Wastelanders - Post-Apocalyptic RP - Recruiting

[Guest]

Wastelanders IC

The Gang
(You guys need to name it and decide who is the leader)

Bull
Sox
Ziggy
Snares
Cuban
Doc
Pointy
Babe
Sling

In Character Info:

Sixty years ago, in 2013, a weaponized form of hemorrhagic smallpox, a rare form of the disease, was released inadvertently by the failing North Korean government in an accident that no one really knows the details of; what was supposed to be brinksmanship, a demonstration of Kim Jong Il's power became the death knell for all civilization as the disease spread through South Korea and quickly became a worldwide pandemic - Charon's Pox.

North Korea was nuked by the People's Republic of China, but it was largely a gesture of defiance and anger, perhaps even a delusional and dying man's attempt to fix what was unfixable. The people who designed the weapons surely did a wonderful job creating a weaponized smallpox that killed most people who got it. What they didn't do so well to engineer it with some sort of method of killing the virus off. Or perhaps Kim, ever a man to make a grandiose and fundamentally petty gesture, decided to destroy it. He was never known for his stability.

Civilization died in a paroxysm of anger, insanity and bitterness. The illness did not kill off all regions of the world at once, but it did eventually kill large numbers of people in every region of the world as it managed to arrive in some form or another. In the meantime, the world did a good job of destroying itself.

There were a few survivors, enough to keep some semblance of society going, but they were too few to maintain it. There was no war to end the world, but there was a war to make sure civilization stayed dead as most survivors were in it for themselves, or for the small groups they formed. As supplies decayed and technology broke down in rapid order, due to lack of maintenance and exposure to the elements, the survivors began to fight over the caches in the most brutish possible way, most of them abandoning any semblance of restraint.

A few communities managed to spring up, but that stability was generally a formalization of the law of the jungle, a strongman's rule of the weaker, slavery for protection. Others became nomadic and stayed on the move, raiding and pillaging for what they needed as necessary and otherwise not setting down roots lest others find them.

If life was nasty, brutish and short before humanity killed itself, it was worse. With no medical technology and precious little knowledge to speak of, life expectancies plummeted. If the survivors had an immunity to Charon's Pox, they surely didn't have it to more pedestrian ailments, like gangrene, pneumonia, syphilis, leprosy and many, many others made a triumphant return. And that didn't even take into account the fact that no one bothered with 'love thy neighbor' anymore.

Sixty years after the end, the concerns of humans were the survival of the group, who stayed together in pack-hunter units of nomads and perhaps small, isolated agricultural communities, along with the rare city of salvagers ruled as kingdoms, often named as kingdoms. Technology is salvaged, held together barely by those who learned such precious knowledge in whatever informal way they could.

Out of Character Info:

Sixty years after Charon's Pox means that survivors of the Pox are very, very few indeed. It is a world of savage young people, children of teenagers born into a brutal world who grow up very quickly and generally die just as quickly. Technology sort of exists, because there's lots of salvage still to be had, even sixty years later, but it's generally not as reliable as it could be-- characters can have stuff, but it'll be run down. Even the best stuff is still going to be kept together with wire and tape due to the entropy and erosion that it's all suffered over the years.

Food isn't always hard to come by, lots of different animals have survived, but dinner is definitely no longer a matter of going to the fridge.

You might be wondering why I'm saying there aren't that many places that are intact, and I'm thinking in terms of this, your house is full of electrical appliances and maybe a gas heater and all sorts of machinery that has to be maintained, and it relies on centralized machinery that has to be maintained. What happens when the oil refineries in Texas, for example, run for weeks on end without any maintenance...eventually that blows. Electrical appliances, plugged in, eventually start to spark and go bust. Dams, bridges, etc, etc.

Magnify this across society, and you get the idea. The things we take for granted mostly require maintenance, however minimally. Humanity might have died too quickly to blow up the place, but that doesn't mean that nature didn't take up where humanity left off, if more slowly in some cases.

For the purposes of this, characters are going to be teens to early-20's, part of one of those nomadic packs and...well, we'll see where it goes. Given the setting, try to remember that if a character is fully literate, it's some sort of miracle. There is no such thing as education. There's damned little left in the way of morals or dignity.

One way or another, the characters ran away or were kidnapped or whatever and wound up in the biker gang (which needs a name!) We're also going to need a good idea of what part of the former US to start in.

I know I'm being vague about requirements, because I believe in conveying the feel and seeing what you come up with, I want people to feel ownership of the thread a bit and be comfortable with their own creativity and putting forward their ideas here.

For convenience, I put together a character sheet. I think the only contentious spot we'll have is over equipment and skilld. For equipment, the house rules are as follows: for every piece of technological equipment the characters own, there should be a description of what is most prone to malfunction on it.

Skills play an important role here, but a mechanic need not be more than basically literate in what certain symbols mean and so forth; it's hard for us to imagine, but it's utterly possible. Just remember that in this world, learning things like that are done via apprenticeships and so it's unlikely that a person would know, for example, mechanical repair skills and medicine, and both are going to be oriented towards doing what they can with the materials at hand. That said, choose wisely.

Character Sheet Format

Name:
Age:
Appearance; (particularly identifying markers/abnormal traits)
Skills:
Equipment:

Bio (as much or as little as you care to share, up to you): (Suggested info: How you joined the gang, any grudges/enemies.)

[Regicidal]

I feel so bad, because i contributed to the making of the thread, but every time I get to this thread (I have quite the list of other rps I have to check on, it's like 1am and I'm too bleedin tired to create a intelligible character....

I promise though, you will get one before the week's out.

[Guest]

I feel so bad, because i contributed to the making of the thread, but every time I get to this thread (I have quite the list of other rps I have to check on, it's like 1am and I'm too bleedin tired to create a intelligible character....

I promise though, you will get one before the week's out.

No problem, no one else has put in anything, so we're taking it slow. I'd rather have people get inspired than try to force it.

[Rittermeister]

Name: Bull
Age: 19
Appearance: 6"2, 175 pounds; considered a very large man in a society where disease and malnourishment are as common as air and water. Has a square face, heavy-jawed, with a small nose and narrow blue slits for eyes. Blond-brown hair, cropped close to the scalp with a knife. A short, ungroomed beard.
Skills: Good fighter, with weapons or bare knuckles; strong, able to carry heavy objects. Pretty decent shot.
Equipment: An M14 rifle, with a cracked stock taped together and worn parts; has a tendency to slam-fire (a slam-fire is when the magazine is inserted, the firearm accidentally discharges, generally on full-auto. Can occur with any semi-automatic or automatic weapon.)

Bio (as much or as little as you care to share, up to you): (Suggested info: How you joined the gang, any grudges/enemies.)

If Bull has a right name, he's yet to say anything about it to the other members of the gang in the six years he's been riding with them. They were passing through a run-down village and saw him chopping wood with his shirt off. One of the gang members, recognizing his size and strength, pulled his bike to the side of the road and called to him.

"Boy, how you like to join us?"

Bull looked up at them wordlessly, pulled the axe clear of the log, and went inside the rundown house. They heard a scream. Bull came out a moment later. The axe was bloody.

"Reckon I do."

[Regicidal]

Name: Sox

Age: 22

Appearance: Sox stands at a meager five foot, six inches tall, and the only reason anyone knows that is because his friends within the gang found a ruler and decided to measure him. Given the fact that most of them can't add very well, there's no telling if he really is that tall. He is short, and equally as lithe, though his body his rippled with sinew, and despite his appearance he is hardly a weak person, mentally or physically. He keeps himself clothed in whatever he can, though he has a fondness for cargo pants, shorts, whatever, and t-shirts. However the one piece of clothing he has kept intact is the Sox jacket he was found wearing when he was fourteen. No one in the gang knows what Sox means, seeing as there is a deep scrape across the black leather where the rest of the lettering was, and the word 'Sox' was letter-pressed into the right shoulder that was left on the sleeveless coat. Boots come and go like water, but he tries to keep those on his feet as well, no matter the color.

The top of his head is an unkempt mess of sun-bleached blond hair that he chops off at whatever angle is annoying him at the time. A strong jawline, hard lined face, and a nose cricked to the left by a break from years ago hold a pair of brilliant sky-blue eyes in place.

Skills: Sox is a wizard with machinery, particularly the engines that keep the gang rolling down the abandoned highways. He isn't a half-bad shot with a pistol either.

Equipment: First and foremost are the rusted, but otherwise trustworthy tools he keeps in an ancient leather roll-up in one of his saddle-bags. Along with the tools he keeps a seven inch diver's knife that was preserved fairly well thanks to it's manufacturing. Beyond that he keeps a .357 revolver with him at all times. The mechanics are rusted pretty well, but the firing mechanism works fine, and the iron sights are still intact. Revolvers have so little to them that the only real problem he has is that the damned wheel sticks, and the reloading times are painful. Fortunately, he isn't one of the frontliners for the gang.

Bio (as much or as little as you care to share, up to you): (Suggested info: How you joined the gang, any grudges/enemies.)
The gang rolled across Sox as he was repairing his own bike on the side of the road only using the tools he had on hand. The fact that he killed two of the gang members without blinking when they tried to loot him for parts and goods earned him a spot along with their need for his skills with a wrench. As for his past, no one really knows why he is traveling, nor does he share that info with everyone. Though, they have all noticed the distant look he gets whenever they come across a populated shanty-town, like he's looking for something while keeping something else behind the closed doors of his mind. One more thing that sets him from the rest of the gang is his ability to read.

[Guest]

Well, we'll keep this going and see if anyone else signs on. I don't really want to start until we have several players. I know that's disappointing in a way, but it's even more disappointing to start an RP and have it fizzle. I'd rather let it never get off the ground than to have it go under with like a few posts in, because it feels like work unfinished that way.

Incidentally, assuming we get any more players, we need to figure out gang colors and maybe an outlandish theme/mode of dress that identifies them to the outside world.

Keeping with post-apocalyptic fiction's rules, this needs to be something that mocks the civilization that was.

[Inerio]

Bleh! I finally got this up.

Name: Ziggy

Age: 19

Appearance: If someone could accurately measure Ziggy's height she'd be five foot three. Ziggy's rather thin being able count all her ribs, but has disproportionately large hips and bust making her look like a gourd of sorts. Her skin is extremely tan and sun burnt around her shoulders due to long days out on the road. On her upper left arm are two scars parallel to one another and three inches in length. Her eyes are brown, and underneath the left is a beauty mark. Her hair would be brown, but sun bleaching has made it auburn. It reaches her elbows. Ziggy is often seen with a pair of goggles on her person.

Skills: She likes to make things go boom or fwoom. And if it can't go boom. . .Well, she'll make it go boom. Ziggy likes to make things explode. Did you know that if you give a frog a cigarette it blows up? Well, Ziggy does. She's handy with a gun too, but why shoot a gun when you can light someone's bike on fire?

Equipment: Several match boxes, three lighters, a tin full of cigarettes and cigars of different lengths and brands. One hunting knife and a simple handgun with half it's bullets gone.

Bio: Ziggy's past, as she puts it,isn't all that important. "We traveled a lot and some people died." Is often how it's reiterated in her own words. Granted, one could tell there's a lot more to it than that just by talking to her.

Ziggy's first meeting with the gang was. . .unorthodox to say the least. As most know there are other gangs out there in the world. It's also common knowledge that not all get along. There was a bit of a bike chase going on between the two gangs. The likes of which just so happened to race itself through Ziggy's "Boom Lane". In an unfortunate (or fortunate varying on who's telling the story) twist of events Ziggy managed to blow a good deal of other gang members to crunchy blackened pieces. Ziggy still insists that this was purely an accident, granted her regret is questionable. After this Ziggy was invited to come along, because everyone enjoys a good light. . .er, fire show.

[Guest]

We're still in business here. I'm going to wait for a couple more entrants and then maybe stick up a char of my own. I didn't want anyone to think this one is abandoned.

[Kaito]

This sounds nice, I'm going to make a character for this soon.

[Regicidal]

Well I'm going to be gone for ten days starting tomorrow, so hopefully we'll be kicked off and going by then.

[Guest]

Well I'm going to be gone for ten days starting tomorrow, so hopefully we'll be kicked off and going by then.

A spot will be saved for you, of course.

[Guest]

I've put up a menu at the top with links to character pages, like a table of contents. I do this in all my RP's to make your lives and my life easier.

As the RP expands, so too will the table of contents. You'll appreciate this as the RP moves on and the OOC section gets much, much larger.

All characters are approved up to this point.

Added, hours later: By the way guys, from here on out, we are using white as a default in all our posts from here on out for readability purposes. The default for FOG is now a little bit daunting for me to read without getting a huge effing headache. I know that sounds very dictatorial, but what can I say?

I am "el Jefe."

Oh, by the way, if you want to use colors to differentiate your dialogue from your prose, feel free. I just don't want to use that default gray color we're using for the moment. Basically, anything but gray.

[Ferrous Miles]

Name: Snares.

Age: 17.

Appearance; A big redneck, with wiry muscle strapped over a stocky, though somewhat malnourished, frame. His unkempt brown hair is generally tied back carelessly in a thick ponytail, keeping the dreadlocks out of his lightly scarred face. He has a tattoo of the Star of Chaos which almost completely overs the right side of his face, with many designs added on afterward.

Skills: As his name would suggest, Snares is highly adept with the use of traps and ropes. Gifted with an innate sense of stresses and breaking points, he uses them to his advantage in the wild. He is also skilled at climbing walls, with or without the assistance of his beloved ropes. Another is his carefully cultivated iron stomach, which gives him the ability to eat just about anything, stemming from the absolute necessity to.

Equipment: Various lengths of rope, string, and fishing line, two survival knives, a hatchet, a four-pound sledgehammer, a rabbit stick, knee and elbow pads, and ballistic goggles.

Bio (as much or as little as you care to share, up to you): Born in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, Harrick Ogelthorp worked with his father and mother to eke out a living from the harsh landscape. Collared at ten by a gang of scavengers who liked to booby-trap their caches, the boy learned the art of trapping and moving through dangerous terrain very quickly. The crew's nomadic lifestyle also meant that he learned how to drive trucks and motorcycles reasonably well, as well as a bit about their maintenance, though not very much.

After a bloody struggle over leadership of the gang, Snares found his chance to cut his chains and run. Taking with him the gang's best bike and ropes, he struck out on his own, fleeing the city and staying on the move ever since. Running into the gang not long after, he stuck with them out of a desire to survive, not much else.

[Guest]

Alright, approved. Kaito and one more player, potentially, and we'll be ready to roll. I gotta figure out what I want to do, but I was waiting to see what you guys would do.

[Deadpan]

Name: Fidel "The Cuban" Castro

Age: 21

Appearance: Fidel is fairly tall at about 6', and weighs somewhere around 140 lbs. He's thin to say the least, and looks pretty brittle-boned, like he couldn't survive a fist fight. Nonetheless, he is by far the most scarred member of the group. He has three parallel scars across his left check, and another across his entire forehead, where someone once tried to take his scalp as a prize. His other cheek has a round scar in it from an encounter with a .38 revolver in his mouth. His nose is awkwardly crooked, the trophies of numerous brawls, and his right front tooth and bottom left incisor are both missing. He has a tattoo across his back that reads "Caress Me Down".

Other than that, Fidel has a tan complexion, with no hair, facial or otherwise, on his head. He shaves ritually each morning, keeping his face and head baby smooth apart from the scars. He's usually wearing his dirty old wifebeaters and cargo pants.

Oh, and he has no tongue.

Skills: Fidel has been designated the assassin of the group. He is extremely agile and lithe, and he's also fairly strong despite his appearance; however he mostly relies on speed and surprise in a fight. He also has incredible endurance and determination, and will never back down from a fight unless the other person is dead, he's dragged away, or knocked unconscious. Along with his assassin designation, he's also very adept with a knife. He has extensive knowledge of pressure points and knows 23 ways to kill a man with bare hands. He also has fairly good survival skills, since he lived in the wild for a long time before he joined the gang. He's not very good at traps and snares, but he can tell you what parts of a snake have the most meat, and which parts of the cactus is poisonous.

Equipment: Fidel is a minimalist, and only carries a carton of cigarettes, a Zippo with some extra fluid, two knives, one his big Bowie knife and the other his stiletto switchblade, and lastly an extremely scratched up "Sublime" CD.

Bio: Fidel, although he is called "The Cuban" due to his name, is actually Mexican, or at least came from whats left of Mexico. Born and raised in the Sonora region, south of Nogales, Fidel was named that because his father was a great believer in Communism, and helping thy neighbor. Unfortunately, Communism had no place in this new world, and his father was killed by his neighbor when Fidel was 8, leaving him only the Sublime CD to remember his dad by. This gave the boy a bleak outlook on life. When he was 12 he ran away from his apathetic mother and lived in the wilderness with a few other boys who had done the same. They taught each other what they new about living in the wild, and managed to scrape out an existence in the desert.

When Fidel was 17 he left his friends over an argument about the last meat on a snake. He wandered the roads and through towns and settlements, learning the tougher side of life. This is where he got most of his scars. After a card game gone wrong due to something being lost in translation between English and Spanish, Fidel ended up with a gun in his mouth. But he managed to twist his head to the side, so the bullet only took off half his tongue, burnt the rest, and blew out his cheek. He killed the man who cost him his voice; the first in a long chain of murders. That was when he was 18. He signed up with the gang at 19. He now communicates with grunts and some improvised sign language. He understands both Spanish and English very well, and so sometimes has to, ironically, be a translator.

[Guest]

Reserved for the bio I'm typing up.

No problem. We honor that sort of reservation.

[Deadpan]

Modified.

[Guest]

Modified.

Rock on, approved.

[Guest]

Name: Doc
Age: 17
Appearance; Lean and wiry, Doc is about 5'8, dark haired and dark eyed, though he's clearly multi-racial. He is 'high yellow.' He's also got a fairly good number of tattoos.

Skills: Doc is good with medicines, the looted stuff as well as the homemade stuff, and is a bit of a tattooing aficionado who hardly ever lets an opportunity to get tattooed pass him by, though he is picky about the sterility of the needles. By the same token, he's also a damned good tattoo artist and piercer himself. His mother, a village wisewoman from what used to be Virginia, taught him this blend of various techniques.

Equipment: Various types of bandages and ointments, many of them homemade, needles and sutures, scalpel and pliers, a rough and ready sort of field medical kit. He also has a blacksmith-made fighting knife he picked up in exchange for some medical care and an entrenching tool that is multifunctional and a surprisingly good weapon. He also keeps some chains handy, because they make great weapons on a pass in a pinch.

Bio: Doc never knew who his father was, specifically, just that he was white (because his mother sure wasn't) and that he was part of a marauding motorcycle gang that came through years and years ago and raped his mother. His mother, by contrast, was a gentle herb and wise woman who spent her days doing medicines and cures for the village, until a day came when she died from some wasting ailment that no one, even he, could fix. The dirt was barely on top of her when he hooked up with the next gang to come through, after treating one of their number for an infection that was swelling up and getting bad.

While he wasn't initially that much of a fighter, he's picked up things and is fairly good in a fight, but isn't usually expected to do the front line fighting for the gang; a good doc is hard to get, and he's a good doc.

[Kaito]

Character Entry:

Pointy

[Guest]

Equipment:
-The Bike, of course
-.45 ACP Uzi
-7.65mm G3 Automatic Rifle
-Weapon cleansing kits

I'd say lose either the Uzi or the G3. I really don't want more than one gun per gang member, if that. Especially since some of the gang members aren't packing at all; firearms are pretty scarce and a lot of people have to make do without.

Otherwise, good to go. I'll work on getting that first post out.

[Deadpan]

As a suggestion on that note, I'd say lose the Rifle, for a couple of reasons.

1. It would be kind of a bitch to lug around. A biker gang would want to stay light so they could keep up the pace and conserve gasoline, which I'd imagine is a rare commodity these days.
2. Rifles take a lot of maintenance, maintenance that it would not have received for some years for you picked it up.
3. Uzi's are more compact than a big ole rifle, therefore easier to conceal, which is more useful for various reasons.
4. Uzi's are very reliable guns, and can be fired from a moving motorcycle with one hand very easily.

Oh, but it would need a minor malfunction. Failure is eject is a common problem with Uzi's, so I'd use that one...

Just some friendly suggestions.

[Inerio]

Should I point out the double entendre I see? Huuuuuuuurm. No, no, I'll save the dirty jokes for later.

Ziggy isn't the only girl now. C :

[Guest]

Should I point out the double entendre I see? Huuuuuuuurm. No, no, I'll save the dirty jokes for later.

Ziggy isn't the only girl now. C :

Now you guys have to figure out the gang's name and what their colors/costume are.

Or one of you can just tell everyone else what it'll be.

Once that happens, I'm set. I have a plot and everything.

[Deadpan]

Also, have we decided on a gang name/leader, or a starting location?

I'd vote for Arizona as a starting location personally, and how about Mutinous Rascals as a name? I was thinking of a logo too...

Think of like a pirate skull, minus crossbones. Now put a monocle and top hat on it, and a cigar in its mouth. Pretty BA, no?

I'll volunteer to be the leader if no one else wants to, but I'd actually vote Ziggy in as leader if she'll accept.

I think a cool get-up would be like Doomsday(the movie)-esque, like those guys that lived in Glasgow.

[Ferrous Miles]

I vote no to the name and logo, but I'm pretty good with everything else you suggested, except that Ziggy doesn't seem like the leader type. Besides, why even have a leader really? These are all independent types, and I don't really see the point.

As to having a logo, again, point? Wasted effort, I'd think, since their nomads.

[Guest]

I vote no to the name and logo, but I'm pretty good with everything else you suggested, except that Ziggy doesn't seem like the leader type. Besides, why even have a leader really? These are all independent types, and I don't really see the point.

As to having a logo, again, point? Wasted effort, I'd think, since their nomads.

I figure there might as well be a leader character calling the shots, because gangs do tend to have someone who is the alpha.

I also figure on some sort of costume/getup/theme because this is fiction, and gangs tend to also like to fly their colors and mark themselves out as different from the rest of society; a sort of middle finger against the disapproval of polite society and a bit of a self-delusional romanticization of what they are doing.

Also, it's fiction. It can't hurt.

The leader can be any character, but the player has to agree to it.

Let's try not to make this into a mockery of democracy and be the exception that proves the rule. Otherwise, we revert to the ways of the Sith.

[Kaito]

Hm. Something being fiction is no excuse for anything, in my opinion.

So I think having some kind of logo, something you can spray somewhere or have sewn on some clothes is ok, but a real costume/getup/whatever is too much work to accomplish in such a setting, in my opinion. I mean these kids are struggling for survival, riots, looting, and permanent death. They don't have the time to have costumes.. o.O
A logo, on the other hand, is something simple and you can put it on anything, so it's perfectly fine and will make the gang feel more as a unity.

And again, the thing with the "but it's fiction": if you want to use that excuse, please move this thread to the "Casual Role-Playing" thread. It won't be of interest to me, anymore.

Concerning the guns, if you want me to drop one, I drop the Uzi; they are unrealiable, their aim is bad and their parts not as robust as of a rifle. Also, they waste too much ammunition.
The rifle instead is robust, made from steel and wood. It is possible to aim over further distances and to save ammo. The weight is not really a problem, it weights 5kg while a Uzi weights 4kg. It is also more comfortable to wear since you can sling it over your back.
And for the reason of having the weapons: Pointy was one of the best shots in the gang she had been, before. And there were six members who died next to her, there was enough loot.

For the gang leader and name stuff: I'm fine with anything, my character only joined the gang later.

[Guest]

So I think having some kind of logo, something you can spray somewhere or have sewn on some clothes is ok, but a real costume/getup/whatever is too much work to accomplish in such a setting, in my opinion. I mean these kids are struggling for survival, riots, looting, and permanent death. They don't have the time to have costumes.. o.O

Gangs wear colors all the time, and are poor as dirt. Even an armband around the upper arm will do.

And it doesn't have to be brand spanking new. If you've ever been to a punk concert, you'll know what I mean.

[Inerio]

Well, they can't be cowboys. : | That would be gay.

Why can't we just call them the wasteland riders? That sounds fine as a default name. Or Vague Sobriety. Or the Fatmen/Little boys after the bombs that were dropped on Hiroshima. You know, taking out everything in its path in the very worst way possible.

Ziggy could be the leader, however I'd doubt anyone would appoint her to the role. I mean, she lights scorpions on fire and threatens to suffocate people with her titties. I'm sure she's a decent problem solver, but I don't think anyone would trust her that much.

[Sponsored content]