Janus
09-11-2006, 09:10 PM
Okay, so I've been starving to make a horror plot that is creepier than just zombies, or just ghosts, or just some dude with a mask and a lack of empathy. I wanted something that takes the subject of evil and unearths all its worst features and minions in one unusual setting.
What did I choose? Eastern Europe, October 15th (October equus), 1814.
Let me describe the plot in a few sections dealing with specific issues, followed by a writing sample I cooked up to give you a feel for the setting itself:
More About the Setting.
The main action takes place in a small, backwater village near Braşov, Transylvania. The nation itself is not a nation at this point, but a grand principality under the dominion of the Hapsburgs of Austria. Europe itself is just beginning to let out its breath, as Napoleon was exiled to the island of Elba. This is the early 1800s, and to get a feel for the era, you may want to consult some sources:
- Wikipedia, of course. This can help with any general questions you may have.
- Media. Specifically, movies about or near to the era, such as The Count of Monte Cristo, Sleepy Hollow, and The Duellists, to name a few.
- Books. Bram Stoker's Dracula depicts a late 1800s Transylvania, and helps set a mood. Others I couldn't specify as of the time of this posting, but they are definately out there.
How will this RP be conducted?
I traditionally prefer storyteller-led RPs over complete freeform, and for this particular RP I fully intend to fulfill the role of storyteller. What does this mean? Well, basically, you who participate will be players in the plot, while I will engineer all its twists, changes, and NPC/atmosphere interactions. To give you a (brief and concisely written) example, see below:
Player: (Playing as the daugher of a Russian nobleman, Alexia) Her heels clicked on the floorboards as she made her way slowly into the farmhouse. Still clutching the shovel in shaking, chilled hands, she keeps her eyes ever searching.
Storyteller: The room is covered with soot and what appears to be dried blood. As you walk, dust kicks up with each step, and the creaking of the floorboards echoes more than you'd appreciate. Directly ahead, two wooden chairs are arranged before a fireplace, both partially burnt. Looking closer, you see the charred remains of an old man prone before the fireplace, and by his side a long, seemingly ancient rifle. It too, is burnt beyond further recognition.
^ Simply, as players, you would control only your own characters. Elaborating or describing the environment, dictating the behaviors of NPCs/beasts/etc. would all be my duty as storyteller. Likewise, interactions will be a bit different. If you wanted to, say, move a lever or pick up an item in the environment, you would first declare the action, and let me handle the end result (Whether or not you could actually muster up the strength to move the lever, or perhaps it was stuck, perhaps it makes the door open, etc. On the second example, perhaps the item you wish to pick up is for a reason or another, immovable.). This same applies for battle actions (Attacking a ghoul, for example): you may declare an attack, but I would determine whether or not it would work.
Some of you who are unfamiliar with this approach or have had a bad experience or two with it may be thinking this sounds like a bad idea. Well, at the very least humor me. I've done it plenty of times before with amazing results, and I personally find that the approach is much more accomodating to casual roleplayers or roleplayers who, due to creative restraints or time/real life restraints, can't always muster up the energy and time to make a full freeform post. At the very least, I ask that if you're interested please try it. You lose nothing by simply trying.
How can I make my character?
Mortal. Non-supernatural. The idea of horror is to be at the mercy of forces greater than you are, and to have a semblance of fear and uncertainty. For this reason, you can only make characters who are relatively normal (With a few exceptions I'll list below). I'll first request that you submit to me via PM a character sheet. This sheet will include the following: detailed character description; character history (It need not be a book, but at least something describing who your character is and where they're coming from); items they are carrying; any type of special skills (For example, Character X was a former blacksmith, or in the army, or can play music). If you're approved, you're in. If you're not approved, I'll explain to you exactly what it was about your character sheet that needs a bit of reworking.
You may request to have one of the following "gifts", if you can provide a good history and/or explanation for your character acquiring them. They, along with your character sheet, must be approved, of course. If you accept one of them, it will be implemented into your roleplay, though in a manner you might not expect. For example, if you can read auras, you can attempt to do it, but whether or not it succeeds will be up to the storyteller (Read: moi). Likewise, it may spontaneously kick in when you least expect it, such as during a traumatic event or in an unholy place. Consider it a chosen plot device, if you will. The list is as follows:
- Aura reading (The ability, of course, to read auras)
- Clairaudience (The ability to hear things outside of the normal human range)
- Clairsentience (The ability to perceive energy fields, including those of ghosts and of auras. Please note that it is not as effective nor as complete as Aura reading in perceiving and recognizing auras. However, it is excellent for being able to "feel" things with one's mind.)
- Precognition (The most random of the gifts, this allows one to have a vision of a future event. How that vision is shown and when, however, is not under your control)
- Retrocognition (The ability to perceive events from the past due to handling objects, or being in certain places.)
- Hypersensitivity (This is less of a gift then more of a curse. Hypersensitive individuals are not aware of their own abilities that transcend normal human means, and they are often victim to the supernatural due to their ability to perceive them. This is not advised for someone who wants an "easy time" at this RP. To elaborate further on this ability, being hypersensitive simply means you have the gift to perceive the dead and the like, but you cannot control it. You're effectively an amateur at ESP.)
Just to snag attention from those of you who like to skim (And yes, I do it myself all the time): Please read the section on making a character!
Anything else I should know? I have a question! Wait, what about this...
Hey, ask it here. I love answering questions. It's how I spread my vast wisdom and knowledge to the outside world. Anyways, yes, ask away. If you need clarification, advise, etc., please ask me.
Now, for the writing sample
The minutes stretched into hours as he plowed through the tall grass, fighting his way past vile low-hanging branches and the occasional exposed root. He was certain of three things: he was tired; he was frustrated; and he was absolutely lost. The moon broke through the trees overhead now and again, reminding him that it was well past the time he was supposed to be at the lord’s manor. Even if the manor was just past the next brace of trees, he’d need an hour more to clean the mud from his riding boots.
“Damn that horse!” Julian swore for perhaps the fourth time. His saber was out and hacking the offending foliage with a swiftness and decisiveness that only impatience and anger can bring about. Julian Beaumont was formerly Lieutenant Julian Beaumont of the British Army, and up until this past April, had been active in the war against that French brute, Napoleon, alongside many of his countrymen. The young man (If twenty nine years of age could be considerably young) was a thin figure, long and pale. His hair was blond, almost colorless, and it in turn gave his skin an almost yellow hue due to its contrast. His eyes, however, were bastions of color, shimmering blue like the oceans off of some Caribbean isle. Currently, he was clean shaven, though it had been nearly a day since he had done his toilet, and hair was already beginning to reclaim its lost territory.
“Damn him!” More snarls of bitterness. It had been a week since he had set foot in this backwater Austrian holding, and he was more than fed up with the conditions here. Foolish mission if there ever was one. Edmund Settler, his old friend and schoolmate, had asked him a peculiar favor: to deliver a book and letter to a Lord Aphotos von Eiferer . von Eiferer was an Austrian noble currently acting as governor for the Hapsburgs in the area near Braşov, Transylvania. With one hand clutching his satchel (Itself containing his additional clothes and goods along with his package), the other hewing trees and brush alike, Julian continued his long and cold trek. It was nearly mid-October, and the pre-winter chill was upon him in a rush. Not that the journey would have been any warmer had he still be on his horse, but he still cursed that his horse had fouled him. Thinking back to that moment, about four hours ago, Julian was still confused as to exactly what had happened...
Once he had arrived at Braşov, he had changed horses at a local stable, paying a good sum for what he considered to be a worthless ride. The strange, dirty stable boy who had received his money looked at him with haunting, dark eyes, muttering something in his native tongue. Julian’s luck had only gone downhill from then. Taking the lad’s directions, the soldier then rode due east, up through the surprisingly unforgiving hills towards what he expected was the only real way to the lord’s private manor. Cursing why the nobility should ever be so estranged from reality as to choose their domains so far from civilization, the British lieutenant soon lost his way as the trail turned to thick woods, and it was nearly nightfall when the horse suddenly heaved to the side, sending him flying. After gathering his wits and moving to check the horse, he found it was dead. Stone dead. And no amount of kicking nor swearing was about to move it, either.
Since then, he had picked the general direction of the lord’s manor and begun his trek, using his saber to clear the way when he could. He’d been forced to leave a good deal of his equipment with the dead animal, but what he managed to squirrel away should be enough for the trip, he thought. Time dragged on, and currently he was feeling nothing but loathing and vengeance regarding his luck at the hands of a ‘damned stable hand’. However, his luck was about to change yet again.
Julian emerged into a small clearing, the night sky suddenly opening up before him as though he were about to ascend into its starry depths and leave this mortal world forever. The full moon’s cool light shone on the ground before him, and what he saw made him instantly retch.
Bodies. At least ten of them. Each was tied to a stake, with their entrails hanging out. The eyes had been apparently burned away, as though someone had jabbed them with a hot poker. And the arms and legs were shredded due to what could be taken as struggling against the rope binding them to their fate. The stakes were arranged in a diamond shape, with the closest being a girl not older than perhaps her late teens. Her dirty blonde hair waved sadly in the wind, her mouth locked in a cry of anguish so deep and so complete that Hades himself would be hard-pressed to deny her succor. As he recovered himself, Julian noted her simple, peasant clothing, stained with both blood and filth. Her legs were bare, as were her feet, and he could see that she had been worked mercilessly during her life before she met this foul end. Behind her on either side were two more peasants, each similarly tied and disemboweled. As he looked closer, the Englishman noted symbols burned into their foreheads.... Different symbols for each.
“What in God’s name...” He began, but was cut short by an unearthly howl. It was returned by several others, and Julian, his gloved hands now feeling a cold sweat, brought up his saber as though he meant to attack the very dark itself. “I have to get out of here.” He hissed, and began running forward, giving the macabre array a wide berth.
Twenty more minutes of hacking through the thick woods and adrenaline-fueled running, and Julian Beaumont came almost without warning from the clutches of the dark wood. He stumbled into the malevolent night air again, with the moon showing the land before him. A village. He saw dozens of homes that were primitive even in his own time. Some with incomplete or damaged roofs and walls, some with thatched roofs, and some even with rude wood pillars supporting the awnings. At first, he saw no one living, his breath taking form in the air as the chill set in further. His hands, still clinging to his blade, were wet from the fear. Then, he saw a figure, seemingly wrapped in shadow, move alongside one of the small barns. He dropped down, watching it intently, until the figure happened to appear in the moonlight.
It was the boy, his pale face seeming dark due to his large, brown eyes. His matted hair hung about as though he’d never given it a second thought. His clothes were still in near-tatters as Julian remembered, and as the man watched, the treacherous stable boy disappeared into one of the nearest houses. Julian gritted his teeth.
“What is going on here?” He stepped forward into the moonlight, and it seemed to him almost as if the very fabric of what was real rippled, causing his hair to stand up on end. As he walked slowly towards the rustic old farmhouse, Julian couldn’t help but feel that his wretched luck was only going to get worse...
What did I choose? Eastern Europe, October 15th (October equus), 1814.
Let me describe the plot in a few sections dealing with specific issues, followed by a writing sample I cooked up to give you a feel for the setting itself:
More About the Setting.
The main action takes place in a small, backwater village near Braşov, Transylvania. The nation itself is not a nation at this point, but a grand principality under the dominion of the Hapsburgs of Austria. Europe itself is just beginning to let out its breath, as Napoleon was exiled to the island of Elba. This is the early 1800s, and to get a feel for the era, you may want to consult some sources:
- Wikipedia, of course. This can help with any general questions you may have.
- Media. Specifically, movies about or near to the era, such as The Count of Monte Cristo, Sleepy Hollow, and The Duellists, to name a few.
- Books. Bram Stoker's Dracula depicts a late 1800s Transylvania, and helps set a mood. Others I couldn't specify as of the time of this posting, but they are definately out there.
How will this RP be conducted?
I traditionally prefer storyteller-led RPs over complete freeform, and for this particular RP I fully intend to fulfill the role of storyteller. What does this mean? Well, basically, you who participate will be players in the plot, while I will engineer all its twists, changes, and NPC/atmosphere interactions. To give you a (brief and concisely written) example, see below:
Player: (Playing as the daugher of a Russian nobleman, Alexia) Her heels clicked on the floorboards as she made her way slowly into the farmhouse. Still clutching the shovel in shaking, chilled hands, she keeps her eyes ever searching.
Storyteller: The room is covered with soot and what appears to be dried blood. As you walk, dust kicks up with each step, and the creaking of the floorboards echoes more than you'd appreciate. Directly ahead, two wooden chairs are arranged before a fireplace, both partially burnt. Looking closer, you see the charred remains of an old man prone before the fireplace, and by his side a long, seemingly ancient rifle. It too, is burnt beyond further recognition.
^ Simply, as players, you would control only your own characters. Elaborating or describing the environment, dictating the behaviors of NPCs/beasts/etc. would all be my duty as storyteller. Likewise, interactions will be a bit different. If you wanted to, say, move a lever or pick up an item in the environment, you would first declare the action, and let me handle the end result (Whether or not you could actually muster up the strength to move the lever, or perhaps it was stuck, perhaps it makes the door open, etc. On the second example, perhaps the item you wish to pick up is for a reason or another, immovable.). This same applies for battle actions (Attacking a ghoul, for example): you may declare an attack, but I would determine whether or not it would work.
Some of you who are unfamiliar with this approach or have had a bad experience or two with it may be thinking this sounds like a bad idea. Well, at the very least humor me. I've done it plenty of times before with amazing results, and I personally find that the approach is much more accomodating to casual roleplayers or roleplayers who, due to creative restraints or time/real life restraints, can't always muster up the energy and time to make a full freeform post. At the very least, I ask that if you're interested please try it. You lose nothing by simply trying.
How can I make my character?
Mortal. Non-supernatural. The idea of horror is to be at the mercy of forces greater than you are, and to have a semblance of fear and uncertainty. For this reason, you can only make characters who are relatively normal (With a few exceptions I'll list below). I'll first request that you submit to me via PM a character sheet. This sheet will include the following: detailed character description; character history (It need not be a book, but at least something describing who your character is and where they're coming from); items they are carrying; any type of special skills (For example, Character X was a former blacksmith, or in the army, or can play music). If you're approved, you're in. If you're not approved, I'll explain to you exactly what it was about your character sheet that needs a bit of reworking.
You may request to have one of the following "gifts", if you can provide a good history and/or explanation for your character acquiring them. They, along with your character sheet, must be approved, of course. If you accept one of them, it will be implemented into your roleplay, though in a manner you might not expect. For example, if you can read auras, you can attempt to do it, but whether or not it succeeds will be up to the storyteller (Read: moi). Likewise, it may spontaneously kick in when you least expect it, such as during a traumatic event or in an unholy place. Consider it a chosen plot device, if you will. The list is as follows:
- Aura reading (The ability, of course, to read auras)
- Clairaudience (The ability to hear things outside of the normal human range)
- Clairsentience (The ability to perceive energy fields, including those of ghosts and of auras. Please note that it is not as effective nor as complete as Aura reading in perceiving and recognizing auras. However, it is excellent for being able to "feel" things with one's mind.)
- Precognition (The most random of the gifts, this allows one to have a vision of a future event. How that vision is shown and when, however, is not under your control)
- Retrocognition (The ability to perceive events from the past due to handling objects, or being in certain places.)
- Hypersensitivity (This is less of a gift then more of a curse. Hypersensitive individuals are not aware of their own abilities that transcend normal human means, and they are often victim to the supernatural due to their ability to perceive them. This is not advised for someone who wants an "easy time" at this RP. To elaborate further on this ability, being hypersensitive simply means you have the gift to perceive the dead and the like, but you cannot control it. You're effectively an amateur at ESP.)
Just to snag attention from those of you who like to skim (And yes, I do it myself all the time): Please read the section on making a character!
Anything else I should know? I have a question! Wait, what about this...
Hey, ask it here. I love answering questions. It's how I spread my vast wisdom and knowledge to the outside world. Anyways, yes, ask away. If you need clarification, advise, etc., please ask me.
Now, for the writing sample
The minutes stretched into hours as he plowed through the tall grass, fighting his way past vile low-hanging branches and the occasional exposed root. He was certain of three things: he was tired; he was frustrated; and he was absolutely lost. The moon broke through the trees overhead now and again, reminding him that it was well past the time he was supposed to be at the lord’s manor. Even if the manor was just past the next brace of trees, he’d need an hour more to clean the mud from his riding boots.
“Damn that horse!” Julian swore for perhaps the fourth time. His saber was out and hacking the offending foliage with a swiftness and decisiveness that only impatience and anger can bring about. Julian Beaumont was formerly Lieutenant Julian Beaumont of the British Army, and up until this past April, had been active in the war against that French brute, Napoleon, alongside many of his countrymen. The young man (If twenty nine years of age could be considerably young) was a thin figure, long and pale. His hair was blond, almost colorless, and it in turn gave his skin an almost yellow hue due to its contrast. His eyes, however, were bastions of color, shimmering blue like the oceans off of some Caribbean isle. Currently, he was clean shaven, though it had been nearly a day since he had done his toilet, and hair was already beginning to reclaim its lost territory.
“Damn him!” More snarls of bitterness. It had been a week since he had set foot in this backwater Austrian holding, and he was more than fed up with the conditions here. Foolish mission if there ever was one. Edmund Settler, his old friend and schoolmate, had asked him a peculiar favor: to deliver a book and letter to a Lord Aphotos von Eiferer . von Eiferer was an Austrian noble currently acting as governor for the Hapsburgs in the area near Braşov, Transylvania. With one hand clutching his satchel (Itself containing his additional clothes and goods along with his package), the other hewing trees and brush alike, Julian continued his long and cold trek. It was nearly mid-October, and the pre-winter chill was upon him in a rush. Not that the journey would have been any warmer had he still be on his horse, but he still cursed that his horse had fouled him. Thinking back to that moment, about four hours ago, Julian was still confused as to exactly what had happened...
Once he had arrived at Braşov, he had changed horses at a local stable, paying a good sum for what he considered to be a worthless ride. The strange, dirty stable boy who had received his money looked at him with haunting, dark eyes, muttering something in his native tongue. Julian’s luck had only gone downhill from then. Taking the lad’s directions, the soldier then rode due east, up through the surprisingly unforgiving hills towards what he expected was the only real way to the lord’s private manor. Cursing why the nobility should ever be so estranged from reality as to choose their domains so far from civilization, the British lieutenant soon lost his way as the trail turned to thick woods, and it was nearly nightfall when the horse suddenly heaved to the side, sending him flying. After gathering his wits and moving to check the horse, he found it was dead. Stone dead. And no amount of kicking nor swearing was about to move it, either.
Since then, he had picked the general direction of the lord’s manor and begun his trek, using his saber to clear the way when he could. He’d been forced to leave a good deal of his equipment with the dead animal, but what he managed to squirrel away should be enough for the trip, he thought. Time dragged on, and currently he was feeling nothing but loathing and vengeance regarding his luck at the hands of a ‘damned stable hand’. However, his luck was about to change yet again.
Julian emerged into a small clearing, the night sky suddenly opening up before him as though he were about to ascend into its starry depths and leave this mortal world forever. The full moon’s cool light shone on the ground before him, and what he saw made him instantly retch.
Bodies. At least ten of them. Each was tied to a stake, with their entrails hanging out. The eyes had been apparently burned away, as though someone had jabbed them with a hot poker. And the arms and legs were shredded due to what could be taken as struggling against the rope binding them to their fate. The stakes were arranged in a diamond shape, with the closest being a girl not older than perhaps her late teens. Her dirty blonde hair waved sadly in the wind, her mouth locked in a cry of anguish so deep and so complete that Hades himself would be hard-pressed to deny her succor. As he recovered himself, Julian noted her simple, peasant clothing, stained with both blood and filth. Her legs were bare, as were her feet, and he could see that she had been worked mercilessly during her life before she met this foul end. Behind her on either side were two more peasants, each similarly tied and disemboweled. As he looked closer, the Englishman noted symbols burned into their foreheads.... Different symbols for each.
“What in God’s name...” He began, but was cut short by an unearthly howl. It was returned by several others, and Julian, his gloved hands now feeling a cold sweat, brought up his saber as though he meant to attack the very dark itself. “I have to get out of here.” He hissed, and began running forward, giving the macabre array a wide berth.
Twenty more minutes of hacking through the thick woods and adrenaline-fueled running, and Julian Beaumont came almost without warning from the clutches of the dark wood. He stumbled into the malevolent night air again, with the moon showing the land before him. A village. He saw dozens of homes that were primitive even in his own time. Some with incomplete or damaged roofs and walls, some with thatched roofs, and some even with rude wood pillars supporting the awnings. At first, he saw no one living, his breath taking form in the air as the chill set in further. His hands, still clinging to his blade, were wet from the fear. Then, he saw a figure, seemingly wrapped in shadow, move alongside one of the small barns. He dropped down, watching it intently, until the figure happened to appear in the moonlight.
It was the boy, his pale face seeming dark due to his large, brown eyes. His matted hair hung about as though he’d never given it a second thought. His clothes were still in near-tatters as Julian remembered, and as the man watched, the treacherous stable boy disappeared into one of the nearest houses. Julian gritted his teeth.
“What is going on here?” He stepped forward into the moonlight, and it seemed to him almost as if the very fabric of what was real rippled, causing his hair to stand up on end. As he walked slowly towards the rustic old farmhouse, Julian couldn’t help but feel that his wretched luck was only going to get worse...