System Overview

Attributes and Rolling

Roll 1d100 vs predetermined difficulty, add any bonuses, higher is better. A natural dice roll of 1-5 is always a critical failure, while 96-100 is always a critical success, regardless of bonuses or the difficulty level of the task. Most encounters will require multiple rolls to overcome.

There are 5 main attributes:

Physique -- strength, endurance, combat

Agility -- nimbleness, reaction speed, evasion

Perception -- discovering secrets, exposing weak spots, foiling ambushes

Cunning -- knowledge, lying and noticing lies, persuasion

Tenacity -- perseverance, resisting mental influence, resisting Fatigue and Arousal effects

Attribute bonuses usually cap out at +50, but frame choices and in-game events can change that number.

There are also 2 variable attributes:

Fatigue -- rises at a fixed hourly rate determined by frame and activity level. Affected by encounters. High levels inflict roll penalties.

Arousal -- rises at a fixed hourly rate determined by frame. Heavily affected by encounters. High levels inflict roll penalties

Both variable attributes go up to 100. Upon reaching a certain threshold (60 for Fatigue, 30 for Arousal), every point above that threshold applies a direct penalty to any rolls.

Fatigue levels are most often affected by resting (reduces Fatigue gain by -4/h) or sleeping (recovers Fatigue at a rate of 15/h). It is typically impossible to fall asleep before Fatigue reaches its threshold. Contestants have enough control over their internal clock to be able to wake before their Fatigue reaches 0, but they need to sleep a minimum of 4 hours -- if woken before 4 hours pass, they apply half their current Fatigue as a penalty to rolls for the next hour. If Fatigue ever reaches 100, the contestant falls asleep on the spot and will usually not wake until the value reaches 0.

Arousal usually rises rapidly during encounters, putting pressure on contestants to resolve them quickly. The fastest way to get rid of Arousal is through sex -- a round of sex typically drops Arousal to 0. It can also be dealt with through masturbation, but it is an unsatisfactory and sub-par method -- an hour of masturbation typically only drops Arousal by 20. If Arousal ever reaches 100, the contestant either automatically submits to whatever encounter she is involved in, or becomes helpless, incapable of doing anything except masturbating until the Arousal value reaches 0. Arousal typically does not rise when sleeping, or masturbating (barring specific status effects).

Frames, Backgrounds, and Traits

You will choose one of 7 frames -- artificially grown bodies -- that you will inhabit for the duration of the game. They grant various bonuses and penalties to rolls and all but one of them will also offer an optional racial trait -- a special ability, typically balanced by some sort of drawback.

Along with your frame, you will also choose a background -- a package of traits playing on a theme, which will grant you various benefits and drawbacks.

Traits can also be acquired during play, bestowing permanent positive or negative effects on the contestant.

Multipliers and Status Effects

Increasing a multiplier on a stat is additive. Decreasing it is exponential.

For example, if a contestant acquires two traits that state “double Fatigue gain when X,” her total rate of gain under those conditions becomes x3. Should a contestant ever be lucky enough to acquire three traits that state “halve negative status effect duration,” the total duration of negative status effects on her would be decreased to an eighth of their base value.

Status effects are temporary traits that affect various attributes in positive or negative ways. They usually last several hours, but status effects acquired from top-tier encounters may persist for up to a week. Status effects always persist for at least 1 hour, regardless of any traits that may affect their duration.

Some examples of possible status effects: Cold, Tired, Aroused, Cum Inflated, Pregnant, In Heat, Energetic, Blessed, Pure, Hasted.

Time and Travel

The planet hosting the Perilous Journey has a fairly quick rotation speed, making for days that last only 16 hours each. During the period that the game will take place in, this will translate into 8 hours of daylight, 1 hour each for dawn and dusk, and 6 hours of darkness.

For the sake of simplicity, the system recognizes 3 main types of terrain -- open (e.g. plains, roads), rough (e.g. forests, deserts, hills), and very rough (e.g. mountains, swamps, jungles). Every frame has a land speed, which is affected by the type of terrain the contestant is currently traversing and thus determines the contestant's rate of progress. One of the frames has flight capability and thus an additional entry for air speed -- air speed is never affected by terrain type.

Goal and Encounters

The goal of the game is to follow your character’s evolving storyline and complete the objectives as quickly as possible, ultimately reaching the end goal -- the mysterious artifact. Being able to cover ground quickly and avoid unnecessary encounters will be definite assets -- but so will knowledge, perception, and skill at negotiation, as all of these will impact progress. The first contestant to claim the artifact will win Perilous Journey -- and a synthetic body in which to flee the ennui of their NodeNet existence.

Encounters typically happen 2-4 times every day, though that number may change depending on the contestant’s circumstances (i.e. they will only happen if it “makes sense” in the current narrative). Some are positive, offering opportunities for various rewards. Most are negative, offering opportunities to be molested, which typically results in Fatigue gains and lost time. Rarely, they will cause permanent changes, causing increases (or decreases) to attributes, changing appearance, or even granting new traits. Encounters are determined with a roll of 1d100 on the below table:

Rolls of 96-100 always result in an Auspicious Encounter. It is an unambiguously positive event, usually resulting in the contestant gaining permanent bonuses, boosts to attributes, positive traits, or unique abilities.

Rolls of 1-5 always result in an Inauspicious Encounter. It is a singularly negative event, usually resulting in the contestant taking permanent penalties to attributes, gaining negative traits, or losing large amounts of time and resources.

Encounter Escalation and Extra Tiers

There are four additional encounter tiers not shown on the above table. In ascending order of severity, they are:

Savage

Vicious

Merciless

Ultimate

On day 6 and every six days afterward, the world becomes more dangerous for contestants, which is reflected in the encounter escalation mechanic:  Each encounter category shifts up one step. For example, on day 6, Ambivalent encounters shift into the 81-95 slot, while Positive ones are removed from play. Savage encounters appear in the freed 6-20 slot.

Certain  frames, background, and traits gained during play may result in temporary or permanent escalation above the global metric.

If encounters should ever escalate past Ultimate, such a shift simply extends the range of Ultimate encounters by one step. For example, the first time this would happen, Ultimate encounters would extend to occupy the 6-35 slot.

Hunters

On day 10, Hunters become active in the world. Every contestant has a Hunter assigned to them -- a unique encounter that will pursue them for the remainder of the game. Hunters are always granted the abilities and resources necessary to pose a serious threat to their prey.

While typical encounters follow a rough pattern, Hunters may show up at any time and place. While typical encounters give contestants some breathing room between each one, a Hunter can even appear in the middle of an ongoing encounter. While even the highest tier encounters will eventually set a contestant free, Hunters are under no obligation to release their prey once caught. They are perfectly able and willing to imprisoning a contestant until the end of the game -- or until the contestant manages to escape.

If the Hunter does catch his prey, he has free reign on what to do with her -- molest her, whore her out, sell her to a zoo, tie her to the city well and let everyone have a go... In fact, the only thing that Hunters are not permitted to do is nothing.

If You’re Feeling Lost On/Somehow Give a Shit About the “Meta Setting”

I’m one of those bookfags who likes a story that hits the ground running and expects you to keep up. Partly for that reason, but mostly to keep an already overly long introduction from getting any longer, I cut out the original beginning, which provides slightly more context to the MC’s circumstances.

But hey, if you’ve read this far, this likely means that, for some reason, you give a crap about some dumb shit I came up with to justify a monstergirl setting. So thank you and enjoy this wholly unnecessary backstory:

Consciousness upload technology was supposed to send humanity to new heights. Immortality. Thought processing at the speed of light. Transcendence. Hive minds. The singularity was right around the corner.

But, as we discovered, a mind was never supposed to operate outside the body. Even when converted into data streams -- electrons shooting across the circuits of a server -- it tried sending out signals to control organs which were no longer there. Many could -- and did endure it. For years. Decades. Centuries. But it wore on them. It was always there -- a dull ache of emptiness. The only pain that an electronic ghost could feel. Phantom limb syndrome for the whole body.

We made simulations -- vistas of ones and zeroes that imitated rain of naked skin and the smell of freshly baked bread. But no matter how perfect, the mind would not be fooled. It would not be lied to.

But then, neural broadcasts were invented. A way for millions to experience a single person's perceptions and thoughts. That helped -- by the third generation, the technology was good enough to fool the detached mind. But once the broadcast ended -- once the mind returned to the limbo of its server, having briefly remembered what it lost -- it made the ache only that much worse.

But there was no way back -- not for everyone, at least. You can't return to your corpse -- a reverse transfer will fry the living brain. So we made meatcans -- synthetic bodies with positronic brains, their artificial pathways robust enough to bear that strain.

But meatcans are expensive -- prohibitively so. Artificially so, some say, as living space is limited and terraforming slow. They couldn't let everyone come back even if they wanted to. And longevity treatments for corpses get better every year.

And so we suffer. A trillion minds scattered across NodeNet -- a trillion servers scattered across planets, asteroids, stations, ships, and bases. A trillion blips in the ether, slowly driven insane by the ghost of their forsaken body, peering at them from the nothingness in the space between thoughts.