OOC: This is how the world ends....

OOC: This is how the world ends....(open)

This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang, but a wimper.
- T. S. Eliot


I've been reading Stephen King's 'The Stand' recently, and it occurred to me that there could be an interesing RP set in a world similar to the world in that novel. For those who don't have any idea what I'm talking about, this RP would be set in a world where the majority of the population (around 95-99 %) has been wiped out due to a plague. The RP would (obviously) take place after the plague has hit, when only a small percentage of the population is left, left to fend for themselves and figure out how to go on. Most likely, certain sects of people would form. I think it could take an interesting path, but I won't start it unless other people are interested. If you are interested, go ahead and post here with a character bio, just who they are, where they're from, etc. If I don't get too many responses, I won't start it. I will most likely post a bio after a few others have shown interest.

Sign me up. I'm going to hang back for a time and see what other character concepts people pony up, but I definitely will be bringing in a character (most likely a twentysomething female secretary or technician).

This sounds like an interesting rp that I would like to take on. Actually, it reminds me of the story I wrote for Literotica. Well before I post any character biography, I just wanted to know if the rp will be following the same exact plot as "The Stand" by Stephen King; ie "Project Blue" and the ensuing delusions of the survivors. Or will this be a generic plague?

I was just planning on using a generic plague, I simply got the idea from The Stand. However, if people want, we could use more ideas from the book.

Big fan of that book and movie. Would love to take part in this. Gonna think up a bio and be back.

Yes, The Stand definitely was a classic. What I enjoyed about it was the depth the story went into, about the mechanics of the plague and resulting societal collapse, how the effects propagated into the everyday details of life in a dying society. It wasn't just, oh, here's a plague, everyone's dying, like I've seen (and read) in lesser stories.

I'm glad to know that I am not the only one interested in an RP such as this. Feel free to start posting character bios, as well as continue talking.

It certainly has an interest for me as well, like the idea of a group of random people banding together to make a society and the having to interact with other groups and addressing the issue of who you allow into your group and all the decisions you have to make just to survive let alone progress.

Very interested...hmmm bio

Okay try this (figure a lot of people who would survive would be loners...)

Adam Woodyatt
Age 22
6'2
Slim
Black Hair
Brown Eyes

His parents died in a car crash when he was 18 ,the day after he graduated high school...never popular at school Adam found it easy to just sell up and leave town, his parents left him a reasonable amount when they died, but Adam was completely aimless , lost .

He has spent the last 4 years backpacking thru the country, his body toughened by manual work of a wide variety and of course walking thousands of miles over the last few years.

Adam is very quiet and females especially freak him out, but he is mentally tougher than he knows and will ,once he gets some confidence around others show that he is capable of operating extremely well in this new world reality.

Adam was camping alone 60 miles west of Des Moines in readiness for seasonal jobs that he had registered for when the plague broke out, he spent the duration of the plague alone keeping away from anyone else ...until now...now for the first time in his life he needs people he just has to find them.

Is the story going to begin at the onset of the plague, or after the plague has run its course?

I think after would be the better way...as part of an intro post each character could deal with how they coped/reacted to the plague...and prehaps give some clue as to why they survived when so many others didn't...that way you move right into the actual purpose behind the story

Alley Martin

Alley Martin
25 yrs old
5ft 5
105 lbs
Red hair, straight shoulder length
Emerald eyes

Her mother left her father when she was only 8. Her father ended up moving her to NYC because of his job. Growing up there, she became a tough cookie. She speaks her mind, and doesn't take orders well.

Her father passed away only 2 years ago, leaving her in charge of his company. A clothing company, which she's worked at since graduating college.

Alley remains in New York City.

Interesting...

Well, I've always been a fan of post apocalyptic stories so I'll through my hat, and my character, into the ring...


Bruce Samson
36 years old
5'6"
210 lbs
Blonde hair, falling to his shoulders, sometimes pulled back into a ponytail.
Blue eyes.


Bruce has always lived just outside of society's boundaries. He's never really fit in, always saying or doing the wrong thing to lose his job, lose his wife, lose his freedom. After his last short sojourn in jail, Bruce has found employment driving truck. The long cross country trips give him a sense of freedom that he's always longed for but also isolates him from most people other then waitresses at the numerous truck stops he frequents.

room for another?

every good story has at that one character that no one roots for to win.

steve arden
42 yo
5'8"
235 lbs
showing a bit of grey with receding hairline

steve was the guy in high school that never got the girl. quiet and backward, a good student grade wise, but never seemed to fit in with any of the popular cliques. a bully at heart, he delights at taking advantage of anyone weaker, but shys away from any real confrontation that he might loose.

pushed by his single mother, his father having left them when steve was very young for another, younger woman, he has become very sucessful in business. a ruthless negotiator, he has built a large mortgage company by making loans to marginal acccounts, then forclosing without mercy.

never married, still living with his shrewish mother, he never developed any real social skills, still a little boy at heart. he fantasizes that women find him attractive, but knows in his heart that he only is tolerated because he has money to buy things.

when the plague breaks out, he locks himself and his mother away, stockpiling supplies and weapons. avoiding outside contact. he smugly dreams of all the money he will make when the sickness ends and the world returns to normal, the power he will have over others. he spends long days and nights, drinkng heavily, lost in his power fantasy.

they survive the initial wave of illness but their supplies were handled by someone already infected and steve wakes one morning after a long drunken spree to find his mother has died.

alone now and frightened of his on death, steve arms himself like rambo and watches to see that no one will take what is his.....

With your character bios (for those of you have already posted one just make another post adding this) You will probably want to say where they are at the time the plauge hits, ie what city. Just to make it easier to figure which survivors will be meeting first. I will be posting a bio either tonight or tomorrow night, and starting the IC thread most likely tomorrow night.

M-O-O-N, that spells Great Thread!

Loved this book and the mini-series. By far, King's best.

Lauren Rutherford
35 years old
5'7"
140 lbs.
Chestnut brown hair, parted in the middle and worn long & straight.
Brown eyes
Dresses in what she thinks is couture--can't afford real Dior or Chanel, but assumes the rabble she works with won't be able to tell the difference from the knock-offs she does wear.

Lauren is/was the Vice President of Woodforest National Bank--a small local bank with 8 locations in Minneapolis and not very national in the least. However, that didn't stop Lauren from acting as though she were running Chase Manhattan. Ruthless, cutthroat, and manipulative, she has no regard for either her direct reports (whom she chooses to acknowledge only as "them") or her own customers. She was, of course, above them and assumed it only a matter of time before Bank of America or DeutscheBank discovered her.

Believes her survival of the plague is Darwinism in action: The right genes at the right place at the right time.

Scott Kingly

34
Short black hair.
toned muscular body
dull green eyes which sparkle in the moonlight.


The youngest ever to make the board, coming out of Harvard in 1994. He has risen his way to the top, becoming one of the top marketing Executives in his firm.

Now, he dropped to make his own firm, president and chairmen of the board. He has worked inside of Wall Street for years now, knowing all the insides and outs. Started early with real estate, and owns pieces of property all over America, including a 12 bedroom mansion in California.

He is a business man down to his heart and soul. !2 suits, 8 of them cost more than most people pay for houses. 36 cars, including a rare Porsche Spyder, and an old Harley, fully restored, which James Dean had driven before he died.

His own private jet, franchises, deals with Warner Brothers and Pepsi and Hewlett Packard. This was the go to guy before it all went to shit.

At the time of the plague, he's in Chicago.

Things fall apart, the center doesn't hold...

Tara Kennedy

The small blonde-haired Irish woman was once a buxum and laughing bundle of engery. A wild country angel with a love of animals, she worked hard and played hard on the path to her dream of becoming a vet. Finally, so close to her goal. A graduate student of veterinary medicine at Trinity, she was at UPenn as part of a canine fellowship when the plague struck. When the animals sicked, she tended them, as the doctors died she did what she could until the last of their patients died, too.

Age: 24
Appearance: She keeps her gold curls short and wears practical clothing. A sprinkling of freckles on her nose stand out sharply against her pale skin. Her rare smiles seldom reach her brown eyes. Twenty pounds lighter than she was The Day Before (the plague struck), her five - two frame looks as if it will blow away but her fragile appearance hides a wiry strenghth and a determined will.

She has been knocked down but is now getting back up again.

She was in Philadelphia when the plague struck.

Sorry, I meant to post my own bio and start the IC thread last night, but these past two days have been somewhat hectic for me. Late tonight both will appear, I PROMISE.

where is important

ooc....sorry, had bio'ed before i saw the note on location....we find steve guarding his large compound straddling the pennsylvania, west virginia border just south of pittsburg (let's go mountaineers!) sorry

Deborah Sykes
Age: 19
blonde/blue, medium build, 6' 0"
Occupation: accounting student

Deborah was close to finishing her accounting degree when the plague hit. She first noticed something was amiss when about one out of every five students failed to show up for Accounting 203. At first everyone was talking about the flu...but by evening, it was obvious to Deborah that this was no ordinary flu. Ambulances went hither, thither and yon.

She holed up in the apartment she rented, barricading the doors and hiding out until help arrived. But by the next morning, she began to doubt help would come at all. The newcasts were a report from Hell for a good eighteen hours, until the cable TV stations went off one by one. Looking out her window, she saw bodies and crashed cars.

By the third day, the power began to go off. She comprehended that this was a national, if not a global crisis...tuning in the AM radio, she heard scattered stations still on the air, talking about millions of deaths, reports from Tokyo, Paris and London about massive casualties, a suspension of air travel, a war between North and South Korea, and a nuclear exchange between India and Pakistan as each accused the other of biowarfare.

Then even those stations went silent. And now Deborah is at her home in L.A., wondering where to go next...

Allright, Like promised, I am posting a bio. I will create an IC thread after this, but my intro will be fairly short (I'm having a bad day and need sleep, I apologize...) So you can start RPing whenever.


Name: Malcolm Thomas
Age: 23
Physical Description: About 5'11, dark blond (almost brown) hair, dark brown eyes. Fairly average build.

Bio: Malcolm (Mal to friends) had moved to Los Angeles to attend UCLA after high school. He had grown to love the city, and was making quite a name for himself. Always one to entertain people, he found himself entertaining in nightclubs and at comedy clubs, quickly rising to a level of almost-stardom, including doing some acting gigs. All in all, he was happy with his life - people were starting to know who he was, and soon his career would skyrocket.

Then the plague hit. He noticed it first when people he saw on a regular basis at clubs stopped coming in. His mother, who called him from the other side of the country on a weekly basis, hadn't called in a couple weeks. After a while, he realized that there were no longer people coming into the clubs, and none of his friends seemed to be around anymore...his manager hadn't called, he didn't have any bookings, and, oddly, the streets were almost empty. He is left in what was once a full and vibrant city, with no one to talk to.

Jason Leo

Jason Leo
Age:25
LBS:180
height: 74 inchs
Phys. Descrip: Tall lanky with a lot of hair on the top of his head face unshaven and unclean body looks like he's been roughing it for awhile.

Jason grew up a small city where he was the nerdy kid out to save the world. His thinking like that made him end up joining the service. While in the war he became disillioned to the war and everything in society and he felt like he didn't belong in this world. Soon after his 4 years were up he left the army and tryed to life a normal like in a big city like everyone else. That didn't work out for him he couldn't stand the way his life was planed out in a normal 9 to 5 he need more to do then just work eat and sleep. That is why one night out of the blue after he had gotten his old pick up truck to work he left his job. No 2 week notice just left. In the back of his truck was his shot gun and pistol camping gear and a backpack. He soon made his way up to the sierra Mnts. after off roading for a while back there and finding a place he was sure no one had be to a long time he parked his car and headed off into the woods.

Life was hard out there even beening in the service hadn't taught him how to cook or hunt or servive just off the land like he wanted. He had made his stand and his stand was he would servie like this or die in the process. After many many days he made progress and soon he learned to trap and hunt like the best of them. For 2 years he lived like that til one day hunting he came apon a dead man in the woods. The animal hadn't touch him and he had been there for days. That told jason that the body was sick and dieased. So he made he was back to his old truck that he had hidden away in case something had happen or he suddenly found out what to do with his life.

Makeing his way do into the nearest city he found a word completely different then the one he left.

??????????????????????????

Anyone given any thought as to where everyone meets up at???? Just a thought for down the road.

Well it won't be a city ...survivors may raid distributions centers in smaller cities but you can discount a big city....not a long term option and of course loads of bodies not healthy.

You may fnd that the first place people met may be the place the first person who knows anything about Radio's sets up transmission.....and then the decision about a final location to set up a society can be made.

People are naturally going to travel whether it be immediately or over several weeks, its quite possible that the first group of people getting together could pick up the radio signal and from there we can get organised.

Logically the signal would be somewhere along a main east west highway and near the halfway point of such a road....all we would need is someone to write that part of their immediate post plague experience...

Just an idea

Loved 'The Stand' ever since reading it years ago...not sure my knowledge of the States is enough for me to play a local so would a foreigner stranded at the airport be a suitable character...? Hope so

Aoife Patrick (pronounce EE-fa)
Scottish
Writer
26
Dark brown hair and green eyes, pale skin dusted with freckles, her celtic heritage obvious in her looks.
Petite frame with generous womanly curves.
Engaged although now she figured her fiancé was as dead as those who surrounded her where she was.

She’d come to the States to promote her latest book, a historical romance.
At the time of the Plague she'd become stranded at Chicago airport, she’d been en-route to the West coast from New York when the pilot had succumbed to the flu like illness sweeping the country. She’d been taken to a ‘holding room’ told she’d be fetched when another plane became available and left there.
No one had come back. The airport had been closed for days, all flights grounded and now the entire place had a deathly stillness.
She’d gathered some supplies from the airport stores, mainly paper, pens and some clothes, not that she figured she’d get a prize winning novel from whatever followed but she figured she should at least keep some form of a diary about it. The food was beyond even considering taking and so she found a way out of the locked building and began to head down the highway towards Chicago itself. Avoiding looking in the cars at the slumped corpses within them, a scarf over her nose to prevent the putrid smells making her heave.