03. Terms to Know

[Yua Katsuo]

~ Terms to Know.}

The whats what and whos who in Deadman Wonderland

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Deadman Wonderland, the first successful, publicly run prison in the history of ever… though how much is actually ‘public’ largely depends on who you are. To the people, it is little more then a medium-security prison that masquerades as a sort of theme park. Hungry? Watch the inmates cook for you! Bored? Watch the inmates run obstacle courses that are totally safe! Except, that is, for when they aren’t. Of course, as a visitor, you wouldn’t know that; you are lead to believe they’re all just state-of-the-art special effects! And why shouldn’t they be? You paid an arm and a leg to get in, after all.

Behind the scenes, however, things aren’t so pretty. As with any other prison, inmates are cruel and strong, doing all they need to do to survive. In order to bring some sort of semblance of sanity to the altogether mad world, prisoners are issued personal cards, with security codes, that contain a sort of currency: ‘Cast Points’, with each point being of the same value as a single yen. With these ‘CP’, or Cast, an inmate is capable of purchasing anything they wish, from clothing to furniture to booze and cigarettes. Why, there’s even a menu in the cafeteria for anybody with the disposable income… and its even said that, for 200 Million Cast, one can even shorten their sentence and make bail! Good luck making so much, of course.

For every prison, there are those deemed more dangerous than any other, and Deadman Wonderland is no different! In DW, such prisoners are on ‘Death Row’, said sentence being a specialized collar resting about their necks constantly subjecting them to poison; these collars are capable of the shock and restraining properties of the average prison collars, as well as the poisonous property previously mentioned. Said poison is fed constantly, and the only antidote is given to the prisoners as ‘candy’, a bitter treat that must be taken every three days, otherwise the poison will take affect and the ‘Death Row Rule’ will be put into place. The antidote ‘candy’ must be paid for by the prisoners at the cost of 100 thousand Cast.


Jailers

The Jailers in Deadman Wonderland are altogether your basic guards, generally only interacting with the prisoners when necessary, such as when corralling them into their cells or meting out punishments; it is expected of the head Warden to meet with all incoming prisoners to introduce them to the system of DW, and occasionally make one of said prisoners an example of the ‘unfair law’ of DW.

The roles of the Jailers are fairly clear-cut, and all in all they’re capable of getting away with nearly anything given their rank. When given orders by a higher-up, they are expected to follow immediately, though past that the job is fairly laid-back given the fact that prisoners are fairly easily made to behave due to the collars around their necks. It is not uncommon, in fact, for some guards to steal the Cast of a prisoner in order to not have to pay for goods. No, all in all, life is quite easy for a guard… though, of course, in prison, all things are subject to change.


Prisoners

The life of a prisoner is, all in all, fairly even, depending on how well one is at avoiding trouble. To follow all the rules, participate in a good number of events, and generally be easy going is to lead a half decent life in prison; after all, Cast aren’t too hard to come by, and if you aren’t on Death Row, you have no expensive obligations concerning purchases! Of course, for every rule-follower, which are rare indeed in prison, there are the true thugs. Operating just outside the guard’s eyes, these are the ones who bully others, steal Cast, and are generally muy loco. Of course, while the thugs tend to live easy lives due to stolen Cast as well, they often have items on them considered ‘illegal’ in DW, and therefore are subject to harsh punishments if the guards see any slightest hint of wrongdoing. Of course, with enough Cast, anything can be bought…

For Death Row prisoners, things are a bit more hectic. Not only must they buy ‘Candy’ every third day, but if a crime large enough is committed, they could very well be killed at any time by any of the higher-ranking guards. Likewise, however, these thugs can get by more on reputation then physical work, garnering more Cast from their targets then they would if they were the regular thug… but again, if one is caught threatening other inmates, who knows what terrible fate may await?



Deadmen

The Deadmen are Death Row Prisoners whom have, at some point in time, met the ‘Man in Red’ and lived to tell the tale… in prison. They are markedly different from others who may have seen the Red Man in that they’ve gained powers much like his, allowing them to do supernatural things with their blood, powers that are incredibly powerful. These Deadmen are locked in a special section of the prison, to be kept with each other and a few guards with no interaction with the average prisoners, aside from the occasional paid-for visit to the rest of the prison. These Deadmen must participate in events called ‘Carnival Corpse’ by the Director, where they are pitted in battle against other Deadmen. The prize for winning is a massive amount of Cast… but the cost of losing varies between your life or a limb. The collars of these Deadmen have stopped administering their poison, leaving them with a whole lot of cash and no obligation to buy ‘candy’.


Branches of Sin

The Branches of Sin are the powers each Deadman has, allowing them to use their own blood in order to use incredible powers, the likes of which can hardly be imagined by the average human. Usually, the Deadman can train his powers, to better understand how to use them or perhaps be more conservative with them; after all, if one were to use their powers too much, they may die of blood loss, a fate nobody wants. Various forms of this power exist, from creating blades to shooting ‘bullets’ to even making whips; who knows what sort of other powers may exist?

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