The die of death

The die of death

Agent Reichter 20 Feb 2021 03:29

Seeking Greenlights: Yes

Page Type: SCP Article

Page Layout: Standard article with lots of logs of testing and incidents regarding SCP

Elevator Pitch: A small 6 sided die that when rolled will land on any number despite the fact that it only has 6 sides. Whatever number it lands on, you will die in that many days. Once the period of time is up, something will happen that will lead to your death. No matter any prevention something will lead to the roller’s death. However, during the period of time within you dying, you will be completely invulnerable to damage and will be unable to die.

Central Narrative: About how it was originally captured from Las Vegas, But changing to logs about an MTF team that all rolled the dice to give them immortality. Then about how every one of the members slowly died off except for one member who managed to roll a 7,856. Which led to them surviving for 21 years until they inevitably died. It would go in depth about how they slowly lost faith in the foundation and eventually started begging for death.
Would then go on to explain an incident where in one of the first tests a D-Class rolled the die, resulting in it landing on a zero. Seventeen minutes later there was a full-scale containment breach resulting in the deaths of eighty-seven employees including the D-Class.
There would also be a story about how terrified one junior scientist was due to them being one trip away from death. And that terror eventually leads to them shaking from fear well near the die and tripping and knocking it over.

Hook/Attention Grabber: How no matter what you do no living thing can survive the die being rolled.

Additional Notes: How the SCP foundation had to ban the Die from being used in testing because of how it can cause containment breaches if it lands on a zero.

Last edited on 20 Feb 2021 17:16 by Agent Reichter Show more

Re: The die of death

Dr Hajovsky 20 Feb 2021 05:03

Hi there Agent Reichter, let's take a look at your concept.

+ show block

Overall:
I like the apparent story you've laid out here, but it feels like it's lacking any kind of cohesive narrative or themes to tie everything together. Detailing tests, attempts at destroying other SCPs, and ending it by causing a containment breach just doesn't feel connected, and is very reminiscent of a Series 1 article. Generally, more recent articles are expected to incorporate some kind of theme related to the SCP. Some questions you can ask yourself to get your emotional narrative or theme started include: What was the experience like for the researchers studying the SCP? What can your SCP's abilities be used to symbolize or represent? How could the SCP's abilities be used by the Foundation and what ethical questions does that raise?

While cross testing is okay, it's generally not a substitute for the things I've outlined above. Also, the SCPs that you've listed are already featured a ton on the site. Since we're all writing Series 6 together, why not take some time to feature some SCPs from there.

Specific:

A small 6 sided die that when rolled will land on any number from 0-6 despite the fact that it only has 6 sides.

I get that six sided dice are more common, but it could simply have seven sides if you wanted it to have seven outcomes. Or perhaps the sides aren't fixed, and they can change.

However, during the period of time within you dying, you will be completely invulnerable to damage and will be unable to die.

I'll touch on this a bit more later, but this is an area where you can build a more emotionally charged narrative.

In level 4 addendums it will talk about how the die was used to attempt to kill SCP 096, 682, and other invulnerable SCP’s, and about how every test was unsuccessful. And how it was learned that it can only kill humans.

Since it's not explained why the die can only kill humans and not SCPs, I'd suggest cutting this part to avoid raising this question. I mean, since the tests don't amount to anything interesting besides learning more about the die, they can be cut.

Would then go on to explain an incident where a recently employed janitor accidentally picked up the die from the examination table and dropped it, resulting in it landing on a zero

Containment cells or storage units aren't usually cleaned, especially not using a janitor for the most dangerous ones. This, coupled with the fact that the janitors death is caused by a containment breach and not something else just makes it feel too unrealistic and contrived.

Advice:
As I mentioned earlier, the fact that the dice causes the roller to be invincible for the remainder of their life opens up interesting opportunities. Perhaps instead of your current assembly of tests, you can tell your story by following the events after the Foundation uses the die. Perhaps seeing the die makes people invincible, the Foundation decides to have a team (not MTF because it's essentially a disposable suicide squad) use it for a previously impossible mission, knowing full well that the team will die afterward. You can have a set of personal logs detailing the mission and the thoughts of the captain. How would the captain feel leading a team of people who are going to die one by one, even though they're going to accomplish their mission. Perhaps his faith in the Foundation is put up against his fear of death in the final moments? How would they feel as the rest of the team die on by one?

Feel free to contact me if you have any questions or want me to do a follow up, as I might not see it otherwise. Good luck with your concept!

Re: The die of death

Agent Reichter 25 Feb 2021 00:40

I’ve done some editing would you like to do a follow-up?

Re: The die of death

Bolterpyre 25 Feb 2021 01:05

I am providing greenlight

The reason was that the narrative is promising and interesting. The story revolving around the anomaly was intriguing. Am expecting more of this as soon as the draft came out.