You’ve become used to these turns, now. The onset of the dark at almost random -- some nights coming quickly, so fast that you would not be surprised to hear that you’d only been navigating this space for a few hours before black out -- some slowly; ponderously; days upon days stretched over a time period you cannot determine.
It’s familiar in its variance, and when you wake up in the sand again -- quick barks sounding you awake -- you’re not surprised.
But the scene around you has changed.
Your face is in the sand, and it’s the outpost -- same as you left it. The same, tired faces of your comrades blink blearily as well -- but there is something surrounding you.
A roar.
A black mass.
Your ears are ringing with the constant chatter -- with the sound of footsteps and clanging of armor and gnashing of teeth -- and you do not register any real emotion -- just the knowledge that, um, wow.
That’s a lot of imp creatures.
It is not prudent to believe that any kingdom would take trespass lightly -- nor recognize the threat of swift invasion.
act 1, day 4 || help me get this umbreoff [feat. kishen, open]
Had he died?
Kishen honestly couldn’t remember. He couldn’t remember anything at all. Any chances he had of participating in the goings-on of the end of the previous day were dashed the moment he had been slammed against a wall by an overly eager highblood, after all. Out like a light, bruised and just generally not having a particularly good time. Not the best way to end a day, but it could have been worse. There was no vague recollection of a Troll Shakespeare-like voice encouraging him, as he had when he was stomped to death by said highblood. Was that a dying thing? Did that only happen when you died?
This time was painless, at least.
He sits up. That was hard. He sits up, and finds his movements oddly restricted - restricted, or weighed down, or… well, whatever it was, something was up. Nothing was broken, as far as he could tell. Nothing hurt. He opens his eyes, brings his hands up to his face, and..
“Eh…?”
Everything is oddly dark, his vision restricted to two circles in front of him. It’s warm. His horns feel like they’re being tugged on, for some reason. This is strange. Very strange. No fun at all. His hands run over the strange thing covering his entire body - after clumsily removing the poorly made gloves that appeared to be on his hands and discarding them, that is. Low quality fur, held together with a shoddy combination of poor sewing and an over-zealous wielder of a hot glue gun. He didn’t know what manner of prison had him trapped, but what he did know was that he wanted it off.
He looks around, trying to catch the gaze of someone. Anyone. This was a difficult feat in and of itself, owing to the fact that his ability to see had been reduced to almost nothing - the eye holes themselves were aligned terribly.
For now, at least, he was content to sit there and whine.
Trying to understand the contrivances of this stupid bozo world was becoming much too taxing on Jaraga’s feeble mind. Not that she would ever call it feeble, and nor would she either admit to becoming taxed or even realize she was becoming taxed in the first place. To put it simply, she needed a fucking break. It wasn’t easy, living a life of relative luxury before being thrust into spooky desert hell world where you lose hands and then regain them, and everyone is a lowblood. Or an alien. Or an alien lowblood. Or Arinai.
She made a conscious decision not to include Seimos in her internal monologue, but she had an uneasy feeling that she actually wasn’t successful - wherever she got the thought, she wanted it to take it back. More thoughts were things she didn’t need.
Dog.
…Dog.
Jaraga liked dogs. This was in no way another instance of Nick (who?) imprinting their own qualities on their OC solely to make them (the OC, not the player) more relatable, good, fun, and pure - that simply wasn’t even a concept crossing Jaraga’s mind because, for all she knew, she really was real! Just like anime, or Homestuck, or an alternate universe in which Ellie isn’t a furry.
So Jaraga decided to act, sparing the reader of this godforsaken post the pain of having to sift through the achings of a GRE-melted brain and broken conscience by approaching the dog slowly, and exceedingly gently, before reaching out and attempting to hug the dog. It was so small. Oh my god. It was so small and good. And she was being much too gentle in physicality and tone to be accurately representative of troll nobility - truly a sight to see for most if not everyone.
“I love you. You’re my friend. I hope you have a really good day today, because you’re so good. Ты истинная ангел на этом космическом дерьмо пятно мы называем существование.”
Your adventure is cut short, and you find yourself thinking ‘NOT THIS SHIT AGAIN’ before, like a scene inappropriate for [MINORS], the world eventually FADES TO BLACK.
You awaken to GENTLE TONGUE LAPS upon your FACE, and find an ENTHUSIASTIC BUT BEAUTIFUL DOG poised over you. Once you have shown yourself to be AWAKE, it gives an ENTHUSIASTIC YIP and moves onto doing the same for one of your OTHER PEERS.
ALL ITEMS HAVE REMAINED IN YOUR POSSESSION.
You… can’t help but feel…:
GLEN feels WELL RESTED but PECKISH.
TOMI feels WELL-RESTED and FINE.
AQUILA feels WELL-RESTED but PECKISH.
VARKAA feels WELL-RESTED but PECKISH.
ARIANI feels WELL-RESTED but FINE.
JARAGA feels WELL-RESTED and FINE.
LEAH feels WELL-RESTED and FINE.
SEAN feels WELL-RESTED and FINE.
EVIE feels WELL-RESTED but PECKISH.
SEIMOS feels WELL-RESTED and FINE.
OWEN feels WELL-RESTED and FINE.
MURIEN feels WELL-RESTED and FINE.
KISHEN feels WELL-RESTED and FINE.
APSFEL feels WELL-RESTED and PECKISH.
The mechanisms of Skaia have dutifully processed the following happenstances:
A GREAT NUMBER of our heroes visited THE NORTHERN RUIN.
In an EXPERIMENT GONE WRONG, TOMI has LOST AN ARM.
THE CASE OF THE MISSING WEED persists.
EVIE has RETAINED command of PLANK.
SEAN, EVIE, and ARINAI have encountered A NEW, PURE FRIEND.
SEIMOS, LEAH, KISHEN, and TOMI encounter A LONE IMP.
Driven by hunger, the Oregon Trail player was NO MATCH for these HUNGRY CADS as they SPITROASTED IT using the horns of ONE OF THEIR OWN TEAMMATES.
An ANCIENT COMPUTER was recovered from the camp.
With the assistance of SEIMOS, LEAH has breached the gate and entered the OBSIDIAN CITY.
Also with SEIMOS’s assistance, KISHEN hit THE GATE TO SAID CITY and KNOCKED THE FUCK OUT.
Third time’s the charm, at least - after constantly throwing KISHEN at THE GATE, SEIMOS eventually gets his unconscious form in.
... Where it is promptly STOLEN.
Meanwhile, LEAH opted to try and explore the OBSIDIAN CITY, but found herself accosted by foes upon THE PALACE BRIDGE. An attempt at appeasement falls flat - as does LEAH herself, finding her DEATH on the earth of the ABANDONED MARKET BELOW.
Skaia takes pity --- LEAH HAS BEEN REVIVED.
GLEN has won A NEW CAR.
Skaia remains unsure if this is a LEGITIMATE CLAIM or not, but is enthused nevertheless.
Your adventure is cut short, it seems, and for a moment, the world turns BLACK.
When you awake, you find yourself AT THE OUTPOST – surrounded once again by the STIRRING FORMS OF YOUR PEERS.
ALL ITEMS HAVE REMAINED IN YOUR POSSESSION.
You… can’t help but feel…:
GLEN feels WELL RESTED but PECKISH.
TOMI feels WELL-RESTED and FINE.
AQUILA feels WELL-RESTED but PECKISH.
VARKAA feels WELL-RESTED but PECKISH.
ARIANI feels WELL-RESTED but PECKISH.
JARAGA feels WELL-RESTED and FINE.
LEAH feels WELL-RESTED and FINE.
SEAN feels WELL-RESTED and FINE.
EVIE feels WELL-RESTED but PECKISH.
SEIMOS feels WELL-RESTED and FINE.
OWEN feels WELL-RESTED and FINE.
MURIEN feels WELL-RESTED and FINE.
KISHEN feels WELL-RESTED and FINE.
APSFEL feels WELL-RESTED and FINE.
ACT 1, DAYS 1+2 | Aquila | fiften minute late w/ ϟtarbuckϟ
[uhh?? sorta kinda not really suicide warning, really just aquila being a Dumbass]
I’m dreaming.
This was the only rational explanation that came to Aquila when she found herself waking up on a surface that was most certainly not her recuperacoon, surrounded by individuals who were most certainly not her friends, in a place that was most certainly not familiar to her in any way.
She didn’t talk to anyone, not even as she heard them questioning their surroundings much the same way she had just questioned hers. She sat cross-legged, talons poking into her thighs, just... observing for a while. Dreams were good for observing. People-watching. This had to be the largest group of people she had ever seen in one place.
... Granted, a lot of them had much stranger characteristics than that of normal trolls, but that was just her brain acting up again, wasn’t it?
No, she barely moved a muscle until people had started trickling away from the platform, at which point she, deciding exactly what she wanted to do in her dream, jumped to her feet and ran headlong towards the edge, faint scratches appearing behind her in the rock, still running even when she hit the air, her arms stretched out to her sides and —
(You hear a faint tune over the hum of the local ambiance.)
— and fucking fell, that’s what happened. Come on, Aquila. You can’t fly. What an idiot, right?
...
“— Hah?!”
Aquila woke up in a cold sweat. The memories of her dream still felt hazy in the instant she came back to consciousness, but what happened, what had happened — now, that was clear as anything. She remembered trying to fly, in that controlled manner of lucid dreaming she had read an article on maybe once, and she remembered how her heart froze in her chest when she realized she couldn’t, and after that...
Wait. Her surroundings, they were — nothing had changed, that feeling of deja vu, that was from her dream — but hadn’t she woken up?
Hadn’t she?
Or... or was she actually awake?
Aquila was so engrossed in sussing out her own icy realization that she only noticed the squabble going on when the crashing sound of a body colliding with the ground forcibly jolted her from her thoughts.
And then, when she tried to go back to her moment of introspection, once again when a new voice started shouting, too.
And one more time with the glitchy, noisy arrival of a new stranger.
It was this third interruption that got Aquila to groan out loud and finally get to her feet. Clearly she wasn’t going to figure anything out by sitting around and thinking about it, as appealing as the idea sounded. No, she needed to act.
... In a way that didn’t involve falling to her death one more time.
While the three yaoi men SQUABBLED among themselves for dominance and the rest of the group dispersed to search the lands once more, the activation of the APPARATUS had gone nearly unnoticed. It had hummed first, faintly, as it was so inclined to do, but rather than flashing with the error message, the projected star map that appeared instead locked onto a distant spot upon its eastern edge.
It’s only when a sharp, earsplitting shriek that the older beings might have recognized from childhood as the sound of dial up rang sharp through the air that it demands attention.
It flashes again in its familiarly angry red letters a few more times before taking on a different tune.
[READING....]
[READING....]
[DESTINATION FOUND.]
What?
The apparatus gives a strained hum, apparently attempting to display a magnified image of another planet.. or, what you can make out of it from the mess of jpeg artifacts. What you can see appears... inhabitable, at best.
Before you can even begin to wonder the implications of that, the apparatus has already set itself into action. The glowing spirograph atop the platform begins to multiply itself, copies of its form reaching further skywards (not unlike the bat signal) until strengthing into a single, unified beam of GOLDEN LIGHT. It gets almost a little hard to look at as it reaches beyond the clouds, visible across the ENTIRE EXPANSE of the wasteland for a fraction of a second--
until suddenly, it’s gone again, leaving a YOUNG WOMAN in its place upon the platform. The APPARATUS plays a little jingle straight out of some LOW QUALITY MIDI FILE that frankly sounds A LITTLE BIT OMINOUS.
[ TRANSFER C̮O͏͔M̙P̷̭͚L̸̫ͅETE. WELC̥͉O͢M̩E̳̞̟̠͔̩͞ TO SKAIA, Q͚̝U̗̦͎͝E̼̥͓͕̕E̵͕̪N ̨͚̟̳̠̪O̸̹͓F͈̲͚̱̦̰͚̕ ̱͖͕͕L̨͓̙͓I̺̕G͖͍̜̫͢H̗̺̣̦̹͍̙T͏͙̻̙͈ . ]
Its task done, the gate powers down again, a low, relieved hum in comparison to the scratchy racket from earlier. Your ears could REST EASY.
... Your mind, however, cannot. What the PANTSSHITTING FUCK kind of entrance was that, and why wasn’t it yours? Fuck this entire situation, honestly.
ACT 1 DAY 2 | “its time for me to live up to my family name and face full life consequences” | Jaraga | attn: open!!
Jaraga knew she was one to sleep in, sleep late, sleep heavy and just generally sleep whenever given the opportunity, but she didn’t quite remember when she fell asleep this time. All she knew was when she was waking up (because apparently she had fallen asleep in the first place, a fact she still was not over,) she heard yelling. Struggling. Squawking?
And she woke up to two trolls fighting. Oh. No place like home.
She roused herself slowly, not paying much attention to the conflict between the two trolls, being apparently handled by the hornless freak who spoke in a silly accent. People didn't actually speak like that… Right?
Well, she supposed she spoke Russian, so things could be weirder.
…Actually. She decided that shouting at them, too, could work. She put on her best angry highblood face and began shouting, too.
“Как о вас проявить уважение к людям вокруг вас, прежде чем уйти, чтобы принять дерьмо вниз горло друг друга? Просто поцелуй уже идиоты! Оставьте нас уважительные, скромный граждан из ваших запутанных спаривания танцев!”
And she stormed off immediately after, taking the stairs down and taking a few steps before pausing, realizing, turning around and yelling,
“If anyone wants to come with me, I know exactly where I want to go, and I won’t scream at you in Russian.”
That was a satisfactory invitation, she thought. She ignored how hungry she was feeling. She could wait. Probably. Could she, even? Eh, probably.
act 1, day 2 || are you uke? you seme a little upset... [feat. kishen, seimos + all]
As you wake up amidst your fellow peers, perhaps still groggy – a loud, angered voice jolts you awake.
“Hey. Kishen!”
Seems like the early bird caught the worm – the voice came from one Ceruleanblood, already up on his feet. With furrowed brows, he’s staring at another troll – one particularly small, deerlike one, still seated on the ground.
Said deerlike troll doesn’t seem to be quite as much of an early riser as one Seimos Dermoc, however, and takes his sweet time getting up. You might even be impressed by how little he seems to be bothered by both the troll yelling at him, as well as the situation as a whole. That being said, the opposite was far more likely to be true. His noncommittal grumble of a response only serves to reinforce this point - a very unimpressive young troll, indeed.
“Mmm… ?”
The highblood only seems to become more heated, scoffing audibly. “Hahaha. Ha. HA!! Don’t tell me you… already… forgot?” He grits his teeth, raising his voice even more. “Didn’t you?!” It even seems like – his hair is… perking up? Are those feathers on his head? Either way – this guy’s losing his shit, and you have no idea why. What was it with highbloods and being so darn temperamental? Jeez, and it was only the second day…
It was incredible, really. The pair were the complete opposite of each other. Where Seimos screeched and lost his metaphorical shit, Kishen seems perfectly content to take his time getting to his feet, giving his eyes a good ol’ rub as he does so. If you look close enough, you might even see an ever so slight look of surprise on his face as the smaller troll finally deigns to grace the larger with some form of acknowledgement.
“Oh… whoa… you’re back. Not dead. Cool.” is all he has to say on that matter, directing his gaze not at Seimos, but more the space he was currently occupying. He was definitely not awake enough for revelations such as this one, for sure. “Thanks for the save, man…”
The ceruleanblood clenches his fists, fuming in silence for a few moments. “You… ‘thanks for the save?’” he says indignantly, with a more than a tint of scorn in his voice. “Thanks… Thanks for the save my ass! This is all your fault, you piece of shit!”
Seimos finally lashes out, lunging at Kishen who’s standing a distance away from him – an act that even he can’t completely ignore. He stumbles backwards a few steps, arms raised in a largely useless attempt at warding off the angry highblood. You can’t help but notice, however, the way in which his eyes narrow ever so slightly, focusing on the bottom half of the other troll’s body for the briefest of moments. And in that moment – as Seimos runs towards Kishen – it seems as if… one of the highblood’s feet just… stops moving and gets stuck to the ground? Seimos seems to be caught off guard by it as well, as he stares down at his foot a little too late – the momentum still carries him forward, and he falls forward onto the ground with a loud… crash! And he just. Lays there.
For a few…. short moments.
Right there on the ground.
In front of everyone.
Absolutely.
Fucking.
Humiliated!!!
“You…” Seimos bellows, growing even angrier than before. “How fucking dare you!”
He quickly hops back onto his feet, darting towards Kishen (– if it was anything he was thankful for, it was the speed his lusus granted him.) Now right in front of the lowblood, he grabs the neck of his poncho, raising him up in the air. He – lets out a screeching… squawk? Shriek? And then yells at the poor simple farmer –
“Do you know what you’re asking for, you shitblood?!”
Oh, fucking jesus. What a fucking tantrum. Right in front of everyone, too. What’s he even so angry about?
Rather than whimper or cry for help, Kishen’s response is entirely inappropriate considering the distance his feet have created from the ground below him.
He laughs.
Try as he might, he just couldn’t help it - this was all so fun! He knew he would absolutely regret it, but for the time being he was happy to revel in the excitement, the liberation, the would definitely do agains, and the that felt so fuckin’ goods.
“Dude, hahahah… c'mon, chill… I didn’t do anything! You just… tripped.” His voice shook ever so slightly, but it was barely noticeable - it was odd how completely calm he seemed, despite his chances of surviving til the end of the day diminishing by the second. “Yesterday was an accident, man… no hard feelings…”
His voice trails off as his eyes look to their audience. A silent plea for help - he was being hoisted up off the ground, after all.
If someone planned to intervene, sooner would be far more ideal than later!
Your adventure is cut short, it seems, and for a moment, the world turns BLACK.
When you awake, you find yourself AT THE OUTPOST -- surrounded once again by the STIRRING FORMS OF YOUR PEERS.
ALL ITEMS HAVE REMAINED IN YOUR POSSESSION.
You... can’t help but feel...:
GLEN feels WELL RESTED but PECKISH.
TOMI feels WELL-RESTED and FINE.
AQUILA feels WELL-RESTED but PECKISH.
VARKAA feels WELL-RESTED but PECKISH.
ARIANI feels WELL-RESTED but PECKISH.
JARAGA feels WELL-RESTED but PECKISH.
LEAH feels WELL-RESTED and FINE.
SEAN feels WELL-RESTED but PECKISH.
EVIE feels WELL-RESTED but PECKISH.
SEIMOS feels WELL-RESTED and FINE.
OWEN feels WELL-RESTED and FINE.
MURIEN feels WELL-RESTED but PECKISH.
KISHEN feels WELL-RESTED and FINE.
APSFEL feels WELL-RESTED but PECKISH.
ACT 1 DAY 1 | wake up in the morning feelin like p diddy | TOMI | MASC4ANYONE
– alcohol mention –
Ugh, what the fuck is going on? You put your hands against the sandy surface and lift yourself up. Under normal circmstances, you’d take this opportunity to do your morning pushup routine. Unfortunately, you’ve woken up in an unfamiliar location with some sort of very unusual hangover. You instead opt for some light stretches to help you get yourself going.
You consider yourself quite the heavyweight, and from personal experience you always thought the tales of waking up miles away without a single memory of what happened to be fake as hell. But you know, maybe you have actually somehow crossed that line. This is like one of those awful Seth Rogen movies that bring a bad name to true lads like yourself everywhere.
Who are these douchebags? You don’t think you’ve seen this many trolls together in your life. You must have gotten up to some crazy shit last night. Maybe they’ll have some answers. You holler at the lot of them.
Oi, any of you lot have an idea what happened last night? Must have been SERIOUSLY fucked up. Never had a total memory blackout like this before.
ACT 1 DAY 1 | “Chronicles Of The Sand” | Jaraga | attn: literally anyone who will listen, anyone at all
Cold and dark, just like a burnt corn salad, left in a refrigerator for a time for the sake of a convenient simile. Sandy, like the sand you accidentally dropped into the corn salad which was also a similar happenstance that you could only directly attribute to a furthering of this convenient metaphor. Uncanny.
Jaraga stood quickly. She knew exactly what happened when she combined sand and short shorts - hell, destruction, mayhem, plague, famine, drought, tornadoes, wildfires and a cadre Adam Sandler movies designed to ruin your worthless life, all between her thighs. Or, chafing, but she found the comparison equal on all counts.
Anyway. Where the fuck? Who the fuck? What the fuck?
“…Buh?”
Jaraga Sylohu rubbed at her eyes, finding that to be a terrible, terrible decision having just had her hands covered in sand. She regretted everything she’d ever done, from the moment she emerged a wriggler. She remembered every mistake she’d ever made, physically, in her abdomen, twisting and pulling like bad curry, or a hypothetical foray into an amateur boxing league.
She then decided to quit the melodrama for at least a second to perhaps find out what the shit is happening and why there are a hoard of hornless, weird-skinned idiots around her, too.
Eh.
“Я не хватает терпения для сортировки через этот ерунды.”
She mumbled to herself, shrugging, trying to wipe off her hands, realizing now the error of her ways - short shorts and a tank top provided little room to wipe off dirty hands. But how did she even get so dirty? Or, physically, here? The regret of her relatively lacking outfit was nothing compared to the literal regret of everything she had ever -
Oh, wait, no melodrama. Right.
“Okay, look, I don’t know who any of you are and I literally don’t care, I’m probably just dreaming and you’re all nightmare representations of my own existential crises and a sure sign I need to change, yeah, I get that. Now that that’s out of the way, I’m getting antsy, and I’m gonna leave, like, now. Who’s with me? Preferably someone with horns because I do not have the level of sufficient consciousness to deal with this right now.”
She rubbed her temples, finding it difficult to rub her own temples with hands that may or may not still retain sand, and with her sharpened nails. Usually, she could just drink some tea, but apparently she wasn’t going to have this idiot dream in her hive. Cool. Great. Awesome. Totally necessary!
Without prompting, and before hearing any replies, she gazed out into the distance, seeing what was out there. She knew what happened in dreams, large, tall structures collapsed. She wasn’t going to just stand around while this piece of shit thing gets ready to fall and kill everyone. No, no, no.
Now, we’ve been bothering you for silly things -- titles, lands, changes to apps, whatever -- but what was it all for, I’m sure you’re asking yourself. As a hybrid of Dangan Ronpa and Homestuck style roleplays (with our own, often stupid, mod decisions thrown in as well), Dual Dystopia is kind of treading new ground here. Which means that this initial “How to Play” is going to be a bit long, but hopefully it will either ensure a smooth progression through our game, or will be transparent enough for you all to spot the apparent problems inherent in our systems and tell us how to change it.
We really value all of your input, so please feel free at any time to come up to a mod and give any kind of crit that could potentially make our game better. If something isn’t working for you, please be sure to say so! We’ll attempt to accommodate.
We are divided into ACTS -- so welcome to ACT 1! Each ACT has a main objective and key events that need to be triggered before moving on to the next ACT. What are these events and objectives? That’s for you to find out!
And… what can you do to solve these events and objectives? Well, that’s for US to find out! Dual Dystopia is a game that will be very much sculpted by its players. It’s not up to us -- the mods -- to lead you all through the nose to a “right” answer -- there are no right answers! If you can figure out how to solve a problem in a way that we could have never expected or guessed, not only will we be floored, but you’ll be allowed to do it.
Of course, we’ll also allow you to do things that could really fuck up the gameworld itself. So please use at least a small amount of caution! Or don’t! It’s honestly up to you. Just do note that you can and will change the gameworld a lot through your actions. There are consequences to your actions here.
ACTS last as long as they need to. Some ACTS may only last one in game week! Some ACTS might have us wallowing in them for months! There’s little consistency here, and most of it will be determined by your ability, as a group, to solve the challenges and gain power and all that good stuff. Take chances, make mistakes, and get messy!
Dual Dystopia, tentatively, is running on a 3-DAY CYCLE. Which is to say that every one day of in-game time compromises of three real life days. We’ll update the mainblog with the current day and week, of course.
However, this is merely here to establish a sense of time and chronological play. Threads can be easily carried over past the three-day limit -- and we heavily advise you all to do this -- and, should you fall behind, you may retroactively complete pesterlogs and threads (as well as start them!) for specific days that have already passed. We are also running on liquid time -- which means that you can start as many roleplays as you want at any one time, just sort out the chronology later, please! For our sake.
You may start roleplays that happened retroactively at any time -- say, if you missed day four entirely even though it’s now day six, you may of course start a log that happened on day four. Just be sure to tag things appropriately -- “#ACT1 DAY4” would work well.
However, we must ask you that you never start a roleplay that would be happening in the future. If it’s day five, then please don’t move on to a day seven roleplay. You never know if an important plot artifact or -- even better -- cool memo or group effort of some kind will come up beforehand, and it’s better to not guess at these events.
If the group decides to do something together -- and I do mean together, no one left behind or anything -- or in the cases of large-scale battles or times of similar need, we will be adjusting the day-conversion, and in some cases may freeze time altogether. Should this happen, we will keep you all aware through the OOC.
Now, as a weird hybrid between DR and HS, DD can very easily be divided into two sections -- Pesterchum/paragraph roleplay, and investigation. Each work best when complimented by the other -- as there is no public investigating system in DD, it is up to the players to disperse information to each other, make maps, and divide up work to change the landscapes and face the challenges they will inevitably be faced with. Investigating should not take up the bulk of your time in DD, but should serve as a pleasant diversion that allows you to see the game world -- just so you can muck it up again.
That said, we heavily encourage you to investigate to your heart’s content, and quests, artifacts, plot details, plot npcs, and other surprises can be found with a little digging. Happy hunting!
GROUP ROLEPLAY DETAILS:
We have two main methods of roleplay in DD -- pesterchum and paragraph roleplay. Pesterchum roleplays are conducted primarily through the Pesterchum program, and typically involve two characters sorting something out. PC is our main method of roleplay, and can be used for quick correspondence between characters from any point of location due to the mandatory cell phones these kids carry around.
NOTES ON PC RPING:
PC can be used even if characters are talking directly to each other. For this, you would treat it like a regular chat/dialogue roleplay, and add in actions by using the /me function in PC.
All PC logs must be posted on your character’s blogs, and MUST be placed UNDER a cut. Should NSFW discussion arise ANYWHERE in the PC log, you MUST label it BEFORE THE CUT -- and please take care to label other triggers as well. Speak to a mod if you are unable to figure out this function. PC logs may be edited before being posted for tidiness factors, as well as adding action, rearranging confusing segments, and -- with discretion -- out of character bits. However, we would prefer if you rolled with most of what you used in PC.
As PC is a chat function, it is more than okay to have multiple PC logs running at the same time both as you are roleplaying them and chronologically. Have fun!
All memos containing four or more players, should they arise, should be sent to the mainblog for proper archival. No other Pesterlogs need to be submitted to the mainblog.
Paragraph roleplay is more loose. Paragraph roleplay may occur from wherever people can figure it out, we really don’t care! Should you use Tumblr, please be sure to title your post appropriately, indicating the day the thread is on and the players involved (such as: ACT 1 DAY 4 | “wag your tails to the beat” | Varkaa | attn: Aquila).
If you’re doing a paragraph roleplay with more than two people and using Tumblr, please submit those posts to the MAIN BLOG. They can be reblogged and responded to there.
If the paragraph roleplay contains only two people, then please, feel free to just post it on your personal blogs and reblog from there.
Alerts to the admins about the contents of private paragraphed threads -- or reposting them to your blogs through use of googledocs, skype, or whatever -- are heavily recommended.
But you know.
If you forget.
Well.
Yeah.
It’s seriously okay.
IMPORTANT NOTE:
If something happens during ANY kind of roleplay that will change the gamestate -- such as characters a and b destroying a ruin -- correspondence with an admin is NECESSARY. We’re not going to say no, but we might have other details to give you that might be useful, and it’s important to keep a consistent note on our maps. Thanks!
INVESTIGATION DETAILS:
All investigations will be private and conducted through the investigations blog. To investigate structures, send an ask to the inves blog with the last “/numbers” portion of the url preceeding your message, and then whatever action you’d like to do! You may also just skype a mod of your choosing, any one of us would be more than happy to help.
Important findings will be publicized through the mainblog, but in general it’s up to the player to disperse the information they’re given. Teamwork, comrades!
FIGHTING MECHANICS:
Now, what’s a Homestuck roleplay without STRIFE? In Dual Dystopia, we have a ton of different ways to get your character hurt, maimed, killed, empowered, lauded, and glorified! All it takes is a little work.
Battles can happen just about anywhere -- there are certain places where you’ll investigate and suddenly be pulled into battle with an imp, an ogre, a gross furry -- the possibilities are endless. Once you’ve encountered an enemy, a mod will take you into a private rpnow room for you, the mod team, and any other people you’ve dragged into battle. From here, you’ll do battle with whatever you found -- up to three attempted hits or dodges per post, please.
(But we won’t be sticklers on that.)
We will not be using dice, coins, or anything else for battles. Just the honor system, logistics, and character level and ingenuinity.
Successful battles are rewarded with experience, unlocking further potential, rare items, and -- well, you know -- grist! Lots of grist!
The powers that be seem to dictate that more grist tends to be awarded with more interesting battles… would you fancy that.
Player v. Player battles can be conducted however the players decide -- skype, rpnow, whatever! Tell us who wins, though!
A mod referee can be provided upon request.
All outcomes of battles will be tallied up at the end of each in-game day and announced.
MISC DETAILS:
Of course, that’s not all that we have in store for you here. As NPCs and other weirdos (such as your consorts!) will have to be addressed as well in due time, you may request to speak to these characters through sending a mainblog an ask, noting who you are addressing. Do be aware that not every character will talk to you at every time you ask for their presence. Some are very, very busy people who don’t like to be bothered at all ever, while others can only be found in their homes. Because they’re stuck there. And they’re not going to come out to visit you, ugh, aren’t you so self-important.
Consorts may be marginally controlled by you, the player -- but note that questgivers will be determined by the mods (including denizens). You better hope they find you comely!
Grist is used combine items and purchase upgrades for your strife specibi… as well as other nifty things. Grist can be determined by asking an admin, and an admin must be consulted before you combine any potentially useful item. Once these mechanics arise in the game proper, we will make proper amends to ensure that you all know of the process. Just know that it’s in your best interest to hoard that grist for now.
That about sums us up for now. Keep checking back for further clarification, and, as always, be sure to hit up a mod with any specific questions. Good luck to you all.
