Potential: an RPG
If you found yourself in an unfamiliar world, a familiar but not-quite-right body, with your former memories fading fast and half-replaced by those of someone else, how would you react? If the rules that constrained everyone else in the world didn't seem to apply to you, what would you do with your new life?
World Background
Potential is set on an Earth-like planet known as Ebhen. It is, essentially, a world in the D&D universe, with all that entails - though it is not 100% identical (mainly so that rules, history and so on can be tailored for our purposes), it is close enough. The world is large and spread out across several continents. Just like Earth, it has a large variety of climates and biomes and a huge range of cultures spread out across the world. Unlike modern Earth, most of the human population of Ebhen still sustains itself by farming, and so is spread out into villages and towns rather than consolidated into huge metropolitan areas, although there are plenty of notable cities and strongholds, and several nomadic societies. Non-humans are plentiful on Ebhen, and their cultures are as varied as those of humans - and often completely unknown and alien to outsiders. Many of the other ÔÇÿhumanoidÔÇÖ races coexist mostly separately but peacefully, but there are always exceptions who choose to make their way in the Human societies, and there are just as many less-peaceful humanoids out there, as well as those considered downright warlike. There are also other sentient races who do not resemble humans in the slightest, more than can be listed or counted here, maybe even more than can be imagined, and tales of creatures not born of Ebhen itself but from the magical planes alongside it ÔÇô but most people have never seen nor heard of anything so rare. To have met a dwarf or an elf in your lifetime was nothing unusual, but in most of the small villages, those who said theyÔÇÖd had a drink with a Lizardfolk or broken bread with a Changeling were considered ÔÇÿtellers of tall talesÔÇÖ indeed.
Introduction and PC info
You are, for an unknown reason and through an unknown method, dragged into an alternate reality; essentially, the D&D world. You are knocked out or fall asleep in the 'real world' and wake up in the alternate universe, occupying a body that closely resembles your own, but is not it.
What becomes immediately clear is that someone else used to live in this body; a few moments of head-splitting pain ensue as your psyche fights for dominance and wins. It is not a complete victory: your memories seem to merge with those of your host, and the original medieval owner of your new brain managed to reject anything he or she could not comprehend before disappearing entirely. Whether or not that person is walking around confused in your body in 2015 on Earth, you do not know - but they are not with you any more. All you have is a faint understanding of who they were, glimpses of people and places they knew, and a selection of skills that you didn't have before.
Those with ÔÇÿthe PotentialÔÇÖ (the PCs) are modern day humans from Earth who have been dragged through from their reality into this one. Whatever caused this effect took people from different moments and places all across 2015 Earth, but seemed to concentrate their arrival at the same moment in two small, inconsequential villages. Each personÔÇÖs body was left behind, and their consciousness was inserted into the mind and body of an Ebhen villager, one who seemed oddly familiar to the original in some way. The effect of the merge has ÔÇÿresetÔÇÖ the PCs back to a slightly lower skill level than they might previously have been at ÔÇô while the original character may have been a PhD student, or the host may have had a long-term career, everyone begins back at Level 1 in only 3 skills to represent the fuzziness that came from being merged. When someone with 'Potential' looks at themselves, they see themselves as marginally more "real" than their surroundings, and outlined with a very faint golden glow - not enough to prevent them seeing the environment beyond, and not enough to illuminate their surroundings, but a definitely noticeable effect. They see this same effect when they see anyone else with 'Potential', and it is fairly immediately apparent that normal people don't see this.
However ÔÇô whatever brought the PCs to this world broke reality in such a way that the rules do not apply to them. None of the basic D&D rules regarding prerequisites, limits, and such are in effect: where everyone else in the world has to earn EXP, level up in one class at a time, spend their limited number of skill points, and so on, the PCs can learn almost anything, even world-altering magics or supernatural physical powers, just as they would learn something in the real world ÔÇô through good old fashioned effort and practice. And, as they will find out quite early on, even hard work isnÔÇÖt as hard as they might have expected it to be here. Just as a taster of their rule-breaking nature, and to highlight that they are now in an innately magical world, they have awoken with a couple of unusual abilities.
Group One Starting Village Details: Childarin Cove
Childarin Cove was a small village on a rocky outcropping of coastline in a westerly part of one of the larger continents of Ebhen. It was in quite a temperate region, comparable to the south of France, with a relatively mild climate; plenty of sun and a fair amount of rain, but mild winters and few truly fierce storms. However, winds did cause quite high waves in the area. Childarin Cove was not suitable for large boats, and had no docks as such ÔÇô the fishermen of the village usually stayed on land, set up on carefully built jetties and pontoons or in nooks carved into the rock, but they had a few small dinghies and canoes for venturing out into the bay to set up nets and pots for larger catches. Down by the waterfront, but out of range of the tide, were several lodge-type huts where the fishermen live and worked. Further inland were a few arable farms with their associated living and working buildings, mostly growing grain and vegetables, and beyond the farms was a large and mostly untamed area of forest, which the locals logged for firewood and building materials. The village itself lay in between the two areas, and was centred on a large and deep communal well, next to which was a well-built and well-maintained tavern, which was the focal point of all village activities and bustling at most times of day. There were no ÔÇ£shopsÔÇØ, since the village was not on a main trading route or visited by travellers, but there was a blacksmith who mostly mended farming tools, and a ÔÇÿgeneral storeÔÇÖ, where some few supplies that the villagers couldnÔÇÖt make themselves had been brought back from rare trips to town, kept and sold on by an entrepreneurial fellow out of his home.
Group One is:
Thinks
Lin
Theis
Wears
Asks
Jib
Burns
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