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The Hot Wet Planet is not truly a "planet" at all, though when seen at first glance from a distance in an approaching starship, it does appear to be a planet - until the observer realises that the supposed "planet" that they are looking at is much, much, much larger than they assumed by eyes alone...and they were still very far away from the monumental enormous artifact. Several billion kilometres away, this artificial world appears as large visually to a human observer as the Earth does when seen from the Moon.
It is a huge world, a Dyson Sphere built around a Sun, and covered with all the material needed for a habitable world..on the outside, just as a normal planet would be. The surface is covered by mostly tropical jungle, swamps, and thousands (millions) of small seas, with few deserts and the only snow on mountainous regions. For life giving heat and light, the Hot Wet Planet is orbited by artificial "Sun Images" which are invisible from behind, but appear like normal suns in the sky from the surface of the world. Only a half light-year away, there are twin stars; a red giant sun and tiny white sun that orbit each other closely, brightening the sky whether day or night, and the main cause for "seasons" on this world. As well the giant world is ringed and has multiple moons. The sky when it can be seen is richly coloured and always varied. The world is beautiful, wild, and overabundant in fantastic scenery, flora, and fauna. It is also mind-boggling VAST, a world with a surface area a billion times greater than that of Earth. It can never be fully explored within the lifetime of any human, or even within a thousand lifetimes. It is also old, billions of years old, it's creators unknown and mysterious. Despite being an artificial world, this is nearly impossible to see on the surface for the world has a crust many kilometres thick and deep layers of sand, dirt, and rock.
Characters must contend with the alien lifeforms of the world as well, and unusual environmental phenomena, many of which seem to be almost designed to sexually molest human females (& occasionally males) much in the manner of 1950s/60s B-grade Sci-Fi films, but as if remade by a gang of Japanese hentai fans.
(Remember those old movies, with bug-eyed alien monsters chasing busty girls in torn clothing, bikinis, or little more than a beach towel? Rather like that, but hotter, pushed to the level of a mature-age adventure/romance novel using euphemistic language, double-entendres, and innuendo in classic style)
This comes as a great shock to the recently arrived Offworlders, whose exploration starship was forced to crashland on the giant world. In addition, some unidentifiable element of the environment is changing the survivors, eroticising them, making the females constantly horny & aroused yet more shy at the same time, more youthful, more like a guy's wet-dream fantasy, and removing all their body hair from their neck to their toes. The guys get bigger 'where it counts', bigger muscles, a penchant for crude violence, and that sort of thing, as if the planet was turning the men into barbarian warriors....even the nerdy types who'd prefer to find a cure for their steadily dumbed-down intellects and the call of yobbo behavior.
In the background, unknown at least at first to the Offworlder survivors, the planet's higher lifeforms have a simple mass-mind that is using it's powerful psionics to mentally influence and sometimes dominate the humans in lecherous ways, having it's strongest effect on the females (who gain the benefit of being occasionally protected, & subtly forewarned about real dangers); many of the younger (or younger appearing) women discover they are incapable of wearing underwear, or any kind of pants, or even anything more covering than an indecently short tunic or mini-dress...and the effect is becoming stronger with the passing of time.
Then there are the Colonists, whose ancestors arrived here 180 years ago, but not by their own choice, when their slower-than-light colonyship had a disasterous accident which destroyed the huge interstellar vessel while it was still in orbit. The Colonists are the descendants of the people who were able to reach the surface in escape-pods. Their descendants have been changed by the Hot Wet Planet already but they are still ignorant of the true nature of the world despite their best efforts as they have tried to adapt to it. Some Colonist communities struggle to maintain a few items of advanced technology, and a semblance of Earth civilisation and ethics. Other communities, usually smaller, have given up such lofty goals, and have become little different from the "savage" Natives.
Long before any of the ancestors of the Colonists came to this world, there have been the Natives; humans or near-humans (they seem to share a common ancestry with homo sapiens), who have been on the world for millenia, their ancestors perhaps brought here by an alien race. Many are savage tribal folk, others are almost civilised with towns and cities hidden in the jungle or other remote parts of the world. They are a mystery to the Colonists who sometimes trade with them, and believe them to be primitives. Yet, far beyond the borders of Colonial civilisation, are many exotic cultures, kingdoms, and even vast empires that the Colonists and Offworlders are scarcely aware could even exist. The Colonists have only begun to realise the true extent of the Natives power, and the occassional displays of impossible "magic" that they have seen.
There are also the Tentacle Monsters to contend with....the size of a small car or as large as a house, in many shapes and forms, but always having phallic tentacles and a sexual obsession with humanoid females. Powerful, fast, incredibly strong, and sometimes with bizarre innate magic or psychic abilities. Their very existence and purpose seeming to be the molestation of humanoid females, an idea that is bizarre to the rational sensibilities of an Earth-trained scientist. Their real function on the world and how they fit into the ecology is a complete mystery.
......and SOMEWHERE out there upon the great vastness of the Hot Wet Planet, there are other utterly non-human sentient races, lost civilisations, the relics of ancient superscience, and perhaps the truth behind the mystery of the creators of the gigantic world.
Joining the site, and the Hot Wet Planet game
First - join the site. This requires email verification, so you need a valid email address.
Second - in the Applicants Forum, post your character concept and character name. There will then be some short discussion over the following few days about the character, modifications that might need to be made, and how they would fit in. The characters initially allowed -
(1) They must be well written, and we currently give preference to female characters mainly because of these two reasons A.) there will be a lot of female-female interaction as many of our female members are bisexual or lesbian or bi-curious, B.) all the tentacle-monsters are male. Male characters are welcome, but we just prefer more female characters at the present time.
(2) The character must be a member of only one of the four main groups; Natives, Colonists, Offworlders, Tentacle Monsters
(3) And the character concept must be in keeping with the setting and the characters origins;
- Natives are a wild assortment of humans, near-humans, sometimes with powerful magic/psychic abilities, and a wide variety of mixed anachronistic technologies though generally medieval or primitive, sometimes more advanced (steam age level). There are many nations, kingdoms, and cultures among the natives. They are usually physically adept and tough. Nearly all natives have minor psychic talents, good intuition, particularly the less civilised barbarians and savages of the jungle. Initially, we will only be accepting Natives for two distinctly seperate groups; the townsfolk of the fortified trading post of Serravoj ("Civilised" natives witha frontier attitude, as Serravoj is an outpost of the Great Kingdom of Fevenia, their technology is vaguely high medieval to early renaissance, but with sorcerors instead of cannon), or for the jungle tribe of the Annare (who are vaguely equivalent to a mix between forest elves and Amazon Indians, as they wear very little - if any - clothing, their main weapons are bows, spears, occassionally swords, innate magical talents are very common among them though trained scholarly trained sorcery is rare except for their shamans).
- Colonists are actually the descendants of the scattered survivors of a huge slower-than-light colonyship that was destroyed soon after arriving in orbit, and have been forced to adapt to the planet. They have already changed, and look much like the Natives, except that they have the advantage of more technological knowledge overall. Their technology varies, but they may be from communities that have not only steam power, but also electricity and guns. It's still rare for any Colonist to have more than minor psychic/magical abilities, and their understanding of magic is low. Most have some very minor psychic talent. Initially, the Colonists accepted will be all Homesteaders who have in the past two generations been settling in territory that is remote from the main Colonist capital of Debol, they are essentially rebels striking out on their own for freedom. (The Homesteaders are a sort of a cross between 19th Century American frontier settlers, and ancient Celts or Vikings, living in homesteads that are single large fortified buildings with upto several families under the same roof. They have little or no magic, little knowledge of magic, but they do have guns and sometimes electricity).
- Offworlders have no knowledge of magic but have advanced technology, however this technology is unreliable and begins failing soon after their arrival on the world. Eventually they will have to adapt to their circumstances and adopt some of the native ways or create their own less advanced alternative technology to keep surviving. Physically, the Offworlders begin less strong in close combat and survival skills, but as they gradually change and their technology fails, they become more capable. These characters are the survivors or crew of one of the rescue/exploration starships that have more recently arrived, and were forced into a crashlanding on the otherwise unknown, unexplored & very remote world. Initially, we're starting with the crew of one of these vessels - the F.S.S. Tien Fei - before it arrives and crashes onto the Hot Wet Planet. The F.S.S. Tien Fei is a heavily armed survey/exploration vessel also designed for intelligence gathering, with the latest & best Earth technology available.
- Tentacle Monsters are large creatures, there are many forms, and they are very tough, immensely strong, and sentient (though it's rare for them to "speak", they often can write crude letters). Nearly all are extremely ancient, though their memories of the distant past are often confused by their very long lives. Tentacle Monsters are expected to be a rare choice, though a very rewarding one. Initially, all Tentacle Monsters will be members of the Serramarn "gang" (based in a cave network under the Serramarn "Great Southern Jungle" but trying to explore and expand their territory, eventually to penetrate the defences of the fortified humanoid towns and cities. hoping to one day succeed in finding ways into one of the major capital cities of the kingdoms).
Third - If the character concept is approved, then you will be assigned a new full membership as that character, with that character name. As the character, you will have full access to the game and the rest of the site. You must then choose your character's avatar from what we have available in our avatar galleries (most of which haven't been used yet, as it's still early days), or you can upload an avatar. Avatar images in Hot Wet Planet follow certain rules; for everyone except tentacle-monsters, avatars MUST be a 250x250px GIF, with a 100x100px "face profile" image and a cut-out full body posed image of the character (with a transparent background layer). You can see some examples in the images below, and in the avatars of other members. If you don't know how to create such an image, send two pictures of what you want to use to create it, and I'll create it for you.
For best appreciation of the game, and to participate, javascript must be turned on
If you have turned off the javascript setting in your browser, you will miss many clues hidden in the forums and theme backgrounds. You will need to have sound turned on as well, as sometimes there are sound files that carry clues. We also recommend that you use a browser that is upto current world standards (such as Firefox) rather than IE, as IE lacks certain features.
A note on Passwords
We strongly recommend that when joining the site you use a password with both upper and lower case letters, numbers, and other marks, at least 30 characters long.
Email verification and Admin approval time limit
Before approving any membership, email addresses are always verified, and Admin will send an email requesting confirmation of age, asking for your reasons for wanting to join, and to tell a little about yourself. If no answer is recieved to this email within 7 days, the validating account will be deleted.
What to expect when starting
All player-characters begin in their group's home area, whether that be the far-flung remote outpost town of a great kingdom at war, or a village among the tree-tops in the ancient jungle, a homestead in the wilderness, or on a starship. These are extensive areas, with plenty to do, clues to be found, mysteries to solve, and even some adventures to be had. As the character gets involved in the local community, they'll learn about the rules, myths, and point-of-view of their group. They'll likely get into the "culture" of their character's race, tribe, and origin. Don't expect to go wandering all over the whole of the Hot Wet Planet when you just started. You'll have to discover things, and you'll definitely have to interact with other members in the Game because very often they'll know stuff that you don't, and you'll know stuff that they don't. Learning secrets and increasing your character's knowledge is very important on the Hot Wet Planet, and it's quite likely that someone else in the game knows the other half of that password you need, the secret to that piece of torn map you found, or knows how to sneak past the guards into the exotic far away city of Ohpiyen. It could be what you know, even as a beginning character, might be the clue that will tip the balance of power in the Great War between the Kingdoms of Fevenia and Ophiyen.
Some good advice; don't go anywhere on a big quest or adventure alone. There are many occassions when the advantages of different characters working together are going to be the best way to get past an obstacle, solve the mystery, or kill the big nasty monster. Characters wandering alone in the wilderness also tend to get lost, seriously lost, and it can make you feel rather silly to have to PM somebody just to tell you in which sub-forum that big city you just left is...and where you have to post to get back to it. Worse still, passwords sometimes change, and you might need to know that too just to get back.
Every community in the Hot Wet Planet setting is different. It's intended to be a place for exploring and discovery, that includes encountering exotic cultures that are very divergent from your own. That's another reason why the range of forums that you as a member will be able to see, and post replies in, is limited at first, but slowly expands. It's to encourage character development, and immersion in the character's culture of origin. For example, if you start in a village sub-forum, it will be a short while until you can see and take your character to the local sub-forums outside it, and a little longer to explore even further. Slowly, as the member posts in the roleplaying threads, and their player-character gains experience, clues, items, etc.... and meets people, they'll be able to go further and further away from their home village. By that time, they'll be well acquainted with their group's culture, rules, and ways of doing things.
- - - then when they meet those from a different group, they'll be more surprised and more likely to be interested in the other group's apparently exotic & unusual culture.
So take the time to get involved in your character's community, help to make it a more interesting place. Get to know people and their player-characters. With everyone in Hot Wet Planet doing this, it'll become a wonderous place where everyone can be surprised, and it will add to the game. Even if it results in a few conflicts, it will also add to the sense of visiting and living on (at least temporarily in your imagination) a foreign land, an alien world, a place that will hopefully inspire many a great writer of fantasy in the future.
A word on Sex and Violence Though the game is supposed to be highly erotic, it is also an adventure/quest roleplay, with political and military strategy thrown in, as well as personal interactions (romance between characters, making friends and enemies, becoming famous or infamous). If all you want to do is get cyber-laid and roleplay sex acts, and do nothing else, and have no intention of bothering with any of that other adventure stuff, then this is not the game for you.
A note on setting: It's Anime inspired, meaning there may be some anime cliche's within the game, indeed they may be encouraged. Also, since nearly all Anime is Japanese themed, we don't mind a bit if your character carries a Katana instead of a broadsword, or wears a hapi (a kind of short traditional Japanese jacket) or is a warrior with a samurai code of Bushido honour instead of a European code of Chivalry. Apart from this, though there are many fantasy concepts, we are deliberately AVOIDING that boring old Tolkienistic stuff seen waaaaaaay too often in fantasy movies, novels and fantasy games; there are no "elves", no "orcs", nor "dwarves", or "trolls". We've chosen ancient Celtic Faerie myths, Japanese mythology, and the classic pulp fantasy heroism of Robert E. Howard, and the many good writers that he inspired.
