This Quest explores a very exaggerated version of "racism". In this devastated post-apocalyptic world, there are people that have inhereited from their ancestors Singularity-level genetic engineering to be superhuman, and people who have not.
"Daniel. There are things that you can do something about, and things that you cannot." your grandpa's massive, soft voice rumbled.
You, a 10-year old boy, were surrounded by a sea of dead bodies, right outside the city ruins. There were so many that you couldn't see the tarmac.
"C-can't we..." you stammered, throat tight, eyes stinging. "Maybe we can-"
The question died in your lips as you turned to your grandfather, a giant, white-bearded man well past 400 years old.
"No." he answered. "We can't stitch them back together. They won't heal. They can't come back like we can. They are dead, Daniel. Dead forever."
Tears started to well up in your eyes, and your sight went blurry. A huge, warm hand landed on your tiny, trembling shoulder.
"It's hard, I know, Daniel. But there's nothing we can do about who they are. They are born as them. We are born as us."
You nodded. He knelt, bringing his bushy, white-haired face close to yours. His smile, though faint, held a warmth that chased away some of the cold despair.
"I'm sure that they are grateful for your compassion regardless, Daniel." he smiled.
You managed another nod and leaned into him. He wrapped his massive arms around you and hugged you back.
More tears fell from your eyes, and Grandpa stroked your back gently, as you loudly poured all of your sadness out into his beard and shoulder.
"Who they were is set in stone," Grandpa eventually rumbled, his voice soothing. "But what we do now... that's what we can control."
He squeezed your shoulder with a calloused hand. "Come on, let's get you cleaned up. We've got a long road ahead, Daniel."
"Daniel."
"Da-..."
---
A sharp whisper pulled you out of your memories. "Daniel!" Your grandfather's voice hissed. You blinked, finding yourself no longer a child but a young man of twenty.
The battlefield was a distant memory. The circular walls of salvaged steel of the Council Hall now surrounded you, teeming with townsfolk. A woman with an impossible waist, natural pink hair and curious cat ears stood addressing them from a center stage, her voice a monotonous drone about "Basebloods." Like her, most here bore the telltale signs of inhereited genetic modifications from the Singularity era - Godbloods. This was your first Council meeting, your first official act as an adult: voting. Every person of age in this town had the right to.
"Ready?" your grandfather murmured, his deep, ancient eyes meeting yours.
You took a deep breath. "Yeah," you whispered back, resolve hardening your gaze.
---
You live in a post-apocalyptic era, several hundreds of years after humanity hit Singularity and then self-annihilated in a massive war where there were no victors. What's left is techno-medieval, with economies based on biodiesel crops with low amounts of industrialization, somewhat similar to modern-day rural villages. Most people are farmers, and most settlements are small and sparse.
Societal growth and advancement is difficult, as humanity competes for land and food with "monsters", the great-great-great-great-... great-grandchildren of ancient, terrible creatures from the war that almost ended everything.
---
We'll need your help to flesh out Daniel's past.
There are things that Daniel can't do anything about, like the circumstances of his own birth:
Godblood: Daniel is a Godblood, a broad and diverse class of people that have inhereited a number of Singularity-era genetic modifications. Daniel has the following:
Godblood - Titan: Specific to his particular bloodline, Daniel's body has incredible regenerative ability. This allows him to recover from incredible injuries like decapitation (with proper treatment), live for hundreds of years, and his muscularity and athleticism can rapidly grow without any plateauing nor upper limit, as long as he gets the proper nutrition to sustain it. His body can also tolerate extreme surgeries and modifications, although there is the risk of his regeneration starting to reverse these things. He has a hard time getting drunk or being affected by drugs because of similar reasons.
Godblood - Miscellaneous Cosmetics: Common with Godbloods, Daniel has inhereited his own mix of cosmetic genetic modifications from his parents. His make him very handsome in a prettyboy sort of way, lack body hair, have immense genitalia and naturally smell very nice.
There are things that Daniel could do about, like his career path:
[Pick a Main career for Daniel's main profession, and a Secondary one for his other interests, talents, hobbies, etc.]
[ ] Woodworker: You're a skilled carpenter and lumberjack, able to build entire houses on your own with enough time, and more complex structures like mills or boats.
[ ] Merchant: You have a huge talent for business, mathematics, and have a nose for understanding markets and making money. You've made grandpa and his monster hunter buddies a lot of money by figuring out how to commercialize the otherwise wasted remains of slain monsters.
[ ] Medic: You've learnt how to heal and treat common and not-so-common injuries and how to create drugs for different purposes. You've often tended to grandpa and other monster hunters, and you've once made a successful amateur c-section during an emergency.
[ ] Technician: You're skilled in the obscure arts of electricity, biodiesel engines and complex mechanisms. You have experience in the town's primitive telegraph system and repairing biodiesel cars. You also understand how and why electronics just don't seem to work anymore in this era.
[ ] Monster Hunter: Like your grandfather, you're dedicated to hunting down and killing genetic "monsters" that plague this era. You also know the specific weaknesses and behaviours of these creatures like a zoologist would. (Pick a specialization below along this choice. You may have both your main and secondary be Monster Hunter choices)
- [ ] Monster Hunter - Fighter: You're skilled in the use of the weapons of this era, like swords and bows, but also biodiesel-fuelled chainsaws and bio-methane flintlocks. You can reliably kill or help kill most monsters, and you're the most broadly useful kind of monster hunter.
- [ ] Monster Hunter - Orator: The closest equivalent to a "mage", you're a skilled actor and theatrical speaker, so much so that you can tap into the genetically-written loyalties of long-dead political parties and corporations that monsters have, through your flamboyant speeches and displays. This is generally a support role to compel the monsters to be easier to kill with "Crowd Control" from special verbal manipulation, but some Orators have monsters as familiars for combat.
- [ ] Monster Hunter - Tanksuit Pilot: You're a skilled pilot of one of the town's Tanksuits, a wearable mech built from cobbled-together ancient war machines that runs on biodiesel. It's very powerful, equipped with a drill and a machine gun, but it's loud and clunky. You also know how to mantain it and keep it in top condition. The Tanksuit is necessary for the most large and dangerous monsters, and being its pilot is a very prestiguous position, but it's sized for normal people (meaning that Daniel would need to keep himself normal-sized).
[ ] Write in: I'm very open to working with your own ideas. Farmer? Leatherworker? Blacksmith? Thief? Something else?
[X][Main] Technician: You're skilled in the obscure arts of electricity, biodiesel engines and complex mechanisms. You have experience in the town's primitive telegraph system and repairing biodiesel cars. You also understand how and why electronics just don't seem to work anymore in this era.
-[X][Secondary] Medic: You've learnt how to heal and treat common and not-so-common injuries and how to create drugs for different purposes. You've often tended to grandpa and other monster hunters, and you've once made a successful amateur c-section during an emergency.
[X][Main] Technician: You're skilled in the obscure arts of electricity, biodiesel engines and complex mechanisms. You have experience in the town's primitive telegraph system and repairing biodiesel cars. You also understand how and why electronics just don't seem to work anymore in this era.
-[X][Secondary] Medic: You've learnt how to heal and treat common and not-so-common injuries and how to create drugs for different purposes. You've often tended to grandpa and other monster hunters, and you've once made a successful amateur c-section during an emergency.
[X] Traveling Inventor
-[X] Inventor: You were interested in many different things from tinkering with electronics, and smiting tools, to learning woodworking. You never really mastered any of these things though, just moving from learning one profession to another trying to find the right one for you. After a while, you started getting ideas for designing tools using your working knowledge of different crafts. Tools to help increase precision, decrease costs, help standardized products, and just make things easier. Eventually, you decided to make it your calling to bring these tools to fruition and see just how far you could go with your ideas, if nothing else it'll be another thing to sell and another way of making any future jobs easier for you.
-[X][Secondary] Merchant: You have a huge talent for business, mathematics, and have a nose for understanding markets and making money. You've made grandpa and his monster hunter buddies a lot of money by figuring out how to commercialize the otherwise wasted remains of slain monsters.
To fight genetically reinforced racism is incompressible, and the only way to solve problems beyond one compression is to do as man has done till the dawn of time make tools to even the odds.
[X][Main] Technician: You're skilled in the obscure arts of electricity, biodiesel engines and complex mechanisms. You have experience in the town's primitive telegraph system and repairing biodiesel cars. You also understand how and why electronics just don't seem to work anymore in this era.
-[X][Secondary] Medic: You've learnt how to heal and treat common and not-so-common injuries and how to create drugs for different purposes. You've often tended to grandpa and other monster hunters, and you've once made a successful amateur c-section during an emergency.
[X][Main] Technician: You're skilled in the obscure arts of electricity, biodiesel engines and complex mechanisms. You have experience in the town's primitive telegraph system and repairing biodiesel cars. You also understand how and why electronics just don't seem to work anymore in this era.
-[X][Secondary] Medic: You've learnt how to heal and treat common and not-so-common injuries and how to create drugs for different purposes. You've often tended to grandpa and other monster hunters, and you've once made a successful amateur c-section during an emergency.
[X] Traveling Inventor
-[X] Inventor: You were interested in many different things from tinkering with electronics, and smiting tools, to learning woodworking. You never really mastered any of these things though, just moving from learning one profession to another trying to find the right one for you. After a while, you started getting ideas for designing tools using your working knowledge of different crafts. Tools to help increase precision, decrease costs, help standardized products, and just make things easier. Eventually, you decided to make it your calling to bring these tools to fruition and see just how far you could go with your ideas, if nothing else it'll be another thing to sell and another way of making any future jobs easier for you.
-[X][Secondary] Merchant: You have a huge talent for business, mathematics, and have a nose for understanding markets and making money. You've made grandpa and his monster hunter buddies a lot of money by figuring out how to commercialize the otherwise wasted remains of slain monsters.
