Vertwick Shore

this is where the world ends.

Somewhere, the tree line must end and the fog over the bay must clear. Deep between the clutches of water and wood, there is a quiet seaside fishing town -- with a history and culture all its own -- and a tendency to damn all that cross into it's threshold.In these changing times, you have found yourself here. For fortune or lack thereof, welcome to Vertwick Shore.--Vertwick Shore is a 21+ Cosmic Survival Horror group, run on discord, inspired by classic Cosmic Horror literature, Survival Horror games such as Resident Evil and Silent Hill, and -- curiously -- Life Simulation games such as Stardew Valley.Vertwick Shore takes place during the American Great Depression period and will frequently handle topics such as:- Separation between rich and poor.- Cults and the abusive behaviors they necessitate.- Loss of individuality and autonomy.
- Themes of depersonalization, sense of self, and an uncertainty of existence.- Body horror and existential horror.- Violence and abuse of power.Please take care. These things are an inevitable part in the story of the group. Do what is best for you.

Setting

Vertwick Shore, Maine -- 1931The fall was well documented. The market crash of 1929 and the subsequent economic downturn ruined many and more – and precious few places and people were left minimally affected by the fallout. Perhaps you, our guests, were left stranded – your ventures interrupted by the disrupted pace of the world. Tick, tock – let the world’s clock stop spinning for a bit – where do you have to go but up?Up, up north to edge of Maine. Past the densely forested road or through the grey waters of the bay. There’s a town there – rumor cradling it like a lifeline. They say things aren’t so bad up in Vertwick Shore – that they were hit relatively light in regards to the depression. Whether that’s true or not – rent is certainly cheaper there than it would be in Boston and New York… and what’s a little urban necromancy in days such as these? We’re gonna bring the place back to life – with its old history and peculiar customs… and the too-welcoming air the ground’s got for outsiders. The city of Vertwick Shore would like to welcome its new blood – and treat them as if they were always its own.Welcome to Vertwick Shore.The City of Vertwick Shore is a foggy, little port town – known for fishing, trade, and not much else. The bay cradling the town is bountiful – but the land itself isn’t the easiest to traverse… Not with the dark Blackwood seemingly getting in the way of most land traffic into the city. But – the peculiarities don’t stop there. Whether entering by land or sea, the time it takes to get to Vertwick is… interestingly inconsistent. It can seemingly take an afternoon or a whole day to cross the Blackwood road – with no visible difference in the route.And once you get there?Well, Vertwick has its charms. The locals are proud of their city – too proud, few may say – but they’re excited about the influx of new residents. Vertwick Shore might not be anyone’s best or first choice – but they’re glad to have you. Even as the depression drones on, Mayor Randall Baddich has approved renovations of much of the town’s older and unused buildings – especially those close to the water, which had been wearing down more rapidly. They’re ready to accept you – but are you ready to accept your place?

Map of Vertwick Shore

1. Vertwick City Hall
2. Town Green
3. Main Street
4. Blackwood Road
5. Vertwick Boardwalk
6. The Docks
7. Old Saints Memorial Hospital
8. Baddich Family Estate
9. Full Moon Lighthouse
10. Allen Cannery
11. Shack of Barnabas Allen
12. Vertwick Railroad Station
13. College of Vertwick Shore
14. Vertwick Community Library
15. Detective Agency
16. Blackwood Cemetery
17. Mangrove Hotel

General Rules

- Vertwick Shore is a mature roleplay group intended for adult participants aged 21 and up. If you are caught lying about your age, you will receive an immediate kick from the server and a permanent ban. Additionally, you will not be allowed back in should you turn 21.
- Respect is the rule of the day here, and holding and voicing discriminatory beliefs is inherently disrespectful to the people around you.- We are all adults here -- and should act like adults. Please take care of yourself and others -- voice your boundaries and take a step back when you need to. Try to handle disagreements civilly and with grace.- If you have a concern with another player, please feel free to contact another mod. Please keep in mind that we cannot solve overly personal issues for you -- so try to keep any preexisting disagreements out of the server.-This should go without saying, but this does not apply if your concerns involve serious allegations against the person in question. If you feel your safety is not assured, please do reach out as soon as is able and we will try to help.-This is a consent-based game, and even out of roleplay, you should CW common bothers such as insects, trypophobia, etc. NSFW content should likewise receive content warnings in their designated section of the server.-Please respect boundaries set by other players -- and set your own boundaries when you need to.
Please avoid talking about heated real-world issues in the server. It isn't that we don't care about the things going on outside, but we would like to provide a place to get away from the real horrors -- and play with the make-believe.

Roleplay Rules

- First and foremost, this is a consent based roleplay and no one should be subjected to content they feel unsafe around. That said, this is horror roleplay that will expressly tackle subjects of cult behavior, the power of belief, unsafe group dynamics, supernatural states of being, and existential dread. This doesn't reflect the real world beliefs of our mod team -- but these themes are necessary to tell the story we want to tell. If these things would be troublesome for you to interact with, we recommend not subjecting yourself to them.- Vertwick Shore is largely paragraph based roleplay in English -- and we expect that most players be able to participate in that way.- Main event roleplay will require players to keep their posts short, sweet, and clear for the easy reading of mods and players alike.- Respect your other players and their boundaries, try not to force relationships with other characters without clear consent from the other player.- Please spoiler sensitive content -- even in your one-on-one roleplay threads.- Please be careful with your formatting in posts. Please avoid excessive formatting (italics, bolding, emoji, symbols, etc) when writing to help with readability. If unsure, try to think about how you've seen novels formatted. Some formatting for emphasis is fine -- and even encouraged -- but try not to overdo it.- Please request to join public roleplays before hopping in -- likewise, try to involve other players when it's appropriate. This is a community based roleplay after all.

Game Rules

First and foremost, the character you play is exceptional.I mean it.In a story that seeks to redefine what it means to be a human being on planet Earth, the character you play must stand as an argument. They must, in and of themselves, stand with or against otherworldly, damnably neutral forces -- and exist among them. Plainly, this means that any playable character is a cut above the rest -- and this can mean either one foot in the grave or a boot in the face of God.All playable characters in Vertwick Shore can, at least in part, be described by their connection to their Body, their Mind, and the individual Strange-ness they carry with them in their day to day. For our purposes, we will be utilizing these selfsame attributes when putting these exceptional individuals under extraordinary pressure.Attributes and the Abilities they empower are displayed as such:

- Strength describes the physical power of a character. Their ability to lift heavy objects, themselves, or deliver physical blows with fists or melee weapons.- Dexterity describes the control a character has over their movements, encompassing speed and precision. Their ability to dodge attacks, sneak around, or do complex maneuvers with their body with ease.-Stamina describes how a character’s body may perform under pressure. How they may be able resist or fight off disease, endure long stretches of strenuous activity, or how they react to injury. Broadly, it will also determine a character’s hit points.

- Presence is a measure of a character’s personality and the impression they have on others. It isn’t strictly about smooth-talking charisma, either. A beautiful dancer, a snake-oil salesman, or brutish brawler all make use of Presence – whether it be to seduce, persuade, or intimidate. It is about the force of will – and how one interacts with others.- Perception measures one’s ability to notice things or gather information quickly and at a glance. One may easily read a room, put together a crime scene, or see unknown entities in the dark if they’re careful with their senses. Perception won’t tell you things you can’t see, hear, or feel.- Knowledge measures how much a character may know about a particular topic or field. It is not strictly about one’s level of education – it can also encompass street smarts, trivia, or odd facts about one thing or another. If there’s something to be known, Knowledge can cover it.

-Sense describes a character's innate or learned ability to detect the alien, supernatural, and occult. Characters with high Sense are in tune with worldly expectations – and are able to tell when something is off, sinister, or perhaps otherworldly. They may be the first to notice a ghost, invisible horror, or eldritch patterns and phenomena.- Command describes a character’s ability to make use of supernatural forces and wield them to their own ends. Read occult tomes and command the creatures they summon. Channel spirits. Cast spells. Make your changing body obey.- Resolve describes a character’s ability to withstand horrific sights and sensations. Repel the machinations of hostile, eldritch forces. Push through terrible sights and sounds. Let the mind survive. Broadly, Resolve also determines a character’s Threshold.

How we roll

Vertwick Shore, like many types of roleplaying games, is played using a handful of dice and a few prayers. This allows for the story of Vertwick Shore to unravel for everyone at the same time, with the results of character actions left to just enough chance to keep the events an exciting surprise.Here, we use a simple dice pool system utilizing ten-sided dice, or D10s, during play. We aim to keep things simple and clear to understand -- so numbers in Vertwick will tend towards the small and concise.How it works is that, when you are asked to roll dice by one of our gms or for flavor, you will roll as many D10s as you have points in a relevant skill. If you have no points in a skill, roll 2 d10s and take the lesser result. Then you will roll those dice in hopes of beating a specified difficulty. Rolling two or more dice at 10 counts as a critical success -- where you will achieve more than you set out to do. Rolling two or more 1's on your pool of dice counts as critical failure -- where you fail to do what you set out to do, and something bad happens. If you only have one die in the pool you are rolling, rolling a 1 on that die will also result in critical failure. Rolling any 10 on your attempt will overwrite a critical failureFor all rolls, there should ideally be something working against the player character -- and this is represented by the difficulty of the roll. Our scale works as such. We work with 3 as our minimum difficulty for rolls. Anything that would work at less than that can be assumed to be too easy to need to roll for. Most rolls will likely fall between difficulty 3 and 7.An example;Jo wants to have his character, Garr, to quickly search the library of an abandoned estate for the specific tome he is looking for. Virgil, the gm, decides that this is a task that is fairly difficult -- and sets the difficulty to 6 and asks Jo to roll Garr's Perception.Garr, in this instance, has three points in Perception -- and therefore will be rolling three ten-sided dice, looking for one of them to roll at 6 or higher.Garr rolls his 3d10's and gets the following results:4, 2, and 8With, having rolled that 8, Garr exceeded the difficulty set by Virgil -- and succeeds in his effort to find the hidden tome. We now play out Garr carefully searching the library, and finding the book.

Well, aren't you special?

When a character has at least 3 points in a skill, it is supposed to represent a certain degree of skill and/or training in that particular area. In this instance, a character is allowed to assign a specialty to that skill that reflects their ability. With a specialty, a character is allowed to roll one additional die for whenever that particular specialty applies.Common Specialties can be things like climbing or brawling for Strength, anatomy or chemistry for Knowledge, or salesmanship or seduction for Persuasion. We encourage players to use this to express where their character's excel -- and to be creative. Don't worry too much about making an optimized character to "win" the game -- worry about making your character feel real and impactful in their own unique way.In the future, there may be larger and grander ways for characters to employ their abilities -- and what them especially effective in the face of immeasurable odds.

Bending & Breaking

Combat in Vertwick Shore is meant to be simple, sweet, and fast. In reality, people can usually only take a few big hits before becoming incapacitated. To keep the sense of danger present and potent, we've elected to continue that trend here.Combat is a simple contest of rolls. Offense and defense.A potential attacker will roll their relevant skill with any applying specialties (typically strength or dexterity -- but stranger approaches may be employed, when the time is right). The defender will roll their relevant skill -- typically stamina, dexterity, or strength. Each participant compares their highest roll in their poolsIf the attack is the higher roll, the margin between the two rolls becomes the damage.For instance, if the attacker rolls a 8 as their highest result -- and the defender a 2 -- the defending character takes 6 damage. Weapons may add a flat modifier to the damage when employed -- typically between +1 and +3 damage depending on the quality of the weapon employed.A player character's resilience is measured twice -- once by their hit points, and once by their Threshold. Hit points function as you would expect them to -- as a way to measure a character's physical health. Threshold does the same -- but for the mind. This is mostly left for personal interpretation... but think of it less as madness and more as morale, stress, and willpower.All characters start with 10 points in both HP and Threshold -- which each point in Stamina and Resolve adding two additional points per. The maximum for each being 16.

Advantage & Disadvantage

If you're familiar with tabletop roleplaying games -- or ttrpgs -- you may have heard the terms "advantage" and "disadvantage" thrown around. This typically indicates a roll made where the odds are either overwhelming for or against the player. Historically, this has been done by performing the roll twice and taking the better or worse result. Here, we do things a little differently.For advantage, we would like to make this a chance for a character to excel in a way specific to them. So, instead of doing multiple rolls -- we will ask a player with advantage to roll the relevant skill and another of their choosing to flavor their attempt. Say, we go back to that example with Garr from earlier.Let's give Garr advantage -- and say that he's familiar with the library in question -- able to easily to recall it's sorted sections. He may roll Knowledge in addition to Perception then -- creating a larger dice pool with which to accomplish this specific task.Disadvantage is far simpler, in contrast. If you are performing an action at a disadvantage, you simply shave off your highest result -- and use the next highest as your attempt.

What are ya buyin'?

It'd be foolish to expect any old fella off the street to brave the unknown with their bare hands and hope alone. No, even though Vertwick Shore is largely isolated from other towns and cities, it still maintains a steady -- if slight -- line of supplies. Your character might be able to get their hands on tools, medicine, and weapons to aid in them in their excursions into places dangerous and unfamiliar.But- how do they get their hands on these things? In a lot of RP groups, some type of currency is often dolled out for art, writing, and completed roleplay threads. We find that this tends to alienate members who may not be artists themselves -- leaving them behind in the economy of the server and distancing them from a hobby they should otherwise be able to participate in.On the flip side, scarcity is the friend of survival horror, and we'd like this to be represented in play. So -- we decided that the best way to cater to everyone participating in a roleplay group is to merely reward roleplay.So how item acquisition in Vertwick Shore works is quite simple. There's not really an arbitrary currency in place. Instead, items have a value set such as 4 or 5 -- and when purchasing them, a player will need to link 4 or 5 completed roleplay threads. The item market in Vertwick Shore is insecure, however, and prices and availability is not stable or guaranteed.

What are you taking with you when you go?

And what will you be doing with all those things, do you think? Firstly, weapons and combat will remain optional in one-on-one, small group, non-event roleplay. But, when preparing to head into an event -- your character will be allowed to bring a small inventory with them. This can be a variety of things- long guns, pistols, melee weapons- first aid, ammunition, etc.But there's a catch.Every player's inventory is represented by a six square grid -- which may be upgraded -- but, once filled, that's all the player can take with them. Stronger, more impactful items may take up more slots on the grid -- and players are encouraged to plan with each other to overcome more dangerous events.