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Salt-In-The-Wound
Planetoid
- Joined
- Mar 22, 2023
THRECIA
THE WORM OF THE END
THE EMPIRE OF ROT
THAT WHICH HIDES FROM THE STARS
THE CITY.
THE WORM OF THE END
THE EMPIRE OF ROT
THAT WHICH HIDES FROM THE STARS
THE CITY.
Introduction
The Duchy of Threcia
Homo Messis
The State of Threcia
Jakov Dobrovic
Out of Character
The Case of Haruk Berker
The Duchy of Threcia
Homo Messis
The State of Threcia
Jakov Dobrovic
Out of Character
The Case of Haruk Berker
Planet Earth: 2183
80 Years ago, the Earth was attacked by a mysterious alien species known as the harvestmen. Their one and only goal was to capture humans and melt them down into meta-material in order to perpetuate their own species. Though we fought their armies, their birthing ship spewed out endless more of their soldiers. Diplomacy was not an option, the current scientific consensus is that Human and Harvestmen methods of communication are biologically incompatible--our speech to them must look the same as the pheromone-based communication of ants look to us. All practical attempts to destroy the birthing ship failed.
So we glutted them. Offered them our cities, our people, everything. The ship ate its fill, but this was no tribute: It was poison. The ship was fed populations infected with every ailment mankind could devise. Prion infections, DNA damage due to radiation, tailor-made superbugs... anything that could damage a living organism. After eating around a billion of these souls, the ship grew deathly ill, and fell into the Earth below.
The Birthing Ship was of a size to be considered a Near-Earth Object. The crash sent massive waves to drown coastal cities, and the dust that flooded up into the air as shrouded the world in a perpetual winter that has not yet to this day subsided. It was the Apocalypse, but our enemy was defeated. In the following decade over 50% of the human race perished, these were considered unfortunate but acceptable losses.
The Order of the World had been dismantled. Entire nations had been wiped off the face of the Earth, The Ruins of Helsinki have just risen above the waters. If we are lucky, our children might see Amsterdam rise above the waters too. Winter is constant, local temperatures have not risen above 40 degrees since the Harvest. Any form of living besides hyper-dense urbanism is no longer sustainable or safe, The rest of humanity that remained gathered in large super-cities, to try and live out a life after the Harvest, where there was only winter.
These cities do not Interact much, They are trying to fix that, though it is very low on the list of priorities. Survival is much more important. This is the story of one of these cities. A city that is nestled in what was once known as Instanbul and her inhabitants. This is a city of Mankind: The Worm that Never dies.
The Duchy of Threcia
Population: Unknown, last census reported 363'456'000 inhabitants with a 59% chance for error.
The Duchy of Threcia spans from what was once called Instanbul to the Hinterlands of Former Bulgaria: Every inch of it an Urban Sprawl of unprecedented proportion. One of Earth's 14 cities still remaining in the world. Facing starvation, mutilation, or desecration out in the brush, everyone from Odessa to Armenia flooded to the city to seek its protection. Immediately, a precedent had to be set.
There are No Nations and No States besides the Duchy of Thrace. Flags were to be burnt, national Icons reattributed or demolished. Maps were re-written as apologia to the New Order, and dissemination of any Pre-Harvest material was met with steep punishment. The Duchy has no state religion, and does not discriminate based on creed: The comfort provided by faith was going to be necessary for hard times ahead.
In an Eternal Winter, one must become creative with Agriculture. Food is grown in massive hydroponics basins deep underground, or through other similarly light-less means of agriculture. Vegetables, Grains and Fruit are supplied in acceptable measure. Meat on the other hand is an issue: Fish stocks have somewhat recovered since the Harvest, somewhat being the operative term. Otherwise, the city has operations to create edible meat for the population at large. No it's not human meat--that would be too expensive for you.
The city is built on itself in many layers: A great hive of steel and concrete that anchors itself A mile deep into the Earth. Transportation is achieved by vast fleets of Civilian Aerial Vehicles buzzing around the hive like flocks of bees. This is only attainable for the well-to-do though, and the lower crust's only method of moving between the layers are the labyrinthine Inter-City highways. Transportation within the layers of the City are attained by civilian vehicles, or the massive and crowded monorails.
Nominally, the Duchy of Threcia is ruled by the Duke of Threcia. He shows up on broadcast fairly often, delivering news personally and offering words of encouragement to the civilians. There have been two Dukes of Threcia, Duke Tzimitzes I and his son, Duke Tzimitzes II. Don't say this above a whisper or else City Security might have an opinion about it, but people are starting to think that the Duke does not exist. Well, that guy in byzantine garb on the Holo is definitely real, but he's just an actor. People guess that he's just a face for us to project our praise or our admonishment onto, and the city is ruled by a teeming legion of clerks and bureaucrats, Afterall, one cannot seriously believe that one man rules a city with a 9-figure population?
Of course, everyone knows the city is really ruled by the Barons.
Baronies are Megacorps. The Aesthetics are just a bit different so the people won't be as depressed about it. Look, when the Harvest first happened, the primary concern was making sure there were people left to govern, so certain organizations were created and given SPECIAL ADMINISTRATIVE STATUS. Effectively, allowing them to operate as what can be referred to as Contracted Governors. This system was supposed to be temporary, but 80 years down the line and this special status just keeps getting reinforced time and time again. They style themselves as Royal Orders with a Noblese Oblige to ensure the welfare of the people, but that's just dress-up. They carve out vast swathes of the city to themselves and operate them personally, everyone who works a legal trade in a Barony works for The Barony. They pay taxes to the Baron, and all legal goods and services they purchase come from a vendor with a Barony License. They tried to mint their own currencies but the Duchy wasn't having it, everyone uses the Drachma for transactions.
Baronies style themselves after geographical regions. For Example:
The Barony of Thermopolis (Burgas)
The Barony of Byzantium (Instanbul)
The Barony of Nicopolis (Preveza)
So on and so forth.
Homo Messis
The Harvestmen aren't actually dead.
It's a bit of an open secret, you're not supposed to talk about it but there's no use in hiding it. The Birthing Ship did not die when it crashed into the Atlantic: It's crippled in a way that it can never heal from, and will probably die in the next few centuries, but it isn't dead. At an extremely slow pace, it continues to spew out more harvestmen, who burrow themselves into cities and try to kidnap humans for their bloody harvest. The Birthing Ship went from producing tens of thousands of harvestmen a day to a few hundred, the Harvestmen know that open conflict with the Homo Sapiens is a pointless endeavor, and thus attempt to conduct things in a clandestine manner.
One of the primary concerns of City Security is hunting down and exterminating Harvestmen. Obviously this is to preserve life and maintain the public order and all of that nice stuff you see on the Holo, but the other reason is they want their skin and their blood.
Blackbone is the name of the metallic exoskeleton of the Harvestmen. The elements that comprise it are a mixture of depleted post-uranium elements normally only found in the cores of stars and xeno-elements not yet recorded on the periodic table. The stuff has an extremely fascinating quality though. Make a box out of the stuff that's 1 cubic meter. Put your hand inside. You won't be able to touch the sides of the 100 meter cubic box you made.
Want to know how you can fit a population of 400 million people into an area the size of Maine? That's how. The stuff scales down as well--most residential structures in Threcia are made of a mixture of 1:100 Blackbone to Concrete or 1:100 Blackbone to Steel. This doubled the interior of any structure made out of this mixture. Fears of a space condensing if the structure was compromised to gory effect were unwarranted, it took a severe amount of damage for these structures to become compromised and if they did they merely collapsed, spewing everyone inside out.
Stockpiles of Blackbone were high after The Harvest, with millions of Harvestmen perishing in the conflict. However; that Stockpile has begun to run low, and hunting down clandestine harvestmen has become a much higher priority due to the necessity of Blackbone to continue urban expansion.
Still, it is known that the harvesting of humans is required for the procreation of the Harvestmen. Which has raised concerns, considering that Blackbone contains approximately 0% of any substance that was once part of a human body. So what are they harvesting exactly?
The Answer might be in their blood.
Blackblood.
Blackblood is the Ambrosia that runs in Aphrodite's Ichor. Blackblood is the wine that John of Patmos drank before he wrote Revelations. Blackblood is the juice of the fruit of the Mahabodhi. Blackblood is the shit.
Blackblood, more concisely, is the blood of the Harvestmen. There's more in their bodies than their exoskeletons should be able to hold, but that's par for the course with them. It's the color of starlight, black with streaks and vistas of blue and white and gold. When Ingested or Injected, it places people into a state known as Xenoglossy. In this state they gain memories that are not their own, can speak languages they never learnt, and can read the history of an area with a sort of prescience--and that's in addition to the general feelings of Euphoria and Contentment that come with it.
It's addictive, though, and the withdrawals are nasty. The Physical Side-effects aren't that bad, a headache and some mild nausea, but the psychological withdrawal symptoms are Intense. Psychosis, Ego Death, Major Depression, Paranoia... by the time someone's managed to fully kick the habit, it's probably fucked them up real good.
Of course, it's a fucked up world and people want an escape: And Blackblood makes Heroin look like Ibuprofen in comparison.
There's something we should rip the bandage off of, though.
The Harvestmen are Psychic. They do not communicate through any physical medium, instead appearing to communicate on a purely mental wavelength. We know this because human psychics, known as Xenoglossaries are being born from mothers who were frequent users of Blackblood while pregnant. These people have the power to Communicate Telepathically, Interface with Machinery mentally, read the history of objects by touching them and myriad other capabilities depending on the Individual--but this is only possible while they are in a state of Xenoglossy, which means having an ample supply of Blackblood.
Expectedly, City Security does not want this stuff on the streets. People find a way, though.
THE STATE OF THRECIA
There is a reason why it is called "City Security" and not "Law Enforcement."
The reason for this is that generally speaking, the Duchy of Threcia only has the survival of Mankind in its mind. It has no allusions to their welfare or that their day-to-day lives are happy or hale. It does not concern itself with being Ethically consistent or Morally sound. Everything it does is solely in the aim of ensuring that generations from now when the winter finally ends, humanity still persists, and then, when that day comes, considerations will be made for a more just and equitable society to be built. Not until then, though. Happiness is only given as a medicine, that the people do not completely lose hope and lay in the street and await death.
As a result, City Security is only concerned with precisely that. The Security of the City. Riot Control, Harvestmen Hunting, Uprooting Sedition, Confiscating Contraband--actually serving and protecting the average civilian is simply not a concern. That, in the eyes of The Duchy, is the responsibility of The Baronies.
If you are a person with a job in good standing with the Baronies, you're taken care of. You are a high priority for Barony Security, an asset they want to see protected. So long as you don't go slumming somewhere they don't have patrols, you can live a pretty normal life. Outside of that, though, your best bet are Community Militias, mostly consisting of volunteers who live in or around the same Arcology, or the Enforcers of the Myriad gangs who prowl in the filth of the city.
Outside of that, though, you're pretty much fucked. If someone shoots you dead in the street and runs away, nobody is going to try to get you justice. Hell, you'd be lucky if someone finds your corpse and brings it in for a proper funeral afterwards. If you don't have money for mercs or the favor of someone who does, you better be looking over your shoulder, because no-one's going to come and find you when shit hits the fan.
Of course, unless you pay them.
My name is
Jakov Dobrovic
Let's both be respectful of each other's time and keep this nice and short. I am a Private Investigator working for myself, taking cases that come across my desk. The address of my office is L098, A114, 5502, Barony of Thermopolis. I used to be part of City Security. I quit because I got tired of watching people get hurt and not being able to do a damn thing about it. I specialize in cases that have to do with the common people. I work mainly with gangs and public organizations that need me to root out a member among their midst that has done wrong, or get justice for someone they have to answer for. I'm not a hitman, and I'm no-one's spy.
I am 33 years old. I am 185 centimeters tall and weigh 95 kilograms. I do not have children nor have I ever been married. I do not have strong religious beliefs.
I do work for the Barons sometimes. This is mostly me investigating embezzlement, theft, or the murder of a subject in good standing that their security allowed to come into harm's way. I like to work for small people mostly, but I have to keep the lights on and food on the table.
In the course of my career a case has come up cold three times. One time was because the guy skipped town before I could get much of a lead on him, the second time was because It was someone a Baron liked, and he was protecting him--I'm still chipping away at that one, but it hasn't been easy. The third one I have no clue, Five people vanished without a trace from an Arcology and I do not have the faintest idea what happened to them: Still have nightmares about it to this day.
I am good at what I do. This is not due solely to some grand breadth of expertise, but due to the fact that I am a Xenoglossary. My mother was hooked on Blackblood while I was in the womb. Before I was 10 she passed as a result of a withdrawal. I'm not here to trauma dump on you, just putting my cards on the table. If you don't like Xenoglossaries, you won't like me. My condition allows me to perform my job at an extremely advanced level, and that's not an advantage I'm going to give up. If that's a dealbreaker, no hard feelings, and we'll both be on our way.
Consultation fee is 300 Drachmae. Non-Violent Investigations have a base fee of 500 and Violent Investigations 700. I charge 150 Drachmae for every extra day I'm on the case. If The Case comes up cold, however much I charged you, you get back in credit for my services. If you don't have that kind of money, I can currently afford to do 2 Pro Bono cases every month. It's a long waiting list though, so be aware of that.
I hope we can do business soon.
Scene
That last section ended the In character section of this request thread. Everything else is Out of Character. Greetings, my name is Salt, and it is good to meet you.
Immediately, let's make some considerations for the roleplay. I find this to be the most boring part of the Request Thread to write, so let's just get it out of the way as quickly as possible.
I consider myself to be a literate writer who writes an average post of 200-500 words, I can go easily over 2000 but prefer not to because it tends to tank the pacing of the roleplay. I would like to write as much as possible, but I have a busy life and I am sure you do as well. I will write as much as I can and I hope you do as well, but I hold you to no expectations and I would like to emphasize you should never feel obligated to post to this roleplay. This is supposed to be fun, not a chore.
For the sake of sanity my posts are 3rd person within the roleplay and they are past tense. The 1st person for Jakov's biography is a stylistic choice that does not represent the average RP.
This will be an NSFW, Semi- / Co- / Gm'd Episodic Roleplay.
What I mean by Semi or Co GM'd is this. We will write and brainstorm the plots together. Both of us will share the burden of playing multiple characters, with us deciding which characters to play and splitting the load between us. This sounds an awful lot like a normal RP, but the thing is, this RP is going to be Episodic. This is a Noir mystery based roleplay, That means that the story is split off into relatively small chunks, representing cases and mysteries that Jakov solves and concludes before going on to the next one. This does not mean that former established entities vanish, characters Introduced are still there and we can do whatever we wish with them. We will brainstorm the mysteries together, and write them together. A Sample Mystery will be included at the bottom of the Request Thread.
This is going to be an NSFW roleplay, there is going to be smut. I normally enjoy a plot that is either 60/40 or 70/30 plot-to-smut. I will include my kinks and limits below.
KINKS
Hotdogging
Titfucking
Lactation
Nursing Handjobs
Curvaceous Women** [Effectively a requirement. I'm not going to defend myself here, I just like girls with bounce to them.]
Passionate Partners
Casual Sex
Risky Sex
Aphrodisiacs
Incest
LIMITS
Gore
Vore
Feet
Filth
Scat
Musk
Extreme Bondage
Sexual Torture
Underage Characters
I thank you all for reading this, and I hope to see you in my PMs. Thank you.
-Salt
P.S. - Something to keep in mind is that all of the information in this RT is written IC from Jakov's perspective. None of it is outright lies, but he has his biases.
The Case of Haruk Berker
The Grey Wolves are a gang that operates in and around Arcologies 56, 57, and 58 of Layer 98 in the Barony of Thermopolis. Recently, a member of Barony Security that was an Informant to them--one HARUK BERKER has turned up dead in a warehouse 2 miles from where his home is. The last person who saw him alive was a prostitute of which he was a continual client, a woman by the name of SAFIYYA AKRAM*. Berker has a Wife and a Son named NEVRA* and NEBIL* Respectively.
Nevra admits knowing that her husband was visiting a prostitute. Nebil is 19 years old, and has a distinct rebellious streak, sneaking out to unsafe areas of the city. Berker's superiors do not know that he was acting as an Informant for The Grey Wolves. The Warehouse he was found in is mostly used for distribution of fuel and food to the nearby arcologies, The Grey Wolves use it to smuggle contraband. Leader of The Grey Wolves FILIP MATOV* claims that Haruk Berker was a valued asset, and they had no reason to want him dead.
Haruk Berker was on psychological leave after being involved in a shootout with a rival gang known as the 'Avar Kingdom'. Normally they take credit for assassinations of members of Barony Security, but they have not taken any credit for this attack.
This is all the information available now. Further Investigation Required.
*Names subject to change
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