In a world where animal shapeshifters are commonplace, various governments of the world have stuck some of these shapeshifters in so-called 'experimental communities', which are really artificial wildlife compounds that are set up for scientists to observe these people in their 'natural habitats'......
The world this story takes place in is practically parallel to our own,
with the accomplishments of our generation and the behavior of our
humans about the same, as well as the state of the world.
Shifters, on the other hand, tend to be a bit more
backwards: they see themselves as being part of the animal kingdom, and
thus men are generally stronger than women - though this doesn't
translate as 'better' for every shifter. Predators and even large prey
animals like buffalo are seen as the stronger-but-dimmer half of the
shifters, with most prey animals and even smaller predators being the
meek underdogs. Basically, the position a shifter's animal holds on the
food chain reflects the amount of respect they may gain from other
shifters.
Humans fear shifters more-so than they would fear wild animals, for most
wild animals can not plot murder. While studies have shown shifters to
be no more prone to murder than the average human, that fear and
mistrust still follows the shifters as a stigma. Every murderous shifter
in history is remembered with more disdain than the worst human serial
killers.
Shifters didn't exactly like being treated this way, and thus some of
them jumped at the chance to be relocated at one of these 'experimental
communities', supposedly designed to suit the needs of shifters better.
Some shifters had to be bribed to go to them, other blackmailed.
What they found was not a community.
What they found was a compound, where escape seemed impossible due to the wide expanse of water surrounding it, an island far from any civilization. There were no houses, no markets, no technology of any sort.
For all intents and purposes, it was The Wild, complete with actual Wild animals.
And this is how the governments and scientists of the world intended it to be. This was a place of study, a place where researchers could observe shifters in their 'natural habitats', to compare their actions against the actions of regular humans in the same situation. So what if there was the possibility of death among the shifters, or murder even? The news would just say that a serial killer arose in the shifter 'community', and the world would not bat an eye.
Now the world waits, waits to see what actions these shifters, both willing and unwilling, will take.
Rules
Write in the third-person, please and thank you.
Be able to type an average of two-paragraphs per post please~
Only original characters please.
No magical powers. Whatsoever.
No gore or sex or 'mating' or anything else that would be considered Adult. Common sense, peoples.
Try not to post a thousand times a day. Two posts a day is plenty. Try not to post only once in a blue moon either; once every few days is fine. You won't get booted out for not posting, but at the same time, try not to.
When you post, please say which section of the ring (i.e., the Shores, the Tropics) your character is in (North, South, East, or West). That way, multiple different interactions can happen in the same location. If we get lots of people, I will simply make sub-locations for each section of the ring. :3
Try not to leave any character in the dust, though if a character has been inactive for an extended period of time, they will be pulled out of the situation. What I mean by this is that characters of mine or someone else's who are reserved for the task will move in and direct the inactive character somewhere else, by getting them to follow to show them something or talk to them or anything. It may seem a bit unrealistic at times, but it's for the greater good.
Romance of all orientations is acceptable, and even slightly encouraged. This is a roleplay where the focus is character interaction, and romance is interaction. Just don't go all insta-love, okay? Character development, peoples.
There will be a day and night cycle, though the rate will be inconsistent. Basically every now and again I'll just pop in and change the cycle state in the introduction, so be sure to check before posting. So please, do not say in your post that 'night has fallen' if the current cycle at the time is day!
There's no requirement to research your character's shift animal, but it's nice to see you know your stuff and take inspiration from the animal's natural characteristics. If you utterly defy a creature's abilities, however. I will call you out on it. If you make your snow leopard animal-form roar, I will kindly inform you that you are utterly in error.
Background
If the terrain of the compound was flat, it should take 14 hours to walk from the northernmost point to the southernmost point.
The land itself is divided into rings that would take 2 hours to walk from the top of the band to the bottom of the band, regardless of which ring it is. The exception to this is The Shores, were most of the land is underwater. By this respect, it only takes ten minutes to walk from the shore to the edge of the next ring.
From outer to inner, the rings go in this order: The Shores The Tropics The Savannah The Dunes The Boreal Forests The Tundra The Mountains
Somehow the climate of each ring is segregated.
Through all the rings runs a straight river usually twenty feet wide, but narrower as well as shallower in some places. The river is generally hard to cross, so these shallow spots are one of the only ways to reach the other side.
There are three speeds in which distance is measure in: human-walking, human-jogging, and animal-trotting. Animal-trotting refers to the speed a human-sized or larger animal typically obtains while 'jogging', which is determined to be twice as fast as human-jogging. Thus the time of 2 hours to human-walk from the top edge of a ring to the bottom edge takes 1 hour human-jogging and 30 minutes animal-trotting. Basically, you divide human-walking time by 2 to get human-jogging time, and then divide that time by 2 to get animal-trotting time, or simply divide the human-walking time by 4 to get animal-trotting time.
It takes 7 human-walking hours to go all the way around the Shores ring, 6 for the Tropics and so on down to 1 hour for the Mountains. If the characters don't get lost or have the backtrack, that is.
These are the only times you need to know, and you hardly need to memorize them.
Characters
Please include at least a brief description of the appearance and characteristics (i.e., colour, build, normal habitat, etc.) of your character's shift animal in their bio .
Please have a real picture of your character's shift animal as the character's avatar. If there are not photographs of your animal, or none that are suitable, you may use an artist's interpretation of the animal. Keep in mind the other character guidelines here.
Characters can only shapeshift into one animal. This animal body is considered separate to the human body, and any damage done to one body will not affect the other.
All character ages are welcome, but I'd love for the average age to be in the young adult range (18-24). But I'll still go ahead and accept all your teenagers, as long as they stay off my lawn! [/shakes cane]
Characters can only shift into a mammal. No birds, reptiles, or others are permitted. Bats and full-aquatic mammals (mammals that cannot survive on land, i.e. dolphins) are also not permitted.
The animal the character shifts into is not restricted by size; any character, regardless of height, has the possibility of having anything ranging from an elephant to a mouse as their shifting animal.
Animal form characteristics are not necessarily determined by their human counterpart's appearance. All animal forms cannot have unnatural markings or colours for their species, but can have unusual but documented genetic traits that affect their appearance (i.e., white lions, Maltese tigers and king cheetahs for instance), but no white eyes or neon green fur or anything.
Only one animal of each species is permitted. Close sub-species will be rejected. That way we do not have grey, timber, and arctic wolves running about. If you're not sure if your creature would be considered a close sub-species, ask yourself this: what characteristics separate this wolf from the other? For example, red foxes and fennec foxes are very, very different. If you're still not sure, just ask!
Hybrids are allowed, but only plausible ones. No griffins.
Extinct animals are also allowed, as long as they do not break any of the other rules and existed alongside man. (This means a mammal that lived when the dinosaurs did would be unacceptable, but as the mammoth lived when cavemen did, it would be permitted)
Characters should have some common geological ancestry with their shifting animal, even if this ancestry is distant. For example, characters who can shift into an African lion should be partly African. However, do not abuse this. I do not want to see characters who are caucasian-American who can shift into an African lion because their great-great-great-great-great-great granddad was African.
While in animal form, characters can communicate telepathically by radiating thought-waves; anyone within range can hear. Characters, however, can increase or decrease these ranges, much like whispering or shouting. These ranges should not go too far beyond the distance a human voice could normally be heard. To indicate telepathic speech, use italics and apostrophes for quotations ('This is what the character is saying') to differentiate from the regular text and quotation marks of normal speech ("This is what the character is saying")
Shifting itself is simple: one second a human form is there, the next an animal form is there. There's no strange morphing in between. So when descriping a shift, it'll be as simple as saying 'a blink of the eye later...'
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