The Shadow People

[The Shivering Shadow]

The Shadow People

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"There is no room for '2' in the world of 1's and 0's, no place for 'mayhap' in a house of trues and falses, and no 'green with envy' in a black and white world."

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Toril has changed. The sun went out. Darkness has fallen over us all. In the wake of the end times the furnaces of war blazed bright and a new world was tempered with the blood of the innocents, a new world, where only the strong and the merciless prevail...

... or do they?

In the cracks between walls, in hidden places, walking abreast these men of arrogance and might, humble, shivering shadows grew. And in the gears of their working zealots and extremists, warmongers and thugs, monsters and tyrants were crushed, disappearing overnight. While common men toiled over the tasks of their everyday life, they pieced together little by little the puzzle of their shattered reality, uncovering secrets long forgotten...

Intrigue
Paranoia
Fear

Ambiguity
Knowledge
Retribution

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The Shadow People have opened the way for a different dimension of roleplay, deeply intertwined with the thematics of the current setting while welcoming both a potential for heavy conflict and well characterized, high notch roleplay. Have you ever dreamed of playing a ritualist? Have you ever dreamed of playing an explorer of the deep dark? A cunning spy? An ubiquitous lore-seeker? A sure-fire, merciless assassin? A masked avenger? All of the above? Seek the Shadow People.

Due to their scale-of-grey morality, candidates to the Shadow People can be of virtually any alignment and race. Chaotic and neutral alignments are an excellent fit.

Sine qua non requirements to join:

+ Excellent roleplay.
+ Characters devised for a long run and/or who have survived for a long time.
+ Smart and discreet. A decent Int value (12/14+) is a must.
+ Capable of subtlety. Zealots of any faith and frontal attack revolutionaries are more likely to be on the kill list.

Recommended:

+ Stealth-focussed.
+ Non-dogmatic alignment or faith.
+ Think in terms of anti-hero or even better anti-villain instead of d&d alignment.*

How do I join?

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You do not. Statements of interest may be sent via PM if you think your character would be a good fit, but there is no 100% guarantee of joining; there is however a 100% chance of being noted and tested. Pre-existing characters and specifically tailored ones have on paper equal chances of becoming a part of the organization.

Final notes:

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The Shadow People are split on various rings of organization and partecipation. People in the lowest ranks are often unwitting of the nature and goals of the organization, or even better of the fact they are working for the Shadow People at all. The various circles have interlocking and increasingly complex goals as well as different degrees of involvement in plots, setting secrets and shenanigans.

Due to the nature of the organization, the Shadow People do not depend on DM interaction.  


WARNING:


To allow other players to enjoy this kind of RP in full, OOCly disclosing information about the number or name of members is strictly forbidden. So is any relevant detail, under any circumstance except the mention of former partnership in obituaries.

Members caught double-crossing or endangering the organization without room for interpretation might be executed without IG or OOC warning.

Save for exceptional cases, non member PC targets of assassination must receive IG warnings (however subtle) before being killed or must have been subdued for the same reason at least once. Anonymous letters, the "black spot", a horse head in their bed, you get the idea.[/I]


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[hide=* ]If you don't know what this means or need some examples:

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/SlidingScaleOfAntiVillains
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/AntiHero

To non members may also come across as:

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/WildCard

Alignment wise:

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/AmbiguouslyEvil[/hide]

[Vlaid]

This seems like a very interesting and unique concept for a group. If I didn't have a PC right now I'd definitely think about making something angling for membership.

[Tala]

A really nice post, and it looks like an awesome concept. One thing about it that irks me a bit is:

How do I join?

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You do not. Statements of interest may be sent via PM if you think your character would be a good fit, but there is no 100% guarantee of joining; there is however a 100% chance of being noted and tested.

I truly believe that because this is a very secretive group and with the nature of this concept as mysterious/assassins(?), something like this shouldn't be handled in any way OOCly.

I'm also not quite sure I understand it to the end, but to me it sounds like players can send you OOC PMs to express an interest in joining, then your PC will take notes of them and test them IC?

Again, this concept sounds really awesome, and I enjoy when players post their groups on here so others will know that something cool is out there to join. I just think that recruitment should be done only by IC means.


(I hope no one will be offended by this post, this is the last thing I meant to do here. If I didn't understand something, feel free to correct me)

[Unethical]

^Agreed on all counts. Furthermore, certain heavily dogmatic faiths such as Shar would fit perfectly. A blanket "no" to all faithbased characters, especially when you're working in those faiths' domains, seems a bit odd.

[Hound]

snip

It looks to me that was their intent; so as to say, you cannot OOCly ask to join but must instead inform them OOCly of your existence and then proceed to roleplay in such a manner that attracts the recruiter ICly.

[The Shivering Shadow]

Absolutely not offended, Tala. The project was born and so far furthered completely ICly, and the organization is already up and running. It simply seemed a good time to inform people that something allowing this kind of play-style exists.

If you look closely, you will notice that details concerning just about everything, including the actual goals, are missing.

That note you mentioned is there to prevent people from joining in an exceedingly OOC fashion, where rolling a fitting or tailored character would automatically equate membership, thus leading to the much dreaded "minion effect" (member PCs who never disagree).

Though, there might be noteworthy or really interested people out there. Giving a small bump and making us know you are out there is a way to make sure you won't be accidentally overlooked. In our opinion, this is an acceptable compromise between complete anonymity and complete OOC organization. This is also the reason why it is relatively one-sided.

It is somewhat inevitable that people prefer not roll characters they believe might wind up alone. It's worth letting them know that this is not the case.

PS: It's implied that "testing" will happen ICly and regardless of OOC PMs on people the organization took interest of. Statements of interest are also welcome to avoid shutting ourselves in an excessively rigid "clique" where only people belonging to circle x, y and z will have a chance to join.

EDIT, to answer Unethical. All faiths are virtually welcome, but due to reasons that will have to be discovered IG Shadow People pursue goals that can sometimes override individual belief/faith. Thus, excessively rigid zealots might have a hard time joining. However, no faith is explicitly banned.

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If only I had more time on my hands..

Additional 1000000 points for the Ravel theme-quote!

[Charnelist]

:)

[MaximumOverDrive]

*slow applaud* fascinating, wonderful, excellent. I'd suggest trying to get involved with this... or rather... Those having chars fitting to this.. Hoping to XD were I not playing my current Character azriel, better bet, this would be one of my interests. plenty of intrigue, mystery, well thought out goals and plotwork by the leaders, secretive yet active, not your average player-recruit faction. Definitely something unique. As to "excellent rp" that can be defined in many ways and by various standards, what may be good to another, could be bad to someone else. I'd avoid using terms like that, now I'd understand "in-depth character's" and "story-built characters" as that means that you have to put more effort than cranking out a pc, by working on their pc's details more strongly, yet using the term "excellent" is highly based on opinion, and by first view sounds rather egotistical, and like a superiority claim, course if thats what you were aiming for, alrighty, but i'd rather say... "Quality RP fitting to this concept" meaning if they were skilled at the particular rp of the type of character that would be in the faction.. Then again, i may just be misunderstanding what is meant by it, but that is bound to happen no doubt with a requirement stating it bluntly like that.

[rolaskatox]

This seems really cool. Is this still going on?

[Charnelist]

This is still going on, though it has evolved over time and taken some strange forms.
The best way to find these folks is to pretend to be one of them.

[The Shivering Shadow]

Still going on, yes. Quietly, but it is. I will remind that sending a PM  of interest is generally a good idea, since it is a good compromise  between being randomly selected and OOCly organizing the faction.