Hidden 9 yrs ago 9 yrs ago Post by Naril
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Priest & Hawthorne Investigations
I'll get a nice graphic up later. Probably!


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No matter where you go, you’ll hear stories. If you get enough drinks in him, an old man will talk about a night out on the Sound when he pulled something up in his nets that nobody could explain. Something with too many arms and not enough eyes; something that smelled like burning leather and dying dreams. Not far away, there’s a Ranger for the Forest Service who’s stopped telling people about the day she saw a figure, ten feet tall if it was an inch, covered in hair and with vicious, glittering black eyes. A boy from Alaska at a juvenile detention facility will tell a story about his family walking deliberately into the cold waters of the Pacific to drown, their eyes glassy, their movements slow, called by a shrill, echoing ululation offshore. Sometimes the boy says he saw a sea creature out in the water, all wet fur and sleek body. Other times, the boy says he saw a man, body lifted above the waves, his eyes filled with malice. In Pioneer Square, tourists pay well to hear any of the dozens of ghost stories, and there are places under the oldest parts of the city where you know someone - or something - is watching you, and you feel the hairs on the back of your neck prickle.

Some people, the long-term residents, blame the weather. Months of flat, grey light and maybe your mind starts playing tricks on you and makes the shadows and falling water twist into a half-seen face. There’s been radiation coming out of the Columbia river for decades, surely that’s mutated a few fish out there. It seems like everyone has a story, everyone has something they’ve heard in the dark or caught for the barest moment in the dying light of of a summer afternoon. Everyone has a story, and they all tell it with a little bit of a wink, a little bit of a smirk. They know it was just the light playing tricks on them; all of them know that there are no monsters out in the forest, and there’s nothing in the oceans but fish. They tell the stories, get goosebumps, and go home, and on the way they know that shape in the alley is just a stray dog.

For the most part, they’re right.

But not always.

That’s where you come in.

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Welcome to the world of Priest & Hawthorne Investigations - a world quite like our own, but, as ever, with some important differences. Magic, monsters, and ghosts are all real here - though they are uncommon enough that the general population still writes most fantastical things off as something that can’t possibly have happened. Companies like Priest & Hawthorne - and even a handful of clandestine government agencies - exist around the world not necessarily to enforce a divide between normal people and the paranormal or supernatural, but more to protect people who are completely unprepared to deal with these things themselves. Working in the background and behind the scenes, they keep their hands full exorcising ghosts, banishing demons, and keeping an unwitting public safe from creatures they never knew meant them harm.

PHI and their contemporaries are certainly not out to “destroy” the paranormal; instead, they exist to keep the balance of power from getting too out of hand. If a coven of vampires makes enough trouble or someone takes a daughter’s disappearance hard and starts to look for answers beyond the comfortable ignorance of conventional wisdom, they might find their way to the comfortable leather chairs of the PHI offices. When ghouls or imps start getting noticed at the University of Washington campus, Priest & Hawthorne usually get the call to investigate. They’re problem-solvers, guardians of the comfortable lies built around centuries of reason and rationality. PHI’s investigators can’t always make the problem go away as completely or as silently as everyone might like - but even the worst cases tend to be written off as “funny ol’ world, isn’t it,” to the blissfully unaware.

The company itself is run out of an impressively-historical building in Seattle’s Pioneer Square, and has a reputation as the premier paranormal and supernatural investigation firm in the Pacific Northwest. The founders, Samuel Priest and Adelina Hawthorne, went into business in the late 1800s and though they’ve both moved on since to open other branches, the Seattle office remains the original and largest, with its handful of agents and assorted staff. Exactly how it is that people come to be aware of PHI is a matter of considerable debate - the company doesn’t exactly advertise in the Yellow Pages - but despite the mystery, business is steady and reliable. Most of the people who work there have their own theories as to how PHI’s gold-embossed business cards find their ways to clients. No two theories are exactly the same - and none of them are completely correct.

At PHI, you keep the supernatural and mortal worlds safe, not only from one another, but from themselves. Maintaining that balance is often a delicate, headache-inducing job, and even bigger than you might expect.

And lately, business has been good. Maybe a little too good. There have been more hauntings lately, but more troubling are reports of madness, of inexplicable suicides and even the marks of true dark, dangerous magic. You’ve had your hands full already, but there’s bad news coming in the door…

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Hi!

Okay, so, let’s try this. I’ve always had a soft spot for urban fantasy, and I’m hoping this will be a lot of fun. From a purely out-of-character perspective, this setting should wind up feeling more like Hellboy, B.P.R.D., The Dresden Files, or even a little bit of Ghostbusters or Tad Williams’ Bobby Dollar books. You should expect mystery, having to find and follow clues, a certain noir atmosphere, and plenty of character interaction. I will, as the GM (and with a character in the mix) drop guideposts when I need to, but generally it’ll be up to you to figure out where to go next. You’ll have to talk to one another, argue, fuss, make decisions and have agency.

There is a story, but I like to think I’ve written something pretty flexible. Still, this is a two-way street - I can adjust the story based on what the characters do, but as players, you in turn have to realise that the story probably won’t stretch to you having a “lol random” moment and driving the Mystery Machine off a cliff. I don’t necessarily expect anyone to do do that, but…well. Communication is important, for partners of any kind. :3



And now, some character information!

I want to be very clear that your characters are [i[all[/i] going to be the protagonists of this story. They’re the good guys - or, at least, the less-bad-guys, depending. I don’t expect everyone to get along all the time, but at the same time your characters work together regularly and have to at least be civil with one another and, as it were, face the same direction when the time comes. You’ve all known one another for at least a little while, and are probably reasonably close-knit. You are, after all, doing a dangerous job that almost nobody would believe you actually have. Just imagine the cast comparing notes on how to avoid being audited - for those of you who have social security numbers, anyway.

This means that no, your character is not a moody loner who can’t stand people, communicates only in ironic sneers, or is so withdrawn they stand by the wall and do nothing but observe. Your internal monologue does not look like “bloodpaindeathbloodfleshbloodpaindeath.” You are also not a “sleeper agent” unless you really really really impress me with the whys and wherefores.

I’m expecting your characters to be old enough to be out of college. Unless you give me a really good reason, you should also expect to have a body of knowledge as well as the physical and mental maturity of at least a human in their mid-twenties who has either grown up in or adapted to the modern world. Not knowing how a smartphone works is funny exactly once, you know?

You also - and this might be the exciting part - don’t have to be human! Priest & Hawthorne is a very inclusive bunch. Still, remember that this is, in many ways, a clandestine organization. Your characters will, to one degree or another, have to live and work in a large and modern city. If they’re twelve feet tall and covered in scales, that’s going to be something of a trick - but if you convince me how that works, I’ll totally let you do it! I’m not exactly limiting you on what myths, legends, fairy tales or whatever else you might like to draw inspiration from, so tell me a compelling story. I am more interested in what is interesting, both alone and in a narrative sense, than anything else.

That said, I am going to limit outright non-human creatures. Monsters and faerytale creatures are uncommon, and ones that want to work for PHI are even less so. The supernatural world probably looks on PHI and their peers with a certain amount of suspicion, if not outright hostility. This means you’re really going to have to impress me with a non-human character.

There will, however, be far fewer limits on the various flavors of human! Wizards and witches? Sure! A character who found a mystical artifact and is empowered by it? Go ahead! A human carrying an inherited curse where they become a man with a pig’s brain by day and a pig with a man’s brain by night? Um…well, sure, go ahead, I’ll read it, at least. A pyromancer, an exorcist, or a telepath? Why not! I would even encourage a plain, vanilla human, because I want to know how they fell in with PHI. :3 I don’t plan on killing anyone unless we have a fairly serious discussion beforehand, and there’s plenty of room to tailor our adventures so that everyone will have something to do.

Now, this is important: This RP is not first-come, first-served. Think of this like an audition. Impress me with your cleverness, with your writing, with your ideas. I want to see that you have a reasonably complex version of who your character is, why it is they work at PHI, or even what they think of the explosion in IPAs at every bar in Seattle (As a woman who does not care for IPAs, I personally find it a little depressing). Show me something you’re proud of. I’m not promising that everyone will get in, but I encourage effort. The cast is in all likelihood going to be fairly small, as well.

I don’t really have a set of “roles” for the cast members in mind. I’m really hoping for a group of characters that can work together well, and allow that to form sort of dynamically, or with a little bit of mutual cooperation once the cast list is finished.

And now, a character sheet!







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Hidden 9 yrs ago Post by bluejay_gl
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Interested. Will start working on a character ASAP. (:
Hidden 9 yrs ago Post by Dead Cruiser
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I hope you don't mind me playing around with the metaphysics of the setting a little with my character. The most basic example of what I'll be drafting up is a person who banishes ghosts with skepticism. He disbelieves in them so much that they stop believing in themselves.
Hidden 9 yrs ago 9 yrs ago Post by Naril
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@Dead Cruiser - Make the character interesting and all the other caveats in the first post, and I'm happy to read it. :3
Hidden 9 yrs ago Post by vietmyke
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@Naril are IPAs blowing up in Seattle too? As a DC bartender, I find the boom of IPAs to be a little depressing as well. Snooty wanna-be-sophisticates just sit there sipping on them all night.

Also they tip like shit.
Hidden 9 yrs ago Post by Naril
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@vietmyke - Mmhmm, IPAs seem to be taking the whole country over (Including where I am now) for a little while now. There's a few I don't mind - Half Acre does a great one called Daisy Cutter that I really quite like - but this "quest for a bitter, undrinkable swill" makes me a little sad. I don't drink a lot, but I really do love a good Scottish ale. :3
Hidden 9 yrs ago Post by vietmyke
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@Narilbtw is there a specific way Magic works in this setting? Is magic potential passed down from generation to generation or..?

Also, I have the general basis of my character thought up, just need to get a few specific details hashed out. Also need to finish up work.
Hidden 9 yrs ago Post by Raptorman
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I am interested as well. I shall work on a sheet.
Hidden 9 yrs ago Post by Naril
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@vietmyke - There's no "specific" way that magic works, really; if you provide me with a good framework for why your character can use magic there's a very good chance I'll let you roll with it (provided the story makes sense, of course :3). Talent for magic tends to run in families but not always; that talent will rarely manifest the same way from one person to another (One person might be good at turning invisible, another person might only have the talent of hard boiling a single egg with a thought, others will be Dresden-style wizards, and on and on), and I expect that just about everyone will have a different idea of how it works (An order of wizards is certainly something I'm open to, if you write a good addition to the setting. :3)

I hope that's only mostly confusing!
Hidden 9 yrs ago Post by vietmyke
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Before I post my CS, I found this picture and I thought it fit the setting, and I thought I'd share it.

Hidden 9 yrs ago 9 yrs ago Post by Habibi359
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I bounced few ideas in my head before settling with this one and refining it a bit. Here it goes...

Hidden 9 yrs ago Post by Naril
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@Habibi359 - I really like this character. Well done! There are a few things I would change - some of the wording (starting in the Personality section) is a little rough, like you started writing one sentence, decided to crop most of it out, but left a few dangling words. Don't worry, I've done the same thing more than a few times. :3

In the last paragraph, "...The reasons why Robert exactly chose to join the PHI are somewhat vague..." is a little too vague, since the wording sets up an omniscient uncertainty. There's more narrative interest (and even room to play with for character growth) in something like "...Robert keeps his reasons for staying with PHI to himself...."

Once we get a more full cast, I'll be certainly asking everyone to make sure they know what their characters think of the others as well, so give some thought to that, too. :3

Just polish those couple things a little, and I'd say you're in!

@vietmyke - I quite like that picture! :3 Just the right kind of atmosphere.
Hidden 9 yrs ago Post by Habibi359
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@Naril I have done some polishing around, hopefully it's in the limits of acceptance ^^
Hidden 9 yrs ago Post by vietmyke
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Here's the character I've been working on:



Here is my character! Also needs some polishing, as some of this was written before I passed out, and some was written after I woke up, but this is a good base for my character I believe.
Hidden 9 yrs ago Post by Naril
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@vietmyke - You're in! I like this character a lot.

@Habibi359 - Good enough for me. :3

@Everyone else - While I do love these two characters, no more ex-cops! There are lots of other backgrounds. :3

@myke/Habibi - Do your characters get along? Are they friends? Do they see too much of one another in each other and have a simmering dislike? You don't have to answer in the thread, but think about it. They seem like they'd get along, to me. Also, has Jacob ever introduced his daughter to the rest of the PHI weirdos? Do they know he has a daughter? So many juicy questions!
Hidden 9 yrs ago Post by vietmyke
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@Naril in my defense, I came up with the ex-cop background before I saw Habibi's background. :3

Anyway, I planned on thinking of character relationships when more of the cast was established, but I don't see why Rob and Jacob wouldn't get along, they're both similar and relatable, but not same-y. Rob has more of the 'rugged veteran' vibe to him, wheras I was going for tired/jaded old cop for Jacob. I imagine both of them to be on the older end of the cast's age spectrum. Maybe they can complain about the 'young bucks' together. *Shrugs* Maybe they could be partners, do PHI Investigators work with partners?

As for Jacob's daughter, if the cast is as reasonably close knit as you say they will be, they should all be aware of the fact Jacob has a daughter. I imagine she's met at least a few of the other investigators. Amanda (Jacob's daughter) is supposed to be relatively mature and independent for an 8 year-old girl, she's probably found her way into the PHI building at one point or other.
Hidden 9 yrs ago Post by Naril
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Excellent! I don't see why the various characters wouldn't have "partners," or at least other people they liked to work with. I imagine that pairings and groupings are generally at the various employees' discretion, save for those times when it might make sense for a specific person to come along on some weird task or other. Or, of course, if they specifically ask for someone.

For some reason I'm very taken with the idea of Jacob's daughter having spent "after school time" with Shiloh or Morgan on more than one occasion. Hmm...
Hidden 9 yrs ago Post by Habibi359
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I also think Jacob and Rob could work decently together. At least Rob could appreciate Jacob's dedication and professionalism, while being so and so with his mildly magical nature. But let those thoughts hang around until we have few more among us.
Hidden 9 yrs ago Post by Naril
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I'm working with a couple of other folks on some prospective characters. :3 I'm hoping we can make everything work!
Hidden 9 yrs ago Post by lady horatio
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I am super interested, if there's still room! Just trying to brainstorm a character, but this kind of setting is so one of my favorite things.
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