RPG-Writing Challenge (Setting)

[Jason_Miao]

<jon> I propose a challenge.
<jon> go to http://theartofanimation.tumblr.com/ and pick any landscape/urban piece, and come up with a RPG setting around it. Write 500 words about that setting.
<jon> (Then maybe we play a RPG in the setting. Everyone wins.)
<Jason_Miao> Just a setting description, or you want an actual story?
<jon> setting description
<Jason_Miao> Also, if you still had an account on the forums, I'd encourage you to put the challenge up there (we haven't had a writing challenge in months).
<jon> basically a pitch for "here's why this would be awesome to run a campaign in"
<jon> feel free to post it, if you like


Thought I'd post this here, since establishing a compelling setting is something that's often necessary in writing (the fact that this particular challenge is RPG-related in incidental).  Let's say that this officially ends in a month, Jan 8th, and that the "winner" is determined by the first setting actually used in a Soulriders game (at least one session has to be played on or after Jan 8th).


Note: Link may have images considered non-worksafe.

[Jason_Miao]

Okay, here's my first stab at this.  Much less than 500 words, so I have room to expand it if need be.  Jotted this down quickly, so unclear turns of phrase or poor spelling is most likely unintentional.


The world should be a paradise.  Warm sun, blue skies, and bountiful food in the ground.  The world should be filled with the voices of your people, for no natural predators roam the lands. 

But it is not so.  Where natural predators are lacking, unnatural predators abound.  Your race has been enslaved by another.  Towering giants who play with technologies far beyond your comprehension, the slavers name themselves the R'mer.  Your people, most of whom wish to live their lives without strife, are considered by the R'mer as little more than food.   Your people are penned in cages, they are taunted with the sight of freedom from behind fences, and even their infants are taken and mercilessly devoured.  With generations of enforced slavery, most of your people have lost their will to resist these depravities.

Most, but not all.  In an area remote from the grand cities of the R'mer, one of the breeding pens called the 'Arm staged a revolt.   Through complete surprise, and decisive action, your people, along with several of the other slave races the R'mer kept for slaughter, managed to subdue the R'mer before they were able to sound the alarm.  None of the R'mer lived long enough to flee or send warning, and you are now free.

Some of your bretheren fled into the wilderness, trusting age-old instincts to survive.  But you have not.  Perhaps you are driven by justice.  All know that there are other pens out there, where the R'mer still oppress.  Perhaps you are driven by vengence.  Your people have been oppressed for so long that you have scarcely retained any of your original culture.  Perhaps you are driven by long term pragmatism.   Disorganized fleeing into the wilderness after slaying your tormentors will eventually invite retribution from the R'mer, who have gargantuan transports that travel blinding speeds and tear up the earth, weapons that  kill at the blink of an eye, and other strange elderich technologies that you can only begin to understand.  Retribution which you have to chance to survive, unless the millions of your people are rebelling alongside of you.  Whatever the reason, you have chosen to organize and rebel against the R'mer, and free your kin from oppression.

Still, it is not hopeless, for your cause has a few key resources. 

You have the captured slave pen, the 'Arm.  You have some of the technological devices of the R'mer found in their living quarters, and your people putting their loremistresses at work to comprehend them.  You have their writings, and through lore passed from mother to child, your people even understand some of the words.  The knowledge advantage of the R'mer will always exist, but it can be narrowed.

You have the natural weapons of your bodies, and the traps your people devised, both used to defeat your oppressors.  With time, tactics, and preparation, even the R'mer can fall.

But what you do not have, and what you will never have, are hands.  Because your people, the Chicken race, do not have hands.


http://25.media.tumblr.com/a2d963c9c73993b8b8839633f043351a/tumblr_meox4ePgyS1qhttpto3_500.jpg

Spoiler: ShowHide

For RPG-specific overview:
Barbarians vs. SciFi setting.

The players are a party of chickens who are trying to liberate chickens from farms.  The opponents are the farmers.  Tech level includes mecha, but unless people end up playing one of those decade-long epic RPG sessions (unlikely, especially with this setup), the tech being used is going to be AgroMechs.  Activities will revolve around scouting, capturing tech, and freeing chickens.

[Anastasia]

Could you add a warning that the tumblr in the first post has some NWS stuff?

[Jason_Miao]

I was bored, so wrote up another setting.


The notorious prison, Bloom's End, lies close to but not quite at the peak of the Mount Rosen of the Shatterspun Range.  It is a prison where only the most powerful, the most rich, or the most dastardly of super-villians are kept.  The powerful, howling winds make aerial travel outside of known and well-monitored corridors mostly infeasible, and scaling the mountain rather than using the guarded underground paths would be utter madness.  The prison's dietary supplies are transported in those manners, since the hostile environment is not conducive to farming and there is little to hunt.  Jail-breaking prisoners would find nothing with which to feed themselves.  And not only would they have to find supplies, they would have to do so while evading the 6th Battalion of the International Armed Forces, and the several super-heroes who rotate on garrison duty.

Naturally, for prisoners, this makes getting a fresh, hot pizza delivered rather difficult.  Still, for the thirty-seven million dollars you'll be getting, you're willing to try.  You have the latest and greatest in both civilian and military equipment is available to you.  You'll need it to accomplish your objectives in an hour or less. 

Don't take a weapon though: breaking into Bloom's End while armed is punishable by execution.  Any place with super-heroes will have nosy reporters, children who try to sneak in for autographs, innocent housewives caught up by random-teleportation-phenomina, and even pizza delivery personnel; the guards are armed with non-lethal weaponry to subdue these civilians.  If you're caught by a guard, you'll just be shown the door.  So long as you're not armed, you have nothing to fear from the guards.

No, your greatest threat are your competitors.  Rival pizzerias are always looking to put their competitors out of business: sabotage, betrayal, and even murder are not unknown.   But the rewards, should you succeed, are...well, not limitless.  Just thirty-seven million bucks.

Picture: http://25.media.tumblr.com/221a6769dbdcb972e80afc2d12621250/tumblr_mfpt4mqsZo1qhttpto1_500.jpg