This page serves to familiarise you with the basics of this roleplay.

The majority of the RP takes place in a large, diverse and fairly ancient metropolis named Melza, which lies at a crossroad of several major continental trade routes. It has all the quaint charm and splendour, as well as all the run-down decay and nitty-grittiness you'd expect from a city like that. Consisting of many quarters, burroughs and even adjacent affiliated townships (one of them a charming spa town), this is a true “City of Adventure”. Full of citizens of various social classes (you'll meet many of them as NPCs), full of various factions, full of fancy and opulent venues and mansions, shops and marketplaces selling all manner of goods, temples and churches of the various dominant religious faiths, workshops and factories producing both mundane ware and state-of-the-art technology, criminal groups, guilds of mercenaries, mages, alchemists and also… thieves. And among those thieves, you and your in-game characters. Go freelance, join an existing thieves' guild, found your own guild and eek out an existence - many opportunities await you, this city is a true promised land in that regard. The city even has its own public transportation system (still a rather new-fangled local novelty), which your characters can utilise to travel if they'd prefer to move faster than on foot, but can't or don't want to afford/handle a mount or a vehicle. In terms of government, the city and its surroundings effectively form a long-lived city state that has managed to retain its independence and own way of doing things thanks to its favourable position, its dependable armed forces and skilled diplomats, and its general reputation and renown.

The world-at-large is a rather Earth-like fantasy planet, with mostly the same laws of physics, though some are subverted a bit to allow for various simpler forms of magic (or chutzpah masquerading as magic) and various more fantastically themed technologies. In general, this is a world abundant with both regular and odd fauna and flora, and even some supernatural beings booga-booga-ing in haunted places, but giant monsters are rare and “ancient evils that will destroy the world if unearthed” are basically non-existant. The level of technology in this world, though sometimes employing anachronistic and semi-fantastical tech, is roughly at the level of the late 19th and early 20th century at its best, and high-to-late medieval at its weakest. This world is not uniformly developed - in fact, it is still a mostly old-fashioned and archaic milieu, as the industrial revolution equivalent had come to this world fairly recently, and only a few countries and regions have started to modernise so far, the RP's city state included.

Though the player characters won't do much globetrotting, they will get the occassional opportunity to go visit other settlements, locations and countries outside of the city (they'll mostly use naval and aerial transport for this purpose). The landmass/continent that the city state exists on and this RP takes place in is mostly European/Eurasian-inspired. It's name is Aporue. Rather than going the typical route of Western European-style medieval fantasy or steampunk, the environments and cultures of this continent take more inspiration from the real world's central and southeastern Europe, eastern Europe, the Baltic coastline regions and Fennoscandia, as well as bits of Anatolia, the Caucasus and central Asia. Thus, it is still a familiarly “Europe and its neighbourhood” type of setting, but done in a different way than usual. Hopefully, in a way that you'll find refreshing. This also extends to the more steampunkish bits of the setting, so whenever you encounter them, think rather of “19th century Lithuania/Austria-Hungary/Finland/Serbia/Romania/Georgia” than of “Victorian Britain Classic Vanilla Flavour”.

Technology is generally of the steampunkish variety. Mostly realistic, though some tech is implied to be semi-magical. The city itself is still very medieval and early modern in tone (especially most of the architecture), but there's definitely an air of the industrial revolution having arrived in recent history. You have primitive steam-powered, petrol-powered and electrically-powered vehicles and devices. The most advanced firearms have reached a stage comparable to the late 19th century (early magazine pistols and bolt-action repeating rifles, but these are still extremely rare and expensive). Most handguns are flintlocks, pepperboxes or early revolvers. But guns aren't that common in the setting, it's still a mostly low-tech world, with advances more visible in industries or vehicles. Among the more out-there technologies are primitive surveillance cameras, primitive robots (some capable of guard duties and limited fighting), primitive Babbage-style computers (one of the thievy professions is “clacker”) and some early (and very unreliable) attempts at telephones and electro-mechanical television (OTL Nipkow-style, pre-electronic television). Lighting ranges from candles, torches, paraffin lamps, to gaslamps and extremely rare and primitive electric lights. This is a plot point: Different light sources provide different challenges for stealthy heists and the like. Part of the fun in this RP will be coming to terms with the clashes of the old and new, and clashes between magic and mundane technology.

Things you will find in this setting:
- the Referee will be both strict and vague at times, and will sometimes railroad you if necessary, but he'll be generally on your side and will praise and reward your imagination and logical thinking when you really put them to the test
- a (hopefully) satisfying stealth-oriented experience, where you'll learn to enjoy using stealth skills and cunning diversions instead of trying to brute-solve a problem/puzzle/assignment
- unlike in most RPs and RPGs, while weapons and armour can be important in certain situations, it's your tools, gadgets, other equipment and clothing that will be the most valuable
- despite the “thieving as an art and job” focus of this game, you'll have a lot of freedom to go and do whatever you want, but your success in doing so can vary wildly, depending on the context and depending on your amount/level of personal knowledge and skills
- even in just the city itself, the setting is huuuge and there's always lots of places to go and explore, even if it's just around the street corner, to sit down at a pub or other public place and listen to the latest rumours
- a sense of humour and tongue-in-cheekness (a lot of the various missions you embark on will have funny moments, funny flavour texts or funny loot/treasures to recover and find, plus there will be plenty of amusing banter and “on the history of the world” vignettes from time to time)
- very varied missions and smaller quests (e.g. dungeon-crawling for long lost treasures and artefacts, bank and stock exchange heists, cat-burglary and capers in museums and art gallieries, driving to escape your pursuers to get you and your colleagues to safety, playing a prank on a rival thieves' guild, sneaking up on a secret meeting and overhearing a conversation, clearing someone's name, framing someone, helping people in need without being too goodie-two-shoes about it, etc., etc.)
- the ability to use mounts and smaller vehicles to get around the city once you earn enough skills and a stable operating base for yourself; if you never move into this direction, you can always go on foot
- while most characters in the setting (including players) are effectively humans, you can also choose one of the fantasy races that populate the setting while you create your character (humans are effectively divided into regularly tall humans and hobbit-like humans, and in addition to these, there are several species of humanoid “beastmen”)
- choosing a playstyle that suits you best (freelancer or fellowship member), learning to balance and exploit the benefits offered by both individually-based gameplay and teamwork-based gameplay. Choose wisely, but don't be overly worried about your choices, as each option has its logical upsides and downsides
- if you think the more management-focused professions you can pick seem boring or pointless, you'll soon find out that they have their place in the well-oiled machine of a fellowship of thieves
- on a presentation level, I plan to punctuate parts of missions and quests with various music tracks (optionally listenable), to get the players into the mood a bit better

Things you will not find in this setting:
- pointless, gratuitous edginess for edginess sake
- as an extension of that, there will be no gratuitous “dark and disturbed” characters, at least not among players
- Tolkienian elves, dwarves, orcs, ents
- zombies, vampires, other generic undead
- god-like antagonistic beings
- Lovecraftian monsters
- over-the-top Sauron-like villains
- overabundance and mundanity of magic (there is practical magic, but a lot of it is treated as more of a science or a performing arts thing)
- overly lazy, overly Victorian steampunk (brass goggles have been done to death, so we'll get a bit more creative, despite still using 19th century elements here and there)
- grinding and obsession with stats and equipment
- using violence and brawling to solve problems (this is a game based around more subtle action-adventure, so if you want to play as an armour-plated warrior with a giant axe, you'll have to look elsewhere)

This RP is primarily aimed at having fun, or, to use an inspirational quote, “It's the journey that counts, not the destination.”. By “having fun”, we mean :
- going on adventures big and small and taking things in stride
- enjoying and developing your skills and abilities, not worrying that you occassionally don't pull off a mission flawlessly
- learing how to utilise stealth, cunning, subterfuge, intelligence and diplomacy instead of brute force to overcome antagonists and obstacles
- playing for the sake of character interaction and sense of wonder
- solving the occassional moral dilemma mini-quest without too much brooding drama
- learning to work as a team to pull off the more complex missions/quests (if this leads to the team of your characters gaining a sense of being buddies or even family, things are going well)
- not playing to win, but playing to enjoy the adventure and stories that come with it

This is a morally grey world, and though there are genuinely mean-spirited, heartless and evil people around too, most of this world's inhabitants are rather mundane in terms of their moral/ethical alignment. In truth, even thieves, like you and your fellow colleaugues, have a code of honour among themselves (the proverbial “Honour among Thieves”). While you are all definitely on the antihero side, you all understand thieving as a job and artform, and disapprove of harming or threatening others.

While there is a stylised, film noir-like tone running throughout the setting (especially in the hub city where most of the RP is set), the events and situations you'll experience are far from pathos or a dour atmosphere that you might expect at face value. This might be a fairly gritty and down-to-earth setting in its furnishings and staging, but it's overall a mostly light-hearted and adventure-friendly world. You'll be dealing with serious stuff and twists along the way as well, but this world isn't a dystopia, nor is it sugar-coated. It's a world much like our's, with common, usually decent people just trying to get by and enjoy their lives. Yes, professional thieves included !

To compare this setting to something, I think I could best describe it as a blend of Pratchett's Discworld and Troika's Arcanum, while the more action-based missions you can take part in during your thieving career are not unlike those you get to experience in the Thief trilogy or in Dishonored.

I usually dislike applying various genre and style labels, but if you're interested in getting a grip on the tone of the setting from those, I'd list these: Low Fantasy (very down-to-earth world overall), Fantastic Noir (usually of the more comedic sort), Science Fantasy (antique gadgetry and cunning alchemy, electric trams and mythic beasts, you get the idea…), Heroic Fantasy (usually only in a pinch, on treasure or artefact seeking adventure missions), Dungeon Punk (only in a pinch and occassionally, as most solutions are technological). Tech-wise, the world certainly isn't uniformly steampunk in terms of its high technology, as the various sapient species tend to have their own preferred quirks in technological development, and steam, petrol and electricity are all equally used sources of power for many modern technologies among the human cultures of this universe.

On a final note, I plan to make the skills and abilities relatively magic-lite, as I'd like this RP to focus on relatively realistically carried out thieving/caper missions and all the related stuff that comes with it. A lot of missions are also teamwork-heavy: Basically, a sort of fantasy version of Topkapi or Ocean's Eleven.

Setting and Tone

(Last modified September 17th, 2014 at 10:09 AM.)

Thick as Thieves