The World Before... The path of a cosmonaut is not an easy, triumphant march to glory. You have to get to know the meaning not just of joy but also of grief, before being allowed in the spacecraft cabin. – Yuri Gargarin When humanity began to enter its golden years as a species, the world came across a sudden and desperate realization that war was no longer something that could continue if the human race wanted to survive. Treaties began to form between the nations that were and superpowers that had once dominated the world through their military strength began to slowly fade away in the back of everyone's mind as relics of an era long past. Those super powers, so ancient and old like the United States, Russia and China, saw themselves as the great protectors of the human race despite their differences and thus began the talks of how to form a government to rule over all present nations so that humanity could take into the stars. Drones, robots, medical technology; everything advanced under the banner of peace, prosperity and order amongst an endless sea of stars that promised humanity a brand new golden era that would amount to exponential times more heavenly than their current reign over Earth. They, for a time, believed themselves to be alone... alone to march triumphantly into the stars. Humanity had been foolish to believe that they were alone. When the alien menace known as the Nell came, they came with the blinding fury of a blitzkrieg and swept aside much of humanity's defenses in the first ninety-six hours of the war that would drag on for decades. Their tanks obliterated the most powerful weapons and emplacements that humanity had, their infantry seemed nigh endless and terrors and panics swept the streets; rampant and unchecked. Many from the more religious communities believed it to be the End Times. Many others believed it themselves and humanity found itself united in a new way. Where they had once been united in hope, prosperity and freedom they were instead united in mutual fear, ruin and slavery. Soldiers eventually ditched their rifles and advanced pulse weaponry for simpler black powder muskets and revolvers when the factories no longer made ammunition. By large and far; the manufacturing and quality control necessary to field modern weaponry had fallen to the point that modern weapons were often just as dangerous to their user as they were the enemies. Pilots withdrew from their jets and instead took solace in becoming once more the Knights of the Skies as they took to old biplanes that the alien missiles could not lock onto. Vehicles were discarded in favor of horses when fuel drew away at an all-time low once the alien threat began to bomb their fuel supplies. An all but broken world... and yet still... humanity fought on. Many surrendered to their fates at the hands of their overlords. Many suffered fates worse than death when they did not surrender. Many more chose instead to take their own lives rather than be subjected to the experiments upon their DNA that left so many others little more than broken husks that once were. And yet still... some chose to fight even long after the battles seemed fruitless while the enemy fleet taunted them so high above their heads where their gaze could not go. But liberty or death... that was the mantra of the Americans. And they lived up to their mantra even when the fire consumed almost their all... From the ashes arose many city-states that fell and fought over the course of seventy years. Those born before the war were either sealed away in cryogenic pods, hidden in bunkers or otherwise removed from the field of play in a desperate attempt to retain humanity. Some hoped against hope that the war was a passing moment or misunderstanding. Others hoped that the war was but a test of their religious might and yet more insisted that the war was nothing more than invasion though they knew not the end goals of the monsters that plagued them. When other civilizations found their militaries obliterated; they had no hope other than to surrender to their new overlords. The Americans, Canadians and a few smaller bands around the globe fought on with their civilian owned firearms and with scavenged military weapons for a time before they too eventually fell to the onslaught. Others took these supplies and ran away from the conflicts as far as they could. However, humanity is always so far from perilously flailing in the dark for some sign of an answer. A brave three hundred souls strapped themselves against weather balloons and waited for the day that their enemy made a grave mistake; breaching the atmosphere with their vessels. Because of the simplicity of the vehicles used against them their defense systems were found incapable of locking onto the weather balloons and instead found themselves watching as the pilots of those balloons boarded their vessels. Those volunteers fought bravely and pushed back the aliens inside the vessels inch by inch with their own blood and lives until eventually they managed to secure the ship’s reactor room. They detonated a portable nuclear device; sacrificing themselves in a blazing inferno that was so large it was nearly visible in all corners of the globe as a distant glow. As a result of their actions others rose up and began to take the fight back to the alien menace in the form of biplanes that got close enough to allow passengers to walk across the wings to the ships when they flew too low, more weather balloons, what few jets remained and even a few barely functioning nuclear missiles. When the last ship fell… they thought they were safe at last… and in desperation for seventy years humanity once again turned on one another to fight for supplies, food, water, land and ideology. Welp, hello folks! Don't mind the lore dump up there too much. We have ways of introducing folks into the world that don't know it and we're rebuilding our books anyways. But if you like post apocalyptic settings and table top games that have high lethality systems, step right up. We're free to play and we do not mind new blood in the slightest! In fact, we do kind of need new players to flesh out the community, bring things to life and perhaps eventually become game masters themselves (I know, boo and hiss that last part)! For this community, we do use discord for VC (let's face facts, r20 voice is far too glitchy and doesn't work very well). So, you'll need a discord in order to play. However, if you prefer to text while others talk, that's completely fine. We're a community that's a little rough and tumble... but in a good way. And a friend for us is a friend for life; no matter what. So come on in and face the apocalypse in a system where every dice roll could potentially be the end of that character (most of you folks will probably be fine). Face a world that does not shy away from the gritty realism that so many other games fail to emulate. Come in... and play Sojourner. What you can expect: - A community that does not accept shenanigans OOC. - A deadly game that focuses on intelligent decision making and realistic grit - Players that are friendly to one another... even if we rib one another constantly - A post apocalyptic world where your enemies look like ordinary people... except for the xenos filth... What you can not expect: - An easy, triumphant march to victory - A casual walk in the park - Gas. No, seriously, gasoline is precious. How to Join: Message me directly and leave a note here in the forum (because R20 has still yet to fix the glitch that doesn't send me notifications for the forum).
