The Setting
Eden is a world of verdant grasslands, lush woodlands, great lakes, and tall mountains. It is beautiful and untamed, with exotic flora and fauna. It is inhabited by humanity, though a humanity which is indelibly different from our own.
There is a phenomenon known as aberration. When someone’s perception of the world twists, when their self image contorts, when they lose their minds, they mutate. Their bodies change to reflect their idea of who they are and how they relate to their surroundings. They become monsters, in a very archetypical sense; violent, empowered parodies of mankind. They are not evil. They are pitiable.
The residents of Eden are unaffected by death. Instead, when they suffer fatal injuries, though their bodies may fail their minds will continue to inhabit that broken biological apparatus, suffering in silence. Over years the trapped mind will attempt to break out of its prison of rotting flesh. This will eventually be successful, allowing them to reconstitute their body. However by the time that happens, most of them will have undergone aberration.
This is, of course, a significant issue. No human can be disposed of permanently. Even incineration won’t prevent them from coming back. So, for the most part, governments try to prevent aberration from occurring at all. That, or they simply capture and entomb the aberrations as quickly as they arise. Outside the walled cities of Eden, however, aberrations run wild.
Colonising the wilderness is a dangerous game. But it’s worth it to escape the crowded cities and the pollution that comes with them. Your character is a retainer, someone who specialises in dealing with aberrations and those on the verge of aberrating. You’ve just been hired to participate in the founding of a new colony, far from civilisation. Your responsibilities will involve clearing the area of aberrations, in addition to keeping the colonists safe from any other threats that may arise.
You could be anyone. It doesn’t take a lot to become a retainer. You could be underqualified, barely making ends meet as you lick old wounds and pay off a debt that only seems to get larger with every passing day. You might be a rockstar whose activities are published and who gets recognised in the street. Or you could be a consummate professional who takes their job very, very seriously.
Either way, it’s time to pack. The colony awaits.
Life within Eden
The humans of Eden are very different from our own. For one thing they are immortal and do not age. For another, they undergo aberration if they go insane or die. If they are inflicted with fatal wounds their body will shut down and they will be paralysed. However, even after their heart stops and their muscles rot to dust, they will still be fully conscious and capable of thought. They can eventually ‘recover’ from death, assuming they don’t aberrate and spend ten or so years pulling themselves back together.
Eden’s humans are also capable of rapid learning and can train themselves to be much faster and stronger than what should be possible. They can achieve superhuman physiques and levels of skill through sufficient practice. Near-death situations can trigger explosive growths of physical ability and acumen. Minor aberrant phenomena can also cause humans’ bodies to distort slightly if their perception of themselves changes radically, affecting eye colour, sexual characteristics, height, voice, and body plan. Over decades, someone can change in appearance completely and utterly.
Minor aberrant phenomena also allow people to develop small superpowers or supernatural conditions. Following a highly traumatic event, or given a sufficient amount of personal growth, a person can find themselves suddenly in possession of an ability which reflects their personality and how they have evolved as a person.
Aberrations are humans who have lost their minds, either through regular means or by being trapped in a corpse for years. The appearance, size, power, and motive of any given aberration is unpredictable and varies dramatically. However, nearly all of them present some kind of direct threat to humanity, whether intentionally or not. They are still every bit as immortal as a human and must be detained once they are ‘killed’ for a second time in order to prevent them from simply getting back up.
Humans aren’t the only sentient species in the setting. There are creatures known as angels which are seen as humanity’s progenitors or parallel organisms. There are four categories of angel, divided into generations.
First generation Angels are progenitors to humanity and are surprisingly dull. Though beautiful and radiant, they act on impulse and instinct alone, and are extremely easily provoked to violence or 'screaming', which causes them to emit fatal amounts of radiation. It's theorised that 1st generation Angels suffer from a neurodegenerative disease and would be at least capable of basic communication if they weren't suffering from an advanced form of dementia. Most 1st generation Angels wander the wilderness without direction.
2nd generation Angels were created at the same time as humanity and are similar in many respects, though they are inherently much taller, stronger, more intelligent, and possess the ability of pyrokinesis, short range teleportation, and compulsion. However, they are not capable of self improvement to the same degree as humans. 2nd generation angels mostly live alone or wander around human cities, having no civilisation of their own.
3rd generation Angels are massive inhuman creatures which wander Eden, ripping up forests and assaulting resident cities at random. They live like simple beasts but can be communicated with in a very emotional, intuition-based way.
4th generation Angels are small unconscious entities which grow like plants, dispersing pollen and forming brilliant, luminescent forests. Colonies of 4th generation Angels demand followings and will subjugate humans and other angels to serve their purposes and to act as proxies.
Eden has four seasons and a 24 hour day. The current year is 137.
What’s technology like?
The technology of Eden is similar to that from our near future. There are prosthetics which are as functional as the originals, personal computers, the internet, firearms, powersuits, and futuristic aircraft. Your characters are part of an expedition sponsored by the walled city of Kalosi, from which they may or may not originate.
Kalosi is chronically overpopulated. Its inhabitants fight over necessities like food and drinking water, while electricity is at a premium, as it literally powers some individuals’ limbs and organs. The city’s government is callous, leaving its citizens to their own devices, mostly preoccupying itself with maintaining the walls and protecting itself against external threats like other cities and large aberrations.
Kalosi and its neighbours are home to a technology known as rehabilitation, which allows fresh cadavers to be plugged into pods where they are exposed to audiovisual stimuli which dissolve their ego, ensuring that there’s no mind within them to aberrate over the years that it takes for their body to repair itself. Individuals who undergo rehabilitation don’t become aberrations but they do lose almost all of their memories, as well as their entire sense of self. They keep, however, all of the motor skills (muscle memory) that they had prior to rehabilitation. Rehabilitation causes a person to regress to a childlike state, requiring them to mature again. Aging for humans stops at an indeterminate point between 20 and 50.
Most inhabitants of Kalosi have undergone rehabilitation upwards of a dozen times, accruing skills and vague memories from each of their previous lives.
Guidelines
- The standard affair: Don’t godmod, don’t insult other players, just generally don’t be a dick.
- Don’t be afraid to contribute your own lore: The setting should serve as a foundation for you to build on, not a rigid set of rules which you need to work within.
- Try to avoid one-liners: It’s generally difficult for your fellow RPers to do anything with posts which consist of just a single sentence. But still, only write posts of a length and level of effort which you’re comfortable with.
Application
- Code: Select all
[size=150][b]Application:[/b][/size]
[b]Name:[/b]
[b]Gender:[/b]
[b]Age:[/b]
[b]Appearance:[/b]
[b]Personality:[/b]
[b]Abilities:[/b] (Mundane and supernatural)
[b]Biography:[/b] (If you would prefer your character to not be a retainer, write down their occupation here)
[b]Equipment:[/b]
[b]Other:[/b]
