A World Beyond

Can be found here.

Created by a Bollywood Nerd, and a sort of Spiritual Successor to previous Nation States RP Elfen High.

This rp is based off the New World of Darkness, with Demon: The Fallen thrown in, along with my own little twists. A notable thing is that at the beginning of this rp, you are an ordinary human completely unaware of the supernatural. Other than that, you can have as much customization as you want. Be a crooked cop, a Mormon rock star, a mental patient, a honors student with a secret drug problem...whatever.

You are in the small town of Jasper, California. A sleepy mining town, you could be here for any amount of reasons. You could live here, be visiting friends, killing your most recent victim, attending a rock concert, filming a movie...whatever.

Then everyone in Jasper just disappears. You and the other PCs are the only ones left. You meet a man named Mr. G, who explains that the world is considerably bigger and stranger than you imagined it to be...

Tropes used in A World Beyond include:

• Absurdly Spacious Sewer: The group meets Fluffy in one of these.
  • There are some in Vegas. Lampshaded by Vernon
• Abusive Parents: Vernon's dad.
• Amoral Attorney: Mark, so much.
• Ancient Artifact: The Coiled Viper, which is the main reason for the PCs being in San Francisco.
• Asian Store Owner: Sachin, the curry shop owner, who is also an Indian vampire.
• Badass: Gabriel.
  • Vernon.
  • Fred has made it perfectly clear that you do not fuck with him.
• Badass Boast: Vernon often attempts these. They fail miserably.
• Badass Preacher: GABRIEL.
• Beneath the Mask: When the group obtain the Viper G flips, dropping his smug persona, and throwing a massive fit over the ordeal.
• Beware the Silly Ones: Mr G. When Earl punches him, he drops all semblance of sillyness, and magics up a knife, sticking it right in Earl's gut.
  • Vernon.
• Big Good: Mr. G is a rare twist on this. He's in charge of everything the group does, but he makes them do it against their will, kidnaps their families, and regularly torments them for the sake of his story.
• Black and Gray Morality: Even though the moral centers of the group are a homicidal priest and a manipulative former chessmaster, the party is infinitely more moral than Mr. G.
• Catch Phrase: "Things are about to go southward." - Vernon, right before something goes horribly, horribly wrong.
  • Nicholas Carry, the vampire forced by Mr. G to give them their assignment, looks exactly like Nicholas Cage. Many Ghost Rider-based threats ensue.
• Cerebus Syndrome: Arc 2 is considerably Darker and Edgier than Arc 1. And that is saying a lot.
• Chessmaster: Mr. G, by default.
  • Vernon. That is, until he denounced his ways after seeing the stress make Damien break down. He lampshades this by buying a uniform based on a chessboard, which he lit on fire and left in an airport toilet.
  • Damien orchestrated an entire war.
• Chekhov's Gunman: Fluffy Hitler Lucifer the First sacrifices himself to save Fred's life and turns him into a dragon-human hybrid.
  • The victim of Mark's No-Holds-Barred Beatdown showed back up to be Mind Raped by something hinted to be the Big Bad.
• Chekhov's Skill: Vernon once mentioned in passing to a Calacas vampire that he and his father used to go sailing. Guess who had to sail the boat to Alcatraz?
• Chew Toy: Mr. G regularly torments Vernon, be it through poisoning, acid piss, sending marauding vampires after him, etc.
  • Mark has "died" a total of three times. Once, he was shot. Then he was caught in the hospital fire. And now his chest has been ripped through by a claw.
• Child Prodigy: Jun.
• Christianity Is Catholic: Apparantly, every Christian character in the RP is either Catholic or associated with the Catholic Church.
  • There is one exception - sort of. Gabriel is an Episcopal priest, but "If the writers want to use a generally Catholic depiction, but get around the pesky celibacy issue, they'll use an Episcopal priest (which, in the immortal words of Robin Williams, is 'Catholic Lite')."
  • Peter is a Eugepæan Orthodox Catholic and Ivan seems to be a Russian Orthodox.
• Chronic Backstabbing Disorder: Et tu, Damien?
• Cloudcuckoolander: Vernon pretends to be one, when in actuality, he's a slightly smarter than average Cloudcuckoolander.
  • Damien is firmly established as one.
  • Hailey had her moments early on when she argued with the voices in her head. This has ended since she became a vampire, and she no longer vocalizes her arguments.
• Corrupt Corporate Executive: Oleg, a short-lived member of the party.
• Crazy Prepared: Earl carries an emergency pair of shorts around with him, inside his jumpsuit. Just in case. Comes in handy, when Hailey is warped to the docks, nearly naked.
• Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass: Vernon, cemented when he used a soap container he ripped off the wall for no goddamn reason as an improvised explosion.
  • Damien, on the surface a paranoid joke. A paranoid joke who raises armies of owls.
• Deadpan Snarker: Sachin.
• Deathbringer the Adorable: Fluffy Hitler Lucifer the First. See Fluffy the Terrible.
• Dirty Coward: Mark Ameriga, although other than one time it hasn't really come up.
  • At times, in fact, he's been the most courageous, or at least the most bold member of the group.
• Everyone Hates Mimes: Vernon certainly does.
• Everything's Worse with Bears: Mika is "killed by a bear" when Mr. G tries to convince everyone to go to Vegas for the first time.
• Expy: Anyone familiar with Elfen High (of which this is a Spiritual Successor of) will realize instantly that Principal Damien Seward is, believe it or not, Damien Seward.
  • He's becoming less and less of a copy as time goes on. In fact, the only similarities they share anymore, beyond their names of course, is that they both like sex. Like a lot.
• Fluffy the Terrible: Fluffy Hitler Lucifer the First. Subverted by the fact, that despite him being a miniature version of Godzilla, he's pretty damn useless. Specifically, he can't breath fire and is pretty weak. He can piss acid though, which Vernon learned the hard way. See Deathbringer the Adorable.
• Gayngst: Within fifteen minutes of discovering he's Gay over Gabriel, Peter contemplates suicide, assumes the fetal position, asks for forgiveness from God, and is berated for being gay by the voice in the back of his head... in Latin.
• Genre Savvy: This was Mika's defining characteristic before Mr. G did away with her.
  • Vernon inherited the characteristic immediately and has put it to good use, as it is his prime means of manipulating Mr. G and his stories.
  • Everyone has their moments, really. What do you expect from something this meta?
• Half-Human Hybrid: Fred.
• Hannibal Lecture: Mr. G had prepared to give one to Vernon, completely with a "we aren't so different" section, but stopped once he saw the insane things Vernon was doing and left.
• Heroic Second Wind: Gabriel gets bitten by a vampire and almost collapses. Then he is seized by a deep love of everyone around him, which moves him to get back up and shoot the vampire in the head.
• Hollywood Atheist: Though it was never stated out-right as the cause of Vernon's atheism, he did have a horrible childhood. See Abusive Parents.
• Human Shield: Hailey used Mark as a mind-controlled human shield during the Alley Battle scene, however the Doc managed to wake Mark up by shooting into the ground, snapping him into life so that he could attack Hailey, resulting in injuries to the kidney and lungs that hospitalized him.
• Imperial Stormtrooper Marksmanship Academy: Inverted. While the mooks tend to be fair shots, and in the case of certain villains, capable of picking off the enemy with machine pistols from a few hundred feet while leaving specific bystanders alone, Fred is incapable of really using a firearm to maximum ability due to missing an arm, the Doc outright refuses to use a firearm claiming that he is incapable of hitting the broadside of a barn from the inside despite having years on the Sri Lankan frontlines (as a research psychologist), and Mark's aim has been shown to vary with the times.
• Inconvenient Summons: When everyone is warped to the docks by G. Especially inconvenient for Hailey, who was in nothing but her underwear at the time.
• Jerkass: Mark Ameriga, amoral lawyer, sexist, and fan of Twilight. Towards the beginning, he nearly murders a drunk for vomiting on his suit. Also counts as Token Evil Teammate, although he averts Stupid Evil by, among other things, willingly providing his own money and contacts to get the rest of the group guns and other equipment they may need.
  • when he thought he was going to die, he mellowed and became relatively nice. Any hopes of him changing his ways ended when he tried to take the MacGuffin by force for no discernible reason after dropping off the face of the earth.
  • Damien, to a certain extent. He's raped at least one person and can be, at times, Ax Crazy. If the others didn't write him off as just another psychopath moron, they might take the time to hate him like Vernon does.
  • Christian too. Frankly, everyone's a jerkass.
• Lady Drunk: Tailor.
• Large Ham: Mr. G.
  • Vernon.
• Leaning on the Fourth Wall: Well, since the group knows they're in a "story", they (particularly Vernon) reference it quite a bit.
  • Fred has thought about how he used to play Nation States and Vernon seems to be familiar with Nightkill.
• Karma Houdini: Mark never gets punished for his murder.
  • Hailey never gets any comeuppance for her murderous blood-sucking habits. Of course, none of the vampires do.
  • Damien in a big way. He took the already degrading political balance of the vampires, added in some hawks, and started a war.
• MacGuffin: The Coiled Viper, which can grant whoever wields it amazing powers. They were sent on this mission by Nicholas Carry, the Viper's owner. See Ancient Artifact.
  • Carry's compass, which could track the Viper, temporarily became one of these when the Calacas (a tribe of vampires that Vernon had been forced to ally with that later became the party's foes) stole it.
• Names to Run Away From Very Fast: Fluffy Hitler Lucifer the First. Subverted with the fact that's he a Godzilla. An useless Godzilla.
  • The Dark Ones.
• Nice Hat: Vernon has worn a variety of these, including a straw-hat, two fedoras, and a bowler hat.
• Nobody Poops: Or sleeps. They eat though.
• Not Afraid of You Anymore: G loses a massive bit of his bite to the group, when he pitches a giant tantrum over Them obtaining the Viper. Punctuated nicely, by Earl throwing his empty flash at his head, and flipping him off
• No Such Thing as Wizard Jesus: Addressed in-universe. Gabriel tells Vernon not to make any Jesus jokes when he's resurrected, and Vernon occasionally entertains the notion that Mr. G is God. He doesn't mind much being Satan, either.
• Oh Crap: When Mr. G first assigned the heroes their mission, many of them did not believe in his powers. Then he turned the ground to blood...
  • Vernon, when he realized that they left Mark behind in a burning building.
• One-Scene Wonder: The swearing surgeon.
  • Make that two scenes.
• Only Sane Man: Frederick, who maintains his sanity surprisingly well.
  • Catrin as well, to a lesser extent.
• Otaku: Earl, of all people. Member of a Star Trek fanclub, and frequently makes reference to anime. Mentioned Hellsing by name.
• Our Dragons Are Different: They are god-like beings locked in a war with the Dark Ones.
• Our Gargoyles Rock: "Lucy" the gargoyles who interrogates Vernon, Gabriel, and Damien about the dragon's death at the beginning of the second arc.
• Our Vampires Are Different: There are three tribes: The Anvari, who smoke pot, the Amara Havana, your typical blood-drinkers, and the Calacas, a hive-mind that serves the dragons.
• Pedophile Priest: Inverted and subverted in that Peter wishes Gabriel would fit this trope.
• Punctuated! For! Emphasis!: Vernon, when he's pissed.
• Punctuated Pounding: Vernon lapses into this when Jun dies. Makes you feel sort of bad for the guy who's rib-cage he was stomping on.
• Put on a Bus: Mika, disappearing instantaneously on an aircraft, waved away by Mr. G as a minor event.
  • Randy is killed by a were-spider fairly early in the story, though he does receive some development first.
• San Francisco: Most of the action is here
• Shipper on Deck: Meta-example. Nightkill really wants Annette and Hailey to get together.
• Talking to Themself: Peter is this. So this.
  • So does Hailey.
  • And of course, King Crazy himself, Principal Damien Seward.
• Team Pet: A miniature Godzilla named Fluffy Hitler Lucifer the First.
• The Alcoholic: Earl Mason.
  • Mark occasionally had shades of this.
• The Bus Came Back: Though Doc was never technically put on a bus, he did return from a long unexplained absence.
  • Mark's back. For a bit.
• The Rival: Damien to Vernon and vice versa.
• The Wonka: Oleg; the eccentric executive.
• Token Evil Teammate: Damien or Hailey, depending on his side you take in their conflict. Neither are very good.
  • Mark. Definitely Mark.
• Took a Level In Badass: Hailey, when she's turned into a vampire.
  • Damien when he becomes the Strix.
  • Catrin, when she becomes a were-spider.
  • Fred, when he fuses with Fluffy Hitler Lucifer and grows his arm back.
• Trust Me I'm a Doctor: The Doc's favorite catchphrase when offering medical assistance to his companions. Despite the fact that he's a psychiatrist, and trained as a research psychologist.
• Who Wants to Live Forever?: The Dragon guarding the Viper. Gabriel convinces him that being kept alive because of the Viper, is no way to live.
• Wrong Genre Savvy: Hailey, in her assumption that having your blood drained by a vampire equates to becoming one.
  • Vernon has a MASSIVE moment of this. He was trying to become a were-snake, and forced one to bite him. This ended up killing him.
• Villainous Breakdown: Mr. G flips out when the group gets the Viper through peaceful means.
  • At the very same time, Damien breaks down regarding his multiple personalities. One wants desperately to find salvation and the other is power hungry. He begs to be killed and everything.
• Viva Las Vegas: A minor example when the group visits Nicholas Carry and gets their mission. They don't stay long, but Vernon does mention wanting to gamble. He never gets a chance to.
  • Having received the Coiled Viper in San Francisco, the heroes head back to Las Vegas to meet with Carry again.
• Xanatos Speed Chess: A favorite game of Vernon and Mr. G.