What the hell happened to the planet?

Some misguided soul - the world will never know who - broke it. They tried to make an interdimensional portal, and ended up setting off a chain reaction that led to millions of transfer points opening up all over the Earth for a four-day period. During those four days, coastal cities were wrecked by kraken, statues got up and walked around killing people, and pretty much the entire world with the exception of Kansas suffered extensive damage. Now things have mostly settled down, but transfer points are still a frequent occurrence and very handy for bringing in new characters, objects, or pieces of scenery.

Statues?

Yes. Statues. Original Shatterverse residents, not that there are many left, are going to be wary of them. They killed a lot of people and smashed the heck out of a lot of buildings during the four days of carnage that kicked off this apocalypse. Fortunately, at the end of those four days whatever was powering them ran out, and they don't do that anymore.

What's a transfer point? What are they like?

They bring people and things from other worlds into Shatter or, more rarely, take them away. They are not portals; nothing like a door is involved. They're just a loud noise and a flash of bright light, and suddenly something that was in one place is now in another. They can open up onto the Shatterverse Earth from any universe to any location. Except Kansas. Also, the world is broken in such a way that transfer points are the only way in or out of the Shatterverse, and they cannot be predicted. Which means that no pup will ever be able to leave the Shatterverse voluntarily.

What's so special about Kansas, anyways?

Anne Cooper. She's dead now, but before she died she laid down a solid protection over the state of Kansas and outlying areas. It's a rough sphere centred on the Cooper farm and extending over the entire state, and no transfer points are possible within it. Teleportation is, just not between universes.

The Cooper farm?

Shatterverse is based off an AU version of events in the television show Smallville. Long story short, Clark Kent's adoptive parents died in a car crash and he sold the farm to Anne Cooper; she turned it into a kind of hermitage, let the fields get overgrown, and fed the cows to her sister Lucy, who is occasionally a dragon. Now that she's dead, the aforementioned younger sister runs the place, and is willing to let anyone stay there provided they don't trash the house. This is especially easy now that various pups have constructed extra buildings, including a fort made out of a partially buried cargo liner and a multi-storey earth bunker.

So, since Shatter is a Smallville AU, does that mean it's a DC-based universe?

Indeed it does! Things that exist in the DCU will exist in Shatter, unless you don't want them to and can provide a good reason why they wouldn't. But they will be twisted, along the lines of how Smallville twists things, and further messed up by the recent apocalypse. Things that don't exist in the DCU won't exist in Shatter, but that's okay, because you can Shatter them.

Who are all these people?

Perhaps you would enjoy a look at our handy cast list.

Can I app an original character? Can I app an AU character? Can I app a character who's already being played here? Can I app a character from history or mythology? Can I app my dog?

Yes, yes, yes, yes, ye—what?

So once I've got my character approved, how do they proceed to, y'know, show up?

Absent other ideas, you can always make a post in shatterverse depicting their arrival to some non-Kansas location with a flash and a bang. You can also go here or post to shatter_ooc to solicit greeters or discuss plans for early meetings.

I have a pup I don't like anymore! How do I get rid of 'em?

Mosey on over to the cast list, enclose your entry for that pup in <strike></strike> tags, and optionally move them to the beginning or end of your cast list comment to get them out of the way of your still-active pups. You can also provide an IC rationale for their disappearance, e.g. eaten by werewolves, moved to Alaska to live in solitude, unShattered, struck by lightning... the possibilities are endless! Or they can just disappear mysteriously. People do that a lot around here.

I have another question!

Leave it in the comments! :D

Back at the LJ Shatter, we had a post where people could mention characters they are thinking of playing at some vague point in the future, and other people could weigh in with "YES THAT ONE DO THAT ONE" and/or "I like pie".

I think that is a brilliant idea and we need one over here.

It may also provide a handy place to discuss which prospective and/or existing characters should meet which other prospective and/or existing characters!

All players will please leave a comment to this post listing all their characters and keep it updated as necessary with the handy "edit comment" feature.

Here is a fun template for a cast list entry:

<a href="TAG URL">CHARACTER NAME</a> (FANDOM): <user name="CHARACTER JOURNAL"> - OPTIONAL EXTRA INFO

e.g. <a href="http://shatterverse.dreamwidth.org/tag/lucy+cooper">Lucy Cooper</a> (original): <user name="littlestcooper"> - the very firstest Shatterverse character!