Haydrian Cindel

The Rain In The Cycolpean City. (H.P. Lovecraft/Cthulhu Mythos Roleplay)

I'm glad I'm not the only one who based their character off of a pre-existing one :') if any of you have seen The X Files, Feed is based heavily on Fox Mulder.
And hopefully we have several wild adventures in this roleplay ^_^

The Rain In The Cycolpean City. (H.P. Lovecraft/Cthulhu Mythos Roleplay)

Ferd turned at the sound of footsteps to his right. A man with a lit smoke had just stepped round the corner, and was walking down the street towards him. He seemed to be eyeing Ferd as approached, and Ferd noted that though the man's hands remained inside his pockets, one of them seemed to shuffle around for moment. A weapon? Possibly. It wouldn't be that odd for a cautious man to carry protection in a busy city like Arkham. Though from the look of the man, Ferd doubted very much that if he was carrying a weapon that it was purely for self defense.

It was mainly the man's eyes that made Ferd feel this way. They were suspicious, full of grit, and haunted. Most would have disagreed with Ferd on the last point. What Ferd thought of as haunted, others might have seen as flinty, or hardened. And they wouldn't have been wrong, but to Ferd flinty eyes came from somewhere, you weren't born with them. In Ferd's experience those who had developed such gazes had done so out of nesecity. They lived hard lives that required hard spirits, making this a symptom of their circumstances, or the ghost of their actions, which was why Feed refered to them as haunted eyes. You could tell a lot about someone from their eyes. Ferd's almost always looked tired.

Well whoever this man was he sure seemed interested in Ferd. Ferd decided it would be best to stay on guard. Might be one of the others on the list mentioned in the letter, but there was no reason he couldn't be one of the shadowy visitors from the letter either. Ferd resisted the urge to sigh. Suddenly he wished he'd brought a weapon of his own to hide in his pocket. Oh well, hands could be lethal as well. He shrugged to himself and turned to fully face the fellow. No point in ignoring him, besides Ferd's mother had always said it was rude not greet people on the street. He chuckled to himself. Mama hadn't spent much time in downtown Boston.

"Hello," Feed nodded to the fellow, leaning against the houses walkway railing with his elbows. "You wouldn't happen to know where the house sitter for this place is would you? I'm not confident he's inside." He gestured to the door to house with a jerk of his head, "I received a letter asking me and I think a few others to meet him here." Spread his hands, palms up in front of him and went on, "He seemed a bit frantic in the letter. I'd be lying if I said I wasn't concerned for his safety."

The Rain In The Cycolpean City. (H.P. Lovecraft/Cthulhu Mythos Roleplay)

@Gurren1 Awesome, I'll PM and we'll toss some ideas around.

Also a couple house keeping items
1 thanks for your patience, you've all been great so far. This is the first roleplay I've run since getting back into the guild, so I know I've missed some details (mostly minor thankfully) in set up. On that note,

2 I realized I didn't give you any real info as to how I wanted first posts to go, but @thegreenleafe took his queue perfectly. I'd like initial posts to contain basic responses to Jeremies letter, have travel to Arkham in them, and then more or less wrap up with joining the group. Small side stops along the way are fine, just don't take to long to join the main group. I'll likely respond to Val's post soon, so the two of us may have some dialogue before the others arrive and that's fine.

3 I also realized I forgot to ask for appearance descriptions. It would be lovely if y'all would add that into your character sheets.

4 Since I haven't been back to the guild for long I can't remember/figure out how the image link function works, and I'd like to post maps and what not for reference. Any help? I press the image button, copy and paste the image link I want but then the image won't show -_- not sure what I'm doing wrong. I think the links themselves may not be quite right though.

The Rain in The Cyclopean City: An H.P. Lovecraft/Cthulu Mythos Roleplay.

Ok, Initial post is up! See you all over in the OC, you can ask me any questions there or PM me!

The Rain In The Cycolpean City. (H.P. Lovecraft/Cthulhu Mythos Roleplay)

Ferd rubbed at his face, praying that he might be able to rub the sleep out of his eyes. He groaned angrily. It wasn't like he'd had a bad nights sleep, but for some reason he just couldn't shake the heaviness in his face. He sighed, sliding his hands into his trench coat pockets in defeat. A steam whistle went off in the distance pulling Ferd back to reality. He looked about himself, gathering his bearings. The train station he was in was as crowded as the came, plenty of passengers and railroad workers bustling about. It was in good repair to, as far as that went. Ferd didn't really pay any mind to all of that though. He'd just remembered why he was in the train station. Old Jeremy.
He felt an involuntary shiver run up his spine. If that old fool had actually found that city he'd been looking for, then Ferd wasn't exactly surprised he hadn't returned home yet. Not that he knew very much about it admittedly, but when Jeremy had shown him the map, he had recognized certain symbols that had given him pause. Every single case he could think of that had involved those symbols some how had ended badly. He'd lost partners, people disappeared and never came back, shoot there was one case from two years back that resulted in three months of lost time that he couldn't account for. He wasn't sure whether he should be grateful for that or not.
Ferd grit his teeth. Just thinking about old cases sometimes set him on edge. He had yet to crack one of them, and the fact that he didn't have any solid evidence to back up some of the things he'd seen didn't help any. There were moments that he wasn't entirely sure that he himself hadn't gone loopy and all the things he thought he'd seen were just in his head. Those thoughts were probably the hardest to ignore. The only thing that kept him from giving in was the thought of all the people who had disappeared over the years that he had tried to save. If there was even a slight chance that those people had ever been real, and some terrible things had really happened to them then he had to keep investigating. This thought alone kept the despair of impending madness from taking root in Ferd's mind. He couldn't let those people down. Plus there was just to much evidence.
Though it wasn't always the sort of evidence that would have stood up in court, Ferd couldn't take anything for granted. Any slight connection could be a valuable clue. Sometimes he felt like a witch hunter from the Salem Witch Trials what with the way he interrogated people based off of what most would call coincidence. But then Ferd wasn't so sure the witch hunters had been all that far off anymore. If anything he thought they just hadn't used the right tests, that they'd looked for the wrong clues. If he'd been a betting man, and were there a poll open on the subject, he would have bet a million to one that the witches rigged the whole thing. Probably wanted the witch hunters to tie iron balls to their legs and throw them in lakes. After all what was a little iron and water to witchcraft? No in Ferd's opinion the witch's faked their own deaths and then continued doing whatever witches do without any interference.
Ferd shook himself. Enough day dreaming, he needed to make sure he didn't miss his train. He may not have had any hope that Jeremy was still alive, but if he could figure out how he'd march into Hell itself to find out what happened. And hopefully bring back a souvenir as proof.

**********

The train rolled to a slow stop in Arkham station. Ferd arched his back in a much needed stretch before standing up. He looked out the windows at the wet metropolis. Harry hadn't been kidding. It really did look like it hadn't stopped raining in nearly two years. He grabbed what luggage he had and made his way to the exit, waiting till he was the last one to exit. Ferd didn't like bumping into people if he could avoid it. To many stories out there about people taking ill shortly after bumping into some unnatural being all dressed up as a regular human.
Once off the train he looked about the station for an information kiosk. He needed to get his hands on a map, 1111 S Curlew Dr. wasn't going to find itself. As he looked around he noticed there didn't seem to be all that many people at the station. That seemed rather odd. He thought he remembered there being a decent number of passengers on the train here. Perhaps they'd all scurried off to their destinations already? Still that didn't seem right. What with the rain most visitors would be at least a little hesitant to head outside, not without procuring an umbrella first anyway. Ferd appraised the kiosk he was approaching, and sure enough they carried maps and umbrellas. They didn't seem to have sold very many of either. That led him to the other half of his thought, the only people who would be able to vacate this premises so quickly were likely to be locals returning from some trip. While it wasn't strictly speaking strange for locals to return to a city, it did seem strange that they made up the majority of the passengers. No that wasn't likely to be it. Well subtract being an actual local from the equation and leave the prior knowledge of current events in Arkham and you got an altogether new range of possibilities.
"Excuse me sir," Ferd smiled at the kiosk owner, "I was hoping to buy a map, an umbrella, and possibly bend your ear with a few questions I have."
The man shrugged as if to say he didn't have anything better to do than talk to nosy tourists, "That'll be a Nickle and a Quarter for the map, and umbrella."
Ferd rummaged around his pocket for the coins as he began questioning the fellow, "Has Arkham been getting many..."

**********

Ferd stood outside of 1111 S Curlew Dr. after walking nearly the entire breadth of the city. He'd never been very good at reading maps. He looked up and down the street. The letter had made mention of a list of names it would be mailed to. Was he the first to arrive? With a shrug he walked up the steps and knocked on the door. It shook almost violently at his tapping. He stepped back in surprise. After looking the door over he finally remembered that Harry had said some "shadowy visitors" had broken in before assaulting him. The old hickory surely looked like it had been beaten down. The hinges were barely hanging onto the house framing, and there were splinters and cracks surrounding both the hinges and the locking mechanism.
Ferd scratched his chin. The letter had been dated nearly a week ago today. He had tried to make it to Arkham as quickly as he could, but he had wondered if he would make it in time. For all he knew Harry Everfield was lying dead in his bed, strangled and rotting. Or even worse he may have simply disappeared, by natural on unnatural means. Either option would significantly increase the mountain of work already in store for Ferd. He sighed. How long was he supposed to wait for Harry to come to the door before he assumed the worst? Should he call the police this time? They tended to get in the way, but he really didn't want to have to explain things if Harry's body was still around. He'd spent more than enough time locked up while the police took their time deciding he really hadn't killed anyone. He began tapping his foot again. It was getting cold, and he'd never loved the rain either. Harry had better still be alive, in this reality, and in that house.

The Rain In The Cycolpean City. (H.P. Lovecraft/Cthulhu Mythos Roleplay)

Dear Recipient

Light fog and soft misty rainfall greet most travelers in Arkham these days. The city inhabitant's seem unaware of the strangely out of season weather, going about their daily routines with out so much as a shrug towards the sky, smiling and waving to each other cheerily. After all, what's a little rain in a city like Arkham? Most locals learned to ignore strange happenings a long time ago. What happens in the shadows, usually stays in the shadows, and it isn't wise to make room for those shadows.
Of course there are those who feel a bit differently about the strange happenings in Arkham. People who live in rundown apartments with oddly angled roofs and doorways, older folk who live on the outskirts of town and mutter about fish faced people, never going out on clear nights, and corpses that don't stay dead, lunatics locked up in the Asylum's who gibber and moan about strange dreams, dreams of ancient gods and dreams of previous and future lives spent soaring in outer space, and Old Jeremy. Old Jeremy who used to talk about a map his uncle left him, along with a letter that contained all sorts of madness. Old Jeremy who always used to talk about the day he'd figure out what city the ancient map was of, and he'd finally set off to find out what had become of his uncle. Old Jeremy who ran out of his rickety shack in the middle of town jumping and shouting with glee, claiming he'd found the city! Old Jeremy who left home two years, three months, and five days ago... and hasn't been heard from since. Old Jeremy who wasn't around when the rain came, nearly a year after he left.
Folks have turned it into a joke, "The rain'll stop when Old Jeremy comes a crawlin back from his crazy adventure half starved, and crazier than when he left." They then slap each other on the back, and chuckle, somehow reassured that the rain really isn't all that strange, Old Jeremy really was crazy, and Arkham isn't any different from the rest of the world after all. But it is.

Apologies for the bizarre introduction, I find my mind wanders these days. Ever since Jeremy disappeared things have gotten worse. More of the shadowy visitors have been knocking on his door, though I never answer it. I'm a house sitter after all, not his butler. Oh, of course I haven't introduced myself. Again, apologies, sometimes I get distracted what with... the whispers… you know the ones, the ones you swear are coming from inside the shadows in certain corners of a room even though there's nothing there? Just the wind, most people say, and well normally I say.
It's just being alone in this old house I think. Has me on edge. Ah what a mess! I've just reread everything I've wrote and decided I'll have to rewrite the whole thing. Don't know why I'm still scribbling on this paper anyway. It's all these strange things that have been happening, especially the rain. I swear there's something not right about that rain, though it could just be that I'm missing the sunlight. Plenty of that outside of Arkham, which is one reason I'm so loath that I have to stay here and mind this house for Jeremy. Honestly, did he truly need to pawn his problems off on me? I'm fed up with all the strange things going on here, and no one willing to talk about them! I swear if one more

No time to explain! The visitors came again, broke the door down, beat me something horrible! I'm off to purchase a weapon or two for when they come back and to send this letter off! No time to rewrite it! My name is Harry Everfield, a friend of Jeremy Stockhold. I'm watching his home for him and I'm worried something horrible has happened to him! I checked his address book and found a list containing names of people he wished me to send for should I ever have reason to believe he may be in dire trouble. Well I surely do. Please make your way to Arkham city, 1111 South Curlew Drive with all haste! I don't know how much time Jeremy has left.

I don't even know how much time I have left...

Regards

Harry Everfield, House Sitter

*********

Hello everyone! I am a huge fan of all things H.P. Lovecraft, and as is the norm, the Cthulhu Mythos is my preferred home amongst his creations. That said while this roleplay will take place within that Mythos we will be honoring Lovecraft's wishes and adding our own ideas and flair to his mysterious world.

Our roleplay will take place in the late 1920's, to early 1930's though we will avoid the years of World War 2 as that would hinder some of my plans for the roleplay. Player characters may begin wherever in the world they would like, with a few stipulations. They will all be recipients of the above letter, must all speak good English, and be at least moderately inclined to actually travel to Arkham and discover what has become of Jeremy. Characters May Not have powerful motivations that would prevent them from pursuing the main story of this roleplay, nor may they be the type that will cause significant trouble for other player characters. This roleplay will require a decent amount of team work as it will be a detective type story with a Lovecraft twist.
That said you can have troublesome characters such as gangsters, cheats, murderers etc. etc. as long as their personalities are such that they will act like normal human beings majority of the time. Your intelligent, you know what I'm trying to say.

Characters may be of any profession, and have almost any level of knowledge in any field, save that they may not have had any 1st person encounters with the supernatural up to this point.

Any who I think that covers the basics! Lemme know if your interested, and feel free to type up a character sheet for me to go over. We currently have four players and are still open to having more.

The Rain in The Cyclopean City: An H.P. Lovecraft/Cthulu Mythos Roleplay.

Alright guys here's the link to the roleplay, I'm still working on my initial post but you can move over CS anytime

The Rain In The Cycolpean City. (H.P. Lovecraft/Cthulhu Mythos Roleplay)

Ferd Smith

Name: Ferd Smith

Age: 35

Appearance: 6'1", Brown hair blue eyes, often in a white shirt and tie with a business style trench coat over top. His top button is nearly always undone, and his tie loosened to match.

Occupation: Former Military Intelligence Officer, Currently Unemployed but claims to be a "Private Investigator currently studying the complex tendencies of certain unnatural occurrences."

Interests: Survival Prepping, Stamp Collecting, Supernatural Occurences, and Astronomy

Fears and Phobias: Ferd is terrified of never finding the answers he's looking for, and has a phobia of mailmen. He swears it's a real phobia, and can't be categorized as a social phobia since only postmen ever trigger this fear.

Superstitions: Ferd believes in nearly every superstition he's ever heard. In his opinion he's seen plenty of proof to back them up.

Skills: Well versed in Judo, Kung-Fu, American Boxing, Gunplay, Lockpicking, Persuasion, Impersonation, general Deception, Sneaking, German, Russian, Polish, Spanish, Mandarin, Latin, Hieroglyph's, and Tax Evasion. No really. He hasn't paid taxes in ten years. Says it's all some sort of conspiracy.

Intelligence/Sanity: Ferd is a very intelligent and surprisingly sane person... Well, for the most part. He got perfect scores all through out his schooling and received high praises for his work in the military before his discharge. However he has reason to question the reality he thought he knew. His sanity is solid and reliable, even in the midst of supernatural events, though people around him would likely be dubious concerning this fact. Though he technically remains calm, this is mostly because he mentally lives as though the supernatural exists, causing him to do things like look for supernatural explanations where others would search for rational ones. He also makes no effort to hide his fascination with the supernatural, causing his sanity to seem questionable at best.

Backstory

Ferd Smith was born in Boston Massachusetts to normal parents. He lived a fairly normal life for the majority of his child hood. In fact nothing particularly strange took place in Ferd's life until his third year serving as a Military Intelligence officer, and his 6th year in the military itself. The year was 1919 and he was 29. He was on an undercover assignment in Germany, keeping an eye on things as was the governments policy since the Great War. For Ferd this was an average assignment, and he didn't expect anything out of the ordinary. Things had been quite in the Prussian state for years now, with the only notable occurrence being the birth of a new political party calling themselves the Nazis. The end of the war had left them in a tight spot financially and socially so they weren't exactly in a position to be causing any trouble. Ferd was fairly certain he was wasting his time in Germany, which irked him greatly. He was far more concerned about the rebellion in Russia. That communist party just rubbed him the wrong way.

Ferd spent his days fairly leisurely. He would lend a hand in welfare relief efforts from time to time, and of course he never slacked off on his regular duties, but since there wasn't much to investigate he found that he had a lot of time on his hands. It wasn't long before he found himself sitting in pubs, conversing with elderly locals. He found them charming, and strangely relatable. Especially one group of elderly men who he met in an old town outside of Frankfurt. They called themselves the "Dumm Opa's", or Silly Geezers. Ferd loved these old men dearly. They would discuss all current events as only the elderly can, full of satire and sarcasm. He spent many happy hours with these men, but not as many as he should have liked. It all ended rather suddenly one day. One of the men who was named Shultz didn't come to the pub one evening. The others didn't seem very concerned, but Ferd couldn't help but wonder where the old fellow was. It wasn't like Shultz to miss an evening at the pub.

He began questioning the others about Shultz's absence, but they laughed him off and told him to have another drink. Ferd was confused, they didn't seem themselves. He noticed shaky hands, and darting glances. He tried to follow these glances but couldn't understand what they were looking at. The ceiling?

Ferd never saw Shultz again, and after than night the rest of the Dumm Opa's disappeared as well. Ferd put off all of his official duties to investigate their disappearance, but found himself blocked at every turn. Family and friends claimed never to have known them, public records made no mention of them, and things like bank accounts had disappeared along with them. Only two things remained to even hint at their existence. Ferd's memory of them, and their empty homes. Homes that no one bought, looked at, or even seemed to realize existed. Ferd once dragged a random passerby into one of these homes and yelled at him to acknowledge it's existence. The man just stared at Ferd with blank fear. It finally sank in for Ferd then. The man was serious. He didn't see a house, and the world had no recollection of the existence of the old men. Only he remembered. But why him? So many questions.

Ferd was discharged from his duties on account of his seemingly fragile state of mind shortly there after. He didn't care. He knew he was sane, and he knew what he'd seen. More than that he knew what he needed to do. He needed to see the supernatural with his own eyes. Someone needed to come to understand the strange things in the world, so that some day maybe someone could save the next group of Dumm Opa's...

Five years after begining his investigations Feed received a strange letter. He was surprised to finde mail in the P.O. box he was still using as an address, since he seldom received anything but bills. He instantly recognized the name of Old Jeremy, though this Harry character was new. After pouring over it two or three times inside his car, Ferd dropped it and sat forward, leaning on the stearing wheel hand over his mouth. This was probably going to end badly, he thought. Then again, he went on as he turned the key and pushed the car into gear, since when has that been news to me?

The Rain in The Cyclopean City: An H.P. Lovecraft/Cthulu Mythos Roleplay.

@thegreenleafe Perfect! Move it over once I get the OC up.
I especially like the gangster backround, and the debt tie in. Can't wait to work out the details behind that with you.
Ya know Old Jeremy must have got around a good bit to have met and indebted the people he seems to have :)

The Rain in The Cyclopean City: An H.P. Lovecraft/Cthulu Mythos Roleplay.

@Gurren1 Looks excellent so far, lemme know what/if you decide to make any changes. You tie in to Jeremy is fine as well, in it could be fun to work Leggers into the story somehow if your interested.
@thegreenleafe Awesome! Glad to have you, let me know if you have any questions.

Since we have 4 of us now, I'll get the OC and IC pages up within the next few hours, along with my initial post so we can get rolling. @Gurren1 and @Roland go ahead post your CS on the OC. You can update them their when/if you decide to edit them at all. @thegreenleafe Post your CS here first so I can go over it, then after i make sure it's good to go you can send it over to the OC.

Also I don't y'all to feel rushed if you prefer to iron out your CS a bit more before making a first post, that's fine, I just want to get the initial post up 1 cuz I'm excited and 2 so I can start setting in game atmosphere and what not.