The Maelstrom

The Maelstrom is a text RPG that, chronologically, takes place shortly after Teenage Wasteland, when humanity has returned to the surface and terraformed the planet.

Background
In the beginning, the Four Ancient Travelers went from the “Original Universe” to the HILT Universe, skipping through parallel universes via an experimental time travel device. Unfortunately, this act ripped the fabric of reality, and for eons afterward items continually fell through this tear. This location became known as the High Gate.

This area was generally feared and avoided. However, when the four original nations (Brewtan, Shanducha, ROMAN, and Los Lobos) finally found it time to go to war, they selected the High Gate fields as their battle zone. This minimized civilian fatalities, while also allowing them to do battle in an area fraught with random events and objects/people from parallel universe dropping in.

After a time the High Gate was walled off, and a city called Northgate sprang up in the surrounding area, being something of a neutral zone city housing both ROMAN and Shanduchan citizens, being as it was built between their borders. Strange things kept happening, but the walls kept it contained. For a time.

As the centuries passed, the rift became worse, eventually consuming the entire city and forcing citizens to flee. Safety precautions were put in place, but in the aftermath of the Great Accident these were lost to hiltstory.

As humanity regrew, however, the force of curiosity remained strong, and all the nations placed surveillance equipment outside the affected area to observe objects passing through. While many seemed interesting, none were worth sacrificing lives to retrieve.

Until today.

An object passed through of such immense value that all the nations scrambled to put together teams of highly skilled individuals to go in and retrieve the object, racing one nation against the others. All alliances were off. Every nation needed to be the one, the only one, to get this object.

What is the object?

Who knows.

Who.

Knows.

Plot
Five teams, each hailing from different nations, were hastily assembled and sent to the city. At each entrance to Northgate, a centuries old warning had been posted to any future trespassers.

"This place is a message, part of a system of messages. Pay attention to it! Sending this message was important to us. We considered ourselves to be a powerful culture. This place is not a place of honor. No highly esteemed deed is commemorated here. Nothing is valued here. What is here was dangerous and repulsive to us. This message is a warning about danger. The danger is in a particular location. It increases towards a center. The center of danger is here, of a particular size and shape, and below us. The danger is still present, in your time, as it was in ours. The danger is to the body, and it can kill. The form of the danger is an emanation of energy. This place is best shunned and left uninhabited.

Abandon hope all who enter."

Like fools, these teams went ahead and entered. They promptly began dying in large numbers. Hey, can't say they weren't warned!

As the teams explored and encountered an abundance of hazards, they slowly began to piece together some other things that had happened. Before any of them arrived, a team from Los Lobos and a team of Amestria had arrived. The Amestrian team had been torn apart by Los Lobos, who is still out there waiting. Hiding. Sniping. Ready to pounce on any other teams who cross their paths.