This chart is intended to plot out aspects of the future game Dark Realm Incorporated.
Storyline: Dark Realm Incorporated is intended to be a post-economic revolution world where powerful industries double as the ruling government. The head of each Game Master-run (Game Masters will be known as Executive Presidents) industry will preside on a ruling council that will meet and discuss pertinent issues ranging from gameplay issues, player issues, class and race issues, and even laws of the realm. The realm will begin small, as to be expected of a fledgling MMORPG (Massive Multi-Player Online Roleplaying Game) and will only contain two ruling industries. First will be the namesake of the game, Dark Realm Incorporated, ran by Moonblade, and second will be Norseman Industries, ran by Loki Laufeyiarson. As the game is expected to be designed with a world that can be added to as the player-base grows, it is expected that the ruling industries will grow also. Explanations of the beginning industries will be given below.
Gameplay: The game will be set in post-modern times and will closely resemble a first-person shooter. There will be different classes and races that the player can choose from, as well as body types and choice of clothing worn. The only statistics that will be kept on the player will be player-level, strength, inteligence, stamina, dexterity, and karma. All skills, such as ability to hack computers, or pick locks, will rely more on the player's skills, rather than a statistic of the character. Players will have the option to cybernetically enhance their bodies, thereby increasing their stats. To some classes, however (psychics), this will not be advised, since cybernetic implants will have a negative effect on karma. Class and race explanations will be given below. Each account will be allowed only one character. If the player wishes to have more than one character, then the player must subscribe to more than one account. The setting will be a major metropolitan area, ranging from skyscrapers and apartment high-rises to slums and sewers. All vehicles will be owned by the ruling industries, and are useable by the player only on official industry buisness. The player will be chauffered, and will have no control of the destination of the vehicle. Each account will be assigned an in-game "cellular telephone" that they may use to contact other players while in-game. The only source of money will be from the industries. Money will be a form of electronic currency that is kept track of by Norsemen Industries. When a player purchases an item, the appropriate ammount of credits will be automatically subtracted from their account. Player-to-player purchases must be handled via ATMs, which will provide a form of secure trading. The game itself is intended to be a real-time 3D game giving the player the choice of either a through-the-eyes perspective, or over the avatar's shoulder view.
City Law: The world will consist completely of one giant city. It will be assumed that the rest of the planet is uninhabitable, due to polution, and that the city resides under a giant dome. As the city grows, so will the dome, and players will not be permitted to venture beyond the dome. The laws of the city will be enforced by the city militia, which is employed by Dark Realm Incorporated. The only real law will be no murdering. players must settle disputes through hand-to-hand combat. A player that kills using a weapon durring a corporate raid will not be considered a murderer. A player that kills through hand-to-hand combat will be considered a murderer. A player that guns down another player or an NPC in the streets for no reason will be considered a murderer and will be marked as shoot-on-site by the city militia. The only way a murderer will be able to avoid the city militia will be to escape to the slums, where the militia do not patrol often, or the sewers, where the militia do not go at all. The penalty for dying as a murderer will be to lose all cybernetic implants and credits. Murderers will not be eligible for employment, nor will NPCs sell them items. It is felt that there is ample chance for player-versus-player gameplay through corporate raids, and therefore murdering will carry these strict penalties. Also, murderers that access their bank accounts will tip the city militia off to their imediate location.
Dying: When a player comes to an untimely death, their character will be resurected at the cost of 100 credits and half the items they have on their person at the time of death. The storyline to explain this will be as follows: Every character has a small cybernetic implant installed at birth which monitors vital signs and location of the character. In the event that the player's vital statistics reach a low point, the implant is able to sense the eratic vital signs and will automatically begin temporary life support procedures while simutaneously sending out an emergency locator beacon to emergency crews who will then retrieve the body and take the necesarry steps to restore the character to full operational status. Half the items on the characters body will be pilfered by the woefully underpaid emergency staff.
Making Credits: The only way to make any form of currency will be to work for one of the ruling industries. the industries will pay a base weekly salary, plus a bonus for completed missions. Missions can be assigned at any ATM or through a computer terminal furnished in the lobby of a building owned by the employing industry. Missions will range from seek-and-destroy style senarios to hack-and-find selected computer files. Missions will be generated randomly, and will vary in difficulty. The player will not be penalized for failure to complete a mission. The only penalties are the ones that come with death. Players may pay other players for aid, or services rendered, or found items. This will be handled through ATMs. Paying for services rendered will, obviously, be risky. The only other way to make credits is to hack into fictional bank accounts. The risk involved is to get caught and be forced to pay back double what was stolen. Remember, transfers of large sums of money usually attract unwanted attention.
Industry Explanations:
Dark Realm Incorporated
Dark Realm Incorporated is a weapons testing and manufacturing company. They own and operate every company that deals with weapons in any way, from the city militia, to the local gun pawn shop. They mainly employ from the gunman and hacker classes, but will also cater to the cat burglar class. They distrust the psychic class, since psychics rarely use guns, and then only small firearms.
The Executive President is Moonblade (name subject to change), who is rumored to have a cybernetic arm for the sole purpose of supplying enough strength to hold a massive gun. He is a fair executive, albeit with a temper. He posesses some psychic ability.
Norseman Industries
The backbone of the technical side of Dark Realm. If it lights up, beeps, hums or whirs, it probably has the stamp of Norseman Industries on it somewhere. They are the Secret Service of the power grid. They are the Men in Black of every computer terminal. They are Big Brother's Big Brother. They manufacture every ATM, computer terminal and cybernetic implant in existence. They even have Moonblade eyeing his right arm with suspicion. They organize the sole mandatory banking structure. They employ mainly hackers and burglars, and cater to psychics, but are not adverse to hiring gunmen for added muscle.
Executive President Loki Laufeyiarson is a little hard to explain. He seems to be the culmination of every peice of experimental cybernetic prototype in existence... with hair. It is whispered (behind his back and way out of earshot... can't trust those cybernetic ears to not hear you) that Loki was never human at all, but an experiment in Artificial Inteligence that's taken on it's own life. Some even say that the hair is merely a wig worn in a delusional effort to make him appear human. The REAL mystery about Exec Loki is how, with all the cybernetic implants, and the rumor of not being human at all, he has psychic ablilities, even if they are only mediocre.
Others
There is plenty of oprotunity for other industries to take hold in Dark Realm. Department of Sanitation and Air Filtration, for instance. As the player base and city grows, so will the needs of the industries, and so will openings for more industries.
Races
Human
For now, I have slated five races to choose from in Dark Realm Inc. Naturally the first, primary, and most well-rounded, are human. Humans are well suited to most any task.They also have the distinct advantage of having designed the world. Humans, no matter what class they actually occupy, are well suited to do most anything. It's not unusual for a Gunman to pick a lock, for instance. Most also posess a small measure of psychic ablility that can be exercised to a great degree to make them powerful Psychics. They're body-type may range from very thin to very muscular to even very obese. Being considered the first race to inhabit the planet, and the strongest race to date, they are usually looked upon with contempt by the other races, although never openly.
Krepp
The krepp are the remains of the war that laid waste to the planet's atmosphere. They are the ultimate in genetic manipulation. They were the footsoldiers... the cannon fodder of the war. Standing upwards of seven feet tall, pound-for-pound, they are about twice as strong as the average human. This is saying alot, since they usually outweigh humans by at least one-hundred and fifty pounds. The only thing that keeps them from going into a complete rampage, sometimes, is the knowledge that the city militia can paralyze them with the push of a button, should they get too out of control. Krepp are best suited as Gunmen, due to their massive amount of strength. They posess no psychic abilities whatsoever. Due to their low inteligence, they make very poor Hackers, and their sheer size and weight make them unsuited as a Burglar. Their apearance is usually very muscular and covered with a fine fur, the color of which varies. Their facial features are quite cat-like, with fangs and whiskers. They see better in the dark than any other race, and favor cyber implants to enhance their already formidable phisical attributes.
Bol
Also the result of the genetics war, these small, descidedly simian, beings are now the working class of the city. They are the technitians and computer geeks. Rather than being the standard bipedal humanoid-type being, they actually have hands for feet, giving them four hands to work with. This, understandably, makes them very agile creatures, and allows them to climb almost any structure, making them the most proficient Burglar race in the city. They are also very adept at computers, having a moderately-high inteligence threshold. In contrast, they are very small creatures, and corespondingly fragile and weak. They are able to carry small firearms, including most pistols, semi and fully automatic, and some of the smaller rifles. They have a very small measure of psychic ability. Apearance-wise, the bol usually shuffle around on all fours, not unlike an ape... in fact, they look quite like an ape. They normally limit cyber implants to those that will augment their technical abilities.
Wis
The wis are interstellar refugees. They fled to this world to escape some catastrophic event... nobody really knows, nor cares enough to ask, and even they have stopped caring why they came here long ago. They are treated with great contempt by the other races, because resources are scarce enough without having people come here to take up even more. They appear pretty much as any thin humanoid would, except for a descidedly disturbing grey cast to their skin, and their almond-shaped black eyes. They posses great psychic ability, and are better suited to this class than any other race. They also make good Hackers, given their high inteligence level. The fact that the other races of this planet uses cybernetic implants disturbs the wis, since cybernetics limit psychic ability. They only allow the mandatory emergency life-support implant under extreme protest.
Changeling
There is one other race that is a complete mystery to most. Their existence is well known, but very hard to prove. Most just call them the changelings. They don't really have a particular player class, or player level. They don't even have a particular form. Upon defeating an enemy, they are able to possibly take that enemie's form, be the enemy a simple sewer rat, or a mighty krepp, and their bodies are even able to mimic any cybernetic implants the victim may have had. Along with the form, they also gain the victim's statistics and atributes, but none of the items the victim posesses. if the victim was a hacker of great accomplishment, the changeling may also gain the ability to hack for as long as they hold the form. Once a form is taken, it can be reused as many times as needed, unless the changeling is killed in that form, in which it will revert to a liquid form, abandoning any items that they may be carrying, and drain away to a safe area where they may take up any of their other available forms. If they do not have any available forms, then they may try to trap a sewer rat or other small animal to gain a form to start over with. Changelings will level up, but instead of the level affecting their stats, it will affect their success at assuming new forms. This system will be explained in detail later.
Cybernetics
There are several different forms of cybernetics. Cybernetics can be used to enhance almost any physical attribute, but they come at a price and a cost. The price, understandably, is the credits that could have taken the citizen many months of hard work to acumulate just to be able to afford the arm. The cost is available karma. Karma is how a psychic measures his/her psychic ability. The higher a citizen's karma, the more powerful a psychic that citizen is able to become. If the cost of an arm takes away a psychic's ability to throw up a psycho-kinetic bullet-proof wall, then maybe the cost of that arm is too high. Wis pay double the karma penalty for cyber implants.
Cybernetic Eyes: Usually one of the first implants most burglars want. There are two types of eyes, for now. One type has the effect of magnification. This could help a Gunman durring a snipper mission. The other type is able to automatically sense the light level of a given area and turn on a form of nightsight when the levels are too low.
Cybernetic Arms: Obviously used to enhance muscular strength. The tips of some fingers can be modified to hold certain tools, such as lock picks.
Cybernetic Legs: These are very pricey implants. Both legs must be replaced at the same time, since replacing only one leg would obviously throw off the patient's ability to walk correctly. They are designed to increase the rate of movement, and allow the patient to jump down as much as three stories without suffering injury.
Cybernetic Torso: More of a suit of armor for vital organs than anything. The organic torso is stripped away in a very dangerous operation and the vital organs and bone structure is encased in a surgical stainless steel case that is enhanced with cybernetic muscular networks. Given the fact that the course of this operation makes it impossible to retain any organic limbs that may still exist, this is usually the last step in any cybernetic enhancement operational series. In most cases, the torso is so heavy that it nullifies about half of any strength gained through other cybernetic enhancements. Only armor-piercing ammo will puncture a cybernetic torso. The most common race to undergo this procedure is the krepp.
Cybernetic Heart: The organic heart is removed and replaced with a very complex pump. The cybernetic heart is much more reliable and stronger, but it also carries the largest karma penalty.
Cybernetic Central Processing Unit: Serves many different purposes. It is a small chip that is implanted inside the cranial cavity and connected straight to the brain. It helps other cybernetic implants coordinate their actions with each other and the host body. It is very popular among Hackers, since it also allows a terminal user to "jack" straight into a computer terminal, and bypass many user interfaces that are slower. This implant has the second highest karma penalty. Pairing this implant with a cybernetic heart will render the average wis powerless, so it is not recomended for psychics.
Cybernetic Emergency Life Support Homing Beacon (CELS): The pride and joy of Norseman Industries. Mandatory implant for all Dark Realm inhabitants. This implant monitors the vital signs of everyone it is implanted in. In the event that the host is mortally wounded, the eratic vital signs alerts the CELS unit, and CELS will automatically start emergency life support, while summoning emergency crews. It is to Norseman Industries' credit that CELS has yet to lose a patient. However, this implant is also rumored to allow Norseman Industries to track any one person at will. This has the Executives at Dark Realm Incorporated understandably very nervous, but they can't deny the advantages of the life-saving abilities of the CELS unit. The only race of people that are not equiped with CELS are the changelings and, well, they don't really need it, since they are able to revert to a liquid state and escape danger.
Player Classes
The presence of player classes is not meant to limit a player in their abilities. It is only meant as a guideline as to the salary of the player's character when employed by a corporation. The employing corporation will hire the citizen based on stats alone. If a citizen's stats are best suited to that of a psychic, then the citizen will be hired as a psychic. If at a later date the citizen's stats change to be more suitable as a hacker, then the employment status of that citezen will be changed. Some races are better suited to certain classes and are not suited to some classes at all.
Gunman: The Gunman is the driving force behind any corporate raid. In Dark Realm, a hostile takeover can be very hostile... even bloody. In most cases, when a group is breaking into a building on a mission, they will wish to attract as little attention as possible. In the event that an alarm is tripped, or they are noticed, however, the Gunman can be a very welcome presence to the party. Gunmen are recomended to have very high strength, stamina and dexterity. Inteligence is helpful, but not a must... you don't have to be too bright to point the black shiny thing and squeeze the trigger. Since the Gunman is usually the front line of any confrontation, they prefer as many cyber implants as possible. Krepp are best suited for this class.
Psychic: The Psychic is the magician of most opperations. They are able to cloak a group with their mind, effectively hiding them from detection by hostile units. They are also able to psycho-kinetically interact with their surroundings, sensing traps and alarm triggers. These citizens are considered very dangerous, since they have been known to have the ability to make bullets that are fired at them bounce hazardously around the room- even back at the person who fired them. They are normally very inteligent, and also make good hackers, but half-witts have been known to become extremely powerful psychics. Due to the karma penalty of cybernetic implants, psychics usually prefer to keep their bodies as organically pure as possible. As a result, you will rarely see one on the front line of any operation for a period any longer than it takes to bring a psycho-kinetic effect into existance. They are best suited to back up the Gunman in most confrontations. Wis make the best Psychics
Hacker: No longer hiding in the dark back room of an apartment laboring over cracking the code of the latest version of their favorite shareware, the Hacker is taking a more proactive role in his/her surroundings. The leading industries know that the best way to assure survival is to have the best technology. When one industry makes a technological breakthrough, it could unbalance the power balance of the city government. The Executives turn to the Hacker to perform the balancing act. They are the burglar of cyberspace, able to retrieve sensitive files and documents and sell them to the industry to which they are employed. This activity, along with the less legal one of hacking bank accounts, makes the Hacker one of the best paid citizens of the realm. Hackers are recomended to have high inteligence and dexterity. The only cybernetic implant they really find necesarry is the cyber CPU, which they use to jack their mind directly into a system. Bol and Humans are well suited for this job.
Burglar: No corporate raid would be completely successful without the burglar. They are able to move silently, and can usually detect most traps and alarm triggers. Working with hackers, they just may be able to slip completely into a building, secure sensitive documents, and sneak right back out without anyone even knowing they had been there. No room in the city, with the exception, maybe, of the corporate vaults, are safe from a high-level burglar. Burglars usually avoid cybernetic musculature implants, due to the noisy nature of hydraulics. Bol make very successful burglars, since they have the best climbing ability. Why break into a building when you can climb the outside of it and break directly into the room you need?
Vagrant: Vagrants are unemployed scavengers. They are not really an employment class, but I felt they should be included because of the changeling race. They will usually work for free items, since an unemployed citizen does not have any access to any form of currency. It is to be considered that vagrants may come up with their own form of currency, and if so, will be considered acceptable.