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Realistic or Modern ANOMALY | Animas [OPEN/ACCEPTING | Ghost Investigation | Paranormal/Campground Gothic]

Sleipnir

The Eight-Legged Norse Horse
Click To Open | ACCEPTING APPLICATIONS



  • ALERT
    Premise
    Rules
    Links
    Art \\
    Date \\ June 20
    Country \\ USA
    State \\ Idaho
    Locale \\ Bitterroot National Forest

    ALERT \\ THE FOLLOWING NOTICE CONTAINS REFERENCE TO CANNIBALISM AND HORROR THEMES.
    On June 6, in the early hours of the morning, the body of a hiker was discovered on-trail by backpackers near a popular campground in the backcountry of the Bitterroot Mountains. Immediately after, special agents with the US Forest Service and the FBI worked in conjunction to try to decipher the details of the grisly homicide -- an obvious conclusion to reach on account of the axe wounds the victim suffered, as well as the post-humous butchering.

    Eight days later, after extensive work, the case was far from solved. The murder, and three which followed closely, were deemed paranormal in nature.

    It was handed over to the Anomaly Control Bureau.





Country \\ USA
State \\ Idaho
Locale \\ Bitterroot National Forest

ALERT \\ THE FOLLOWING NOTICE CONTAINS REFERENCE TO CANNIBALISM AND HORROR THEMES.
On June 6, in the early hours of the morning, the body of a hiker was discovered on-trail by backpackers near a popular campground in the backcountry of the Bitterroot Mountains. Immediately after, special agents with the US Forest Service and the FBI worked in conjunction to try to decipher the details of the grisly homicide -- an obvious conclusion to reach on account of the axe wounds the victim suffered, as well as the post-humous butchering.

Eight days later, after extensive work, the case was far from solved. The murder, and three which followed closely, were deemed paranormal in nature.

It was handed over to the Anomaly Control Bureau.



Premise \\
Over the past many decades, various investigation agencies, federal employees, and civilians have encountered, investigated, or discovered activities, creatures, or incidents which cannot be understood by traditional explanations. With enough of these reports compiled, a bureau for the investigation, study, and resolution of these anomalies was set up.

These anomalies can span any number of things -- anything, really, beyond the accepted standards of the world as we know it. Ghosts. Aliens. Beasts which have never been seen up close. Anomalies occur anywhere and everywhere, and someone has to be there to clean up the messes, be it interdimensional tears in a high school, an alien crash-landing outside a rural town, or a ghost lurking in a historic hotel.

The case the ACB has been handed involves just such a case: The prime suspect is a ghost of some description. Preliminary investigation has been completed, and it is believed a local ghost legend has come to life. Known as the Axeman of the Bitterroot, the story goes that a local mining town was subject to a string of disappearances. It was later determined that the titular Axeman was responsible, having killed and eaten his fellows in town, and as a result, he was killed. It's said now that the Axeman still haunts the woods -- and it appears to be true.

As a result, a team is being sent out to conduct a more thorough investigation. Their goals: Determine the ghostly nature of the anomaly for sure, research the anomaly's characteristics, determine what must be done to remove the anomaly, and remove it. You are a member of this investigation.


The Bureau \\
What is the organization you work for, and who are you within it?

The Anomaly Control Bureau (ACB) is an organization dedicated to exactly the sorts of things you might think they would be. Their directives are wide and varied, all connected to their work. This is a small government agency, founded with the intention of protecting the public from the paranormal. They are not the most well-funded, as lots of money going missing raises questions. There are no dedicated headquarters, as all your work occurs in the field, and they know where to find you to send you out.

One of the Bureau's directives is to remove the anomalies from the public eye and provide appropriately believable explanations for those who might have noticed. The Grafton Monster was someone transporting a large stack of boxes in the dark. The Mothman was just a very large great horned owl. The UFO that crashed was ultimately identified as a weather balloon. Whatever you have to say afterwards to make it make sense. This is an important thing to do, after all, if you don't want anyone catching on to what's happening under the surface.

Another directive is the simple act of removing the anomalies in question. This takes many forms, and must be determined on a case-by-case basis. A ghost may be dispelled in whatever way is most efficient and effective, whether that involves finding a way to turn a land deed over to their descendants, finding disturbed remains and providing them a proper burial, destroying the object the ghost is tied to, or whatever else might do the trick. A cryptid creature like Mothman may be hunted if dangerous, or managed if benign, as long as they stay out of the public eye. An alien is never to be killed unless openly hostile: It's much more humane and much less dangerous in the grand scheme of inter-planetary politics to assist the lost traveler in repairing their ship to return home (with stories of the kind humans who helped them, and their generosity). The less fuss, the better.

Many things help make that possible -- not the least of which is studying and researching the various types of anomalies we might run across. Ghosts come in many shapes, forms, and abilities. Cryptids are as wildly varied as all animals. All anomalies are unique, and all anomalies can offer us insight into how to handle the next one. Aside from researching the individual anomalies, sometimes research into the causes and conditions which spawned them are necessary. Research is an important part of any investigation.

So it's time to ask yourself who you wish to be, what you wish to do, and what you bring to the team. Each team is selected specially for the case in question (in this game, the Axeman case). Each member is provided with credentials disguised as mundane ones, such as FBI, Park Service, Forest Service, local law enforcement, or even just a consulting mechanic, if that would be passable. Each team is provided housing and a headquarters location for each individual case. For the Axeman, you will be sent to a fire tower near the scene, where beds, satellite service, laptops, and other needs are provided. Perhaps you do this job full time, or perhaps your main job is in another field, and you're flexed in during special cases. The choice is yours.



Rules \\
*All RPN Rules apply.

*This is an LGBTQ+ Friendly Space.

*OOC is for RP talk and related, but not personal venting. Chatting is fine! Bringing your troubles to internet strangers, less so.

*Hostility and passive aggressive behavior will not be tolerated.

*Semi-lit, but no post min/max. Take actions, but I won't be micromanaging your posts.

Expectations \\
With all that out of the way, I can go ahead and drop the "Narration voice." Let me start by saying any terseness in the writing style up until now (especially under rules) has less to do with my tone and personality, and more to do with navigating this fancy post and trying to make the text wrapping more compatible with mobile! Let's talk expectations for how the roleplay will run, progress, etc.

- What To Expect -
*The plan is that a small team of agents will go in, investigate, and figure out how to remove the ghost in question: An aggressive entity known as "The Axeman," according to urban legends and ghost stories.

*While naturally, given the theme and history I selected for the ghost, dark themes can and probably will come up, this is not intended to be a grimdark game.

*The genre and vibe of the game is based on weirdness and paranormal stuff in line with stuff like Phasmophobia, Observation Duty, Home Safety Hotline, X-Files, Warehouse 13, and other paranormal/supernatural vibes. As far as the way the team operates, I'm thinking "Less CSI" and "More Supernatural," in that I'm more interested in fast-and-loose methods, direct investigation, and independent research rather than tight procedurals and government red tape. Ideally, locals shouldn't know there's an investigation happening at all.

*This game is tailored to have a beginning and an end. We're starting in the early stages of the investigation, when members of the team are arriving at their temporary headquarters (in this case, a fire tower co-opted to act as a team base), and will end when we develop enough of a story, enough lore, and enough history to decide how to destroy the Axeman, and do so. There's a lot of ways we can do that -- be it burying remains, destroying them, exorcism, destroying a key object, sealing, whatever. That will end the game and we can do epilogues or whatever.

*I mentioned earlier that I catered how I put this post together to be as mobile-readable as I can get it with a fancy post. I do ask that you consider mobile compatibility when picking out a fancy for your RP posts and character sheets, or at least have a (spoilered) un-fancied version available, as I sometimes use mobile, and I don't want others to struggle because they're on their handheld device fighting a sea of hidden scrolls and GIFs!

*Roleplay, especially rules-light or freeform play like this, is meant to be massively collaborative, which means you as a player have control over the plot just as much as I do as the host. I'm not really here to railroad the lore, story, or even how we choose to get rid of the Axeman! All players will be welcome to make things up and make some decisions about how things move forward. Feel free to take the initiative, and feel free to use the OOC to pitch ideas to the group.

*On that note, I will be using my power as host to look at characters and determine if I feel like everyone is going to vibe. If not, I do reserve the right to ask you to revise or even change characters, and while I try to be reasonable, I don't have to tolerate argument.

*Also on that note, I don't expect to need to, but if someone makes a lore choice or introduces something derailing or engages in trolling behavior, I can opt to retcon that post or kick someone out. This is more of a "Say it, just in case" thing. In addition -- and this one feels more likely -- if something triggering is introduced and a player is uncomfortable, please do express that or come to me privately so we can try to hash it out and remove the content. I'm never going to assume malicious intentions on either side, unless it's, like... really obvious.

*As our final "obligatory disclaimers about behavior" thing, no intentionally derailing the story, trying to attack or kill other characters out of nowhere, having unmanageably mean characters, or characters exhibiting racism, homophobia, sexism, what have you.

*Let's set the character maximum to two total, not including temporary "NPC" type characters which PCs interview, work the library counter, impede progress, etc.

*I'm not going to be strict on post length, as I mentioned, because your brain has weather. Sometimes the weather is bad and you can't write as much. That's not a moral failing, or something you can fix, because that's just the weather for you! If you're busy, tired, struggling to write a lot, or whatever, it's a-okay.

*And jumping off of that, I'm also not strict on post frequency. We have bad days. We have bad weeks. Some of us even just... like doing other things more, and don't post because we don't feel like it! That's just fine. I'd like to see a post or two per person a week, but it's not the end of the world if not. If you know what's up, or expect something to pop up, it'd be nice if you'd pop into the OOC and say "hey, I'm gonna be offline for awhile," but this is a hobby. It's not that serious.

*All in all, I'm hoping that the vibe I'm projecting here is fairly relaxed and chill.


- About Characters -
*Characters can be brought on from other departments (like the Forest Service or FBI, for example), be full-time members of the ACB, or even be locals who accidentally got involved by inadvertently blowing the team's cover through unfortunate timing, hiking, nosiness, paranormal investigation of their own, what have you. I'm mostly just interested in them having a reason to get involved and stay involved -- even if that means superiors over the team's heads "persuading" a civilian to stick around (and if you don't want them to stick around beyond the end of the story, a memory whisp may be utilized to remove their memory of the events in-game afterwards).

*As I mentioned before, characters are expected to not be excessively mean and will not be transphobic, homophobic, ableist, sexist, etc etc etc. This is 0 tolerance. Standoffish and cold is fine, but they must be able to work with the group.

*Characters don't have to be present 100% of the time in every scene, especially if you have more than one. I for one plan to have one of my characters act mostly as a contact character who keeps an eye on trail cams and the radio, to help keep information moving, and to act as a sort of "movement" character if things stall.

*There are lots of different roles I can imagine characters taking on here, and I don't plan on assigning them. Maybe you're an anomaly specialist there to keep up with the behavior of the target to ensure the team always knows what type of anomaly they're dealing with, or a current/former forensics investigator who mostly acts as a scene analyst to figure out the details of a particular scene or attack. You could primarily be a research specialist there to compile data for the ACB's database and future cases, rather than very directly attempting to neutralize the anomaly yourself. Maybe you're there as muscle more than anything, with the skills to fight off an anomaly long enough for you and your team to get away (killing it outright is not an option for this game). Maybe you monitor the situation from a distance to keep everyone in the loop. Whatever you can think of!

*Slight paranormal bents are fine, all-out superpowers, not so much. Someone might develop a strange, minor mutation on par with things like modified vision or being exceptionally sturdy. They might have been selected for the ACB due to their ability to act as a medium. However, supernatural entities like werewolves or having the ability to fly or bend metal will not work. Ultimately, this should be about fairly normal people handling supernatural anomalies.

Links are provided outside spoiler tab/fancy post!
 
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The thread is open and y’all are the first three to voice interest! I have the links up on the main post here.

Character sheets can be posted HERE!
 
Absolutely! Everything's still open. I've got a character sheet link right above your head, and then all the links including an OOC are already connected to the main post under the "Links" tab!
 
I’m thinking mid-2000s. 2010-2015ish? I’m very fond of being a little anachronistic just because I like the “old” internet better (aging myself here…) and making it a LITTLE less likely for characters to have the whole internet in their pocket, but generally just… modern. I’m not being crazy picky on that and on account of wanting to stay super collaborative I don’t plan on being TOO strict on that!
 
Feel free to post in OOC if you have any questions, or just wanna chat about the world being built, develop character concepts, or whatever! Feel free to post placeholders or characters in project whenever you want too!
 
Update, just for the sake of saying it out loud: It came to my attention that for some reason, on some phones, sometimes the tabs on that facy post just... don't open! I've opted to take the advice I gave in my own post (revolutionary idea, I know) and have now provided an un-fancied version of the post, including links!
 
Hey! Suuuperr interested in this. Would I be able to play a medium sort of character? I know you said in the post that was an option but I don't want to step on anyone's toes if it's claimed already. Honestly even then I'm feeling very indecisive about a character right now but I wanna cover my bases lol.
 
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Hey! Suuuperr interested in this. Would I be able to play a medium sort of character? I know you said in the post that was an option but I don't want to step on anyone's toes if it's claimed already. Honestly even then I'm feeling very indecisive about a character right now but I wanna cover my bases lol.
Right now, there are no true mediums that have been brought up! We have a ghost therapist, but no one who can channel ghosts outright.
 
Posting here in case other folks pop up as “interested” and want to join/if anyone else needs a bump.

I’m setting the character creation deadline as Monday, Feb 10, EST. Which… probably secretly means “around 8 or 9 in the morning EST on Tuesday.” After that I plan to go ahead and open the game properly. In the meantime, in OOC, I plan on discussing how we wanna open, and I’d love to see how y’all want characters to interact, if you know one another, if this is a first case or not, what have you!
 

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