Bliss Stage RPG: Alpha Stage

The year is 2016, and the Earth is under foreign occupation.

The invaders came without warning, seven years ago, and they conquered the globe not with a bang, but a whimper. Everywhere, adults simply closed their eyes and fell into a blissful sleep from which none could be awakened. Some lasted longer, fighting the Bliss until exhaustion took them at last, but within a week, almost everyone who was eighteen or older (and in some cases, younger) had Blissed Out, leaving only the children behind.

Many children, especially babies and infants, died in those first months, screaming themselves into starvation next to mothers and fathers who dreamed peacefully on. Other, older, kids killed themselves or each other, just trying to keep the world's machines running. Wildfires, started by a malfunctioning powerplant, ravaged most of California, allowed to burn without opposition for the first time in a long while. Floods became prevalent, with no one to adjust dam outflows or river locks...in most cases, no one to even /know/ that such things needed to be done.

And then, the invaders came. Dreams were filled with alien music and the sensations of a deep and all-encircling sea, and translucent, gel-like behemoths swam through the skies and sea alike. Where they passed, their song called to the refugees, and those who followed the song fell into Bliss, no matter their ages.

Two years ago, one small gang of children, led by a woman who'd managed to keep the Bliss at bay through drugs, work, and sheer dumb luck, managed to bring down one of the alien drones. From its body/chassis/mind, she was able to create ANIMa, a weapon to fight the aliens, to delve into the other world they inhabited and bring them to bay. With feverish hope, she threw anyone she could manage into ANIMa training...at first, getting only madmen and corpses back. Trial and error revealed the need for an anchor to hold the pilot to the real world, and give them a way 'home'. Now, there exists a small squadron of fighters: twelve children and the adult who's willing to kill them if it'll save the world.

Their base encompasses twin stadiums in Seattle, surrounded by flood waters that have yet to recede. Suze calls them Alpha and Beta, but they probably have other names among the children. Alpha Base has barracks, training rooms, classrooms, supplies, and an armory, and is the heart of day-to-day operations. Beta Base is...well. That's a good question, because Suze doesn't let anyone inside. She says that it's more supplies, but if so, no one's every been sent to get anything from there, no matter what they get low on.

The surrounding territory is ruled by gangs of children, who constantly squabble amongst themselves for territory and supplies. Food isn't really in short supply: a remarkable number of window and mini gardens have been preserved, and empty lots are usually turned into a gang's place of pride. Although there are easily two dozen gangs roaming the Seattle streets, two of the most notable and powerful are the Brats and the Raths.

The Brats (short for Navy Brats), are the children of the sailors stationed at Bremerton Naval Base. When the Bliss came down, the kids locked themselves inside, refusing entrance to anyone who didn't have proper military ID. They expected to be rescued shortly, convinced that no matter /what/ was going on, the government would need the military base, and thus come back and wake their parents up. It never happened, and after a while, the kids took matters into their own hands. You still can't get on Bremerton unless you have a military ID (although the kids have made 'updates' to the ones they hand out to new recruits), and joining the Brats means going through a Basic Training regime dreamed up by angry, scared thirteen year olds. 'Real' Brats have senior status, and the base is run by Captain Smith (his parents used to call him 'Greggy'). All the adults are stacked up in some of the emptied supply warehouses, and one of the few things that the Brats do for free is store bodies: if a kid Blisses out, or someone finds an adult, they can go to Bremerton and have them put somewhere their throats won't get slit. The Brats do a brisk trade with other gangs: they're generous with weapons, but downright stingy with ammo. There are rumors that they're trying to get the submarine base functional again, but at the moment, no one among the kids has the know-how to do anything more than accidentally sink one (which has happened).

The Raths are what the rest of Seattle calls the Meek. When the Bliss came down, Rev. Daniel Pierce of Mars Hill Church knew what had happened. Okay, so the Rapture was actually a /spiritual/ rapture rather than a bodily one, but he knew that he had been left behind to gather up the lost children and teach them the Way and the Hope in the times of the Tribulation. In the first months after the Bliss, he offered shelter, comfort, and a potent cocktail of apocalyptic spirituality to the children of his congregation. As the time went on, he eventually began offering the little girls of his flock something else. About two and a half years after the Bliss, his newest 'bride' when to her marriage bed with a switchblade. She claimed to be baptized in the blood of the holy, and reborn as the Lamb, a wild-eyed child prophet who gave her kids new marching orders. The Meek stalked the streets, finding the Blissed and bringing them back to help their flock also become Baptized in the Blood. The Lamb is now 16 years old, and has instituted a canon of militant prayer, and a belief that the Blissed are dead, in every way that matters, and that cutting the throat and burning the body simply helps them reach Heaven at last. The Raths don't trade much, and they're constantly looking for ways to get into Bremerton Base: the preserved Bliss victims are a hideous sacrilege to their faith. Other kids, they mostly ignore, unless the kid shows interest in joining them. However, they're openly hostile to the ANIMa project, both because it's led by an adult, and because they believe that the project is tampering with God's Will.

At Fade and Pip's suggestion, here's a page specifically for characters.

Each player will have three characters that they 'own': a pilot, an anchor, and a support character. Please note that all characters--but especially the support characters--can be traded to other players for a scene or storyline as it becomes appropriate. I suggest that this not happen very often with pilot characters.

Also, when putting out your pilot character, please include what kind of anchor relationship you're looking for, so that we can start hooking up pilots with anchors.

Note: Anchors have as good-as-it-gets training in psychology for the circumstances, and might also have training in medical or tech areas. When thinking about an anchor character, keep that in mind. Pilots have natural talent: they might have been lucid dreamers, or perhaps they have an 'affinity' for the aliens, or maybe they're just adept at forming and strengthening relationships int he real world. Support characters, of course, have a variety of backgrounds and talents.

Tips and General Advice:

1. Keep in mind that your pilots, based on their template, have preset relationship values, while your anchors and support personnel do not. So I recommend that when considering relationships, you work from your pilots, down.

2. All pilots should have a relationship with at least one anchor (but it could be more!) and the Authority Figure.

3. Both sides of a relationship have to agree to the relationship, and it's the same value for each of them. For pilots, this means that you'll have to match Intimacy and Trust ratings, as well as stress ratings, if you have a relationship between pilots. Also, please keep in mind that an intimate relationship does not have to be either positive or sexual (yes, the rulebook defines Sex for Intimacy 5, but I'm going to say that we can substitute other appropriate bonding activities for other relationships), so rivals, objects of envy, or enemies all count as good relationships.

4. Someone must play these relationships. Remember, you're working together to create anchors and support personnel, and these aren't NPCs, they're PCs. So be sure to keep that in mind when working out pre-existing relationships: request rather than state, and if there's something terribly specific that you want, try to get someone excited about playing that kind of character. Also, look at what other people have already started on, and see how your characters can fit into that framework as well. You may not get exactly the first relationship you're thinking of, but you bounce ideas off each other, you'll most likely come up with something fun.

Yet Another Note: The books says that one of the pilot's strongest relationships should be assigned to their primary anchor. I'm cool with that, but if a pilot and an anchor decide to assign a less powerful relationship, I'm also okay with that. Just make sure that you understand that the Pilot/Anchor relationship is the one that's /always/ at risk in a mission, and that if the Anchor relationship breaks, 'screwed' doesn't even begin to cover where you are.

CHARACTER ROUNDUP

Fade

Pilot: Kat - A 16-year-old kid with the reflexes to be a pilot and enough caution to not use them without thinking about it first. He's quiet, thoughtful, and tends to sort of roll into bed with other people without ever wanting to make it a Big Deal. He's more alert than he seems to be when acting all laid-back and devil-may-care.

Relationships: Twin Brother Kit, Suzanne

Looking for: The Hypotenuse in a love triangle: a girl in love with him who is in turn loved by Kat. (Potential compromise: start out at a lower level than 'head over heels' and just a girl with attraction for Kit, who Kat is attracted to?

Also looking for Anchor.

Anchor: Jacob (Jake) He's the kid brother of the Authority Figure. He really wants to be a pilot, but for one reason or another, he just doesn't have what it takes to be one. Maybe it's that he's so much better as an Anchor, it would be a waste to make him a pilot instead. Maybe it's that even she has some family feelings, and doesn't want to put him in the way of danger. Even he's not sure which.

Relationships: Suzanne, Chloe (his pilot)

Support: Kate - Kate is an overly cheerful--one might even suspect desperately cheerful--fourteen-year-old girl who believes in Happy Thoughts and vitamins and drawing smiley faces on casts. She's determined to play morale officer too, whether people want her to or not.

Relationships: None at the moment.

Etherjammer

Pilot: Chloe - Chloe's mother was a lawyer for Legal Aid, and Chloe's experiences watching her mother work have colored her perception of how work should be. Although she's only 15, she's thrown herself into piloting with as much zeal as her mother ever mustered; she doesn't care about thanks or adulation, just about doing something she's good at that can help other people. Outside the ANIMa creche, Chloe is reserved, and spends more time with old tai chi and aikido DVDs, played back on an aging, battery-powered portable DVD player, than she does with her crechemates.

Relationships: Suzanne, Jake (her Anchor)

Looking for: Player shows interest in having someone take a Best Friend/Training Partner, and someone playing a Kid Sister. Best fit for a Best Friend would be one of the other Pilots, so please consider this if you're looking to round out your pilot's relationships.

Anchor: Liam - Cork native, was visiting relatives in the United States with his family when the aliens struck seven years ago. Since then, he's retreated into academics and an active imagination to help him cope with being in an utterly foreign country, especially since his sister, two years older than he, disappeared on a food raid three years ago. Liam devours books about mathematics and about fantasy worlds, and both of those helped him decide that anchoring was his calling in this new, devastated world.

Relationships: None, yet.

Looking for: Pilot!

Support: Grace - Grace loves to be around people - she's just easily distracted. Her idea of a great time is taking apart someone's watch at a cocktail party, preferably while the owner watches so they know how to do it too. She's particularly enthusiastic about teaching other people about how mechanics and electronics work - even if they don't care or understand. (She won't push it if they don't want to learn, but she'll cheerfully babble at anyone who shows even slight interest.)

Relationships: None yet (Grace would be an excellent hook for most of the Pilots; she's going to be at /least/ on Intimacy 1 with just about all of them, due to testing and such.)

Shadowfey

Pilot: Kat - Friendly, a flirt who flirts to try to hide the depths of his attachment, Kat gets thought of as being as casual as his brother. In reality, he's more sensitive than he lets people see, and he tries to hide this by joking around even under serious conditions.

Relationships: Kit (twin brother), Suzanne.

Looking for: An Anchor, and the Hypotenuse mentioned in Kit's writeup. Keep in mind that since y'all are looking for something pretty specific, you're going to need to work closely with another player to develop something that everyone can live with.

Anchor: None yet.

Support: Marte - Marte (pronounced MAR-tah) was always the kid in the back of the class reading fantasy novels and drawing elves and making maps of fantastic and far-away places. Carrying a Trapper-Keeper with unicorns and rainbows on it even in eighth grade meant that she was doomed to never be one of the Cool Kids. The arrival of the Bliss and the aliens didn't exactly change that.

Fortunately, her map-making skills and her tendency for wandering have come in handy in the after times. She still keeps binders of notes, and her old Trapper-Keeper with its made-up maps has a prominent place in her heart. Now though the binders come from the wreckage of an Office Max and her maps are carefully made on grid-paper with copious annotations, kept in plastic sleeves.

She isn't cool. But she's not easily replaced instead. That's better than being cool.

Relationships: Pip's Scrounger

Damselfish

Unfortunately, due to RL concerns, Damselfish has withdrawn from the game.

Pip

Pilot: Daniel was one of the first volunteers into the machine. Twelve years old, he'd been tagging along with the group. He always had vivid, vivid dreams; he still keeps a dream notebook (Suze's idea).

Since then, he's seen more than one kid die fighting the aliens, and he's tired. Tired and bitter and angry, but he really doesn't know much of any other life. He may resent Suze, he may hate her some nights, he may not think she's going to figure out how to win this war -- especially after seeing a young kid get thrown into the ANIMa two years ago and chewed up and spit out within three missions -- but he follows her. It's a love-hate relationship, with occasional screaming and slamming doors.

Daniel can be a bit of a bully to the other members of the group; scared of losing more, he tends to berate them. He thinks it's for their own good; if they can't stand up to him, they'll be devoured alive once they hit the Dreamworld.

Relationships: Suze (co-dependent, I4/T2)

Looking for: Needs an Anchor, particularly one who can put up with him.

Anchor: Felicia's the newest Anchor, 13 or 14 years old. She's not entirely certain, and it's hardly like anyone still has records anymore; so she usually says she's fourteen to make herself seem older. Freshly trained in whatever manner there is, she takes the job very seriously -- probably too seriously. (Felicia is Driven.)

She's trying very hard to act as adult as possible, and this probably can get her into trouble. She doesn't want anyone to think of her as "just a kid."


Support: Troy - Troy's actually one of the oldest in the group, at seventeen years old; he ended up connecting with the group and was one of the original members far back when, when he was an eleven-year-old kid following a gang leader around.

Too obsessive and self-focused to make either a good anchor or pilot, instead Troy's found his niche by putting his single-mindedness to work as a scrounger. He spends much of his time out scavenging abandoned buildings; he'll search every nook and cranny in a building until he's turned up everything that's in it, from abandoned things left in closets and never raided to things carefully hidden away.

When he's not out scavenging, he's usually counting the inventory, writing it all down in cramped chicken-scratch on some bit of paper he managed to find. He doesn't talk much to people.

Relationships: Marte (confirmed), others (potential)

Cally

No characters posted yet; not sure if Cally still plans to play.