Kobold King

I imagined Vondra's son Zachary being highly ranked within The Dalles police department, but not necessarily the ultimate head. He might fill that role if nobody else wants to make a character for it, though. Forgive my ignorance, but what is Reader doing at the Springfield residence?

Mainly this, over and over again while I pretend to be a talking space raccoon.

Welcome back! The character bios seem to fit with what we've established for Vondra's government. In Aura's case, The Dalles police would have seized her and immediately brought her to their superiors. Her choices would have been to work under Vondra, leave, or be executed immediately via firing squad. Since she apparently rejected all three options, there will be a standing order to terminate her on sight. These are all awesome things.

I like him. Feel free to join. (I am the Weakness Keeper in this round.) I don't think it quite matters yet--the basic idea is that a lot of terrible Epics have been suddenly pulled out of their respective timestreams and dropped into Calamityville. I think that anyone could write up a post detailing their character's confusion, and can either go straight to tormenting random citizens or can stumble across Slaughterhouse. EDIT: By the way, I'd like to thank TwiLyght for copy-editing the first Calamityville post. She prevented it from becoming completely unintelligible.

"What Happened in Calamityville" is a play by post role-playing game set to run over the month of October. It is intended as a horror game set in the world of Brandon Sanderson's Steelheart and inspired by the success of "What Happened in Oregon". To join, visit the official planning thread. Be warned: violence and nightmares proceed after this point. It's never quite dark in Calamityville. There are no stars in sight. No moon to light up the winding streets. But the city's namesake dominates the sky always. While men and Epics may fight and squabble on the planet below, I don't believe there's any doubt what the true master of this world is. Calamity shines bright over this world, and the Empires of Man rise and fall beneath its shining glare. Its red rays have touched us all. With the touch of its crimson light, the lucky among us became monsters worse than any fairy tale nightmare. The rest became prey. There's a kind of beauty in monsters. I need more of them. It wasn't about the pain. It wasn't about the empowerment. It wasn't about their struggles. It wasn't even about their sweet, sweet screams. It was about perfection. Slaughterhouse drank in the sweet, sweet screams, pressing his hand deeper into the quivering flesh laid out among the rubble. The body shook and contorted, its torso twisting and reshaping. The sound of snapping rib bones Panting excitedly, the man called Slaughterhouse took a few steps away, throwing himself onto an overturned marble pillar and watching the thrashing body intently. The server had been skewered by a piece of rebar when the Palace collapsed, but Slaughterhouse's redesigns eliminated the need for his severed arteries. The man's torso was now oddly contorted, but he was alive. Whimpering, but alive. Shaking, the man fell to his hands and knees and began coughing up blood. Not my best work, Slaughterhouse thought with a touch of satisfaction, but I think it will do. While he waited for the man to recover, Slaughterhouse turned his attention to the city. There were no lights save for what Calamity provided, but he could make out the outlines of distant buildings. The cityscape told a grim story. Buildings were shaking, trembling. It was almost like an earthquake--or a demented toddler's idea of what an earthquake looked like. They didn't simply shake and fall down like normal physics would dicate. Many of them seemed to move around the city in sudden jaunts, like some sort of massive teleportation. Others flipped upside down and held themselves upright. Still others flew into the sky, only to come hurtling to the earth again with resounding rumbles. The screaming of the terrified citizens, usually such a pleasure to hear, was reaching an infuriating crescendo in the background. The bright side--the very dim bright side--was that Möbius was still alive. The queen of Calamityville survived still, and she was in fighting condition. The down side was obvious. Whatever threat had came to her was apparently severe enough to warrant a degree of devastation she'd never before inflicted on her subjects. Slaughterhouse took a deep breath. The city was dark, and its streets were being torn and rearranged at the whim of an angry goddess. Worst of all, he had no idea why she was doing this, or even what had set her off in the first place. Gritting his teeth, he whirled around and locked eyes on the quietly sobbing server laying in the rubble. The man seemed to sense the movement, and hurriedly rose to his feet to run. His attempt at escape began promisingly enough as he speeded away with a frightened cry, but within his first few steps he stumbled and fell face-first into the dust. Slaughterhouse reached him in a few broad steps of his own, then pulled the man to his feet with a grin. "You know," he began, leering into the server's petrified face. "Nobody ever says 'thank you' when I heal them." The whimpering man didn't answer except by giving another of his characteristic whimpers. "Ingrates," Slaughterhouse continued, sighing dramatically. "That's what you are. You'd be dead now if it weren't for me, yet all you can do is whine about it. Though I should warn you, you'll get another shot at the whole dying thing if you try running away again. I put a piece of rib into your thigh. It should puncture a few rather important arteries if you get too lively." The man's eyes widened in terror. Slaughterhouse continued smiling, complimenting himself on his handiwork. He hadn't even told the man about the new heart deformity he'd given him. It was a wonder the guy hadn't already keeled over from cardiac arrest. "What's your name?" he drawled softly instead. "A-Arnold," the server replied, stuttering. His voice was hoarse, probably since his vocal chords were still settling. "Nice name," Slaughterhouse replied. He roughly threw the man onto a crumbled block of marble, causing him to let out a scream of pain. Now, Arnold," he continued, "I'm going to ask that you be perfectly frank and honest with me. What did you see in there?" "Nothing," Arnold pleaded hoarsely. "I wasn't even there when he attacked--" "When who attacked?" demanded Slaughterhouse. "What happened?" "I don't know," sobbed the server. "There was an Epic. He killed Robert and Debbie and Jason--" "I don't care about them," Slaughterouse snapped harshly. "What did the Epic look like?" "Don't know," repeated Arnold frantically. "I didn't get a good look at him. Sort of wispy. Translucent." Great. An incorporeal Epic. One who'd struck so quickly, he'd forced Möbius to destroy her own Palace within minutes of his arrival. Slaughterhouse let out a deep sigh, this time quite sincere in his annoyance. He casually caused Arnold's jugular vein to explode, ignoring the man's shocked gurgles as he turned and walked away. The city still shook, rattling and screaming in the night. Slaughterhouse walked out of the wrecked palace, staring down a dark city street. This wasn't his fight. By rights he should go back to his own mansion and hide until the fight was over. But hiding wasn't Slaughterhouse's style. It was time to face the nightmare.

Wow. For once Phil the Epic Shrink actually has someone come into his clinic voluntarily. On that note, I don't believe we've ever seen our favorite post-Calamity psychiatrist tackle Koschei the Deathless. * stares expectantly *

Now that is a playdate I'm desperate to see.

Some family reunions end with drunken brawls over the potato salad. Every Oregon get-together ended with Lightwards knee-deep in a tar pit after offering to give the kids a crash course in "obedience training." On the other end of the spectrum, Uncle Remington's shooting lessons were well received by his four-year old pupils.

Uncle Lightwards only showed up at all because he liked the eggplant macaroni casserole they served. And he did his best to ignore Auntie Revolution, who'd regale the children with stories of the rainbow and pot of gold under Lightwards' magic bowler hat.

Imagine having to live through this every time the kid had a runny nose.

...What in Calamity's name did I just read?

And this has been another installment of "Epic Plot Twists with the 17th Shard." That really does seem to fit perfectly. It's always great when bios come together like puzzle pieces.

There will be a Möbius post, just not right off the bat. I intend to get to bed early tonight, and I might have some pleasant siesta time later today to recharge my... what do you call it? My brain.

Augh. I've been trying to get the first post of "What Happened in Calamityville" written, but I've continuously run into difficulties. First difficulty: exhaustion. My mind is like soup right now. When I put two words on a page, those two words inevitably crash together and create a dull, rambling, and pointless piece of prose. I've been having this soup-mind syndrome for the past couple of days; it's what's responsible for the lousy Backtrack post in The Dalles, and it's made the 2, 000+ words I've written so far a complete disaster. My original plan was to kick things off with a very long post that was to introduce both my characters and fully detail the events that lead into the story. Due to soup-mind, that idea sort of crashed. But I have a Plan B. Plan B: the RP begins with Calamityville at midnight, the city plunged into chaos. Slaughterhouse pulls himself from the ruins of Möbius' palace and comes across the other characters. The build-up to this can be explained a little more slowly as Slaughterhouse has to convince the assembled creeps to work together. Not only does this prevent me from bogging us down with an enormous lackluster opening, it fits our theme. A dark and stormy night is way more fitting than once upon a time in the magical land of Calamityville... Thoughts?

I like him! (Who's going next in The Dalles, by the way? I set it up for Voidus to write a twins response, but apart from that I really don't know.) ((And before anyone chases me with torches and pitchforks, I'm finishing a Calamityville post now. Or trying to.))

Alright, posted in The Dalles. It cane out a lot more weird and rambling then I'd intended, mainly because it's midnight and I'm tired right now. But hopefully I can get away with saying it's because Backtrack is having a bad day.

He owned them. Two years after Koschei the Deathless slit a little girl's throat, a man in pink sunglasses fell to the farmhouse floor, vomiting over the moldy carpet. The man shook continuously in an effort to recover himself. A pair of twins stood in the old farmhouse doorway, staring at him with confusion and a hint of disgust. For once, Backtrack didn't care what the pretty girls thought of him. He retched a few times more before he was able to stand. When he did so, he stumbled a few times, a headache pounding in his skull and the world seeming to blur before his eyes. "I'm sorry you had to see that," he croaked hoarsely, trying--and failing--to crack a smile. He thought it turned out more like some sort of grimace. "You'd be throwing up too if you'd seen," he informed them helplessly. "I mean..." He trailed off, well aware of how ridiculous the complaint would sound to their ears. It wasn't the sight of a little girl being murdered. Backtrack had seen worse before in his visions of the past. He'd seen ancient Indian braves scalping women and children. He'd seen settlers come along and extirpate all the Indian braves. He'd seen Epics appear in the world and murder those same settler's descendants centuries later. No, the blood of the past didn't bother him any more. It was that crazy slontze's brain that he had issues with. He'd thought it would be useful to not just witness the scene, but see what Koschei had been thinking at the time. To see if he had any extra information he could use. He hadn't counted on Koschei's mind being so twisted. It was more than just the willingness to kill--lot's of Epics had that. It was the way the man had relished being in such genuine control of them. The way he'd smiled with genuine delight as the child's parents were thrust under his command, given the most sinister blackmail imaginable... Backtrack shook himself off again, casting another look at the twins. "Sorry," he repeated. "We should keep going. I don't want to go back to Portland without something to pique Lightwards' interest." They'd come, ostensibly, to find out about Remington Springfield's life story. Backtrack had hoped that if he came back with info on the hunter's family, then Lightwards would be able to use it as a means of controlling the man-- He owned them. Backtrack winced, trying to get the nasty taste of Koschei's thoughts out of his head. The man was just so twisted. And the worst part? Blackmail, murder, and leverage was the whole reason Backtrack was here in the first place. A small part of him that had once been Steve Lawrence rebelled at that. He was no better than Koschei. Trying to ignore this line of thought, Backtrack instead devoted his attention to the young women in front of him. Impact and MV were indeed identical, and right now their faces still had identical expressions of impatience and contempt. For a moment, he wanted to speak to them. To tell them that though going to the Empire was his idea in the first place, he really couldn't be blamed for the way it had turned out. The way Lightwards had threatened to kill him, the way Nighthound had threatened to violate and murder them, the way the whole thing had culminated in the three of them being forced to jump out of an enormous floating jungle filled with dinosaurs... Honestly, there was no way anyone could have predicted all of that. He started to open his mouth to say so. He was interrupted, perhaps mercifully, by the sound of a large truck pulling up in the farmhouse's driveway. Frowning, Backtrack rushed to a window and peered outside. There was indeed a large truck. An armored truck, with a bunch of very surly-looking men with guns pouring out of it. "Right," Backtrack began jabbering, looking around the farmhouse for weapons. "We need guns, we need guns... but wait, Koschei took the guns. So we're pretty much just sparking out of luck." There was a pounding on the front door. "By the authority of The Dalles City Guard," a thick voice boomed from outside. "Come out with your hands in the air. If you attempt to use Epic powers, you will be terminated at once. You have one minute to comply." Backtrack felt his jaw beginning to drop, sweat forming at his brow. It seemed like there had to be something he could do. Something he, small little Backtrack, still tasting the vomit in his mouth, could do to overwhelm a legion of armed men. "Ladies," he said with a weak smile directed at the twins. "I think we should do what the nice policeman says."

...I've been suspecting Koschei worked something like this for a while now, but somehow it's not comforting to see my suspicions confirmed. I would definitely say Koschei's creepy enough. He's very clearly a sick and demented person above and beyond what we're used to seeing in Portland. I'm writing up a Backtrack post now, if that's alright.

I'm afraid that there is no force in Oregon that could prevent Lightwards from murdering him then and there. He has a low tolerance for that sort of thing. All this talk of The Dalles has made me forget that I actually need to post in Portland here soon. And I'm still working tirelessly to finish the Calamityville post. Oy vey.

It still feels a little odd that he has so many powers held together with nothing but a common theme, but I suppose Epic powers don't have to make sense. And he'll definitely be a neat addition to our ever-growing cast of characters. So I guess the Epics in The Dalles are split between Vondra and Quicksilver at the moment, yes? (I keep thinking of Quicksilver from X-Men when I see that name. )

That would be me. I like Mrs. Voidus!Karma, though. And to be fair, her Epic has a better claim to the name than mine.

...I tried to upvote this, but Quota blocked me. HE'S SUPPRESSING INFORMATION ABOUT HIMSELF.

I really like the idea of an Epic crimelord as a thorn in Vondra's side. Quicksilver could be a really awesome foil/nemesis to Vondra. The Prankster's definitely a neat character--he kind of reminds me of the Joker. What are the precise boundaries of his powers?

Arsenal is henceforth The Dalles' first pony: His cutie mark being a cross is some sort of sick cosmic joke, I suppose.

I like it. Consider it canon. He doesn't know enough about Epics to understand the correlation between their power use and their (lack of) ethics, but as TwiLyght pointed out, it's perfectly in character for him to make such a decree.