The Planet

Let's see if I did this right!

God name could be something like the Lord of the Stone Halls or the King Below? Which will make all the Tolkien readers in the cast go "...well, it's not *quite* the King under the Mountain..."

Where did they wake up?
Jordan woke up in a cave. They'd been spending the night in an expensive private room in a hostel in Berlin (the only rooms still open as COVID started to close things down; usually the cheaper dorm-style rooms are the way you want to go, as a traveler on a budget) and woke up...tucked away in the corner of a cave. It's a spectacular cave--stalagmites, stalactites, crystalline mineral growths in startlingly deep and clear colors, pools of dark water. Some of the mineral patterning in the walls glows, and it lights the cave at a late evening pre-sunset level. Despite the fact all of the growth seems natural and unaltered by carving, there's a definite, rather uncanny sense that it's laid out as a gathering place or receiving room. There's also only way way out--a tunnel lit by more of the glowing minerals.

Caves are on Jordan's list of "oh hell no," unless they're tourism caves where your chances of getting stuck or lost are very low, so their first reaction is to assume this is a claustrophobia-style dream, despite the cave being very large and open. When nothing immediately starts chasing them or transforming surreally into other things, they decide it's probably not a dream, and start moving carefully towards the tunnel, keeping to the edge of the cave and largely behind cover. Because usually when you show up somewhere portentous suddenly in fantasy stories or games, you do *not* want to step out into obvious arena-like open spaces. Unless you're ready for a fight.

Did they have to fight something to survive?
They didn't fight it, but as they were working their way across the cave, something that looked a bit like a six-foot-long albino moray eel with centipede legs slither-scurried out from the stalagmites on the other side of the cave. It had a whole lot of teeth and truly enormous pale, reflective eyes. Despite Jordan immediately holding dead still at the sight of it, it whipped its head their way immediately. And started scurrying towards them very quickly seconds later.

What did they use?
Without realizing it, they went invisible as they ran for the entrance of the tunnel that led out of the cave. Despite the fact they made quite a lot of noise while running (uneven rocks do not a quiet running surface make), they looked back as they were a few feet into the tunnel and noticed the creature looking their way but no longer heading towards them--stopped short as though something had startled or confused it. Jordan's conclusion at the time was that maybe it was actually sightless, despite the eyes, and the noise they made running didn't sound like whatever it had thought it was hunting.

What else have they discovered about the world?
Just the invisibility! (Or, if we're going by MMORPG mechanics, this would be something like a sneak or concealment skill; no one can see you unless they're about 10 levels more powerful than you are. At anything other than beginner levels, it probably means you don't make much noise, either.)

Who found them?
A relic seeker just at where the tunnel finally opened onto the outside world--someone willing to go a little ways into the cave to chip away unusual mineral fragments not yet taken by previous relic seekers. "Found" is a strong word; she had something invisible run into her headlong and then hit the floor roughly a few feet away, still invisible. After some cautious poking and prodding, the relic seeker decided it seemed to be a person and also seemed to have knocked itself out in the fall. She *also* decided this person was probably something more unusual than scraps of old magically-shaped cave ruins, and loaded them onto her cart and took them back to town. Or wherever she came from! After first tying them up. Which she hopes she did correctly because tying up someone invisible is a little bit of a weird process.

What kind of plots do you like?
Worldbuilding, slice of life stories, stories where relationships and character development are a focus. Adventures set against a big fantasy background but focused on a handful of characters doing their best under weird circumstances, who have a very limited scope of view on what all is actually going on. Transformation stories, particularly anything where changing/losing humanity is an unintentional or unforeseen part of doing what you think is the right thing (up to and including attempting heroic self-sacrifice that ends up with a character significantly less dead and significantly less human than anticipated). Uneasy partnerships, strange bedfellows, and oddballs having to work together and not liking it much at all. Characters developing found family over time. Chances to explore interesting natural landscapes or ruins.

Where did they wake up?
Cortlyn awoke lying face down in a pile of straw. A warm, heavy weight rested on the small of his back and meowed in protest when he shifted. Another two felines were pressed against his left side and didn't move. A fourth cat groomed his cheek. I don't remember going to sleep in a pile of straw, he thought. Or having cats. He petted the cat grooming his cheek anyway. The cat purred.

The last thing he did remember was turning on his computer and then heading to the kitchen to get breakfast.There did not seem to be a great deal of continuity between "walking through the hallway" and "lying in a pile of straw."

A horse whuffled nearby.

Did they have to fight something to survive?
Cortlyn rolled onto his right side, displacing the cat on his back, who gave another indignant meow and stalked away in protest. The two cats, a calico and an orange tabby, who'd been resting on his left side moved without comment to press against his front instead. He pushed himself up on one arm, and grooming cat -- a tuxedo with white paws and a blaze -- switched to licking the fingers of his bracing hand, pink tongue bright against his brown skin. Cortlyn used his other hand to pet the three available cats because, well, friendly cats, what else was a person supposed to do? He took stock of his surroundings. It looked like an old-style stable, the kind you saw in video games. The one his parents had taken him to for riding lessons years ago had been much more modern in construction. The floor in the stall he was in was uneven, the walls half-height, and a golden horse hung its head hung over one side, big brown eyes peering at Cortlyn and his collection of cats with interest. Three more cats were on the stall's ledges. One of them set to work grooming the horse's neck.

Who found them?
"Hoy, what are you doing in my stable?"

At the sound of the voice, Cortlyn twisted around to face the open stall door and pushed his dreadlocks from his face. "Uhh ... " An Asian woman with goat legs watched him, holding a pitchfork like a staff, with its butt against the ground. "I have no idea, to be honest." He wanted to ask 'why do you have goat legs?' but she didn't look impressed with him so far and that would be a rude question. He considered her instead.

What else have they discovered about the world?
Little white letters appeared over her head. They read:

Amelie views you kindly.
Don't even think about it. Amelie could annihilate you. You couldn't so much as muss her hair.

He blinked at the white letters, scrambling to his feet. The letters faded after a few moments. "I'm very sorry to be trespassing, though," he told the goat-legged woman. "If there's anything I can do to make up for it, I'd be happy to help out. Or I can just go. Sorry for the inconvenience."

What kind of plots do you like?
Relationship-oriented (romance, but also other kinds of strong interpersonal bonds). Slice of life drama. Non-violent solutions and making the world a better place through innovation. Antagonists with good intentions, so it's possible for you to talk them around, or them to talk you around. Exploiting loopholes in the system. Crafting. City/civ building.

Oh, forgot to include: I offer "The Bringer of Cats" for the cat deity's name.

Cortlyn wrote: ↑

Sun 12 Jul, 2020, 6:13 pm

Oh, forgot to include: I offer "The Bringer of Cats" for the cat deity's name.

Just FYI, forums let you edit your posts, so if you miss something you can just add it in. :3

Okay let's do this

Kyle: age 28 as of the moment he was isekai'd, living in Generic US College Town in Approximately 2020 Or So. Chosen by the God of Death (perhaps the Gatekeeper?) due to his fondness for necromancers and afterlife-related anime and granted what said deity thought would be familiar and appropriate death-keeper powers. In other words, the Gatekeeper thought the soul reapers in Bleach were Kyle's religious beliefs about the afterlife and helpfully styled his new role in a familiar way.

He woke up in the middle of the night, on top of a peaceful grassy hill in a field of peaceful grassy hills, which of course he has no idea are burial mounds. No hostile wildlife, but due to his place of arrival and strange behavior, they reasonably assumed he was a ghost or a zombie of some sort and tried to "put him to rest".

In a last-ditch attempt to get out of that mess, he accidentally triggered the Gatekeeper's medallion and poofed out of his body into his spirit form. The locals, seeing his body suddenly collapse inert, hastily buried him and he had to dig himself back out later with his sword scabbard.

So far, aside from "use the medallion to go into soulreaper mode and then touch his body to go back", Kyle's managed to find out that he gets a floating gauge indicator that shows where his body is when he's in spirit form, which slowly goes down over time, and combat log pop-ups. He's also managed to find his inventory, his general character stats screen and the complete absence of any information on why the hell he's here.

What kind of plots do you like?
A list!

• Adventurous band of misfits gets into trouble over their head
• Defeat Means Friendship(TM) endings to antagonist plots
• Plots where the initial impression of the situation turns out to be completely and deliberately wrong.
• Winning has unforseen consequences that come back to bite you
• For litrpg specifically: dungeon runs and boss fights which require strategy instead of just brute force

I'm also happy to play more social or political plots, as long as it's accepted that I'll be playing the kind of character whose two solutions are "talk about it" and "defeat them in combat to force them to talk about it". >.>

InspectorCaracal wrote: ↑

Sun 12 Jul, 2020, 8:26 pm

Just FYI, forums let you edit your posts, so if you miss something you can just add it in. :3

Ooh, thanks! I don't know why I didn't think to look for an edit button.

Where did they wake up?

By a campfire in the woods, off a small path but in a forest that seemed to go on forever.

Did they have to fight something to survive?
She needed to find a way to live past the first day with minimal supplies and tools, and she needed to save someone else's life along the way.


What did they use?
Hestia left her with a rucksack with some tools in it; we're going to say five tools. Each of them is very hearth-y, very farm-y. Each of them also has a magical element or can be used to channel magic within my girl here.


What else have they discovered about the world?
Crafting ability! She found this out when she got three unrelated things and it turned out they could be used to make a meal.


Who found them?
A poacher lost and very hurt in the woods. She used Hestia's Bandages to heal him partially.

What kind of plots do you like?

I don't know! Find the Thing, a little, but more Circumstances Bully the Protagonists Into Doing Something And Bonding.

Where did they wake up?
Saren not so much woke up, as he blinked his eyes when he disappeared from the forested park, and opened them standing in the middle of an ocean. The only thinking keeping him from falling in is two thin seaweed plants forming unnaturally stable pillars beneath his feet.

Did they have to fight something to survive?
The ocean was not calm, and Saren could feel that the wind was gaining in strength, making the waves bigger and bigger.

What did they use?
Saren immediately knew that the change of scenery was due to his god, so he reached out with his mind and found the seaweed pillars respond to him. By focusing his mind, he could make the pillars grow new branches, that could support his feet, and slowly but surely he was walking towards the coast through the growing waves.

What else have they discovered about the world?
He discovered that at the corner of his perception he could see a blue orb, and when focusing on it, he could see it clearly. At first it was growing strongly, but as he made the seaweed pillars grow, the glow was quickly subsiding. Once the glow was gone, the orb started loosing color from the top, as if it was a liquid sinking in a wineglass. He quickly gathered that it represented his magic energy supply, and stopped growing seaweed pillars when he saw that he wouldn't reach the shore in time.

With the last of his magic reserves, he made the last pillar form itself into a small boat of seaweed, and then passed out from exhaustion.

He didn't notice that the magic energy orb slowly started refilling once he stopped using magic. He also didn't know that the large amount of magic energy was an excess from the transportation, so the glow wouldn't come back, only the orb would refill by itself.

Who found them?
A while later a passing fisherman saw him asleep in the green boat, and fished him aboard his own vessel. The seaweed boat slowly started untangling and dissolving once Saren got a short distance away.

What kind of plots do you like?
Exploration; of lands, ruins, dungeons, magic systems - what's around the next corner, how does this thing fit together?
Intrigue; personal, political, small scale, laege scale.
Civ building, city building, village building, community building.
And I'm always a sucker for a Big Epic Quest, especially if it lets us learn new things or new kinds of magic/tech/ways to live together; the world is unraveling, how do we build a new one in the crumbling ruins of the old?

In any case, I'm new to this kind of story telling, and I haven't seen any suggestions here I wouldn't like.