MidwayLives
"What's your favorite scary movie...?"
When the Moon is full and trees are bare -
Walk though the Cemetery if you dare.
Where skeletons rot and corpses fester -
Locate the tomb with the skull of a Jester.
Feed him the token all shiny and new -
It is then that CarnEvil will return for YOU!"
SYNOPSIS:
You're just a kid.
YOU wanted to spend Halloween running around with your friends, throwing toilet paper on your teacher's house, egging her car. Maybe even some ding-dong ditching if you were feeling really feisty! But that last phone call from your principal to your parents spoiled any plans you may have had on this hallowed eve. Even as you see your old man's face getting redder and redder, you don't squeal on your pals and you certainly don't regret leaving firecrackers in the teacher's lounge. Still, you and your friends end up paying for it all the same. No pranks, no trick r treating, and ESPESCIALLY no candy. May as well have thrown the baby out with the bathwater at that point. What was even the point of celebrating Halloween if you had to spend it all cooped up at home?
Well, it's not nearly as entertaining as watching Freddy or Jason hacking up young babes on the TV screen, provided your VCR didn't crap out or eat the tape, but you remember hearing some musing about a special gravestone over in Greely Valley Cemetary. Of course, you can't just go waltzing in there. If security saw a whole bunch of teenagers wandering around a cemetary, they'd think one of two things. Either they came out to drink some booze that they certainly shouldn't have had and probably stole from their dad's collection or they were hanging around for some good ol fashioned vandalism.
How lucky then that a hay ride happened to be rolling through there tonight?
You beg your parents to let you go. Your dad's a bit more reluctant/stubborn but eventually your mom wins him over. After all how much trouble could you cause at a hay ride of all things? Besides, it's in a cemetery! Wasn't as if you were going to stir up the neighborhood. You call up your friends and agree to meet there. You get dressed and throw on your blood-red hoodie and sling your BB gun over your shoulder. Some may have thought there was no point in bringing something like that unless you were looking for trouble. You saw it a bit differently: this gun was meant to scare AWAY the trouble! You climb aboard your bicycle and peddle your way down to the cemetery, as fast as your legs and wheels will take you!
Eventually you arrive, you're the last to do so of course. Your friends are all happy to see you, though some jeers and japes are had at your expense. You brush them off in good humor and rustle though the pocket of your jeans to pull out some crisp dollar bills. Your allowance for the month plus some money you'd made cutting Ol Miss Leary's yard. However, not all those that arrived are your pals or have your interest in mind. The 'cool kids' as it were. They sneer at you, your friends, hell even your bicycle. One of them teases you and asks if it has a bell on it. You tell him to sit and spin. Thankfully, before a full out brawl can ensue and ruin your night any further, a call goes out for the tickets and you present them. You climb aboard the carriage and nestle in next to your friends. Your best friend leans over and asks if you brought a flashlight.
You smirk and slide it out of the chest pocket of your hoodie. 'Spooky Sam' rambled on and on about the history of Greely Valley and some doofus named 'Tokkentaker.' You sound it out and keep an eye on the headstones, looking for any that stand out. As you wave the light across the night, you feel a pit in your stomach. As though this night was going to be a bust and your friends were going to be furious that you wasted their time. But then you catch it. Out of the corner of your eye. A gravestone with a strange statue sitting atop it. You hold up your left hand and count. 'One...Two....Three!' You hop off the carriage with your friends. The 'cool kids' jump off along with some others. You hear Sam calling for 'y'all to get your rears back on this ride!' but you ignore it. You're too enamored by what's sitting before you. Approaching the grave, you realize it belongs to that Tokkentaker guy! The very same one that you'd been neglecting to listen about. But that's not the strange part. You shine the flashlight's glare downwards and notice what appears to be a primitive looking coinslot built into the tombstone. You grab the coin out and hold it up to the light. There's a mixture of 'oohs' and 'aw sick!' from the crowd you've made for yourself tonight.
Getting yet another bright idea, you hold the coin up to the skull-like statue sitting at the top of the tombstone.
*SNAP*
The statue not only comes to life and devours the coin but it bares it's TEETH at you! Cracks appear across the statue until it finally explodes, sending you stumbling back onto your rear in the dirt. As two of your friends move to try and help you up, the cackling head with the hat of a jester soared through the night sky, giggling as it went. Somewhere in the depths of your heart, you realize that you may have just made a huge mistake. The ground starts to rumble and shake. An earthquake?? No, it couldn't have been! It was too well timed! Your eyes dart around in a panic. You see massive circus tents and establishments pop up, colorful lights shining across the cemetery. You haven't the slightest idea of what's going on but you feel your heart racing! You draw your BB gun and look up as Tokkentaker himself appears in the flesh and smiles down at you all.
"WELCOME TO.....CARNEVIL! HAHAHAHAHAH!"
~~~
SETUP
Hi! So, basically how I planned on trying to do this RP is in a similar format to an old point and click adventure! If you're in my general age range(90s/early 2000s kids, hey!) than you'll have a good idea of what I'm talking about! Basically, you make a PC and stick with it like you would any other PC and I'll GM/reply as needed. Y'know typical RP stuff but occasionally there'll come decisions that I'll offer choices/different routes to take for. Think along the lines of something like...:
Billy's insatiable need to explore has gotten the better of him! He's fallen through the cracks in the floor! As he feels around his surroundings, he notices that what he's landed on isn't any kind of mattress. They're viscera! Guts, blood, you name it! Limbs, heads, hands, all with chunks bitten off them! As you hear a low rumbling coming from across this nightmare room, you see a canine-like beast curled up in the corner, a chain around it's neck, blood matting it's maw and it's claws look big enough to make even a Grizzly blush. As you note the torn piles of clothing beside the creature, it slowly dawns on you that you've fallen into the lair of a werewolf! As you scan your eyes across the room, you notice there's two doors. One behind you and one....right next to the sleeping werewolf, appropriately named 'Fido' by the by! Attempting to go through the first door would require wading through the sea of gory chunks and half eaten corpses. The smell alone is enough to make every hair on your body stand on end. ...Or do you take the chance of trying to go through the other door and risk waking up Fido?
Then in the OOC thread you'd pick between
@Billy's player:
<-DO YOU GO THROUGH THE FIRST DOOR/WADE THROUGH THE CORPSES?
OR
<-GO THROUGH THE SECOND DOOR AND TRY TO AVOID WAKING UP FIDO?
Billy's player would pick one, I'd keep it in mind and then they'd post as they would, and I'd reply to give them the 'result' of their choice, good or bad. Let's say for example they tried picking the 'easier' looking option of going through the mess and staying as far away from the sleeping wolf as possible.
'You chose to try and keep your wits about you as best as you could. Somehow the idea of trying to tiptoe past the gargantuan monster that could fillet you from head to toe didn't sound appealing! You hold your nose and try your best to wade through the guts and gore, pushing aside any stray intestines that floated in your way, tossed aside any heads that still had eyeballs. It made you want to throw up and if you did? You were never sure you'd be able to stop! But as the bloody water got up to your waist, you felt a sense of relief washing over you. You could see the door drawing closer and closer-
*crack*
You freeze in place, your blood runs cold. What was that nose? You take another step forward.
*crack* *crack*
Bones. You must have been stepping on bone fragments that hadn't yet floated up to the top of this gore puddle. You're not exactly in a position to run but you're left constantly looking over your shoulder in fear that the noises aren't stirring sleeping beauty. As you finally get close enough to the door, you reach out and grab the doorknob. You struggle with pulling it open at first as the edge of the door is likely caught on some of the stray organs floating around in the muck.
*creak creak!*
You look over your shoulder and feel sweat running down your face. You see an ear twitch, then another.
An eye opens and stares straight at you.
"GRRRRRR!!!!!!!"
Now, you've done it....'
And rinse and repeat! Obviously, to take away TOTAL agency from the PCs would make this less of an RP and more of a bad end simulator lol. So feel free when making your choice 'IC' that you feel free to still make it your own! I'll work with you and adjust as needed! But let's jump ahead a little bit now and say that Billy doesn't make it out of Fido's lair. He's ripped limb from limb and Fido uses his skull as a chew toy. Not the most pleasant way to go and for most RPs that'd spell the end for the player's character. Not so much here though! Death isn't the end! Billy will find himself back at the entrance of Carnevil, as good as new! Though he'll still carry the memories of having been torn to shreds! There's an explanation for this of course but I'd rather keep that on the downlow until we get further in the story! : )
~~~
CHARACTER SHEET
Name: (Self-explanatory!)
Age: My protagonist/'The Kid' will be around 11-12 but that's not to say you're limited to that! I wouldn't accept any PCs younger than The Kid however. But if you wanna play a rough and tuff highschooler or an adult that just happened to get pulled along into this nightmare then feel free!
Personality: (give me some details on what your PC is like! Outside of a life or death situation I mean!)
Fears: (what makes your PC shake and shiver...?)
Favorite horror movie: (If they're into the genre at all that is!)
Bio/Backstory: (doesn't have to be an essay! Just enough to give a clue of what your PC was up to before they got roped into this living nightmare!)
Equipment: (What stuff was your PC carrying/had on them when they got pulled into Carnevil? They can the KEYS to their car if they're old enough to drive but I wouldn't suggest trying to make your way out to the parking lot in these conditions...)
~~~
EXAMPLE CS
Name: 'The Kid."
Age: 11-12
Personality: Cocky little punk, often gets himself in trouble at school to try and impress his peers. His teachers aren't impressed, and his parents often wonder where they went wrong. May or may not have something of an inferiority complex against their older brother who's a junior in highschool. Often encloses himself in the things he enjoys like horror movies and comics. Had a superhero interest when he was younger but he's mostly grown out of it at this point. Something about Carnevil has caught his interest. It might just be the outlet he needs to get his frustrations out...
Fears: Horror movies are well and good but fighting or seeing an ACTUAL monster? Gives him the chills, man, chills. That or threatening his friends or family. Mostly his older brother. Not that the Kid would ever admit to any of this aloud. Gotta keep up the cool dude persona after all.
Favorite horror movie: (this RP takes place in the late 90s so just keep that in mind!): Return of the Living Dead!
Bio: 'The Kid' as he'd ultimately end up referred to as by many of Carnevil's forces wasn't anything special. Just a kid trying to impress all the wrong people and find attention and approval in all the wrong places to boot. He wasn't Albert Einstein or anything but his English teacher always told him that if he'd kept his nose out of his comics and focused more on his studies he'd be able to actually make something of himself. Really he wasn't convinced. Having moved here with an annoying older sibling and an older brother that he was CONSTANTLY compared to, the Kid struggled to find much to do in boring Greely Valley, Iowa.
Why couldn't they have moved somewhere cool? Like New York or L.A.? That's where ALL the action was! Or least that was the case in the movies.
For as much as he despised his home situation, the Kid wasn't shy about making friends. Bonding over common interests and a need for attention, The Kid became known amongst his circle for being the KING of pranks! Leaving a whoopee cushion on the teacher's chair, flooding the bathroom, spraypainting the principal's car. All of it was a blast but it was a vicious circle he just couldn't seem to work up the urge to ever wanna break. He'd act out, get laughs and praise, be punished, go home, get disciplined, rinse and repeat.
All this monster and horror stuff was fine in the movies but now that it's real?
Well, time to put his money where his mouth is and see if he can really be the hero of the night!
Equipment: a BB gun, a yo-yo, and $5 dollars in change. Or otherwise, not much.
~~~
IF YOU HAVE ANY QUESTIONS, PLEASE FEEL FREE TO ASK! I'm super excited to try and work this out with y'all! : )
