• Overview. "Fiction Dictating Reality" is an RPG that will have an IC start date of 01 January 2000. All pop culture references should be appropriately referenced. For instance, don't be referring to 9/11 if IC hasn't progressed that far yet. There is no determination yet as to what will and will not make the cut as far as pop references go. Just do a bit of research if you're going to reference something pop-culture-esque IC.


• Activity. "Fiction Dictating Reality" has the intent of being a flowing story. One liners and short paragraphs does not a story make. I'd hate to have to dictate 'minimums'; I'd much prefer that the story you try to tell is so compelling that you want to post lots and lots. Don't be afraid to work with someone which leads me to...


• Godmodding. I highly encourage cooperation amongst players to create realistic and flowing dialogue, interactions and fight sequences. Some people will be comfortable with having people play their characters (I've had this happen to me before, especially with minor things like walking/talking), but do so with the player's approval.


• Post Style. "Fiction Dictating Reality" is supposed to be a flowing story, something that has a bit of quality to it. I particularly want to avoid posts that are just copy-pastes from a chat log. Don't be afraid to get everything you might want your character(s) to do in chat. Please do take some pride in your work and clean it up into viable prose.


• Grammar, Punctuation and Spelling. Use it properly, thanks!



• Links:
  
  • In Character Posting Is Here!
  • Out of Character Posting

• Locations: Anywhere, but let's keep it reasonable. I doubt there is a huge population of vampires in the steppes of Russia, or only one vampire in the small fishing village of Los Angeles (Bonus points to the first person to PM me with where I got that line from!). Also, eventually, the story and your character has to cross paths with at least one other character from somewhere else (and owned by someone else. It gets rather boring to play with oneself).


• Characters: I am going to highly discourage high-level power characters, at least at first. Mostly out of a desire to keep the story realistic, but also to keep people involved. Nothing spells certain doom for a game like everyone being the head honcho for their particular brand of whatever. It stifles creativity, originality, and desire to participate... not to mention desire to develop your character.


• Powers, Gifts and Abilities: These are going to be laid out formally later on, and will have only a bit of wiggle room. Unless you can present a very rational and straight forward reason for your character to have the ability that isn't in the list, I'd stay away from it. An example is flight: humans aren't Superman... we can't fly. However, vampires tend to be very strong, and they have the ability to play on perception: so they can appear to be doing something that they can't actually do.


• Characters, revisited: This is an original work of fiction. That said, there shouldn't be Lestats, Armands, Louis, Anita Blakes, Jean-Claudes, Richards, Nathaniels, Jacobs, Edwards, Bellas, Lost Boys, Lesbian Vampire Killers, Draculas, Renfelds, yadda yadda. Don't be afraid to use them to influence or inspire your character, but don't let your character succumb to those paltry cardboard cutouts! Be ORIGINAL!


• How to apply: Apply using the form that this group provides. It's a good start, and if you have any questions about what it should look like, feel free to take a peek at my character's bio. It's not really thorough though, and I'd prefer thorough for a proper application. If I think that the character will have traction in the RPG, I'll ask for an IC post.

• Humans. The basic people on the planet. 6.6 Billion of them are littered across the globe. Pretty self-explanitory. For the story, the basic laws of physics, biology, etc and all that apply. I'm going to hold back for the reasons cited above as far as any special abilities go.


• Vampires. They look like humans. They can talk like humans. To delve further:
  
  • They have to consume blood to fully survive, however. A nearly-non-communicable virus has altered their physiologies to such an extent that some simple proteins can only be absorbed through the consumption of the blood of most mammals. Foods can still be consumed but give nearly no nutritional value; drink (other than blood) is rarely worth the effort, but does help with maintaining hydration.
  • The normal acts of breathing, heart beat, blinking and other involuntary actions can be controlled through time and practice: don't expect to suddenly wake up and be able to go without breathing or having your heart beat. Other routine bodily functions operate much the same way, aside from the digestive tract. Vampires are also compromised by their near-total reliance on blood as a substitute for their mucus membranes: vampires do cry blood, and woe be to the vampire caught in a protest where the police are firing tear gas--because of the virus conversion, a vampire that is subjected to CS, Tear, MACE, or Pepper spray they cannot stop themselves from the normal reaction: breathing more. As they breathe more, their mucus membranes go into overdrive, and they will begin bleeding from the eyes, nose and mouth uncontrollably. Though unable to 'drown', the vampire will bleed out if untreated.
  • Vampires are extremely flammable.
  • Vampires' cellular structure, altered as it is by the virus, is capable of rapidly repairing damage to their bodies, provided they have enough access to the raw materials necessary--blood. The downside is that once they start taking damage, more serious damage becomes even easier to inflict and harder to repair. Wounds that result in brain damage or decapitation are universally and instantaneously fatal.
  • Vampires' eyes can manipulate light. Much like a laser, the energy and light (outside of the visible spectrum) can cause a human to become disoriented, lose track of time, or become hypnotized and therefore suggestible.
  • Vampires can control the sound of their voices, resulting in some similar effects to what their eyes can do, but at much greater range. These frequencies are in the Extra-Low Frequency (ELF) range, and though limited in the amount of information that can be sent through the signal, the human can be "prepped" (or brainwashed) into certain responses upon receipt of various signals.
  • The combination of the above two abilities can cause vampires to affect the perception of what they are doing. In simple terms, the vampires cause illusions, and so the humans are mislead to their actual capabilities.
  • Though I feel like it should go without saying, vampires do not sparkle in sunlight. Nor do they burst into flames. If older than about 1000 years however, they can develop severe acute-onset porphyria and expire.
• Therianthropes. A more apt term than 'lycanthropes' or mere werewolf, etc. They still aren't fully appreciated:
  
  • Size: The laws of physics must be maintained: A 150lb man will result in a 150lb wolf. A 100lb woman will result in a 100lb cat.
  • The change is not tied to the moon, but in several groups this is still used as the one time a month to get together as a group.
  • Species limitations: It's a disease, carried by species in the scientific classification class of: mammal, marsupial, reptile and avians. Generally limited to the dominant species in the area. For instance, in New Orleans, the leading group is probably going to be alligator, but in Colorado, it might be the cougar. Though it has been reported, there are few examples of water mammals (weredolphins? Yeah, that'd be a bit hard on someone!)
  • On Furries, Cat/Dog-people, etc: No. No no no no no no. There isn't any partial shifting in this world, thanks. If the character is in person form, they're in person form. If they're in animal form, they're in animal form.
  • Powers: I realized that I should probably delineate these as well. Specifically, there are none, other than some basic physics-level stuff. If an animal is fast/strong/slow/weak/etc, the therian version probably will be too.

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