PREMISE - CHAPTER I

[treasuremap]

PREMISE

NAVIGATION

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RULES/FAQ

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COTERIES

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LOCATIONS

You take a deep breath. In through your nose, out through your mouth. The smell of incense fills your nostrils, your lungs, your senses. You can't place the scent exactly, but somehow it feels familiar. You open your eyes, and you're awash in a cloud of thick fog, the outer edges of your vision curling and wafting into the air like tendrils of smoke. It is smoke, you realize. But it doesn't burn your eyes or nose, doesn't make you cough. It only overwhelms you with its heady scent, making your pulse quicken and your thoughts become difficult to keep ahold of. You hold your hands up in front of your face and find that you yourself are just the same: fog. Smoke. Inorganic, only a memory of yourself. Blindly, you reach out in front of you as if to draw back the edges of the haze like a curtain. Something makes you stumble forward and you fall, emerging from the cloud of scented mist and into a different world entirely. You become solid again, real. The smoke that had enveloped you dissipates so quickly it's as if it were never there, but its effect lingers within you anyway, your pupils blown wide as they adjust to the light.

The first thing you see once you regain your senses are the blades of a large churning windmill some distance away. Then you see the stone walls, running around the entirety of the settlement you've found yourself in. The walls are only marginally higher than the tallest man, the gates shut and, as you'll find, closely guarded—but not with the purpose of keeping its people in; rather, they seem to be more interested in keeping something else out. You can almost make out the figure in the watchtower above the gate, gazing out at the land beyond, armed with what appears to be a spear. As you get to your feet and look around you, you realize you're in a city of sorts. There aren't what you would call roads but rather stone brick footpaths, all lined by torches rather than streetlights. In fact, there seem to be no electric lights, or even any modern technology at all. The buildings are all stone, stucco and thatching or wood, the majority of them simple in design and small in size. It all appears weathered, but more than that, you get the sense that it's ancient, centuries-old. Upon closer inspection, you notice swatches of gold inlaying some of the buildings as accent decoration in the form of whole bricks, strands as if it'd been spun into string somehow, even glittering like a fine powder on various surfaces. There are flecks of it in the paving stones, and it's ringed around the edges of the torches lining the streets. It's even woven into fabrics colored with hues too vibrant to be manufactured. But this place isn't bustling and wealthy, hardly extravagant.

Then there's the people, dressed in all those fabrics, walking those paths, going in and out of the buildings. Any that notice you standing there move on after a curious glance, seemingly unconcerned regardless of how... unusual you may look by comparison. You catch snippets of their language, but aren't too sure what it is they're saying at a distance. It isn't too populous of a place, even for a city, but the more you explore, the more lively it becomes. There are farmlands within the walls, bodies of water full of colorful fish, children running about in a courtyard. And most prominently of all, people armed and dressed as though they're preparing to travel and expect to run into trouble along the way.

At one point, you hear the gates open in the distance, but they've closed again by the time you come near. Several people have been admitted into the city, and all of them are flushed, gasping for air, and in varying states of distress. One of them has to be supported by their companions to keep them from stumbling and falling to their knees, their eyes unfocused. A few are bleeding. Another doesn't seem to be quite right in the head, their expression wild, lips pulled back in almost a snarl. They stagger about for a moment while the group is disoriented, then lay eyes on you and lunge as if to attack, but their companions quickly restrain them. As they drag the crazed person away, you can only vaguely understand their threat, thick with an unfamiliar accent: They're coming for you. They're coming for all of us! You look up and notice the figure in the watchtower pacing from side to side as if anticipating something about to happen. But nothing does. For now.

All signs and instructions point to one of the largest buildings in the city, housing a collective known as the coterie, where the start of your adventure awaits. You look back toward the walls, the windmill, the landscape visible beyond the walls—nothing but dense jungle and mountains beyond. A breeze picks up, and you catch the faintest hint of the perfumed smoke that you awoke from wafting in. The hairs on the back of your neck stand up.

You take a deep breath. Then you get a move on.

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Welcome to INCENSED, a panfandom fantasy horror game set in a jungle filled with monsters, valuable relics, and mist, otherwise known as "the incense," that drives anyone who breathes it in mad and warps its victims into savage monsters. Featuring an interactive and collaborative plot that tasks characters with working together to uncover the source of the incense, the game takes inspiration from RPGs including Dungeons and Dragons, Final Fantasy IX, Shadow Hearts and others, as well as films such as Stephen King's The Mist to create elements of survival horror and classic adventure with an ancient Central American twist.

Characters will arrive in one of four major cities and will be encouraged to join the local guild, also known as coteries: the Eagles, Jaguars, Salamanders, or Vipers. Each coterie has their own area of expertise, and characters will be richly rewarded for working with them. Plots and story events, as well as minor quests, will be centered around traversing the land while surviving the debilitating effects of the incense, slaying monsters, gathering resources, and mapping out the area, with the ultimate goal of locating ancient ruins housing forgotten treasures. Many of these artifacts are valuable and will grant characters abilities upon possessing them, but four of them are special—they're they key to putting an end to the incense once and for all.