Lets Make A Twisted Small Town

[ajardoor]

Paul Kraig was found dead, this morning, in his home. The cause of death is obviously a brutal knife attack, multiple stabs and slashes all over his fat body. No signs of forced entry. No signs of a struggle.

Paul worked an unremarkable job as a cook in a diner. He was a loner. He was unattractive, sullen, and lazy. He had pale skin (most of it a red ruin now), short blonde hair, and cold hazel eyes.

Paul's dark secret was that he had stockpiled chemical weapons and improvised explosives, on the orders of the black-haired woman he met 15 months ago while trying to poison his customers.

[TGLS]

Nick's Knacks is a small shop that sells unusual items and various antiques. Inexplicably, inventory is rotated out at regular intervals, with no exceptions (no, not even asking the clerk to put something on hold will stop it). The shop has changed hands a number of times in the last six or so years, usually after some unusual incident. The original Nick sold the shop away after a horrible affair involving a jealous husband and ring bought at his store.

The current owner is one Daisy W. Ehrlich, who bought the shop around two years ago. Unusual events seem to be on the decline, though you can still find the strangest buys at generous prices. This is no accident. Daisy sorts through the stock shortly after a new shipment arrives, and has the sense and knowledge to sort out the dangerous from the harmless.

Her sense of danger is a little warped though. Firearms are in the "harmless" category, while jewellery and figurines often find themselves in the "dangerous" category. Daisy goes to much trouble to find the dangerous items owners who understand the risk. Sometimes, she keeps the item for herself. Thus, her house has steadily become more and more cluttered with various bits and bobs, paintings, small statuettes, snow globes, the odd book, electronic lightshows, etc.

Her secret (beyond her knowing what is and isn’t dangerous in her shop), is that some time ago, she picked up a snow globe that’s the spitting image of Serenity Falls. It has a strange power; if she knows where someone is, she can use it to trap their soul inside the snow globe, leaving them in a cold parody of the town. She used it twice so far. The first time was on an out of towner who had a few to many questions about her shop. The second was a man who spurned her advances. Occasionally, she visits the town of the snow globe by staring long and deep into it. She's thinking about bringing more people into her Serenity Falls...

[Phantasm]

Originally Posted by TGLS

Daisy sorts through the stock shortly after a new shipment arrives, and has the sense and knowledge to sort out the dangerous from the harmless.

Her sense of danger is a little warped though. Firearms are in the "harmless" category, while jewellery and figurines often find themselves in the "dangerous" category.

Statting her up, I'd probably give her Magery 0 or some setting-specific variation of it. She doesn't have any spellcasting or similar talent, but it looks like she knows which items are magical and can use them if she wishes.

At this point, I'm wondering if the town itself has the Veil of Mundanity over it or whether said Veil is shredded leaving the townspeople fully aware that Something Is Wrong.

[AlexanderHowl]

Charlotte Love

Charlotte Love is the resident herbalist, homopath, naturopath, etc of Serenity Falls. While the majority of the town considers her to be a kook, her customer base includes one-fifth of the population of Serenity Falls. She possesses a knack for knowing exactly what her customers need and, despite her esoteric and new age activities, she is a phenomenal genius and a natural doctor (IQ 16 and Healer 4).

Secret: Charlotte Love was born Andrea Hart, born to the marriage of Lenape woman and a Japanese woman, and ran away and changed her name after she killed an Anglo man in self-defense when she was 16.

[David Johnston2]

Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl

Secret: Charlotte Love was born Andrea Hart, born to the marriage of Lenape woman and a Japanese woman,

More explanation needed.

[AlexanderHowl]

Sorry, mistyped, a Lenape man and a Japanese woman.

[Petermac]

Michael "Doc" Holliday.
65 year old owner of Holliday's Inn. A small hotel /restaurant / bar
Doc was a big city cop all his adult life. He worked just about every detail there is and has a lot of friends out there that would drop everything to help out their old Training officer.
Doc is an old school, no nonsense, stand up guy (I play him as a version of Sean Connery in The Untouchables). He is fit for his age and can handle himself with his fists or a gun.
He walks with a slight limp. The long term results of being shot on the job decades ago
His two adult daughters still live in the city. His Colombian wife died five years ago.
Doc doesn't have a dark secret (as such) as I run him.
Doc helps a national informal network for helping vulnerable women. There is usually a couple of frightened young women staying in his rooms.
The Armenian mob would certainly like to meet him due to revenue he's cost their trafficking ventures.
Elena Lincoln
Beautiful, rather stern, no-nonsense young Armenian woman. Rescued by the network.
Dark secret - had been forced into sex work by the mob.
Darker secret - she killed at least one of the gang during her rescue.
Darkest secret - she acted as a recruiter for the gang to avoid punishment

[Phantasm]

Rascal's, located just across the town limits, is the county's only "gentleman's club" (read: strip joint), which often hires girls attending Serenity College who are looking for extra spending money. The place does not serve alcohol, but men are allowed to bring their own beer onto the premises; nothing stronger, however. The VIP lounge - where the private dances are performed - is separated from the main dance room by a soundproofed wall, and separated into ceiling-high cubicles for privacy. Each cubicle, however, has a video camera for security, to ensure the rules are followed.

Rascal's run by Edna James, a 60 year old black woman who is built like a bear, and rumored to be just as strong as one. Rascal's was originally her husband Jesse's place, before he died of complications on the operating table during what was supposed to be a routine surgery to help him breathe better after his lung cancer was diagnosed ten years ago. Edna started as the place's bouncer before marrying Jesse; the two had no children.



First Secret: The VIP lounge security cameras feed into a live streaming site on the Internet. And the faces are never obscured. Other services of the site include live cam shows and taped sexual performances.

Second Secret: A lot of the public figures in town are on security camera footage somewhere.

First Dark Secret: Edna has figured out how to mix subliminal messages into the place's sound system so that the music makes the dancers and the clientele lose their inhibitions. This has led to full-on copulation in the VIP lounge, even between dancers and the plainclothes police detectives that "routinely" inspect the place. (Most of the girls know the detectives' faces by now.) Only once, however, has a dancer been arrested for prostitution; most of the time money is not exchanged for anything more than a dance before sex happens.

Second Dark Secret: Edna has sold a few of "her girls" into white slavery.


Supernatural Secret: Edna's bouncer, Liam, is a vampire, and the one that turned Joy van Sliver when she went on her bender. He has been teaching Joy how to hunt properly. Edna knows he is a vampire, and has been promised eternal life. Liam permits her this delusion; once Joy's "training" is complete, he plans to let Joy kill Edna and take her place running Rascal's before skipping town.

[Mysterious Dark Lord v3.2]

"Sunny Jim" Haskell

Mr Haskell runs a employment agency, finding temp workers and day-labor for local business concerns. he's an unassuming man with bland features, dull hair, and plain brown eyes. There is nothing offensive about him and he has amazingly regular habits (the cooks at the diner have his regular lunch prepared and on his table before he comes in the door). He has been known to peruse the local pick-up joints once or twice a year, and takes frequent trips to the southwest.

Dark Secret: Haskell's real name is unpronouncable to humans. He is a shapechanging hermaphroditic reptilian humanoid. He lays eggs a couple of times a year and lets his offspring run wild in the southwest (ref "Chupacabra").

When Haskell dies, his body decays in minutes. His mind transfers into one of his offspring in the wild, which then takes up one of the alternate identities he has established for himself over the years. He has been able to maintain a presence on Earth for over a century.

His mission will be complete in about another century. Yhe mission is [FNORD]

Darker Secret: About once a year he eats a human brain (he doesn't have to, he just likes it.)

[Donny Brook]

Niall's Dash-In is the oldest convenience store in Serenity Falls. It was the first such establishment, built in 1949. It is the first shop as you leave town,right at the curve onto the 'golden mile' stretch of highway that leads into town. It's location relative to the road is such that it has been driven into by cars and trucks no less than 26 times. Concrete dividers and steel posts were finally installed in 2008 and have sustained heavy damage but effectively protected the store, other than the time two years ago when Wes Morton hit a bent post and launched his pick-up onto (and then right down through) the roof of the store. Miraculously only 4 people have died in these incidents.
Curiously, no-one knows who owns the place. Property and banking records indicate a trustee company with an address in Boston which no-one can find. Staff recruiting and other functions are done by email.