New York City, 1928.
It could have been so beautiful. The night air was crisp, refreshing, a slight gentle caress against your nape as you walked down the street. A little wave creeping across the tree branches and rustling the first fell leaves of autumn. It could have been so wonderful. A gathering, one with booze and merriment, one where high-fashion rubbed with hoi-polloi, bourgeois and beggarly enjoying the co-mingling conviviality.
But elsewhere…
Far beyond the reaches of our minds, sitting just over the horizon of our consciousness, there lay the Grim. The Grim had perhaps always been there, but only now, they languorously stretched one arm, crooked a finger, and the world shuddered, fearful of what it could not understand, and right to be so cowed. This was beyond imagining. This was the dreams of the most mad come to horrible life. This could be the end of everything.
The evening was gay and glorious until then, the societal lubricant of alcohol providing the disparate classes with ready-made excuses to converse with those they would not otherwise be able to. Blue-bloods and boorish folk sharing their thoughts on the upcoming election, playing their pathetic games of chance and cards, the cocktails growing stronger, their inhibitions fading into weakness. And then suddenly…
The world shook with the force of this outreach. Some select few felt this unknowable force…the same select few who knew the true purpose of this gathering. They had felt the Grim speak, voices echoing from time and distance unknown, traveling through the vastness and through the ages, voices that found home inside the ears of those who knew how to truly listen. The voices could shake apart cities, tear down mountains, move planets and stars aside with their power. The voices of the Grim had arrived, and to those who had kept their minds open and willing, they were aching, tender, sinister syllables.
The world stood still, and for a moment, one could be forgiven for thinking nothing at all had occurred. It would indeed feel as if nothing had changed, perhaps some barely discernable change to the sound, the tenor of the Earth. But one partygoer threw open the window, and let out a scream.
Red. The crimson color of blood was all that one could see. The skies were stained with the ichor, the ground tinged a dark oak and copper medley. To an uneducated mind, one could easily surmise that Hell had come to Gaia, ready to claim its bounty of souls. But Hell would be a mercy. This was not that grim purgatory, but something no man or woman could have ever hypothesized, even in their wildest fantasies. This was the land upon which the Grim walked. This was their kingdom, and they would be here soon.
The partygoers gathered themselves in the main common area, the once-vast penthouse now seeming a prison. They shouted, they wailed, they nearly came to blows, until one man sprinted pell-mell, nearly stumbling at the last. The hotfooted man caught his breath, and cried, “I know what this is! I used to be a professor at Miskatonic, and I know the situation we’re in! Please…we have to find the ones who…”
And then he keeled over, his hands grasping feebly for purchase among a table, some wine spilling onto the floor. He shuddered and shook, fellow guests trying desperately to come to his aid. It was too late. He gasped, then a thin stream of blood rushed forth from his lips. He brathed his last, then fell silent, a distinct pallor falling upon his already pale visage. The sweet mercy of death had found him.
The party had descended into chaos. Shouting became the norm, the crowd trying desperately to be heard over the din of panic. Finally, one found her voice to rise above the others, and brought the attention to herself.
“Listen. The man said that we need to “find the ones who…”, and I’m taking that to mean that some among you know what is happening here. We need to find them NOW. I don’t know what is going on out there, but this cannot be our fate. I will not have it. Who is with me?”
The murmers of agreement did not take long to come. Their course had been decided then – find the ones. Those select few who knew what this was, and could, perhaps, tell them how to escape their fate.
Will they succeed? Or will the Grim take what is theirs?
**********
This is the thread to sign up for Werewolves 39, and as this is my first game as the moderator, I will be making the game itself fairly straightforward, with a handful of small tweaks I will be implementing as the game unfolds.
TWENTY PLAYERS
1. Lindsayfunke
2. Owen1120
3. Forget_it_jake
4. Cuttles
5. InnDEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEED
6. Mello Yello Enthusiast
7. MacCrocodile
8. ThoughtsThoughtsThoughts
9. Zecko
10. HolsGG
11. Smapti Jones
12. Subsaharan
13. Shipwreck
14. Spiny Creature
15. BrittaBot
16. TCRM
17. Creeper
18. Flaxon Jackson
19. Candide
20. RalphWaldoWiggum
4 Grim Cultists (Werewolves)
1 Mad Soul (Serial Killer)
1 Agent of the BOI / Bureau of Investigation (Undercover Cop)
1 Miskatonic University Scholar (Doctor)
13 Partygoers (Vanilla Town)
Role-playing will be highly encouraged, but not mandatory. I picked the era and setting for a reason; let’s have some fun with it!