Route 58 (RPG Group)

[Koltreg]

Looking to start an RPG over chat, most likely Google chat (who doesn't have a Google account?) since it has video and chat features and image sharing.

50 years ago, Route 58 was a bustling mecca of tourism where families traveled to roadside attractions and ate at diners. Gas prices shot up, the economy changed and now the ravages of the road still remain. Chop shop bandits wait for unprotected families to drive by. Forgotten mysterious beasts breed and hunt through the desert.

There are stories of treasure though that haven't been discovered, warrants out for bandits and perhaps some truth to those unexplainable mystery spots. Will you hit the road?

I want to do this with no rules or anything so it will be more of a fun game. No rolling but there will be consequences.

If you are interested when are you free for this (I am open almost anytime and I am usually up late).

If you are interested post here and I'll work on stuff more.

[Name]

Sounds cool. I'm open usually after 3:30 PM or so weekdays, and also am up late.

[zbg333]

It sounds cool, but I don't know if I could offer a solid time commitment. My free time is usually in broken hours throughout the day. Cool idea though.

[Koltreg]

I am thinking I'd try for something like a 2 hour time limit for segments, or it could be played within a google group. Still planning though.

[zebrazygotes]

I'd like to join in, but my free time is also pretty irregular.

[Koltreg]

Set up a google group so if you want in, hook me up with your Gmail or other email via DM.

The world is generally called Earth because translated into English and across dimension language barriers, that is what we would call the world (LSS, this is Earth in another reality).
After a fairly long period before their world's renaissance kicked in, Earth was stuck in an era of feuding races, evil monsters and kingdoms with really simple requirements to be government leaders. There were thousands of ancient kingdoms that sprang up and when the first adventurers discovered by accident that there were entirely different continents and places to rule there ended up being a vastly large set of nations that didn't really care about the others - because of magic.
If you can summon food do you need to fight for more land? If you can create a single hut that can house thousands of people do you need a larger domain? If your youth can create any resources that you might require what reason is there to fight? Glory - you have monsters to kill for that. Gods - you had living deities that matched the gods in power.
While there were some evil forces who were power hungry, for the sake of the piece those evil forces were generally killed off as soon as they were seen as aggressive.
Knowledge and technology tipped the scales though as they were resources that could not simply be summoned and they threatened the peace and scared the magic users. So eventually the world councils got together and decided to sign the Affirmation Treaty which said that knowledge will be freely shared among nations and races for the betterment of all species.
The treaty caused scientific progress to take off coupled with the powers of time manipulation where researches could spend 100 years of work in the length of a day.
By the time we were starting our Italian Renaissance on this alternate Earth, they had reached the 1960s technology wise - cars, airplanes, television and a loose form of the Internet.
Their birth of the car lead to the invention of slow movement - if you could teleport anywhere you'd miss out on the sights - (the ad men had a ball with that idea). So the formation of the slow routes began and the biggest Route of all was Route 58. Full of tourist traps, diners and hotels millions traveled down the road each year to see the undying mummies, the two headed dragon and millions of other races.

And then the magic in the world vanished. One day they could cast spells and the next it was gone. The governments collapsed, resources that had been bandied about became scarce and suddenly the government had to prepare for a societal collapse.
On Route 58 the collapse hit the hardest - people returned to wanting to travel as fast as possible which caused the businesses to run out of money so even supply trucks stopped running. Now the great road is empty of cars except for those people brave or foolish enough to travel looking for adventure, treasure or danger.

For now, just be humans. I have some ideas for races but I want to see how they play as NPCs and monsters. Humans in the world are the evolutionary backwater. Not tied to any element, not exceptionally brilliant but their size and reproductive ability makes them plentiful and abundant.

Some other races that are in the world include
Anibites - Black dogheaded humanoids, two pairs of arms. Generally melee fighters that will not back down, morally righteous and open thinking though their animalistic urges can be a distraction.
Ehko - Stone covered humanoids with large horns who typically dwelled in the flat lands, large in size and incredibly intelligent but unwilling to change and slow to change their opinions and what they see as reality.
Feston - Humans with horns and firey tempers that makes them wonderfully creative people but also brutal fighters and generally violent as well as short lived.
Loxon - Large elephant men who are strong and prideful and made up a good deal of the royalty of the nations until the magic left. Now they struggle to find their place in a world without order.

Weapons are mostly melee - since they never really fought they never developed explosives or guns minus some improvised weapons.

so figure out the following

Character Name:
Race: Human
Background: (what they did before the magic vanished - do a 2 paragraph top summary and I'll assign skills and resources).
Why Route 58? Why is your character on the Route?

The opening scene will be at the Desert Yasp.

The Desert Yasp:
What once was a chain of magically enhanced hotels collapsed when magic disappeared. What was essentially a one room building with doors that opened to magically furnished rooms has become a message board where would be adventurers can find messages from other people. Since there are no rooms left in the universe most travelers camp out in or around the building. The large number of adventurers also keep thievery to a minimum.
There is also a local food cart that appears every few days to sell overpriced food and rations.

[Name]

Character Name: Alec Hamer
Race: Human
Background: His parents were servants at one of the less luxurious businesses on the Route before the magic stopped. When the magic disappeared(he was about 13), his parents murdered the abusive boss of said business, emptied the reserves, and set off for new lands with him in tow. 7 years later, they fell to a raiding party who decided to take him with them. He spent 5 years with them, learning to kill and survive by his own hand, before he was able to escape. He currently acts as part of a volunteer force to promote order in the Yasp.
Why Route 58? Why is your character on the Route? Necessity. He would leave if he could, but he hasn't found a reliable source of transport or, for that matter, any promise that the world outside the Route is any less cutthroat than the world on the Route.

[zebrazygotes]

Name: Garfield "Garfy" Vojan
Race: Human
Background: His family was fairly well off because his father worked in advertising. He didn't even learn magic, as his family hired magicians to work for them. He spent most of his youth filling up time with various activities: fencing, horseback riding, apprenticing for a tattoo artist, taking cooking classes, nothing that really stuck. After the magic disappeared, he was left with his uncle, a hunting enthusiast. He idolizes treasure hunters and believes he'll become one as soon as he steals "something really cool".
Why Route 58? A pretty girl dared him to get her some treasure.

[Koltreg]

If you guys can also post this stuff over on the google groups that would be helpful.