Parallel Infusco Discussion

[realworldweirdo]

Well, how to begin this.

A few of us have been talking for a while now about having universal events happening throughout the city. Things all characters would be aware of, events that effect everyone, et cetera et cetera. Villains and heroes and protagonists and antagonists, all very dramatic and such.

After extended discussion with (read: harassment of) the admins, we reached a conclusion. That is, such events would not be necessarily suitable for the whole of the forum, but it might be fun. So, this is what we\'ve come down to.

There shall be an alternate-timeline Infusco in Experimental. If it becomes a successful endeavor, some structure will be added to Experimental for the Alternate. This is, of course, partially dependent on several factors, those being:

• Storyline - This alternate storyline is just that. It\'s a storyline that includes all the participating characters. We\'ll need to get mutually agreeable plot points worked out for all those playing Alt.
• Participation - The three of us that spawned this can, of course, play amongst ourselves. But the more people who play, the better the play will be.
• Quality - The quality of writing in RPs that have an effect on everyone must, by their nature, be higher than the quality of an RP that only one or two players need to understand. Godmoding, for example, must be extremely carefully watched.
• Clarity - Also part of Quality, everyone playing needs to be able to understand the events and storyline of the Alt threads. After all, each of these will effect the ultimate conclusion at the climax of the arc.

The Alternate Infusco will be starting after the conclusion of the Sabbat War arc in the Canon Infusco. This arc begins with Old Acquaintances, then Fitting followed by Culling. These events precede a character development thread for Jake and Conner, where they bond in Reflection. The invasion of the Sabbat Warehouse is subsequently written by Billiam in the short story The Flesh Crafter\'s Secret. At the conclusion of this storyline, the antagonist gives a vague and easily-dismissed warning of a forthcoming "she."

Briefly after this point, we are breaking the Canon("real") Infusco from the Alternate Infusco. In the Canon Infusco, characters experienced an isolated uprising and then went back to their normal lives. In the Alternate Infusco, something else is indeed coming. The ripples of the Sabbat War manifest in everyone\'s lives, meaning that Jake becomes Vampire Oligarch, among other shifts in the Oligarchy. Conner moves permanently to the City. Other characters get the news of the uprising and political shifts. That settles a bit. Then we break.

So if you\'re interested, let\'s sort some ideas, shall we? Billiam currently has an idea that I\'d be interested in pursuing. However, if anyone has any ideas about who or what "she" could be, let\'s hear them.

[realworldweirdo]

Update!

Alternate Infusco is now known as Parallel Infusco, and has its own board in Experimental called Parallel Infusco.

This means that we can immediately begin posting the beginnings of our characters\' interactions. Meanwhile, we can figure out the first Major Event Arc.

I\'ve been made a Moderator, meaning mostly that I\'ll be your resident spelling fairy. Billiam\'s our creative director and my partner in crime [creation].

Now, I\'d like to remind everyone that since the location-specific forums aren\'t present in Parallel, you\'ll need to make sure the setting and location are clearly defined at the beginning of your threads. The advantage to this is that a single thread can encompass all the locations in the City. The disadvantage is that, well, you will always need to specify very clearly where you are.

Also, I\'ve been getting some great ideas and material from people. Let\'s keep up that awesome creative flow. We\'ve got some really good writers on board, and some writers who have really good potential. Let\'s bring everyone together and talk about ideas here, ok? More interaction = more material.

I\'m very excited about getting this project off the ground!

[CowboyBlonde]

Wow that was a really nice speech.  I don\'t know about anyone else but I was motivated by it.

Ok first off RWW what characters are you using? are you making completely different ones or can you and/or other people use the same characters they have been using?.  For me personally i want to use my Shifter Blake because he has been neglected and only been used twice and he is also completely different than Scott is.  But i also feel like Scott will be an aggressor in this parallel fight for the city.  So I don’t know, I’m torn.

i looked and there aren’t any posts yet which then made me think ok I want to post but I don’t know what I am posting about.  What is the first \'event\' or whatever that happens to make the characters aware of something out of the ordinary?

[realworldweirdo]

Good points, Matt.

The idea, as far as I was involved, was to use your characters that you already have. It\'s a good idea to keep a Parallel sheet for your character, because after an arc or two, they may be an entirely different person. I\'ll be using Conner and Jonathon, mostly. Jonathon\'s been neglected too, he hired a personal assistant once and never saw the light of day again (figuratively speaking.)

There aren\'t any posts yet because, well, no one\'s started anything. I\'d say now would be a good time to have your characters meet each other, if there\'s a particular person you want to form threads with. You could even be talking about past events like the Sabbat uprising, or griping about things your character doesn\'t like about the city. From what I\'ve heard, we may develop characters rebelling against the Oligarchy. Player-characters, not NPCs. So any situation you want to have set up when the action starts, now would be a good time to set it up.

Basically, nothing Parallel-ey is happening just yet, but it\'s a good time to get your characters shaking hands, learning skills, and generally acting like it\'s Canon Infusco until the arc starts.

And somehow, that reminds me, I really need to clean up Conner\'s abilities description. It\'s powerful and flexible enough that it needs to be really well defined.

[Trillian]

I believe "she"\' could be one of these things...
 
Suggestion 1)
Perhaps we can use what I already created - the return of Jakra (Jack) who was the personification of the Earth and took mortal form via Ben, and was then murdered by one of her followers.  Now, Jakra has often taken the form of men, because males were the sacrifice throughout time, seen as the \'stronger\' sex, but Jakra could easily be sexless or considered female (as the Earth is often considered female).  Benefits to using Jakra: She can rise multiple times, as long as a ritual is performed and a human sacrifice offered.  She can control the Earth itself and everything to do with it (from earthquakes to tides to weather).  She has mortal limitations because she takes human form (but thanks to her last incarnation, she understands she can be made vampire, which would make her very powerful).  Limitations: I would have to play her, as Jakra is my creation/character.
 
Suggestion 2)
She\'s a goddess of something epic, like the underworld or of death itself (or both), so she can control all undead creatures (like vampires) and can make zombie armies, etc.  Or she\'s the goddess of war, like Athena of Greek Mythology (hell, she could even be \'the\' Athena) who relishes war and wishes to create it on Earth.
 
Suggestion 3)
She\'s demonic, and comes from her own parallel dimension, through a ripped leyline or some kind of ruined artefact that was supposed to imprison her forever, so she returns pissed off and looking to destroy all of humankind because it was that species that bound her thousands of years ago (maybe Ancient Egypt or Ancient China or somewhere).  I\'m getting The Mummy vibes (via Scorpian King) so perhaps she\'s the Spider Queen or some such random generated demonology.
 
Suggestion 4)
She\'s a spirit (read: disembodied voice), and needs to be provided a suitable body to possess.  Her powers are great and growing, and she needs to reach a certain amount of energy before she can take over a being (and likely needs more energy if the being in question is ultra powerful).  She likely already has her minions (those who worship her) and is gathering her army while she gets her powers up, promising that she is a goddess (which she may or may not be) and can bestow powers to her followers (which she may or may not be able to) once she gains a body to possess.

[Idrial]

I have a book callled Encyclopidia of Spirts, The ultimate guide to the Magic of Faries, Genies, Demon\'s, Ghosts, God\'s and Goddessess. It\'s by Judika Illes and I bought it way before I joined her just for fun reading material. Haven\'t got through all of it yet it\'s a huge book lol.

I am going to have a look through it to see if I can come up with any Idea\'s for "She" as well. Finally a book in my small collection will finally be of some use rather than just something fun to read lol. Although we are still trying to figure out what "She" is going to be I think this book will help.

Although one of my idea\'s stems from the Sumerian\'s, they are the oldest and was one of the first people on this earth. They resided in what we know now as the Middle East. But we do know they were powerful and very old and ancient gods. So there is one idea.

Another Idea is the Mayan\'s no one knows why they vanished or where they vanished too. So bit of a mystery there as well and they believed in human ritual sacrifice.  So those are two of my idea\'s.

[Black Philip]

Hello all. I\'m glad tat this is up and running. A few points.

Firstly I would like to say thank you to our Admins for creating and maintaining Infusco. They have made a wonderful thing and I\'m glad to play on it. Alt Infusco serves as an Alternative but should not replace Cannon story line or prevent Cannon play. In a perfect world I hope that after this new forum is functional we can one day make this Alt world Cannon and sew the two worlds back together into one happy Infusco.

Now as to our first major arc, I like Satar\'s idea of the Greek Goddess. I would suggest she control the human population instead of the dead but I think we can sew some ideas together. Make her come from an amulet originally like the demon idea, also I want her to have a kick ass war form that she can take. Also we need to come up with threads disconnected from the main plot. The "she" idea will end quickly if it isn\'t given a break. So I think alternate problems and occurrences should plague the city.

These "villeins of the week" can help break up game play and add more fun to the alt world. These are my thoughts.

[CowboyBlonde]

if we are doing this thing voting style...then I vote for Satyr\'s suggestion number 2, I really like the whole idea of an invasion.

Another question though.  Would people get to play multiple characters like for me would I be able to use Scott as well as Blake?

AND, Alex question for you.  For our characters Scott and Connor, this is all happening after the warehouse correct? And the two of them never meet back at Dante’s like we did in invitations right?  I could have texted you with this question but figured it might help someone else so yeah.

[realworldweirdo]

Considering that there are no Parallel-specific events they\'d need to be aware of, I\'d say it can be part of their Parallel selves use the rules in the spirit they were intended. Thanks for bringing that up though, I\'ll edit the Information to point out that Canon events can transfer in, so long as they\'re compatible.

As far as the "she" goes, I think that we can all create something based on Satyr\'s second idea. What if we tossed a little of the third in there, too? A full deity would most likely be too powerful, so if we say she\'s a demigoddess instead, that would make her more, ah, manageable. Perhaps we could make her an evil half-goddess from a hell plane, come to wreak havoc on the complacent supernaturals of Infusco. After all, there are vampires and demons running around being good. I imagine there would be some pissed off hell deities about all that.

Billiam\'s idea of the villain-of-the-week (week might be too short a time frame, but the idea\'s good) could very well be realized in a concept like that. I mean, unholy demon gods have guards and servants, don\'t they? I\'d be pissed if I were an unholy demon god and I didn\'t even have someone to carry my stuff. The phrase "bring me his head!" seems rather fitting, as well.

Idrial, if you want to look up some spirits/gods/demons that fit the bill, it\'d be nice to have some names to test. And just because she has the name of an unholy demon god doesn\'t mean that she actually is one. (coughlazaruscough)

Oh, one more thing... remember that Parallel isn\'t just about the action, it\'s still about the characters. I mean, it\'s still Infusco... character over action is in the rules. Literally

[Black Philip]

One more point about "She" that I must raise. From my original conception of her I\'ve wanted her to be savagely beautiful. Also i want her civil and able to hold a real, intelligent conversation. I want these things for two reasons.

1. I hate stereotypical, all evil, villains. Evil people don\'t generally think their evil and justify there actions. A antagonist should be almost sympathetic to a reader.

2. Nothing is better than a wolf in sheep\'s clothing. From all the conversations I\'ve had with weirdo about this, we thought this was the best way to construct a major arch.

Ideas?

[realworldweirdo]

I\'m still with you on those points. I\'m going to just focus on getting the mechanics, rules, introductions, stickied threads, etc set up in the Parallel forum for the time being, though.

I\'d like to point out to everyone that, while I\'ve had the free time to set all this in motion, Billiam\'s really the creative force behind it. Seriously. When it comes to ideas, HE is who you should be talking to. I\'m just the guy making it all come together.

So I\'ll let the rest of you discuss the contents of Parallel amongst yourselves for a bit, I feel that I\'m getting to the point where I\'m hijacking it at this point.

[Trillian]

Beautiful, intelligent, diplomatic... I\'m getting Anna from V vibes now.

Of course evil people don\'t think they\'re evil (though some relish being the sexy badass *coughlazaruscough*), and I agree "she" should be played that way.  Nice touch.

Off topic:  Billiam, could you please get into practice typing Satyr instead of Satar?

[Saiketsu]

RWW, CK and I were all talking recently and we were thinking about bringing in our characters\' (Damien and Storm) (not-so-clearly-defined) plotline as an off-branch to the alternative Infusco. Here\'s what we were thinking:

Since Damien is so set on trying to gain power (regardless of position or anything of the kind-- i.e. chair in the Oligarchy, though he would prefer it over nothing), Damien\'s strike for gaining power would be during the time when the entire ...uh... city? was distracted by the rise of this new... whoever. I have already started bringing my characters over to the alt section.

Now obviously this would need a bit of working out to do between all characters involved and a LOT of good timing, seeing as CK and I have a lot of threads to get through before we reach that point. And you all know how long it takes for us to get a thread done, haha.

On another note, regarding D\'s suggestions: I like the ideas of 2 or 3. Though with 2 I really personally don\'t like the idea of some chick controlling dead things because A) that kind of sounds like it could get a bit messy considering a lot of characters on the site are vampires/dead things and B) that\'s just fucking creepy.

Now this evil she creature kind of reminds me of Damien\'s Sire, as it is. While I don\'t think I want to go down that road, it\'s a thought: Damien is at this point (which is currently subject to change the more I get to know Damien) looking for the "reincarnation" of his Sire. Where right now he believes it is Storm, it\'s an idea to play around with that maybe this She person is someone who can change his mind. If not, whatever. Like I said, I prefer not to go down that road. Just making the suggestion to encourage thought.

Idea: What if we had this She be an angel of some kind? I mean that way we really don\'t have to reinvent any wheels too much, you know...

[Idrial]

I think I have come up with a perfect fit from my book that I was looking through for about an hour. I took into consideration of what everyone has posted in the forum and I have found one. She is a goddess of the Norse Pathogen, I know it\'s not Greek but I think it\'s still interesting. The description is long but I will try to shorten it as much as I can with it still making sense. I’m still reading for more so if you do or don’t like it don’t be afraid to comment.

So Enjoy !!!

Name: Freya (Literally Means Lady)
Also Known As: Valfreya; Freyja

Description:

Freya, the most beautiful of the Norse spirits, she is the daughter of Njord (God of the Sea) and Herta (Goddess of the Earth) She also has a twin brother named Freyr (Means Lord). Freya is a dominate force in her world and by no means was obscure and she was widely worshipped as well as feared for her destructive nature.  In her own realm she became a dominate force were her methods became horrent and sinful.

She has dominion over: Love, Sex, Fertility Magic, Witchcraft, Warcraft, Death, Pleasure and Glory. Under the name Valfreya she leads the Valkyries to battle. Ultimately she is the Goddess of these, Fertility and Death, Beauty and War. She is usually seen as a Golden, Beautiful, Charismatic woman, but she is a Shape shifter and can take any form. She also has a magical falcon feather cloak which enables her to fly.

[Idrial]

Found another one too:

Name: Abuki

Abuki are nocturnal, insatiably hungry vampiric spirits: it consumes the life-force killing it\'s victim. Although it preys on animals and adults, what it really craves is children; the younger the better and newborns are best for the Abuki.

The Abuki is considered a \'Diseased Demon\' and description\'s of it\'s appearance are vague. No one who has even gotten a good enough look has ever survived. They are avoided and should never be summoned for its appetite is never satisfied. It either chooses the spirit realm or the human realm to preside in, those that preside in the human realm they devour the flesh and blood of children. Those within the spirit realm devour the life force of children.