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Old 11-30-2017, 08:40 AM   #81
Kromm
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Default Re: Lets Make A Twisted Small Town

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Originally Posted by lwcamp View Post

Geological stuff, continued ...

The town definitely has some bizarre things going on with its geology. We know a river flows through town. Basic hydrology tells us that the water table will be at about the level of the river. Yet we know that there are many caves that extend underneath the town, and that these caves are not flooded. What strange powers are messing with the waters around Serentiy Falls?
Hm . . . I've been to more than one town built on a high hill the river runs around. This leads to a town with cliffs overlooking a river, using pumps to bring in its water – cliffs people can fall from, pumps that can fail or be tampered with. I believe such hills can still be home to caverns, depending on how they were formed.
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Old 11-30-2017, 08:52 AM   #82
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Default Re: Lets Make A Twisted Small Town

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Hm . . . I've been to more than one town built on a high hill the river runs around. This leads to a town with cliffs overlooking a river, using pumps to bring in its water – cliffs people can fall from, pumps that can fail or be tampered with. I believe such hills can still be home to caverns, depending on how they were formed.
Ah, yes. Looking back, the post says that the falls are just outside of town (not in-town, like I remembered ... perhaps I was influenced too much by Spokane, WA and Rochester, NY). So this interpretation seems reasonable.

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Old 11-30-2017, 08:55 AM   #83
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The dark and evil force controlling the waters of Serenity Falls is, the water bottling plant. It consumes so much water that it has had a meaningful effect on the level of the water table, especially after the drought a few years back. Some locals put up a fuss when it went up 18 years ago, and during the drought. Either way, the plant chugs on.

Secret: The water plant has recently had to reject too many bottles during quality control. The company that owns the plant is going to send a hydrologist to investigate.
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Old 11-30-2017, 09:11 AM   #84
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Default Re: Lets Make A Twisted Small Town

Western NY or Central PA would be a good location for Serenity Falls (and Serenity County). Concerning the falls, the Serenity Falls Bungee Jump Club uses the old hydroelectric power plant as their base of operations. With two buildings extending beyond the cliffs for 10 meters, they have a perfect location to exploit the 100 meter falls.

Secret: The Serenity Falls Bungee Jump Club is a suicide club for people who have large life insurance policies and little will to live. Around a dozen people per year die while doing the Bungee Jumps, but the insurance companies have not been able to catch anyone committing insurance fraud. They have petitioned that county and state governments to close the old power plant though. The children of the town think that the spirits of the dead become trapped in the water of the bottling plant.

Last edited by AlexanderHowl; 11-30-2017 at 09:20 AM.
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Old 11-30-2017, 09:55 AM   #85
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Trashmen: George and Mike. The local trash service (perhaps one route, perhaps the only route depending on the size of the town) is run by a pair of good ol' boys names George and Mike. One drives while the other scoops up bags and dumps it into the back. George is older, having done the route for over 20 years and tries to know and say "hi" to everyone he passes. Mike has only been his partner for a few years but is rapidly becoming as liked and well known as George.

Secret: George and Mike are both snoops and thieves. They routinely go through the trash (possibly uncovering things they should not) both for salvage and to discover what they can steal. They are friendly to get to know the schedules and valuables of their victims. George has taught Mike the ins and outs of identity theft, check forgery, and home robbery to augment their city salary. Furthermore, a bit of this illicit income goes to a deputy that was another of George's former partners in trash and crime.

Dark Secret: George has been doing this long enough to have a private stash of blackmail material that Mike isn't aware of. He's anonymously collecting a not-so-greedy amount from a few spouses, public officials, and perhaps even one or two of the more dangerous town folk. This can naturally backfire in a number of ways if Mike or one of the targets find out - especially if the target has other secrets to hide.
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Old 11-30-2017, 10:53 AM   #86
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Town doctor

Doctor Lanying Lee is a spry 50ish oriental woman with 2 adult daughters that opened a clinic they all opened a bit over a decade ago. The clinic predominately has female patients (female staff to discuss female problems), but sees all the members of several local families. Meili, now 26, does most of the office paperwork and has a background in accounting. Rou, now 24, is a nurse practioner. Both are single and date sparingly. They all also live at the clinic with Lanying's husband, Huojin. Huojin, mostly keeps out of sight back in the living area where is taken care of by his family. He is confined to a wheel chair and has burns on much of his face and left arm.

Secret: Huojin was a corrupt military official and not here legally. After his injury Lanying met him as his physician, began an affair, left her (legal) husband in China and ran to the US. Most of the documents they live on are forged.

Dark Secret: Lanying got her medical documents form a powerful shady organization that does questionable medical things. From time to time, they require her to do or provide as part of keeping her secret. One such oddity is asking her to impregnate local women with provided sperm. Over the last decade, she's "assisted" with over two dozen pregnancies carefully placed with couples that were trying. Within the last couple of years a few of those children have gone missing, but not enough yet to form a pattern. The children from those pregnancies could be paranormal, experimental, or "spare" organs from wealthy donors.
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Old 12-01-2017, 08:38 AM   #87
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Default Re: Lets Make A Twisted Small Town

I suppose this town is big enough for two doctors. I always felt that Dr. Thompson was the kind to work out of his house rather than a full-fledged clinic, and I can see there being cases where someone might prefer Dr. Lee's clinic to Dr. Thompson. There might even be a bit of a referral agreement between them.


But rounding off my van Sliver family mortuary:

Karl van Sliver runs one of the four funeral homes in the town. Karl is known as one of the friendliest, if somewhat eccentric, morticians in the area. Most people opt for cremation of their loved ones, as the price of cremation there is incredibly low. For those who opt for caskets, Karl van Sliver is known to hand-craft all of his coffins, and insists that those wanting them for their deceased relatives try out a few. All are incredibly luxurious and incredibly comfortable; as Karl sometimes remarks, "should the dead rise from the grave, as in Revelations, they won't want to wake up grouchy with a stiff neck."

Karl actually originally wanted to be an upholsterer, but there wasn't much call for that nowadays, so he entered into the family business, which has operated as far back as anyone can remember. Even the loss of his wife and oldest child have not deterred his friendliness.

His secret: Karl van Sliver is secretly working on a means of reanimating the dead. So far, he has been successful at reanimating dead hands and feet, though he has yet to successfully bring someone back alive, mostly due to the embalming process actually accelerating decay of brain tissue. Everyone he allegedly cremates he ships off to his home's basement lab. He is extremely proud of his youngest, Donnie, for following in his footsteps and successfully reanimating Ronnie. He is also fascinated by the changes in his daughter, Joy. Karl's ultimate goal is to revive his wife, who is being stored in a specially designed freezer to prevent further decay; unfortunately, she was embalmed by one of the other funeral homes prior to his obtaining her body.

If offered a means of reversing cellular decay of the brain, Karl van Sliver will jump at the chance.
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Last edited by Phantasm; 10-22-2019 at 07:34 PM.
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Old 12-01-2017, 08:52 AM   #88
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Default Re: Lets Make A Twisted Small Town

I am not sure that Serenity Falls is large enough to support four funeral homes at 10,000 people (the average is 1 for every 15,000 people in the USA). Even if we reduced the average life expectancy to 50 years, that would mean only 200 funerals per year, which would only generate an average of $960,000 per year for the funeral home (as it would likely not own the cemetery). You might be able to fit two competing funeral homes, though they would likely be close to bankruptcy due to the competition.
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Old 12-01-2017, 09:05 AM   #89
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Default Re: Lets Make A Twisted Small Town

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I suppose this town is big enough for two doctors.
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Serenity Falls has about 10,000 inhabitants.
Based on the U.S. national average, 10,000 people could justify between 23 and 27 doctors, depending on whose data you use. In reality, medical professionals tend to be concentrated in cities (that's where you go to find most of the specialists, for instance), but 6 or 7 doctors is believable in any town of 10,000, and a town described as "upscale" may have as many as 11-14, some specialists among them. Of course, we probably want a few of these physicians not to have dark secrets. :)
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Old 12-01-2017, 09:09 AM   #90
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Default Re: Lets Make A Twisted Small Town

I'll note that this is an "upscale" community. There is more money flowing around than most communities of 10,000. It also means it likely has a number of people who live here and commute elsewhere. Its also going to have more robust services than your classic small town.

Its going to be reasonably close to a bigger city. Small towns of 10,000 don't just become upscale for no reason. Usually they are an enclave of a large community, perhaps on its outskirts.
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