Guardians' Legacy: The Night Plague [IC, Open]

OOC thread here

Guardians' Legacy: The Night Plague is actually the seventh 'part' of my original work the Guardians' Legacy saga, although like all the parts it is mostly stand-alone and separated by a fair amount of time from the others, ensuring that it should be no real problem starting here of all places.
If you're interested in the other parts they're should be a link to their Interest Check down in my signature (where you may also find another link to the OOC thread), sorry that I don't have the time to post it up here.

While this RPG will make use of several pre-determined character roles, you should be perfectly free to come up with your own ones. I am aware that aspects of this RPG may look particularly close to the World of Darkness series (especially in the case of supernatural characters), but beneath the surface they should come across as fairly different.


--The Doctors' Association

The year is 1837, the English King William IV has died, succeeded by his 18 year-old granddaughter Victoria, and as of now nobody could ever predict the extreme significance her reign would have.

But in this time of change and new beginnings in England, beneath the surface quite a few old shadows lie unvanquished, and while the common public continues to live in ignorance of them it won't be much longer until they start bubbling their way to the top.

For instance, something out of the ordinary is certainly going on around Hallowvale Manor, more specifically with the Lady Esther Hallowvale, who keeps having weird shuddering spasms at the sight of the moon, has been frequently meeting with and buying all sorts of strange medication from a group of equally strange people in white coats... oh, and insists on being chained to her bed every full-moon night. Myria is a young maid, relentlessly bullied by the other servants and Hallowvale members alike, who has been taking notice of Esther's odd behaviour when everyone else has been told to look away... because she is in fact Esther's illegitimate daughter, though the father remains unknown.

One night however Myria interrupts Esther's ever-so-important rituals, which transforms Esther into her true form as a terrible werewolf. As she attacks everyone in a blind rage only Myria finds a hidden strength to hold her back within, but in all the chaos a panicked member of the household runs off and slashes open an ancient tree on the manor grounds, unleashing a very unusual force indeed...





The first line of defence against any supernatural menace, whether undead, shapeshifting or just all around gruesome. Commonly known as 'The Doctors' due to the labcoats they wear as part of their uniform and their particular outlook on the supernatural. Namely, that they rigidly insist that vampires, lycanthropes, zombies and other such things are not above-human or even different species, just ordinary humans suffering from a very specific kind of disease.
Despite their noble and protective aims, the organisation has always been highly prone to fanaticism and extremism, such as from members who were lone survivors of a supernatural-caused slaughter and are now out for revenge, superstitious types untrusting of anything they deem 'different', or simply people who no longer believe there can be any cure for the 'diseases' they face.

The Doctors' most prized weapon is the Sunslayer Bow, the very weapon once owned by the fallen Houyi of Ancient China who killed nine 'suns' in a time of unbearable heat wave. Prized because it is able to kill even gods just as the legend implies, however this ability only works with the Divine arrows also owned by Houyi, of which there are now a very, very limited number left in the world.

The Doctors were originally formed by three founding figures, two of which are still alive and running the organisation today, the third... very little is known about, and has not been seen in ages, presumably away on 'important duties'.

Essentially, the main hunter organisation of the RPG, and also one of the major antagonists, though never a totally evil one.



A girl selected at a random to gain a powerful reserve of magic upon birth, based upon all the leftover magical energy of her predecessor Guardians. All of the chosen girls are unrelated by bloodline or reincarnation, but they do all have one thing in common in that they are all half-human, a trait needed to support all this magic energy, meaning that they also possess special hereditary powers on top of their extra Guardian energy they can shape to their imagination. Due to the original ritual that began the Guardians’ Legacy, only one girl can ever receive the title of Guardian at a time.

Although considering what comes with it, being the Guardian may not be a role many people would want. The actual purpose of the Guardians is to fight the beings that escape from the Cage of the Earth’s Core, the Cage being an ancient magical construct that seals away a hole in reality, so if something is able to escape it tends to be highly destructive.



Though legends of vampire-like beings have existed since time immemorial, the 'modern' vampire was in fact only a fairly recent creation, and a manmade one to boot. Before even Darwin there was a secretive group of scientists obsessed with the very concept of evolution, and who believed that they could manufacture the next stage in human advancement.
Inspired by the creatures in the dark magic folklore of old, they sought to create beings that encapsulated the highest standards of human perfection, both in appearance, power and elegance, however this manufacturing of a so-called 'perfect' species came with several drawbacks and restrictions, such as a complete aversion to anything 'light-elemental' or 'holy' in any way, and a need to drain blood or innate energy in order to keep the 'perfect status' their makers desired of them.

However the most unusual thing about vampires was apparently very intentional on behalf of their creators. All vampires possess an inability to feel human emotion (though they can certainly fake it), and are instead all connected to each other by a hive-mind, all sharing the same thoughts and singular 'personality'. Their aim is to 'infect' as many people with vampirism as they can, to bring down the 'walls' between people.

(If you're familiar with the Cybermen from Doctor Who or the Borg from Star Trek... which I'm not in the latter case, then you basically know how vampires are going to work in this RPG) Vampires will most likely be NPCs in this game due to how they function, but dhampyrs (half-human half-vampire) should still be alright.



If vampires are about the domination of the superego and the loss of identity, then lycans represents the horrors of a person being completely consumed by their id, individuality and isolation taken to ghastly extremes. It is believed that just like the vampires lycans too were created by amoral scientists, who desired to have magical powers just like the mythical half-breeds of legend, but also like the vampires this got terribly out of hand.

It is important to stress the word ‘lycan’ or ‘lycanthrope’ and not werewolf, as the latter term only encompasses a single portion of them. Each lycan is able to change into a single sort of beastly form, so not just were-‘wolves’ but also things like were-cats, were-bears, were-bats and so on. This is because any were-creature is based on a person’s suppressed negative emotions violently taking over and transforming them, so the exact form of the lycan varies with the individual.

Every night anyone infected as a lycan is mentally affected by the light of the moon, the darker parts of their mind and memory they try to conceal rising to the surface, and if this pressure and emotional agony cannot be resisted then they will transform into an uncontrollable beast with an urge to attack all in sight. That said how severely the lycan is affected does depend on the actual phase of the moon, on new moon nights they are hardly affected at all yet the transformation is unstoppable on a full moon.

A ‘blue moon’ is an especially rare form of lycan that is not restricted to changing into a single beast form, though they still can take only one form per night.

Note that there has never been any real rivalry between vampires and lycanthropes, the latter are often too caught up in their own personal problems too really care about vampires, while the former being completely soulless aren’t even capable of feeling envy or hatred anyway, simply seeing lycanthropes as no different from any other of the ‘infected’. However, there may very well have been a strong conflict between the scientists that created vampires and lycanthropes.



Zombiefication is a disease that prevents a person’s consciousness from fading or being able to leave their body even though said actual body is dead and rotting away. Though some can endure it, such as the assorted voodoo servants, for many being a zombie is an awkward and even painful and tortured existence, cursed with a body which can no longer function properly yet which they are unable to leave or even rest in, and often despised and alienated by people because of their disgusting condition.

Out of all zombies there are two noteworthy sub-groups. The first are liches, those who intentionally seek out to become a zombie as a means to prolong their existence for as long as possible, this is usually done through the use of sorcery in the olden days or through scientific experimentation in more recent times.
The second are mummies, especially powerful zombies whose perfectly preserved state has given them advanced psychic powers, such as the ability to ‘curse’ people by altering fate and chance.



Distinct from zombies in that they were never really ‘alive’ to begin with, homunculi are essentially artificial humans created through magic or more recently mad science. They should also not be confused with robots, homunculi are flesh-and-blood living beings, just not created through normal means.
Homunculi are created for a variety of purposes, many wealthy households for instance will order one to be created as a perfect replica of a dead family member, as was the case with Liu Bei (all there in Part 3), though more often they’re used by unethical scientists as assistants or guinea pigs, coming off somewhat as a mockery of the relation between voodoo practitioners and their zombies.



The sons and daughters of the she-devil/primordial human/ancient spirit/dark goddess (it’s complicated) Lilith. Her daughters by themselves are known as succubi, while her sons are known as incubi, and are often considered the original inspiration for vampires. Among their abilities are the power to drain away humans’ life energy, to enter a secret world within trees or mirrors, to shape shift into what their target sees as their ‘ideal love’, and a natural resistance to the elements.

The lilim are not among the ‘diseased’ even if they do have the power to spread ‘diseases’, they are considered their own unique species. While often grouped with demons, they are different in that they make their home and base-of-operations on Earth, unlike true demons who are confined to Hell (though can still influence events and people on Earth through Faustian contracts), one of Lilith‘s titles is even ‘Demonic Empress of the Earthly Realm’.

Despite how seductive they may appear, deep down the Lilim loathe humans (especially the religious) as per the teachings of their mother, and thus conspire to bring down the human realm from within. Though this doesn’t necessarily apply for all lilim, Merlin for example was a half-incubus who was very protective of humanity, and even the original Guardian has been considered the very first of the lilim.



Referring to anyone who is more than one of the above-listed beings at once. Usually not possible, as gaining one of the above ‘diseases’ or being one of the above species grants a special immunity to all the other diseases, but as all the diseases can be passed down through genetics half-breeds can be born as the children of the diseased. They are usually able to overcome and ignore the weaknesses associated with each of their parents, for example vampire-lycan breeds can avoid being absorbed into the vampire hive-mind while being able to prevent transforming even on a full moon, but also won’t really gain any of their more desirable points either, such as superhuman strength or immortality.

Essentially, very often hybrids will just default to being basically normal humans as both ‘diseases’ cancel each other out, but with some extra magical power they are often able to tap into one of their different sides, at the cost of being consumed by it if they focus too hard on any particular one.



A group of all-powerful beings that exist within an unknown dimension accessible through a hole in reality, located at the Earth’s very core. Though normally kept out of our world through a magical barrier known as the Cage, sometimes they are able to escape to wreak havoc upon our world. That sad these Cage-escapees, while very alien in thought and understanding, are rarely mindless monsters, all usually have their own agenda and reasons for wanting to escape.

That said they are rarely benevolent, at least in how humans understand them (well, the humans that even know about them), simply because they find it too hard to adjust to our world and tend to react in dark ways. Even for the Guardian they are rarely common enemies, more often being high-ranking manipulators operating from the deepest shadows.

The world within the Cage should not be confused with Hell. Hell has no physical entrance on Earth unless magic makes one, while the Cage has a set location. Also Hell was built as a place of punishment, whereas the Cage was constructed primarily to protect the Earth.



A half-vampire half-lycanthrope (which means part of her is ultimately human), and the next girl to be chosen as the Guardian, though she has no knowledge of any of her special heritages. The illegitimate child of Esther Hallowvale with an unknown vampire, who hoped she could find a cure for her lycanthropy from him only to fail.
Myria has been brought up as a lowly maid in the Hallowvale Estate, only through her mother’s pleas and explanation was she not tossed out onto the streets. She is often looked down upon by her half-siblings and even the other servants.



Myria’s lycanthropy-infected mother, in her case she happens to be a ‘blue moon’ able to take a different beast form every night. Her husband knows about her condition, which is the reason he didn’t divorce her after hearing about the affair with a vampire she had in order to find a cure. She is probably the only person ever openly nice to Myria, though they aren’t allowed to see each other often.
Has been in frequent contact with the Doctors’ Association still trying to find a cure, though nothing seems to be working.



-Myria’s half-sisters and brothers, may or may not have supernatural powers or knowledge, but certainly much more spoilt than she is. Feel free to come up with your own.



-A needed spot, feel free to come up with your own.



The very same wizard of Arthurian lore, a half-incubus (making him Lilith’s grandson and the first Guardian’s half-nephew) shape-shifter who was said to have been sealed away forever within a magic tree together with his student Nimue. Unknown to many the Hallowvale Country estate has in fact been built around the tree, which is slashed open in the chaos of the night of Esther’s attack, freeing both Merlin and Nimue into the Victorian Era.
Once knew one of the Guardians so is familiar with their hidden legend, though the two of them parted ways after King Arthur’s coronation.



The faerie of darkness residing over the legendary Lake, with Viviane being the lady of light and Morgaine being all over the place on the colour scale. Was the one who originally trapped Merlin with her in the tree, but has recently been freed along with him after the tree was slashed open.



An Irish law student with a strict Protestant background, yet seems to be interested in the darkly supernatural.



A Spanish torero who was said to have retired, but has now arrived in England for his own reasons. Merlin (once they meet) seems to be uncomfortable around him as Pedro reminds him of his true age.



-Needing players for the two founders of the Doctors’ Association still present.



‘Sailor Bill’, the former king of England, now brought back as a zombie.



Mother of the lilim (including the first ever Guardian) and overseer of all demonic activities on Earth, a role she takes mainly so that she can easily ignore any of Lucifer’s demands in Hell. Is very protective of the wilderness and nature, but can hardly stand the urban world. Has been known throughout the ages under many different names and identities, displaying her ever-changing and adaptable nature.

(Remember you are still allowed to come up with your own characters or even drag in other historical characters if the time period would allow them)



(While I’ve already listed several characters above, you’re perfectly allowed to use this to define them more closely, just as long as you remember I or myth/history originally came up with them)

Quote:

Full Name:

Age:

Gender:

Type: (Human, zombie, lycan, ‘doctor’, hybrid, etc. Also if they’re a lycan or hybrid please state which animal or both halves)

Appearance: (Images preferred over description, not that I have anything against description it’s just that they can often read rather corny. Must be anime-style)

History:

Personality: (Doesn’t have to be too detailed, but please at least two paragraphs)

Abilities: (Don’t always have to be supernatural. Try to tell us more about them than just their basic name, but please avoid being overdetailed)

Miscellaneous:

Theme Song: (Please try to stick to songs from actual works such as anime and video games)

Face Claim: (When using an image, please state who the original character was and what series they were from. Not only does this acknowledge the original, but also it answers any “Where were they from?” questions or curiosities)

Sample Post:

(In regards to both pictures and theme songs, try to use Insert URL format, not just bare URL)



1. Godmoding here will be split into two forms, offensive and defensive. Offensive is probably worse, but neither of them are welcome in this RPG:
- ‘Offensive Godmoding’ refers to unfair actions taken on other characters, such as taking major action against them without giving their player a chance to respond, controlling their actions or dialogue in-game, deciding things about their history or feelings and, worst of all, killing them off without permission and notifying me first. This doesn’t just apply to player characters, it can also refer to NPCs in large enough numbers. The rule doesn’t apply though for really minor actions.
- ‘Defensive Godmoding’ refers to continuously attempting to ignore another characters’ actions so that your character becomes practically untouchable, such as constantly dodging any attack thrown at you, or believing you’re above another character’s trickery. I can understand being protective of your character (which is why I’ve come up with so many pre-established characters) but this just makes it unfair for other players’ characters, though I’m not saying you have to play stupid all the time either.

2. Please don’t always rely on the GM for plot development and advancement, I won’t always have everything planned out, in fact it was because I didn’t have everything planned out that I decided to adapt this into an RPG in the first place. So feel free to bring your own ideas to the table, just as long as you tell us about them OOC first.

3. Try to keep to a reasonable posting length. Too short won’t advance the plot enough and won’t get enough accomplished, too long will be too disruptive and excessive, potentially tiring out certain readers.

3. Remember all you need to distinguish whose talking is paragraph breaks and quotation marks, any coloured text should be reserved for special occasions. On that note please try to maintain good spelling, grammar and paragraphing practises as much as you personally can, please no walls-of-text or the like.

4. This RPG will have dark and mature themes, however that is no excuse to get carried away with things like needless and tasteless swearing or gore. Remember this is not an adult RPG.

5. Not to discourage anyone from playing, but if you know you won’t have the time for this RPG please don’t try to join up. Also, not to sound mean but please remember that I do have the right to reject any character sheet that comes my way, I wouldn't ever try to abuse this function without reason but please always be aware.

6. Remember that no set of rules will ever foresee everything about an RPG, so if I ever have my objections about anything ‘But it’s not in the rules’ is no excuse.

If you have any questions and I should be all ready to answer them.