The Census Taker
16-11-2006, 20:16
In my unending quest for knowledge, I've devised something interesting for the Nationstates roleplaying public, something of a test to see how well a select few can roleplay characters that they had no hand in creating, how well they can adapt to a specfic personality or situation, and how well they can utilize that character's unique talents in conjuction with others to complete a common goal. If anyone is interested, the next post will contain a listing of individuals avaliable for roleplay, and if I can figure out how to add pictures to the posting, I'll get a visual gallery of equipment and settings set up to further enhance the roleplaying expeirence.
Those who enjoy a challenge might enjoy this expeirence, I know I will. Any help will also be greaty appreciated. While this is not my first text-based roleplay, it is my first on Nationstates.
Each character has a battery of useful skills and abilities to accomplish their objective, which will be explained later on in this posting. However, most have some sort of defect or flaw that must be roleplayed at some point in the story. Each also has access to a varied array of equipment, which should be used wisely to deal with the hungry masses of the undead that will be between the characters and their objective.
The Situation:
At sometime around five-thirty AM on a Tuesday in the southern section of the United States, strange happenings are beginning to occour. First observed during a drug bust in Miami, Florida, a dope-addict that had been shot several times through the torso after pointing a handgun at the raiding officers, got up from the floor and attacked the nearest law enforcement officer, biting him on the neck. At this point, the other three officers opened fire again, putting the addict down a second time. The wounded officer was rushed to a nearby hospital to be treated for deep bite wounds. He died from a loss of blood four hours later. Around that time four bodies that had been found in the back of the target storehouse reanimated and started attacking late-night workers in the Miami city morgue. Toxicology reports recovered from the ensuing bloodbath noted strange concentrations of an unknown chemical in the cadavers' bloodstreams, which oddly matched another unknown chemical found in the cocaine that had been confiscated from the raided storehouse. This was troublesome, as a good deal of the tainted product had already been sold prior to the tip-off and the subsequent raid. By Thursday, reports of flesh-hungry shambling corpses were filling the evening news, showing local police trying to contain the slow-moving crowds within the poorer sections of the city where some of the infected product had turned up in the form of crack. Reports soon came in from Atlanta as well, where more of that vile drug had killed more of the populace and ressurected them as the walking dead. By Monday of the next week, seventeen more cities across the US had gone the way of Miami, which by now was under a state of martial law. Citizens had barricaded themselves inside their homes, and half-eaten bodies lined the streets as police and Guardsmen tried to fortify sections of the city for the panicing hundreds that still remained, but with most of the National Guard deployed to the Middle East, there were too few of them to do much good. The people were soon left to fend for themselves.
Sarasota was the fifth Florida city to be stricken by what the news had begun calling the 'Zombie Pandemic'. Carried by bitten individuals fleeing from Miami and surrounding cities, the strange chemical found in the cocaine had slowly killed them off, brought them back, and infected those around them through their blood and saliva. The high-powered stimulant additive was working better than any terrorist bio-weapon, and news from outside the US was much the same: Columbian cocaine mixed with a new and highly addictive super-stimulant that was supposed to yield a much higher 'high' was killing anyone who used it, only to have them rise again as cannibalistic corpses. Great Britain, France, Russia, and parts of the Middle East were beginning to follow the United States in a downward spiral as the infections on their own soil began to rage out of control.
A week after the outbreak in Miami, the first signs of the growing horde were beginning to show around the quiet and isolated community of Utopia. Confident that their gated community would be safe from the troubles of the outside world, the inhabitants hadn't counted on the threat coming from within. One of the wealthier citizens had somehow barricaded himself in his house with his family, and after snorting a line or two of the deadly powder, had brutally attacked and bitten nearly everyone in the household in the course of the struggle, which ended with his wife shutting him up in the master bedroom. The children attended school as they normally would have, despite fears that their father was going off the deep end. What happened next was a sad re-run of the events that had already occured throughout the nation. The children died, and turned, during the school day, infecting nearly everyone that tried to stop them.
The story begins at the end of that very day, a Wednesday that no-one in the community of Utopia would every forget.
The Objective:
Since the cause of the outbreak is unknown, and the parties involved have no delusions of granduer in solving the mystery, they wish only to survive for as long as possible. One of the non-playable characters (John Grayson) reveals that he knows the location of a docked cruise ship out on the east coast of the United States, and that he knows how to pilot the thing. Their best option becomes clear: Get Grayson to the ship as soon as possible. Characters will first meet up at the local YMCA by mere chance, and will devise the aforementioned plan, then move to execute it. The ship is docked in Miami, far to the south. How the group gets there is entirely up to the participants.
The Setting:
Set in a quiet, made-up suburban gated community in south-central Florida, the small community of Utopia consists of a very nice grocery store (Washington's Corner Store), the aforementioned YMCA located in a shopping area outside of the well-planned suburbanite living area, which also contains 'Hale's Fine Firearms' (a local gun store), various resturants, a decent-sized shopping mall, a dance club, and an outpost-like police/fire station. The surrounding forests and man-made lakes are well-stocked with various types of native game and fish, and the noise of the highway is many miles distant. Located between Sarasota and Fort Pierce, Utopia is somewhat isolated from the rest of the state, despite its upscale trappings.
Is anyone interested?
If I can get at least five people, I'll post a second closed thread for character selection and to flesh out some other details.
Those who enjoy a challenge might enjoy this expeirence, I know I will. Any help will also be greaty appreciated. While this is not my first text-based roleplay, it is my first on Nationstates.
Each character has a battery of useful skills and abilities to accomplish their objective, which will be explained later on in this posting. However, most have some sort of defect or flaw that must be roleplayed at some point in the story. Each also has access to a varied array of equipment, which should be used wisely to deal with the hungry masses of the undead that will be between the characters and their objective.
The Situation:
At sometime around five-thirty AM on a Tuesday in the southern section of the United States, strange happenings are beginning to occour. First observed during a drug bust in Miami, Florida, a dope-addict that had been shot several times through the torso after pointing a handgun at the raiding officers, got up from the floor and attacked the nearest law enforcement officer, biting him on the neck. At this point, the other three officers opened fire again, putting the addict down a second time. The wounded officer was rushed to a nearby hospital to be treated for deep bite wounds. He died from a loss of blood four hours later. Around that time four bodies that had been found in the back of the target storehouse reanimated and started attacking late-night workers in the Miami city morgue. Toxicology reports recovered from the ensuing bloodbath noted strange concentrations of an unknown chemical in the cadavers' bloodstreams, which oddly matched another unknown chemical found in the cocaine that had been confiscated from the raided storehouse. This was troublesome, as a good deal of the tainted product had already been sold prior to the tip-off and the subsequent raid. By Thursday, reports of flesh-hungry shambling corpses were filling the evening news, showing local police trying to contain the slow-moving crowds within the poorer sections of the city where some of the infected product had turned up in the form of crack. Reports soon came in from Atlanta as well, where more of that vile drug had killed more of the populace and ressurected them as the walking dead. By Monday of the next week, seventeen more cities across the US had gone the way of Miami, which by now was under a state of martial law. Citizens had barricaded themselves inside their homes, and half-eaten bodies lined the streets as police and Guardsmen tried to fortify sections of the city for the panicing hundreds that still remained, but with most of the National Guard deployed to the Middle East, there were too few of them to do much good. The people were soon left to fend for themselves.
Sarasota was the fifth Florida city to be stricken by what the news had begun calling the 'Zombie Pandemic'. Carried by bitten individuals fleeing from Miami and surrounding cities, the strange chemical found in the cocaine had slowly killed them off, brought them back, and infected those around them through their blood and saliva. The high-powered stimulant additive was working better than any terrorist bio-weapon, and news from outside the US was much the same: Columbian cocaine mixed with a new and highly addictive super-stimulant that was supposed to yield a much higher 'high' was killing anyone who used it, only to have them rise again as cannibalistic corpses. Great Britain, France, Russia, and parts of the Middle East were beginning to follow the United States in a downward spiral as the infections on their own soil began to rage out of control.
A week after the outbreak in Miami, the first signs of the growing horde were beginning to show around the quiet and isolated community of Utopia. Confident that their gated community would be safe from the troubles of the outside world, the inhabitants hadn't counted on the threat coming from within. One of the wealthier citizens had somehow barricaded himself in his house with his family, and after snorting a line or two of the deadly powder, had brutally attacked and bitten nearly everyone in the household in the course of the struggle, which ended with his wife shutting him up in the master bedroom. The children attended school as they normally would have, despite fears that their father was going off the deep end. What happened next was a sad re-run of the events that had already occured throughout the nation. The children died, and turned, during the school day, infecting nearly everyone that tried to stop them.
The story begins at the end of that very day, a Wednesday that no-one in the community of Utopia would every forget.
The Objective:
Since the cause of the outbreak is unknown, and the parties involved have no delusions of granduer in solving the mystery, they wish only to survive for as long as possible. One of the non-playable characters (John Grayson) reveals that he knows the location of a docked cruise ship out on the east coast of the United States, and that he knows how to pilot the thing. Their best option becomes clear: Get Grayson to the ship as soon as possible. Characters will first meet up at the local YMCA by mere chance, and will devise the aforementioned plan, then move to execute it. The ship is docked in Miami, far to the south. How the group gets there is entirely up to the participants.
The Setting:
Set in a quiet, made-up suburban gated community in south-central Florida, the small community of Utopia consists of a very nice grocery store (Washington's Corner Store), the aforementioned YMCA located in a shopping area outside of the well-planned suburbanite living area, which also contains 'Hale's Fine Firearms' (a local gun store), various resturants, a decent-sized shopping mall, a dance club, and an outpost-like police/fire station. The surrounding forests and man-made lakes are well-stocked with various types of native game and fish, and the noise of the highway is many miles distant. Located between Sarasota and Fort Pierce, Utopia is somewhat isolated from the rest of the state, despite its upscale trappings.
Is anyone interested?
If I can get at least five people, I'll post a second closed thread for character selection and to flesh out some other details.