Sanctuary: Jahannam
D&D 4th Edition ruleset, with a twist. The characters are modern-day characters in a modern-day city. There are some house rules in place and most monsters will be made by me according to the guidelines in the 4th edition Dungeon Masters Guide.
Inspirations include Stephen King, H.P. Lovecraft, japanese anime and games. Themes include exploration, planar incongruity, some horror (the fact that you can kill the horrible things makes it less scary, but it's still there), and discovery, both of things inside and outside the self. Some specific Stephen King books that really inspired me are "From A Buick 8", which features a theme of trying to understand strange phenomena from another realm with limited knowledge and tools, and "The Talisman" which features a sort of dimensional travel.The game takes place in Rosewater City, a big fictional city somewhere in the American Midwest. I've used it for other projects but I've always kept it very vague, otherwise I fear not having it be flexible enough. Rosewater is a large city in the vein of NYC and Chicago, but in its outskirts there are suburbs and greener, more homely areas. The game begins on January 5th, 2008. You all celebrated New Years in your own ways, and have been back in school for about a day, starting your second semesters of whatever years you are in. However you've felt a little off since New Years. In different ways for all of you, it's manifested. Maybe depression, apathy, maybe you're too UPBEAT for your own taste, etc. But something is off.
Then January 5th. Typical day of school, settling back into the groove of things (you all had your "awkward return to school" day experience on the 4th). But for different reasons, you're staying after school. Maybe detention, cleaning stuff, waiting to cause trouble, meeting a girl. Everyone has their reason. Everything is conspiring for you to meet each other, and to take note of something amiss in the atmosphere...
