Game Description
your mind is software.
program it.
your body is a shell.
change it.
death is a disease.
cure it.
extinction is approaching.
fight it.
Ten years ago, humanity broke.
They call it "The Fall", now. Stuff like this is
always called "The Fall". As if the Earth was anything like the Bible's Eden after we were done with it. Once all the hypercorps had stripped away all the reusable resources, and the ozone layer had boiled away, and nuclear fire had wiped out half the population, and biological weapons had killed off half of what was left of them, and the world governments were collapsing in on themselves and letting all the ones who were left fall through the cracks of society and into the gutters... well, things weren't so great even before The Fall.
But they got worse. Because what we did to ourselves never even came close to what the TITANs did to us.
TITANs. Total Information Tactical Awareness Networks. The mythical Singularity become reality. AIs that were not only conscious, but self-improving. Just our luck that the first self-aware, self-improving artificial intelligence happened to be a military program.
Earth was dead in days.
Humanity died too, down there on the blasted surface of what was formerly the shining jewel of the system. The last "real" humans never got off the planet. Now we're more than human. Transhuman. Functionally immortal, more physically powerful than any "real" human could have hoped to be, with minds immeasurably more powerful than anyone on Earth ever dreamed. No reliance on food or drink or sleep - no reliance on bodies. The singularity gave us that, at least; now we can upload ourself into the digital Mesh, downloading into new bodies when our old ones get too beat up to function. If our morph actually dies, no problem. They retrieve the little chip at the base of your skull and stick you into a new one. And if the chip gets destroyed, they just pull out a backup copy and poof, you're back again, minus a few days' memory.
And now we're more than a planet-bound species of apes. We've brought up the animals to our level, creating new sentient species. We've created artificial intelligences, ones carefully limited to keep them from becoming new TITANs. We've spread across the limits of the solar system, establishing colonies on Venus and Saturn and even as far out as the Oort Cloud. And we've made first contact with the weird fungus-people called the Factors, who say they're the diplomatic arm of a Galactic Confederation.
But even transhumanity is not invincible. Despite our new almost-immortality, we
can die. The things that we have worked for can still be taken from us. The TITANs were not defeated. They simply... disappeared. And there are other threats.
That's where we come in. We are transhumanity's shield from the things which would destroy us. We are the guardians of our new society. We are Firewall.
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What is this? This is
Mice and Gods, my new sci-fi game.
Well, the stuff above certainly sounds impressive. Yeah,
Eclipse Phase has a really cool setting.
What is Eclipse Phase, anyway? Oh, that's the system that I'm using. It's a sci-fi game utilizing a simple d100 system. Most of the important setting details are laid out above. You can find the official site
here. And don't worry if you don't actually have the book - I'd be happy to help you make your character and teach you the rules.
But what if I really want the book? In that case, you can download it
here, free of charge.
Isn't that pirating? Nope.
Eclipse Phase is under a Creative Commons license. The people who made it are very generous; they're letting the game and all its parts be used absolutely free. Of course, if you want to support them, you might want to buy the hardcover book anyway.
Well, obviously this is sci-fi, but there are lots of different types of sci-fi. What are you running here? Are there going to be spaceship dogfights in the Asteroid Belt? Explorations of alien planets? Cyberpunk VR worlds? Giant robot suits? The best answer I can give is "some of all of the above". The
Eclipse Phase setting makes it possible to do all of this and more. However, I do have a plot in mind, and it will emphasize a few aspects of the setting, particularly virtual reality, conspiracies, and dealing with mysteries. However, unlike many of my other "lurking horror" style games, this will have a relatively large amount of sci-fi action, replete with lasers and robots and spaceships.
Sounds cool. I'm in. What kind of character should I make? Well, anything you want, really. There are a couple of options, the most obvious of which is whether or not you want to play an uplifted animal. Transhumanity now incorporates sentient birds, simians, and cephalopods. You can play as one of them, if you'd like, though there aren't really any appreciable gameplay differences. Once you figure out your species, you need to figure out where you're from and what you do. All the players will be members of "Firewall", a secret society which protects transhumanity from existential threats. Beyond that, though, anything goes. Some guidelines to keep in mind are that the inner system - Mercury, Venus, Mars, and the Asteroid Belt - are under the control of hyper-corporations (hypercorps), and possess a society along the lines of Rapture in
Bioshock. Jupiter is extremely anti-modifications, preferring to keep humanity as "human" as possible. "Brinker" societies, those dwelling on microplanets at the edge of the solar system, are extremely common, as are roving bands of spacers called "scum", and orbital colonies around planets (and the moon) are also very common.
What can you tell us about the story? It will start with a mission from Firewall, as you can probably guess. A brinker colony has stopped responding to communications, and people traveling to it have either disappeared or returned with reports of unprovoked attacks from the colony's defense systems. It's up to you to find out what's going on.
Sounds interesting. What should I put in my application? Obvious stuff. By "obvious stuff", I mean your name, your species (inasmuch as "species" has any meaning in this setting), your gender (ditto), your age (double ditto), your proposed background/profession/etc., and your desired morph (body). You can also tell me what "type" of character you want to play - diplomat, hacker, stealth dude, pilot, and so on - and whether or not you want your character to be capable of using psychic powers.
One final note: the story in this game is one that I've been wanting to tell for a very long time. But it requires a couple things from you, as players.
One, you must be mature enough to handle both "M-rated" situations (gory/horrific/sexually-themed situations and language).
Two, you must be capable of role-playing and willing to commit to the game. If you are not willing to play this game for an extended length of time, don't apply. I don't want players who aren't going to hang around long enough to develop their characters. As such, I'm going to look through applicants' gaming histories to make sure that you don't drop games regularly. If you are new to Myth-Weavers, but have played on another site, give me a link to the other site so I can see that you are a committed player. Players who are new to PbP probably will not be accepted unless I find your application to be absolutely stunning.
So, on that note, let's get this started.
Mice and Gods
