[https://i.imgur.com/AmWyobQ.jpg]
September 2023, Somewhere around Detroit, Near the Waterloo State Recreation Area.
3 Months and 3 Years have passed since the event people now refer to as the 'Apocalypse'.
Day I
[First Player Joins: Odeon]
The bushes next to the narrow soft-feeling trail are already putting on their autumns dresses, the leaves have turned to shades of yellow, purple and red, it probably must be around september by now he thinks to himself. It's been a while, maybe a year even, since he's been this way out on the border of the Waterloo State Recreation Area. Should he really have left his homely cabin deeper in the woods? Well according to some traveller that he stumbled across recently when picking mushrooms there were supposed to be some wild growing herbs, but he wouldn't go out for any herb, this was a special one, one he fondly missed smoking and even if he wasn't lucky, maybe a bit of wandering around would help him to finally get 'the signal' working.
Odeon smirks and puts the hoodie of his green hunting poncho over his head, his long untamed black hair falling over his moustache and squared-shaped beard, past his shoulders. He didn't bother cutting it cleanly for some months now, not as if anyone would see it anyway. And as his he takes another step with his worn-out, formerly white, Stan Smiths the earth beneath him begins to crumble. He tries to step away, but is already falling into the hole. Moments later he hits the floor beneath, everything turns black.
With his head still dizzy Odeon pinches his eyes and slowly opens them He gets up with knees still shaky and looks around: Clearly, he's in a cave, the hole he fell through is about 6 feet above him. Surely a fall from that height hurt, but if it wasn't for that odd development his body went through after 'that' happened he probably would've been mousse by now though. A closed wooden door awaits some 30 feet ahead and a wooden cart that has been turned upside down is right next to him, there's also a small boulder sticking out of the ground some feet this his right, tall enough to crouch behind maybe, but not big enough to help him get out. "Too bad I can't levitate" he thinks to himself "Looks this is some sort of underground complex and that doors the only way out". Odeon ponders about who might be in here, hopefully not any bandits, he's had enough of those. He then notices that the mysterious energies within him have replenished, fells like some sort of fishbowl has been filled up with water inside him. Still feels weird. He's probably been knocked out for a while and had a good involuntary rest sleeping on the cave floor.
"I should try it again..." he mutters to himself "Maybe it works this time... hopefully I can connect to 'him'".
Odeon gets this eerily feeling, while he's casting the spell. As if he's trying to summon something not from this world. A blue glow radiates from his right palm that's held up high and then immediatly fizzles away "Yo... you there?" the caster that has his eyes closed tries to establish the telephatic connection.
[System Information]
[Everything happening in the story is decided by a Dice Roll. This is the first of many, and a special one too, it's a mystery roll, with a hundred sided-dice(d100), the consequences of the action depend on the outcome of the roll. Mystery Rolls are only rolled on rare occasions.]
Odeon Mystery Roll (d100): 57
Then suddendly after a brief moment Odeon hears a young mans voice echoing in his head
"What's this? Who's trying to disturb my calm? I don't chit-chat"
Odeon immediatly recognizes the voice that has a slight hunch of pissed-offness and latin-accent in it, but still, he needs to run a little test... if it's really actually him... "Who's in my head?" Odeon asks.
"This punk tryna test me! Who is you? You on some FBI Shit? Why you in my head?"
Odeon chuckles and thinks to himself "Aight, that's him for sure... but..."
He continues to asks the voice in his head "Listen... I was looking for you... you need to help us... but I'm stuck in this cave right now..."
The voice immediatly interrupts Odeon "Tchk... on my dick and yack! Why should I even help you? Been left here to rot, nobody coming and now suddendly you're talking to me."
Odeon still doesn't believe it himself, it finally worked. The voice on the other side, it's him, the one being he hopes, no believes will be able to fix whatever mess the world he's known has become, is actually talking to him. For a moment his thoughts wander off, he wonders if the man he's talking to still has his coloured braids and face tattoos. He shakes his head and tries to focus. He needs to know what's going on with 'him' and it's probably better to get on his good side, so he asks "How can I help you?"
"I'm stuck here in Manhattan Detention Center. This is New York, I made the wrong move. Still got food left, but all the popo are gone, screaming, some kind of catastrophe was happening like forever ago. Now I'm still locked in here and can't get out. No idea of the state of situations out there, no I mean. Why am I even telling you this, am I going crazy with voices in my head?"
Looks like the connection is persisting still... at least he knows where he is now Odeon, gives of a sigh of relief before turning to the cart. He moves his hands against it to see what's underneath.
Right as he wants to grab the car, there's a muffled voice shouting under it: "Anyone there? Help me out!"
The Cart looks rather heavy, it's made out of solid wood and it's not like he's ate just recently, but still, with this 'special' body of his he should probably be able to do this without suffering any backpain.
[System Information]
[Any action that could succeed or fail with the characters current abilities is decided by the roll of a 20-sided dice (d20). The higher the roll, the more like the players are to succeed and the better the outcome, and vice-versa.]
Odeon (Athletics) Strength Check (d20): 17
He mightily lifts up the cart, beneath it is an elderly man cowering and some large bags. "Oh thank you! Thank you! My name is Olly, I'm a merchant, these guys have kidnapped me and my load!" he gets up as Odeon easily throws the cart to the side asking "Odeon... Why did they kidnap you? What was the load? What kinda guys are we talking about?"
Olly responds "You know they are your average everyday burglar I suppose. Shh we must be quiet, otherwise they'll hear us, they don't know that you're here yet. I was supposed to carry these medical herbs (he points to the linen bags that were lying underneath the cart) from the farm to the city of Stockbridge. We were kidnapped and brought here two days ago, they separated me from my comerades, I heard them scream next door yesterday. Haven't heard from them, so I suppose they're dead. They only let me live as a bargain, in case my allies show up." he coughs, his voice sounds dry in general "I cant say who these guys are, they just kept repeating the phrase 'Hail Wocka' and throwing around hand signs."
Odeon focuses on his telephatic connection "Hey... you heard? What do you think about that?"
The voice responds "Puto, I thought you left me after I done dropped my address, y'all know where I'm at now. Wocka? That name sounds familiar somehow. Hand signs, sounds dangerous. I'm from the skreets, I know that. You got anything to defend yourself?"
Odeon smirks again at the use of language "... Don't worry... I'll come and free you as soon as I'm getting out of this."
The man on the other side responds "Oh word? A man better not turn into a snake."
Odeon gets back to business "Olly, you got any weapons with you?"
The elderly merchant still nearby "Uhm, what do you have in mind? Well yeah I came prepared, but I havent eaten in 2 days, so I'm really fragile." He points you to the bags of herb. "Dig in there, the second sack, I taped it to the bottom."
He opens the bag and a good smelling odor flies through the air, he digs deeper and deeper and then finally touches something cold on the bottom.
After dragging it out he's holding a gun in his hand:
It's a brand new Glock 34. It's filled with a 17 Bullet Magazine, he also find another 17 Bullet Magazine taped to the inside of the bag.
"Aight. I take the glock and stand next to the door. Olly can carry the magazine." he thinks to himself and shortly after tells olly to knock loudly on the door and shout for a guard to come. "My plan is to take the bad guy hostage by suprising him with my glock against his chest." he explains to Olly "After all he thinks its only you in here."
Olly knocks and shouts.
Some moments nothing happens, then the both of them hear a clicking noise and the door gets busted in.
Enter: A man in his 30s with a slightly brown tan and wearing a red shirt shouting "Whats going on you cockroach?"
Odeon jumps out and points the Glock at the kidnapper "Freeze! Don't make a sound!"
Odeon (Intimidation) Charisma Roll (d20): 5 Fails
"What the?!", the man dressed in red sees the gun and tries to reach for his belt.
Odeon uses the moment he looks down to his belt to run up to him and hit him in the face with the handle of his gun.
[System Information]
[A Hit Roll iss used to determine if an attack on a target is successful or not. If the Hit Roll (d20) is higher than the enemies Armor Class (AC) the attack succeeds.]
Odeon Hit Roll (d20): 18
[System Information]
[If an attack is successful damage gets rolled according to the attack. This time it's 1d4, meaning One Four-Sided Dice gets rolled]
Damage Roll (1d4): 3
Odeon manages to hit the enemy's head right on the temple. He's tumbeling and falls, whilest falling he releases a painful shout "Arrrghh!" that resonates through the cave.He looks pretty bloodied on the spot Odeon hit him, but he's not dead yet. His eyes are rolled inwards though.
As one can imagine this causes quite the commotion. Olly and Odeon hear rapid footsteps drawing closer from behind the door that was just opened, looks like there's some sort of hallway around the corner behind it.
Odeon fires a gun shot into the door opening "I'll shoot this guy if y'all come near me." He then proceeds to drag the wounded guard he just knocked out, next to the opened door, just so the enemies won't be able to shoot them directly, but have to enter the room and begins to search his clothes. Odeon finds a Colt 45 and some ammo and hands it over to Olly the Merchant who runs behind the cart and hides. The footsteps went silent after the shots, the last time they were heard though they didn't sound far away. "Fuck my life!" Odeon contemplates "Who are these cave fondling fuckers? Why exactly now? I finally connected to 'him'." he grits his teeth and shouts "Drop your weapons!!"
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Odeon (Persuasion) Charisma Check (d20): 12
The enemies shout back "Ayo, Will you alright?! Who shot there? You messin' with the Seven Miles Gangsta Bloods, Cuz! You fooled yourself! Better drop that gun or things will get ugly! We'll smoke you out! You better come over here, weapons folded!"
Odeon sighs "Of course... the stereotype... no need for mercy then..." he pulls his glock, looks at the wounded guard that was called Will next to him and in the blink of an eye pulls the trigger, releasing a bullet that pierces through Will's left hand. Blood starts to burst forth and Will immediatly opens his eyes, the adrenalin coursing through his body lets him scream as he hears the voices of his comrades shouting at Odeon ""Ahhh, Captain Jack, he got me! The motherfucker put a hole through my hand! Oh goood, my paintings,I... I.. I can't draw anymoooore! Light him up! Light the son of a whore up!"
Olly seems pretty disturbed, Odeon sees the terrified look in his eyes, he also noticed the slight gasp coming from him, when he pulled the trigger. Looks like this merchant is not used to life or death situations.
Odeon (Intimidation) Charisma Roll (d20): 16
"Nah Will not your hand! We need it to keep us entertained in thos dystopian shithole! Maybe we can still fix it!" the guy just called Captain Jack shouts back "Goddamn you fucker, what do you want from us? Will I'm sorry, we can't lose you." You see two guns flying through the door, they don't fall far from it, only like 5 feet. The men don't step out.
He nods at Olly, who still looks afraid and slightly wave sat the door with his gun, making a shooting gesture.
Odeon then asks the voice "Yo... can you provide us with a 16 while we get rid of them? As guidance?"
The voice responds ""Whatever, I've got nothing better to do anyways"
and it does what it can do best, it starts to rhyme in a dancehall kinda accapella flow: For my cold killers, for my soul lifters, Body bag fillers, for my go-getters"
Odeon then jumps on the ground in front of the door and opens fire shooting everything he got inside the magazin while yelling at Olly "Unload EVERYTHING!!! NOW!!!"
(Initiative Rolls are rolled everytime a larger battle occurs, they decide the order of battle. One round of Battle is 6 Seconds, during which all of the characters involved act. )
Initiatve Rolls (d20)
Odeon: 18
Olly: 13
Seven Miles Bloods (Reds): 11
Olly shouts while it's raining bullets "Odeon, I've never done this before!!" He tries to aim the colt.
Two people are standing behind the door, they're wearing red shirts too, the one called Jack has a red beret on his head and is wearing dark sunglasses. As soon as they see Odeon they shout "Oh shiiii...". And they try to dodge out of the way.
Will on the other hand lets off a very loud but harmonic rumbling whistle, kinda sounds like a dove.
The shots fly towards the enemies dressed in red behind the door:
Odeon Hit Roll (First Enemy behind Door) (d20+4 (Glock) ): 1+4 = 5 Fails
Odeon Hit Roll (Second Enemy behind Door) (d20+4 (Glock) ): 2+4 = 6 Fails
Olly sees Odeon firing the Glock. He unloads it like there's no tommorow, like this is the last time! Because of the hollywood-esque stunt move though, he seems very shaky and fails to aim properly.
His shots ricochet off the cave walls, and slowly start to strum whilest they fall to the ground.
They didn't manage to even graze them.
Olly now understands that the situation is real. He musters his courage and tries to shoot the six Shots he has in his colt. He shoot the first three ones on the guy called Jack and the other ones on the second dude whose name he didn't hear yet.
Olly Hit Roll (On Jack) (D20): 10 Hits!
Damage Roll for Hitting Jack: 3d4 = 9 (3+3+3)
Hit Roll 2 (On Unknown guy dressed in Red) (D20): 7 Misses!
Fortunately Olly hits Jack in the stomach three times, he falls to his knees "Ugh! Lord Wocka, by the mercy of our father Waka the flockiest forgive me!" before he finally finds rest in a puddle of blood. The other gang member is enraged, his eyes red and in tears, he tries to aim for Olly and retaliate. Pulling the trigger several times he fires all six shots he has in his backup revolver.
Hit Roll vs Olly(D20): 14 Hits
Damage (6d4): 14 (1 + 4 + 1 + 3 + 2 + 3)
Olly heroically jumped into the fray, but as soon as he missed the shots on the second gangmember he knew he fucked up. Odeon looks behind him as he sees the elderly man falls to the ground hard like a wet bag of meat, leaking blood because of the several holes he just received. There's no time to think. He looks around hastily and in a moment of fortune perceives the gun that was thrown into the room by Ollys kidnappers before he opened fire. They're laying right in front of the man who just struck Olly. Odeon runs as fast as he can, grabbing one of them, it turns out to be Colt.
Pointing the gun at the enemy who is still standing, he tries shooting his legs in a swift flowing motion.
Hit Roll (d20 +0 (Colt)): 16
Damage Roll (2d4): 5 (2+3)
And manages to actually hit him in the leg, the artery splashes, he falls to the floor, his gun dropping to the ground.He's not dead yet, but he's twitching, no way, there's he's gonna move his arm again.
"By... all whats flocky, how?" He whimmers before falling unconscious
Odeon stands up and moves over smashing the defenseless reds face with the glock. As he's busting the mans face, he hears some real deep vibrations coming from the door leading to the next area of the cave which he hasn't been to yet. They feel really rhytmic, almost like a bass line.
After checking the pulse of the guy and Jack, confirming that they're both dead, Odeon walks over to Will, who's still alive doing his dove whistling thing.
"Why are you whistling this sound? And what's that noise coming from next door? Answer me! I need to know where the exit is!"
"FUCK YOU man! Like I would tell you anything! You murdered my comrades! By the mercy of the flockiest, one day we will receive justice! Hmmppphgh-" without a word Odeon crouches down, shoves the Glock inside Wills mouth and pulls the trigger, he dies with a terrifying look on his face, full of hatred. Odeon is not shook by it, instead he strolls over to Olly, verifying that his new found friend is dead. He takes Olys magazing and reloads. Then after a moment of contemplating he goes over to close Ollys eyes "I would've been dead without you" he thinks to himself, before taking a rock with sharp edges nearby, engraving the name of his saviour "OLLY" onto the Glock he received from him. Odeon proceeds to take the colt next to him and calmly gets up to search the rest of the bodies.
He adds another Colt to his posessions and also finds some .45 rounds (10) used for the Colt. Aside form that he recovers a small Gold Bracelet and a lighter. Now standing in the hallway, before the door to the next room he still hears the rhytmic sound, but it doesn't appear to be coming from the room right behind the door. Unsure what to think about it he asks the voice that's still connected what it thinks of the sound
"Mhh sounds like a 808 in the key of F# and... a spider hihat maybe, faintly..." the voice responds
He opens the door and finds is some kind of living room.
There's a small kitchen on the top side of the room, also some drawers and a table in the center.
On the table there are poker cards, and 3 distributed piles of cards. There's also an ashtray in the middle of the table, it contains a half smoked cigarette.There are two doorways, one in the south and one in the east side.
Now that he's in the room the sound got way louder, but one can hear that the source must be in the room to the east. From time to time the bass drops real heavy, the smaller objects in the room and on the table start vibrating and rattling around.
Odeon checks the drawers for objects and he finds a pack of Golden Virginia Tobacco, some rolling papers and an apple, which he immediatly stows away in his backpack, leaving the cutlery behind. This. This boosts his mood a bit. "Better check the less noisy door first" is Odeons first intuition.
As he enters the southern room it seems he's finally succesful.
This one looks like the garbage bin of this complex: There's some muddy waters on the right and a huge pile of trash in the left bottom corner. But even more interestingly he finds the exit of the cave, sunlight is shining through about 30 feet to the south. He perceives yet another red hooded figure though standing right front of it. It can't see him luckily, because it's facing towards the exit.
"Good that's manageable." he thinks to himself and returns to the room with the poker table that he was in before, closing the door to the southern room with the exit. He decides to check out the source of the noise and opens the door to the east.
As he does so he at first gets stunned by a booming sound entering his eardrums, then he thinks his eyes deceive him.
There's an actual illuminated Dancefloor, filled with more than a dozen people all wearing read hoods. There seem to be some girls around them, all dressed in red as well, they're dancing frenetic and chanting Adlibs together. On the upper side of the room there's a big DJ Table and a huge afro-dominican looking guy, rocking dreads, wearing headphones and a golden chain spelling FLOCKA. Also there's sunlight shining through on the southside. Another possible exit. "But... Fuck no!" Odeon tries to close the door unseen and head back to the first exit he found.
Odeon Dexterity (Stealth) Roll (d20): 18
Odeon peeks throughs the door just as it closes and notices that one of the guys is wooeing a girl and is pointing to his direction. It looks like they're about to move into the room he's in right now. They'll probably notice the guards missing. Damn. He needs to act quickly.
Odeon again enters the garbage dump room to the south and in a haste runs up on the single person guarding the exit. He pulls his one of the Colts and the Glock, but doesn't fire, instead he tries to smack him from behind.
Odeon Hit Roll (d20): 12 (Hit!)
Damage Roll (2d4): 7 = 3 + 4
He hits the human obstacle standing in his way two times from behind and he falls to the ground unconscious. Odeon quickly searches him and finally leaves the cave, taking a deep breath of fresh air. There's wilderness all around him, to anyone else it would look confusing, but he's been in this forest long enough, so he looks for some familiar spots in the scenery and soon finds them in the distance. "Good. There's East.". There's a large cliff towards that direction in front of him though, several beautiful mountainflowers are growing on it. "This view really isn't all too shabby" he thinks. The relaxing feeling doesn't last all too long. He hears a high pitched scream from deep inside the cave, then the bass sound he's been hearing all this time goes silent.
"Time to scram" he smirks again before jumping and carefully sliding down the cliff, yelling inside his heart "OFF TO MANHATTAN! Only through the king of new york can we unite humanity once again and save the world!"
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Authors Note:
Welcome everyone!
I hope you enjoyed the first chapter!
As mentioned in the description this series is actually a tabletopgame that was and is still being played by real people via online means. It has been running for roughly 5 years now, and although different groups have played it and influenced the world, we will focus on the one group that started first and has advanced the furthest, or in other words, the most experienced group.
Odeon is the first player of that group, little spoiler, you'll continue to see people joining. I'll mark them as players, so you know they're real people and not NPC's played by the author (me).
Also, as you have read there's something like 'magic' (the mysterious energies) in this world now, you'll learn more about it and how players interact with it as the story goes on. It's purposefully not explained right now, as the mystery behind it is an elemental part of the story. Also, almost every player has had some sort of backstory for their characters, but it may not be explained immediatly, since players can also decide to keep their past to themselves... for whatever reason.
So you'll get to experience the world as the players actually played it (and are still playing).
If there's interest in this series, there's definitly more than enough material for a regular release.
(P.S.: If you find hard enough you can find parts of the original game online, there's also a manga out there on the webs, but I've only released two chapters so far, since I'm real bad at drawing haha~ )
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Types of Rolls (So far):
Checks (Athletics check to lift the cart or Intimidation Check f.e.): Used to succeed a certain action
Depending on the abilities of the character a + modifier gets added. Always a 20 sided dice (d20).
Initiative Roll: Used to decide order of battle. One round of battle is 6 seconds. Always a 20 sided dice.
Hit Rolls (When attacking): Used when trying to hit a target with an attack, depending on the weapon and abilities of the character a + modifier gets added. Always a 20 sided dice (d20).
Damage Rolls (f.e. Hitting someone/Firing a Gun): Used to decide how much damage a hit target takes. Dices used: d4, d6, d8, d10, d12.
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Player Stats (Chapter 1)
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Odeon as a loner who has an intricate connection with a mysterious person he calls 'The King of New York' - He wears typical dark green hunting clothes cause of his time in the forest.
Stats: Health Points: 15/15 Armor Class: 13
Inventory:
A brand-new Glock 34, 9mm Ammo, +4 to Hit Roll and 1d6 Dmg per Shot
2x A Colt 45, 0.45 Ammo, +0 to Hit Roll and 1d4 Dmg per Shot
Ammo: 30x 9mm shots, 10x 0,45 Ammo
Various Items: A Backpack, Green Poncho, Cargo Trousers, Stan Smith Sneakers, Gold Bracelet, Lighter
Skills: Mysterious Connection, Fire Bolt (Basic)
[https://i.imgur.com/HlpnI7G.jpg]
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