OOC: The Islands of Manhattan

FIRST

This role play -- both the IC and OOC -- are under construction.
I am in no hurry to get the IC up and running;
after the experience of my last role play,
whose IC died while I was still creating
the underlying facts of the story in the OOC,
I want to be ready for the writers first.

That doesn't mean that you can't read along and
even propose characters.
However, I won't be starting the IC thread until
I am good and ready to do so.

Thanks.

SECOND

There is no reason to subscribe to this OOC thread.
It will be populated by a number of small posts linked to the IC Thread,
and these posts will mean nothing to you out of the context of the IC Thread,
so unless you want your instant notification going off
multiple times every day with posts that you won't understand,
there is no reason to subscribe to it.​
 
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The Concept of the Role Play


(More coming. OOC is still under construction.)​

The basic concept of the role play is that a series of natural disasters and human events have led to the island of Manhattan being drowned in dozens of feet and water; many of the buildings no longer exist, and those that do are now referred to the Islands of Manhattan. The population is a fraction of what it once was, and while it is still theoretically part of the United States of America, the country itself barely still exists, which makes nationalistic attitudes among the Islanders vary from Total Patriot to The United States ... really...?

The role play does not have one central story. It will be a collection of interactions between characters, all based upon the facts of this new world they live in.

More later...
 
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Character Profile Sheet

To create a character for "The Islands of Manhattan":
  • Read "The Concept of the Role Play" first. If your character doesn't fit within this concept, he/she is in the wrong role play, correct?
  • Highlight and complete the profile sheet below and PM it to the Host. Do not post it here!
  • Once your character is approved, which should be the same day, you can post an introductory post to the IC, and you're on your way.
  • The Host will post your Character Profile. This way, he has the ability to add updates to it, to let the other writers know what you're up to, what direction you want to go in, etc. (In the past, I have asked writers to do this themselves and they haven't, so I do it now myself.)

Two Notes:
  • The first and last questions are about you, the writer. All others are about your character.
  • Please look at this profile (link coming) to see one of your Host's profiles. I'm not saying yours has to be like this; I am only giving an example.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^​

Your Lit ID (and nickname if you wish):

Name:

Gender and Age:

Picture: MANDATORY
(Your host is very anal about pictures. The character pictures are intended to lend reality to the fantasy by offering a face to go with the story, so: no famous celebrities, no anime, no cartoons, no heavy advertising or logos; please try to make the context of the picture work, meaning no pictures of a guy in a space ship or on the range riding a horse. If you have a question about the appropriateness of your picture, PM it to the host before you create your character's description around it. The host WILL veto a picture that does not fit the story. BTW, you can delete this paragraph before you PM the profile.)

Personality:

History and Background:

Current Situation:

Direction:

Note's about you, the writer:
 
GrayOldFart​

Name (pic): Gunner

Gender, Age, Description: Male, 44
  • Dark blond hair with hazel eyes.
  • 5'6", 165#; stocky, muscular.
  • Multiple scars.
  • Walks with a limp from right hip injury (bullet and beating both).
Personality:
  • Very quiet; when he speaks, which isn't often, it's something worth listening to.
  • Has a lot of ghosts in his past, some of his own making, others not.
  • Ruthless in the protection of the people he cares about.
History and Background:
  • Not a native New Yorker; came for the disasters and never left.
  • Former military, but he doesn't talk about it.
  • He came to the aid of the people at One New York Plaza (1NY, to the residents) during the anarchy following The Final Blow and simply couldn't leave them.
  • More coming later.
Current Situation:
  • He is Chief of Security for 1NY, with a team of 15 mostly young men and women serving him and their community.
  • Spends most of his waking hours either at Sentry posts with his sniper rifle; or on the 16th floor, where he both lives and has a training facility for the SecForce members set up in a former law firm's private gym.
  • He has a "consort", of sorts, Eloise. She was, at first, a whore in the 13th Floor brothel, but he took responsibility for her "upkeep". He was only in lust with her at first, but has since fallen in love with her. But his rocky, romantic past prevents him from telling her so. And, he doesn't know whether she feels the same because she came to him out of necessity, not desire, and he didn't hesitate to avail himself of her sexual services.
  • He spends the majority of his free time alone, but he has recently become the target of interest of some of the children, whom he just can't seem to shake. They idolize him ... which he can't get his head around.
Direction:
  • Gunner will be used a great deal to supply OOC information to the story.
  • I would like to explore the romantic/sexual side of him as well with the female character mentioned above. I'm thinking that at first -- because she's already attached -- that perhaps it could be a surreptitious release of sexual frustration on both of their parts; then later it could become love.
Note's about you, the writer:
  • I like sexual writing, but it is only a small part of my greater writer.
  • I sometimes write long posts and other times write short ones. It depends upon the situation.
  • I am anal about spelling and grammar. We all make mistakes, that's not the problem. The problem is people who don't bother to look for them before posting.
 
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History

The second and third decades of the 21st century were not kind to either Manhattan, the United States, or The World as a whole. Global warming exponentially intensified natural disasters; and the depletion of natural resources, religious fighting, and the political strife that came with both led to many new wars and the first use of nuclear weapons since the first half of the previous century.

For the first time since the turbulent times of the 1980s, the population of New York (and Manhattan in particular) began to decrease. Annual hurricanes, some coinciding with Nor'easters to create "super storms" that made 2012's "Sandy" look like a stiff breeze, caused lasting damage to entire neighborhoods which -- by voluntary action of their residents or mandatory action of the governments -- were permanently abandoned.

Sea level rises were becoming too much for New York to handle. As with much of The Netherlands, the coastlines of the Eastern Seaboard were systematically hidden behind permanent sea walls ... which, with the massive global warming fueled storms, were becoming anything but permanent.

When the Big Apple was hit by what came to be called "The Big Blow" -- an 8.8 earthquake during Super Storm Elsa -- the death nail in the coffin of Manhattan was dealt. The shaking of the main quake -- which lasted nearly twelve minutes -- would have done enough damage on its own. But the bedrock under Manhattan sunk in most places and, worse, not at all evenly; some places saw a drop of a foot while others sunk as much as 22 feet. Entire buildings sitting on the edge of fault lines simple tilted and fell to the streets below.

Manhattan, with the majority of its 70,000 buildings destroyed beyond use, was ordered abandoned. It's streets, subways, and building lobbies were under water, creating what would come to be called the Islands -- plural -- of Manhattan.

Some people stayed behind. They either had no where to go or saw new opportunities in this new world. Other actually came to The Islands of Manhattan, again seeking opportunities that others simply didn't see or wish to partake of.

It is of these people that are story speaks...
 
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