Post by Aseigan Cetanu on Mar 9, 2009 20:05:23 GMT -5
Roleplaying general and disclaimers
This is a roleplaying game based upon the survival horror game ‘Dead Space,’ and if you’re familiar with the game, you’ll probably have an easier time seeing what I describe. It might even help you survive. Who knows?
As a disclaimer to anyone wishing to roleplay in this game, I must warn you; It will feature obscene blood and gore, horrific and disturbing situations, mutilation, suicide, self-torture, cursing, masochism and neo-masochism, and other horrors. Among the many monsters that you will have to kill are undead pregnant women, babies with sliced backs that sprout tentacles, and deformed men with their faces split in half. The game it is based upon has been banned in multiple countries. Please, if you feel this could offend you in any way, do not play this game. I am not responsible for any nightmares, trauma, or disturbed thoughts you may have because of what you see.
Now that I have that out of the way, I’d just like to say, this game is intended to be just what the game was; A scare-the-hell out of you experience. It won’t be anywhere near as easy as it was in game, and you won’t be as scared as if you had played the game, but the purpose of this game is fun only if you find fear, dread, suspense, or seeing characters you have come to know, respect, love, or care about torn to pieces or kill themselves before your very eyes. This isn’t gentle. Don’t ever fall into a false sense of security. Now, keeping that in mind, if you CAN handle this, and do find scary things to be fun, or if you like horror movies, or you liked the game Dead Space, or if you simply think that a horror roleplaying game would be an interesting change of pace, please, I urge you to not let the above warnings turn you away. This game will be incredibly creative, requiring out-of-the-box thinking, and filled with twists and turns that will allow you to really feel the impact of the crisis. It is, after all, designed as a -game-, so I urge you not to be turned away by the disclaimer. It is there as a precaution, not a deterrent.
Players
During the course of this game, you will be playing as one of the many, completely average colonists on-board the ship. There are very few characters off limits, except for two classes; the people seen in game, who survived or have a predetermined end (Isaac’s girlfriend, Dr. Mercer) and the guards, who are combat-trained and therefore more capable of defending themselves against the menace of the Necromorphs. This is because in-game, the first class cannot die, and therefore there is no sense of imminent danger, and the second class because of the reduced chance of dying and the fact that they’ll start off with real, honest to goodness weapons, which will go against one of the main themes of this game, creating your own weapon.
As a colonist, you can be of any sex or race, but you must be human. I want nobody to say, “But can I PLEAAAAAAAAASE be my new Yautja character? He’s good and stuff, I can come up with a great reason for him to be there!”
No. You may now. There are no Yautja in this universe, or any adjacent universes. The events of any and all literature relating to the Alien or Predator universe don’t exist in these universes, neither does the media related to it or the movies or games, and in fact, if you asked someone what they thought of the 2008 movie ‘AVP-R’ they might have you committed. So, there you go.
On top of the above notice, if you can’t use proper spelling, grammar, capitalization, or punctuation, then you shouldn’t sign up for this thread. There is only one exception to this rule, and he knows who he is, and has my full permission from previous threads to not use it because of the difficulty of English not being his native language. Other than him, if you can’t write, “He walked down the corridor, jerry-rigged engineering tool at the ready, fear gripping his heart.” then I do not want you here. If it comes out “he walked down teh corrdor tool at the ready afraid shooting at the nercomorphs he ran away.” then please, don’t contribute. I’m sorry if any of the above offends anyone, but between my school, a recent article on Evolution vs. Creationism, and the writing style of most internet users, I am more than slightly paranoid of people with intelligence levels so low it could cause a common garden slug to look like a cross of Stephen Hawking, Benjamin Franklin, and Albert Einstein.
In addition to all of the above, if you can’t post once a week, please don’t sign up. If, for any reason, you’re forced to not post, PM me as soon as you can with your reason and estimated time of returning so that I, in turn, can tell everyone else that your character will not be playing for that time. If you do not post for a week or more, and it was an obvious place for you to respond, don’t bother wasting another week writing up a new, highly-detailed post to make up for it. I’ll take control of your character and use him or her in a way consistent with the characters normal motivations and actions. This is so that there are no ‘down-times’ with this thread. In addition, I’ve layed out a basic format for your profiles that I want all profiles to be in, which I want added to the corresponding thread in the Off-Topic Roleplaying Profiles section. It looks like this:
Name:
Age:
Sex:
Career: (one of the 5 below)
Unitologist: (Yes/No)
Description: Here should be included appearance, personality, personal possessions (of which you may have no weapons, and only basic items such as toothpastes, combs, mirrors, and pictures, as well as trinkets and sentimental items from home. Pretend your packing for your character’s business trip, but said business trip is in a huge space-ship.
Now that I’ve set your personal rules, here is the way that your character can be chosen and played; you can be any of the following professions aboard the Ishimura; A doctor, scientist, engineer, miner, or worker. Each of these is explained below:
Doctor: The doctors are the medical personnel of the Ishimura, and needed for any group of survivors on a very severe level. They treat the wounds of people, and were originally assigned to deal with the numerous injuries miners can get while working. They have extensive knowledge about the human body (though this knowledge is useless against Necromorphs, who’s morphed forms are very different from our own) and can cure most minor sicknesses. Each doctor is issued by the owners of the Ishimura with a white doctor’s coat, much like the scientist’s lab coats, a bag full of medical equipment such as syringes, pills, liquid medicines, medical tape, pain-killers, medical staplers and stitches, gauze, and other things commonly found in an emergency kit or doctor’s office. These items are available to the doctor or in a doctor’s office only, and must be used sparingly.
Engineer: The engineers are the people who refine the ore of Aegis 7 once the miners bring it to the surface, repair the mining tools, melt down captured comets, deal with mechanical equipment of all kinds, and are the people who break the ore out of the rock. The tools of the engineer’s trade include a short-distance flame-thrower that fires a concentrated amount of orange flame that is used to melt the rock down, or melt through ore-rich comets, an access card to some of the more advanced tools for breaking the ore out of the rock, for moving equipment, or for access to power nodes in the locker used to help increase the functionality of different machines, and a small repair kit. After the flamethrower is used, they cool the rock, and withdraw the deposits, which will be located in one area and nearer the top or bottom, depending upon the material. The engineers are the final step in the assembly line of Ishimura, before the huge amount of ore is taken to the holding bay, by the engineer-controlled machines, where it is stored for the return to Earth. Engineers generally wear trousers and denim shirts that are more resistant to heat than other people’s clothing, but useless as armor, and begin with one of these flamethrowers, the access card, and the small repair kit consisting of a number of tools. These flamethrowers, unfortunately, require the user to wear huge, 50-pound tanks of the fuel on their back to do the job for the hours its generally required, so they aren’t really feasible as weapons unless some kind of smaller tank were made and attached to the weapon, and even then it would eat up the contents like a machine gun with a half-full clip left with the trigger held back.
Miner: The miners cut the ore from the surface of Aegis 7 with powerful ‘Plasma-Cutters', which can rotate to a horizontal or vertical mode so that they can cut chunks of rock out easily, 'Line Guns', essentially rotation-less Plasma-Cutters that fire more powerful bursts, and 'Rippers', tools designed to cut through solid rock by firing huge numbers of sharp, titanium, disk-shaped blades about an inch in diameter, at a rate of 1700 RPM. These weapons also fire larger, rotating disks about 3 inches in diameter that can be directed with the sights of the Ripper for specialized cutting of rocks. The Plasma-Cutters and Line Guns have three laser-pointer beams that extend from the weapon, allowing for better aiming at key points in the rock structure so that they can easily slice through the weak points and conserve charges. Each of the Plasma-Cutters is usually linked to a line of generators by thick cables, while the Line Guns are generally powered through an electrified grid, but, as the Line Gun can be hooked up to smaller grids that provide it with less time for firing, the Plasma-Cutters can be hooked up with batteries instead. Unfortunately, the batteries aren’t rechargeable and, more importantly, aren’t good for more than 25 rock-shearing blasts, so they aren’t really feasible for the miners to use on the ground. Instead, they’re mostly used as a design concept by the scientists, and for cutting ore in areas it’s not feasible to mine in, such as a small place of high-concentration ore or an area in which only one or two miners can work at a time. Miners aboard the ship right now would be resting and preparing themselves for the next trip down to Aegis 7. Miner’s uniforms are leather overalls and thick boots over blue jeans and wool or denim shirts, usually with a plaid pattern, and they of course start with the Plasma-Cutters.
Scientist: The scientists are the researches and repair men of the Ishimura. They are highly trained and educated, usually with huge vocabularies and always seen wearing their signature white lab-coats and gloves. They stay in the labs of the ship, looking after various technological experiments and examining unusual rocks dug up from Aegis 7. Their current pet-project was looking after the Red Marker, and it is this tragic experiment that most severely has gone awry. Scientists are equipped with various tools that allow them to build different machines, given that they have the correct materials at hand, to repair anything that is too severely damaged, and all carry special, holographic cards that give read-outs of scanned objects such as schematics, name if it is already in the databank, and primary function. Scientists are intelligent and problem-solvers, but can be very meek. It is definitely not the profession for the bust-the-door in kind of guy. Of course, if you’re the bust-the-door in kind of guy, I’d suggest staying away from this thread. You won’t need to in order to find danger. Trust me.
Workers: The workers are the least skilled, rudimentary workers of the Ishimura. They get average wages and sleep in the center of the ship, usually surrounded by rooms going for miles upon the craft, each one containing another worker. The workers are janitors, errand-boys, and the people who work at the various restaurants, cafeterias, and other places within the Ishimura. They provide all of the little necessities and things for the Ishimura, as well as the luxuries. They are the working class citizens, or the middle-class, of the ship. They carry no items, as most of what they need is either a log of store credits spent, a mop, or will be handed to them and leave their hands, never to return, while on the job. Their uniforms are generally composed of blue jeans or slacks and cotton shirts.
The reason the game will feature such clear-cut types of people is because there is no way in any other roleplaying game to distinguish one normal person from another. Every civilian is as weak and defenseless as the next, and the heroes could easily slaughter them all, and the villains could to. But, in this game, you ARE the civilians, and as such, we need to differentiate from a Doctor, who will be far from squeamish but probably won’t be able to take very much punishment as he’s cooped up in the office all day, from the Miner, someone who could have a deep-seated level of disgust for blood but still be tough as nails when it comes to holding some creatures off, the tough guy. Both are civilians, but the Miner is clearly the better choice for someone interested in being strong, and the Doctor is certainly better for someone with a more intellectual bent. The groups are so I can determine what you probably can and can’t do, what you’ve been trained in and what you haven’t been, and how much you can reasonably know. (A scientist, for instance, might know that a door jam could be fixed with pressure in a certain area at a certain rate, and can coordinate that. An Engineer, on the other hand, might just get something large and hard, and ram the door down, or might try to find another way around.)
Monsters:
This game features Necromorphs as the enemies. They are tougher than humans, more vicious than humans, and are easily capable of slaughtering you even if you are armed, with speed and surprise alone. They have tactics, they can duck in to an air vent and pop out of the ceiling over your head, and worst of all, they could have the face of your friends, horribly mutilated, being the one that bites in to your shoulder while the blades decapitate you. They are, in essence, a far better version of Zombie, and not to be treated lightly. I’m going to list them here for your convenience, and I’ll hope that you’ll have the sense not to assume you know what the Slashers are called when you first see them. To you, it’s a mutilated man with three-jointed scythe arms coming out of his shoulders. Remember that as best as you can.
Slasher
The Slasher is the standard Necromorph, produced from average human males by the sting of an Infector. The mutations take only a few seconds, but the effects are incredible. The creature’s skin becomes warped, trailing away in to open muscle in places and in staying the same as the beast was alive in others. While the Enhanced Slasher (viewed above) is very alien in appearance, normal Slashers have human faces, more reddish features, and their eyes are normal and human, instead of the tiny pinpoints of light seen above. They can still be seen wearing the denim pants of workers, engineers, and miners, and even have the same faces. Slashers attack using the scythe-like blades sprouting from the arms on their shoulders, which can slice a man in half in a single stroke. They are fast and agile, but generally easy to defeat once you learn how and won’t take very long to kill. Enhanced Slashers, as seen above, have the melee capabilities of the male Slashers, and can spit acid, while the female Slasher’s blades grow from their arms, and are therefore not as powerful, but they can spit acid like the enhanced Slashers. All forms of this Necromorph, however, are easily dismembered with the same trick.
Lurker
The Lurker is one of the most disturbing of the Necromorphs, produced from a dead human infant. It crawls like any infant, usually making sounds akin to a whimpering baby when unthreatened. When it is confronted with a foe, however, it emits a shriek that could chill the blood of the stoutest man, a shrill and inhuman hissing roar that deafens most other sound. The lurker usually waits in hiding, attacking only once its prey has passed or is occupied with something else. It fires sharp barbs from long, disgusting tentacles that rise above its back, each of them composed of flesh and long pieces of the organs and entrails that are tipped with the dangerous barbs. If confronted in melee, it will latch on to an opponent, grabbing at them and ripping at their throat with the stubs of teeth on the bottom of its head, and stabbing wildly with the tentacles. It may also wrap one of the meaty appendages around the neck; crying and roaring as it squeezes till the head it removed. It may also go for the eyes, plucking them out and biting in to them, attempting to suck on them as a baby would its bottle.
Infector
Infectors are the creatures responsible for creating more Necromorphs. They can fly for short distances upon the leathery wings that protrude from their sides, created from the bent-back legs and arms of their human host with skin fusing the two appendages, and have a long, Lurker-like tentacle protruding from the back of their neck, which is significantly widened to look like part of their head, that ends in a powerful stinger. This stinger injects the Necromorph infection in to a dead body, causing it to rise as a new Necromorph, most often a Slasher. While they can fly, they generally crawl, as flying wears them out quickly and they cannot keep themselves above the ground easily. In the middle of combat, Infectors will often force long, intestine-like tubes down a dead body’s throat, forcing the infection and rapid growth in the creature. This creates a more powerful form of Slasher in but a second, the Enhanced Slasher, and is an easy way to increase the ranks of the Necromorphs. Infectors are fairly easily killed, but will not attack you unless all other bodies are raised.
Twitcher
Twitchers are physically incredibly similar to Slashers, but with a number of modifications that make them far deadlier. They are derived from military personnel, meaning that they are more resilient to death. The blades grow from engorged arms, making them much tougher and more damaging than the blades from the spindly arms of the Slashers, and, most frighteningly of all, the Stasis modules that military onboard the Ishimura wear have been fused with the creatures, with the effects strangely reversing to create horrifying side-effects. Stasis modules, in short, are devices that slow time to a near stand-still around a singular creature or object, causing them to move at incredibly slow speeds and to react far less quickly to their environment, allowing for easy subdual. The Stasis modules reversed effects, which have been turned on the beasts, rapidly increase their speed, causing them to Twitch and move sporadically, dodging bullets and blasts from weapons and crossing rooms in a matter of moments before raining hell down upon any foe who stands in its way. Often, these creatures will work in groups, slaughtering anything that catches their sight by ambushing it from a room away, in a blur appearing in groups of five to six and brutally slashing away at an opponent with their scythe-bladed arms.
Exploder
Exploders are strange and terrible Necromorphs, and serve one of the most sadistic purposes of them all. Their split-open head stares blankly forward, eyes looking off into the distance even as they move towards their foe. Each of them shambles slowly, one arm the same as it was in life, albeit far more decayed, and the other morphed into a huge sac of yellow liquids and pulsing veins. The sac emits a slight glow, enough to read by, though if this glow is cast upon you, you will almost certainly not be reading again. They strike this sac, made of very thin membranes that can barely contain the weight within, against an opponent, causing numerous liquids inside to explode with the force of a hand-grenade, instantly killing anyone in the blast radius and immolating most flammable materials. They are slow, but almost always travel in groups, making them very difficult to kill unless you can start a chain reaction. Each pack of Exploders is usually also accompanied with other, quicker or tougher Necromorphs, that defend it as it makes its way to its destination. Exploders are the ultimate suicide bombers of the Necromorph legions.
Divider
Dividers are tall, lank, and for the most part unaltered moving carcasses, stretched slightly and with longer fingers and sharpened bones at the end. They tower above most humans in height, like a starved giant ready to kill. They generally run forward, dodging away from slower attacks and taking instant attacks with resolve. Once killed, however, their true deadliness comes into play. The arms, head, and legs can all move independently, sprouting long tentacles of muscle tissue and veins that then pull the appendage along, allowing the claws to slash and grab; the legs to strike like a snake; and the head to bite. This attack makes them far more sinister, as killing them simply produces more opponents, each of which is about 1/5 the power of the original.
Leaper
Leapers are the greatest leapers of the Necromorph armies. They have long tails, ending in wicked, bony, blood-stained spikes, powerful, mutilated, deadly jaws that are fearsome to behold, sharp claws, and the innate ability to crawl along walls and the ceiling and leap great distances. With these abilities, they can come from every angle, attacking in droves or singularly, dodging bullet fire and leaping upon potential corpses, ripping in to their throat with powerful claws or spearing them upon long tails. Leapers are fairly weak, and can be killed easily if the right trick is done. They are vicious and ruthless however, so do not mistake a dead Leaper with an incapacitated Leaper, as it may be your demise if you turn your back on one.
Pregnant
Pregnants are some of the most ungainly and horrible Necromorphs to gaze upon, being engorged about the stomach, while decrepitly thin and hideous, as a normal corpse, throughout the rest. Their bladed arms are used in the same manner as a Slashers, but their most dangerous ability by far is that of their main defense. If shot in the stomach, or if the stomach is ruptured, a number of leech-like parasites burst forth, latching on to the nearest person and biting in to them, leaving a sharp, bony protrusion. These creatures can leave four to five of these in the body, and each causes tremendous bleeding, having a powerful agent that loosens the blood inside of them so that, if too many bites are taken, you will begin to bleed from every orifice of your body, your body will begin to implode in on itself from lack of blood pressure, and you will become a desiccated husk upon the ground. Pregnants themselves are very tough and resilient, capable of taking many injuries before dying.
Guardian
Guardians, as the name implies, guard things such as doors, chests, and other stationary objects. A few even become attached to moving objects or living creatures, allowing them to become hit-and-run attackers. Guardians are bodies, usually incredibly mutilated, that have been fused to something, entrails hanging from a huge hole in their stomach and thick, bladed, muscular, bloody, and decomposing arms held to the side. They tend to roar and scream when opponents are nearby, attempting to bite them, slash them with scythe-like blades protruding from their palms, or use their entrails to hold their dead corpse against the wall, creating yet another guardian. Guardians can sometimes form large colonies around themselves by doing this, but more often than not Guardians are found singularly or in groups of two or three, making them fairly easy to kill from a distance. Be warned though, their roars will alert other Necromorphs to your presence.
Brute
Brutes are some of the greatest of the close-range Necromorphs, being veritable tanks on the battlefield. They are formed from three or more corpses being fused together and horribly mutilated from the infection’s effects. They are covered in bony plates over their front and bottom, leaving only the muscular back exposed. Because of their agility, maneuverability, and relentlessness however, this usually glaring weakness is not as good as it sounds. Brute’s bony plates are tough enough to take bullet fire, and as such, most tools will simply have no effect on them. The Brute’s muscle tissue is incredibly thick, lending considerable force behind the sweeping blows of its huge front claws, which it uses to slash and stomp frightened opponents. It will also use its sharp teeth to rip in to prey, holding limbs in place with its muscular tongue as its rips and scratches at meat and bone alike. Brutes possess a pair of arms upon their back that is used to claw and scratch at opponents or to hold them in place, but these are unarmored and easily cut off by most attacks. Brutes, unfortunately, will generally kill you before you can, however. Thankfully, these terrible monsters are rather rare.
Drag Tentacle
Drag Tentacles have only one recorded source upon the ship, and that is from Leviathans. Few other reports have occurred, some from a beast known as the ‘Slug’ and another from the surface of Aegis 7, but these have yet to be confirmed. Whatever their origins, it is very clear that Drag Tentacles are some of the most deadly Necromorphs in existence. A giant, muscular, tentacle like arm of rotting and decaying flesh, tipped with a large, mottled, and fleshy webbed hand with sharp claws at the tip of each finger, the Drag Tentacle’s name is derived from the fact that it will latch on to the leg or arm of an opponent, and then the thick, nearly indestructible arm will pull them to its layer, where it is assumed the Leviathan, or whatever they may originate from, turns them into a Necromorph. Drag Tentacles have only one weakness, a muscular kind air sac that it breathes through about 30 feet down the tentacle from the hand. If pierced enough times, the tentacle will tear at this point, slaying the appendage forever. However, because of the very awkward positions that the tentacle places its foes in, this is hardly ever possible.
Leviathan
A huge mass of flesh and drag tentacles surrounding a gaping maw, in the center of which is a beacon that distributes the infection with impunity, the Leviathan is a monster to behold. The beast, a massive 10 kiloton monster of epic proportions, has four long Drag Tentacles protruding from its mass and surrounding the glowing orb, which radiates the infection in the form of tiny, parasitic germs that cause it to glow. Any person brought down in to that pit becomes a Necromorph in moments, causing these creatures to be hell itself upon the unsuspecting, as they are literally generators of the monstrous abominations, huge, living factories of the undead. Leviathans are also quite capable of slaughtering creatures by rending them in half, crushing them, or clawing them to death with the four massive tentacles, making these some of the deadliest beasts on the ship. They are, rather fortunately, incredibly rare, more so than Brutes and far more so than Drag Tentacles, and if one comes across a Leviathan it is highly recommended that said person evacuate the area immediately.
Weapons
This game varies considerably from average games in a very important way; When Isaac Clarke boards the Ishimura in the video game ‘Dead Space’, he finds engineering tools jerry-rigged to be weapons scattered around the ship, messages in blood warning him of imminent dangers. These things don’t exist when the invasion starts. This roleplaying game is an alternative to the animated movie Dead Space: Downfall that explains what happens to the original crew of the Ishimura, and as such, all weapons aboard the ship must be jerry-rigged, as they were when Isaac boarded the ship, by you. There are no guns beyond those of the guards that live and work in the ship, and those weapons are kept in sealed rooms that require pass-codes and are very high-security, carried only by the guards, who have extremely limited ammunition for them. As such, Plasma-Cutters, Engineering Flamethrowers, and more advanced Dead Space weaponry such as Line Guns (weapons that fire an arrow-speed line of super-heated plasma that cuts through flesh like a hot knife through butter, similar to a Rail-Gun) and Contact Guns (weapons that use magnetic fields to send opponents flying) must be created from parts aboard the ship. These parts will often be hard to find, and more often will be easily broken and in need of repair often. The ammunition sources, likewise, will need to be made, and in large quantities, as the nearly endless inhabitants of the Ishimura are slowly but surely being slaughtered by the Necromorph menace. To create a weapon, you must be or be advised at the time by a scientist or engineer, while ammunition can be made by anyone. The weapons will usually have an effect that is very similar to something that could be used on rock or stone, such as a cutter, driller, or melter, and as such will not be automatic, not fire metal blades, and not fire bullets. Common Sense is a good rule of thumb. The create-your-own weapons system will add a level of suspense unseen in most survival-horror games, as you will start off defenseless, and have to spend hours that the Necromorphs could be amassing during building these things. Accuracy and ammunition conservation will be a major issue with these weapons, but don’t attempt to go smash a Necromorph’s skull in with a baseball bat or to outrun them; They are, in every way, physically superior to humans, and will slaughter you quickly if you do this, leaving you to rise to their ranks.
The system for weapons creation is actually rather simple; you state, in your post, what you’re trying to make, what it will do, and other pertinent details about it (for instance, if it has a special feature in that it can seek out a Necromorph instead of simply going straight, I need to know that.) Then, I will tell you what you character will need to create it, and whether you have everything you need. If you need something, I will tell you if your character would reasonably know where it was, and if so, where he knows it is. I will also tell you whether a weapon is possible to create or not, so do not simply assume that it is. You will need to spend a set amount of time, which I will dictate based upon the weapon, creating it, and during this time you must not be under attack. You cannot do anything else while you are making a weapon, as the complex engineering of these futuristic tools into powerful objects of destruction will require your full concentration. You can take breaks to do other things, but the break-time does not count towards what you need in work time for your weapon. I dictate how time moves, so you will not finish in two or three posts, believe me. Once a weapon is completed, you must find ammunition for it, if it requires any, or make the ammunition, which will follow a system identical to the one used for weapons creation.
System
As many roleplaying games upon the board, this game will follow a very strict system that all too often is abused, and therefore, the stakes will be raised for this roleplaying game. I will first state the system, and then the punishments for breaking it. I control every living, undead, and inanimate thing within the entirety of the universe except you. Your character is the singular being I do not control. You can not say anything about what non-player characters say, what happens in your environment, or in fact, about your environment at all, that I do not say happens. If I did not EXPLICITLY say, for instance, that there was blood in a room, you may not write with blood on the wall. Now, granted, there’s blood in almost every room, but this should give you an idea of just how far these restrictions go. There are no exceptions. You’re character reacts PURELY to his environment, and you can type only about your character’s actions. While exploring or otherwise not interacting, you must mention every tiny little detail about what you do, down to how loud your footsteps and breathing are and how frightened you are. Anything you leave out, I can use against you. However, on the other end of this spectrum, you may not overly detail your post with things you can’t decide, such as blood on the walls, a skull, or a Plasma-Cutter laying nearby. There is absolutely nothing in a room I say there is not. I will be very clear here; Anybody, whether it is an experienced role-player or a person’s first post on the roleplaying boards, will be kicked out of my roleplay the absolute first time I catch a violation, unless said violation is clearly a typo, or they have been vigilant for 5+ pages, in which case I allow them 1 mistake/5 pages, which they MUST correct within a day of my making them aware or be kicked. I will not be lenient here, and as my precaution, I am sorry to the two to three people who almost certainly will try and fail to master this system with this thread. This is, in part, a deterrent to un-experienced role-players. I have another one, though. You must have already contributed at least 10 posts to any of the following excellent roleplaying threads; S.T.A.L.K.E.R, AVP Ultimate Hunt II: Battlefield Earth, or Nex Mons Mortis. This rule can have exceptions, and if you wish to be a part of this game and have not contributed ten posts to any of those threads, PM me with a profile and a sample of your roleplaying no less than 3000 characters in length long (That would be with the character limit meter reading 57000, for those of you mathematically challenged) that you believe will adequately represent your posts in the thread. I will hold you to this standard, so please, don’t make this your best work in history, as we both know you won’t be able to keep that standard throughout the entirety of the game. Other than that, I have absolutely no qualms with people joining my newest roleplaying game, so please, feel free.
Ishimura:
The Ishimura is a large, industrial ship, called a planet-cracker, meaning that miners attach cables to the ground, and then the ship rises higher in the orbit, ripping part of the planet up. The ship features completely automated stores and mechanical equipment, with very few machines requiring manual use, as well as an asteroid defense system featuring large plasma-cannons and its own, self-regulating food-growth environment in the hydroponics section. It is a self-sustaining, urban environment that allows for the prolonged lives of all aboard. The ship generates oxygen through the plants it keeps on board and built-in oxygen tanks for excess oxygen, and can sustain over 1000 people. The current crew is 1127 miners, engineers, civilian workers, doctors, scientists, and other functioning members, as well as about 500 children and infants.
The ship's monitors, the stores, the doors, and practically everything within the ship are automated and controlled by touch-screen holograms and interactive, artificial intelligence systems that do their primary function as well as any human. The currency for the Ishimura's store is the standard unit of currency, the Credit. Credits are the equivalent of dimes by most standards, and salaries per hour can range in the hundreds of credits. They can be used to buy whatever supplies have been logged in to the store's inventory. The supplies are then broken down from a closed holding bay, and brought to the store's inner scanner, where they are reformed by highly advanced, mechanical means. Only a very few objects can be scanned this way, as it requires huge amounts of computerized memory to remember how to place each broken-down atom as they are transported into the scanner, so the possible inventory for the store is always limited to inorganic, solid items of dimensions between 6 in. x 6 in. and 4 ft. x 4ft. This includes the new battery packs filled with plasma energy for the Plasma Cutters, the fuel-packs for the engineer's flamethrowers, the hundreds of organized, titanium blades used by the Rippers, and the Contact Gun energy. Portions of the huge, energy-leeching racks for the Line Gun and even Pulse Rifle ammunition for the guards, though more expensive, are also part of the stores.
In addition, the USG Ishimura features automatic sensors that can detect foreign items in the ship such as asteroids and alien life forms, and when detected, usually activates a Quarantine upon the area, locking all doors and waiting for the material to be removed, whether by air lock or, in the case of foreign life, death. Quarantined areas are sometimes, if not a place where staff generally venture, deprived of oxygen and have their artificial gravity removed, essentially becoming another part of space.
The Ishimura is an expansive ship, with millions of rooms and passageways, many not seen in Dead Space as Isaac had to follow a set course and most of the doors on the ship were locked. Because of this, many room and pathways taken by players will have no resemblance to any of the rooms featured in the game. In fact, you could, theoretically, go the entire game without ever encountering a room like those seen by Isaac Clarke in his fight for survival. If you have played the game, and find some inconsistency, think about the possibility that, some long way back, you took a different door than Isaac did, and as such, could be the entire city-sized ship away from where you thought you were in relation to the events of Dead Space. Many places in-game were also torn or ripped off, including entire rooms of the ship, so that you could view the planet from where a wall originally was. In these places, there will not be vacuums or zero gravity areas at the beginning of the game. Please be aware that post-Necromorph Ishimura and pre-Necromorph Ishimura are, essentially, two entirely different environments with numerous similarities, and should be treated as such.
Conclusion:
This thread will not begin until we have a minimum of three members. I might create a character if we only have two, but at the very least I want two other players. However, the more the merrier is my general motto here, so please, feel free to join no matter the number. The game will be challenging, and will be, if I do my part right, frightening, but it will also be a rewarding experience for those who put in the effort.
This is a roleplaying game based upon the survival horror game ‘Dead Space,’ and if you’re familiar with the game, you’ll probably have an easier time seeing what I describe. It might even help you survive. Who knows?
As a disclaimer to anyone wishing to roleplay in this game, I must warn you; It will feature obscene blood and gore, horrific and disturbing situations, mutilation, suicide, self-torture, cursing, masochism and neo-masochism, and other horrors. Among the many monsters that you will have to kill are undead pregnant women, babies with sliced backs that sprout tentacles, and deformed men with their faces split in half. The game it is based upon has been banned in multiple countries. Please, if you feel this could offend you in any way, do not play this game. I am not responsible for any nightmares, trauma, or disturbed thoughts you may have because of what you see.
Now that I have that out of the way, I’d just like to say, this game is intended to be just what the game was; A scare-the-hell out of you experience. It won’t be anywhere near as easy as it was in game, and you won’t be as scared as if you had played the game, but the purpose of this game is fun only if you find fear, dread, suspense, or seeing characters you have come to know, respect, love, or care about torn to pieces or kill themselves before your very eyes. This isn’t gentle. Don’t ever fall into a false sense of security. Now, keeping that in mind, if you CAN handle this, and do find scary things to be fun, or if you like horror movies, or you liked the game Dead Space, or if you simply think that a horror roleplaying game would be an interesting change of pace, please, I urge you to not let the above warnings turn you away. This game will be incredibly creative, requiring out-of-the-box thinking, and filled with twists and turns that will allow you to really feel the impact of the crisis. It is, after all, designed as a -game-, so I urge you not to be turned away by the disclaimer. It is there as a precaution, not a deterrent.
Players
During the course of this game, you will be playing as one of the many, completely average colonists on-board the ship. There are very few characters off limits, except for two classes; the people seen in game, who survived or have a predetermined end (Isaac’s girlfriend, Dr. Mercer) and the guards, who are combat-trained and therefore more capable of defending themselves against the menace of the Necromorphs. This is because in-game, the first class cannot die, and therefore there is no sense of imminent danger, and the second class because of the reduced chance of dying and the fact that they’ll start off with real, honest to goodness weapons, which will go against one of the main themes of this game, creating your own weapon.
As a colonist, you can be of any sex or race, but you must be human. I want nobody to say, “But can I PLEAAAAAAAAASE be my new Yautja character? He’s good and stuff, I can come up with a great reason for him to be there!”
No. You may now. There are no Yautja in this universe, or any adjacent universes. The events of any and all literature relating to the Alien or Predator universe don’t exist in these universes, neither does the media related to it or the movies or games, and in fact, if you asked someone what they thought of the 2008 movie ‘AVP-R’ they might have you committed. So, there you go.
On top of the above notice, if you can’t use proper spelling, grammar, capitalization, or punctuation, then you shouldn’t sign up for this thread. There is only one exception to this rule, and he knows who he is, and has my full permission from previous threads to not use it because of the difficulty of English not being his native language. Other than him, if you can’t write, “He walked down the corridor, jerry-rigged engineering tool at the ready, fear gripping his heart.” then I do not want you here. If it comes out “he walked down teh corrdor tool at the ready afraid shooting at the nercomorphs he ran away.” then please, don’t contribute. I’m sorry if any of the above offends anyone, but between my school, a recent article on Evolution vs. Creationism, and the writing style of most internet users, I am more than slightly paranoid of people with intelligence levels so low it could cause a common garden slug to look like a cross of Stephen Hawking, Benjamin Franklin, and Albert Einstein.
In addition to all of the above, if you can’t post once a week, please don’t sign up. If, for any reason, you’re forced to not post, PM me as soon as you can with your reason and estimated time of returning so that I, in turn, can tell everyone else that your character will not be playing for that time. If you do not post for a week or more, and it was an obvious place for you to respond, don’t bother wasting another week writing up a new, highly-detailed post to make up for it. I’ll take control of your character and use him or her in a way consistent with the characters normal motivations and actions. This is so that there are no ‘down-times’ with this thread. In addition, I’ve layed out a basic format for your profiles that I want all profiles to be in, which I want added to the corresponding thread in the Off-Topic Roleplaying Profiles section. It looks like this:
Name:
Age:
Sex:
Career: (one of the 5 below)
Unitologist: (Yes/No)
Description: Here should be included appearance, personality, personal possessions (of which you may have no weapons, and only basic items such as toothpastes, combs, mirrors, and pictures, as well as trinkets and sentimental items from home. Pretend your packing for your character’s business trip, but said business trip is in a huge space-ship.
Now that I’ve set your personal rules, here is the way that your character can be chosen and played; you can be any of the following professions aboard the Ishimura; A doctor, scientist, engineer, miner, or worker. Each of these is explained below:
Doctor: The doctors are the medical personnel of the Ishimura, and needed for any group of survivors on a very severe level. They treat the wounds of people, and were originally assigned to deal with the numerous injuries miners can get while working. They have extensive knowledge about the human body (though this knowledge is useless against Necromorphs, who’s morphed forms are very different from our own) and can cure most minor sicknesses. Each doctor is issued by the owners of the Ishimura with a white doctor’s coat, much like the scientist’s lab coats, a bag full of medical equipment such as syringes, pills, liquid medicines, medical tape, pain-killers, medical staplers and stitches, gauze, and other things commonly found in an emergency kit or doctor’s office. These items are available to the doctor or in a doctor’s office only, and must be used sparingly.
Engineer: The engineers are the people who refine the ore of Aegis 7 once the miners bring it to the surface, repair the mining tools, melt down captured comets, deal with mechanical equipment of all kinds, and are the people who break the ore out of the rock. The tools of the engineer’s trade include a short-distance flame-thrower that fires a concentrated amount of orange flame that is used to melt the rock down, or melt through ore-rich comets, an access card to some of the more advanced tools for breaking the ore out of the rock, for moving equipment, or for access to power nodes in the locker used to help increase the functionality of different machines, and a small repair kit. After the flamethrower is used, they cool the rock, and withdraw the deposits, which will be located in one area and nearer the top or bottom, depending upon the material. The engineers are the final step in the assembly line of Ishimura, before the huge amount of ore is taken to the holding bay, by the engineer-controlled machines, where it is stored for the return to Earth. Engineers generally wear trousers and denim shirts that are more resistant to heat than other people’s clothing, but useless as armor, and begin with one of these flamethrowers, the access card, and the small repair kit consisting of a number of tools. These flamethrowers, unfortunately, require the user to wear huge, 50-pound tanks of the fuel on their back to do the job for the hours its generally required, so they aren’t really feasible as weapons unless some kind of smaller tank were made and attached to the weapon, and even then it would eat up the contents like a machine gun with a half-full clip left with the trigger held back.
Miner: The miners cut the ore from the surface of Aegis 7 with powerful ‘Plasma-Cutters', which can rotate to a horizontal or vertical mode so that they can cut chunks of rock out easily, 'Line Guns', essentially rotation-less Plasma-Cutters that fire more powerful bursts, and 'Rippers', tools designed to cut through solid rock by firing huge numbers of sharp, titanium, disk-shaped blades about an inch in diameter, at a rate of 1700 RPM. These weapons also fire larger, rotating disks about 3 inches in diameter that can be directed with the sights of the Ripper for specialized cutting of rocks. The Plasma-Cutters and Line Guns have three laser-pointer beams that extend from the weapon, allowing for better aiming at key points in the rock structure so that they can easily slice through the weak points and conserve charges. Each of the Plasma-Cutters is usually linked to a line of generators by thick cables, while the Line Guns are generally powered through an electrified grid, but, as the Line Gun can be hooked up to smaller grids that provide it with less time for firing, the Plasma-Cutters can be hooked up with batteries instead. Unfortunately, the batteries aren’t rechargeable and, more importantly, aren’t good for more than 25 rock-shearing blasts, so they aren’t really feasible for the miners to use on the ground. Instead, they’re mostly used as a design concept by the scientists, and for cutting ore in areas it’s not feasible to mine in, such as a small place of high-concentration ore or an area in which only one or two miners can work at a time. Miners aboard the ship right now would be resting and preparing themselves for the next trip down to Aegis 7. Miner’s uniforms are leather overalls and thick boots over blue jeans and wool or denim shirts, usually with a plaid pattern, and they of course start with the Plasma-Cutters.
Scientist: The scientists are the researches and repair men of the Ishimura. They are highly trained and educated, usually with huge vocabularies and always seen wearing their signature white lab-coats and gloves. They stay in the labs of the ship, looking after various technological experiments and examining unusual rocks dug up from Aegis 7. Their current pet-project was looking after the Red Marker, and it is this tragic experiment that most severely has gone awry. Scientists are equipped with various tools that allow them to build different machines, given that they have the correct materials at hand, to repair anything that is too severely damaged, and all carry special, holographic cards that give read-outs of scanned objects such as schematics, name if it is already in the databank, and primary function. Scientists are intelligent and problem-solvers, but can be very meek. It is definitely not the profession for the bust-the-door in kind of guy. Of course, if you’re the bust-the-door in kind of guy, I’d suggest staying away from this thread. You won’t need to in order to find danger. Trust me.
Workers: The workers are the least skilled, rudimentary workers of the Ishimura. They get average wages and sleep in the center of the ship, usually surrounded by rooms going for miles upon the craft, each one containing another worker. The workers are janitors, errand-boys, and the people who work at the various restaurants, cafeterias, and other places within the Ishimura. They provide all of the little necessities and things for the Ishimura, as well as the luxuries. They are the working class citizens, or the middle-class, of the ship. They carry no items, as most of what they need is either a log of store credits spent, a mop, or will be handed to them and leave their hands, never to return, while on the job. Their uniforms are generally composed of blue jeans or slacks and cotton shirts.
The reason the game will feature such clear-cut types of people is because there is no way in any other roleplaying game to distinguish one normal person from another. Every civilian is as weak and defenseless as the next, and the heroes could easily slaughter them all, and the villains could to. But, in this game, you ARE the civilians, and as such, we need to differentiate from a Doctor, who will be far from squeamish but probably won’t be able to take very much punishment as he’s cooped up in the office all day, from the Miner, someone who could have a deep-seated level of disgust for blood but still be tough as nails when it comes to holding some creatures off, the tough guy. Both are civilians, but the Miner is clearly the better choice for someone interested in being strong, and the Doctor is certainly better for someone with a more intellectual bent. The groups are so I can determine what you probably can and can’t do, what you’ve been trained in and what you haven’t been, and how much you can reasonably know. (A scientist, for instance, might know that a door jam could be fixed with pressure in a certain area at a certain rate, and can coordinate that. An Engineer, on the other hand, might just get something large and hard, and ram the door down, or might try to find another way around.)
Monsters:
This game features Necromorphs as the enemies. They are tougher than humans, more vicious than humans, and are easily capable of slaughtering you even if you are armed, with speed and surprise alone. They have tactics, they can duck in to an air vent and pop out of the ceiling over your head, and worst of all, they could have the face of your friends, horribly mutilated, being the one that bites in to your shoulder while the blades decapitate you. They are, in essence, a far better version of Zombie, and not to be treated lightly. I’m going to list them here for your convenience, and I’ll hope that you’ll have the sense not to assume you know what the Slashers are called when you first see them. To you, it’s a mutilated man with three-jointed scythe arms coming out of his shoulders. Remember that as best as you can.
Slasher
The Slasher is the standard Necromorph, produced from average human males by the sting of an Infector. The mutations take only a few seconds, but the effects are incredible. The creature’s skin becomes warped, trailing away in to open muscle in places and in staying the same as the beast was alive in others. While the Enhanced Slasher (viewed above) is very alien in appearance, normal Slashers have human faces, more reddish features, and their eyes are normal and human, instead of the tiny pinpoints of light seen above. They can still be seen wearing the denim pants of workers, engineers, and miners, and even have the same faces. Slashers attack using the scythe-like blades sprouting from the arms on their shoulders, which can slice a man in half in a single stroke. They are fast and agile, but generally easy to defeat once you learn how and won’t take very long to kill. Enhanced Slashers, as seen above, have the melee capabilities of the male Slashers, and can spit acid, while the female Slasher’s blades grow from their arms, and are therefore not as powerful, but they can spit acid like the enhanced Slashers. All forms of this Necromorph, however, are easily dismembered with the same trick.
Lurker
The Lurker is one of the most disturbing of the Necromorphs, produced from a dead human infant. It crawls like any infant, usually making sounds akin to a whimpering baby when unthreatened. When it is confronted with a foe, however, it emits a shriek that could chill the blood of the stoutest man, a shrill and inhuman hissing roar that deafens most other sound. The lurker usually waits in hiding, attacking only once its prey has passed or is occupied with something else. It fires sharp barbs from long, disgusting tentacles that rise above its back, each of them composed of flesh and long pieces of the organs and entrails that are tipped with the dangerous barbs. If confronted in melee, it will latch on to an opponent, grabbing at them and ripping at their throat with the stubs of teeth on the bottom of its head, and stabbing wildly with the tentacles. It may also wrap one of the meaty appendages around the neck; crying and roaring as it squeezes till the head it removed. It may also go for the eyes, plucking them out and biting in to them, attempting to suck on them as a baby would its bottle.
Infector
Infectors are the creatures responsible for creating more Necromorphs. They can fly for short distances upon the leathery wings that protrude from their sides, created from the bent-back legs and arms of their human host with skin fusing the two appendages, and have a long, Lurker-like tentacle protruding from the back of their neck, which is significantly widened to look like part of their head, that ends in a powerful stinger. This stinger injects the Necromorph infection in to a dead body, causing it to rise as a new Necromorph, most often a Slasher. While they can fly, they generally crawl, as flying wears them out quickly and they cannot keep themselves above the ground easily. In the middle of combat, Infectors will often force long, intestine-like tubes down a dead body’s throat, forcing the infection and rapid growth in the creature. This creates a more powerful form of Slasher in but a second, the Enhanced Slasher, and is an easy way to increase the ranks of the Necromorphs. Infectors are fairly easily killed, but will not attack you unless all other bodies are raised.
Twitcher
Twitchers are physically incredibly similar to Slashers, but with a number of modifications that make them far deadlier. They are derived from military personnel, meaning that they are more resilient to death. The blades grow from engorged arms, making them much tougher and more damaging than the blades from the spindly arms of the Slashers, and, most frighteningly of all, the Stasis modules that military onboard the Ishimura wear have been fused with the creatures, with the effects strangely reversing to create horrifying side-effects. Stasis modules, in short, are devices that slow time to a near stand-still around a singular creature or object, causing them to move at incredibly slow speeds and to react far less quickly to their environment, allowing for easy subdual. The Stasis modules reversed effects, which have been turned on the beasts, rapidly increase their speed, causing them to Twitch and move sporadically, dodging bullets and blasts from weapons and crossing rooms in a matter of moments before raining hell down upon any foe who stands in its way. Often, these creatures will work in groups, slaughtering anything that catches their sight by ambushing it from a room away, in a blur appearing in groups of five to six and brutally slashing away at an opponent with their scythe-bladed arms.
Exploder
Exploders are strange and terrible Necromorphs, and serve one of the most sadistic purposes of them all. Their split-open head stares blankly forward, eyes looking off into the distance even as they move towards their foe. Each of them shambles slowly, one arm the same as it was in life, albeit far more decayed, and the other morphed into a huge sac of yellow liquids and pulsing veins. The sac emits a slight glow, enough to read by, though if this glow is cast upon you, you will almost certainly not be reading again. They strike this sac, made of very thin membranes that can barely contain the weight within, against an opponent, causing numerous liquids inside to explode with the force of a hand-grenade, instantly killing anyone in the blast radius and immolating most flammable materials. They are slow, but almost always travel in groups, making them very difficult to kill unless you can start a chain reaction. Each pack of Exploders is usually also accompanied with other, quicker or tougher Necromorphs, that defend it as it makes its way to its destination. Exploders are the ultimate suicide bombers of the Necromorph legions.
Divider
Dividers are tall, lank, and for the most part unaltered moving carcasses, stretched slightly and with longer fingers and sharpened bones at the end. They tower above most humans in height, like a starved giant ready to kill. They generally run forward, dodging away from slower attacks and taking instant attacks with resolve. Once killed, however, their true deadliness comes into play. The arms, head, and legs can all move independently, sprouting long tentacles of muscle tissue and veins that then pull the appendage along, allowing the claws to slash and grab; the legs to strike like a snake; and the head to bite. This attack makes them far more sinister, as killing them simply produces more opponents, each of which is about 1/5 the power of the original.
Leaper
Leapers are the greatest leapers of the Necromorph armies. They have long tails, ending in wicked, bony, blood-stained spikes, powerful, mutilated, deadly jaws that are fearsome to behold, sharp claws, and the innate ability to crawl along walls and the ceiling and leap great distances. With these abilities, they can come from every angle, attacking in droves or singularly, dodging bullet fire and leaping upon potential corpses, ripping in to their throat with powerful claws or spearing them upon long tails. Leapers are fairly weak, and can be killed easily if the right trick is done. They are vicious and ruthless however, so do not mistake a dead Leaper with an incapacitated Leaper, as it may be your demise if you turn your back on one.
Pregnant
Pregnants are some of the most ungainly and horrible Necromorphs to gaze upon, being engorged about the stomach, while decrepitly thin and hideous, as a normal corpse, throughout the rest. Their bladed arms are used in the same manner as a Slashers, but their most dangerous ability by far is that of their main defense. If shot in the stomach, or if the stomach is ruptured, a number of leech-like parasites burst forth, latching on to the nearest person and biting in to them, leaving a sharp, bony protrusion. These creatures can leave four to five of these in the body, and each causes tremendous bleeding, having a powerful agent that loosens the blood inside of them so that, if too many bites are taken, you will begin to bleed from every orifice of your body, your body will begin to implode in on itself from lack of blood pressure, and you will become a desiccated husk upon the ground. Pregnants themselves are very tough and resilient, capable of taking many injuries before dying.
Guardian
Guardians, as the name implies, guard things such as doors, chests, and other stationary objects. A few even become attached to moving objects or living creatures, allowing them to become hit-and-run attackers. Guardians are bodies, usually incredibly mutilated, that have been fused to something, entrails hanging from a huge hole in their stomach and thick, bladed, muscular, bloody, and decomposing arms held to the side. They tend to roar and scream when opponents are nearby, attempting to bite them, slash them with scythe-like blades protruding from their palms, or use their entrails to hold their dead corpse against the wall, creating yet another guardian. Guardians can sometimes form large colonies around themselves by doing this, but more often than not Guardians are found singularly or in groups of two or three, making them fairly easy to kill from a distance. Be warned though, their roars will alert other Necromorphs to your presence.
Brute
Brutes are some of the greatest of the close-range Necromorphs, being veritable tanks on the battlefield. They are formed from three or more corpses being fused together and horribly mutilated from the infection’s effects. They are covered in bony plates over their front and bottom, leaving only the muscular back exposed. Because of their agility, maneuverability, and relentlessness however, this usually glaring weakness is not as good as it sounds. Brute’s bony plates are tough enough to take bullet fire, and as such, most tools will simply have no effect on them. The Brute’s muscle tissue is incredibly thick, lending considerable force behind the sweeping blows of its huge front claws, which it uses to slash and stomp frightened opponents. It will also use its sharp teeth to rip in to prey, holding limbs in place with its muscular tongue as its rips and scratches at meat and bone alike. Brutes possess a pair of arms upon their back that is used to claw and scratch at opponents or to hold them in place, but these are unarmored and easily cut off by most attacks. Brutes, unfortunately, will generally kill you before you can, however. Thankfully, these terrible monsters are rather rare.
Drag Tentacle
Drag Tentacles have only one recorded source upon the ship, and that is from Leviathans. Few other reports have occurred, some from a beast known as the ‘Slug’ and another from the surface of Aegis 7, but these have yet to be confirmed. Whatever their origins, it is very clear that Drag Tentacles are some of the most deadly Necromorphs in existence. A giant, muscular, tentacle like arm of rotting and decaying flesh, tipped with a large, mottled, and fleshy webbed hand with sharp claws at the tip of each finger, the Drag Tentacle’s name is derived from the fact that it will latch on to the leg or arm of an opponent, and then the thick, nearly indestructible arm will pull them to its layer, where it is assumed the Leviathan, or whatever they may originate from, turns them into a Necromorph. Drag Tentacles have only one weakness, a muscular kind air sac that it breathes through about 30 feet down the tentacle from the hand. If pierced enough times, the tentacle will tear at this point, slaying the appendage forever. However, because of the very awkward positions that the tentacle places its foes in, this is hardly ever possible.
Leviathan
A huge mass of flesh and drag tentacles surrounding a gaping maw, in the center of which is a beacon that distributes the infection with impunity, the Leviathan is a monster to behold. The beast, a massive 10 kiloton monster of epic proportions, has four long Drag Tentacles protruding from its mass and surrounding the glowing orb, which radiates the infection in the form of tiny, parasitic germs that cause it to glow. Any person brought down in to that pit becomes a Necromorph in moments, causing these creatures to be hell itself upon the unsuspecting, as they are literally generators of the monstrous abominations, huge, living factories of the undead. Leviathans are also quite capable of slaughtering creatures by rending them in half, crushing them, or clawing them to death with the four massive tentacles, making these some of the deadliest beasts on the ship. They are, rather fortunately, incredibly rare, more so than Brutes and far more so than Drag Tentacles, and if one comes across a Leviathan it is highly recommended that said person evacuate the area immediately.
Weapons
This game varies considerably from average games in a very important way; When Isaac Clarke boards the Ishimura in the video game ‘Dead Space’, he finds engineering tools jerry-rigged to be weapons scattered around the ship, messages in blood warning him of imminent dangers. These things don’t exist when the invasion starts. This roleplaying game is an alternative to the animated movie Dead Space: Downfall that explains what happens to the original crew of the Ishimura, and as such, all weapons aboard the ship must be jerry-rigged, as they were when Isaac boarded the ship, by you. There are no guns beyond those of the guards that live and work in the ship, and those weapons are kept in sealed rooms that require pass-codes and are very high-security, carried only by the guards, who have extremely limited ammunition for them. As such, Plasma-Cutters, Engineering Flamethrowers, and more advanced Dead Space weaponry such as Line Guns (weapons that fire an arrow-speed line of super-heated plasma that cuts through flesh like a hot knife through butter, similar to a Rail-Gun) and Contact Guns (weapons that use magnetic fields to send opponents flying) must be created from parts aboard the ship. These parts will often be hard to find, and more often will be easily broken and in need of repair often. The ammunition sources, likewise, will need to be made, and in large quantities, as the nearly endless inhabitants of the Ishimura are slowly but surely being slaughtered by the Necromorph menace. To create a weapon, you must be or be advised at the time by a scientist or engineer, while ammunition can be made by anyone. The weapons will usually have an effect that is very similar to something that could be used on rock or stone, such as a cutter, driller, or melter, and as such will not be automatic, not fire metal blades, and not fire bullets. Common Sense is a good rule of thumb. The create-your-own weapons system will add a level of suspense unseen in most survival-horror games, as you will start off defenseless, and have to spend hours that the Necromorphs could be amassing during building these things. Accuracy and ammunition conservation will be a major issue with these weapons, but don’t attempt to go smash a Necromorph’s skull in with a baseball bat or to outrun them; They are, in every way, physically superior to humans, and will slaughter you quickly if you do this, leaving you to rise to their ranks.
The system for weapons creation is actually rather simple; you state, in your post, what you’re trying to make, what it will do, and other pertinent details about it (for instance, if it has a special feature in that it can seek out a Necromorph instead of simply going straight, I need to know that.) Then, I will tell you what you character will need to create it, and whether you have everything you need. If you need something, I will tell you if your character would reasonably know where it was, and if so, where he knows it is. I will also tell you whether a weapon is possible to create or not, so do not simply assume that it is. You will need to spend a set amount of time, which I will dictate based upon the weapon, creating it, and during this time you must not be under attack. You cannot do anything else while you are making a weapon, as the complex engineering of these futuristic tools into powerful objects of destruction will require your full concentration. You can take breaks to do other things, but the break-time does not count towards what you need in work time for your weapon. I dictate how time moves, so you will not finish in two or three posts, believe me. Once a weapon is completed, you must find ammunition for it, if it requires any, or make the ammunition, which will follow a system identical to the one used for weapons creation.
System
As many roleplaying games upon the board, this game will follow a very strict system that all too often is abused, and therefore, the stakes will be raised for this roleplaying game. I will first state the system, and then the punishments for breaking it. I control every living, undead, and inanimate thing within the entirety of the universe except you. Your character is the singular being I do not control. You can not say anything about what non-player characters say, what happens in your environment, or in fact, about your environment at all, that I do not say happens. If I did not EXPLICITLY say, for instance, that there was blood in a room, you may not write with blood on the wall. Now, granted, there’s blood in almost every room, but this should give you an idea of just how far these restrictions go. There are no exceptions. You’re character reacts PURELY to his environment, and you can type only about your character’s actions. While exploring or otherwise not interacting, you must mention every tiny little detail about what you do, down to how loud your footsteps and breathing are and how frightened you are. Anything you leave out, I can use against you. However, on the other end of this spectrum, you may not overly detail your post with things you can’t decide, such as blood on the walls, a skull, or a Plasma-Cutter laying nearby. There is absolutely nothing in a room I say there is not. I will be very clear here; Anybody, whether it is an experienced role-player or a person’s first post on the roleplaying boards, will be kicked out of my roleplay the absolute first time I catch a violation, unless said violation is clearly a typo, or they have been vigilant for 5+ pages, in which case I allow them 1 mistake/5 pages, which they MUST correct within a day of my making them aware or be kicked. I will not be lenient here, and as my precaution, I am sorry to the two to three people who almost certainly will try and fail to master this system with this thread. This is, in part, a deterrent to un-experienced role-players. I have another one, though. You must have already contributed at least 10 posts to any of the following excellent roleplaying threads; S.T.A.L.K.E.R, AVP Ultimate Hunt II: Battlefield Earth, or Nex Mons Mortis. This rule can have exceptions, and if you wish to be a part of this game and have not contributed ten posts to any of those threads, PM me with a profile and a sample of your roleplaying no less than 3000 characters in length long (That would be with the character limit meter reading 57000, for those of you mathematically challenged) that you believe will adequately represent your posts in the thread. I will hold you to this standard, so please, don’t make this your best work in history, as we both know you won’t be able to keep that standard throughout the entirety of the game. Other than that, I have absolutely no qualms with people joining my newest roleplaying game, so please, feel free.
Ishimura:
The Ishimura is a large, industrial ship, called a planet-cracker, meaning that miners attach cables to the ground, and then the ship rises higher in the orbit, ripping part of the planet up. The ship features completely automated stores and mechanical equipment, with very few machines requiring manual use, as well as an asteroid defense system featuring large plasma-cannons and its own, self-regulating food-growth environment in the hydroponics section. It is a self-sustaining, urban environment that allows for the prolonged lives of all aboard. The ship generates oxygen through the plants it keeps on board and built-in oxygen tanks for excess oxygen, and can sustain over 1000 people. The current crew is 1127 miners, engineers, civilian workers, doctors, scientists, and other functioning members, as well as about 500 children and infants.
The ship's monitors, the stores, the doors, and practically everything within the ship are automated and controlled by touch-screen holograms and interactive, artificial intelligence systems that do their primary function as well as any human. The currency for the Ishimura's store is the standard unit of currency, the Credit. Credits are the equivalent of dimes by most standards, and salaries per hour can range in the hundreds of credits. They can be used to buy whatever supplies have been logged in to the store's inventory. The supplies are then broken down from a closed holding bay, and brought to the store's inner scanner, where they are reformed by highly advanced, mechanical means. Only a very few objects can be scanned this way, as it requires huge amounts of computerized memory to remember how to place each broken-down atom as they are transported into the scanner, so the possible inventory for the store is always limited to inorganic, solid items of dimensions between 6 in. x 6 in. and 4 ft. x 4ft. This includes the new battery packs filled with plasma energy for the Plasma Cutters, the fuel-packs for the engineer's flamethrowers, the hundreds of organized, titanium blades used by the Rippers, and the Contact Gun energy. Portions of the huge, energy-leeching racks for the Line Gun and even Pulse Rifle ammunition for the guards, though more expensive, are also part of the stores.
In addition, the USG Ishimura features automatic sensors that can detect foreign items in the ship such as asteroids and alien life forms, and when detected, usually activates a Quarantine upon the area, locking all doors and waiting for the material to be removed, whether by air lock or, in the case of foreign life, death. Quarantined areas are sometimes, if not a place where staff generally venture, deprived of oxygen and have their artificial gravity removed, essentially becoming another part of space.
The Ishimura is an expansive ship, with millions of rooms and passageways, many not seen in Dead Space as Isaac had to follow a set course and most of the doors on the ship were locked. Because of this, many room and pathways taken by players will have no resemblance to any of the rooms featured in the game. In fact, you could, theoretically, go the entire game without ever encountering a room like those seen by Isaac Clarke in his fight for survival. If you have played the game, and find some inconsistency, think about the possibility that, some long way back, you took a different door than Isaac did, and as such, could be the entire city-sized ship away from where you thought you were in relation to the events of Dead Space. Many places in-game were also torn or ripped off, including entire rooms of the ship, so that you could view the planet from where a wall originally was. In these places, there will not be vacuums or zero gravity areas at the beginning of the game. Please be aware that post-Necromorph Ishimura and pre-Necromorph Ishimura are, essentially, two entirely different environments with numerous similarities, and should be treated as such.
Conclusion:
This thread will not begin until we have a minimum of three members. I might create a character if we only have two, but at the very least I want two other players. However, the more the merrier is my general motto here, so please, feel free to join no matter the number. The game will be challenging, and will be, if I do my part right, frightening, but it will also be a rewarding experience for those who put in the effort.