PLOTTING POST: Panultima (tw torture/horror, exploitation)

[spoofer]

PLOTTING POST: Panultima

Posted February 2, 2018

Your Main Options

Hello team! it's time for another world hop. Per the latest mod announcement, we're having an off-world event starting February 5 with an IC announcement, with the main travel beginning the 8th, and ending the 20th. You have three main options in this plot:

1. Infiltrate this world of captalistic, slaver survivalists (see: The Hunger Games), who use the emotional anguish of a few to protect many.
   
   Your character's assignment is to carry research implants that will passively gather information about Panultima's unique technology, and potentially free captives. To do this, characters accept a role as either the master class or slave class within that world, at considerable personal risk.
   • Servus are the slave class. They are exploited primarily through the media, forced to participate in everything from soap opera style reality TV to the most famous type of all-- a gladatorial battle.
     
     The gladiators fight in an ever-changing, multi-terrain arena, under constant surveillance and broadcast, channeling the fear and rage from their interactions into fuel for Panultima. Killing and torturing other opponents is necessary for survival, but environmental challenges appear regularly as extra incentive. There are over one hundred servus in the arena itself, some of whom have lived there for years, gradually devolving into maniacs.
     
     
   • Primus are the master class. Funnily enough, their special privilege is that they get to lead normal lives. Assisted and protected from D.E.S.T.I.N.Y. by extraordinary technology, they farm food, operate transportation, build homes, and so on. Legacy and marriage are mandatory to remain primus. After all, most people are willing to do horrible things to others if it means protecting themselves, and the ones they love. Thus, infiltrators must participate in fake dating/marriage.
2. TRIPLE CROSS options, given we have at least one antagonist now, this is an optional assignment. D.E.S.T.I.N.Y. agents may engage in low-key sabotage, such as:
   • Exposing a Primus infiltrator as an imposter, and making them into Servus. It's up to you whether or not they know the betrayal will lead to only temporary danger; they may well think it's likely to result in death.
   • Run interference on a yet-unannounced sub-mission, preventing the other PCs from obtaining victory at this time. Details TBD.
3. OPT OUT, hang back in Xistentia and guard its borders, instead of participating in the world hop. The beach is where the others will be going.

Upon return on February 20, characters will reappear on the beach of Xistentia. The amount of intelligence gathered will depend on character participation.

More About the Arena

From a distance, the arena looks like black glass and lasers, sleek but artificial. However, step closer, and the reality generators kick in. It looks like a forest, filled with monsters and challenges and deep shadows. If you think it looks like a Hellish version of Xistentia's forest, you'd be right.

Before transport, F.A.T.E.S will have hacked into D.E.S.T.I.N.Y's system and added the infiltrators' names to it. Characters will need to act as though they belong. As with all others in the arena, their names and backstories will be advertised to viewers and presented as stage names and "fictionalized" origin stories.

Remember that the name of the game is infiltration. You aren't here to stop what D.E.S.T.I.N.Y is doing; you're here to spy, and bring back valuable information to help with the war effort. That may not sit well with the heroes among you, but it's for the greater good! We promise. We at F.A.T.E.S are very trustworthy. Anyway, the most important part of your mission is to ensure you get home safely with the information you've collected. Characters will have flexibility to behave however they choose. They are welcome to try and resist what D.E.S.T.I.N.Y is doing to them or to help others do so. However, resistance is likely to draw the enemy's attention to them and will carry dangers of its own. They may be plied with promises of privileges, drugs to make them obey, or threats to themselves or their friends - any and all, it's up to you!

If your character wishes to take the risk and free one of the Primus or Servus (i.e., new characters apping in), they must provide that character with an implant, injected into their arm. Note, however, this implant must be accepted consensually, otherwise it won't work! Persuasion is necessary.

If they are discovered as an agent of F.A.T.E.S., your character's own implant will be removed and they will be in danger of torture and even death. You are free to endanger your character as much as you see fit, but please remember that death is permanent in Xistentia.

A number of unsavory characters lurk in the arena. Among them:

• The bantam butcher, a fallen angel who earned a hilarious moniker when he turned on enemies for cutting off his wings and utterly destroyed them. He is the #1 champion of the gladiatorial arena so far, notorious for capturing and torturing his victims with blades and fire.
  
  
• Trapmaster, a polymath woman known to be able to hack the arena in some obscure way. However, she has given up attempting to escape. Instead, she creates horrible traps for other combatants-- her favorite being flash floods and plagues of flesh-eating ants.
  
  
• Baker Trio, because every horror story needs cannibals. They are known for fashioning aprons out of bizarre combinations of pelts acquired off their victims and hunting their prey in a team, failing to consider the day the operators will turn them against each other for the extra emotional juice.

You are free to RP confronting these NPCs, but please use the mod questions thread on this post if you would like to kill any of them (so that we don't double up).

Apart from that, Servus are expected to kill each other the old-fashioned way.

PLOT WITH ME

Feel free to use this handy dandy template to construct your own Panultima experience. Comment below with the completed form! Others can then use that to springboard thread ideas.

<b>Character Name:</b> <b>Character Username:</b> <b>Canon:</b> <b>Primus/Servus</b> Choose one... or both, if you're looking for a fall from grace or to rise! <b>Plans so far:</b> Fake married only? Combat? Are you open to torture? <b>Opt-out:</b> What do you NOT wish to RP?

Comments

[astralera]

Huh, I have no idea why I thought I read something about earning their freedom eventually being possible. Just read through stuff again and didn't see it fghjgf lmao ty for clarifying for my dumb self

[spoofer]

There as a brief mention of something like that here, but it's an elaborate, long-term undertaking for individuals. Few make it out, and within that, even fewer alliances would, at least not without extreme drama and injuries to one another.

[astralera]

One last question!

How does a Primus go about marrying a Servus who is in the arena?

[spoofer]

Petition, payment (a significant sum but it can be handwaved), signing various documentation to express understanding that the Servus' change in status will require another Servus to take their place. And as the Servus' first act as a free person, they will sign as well. There's a small (or large, as you prefer!) ceremony and such immediately after.

[astralera]

Standard Earth-type ceremonies?

And what sort of medical treatment would a former arena Servus expect afterward, if any? SORRY FOR A MILLION QUESTIONS. Q_Q

[spoofer]

Hi sorry, my reply didn't go through earlier!

The medical treatment is generally on par with what's offered at Xistentia. After a few treatments, a character who was severely injured would be at full health again. Era would notice several unique machines that seem to be in development as well.

And the ceremony is unique to Panultima, but does bear some resemblence to Earth ceremonies, including a presiding agent who makes the new contractual arrangement official.