Wind in My Hair [Interest Check]

When the only thing you can keep yourself busy with is the continuous fulfillment of your eternal destiny, you tend to go looking for a little mischief.

Wind in My Hair will be a sandboxy RP about a group of runners, each hosting the magical energy of their bestial Familiar, as they evade bands of human hunters using their enhanced speed, stamina, and special gifts :D

The Old Wild
When the living Earth was young and primal, it was ruled jointly by all Beasts who walked its lands and swam its seas and flew its skies, and they made their dealings together according to the nature of things. Peace and war, blood and water, all these they did fairly and agreed upon, and life was simple; no one creature ruled over another, for each had their place in the great web that connected all living things. These are now called the First Beasts, as among their children very few are quite like them. For the children of the First Human grew slowly but unstoppably in power, and with every generation spread themselves to wider and wider territories until they had conquered the earth, and then they set to dealing and arguing only with eachother. Now the First Human, forgotten, sits on some deep and unknown throne, and the creatures of the Old Wild have lost the majesty of their former kingdoms and forgotten their heritage – no longer "Beasts," but simply "beasts," even as the mighty "Humans" became mere "humans."

Yet the small number of First Beasts, when their numbers became critical, sought out the First Human and made a pact with her in an attempt to guarantee their survival. From that day forward each Beast would choose one human host and imbue them with a fraction of its spirit, so that the two existed in harmony. This bond, the Beasts reasoned, would serve to marry them forever to humanity, so that between Beast and Human there would always be fair dealings, and no party would take from the other more than their share. But the plot was a failure, and humanity continued to grow, and one by one the First Beasts died off, their hopes of restoring their former kingdoms gone forever. Now – known as Familiars – they live how they can in the dark and in the wild, and their human hosts protect them from the gaze of an unfriendly world.

The Setting
The bite-sized nation of Konandogo lies in an arid, grassy region. Most of the country is swamped in savanna, where one may find lions, cheetahs, leopards, jackals, hyenas, antelope, wildebeest, zebras, rhinoceros, giraffes, snakes, and everything in between.

Straight through Konandogo runs the Moyo river, patrolled by hippopotamuses, crocodiles, and flamingos. In the south the Moyo opens up into Lake Elizabeth before flowing on towards the gulf.

Into the western region of Kanandogo extends an arm of the tropical Bustani forest, home to elephants, warthogs, tropical birds, frogs, lizards, and stinging insects.

In the northeast sits Mount Jinokubwa, a towering, wrinkled hump of rock capped with snow.

The nation's capital and largest city, Henrytown, lies in the steppe on the banks of the Moyo. The plains are dotted with villages, but the only settlement that comes close to the size of Henrytown is Kishimo, a dense clump of ramshackle buildings in the southwest.

Character Sheets

Runner character sheet
When its previous guardian dies, a Familiar must hurriedly select a new host to gift its spirit to. These are known as the runners, for they leave their old lives behind and disappear into the wilderness. Runners possess enhanced speed and stamina, and have every need of such skills, especially in modern times. Familiar and runner do not communicate with eachother by speech, yet are always in tune; they are one mind in two bodies. If their runner should die, a Familiar will seek out a new one, and if their Familiar should die, a runner will lose their gifts and return to life as an ordinary human. Probably be really sad, too. That stuff's depressing.

Name(s):
Pronouns: I.E. she/her, he/him, they/them, etc.
Age:
Gift: Each familiar grants their runner one special ability; some runners, for instance, see always their objectives, be they behind solid stone or one hundred miles distant. Some always hit their mark, no matter how far away, and others can speak with all living things. Still more are blessed with such gifts as speed, camouflage, lie detecting, healing, breathing underwater, etc (basically any singular ability that’s not OP like flight or instakill :P). A runner's gift is often related to the natural abilities of their Familiar's species.
Habitat: Runners often (but don’t have to) specialize in certain climates or terrains. Jungle runners, for instance, swing through the trees as easily as they walk, desert runners have incredible stamina to travel for long stretches, ocean “runners” are quick swimmers, mountain runners have exceptional balance, and city runners are well adapted to the unique challenges of the urban terrain. A runner’s “habitat” commonly depends upon the habitat of their Familiar’s species.
Appearance and personality:
Bio: Optional, the only really important part is how they met their Familiar
Familiar name:
Familiar species: Dog? Cheetah? Elephant? Owl? Toad? Can be any animal. Shoot, I might even allow plants or fungi. :p

Poacher character sheet
Hungry are the many, but able are the few. Aware that what they do is wrong, the poachers have no choice; to feed their families (and in some case, entire towns), they hunt whatever the markets pay for, and in this age all eyes are upon the grandest prizes of all: the skins, teeth, horns, and flesh of the magical Familiars, worth a fortune to the right people. The poachers travel discreetly, hiding from the sweeping gaze of international police, and hire their guides with great discretion. And if any human gets between a poacher and their prize, well…

Name(s):
Pronouns: I.E. she/her, he/him, they/them, etc.
Age:
Appearance and personality:
Bio: Optional, the only really important part is what drives you to hunt.
Weapon: Joined together by need, poachers come from many walks of life. Some wouldn’t walk down to the corner store without their tried-and-true six-shooter stuck under their belt, while others prefer the bow or even throwing knives. Hunting weapons can range from firearms to swords to staves to boomerangs to your own two fists – whatever it is, if a poacher’s on the hunt with it, you can be sure they know everything there is to know about how to use it (else they'd be dead or in jail :P).

International Police character sheet
If a runner stands for freedom and a poacher for survival, the IP stand for justice and order. Militaristic in their training, methods, and resources, the organization is unconcerned with the affairs of the locals; they exist only to carry out the law. The IP's presence in Konandogo focuses mainly on shutting down the poachers that fund international trafficking rings; they are "hunting the hunters," so to speak. But that doesn't mean they'll go out of their way to help a runner in need, as most of them won't even believe the locals' wild stories about magical beasts and their human guardians.

Name(s):
Pronouns: I.E. she/her, he/him, they/them, etc.
Age:
Appearance and personality:
Bio: Optional, the only really important part is how and why you joined the IP.
Specialty and/or rank: The IP recruits everyone from common soldiers and squad captains to snipers and demolitions experts to engineers and cooks.

Generic character sheet
For major characters other than runners and poachers (such as friends, fences, etc). Minor characters don’t need their own sheets, nor do characters that have close ties to characters you've already sheeted (if that's even a word). But if you have a major character that is none of the above, use dis one.

Name:
Pronouns:
Age:
Occupation: Include if they have any connections to the runners, poachers, IP, or any other organizations of interest (like local government or something).
Appearance and personality:
Bio: Optional

Rules
1. No godmodding, powerplaying, autohitting, etc, etc~
2. Be semi-realistic about wilderness survival, like, packing food and water and paying attention to shelter and exposure and stuff.
3. The world is a sandbox that all players contribute to. Feel free to invent and control your own NPC’s, such as the population of your hometown, a trusted merchant who buys your goods, or an agent that’s looking to bring you to justice.
4. You may have as many characters as you like, and only major characters need their own sheets.
5. Posts may be as long or short as they need to be.
6. Don't obey rule 6.
7. Have fun!

I'm interested, but i'm curious to hear more. :o

Oh, very pretty.

I may not be a good fit. Right now I'm wondering whether the superpowers are necessary.

Also wondering why Beasts are privileged over other lifeforms. I'm not sure how to romanticize parasitic flies, for instance, or brainless jellyfish, or brain-eating amoebas. So metazoans probably aren't the right category. Vertebrates aren't, either; we can hardly rule out octopi. But sea pigs, we probably can.

But, hey. Suppose some of the First Trees entered into an agreement with the seed dispersers, and began to fruit. And that long, long ago, the First 'Algae' oxygenated the atmosphere; this killed nearly everything, yet enabled a more efficient metabolism to arise, bringing the advent of multicellularity.

By this logic, new First Beasts should arise when a speciation event occurs. After niches open, then, but generally on geological timescales. Yeah, no wonder they're in trouble. (Also, barring altered perception of time, surviving until reproductive age must be utterly tedious. Under less trying circumstances, that is.)

@Oms: Like setting? I've always loved a bit of wild savannah expanses, few plateaus, dry temperate climate. Have you read Deathwatch? Our junior high class read it, pretty interesting novel about this young guide who's hired for this guy to go hunting with (cause he needs someone who knows the area and the sheep habits), except the hunter accidentally shoots an old man, and since he's this super intense BA who's afraid of even the RISK of going back to prison (and losing his fortunes) he doesn't want to risk the guide testifying against him and saying that he murdered someone (even though the guide assures him that since it was an accident everyone would understand and he wouldn't be charged). So in order to get rid of the guide but make it look like he died accidentally, this hunter takes all his water and food and stuff and basically sends him out into the desert, tracking him all the while with his rifle to make sure he doesn't go near any water. And the way this guy survives and how the book ends is just awesome. xP So that's uh, a little inspiration I guess. For the setting and how I want the RP to "feeeeel."

@Jazz: One thing that always amazes me is how you can look at something and then explain it and hypothesize with far greater depth than I ever could xD Kudos Jazz! Yeah, all aminals are fair game, but the fly runners are prooobably able to get by without anyone noticing anything's amiss, lol :P

I guess I mean more like. What would we be doing?

It'd be a good ol-fashioned sandbox, so everything would be up to you. Conflict would be completely player driven - poachers hunt runners, runners try and stay a step ahead, everyone has their own subplots, yadda yadda. This might work better on the Sporum, but I wanted to run an interest check here to see if this would be y'all's style :P

Well you know I like a good sandbox. :P
*Cough* Beastly Experiments basically was a sandbox even though were were all like 15 and had no experience and our writing was shit but we were having a good time.*Cough*

That's what I'm going for here, a minimum of planning and just something to mess around in :D Good tiiimes

This looks good. I don't think I would join this one though, because a. I'm kind of stretched thin as is (I promised Ji I'd play his dice game), and b. we have a conventional fantasy already. :(

Best of luck, though!