Star-Crossed TRPG // Discussion Stage

[s13ep]

A story of valiant hearts and dying light...

You are in a dream that you are fully aware of, and in which Godly powers are bestowed upon you. You're bringing into existence beings, landscapes and worlds, at the simplest thought. You continue to create things, when out of the nothingness comes a flush of blue tipped with majestic stars that spin around in a cylindrical manner; they look of wild design but with a humane touch, forming symmetrical lines, and an optical illusion in the distant center.

As you try to focus on the blurring center, it evades your sights, ebbing left, slightly, and then right, before centering itself. You try harder to concentrate, managing to keep track of it for a few seconds...

You feel an unusual boost in energy following it, and your eyes blaze up; when you shut them it's as if they are still open staring blankly at red hearts, set on black fade, that twist and twirl around the expanse, they lead to a center with a different illusion of the optics. You open your eyes to see that you're flying, but before you get a chance to look once over, you crash into something, breaking it, and falling into a dark, endless void.

The infinite nature of such a place frightens you, when suddenly, from the depths of this chasm appears water, and it catches your fall. You go about four body-lengths under, followed by shards of blue that rain into the waters all around you. The fragments have an excellent, spherical glow within the waters; when you blink, their color fades to black, their shine replaced with a black, oozing spirit.

You try to swim to the surface, but some force is weighing your body down. You struggle, and then start to sink deeper underwater. Time flies, and the surface light is now barely in sight. You feel still but water runs up your face as you torque by.

You close your eyes to see that you are in empty space, filled with blurred spots of color, and you are met with a spectacle unlike any you've seen before; all around you are holograms of humans, still, but with an ever-changing view. You see acts of death, of battle and many other different horizons, including that of perversity and evil. They seem to be blending with the colors in the background through expression, but you can't understand how.

As you turn left and right frantically, you accidentally gulp a mouth-full of water, and a harsh pain ignites in your chest. Your eyes are wide open and your poise, sundered, as you scratch around at your chest area; a few drowned coughs later and you cough up blood. Your whole body is now struggling as you distort what appears to be broken physics, you feel dazed and the space around you seems drunken.

You get hot-headed and you think it's the end, and in this moment you look at the blurred colors and forms, and within them are what seem like real beings, hidden at the depths of reality, a bunch for each shade and tone, completely eluding the original. They come to life at the peak of motion - bold within the colorful blurs.

In the space of a few seconds you are overtaken by imagery, and overrun by color and shades. You descend into a wild pandemonium of cartoon beings that cyclone around your body, they bite or try to grab you as you float past; the dream is of the kind where it feels as if it is going to be permanent. Your descent comes to halt when you meet a ground level that's hard to touch.

You are led on your stomach with your eyes shut as the pain bellows into your mind, haunting you. You cough, and what comes up after is water, you can taste it; and immediately the pain resides. You open your eyes to what feels like being born again, to find that you are out of the water, in a new land. You get up to your feet, examining the wet you've dribbled on your shirt. You look around, it's midday, and in front of you notice an old statue of yourself set on circular stonework a few meters outside of a sky-scraping black temple, that's welcoming you with an open archway.

You walk up to the temple across a winding stone path led between dead trees, etched with ancient writing that you see when you blink. You shimmy past the statue, and peer through the open doors at a sermon you notice taking place at the other end. Torches burn all around the archaic interior, and all within are lit up with a red hue. The people look heated, with impure eyes, watching a priest in black clothes and a metal mask as he addresses them; he seems to be made of pure metal, which you judge by his metal arms. He speaks verses from a red-backed holy book in a language you do not know, making heartfelt gestures and referring to acts of courage and of wisdom.

The crowd are left in awe after his performance, he is truly a father figure to them at the end of the speech. When he leaves his devotees, he walks toward you along the black marble floor, adjusting gloves on his hands as the scene starts to burn away in your peripheral. A flurry of flashes temporarily blind you, and a few seconds after, as you regain focus, you find yourself in a new scene; this one with the same man, but walking on a natural rock bridge surrounded by raging fire - his mask torched and rusted, his cape fleeting at the back of his feet. You examine the dry rock surface underneath your feet, it is as if it's been here for a long time among the fires.

A few moments later you look up, and he is a dozen steps away. Your eyes cross his fearful gaze, and you are met with the strangest feeling; weakened but happy, almost like laziness. The man raises his right hand, and the site starts to burn away, again; the burning hotter and harsher this time - burnt so black it irritates your vision, so you close your eyes.

You visualize yourself in closed cell of four rotted walls, mostly in shadows except from a small beam of light coming through an open hole in the rusted metal door. You listen as the sound of fire raging quietens, and you unseal your views with ambition, but nothing is there - it's as if you're eyes are closed.

You close them once again; you're stood in a different position in the cell, and across from you is man, also with his eyes closed.

A maleficent scream sounds near the other side of the door, and as it does the man's eyes are wide open, bloodshot. Suddenly, there is a flurry of loud banging noises, and the door starts to shake; whatever it is stops and screams after a few knocks. The man steps into the middle of the cell, and at this point you realize that he is alive by the skin of his teeth; his tongue and nose removed, his body coated in dry blood, and open cuts lay in tender spots.

He mumbles unintelligible words, and stares directly into your soul at moments, falling to his knees as if to express that he is helpless. He struggles to talk, but you hear the murmured words "don't think", and they resonate in your mind clearly; suddenly the door bursts open and an eerie essence fills the room - you feel immediately intruded upon. The man screams louder than whatever came before...

You see a very perverse, fake creature, sat some distance away from the open door, a white obese dragon that fills the squared space it's located at in the hallway; it has the feet of a bear, the mouth of a lion and tribal markings on it's belly and on each limb - it's presence instills great fear into your heart.

You feel as though you are forced to open your eyes, and when you do you find that you are back outside of the black temple, but this time it is dark; you're staring through the archway at the metal man who has just finished adjusting his gloves. He then focuses on you and continues to walk in your direction, expressionless.

You move into the temple, a cold sweat on your brow, and continue a few meters to meet the man who stands alert when you near. To the right of him you see a circle, triangle and square drawn in the air in some magical thin ink; you feel obliged to focus on this image of him with the shapes; the moment feels euphoric, as if you were in end times.

Bar the man, yourself and the shapes, the scene quickly shifts paradigm, and behind the man comes naturally an abstraction that looks like graphical, multicolored waves overlaid with a grid. Every thought henceforth is replicated in imagery via the flexible abstraction in the background. The metal man speaks into your mind, but with no words, only pressures; you feel as if you are told to look into the imagery, and when you do, you seer into a deeper light, one beyond the face material. Skipping vision to vision, you see dark tunnels in the shadows, and a number of unique ways in other places that you may be able to travel through if you had the guts.

You feel surprisingly tired and stop looking around, focusing on the man and the shapes. Instantly, the imagery starts to bond with you, and instead of a movie it's like a lucid dream; all around you, in the space, appear the things you imagine, and enhanced environments take form. In this state of mind, again, deeper meaning is extracted, but this time by way of pulling out visual information, such as ego star-systems that you retrieve from the minds of people, with imagery for each star, where the image closest to you represents the trait you judged. You feel power elude you somewhat, a moment of release before the temple comes back into being, same fluid transition.

You observe the light from the torches and see sharp twisted beings of illusion in it's place, floating at you from the direction of light; they seem as one with nature. You turn around and look outside the archway at the dead trees dotted around the gardens; you see brittle and burnt creatures where the branches should be, moving when you move; and jumping bulky heads at the trunks making muffled, low, sounds. In the grass you spot little green families that hide when you stop moving like feral children.

You feel fatigued by all the happenings, and you know that your mind needs rest.

As you turn back around the man is gone, and all the flames in the temple are extinguished, but the smoke rising from the torch stands tell you it's recent; you're stood in near darkness bar the last few embers.

A sudden tiredness comes over you, and you fall to the marble floor with a thud - your eyes met with void.

In a deeper sleep than most, you feel burdened with a heavenly weight. You envision yourself as you were, led down, but in blank space. A black and blue aura crowns you; it intensifies and dims, humming with power. The view you're looking out from ebbs every so often, zooming in and out, moving around you beautifully. From the other side, you see yourself with a red and white aura that falls down your skin and drips off of your body...

The view zooms far out, and you watch as a blue and red spec novas in the far reaches.

With an element of faith, a sky is colored into the nearby space, along with hazy white clouds moving at a fast rate. As they clear, you see a round and hot blaze. Your instinct makes it so you try to look down and away, only to be met by your body as you succeed. You examine your hands, briefly, and then the blur of a ground visible past them comes into focus at your interest.

You're on planet Earth, somewhere that you recognize by memories of home and the roads under your footing. You hear the rev of an engine behind you, and your body jumps, as a car races past. You manage to keep balanced, and with poise recollected you look along to roadway after the vehicle, but it is has gone over the horizon...

Out of nowhere the words "don't think", echo in your mind. You are felled somewhat by whatever feeling it came with, and a darkness engulfs the whole vicinity.

 

{ UPDATED HERE: https://www.reddit.com/r/RPGText/comments/3bag22/starcrossed_starx_sx_interest_check/ }

 

Current Rules

At the end of a battle the judge or panel will rate 9 out 10 of these aspects, out of five, the first aspect Crown is based on your win-streak, it can be an unlimited number, and adds to your total score.

Crown:

• Your current win streak.

Wisdom:

• How well your writing relates to your own imagination.
• "Did you acknowledge your own imagination in your writing?" "We're your actions and inaction self-centered?"

Understanding:

• How your writing relates to your foes writing and/or imagination.
• "Did you acknowledge your opponents writing in your writing?" "We're your actions and inaction centered around your foe?"

Mercy:

• How well your writing described a dream state regardless of writing skill.
• "Did you write a dream state well by friendly standard?" "Was your writing a good read?"

Power:

• How well your writing described a dream state with regards to writing skill.
• "Did you write a dream state well by academic standards?" "Was your writing easy for the judges to read?"

Beauty:

• How well your writing was reflected upon by the judges.
• "Did your whole piece have an impression on us?" "What impression did your writing have on us?"

Glory:

• How well your character engaged with Star-Crossed.
• "Did you keep to the theme of Star-Crossed?" "Was your writing acceptable in the world of Star-crossed (there is unacceptable-acceptable)?"

Victory:

• How well your best action or inaction was reflected upon by the judges.
• "Did a particular part your writing have an impression on us?" "What impression did this part have on us?"

Energy:

• How well you did at losing to attacks and breaking defenses.
• "Did you play fairly?" "Were you concerned with winning selfishly rather than winning selflessly?"

Kingdom:

• How well you contributed to the finished battle prose of both players.
• "Did your writing and your foes writing transition well? Was the entire piece made better by your contribution?"

{ UPDATED HERE: https://www.reddit.com/r/RPGText/comments/3bafqv/sx_battle_judgement/ }

 

 

 

There are three attributes that players determine each battle using their acquired ability points.

• Offense: for every 3 gain 1 attack.
• Defense: for every 3 gain 1 defend.
• Knowledge: highest knowledge writes first.

Your writing can be as long as you want, but it must incorporate all of your attacks and defends, so choose wisely your attributes.

An attack or defend must be followed and preceded by non-attack and non-defend called 'inaction', even as short as "He entered and..".

The first writer may only write inaction, meaning no attacks or no defends, but only a burst of creativity that may give you an advantage.

A defend can be used to block a future attack or to block a current attack. Such as, "He dodged the bullet" or "He buffed himself up".

Every two victories you gain an ability point; you begin with ten ability points and max out at thirty.

Battles last 3 rounds, your attacks and defends reset at each round.

{ UPDATED HERE: https://www.reddit.com/r/RPGText/comments/3bafxr/sx_game/ }

 

Edited July 2, 2015 by s13ep