"Even Castles made of sand, fall into the sea, eventually."
IC Information:
Spoiler for Background:
For most, the horrors of the 7 hour war, the subsequent occupation of Earth and the imprisonment of humanity started when the Combine swarmed through the portal storm and began their merciless war against us. But for some, it began before then, even before the portal storms formed in the skies above our world. For the criminal scum who held permanent residence in one of the many prisons, their lives were reduced to nothing long before the events that led to our current situation were even set in motion.
When the portal storms were unleashed upon the world, prisons were gradually abandoned as the world's infrastructure was slowly destroyed. Unfortunately for most residents, they were abandoned inside the prisons as well. Most would die, starving in their cells, or their prisons invaded by the evil that came from the portal storms. Those who were unlucky enough to survive would watch through their cell windows as the world around them was overrun by our new combine overlords.
The prisoners were easy prey for the combine, but their fate would be worse than death. For the combine had a plan for this world, and the prisoners became part of the machine through which it would execute their plan. Penal colonies were built across the world, and prisoners were dumped by the thousands into these hell holes. Some colonies were giant factories for the combine war machine, most of those who worked at the factories died a slow death, slowly choking as they toiled day and night in the smog that hovered around the factories. Other colonies were massive construction sites to build the cities that citizens now live in today, the combine who ran these colonies had no care for safety conditions or work hours and many died on the work sites from sheer exhaustion. No doubt there were other penal colonies as well, some for the advancement of the combine's "understanding" of humanity, some were built simply for death.
Soon many of the penal colonies closed, their purposes fulfilled. But the devil was not done with the prisoners, they were moved to large camps in which living conditions were abysmal. The combine did not care what happened in the camps, and the only security here were the walls that kept the prisoners in. Food was in short supply, the rations that were distributed were the extras from nearby cities and were often spoiled. The camps were overcrowded, and often a 20 prisoners would live in a shack meant for 5. But worst of all were the prisoners themselves, the camps were in a constant state of open warfare between gangs and clans over the short supply of food and resources. Some compared the camps the the holocaust of the twentieth century, most thought it was worse.
Soon the camps themselves closed down, the combine were not willing to waste any more resources on them and the survivors were sent to the cities. But that is not the end of the horror story but just the beginning of a legacy that is about to begin.
The Castle
Not everything was bad in the camps, every now and then a ray of hope emerged from the cesspools of scumbags. One such "organization" became known throughout the camps as "The Castle." The entire goal of the group was to build a home so that people could get away from the hell of the camps. The Castle became a successful establishment and flourished inside the camp.
But the camps closed down, and so did The Castle for a while. But The Castle was not gone forever, and in the back alleys of City 45 it has been brought back and reestablished. The crew has moved into an old abandoned bar in the slums of the city and are starting their enterprise once more.
OOC Information:
I'm not going to explain what happens in "The Castle," nor what it actually is. That is for you to find out on your own in the server. The point of this thread is just to make people aware, interested, and to give a brief explanation of the background.
The entire reason I'm making "The Castle" is to get some better citizen roleplay going on the server, I want to create an atmosphere where citizens are able to come to avoid the ever watching eye of the combine. But The Castle will not be a completely safe establishment, combine raids are to be expected, and if the combine do not have control over "The Castle" then other groups will.
What my overall goal is on the server is to create another aspect of roleplay outside of the usual combine oppressing citizens and combine versus rebels. To many people are restricting themselves to the usual aspects of half life roleplay, you have to keep in mind that even though we are a repressed civilization we are still a civilization and many aspects of life we see today would still be present in a world like Half life.
Edit: This closed down quite some time ago but after getting some good roleplay back down at the bar I wanted to reopen it and see what I could get going. So yes, The Castle is back in business and you are all more then welcome to join me for some awesome roleplay. I understand there are others using the bar so Im not apposed to sharing the space, there are going to be days that I wont be online and there have been days when the bar has been empty so I took it over for a bit. We will work it out.
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Half-Life 2 Roleplay / The Castle