Checkmate (Light, Open)

[Insight]

It was the coup everyone expected but nobody could believe. In less than a day the most powerful woman on the planet was deposed, replaced by a collection of nobles whose new plan for the nation was entirely unknown. Outside the city walls, the horde of angry peasants, disillusioned shopkeepers and starving slaves cried for the blood of their Monarch as she narrowly escaped the sack of her own palace. It was a scene from Dante. Portraits hundreds of years old laid burnt to a cinder while half-armed milita sat in the Royal chambers sipping wine while other parts of the lavish palace burned to the ground. The former beacon of human civilization was consumed by the hunger of the rabble.

Thank God for her friends. The Palace Guard, the military's elite, stood in a staunch semi-circle as the head of the guard took the Queen by the shoulder and ran with her to the ship. Following closely was the Prime Minister and Secretary of State, both men every bit as wanted as their Monarch. Behind them, the Minister of Defense lay with a bullet in his head, his own gun, still smoking, not far from his hand. Their escape would need to be swift now, in a boat that would only probably take them to safety. The Queen of Humanity would go into hiding.

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I recently decided that if I saw one more one-dimensional, uncreative Master/Slave game, I would blow my brains out with the aforementioned Minister. I am looking for a game that makes me think and take into account not just the characters around me, but the world as a whole. An elaborate chess game, with the players its pieces. The game will start with the already-written coup d'etat, and center around the Queen's flight from her palace and her journey to unite factions within the country to seat her back in power. Along the way of course, she will discover the true makeup of her people and the real impact of not only her policies, but policies set into motion hundreds of years ago.

I anticipate a long, long OOC discussion establishing important players within the kingdom. Guilds, relevant nobles, the standing of various cities outlined in a map, other nations and their attitudes toward this nation, and other internal drama. This will involve a lot of politics!

Warning - if politics aren't your thing, turn back now! If thinking beyond the next post isn't something that enters your fancy, there are other games for you! But if you crave a mental challenge, realistic, human responses and a plot of desperation and sorrow, you may just be in the right place.

Setting - This will take place on a fictitious planet that will have the same 'makeup' as Earth. Ie, there will be continents and oceans, but they will not be the continents and oceans we have here on Earth. My idea was to create a map of the planet with some 'dummy continents' simply to illustrate where the nation in question lies. One more map would then outline the physical features of that nation, and it's neighbors. For added spice, I thought it would be interesting to include other races, such as Elves, Dwarves, Fairies, etc. More on that can be decided as we obtain players.

Time Period - My initial thought was a more medieval feel, and that's how the introduction was written. This is far from set in stone, though. More to the point, this does not take place on Earth, and not all technology flows at the same pace. Perhaps we can bend the rules a tad.

Fantasy Level - As has already been mentioned, this will most likely include beings of several mythic races. Beyond that, I think the inclusion of magic and other fairy tale elements could add quite a bit to the plot and characters. The specifics of how magic works and the use of it can be determined later.

Characters - I'd like to keep this somewhat small, but I'm not adverse to adding on other characters than the positions listed if more than anticipated interest is shown. I am looking for a Queen, a Head of the Palace Guard, and a Secretary of State (the title to be changed as the player wills) and one more character of any rank or class to begin the discussion.

Queen - I'd like her to be a pampered noble. Someone who's never had to work for anything in her life and expects happiness to come to her. She rarely is told 'no.'

Head of Palace Guard - I will be playing either this character or the Secretary of State. He should be every bit a soldier and loyal to the Queen, but have a firm understanding of the Kingdom's affairs and be able to advise the Queen not only on her own immediate safety, but of possible courses of action.

Secretary of State - This character should be a plotting, scheming politician. While he is completely patriotic, he is cold and cynical. His loyalty to the Queen was born into him and while he will stay loyal to her at first, the plot may turn in such a way that drives his goals to a more self-centered area. Hopefully his disdain for the common man should spark some lovely arguments between him and the Head of the Guard.

Other - This can be a character they find on the way, another advisor, or anything the player chooses.
Please PM me with your character sheets for approval. I will post them here!


Character Sheets (feel free to add relevant fields)

Head of Palace Guard:
Character Name:
Played by: Bradten (but we'll keep it open for a bit)
Physical characterisitcs:
Background:
Fighting ability:

Queen:
Character Name:
Played by:
Physical characteristics:
Background:
Fighting ability:

Secretary of State
Played by:
Physical characteristics:
Background:
Fighting ability:

Other
Played by:
Physical characteristics:
Background:
Fighting ability:

Please do not post character sheets here! PM me first!

If you've gotten this far, thank you! I hope we can all have some fun together.

[Jude]

Proposed first post of mine:

The incessant dripping drove most prisoners mad, but Cedrick was there long before they wrapped Newmoon Shackles around his wrists and threw him in a locked cell for practicing the lost art of magic.  He found its regularity soothing; it was a kind of heartbeat to the dull, eroded gray of his surroundings.  At times it was the only real sensation he could perceive, a sobering note of predictability in contrast to the vividness of his imaginings.

Most of his delusions were voluntary defense mechanisms aimed at guarding his thoughts from idle decay.  He dreamed of roaming free in the woods, gallivanting about the countryside with a mischievous grin, and playing pranks on farmers with his magical prowess.  That had once been his life, but it was no longer.  Ever since the guards learned of his shenanigans and felt the need to hunt down the Warlock of the Ambercoast, as they'd called him, his life was one long corridor of boredom with the occasional Window of Assisted Magicide.

His prolonged disconnection from arcane energies sharpened his mind back to something resembling order, allowing a degree of lucidity he'd once thought lost.  The return of his mental faculties did him little good confined in the lightless, dank tunnels of the dungeon beneath the castle, and sometimes he thought it nothing short of infinite, torturous cruelty to regain his reason under those pretenses.  His captors showed kindness in the strangest of ways:  forays back into the presence of magic to murder his brethren and destroy the source of the soothing energy.

They used him like a hound in search of the conduits, observing his wrists as the glow from his shackles ever intensified until they came upon the sculpted obsidian obelisk that emanated such awesome power.  He didn't need to look at his hands to know when they neared the target of their expedition, even with their accursed device restraining his potential it felt like being in the presence of god himself.

And he could feel the others too; madmen devoted to the same impossible pursuit of the ethereal as he.  There was a time when the conduits they found were cobbled together from scavenged material with barely enough magnetism to attract enough energy for basic spell-casting, but that was beginning to change.

Each construct they discovered was more perfect than the last, and the number of zealots willing to die to protect their beacon of enlightenment had multiplied as well.  Cedrick felt each of their deaths at the hands of the guard as if they were an extension of his own body, but he never was sure if that was an affect of the conduits or a manifestation of his strengthened insanity before its transcendence.

Cedrick knew nothing of the whispers and scheming of the masses, the invisible hands guiding the threads of fate into place, or the mounting tensions that threatened to engulf the entire country in civil war; but he knew that something was coming.  Even a lowly prisoner such as he could see that, and he was the first to feel its rapid approach, like a stark cry before the hawk's talons.

It was the middle of another dreamless night when the radiant glow of his shackles caught his attention and seconds later euphoria flooded into his rapidly sobering skull, invoking a state of pure mania.  The energy of a conduit had enveloped the castle itself, penetrating deeply enough to reach into the catacombs and into his prison.  Its caress brought a twisted smile to his face; the desecration of their icon of reason was all too ironic.