The Nihilists

Nomenclature
Their primary name will remain the Nihilists for now. They refer to each other according to their military ranks – those higher in rank are referred to as “Sir” while those of the same rank by their name and those lower according to their ranks.

Appearance / Archetypes
A large percentage of the Nihilists were part of Governor Vandalis’ personal guard and thus wear the same military uniforms as the city guard, save with a blue and yellow shoulder pad or sash. Officers will have somewhat shinier armor or uniforms, but with the same blue/yellow pattern on the shoulder or elsewhere.

Not all the Nihilists are soldiers though, as some are ministers or technicians – these individuals will be dressed either as noblemen or engineers, depending on their status.

Faction Hierarchy
Since it’s primarily a military unit, the hierarchal structure is fairly simple, with three prominent ranks for the purposes of the story – the Legionnaires (lowest), Centurion (Officer equivalent) and the Commissar (the overall leader of the regiment). However in addition to this there will be elements that are outside the rank structure – ministers, court officials and the technicians that weren’t part of the military but still helping build the machine. These individuals don’t have a rank but are generally recognized as important and with authority.

The leader of the Nihilists is Commissar Victus, one of the few people that has managed to keep his sanity and perspective throughout the entire ordeal and whom works diligently to keep what few soldiers he can in line in their desperate attempt to defend the wall and city.

That said, however, there are a large number of Nihilists that have gone mad – either through desperate attempts to forget each day and turning to their duty as the only thing they can do or those that have just gone “fuck it, I give up” and become psychotic lunatics.

Philosophy / Paradigm
The Nihilists were part of the Governer Vandalis’ personal guard and amongst the few he trusted with the existence of the Eastern Man’s machine. Many were off-duty during the night he went down and thus were amongst the first to respond the next day as the search went on for the Governor. Thus they were amongst the first to awaken over the course of the next few centuries as time repeated itself. They were also the first few to experience the visions that you did plus a fair bit more – one that they blame to be coincident with the monastry’s and society’s awakening.

In their visions they saw that the apocalypse had already happened and that the rest of the world beyond the sea was basically gone, with this one island being left as a “bubble”, as it were. They believe that this bubble remains stable as long as people are unaware of its existence and as such they need to remain unaware to ensure it continues to exist, lest it collapse. This is their explanation for the second Armageddon vision – especially after members of the Society and Monastery became aware.

As they have sworn loyalty to the Governor and the city, they are honor and duty bound to protect it – a fact that has in many ways consumed them. Such is there fervor that they battle the Monastery and the Society at every turn, protecting the wall to the best of their ability while figuring out a method to prevent the Armageddon from consuming the last bubble of the city.

Motivation / Goals
The Nihilists main objective is to stabilize the bubble at any cost – mostly by making everyone unaware of it as seemingly becoming aware of the repeating day is causing it to destabilize. They believe the best way to go about this is to defeat it at its source: the machine. The technicians that worked on the machine believe they can “fix” it such that as the day repeats, it does so perfectly as opposed to right now where one of the many imperfections is people eventually becoming aware.

They are also highly motivated by duty and see themselves as the guardians and one true authority in the city and thus go about protecting it against the influence of the society and the monastery.

Relations to other Aware Factions
The Nihilists are outwardly hostile to both other factions, primarily the Society due to the fact that they use the unaware as tools. They believe the society is one of the chief reasons for the cause of the destabilization, due to the heavy usage of magical materials and other systems that allow them to transmit information and other materials across each day, thus weakening it.

They are hostile towards the Monastery mostly due to the fact that they know that the man that caused this entire mess was from the East – and on top of that from the same religious group as the monastery (they’ve had a long time to learn about the group as time continued to repeat). Add to this the Monastery’s desire to go into the wall and destroy the very machine the Nihilists believe is keeping them alive and there’s a lot of conflict there as well.

Relations to the Unaware
Relations to the unaware remains neutral/friendly as the Nihilists believe they are the only things keeping the entire bubble stable. As such, they make it their job to look after the unaware as much as possible, protecting them against the influence of the Society and the Monastery.

Distribution
The Nihilists are largely concentrated around the wall / castle perimeter and the Garrison sector of the city. They do occasionally venture out into the slums and docks, but this is only on rare jaunts to scout out the opposition or retrieve items.

Ending
Towards the end of the game and with the coming apocalypse, the Nihilists will make one last attempt at getting behind the wall – coming into a climactic battle between the Monastery and the Society. If the player joins the Nihilists and helps in carving out the tools needed to fix the machine however he will be given an alternate route through the free-for-all melee outside the wall as the Nihilists desperately hold off the rest of the city.

The player will then descend into the Abyss, his main goal being to reach the machine. Once there he will attempt to fix it using the tools given to him by the technicians. At the end of it all, the entire attempt works just according to plan. As the clock resets everyone forgets what happens and they continue to forget – essentially becoming unaware. The apocalypse doesn’t happen either and everyone exists in blissful peace. Everyone that is, except the player – whom is essentially trapped in this repeating hell with no way out whatsoever.

Special Abilities / Tools
The Nihilists don’t have much in the way of special abilities, with few magical weapons. However what they do have are three important things: training, knowledge and a significant percentage of the City’s arsenal at their disposal. Their interactions with the cycle however, are much more limited than the Monastery or the Society.

However, they do sit on a cache of magical materials – save that most of it’s beyond the wall or hidden somewhere amongst the traders and estates, where they have little influence – which is where the player will come in. Should the player join the Nihilists, he will gain several weapons that are incredibly powerful and maybe a chance to improve his stats further than the other factions allow. The downside of course, is that the weapons aren’t permanent – he’ll need to go and re-acquire them from the Nihilist armory at the start of each day.

Combat Styles
Combat styles for the Nihilists will be slow and powerful, essentially going into the “Fighter/Warrior” category, using heavy armor, shields and other weapons with little to no use of magical materials. Similarly the player will get massive buffs to his stats and skills related to direct combat should he join the Nihilists (to reflect any training they give him).

Fall_2009_Factions