Time is wrong.
I thought I just hadn’t been getting enough sleep, but the others agree with me.
[Pause.]
I don’t know how, but the moon’s moving across the sky faster than it should be. Our radio communications, too—they’re sometimes garbled to the point of incomprehensibility.
Alongside all the stuff from last week… We’re missing something. We must be. It’s staring us in the face, and we can’t see it.
From 'APERIS Daily Log #111 (25/1/2011): Transcript'.
In recent weeks, multiple anomalous events have been recorded at APERIS—the Antarctic Preservation, Exploration and Research International Station, located towards the north-east of the Ronne Ice Shelf.
From the shadowed corners of the Earth, eyes are turning to Antarctica. Nine Factions across the world bargain in secrecy, eager to establish their own investigations by harnessing APERIS’ limited infrastructure. You, their members, are the people they send.
It’s the 18th of February 2011. Whoever you are, you’ve made it to APERIS, a fragile haven perched upon the edge of a frozen wasteland. Under the cold light of a quickening moon, dark tides swell. Ice glistens. The unknown beckons.
Welcome to APERIS, one of the two in person ORPGsoc Society Games for Michaelmas and Hilary Term of the 2025–2026 academic year, alongside Contagion.
APERIS will be running every other Tuesday evening during term time on odd weeks (beginning in Week 3). For more information, see When and Where.
If you are new to Society Games, or to roleplaying in general, Intro to the Wiki System, Uptimes and Sessions and Downtimes, Emails and Turnsheets may be useful reads.
To get an idea of the game's tone and central themes, see Style and Tone and Ways To Play. For an essential guide on the conduct and acceptable themes in APERIS, see the Conduct and Acceptable Themes Policy.
APERIS is set in the real world. To learn more about the game's setting, see the pages in the Setting section of the sidebar. Please note that you do not need to read every single Faction's page—feel free to look at the summaries on the Factions page and prioritise whatever interests you most.
For information on accessibility, including how to change the Wiki theme to 'readable', please see Accessibility.
And finally, if you wish to participate in the game, you will need to sign up using this short form, which will open for responses on Wednesday 8th October (0th Week) and close on Tuesday 14th October (1st Week) at 23:59. Please note that to ensure a high-quality game and healthy work-life balance for those of us running it, APERIS will take a maximum of 24 players. In the event that more players sign up than we can accommodate, we will hold a ballot. More information about this is available on the Character Creation page.
There will be an optional Character Creation event on Tuesday 14th October at St. Hugh's College, which will simultaneously run online on our Discord Server. We strongly encourage you to join the Discord Server if you are interested in playing APERIS—it's a space where you can get help and ideas any time, and also socialise out-of-character with other players.
After ballot results are released on Wednesday 15th October at 18:00 and your place in the game is confirmed, you will need to create a character, and submit it to us using the Character Creation form by Thursday 16th October 23:59.