SETTING: the webcast
Mar 6, 2015 11:39:07 GMT -8
Post by Storyteller Joy on Mar 6, 2015 11:39:07 GMT -8
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[attr="class","table-title"]the harpeah webcast
[attr="class","table-subtitle"]the event that got the ball rolling
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The Webcast serves two distinct functions in our game. One. The Webcast allows players who have played in Harpeah before to not have to “dumb down” their knowledge. It lets them have some good wiggle room on how magic works, as well as a general idea on the way the cultures and people of Harpeah are. Even though I didn’t take the time to write up ‘every’ episode to begin with, it’s a fun “ongoing” project to keep working on while the game’s ongoing.
Second, the Webcast is part of the plotline. It’s not just the “introduction” of the game- it’s also a large part of the first “mystery” of Harpeah- where do all those people vanish off to? It’s a double edged sword, to a certain extent, because like all stories, it’s been polished and adjusted away from the original version to improve the streamlining story. Less long periods of dead time between “important action or drama sequences.
In Character the webcast was 13 episodes long and detailed the journey of five friends; Suzi, Derrick, Matt, Jim and Kitty- young adults between the ages of 19 and 27 who went to Harpeah in the late 1990’s. While they were there, they discovered that when the crossed between Earth and Harpeah they gained new magical powers- or in Derrick and Suzi’s case, improved upon natural instincts they already had toward Magic. The “down” side was that the “Magic” was slowly corrupting their bodies to become more like the other creatures on Harpeah- specifically “Mythological creatures” such as Dragons, Elves, Pixies, etc.
Heavier still was the loss of control, strong emotions, some drugs and alcohol, and sometimes just piss poor bad luck, seemed to bring on “fugue” states where often violent reactions occurred. For example, Suzi became an elf, and, over the course of time, became sensitive to light- her own element- and in moments of lack of control, fed on the vital juices on other living creatures. The others also experienced changes- emotionally and physically the longer they stayed on Harpeah. This was called “the Curse”. At first it didn’t change many physical changes… but over time, Suzi gained Fangs, light sensitivity and tended to get very sleepy during the day and very active at night.
One of the Elven elders informed her it was something they associated with Chaos. Her “body” was “rejecting” her magic- causing the adverse effects of not liking light and needing to feed off the energy of others as she could no longer produce similar affects. There where ways to get around it, channeling the energy – but the true solutions were to go home to Earth, or bond fully with Harpeah. Until then her body would be a constant battleground for the energies between the planets both fighting to keep her.
In the last episode, the last published episode, Suzi and the others were having a special meeting inside a tavern. They were going to meet with a young woman named Liz, whom they had saved several towns over and had an interesting relationship with Matt and Jim. (She often tried to kill them…) Liz had told them she knew how to get them back to Earth- without the curses. This was a special ‘live’ webcast, done live in front of the camera on youtube and other streaming sites.
About six minutes into the episode, the director rushed onto the set and told everyone to run for it, that “They” had come. There was a puff of black smoke and “Derrick” vanished. The other actors looked a little stunned, but two people who looked a little like the actors of “Derrick and Kitty” rushed passed the camera and there was the sound of a door slamming.
Faint, humming filled the speakers of anyone watching – and taped – the visual of a portal opening up this one wasn’t like the one in the first one. This portal writhed with energy in multiple hues of the rainbow, the other side was just as dark and as writhing as the energy that manifested out the sides and marked the floor, ceiling and walls with dark streaks. Calling what stepped out of the portal “People” would have been a stretch. A woman with long blond hair, pointy ears and narrowed red eyes- she might have been an elf but those fangs and the pale-unnatural cast to her skin suggested something far more akin to a vampire. If anything it made the costuming choices on the show look ..childish. She carried a bow in one hand and half strung, was an arrow. She spoke with a lilting voice, coaxing, though it was in a foreign language so it would have been difficult to say what she, in fact said. Others trailed after her, including a large wolf that’s shoulder hit the Blond at the hip.
Even the recording held some of those coaxing notes, drawing those watching to want to come to her. The others who filed into the space behind her looked like nothing human and something like a fantasy or horror movie. The Elf turned toward the camera and her lips curved into a smirk. She pointed to it and the wolf lunged forward. The last thing the camera saw was huge, dagger sized teeth, then nothing.
The Internet exploded. For the first twenty four hours, it became a sensation to try to figure out if it had been real- or fake. Then the “stories” started pouring in. The actors and crew from the show where missing. The webcast was pulled from channels and news channels picked up the story about how it was an elaborate hoax. A week passed, and while people moved on with their lives, some families knew something more painful happened. Hoax or not, the founders of the webcast, Kitty and Derrick, as well as their newborn daughter had vanished, without a trace. Their car, as well as the cast and crew’s cars had been found at the small building they had been using to film the scenes in a suburb of Seattle. No signs of a struggle or entry- and the set looked untouched except for what had been seen on camera. No signs of struggle, no signs of forced entry… and no signs of people.
When the game starts it’s been about a month after the disappearance of the cast and crew of the webcast. Some people have found clips of the show but entire episodes have vanished.
Second, the Webcast is part of the plotline. It’s not just the “introduction” of the game- it’s also a large part of the first “mystery” of Harpeah- where do all those people vanish off to? It’s a double edged sword, to a certain extent, because like all stories, it’s been polished and adjusted away from the original version to improve the streamlining story. Less long periods of dead time between “important action or drama sequences.
In Character the webcast was 13 episodes long and detailed the journey of five friends; Suzi, Derrick, Matt, Jim and Kitty- young adults between the ages of 19 and 27 who went to Harpeah in the late 1990’s. While they were there, they discovered that when the crossed between Earth and Harpeah they gained new magical powers- or in Derrick and Suzi’s case, improved upon natural instincts they already had toward Magic. The “down” side was that the “Magic” was slowly corrupting their bodies to become more like the other creatures on Harpeah- specifically “Mythological creatures” such as Dragons, Elves, Pixies, etc.
Heavier still was the loss of control, strong emotions, some drugs and alcohol, and sometimes just piss poor bad luck, seemed to bring on “fugue” states where often violent reactions occurred. For example, Suzi became an elf, and, over the course of time, became sensitive to light- her own element- and in moments of lack of control, fed on the vital juices on other living creatures. The others also experienced changes- emotionally and physically the longer they stayed on Harpeah. This was called “the Curse”. At first it didn’t change many physical changes… but over time, Suzi gained Fangs, light sensitivity and tended to get very sleepy during the day and very active at night.
One of the Elven elders informed her it was something they associated with Chaos. Her “body” was “rejecting” her magic- causing the adverse effects of not liking light and needing to feed off the energy of others as she could no longer produce similar affects. There where ways to get around it, channeling the energy – but the true solutions were to go home to Earth, or bond fully with Harpeah. Until then her body would be a constant battleground for the energies between the planets both fighting to keep her.
In the last episode, the last published episode, Suzi and the others were having a special meeting inside a tavern. They were going to meet with a young woman named Liz, whom they had saved several towns over and had an interesting relationship with Matt and Jim. (She often tried to kill them…) Liz had told them she knew how to get them back to Earth- without the curses. This was a special ‘live’ webcast, done live in front of the camera on youtube and other streaming sites.
About six minutes into the episode, the director rushed onto the set and told everyone to run for it, that “They” had come. There was a puff of black smoke and “Derrick” vanished. The other actors looked a little stunned, but two people who looked a little like the actors of “Derrick and Kitty” rushed passed the camera and there was the sound of a door slamming.
Faint, humming filled the speakers of anyone watching – and taped – the visual of a portal opening up this one wasn’t like the one in the first one. This portal writhed with energy in multiple hues of the rainbow, the other side was just as dark and as writhing as the energy that manifested out the sides and marked the floor, ceiling and walls with dark streaks. Calling what stepped out of the portal “People” would have been a stretch. A woman with long blond hair, pointy ears and narrowed red eyes- she might have been an elf but those fangs and the pale-unnatural cast to her skin suggested something far more akin to a vampire. If anything it made the costuming choices on the show look ..childish. She carried a bow in one hand and half strung, was an arrow. She spoke with a lilting voice, coaxing, though it was in a foreign language so it would have been difficult to say what she, in fact said. Others trailed after her, including a large wolf that’s shoulder hit the Blond at the hip.
Even the recording held some of those coaxing notes, drawing those watching to want to come to her. The others who filed into the space behind her looked like nothing human and something like a fantasy or horror movie. The Elf turned toward the camera and her lips curved into a smirk. She pointed to it and the wolf lunged forward. The last thing the camera saw was huge, dagger sized teeth, then nothing.
The Internet exploded. For the first twenty four hours, it became a sensation to try to figure out if it had been real- or fake. Then the “stories” started pouring in. The actors and crew from the show where missing. The webcast was pulled from channels and news channels picked up the story about how it was an elaborate hoax. A week passed, and while people moved on with their lives, some families knew something more painful happened. Hoax or not, the founders of the webcast, Kitty and Derrick, as well as their newborn daughter had vanished, without a trace. Their car, as well as the cast and crew’s cars had been found at the small building they had been using to film the scenes in a suburb of Seattle. No signs of a struggle or entry- and the set looked untouched except for what had been seen on camera. No signs of struggle, no signs of forced entry… and no signs of people.
When the game starts it’s been about a month after the disappearance of the cast and crew of the webcast. Some people have found clips of the show but entire episodes have vanished.
