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lovewaterContents
Lovewater is a panfandom roleplay game centered around sex, love, slice-of-(weird)-life, and the exploration of alternative universes.
Where is Lovewater?
Lovewater is a small, low-density borough on the outskirts of West London, one of many towns and villages swallowed up by the city's expansion over time. Once known for its wide, tree-lined streets, pleasant shopping arcades and the large, well-kept Lovewater Gate Park, it was believed to be destroyed during the Second World War. The land now exists as a desolate brownfield site. Details of land ownership are sketchy, and evidence of toxicity has prevented redevelopment. A swathe of outer London is fenced off and inaccessible while local councils and planners scratch their heads over what to do with it.
That's one telling.
The truth is that, in the early 1940s, an entity - to some, a deity - moved into the disused Lovewater Broadway underground rail station. She promptly decided the town would be under her protection. She has had many titles, but chose to adopt the name of her new home, mostly so as to make it pronounceable by the locals. Miss Lovewater has lived in the station for almost eighty years, and doesn't plan on leaving any time soon.
How did my character get here?
They receive a letter - or an email, scroll, carrier pigeon, whatever suits their world. They are invited to Lovewater, a safe sanctuary, away from the cares and trials of the rest of the world. In exchange for their presence, the invitation promises, Miss Lovewater will place a blessing of protection on a friend, family member, comrade or other loved one back home. They will be kept safe, even through situations where they would otherwise certainly die. You don't need to worry about them. (See also: the possibility of an additional boon, below)
An invitee can also use the blessing for themselves when they leave; one year in Lovewater equals one year of safety in their own world.
Time is essentially frozen back home; a character leaving on the 1st January 2066 will return to the 1st January 2066, regardless of how long they've been away. Characters will not age while they're in Lovewater; the locals (as in those who have been born there, or have made arrangements to remain permanently) age at a slightly slowed rate.
The invitee has to accept three things:
What does arrival look like?
On agreeing to her invitation, they will fall asleep - whether or not they do sleep is irrelevant - and wake up on a 1940s-era London Underground train, pulling into Lovewater Broadway station.
On the train seat next to them is a small envelope with their name on it. This contains:
So where do the alternative universes come in?
Miss Lovewater has a sleep-wake cycle normally lasting five to six weeks. When she's awake, everything is perfectly normal, in the context of a magical sex-powered London borough.
When she sleeps, for about 10-12 days, things get....weird.
This is the Dreamlife.
Whatever your character thought they were in the waking world, they're now a cowboy on the American frontier. A mermaid in Atlantis. An acrobat with a travelling circus. This, suddenly, is the life they've always led. And likewise, your relationships change. Sometimes for the better, sometimes for the worse, but often exaggerated. Maybe the neighbour you're barely on nodding terms with - but have an unspoken mutual crush on - is suddenly your spouse. Maybe someone you kind of dislike but are dealing with via passive-aggressive jibes is now your mortal enemy.
What won't happen is a total reversal of attitudes. You won't hate someone in real life and love them in the Dreamlife, or vice versa. (However, with care, you can very much use this mechanic to accelerate any enemies-to-lovers plotting you have in mind.)
When Miss Lovewater wakes up, your character will have vivid memories of their recent affairs, and rapidly fading memories of how to do a perfect double somersault.
Reserves? Application periods?
Reserves are not used; applications are open at all times! See also:, Applications, Game Calendar.
Challenge apps?
Nope. First come, first served.
OCs? CRAUs? MMOs? Other letters?
Original characters are allowed. Player characters from heavily choice-dependent games (e.g. Skyrim's Dragonborn, or Dragon Age's Inquisitor) are allowed.
Canon OCs - that is, an original character from a canon universe - are allowed so long as they don't have a close relationship with canon characters. For example, an elf from JRRT's Mirkwood is fine, but not one who went to elven high school with Legolas. Canon OCs count towards the overall cap for the canon they belong to - see below!
Player characters from MMORPGs are allowed if they don't prevent other PCs from joining on the same terms. To give an example: the Final Fantasy XIV storyline has one Warrior of Light and many 'adventurers'. From the perspective of any individual player, their character is the single Warrior of Light and every other player character is an 'adventurer' who helps them out sometimes. For Lovewater purposes, you could app your character as an adventurer but not as the Warrior of Light.
Characters with CR and development from other games are not allowed.
Real people?
Fictionalised versions of real historical figures are OK, within the bounds of good taste (ask if you're not sure), provided that the real person died at least 100 years ago and there's a distinct canon they're being drawn from. For example, Alexander Hamilton as he appears in the musical Hamilton would be fine.
You can use biographical details of the real person's life to flesh out the fictionalised character, but where there are contradictions the fictionalised version takes priority!
What about brand-new characters or canons?
Please wait 30 days after the canon release date before apping a character from that canon. This rule does not apply to the Test Drive Meme.
Caps?
For the time being, players can app two characters each, once per app round.
Canons are capped at four per canon, eight total for any variations and separate titles under the canon's umbrella. For example: four comics-verse X-Men, two movie-verse Avengers and two of TV's Agents of SHIELD would max out the Marvel cast. That doesn't seem like much, but...
There is a total game cap of 55 characters, after which applications will be closed except for female characters, until either gender parity or a max total of 69 characters is reached. (Nice.) Characters who do not identify as male or female are not counted for parity purposes.
There is a game cap to encourage building close CR (and to reduce strain on mod time). This rule also reflects that male characters tend to be more popular.
Different iterations of the same character are ruled out. So the game could have Andrew Garfield or Tobey Maguire's Peter Parker, but not both.
Characters who might confuse the head count slightly (say, Eddie-Brock-plus-Venom-symbiote) count as one character for capping purposes. And yes, apping characters in this position is fine, so long as at least one 'aspect' of that character couldn't survive without the other.
Age limits?
Players and characters must be over 18; no ageing-up of characters who are under 18 in canon. Characters who are physically 'young' but have the emotional and intellectual capacity of adults (e.g. androids or speed-grown clones) are fine - please show your work and explain how they'd be able to handle the environment.
There will be some NPC children living in town, but they don't seem to be subject to Miss Lovewater's influence, do not enter the Dreamlife, and are kept away from Sex Stuff. Locals tend to leave Lovewater if they want to start a family, but some value the safety that Miss L offers.
Activity Check
Characters not on hiatus are expected to provide one of the following every month:
My character has game-breaking superpowers.
Not anymore they don't! Powers are generally not reduced unless they would affect the fabric of the game universe itself. Powers that would allow a character to understand when they are in the Dreamlife, for example, will be nullified. There may be time-limited exceptions to this in some events.
Characters will be informed that this will happen before they arrive, and they will have to agree to those terms. These characters, and characters with powers that aren't necessarily game-breaking but might cause balance issues (Superman, say) will be invited to trade them in for extra rewards - see Crime, Reward & Punishment, below.
Using powers and abilities responsibly is encouraged, and players are expected to communicate clearly OOC - especially when it comes to things like mind control or other forms of influence.
My character has no reason to speak or understand English.
Consider that fixed. However, if your character is (for example) not literate in their native language, that will persist into their understanding of English.
My character was [e.g.] bleeding out from a gunshot wound at the canon point I took them from.
They will arrive healed and whole, though they'll bear scars relevant to their injuries.
My character is really obviously not human.
That's fine! Most of the locals with significant memories of life pre-deity have passed away, or were given the opportunity to move out before the community was sealed off. The locals are used to it. Robots, fairies and demons are all perfectly welcome so long as they behave themselves.
My character needs to drink human blood or eat brains or [something] to survive.
A couple of niche shops are available to service these more esoteric needs. Shopkeepers, if asked, will tell you that Miss L supplies these resources directly and has promised that no humans have been harmed in their production.
My character will burst into flames in sunlight.
Sorry. Um. The shops also sell umbrellas and SPF50. In seriousness, if your character is allergic to sunlight or water or children's laughter, then they still will be in Lovewater. Please take necessary precautions.
My character has changed their mind. Are they trapped here?
No. Town limits are clearly posted, and signage makes it very clear that voluntarily crossing them will result in their immediate return home. If your character can fly or is super into tunnelling, the vertical limits are about the same as the horizontal limits. ('Voluntary' is the key word. If you don't like someone and attempt to force them out by shoving them over the boundary, they will simply reappear on the edge of town elsewhere.)
Ongoing IC consent to the situation - be it grudging, enthusiastic or anything in between - is core to the game. It's not a jamjar, more a bowl of jam which you can climb out of if you want to.
So how do they feed themselves and buy clothes and stuff?
Newcomers will be provided with a small studio or one-bed apartment (one floor of a house, or one of a small block of flats) and a small monthly stipend. This will cover inexpensive food/toiletries and thrifted clothes, but no luxuries. If they want to earn more than that, well, they can get a job! Most of the things you can do in a small town with a 21st century economy, you can do here. You can also choose to apply for a small loan to start a business of your own. The emergency services and the Town Hall are out of bounds, for now, but there are plenty of jobs to be had.
Local amenities?
The south of the town is dominated by Lovewater Gate Park, a large and well-tended space with a boating lake, cafe, wildlife marshland, playing fields and sports courts. The park has a small herd of fallow deer who are semi-tame but generally prefer to be left alone, and a number of rabbits who are very tame and considered by some locals to be sacred to Miss Lovewater. This may or may not be true.
Elsewhere in town you can find a variety of shops, one supermarket, restaurants and cafes, a few GP surgeries and dental clinics, a police station, and a small hospital. There's also a library, a cinema, a theatre, a couple of gyms and a swimming pool. Characters who are interested in starting their own business may do so, and some retail properties are conveniently vacant if needed.
This all sounds kind of wholesome for a sex game universe.
There is a large and labyrinthine indoor market, Lovewater Exchange, catering to what has become a major cultural institution: that is, fuckin'. However you may wish to accessorise your intimate life, you can do so here at competitive prices. There is also a sizable club making up the top and basement floors of the market building for those seeking partners or play. This is to say nothing of the social events hosted by residents, of course.
How do business owners restock?
Orders are submitted to the Chamber of Commerce; deliveries arrive by the same train which brings newcomers to Lovewater. Beyond that, people have learned not to question the logistics too closely.
Religion?
Many locals have adopted Miss L as a goddess, and see the Exchange as a form of temple and sex as an act of worship - but that doesn't mean that she is one, or that those beliefs are valid. Miss Lovewater herself asks for tribute but not that anyone forsake their personal faith.
There is a scattering of places of worship, and a few non-specific spaces for quiet prayer and contemplation.
Pop culture and fourth-walling in Lovewater
Books, movies, comics etc. are available via the library or relevant shops. (Podcasts are hard to come by - no Internet, sorry!) Pop culture is generally up to date, with one exception: any fictional universe featuring a character present in Lovewater will not exist there. For example: the Harry Potter book and film series will be available at the library until Newt Scamander shows up, at which point everything disappears. If Jean-Luc Picard arrives, every piece of Star Trek media vanishes. This includes books/DVDs/etc in a character's private possession.
Breaking the fourth wall - say, having a character who strolls up to reboot!Kirk and tells him he was better when he was William Shatner - is permissible only with the consent of Kirk's player. This refers to doing it to Kirk's face and chatting about him behind his back, and Kirk's player may choose to consent to one but not the other.
Communication
Characters are granted a smartphone on arrival. This is limited to making and receiving calls, text messages, FaceTime-type video transmissions, and a localised Tinder-type application called Spoon. Their Contacts lists will automatically update with the full names of characters present in town. Mass transmissions (i.e. open community posts) are very much possible.
These phones, and the network they operate on, are not hackable (time-limited exceptions may come into play!). One character privately contacting another can do so in confidence. They also do not need to be charged. Convenient!
Beyond local communication, the Internet is not a thing in Lovewater. Go to the library like it's the olden days.
See also: Businesses, Jobs & Clubs; Map & Setting
Miss Lovewater has empowered the local emergency services to demigod state, though they don't seem aware of this. Imagine a regular London copper carefully but capably pushing Dracula into the back of a car to take a night in the cells and think about what he's done, or a paramedic bringing someone back from the brink of death with a few carefully placed sutures and some oxygen. The only number you can call from the red phone boxes is 999.
Miss Lovewater takes her request that you keep the peace very seriously. The borough uses a three-strike system. A strike is a major infraction, which includes:
After the third strike, the character will be sent away. Not home, just....away. This will put them on an enforced hiatus for one week (or longer if convenient for the player), after which time Miss Lovewater will pop her head in and ask if they're willing to come back and behave themselves. They won't remember exactly where they were, but on their return, there will be a strong sense of 'I didn't enjoy that At All'.
There is also a nine-strike rule. Instead of the third extended time-out, the character will be sent away from Lovewater permanently, and the blessing they have accrued will be lost. This amounts to an IC ban. Characters may return after 3 months, but they will be a new iteration of themselves, and will never regain the memories of their first stay.
Strikes are purged from the record after twelve full months. So, if a character racks up eight strikes on a particularly busy afternoon, then manages to behave themselves for a year, their record is clear! Please do not then go and chop up another eight people just because you can.
Yes, this is limiting, but Miss L blames herself for inviting murderers in the first place. Please try to lighten up on the violent crime. After their first infraction, characters will be warned in advance of these longer-term consequences, so they should not come as a surprise to anyone.
What do you mean, 'attempted'?
There is no rape in Lovewater. Period. Any character trying to engage in sexual activity in the absence of consent (or after consent has been withdrawn, or if it was impossible to get in the first place) will lose consciousness and find themselves waking up on the floor of their own home, with a note nearby remarking that they have committed a serious infraction. All manner of kink is absolutely fine - up to and including pre-negotiated simulated rape - but Miss L is not here for genuine noncon, and neither is the mod, and neither is the game.
As far as attempted murder goes, those who really should have died will be picked up via ambulance and taken into Court Park hospital to have their head stitched back on (or whatever). They will be subject to a period of healing going on for 2-4 weeks which will be debilitating, less so over time, but for the first week they won't be able to walk much further than from their bed to the bathroom and back.
This applies to characters who ordinarily have healing/regeneration powers but are still capable of dying. Characters who can't die, or auto-revive (Jack Harkness from the Whoniverse, for example) will continue their lives as normal.
The would-be killer will be assumed to have had the cops called on them. They will be bundled into a cell for 24 hours, will receive a note of their serious infraction, and then released and told to do better.
Characters 'killed' in the Dreamlife will wake up in Lovewater, unhurt, and will not be able to return to that month's dream. It might be quiet around town, so maybe they should vacuum and catch up on some reading.
What about other crimes?
Law enforcement in Lovewater is extremely powerful when engaged, but not omnipresent. If you want to shatter someone's kneecaps, well, you're an asshole - but you can do it. Likewise - theft, minor property damage, physical fights, fencing stolen goods, tax fraud, etc - all these opportunities are open to you. (I don't know why you'd want to RP tax fraud, but to each their own.)
If something is happening that's public enough or loud enough that it's likely to be overheard, it becomes a plot/event and must be noted as such.
My character has superpowers that would make them able to detect, reach and prevent any crime before it happens, or immediately take over the borough and rule it with an iron fist!
If that's not something you want to change, then honestly, this may not be the game for them.
If what you want is an in-universe workaround to make your character playable, here it is: an additional boon (as in, a second person to benefit from Lovewater's protection, or twice as long for the same person) is available to any character who is prepared to voluntarily give up enough of their powers that they could, conceivably, lose a fight against a sufficiently well-trained human. Yes, this might put them at a disadvantage against some other characters, but they're getting a greater benefit from their stay in Lovewater.
(So, if an ordinarily villainous character wants to give up their superpowers and play nicely for long enough to accrue a year's protection, so that they can then go home and safely execute their world-conquering plans, then....there's nothing to stop them doing that. Miss L only cares what you do on her turf.)
So what was that about rewards?
Initially, characters will arrive in Lovewater with the clothes on their backs and whatever spare change they had in their pockets. However, characters can request one item from home, each month, provided that they have no infractions and have been contributing to the community. This can mean:
The item can be a pet, an article of clothing, a weapon, something of sentimental value - whatever they like, as long as it originally belonged to them or could be found somewhere they used to live. Anything that can fit in a suitcase is fair game. Anything bigger - a car, a horse, a hot tub - might need a few months' accumulated good behaviour.
Infractions are addressed as they happen; rewards are dealt with at the same time as A/C.
For a week or two out of every five or six, Miss Lovewater dreams.
Due to her powerful hold over the town, many of its inhabitants are pulled in with her - disappearing from their homes and entering an alternate universe known by the locals as the Dreamlife. For their time in this AU, as far as affected characters are concerned, this is who they've always been and where they've always lived.
So, how does that work?
A few minutes before entering the Dreamlife, characters will feel a sudden and irresistible urge to lie down, sit down or otherwise get comfortable. They will close their eyes - or disable their optical sensors, etc. - and on opening them, will find themselves in their new environment.
Except, to them, it isn't new. This is how it's always been. This is the life they've always led.
How do characters change in the Dreamlife? Do they lose any abilities they have?
Characters change in ways that make them fit into their new universe. For example, an X-Man sliding into an everyday college AU is not going to have mutant powers. Conversely, a nonpowered person entering a fantasy AU is as likely as anyone else to become a wizard or an elf or a centaur, with all that that implies.
Beyond that, players have plenty of wiggle room. Age (still 18+), sex, gender, and (where appropriate) species are flexible. Your challenge as a player is to answer the question: Who would my character be, if this was the environment they had always lived in?
What about waking up?
Characters will return to Lovewater when the goddess wakes, in exactly the same place they drifted off. Any skills they had in the Dreamlife - if they had become fluent in Latin or really good at breakdancing, say - will be completely lost, immediately, regardless of any memory-related superpowers they might have.
The memories of their history as an AU character will also fade rapidly, the way a dream fades. The time spent 'consciously' in the Dreamlife will be remembered just as accurately as any period spent in the waking world.
Can my character opt out?
Absolutely. All Dreamlife events are 100% optional, and can be participated in partially - for example, a five-day block rather than the whole thing. However, they can't go in and out of the same event.
Characters who do not enter the Dreamlife will find that characters who have, seem to have gone missing. The population of the town generally will have plummeted. Those remaining will be told by local NPCs that their missing friends are 'in Miss Lovewater's dream' and are completely safe.
So, uh, given how much you don't like noncon, there sure is a lot of opportunity for characters to get magically dream-roofied into fucking people they don't know that well.
/promptly vanishes in a puff of logic
...in seriousness, yes, this is a contradiction central to the game setup. How characters reconcile with it is up to the players. A few things to keep in mind:
Bob chooses to come to Lovewater to protect his beloved Alice. Then Alice shows up. What happens?
Bob could choose to transfer Miss Lovewater's blessing to another character. Alternatively, he still earns what he's been originally promised, but it's delayed until Alice returns to their world of origin.
They may absolutely decide to game the system by choosing each other as beneficiaries, staying in Lovewater for six months, then going home together for their Highly Dangerous Six Month Quest while both enjoying Miss Lovewater's blessing of protection.
You keep referring to 'the mod'.
At the time of writing there is only one. If others are recruited later, they will be absorbed into the gestalt entity known as 'The Mod'.
Soooo, we've got one deity occupying a chunk of English suburbia. Are there others?
That is a fascinating question.
This sounds like a porn parody of [a bunch of things].
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
I have another question.
Comments to this post are disabled because all questions can be asked and answered here!
- What is Lovewater? Introduction to the setting and your character's arrival.
- Apps, caps and activity checking
- Game mechanics and life in Lovewater: Including communications, practicalities of day-to-day life, and fourth walling.
- Crime, punishment and reward: How disciplinary issues are dealt with and community service is promoted.
- The Dreamlife: How regular events work and how characters will be affected.
- Miscellaneous
Lovewater is a panfandom roleplay game centered around sex, love, slice-of-(weird)-life, and the exploration of alternative universes.
Where is Lovewater?
Lovewater is a small, low-density borough on the outskirts of West London, one of many towns and villages swallowed up by the city's expansion over time. Once known for its wide, tree-lined streets, pleasant shopping arcades and the large, well-kept Lovewater Gate Park, it was believed to be destroyed during the Second World War. The land now exists as a desolate brownfield site. Details of land ownership are sketchy, and evidence of toxicity has prevented redevelopment. A swathe of outer London is fenced off and inaccessible while local councils and planners scratch their heads over what to do with it.
That's one telling.
The truth is that, in the early 1940s, an entity - to some, a deity - moved into the disused Lovewater Broadway underground rail station. She promptly decided the town would be under her protection. She has had many titles, but chose to adopt the name of her new home, mostly so as to make it pronounceable by the locals. Miss Lovewater has lived in the station for almost eighty years, and doesn't plan on leaving any time soon.
How did my character get here?
They receive a letter - or an email, scroll, carrier pigeon, whatever suits their world. They are invited to Lovewater, a safe sanctuary, away from the cares and trials of the rest of the world. In exchange for their presence, the invitation promises, Miss Lovewater will place a blessing of protection on a friend, family member, comrade or other loved one back home. They will be kept safe, even through situations where they would otherwise certainly die. You don't need to worry about them. (See also: the possibility of an additional boon, below)
An invitee can also use the blessing for themselves when they leave; one year in Lovewater equals one year of safety in their own world.
Time is essentially frozen back home; a character leaving on the 1st January 2066 will return to the 1st January 2066, regardless of how long they've been away. Characters will not age while they're in Lovewater; the locals (as in those who have been born there, or have made arrangements to remain permanently) age at a slightly slowed rate.
The invitee has to accept three things:
- That they should keep the peace.
- That they are expected to earn their place in the form of occasional tribute. She's a goddess of romantic and erotic love. Tribute comes in the form of sex, romance, and even pining over someone from afar - although you really should just ask them out already.
- That reality in Lovewater is fluid.
What does arrival look like?
On agreeing to her invitation, they will fall asleep - whether or not they do sleep is irrelevant - and wake up on a 1940s-era London Underground train, pulling into Lovewater Broadway station.
On the train seat next to them is a small envelope with their name on it. This contains:
- A map of Lovewater
- The key for, and address of, their new home
- A smartphone
- A debit card
So where do the alternative universes come in?
Miss Lovewater has a sleep-wake cycle normally lasting five to six weeks. When she's awake, everything is perfectly normal, in the context of a magical sex-powered London borough.
When she sleeps, for about 10-12 days, things get....weird.
This is the Dreamlife.
Whatever your character thought they were in the waking world, they're now a cowboy on the American frontier. A mermaid in Atlantis. An acrobat with a travelling circus. This, suddenly, is the life they've always led. And likewise, your relationships change. Sometimes for the better, sometimes for the worse, but often exaggerated. Maybe the neighbour you're barely on nodding terms with - but have an unspoken mutual crush on - is suddenly your spouse. Maybe someone you kind of dislike but are dealing with via passive-aggressive jibes is now your mortal enemy.
What won't happen is a total reversal of attitudes. You won't hate someone in real life and love them in the Dreamlife, or vice versa. (However, with care, you can very much use this mechanic to accelerate any enemies-to-lovers plotting you have in mind.)
When Miss Lovewater wakes up, your character will have vivid memories of their recent affairs, and rapidly fading memories of how to do a perfect double somersault.
Reserves? Application periods?
Reserves are not used; applications are open at all times! See also:, Applications, Game Calendar.
Challenge apps?
Nope. First come, first served.
OCs? CRAUs? MMOs? Other letters?
Original characters are allowed. Player characters from heavily choice-dependent games (e.g. Skyrim's Dragonborn, or Dragon Age's Inquisitor) are allowed.
Canon OCs - that is, an original character from a canon universe - are allowed so long as they don't have a close relationship with canon characters. For example, an elf from JRRT's Mirkwood is fine, but not one who went to elven high school with Legolas. Canon OCs count towards the overall cap for the canon they belong to - see below!
Player characters from MMORPGs are allowed if they don't prevent other PCs from joining on the same terms. To give an example: the Final Fantasy XIV storyline has one Warrior of Light and many 'adventurers'. From the perspective of any individual player, their character is the single Warrior of Light and every other player character is an 'adventurer' who helps them out sometimes. For Lovewater purposes, you could app your character as an adventurer but not as the Warrior of Light.
Characters with CR and development from other games are not allowed.
Real people?
Fictionalised versions of real historical figures are OK, within the bounds of good taste (ask if you're not sure), provided that the real person died at least 100 years ago and there's a distinct canon they're being drawn from. For example, Alexander Hamilton as he appears in the musical Hamilton would be fine.
You can use biographical details of the real person's life to flesh out the fictionalised character, but where there are contradictions the fictionalised version takes priority!
What about brand-new characters or canons?
Please wait 30 days after the canon release date before apping a character from that canon. This rule does not apply to the Test Drive Meme.
Caps?
For the time being, players can app two characters each, once per app round.
Canons are capped at four per canon, eight total for any variations and separate titles under the canon's umbrella. For example: four comics-verse X-Men, two movie-verse Avengers and two of TV's Agents of SHIELD would max out the Marvel cast. That doesn't seem like much, but...
There is a total game cap of 55 characters, after which applications will be closed except for female characters, until either gender parity or a max total of 69 characters is reached. (Nice.) Characters who do not identify as male or female are not counted for parity purposes.
There is a game cap to encourage building close CR (and to reduce strain on mod time). This rule also reflects that male characters tend to be more popular.
Different iterations of the same character are ruled out. So the game could have Andrew Garfield or Tobey Maguire's Peter Parker, but not both.
Characters who might confuse the head count slightly (say, Eddie-Brock-plus-Venom-symbiote) count as one character for capping purposes. And yes, apping characters in this position is fine, so long as at least one 'aspect' of that character couldn't survive without the other.
Age limits?
Players and characters must be over 18; no ageing-up of characters who are under 18 in canon. Characters who are physically 'young' but have the emotional and intellectual capacity of adults (e.g. androids or speed-grown clones) are fine - please show your work and explain how they'd be able to handle the environment.
There will be some NPC children living in town, but they don't seem to be subject to Miss Lovewater's influence, do not enter the Dreamlife, and are kept away from Sex Stuff. Locals tend to leave Lovewater if they want to start a family, but some value the safety that Miss L offers.
Activity Check
Characters not on hiatus are expected to provide one of the following every month:
- One post to the log community
- One post to the comm community
- 15+ comments (gen, smut, or a mix of both) in either log or community threads
My character has game-breaking superpowers.
Not anymore they don't! Powers are generally not reduced unless they would affect the fabric of the game universe itself. Powers that would allow a character to understand when they are in the Dreamlife, for example, will be nullified. There may be time-limited exceptions to this in some events.
Characters will be informed that this will happen before they arrive, and they will have to agree to those terms. These characters, and characters with powers that aren't necessarily game-breaking but might cause balance issues (Superman, say) will be invited to trade them in for extra rewards - see Crime, Reward & Punishment, below.
Using powers and abilities responsibly is encouraged, and players are expected to communicate clearly OOC - especially when it comes to things like mind control or other forms of influence.
My character has no reason to speak or understand English.
Consider that fixed. However, if your character is (for example) not literate in their native language, that will persist into their understanding of English.
My character was [e.g.] bleeding out from a gunshot wound at the canon point I took them from.
They will arrive healed and whole, though they'll bear scars relevant to their injuries.
My character is really obviously not human.
That's fine! Most of the locals with significant memories of life pre-deity have passed away, or were given the opportunity to move out before the community was sealed off. The locals are used to it. Robots, fairies and demons are all perfectly welcome so long as they behave themselves.
My character needs to drink human blood or eat brains or [something] to survive.
A couple of niche shops are available to service these more esoteric needs. Shopkeepers, if asked, will tell you that Miss L supplies these resources directly and has promised that no humans have been harmed in their production.
My character will burst into flames in sunlight.
Sorry. Um. The shops also sell umbrellas and SPF50. In seriousness, if your character is allergic to sunlight or water or children's laughter, then they still will be in Lovewater. Please take necessary precautions.
My character has changed their mind. Are they trapped here?
No. Town limits are clearly posted, and signage makes it very clear that voluntarily crossing them will result in their immediate return home. If your character can fly or is super into tunnelling, the vertical limits are about the same as the horizontal limits. ('Voluntary' is the key word. If you don't like someone and attempt to force them out by shoving them over the boundary, they will simply reappear on the edge of town elsewhere.)
Ongoing IC consent to the situation - be it grudging, enthusiastic or anything in between - is core to the game. It's not a jamjar, more a bowl of jam which you can climb out of if you want to.
So how do they feed themselves and buy clothes and stuff?
Newcomers will be provided with a small studio or one-bed apartment (one floor of a house, or one of a small block of flats) and a small monthly stipend. This will cover inexpensive food/toiletries and thrifted clothes, but no luxuries. If they want to earn more than that, well, they can get a job! Most of the things you can do in a small town with a 21st century economy, you can do here. You can also choose to apply for a small loan to start a business of your own. The emergency services and the Town Hall are out of bounds, for now, but there are plenty of jobs to be had.
Local amenities?
The south of the town is dominated by Lovewater Gate Park, a large and well-tended space with a boating lake, cafe, wildlife marshland, playing fields and sports courts. The park has a small herd of fallow deer who are semi-tame but generally prefer to be left alone, and a number of rabbits who are very tame and considered by some locals to be sacred to Miss Lovewater. This may or may not be true.
Elsewhere in town you can find a variety of shops, one supermarket, restaurants and cafes, a few GP surgeries and dental clinics, a police station, and a small hospital. There's also a library, a cinema, a theatre, a couple of gyms and a swimming pool. Characters who are interested in starting their own business may do so, and some retail properties are conveniently vacant if needed.
This all sounds kind of wholesome for a sex game universe.
There is a large and labyrinthine indoor market, Lovewater Exchange, catering to what has become a major cultural institution: that is, fuckin'. However you may wish to accessorise your intimate life, you can do so here at competitive prices. There is also a sizable club making up the top and basement floors of the market building for those seeking partners or play. This is to say nothing of the social events hosted by residents, of course.
How do business owners restock?
Orders are submitted to the Chamber of Commerce; deliveries arrive by the same train which brings newcomers to Lovewater. Beyond that, people have learned not to question the logistics too closely.
Religion?
Many locals have adopted Miss L as a goddess, and see the Exchange as a form of temple and sex as an act of worship - but that doesn't mean that she is one, or that those beliefs are valid. Miss Lovewater herself asks for tribute but not that anyone forsake their personal faith.
There is a scattering of places of worship, and a few non-specific spaces for quiet prayer and contemplation.
Pop culture and fourth-walling in Lovewater
Books, movies, comics etc. are available via the library or relevant shops. (Podcasts are hard to come by - no Internet, sorry!) Pop culture is generally up to date, with one exception: any fictional universe featuring a character present in Lovewater will not exist there. For example: the Harry Potter book and film series will be available at the library until Newt Scamander shows up, at which point everything disappears. If Jean-Luc Picard arrives, every piece of Star Trek media vanishes. This includes books/DVDs/etc in a character's private possession.
Breaking the fourth wall - say, having a character who strolls up to reboot!Kirk and tells him he was better when he was William Shatner - is permissible only with the consent of Kirk's player. This refers to doing it to Kirk's face and chatting about him behind his back, and Kirk's player may choose to consent to one but not the other.
Communication
Characters are granted a smartphone on arrival. This is limited to making and receiving calls, text messages, FaceTime-type video transmissions, and a localised Tinder-type application called Spoon. Their Contacts lists will automatically update with the full names of characters present in town. Mass transmissions (i.e. open community posts) are very much possible.
These phones, and the network they operate on, are not hackable (time-limited exceptions may come into play!). One character privately contacting another can do so in confidence. They also do not need to be charged. Convenient!
Beyond local communication, the Internet is not a thing in Lovewater. Go to the library like it's the olden days.
See also: Businesses, Jobs & Clubs; Map & Setting
Miss Lovewater has empowered the local emergency services to demigod state, though they don't seem aware of this. Imagine a regular London copper carefully but capably pushing Dracula into the back of a car to take a night in the cells and think about what he's done, or a paramedic bringing someone back from the brink of death with a few carefully placed sutures and some oxygen. The only number you can call from the red phone boxes is 999.
Miss Lovewater takes her request that you keep the peace very seriously. The borough uses a three-strike system. A strike is a major infraction, which includes:
- Attempted murder
- Attempted rape
- Major property damage (think levelling a building)
- Spree attacks causing widespread minor property damage and/or injury to several people - player characters and/or NPCs
After the third strike, the character will be sent away. Not home, just....away. This will put them on an enforced hiatus for one week (or longer if convenient for the player), after which time Miss Lovewater will pop her head in and ask if they're willing to come back and behave themselves. They won't remember exactly where they were, but on their return, there will be a strong sense of 'I didn't enjoy that At All'.
There is also a nine-strike rule. Instead of the third extended time-out, the character will be sent away from Lovewater permanently, and the blessing they have accrued will be lost. This amounts to an IC ban. Characters may return after 3 months, but they will be a new iteration of themselves, and will never regain the memories of their first stay.
Strikes are purged from the record after twelve full months. So, if a character racks up eight strikes on a particularly busy afternoon, then manages to behave themselves for a year, their record is clear! Please do not then go and chop up another eight people just because you can.
Yes, this is limiting, but Miss L blames herself for inviting murderers in the first place. Please try to lighten up on the violent crime. After their first infraction, characters will be warned in advance of these longer-term consequences, so they should not come as a surprise to anyone.
What do you mean, 'attempted'?
There is no rape in Lovewater. Period. Any character trying to engage in sexual activity in the absence of consent (or after consent has been withdrawn, or if it was impossible to get in the first place) will lose consciousness and find themselves waking up on the floor of their own home, with a note nearby remarking that they have committed a serious infraction. All manner of kink is absolutely fine - up to and including pre-negotiated simulated rape - but Miss L is not here for genuine noncon, and neither is the mod, and neither is the game.
As far as attempted murder goes, those who really should have died will be picked up via ambulance and taken into Court Park hospital to have their head stitched back on (or whatever). They will be subject to a period of healing going on for 2-4 weeks which will be debilitating, less so over time, but for the first week they won't be able to walk much further than from their bed to the bathroom and back.
This applies to characters who ordinarily have healing/regeneration powers but are still capable of dying. Characters who can't die, or auto-revive (Jack Harkness from the Whoniverse, for example) will continue their lives as normal.
The would-be killer will be assumed to have had the cops called on them. They will be bundled into a cell for 24 hours, will receive a note of their serious infraction, and then released and told to do better.
Characters 'killed' in the Dreamlife will wake up in Lovewater, unhurt, and will not be able to return to that month's dream. It might be quiet around town, so maybe they should vacuum and catch up on some reading.
What about other crimes?
Law enforcement in Lovewater is extremely powerful when engaged, but not omnipresent. If you want to shatter someone's kneecaps, well, you're an asshole - but you can do it. Likewise - theft, minor property damage, physical fights, fencing stolen goods, tax fraud, etc - all these opportunities are open to you. (I don't know why you'd want to RP tax fraud, but to each their own.)
If something is happening that's public enough or loud enough that it's likely to be overheard, it becomes a plot/event and must be noted as such.
My character has superpowers that would make them able to detect, reach and prevent any crime before it happens, or immediately take over the borough and rule it with an iron fist!
If that's not something you want to change, then honestly, this may not be the game for them.
If what you want is an in-universe workaround to make your character playable, here it is: an additional boon (as in, a second person to benefit from Lovewater's protection, or twice as long for the same person) is available to any character who is prepared to voluntarily give up enough of their powers that they could, conceivably, lose a fight against a sufficiently well-trained human. Yes, this might put them at a disadvantage against some other characters, but they're getting a greater benefit from their stay in Lovewater.
(So, if an ordinarily villainous character wants to give up their superpowers and play nicely for long enough to accrue a year's protection, so that they can then go home and safely execute their world-conquering plans, then....there's nothing to stop them doing that. Miss L only cares what you do on her turf.)
So what was that about rewards?
Initially, characters will arrive in Lovewater with the clothes on their backs and whatever spare change they had in their pockets. However, characters can request one item from home, each month, provided that they have no infractions and have been contributing to the community. This can mean:
- Working in a job
- Running a club or regular community event
- Protecting another character from harm
- This is not an exhaustive list - ask the mod if unsure!
The item can be a pet, an article of clothing, a weapon, something of sentimental value - whatever they like, as long as it originally belonged to them or could be found somewhere they used to live. Anything that can fit in a suitcase is fair game. Anything bigger - a car, a horse, a hot tub - might need a few months' accumulated good behaviour.
Infractions are addressed as they happen; rewards are dealt with at the same time as A/C.
For a week or two out of every five or six, Miss Lovewater dreams.
Due to her powerful hold over the town, many of its inhabitants are pulled in with her - disappearing from their homes and entering an alternate universe known by the locals as the Dreamlife. For their time in this AU, as far as affected characters are concerned, this is who they've always been and where they've always lived.
So, how does that work?
A few minutes before entering the Dreamlife, characters will feel a sudden and irresistible urge to lie down, sit down or otherwise get comfortable. They will close their eyes - or disable their optical sensors, etc. - and on opening them, will find themselves in their new environment.
Except, to them, it isn't new. This is how it's always been. This is the life they've always led.
How do characters change in the Dreamlife? Do they lose any abilities they have?
Characters change in ways that make them fit into their new universe. For example, an X-Man sliding into an everyday college AU is not going to have mutant powers. Conversely, a nonpowered person entering a fantasy AU is as likely as anyone else to become a wizard or an elf or a centaur, with all that that implies.
Beyond that, players have plenty of wiggle room. Age (still 18+), sex, gender, and (where appropriate) species are flexible. Your challenge as a player is to answer the question: Who would my character be, if this was the environment they had always lived in?
What about waking up?
Characters will return to Lovewater when the goddess wakes, in exactly the same place they drifted off. Any skills they had in the Dreamlife - if they had become fluent in Latin or really good at breakdancing, say - will be completely lost, immediately, regardless of any memory-related superpowers they might have.
The memories of their history as an AU character will also fade rapidly, the way a dream fades. The time spent 'consciously' in the Dreamlife will be remembered just as accurately as any period spent in the waking world.
Can my character opt out?
Absolutely. All Dreamlife events are 100% optional, and can be participated in partially - for example, a five-day block rather than the whole thing. However, they can't go in and out of the same event.
Characters who do not enter the Dreamlife will find that characters who have, seem to have gone missing. The population of the town generally will have plummeted. Those remaining will be told by local NPCs that their missing friends are 'in Miss Lovewater's dream' and are completely safe.
So, uh, given how much you don't like noncon, there sure is a lot of opportunity for characters to get magically dream-roofied into fucking people they don't know that well.
/promptly vanishes in a puff of logic
...in seriousness, yes, this is a contradiction central to the game setup. How characters reconcile with it is up to the players. A few things to keep in mind:
- AU'd characters still retain their core selves. Someone who is reserved and not at all sexually outgoing is unlikely to be significantly different in the Dreamlife. A character who comes to Lovewater with extreme reservations about sex might, in their Dreamlife, escalate to - gasp! - holding hands or even kissing a character they've long admired. Once they're back to normal, they might be more inclined to hold hands again!
- Similarly, they are not going to want to bump uglies with someone they hate in the waking world. The intention here is to lower inhibitions and nudge people closer together, not to leave them feeling gross and violated.
- All Dreamlife events are opt-out and players are responsible for keeping their characters playable. If players would rather just treat the game as a sexy slice-of-life in a weird magic London bubble, they are absolutely free to do so.
- Otherwise, how players engage with this is up to them. Characters might never have sex in the Dreamlife. They might repeatedly find and engage with their beloved partner(s) in universe after universe, creating a grand inter-reality romance. The world is your oyster!
Bob chooses to come to Lovewater to protect his beloved Alice. Then Alice shows up. What happens?
Bob could choose to transfer Miss Lovewater's blessing to another character. Alternatively, he still earns what he's been originally promised, but it's delayed until Alice returns to their world of origin.
They may absolutely decide to game the system by choosing each other as beneficiaries, staying in Lovewater for six months, then going home together for their Highly Dangerous Six Month Quest while both enjoying Miss Lovewater's blessing of protection.
You keep referring to 'the mod'.
At the time of writing there is only one. If others are recruited later, they will be absorbed into the gestalt entity known as 'The Mod'.
Soooo, we've got one deity occupying a chunk of English suburbia. Are there others?
That is a fascinating question.
This sounds like a porn parody of [a bunch of things].
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
I have another question.
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