[IC] The Sunday Group - Paranormal Detectives

[Penny]

Everyone has a story. You know the story. The one you Aunt dusts off every Thanksgiving when the wine is flowing and the sense is going? The one about the old house on the end of the street where flowers never grow and maybe old Sweeny killed his wife and hid her in the drywall. Or perhaps it was the time your grandmother swore that she saw something floating in a broken window grinning at her. Maybe it was you. Maybe you heard strange voices out in the woods, or glimpsed something in the fog out at sea one night. Maybe you saw the same pale woman everywhere you went for a week and you swear the bitch had no reflection.

There are thousands of stories like these and they all have one things in common. Ninety nine percent of them are bullshit. Of course ninety nine percent certainty means that one time in a hundred you’re dead.

There are things out there in dark. Sometimes they leave us alone, hell maybe most times, but sometimes the snatch up babies and sacrifice them in stone circles. Sometimes the feed on the minds of the living. Sometime they set fires for the joy of watching people burn.

Who do you turn to if something like that happens? Cops can’t help, write you a prescription and ship you to a mental hospital if you even mentioned it. You need professionals, and frankly there aren’t that many people stupid enough to put their heads in that particular noose. People who know, know enough to be fucking terrified. Usually they find the deepest darkest hole they can climb into.

Want to turn to the sort of broken desperadoes still stupid enough to stand in the line of supernatural fire? Good luck with that.

Welcome to the Sunday Group

This RP will follow the adventures of the members of the Sunday Group. It is a story about the occult world behind the world, and those brave or foolish enough to want to understand it.

Somewhere in a big city in America, there is a nondescript building. It is a few stories tall and it has an extensive basement. It could easily be the Law Offices Of Boring, Dreary and Bland, no one would guess that it is the home of one of the nation’s only occult detective agencies.

Employees of the Sunday Group are a diverse bunch. Small time magical practitioners, those with strange abilities, broken down cops who have seen too much, or just regular folk who saw something they shouldn’t and want to do something about it. Everyone who works for the Group has touched the supernatural world in some way or another, and for whatever reason just cant let it go and sink back into the comforting security of the mundane.

The World

The world is very much like our own except there is a secret magical world beneath it. It isn’t happy Twilight Magical though, think of it as somewhere between Harry Dresden and the Call of Cthulhu. Many of the trappings of any Urban Fantasy will apply here and I encourage you to introduce them into the setting. Think a shotgun filled with rocksalt will take out a ghost? Great, it is in. Want werewolves to have a silver allergy? No problem. Anything you want to introduce into the setting will probably be ok. If I have a problem with it, Ill ask you to reconsider privately.

Magic for the Modern Age

Some humans have the ability to handle arcane forces, either innately or through elaborate ritual preparations. Some people gain magical powers via congress with spirits or demons, even Gods there is always a price to pay for subverting the natural order though. Sooner or later the bill comes due.

Magic exists in the world in a multitude of form and traditions. It is even possible to do some magic by computer. I dont want to put to many restrictions on people here. Many types of magic do not require the use of spells or incantations. Some people might be able to move small objects with their minds, read the surface thoughts of others, turn invisible or any number of other small boons you might come up with.

While magic can be very effective under the right circumstances it isn’t a be all and end all solution. A powerful practitioner might be able to hurl a bolt of lighting but it is normally much simpler, safer and more effective just to use a gun. Magic is a tool, use it wisely.

Who are the Players?

The players will take the roles of detectives in the drama, but this won't be an RP solely about solving crime. Personal relationships between characters, their families and dependents will be crucial to the story.

Be connected! The nature of the world is such that all the brooding loners with a tragic but unknowable backstory were exsanginuated long ago. You don’t need to like people, but you do need to depend on them to survive.

What Can I Play?

You can play a human (or near human) with some minor edge over the rest of the herd. You cannot play an immortal dragon vampire samurai. Your character should have some life experience. I don't want to flat out say that they need to be a certain age but my personal preference is to avoid the teenage types who no sane detective would want covering their back when the tentacle hits the pentacle.

Notes On the RP

This will be a small group RP. I’m looking for 3-4 players tops. I want personal interaction to matter and I just dont see that in large group RPs.

This will be a collaborative rp and we will create the world as we go, feel free to introduce detail! I will exercise some limited forms of narrative control if necessary but my instinct is to let it ride if it fits in the framework of the fiction.

This will be an 18+ RP. Sex, drugs, sex drugs and horrible nightmares from distant space times ect.

Inspirations and Style

Inspirations for this include Call of Cthulhu, Harry Dresden, Supernatural, Delta Green, the Laundry Files. The goal is to be not quite as bleak as Lovecraft but to maintain something approaching that level of horror and danger. The protagonists can effect the outcome but plenty of stuff out there is well beyond the weight class of the Sunday Group.

[Penny]

The first storm of the Autumn rattled upon the triple paned windows as the winds blowing off lake Michigan drove the droplets against the glass. Eleanor Tregellan twisted in what passed for her sleep, wrestling with the dark premonitions of dreams and half remembered nightmare. It was almost a relief when the dark of the bedroom was violated by the screen of her cell phone lighting up a moment before the familiar strains of Warren Zevon that served as her ringtone blasted out from the phones small speakers. I was in the house when the house burned down. Ellie sat up and grabbed groggily for the phone beside the bed, fumbling for it as she wrestled to throw of the somnolent haze of sleep. She was an unremarkable woman to look out, perhaps pretty a few years earlier but now fighting the anonymity that came on with the onset of middle age. Awakened at four in the morning her heart shaped face was drawn and their were bags under her eyes. Reddish brown hair hung lankly to her shoulders awaiting its daily battle with the brush.

I stood on the bank as the river rose up. She grabbed the phone and swiped her thumb upwards on the screen to answer the call. Beside her, Emmaline’s lean athletic form shifted beneath the sheets, muttering something unpleasant in German. Ellie lay a comforting hand on the other woman's hip and slipped from her bed moving across the room and slipping through the door into a large room that opened off the bedroom and closed the door behind her. The ritual room had once been the apartment's second bedroom, but it had been extensively remodeled. Black marble floored the room save for where a silver inlay scribed the surface in a perfect circle. A server rack on one wall hummed quietly, the various LEDs casting a dull greenish glow across the room. The other wall was given over to a large shelf of polished wood which had once belonged to a post office, now the various drawers were given over to a variety of phial, pouches and boxes, containing substances which ranged from the mundane and prosaic to the rare and illegal. A samsung galaxy tablet, serving as an index to the collection, hung in a cradle affixed to the front of the shelf. The room smelled strongly of the polish that had to be routinely applied to keep the silver in the floor from tarnishing, and several bottles of silvo lay in a waste basket in the corner.

“Tregellan here,” Ellie said in answer to the voice on the other end of the phone.

“Yes, I’ll be right in,” she replied and hung up the phone. A shudder of weariness ran through her as she stepped back into the bedroom and quietly gathered up her clothing. Emmaline continued to mutter in her sleep, though Ellie couldn’t make out the words. The long limbed Austrian opened a sleepy eye and cast her startling blue gaze in Ellie’s direction. Emmaline smiled and sat up, stretching both arms towards the ceiling in a way that pressed her teutonic assets distractingly against the threadbare UCLA shirt she wore as a nightgown.

“Arbeit? Brauchst du mich?” she asked sleepily. Eleanor shook her head and smiled at the other woman. Though Emmaline spoke almost perfect English she reverted to German in private moments, it was endearing, and over the past few months Eleanor’s own command of the tongue had grown in leaps and bounds. It was fun to have a more or less private language they two could speak in public, other than Aklo or Enochian with their accompanying risks. Emmaline’s efforts to learn Gaelic had been less than satisfactory as her tendency towards guttural consonants made the fluid Celtic tongue almost unintelligible.

“No, stay in bed dear one, I’ll call you if we need you,” Ellie told her. Emmaline nodded and snuggled back under the covers falling asleep almost instantly. Ellie sighed enviously. She didn’t sleep well and when she did her dreams were dark and disturbed. Though Emmaline had seen some of the same things that kept her awake, she hadn’t done the sort of things that weighed on Ellie Tregellan’s conciounce. Dressing quickly she opened the safe and collected her silver plated Colt 1911 and the slender silver pin that served as her athamae and slipped them both into her handbag. It was time to go to work.

_______________________________________________________________________________________

To:[e-mail], [e-mail], [e-mail]
BCC: [e-mail]
From: Elanor Tregellan <[e-mail]>
Subject: Urgent - Client Meeting 10/7/19 - 8am

Hello All,

Apologies for the late notice but I need you all in the office at 8. We have a new client who wants us for a case in Washington State. Estimated time minimum of one week, pack accordingly.

Sincerely,
Ellie Tregellan MD - Operations Manager

_______________________________________________________________________________________

[Habibi359]

Arsene Velmont had been awake for two hours when the E-mail arrived, but had just sat on the corner. His Honor 6, stolen from some poor man during a time when he wasn't part of Sunday Group, buzzed on the floor in his apartment. E-mail app flashed the sender: Ellie, the boss herself. His other guess would have been David, as Velmont had passed some news about rookie low-life cultists to him. Perhaps he'd finally got a mugshot of their teacher and whatever they'd do. A win win deal, put a stop to their actions, capture moderate "bringer of Armageddon" and perhaps find some magical items of value. Maybe next time.

The only light in the room was emitted from the phone's screen as Arsene read the mail. At least week in Washington state following some case. He wondered if they'd go to Seattle, rumours were that Edgers there whispered to the depths of the Ocean. Thoughts weren't pleasant, but perhaps Ellie's job wouldn't delve into their business. Arsene let out a sigh and looked out of the window between the window blinders. His slight paranoid habit stuck deep, after two decades walking at the edge of supernatural realms and seeing the good people, bad people, good turning bad during the years at the streets. He liked to think that he hadn't made it big, but compared to other dwellers at the rim he was living comfortable life after couple of years in Sunday Group. His apartment was a single bedroom apartment on third floor, 550 squares, leaking sinks, no soundproofing, decent heating, rent was cheap and he hadn't bothered to get much furniture. Mattress was on the floor in bedroom, two balcony chairs and table were decorating the living room. Some carpets were collecting dust on the floor. He had brought a blackboard and lots of chalk in living room to make notes, as well as a Macbook for working and TV for news. On floor there was a second matters acting as a sofa.

After good 20 seconds of watching empty streets, Arsene went to kitchen. He grabbed a bowl from the sink and filled it with cereals. He poured milk and some peanut butter jelly to mix it up. He ate the whole thing in silence, only thing making noise was when spoon hit the bowl. Breakfast in peace was one of things he enjoyed by having stable income was his own place. Long time ago he didn't have his own home and not much cash, so he spent much of time on streets or crashing a fellow edger every now and then. Now he could actually have a hot shower in the morning. Downside was he hated sticking at one place, and he'd been in Chicago for long time. Local edgers started to know him and spread rumours. Back in the day he wandered from town to town, city to city, place to place. He still had a sports bag which contained everything he had in person, ready to be grabbed when opportunity rose from another town. Habit had stuck, the clothes never made it to cabinets in his apartment.

Before heading to the office, he took one of the nice warm showers, dried himself and took a good look at himself from the mirror. Bags under his eyes, hair messy like a pile of dark hey, stubble beard he didn't yet bother to cut. All good to go. He dressed up to his black sweater and put on his long leather coat, stuffed Macbook inside the sports bag, grabbed the bag and headed out out. Neighbourhood was not too friendly, but the Chicago L was close. The metro station was crowded as people were heading to city centre for work. Arsene decided to take a bus. No other people on the bus stop, few persons inside. He took a seat in the back and held his feet on his bag. Rubbing his amulet to keep it in hand in case that someone was to rush and grab his bag. He eased up somewhat when the bus emptied close to the centre, and even more when he saw the destination from the window. Old brown building made of bricks and dreams of grandiose. Arsene thought for years that only rich, greedy, narcissist and competitive would work in buildings like this, but behold, that's where he was heading.

He was inside office 10 minutes before meeting.

[DJAtomika]

David woke to the sound of his phone buzzing on his nightstand. It was still early in the morning, and as he read the email sent by his boss, he rubbed his face and felt the stubble accumulating on his chin. The aches of his previous day's workout were still present in his muscles as he pulled himself out of bed, foregoing the exercise to make sure he got to work on time. David stared at his reflection in his bathroom mirror as he inspected himself as part of his morning routine. Same brown eyes, same slightly crooked nose, same bags under his eyes. The tired reporter took a shaver to his stubble and a brush to his teeth, along with a hot, calming shower, before he dressed in his usual; a worn leather jacket over his light blue dress shirt, denim jeans and work boots.

His breakfast was simple; pancakes, maple syrup and bacon, with a mug of black, strong coffee. One sugar. As he ate, he went over the email in his head. Elanor Tragellan wasn't one to mince words, but even this email was sparse on details. It didn't strike him as being a good omen for things to come; the fact that she had also asked them to pack for at least a week's worth of travel was the other thing setting off silent alarms in his head. But that meant opportunities to get on with his craft: that of taking pictures. So after he ate, David set about packing his essentials. Into one of his many big sports duffel bags went a few changes of clothes, toiletries and other travel essentials, along with a single paperback to read (Stephen King's "Under the Dome", a massive volume he hadn't even scratched the surface of yet) and his laptop, chargers for both that and his phone, and spare batteries for his camera.

Speaking of, his camera, a sleek DSLR, sat in its own carry case that David had mushed together with a satchel bag, cushioned by foam and fabric while allowing him to carry his laptop and other assorted papers or documents in the satchel. With his things packed, the photographer set off for work, taking an Uber since his packing was going to run him late if he took a bus. He arrived at the meeting room at 8 AM sharp, not a minute too late.