humiliatious | Amphitheater Multiverse: The Wastelands

The Amphitheater is a mysterious place. It's in the space of a blink that you appear outside one of its many entrances. You're beckoned inside, taken to the center, where the showrunners assign you a role. Another blink, and you're no longer surrounded by rows of crowded seats. The crowd and cast have disappeared. Whatever role you were given, that is your life now, even if only for the duration of the performance. Be careful, though. It's easy to get lost in the role you were given. It's not uncommon for performers to forget who they are.

Performance: The Wastelands

It's a scenario which has fascinated since the very inception of story-telling: What happens after the world ends? It seems that's what's occurred here. Shops and houses are left empty of life, looted of supplies. Strange, mutant plants grow wrap around buildings and overtake forests, which infected animals slip out of to attack. Towns are less so towns, and more so guarded fortresses which only allow certain individuals in and out. Supplies are scarce, and trade has devolved into a bartering system. Camps of survivors are scattered throughout the countryside and abandoned villages, with some bigger groups splitting up into factions. Infighting is common, as well as altercations between groups. The world has become temperamental, anxious, everyone always prepared to attack. Those affected by the mutation find it even harder to survive every day, met with a whole host of biological and social obstacles. Everyone's goal is to survive. What role will you play?

Dramatis Personae

scavengers & survivalists

Scavengers and survivalists survive on their own as best as they can. They are loners who travel from settlement to settlement, trading supplies they've found before moving onto the next place. Some prefer to live off grid entirely, and only interact with others when passing in their travels. Others hide away in cities and towns, away from the eyes of the factions that govern them, stealing what they need. Generally, these types believe that others will slow them down, and are concerned more with their own survival than anything else, which makes them poor companions.

leaders

The world as all knew it may have ended, but so long as there are people still alive, they will need leaders. One might lead a small settlement with only a handful of people, merely interested in surviving. Instead, one might be the leader of a powerful faction in a major fortress city, with hundreds at your command. There are religious leaders, as well, which devotees follow faithfully in all that they do. Whatever the case may be, the leader is, at the end of the day, someone responsible for the wellbeing of the many others that depend on them.

traders

Traders are apocalypse-made merchants who survive by collecting and selling items between settlements. Some of these merchants travel, moving from settlement to settlement and providing goods for travelers on the road, and some reside in settlements, providing goods for the town. They may sell anything from rations to weapons to medical supplies, and generally tend to have good relationships with leaders, due to their many connections. They are good salespeople, exceptionally clever with words, and may convince you to leave with something you don't need, or give them something you do.

the affected

No one is quite sure what caused animals, plants, and people to all start changing - why some are affected, and others aren't - but some strange mutation took hold after the world came to an end, rendering some something between human and beast. They are not mindless, and they are not hungry, but they have been known to attack - transform into monsters which blindly lash out until their prey has been disposed of. This only happens when they are provoked, however...

hunters

Some believe that the affected must be disposed of, studied, or otherwise detained until an explanation for their condition can be found. There are a few leaders, both religious and otherwise, who claim to be researching a cure for the strange affliction. They hire hunters to find the affected and bring them to their headquarters. Other hunters have more personal reasons for wanting to seek out the affected and dispose of them.

devotees

In times of great crisis, such as these, people find themselves desperate for a guiding light to follow. Devotees pledge themselves to leaders, objects, gods, etc., and follow them dutifully no matter what they're asked to do. Some religious factions condemn the affected, while some celebrate and welcome them, and others still that want to research them; likewise, there are some factions that welcome anyone, some that only welcome allied factions, some that welcome no one. It all depends on what one has decided to devote themselves to - the point is, they're devoted.

OOC

Hello! Welcome to Amphitheater Multiverse, inspired by former game 7Dead's AU/amplitheater premise. Essentially, characters enter a magical amphitheater that is holding a performance (this time it is "The Wastelands," a post-apocalyptic story), and they are cast in roles. This transports them to the setting of the "play" - essentially one big collective AU you can TL and play in (your characters can either be aware they're in a play, completely lost in their roles, some combination thereof, etc.). You can play out multiple roles/enter & exit the amphitheater more than once.

Please follow basic DWRP etiquette, don't be a jerk, use CWs in subject lines/read them. Play anyone you want - canon characters, OCs, fandom OCs, AUs, CRAUs, etc., etc. This event is open for anyone to play. You do not need to know me or be on my plurk list or anything like that. If you have any questions, please direct them here, or hit me up on plurk at

pantheraliam (just note that I don't add people unless I know them). Have fun, be safe o v o;;

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[His eyes lift to where the bat points - and Akira's entire body freezes.

Fuck. He doesn't say it; he has far too much control for that nowadays, but the animal desperation suddenly squeezing at his chest is inescapable. He didn't leave it two towns over. The glove is here, and this girl has it.

He has to get it from her. No matter what he has to do, no matter what he has to give up, he has to get it from her.]

I have food. [His voice, however, is calm. It must be.] I have medicine. I'm willing to part with both, or something else if that isn't sufficient.

[Both tempting offers, both hard to come by. From any random person, Aubrey might’ve taken it then and there. Her head tilts, considering—but her eyes narrow. There’s more to this evaluation.

[Why make an offer for a glove? Aubrey trusts her sources, doesn’t take the rumors of those so-called Phantoms lightly. Might’ve preferred not to cross paths at all, actually. But someone had other ideas, and that someone thought to snag a glove straight out of some high-end heist movie.

[It sticks out, between the rusted bars of what might’ve been a holding cell. It sticks out, like a faded headband-bow over a patchwork letterman and a nail bat. And it sticks out like a couple of young people in the detritus of a facility that, in another timeline where things went differently, might’ve contained them.

[But those walls crumbled long ago. The young man, himself, doesn’t stand out to Aubrey. She wonders why he showed up at all.

[So she takes a step to the side, trying to put the nail bat in his line of sight. Eyes back on her, please.]

Define “something else.”

[His view is obscured and- ah. That's right. A bat that would mess him up badly, if he got out of that encounter alive at all. It's important not to underestimate people's strength, no matter what appearances might say. Especially in the world they live in now.

This is a world where he might not get back what's important to him. Not unless he can sell himself as something that's valuable to her.]

Something else means whatever you want it to mean. I can watch your back for as long as you need someone to guard it. I can hunt for you, food or otherwise. I can connect you with a weapons dealer, if that's more your speed.

[Somehow, he still manages to sound controlled. He doesn't know what she wants, what she needs. Doesn't know what would be appealing to her, if there's anything he's said that's appealing at all. But he has to hope that even one thing will be enough.

He plays his last card.]

There's very little that I'd mind doing. And even if it's something I don't know, I'm a quick study.

[Shit, is there anything he can’t offer? For a glove? Aubrey’s eyes flick back to it for a moment, as if it might spring to life and grant one’s wildest dreams.

[Then again… it’s never just about the item, is it? It’s the person who wears it. Wore it. The bat lowers ever so slightly, involuntary.]

You know, tempting as it is to take you up on everything… [Maybe she should be more skeptical of that in its own right, actually. But no reuptation can go underestimated out here.] …now I’m curious. Too. [The last word is tacked on like the afterthought it is. “Curious, too”—meaning everything else up for offer is still being considered.]

Whose is it? [She tries to sound wary and fails; attempts to compensate by swinging the bat back across herself, a non-nailed patch landing flat in the opposite hand.] A friend’s? [Despite the gesture, she can’t make it sound like a threat.]

Amphitheater Multiverse: The Wastelands

something important

borrows lore from your toplevel (lmk if you want changes! +ok with any/all observations)

rolls back over here 84 years later... this is perfect just like this!!

🎉