waiting on you after a week you will be skipped over, after two you will be removed from the RP. Now I'm not going to ever boot anyone from the RP because you have exams, or work is crazy, or you just feel like shit and can't write for a while, so if you reach out and let me know you can't post for a while then you are golden, but you do have to reach out. Ghosts get the boot.

• Read all the provided material: This should all be included in the first post here, there shouldn't be too much to wade through so if you can give everything a quick once over that would be great
  
  
  
• Oh and most importantly of all...
  
  Have Fun!

Mechanics

One Piece: Journey Into The Undersea features a few simple mechanics intended to help add structure and challenge to the RP, they aren't particularly heavy and they are designed to supplement the discussion and creative writing process rather than replace it so if you're not a mechanics person don't stress too much, we won't exactly be breaking out the d20's and damage tables here. There's really only three major mechanics to keep in mind during this RP, which I'll explain below.

Attributes are scores that broadly describe your character’s natural abilities. When you encounter challenges in this rp your score in the most relevant attribute will be mostly responsible for how well your character is able to meet that challenge. If your character has a high attribute score, then they will generally excel in activities related to that attribute and you’ll get to look cool. Low attribute scores won’t automatically mean failure on the other hand, you might simply need to rely on a helping hand from a teammate, accept some consequence or disadvantage as a price for getting what you intend to do done or simply make a bit of a fool of yourself. This attribute system is intended to facilitate fun, engaging roleplay and storytelling not hinder it, so there will always be room for discussion and lee way when interpreting the results of the system, but you should try to play in a way that takes into account your character’s attributes as they will allow you to define a unique niche for your character. You’ll receive 50 points to allocate among the different attributes at character creation and thereafter receive additional points at the end of story events, or as a reward for writing optional bonus scenes that expand the world or develop your character. In total there are seven attributes, described below.

Strength: The character’s raw physical strength and ability to perform physically demanding tasks such as lifting, throwing and performing melee attacks.

Agility: The character’s natural speed, flexibility and ability to control their body. Agility is used to avoid dangers such as incoming attacks or hazards, perform feats of acrobatics or simply cover ground quickly when needed.

Stamina: The character’s natural toughness and endurance. High stamina allows characters to withstand more damage in fights, use more special attacks without exhausting themselves and endure harsh environs or long periods of exertion without rest.

Perception: The sharpness of the character’s senses and general awareness. Perception is used to see things at a distance, when they are hidden or when they are moving quickly or to navigate terrain where it might be easy to become lost.

Dexterity: The character’s ability to make precise movements and their fine motor control. It’s sued for delicate tasks such as picking locks or pockets, fixing delicate machinery and especially for aiming ranged attacks, such as with firearms or crossbows.

Expertise: The Character’s proficiency with their crew role i.e navigator, historian, entertainer or chef. Characters with high expertise will be able to masterfully navigate challenges that call for their skills, or provide their teammates with advantages or information they might otherwise not have access to. Expertise is never a fighting style, if you want to specialise in combat then give your character a less important crew role and a low Expertise score, then use the points you save on other attributes such as strength, agility or stamina.

Devil Fruit Power: The character’s level of mastery of their devil fruit ability. High devil fruit power scores allow the character to use more powerful, creative techniques with their powers and their attacks and techniques become generally more precise, efficient and powerful. Low scores in this category result in a character having difficulty controlling their abilities, having to use weaker techniques or quickly exhausting themselves while using their powers. If a character does not have a devil fruit ability this score should be at 0

Techniques are your character's special moves, their go-to, signature attacks that they rely on to turn a tough situation around or finish a fight. While you will primarily use your techniques in combat, you are free, even encouraged to try and use them creatively to solve other kinds of problems and you can create techniques that have broader use cases if you wish. You don’t have to only use your techniques, you can creatively approach combat using your character’s natural abilities or the environment they find themselves in. Overusing your techniques might even be a bad thing if they make your character predictable to their opponents, or the technique in question is somehow not suitable for the current location or situation. However all other things being equal a technique, especially a high level one, will be more effective than trying to improvise a similar action so you’ll want to carefully consider which techniques your character learns and which ones you improve. Each technique has a level, with low level techniques being generally less effective, less reliable and more taxing relative to their power. You can level up your techniques by spending technique points, which you gain at the same rate as you gain attribute points, including the 50 you gain at character creation.

Rather than replicate specific devil fruits from the series, this rp intends to emulate the overall feeling of mystery and risk vs reward that characters within the One Piece world feel interacting with devil fruits, while also ensuring that non devil fruit characters are not under-powered in their own right. To that end, there are a few unique mechanics associated with devil fruits that you’ll need to understand before asking for one.

Firstly, there are no canon devil fruits in the RP. I have a list of custom devil fruits tucked away, some of which are pretty cool and powerful and some of which are little goofier though still, I believe, with great potential for fun and creative applications.

Secondly, you don’t get to pick your devil fruit. If you decide to ask for a devil fruit, I will use a random number generator to allocate you one and you won’t know what it is until you’ve decided your character has eaten the fruit and will live with the result.

Thirdly, you don’t have to eat your fruit right away. If you ask for a fruit, but are scared the result wont’ be to your liking then you can opt to hold onto it, forgoing being able to use its abilities. As we progress through the story, you’ll eventually stumble onto unique opportunities regarding your un eaten fruit, you might be able to meet NPCs who can tell you about its properties, or even meet someone willing to buy it, or exchange something equally valuable and unique for it. Such opportunities won't be simple, they’ll be more like sidequests, with challenges and risks of their own but the payoff will hopefully be worth the effort. You can also decide to simply eat your fruit at any point, possibly during a moment of high drama.

Fourthly, devil fruits won't necessarily be an overwhelming advantage. You will have noticed during the attributes section that you have one related to Devil fruit power. That means to get the most out of your devil fruit you’ll have to invest some of your points in that category, people who don’t have fruits will therefore have a few more points to spend in other areas such as strength or agility. You are free to invest as many or as few points as you like in your devil fruit, but with an especially low score you might find your fruit is more of a curse than a blessing so weigh your options carefully.

We'll get to Haki when we get to Haki, our characters aren't quite at that level just yet so hold your horses

Plot and Worldbuilding Information

As mentioned above, This RP is largely divorced from the canon events of One Piece and will largely be set in the Undersea, a brand new location with it own unique challenges and stories to tell. The Undersea is roughly equivalent to the Grand Line in terms of danger and mystique, but we won't have to worry about resolving canon questions or remapping canon terrain. Below I've added some information on the Undersea, detailing roughly what the general populace knows about this mysterious new location. More sections might be added to this part of the post as we encounter more factions, people and phenomena.

Terrain
The Undersea is a massive, underground ocean, whose total size is unknown but seems to be at least as large as the four major seas of the Blue Sea. The cavern the Undersea is located within is itself incredibly deep and not fully submerged, in many regions the cavern’s ceiling is high and open enough to produce its own unique weather patterns, though in many other regions it is more akin to a network of undersea tunnels so a submarine or similar vehicle is required for complete navigation. Bioluminescent moss colonies cover most of the cavern’s ceilings, providing similar levels of light to above ground daylight. The moss colonies appear in several different subspecies, which produce striking variations in light color and patterns from place to place.

Even without the need for a submersible vessel, navigating the Undersea is incredibly dangerous, with many comparing it to the grandline in terms of the level of danger. The Undersea’s wildlife is very ferocious, with little vegetation being present due to the lack of sunlight, most creatures are carnivores easily capable of devouring the average human or even ship and are forced to defend themselves against their own predators with exotic and lethal defense mechanisms. Unlike above sea navigation which relies primarily on wind, travel through the Undersea mainly comes down to undersea currents, which are fuelled by submerged tunnels and are very strong and difficult to map and this is to say nothing of dangers such as cave ins and tremors which are unique to the Undersea.

Population
Having been openly discovered about a decade ago when a meteorite landing caused seismic activity that uncovered the main entrance, the Undersea is still very much in the process of being mapped and colonised. Native populations have been discovered on some close by islands within the Undersea, making it probable that other entrances exist, or at least existed at some point. The speed with which the world government has explored the lower reaches has lead many to speculate that they were aware of the Undersea and secretly exploring it prior to it being revealed to the public and civilian colonisation has already begun, with a few islands close to the entrance already developed quite well.

Most of these colonies are controlled by the Undersea Trading Company, a newly formed merchant company whose board includes dozens of the most powerful businessmen and nobles in the Blue Sea. The UTC has been granted a monopoly charter to handle all business and trading within the Undersea and they are determined to extract as much value as they can from both the Undersea’s unique resources and its inhabitants. The urgency with which the UTC and Navy have advanced into the Undersea has lead some to suspect they are looking for something in particular, though this is mere speculation.

Pirates have also ventured into the Undersea in force. The main entrance to the Undersea is now guarded by a heavily manned marine base known as Helmouth Station but early on in the Undersea’s discovery the entrance was less heavily guarded and an alliance of pirate crews lead by the Yonko Ezelred the Mad, was able to break through and venture deep into the Undersea. Since then the pirate population has continued to grow via infiltration: the UTC’s insatiable desire for more colonists means background checks are rarely performed and pirates can often simply stroll in and then find a crew to join underground. Legitimate colonists also often tire of the harsh measures the company employs and rebel and form their own pirate crews or join existing ones.

In addition to colonists, marines and pirates, the other major demographic of the Undersea are the natives, which are divided into two categories. Young Natives are those who can trace their inhabitants of the Undersea back a few generations and are usually recognizable as belonging to a particular above ground tribe or culture. These people generally have stories of stumbling across an entrance into the Undersea while shipwrecked or fleeing some danger and either being trapped there or choosing to settle there for their own reasons. The other kind of native are called Elder Natives, people whose ancestors first found their way to the Undersea centuries, or even thousands of years ago in some cases. Elder Natives have diverged heavily from above ground cultures and in some cases even their physical bodies have diverged through evolution to better suit their conditions. They run the gamut from Hunter gatherer tribes to highly material kingdoms with cities and advanced architecture. Invariably though most Elder Native people are tough, or have some strong warriors among them to contend with the dangers of the Undersea, they are not to be trifled with lightly and are often wary of outsiders.

The Lower levels
In general, most of what we know about the Undersea applies to the so-called first level, the region of the Undersea closest to Helmouth Station and the circus. As one travels North, the entire Undersea appears to slope downwards, sinking deeper and deeper below the Earth. The levels are demarcated by choke points known as Gates where the cavern narrows in width to and tunnels join together so that there is only one point at which the next level can be accessed. So far only the first Gate has been conclusively mapped out and studied, an enormous natural rock formation known as “Charon’s Chasm” due to a mysterious and dangerous creature that inhabits the area known as the Charon. Early reports indicate that the lower levels are even more dangerous than the mapped areas of the Undersea, with larger, generally fiercer wildlife and harsher conditions. There are five levels in all, but most people agree only the foolish or insane would try to sail all the way down to the fifth level and whatever horrors lie within it...

Character Application

Code: Select all

[box][b][u]Personal Information[/u][/b]
(Delete Everything in Parentheses)

[b]Name:[/b]

[b]Appearance:[/b] (Provide an image, or a detailed description of your character's appearance)

[b]Alias:[/b] (delete this section if your character has no alias yet)

[b]Age:[/b]

[b]Home Island:[/b] (Where did your character grow up? Describe it briefly)

[b]Personality:[/b] (What sort of a person is your character? What are their motivations? How do they generally approach problems and get along with other people? Aim for about 2 paragraphs with this)

[b]Biography:[/b] (What has happened to your character so far in their life? What kind of person has it made them and how have they grown up until now? Aim for about 3 paragraphs here)


[b][u]Abilities[/u][/b]

[B]Crew Role:[/b] (What will your character's position and responsibilities be as part of the crew? Their effectiveness in this position will be governed by their effectiveness attribute)

[b]Character Strengths:[/b] (Name a couple of your character's unique, non combat related strengths )

[b]Character Flaws:[/b] (Name a couple of your character's unique, non combat related flaws, you should have the same number of flaws and strengths)

[B]Equipment:[/b] (List any weapons or other items your character habitually carries with them, try not to go overboard here)

[b]Devil Fruit User:[/b] (If you'd like to apply for a mysterious devil fruit put yes here, or no otherwise)

[b]Fighting Style:[/b] Briefly describe your character's overall approach to combat. What sort of weapons and tactics do they use? Give it a catchy name if you like.


[b][u]Attributes[/u][/b]
(These are explained in detail in the first post. You have 50 points to allocate here as you see fit.)
[b]Strength:[/b]

[b]Agility:[/b]

[b]Stamina:[/b]

[b]Perception:[/b]

[b]Dexterity:[/b]

[b]Expertise:[/b]

[b]Devil Fruit Power:[/b]

[b][u]Techniques[/u][/b]
(Techniques are also explained in the first post, remember you have 50 points to allocate here as well, separate from your attribute points, you can focus on a few, highly developed techniques or go for a more versatile approach and have many, lower level techniques. Each technique should have the following:)

[b]Name:[/b]
[b]Level:[/b] (How many points have been invested in this technique? This will control how effective the technique is)
[b]Description:[/b] (Describe what your technique does, how it works and any shortcomings it has)


[b][u]Misc[/u][/b]

[b]Quirks:[/b] (Fun, extra details you'd like to include about your character, optional)

[b]Favourite Food:[/b] (Your character's favourite food, optional)

[b]Theme Song:[/b] A song or piece of music you feel particularly suits your character, optional.)
[/box]

[The Land of Golden Blobfish]

This looks awesome! I think this is the first One Piece RP on NS and when I'm in the middle of reading the manga of all times.

[Turkducken]

Gathering up everyone's hopes and dreams...

[Atlannia]

This looks awesome! I think this is the first One Piece RP on NS and when I'm in the middle of reading the manga of all times.

Oh there's been at least one or two, though not for a good long while now, I suppose this is good timing!

Gathering up everyone's hopes and dreams...

Oh you can trust me with those, I'm very reliable~



Anyways now that we've gotten some responses I'm going to take some time to get the Character Application finished, so you can expect to see that probably tonight or tomorrow.

[Ralnis]

One Peace and Sunless Sea? A dangerous mixture that I like.

[Atlannia]

it wasn't really my original intention to rip off Sunless Seas quite so wholeheartedly, but there's really only so many places you can put a whole ass other ocean.

[Ralnis]

it wasn't really my original intention to rip off Sunless Seas quite so wholeheartedly, but there's really only so many places you can put a whole ass other ocean.

I never said it was bad.

[Atlannia]

oh no I was just explaining how it happened to come about like it did, didn't mean to imply you did.

[Turkducken]

My biggest question is what kind of characters are we looking to create?

and is this going to be more of a sandbox or narrative driven?

[Atlannia]

My biggest question is what kind of characters are we looking to create?

and is this going to be more of a sandbox or narrative driven?

I think One Piece allows for a lot of variation in terms of characters, I guess there's a few things to keep in mind in terms of our premise.

In terms of power level, we'd be about where the Strawhats were going into the Grandline for the first time. None of us are going to have trouble dealing with respectable numbers of rank and file marines or average pirates of the blue seas, but there's still a lot of people we aren't ready to handle yet.

In terms of who your character is, I'm pretty open minded, I suppose you should keep in mind that your character is planning to join a pirate crew, they don't have to necessarily be a pirate themselves to begin with but they should at least be okay with that idea and with the idea of going into the Undersea. They can have a bounty if you like that idea, up to around 10,000,000-15,000,000.


The Rp is going to be story driven, but there'll be opportunities to do more sandboxy stuff from time to time. Most islands we go to you'll get some time to explore it however you want, with or without other players and later on if people want to I'll support them to branch off for a time to do their own personal arcs or work in smaller groups for extended periods. The more people want to do their own thing the more I'll try to set it up that way, where as if people express more interest in tighter focus on then narrative then I'll lean that way more.

[Atlannia]

Quick announcement just to note that the Character sheet has now been posted, so you can get to work on that as soon as you like. I'll have my own character posted within the next few days so feel free to wait for then if you'd like an example to work off of.