Discerning the Darkness [OOC]

[Red Beret]

Discerning the Darkness
A Horror RP

Katelyn - GM
Red Beret - CoGM



Fear is what makes us alive. It’s the one emotion that no one admits to desiring and yet when it arrives on your doorstep, its welcomed with a shudder and calloused relief. The belief that we want to live forever is a façade when truly we all yearn to peek into the black abyss of death. The unknown is only a matter of objective theory and when we journey deeper into its twisted path of promise, we feel emotions we’d never felt. Lust, love and sadness are fleeting… but fear, fear has the guarantee of addiction that ensures continuation deep into the darkness of the night.

I once believed that the world was a good place, that things that passed on to the next world didn’t linger, but my eyes were opened and the veil was torn with the death of my father. The icy cold whisper of death swept through my young life and exposed me to a world that threatens to destroy innocence and beckons me to a release of reality. I used to fear death, but now… knowing what I do. I welcome it.

What is your fear? Everyone holds them close to their bosom and some even try to turn and face them, to conquer if you will. But what if you’re afraid of that which is intangible and untouchable? Maybe running from that fear that holds me so tightly is my only choice, for I fear the unknown and it controls me. It reaches into my waking world and redirects my goals, my hopes – my future. It finds delight in slipping into my dreams and choking me, promising release if I will just succumb to its dark caress. I cannot win, though I know the demon I fight. For today, perhaps I’ll just run and pray that it doesn’t catch up.


**********

The whole premise behind Discerning the Darkness is to explore the realm of horror fiction, and of fear and horror themselves. We'll be playing as members of a paranormal research group called IPSUM (more below), which travels around the country (the United States), and maybe later around the world.

Before we begin, I'd like to remind everyone that this is the Advanced section of the forum, so if you're not up-to-speed on the Rools'n Regalashunz, you might want to go ahead and click that link and read through. Other than that, just be decent human beings to each other and keep in line with the Guild rules and we'll all get along just fine. Because we are awesome like that.

Given the nature of the game, we're going to have to require you to exercise a certain amount of genre blindness when it comes to the way your characters interact with the environment. While as researchers your characters will have some knowledge of what they're up against, knowledge is not always the same as experience, and more often than not they'll be fully unprepared for the horror at hand at first. There will be times for stoicism, but it's no fun if your character's always acting like he was born without fear or adrenaline glands... of course, if you make it too campy, the whole aspect is blown anyway. Just try to use your best judgement on the matter, haha.

The gameplay will mostly be investigative as our characters attempt to uncover different sources of paranormal activity, pursue supernatural creatures, or locate cursed objects and determine what to do from there. Because of this, players will often be required to have their characters interact. The best way to do this will be to collaborate your posts... that is, plot behind the scenes (the RP Guild Chatroom is a great tool for this, or if you've got an IM service and feel like sharing, that's good, too) and then one player posts the collaboration for all of the characters involved. It's a good way to keep the story moving without gumming it up with unnecessary filler.

So, to recap... keep your characters' reaction to events plausible, play around with a bit of genre blindness, collaborate with your fellow players...

Ask questions if you're unsure, and we'd appreciate it if you'd post the player characters involved in your posts (for collaborations) at the top of your posts so that we have a quick reference to go by.

I figured we should probably provide a little background information for IPSUM, too, since your characters will be involved with it...

IPSUM (Investigation of the Paranormal, the Supernatural, the Unexplained, and Other Mysteries) is an organization dedicated to paranormal research. While their work generally follows hauntings and investigation into demonic activity. Lately, though, IPSUM has been picking up rumors of other things... cryptid sightings, stories of cursed objects, and other strange activity around the United States, and even the world.

IPSUM was founded by Meredith Stark and Vernon Oswald, two college friends, though the group didn't truly become IPSUM until a couple years later, when they were approached by 8elieVer768, a mysterious benefactor that offered to fund their research and pay for their findings. The offer was too good to pass up, and before the end of the year they were on the road, traveling from place-to-place, following whatever leads they could find... and realizing that they weren't just grasping at straws.

IPSUM owns a large RV, which serves as the group's mobile headquarters.

The character sheet is pretty simple. On the subject of "fears versus phobias..." for the sake of the CS, we're taking them out of context of their usual definitions and using "Fears" to describe larger psychological fears while "Phobias" describe smaller, more physical fears. You don't actually have to know the name of the phobia, it's just a catchy way of differentiating between big fears and small fears.

Name:
Age:
Gender:

Appearance:
Please provide a picture (preferably with focus on the face) and a brief description of your character.

Personal History:
Please provide a brief personal history that explains your character's interest and involvement with the paranormal.

IPSUM Background:
How did your character discover IPSUM, how long have they been with the group, and what do they do for the group? For example, the group will mostly be comprised of researchers with different specialties, but we'll also need someone who can, say, maintain the RV or take care of our recording equipment, and so on and so forth if someone doesn't want to create an "intellectual" character. Just remember... your characters are in the group because they're helpful or useful, not just because we like 'em. Which we probably do if we're willing to share an RV with them, but I digress.

Fears:
Provide a list of large psychological fears, such as death, darkness, failure, et cetera. You may be asked to elaborate.

Phobias:
Provide a list of smaller physical fears, such as snakes, spiders, dead people, etc. It's okay for these to mesh with your character's larger fears. Again, you may be asked to elaborate.

Approved Characters:
01: Katelyn - Meredith Stark
02: Red Beret - Dr. Vernon Oswald
03: Deamonbane - Raymond Jackson
04: tirgesfu - Cain Riordan
05: TheIronRuler - Father Esteban Rodriguez
06: Squrmy - [http://roleplayerguild.com/showpost....ount=106]David McNarthon[/url]

Just so you guys aren't misled... These characters have not been cleared for play. I merely created this compilation so that we could keep track of the people who have applied and submitted sheets, to make our jobs as GMs easier. This way Kate and I and you guys don't have to go back and hunt your sheet down if it gets lost in the OOC. Again, these characters are pending approval. Thanks!

LTDan - Lee Wilkinson

Current Assignment:

The Bontaventure Cemetery

Client: Madam Estrella Vandergill
Location: Savannah, Georgia
Team on Assignment: Oswald, Stark, Jackson, Riordan, Father Rodriguez and McNarthon
Date on Assignment: April 23, 2012 (Mon) - April 26, 2012 (Thurs)
Additional Info (read up): http://www.haunted-places-to-go.com/...-cemetery.html

JE 1
Time Stamp: 18:49 4/19/12
Received a call from a Madam Vandergill with frustrated fear that has reached its peak for those living around what is known to be the most haunted cemetery in Savannah, Georgia, Bontaventure. Oswald and I assembled our team and headed out of Florida on Saturday, arriving and checking into the Mt. Belview motel just across the street from the cemetery, the city not allowing us to set up tents in the actual cemetery. The RV is parked in a nearby lot, only two to three city blocks away, but the infrastructure for utilizing the amenities within the beast aren't available, as such, the necessity for the motel.
MKS

JE 2
Time Stamp: 03:23 4/23/12
We have all gleamed a good night of sleep and will be heading out momentarily to have our first observance of the cemetery while the world still sleeps. It is said that entities that haunt this resting place of the dead not only belong to those that once lived and breathed as I do, but to their animals as well. Several documented cases of physical harm attributed to citizens walking through the cemetery near the witching hour have been located and are being requested for our completed file and relevant documentation.

~ Will continue this entry after my observance.
MKS

Little half-assed addition, but I figured you might as well see what's on the ground. I'll look for some better ones after I'm done working today.

Thanks again for your interest!

[Katelyn]

Name: Meredith Stark
Age: 29
Gender: Female

Appearance:

Mer is approximately 5'6 and weighs 130 pounds, her body isn't athletic or out of shape, but one of those people that just looks good - normal without trying to do anything. She had slightly muscular legs because she loves to run, but nothing out of the ordinary. Her chestnut hair falls to her shoulders and is usually straightened and curled for a simple wispy effect. She has a small tattoo along her lower back at her underwear line that says, "Live with Passion."

Personal History:
Meredith was raised in a good middle class family, her being the only child, her mother stayed at home and her father worked on oil rigs, traveling quiet often. She was a happy child, though found herself with an odd hobby - ghost hunting. She kept finding things misplaced and turning up later in odd places and decided to test the theory and investigate, her findings scaring her more than anything. At the age of ten, she put up her test kits and tried to live in the world of normalcy. A call on her mother’s birthday when she was eleven changed everything. Her father had been killed in a freak accident at two am that morning trying to get home to her and her mother.

The worst part of the event was that she already knew before the call came, the events of the night before forever scarring her and causing her to forever run from the dark. As she grew up and time passed, she realized that the things that occurred in her childhood were just that - a child’s mind running amuck. She tinkered in high school with the unknown and unexplained, but never found anything that convinced her of her earlier conclusions. She dated off and on, but becoming a very serious individual as she grew left her always looking for companionship with someone older, her own age silly and unfocused.

Her move from high school to college was like a new world had opened up to her and she realized that her analytical skills and inquiring mind would assist her brilliantly in a degree in forensics, thinking that she would work for a local law enforcement agency, or perhaps the FBI. School droned on and though a series of unfortunate car troubles, she met Raymond Jackson, quickly taking a liking to the man because he was serious and stoic, albeit passionate with her. Finding herself in a place of comfort with her education and her love life, she felt the pull to start to seek out and search for something beyond herself... what that was, she had no idea.

IPSUM Background:
Meredith soon began dipping back into the notion that perhaps evil spirits, ghosts, something existed in the world and she started to test her theories again, going places that most wouldn’t and staying the night by herself in haunted hotels. She tried to drag Ray with her from time to time, but he just wasn’t the type to even open himself up to the notion that something might be passing by them at any moment in time, its focus on taking their essence as it moved. She started spending vast amounts of time in the library, her senior year coming to a close and her mind fragmented on where to go next.

One afternoon a door opened as she and her history professor, Dr. Osward reached for the same novel on paranormal investigation and over a nervous laugh and shaky questioning, they realized that perhaps they had something in common that could turn into a venture that might suit them financially and personally. Out of the following event, IPSUM was born and for Meredith – it was everything.

Fears:
That she might have to live life without passion.
Xenophobia - Fear of the Unknown.
Theophobia - The fear that God actually exists.


Phobias:
Spiders
Snakes
Roaches
Loud noises
Complete darkness.

[Red Beret]

Name: Vernon (Verne) Oswald
Age: 46
Gender: Male

Appearance:

Bob Peck... gotta love him.

Oswald stands at roughly six feet and has an average build, neither fat nor thin, neither weak nor muscular. He holds himself in the confident manner of someone who is used to molding minds, an edcucator, and tends to wear suits with jackets and ties. Even in the relative privacy of the RV, he tends to wear polos or button-down shirts with the sleeves rolled up.

Personal History:
Dr. Vernon Oswald, Ed.D., was an imaginative youth--or so he was told. The house he grew up in couldn't have been haunted, because his mother and father always had an excuse ready for any of the phenomena he experienced, no matter how flimsy. They moved away before he had a chance to truly understand what he had been experiencing--what they had all been experiencing--and in the course of school, of college, and eventually adulthood, he set it aside to gather dust.

Dr. Oswald spent most of his career as an educator, standing before a room full of bored college students, trying to make them as passionate about American History as he was... with limited success. Though the vast majority of the students passed his class, only a handful of them, sprinkled across his entire career, actually showed any real interest in the subject, and even a handful of those were just trying to suck up to him to get a better grade.

He decided to retire early from the life of an educator when IPSUM really kicked off, and hasn't looked back since.

IPSUM Background:
One of the two founders of IPSUM. Dr. Oswald and Meredith Stark met each other in the library one afternoon when both of them went for the same book--the subject being paranormal investigation. They recognized each other, as she was one of the better students in his American History course, and instead of fighting for it, they opted to share it. Thus, the "Ghost Society" was born, and the two of them began investigating, and even published their own research.

IPSUM was born out of this "Ghost Society" when they were approached by 8elieVer768, a mysterious online benefactor who offered to fund their investigations. Oswald has been content to sit back and let Meredith run the show, making her the de facto leader of the team, while he provides support and input when she needs it... sometimes whether she asks him to or not.

Fears:
The Unknown
Failure, disappointing others
Darkness, especially nighttime outdoors
Physical pain

Phobias:
Heights
Silence
Spiders
Large animals
Wide open spaces

[tirgesfu]

Cain Riordan

Age: 27
Gender: Male

Cain looks Irish because he is. Red hair light green eyes, fair skin and just a bit on the short side. His frame speaks more of running and soccer than body building or hand to hand combat. He keeps the light peach fuzz of a beard and mustache without needing to trim it often. It doesn’t grow so fast. Cain dresses orderly. In other words even his causally outfits are clean, straightened, tucked and usually not dirty or torn.

History: Cain grew up in the midst of the folktales, myths and religious fever of a large Irish family in a very rural setting. His grandmother knew the stories of all the old fairy folk and filled the heads of the eight young Roirdan children whenever possible. His mother saw Mother Mary as she birthed her third baby and adorned her house with saints and candles. His father blamed every misfortune, like little rain or too much drink, on evil spirits.

At the age of eight a local priest took notice of Cain in more ways than one. The benefits were that the world of books and education opened up to the boy. The downside was Cain believed he had to escape his family and village to get away from the priest’s unwanted and unreportable behavior. Trapping and blackmailing the priest in unethical positions Cain forced him secure a scholarship in Dublin and convince his parents his leaving at the age of 13 was divine.

Cain excelled at St. Fintan’s High School. It was his first view of a bigger world. And yet that view was still very limited in a small (only 640 students) very conservative controlling setting. Cain entered UCD, University College of Dublin in religious studies only because that was the easiest scholarship. He quickly discovered his interest was in myths, legends and history.

In his last year he stumbled upon a unsolved investigation that held all the marks of a copy of an old Celtic myth and assisted police in catching those involved. After that he was sure he found his place. But law enforcement and Cain just did not match. He tried. When he stumbled into information about IPSUM he left Ireland for the first time in his life and showed up ready to convince whomever he had to that they needed him as much as he wanted them.

Fears: Cain was abused by a priest. He fears being a child in that powerless position again. In the same line, although he cannot express it, he fears the power of organized religion. He also fears suffocating. Being in a small area where there might be a possibility of not enough air.

Phobias: Olfactophobia. The incents used in Mass. Fear of cats. Fear of lightening. Fear of water slides.



((First Draft. Edits are easy. I can rework anything.))

[Squrmy]

I saw the Interest Check, and then I wanted to join this.

Is there, possibly, room for one more?

If not, I'll just.. lurk, and stalk all yo' threads, because this seems like an awesome idea.

[Katelyn]

Red is of the notion that we will accept CS's and review them to select our players, so if you're interested, create a CS and we will consider it along with the others in the group. Red will be making the determination of who will be playing alongside him and myself.

Thanks.

[Squrmy]

Alrighty. I'll work on a CS, then, and try and get one up soon.

[Squrmy]

Name: David McNarthon.
Age: 23.
Gender: Male.

Appearance:

David stands at a respectable height of 6’3”, with a head of golden-blonde hair. Often times, he spikes the hair up with gel or wax, at a number of different angles, achieving that ‘messy hair’ look fairly easily. When it’s not stuck up, though, it hangs in bangs just above his bright blue eyes, and reaches to just above the bottom of his neck.

His face is handsome and striking, the structure itself strong and prominent. He has a strong, obvious jaw, with that ‘chiselled’ look, and high, angular cheekbones. His skin tone is a few shades darker than ivory, with a slight tan from being exposed to the sun, and his complexion is mostly clear, save for a few freckles on his cheeks or the odd pimple on his nose.


The young man has a somewhat muscular body type, with broad shoulders, and bulky, toned biceps and a flat stomach, with a clear six pack when he flexes.

He usually dresses in casual clothing; jeans, a t-shirt, a belt, skate, canvas shoes or sneakers, and a jacket or hoodie if it’s cold.

He’s always quick to offer a smile and a friendly greeting, his bright blue eyes twinkling somewhat mystically.

Personal History:

David was born in Belfast, Northern Ireland, and lived there during the ‘troubles’, the conflict against different Loyalist and Republican Terroist Groups. His mother died in birth, and his father abandoned him; he grew up on the rough side of town, in a large orphanage – a rickety old building which had been there for almost two hundred years.

He always used to sense things, and a few of his housemates felt the same way; he’d hear strange sounds, like the wailing of babies, although there were none in the building – the infantile ward had been shut down years ago.

It creeped him out a lot, but he was adopted at the age of thirteen, and all ideas of the freaky orphanage in which he had grown up went away, as he was now living in a loving home with two caring parents.

He went to college to study Psychology, and specialised how Fear and Phobias affect the human mind, but dropped out to join IPSUM.

IPSUM Background:

Shaun joined IPSUM two years ago, signing on as an ‘intellectual IT guy’. Seeing as he hadn’t yet finished his course, he wasn’t technically a psychologist, so he joined up to handle the recording equipment. Although he still thinks and analyses situations, and gives his input on things, he’s not really a ‘researcher’ or ‘scientist’.

Fears:

Abandonment.
Loneliness.
Heights.
Death.
Failure/Disappointment.
Loss.

Phobias:

Corpses, Funerals, Dead People, Criminals, Mutations.

[Katelyn]

Thanks for the CS. Again, we'll look at them tomorrow. Red's a stickler on sticking to 6 though I push.. we'll see what happens. I'll let you know. Thank you!!!

This should be great, we're both very active players.

[TheIronRuler]

I want to suggest a catholic priest, but hell - How would one become a member of this group?