General Information.

[ze_arteests]

OOC Game overview:

Decollage is, at it’s most basic, a dark team-based game with a conflict heavy atmosphere, specifically focusing on PvP competition, with memory-loss or ability-loss elements to it.

And desire, that’s another important element, can’t forget about that. Decollage is a world where desire is king: they’re drawn there because of their strong desires (to escape, or to fix things), and they use the thwarted desires of others as power to fuel the granting of their own, and to return their lost memories or skills. As a result, things in Decollage are going to be fairly high stakes: more to lose means more desire to win. Bad things will happen here. Bad things will happen to you.

Why do they lose things?

The initial strong want is enough to catch hold of the world, but in order to force themselves there they must sacrifice either their memories or skills to the world as a tether. This affirms their desire as strong enough, and as long as part of their power or minds remain in the world, they’re affixed to it, rather than slipping back home to their original worlds.

Arrival:

Characters arrive in their team dorm (or the to-be team dorm, if their team doesn’t have one yet), with the others on their back and one personal item. The color on their clothes will have changed hue to match their team’s designated color, though the blacks and whites will remain the same. (Unless their clothes were monochrome, then black or white gets swapped for the team color) All new characters have three sets of their team's uniform prepared for their arrival, while returning characters do not.

Characters who retain their memories remember that moment of want crystallizing in their chest, and a faint questioning wisp (of do they really want it? do they really mean it?) and a sudden sure feeling that yes. They remember closing their eyes and the world shifting, a drain on them that made it hard to stand, to stay conscious- and blacking out. They wake up with basic knowledge of the premise of why they’re there, to compete and the mechanics for how it works.

Characters that gave up memories and not skills don’t remember anything, including why they’re there. Maybe they’ll be lucky enough to have someone who gave up skills instead around to explain it to them.

Daily Life:

The portraits cannot be counted on to remember that humans need to do things like y’know, eat. They may occasionally reward food or offer it at games, but teams have to rely on themselves for their own survival.

Each level of the setting has unique provisions and threats that need to be regularly dealt with for survival. Additionally, each team will receive enough rations to provide one meal per day. Rations consist of amaranth (a nutritious form of grain) and a portion of cheese for each member. The kind of cheese varies from day to day. Food can be further supplemented through hunting, gathering, or farming which is available on level 3.

Skill loss

Don’t think by choosing to lose skills characters have gotten more of a free-ride. While they retain their memories, they might find they’ve lost more than they’ve expected to. To start with the obvious, all supernatural abilities are lost, and characters who ping as or have any other non-human supernatural natural characteristics will be made mundane.

Second, not only are physical abilities like MARTIAL ARTS!! or REALLY BADASS WITH A SWORD!! lost, the more basic and less obvious physical ability to do these things is gone. Strength, stamina, and speed have been brought down to subpar. No matter what shape they were in before, right now, even walking up three flights of stairs sounds like a really big chore, and forget about lifting anything too heavy.

So, then come learned more intellectual skills! The memories that they had for learning them are still there, so hypothetically, they’re still capable. On the other hand, it’s like they’ve read a textbook on them, but never actually attempted the skill themselves. So, that sewing whizz? They may remember all the different stitches, but even threading a needle or doing a simple stitch without stabbing themselves is not going to be easy. Unless they feel like learning the coordination from the beginning again, they might be better off instructing or teaching someone else that’s less likely to get frustrated from the loss of talent.

Also, up to player discretion, there is also the option to lock less obvious things, like a disease, or even locking down a character’s emotions. If you choose to do emotions or vital things, it’s requested that you prioritise these in the registry to have them returned first.

Generally, characters will have less skills to be returned to them than memories. To keep things more even, skills will be fragmented into parts, so things like SWORD SKILLS!! are not all AND THEN BADASS RETURNED IN ONE FELL SWOOP. Rather, the first time sword skills are returned they are now able to handle the sword basics, and have their coordination with the skill returned. Second would be actually being good with it! Skill! And final tier would AND HERE IS ALL THOSE FANCY THINGS YOU COULD DO. Skills characters weren’t great at it in the first place only require one or two tiers, but anything they really MASTERED should be broken up.

Memory Loss

Those that have chosen to sacrifice their memories in order to come to Decollage are complete amnesiacs: no freebie starter memory. If you really really have a memory you want a character to receive first from their memory registry, prioritise it, or lock the rest off!

As amnesiacs, they will have lost all their personal history, education, and more intellectual skills. They’ll be left with enough general knowledge to communicate, (probably)read, and their basic knowledge base (fire is hot, acquire food to fix status effect: hungry, ect) but things like HOW TO FIX SPACESHIP!! they will need to remember using or learning to get again. In the meanwhile, they’re much better off than their skill-less counterparts, their innate powers and abilities left alone, strengths, and muscle memory. So while one that was able to sew will not remember all the fancy stitching they knew before getting amnesia, they’ll probably have less trouble with figuring out and relearning the basics of stitching, and once they remember it, there is no tiers of “getting good” at something.

IN SUMMARY: your innate talent? Remains, but just because DUDE IS INNATELY GOOD AT FLYING SPACESHIPS this does not mean he won't crash if he doesn't remember what the buttons are.

Amnesiacs also do not necessarily have the exact same personality they had before losing their memories, it depends on how their lives influenced them! Someone who avoids people like the plague due to really bad memories of being rejected over and over is probably not going to have that problem while they’re amnesiac! However, someone that avoids people because they just not very sociable and prefer their own company to that of others is unlikely to change. Please put thought into how you play characters without their memories, versus with them.

Injuries

Healing in Deco is sped for player convenience! With the harsh general environment, and the competitions contributing to it, physical injuries are inevitable. But with OOC time being faster than how slow IC time runs, we don't want players stuck with wounds that makes it impossible for their character to get around, or things of the like. So, characters will find their injuries healing faster than they would normally, to player convenience. There is no hard and fast rule on how fast this should happen, though they shouldn't receive a huge gash and be better the next ooc day, if after an OOC week you think you've played with it enough, it can have healed enough to not impede the character, even though it's only been two days ICly.

On the other hand, while healing is sped, it has no been increased past the limits of what would normally heal. Cuts will still leave scars, and things that do not regrow (such as losing a limb, or an eye) will stay gone unless healed in a competition or other extraordinary means.

Death

How death is handled in game is up to individual runners, but a revival is near guaranteed, what isn't is how they will be brought back, painlessly and quickly, or slow and made of terrible. You'll see both here!

But when it comes to out of games, how it works is consistant. Provided characters are outside of their dorm, Mary will come and take the body, and the revived character will "reawaken" inside their team portrait, redrawn there by Sophie. To keep death having some impact, rather than characters thinking of it as a free heal, characters that might otherwise write it off are brought back missing something, be it something tangible like an eye, or something not, like missing a sense, depending on player preference! For characters that would find the death horrifying enough as is, there is no price for revival, as the IC explanation for them is Sophie made an error. A proper revival just means she got it right this time.

Hiatus and Drop Options:

Hiatus: To hiatus, your character can get literally lost! They wandered too deep into the library and had difficulty finding their way back. Otherwise, a painting decided to take your character for a while. A pair of arms shot out while they weren’t paying attention and pulled them in.

Good end: Your character successfully completes their time in Decollage (OOCly, they're present for nine months) and is able to get their wish and get out.

Drop mural: A large mural that has no associated NPCs, that sometimes characters disappear into, staying in a limbo state until it spits them back out again. It shows a room with all the currently dropped characters sleeping, peacefully. A plaque below it labels it “The Bigger Picture”.

Go home without good-ending: your character despite not having earned back all their memories or skills is returned home, STILL MISSING those elements. All characters dropped like this, even if they're reapped by the same person, will have to “pay the fee” to re-enter a second time.

✏ Further hiatus, drop and good end information.