The world was always ending, for someone.
On the screen in front of him, Marcus watched the news of the day. A man jumped from a skyscraper, falling to his death. The camera did not show him land, but they were willing to show the thief dart to his body before anyone else and take something from his pocket. “NEW DETAILS IN PERSEPHONE SCANDAL EMERGE” scrolled across the bottom of the screen. “PHALLEN AUTHORIZED EXPERIMENTATION AS EARLY AS 2180”.
Marcus did not display any emotion as he watched the man die, because an hour ago Marcus had been pulled from his mother's room in the hospital as her breathing stopped and doctors rushed into the room. An hour later and they had not come back. The world was ending.
“Mr. Bell?” a voice behind him asked. Marcus turned and looked at the doctor who spoke. “Could you come with me?”
The impassive display Marcus had displayed as he stared at the news wavered. He closed his eyes and let his forehead rest against the back of the seat for a moment. The breath he took as he sat back up was far more haggard than he wanted. Sympathetically, the doctor offered him a hand to help stand up. Marcus didn't take it.
They walked through the sterile hall of the hospital. The light hurt Marcus' eyes. He endured. He had to endure. When they reached his mother's room, the door ajar, he nearly fell again. He endured.
“This is an unusual situation,” the doctor continued, “And there isn't any protocol for dealing with it. You have my apologies.”
When he saw his mother's body, Marcus cracked. His brother was in Seoul in business, so Marcus had to be strong, but he could not do it anymore. His mother was dead. His mother was dead. The doctor waited.
“Could you log in?” he asked as Marcus managed to stand again, gesturing to the Veer equipment in the room. The oddity of the request made Marcus pause.
“N-now?” he said, unable to control his voice.
“Please,” the doctor answered, “Trust me.”
Marcus walked to the equipment, nearly in a stupor. The chair was next to his mother's body. He closed his eyes as he sat down, and inserted the wires.
When he opened his eyes again a glorious forest glade met his eyes. Above him the sky shone brilliant blue, birds singing their songs in reverie of the sunlight. The doctor materialized before him, dressed in in bright white suit of a medical official on duty. He greeted Marcus with a nod, and gestured to the side. Sitting on a stump was a beautiful woman in the prime of her life, glorious blonde hair and stunning body. A small deer calf ate from her hand.
“That's my mother,” Marcus said quietly.
“It's not unheard of for some mental processes to cause individuals to stay logged in to the Veer for up to three minutes after death, but not longer than that,” the doctor began. “Jane's heart stopped approximately an hour ago, and based on her presence here we thought we could pull her back. But...” He paused, considering his words carefully. “We can't. She's...passed on.”
“But she hasn't,” Marcus stammered slightly, staring at his mother. She glanced up, noticing the both of them for the first time, and smiling.
“She has,” the doctor corrected, “....But she hasn't.”
The world ripped away from Marcus as he disconnected, returning to the clean hospital room. He gripped his mother's cold wrist in a desperate search for a pulse, before running his hands over his face and groaning. Walking to the window he looked out at the red Martian sky and cried.
PLANET OF CABLES: PERSEPHONE'S KISS
fw:fw:fw:re:lol:cyberminiphalla for 25 players
Something is wrong on Mars. The body dies, but in the cross-planet virtual reality network of the Veer the mind persists. Nothing can account for this. The monopoly over the Veer, the Phallen Corporation, finds itself embroiled in yet another scandal. In desperation the assassination of difficult individuals is authorized. For unknown reasons IZANAMI announces democratically decided executions. An previously irritating Veer virus becomes deadly with the new immortality. Faced with a new frontier of life, previously subdued tensions erupt. The world is ending for someone – will you let it be you?
Welcome to Planet of Cables: Persephone's Kiss! In this game players will take the role of a citizen of Mars: either a member of the city's seedy cyberunderbelly, or of the Phallen Corporation, who are mean. Each player will also have an online identity in the Veer, the virtual reality network that has replaced the internet because it is the future. When a player dies on Mars, their body in the Veer persists, and vice-versa. On Mars, the players try to eliminate an informed minority as an uninformed majority. In the Veer, allegiances and factions differ and vie for supremacy. A player may fail in one world, but find success in the other. Which will you value? Who will you betray? What world is worth living in?
This would probably be considered an experimental game to most people. Because I am a crazy person I consider it a party game. While I have attempted to balance this as well as it can be, I have erred on the side of “fun” and “crazy” in a few locations. Good play should still trump all, and no man shall be invincible...but you might see a few things that in isolation seem really, really good (and stupid (mostly stupid)). Much of what I'm experimenting with is how players choose what to do, and that is very difficult to predict. Most of all, what I would encourage is that players play to the spirit of the phalla if not the letter. One of the catches with any sort of mechanic where removal from the game is not necessarily immediate is that it's really, really good for the village. So I hope some of what I've done takes away from that power.
Speaking of what I've done, here are some
GAME SPECIFIC RULES.
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If one world reaches an end-of-the-game scenario, the other world will have one last day for players to attempt to achieve their victory conditions, unless it is day 7. If somehow the village is made of genius savants and takes out all of the mafia in 4 days, the Veer factions will have one final scrambling day to try and achieve their own victories.
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Unless otherwise specified, all abilities can only target players active in their world. Self-explanatory.
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The first role a player dies as cannot achieve their victory condition. This is a rule that goes against much of phalla, and much of how people play phalla. Sorry! This is a rule meant to further encourage playing to the spirit of the game if not the letter. I recognize that this sucks for those who die early, and I hope they can have fun anyway, but let's face it it sucks to die early no matter. I also recognize that I can't stop players from feeling like they get a VC anyway but hey. Whatevs.
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Players will not have faction information revealed on death until they die in the game and in real life. By which I mean the Veer and Mars. This isn't a rule for you this is a rule for me what is it doing here.
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There are no thralls, millers, conversions, or eavesdroppers. This isn't even a rule this is a clarification what the fuck this is just a goddamn mess.
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When you die in one world you no longer need to send in actions or votes for that world, but are still expected to do so for the world you persist in. Okay here we go this seems like a rule though it also feels like it should just be common sense. Whatever I'm shutting this whole section down.
All standard phalla rules apply. Do not share screencaps. Do not add players to conversations. Link the host to proboards. Do not communicate anonymously. Do not speak in code. Edited vote posts don't count. One death post when you die for real. Don't speak with the dead. If you are not new to phalla these are not new rules. If you are new to phalla hahahaha oh man did you pick a game to start on.
VOTING AND SIGNUPS
Vote close will be at 7 PM PST
OR 8 PM PST. Please indicate which is best for you when you
signup! At least one vote and one other post is expected of a player to meet activity requirements, but more is encouraged.
ORDER OF ACTIONS
Order of actions is logically simultaneous, with the vote coming first but not blocking actions.
GAME START
Is up for debate, due to how much people hate weekends. Current plan is to start SATURDAY AFTERNOON/EVENING presuming signups are concluded then, with day 1 concluding SUNDAY EVENING, so that the part where everyone starts playing the game for real (Day 2) begins in time for Monday.
Posts
SLyM – Elena Ankou – nyanyannyan:3 (The Cat)
M.D. - Erebusa Sorayama – Acies (White Night)
Langly – Orbit Nine – Malice Gutterspike (Warcraft 6)
stever777 – Jake Friday – Phalanx (White Night)
vagrant_winds – La Ghede – big freeze (And All Of Us)
kime – Cassandra Ferriman – zero (The Tumour)
Rend – Professor Nubris Osiron – Captatio (White Night)
Cayrus – Kisin Yum Kimil – Trickster Spirit (The Apathetic
tastypastry – Vuokko Tuonela – hope (And All Of Us)
Smoove Operator – The Psychopimp – Jezebelle Lila (The Hooker)
Alegis – Scratch – anarchanist (In.Frequency)
SaberOverEasy – Tomi Veles – crucifixation (In.Frequency)
Lucedes – Sammy D – big crunch (And All Of Us)
Assuran – Shahnaz Zohhak – big rip (And All Of Us)
Bedlam – Maria Ghain – ghain207 (The Social)
ObiFett - “One Eye” Keen – RENDDEAL.COM (The Merchant)
Anialos – James Reaper – Lux (White Night)
Retaba – Marie La Croix – Lenaya Deadwood (Warcraft 6)
REG Rysk – River Six – theatreum (In.Frequency)
jdarksun – Minh Ha Des – Glukk Cactuseater (Warcraft 6)
Void Slayer – Izrail Poe – big bounce (And All Of Us)
TheRoadVirus – Thane Atrus – Henry Miller (The Antivirus)
The Anonymous – No True Izanami – No True Izanami (The Flirt)
Capfalcon – Aarun Duat – Jus Soli (White Night)
The Real:
1. SLyM
2. Langly - Orbit Nine
3. Anialos
4. Assuran
5. ObiFett
6. Cayrus
7. The Anonymous - No True Izanami
8. Bedlam - Maria Ghain
9. jdarksun - Minh Ha Des
10. Void Slayer - Izrail Poe
11. kime - Cassandra Ferriman
12. Alegis - Scratch
13. Retaba - Marie La Croix
14. REG Rysk - River Six
15. M.D.
16. TheRoadVirus - Thane Atrus
17. Rend
18. SaberOverEasy
19. stever777 - Jake Friday
20. Capfalcon - Aarun Duat
21. vagrant_winds
22. Smoove Operator
23. tastypastry - Vuokko Tuonela
24. Lucedes
The Veer:
1. SLyM - nyannyannyan:3
2. Langly
3. Anialos
4. Assuran - big rip
5. ObiFett - RENDDEAL.COM
6. Cayrus
7. The Anonymous - No True Izanami
8. Bedlam - ghain207
9. jdarksun - Glukk Cactuseater
10. Void Slayer - big bounce
11. kime - zero
12. Alegis
13. Retaba
14. REG Rysk - theatreum
15. M.D.
16. TheRoadVirus - Henry Miller - Victory
17. Rend
18. SaberOverEasy
19. stever777
20. Capfalcon - Jus Soli
21. vagrant_winds - big freeze
22. Smoove Operator
23. tastypastry - hope
24. Lucedes
Reserves:
1. MrTLicious
Day One
Day Two
Day Three
Day Four
Day Five
The End
much of what i discussed with langly is on the actual format of the game, stuff like actually deciding to do two roles
i didn't go like "so what do you think, 5 groups of 3 and four neutrals?" or whatever
basically the key word in that quote is "theoretical" not "setups"
langly's knowledge functionally extends to "double phalla" and seeing the OP before everyone else
Henri Emmanuel Gratien St Pierre in Where No Man Has Gone Before
Lord Augustus Cumberbatch in Eclipse Phase
I was wondering if youd ever do another :P
Upload!
It sounds really interesting. But I must admit, the "no victory after death" rule has be hesitating...
3DS Friend Code: 3110-5393-4113
Steam profile
Confusion will be my epitaph
Don't mind when the vote is closed, I'll be in bed way before either closing time.
I am in
@Rend - where you at brah?
Steam
I am going to vote for you for pha/lla inactivity though
just so you know
SANGUINE DOES NOT FORGET
I am so sorry, it was an immense mistake to sign up for that on finals week.
Signy
The Black Hole of Cygnus X-1
I grant you absolution on this Rend, because you are so awesome.
for you
The Black Hole of Cygnus X-1
<3<3
Confusion will be my epitaph
I promise to day 1 you rend.
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