Raptor at Heart - Full; waiting list open.

[Mereneth]

Do you have what it takes to survive in a hostile world, stuck in a body that is at the same time yours, yet not?

Dangers abound and the learning curve for survival is steep as you step into the pack life of Raptor at Heart. Strangers from around the world suddenly find themselves torn from their lives, timeline and bodies and slammed, together, into the midst of the ancient Cretaceous period, assuming their new lives as velociraptors. Each member of the pack of confused, lost predators retains their personality, intelligence and mind from the life they held before. The instincts of the velociraptor lie buried beneath them, sometimes lurking to the surface and slowly melding into the very personalities of the 'chosen'.

Can these lost souls survive their new lives, or will the hostile world they now inhabit consume them in a spray of blood and become their grave?

Welcome, and thank you for your interest in Raptor at Heart. This story will run tandem as I write it as an actual mini novel, so the content you get will be fresh and the actions you take just may influence how it is written, if not your very survival.

I'm looking for 4-8 interested role players to join the pack as it begins. Keep in mind, this is very much a survival RP and you will need to think not only as a human, but as a predator and a team to thrive. You are no longer human and, in turn, not everything that your human mind expects you to be capable of will be effective as you learn to handle and tend to your new body and its needs.

Stats may or may not be openly given, though your physical form as a raptor will be depicted to you upon your arrival.

Please post here if you are interested, as well as note me a human character background, to include your character name, the country you are from, gender, age and a basic background to include the occupation [if any] of your character. This will impact how you become depicted on arrival, though there are no single, identifiable factors that will influence your raptor form.

There will be NPCs initially, though at minimum 3 of them will be dead within the first day or two of in game time. The survival, or loss, of your pack members can mean the difference of life and death.

Some specifics:

• The velociraptors depicted are based on a mix of scientifically correct velociraptor and Jurassic Parks Velociraptor.
  1. They are intelligent, supporting the factoid of the characters human side continuing to exist.
  2. They are larger than the scientific version of the raptor
  3. They have some of the feathery adornments of the scientific version.
• While human characters noted to me might be a specific gender, that does not guarantee your raptor self will be that gender; a decent mix of each will be met.
• The active player list will not exceed 8, but if someone dies, anyone waiting to join in will join the pack, though they will not have the same knowledge and experience as those who have been going longer and will need to learn, adjust, etc to catch up...or die.
• If no one is 'in line' anyone whose character died is welcome to be tumbled in again as a new raptor, though like anyone joining the game at a later date they will have to 'catch up'. The new raptor will be new to the pack entirely and have no affiliations, possibly even garnering undue distrust, aggressiveness or even violence from their 'old' pack-mates as instincts and time have changed who they are. This applies to complete newcomers as well.
• There is no way back to the human world; the changes are all permanent.
• Be wary how much you allow your human side to influence you. It can help you at times, though it is equally likely to cause you problems.
• The world is a threatening, primal place and dangerous to tackle alone.

NPCs

• They can be idiots, and will sometimes/often/always [case pending] need you to survive and learn. NPC's that survive long enough and learn enough will eventually bring benefits to the table to make the effort of keeping them alive etc worth it.
• The smart or stupid moves of an NPC can directly impact you and your pack. Perhaps one finds a source of small, easy to catch creatures early on, making it easier to learn to use your raptor bodies. Perhaps another wandered away alone too far and is now fleeing back to camp with a Trex on his tail and wetting him or herself in terror...and possibly causing the trex to go after one of you instead of its terrified prey gets away.
• Be wary of an NPCs intentions. They might be learning with you as a pack, but that doesn't mean they can all be trusted.
• The NPCs are only 'Alphas' initially, and will in all likelihood not re-assume the position.

More will be added to this as necessary. Feel free to ask any questions you may have or for any clarifications you need.

Player List:

1. Gathersingredients - Lauren Mckenzie - Female Raptor
2. Jibjib - Terrence Merrick - Male Raptor
3. BadgeAddict - Alex McCarthy - Male Raptor
4. Beandip - Nathan Hoff - Male Raptor
5. Samwiser - Sam Wilson - Female Raptor
6. Theis2 - John Hansen - Female Raptor
7. Nikohl - Brigitte - Female Raptor
8. Kurik - Brock Peterson - Male Raptor

[GathersIngredients]

I'm interested.

My char would be Lauren McKenzie from Bradfield, England. She's 17 years old, goes to school, and she just found out that her would-be-BF (she wants something serious, he's just interested in the carnal aspect of the relation) Jacob might have impregnated her in the night when her parents were out of town two weeks ago, when they ... tried stuff out. (She was late on her period, got nervous, made a test and it was positive. But as people more into this topic might know, there is the possibility of a false positive, too.) Now her world is in turmoil and she doesn't know what to do.

Is that ok with you? Did you want any more information, or is that sufficient? (If not, please ask away.)

[Mereneth]

That'll do! I'll get to work on the raptor depiction in a little bit.

[Mereneth]

The following is your depiction and will be included in the introduction post I'll make for the RP itself later on.

Lauren:

Lauren becomes a slender muscled female velociraptor. She is full grown, standing about 5' 11" tall, though lacking the muscle mass of a more senior female. Her scale-skin is a typical dark green and mottled brown that fades to a mossy tan along the belly and on between her legs till it nears the tip of her tail. Her feathers are an odd silvery brown, though the feather stock itself is the same green of her scale-skin. They [feathers]are longest on her tail tip and a fine fluff with a few small vanity plumes above the eye ridge. The feathering is thicker along the back of her neck and reduces to a fine fluff before vanishing near the bottom of the back of her neck in a tight V. Three mottled splotches stand out along her spine.

The first thing she will see when she opens her eyes at the protest of sore muscles from the transformation and transportation is the small corpse of some ancient mammal; it steams with a freshness marking it as recently deceased.

[BadgeAddict]

sign me up.

Alex McCarthy from the heart of Australia, 25, archeologist involved with the discovery and identification of dinosaur bones. Alex is a fun loving person who likes adventure and risk, (self-styled Indiana Jones type character). Recently, the love of his life, Lea, dumped him for another man, it seems he had been away for far too long, more interested in bones than her she said. Saddened to an extremely deep depression, Alex decides to end it all. Before the moon, before the bones, he pulls out a gun and holds it to his head, when suddenly...

My apologies, Let me just change this a bit.

[Mereneth]

sign me up.

Alex McCarthy from the heart of Australia, 25, archeologist involved with the discovery and identification of dinosaur bones. Alex is a fun loving person who likes adventure and risk, (self-styled Indiana Jones type character) Alex and the team recently found something strange in a desert cave. Other than the pictures on the walls of humans and dinosaurs seemingly living and working together,there was an altar made of obsidian.

I don't mind the character itself, a character with a little foreknowledge about the creatures is an interesting idea, but the 'dinotopia'esque "discovery" is immediately conflicting with what i've written and forcibly attempts to alter the story before you've even begun to roleplay.

[BeanDip]

Interested

[Jibjib]

Very interested!

Terrence Merrick: 57, from Glasgow, Scotland.

Terrence is a Philosophy Professor at Glasgow university. A bachelor by heart, he spends any time not teaching at a small cottage next to a loch in the highlands. His only family is his sister, Hyacinth, who contacts him a few times a year to tell him Happy Christmas, Happy Birthday or to announce the birth of another great niece or nephew. She also worries that he drinks to much, but for him it's not so much a problem as a hobby, as he has an extensive wine collection in his cellar. He is quite content with his life, and is happy to just watch time tick by.

[Mereneth]

Very interested!

Terrence Merrick: 57, from Glasgow, Scotland.

Terrence is a Philosophy Professor at Glasgow university. A bachelor by heart, he spends any time not teaching at a small cottage next to a loch in the highlands. His only family is his sister, Hyacinth, who contacts him a few times a year to tell him Happy Christmas, Happy Birthday or to announce the birth of another great niece or nephew. She also worries that he drinks to much, but for him it's not so much a problem as a hobby, as he has an extensive wine collection in his cellar. He is quite content with his life, and is happy to just watch time tick by.

Awesome, i'll get right on the depiction.

[Jibjib]

Cheers

[BeanDip]

Character: Nathan Hoff
Who Would Play Him In The Movie: Laurence Fishburne
Age: 38
Height: 6'3 (190.5 cm)
Weight: 260lbs (118 kg)
Nation: U.S.A
State: California
Home: California State Penitentiary

Character Quote: "Dyin's the easy way out."

Character Concept: A character who will embrace the animalistic power of his new form (perhaps too much), be a dark raincloud, be just a little antagonistic, struggle with his humanity and to retain it and take several harsh (hopefully painful) lessons in teamwork and his own limitations. Lots of character development hopefully.

Character Appearance: A huge black man who dominates the landscape around him. His hair and beard are cropped close to his head. Through the facial hair you can see a face lined with scars, wrinkles, pits and busted capillaries. Deep bags of purple rest under his eyes. Almost every part of him seems like it must have broken, reset and broken again. His most basic movements, such as walking or drinking, speak to some calculated brutality. His body is thickly built, more tank than human, and holds a few scars here and there with track marks down the arms and legs.

Character Personality: Hoff doesn't so much enter a room as he finds the most tactically-sound position in the room and then occupies it. He's bitter, burned out and takes pills, drugs and alcohol like they were children-strength aspirin. This mood varies greatly depending what combination of drugs and liquors he's recently ingested but typically can be described as angry. He's never afraid to pick a fight and will speak his mind. He prefers to do things alone and is untrusting.

Character Story: Enlisted with the Marines at age 19 and found himself to be a natural soldier. Fought in countless skirmishes and battles and lived by a personal code of honor, teamwork, trust and honesty. However it wasn't to last. After years of service, his squadmates failed him and he was forced to shut his mouth under threat of death. He left the service but changed, his personal honor code broken.

His drug-fueled years that followed had him in and out of the prison system. Constantly fighting inside and out, he finally landed in prison for good and is serving year three of an sixty year sentence.

► Show Spoiler

Sorry if this is overboard; If you're writing a mini-novel alongside this, I figured more info is better. If you want to PM me with questions I can expand this. I will expand the backstory greatly through roleplaying. I find this character to be a bit cliche maybe but should be fun and that's what counts.

[Theis2]

Interested! This post will be edited later with some info once I got around updating me what is happening elsewhere on the forum

[Mereneth]

.

Terrence:

Terrence becomes a solidly framed male velociraptor; his muscles are toned and noticeable when he moves, causing ripples in his sleek scale-skin. He is a fully grown adult, standing at a respectable 6'4" height and has a few years on a few of his new pack mates, though not so many as to mark him as very old. His scale-skin is a very dark blue, nearly appearing black, and is over toned along the spine and joints by teal-green slashes that eventually vanish into the dark color of his hide as they grow further from their origin. His tail sports a fantastic display of feathering; some of the longest plumes are nearly a foot in length. The dark emerald and teal feathers manage to give his tail the appearance of having a more defined, long cut 'diamond' shape than simply the whip-like end of other raptors. He has a few short feathers accenting his eye ridges and a fine, downy line down the back of his neck.

The first thing he will see when he comes to is the face of another unconscious raptor; one of his other soon-to-be pack mates.The toothy, open mouth exhales softly, assaulting his new senses with the scent of the raptor. He feels well rested, as if he has just woken up from a long, comfortable sleep.

[SamWiser]

I'm definitely interested. This sounds awesome.

Sam Wilson

Sam is 22, and lives in Seattle, WA. He is very religious, and has taken over the youth group at his church while he is in college at University of Washington. He is even considering a career in ministry, and thinks that the leadership role he has in the youth group a blessing. He was on his high school cross country team, and has kept running in college, training for a half marathon in his free time. He likes reading and watching movies. He has never had a serious girlfriend, but had recently taken a liking to one of the girls that help out at the youth group and was planning on asking her out soon.

[Mereneth]

Alex:

Alex becomes a lithe, male velociraptor; his supple muscles adorn a smaller frame than some of the other adults, though what he lacks in size he makes up for in his powerful legs. He is an adult, though the final growth spurt to bring him closer to scale with the others in the pack has yet to happen. As such, he only reaches a meager 5' 4" in height and he lacks the body mass of his larger pack-mates. His scale skin is a darkening rich brown, streaked with dark tan slashes coming up from his belly. Along his spine are 'blast marks' of color where his hide, stretched over the bone by developing muscle, produces a red/brown hue; these markings run from neck to just past the base of his tail.

His feathering along his eye ridges still has some of the fluffy down of youth, adding a betraying softness to his visage. They are a rich brown and red with streaks of white, causing his feathers to have a more notable brightness of color than his hide. The fluffier feathers along his neck have already been shed in favor of the finer neck-cover feathers, which stand out like spiked protrusions where they have not fully emerged. The feathering along his tail have almost completely finished coming in, offering a halberd like shape to his tail tip; the imagery is mangled, though, by the unfinished feathers heading up his tail and along the underside.

The new, unfinished feathers will likely itch tremendously until they have fully emerged and settled.

The aches of transformation will wake Alex and have him facing another raptor, also laid out on the ground, who is staring at him with wide eyes[Terrence]. The smells of the new world he finds himself in assault his senses; noise and smell flood him with new information.

[Mereneth]

.

Nathan:

Nathan becomes a smaller, growing male raptor. He has a few years to go before he will match the size and of his older pack-mates, though his muscles show significant tone and strength for his small stature. Due to his age, he just reaches 4' in height. His scale-hide is a mottled dark green with a earthy brown undertone that shows up more dominantly along his spine; the effect reaches from the back of his head [if viewed without the feathering] to the tip of his tail. The coloration is also apparent at his joints and the back of his eye sockets. His feathering is still the more fluffy down-like substance, but his tail feathers have begun to come in. The feathers themselves are the same earthy brown of his undertone, though with a shade of red to them; this effectively highlights his eye ridges and makes his neck feathering more noticeable against his dark hide.

The first thing he sees upon stretching awake is his own tail, twitching with youthful energy and the boredom of being kept in one place.

[Mereneth]

.

Sam:

Sam becomes a mature, adult, female raptor. Supple muscles wrap Sam's new body, betraying significant strength from head to toe. Measuring a respectable 6'2" in height, Sam 's size and strength are impressive. Sam's scale-hide is nearly pitch black and accented by silvery blue slashes of color along the spine at each vertebrae and splashes at the joints. Silvery-blue feathers with black stock adorn Sam's tail, giving it a sheen of elegance and the shape of a wicked, long blade. The same feathers grow in fine along the eye ridges, bracing the eye and making it harder to look away from when caught by its gaze. Shorter plumes billow down the graceful raptor neck and form a sort of shawl.

The first thing Sam sees as the new bodies muscles complain and beg to be stretched is his own reflection in a pool of water. Cool, calculating eyes gaze back, demanding attention even from their owner.

[Mereneth]

This puts the packs numbers of player characters at 5, potentially 6 with Theis. If Theis gets his character posted up and we don't get any more takers in a day or so I'll get the intro scene written up and we can get going!

If your depiction somehow bothers you, please send me a pm and discuss it with me so we can work things out! Believe me when I say that my choices in depicting your raptor forms were based around your character and the information given while trying to make storytelling, growth, etc as exponential and exciting as possible. You all have given me a wonderful variety of character personalities to write around, so I hope once things get rolling you enjoy the role play!

A few notes about NPCs that i'll add to the first post:

They can be idiots, and will sometimes/often/always [case pending] need you to survive and learn. NPC's that survive long enough and learn enough will eventually bring benefits to the table to make the effort of keeping them alive etc worth it.

The smart or stupid moves of an NPC can directly impact you and your pack. Perhaps one finds a source of small, easy to catch creatures early on, making it easier to learn to use your raptor bodies. Perhaps another wandered away alone too far and is now fleeing back to camp with a Trex on his tail and wetting him or herself in terror...and possibly causing the trex to go after one of you instead of its terrified prey gets away.

Be wary of an NPCs intentions. They might be learning with you as a pack, but that doesn't mean they can all be trusted.

The NPCs are only 'Alphas' initially, and will in all likelihood not re-assume the position.

Any questions? =D

[nikohl]

*appear!*

Is there room for one more? I'm thinking rough little street rat girl, if that impacts on whether it's yea or nay.I'll post a full character concept if you think you can fit me in!

Here's a character sheet, since I've a few spare mins :3

Name: Brigitte
Age: 17
Appearance: Small and wirily strong, with a young face and old eyes.
Info:
Brigitte lives on the streets, and has done ever since she arrived from her home country of Haiti, smuggled in by a boat paid for by her desperate parents. She has always done what she needed to do to survive, and it's worked out ok so far. Once one of the other street rats beat her up and took the sleeping bag she'd been given by a kind passer by, but she's never let anything like that happen again. Sly and cunning, she makes her way through a combination of begging (taking advantage of her innocent wide-eyed appearance) and theft, and several years of eating out of the trash and sleeping in alley ways has made her particularly good at both. She has fleeting, childish dreams of making a fortune and rescuing her family from their poverty, but has the cynical heart of a girl who knows there's no such thing as fairy tales, and you only get what you can take.

[Mereneth]

*appear!*

Is there room for one more? I'm thinking rough little street rat girl, if that impacts on whether it's yea or nay. I'll post a full character concept if you think you can fit me in!

Technically I have room for two more currently! Post away! A scrappy urchin will make an interesting addition!

[Mereneth]

.

Brigitte:

Brigitte becomes an adult female velociraptor sporting lean muscles; she noticeably weighs less than the others. Her scales are a burnt orange with hint of red overtone, though her belly-to-tail scales are a very light cream color that the red and orange bleed into where they meet. Her feathering is softer, further belaying the agility that comes with her frame. It puffs up more around her eye ridges before merging together atop her head and drifting down her neck and finally spilling out onto her back in near downy fluff. Her tail feathers are fairly long, though the severity seen in some of the other raptors is almost missing and they drape together behind her, forming a scythe shape.

Brigitte awakens in the cretaceous to find another raptor piled on top of her and groggily coming to its senses.

[nikohl]

Awesome :]

Just to help my visualisation - do we have quite heavily feathered forelimbs, like the scientific raptor/deinonychus, or do we have scaly arms like the JP raptor?

[Mereneth]

I actually hadn't considered it much and defaulted on scaley arms, though I think that kind of cosmetic might be something worth considering. I think I would keep it scaley to balance out the feathering already present. While it would look pretty cool It would also just be too...flashy. I might just leave it up to each of the participants on if their raptor has arm feathering or not...

[GathersIngredients]

Can we get a little bit of information on the raptors for the players? I'm not so firm on dinosaur knowledge, and it might be good to know e.g. dietary preferences (e.g. meat only, or can they substitute some of it with plants, too), common prey, ability to swim, avarage hunting speed compared with their quarry and whatnot.
Or should we find it all out the hard way, on our own, because our character don't have that kind of knowledge, either? It would be fun if Karen ate an "apple" (or whatever they had in that time period) only to have a stomach ache for half a day and in the end vomiting it out again, then feeling much better.

If the latter, will we get some kind of instinct that will... I dunno nudge us into the right direction? E.g. the freshly killed animal smells very appetizing to Karen (even if she was a vegan as human or something? This is just hypothetically, I didn't think about her eating habits as human yet...) or she gets a "hunt" or "run" instruction from her cerebellum when encountering prey/predators?


Also, it would be great if you could link a picture of how your version looks most like, because when you google raptor/velociraptor a lot of very different images get shown to you.

[Mereneth]

Can we get a little bit of information on the raptors for the players? I'm not so firm on dinosaur knowledge, and it might be good to know e.g. dietary preferences (e.g. meat only, or can they substitute some of it with plants, too), common prey, ability to swim, avarage hunting speed compared with their quarry and whatnot.
Or should we find it all out the hard way, on our own, because our character don't have that kind of knowledge, either? It would be fun if Karen ate an "apple" (or whatever they had in that time period) only to have a stomach ache for half a day and in the end vomiting it out again, then feeling much better.

If the latter, will we get some kind of instinct that will... I dunno nudge us into the right direction? E.g. the freshly killed animal smells very appetizing to Karen (even if she was a vegan as human or something? This is just hypothetically, I didn't think about her eating habits as human yet...) or she gets a "hunt" or "run" instruction from her cerebellum when encountering prey/predators?


Also, it would be great if you could link a picture of how your version looks most like, because when you google raptor/velociraptor a lot of very different images get shown to you.

I'll address the image first. Frankly the imagery is a mental compilation of two versions of the velociraptor. Unless, by some fluke, I find a suitable piece someone has drawn there is no art of what I have envisioned. I can present you with the two types and go over details, if that might help. I'm a horrible artist, honestly, or i'd try to draw it up...don't have the money to commission anyone atm either.

As to the first query, I think the overall experience would be best without the extra knowledge; it is a survival RP game, after all, set to your character learning to cope and live. Of those in the party so far, out of the players, two have potentially useful knowledge. Brig has naturally honed survival experience, for example. Alex was an archeologist, though the big question there would be just how much, or how little of his knowledge is about the species you've become or other dinosaurs and creatures you might encounter.

You would have instinctive queues, but they will be buried, initially, by your human side. Until your character begins to learn how to play its new role the human element might cause you more problems than help.

I'll pm some instinctive reactions etc throughout, or simply introduce them through story or in response to trial and error.

Not everything is 100% founded in science, mind, so there are bound to be some twists and turns.