Exposition Session

We have a modern setting with group of survivors. You all have been a group for a while now, so your characters know eachother and have for some time.

Let's start this thread with some thought inducing words. After it happened, you were never the same again. Sleepless nights, working overtime, and indulging in all kinds of distractions didn’t work for any of you. Flashbacks still haunt you of that day, blur-ry memories. You couldn’t leave it behind. You wanted to know, to understand, to find a solution or a way out, so you decided to get to the bottom of it. Soon enough you discovered that you’re not the only one. There are others like you, others who have been there too, and they too are looking for answers. Together, you have a better chance at finding out what the hell happened there and put an end to this. Permanently.
Series focus: a traumatic or life-altering event shared by everyone on the crew
Characters: a mixed group of people from all walks of life
Possible cases: locating other people who were involved, overcoming Rifts who set out to hide the evidence or rogue Rifts related to the event, dis-covering the Rift or mythical operation behind the event and fighting to bring them down

So what kind of event was it? What happened? Did you lose anyone? Are you all neighbors or was it a some occasion you all shared or were dragged to(play, concert, movie, fair)?

Hmm, so first of all, can we reveal our possible Mythos here ? I had one I was quite a fan of and that could really work with that Disaster setting, but I would prefer to be sure that we should know from each other first. Plus it could possibly justify some "unusual" characters in the group, if I shall say so x).

Spitball #1:

The news media may have described it as a terrorist attack, or simply explained it away as an explosion of an aged gas main underneath the city's main social and entertainment hub (something like Times Square). It was New Year's Eve, and all the characters were there with friends and/or family when all hell broke loose - literally. Yes, there were explosions, but some of the survivors saw a lot more than just that. To them it looked like a massive gang war, but not between normal gangs, but [insert tropes here, like angels and demons from the pits, gods and creatures from one or more mythic pantheons, a ragtag bunch of people? with strange abilities fighting things that 'man was never meant to see.'] Some of us may have lost people, certainly many lives were lost in the carnage and collateral damage. The survivors may be looking for answers, wracked by survivors guilt, hellbent on retribution, or simply gobsmacked by what they know they saw and why no one else seems to have seen it or remember it the way they do. They may have met at a support group or through a forum for survivors where they realized that they were not alone.

Nice start. @Rattila yes you share the Legend you want your character to have inside. It may lead to a few ideas for others as well as some case ideas for myself to think up. I think however, the main point for now should be focusing on what the event was and how you were all involved. Sort of the trailer for the series.
After that we'll get into more focused character crreation amd how you are connected or how you came to be a group. Your collective purpose, the reason you are working with one another.

New Year's eve gets attacked by Legendary creatures. Regular people don't remeber anything but an explosion(cause the media is portraying to be determined).
Anyone got something different or want to build off this?

I like the base that KaeJae has proposed and wouldn't mind building on that idea at all. I especially like the idea that, after the event, only a select few people even seem to remember it. Maybe they've even all been (separately) treated for various mental conditions as a result and just stumble upon the fact that others remember the event too by accident. I could see a couple of characters having met during a short stint in a psych ward or something and realizing that they both remember the same thing, then looking for others once they are both released.

That's a good addition. Psych ward gives me room to play with others you may have met in there.

I really like these suggestions from both KJ and Moonbeam, it does seem like it has a lot of potential for psychological and dramatic roleplay.

OK, let's try this on for size. We all were attending a convention. It could have been any of several different conventions since the city was popular for conventioneers. This would allow for a wide variety of skills. What happened was first thought to simply be a power outage, not too hard tp believe or even deal with. But soon everyone found out that it was all over the city effecting everyone. Within an hour or two the scientists at the Astrophysics convention figured out that it was an EMP discharge but they could not yet determine its source. Was it a natural phenomenon. Maybe from a solar flare? Or was it man made? There were some who, when they heard EMP, immediately thought it was aliens. Was it? Or was it something or someone else or perhaps even from the depths of everyone's own minds? What happened next was explosive, literally.

At this point we can merge some ideas. Was there a lot of death or did most people just pass out and later, wake up, without any memory of what had happened. But what really just did happen? We can go in almost any direction.

Aldrusian, you're proposing this as an alternative idea, correct? Separate from what I was proposing?

Sounds like a before situation. So an EMPesk event happened then explosions.

If I may, I have an idea that piggybacks off Aldrusian's.
EMP during an event at the convention center. All electronics go out; phones, lights, street signals, cars, construction equipment, etc. As everyone is figuring out what happened a riot breaks out along with theft and violence. It quickly spreads to the city streets like a wave of evil igniting the most violent tendencies of people. Well most people. Your group seems unaffected by this events influence.
What do the regular people think happened? Those that killed others, what do they remeber of hiw it happended?

So the idea is that we all knew each other before the event? Or are at least in the same place, able to interact, when the event happens?

You all were present for the said event. Wither or not you knew eachother before is to be decided, but you all know eachother and have worked together on the over arching question for the series at least since the event. How long it took to find eachother is up to you all. The focus of this game(series) will be what the hell happened around this life-altering/traumatic event?

That could work, but I think its going to be harder to get a disparate bunch of people to come together and working towards a common goal if the event is citywide or even widespread. A single discrete event, especially if it targets a popular location where all sorts of people go, rather than a convention or a laboratory or research facility that would only appeal to a select group, would be easier to justify.

If you really like the EMP thing, it could happen on a university campus, and then the characters could be students, faculty, staff or even visitors. That would allow for a variety of backgrounds and still be focused enough that they might meet in the aftermath.

That makes sense. I also really like the psychiatric hospital take. Your loved ones, friends, or even yourself made you get help because you're positive you saw a dog with 3 heads, a small flying person, or an armoured knight.

I'm not sure we have to go quite so far as a psychiatric hospital, unless you have strong motives for trying to centralize that institution in the story. Stories about mental health care are a pretty delicate thing to toy with.

A mutual support group for survivors of a large-scale event - some kind of thing that was passed off as a terrorist attack or some kind of architectural catastrophe - a collapsing convention center, a bombing, a gas explosion - is definitely a possible medium. As memory of the event was scoured by the mist, people who were involved in that support group gradually peeled away, until only the small group of Rifts remained.

It doesn't have to be to as dramatic a scale, but think about the fallout of 9/11. Survivors of the event had to get medical care, lost records, lost jobs, and all had to navigate a legal, bureaucratic system and psychological trauma all at once. Those people relied on each other to figure out how to get financial benefits, to figure out how to get health care, to figure out how to cope emotionally and, depending on how disruptive it was, start new lives.

Now imagine a supernatural force trying to tamp down and normalize the impact of said event, and only a few people, a handful of outliers still really feel the emotional scars, and really remember it as more than a passing news story that happened a few months ago. Everyone else left the facebook group, stopped asking questions, didn't go to the three-month checkup at the restaurant they'd all arranged.

And then imagine that they all remember seeing something - a crack to hell opening up, a rampaging dragon, a storm god - that they hadn't felt comfortable admitting in the larger group, something that had nagged at them until something - booze, desperation, or both - made them just blurt it out.

Psychological aspect is not my focus, just throwing ideas into the pile at this point. I will have nothing in stone until you all agree on event and characters. I will build around your group and what kinda game you all want to play.

ZevinOfNine has joined up but I still have no word from cdwjava. Do we want to try 7 players, keep the 6 and I'll tell Zevin sorry or break up into 2 group at this point?

Ziven was one of the original people who expressed interest, so I'd prefer to break into two groups rather than deny them a chance to play.

Agreed. I would have found another way to MC for them. Another group perhaps.
Alright, now we need to split the group. I think Aldrusian and Rattila should be in one, their interests aligned well.

I'm good with that !