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[SixApes]

REVAMPED!

Yeah, I've been hiding in the dark for a while. I finally lifted the rock I was under and let some light in.

Whooow!

I have wrote a little backhistory to the game. The formentioned history is in the players guide on the games website. Great strides have been made in the games development. I've got a few interested souls already(4 total), and they were helped me test the engine last night. We were having a sort of text-based deathmatch with 9mm and shotguns.

So, as for backhistory... this is an excerp;

Timeline
The recorded history of Vaigus spans the length of roughly 1,500 years. The first thousand years are the most obscure of the sum to have been recorded. These were times of tribal warfare. Futile houses rose and fell quickly, and after all was said and done there remained one ruling house. After almost eight decades of growth and prosperity, it was inevitable that corruption would root within those governing the house. The scent of revolution drifted in the wind one spring, and the population erupted into civil conflict. The below timeline outlines the major events that lead up to the time of your birth into this adventure.


Modern History
In a human year, long ago, in what has become myth to those alive, a threat drove mankind into the rocks. No one is for sure what the threat was. Over the millennium man spent imprisoned by his own follies, the nature of the attack has been twisted into folklore and legend. The result of the catastrophe is what is most important. It reduced mankind and all his wisdom, erasing almost entirely his technologies and institutions of knowledge. It threw man into a dark age. His inventions left to the rust of time, and ravages of the wind. The few humans that managed to survive did so by constructing a giant refuge high and into the rocky bosom of an mountain peak. The name of the refuge became known as Sheltera. The human settlement of Sheltera is known to be ruled under the banner of Imperialism. Imperialism is the policy of extending the rule or authority of an empire or nation over foreign countries, or of acquiring and holding colonies and dependencies.

Unknown at first to the humans, another group of human survivors had evolved from the great catastrophe. Hidden in the uncharted world, a band of men known as Omen were granted another chance by the powers of evolution. The second chance didn't come without a price. Those that managed to survive on the outside became 'different'. Their skin was darker, and they had no pigment to their eyes. Just white orbs. Their gaze would be like staring into the eyes of a smooth marble statue. Life-like, but empty and distant. Some of the Omen might suffer from an extra finger, or limb. Mutations are known among them. Their mutations haven't left them any less intelligent than their human cousins. Ironically, they are more scholarly than the humans. The humans having left behind most of their knowledge and technology, are schooled very poorly while in their living tombs. Only the vaguest outlines of scholarly concepts survived for the human. Whether this is from a lack of written material or a shortage of those gifted in the passing on of knowledge, the humans survived with mediocre understanding of the world they inhabit. The Omen founded the city of Mythica, which quite possibly gave them the edge on scholastics. Mythica is the partially resurrected remains of an unknown human city that was left behind to ruin. A few of the first surviving Omen came to the abandoned city, claiming it for their own. The libraries and their forgotten volumes the greatest spoil of the catastrophe to be claimed by Omen hands. A few tribal wars broke out, but eventually, one banner ruled the people of Mythica. They are known to live under what is called a Democrasocial society. A hybrid government; Part Socialist, part Democracy. Socialism is defined as a theory or system of social organization that advocates the vesting of the ownership and control of the means of production and distribution, of capital, land, etc., in the community as a whole. Democracy is a state of society characterized by formal equality of rights and privileges. From this, you can exact your own definition for Democrasocialism.

Contemporary History
Mythica - The City of New Life
Mythica is the only human city to survive the catastrophe. The streets have long since lost their memory of human keepers. Their rule was now under that of the Omen. The city Mythica had once been was now reflected in the ruins. The skeletal parts of town were along the outskirts. Gutted, dark, and dead streets and buildings. The corpse of the city was exposed. Laying naked in disgrace upon the surface. Never given the rights to a proper burial. Life still beat at it heart. It was not a humans life. The life of the Omen. They had rebuilt the cities center, taking what they could from the outer edges of the city. The Omen rummaged obsessively for anything of use left behind by the ghost of previous masters. The cities heart beat anew with the fortitude and solidarity of the Omen. The library was preserved and they collected books from abroad to further concentrate what they knew to be elemental in their survival; scientific truths. Though most of the actual technology they learned of no longer operated or existed, they still became aware. Their population became a mix of monotheist and atheist. Roughly 70% monotheist and 26% atheist. The other 4% attributed to those following the practice of polytheism. This is a practice frowned upon. It is attributed to the 'uncivilized'. Often, it is an executable offence to practice any such divinations. Such teachings are often referenced as 'The Occult'.

Sheltera - Birth from the Stone
Humans emerged from the stone no more than a couple hundred years ago. They waited in safety, patience extending for nearly a millennium. The hatch on their rock and metal domain began to open after the environmental safety timer has reached zero. They hadn't waited this long to perish in their own device. The world had almost forgot of man, and as quick as a fleeting memory, man had returned again. Though, the world they once knew was no longer theirs. They were no longer the masters. Poorly educated, the human population began to learn again. They exited the hatch, and the wind from the new world swept them. They clamored down the peak that they had resided in silence for so long and at the base of the peak, they formed Lower Sheltera. The original quarters, at their height, became known as Upper Sheltera. Today, Upper Sheltera is mostly a ruin. It is filled with the scraps of a people clinging on to hope in the darkness. Lower Sheltera however, is a mighty wood and stone fort. The time man spent away had not wasted away his natural ability to build things with stone and wood. The time man spent in the womb of the earth, transformed him into something more like he had been in the past than what his dreams had projected for the future. The modern human had become rugged, and a heathen. A polytheist who dabbled in the occult. A worshiper of the stars and other celestial bodies. He knew little of his past, and cared even less about discovering it. They had survived, that is all that mattered. The pieces would fall back into place over time.

The Human/Omen Relations
and the Holy War
The first recorded interaction between Human and Omen was brutal. According to legend, it happened sometime ago, and goes something like this.....

Soon after the building of Lower Sheltera, the humans began to wonder about the uncharted lands around them. With such curiosities left unchecked a priest by the name of Mezza set off into the wilderness alone. He charted his travels in a journal, there exist many entries, but it is one such entry that is of most significance to you the reader. It is the entry dealing with the Mezzanine Plains. He tells us briefly of his decent down a series of steppes reaching at their bottom, a small plain of land far beneath sea level. Upon this land he documented a chapel or shrine of unknown religion. After many months, he returned to Sheltera, sharing with others his discoveries. Mezza petitioned his religious followers and among them, found six others who would venture with him back to the plains on a pilgrimage. Upon returning, they made camp at the chapel. Making good use of its belfry, using it instead as a sanctuary to keep from what might lurk the plain floor at night.

Mezza and his men woke to an astonishing sunrise. The horizon far above them beamed with light. Never actually seeing the sun itself, merely its intense rays of light glowing down the canyon walls of white stone. They noticed something was approaching from a distance close. Rushing, they descended the tower and emerged from the front of the chapel. It was then, that man and omen, exchanged their gazes. For a long moment their was nothing. Silence from both parties made an awkward moment even more astonishing and surreal. It is uncertain if it was the Omen, or Human who laid the first blow. The only certainty, that the Omen outnumbering them, slaughtered the humans. It was then that they read the writings that were within Mezza's journal. Writings that seemed to them to be the most Occult and Heathen of writings. Writings that spoke of the chapel grounds and plains in a blasphemy of polytheism. The head of Mezza along with his journal were taken back to Mythica with the Omen. The bodies of Mezza and his disciples were left to rot. Upon arriving back to Mythica, belief of the humans spread quickly with artifacts such as his head and journal to validate the tale. The Omen now knew a threat. The Humans.

It has been quite some time since Mezza and his disciples ventured into the wilds. Mezza's brother Ozez, with great concern, gathered his own party, and set forth to discover the fate of his brother. After several months of exploration, Ozez, came upon the corpses of his brother and followers. He noticed the absence of his brothers head and journal, and suspecting involvement from another group of survivors. He buried his brother and followers in an unmarked grave and camped, waiting. He prayed for the return of his brothers murderer. A month had passed, maybe more, and sure enough, a small band of Omen returned. They spy them from a distance, and noticed slight differences in their skin, hair, and posture. Could it be? They were not human! It is not known if the Ozez returning knew anything about the murder of the human Mezza, or if they even knew of the humans existence. Regardless, they were the outnumbered this time! Ozez could see their small number, and attacking them from the flank, slayed them all, claiming the chapel and its grounds as holy ground for the gods his brother served. The humans returned to their town, and word of the Omen quickly spread. They were quickly regarded as killers of men, even demons or devils. The humans prepared for war, with no thoughts of diplomacy.

Historical Conclusion
Though Ozez believed to have killed the entire party of Omen on the Mezzanine plains that fateful day. Their survived one. Hidden beneath the carcass of his kinsmen, that Omen survived and brought back his tales of the humans. The rumors circulating throughout the Omen and Human colonies were of equal concern to both parties. Equally damaging to relations between them. Now they shared a common view of one another. They saw a threat to their ways of life. It is in this troubling time, you begin your adventure among these people. A time of holy war. You are part of their history, and their legacy. How will you impact each sides battle for their holy land?

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So.... this is a small portion from the players guide. It will be added too in great detail over the next few weeks or so. Currently, Geography of the planet, Mythology, and History have been rougly sketched out, and im currently working on expanding the deffinitions of religion within the game.

This rpg is intending to be highly literary. Only the diehard roleplayer need apply.

So if any of you fellow Abandonias are into this sort of thing, please contact me, or post your interest. I've allready spoken to a few of you about it, and would like to strengthen those ties. Im hoping to find people from all different timezones, to balance the player base.

Take it easy! k: