For the better part of a year, the city of Wincrest, New Jersey, has been a literal nightmare.
A malicious force has fallen over the city, something that people have started calling 'The Curse'. For some, The Curse traps them in their own mental worlds, dreams and nightmares that bleed into reality if left unchecked. Others turn into monsters of any shape and size, born from their very fears. An organization called Behdlam R&D has put the entire city under lockdown, walling it away from the rest of the world. To put it simply, things are pretty shit nowadays.
You're one of the lucky ones, though. You're immune to The Curse's effects - you don't get sucked into these weird dreamscapes, you haven't turned into a monster yet, and the people in charge say you're safe, so it looks good. But that also means you're in the thick of it. Behdlam R&D has recruited you against your wishes, using your natural resistance to their advantage. Now part of a branch called the "Sweet Dreams Corps", it's your job to clean up the messes. You stop the monsters, you go into people's heads... essentially, you're supernatural pest control.
Good luck!
~
Premise
You are the newest "recruits" of the Sweet Dreams Corps, a semi-militarized taskforce made to combat The Curse, a supernatural force that's plaguing the city. Between fighting off horrific monsters and diving into the dreams of those under The Curse, you'll have your work cut out to keep the peace. Luckily, along with being immune to The Curse, you possess a slight grasp over it, and can wield its dream-like power for yourself. With Behdlam R&D backing your and literal magic at your fingertips, you might stand a chance against the weirdness going on out there.
But there's a chill in the air, a sense that, as you near the first anniversary of when The Curse began, something really bad is about to happen...
This RP will be done in a loose pseudo-episodic fashion. this might just be how RPs are already done but What this means is that there will be distinct Chapters, arcs centered on a certain event or major period of time within the story, and a lot of the fluff in between will be passed over. There may be 'Break Chapters' that take place between the bigger ones, but it probably won't be consistent.
This is so that the focus will be more on the meat of the RP and will hopefully avoid any slow lulls as we all wait for a chance to do a traditional timeskip.
As for the tone, I'm aiming for a semi-comedic, dark Saturday Morning Cartoon-esque style. The subject matter is going to be serious (it's about fears, the inner workings of people's minds, and big scary monsters) but the stuff surrounding it will be absurd and sometimes ridiculous (you could fight monster clowns with colorful neon bubble powers).
In keeping with the lighthearted side of the RP, I'm going to be including some game-y elements. For every Chapter, there will be Objectives, which are basically plot beats and end goals put into concrete form. There are both Main and Side Objectives. A Chapter ends shortly after all of its Main objectives are completed (and I don't pull a fast one by adding more) to keep the flow going. Side objectives will remain uncompleted if they aren't once a Chapter ends, and may even affect the story going forward oooohooh
Achievements are straight-forward, they're fun little rewards for doing something significant, either on your own accord or due to certain objectives. These aren't going to be set in stone and I could very well come up with them on the spot if something real interesting happens or people manage to subvert my expectations, so don't be afraid to get a little wild! Just, y'know, not too wild.
Finally, both of these systems(?) are directly related to the third: XP. Each Objective and Achievement comes with it a small bit of XP that is awarded to the characters that were involved with reaching them. Once a character reaches a certain XP milestone, they can cash it in for some benefit - different equipment, more ways to use their powers, etc. This won't have an in-universe rational, this is purely a meta element, justified in that your characters are receiving actual experience as they do cool things. That makes sense, right?
~
Setting
Wincrest. The Zombie City, as people call it. Having died and revived since its conception, Wincrest is infamous in most of New Jersey and the surrounding area for being cursed. Any business that starts there is soon to go bankrupt, and moving into the city is sure to shatter any dreams. Wincrest is either a thriving hotbed of hopeful beginning or a husk of utter nothingness, depending on who you ask. Of course, if you asked anybody now, they'd all agree that Wincrest really sucks.
Ever since The Curse was realized, Wincrest has been cut off from the rest of the world. Surrounded by a 10-foot thick wall of hard metal and encased in a gigantic bug-zapper of a dome, nobody has entered or left the city since. A dark haze fills the air, almost like a perpetual nighttime that blots out the sun, making the already depressing city even drearier. Life tries to go on as normal, but with jobs growing more defunct every day and the streets being a danger at a moment's notice, most everyone is antsy, riled, wanting things to change.
Now, folks are starting to gather; criminal elements converge, trying to overtake the city; mobs form, conflict rising as they just want to leave; some are even embracing The Curse, a cult that's steadily gathering more members as it boasts of salvation.
And, worse than all of that... the Block Stop finally ran out of slushie syrup!
Wincrest's history is a bit of a shaky one.
Originally Fort Wincrest and populated mostly by soldiers in the late 1600s, the small New England-based outpost eventually forgot why it was there and became something of a small village. It had a long history of participating in witch trials, doing so even after it fell out of style, to the point where its superstitious leaders, the Wincrest family, abandoned the townsfolk to their own devices and fled back to England in an effort to avoid the wrath of the many, many witches they've executed.
Fort Wincrest slowly declined, only the most stubborn of families staying around to try and maintain the place. Eventually, Jonathan Wincrest II returned to America, and decided to shack up in his family's ancestral home. Fort Wincrest, now just called Wincrest, was on the up as people flocked and buildings were raised, finally earning a spot on the maps.
A bit of good luck hit when it turned out that part of the land Wincrest was on was directly above a sizable oil reserve. With that, the city flourished. It attracted lots of families and businesses, and for once, truly thrived. But nothing good lasts in Wincrest. A competing oil company managed to sue the rights for all oil-related profits out from under the Wincrest family, and to top it off a new highway expansion diverted large amounts of traffic out of Wincrest. Once the oil ran out and the new company moved shop, the city was truly dried up.
In the years leading up to its current state, Wincrest had a bit of a resurgence as a new major highway was built, cutting right through the city. This was both good and bad; good for the short-term as the increase in traffic had a small bump to the economy, but bad for those that saw Wincrest as a home, as the highway brought with it greasy food chains, cheap hotels, and a loss of proper businesses and housing that used to be where the roads now are. It's a burden off the mayor's shoulders that something else is taking the public's focus now.
Nobody knows much about Behdlam R&D except for the people who work there. Mere days after the first known cases of The Curse hit the local news, Behdlam was in the city. They were just there for research, but once the issue became apparent (and outright deadly), they took over Wincrest almost overnight. The wall, the headquarters across from city hall, the newly outfitted police force... their presence was everywhere in an instant.
Despite a metric ton of naysayers and conspiracy theorists, Behdlam R&D has done nothing against the city itself or its people. The worst it's done is forcing civilians into their ranks as the Sweet Dreams Corps. Which... yeah, is pretty sketchy, but it's still for the greater good!
The SDC have been around since the start, but have been mostly dormant due to The Curse having less of a grap over the city a year ago. Most ordinary folk don't see them a whole lot, as they're almost always in the company of other Behdlam employees or monsters. They still have a bit of a reputation, either seen as legit superheroes or violent and part of the problem.
This is because, as a Sweet Dreamer, you're immune to what The Curse normally does, ie you won't be put under the effects of an encroaching Nightmare or spontaneously combust into a being of pure fire. In fact, with Behdlam's resources, you can even produce magic of your own in the form of Daydreams. Put simply, they're magical powers manifested from a good dream, instead of the usual fears and nightmares The Curse preys on. Though it doesn't have to be an actual dream - it can be something they hold close, like a nice memory or something important to them. It really depends on the person.
Though (for actual reasons) Daydreams always have a neon yellow/pink/green coloring. Certainly helps make them look nicer.
~
Character Info
• One character per person. • Nothing is inherently off limits, but try to keep your character within the tone: not too silly or too dark without a good reasoning for it. • You're able to claim anything in your character's Backstory. Make up character, companies, places within Wincrest - it's your oyster to form along with me! • The setting is modern day, but Behdlam R&D is very high-tech, so a lot of their stuff (and what they give to characters) is of a light sci-fi. Not rayguns, though, they haven't cracked that technology yet. • For your character's Daydream, try to make it something physical that they produce. Do you want your character to have passive buffs, like super strength or flight? Maybe their Daydream is a favorite childhood drink that imbues them with that power. Be creative! • Though on that note, keep the base Daydream pretty straight forward. You can make it better, stronger, or more varied with XP later down the line. • Every character has a special SDC Bracelet, so put that into their Inventory. They also (usually) receive some form of weapon and protection, depending on what the person prefers. • You don't HAVE to stick to the CS exactly, so long as the proper information is there. I'm just terrible at formatting.
Name: (The name. Feel free to have it be a nickname, if they go by that.) Age: (How old they are. Behdlam isn't against taking in children as Sweet Dreamers, but only with good reasoning for why.) Appearance: (If you're using a faceclaim, please avoid real people. It skeeves me out for some reason.) Specialty: (What their 'role' is as a Sweet Dreamer. Are they a frontline fighter or better at a range? Can they take a beating or are they more of a flanker? Support, combat medic, demolitions expert?) Personality: (What your character is like, how they think, how they act contrary to how they think, etc.) Background: (Your character's past, up to when they were recruited. Keep it as brief as you can.) Equipment: (The things they have! Both useful or otherwise, and if they own anything that doesn't fit on their person, you can put that here too.) Daydream: (What can your Sweet Dreamer do? Please read the hider above for what a Daydream entails, and ask questions if you have any!) Fun Fact: (A tidbit or two about your character, to help flesh them out a bit more, and maybe even the setting or story. Nothing that can fit in the other sections, at least.)
yeah might be a good idea to explain stuff first actually
Mostly normal people, yes. But it's flexible - you could be any kind of person. That's where the 'forced volunteer' aspect comes it. Doesn't matter who you are or what side of the law you operate in, if you're immune, you're in.
The powers are directly link to the PC's curse immunity. Through some techno babble I'll figure out how to word later, people recruited into Sweet Dreams Corps has a special bracelet that, while also a tracker, doubles as a catalyst for their powers to manifest. Essentially, they have limited control of the curse's magic, and can bend it to their will rather than the other way around. Think things like Quirks, Stands, Embryos - what they actually do varies from person to person, dependent largely on their personality.
The Nightmares work two different ways: the most common is turning people into living, breathing monsters, relating to their personal fears. It can happen at any time, and it can vary greatly on what they can do and how dangerous they are. The second, a little less common, is to trap people in their own Nightmares. These act slower, but the longer the person is in the Nightmare for, the more their immediate surroundings change. It affects everything outside of the person under the affects, and if unchecked, the "dream creep" will only grow bigger and more elaborate.
Outside of the city, no. Because of Behdlam R&D's interference, the city is under strict lockdown and is quarantined from the rest of the world. Inside Wincrest, though... they try to keep things normal, but it doesn't stick. Infrastructure is a bit of a standstill, though the regular daily routines are in motion, mostly to keep people from getting into a panic. Things aren't great still, so it's 50/50.
Well, not a whole ton of interest right off the bat, though I figure once I make an actual thread (with all the information and plot and such), it'd be much more attractive. Might do just that in a couple days! i'll lift this thing off the ground even if I have to do it myself
From the journals of Andrew Wincrest, circa 1692. "...[we were] all aghast as She burned fore us, howling and choking on her own fumes, and was there that her voice rang out into our very bones, 'the fears of man shall drive them forth, shall consume them and all their ilk'. Not a night passed since that I sleep....our people are not safe, our land no longer brings joy, but sorrow."
- - -
Hello, one and all, and welcome to the Interest Check for...
aw cripes that's big
The premise is as follows: set in the fictional city of Wincrest, New Jersey, a long dormant curse has swept over the area, trapping people within their own nightmares. These nightmares threaten to overtake reality and are an extreme danger to most everyone. To combat this, an organization known as Behdlam R&D has quarantined the city and set up shop within, hoping to find a way to counteract this curse before it subsumes all of the USA. You will be playing a special taskforce working under Behdlam R&D known as, well, the Sweet Dreams Corps!
Made up of (forced) volunteers who are immune to the curse's effects, the Sweet Dreams Corps is a semi-militarized team of individuals that deal with the curse directly, in that they punch and shoot at things until they stop being mean. Between diving into the tainted nightmares of those affected by the curse and keeping a handle on the fully-formed monsters that spring to life, you're the first, last, and only line of defense between chaos and order.
Good luck!
This RP will be a darkly humorous sort of thing - equal parts funny, serious, and downright horrifying. People will die, the darkest of fears will be realized, but there's also a girl running around who shoots neon bubbles at monster clowns in an abandoned mattress factory. To put it simply, the subject matter will be treated as serious as it can be, but everything surrounding it will likely be absurd and surreal.
To add onto that surrealness, I'm planning to incorporate a few game-like elements into the RP! Not so much that it gets cumbersome, but there'll be things such as 'Achievements' and 'Objectives' for specific Chapters/Arcs. Fun little bits like that.
Anyways, if any of this interests you, or you have questions about any aspect, feel free to say so below! And I hope that whatever happens, you have some good dreams tonight... ;)
Today was a day that every kid dreaded, for one reason or another. Some were more nervous than others, but for every student, it came with an underlying sense of anticipation and hope. It was...
The first day of school.
For the student body of New Heights Academy, these feelings were all heightened. The humid tropical air felt even thicker with the collective excitement of more than a hundred hero hopefuls. But more than just the start of the school year, today was the first day of many students' lives, the newest arrivals to the academy already awake and ready to begin! Not that they had much choice - the faculty had been very adamant that they be at the East Track Field by 8-o-clock.
Down a narrow pathway around the school's main building, the East Track Field was apparently kept among the island's lush forest just behind the academy proper. Whether or not this reflected the gathering students' rank was hard to tell. The entirety of the Bottom Ten found their way towards the East Track, trudging along the path with varying enthusiasm. Not every student that were asked to come were so low in the school's ranking, however; apart from the Ten, just as many where a handful of ranks higher, and some where even from the Top Ten! 25 kids exactly, if anyone bothered to count, of largely distinct rank groups.
Then the group got to the field, it was empty. A flat dirt clearing, surrounded by trees, with the usual white stripes denoting where the actual track was. A small, foot-high wood stage sat in the middle of the field, and the whole track had a dozen small areas devoted to a specific athletics test. But apart from all that, nobody else was around, not a teacher, not the other students, not even a janitor.
Actually, I'll join after all! Was thinking about it, and now I got an idea that won't let go. Just need to find a decent faceclaim... I'm awful at those