[Sticky: Introduction Post: Free-For-All] The Welcoming Party
So it seems you just arrived in this place.
What place? Well. This place. There's no other place, after all. Except when there is. There's no sign welcoming you, no official-looking authority standing around to ask for directions. You're just here, in this place, and how you arrived is anyone's guess; everyone who's come to stay -- and, oddly enough, hasn't left since -- has a different recollection on how he or she got here. Hazy memories of a train, a cab, instant teleportation, or even simply waking up -- sometimes from death in the last case.
But whatever the reason, however the method, you're here now. transgenicprose. Home of a patchwork population with no official name or leader. It's a pretty basic area, easy to get around -- it has all you'd need to get by and then some. There's no real layout to the grounds, as they seem to shift accordingly and alter with the seasons (and the strange, spontaneous events that occur now and again) with no visible reasoning, but you can usually find whatever you want to find. Except for an exit. Trying to simply walk out of here somehow ends with you ending up right back where you started.
If you walk enough, however, you may find yourself wandering into a new place entirely, and one that may or may not look familiar. Turns out this place decided to address the issue of homesickness by duplicating portions of people's homes and placing them on the edges of the town. Explore, and you may walk into someplace widely recognized: New York City, for example. Walk a little further and you might cross over into the virus-ridden Raccoon City; beyond that, Zaphias, Daath, Iselia, Tokyo, Hueco Mundo, a post-apocalyptic Los Angeles, Hell itself, who knows? The people here come from strange worlds, you know.
Each of these places also hosts a number of people who never manage (or care) to cross the dimensional boundaries into the other areas: Meltokio citizens, for example, going about their day-to-day lives, or some of those Raccoon City zombies. Read: we have NPCs. It's just enough to remind you that while it may look, feel, sound, and smell like your home, it technically isn't. But we can only do so much.
And don't worry: in the middle of all these areas, you'll always come right back to the town that you first arrived in.
So congratulations, you're now part of the population. Or will be as soon as you settle in. But before you go getting to know your neighbors, you might first want to dry off.
Oh, right. It should be mentioned: however you arrived, you find yourself dropped rather abruptly in the middle of the lake on the outskirts of this place. A small lake, but a deep lake nonetheless near its center. There's a single dock with a few rowboats tied to it and a rather out-of-place stack of towels on its edge (which may or may not be there from day to day, as they're only present out of the kindness of a few residents' hearts and frequently need replacing), and whether anyone's nearby to help you is a matter of chance -- although there's often someone loitering about.
Shortly after arriving, you'll also be sure to find a complimentary gift: one of those new smartphones, brand new and shiny and in perfect working order. Everyone here has one (whether you want it or not, it has a habit of turning up even when you throw it away), providing a convenient means of communication between the people here. Video, audio, and text can all be used; just be careful, as they tend to have a mind of their own on occasion and may turn on when you least expect (or want) them to. Sadly, you can't call back to your homeworld with them. So sorry.
Oh, and if you're not familiar with technology? Sorry about that, too. No instruction manual. Maybe someone will help you out if you ask nicely.
So once you've overcome your official TP hazing, consider yourself a member of the club. Just play nice (or not), respect your fellow inmates occupants (optional), and stay out of the laboratory unless you have a license (recommended, but those doors are rarely locked, anyway). Pick out a room in the dormitory building, take a look at the shops in the marketplace -- the latter of which, by the way, are run by a peculiar group. It turns out that there is a breed of natives to this universe, a few dozen individuals who have taken it upon themselves to run the stores and some of the other buildings that require maintenance.
How can you tell natives from the arrivals? Simple. The natives are, in a word, robotic: never varying in personality or even really behavior, these men and women seem to have been cast from a mold -- literally. One might notice that on the whole, there are only a handful of different faces among this group: they are, for the most part, a mass of clones. Oddly, they're never seen outside of the marketplace; once night falls, the stores close and the employees are simply gone, and where they go, who knows? Not to the residential area.
But it's nothing you should worry about. For now.
Welcome aboard.
What place? Well. This place. There's no other place, after all. Except when there is. There's no sign welcoming you, no official-looking authority standing around to ask for directions. You're just here, in this place, and how you arrived is anyone's guess; everyone who's come to stay -- and, oddly enough, hasn't left since -- has a different recollection on how he or she got here. Hazy memories of a train, a cab, instant teleportation, or even simply waking up -- sometimes from death in the last case.
But whatever the reason, however the method, you're here now. transgenicprose. Home of a patchwork population with no official name or leader. It's a pretty basic area, easy to get around -- it has all you'd need to get by and then some. There's no real layout to the grounds, as they seem to shift accordingly and alter with the seasons (and the strange, spontaneous events that occur now and again) with no visible reasoning, but you can usually find whatever you want to find. Except for an exit. Trying to simply walk out of here somehow ends with you ending up right back where you started.
If you walk enough, however, you may find yourself wandering into a new place entirely, and one that may or may not look familiar. Turns out this place decided to address the issue of homesickness by duplicating portions of people's homes and placing them on the edges of the town. Explore, and you may walk into someplace widely recognized: New York City, for example. Walk a little further and you might cross over into the virus-ridden Raccoon City; beyond that, Zaphias, Daath, Iselia, Tokyo, Hueco Mundo, a post-apocalyptic Los Angeles, Hell itself, who knows? The people here come from strange worlds, you know.
Each of these places also hosts a number of people who never manage (or care) to cross the dimensional boundaries into the other areas: Meltokio citizens, for example, going about their day-to-day lives, or some of those Raccoon City zombies. Read: we have NPCs. It's just enough to remind you that while it may look, feel, sound, and smell like your home, it technically isn't. But we can only do so much.
And don't worry: in the middle of all these areas, you'll always come right back to the town that you first arrived in.
So congratulations, you're now part of the population. Or will be as soon as you settle in. But before you go getting to know your neighbors, you might first want to dry off.
Oh, right. It should be mentioned: however you arrived, you find yourself dropped rather abruptly in the middle of the lake on the outskirts of this place. A small lake, but a deep lake nonetheless near its center. There's a single dock with a few rowboats tied to it and a rather out-of-place stack of towels on its edge (which may or may not be there from day to day, as they're only present out of the kindness of a few residents' hearts and frequently need replacing), and whether anyone's nearby to help you is a matter of chance -- although there's often someone loitering about.
Shortly after arriving, you'll also be sure to find a complimentary gift: one of those new smartphones, brand new and shiny and in perfect working order. Everyone here has one (whether you want it or not, it has a habit of turning up even when you throw it away), providing a convenient means of communication between the people here. Video, audio, and text can all be used; just be careful, as they tend to have a mind of their own on occasion and may turn on when you least expect (or want) them to. Sadly, you can't call back to your homeworld with them. So sorry.
Oh, and if you're not familiar with technology? Sorry about that, too. No instruction manual. Maybe someone will help you out if you ask nicely.
So once you've overcome your official TP hazing, consider yourself a member of the club. Just play nice (or not), respect your fellow inmates occupants (optional), and stay out of the laboratory unless you have a license (recommended, but those doors are rarely locked, anyway). Pick out a room in the dormitory building, take a look at the shops in the marketplace -- the latter of which, by the way, are run by a peculiar group. It turns out that there is a breed of natives to this universe, a few dozen individuals who have taken it upon themselves to run the stores and some of the other buildings that require maintenance.
How can you tell natives from the arrivals? Simple. The natives are, in a word, robotic: never varying in personality or even really behavior, these men and women seem to have been cast from a mold -- literally. One might notice that on the whole, there are only a handful of different faces among this group: they are, for the most part, a mass of clones. Oddly, they're never seen outside of the marketplace; once night falls, the stores close and the employees are simply gone, and where they go, who knows? Not to the residential area.
But it's nothing you should worry about. For now.
Welcome aboard.