Penny

The Sunday Group - Paranormal Detectives

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.

How to Write a Collaborative Mystery

As long time Pennyphiles will know this is my third attempt to get his rp up and running. In the past one of the problems with it was how can we present a mystery in a way that lets players interact with the mystery rather than I as the GM doling out all the intel? Fortunately I have recently played an RPG called Lovecraftesque which has given me a potential solution. I'm going to allow players to introduce clues, and then have players formulate their best guess as to what is going on in the OOCs to steer the whole thing towards a coherent narrative. I may ask you to rewrite occasionally to facilitate this, or your character may simply be wrong or deceived about events you have describe.

This is somewhat experimental and may change.

Pacing

As my Father is fond of saying 'We didn't come here to fuck spiders.' What does this mean? I honestly don't know, but the tone of this RP will be active. I don't mind a certain amount of the internal life of the character being presented but wherever possible do something rather than picking up a cup of coffee and taking four paragraphs to do it. Quality is not quantity ect ect ect.

The Black of Night - Urban Shadows

The priest looked between January and Yuki, clearly skeptical.

"St Anthony is the Patron of Lost Things," he said after a long moment, turning to look at one of the stained glass windows that depicted a tonsured man reading from a book while performing some kind of alchemical experiment.

"Things are brought here to be Lost, not to be found," he continued, his voice contemplative.

"Perhaps, in His wisdom, He allowed that which was brought to us to be lost to be found," the priest pondered.

"I'm sorry, even as things stand, I cannot allow members of the public to the private areas of the Cathedral."

The Pavonis Campaign - Warhammer 40000

Katiya was beginning to regret not insisting on troops from the Governor. That worthy would have refused on the basis that troops moving out of the palace in any numbers might have provoked a response. She might have been right on that score also which is why Katiya had conceded the point more or less gracefully. It would have been possible to scare up a few PDF troopers for the duty, but the prescence of PDF issue las guns and flamers in the mob earlier hadn't been lost on the commissar. She wouldn't be depending on the PDF until she had more time to feel out the loyalty of the troops, both enlisted and officers both. The exact nature of the problem here on Pavonis was yet to be clarified. It could just be normal manuevering among the noble families of course, but if that was the case someone had miscaulculated badly enough that a guard regiment had been deployed. There were other things it could be though, and they started bad and got worse rapidly. In the scholam Katiya had learned more about the Ruinous powers than any save for the inquisition and the fear of Chaos and its minions was very real. This kind of internal dissent was a classic tactic of the minions of the Great Enemy.

The Vox station was a simple building, consisting of a large rectangular ferocrete base and then a trio of great metal antennae which thrust skyward like cathedral spires. The approach to it was steep, a narrow dirt road that was deeply rutted and wide enough only for a single truck to pass in any direction. Rather than approach from the road, they circled around to the side where the view from the main building was obstructed by a chapel dedicated to the Ominissiah, easily identifiable by the rusted cogwheel icon which perched above its roof. The pair crept to the tree line and peered out, Katiya pulling an amplivisor down over her eyes to increase her vision in the moonlight. The black on grey pattern she had took to be camouflage turned out to be graffiti scrawled by local juvies, but the place wasn't abandoned.

A pair of battered looking civilian ground cars were pulled up infront of the main building and lights winked through the tall narrow windows of the place. A trio of heavyset guards carrying autostubbers sat on the hoods of the cars, smoking lo-sticks and looking bored.

"Somebody is home," she observed quietly.

Dogs of War: Old World Mercenaries

The fight was now turning in favor of the humans. If the dryads had opted to destroy the defenders in detail rather than rushing for the manor house it might have been different, but their alien and insane focus on breeching the walls had given the defenders time to regroup. 'In favor of' didn't mean the humans were having it all their own way however. Even as Camilla watched a grizzled looking older man had his head snapped to an unnatural angle by a blow of a bough that whipped hard enough to send a spray of dead leaves after the fallen soldier. Another soldier, a young man with freckles and red hair tripped on the body and on of the dryads gleeful leaped atop the youth and plunged its wicked branch arms down into the boys guts, the red tips coming away bloody and steaming in the crisp winter air. Camilla fired the pistol she had managed to reload into the things face by way of avenging the fallen. The wood of the things head splintered but its glowing green eyes didn't dim. An older woman screaming in pain and loss swung an oil lamp two handed to crash down on the things back with a shattering scream of glass and a whoosh of oil igniting. The dryad screamed and rushed off into the night, wreathed in smoke, blazing and burning as it went.

"We have to get inside before they get to the Graf," Camilla declared, eyes darting around for the nearest gate. The gatehouse, two pillars of stone with vast wrought iron doors was a mass of struggling men and hissing thrashing dryads.

"We will haf te fight our wae every step..." Thor began to object, but Camilla was already thrusting her mostly useless rapier back into its scabbard.

"Sollevami," she said and ran at Cydric. The big mercenary dropped his own sword and made a stirrup of his hands. Camilla stepped into it and leaped upwards as Cydric uncoiled his vast leg muscles hurling her ten feet into the air and over the wall. She tumbled in a full circle, caught the edge of the wall and landed on her belly an arm reached down towards her companions. Cydric ran at the wall grabbing her arm as he leaped. Cydric outweighed Camilla by nearly a hundred pounds, but she dropped over the far side, her dead weight allowing the mercenary to keep is momentum till he reached the top and could grasp the top of the wall.

"Oh aye," Gunir groused disgustedly, "but what about thaes of us tha no be circus freaks?" The drawven accent on 'freaks' made it sound like frakes which made Camilla snicker.

"Got any rope?" Cydric asked with a meaningful look at the coil of heavy dwarven cord that hung from his belt.

"Aye ya'right," the dwarf grudgingly allowed and hurled the cord up to Cydric who quickly made it fast around a wrought iron spike. Leaving the dwarves to their slower progress, the two humans dropped into the garden of the manor house. Bodies of livered guardsmen, most only partially dressed and indifferently armed lay steaming in the chill, their bodies bruised and torn by thorny arms. Piles of dead timber which had once been dryads were scattered around too, though they had clearly had the better of the exchange. A broken window winked jagged glass and the sounds of fighting could be heard from further in the house. A vine from a nearby tree reared back and whipped at Camillia, her rapier hissed free of her scabbard and severed the questing vine neatly. Other plants began to shiver and grow agitated.

"Into the house," she called and jumped through the window, crunching broken glass beneath her feet. They were in a large parlor that must have also served as a ball room. A servant lay in the corner in a pile of blood and bloody tracks lead out one of the side doors. Camilla followed, though what use her rapier was likely to be was open to question. Through the door was a scene of chaos. A score of dryads were attempting to surge up an ornate stair case that lead to the upper and private areas of the manor. The climbed over each others like spiders, spilling up over the elaborate banisters like the surf rushing up a channel. At the top of the stairwell, wearing a cotton nightgown with pink roses embodied on it, was three hundred angry porcine pounds of the Gräfin of Dounkebruk, swinging an ancient battle axe in a way that would have made any orcish chieftain jealous. Her jowly face was white with fury as she hacked and chopped any of the dryads that tried to reach the landing. Piles of dead wood were aiding her in her task but for all her fury it was obvious that within a few more seconds the climbing dryads would be able to flank her and reach the second story.

@POOHEAD189

Blades of the Blood Coast

In my defense I was statistically drunk when I wrote that.

Blades of the Blood Coast

Whoops! Edited accordingly.

Blades of the Blood Coast

Emmaline decided to take a seat with Migi and Jaina figuring that the three of them together the constituted two and a half fully sized women. The air of aggrieved nobility had slid from her as soon as they were through the gate. It wasn't likely that the guards would spread the word of their party, odd as they were. How would that even go? Well your honors we were trying to shake down some travelers and... well the rest of that sentence had better be really good. Even though she was penniless and dressed in what amounted to rags, she was in considerably better spirits now that she was back in a city. Varone might not be her home turf but it was closer to home than she had been since she had been imprisoned.

"I'll have wine, whatever red you have," she told the serving woman as she took her seat beside the two women. Sitting next to Migi made her feel enormous and unwieldy as well as oddly self conscious for some reason..

"You can put it on Raddek's tab," she said blithely making a gesture towards the departing mercenary. It was a reasonable enough thing to say and if Raddek objected, well she would have already had some wine. It was time to think about how she might earn some gold of her own. She had no skill with a sword and no capital of her own to start with. That left the worlds oldest and second oldest professions. As yet she wasn't quite desperate enough to resort to the first, which left the second. The card game seemed the best place to start in that respect, though given this was the groups only haven in this strange city she had to reign in her natural enthusiasm while she got the lay of the land.

"I wonder how a girl can earn some coin here about?" she mused to her companions as she waited for her drink. The Blackmoon had seemed like her kind of place as they passed but she wasn't fool enough to wander in there with no money and no clue about how things worked in this strange city. A few ideas were already percolating in the back of her mind but she was worried she might trip over the local thieves guild if she decided to jump in with both feet.

Rolls

Emmaline tries to figure out what is going on with the dice game
Perception 5

City of Thieves

"It is a shame that we cannot rely on the good Count to hire you as a minstrel," Kashvi remarked as she emerged from the darkness.

"Come," she gestured and took off at a run, vaulting up onto the edge of the roof and launching herself across the gap to the next roof, landing quietly on the glazed tiles, her soft shoes muffling her falls. Galt followed without comment, leaping across the gap with his lit pipe still trailing smoke in one hand. Well he was a thief and if he wasn't up to the job it was better she learn in advance. Without comment she took off again, leaping from roof to roof as they traversed the Thieves Highway through the darkness. This was the last night of the waning moon and there was only a dull glimmer of moonlight to suplement the torches and lanterns in the street below. That made the following night the dark of the moon, which was too the good as it provided the most darkness, but also a problem as it was the night when the common folk new to best guard their valuables.

It wasn't possible to reach Dimascu's manor via the Thieves Highway. By the time they reached the more opulent sections of the city the jump between roofs was growing too wide for easy leaps to cover, and the likelyhood of being spotted was increasing. Worst of all the manor itself was in the so called Green Quater. This was an area beyond the old walls in which nobles had constructed detached manor houses amidsts modest gardens and over groomed woods. The area was heavily patroled by the footmen of the various nobles who had houses there, and there was very little in the way of natural foot traffic. Passing the Garden Gate and into the Green Quater would have been obvious, even if they weren't both dressed rough, so Kashvi instead curved north to the Old North Tower. The old tower had been a cornerstone of the defences when the old walls had been the outermost ring of defences, but since the city had expanded and the new walls had gone up it had been left to crumble, a haunt for ravens and for the occasional couple who wanted a romantic view over the city at night. Fortunately there were no such romantics tonight.

The top of the tower did provide an impressive view of the city though, from its crumbling pinnacle they could see all the way to the Black Harbor and glimpse the Ducal Palace with its thousand glass windows. The streets below bustled even at night and the steady fog of a thousand fires waved in the cool night air. Kashvi reached into her cloak and produced a small glass spy tube. She extended it with a snap and trained it on the distant manor. Staring through it for several seconds. The tube had been enchanted so that it rendered the scene as though it were daylight, albiet a slightly greenish and unnatural looking daylight. Finally she pulled the tube from her eye and passed it to Galt.

"A difficult nut, as you people say."

City of Thieves

"What's it worth?" Kashvi asked as she watched the witch sand. She lifted her hand and the view of the manor twisted and reformed at a greater remove. The Count was clearly no fool having kept some considerable areas clear between his manor and the teeming streets of the city. The spell wasn't a reproduction of reality per se, rather it was an abstraction of Shipwreck's understanding of it. That understanding was considerablely greater than Kashvi's own. There were several routes she could see that might allow access, with greater or lesser degrees of risk. Shipwreck snorted.

"That is the right question, this month and next months dues, plus a years access to the Kitchens." The Kitchens were not, as they might first sound, eateries or places of food preparation. Rather they were a series of alchemy labs, fabrication shops, forges and other manufactories that the guild maintained to equip its members. In theory any thief above a certain rank could rent access. Most new members tried it out once, only to learn that the cost usually prohibited what you could make back. A skilled artisan might use the tools to his or her advantage tough, even sell on what they made.

"Ok, body count?" she asked. Joe sucked in a breath, not in shock, but in consideration.

"Well we don't want a blood bath, but we don't want to avoid killing so bad we dont want the job done," the elder thief replied. Kashvi frowned at the equivocal answer. She had killed, more than once, but she wasn't a footpad or an assassin.

"Well I don't have other questions, need to see the ground before I can make a proper ... before we can make a proper assessment though," she continued, casting an eye across at her new partner. Working with others mitigated some risks and multiplied others. Still this seemed like it was more than a one man job.

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Moonrise on Tephis