Of monks and seekers

 This has two chapters. one is IC the second part is OOC so you can understand things better.

The Monks of the Amazon

Chapter I – Backdrop Story

Not From Here

The Monks have been in the Amazon for a very long time.

How long depends largely on whom you ask.

A fisherman may tell you they have always been here. A tribal elder may tell you his grandmother's grandmother already knew stories about them. A scientist will tell you this is impossible. The scientist is, in this particular instance, wrong.

The Monks are not from Earth.

This is inconvenient for several reasons, not least because they are now stuck on it.

Their story begins with Theia, a world which, rather unfortunately, had an appointment with Earth.

It did not survive the appointment.

Long before anyone on Earth had invented calendars, insurance claims, or the phrase “planetary impact event,” the beings who would one day become known as the Monks encountered Theia and some of its inhabitants.

They learned that the planet was doomed.

They rescued whom they could.

This was not enough to save Theia, which proceeded to collide with Earth anyway, but it did allow a tiny fragment of its people to survive.

The visitors also preserved biological samples, records and genetic material from the world they had failed to save.

Then they left.

This would normally have been the end of the story.

It wasn't.

Many generations later, through a coincidence so spectacularly unlikely that nobody involved found it particularly amusing, descendants of those same travellers found themselves back near Earth.

This time, however, matters went less smoothly.

A parasite had managed to get aboard their spacecraft.

Quite how it did this is uncertain.

What is known is that it eventually interfered with the ship's systems, took control of rather more of the vessel than any parasite reasonably ought to, and caused the ship to crash.

The surviving travellers found themselves stranded on Earth.

Their ship could not leave.

Their systems could not be fully repaired.

And there was no interstellar roadside assistance.

The details of this unfortunate episode can be discovered through the jungle quest Not From Here, which explains more about the crash, the parasite and how a group of advanced extraterrestrial travellers managed to turn a perfectly serviceable interstellar journey into several thousand years of involuntary residency.

The Long Stay

At first, the stranded travellers attempted to leave.

They failed.

Then they tried again.

They failed in slightly more complicated ways.

Eventually, they came to the unpleasant conclusion that Earth was not a temporary inconvenience.

It was home.

This happened thousands of years ago.

For humans, thousands of years is quite a long time.

Empires rise.

Empires collapse.

Languages appear, mutate and become school subjects.

Religions are founded.

Borders are drawn.

Borders are redrawn.

People spend centuries killing one another over the redrawings.

For the Monks, however, the passage of time is somewhat less urgent.

They age extraordinarily slowly.

To humans, they appear almost immortal.

A Monk who spoke to someone's ancestor several centuries ago might very well still be around, possibly complaining about how much noisier people have become since then.

As human civilization expanded, the Monks withdrew.

The Amazon proved useful.

It was large.

It was difficult to control.

It contained areas in which one could hide unusual devices without immediately attracting a research grant, a military expedition or a television crew.

Over time, humans began to interpret the Monks in the traditional human manner.

That is to say, incorrectly but enthusiastically.

Their technology became magic.

Their longevity became immortality.

Their knowledge became prophecy.

Their peculiar habits became religion.

And the stranded aliens became known simply as the Monks.

They did not object.

Correcting everyone would have taken centuries.

Guardians, More or Less

The Monks do not rule the Amazon.

This is important.

They could probably make a tremendous nuisance of themselves if they tried, but they generally do not.

Tribes have chiefs.

Factions have leaders.

Villages have arguments.

Rogues have opinions.

Everyone has grudges.

The Monks stand outside this arrangement.

Their loyalty is not to a tribe.

Their faction is simply:

the Monks.

They concern themselves with the Amazon as a whole.

What this means in practice varies considerably.

Sometimes they help.

Sometimes they observe.

Sometimes they interfere.

Sometimes they appear to interfere, but actually don't.

And sometimes they do something inexplicable and disappear before anyone has worked out what question to ask.

A Monk may offer useful advice.

He may also offer deliberately unhelpful advice.

He may reward someone.

He may test them.

He may send someone on an errand that appears pointless until three weeks later, when it suddenly does not.

He may know someone's name without having been introduced.

He may remember things that happened before anyone present was born.

This has led to the entirely reasonable suspicion that Monks are rather strange.

They are.

The Problem of Children

At some point during their very long stay on Earth, the Monks encountered a biological inconvenience.

They cannot produce children with humans.

They may look human enough from a distance.

Up close, biology has opinions.

The result is that the Monks cannot continue their lineage through the human population.

Nor, apparently, can they simply solve the matter with technology.

Whether this is impossible, forbidden or merely considered an exceptionally bad idea by the Monks themselves is unknown.

What they could do, however, was raise human children.

And humans, throughout history, have unfortunately produced no shortage of children with nobody to care for them.

Thus came the Seekers.

Seekers are usually orphans.

Some lost their parents.

Some were abandoned.

Some simply found themselves, through the peculiar machinery of fate, in the care of beings who could remember civilizations nobody else had heard of.

The Monks raised them.

This produced people who were human, but had been taught by creatures who were not.

Which explains quite a lot.

Seekers eventually return to the human communities of the Amazon.

They act as intermediaries between the Monks and everyone else.

They wander.

They watch.

They test.

They help newcomers.

They occasionally behave in ways which strongly suggest that being raised by ancient extraterrestrials is not the most conventional childhood.

The Blessing

One of the things Seekers can bestow is known as the Blessing of the Monks.

The phrase sounds religious.

The Monks have never shown much concern about this.

Humans tend to name things.

It keeps them occupied.

To receive the Blessing is to be recognised.

You are no longer merely passing through.

You have become, in some sense, part of the Amazon.

The Monks have noticed you.

Or a Seeker has noticed you.

Which is usually quite enough.

Whether the Blessing itself is symbolic, technological, ceremonial or something else entirely is not generally explained.

The Monks could explain it.

They don't.

Gifts of Progress, Carefully Limited

Once the Monks accepted that leaving Earth was unlikely, they began to make limited use of the technology they still possessed.

They did not hand humanity advanced weapons.

This was sensible.

Humanity already had weapons and had demonstrated a frankly exhausting enthusiasm for them.

They did not hand out spacecraft.

They were rather short of working spacecraft themselves.

Instead, they introduced certain useful technologies carefully and locally.

One example is the system of Travel Gates.

Most people in the Amazon regard them as a convenient way to travel quickly.

This is probably for the best.

Few travellers need a lecture on extraterrestrial transport engineering while trying to get from one side of the jungle to the other.

Other strange mechanisms, artefacts and unexplained phenomena throughout the Amazon may also have originated with the Monks.

Or they may not.

The Monks seldom issue technical documentation.

The Mojo

Then there is the Mojo.

The Mojo is one of those things everyone knows exists and nobody can explain satisfactorily.

Tribes steal it.

People guard it.

It is associated with the Monks.

It appears to possess importance.

This is already more information than the Monks generally provide.

It may be a device.

It may be a relic.

It may be symbolic.

It may be something extremely advanced.

It may conceivably be the result of a joke which got out of hand several centuries ago.

The Monks know.

They remain unhelpful.

What is important is that it does not turn anyone into a combat monster.

The Amazon has quite enough of those without assistance from alien technology.

The People Who Shouldn't Exist

Among the things salvaged from the distant past were biological samples from Theia.

Very few.

Very precious.

And very old.

The Monks preserved these samples for ages.

Under rare circumstances, they can use them to restore life based on Theian genetic material.

This is not cloning in the casual sense.

Nor is it something they do when bored on a Tuesday.

The remaining material is limited.

One known result is Tantrica.

Tantrica is not descended from the Monks.

She is not one of them.

She is Theian.

Or, more precisely, she is the return of Theian life from genetic material preserved since before humanity existed.

Which means that a species whose world vanished at the dawn of Earth's history can still walk through a Second Life jungle and possibly argue with someone about roleplay.

The universe is like that sometimes.

What Everyone Else Knows

Most people in the Amazon know almost none of this.

They know that the Monks are old.

Very old.

They know that they do not seem to age.

They know the Seekers serve them.

They know strange gates exist.

They know the Monks occasionally appear, interfere, disappear and refuse to explain themselves.

Some believe they are spirits.

Others believe they are sorcerers.

Some believe they are holy men.

Some believe they are dangerous.

Some believe they are simply annoying.

Several of these opinions may be correct at the same time.

The truth is buried deeper.

In quests.

In ruins.

In fragments.

In stories.

In things which should not be there.

And occasionally in the expression of a Monk who has just heard someone confidently explain that aliens do not exist.

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Chapter II – OOC Information

Role Assignment

The Monk role is a restricted Amazon lore role and can only be assigned by the Amazon administration.

Players do not apply for the role in the usual sense. Potential Monks are identified and approached by the OOC Owners of the Amazon River based on their roleplay quality, knowledge of the setting, conduct, and long-term involvement with the community.

Being selected as a Monk does not grant staff status, administrative authority, or special OOC privileges.

General Requirements

A Monk player should:

• be an active and established supporter of the Amazon River;

• have a strong understanding of Amazon lore and background;

• demonstrate consistently high-quality roleplay;

• show good judgement regarding consent, power balance, and continuity;

• be socially invested in the community and likely to remain active.

The role depends heavily on continuity. It is therefore not intended for temporary, casual, or short-term participation.

Character Requirements

Monks are roleplayed as humanoid male characters.

Non-human traits such as unusual skin, eyes, ears, or similar features are acceptable, provided the overall appearance remains humanoid.

Monks do not belong to any tribe or regular faction. Their faction is the Monks.

They may interact with, assist, oppose, or favour tribes and factions, but they remain independent from them.

Powers and Abilities

Monks possess unusual abilities IC.

These abilities are represented through roleplay only.

The role does not provide:

• increased HP;

• invulnerability;

• superior combat statistics;

• special weapons;

• combat advantages;

• automatic control over other characters;

• required particle effects, HUD effects, or similar visual systems.

Monks should normally use Green status. Yellow should be reserved for situations in which metered combat is appropriate to the roleplay.

Their abilities should support storytelling rather than provide competitive advantage.

Use of Powers

Monk abilities must respect normal roleplay consent and anti-godmodding standards.

A Monk may describe an action, effect, or unusual event, but should not determine another player's reaction or outcome without agreement.

Powers should generally create opportunities for interaction rather than conclude a scene automatically.

Subtle use of knowledge, technology, unusual perception, or unexplained events is preferred over frequent or excessive displays of power.

Lore Knowledge

Monk players are expected to understand the deeper background of the role.

This does not mean that all lore should be revealed IC.

Information concerning the Monks' origin, Theia, the crash, the parasite, their technology, and related material may be restricted, fragmented, or discovered through quests and roleplay.

A Monk should reveal only as much information as is appropriate to the scene.

The quest Not From Here remains an important source for the crash background and should not be replaced by direct exposition.

Seekers

Seekers are closely connected to the Monks.

Within the lore, Seekers are usually human orphans raised by the Monks because the Monks cannot reproduce with humans.

This relationship may therefore be treated as personal, familial, or parental rather than purely functional.

Seekers act as intermediaries between the Monks and the wider Amazon community.

Staff Separation

The Monk role and Amazon staff roles are separate.

Some current Monks may also hold administrative positions, but this is independent of the Monk role.

A Monk has no OOC authority merely by being a Monk.

Likewise, staff powers must not be presented IC as Monk abilities.

Any staff appointment or responsibility is handled separately by the administration.

Purpose of the Role

The purpose of the Monk role is to support and expand Amazon lore and roleplay.

Monks may be used to:

• introduce or develop lore;

• support quests and long-term storylines;

• provide clues or partial information;

• interact with Seekers;

• create or support mysteries;

• connect separate roleplay threads;

• represent the older technological and extraterrestrial background of the Amazon.

The role is intended to generate roleplay for others, not to provide status, authority, or mechanical advantage to the player.