Salvation or Self-Preservation

[Jag]

And here it is that Jag ventures his hand at his first roleplay on this website--not only that, but it's a modern fantasy! Which isn't something I generally gravitate towards. But I hope it interests people nonetheless.

Background Information:

Music has never been just sound, captured momentarily in the lungs of an artist with a vision in his eyes and a tool of culling a song from the sound in his hands. Music is in the most literal sense a form of energy, one that mere humans can only begin to tap into and manipulate when they truly pour their heart, their soul, their rawest of emotions into their music. And thus the song is imbued with those raw emotions, capable of eliciting in its listeners the very joy, or sadness, or rage, or nostalgia that it is borne of.

Sometimes however, that is not enough. Sometimes, the energy poured into the music is such that it begins to coalesce, take shape—from the passion of the music is born consciousness, and from the metaphorical dust and dirt a physical form emerges. A living being, breathing, feeling, thinking, has been created, imbued with the very soul of the song that provided the fuel of its creation.

Some of these souls come of beautiful music, songs that bring to mind images of joy and peace, of love for one’s fellow life. And from these songs are fashioned beings beautiful in body and soul, or, perhaps, souls not blessed with perfection of the body but which are nevertheless imbued with a spirit of love and kindness. Lively optimists, easygoing companions, or perhaps simply quiet but noble souls—of that type of music are they born. They are capable of assimilating seamlessly into modern human society, becoming productive members of civilisation, going through life much as many humans do—finding friends, enjoying hobbies, searching for a purpose in their lives beyond the one which they already have.

Others are...not so fortunate. For as those souls are blessed to be born of beautiful music, others are created of the essence of torment, hatred, angst, anguish, or sheer, unadulterated rage. They are born never knowing anything but the base pain of existence that they are destined from their very birth to feel permeating their very being as residue from the pain that drove the music that created them, and it twists them, tries to drive them into unfettered hate and evil—and often succeeds. For them, acclimating to society is almost impossible. Some will become social delinquents, constantly struggling against their own basic nature—others will be driven to mental derangement by it, and others will embrace it wholly and become embodiments of murder, rape, and destruction.

Some....don’t fall into either category. They’re just fucking weird.

The similarity is that they all depend on the energy of music to live on, and they all have power. Power to use the influx of energy that gave them life to inspire that same creative energy in others...just as they can use their power to siphon the creative energy from music. Some will find sustenance in guiding musicians in crafting their music with passion and soul, thus replenishing and supplementing the reserves of that creative energy...just as others will take the more direct route of taking that energy for themselves, guaranteeing their continued existence even as the passion of music begins to dwindle and fade away.

Plotty Shit

They have existed as long as man has sacrificed a part of his soul to produce music. But today, it’s 2012, and that’s rapidly starting to change. Music no longer depends on the soul and passion of the artist. The music, the lyrics, all is written by someone else, given to the performer to be spat out into the air to be appreciated by those who no longer know it for what it is—soulless, emotionless, factory-produced and packaged. The energy of music is beginning to vanish. Nobody cares to listen to music that bears true feeling and emotion—those songs are now being filtered out in favour of commercialised, catchy tunes, mass-produced for the masses. Living muses were never a frequent occurrence, but now their creations are becoming more and more rare, for no one is injecting their music with the raw passion that is needed to give rise to a muse. Humanity finds itself in a crisis, in a dire shortage of musical energy, that it doesn’t even know about.

Those muses that remain from the songs of bygone eras must make choices of their own—for in this crisis they look upon their own downfall. Should the creative energy continue to dwindle, they will begin to fade away from this world, until at last there is no longer enough of that energy to sustain them and they vanish forever, becoming the essence of the music that formed them once more. Some will, perhaps, strive to inspire the artists of today, to stir within them the passion and emotion necessary to restore a balance to the diminishing energy—thus, hope prevails that the muses will be able to live on, but that most importantly, the soul of music will live on, and muses will continue to be born to inspire that soul within the next generation of artists.

Other muses...seek a more immediate solution. They know that if they do not acquire that energy, they will fade away forever—and for some what awaits them in forever is an eternity of agony in the form of the base torment they are composed of. And so in desperation they siphon that energy directly from the music and from the artists, leaving them more soulless than ever before—whilst the muse itself secures not only longevity for itself, but more and more power by which to assert its hunger over the world.

Conflict is inevitable between those who seek immediate sustenance and those willing to risk their continued existence in pursuit of a long-term solution as they coalesce into New York, as one of the veritable centres of musical creativity and production in the world. And amidst this conflict the muses seek still to find their place in the world, their niche in life, by which they can enjoy and have fun in life—whether it be love, friendship, power, wealth, or simply the feeling of purpose in life.

Upon discovery that a number of the muses are attempting to use the creative energy left in the world--an amount rapidly dwindling--to preserve their own integrity and life, those muses who seek to replenish that dwindling stock form a coalition of sorts, an uneasy confederacy--united only by their recognition of the problem and those that aggravate it, these muses are split over differences in sense of justice, views on their opponents, and views on the issues they now face. In the face of a stronger, united foe, the muses who focus on self-preservation are forced to come to a most unstable alliance themselves--a union of misunderstood miscreants, raging psychotics, and manipulative, backstabbing downright villains such that Disney's most wicked of antagonists could only stand in awe at. Two uneasy alliances born solely of necessity in the face of the existence of the other--destruction is simply guaranteed.

The battleground is made at New York, the modern-day centre of global popular music. Those who seek self-preservation go there to be all the closer to their 'food' sources, whilst those who fight for salvation hope not only to better inspire those upon whom their existence hinges, but also to root out the constituents of the Self-Preservation pack. Destruction, death, and violence will reign supreme as two superhuman forces fight for their very existence--a battle whose consequences may shake the very foundations of humanity.

Note On Muses

Each muse is born with a power that is specific to them and based on the song they are born of--ie, a muse created by the song "Light My Fire" by The Doors, aside from being a hopeless romantic, would probably have some ability related to, obviously, fire. A character born of John Coltrane's 'Moment's Notice' would probably have an ability related, perhaps, to superhuman perception or speed, and a character born of Cannibal Corpse's 'I Cum Blood' would p...actually, let's not think too much about what kind of person that song would produce.

So if that interests you, I'll also need a co-GM, maybe a couple, because I'm a terrible GM and need help to keep track of things and posting and whatnot. I tend to perceive the RP and people's interest in it as dying when it....isn't, so that's another reason I need a person or two to help me keep this RP running. So post here if you're interested in that! Doesn't take much work, I think. This here's a casual RP, I don't expect Tolkienian posts that individually dwarf the Oxford Dictionary and I don't expect the Oxford Dictionary itself in the vocabulary and whatnot. I just want a chill, fun RP. Anyone up for it?

[Gadreille]

I would like to join, and I don't mind helping out with the GMing, but it will probably be a lot of poking

[Digital Muse]

I'm interested too

[Syrena]

Same here!

[Jag]

Sweeeeeeeeet. Glad to see some people getting in on this. Ideally, I'd imagine we'd have three Salvation and three Self-Preservation types in this--so hopefully we'll get a couple more people, though I'm not averse to increasing to four each if that's where it goes, nor am I averse to doubling up if we need more characters to hit 3x3.

On that note, here, have an OOC.

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