» Fri Jan 11, 2013 10:09 pm Safety – The Prison RP on Isle of G’Nasta. (now known as the Isle of Safety).
Isle of N’Gasta is a small island, owned and terrorized by a Sload necromancer during the last century of the 2nd era. The famed Redguard hero, Cyrus, defeated the Sload N’Gasta, leaving the Isle empty and unoccupied. Great noble clans of Hammerfell, with connections to Cyrodiil and the Empire, have pondered over what to do with the small, isolated island that is frequently struck by mighty storms, possibly sealing it away from any ship connections for weeks at an end.
During the 3rd era, at the beginning of the third century, the powers in Hammerfell had come to a conclusion with the Empire. The stormy and isolated island would be transformed into a fortress, a place to store away criminals deemed too violent and risky to keep in regular prisons. The wealth behind the project was immense, yet only a fraction of the money involving the building of the fortress found the worker’s pockets. Most man-power came from criminals, lured by the promise of shortened sentences, or simply forced to work. The fortress was ready at 3E 324, with countless criminals and convicts dead. But in the end, the powers didn’t care for the lives lost, as most of them had walked away rich. The finished fortress was named “Safety”, meant not to keep those inside safe, but those outside of it safe from those inside. The first few decades of its existence were successful, as all the most unstable criminals were shipped there, never to be heard from again. The storms, sealing the island from ships for weeks at a time, made times tough in the fortress, making the existing food a rare commodity towards the end. But there would always be a new ship arriving with fresh food, supplies and convicts. But later, the threshold for shipping criminals to the island became lower and lower. Whether this change in politics had something to do with the capital city of Hammerfell, Hegathe, losing its status, making the city of Sentinel, located much further away from the island of Safety, the new capital of Hammerfell, is unclear.
The fortress has been a great success in the eyes of the nobles, and a terror to criminals, causing greater stability to spread through the lands. During the 4th era, the fortress’s influence expanded, as the noble houses of Hammerfell took gifts in exchange to lock away dangerous criminals from all over Tamriel.
The island became a constant source for money to the noble houses of Hammerfell and it has stayed that way throughout the fourth era, all the way to the current days of 4E 200. Each passing year has lowered the threshold for who’s sentenced to Safety, where most are never heard from again. In rare cases, the freedom of a criminal is bought at a high price, going straight to the pockets of the Hammerfell noble’s. Often they first accept a large amount of gold to lock the criminal in, only to accept an even larger amount of coin to set them free mere days later, before they’ve even left the shores due to raging storms stopping ships from coming close.
To the criminals inside Safety, life isn’t smiling. The smartest criminals have formed gangs, proclaiming themselves kings of the different areas in Safety. At the same time you have the majority of prisoners bowing heads to all these groups at the same time, trying to stay invisible and on the good sides of the gangs. New prisoners are often welcomed, as it means fresh supplies and food at the same time, but once the first storms hit the island again, it becomes a game of survival. Who has managed to hide the most of the food when there still was a lot of it? Who will you betray, who will you form an alliance with? New prisoners often have no idea what to expect, soon dying of starvation if they can’t find a way to blend in.
The constant battle for survival leaves little time for prisoners to gather around and ponder of a way to escape the island. Truly, none has escaped Safety. Once you’re locked inside, you most certainly will die there. Unless you have wealthy friends on the outside, that is.
There are guards a plenty on the island, as the pay is luxurious for guard-duty. Where you get mere lodgings over your head, food and ale to keep your belly satisfied and a septim a day elsewhere, in Safety you get thousands of septims in a month. Indeed, nothing the prisoners have to offer is of interest to the guards. Even if you have the wealth from outside to bribe the guards with, you’d easily fail. The money they are paid is large enough to guarantee absolutely loyalty, with a single mission: Keep the prisoners inside.
But who needs guards to keep the prisoners inside of Safety anyway? The corridors and wings the prisoners can access are sealed from the quarter’s the guards are located in. There are not only the best locks money can buy, both magical and physical, but also entire walls moved straight into holes in the ground to seal the place in, only able to be opened from the guard’s side. Mages aren’t a problem, as prisoners who are known to have magical knowledge are forced to wear a cuff of reinforced ebony around their wrist, heavily enchanted with a directly silencing property. Removing an ebony cuff without hacking your arm away isn’t possible, but even for those Mages that have chosen to hack their arm away, or have been able to hide their magical knowledge, Safety has a counter. Shiny crystals and gleaming gems, hungry for magicka, are located everywhere at Safety, hidden behind stone walls, hidden in the ground and the roof. An attempt to cast anything stronger than a puff of air or a spark of a flame is instantly absorbed by the gems, effectively ending any and all magical means to escape the island.
***
Character types for when you create your character:
- New Prisoner, sent to Safety. Currently at the large cargo-ship sailing towards the island.
- Old Prisoner, already at Safety. You've survived being sealed away at Safety for a couple of weeks straight, with no fresh supplies. You know how things work around here, and you know some of the fellow prisoners. You may choose to be in one of the numerous gangs, simply by coming up with one. But when it comes to friendship and loyalty within gangs, it only lasts as long as supplies and favours and fear go. In Safety, trust is a rare thing indeed, and respect must be earned. Any non-player characters in the RP can be controlled by me, in order to keep things unpredictable and chaotic as they should be in a place like Safety.
- Guards. I'm not entire sure about this one myself, but I don't see why a guard type of character wouldn't be possible to RP in a fun way.
Before I throw in any more detailed rules of what's allowed and what isn't, I'd like to know if there's any interest for an RP like this. The story would be driven by the RP'ers a lot more than by me, which is definitely something that might not be as much fun as it otherwise could be. What the ultimate goal of the RP is can be discussed. Escaping Safety, possibly, at some point.
Questions? Interest? If you want to make a character already, remember that they can't have any weapons with them, and just very plain clothing. Different characters and races is encouraged, to add to the diversity of the criminals in Safety. Any character-sheet from other RP's will suffice, with name, race, skill, age, height, birthsign, skills, history and major flaws being the most important things. Items and armor, not so much, as you can't caryr much at all to Safety.
I'll answer the question everyone's thinking about first: Yes, there will be cheese in Safety. But much like everything else, it will run out of a storm hits the island.
Edit: The name "Safety" is taken directly from a fantasy novel I'm reading rign now, as the place is also a prison which is highly guarded. Too good a name not to use! The novel is: Best Served Cold.
Sign-up:
1 Pompous Altmer
2 Madhog
3 The Ascended Sleeper
4 Dovakhin
5
6
7
8
9
...
. I'll get working on a character sheet right away. 
