It Sleeps in Delville Heights - Interest Check and Worldbuilding

[Stitches]

Everyone knows someone who knows someone who left for Delville Heights. The rumour is that it's such a sleepy, self sufficient town stead that people go in and don't come out again. Which is preposterous, because everyone also knows someone who went to visit and came back just fine. It's a hotbed for conspiracy theories and, despite the locals' best efforts, steeped in the American Gothic that seems to titillate the masses.

But why visit Delville Heights when there's much cooler places to go, like Salem or Area 51? Delville has lost most of its veneer of tourism by never feeding the hype. Every so often, a smattering of curious souls come in hoping to not really discover the truth but find signs of the illusion, buy souvenirs, take photos of carefully crafted crop circles and get out. Most are disappointed when it's just a small town. It's the party pooper of Midwestern curiosities.

The rumour is that you can't just choose to go to Deville Heights. Deville Heights chooses when you go. It's been used for decades as a destination for the uprooted; a young man jilts his bride on the altar and blames a sudden compulsion to visit Delville Heights. But, as he will shortly find out, the town itself rejects the unwelcome; everything is irritably lame and isolated for those who are not meant to arrive and it quickly shuffles them onwards to the next sleepy town. No, you know when you are ready. It calls to you across the horizon. Life becomes desaturated, insipid and bland. Friends become boring. Family are no longer as close as you thought. It whittles away at the chains holding you to your old life until you can leave without resistance, then it helps you pack your bags in the trunk and drive. The ones that come to stay often have no idea why they did it. The ones that are meant to stay never regret what they left behind. And it's rare for anyone to come running after them.

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Overview

Welcome to the ISIDH interest check! This roleplay draws inspiration from Stranger Things, Lovecraft, Welcome to Night Vale, Silent Hill and This is the Police 2. I am planning to begin running the game Early-Mid August, with a definite first IC post by September 1st. In short - we have hella time to worldbuild and work on applications, even from as early as the interest check. (see more below)

ISIDH will be a semi-sandbox RP taking place in the odd town of Delville Heights. Players will play average civilians within the town during the 80s. As stated in the teaser, it's a town that people end up at. The Delville Horror, a cosmic entity that lurks somewhere in the area, lures individuals in to stay. A fog in the surrounding woodland that leads escapees back into the town itself keeps the population within very controlled and calculated. Sure, there are tourists - visitors - that crop up from time to time but you can usually tell them apart from the locals.

Potential applicants will have to be comfortable with minor DMing as they go along. The Co-GM and I will drop prompts through Delville Radio, and I'm hoping that we'll have an extensive list of encounters for the OOC before we start. Certain 'cues' in the prompts will open up the possibility of several encounters, and then it's up to one of you guys to take the reins for whoever's in the area and RP it out. These encounters range from hauntings and combat with monsters to strange phenomena and happenings.

Example of RP Prompt and Encounter

1: An IC Radio post mentions static interference in Connal's Icecream Parlour. Three players, A B and C, currently have a character in/near the parlour and want to pursue it.

2: B steps up and offers in the OOC to follow the prompt for anyone interested. He checks the Encounter list to see what has the cue of 'static'.

3: There are three possible encounters - the emergence of a Shrieker, the haunting of a ghost, and a freak storm.

4: B doesn't want to do any combat. He writes out the storm, but takes his own liberties - it's raining in the parlour. A and C's characters have to save the icecream from water damage!

There IS an overarching storyline to all of this though. We're going to put in the work on NPCs, locations and histories only for me to come in and start 'removing' them piece by piece (you'll see when I get to it! Have faith). So with the town starting to get wiped out, the threat of being unable to leave starts to become increasingly worrying. I'm hoping the eventual destruction of the entire town and its populace would be a good incentive for our team to band together and look into who, or what, is pulling the strings in Delville Heights.

Application Process

This one's going to be a little different from what you might be used to. You will NOT be judged via CS, though a sheet with some basic info about your character is necessary before you start your interview.

Since I'm looking for people who can take initiative and are within Advanced level in terms of roleplay, not writing, we will be doing a short scene in PMs using the character you want to join with. In this test, I'm not looking at post length or quality of prose (though, naturally, I expect a decent grasp on grammar and writing). Instead I'll be looking at how you put your spin on things as a mini-DM - how you control the NPCs, how realistic your character and the events you create turn out. In other words, I'll lead you in with something to work with and I expect you to DM for me. As such, I'd rather see one or two paragraphs that keep the RP moving instead of large passages of introspection with very little action. (You are free to RP in the IC however you like, but if you're going to take the wheel on an encounter I'd expect to see the same proactive writing style that I saw in the interview. Don't keep people waiting!)

So technically, applications are open already. The RP that happens in the interview process is NOT canon, though, so we don't get a full cast of players that all know the same chick they met earlier.

Basic CS Template

(No need for any formatting here if you don't want it! Images allowed with brief description.)
Name:
Age:(16+)
Gender:
Occupation:
Personality:
History:
Skills:
Weaknesses:

Lore So Far

Key Locations:

Main Street:

A cluster of shops and other necessities that cling to the main road running through Delville Heights.

Main Street

Floodwater Hotel: Poorly named, brilliantly maintained. Meet Sally Parker at the front desk and get yourself a reasonably priced room. You’d think a small town wouldn’t bother with hotels, but there are always a bunch of odd visitors lurking round these parts…

Delville Heights Newsagent: Run by old man Tommy. A corner store, selling the local paper, sweets, tobacco, some odds and ends. Flocked by kids in the after-school hours.

Delville Diner: A greasy, grimy 24hr diner. Portion sizes are gratuitous. Kelly and Simon run the orders, whilst Cookie works on the meals in the kitchen. There’s almost always a plume of steam rising in the air from this place.

Delville Town Hall: Mayor Ingrid and her administrative staff do their best to keep a lid on things through infallible optimism and cheery dispositions. Their bubbly demeanours make it incredibly grating to have to deal with the council, which might be the whole point of it. Mayor Ingrid has held her position for seven years.

Delville County Jail and Police Station: Even more respected than the Town hall in terms of getting things done. Becoming a cop in Delville Heights is a highly dangerous profession; you are the frontline against whatever mysterious happenstance is plaguing the town this time.

The Suburbs:

The residential area for most inhabitants of the town. The most likely place for your character to live. Also houses a few amenities to really get the community spirit going.

The Suburbs

Delville Heights Commonwealth Pool: An outdoor pool with a set of changing rooms, toilets and showers. Lined with sunbeds and bleached parasols. Bask in the stench of chlorine.

Delville Heights Community School: The town's local school. There aren't enough students or teachers to maintain several different educational institutions, so the school itself has three buildings in the property - One for elementary, one for middle, and one for high school. It's poorly maintained but with an average of around 10-15 kids per class, the students receive a better quality of education than usual.

Tenpin's Bowling Alley: Johnny Tenpin may not be his real name, but bowling and pizza is a beloved passtime of the locals here regardless of age. The bowling alley is moved primarily into the residential district and good for parties.

The Outskirts:

The unofficial term for the part where the buildings start to thin out around the edges. There are VERY few houses out here, and the ones that still stand have been boarded up. It's bad luck to live so close to the wilderness.

The Outskirts

Alpine Lodge: A somewhat run-down winter lodge made by a hopeful ranger who vastly underestimated the temperament of the wildlife. It sees more popularity during winter and summer break - the bar sells alcohol to underage teens, the rooms are dirt cheap and the food served there is a good deal better than what's served in the Diner. A popular haunt for the younger residents of Delville Heights.

Rotter's Ranch: Against all understanding of the phenomena taking place in Delville Heights, Old Man Combleberry dug deep into the ineffable roots of his farmer ancestry and started up a cattle ranch just on the borders of the forest. Sure, the cows produce a sort of lavender-coloured milk and some of them have more legs and heads than usual, but Combleberry loves them all equally. He's getting old though and appreciates the help, especially during calving season.

The Wilderness:

(GM CONTROLLED AREA. Try not to venture out here without one of the (co) GM's characters with you.) Surrounding Delville Heights is a vast expanse of woodland, a long and winding river and a lake made out of an old, flooded quarry. By far the most dangerous part of town. Cordoned off with an old chain-link fence and plenty of warning signs - but there are many holes and entrances into this area.

The Wilderness

Delville Woods: A dense, fog-shrouded expanse of towering pine trees. The further you delve into the forest, the more distorted and diseased these mighty pines become. Deer, foxes, squirrels, birds and even the odd bear or wolf are good signs. No animals at all? Get the hell out and fast - if you remember the way back.

Delville River: Used to run a different course when the quarry was still active, but now runs straight through. White, frothing rapids all the way down, inter-spaced with sharp slabs of granite.

The Flooded Quarry: Delville Heights was named after its position on the top of some cliffs, into which a large granite quarry was established. Once it began to get dangerous to keep digging on account of its proximity to the town, the existing tunnels were reinforced and the remnants of the mine filled up with water.

Encounter Compendium:

Below you will find a list of possible encounters to use during the roleplay. They are separated into four different categories:
Phenomenon, wherein something strange or out of the ordinary happens on the Material Plane (AKA our world) that doesn't involve spirits and has no combat element to it.
Combat, wherein a variety of creatures may need to be killed or subdued.
Haunting, wherein the spirits of the recently departed wreak havoc on the town.
Dimension, wherein the inhabitants of the area are teleported into a familiar yet slightly different version of Delville Heights and must escape.

The Compendium itself is split by cues - almost like symptoms of the encounter's presence. For ease of reference, if the post mentions any of these cues you essentially have a mixture of different encounters you can establish and get to choose one.

Below are the current cues and their encounters:

Storms

Incredibly localised storms in certain areas provoke the following:

The Dripping Realm: (Dimension) An involuntary shift into the Dripping Realm, inhabited by great, ancient aquatic beasts that float through the air. The world is a mirror of Delville Heights but everything is rotten and bloated here. It is so humid that your clothes and skin become damp to the touch, and the water slowly accumulates in your lungs, your stomach...you will slowly drown on dry land unless you escape, typically through a body of water. Do not anger the fish. They are carnivorous. They are hunters.

Slapper: (Combat) A certain species of monster. Slappers look like malformed sea lions, the size of a pick-up truck. They feast on rotting corpses and the smell of the sea hangs off them. Ungainly and gluttonous, but powerful and deadly in close range, with a surprising amount of speed behind their flopping, slapping movements across the floor.

Gurgling Ginny: (Haunting) The ghost of a young witch, dunked to death. She will possess anyone who steps into water when they hear her song, and attempt to drown those around her. The only way to calm her is to sing her a sea shanty.

Static

Radio interference, digital malfunctions - when technology is acting up, these encounters are available:

Shriekers: (Combat) Typically moving in bands of threes, shriekers are glitchy, perpetually screaming entities that look like distorted echoes of humanity. They're fast, sometimes intangible and fight like animals. They are weak to water.

EMP: (Phenomenon) A sudden burst of electromagnetic energy is released in the area. Damages range from temporarily disabling all electronics to making certain devices explode.

Poltergeist: (Haunting) A particularly active spirit that flings objects (and, in some cases, people) around but is unable to materialise as their past self, nor can they speak. One must find the root of their anger. Each poltergeist is unique and their grievances can be decided upon by the DM.

Low/No Gravity

When things start floating, the following is about to occur:

The Twisting Void: (Dimension) A kingdom of lost things and timeless memories. In this dimension Delville Heights has been shattered to pieces. Floating amongst these pieces are things of every time and age, from the distant rubble of Japanese Pagodas to the red British phone box jutting out of the wall of the Diner. To avoid becoming lost forever, you must find and hold your most precious possession in all of the chaos.

Spaceman: (Combat) Absolutely NOT a human in that suit. The visor is pitch black and oozes the same black liquid, which burns anything it gets into contact with. Considering the current state of gravity, Spaceman is a formidable opponent. Fortunately for us, his goo is highly flammable.

Zero-G: (Phenomenon) Sometimes, nothing really happens and everything is floating. The effect will either wear off on its own or it could be a worldshard - an incredibly fragile crystalline formation in the area that pulses like a heart. Find the worldshard or wait it out; all it needs is the pressure of a brush of a finger or a leaf in the wind to crumble it into dust.

[Stitches]

Tagging a few people who might be interested in joining! (Hopefully they're still around, some of these GMed or played in RPs I was in like half a year ago lmao)
@Sad Ogo @Lord Orgasmo @MissCapnCrunch

[SashaThePanther]

This prompt intrigues me. I know my accounts brand spanking new, but I DM all the time for roleplaying games and I'm absolutely fascinated by this idea of a hybrid DM/Player combo.

I have a character sheet written up with the requisite information filled out, but before I post it, I need to ask if it's okay for the character to be a visitor to the town? If it helps, he will be there for as long as he needs to be, due to his background. I was just wondering because the prompt made it sound as if they had to be a resident.

[Stitches]

Well the only difference between w visitor and a resident is that the visitors are actively pushed out of the town, one way or another. Either they get fed up and leave or something kills them, drives them mad, forces them out by any means necessary. That's because the Horror is busy collecting people without any ties to the rest of society, but that's not even set in stone. Post your CS and let me know why you want to make a visitor and I'll work with you.

[SashaThePanther]

I want to play an outsider to the town for a few reasons. An outside perspective (someone who doesn't live in the center of evil) is always a good perspective on how wicked something is. It also allows the GM to elaborate on the world, because things that are a given in the town to the locals would have to be explained to this outsider who doesn't know any better. Also, depending on how the story goes, who's to say that the town isn't "recruiting" its next resident? But, since you're the GM, of course you have the final say on whether or not playing a visitor is permitted.

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Name: Thaddeus (Thad) Montague Ziegmann

Age: 27

Gender: Male

Occupations: Freelance Paranormal Journalist, Freelance Photographer, Exorcist (fraud)

Personality: A cynic at heart, Thad is a lying, conniving, man who spends his days researching paranormal activities that he can make money through his work as a journalist for the nationwide magazine morbidly named RIP Weekly. He does not believe in the supernatural, thinking it to be the result of paranoid and overly emotional beliefs and he has no shame exploiting these supposedly "weak" people. Despite being relatively wealthy for a journalist, he is incredibly cheap and the only thing he splurges on is his camera equipment, due to the fact that his articles have earned him vastly more money once he started including pictures of the phenomena that he reports on. A college dropout, Thad's incredibly religious parents made sure that he always attended the most devout Catholic schools. Bored by the tedium of education, the only subject that ever intrigued him was the teachings of what demons and angels were capable of doing and the studying of miracles. Don't be misled, however, Thad completely lacks religious belief, thinking it to be a scam. However, this does not stop him from wearing priest’s garbs and carrying religious iconography so that he can sell his lies so much more effectively to the common folk.

History: Thad dropped out of college on his twenty-first birthday and quickly took up various journalism jobs, most of which he quit after only a couple months. When he was twenty-four, he took the job of paranormal journalism and has stuck with it ever since, due to the significant pay bump compared to the other low-level jobs. Shortly after taking the job, Thad studied the "art" of exorcism so that he can not only earn money from RIP Weekly, but also from his victims who are usually willing to pay out the ear for what they think is legitimate blessings and wards. Over the last year, Thad has started to become bored with his job as every article written becomes routine. He is quickly running out of a backlog of articles that he can give the magazine, so with only three months remaining before he's officially out of material, Thad has been searching high and low for a story that will not only intrigue his readers, but also himself. One day, his colleague, who writes the culinary page for the magazine, came back from a day trip to Delville Heights complaining how the stories that thrill the neighborhood children were horrendously misleading and that the town itself was incredibly boring with nothing to see. Remembering the tall tales that his friends and he used to tell each other about the "Devil's Heights" as they called it, Thad felt the sudden and overpowering urge to pack his bags and go debunk Delville Heights' myths and legends. If he plays his cards right, this will be the article that just might win over the nation.

Skills: Highly skilled at photograph composition and development, Thad is also an incredibly competent liar who knows a lot about the mythos of the paranormal activity that he reports on. Something of a conman, Thad is highly charismatic and is skilled with the pen. He has almost too-perfect handwriting and is quite skilled at forging signatures so that he can always prove his "authenticity" to the common folk.

Weaknesses: Thad is overly analytic and will often try to disprove and disarm threatening situations, rather than simply running away or defending himself. He is arrogant, so he will often underestimate his opponents and he has no real combat skills to speak of. As a con man, if he is ever in a situation where no one believes him or is willing to trust him, his abilities rather quickly diminish, though he is not above attempts to trick people over to his side.

[Stitches]

Ahh I get you. Well, I was going to encourage potential applicants to make new arrivals anyways. Maybe your character's just a new local?

I'll read the sheet and get your encounter ready tomorrow, I'm off to bed now. Thanks for the sheet though!

[SashaThePanther]

Well, I wouldn't say he's a "new local" at the start, he's definitely an extended-stay visitor (because he's willing to spend at least 3 months working on his story). He's still potentially a future resident, but that's not his mindset at the beginning, if that makes sense.

Night!

[lunera]

Holy wowww. I'm delighted and intrigued by this whole premise. Working on a character now!

[Stitches]

Well, I wouldn't say he's a "new local" at the start, he's definitely an extended-stay visitor (because he's willing to spend at least 3 months working on his story). He's still potentially a future resident, but that's not his mindset at the beginning, if that makes sense.

Night!

@SashaThePanther

Ahh, now I get what you were aiming for. Ironically enough it looks like, from the sheet there, that the Horror intentionally dragged him over to DH. Probably wants to turn him mad trying to uncover the truth, that pesky godlike entity. I'll rustle up a prompt for you in a few hours and we'll see how you fare.

Holy wowww. I'm delighted and intrigued by this whole premise. Working on a character now!

@lunera

Nice to hear! I'm hoping once I got maybe three or so interested people we can work on adding more to our town. I mean, I got ideas and all, but a big chunk of it would have to do with the cast joining. You can own your own shops, churches, whatever. It'd really bring a lot of life to the town.

Speaking of, Sasha - what do you think about maybe an overcluttered desk in the town hall for Thad? DH uses the radio for most of their news but I can see them taking pity on the journalist and letting him write up newsletters and what not. I don't think they have a dedicated building for journalism so you can go ham on what town hall is like, maybe make a few NPCs to go in it like the mayor and some secretary.

[lunera]

Sav

Hider

Name: Savannah-Lee Sawyer ('Sav')

Age: 21

Gender: Female

Occupation: Retail Assistant

Personality: Impulsive, jaded and a little judgmental, Sav is largely emotionally driven, though she’d never admit as much. She’s foul-mouthed and often-times rude, but there’s a soft spot there for certain types and she isn’t without total remorse or pity. Reckless and prone to violence, she’ll throw a punch before attempting any kind of dialogue.

History: The daughter of a steel-hearted doctor for a father and weak-willed seamstress for a mother, Savannah Sawyer had few positive influences in her early life. Largely ignored by her parents and shunned by her peers, she spent the majority of her teen years inciting trouble with every manner of authoritative influence; from teachers, to doctors, to cops, she hated them all, and would go out of her way to stir trouble largely for attention and renown. By the age of 15 she had a juvie record almost as long as her arm, but her father managed to persuade his old poker buddy the sheriff that all she needed was a firm hand. She was sent to St Mary’s Boarding School for a summer, though she only made it three days before she ditched out and hitchhiked her way across country. Her parents didn’t miss her, having three young kids to look after, and she only ever returned in brief instances to steal food or money.

Falling in and out of rough circles, Sav mingled with some hardcore clicks before life got too rough for her liking. Friends she had made o’d on a bad batch of drugs and she came close to being assaulted more times than she could count. She learned to fend for herself the hard way, but it wasn’t without considerable damage to her psyche.

A turning point came about when a youth worker named Maria found her homeless and starving at 18. She was admitted to a home for wayward youths and eventually learned respect and repentance, and for the first time she was shown trust and kindness in return. Eventually she made it into the workforce – retail – and though it was a boring slog it was better than living on the street.

She met a boy more recently and fell into a romance – not exactly love – and the two backpacked for a time, finding odd jobs to pay their way. They returned to the new hometown they shared and were making plans for more travel when word came that his uncle had followed ‘the Delville urge’, and needed to be found before word spread too far beyond the control of his affluent family. His parents were unwilling to follow due to ‘other responsibilities’, and knowing they were only a few towns away her beau convinced her that the mystery alone was worth the chase. They travelled to Delville Heights the next week.

They had stayed only a few days before he fled the town without warning, leaving her alone at the Floodwater Hotel.

Skills: Nerves of steel – even the most heinous sight will only rattle her for a moment; can take a decent beating; a solid pick-pocket and thief, good at sneaking & breaking and entering; can throw a mean punch.

Weaknesses: Hot-headed and easily aggravated and/or bullied into acts of violence; claustrophobic; can’t swim – even doggy-paddle is impossible; becomes anxious and prone to acting out when alone or stressed.

I had heaps of fun writing her, I hope she's okay!

[Stitches]

I like her! My characters probably going to relate hard to Sav. I'll PM you as well, once I work on Sasha's prompt.

Edit: come to think of it - is she a visitor or a local? Fresh to the town either way, right?

[Tojin]

Oh, this looks super cool! One question though: how common is it for someone born there to leave? The answer isn’t gonna influence my interest or anything, I just wanna know for backstory’s sake.

[SashaThePanther]

Love the idea that Delville Heights would accept Thad as a journalist. If you don't mind, I'd love to base the local paper off of my irl neighboring town's LP, where the paper is only around 5-6 pages long and is mostly advertisements for sales of the local businesses with one or two flavor articles thrown in.

You're trusting me to design town hall and it's NPCs? Sweet, I'll work on that (assuming I pass the PM test).

[Stitches]

Oh, this looks super cool! One question though: how common is it for someone born there to leave? The answer isn’t gonna influence my interest or anything, I just wanna know for backstory’s sake.

@Tojin

A wonderful question! One that I don't even know the answer to. Probably very unlikely/impossible, since there's all sorts of weird shit going on in Delville Heights that the Horror goes to great pains to cover up. Which does bring me to another thing I was thinking about - the more one lives here, the more...acclimatised they might be to the things that go on here? Again I reference WTNV for that sort of vibe. Maybe not completely nonchalant, but I think a born local who's never experienced anything else, and can't leave anyhow, might end up shrugging their shoulders or knowing their way around things.

Prompts are almost ready to go, I'll finish them up then head to bed.

UPDATE: Prompts are done! I've decided to go for the same prompt for everyone, and it's just a matter of changing the names and pronouns. Do let me know if I messed up somehow. Tomorrow - more locations and the start of our Encounter list.

Edit edit: @SashaThePanther, thank you for tolerating my mistake of carefully double checking the PM...then copying Luneras over and completely buggering the whole post when I meant to just do a paragraph. It's now super late here but I'll fix it in the morning, lest I continue to screw it up. XD I'll reply tomorrow too.

[lunera]

I like her! My characters probably going to relate hard to Sav. I'll PM you as well, once I work on Sasha's prompt.

Edit: come to think of it - is she a visitor or a local? Fresh to the town either way, right?

@Stitches

Looking forward to working on it!!

And she's not local to the town but the general area, having grown up in a town a few K's away. So she's grown up hearing about the weirdness of Delville her whole life. She probably went to school or the boarding home with one or two people who visited there or vanished. But she never really thought much of it or believed any of the weirder theories.

[Stitches]

Added a few new locations - a school, a town hall and a jail/police station. Not too sure how to organise the Encounters though. Should I do it by cue, or categorise them into things like monsters, hauntings, parallel universes?

[SashaThePanther]

My recommendation is definitely organize them by cue. Whether they're monsters/hauntings/parallel universes is self-explanatory once you read them.

[Tojin]

@Stitches Gotcha, I’ll get started on a character sheet now!

[Typical]

@Stitches Alright, very interested in both the premise and the PM/application system you got going on. I’m thinking of a character from out of town as well but I’ll stew on it for a bit.

Related question to one asked earlier: How often to town residents leave, “recruit” people, and return? I imagine that the horror wouldn’t let its subjects go, but would it be able to choose people it knows will come back and allow them to leave to gather “fresh blood?”

[Stitches]

Good question. I think if some of them feel they can lure in new people, and the Horror (being almost godlike in its abilities) knows they'll come back, then they can leave. Co-GM agrees and thinks that maybe certain residents are sent out for up to years at a time, even starting families, with that inexorable tug to return once they need to find somewhere to 'settle down'.

I'd want to restrict visitor applications if possible and go for residents. Visitors don't have as much of a presence in the story and it'll make things clunky as we progress, because the Horror will almost definitely start making visitors move out once it smells trouble.