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Horror Thread planning


Voidus

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Hello all!

This is going to be the planning thread for the horror setting that was voted on in the chat thread, now personally I enjoy horror a great deal, I DM a lot of horror games for my D&D group, and I've had something of a horror plot up my sleeve since era 1 of the Alleyverse so I would greatly enjoy worldbuilding and to an extent GMing this thread, but I'm not the only one who voted for the setting so in the interests of fairness I wanted to get some feedback on what exactly people wanted when they voted for this setting.

Some people may be interested in a thriller more than an actual horror per say, alien monsters and things with tentacles and stuff, but still playing essentially the same characters as in the main Alleyverse, relatively powerful heroes whose job is to chop down all the alien monsters so they don't eat all the world or whatever.

Some people may be more interested in psychological or a cosmic horror in which case I'd suggest that the PCs be completely unInvested if possible, and we'd likely need someone to act as a Game Master to drive the plot and drop some surprises in from time to time. (From my experience these kinds of horror really doesn't work well in an RP where everyone has equal narrative-creation power because people all want to do their own thing and it turns into a mess more than anything) Typically in these games the ambition of players should be to survive as long as possible rather than to actually defeat their enemy.

Some people may be interested in something somewhere in between those two, where you're not playing as just some average joe who got stuck in the middle of a fight between Elder Gods, but you're also not a super magical hero slaying endless hordes of meaningless mooks. I would see this as similar to the kinds of D&D game I run from time to time, where the PCs are exhausted, tired, and a little bit crazy by the end but do ultimately have a hope of victory.

So please provide any feedback on what you'd be hoping to get out of this or how you hope it could be run, either related to the above points or not. And we can start brainstorming.



Current list of characters:

Sorana (Lizanne Farmer):

Spoiler

Name: Lizanne Farmer

Age: 17 (maybe, she isn't sure about that)

Investiture: none

Skills: Amateur Scholarship (farming/ animals) (20), Intelligent (30)

Physical: brown hair, straw like texture; brown eyes; back, legs and arms covered with scars; torn cloths; almost painfully thin, large eyes

Weaknesses: limping, can't run (-20); deeply afraid of being chained/ trapped (-15); paranoid (-20); will follow a command directed at her blindly (-10) (I'll start strong and would like to soften that one a bit over the time, so don't rate it too high)

Character: has a hard time to trust anybody, usually looks at the darker side of a situation, can be loyal, strong-willed, likes to improvise

Family: two brothers, a sister, parents (all: location unknown)

Homeworld: Sel

Guild Affiliation: none

Backstory: Lizanne grew up on a farm. One day slavers came by and kidnapped her entire family. Lizanne lost track of them, when she was sold on a market.
She isn't sure how many years she spent working for her new master, and can only guess her age. At the beginning she had a rebellious streak, that was beaten out of her systematically. Over the years she learned to keep her head low, although she never stopped plotting how to escape.
Mostly she worked in the fields, as she made sure to obscure her features and look ugly. She is able to recognize some edible plants and has some basic knowledge how to handle animals, like how to milk a cow. One day she had the opportunity to run away, and it was only because of the kindness of some strangers, that she managed to stay free. They hid her for days and organized a trip away from Sel. Her journey took her first to Roshar, but as she never felt safe she fled that planet as well and arrived at the Alleyverse. Here she felt safer, as many different cultures mixed with each other and she wasn't standing out that much.
She spends her time begging in the streets, or if she is lucky, is able to find work for a day or two.

ZincAboutIt (Renata):

Spoiler

Name: Renata

Age: 20

Investiture: None

Skills: Intermediate Scholarship (literacy, scribe duties, shorthand), Smart, can run quickly

Physical: Black and red hair (Veden with Horneater in heritage) cropped above shoulders, dark grey eyes, thin build, oval face with minor freckles, has a tattoo of her own name on the inside of her left forearm, wears glove on her safehand

Weaknesses: Does not usually like being touched, absolutely cannot stand to have her hair touched or stroked, trouble sleeping, has to remind herself of who she is at times (hence the tattoo on her arm)

Character: Inherently suspicious of kind people, curious, adaptable, can be ruthless if needed, somewhat aloof/distant, lonely but scared

Family: Mother and brother dead 

Homeworld: Roshar

Guild Affiliation: none

Backstory: Renata worked as a scribe in the household of a minor lighteyed Veden lord when the civil war broke out. Her older brother was quickly conscripted and killed, and then the war came to her own doorstep. The majority of her household was killed in the fighting, and Renata and her mother escaped to a more rural portion of Jah Keved, hoping to find shelter. They took up residence in the household of an older brightlady who lived alone up against the foothills of the Horneater Peaks. At first, Renata and her mother had a good life away from the war, with her mother helping with household chores and Renata taking up scribing duties for the brightlady. She had lost her own daughter, and took a liking to Renata, saying she reminded the woman of her daughter. Things began to get strange when the brightlady started calling Renata by her dead daughter's name. Months went by, and soon Renata was being forced to play the part of the woman's dead daughter. She was not allowed to see her own mother, or speak about her real life. Every night, the woman would brush and braid Renata's long hair, then lock her into her daughter's old room. Eventually, Renata was able to outwit the woman, locking her in the room instead and escaping. She found her own mother dead, and fled up into the Horneater Peaks. Renata was picked up, half-frozen and almost starving, by a group of world-hoppers heading to the perpendicularity. They managed to get through and Renata decided to stay in the Alleycity as they passed through. She cut her hair too short to ever braid again, and now works as a message courier and scribe.

ITIAH (Wilhelm Wendigo):

Spoiler

Name: Wilhelm Wendigo

Age: 31

Investiture: None

Skills: Killing people with knives, tracking people by smell and footprints, skilled in making animal traps to catch things in.

Physical: Shorter than average, thick arms and legs but a big bony stomach. In some places he’s thin enough bone can be seen and in some places he’s fat. Black hair and a single right brown eye, which he can pack a lot of emotion in. Left eye is covered in a brown eyepatch. Teeth are all crooked and sharpened and around his mouth and hands are caked in blood which he tries to wipe off. Frost in hair and eyebrows.

Weaknesses: Is a recovering cannibal, and has to constantly resist urges, has major health issues due to cannibalism and doesn’t have one eye. Hates his life.

Character: Worried and concerned. He tried distancing himself from others so he doesn’t lose control and he tries not to make any connections with others. He’s a cannibal, and sometimes is mostly animal than human. His psyche is already a little off.

Family: Disowned him when they found he was a cannibal and were executed anyway for birthing him.

Homeworld: South Scadrial

Guild Affiliation: none

Backsetory: Was a normal kid in the Fallen nation of South Scadrial. Fallen were mocked and discriminated against. One time, an allomantic airship crash left him and his crew isolated in the tundra. Out of desperation he ate them, to survive. He was rescued but the experience permanently broke him and he began craving human. He was attacked numerous roles and his health deteriorated, he lost an eye and survived on trapping villagers to eat. They called him the Wendigo, or whatever the South Scadrian equivalent of that is.

At one point he started to realise what he was doing and regretted, but knew no nation would ever let him back, so he still survives on rabbits and occasionally human, really tries to keep himself in check.

Silva ( Ashira Celeste Blanche Addington):

Spoiler

Name: Aderet Celeste Blanche Addington

Age: 21

Investiture: Cadmium Misting

Skills: Talking, embroidery, fashion, a blood-curdling scream

Weaknesses: Physical activity. She is afraid of many things.

Appearance: Platinum blonde hair reaching past her waist, bright blue eyes, a slim figure, and manicured nails. Aderet will almost never be found out of a dress, typically floor length, with her safehand covered (also concealing some spare vials of cadmium).

Home Planet: Scadrial

Family: A younger brother (Timothy, age 18) and father. Her mother died when she was eight and a Vorin governess took care of her for nine years.

History: Aderet is the heiress to her family’s business. They’ve been running it for centuries, some even date it back to the Final Empire. A recent break off from the DA caused them some loss in investors, so now her father is working to marry her off in order to form an alliance that will save their company while still being sided with TUBA. She’s spent her life learning how to navigate social situations and being a proper young lady, never spent much time refining her Allomancy.

Theme Song: Lavender’s Blue

Guild: None

Ark1002 (Hellbent-Son-Palm):

Spoiler

Name: Hellbent-Son-Palm

Investiture: Shardblade

Skills: Shardblade fighting, hand to hand

Appearance:

Height: Seven feet (~2.1336 meters)

Build: Muscular, broad shouldered

Eyes: Violet

Hair: None

Skin: Dark

Clothing: Leather Pteruges (Weird leather skirt thing)

Backstory: Hellbent-Son-Palm was born to a Scadrian-Alethi mother and a Darksider father. They had been running from enemies, and moved to Roshar, hiding among the Shin, where no one would suspect them of living. He grew up among them, and was the child who was a soldier. He eventually ran away, killing his mother and taking her shardblade while he did so. He, as a lighteyes with a shardblade, had high rank, and used it to gain training. He tired of this after many years, and went back to the Shin, making his father (Who didn't know he'd killed his mother) tell him how they got to the world. He became a worldhopper, exploring the worlds.

Blessing of Potency (Arundhati):

Spoiler

Name: Arundhati

Meaning: “not restrained” (loosely) also name of Star

 

Gender: Female

 

Investure: N/A

 

Skills: Very detailed knowledge of the night sky and astronomy

 

Physical appearance: dark skinned with long hair, usually braided along her back. Average height and a hourglass body shape.

Age: 20


Personality: very easily distracted and will go off on random trains of thought. When she actually latches in to something however she is very single minded, almost to the point of tunnel vision. The only thing she’s ever been able to focus on for long amounts of time has been the night sky. She loves to go camping away from the light pollution with her telescope and just look at the stars.

Kenod (Lisa Waite):

Spoiler

Name: Lisa Waite

Planet of origin: Random earth, one where no weird things would ever happen (right?).

Age: 21

Gender: Female

Appearance: 5'8'' tall. Looks relatively plain, with long brown hair and grey eyes. Is nearsighted and wears larger, round glasses. Tends to dress rather conservatively.

Investure: N/A

Skills: Decent scientist with a lot of knowledge of physics. Bad at more practical applications though. Fast runner. Has a decent amount of experience with horror movies, so knows the tropes.

Personality: Soft-spoken and introverted. Dislikes horror movies, and hates jump scares. Gets scared and panicky easily. The type that when frightened by something hides in a corner with a candlestick, only to brain the first person to try and help her because she confuses them for something scary. Very curious when coming across new things, when they're not scary at least, and she has finished panicking.

Weaknesses: Scared quickly, and tends to either panic and run or crawl into a corner when scared. Has difficulty saying no to people.

History: Originally living in new england, she had a number of friends who really liked horror movies, and always dragged her off to see new ones, with her being unable to say no even though she didn't like the movies. After graduating, she went on to study at the Miskatonic University, aiming for a degree in physics. However, at one point something bizarre happened, sucking her into the alleyverse. When she finally managed to stop panicking she found out about magic and (after another panic attack) decided to go and study it to see how it figured into the normal laws of the universe.

Kidpen (Tishyl):

Spoiler

Name: Tishyl, goes by Tish.

Investiture: Chromium Ferring

Weakness: Compulsive desire to always be storing and never to tap. It's gotten to the point where it is a nervous tick, so sometimes she will increase the rate of storing when she gets nervous, which is often. It would take a very exceptional situation to bring her to tap any of it, probably one where she had to help a friend.

Age: 15

Appearance: Short and dark haired. She carries dozens of chromium minds all over her body. She wears traditional Terris attire, which I forget the specifics of.

Personality: Very shy and careful. Generally doesn't like getting too close to other people.

Backstory: She was originally from one of the Terris villages in Era 2 Scadrial. She lived a peaceful life there, storing and tapping chromium normally. However, one day, she was out in the city with a close truesoul friend when she wasn't supposed to be. She was carrying metalminds, but had recently used up her Fortune doing some light gambling. They decided at one point to take a shortcut through a backalley to a bar. As they walked, a shady man walked up to them, eyeing the couple of Aluminum metalminds her friend was carrying. And, to a lesser extent, hers. She didn't realize this, but he was a DA operative (do the DA do this kind of stuff? Just a freelance crazy hemalurgist if not) who was looking for powers to harvest. He kidnapped them and took them to the Alleyverse. Tish managed to escape before he could get the spikes he needed and take her powers, but she didn't bring her friend with her. Since that day she's been unable to go back to her village out of shame of what she did. At some point she went to the Keepers, but they consistently just pitied her and didn't really know how to deal with her. At some point she saw the missive for the expedition and thought it might serve as a fresh start for her.

Beantheboy12 (Zib):

Spoiler

Name: Zib

Gender: Male

Investiture: Willshaper of the 1st ideal

Skills: Can play the snare drum so incredibly well, he will blow your minds. He can literally blow one's mind if he hits you with his drumsticks. He can throw the drumsticks with perfect accuracy, and swing them so fast that the eye can barely notice them.

Equipment: A snare drum and carbon fiber drum sticks. Each drum stick has infused gemstones along the length of it. 

Weaknesses: Is a little too curious and is very weird. He sometimes whacks people with his drumsticks for no good reason.

Appearance: Extremely short. 4'10". But he doesn't notice/mind. Ocean Blue eyes, Blue hair, Blue eyebrows, and dark tan skin. 

Theme song: The Flash

Backstory: He was a Rosharan musician from Alethkar, but didn't care what other people thought of him so he just went along banging random things with his drumsticks. Drums, trees, people, etc. He was a social outcast and eventually was kidnapped and sent to live at the peaks so he wouldn't bug people he was around anymore. There, he bonded his spren and eventually, made the terrible mistake of whacking the leader's bottle of horneater white. He was tied up and thrown into the springs and ended up in shadesmar, then here. 

Snipexe (Jack Overchild):

Spoiler

Name: Jack Overchild

Physical Characteristics: Short, Stout, Male, 30 years old

Investiture: Drab

Skills: Expert level Card Player, Expert Sligh of Hand, Expert Gambler and Pathological Liar

Equipment: Various Decks of Cards from different planets, and games

Weakness: Pathological Liar, Nearly a Compulsive/Addicted to all forms of gambling (including with his own and others lives), If someone tries to fight or attack him in anyway he will freeze up, unable to react (see backstory for explanation)

Family: 2 parents, living a fine life on Nalthis

Home Planet: Nalthis 

Backstory: Born on Nalthis to a kind couple, who weren’t rich but weren’t poor. However an Idrian Terrorist killed his parents right in front of him when he was 6. From that point forward he had to live on the streets. He sold his breath early on, and has never gotten a new one. This was when he began to do card tricks and gamble to survive. He got good, a little too good. He was playing in a high stakes street tournament at age 15 and lost everything. He was chased off Nalthis, only saved by accidentally entering Edgli’s perpendicularity, after which he made his way to Alleyplanet. He then made a career being a professional gambler, he’s moderately successful, and is able to afford an apartment in the slums.

Guild: None

Personality: Gutsy, Scarred, Not willing to Trust

Gancho Libre (Fah'Loofah Smedry):

Spoiler

Name: Fah'Loofah Smedry

Investiture: Smedry Talent: Is a complete fool.

Appearance: Looks exactly like a jester. She thinks it's fashionable. Occasionally, she'll smear her red lipstick to far up on her face, and she'll look more like the Joker. It's fun.

Fears: The most irrational things.

Skills: She spent ten years perfected the art of playing the kazoo with her nose. Other than that, however...

History: She lived a life of complete bliss before one fatal day when she changed her name from Lucy to Fah'Loofah. Ever since, things haven't always gone her way.

Other Notes: She dips her french fries in ice cream.

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I don’t know if this is the right place to put it, but I’ve been working on a Horror murder mystery set in mistborn era 2 scadrial. Would anyone want to do that? It would be a plot that took a some commitment but with a prize at the end to the detective who solves it. Thoughts?

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51 minutes ago, Voidus said:

Some people may be interested in something somewhere in between those two, where you're not playing as just some average joe who got stuck in the middle of a fight between Elder Gods, but you're also not a super magical hero slaying endless hordes of meaningless mooks. I would see this as similar to the kinds of D&D game I run from time to time, where the PCs are exhausted, tired, and a little bit crazy by the end but do ultimately have a hope of victory.

I'd be interested in that one, but I don't need a victory. As for a character I'm planing to use either Lena, or a new one, but definitely uninvested.

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2 hours ago, Voidus said:

Some people may be interested in something somewhere in between those two, where you're not playing as just some average joe who got stuck in the middle of a fight between Elder Gods, but you're also not a super magical hero slaying endless hordes of meaningless mooks. I would see this as similar to the kinds of D&D game I run from time to time, where the PCs are exhausted, tired, and a little bit crazy by the end but do ultimately have a hope of victory.

Agreed with Sorana, I like this one. I was going to pick the psychological horror one as my preference but your words about how it doesn’t translate well into RP make sense. This one looks fun, and as Sorana said, for me a victory doesn’t necessarily have to be there. I’ll probably make a new character for this, with little to no Investiture.

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1 hour ago, I think I am here. said:

Agreed with Sorana, I like this one. I was going to pick the psychological horror one as my preference but your words about how it doesn’t translate well into RP make sense. This one looks fun, and as Sorana said, for me a victory doesn’t necessarily have to be there. I’ll probably make a new character for this, with little to no Investiture.

It can work as a horror game, you just need a pretty clear divide between players and a GM in my opinion, it really doesn't suit the kind of Free Form RP we do in the Alleyverse where everyone is collaborating to create the story. Psychological horror really needs to have one group of people making the story, and another group of people experiencing the story. Because if you know what's going to happen you're really not going to get an optimal experience.

For comparison my current thinking would be to run it similarly to how Lith runs 'Of Gods and Men', since you're both in that and it's easier to explain :P So worldbuilder's kept separate from the actual RP elements and act as the NPCs in the world.

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Just now, Voidus said:

It can work as a horror game, you just need a pretty clear divide between players and a GM in my opinion, it really doesn't suit the kind of Free Form RP we do in the Alleyverse where everyone is collaborating to create the story. Psychological horror really needs to have one group of people making the story, and another group of people experiencing the story. Because if you know what's going to happen you're really not going to get an optimal experience.

For comparison my current thinking would be to run it similarly to how Lith runs 'Of Gods and Men', since you're both in that and it's easier to explain :P So worldbuilder's kept separate from the actual RP elements and act as the NPCs in the world.

So something similar to say, Call of Cthulhu, With a GM and players, but the players typing stuff out instead of everyone sitting around a table?

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2 minutes ago, kenod said:

So something similar to say, Call of Cthulhu, With a GM and players, but the players typing stuff out instead of everyone sitting around a table?

Something similar, a little more free form than tabletops, since we don't want to post fifty times for 10 seconds worth of interaction with die rolls, sanity checks and whatnot, but yeah broadly speaking.

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Just now, Voidus said:

Something similar, a little more free form than tabletops, since we don't want to post fifty times for 10 seconds worth of interaction with rolls and whatnot, but yeah broadly speaking.

Sounds interesting, it reminds me of the old alleyverse D&D that we had at some point. I'm guessing that the way this will work is that we'll receive a small amount of info, just enough to make our characters, and for the rest take the Paranoia approach, with players not actually being aware of the rules/world-building?

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5 minutes ago, kenod said:

Sounds interesting, it reminds me of the old alleyverse D&D that we had at some point. I'm guessing that the way this will work is that we'll receive a small amount of info, just enough to make our characters, and for the rest take the Paranoia approach, with players not actually being aware of the rules/world-building?

Broad worldbuilding could be made known to players, depending on how we want to set up. (Characters from the Alleyverse finding a new world, or natives of the new world, or a mixed bag in which case we might PM the native players so they are aware) but yeah the specifics of the plot would be hidden.

EDIT: Just realized you said Paranoia with a capital 'P' meaning the game I assume :P I haven't actually played it so I couldn't say but that does sound like an interesting concept.

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1 minute ago, Voidus said:

EDIT: Just realized you said Paranoia with a capital 'P' meaning the game I assume :P I haven't actually played it so I couldn't say but that does sound like an interesting concept.

Never played it myself either (never did any RP related things before this), but it's kind of a weird thing, where it's basically the GM's role to mess with other players, like passing them notes without anything on it, changing the rules, all that kind of stuff. The TV Tropes page has some great examples.

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Just now, kenod said:

Never played it myself either (never did any RP related things before this), but it's kind of a weird thing, where it's basically the GM's role to mess with other players, like passing them notes without anything on it, changing the rules, all that kind of stuff. The TV Tropes page has some great examples.

This sounds like something I need to read and immerse myself in ASAP. I love messing with players :P
Well, as long as they're aware that it's that kind of game anyway, I have sat down at tables before where the DM straight up did a bait-and-switch and pretended they were going to run a straightforward hack-and-slash heroes quest RPG and ended up murdering all of the characters in an increasingly grim, dark and horrifying world.

So yes, forewarning to all I do enjoy messing with players, but at the same time my highest priority is always that players ultimately enjoy the experience, hence why I think it's important that everyone gets their expectations out on the table. Thanks everyone for the input so far. :)

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9 hours ago, Voidus said:

Some people may be more interested in psychological or a cosmic horror in which case I'd suggest that the PCs be completely unInvested if possible, and we'd likely need someone to act as a Game Master to drive the plot and drop some surprises in from time to time. (From my experience these kinds of horror really doesn't work well in an RP where everyone has equal narrative-creation power because people all want to do their own thing and it turns into a mess more than anything) Typically in these games the ambition of players should be to survive as long as possible rather than to actually defeat their enemy.

Some people may be interested in something somewhere in between those two, where you're not playing as just some average joe who got stuck in the middle of a fight between Elder Gods, but you're also not a super magical hero slaying endless hordes of meaningless mooks. I would see this as similar to the kinds of D&D game I run from time to time, where the PCs are exhausted, tired, and a little bit crazy by the end but do ultimately have a hope of victory.

Either of these would be great, I don't want the first.

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I voted for this and I'm so glad it won enough support! The second or third options sound fun to me. Either way I'd create a new character. I actually think the 2nd option would be the coolest. As long as I have enough information about the world for my character to attempt survival/navigate around, having the rest hidden sounds quite neat, like being a character in a book.

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3 hours ago, Grey Knight said:

I'd play in this, though my preferences lean more towards the thriller side of things. Would this be set in the Alleyverse? ('Cause if so, I could bring in some delightful horrors from 40k...)

It's kind of Alleyverse adjacent, if possible I'd prefer to keep to a simplified setting since that's part of the point of all this, an easier place for people to start with. And while 40K has some horrifying stuff in it, it's not exactly horror stuff if that makes sense. Creepy and weird, sure but yeah it's more action-thriller-psycopath.

3 hours ago, Darth Woodrack said:

Yes, it will be in the Alleyverse.

Maybe we could do like a background world, like shadowfell in DnD.

I will likely borrow pretty heavily from D&D both consciously and unconsciously and the Shadowfell is one of my favourite planes :P
The exact setup for how it fits in cosmologically with the Alleyverse will hopefully be easier to decide once we've got everyone's input.
 

3 hours ago, xinoehp512 said:

I'm not really interested in having a character in a horror story. I'd like to help plan it out, though.

Sure! That would be the preference I think, that if you're on the planning team then you don't have any player characters in the thread. I'll PM you.

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So another question for players, the general theme seems to be that people aren't wanting a thriller. So how comfortable are people with varying levels of horror? If anyone has anything that they specifically want to avoid let us know, if you'd rather keep something private feel free to PM me.

Things to consider:
Comfortability with gore /Gross things/ uncomfortable visuals - This is a bit limited on the Shard anyway but it would be nice to know everyone's comfortability.
Comfortability with psychological horror including themes of insanity and mental illness
Any particular triggers that you really don't want the RP to touch on.

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