A Calm in the Storm

CivOasis

Ahuizotl
Joined
Jun 22, 2011
Messages
3,005
Location
Sawaiki
A Calm in the Storm


August 12, 2016 -The ruined road rolled beneath my feet, roots and ashes alike ripping through the cracks. This path - clearly long since abandoned - had been our guide for nearly a day now, seemingly coming from nowhere in the midst of the forest. The trees were beginning to thin out now, and the building in the distance was becoming more visible. The group began to break out into a jog - our packs lightened weight a terrifying consolation as our food ran out. To us, then, that building represented help; civilization, our true holy grail.

Such a bitter joke. As we entered the clearing, our hearts sank - this half-finished spire rising ominously above the town, its black and shattered scaffolds the knife in this corpse of a town. It was clear that, wherever we were, the site had been abandoned long before the storm - a true ghost town, a skeleton of civilization left to mock us. At least we have shelter for the night...


A Calm in the Storm is a horror/survival game, designed in the vein of (but unrelated to) my previous Action Chat, Search and Rescue. In it, players will take on the role of survivors of Hurricane Ian, a Category 5 storm which made landfall just south of the Chesapeake Bay. Although evacuated prior to landfall, the record-breaking nature of the storm left the region unprepared, and your evacuation site was cut off from further aid. Two weeks after the storm, with food and water running short, you’ve left as part of a small group seeking additional help. With the roads and telecommunications out, you’ve been forced to trek on foot, and after several days travel – and substantial confusion over your location – you’ve stumbled across this abandoned town, where our story will begin.

We’ll be playing on a private Discord server, which will give us some impressive flexibility in managing chatrooms – wrong turns can throw you in and out of communication with your companions, and your equipment and injuries, along with the world around you, will be thoroughly tracked on my end.

As a disclaimer, the game will focus upon atmospheric and psychological horror and natural survival with ambiguously supernatural elements, and will keep a fairly detailed track of the chronology, location, and status of characters and events. While all posts on CFC will adhere to forum rules, there is the probability of stronger language and more mature material on the chatroom itself.

To join, please create a character according to the following guidelines:

Name:
Age:

Physical Description: (Please keep in mind that you’re part of a team hiking through the wilderness to find help. I’m flexible, but some reasoning should be good)
Background: (See above. I’m putting an embargo on combat-trained and mentally ill characters, because of past experiences with these being prone to abuse. Outside of that, fairly wide open. Characters should be from – or at least have some reason to be in – the metro areas between Richmond and Philly (includes DC, Baltimore, and Wilmington) prior to the evacuation).
Other details/skills: (keep it reasonable)
Backpack Contents: (No weapons, please keep in mind scenario)

That’s really it. I know I’ve written a lot after the guidelines, but it can be summed up as “this is a survival game, keep it reasonable” – and if it is, I’ll almost certainly be fine.

Once you’ve done all that, join our Discord server! You should see two channels, #ooc (for game related out of character stuff) and #random (for anything not related to the game). This isn’t the IOT server, but if you’re on that, you’ll be able to switch to it and see when messages are posted instantly without leaving the tab.

Playing is literally just participating – IC – in the chat. I’ll add and remove you to different channels on the fly by using the roles functions. I request and strongly encourage you to only share information OOC that all participants of the discussion could know IC, as that will significantly improve the play experience and atmosphere for all involved.

And for those in weird timezones, I wouldn’t fret – this game won’t hold a set schedule, but I’ll tend to favor weekends for both my RL schedule and to try to accommodate this in timezones outside of my own. I’ve had European, SE Asian, American, and Australian players before, if that reassures you.

Also, if I get enough players quickly, I might have some time to do a semi-railroaded prologue soon. As a rule, though, this game will be more based on backstory and setting than plot, so player freedom is more or less unchained once we actually start going.

Sign up now!

Spoiler Timeline, for those who've been asking: :

July 26 - Evacuations across the region
July 28 - Hurricane Ian makes landfall, just south of the Chesapeake Bay. Major power outages and substantial damages occur even at the evacuation site.
August 8 - Player group leaves evacuation site to search for help
August 12 - OP intro
August 13 - Game start
 
Name: Christopher Bailey

Age: 68

Physical Description: An old black man with a height of 6'4. He is old, skinny, with completely white hair (where hair still remains on his head; he is balding in the front a little). However he remains in good shape through daily runs and workouts even though each one is harder than the last.

Background:

Christopher Bailey was a high school wrestlinmg champion, and he had earned a full scholarship to do so in college before he blew out his knee in his senior year championship. Deprived of doing what he loved in wrestling and taking his skills to the next level, he instead pursued a legal education at the University of Hawaii law school after finishing undergraduate at a small college nobody has ever heard of.

While in Hawaii, he grew close to the local natives, and it was there that he began to learn how to track and avoid being tracked through the Hawaiian jungles. He took to daily hioking trips, sometimes slow and casual treks, sometimes fast paced runs through the jungle following trails left by others the day before.

After Law School he joined the Office of the Inspector General for the Navy and investigated civil rights abuses in the navy and potential discrimination in the JAG corps, stationed out of Pearl Harbor. There he stayed for 4 more years. However when they attempted to station him in Japan next, he resigned his commission and moved to Seattle on the West Coast to settle down and become a US Attorney for Civil Rights. He won several high profile cases as a prosecutor, married, and had three kids, two boys and a girl. However just as he was contemplating a run for congressman, he was pulled over by a police officer who gave him a hard time while his kids were in the back, the day he lost one of the biggest cases of his career. He swung at the police officer. Although he avoided charges, he was forced to resign his job as a US Attorney. His wife divorced him as he remained unemployed, and he lost custody of his kids. They became estranged as he kept pushiong them to do sports, especially wrestling, even though they didnt want to.

It was at this time that he took up drinking, mainly rum and whiskey. Strangely enough it was when he began drinking that he also discovered he had a penchant for languages, namely Spanish and Russian. Even stranger, he was only completely fluent when he was tipsy but not completely drunk. At the age of 50 he managed to get a job as an attache to a congressman from Delaware in DC, acting as a combination of political analyst, civil rights consultant, and ad-hoc translator when needed.

It was here that he remained for the next 18 years, not once seeing is kids again or even meeting his grandchildren, although he talked on the phone with his kids every few years once his ex wife died of cancer, and he was sent photographs of his kids and grand kids that he kept in his wallet.

At the age of 65 he was pressed to retire, but he refused. Two months ago a fellow aide discovered that not only was Bailey drinking heavier than ever before, but that he had been drinking on the job when translating for years, potentially ever since he had begun work for the congressman. Although he had become one of the congressman's best friends, his friend had no choice but to place Bailey on leave until an official investigation could be completed. Several members of the staff were lobbying heavily for his termination as they had been embarrassed or insulted by the abrasive Bailey over the years, and it looked as if he had finally provided the excuse they needed.

Two months later at the present day, he was drinking heavier than ever, blowing his savings on prostitutes daily, and he rarely was hiking anymore even though just months before he had still hiked and tracked animals for the fun of it almost daily. When hiking and tracking, he never drank, as he always felt he could miss signs through the fog of alcohol.

When the hurricane hit he almost didnt evacuate. At the last moment, hours before the hurricane made official landfall, he evacuated his apartment in DC since he was almost out of alcohol, but he took the last of the rum with him as well as most of his survival supplies in case things got bad and he ran out of alcohol.

When no help came after the hurricane passed over, he volunteered to help lead the search party. Unfortunately he was often drunk, although the others couldnt tell, and he got them somewhat lost. He is also significantly tired because he hasnt hiked properly in months and he has been carrying a full backpack of supplies in case they are needed.

Backpack Contents:
Heavy Dutry Backpack
Somewhat malfunctioning short wave radio
3 1000 meter Walkie Talkies
Flare gun (3 flares)
Industrial flashlight (no batteries)
20 Meters rope (slightly frayed)
Heavy Duty Binoculars
Bug Spray (2 canisters)
Water
MRE Rations
Thin Sleeping Bag (with holes and slashes)
50 Water Purifier Tablets
50 Tylenol Tablets (600 mg)
Wallet (photographs)
2 handles of rum
3 wrinkled Cuban cigars
Half box of matches
Bucket Fishing hat (with a hole in the back of the top)
Lock pick set (bent a bit)
 
Name: Harry Avon (normally goes by just Avon)
Age: 23
Physical Description: Caucasian male, tall, rosy-cheeked with light curly hair.
Is physically fit from his opera career.

Background: Born in Monmouth on the Border of England and Wales to upper Middle Class parents Avon from an early age showed a love of music, he was a Chorister at St. Woolos. He attended public school at Sherborne School and after completing 6th form he went to University on a choral scholarship to study music. Since then he made a name for himself in the British Opera circles as a competent Baritone. His hobbies included a love of climbing and a love of bird watching.
Over the summer he has been in Washington DC to visit one of his undergraduate friends following which he had a role to prepare for in the New York Opera.

Skills: Opera Voice, Perfect Pitch, impeccable bird identification knowledge, rock climbing and mountaineering skills
Other Details:Avon is not a good swimmer and has a great fear of drowning.
He is also quite pompous and doesn't really like America as a country looking down on their music scene and supposed culture.

Backpack Contents: Food supplies, very basic climbing equipment, a handful of tin mugs/bowls for eating out of, a sleeping bag, a few changes of underwear, a torch, map of the area, and other such necessities.
 
Name: Ted
Age: 56
Physical Description: Weather hardened, stocky, his face looks seven hundred years old. Wiry, unkept eyebrows and beard, nearly bald. He has stiff joints and and a bad back, but a hard life as made him into hard man.
Background: Ted's parents died when he was sixteen, and with no other family Ted took to the streets. For nearly two decades he managed to get by, traveling from town to town doing odd jobs, mostly mechanic gigs since he had a knack for cars. When he was in his late thirties, Ted met an older woman in a bar. They bonded over their loneliness and love of the bottle, and soon enough they wore matching rings. For a time, Ted was content. He had his women, he got a steady job, and they shared a small apartment. The drink took his wife first, then the job and roof, and up until his 55th birthday old man Jack D. was his sole companion during the long cold nights without a roof. For the last year, Ted tried to cut down on the juice and at least five somewhere respectable to die. On his 56th birthday, he thought he found it. Unfortunately, the storm spared him.
Skills: Has no formal education or training, but is quite skilled ant vehicle mechanics. Life on the streets has made him a hard man, and Ted can take a hit like a man twenty years younger. Can hold his liquor.
Backpack: Old tool kit, patchy sleeping bag, 2 dirty changes of clothes, garbage bags, some food and water, quarter bottle of whiskey, two Glonts.
 
2/3 characters so far are old drunks. This will be fun.
 
I'm gonna join eventually :3
 
I'll try not to attack you this time!
 
My laptop shorted. Will try to make a point of running a mission when I get a replacement, even mid-week
 
New computer expected to arrive in the next few days - sign up or complete characters!
 
Can everyone who has expressed interest or signed up so far commit to a Saturday mission?
 
nope but I don't care if I'm a week late to the party
 
Last call for players - if I can't get enough together to start (4-5), then I'm going to have to scrap this
 
I would be happy to join if the magic of timezones align in my favour.
 
so long as your cool with weekends I'm sure they will often enough that you won't be left behind
 
I want to join, no time for it right now though.
 
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