This is the official out-of-character chatroom for The Companionway RPG. Please post any character sheets here for approval before your initial posts. This is primarily a psychological horror RPG, so don't make any crazy magical characters or superheroes. The more flawed the personality of the character, the more the story will involve them facing their own personal challenges. I will use this thread primarily for providing more detailed sensory descriptions of the various characters around the hotel and sometimes other notes. Any questions should be relayed here or by PM. Also, feel free to just chat away here as well. Keep the story in the main thread and everything else in here. I look forward to getting started!
The exact way in which this place is haunted is part of the mystery that will unfold as the story rolls forward. The first post for the story when I get the ball rolling will set up a lot of the initial building and setting, but I didn't want that to distract quite yet. Character creation will involve being human, yes. Not ghosts. It will actually be quite impossible to be a ghost in this sort of RPG, but we will get to that later.
Name: Enola Patel Age: Sixtynine Gender: Female Appearance: Indian descent, long straight black hair, dark purple- almost black- salwar kameez (dress), and a golden dot centered on her forehead. She wears an arrangement of Japamala's around her neck. She is almost blind and walks with a cane. Personality: Olivia avoids confronting people directly and appears to be self-absorbed, talking to her deceased husband as if he were there. She obsessively prays and can be standoffish. Her best asset is her knowledge in history, medical treatments, and mythology/fables. Background: (This is especially useful in the formulation of the plot and how the house reacts to each of your characters. Give it some detail!) Enola came to America in the 1960s when she was thirteen. Her father had a doctorate but struggled to find work, while her mother, who also had a college education, worked in the restaurant industry. Enola went to school and was mostly independent. Later she would fall in love at a Cincinnati Red's game with an Indian man who worked as the Honda director named Philip. He took trips frequently to India for his family's business. They owned a beautiful house and had a boy. When the boy turned thirteen, he and his father took a private jet for a business trip, and the plane went down in the Arctic ocean. Enola never recovered. Instead, she sold all of their valuable assets. Now she travels out of a duffle bag, searching for closure for her dead loved ones. Luggage: (Did you back interesting items? You never know what could be useful. Pack logical things though based on your character and their purpose at the Inn.) Enola's floral duffle bag contains a few outfits and cosmetics, along with a scurrying mirror and a Hindu tarot deck. She may be old, but she still owns a cell phone. She keeps a miniature address/phone book and a pen in her jacket pocket.
Interesting. An Indian won't be common in the Midwest. The history is great and helps with a lot. I can see some good avenues that can be taken involving this character. Some you are trying to drive in one direction, but the house will determine its own ways as it does. Is this character from any specific region in India? I know a bit about the Bengalis, but that is it. Approved character. I will be starting by the end of next week. I know of at least one more character incoming and suspect another. That will be a good set to start with.
I am not much of a reader. I am not much of a writer. I am more of a planner, an engineer. Unless you tell me otherwise, I'd like to pretend to be someone who is similar to me in a hypothetical situation, improvising and writing creative and meaningful situations around me. >Name: Mary Yamamura >Gender: Female >Age: 27 >Appearance: Mary Yamamura is 156 centimeters. She'd be taller than the shortest of women, but by no means would she be making a statement with her height. Upon spotting her, one gets the impression that Mary is not trying very hard to fit in. What is an Asian woman doing in the Midwest of America? And why is she wearing a black trench coat and boonie hat? The way she scowls and scans the horizon adds ten years to her face. Her hair is bound in a bun, stabbed by a metal spike underneath her hat. >Personality: Intense. Mary is severely introverted and bitter. She has tried for so long to fit in with people, but it always ended in dissatisfaction. She can lie as well as a CIA asset, but why should she? Mary keeps to herself and tries to survive, using her extreme logic to understand the universe and her emotions. She's torn between wanting to be a sweet loving mother and being condemned for being a murderer who twitches herself awake at night every night. >Background: Mary's loving mother died when she was young. Mary's abusive father literally taught her to be a killer (I could go into detail, but it may not be appropriate). Mary emancipated and tried to graduate college, but she was oblivious of how frightening she was to her classmates. She was expelled. She's given up on all her dreams and isn't sure what to do now. While struggling to survive, she has saved enough money to go on holiday to a quaint inn. How she loves inns and hotels! A real mattress! Peace and safety! Old fashioned aesthetics! What luxury! >Luggage: Mary has had to be prepared to leave home at any moment's notice, owning only what she could carry. She has brought her tactical pouches and concealable bulletproof vest. Given her legal and psychological restrictions, she isn't legally allowed to own firearms, but that hasn't stopped her from owning pepper spray, a taser, an e-tool, and several knives. Really, Mary won't be needing any of these things, but she keeps them out of habit to feel safer. Once she gets to her room, she'll take off her military gear and stroll under the stars in her Victorian era clothes. Maybe things will be so quiet that she won't need her earplugs. She also brought her massive doses of anti-depressants.
Interesting character. The bulletproof vest seems a bit much to be wearing while first entering the building though. That may be a bit too overt for even the house to accept within its premises. If another player happens along here to submit a character by the end of the week, I'll start next week. It just can't really be one person with this format. At least two.
Fair enough. Truth be told, I've yet to purchase a bulletproof vest for that reason. Everyone around me tells me that I'd be asking for trouble by getting it, even though it'd be concealable. I'd like to emphasize that Mary is paranoid. Mary has severe PTSD, and she knows it. She realizes that in most scenarios, her hypervigilance is gathering useless information for threats that are not there.
