LittleWasp
Well-Known Member
Hello, everybody!
While I've been engaging in textual roleplay for a few years now, I have yet to try my hand at forum roleplay, much less in a pre-existing setting. Considering that Star Army from its beginning was geared more towards militaristic, humanoid characters, I wanted a bit of advice on whether a completely non-humanoid character would work or be welcome in the setting.
The character I have in mind is one of my first roleplaying characters: a young girl named Jannafette whose mind was transplanted into the equivalent of a giant, space cockroach in her mid-teens. She's long been a heart string-pulling character of mine, primarily involving themes of personal identity and social anxiety. Having been forced into her current body against her will, she suffers from social anxiety and struggles to build bonds with strangers; after all, who wants to hug a giant bug? Jannafette, with a thought-translating voice collar installed into her head, manages to scrape a living as a freak show of sorts: An eccentric inventor 'friend' of hers builds an elaborate set of woodwind-style instruments for her to use simultaneously through each of her breathing spiracles.
Jannafette's character comes hand in hand with my miniature, sci-fi setting: an artificial planetoid named Qua'Jurein. Split into four distinct segments going from the outer Margin, the slums of the Xylem Sprawl, the merchants and middle-class in Tepellei and finally the mysterious Sepalla in the very core of the planetoid, where its mysterious, cephalopod proprietors reside. Qua'Jurein is very much an illegal operation, whose malicious owners frequently dip into inhabited systems to abduct people for experimentation in the depths of Sepalla, or to be dumped into the massive social experiment of the Xylem Sprawl. Tepellei is the bridge that crosses the gap between most civilised races and the alien owners in Sepalla; smugglers, mercenaries, rich criminals and other powerful, unscrupulous types make it their home, and it is the primary trade and communications link to the outside world.
The Xylem Sprawl, by comparison, is a mess of lonely, rusted maintenance corridors, mazes of twisting pipes, and cavernous rooms filled with scrap, since converted into make-shift cities for the inhabitants. The people in the Xylem Sprawl are impoverished and struggle to find food, often earning pitiful pay from the businessmen taking advantage of them from Tepellei.
While primarily a sickly social experiment by the creatures of Sepalla, it is also Qua'Jurein's primary defence against law-abiding aggressors. Besides its powerful drive systems and weaponry, the people of the Xylem Sprawl, at a moment's notice, can be repurposed as hostages by the government in Sepalla. Stretching from the core to the outer Margin are massive waste funnels which at a moment's notice can be repurposed from their usual task of removing garbage to mass removal of atmosphere. In addition, the many defensive mechanoids stalking the maintenance corridors can be tasked to eliminate those in hiding, and if the situation is dire enough, the entire outer shell of Qua'Jurein can be ejected into space in segments, leaving a decompressing boatload of innocents for the authorities to deal with while the planetoid escapes.
Considering the heavily lawless of Star Army's world, I at least hope that Qua'Jurein can fit in well there, and that people might be interested to ply its depths.
As for how Janna fits into it, she was one of the many people abducted from a planet when she was a teenager. After a few months of social experimentation, she was subjected to a mind transfer into a Qua'Jurein pest insect: A roughly cat-sized ant-like creature that infests the Xylem Sprawl like rats.
After being tagged with a microchip, a kill-switch and a voice collar, she was unleashed into the Sprawl to partake in the sad life of its inhabitants. Considering her current body, finding friends is hard, and avoiding abuse is harder.
To finish up, I'll post a link to my original profile of Jannafette that I wrote up on F-list (the place where I first started roleplaying, but am gradually tiring of). https://www.f-list.net/c/jannafette/
I hope to get into playing here soon, and hope even more that my character/setting is of interest!
While I've been engaging in textual roleplay for a few years now, I have yet to try my hand at forum roleplay, much less in a pre-existing setting. Considering that Star Army from its beginning was geared more towards militaristic, humanoid characters, I wanted a bit of advice on whether a completely non-humanoid character would work or be welcome in the setting.
The character I have in mind is one of my first roleplaying characters: a young girl named Jannafette whose mind was transplanted into the equivalent of a giant, space cockroach in her mid-teens. She's long been a heart string-pulling character of mine, primarily involving themes of personal identity and social anxiety. Having been forced into her current body against her will, she suffers from social anxiety and struggles to build bonds with strangers; after all, who wants to hug a giant bug? Jannafette, with a thought-translating voice collar installed into her head, manages to scrape a living as a freak show of sorts: An eccentric inventor 'friend' of hers builds an elaborate set of woodwind-style instruments for her to use simultaneously through each of her breathing spiracles.
Jannafette's character comes hand in hand with my miniature, sci-fi setting: an artificial planetoid named Qua'Jurein. Split into four distinct segments going from the outer Margin, the slums of the Xylem Sprawl, the merchants and middle-class in Tepellei and finally the mysterious Sepalla in the very core of the planetoid, where its mysterious, cephalopod proprietors reside. Qua'Jurein is very much an illegal operation, whose malicious owners frequently dip into inhabited systems to abduct people for experimentation in the depths of Sepalla, or to be dumped into the massive social experiment of the Xylem Sprawl. Tepellei is the bridge that crosses the gap between most civilised races and the alien owners in Sepalla; smugglers, mercenaries, rich criminals and other powerful, unscrupulous types make it their home, and it is the primary trade and communications link to the outside world.
The Xylem Sprawl, by comparison, is a mess of lonely, rusted maintenance corridors, mazes of twisting pipes, and cavernous rooms filled with scrap, since converted into make-shift cities for the inhabitants. The people in the Xylem Sprawl are impoverished and struggle to find food, often earning pitiful pay from the businessmen taking advantage of them from Tepellei.
While primarily a sickly social experiment by the creatures of Sepalla, it is also Qua'Jurein's primary defence against law-abiding aggressors. Besides its powerful drive systems and weaponry, the people of the Xylem Sprawl, at a moment's notice, can be repurposed as hostages by the government in Sepalla. Stretching from the core to the outer Margin are massive waste funnels which at a moment's notice can be repurposed from their usual task of removing garbage to mass removal of atmosphere. In addition, the many defensive mechanoids stalking the maintenance corridors can be tasked to eliminate those in hiding, and if the situation is dire enough, the entire outer shell of Qua'Jurein can be ejected into space in segments, leaving a decompressing boatload of innocents for the authorities to deal with while the planetoid escapes.
Considering the heavily lawless of Star Army's world, I at least hope that Qua'Jurein can fit in well there, and that people might be interested to ply its depths.
As for how Janna fits into it, she was one of the many people abducted from a planet when she was a teenager. After a few months of social experimentation, she was subjected to a mind transfer into a Qua'Jurein pest insect: A roughly cat-sized ant-like creature that infests the Xylem Sprawl like rats.
After being tagged with a microchip, a kill-switch and a voice collar, she was unleashed into the Sprawl to partake in the sad life of its inhabitants. Considering her current body, finding friends is hard, and avoiding abuse is harder.
To finish up, I'll post a link to my original profile of Jannafette that I wrote up on F-list (the place where I first started roleplaying, but am gradually tiring of). https://www.f-list.net/c/jannafette/
I hope to get into playing here soon, and hope even more that my character/setting is of interest!