City of IF

[Reiso]

For those who weren't here, this is how this all began...

I held a series of Polls that asked you to make choices about aspects of the Storygame, without knowing what those choices were deciding. In order to accomplish this, I assigned "code" values to these choices, which are explained in greater detail below.

To see a post by post replay, feel free to click here (caution; semi-long).

The short list of answers is:

Color: Silver
Stone: Obsidian
Element: Fire
Lever: Flipped randomly back and forth
Jewelry: Amulet

Now then; colors determined the setting of the game...

Gold=Utopian City
Green=Woods
Blue=Underwater
Silver=Hybrid
Black=Post-Apocalyptic Wasteland

Basically, due to the nature of the *rules regarding the Hybrid setting, we are looking at a mostly underwater world of virtually utopian cities. But life is still no cakewalk, as the oceans and atmosphere are poisonous and otherwise quite dangerous in the aftermath of a near world ending event. Fun, eh?

Next, stones determined the tone of the SG...

Hematite=Humor
Diamond=Fantasy
Granite=Action
Selenium=Murder/Mystery
Obsidian=Sci-fi/Horror


So we're looking at a Skiffi, basically, which should be no surprise to anyone by now, since that's the forum you're in. Note I said tone, and not genre. I like to make a distinction, so you have fair warning that this may crossover into or otherwise emulate other genres, despite the more prevalent Sci-fi tone of the writing.

Next were elements, which basically decided the gender of our protagonist.

Water=Woman
Fire=Man

Well, this one is pretty self-evident. We got fire. We got a man.

Next was the lever. 

WARNING: SPOLIERS!! SKIP AHEAD TO THE NEXT RED TEXT TO AVOID THEM.

The nature of the lever has now been revealed to represent the level of technological advancement present in the SG's world culture. This is not a "time". Traveling or existing to a relative past or future was not implicit. It was merely a relatable gauge of available tech. Being underwater did not necessarily mean that it had to be Sci-Fi, as underwater castles, steam punk monstrosities or a race of intelligent greek age fish were all possibilities that would have satisfied the criteria. As it was,  I gave these choices when I presented the lever poll:

Flip it left
Leave it in the center
Flip it right
Randomly flip it back and forth

The left was anything from the stone age to, say, the 19th century. The middle would have been experimental alternatives to modern day tech. Far to the right was anything from the near to distant future. Flipping it randomly back and forth was--honestly--a joke option that I equally hoped would be picked and did not expect to be, and It would have allowed me to not clearly define the available tech, as well as mix up what was or was not available. This is the one that was chosen, and while I have not outwardly excluded specific tech from the SG I do have limits set in place that I will not go beyond. Also, since so many people enjoyed flipping that lever back and forth, it made sense to me that there are certain behind the scenes reasons for such a hodgepodge of tech to simultaneously exist, and this resulted in the decision that the world is suffering (in isolated pockets), from a time-anomaly.

END SPOILERS

Next was jewelry, which decided what drove our protagonist...

Ring=Love
Amulet=Wealth
Medal=Glory
Brooch=Vengeance
Pin=Redemption
Pendant=Heroism

Amulet was chosen, which in this case means that our fellow leads a dive team looking for their instant fortune at the bottom of a dark and merciless sea. It seems as if they may have found it, but they've found something else too.

As of my writing this, we are in our third chapter, and have just won our own forum in Skiffi as April 09 SGOTM. Way to go us! Thanks to those who helped get the SG here, and here's hoping we have a good long run! For any new players--welcome! Read on, and don't be shy about making suggestions or asking questions, this is your game too! To everyone else, let's keep those DP suggestions coming!

Chapter 1

*The rule for hybrid was to combine the second place choice with the last place choice. In this particular case, the second choice was blue (water), and the colors for Apocalyptic Wasteland and Utopia tied for last place. Hence, the description above.