
The town of Darkwater Tennessee had it all. There were mountains, an industrial park, the mountain mall... and then there were other things. Mysterious creatures came in all shapes and sizes. There were vampiric creatures, werewolves, banshees, zombies, and some kind of Frankenstein monster calling itself the Lazarus Man. If you could imagine it... it was likely to be found in Darkwater. There was even something of a superhero trying to fight back against the darkness, clad in black and chrome and calling himself the Silver Bullet. He mainly fought against the various werewolf packs in the area, but had also tangled with some vampires and what Bullet called "Leatherwings". It was rumored his dad was a cop and killed by a werewolf pack around two or three years ago.
Built in the Appalachian Mountains and valleys of the eastern United States, the city thrived with coal mining being its main source of revenue for decades. However it quickly became a leading industrial city on the eastern 'States with several noteworthy corporations, factories, and production plants. Westman Chemical Plant, Napier Valley Ammunition Plant, Rocky Top Cola Bottling Company, and Wells Helicopter are just a few of the reasons people choose to live and work in the area. The Mountaineer newspaper is widely known for its stories of new cryptid encounters, as well as the general local news. Midtown is where most of the action is, as well as the Fort Harvey Mountain Mall. Landmarks include Lee Heights, the Kirby River, Mountain Avenue [one of the longest streets in America], the Riverview Diner, Highland Park, Warpath State Park [in the mountains], and the Museum of Gothic Literature. The city sees a number of tourists as well, all trying to get a glimpse of a cryptid. Darkwater has more supernatural and unexplained activity than any other city in America with a general population of over one hundred and sixty thousand residents with an estimated three thousand supernatural encounters in and around the city limits per year. The number of missing persons cases is kept out of the media.
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If you like shows with a supernatural aura like Supernatural, True Blood, or hell even Scooby Doo, or video games like Resident Evil... then this RP might just be what you're looking for. I'm building this as sort of a sandbox with a bunch of stories going on at once and intertwining. You can be a supernatural type of character, a resident in the town who's into monster hunting, a good guy, a bad guy, this is meant to be a kitchen sink type of game. I even managed to work in one of my favorite superhero concepts with a bit of a connection to werewolves with Silver Bullet.
The town of Darkwater is meant to be something of a mix of RE's Racoon City and Bon Temps from the True Blood series. Westman Chemical Plant will be similar to the Umbrella Corps but to a much smaller scale. The Riverview Diner is meant to be a local spot similar to the animal shapeshifter's in True Blood. The Gothic Museum is gonna secretly house some artifacts and also be a spot for some potentially meddling teenagers, podcasters, ghosts, goths, etc. And since every city needs it's opposite, Queensport will be it's closest neighboring city and more of a ray of sunshine compared to Darkwater. More street lights and greener grass.
Only the REALLY old vampires can fly and they don't have finer abilities like hypnosis or shapeshifting, werewolves are of the humanoid variety and not just big dire wolf type creatures (I dig the ones from the Underworld series), and Leatherwings are meant to be similar to Man-Bat from the Batman universe. Other than that you guys can go nuts. Banshees, witches, Whistling Jacks / Wildmen / Sasquatches, ghosts, cave dwelling rakes, skinwalkers, demons, Swamp Thing like plant creatures or creatures like from the Black Lagoon, Tulpas, shamans, voodoo practitioners, maybe a mystic like DC's Zatana or Constantine, random experiments from Westman Chemical, the limits are veeeery few here. Could be a man in a suit and mask with a hidden agenda Scooby Doo style even.
The Lazarus Man is also a take on Frankenstein's monster who gains the abilities and skills of the people he kills and takes a piece of them. The finger of a mystic. The hand of Europe's finest surgeon. The arm of a former athlete. The tongue of a ventriloquist. The trigger finger of a police officer that was ex military. A female park ranger will be killed and missing her eye, she'll also be the first zombie in Darkwater. The zombies come from Lazarus Man's mystical and surgical process of grafting somebody's body to his own as a side effect unknown to him. They just spring back to life wherever they are around four days after they die, most of the time in the wooded areas or in morgues if found. He's currently looking for a piece of a werewolf to gain their healing factor as well as pieces of other supernaturals when he discovers them, and artifacts potentially in the museum. He's meant to be an antagonist for just about every type of character.
Westman Chemical will likely be using vampire, zombie, and werewolf DNA to come up with bio weapons like the Leatherwings and other abominations. Hell somebody could rework a Killer Croc type of character for this that was an experiment of Westman. Not saying I need proper supervillains for my guy, but one or two residents could totally be based off of Batman villains.
If you made it this far you are a champ. I know this idea is all over the place but I didn't want something basic or something like a shared universe, I wanted a real kitchen sink of an original setting. It's definitely a darker vibe, but there's room for camp as well with the types of residents we could have around while shit's going down. Need around 5-6 people to get this one going but we could go bigger with about 10-12. If there's enough interest I'll post up a Character Sheet base! LMK what you've got in mind, let's do this!!!