T H EL O S TP A R TT H R E E
Theme Song, IC Thread
Theme Song, IC Thread
Welcome to Cottonvale, Virginia. The national leader in supernatural happenings.
"Life is locomotion. If you're not moving, you're not living. But there comes a time when you've got to stop running away from things and run towards something. You've got to forge ahead, keep moving. Even if your path isn't lit, trust that you'll find your way." - Barry Allen.
Introduction
Cottonvale, Virginia, has never been normal. It's known for being the birthplace of the metahumans that became a sensation in the 80s before mysteriously disappearing, but now it's known for darker reasons. Missing people, supernatural occurrences, and other strange things. Especially Cottonvale Academy, the school that leads the country in missing students. But either because you were born here or because you moved here, this city is your home. And over the past year, you've discovered that these supernatural occurrences aren't just real, but that they're affecting you somehow. Ever since they started, you've been developing an ability, a superpower. A gift or a curse depending on what you do with it.
However, you realize soon that this puts you in danger. There's been a recent string of disappearances, all linked to students with these abilities. That might not be the only problem, either. With the weather events getting stranger and stranger, there's quite a possibility that something will happen to knock down the city for good. And since these occurrences are linked with your abilities, the job of getting to the bottom of things naturally falls onto your shoulders. You can try and run away from the task, you can try to avoid it, but eventually the time will come when you have to own up to it and face your fears, most likely sooner than later. You'll be taken from your small town home on a journey all around the country and the world, a journey where nothing will be as it seems from the outside... And whether you make it out in the end with your sanity or you find yourself broken, you won't forget these experiences for as long as you live.
Occurrences
Cottonvale has had quite an interesting history as a city, but more recently is when the supernatural events returned for the first time since the 80s. This is the list of all the major ones.
Blood Moon, January 1st, 2015: New Year's was when it all started again, when the moon turned red at night, a darker red than a normal blood moon. This reportedly only happened over Cottonvale, with other cities not seeing the same thing, and many people accused the local media of faking it. Regardless, most of the city saw the red moon with their own eyes on that New Year's night, and watched as it turned back to its normal color the following morning. Astronomers still haven't been able to figure out what caused this.
Double Suns, June 3rd, 2015: June was when the next event happened, and this one was even stranger and was seen in more places than Cottonvale. Eyewitnesses report seeing two suns in the sky during the day, side by side. There were also no strange effects on the weather by the second sun, leading some to believe that it was just an illusion of some sorts or that it was projected onto the sky from a secret location. The majority of sightings were from Cottonvale, but some were from other places in Virginia.
Fourth of July Blizzard, July 4th, 2015: It should have been impossible but somehow, there was a snowstorm last year on the Fourth of July. The snowstorm started the night before and over three feet of snow hit the ground, eventually setting a Cottonvale record. The temperatures also fell to winter temperatures for about a week, which was how long the snow stayed on the ground. Meteorologists blame this on the location of the town next to the Atlantic Ocean. The weather went on to go back to being completely normal after the blizzard and the cold ended.
October Death, October 1st, 2015: The October Death refers to when all of the plants in the Old Cottonvale neighborhood died in the middle of the night at the same time, which is still unexplained. Nobody saw this happen in person, as it happened very late in the night and the whole neighborhood was sleeping. The Cottonvale PD are still looking for the perpetrator.
The Fallen Star, December 25th, 2015: The most recent supernatural event was on Christmas last year, when a burning object deemed a falling star fell from the sky and crashed through a building in Old Cottonvale, before burning its way through the ground and evaporating after leaving a twenty foot hole in the ground. Most of the house was wiped out too, as well as the family of four that lived there. This incident received the most national coverage but nothing came of it and the object was classified as a meteorite.
The City and School
The city of Cottonvale is divided into four main neighborhoods. Old Cottonvale, the Mining District, the Mission, and Downtown. Old Cottonvale is the smallest but also the richest and the oldest, and it was formed by colonists from England in the colonial days of the United States. Most of the wealthy landowners who run the town live here, meaning that the bloc of landowners called the Cottonvale Restoration Group, or the CRG, has quite a lot of power in the neighborhood and by extension the city. The CRG is led by the powerful and wealthy business owner Lyov Markov, who is the main funder of Cottonvale Academy, the school that the best students from the town attend. The Academy itself was founded in 1968 by Markov's father, and Markov himself is a graduate of it.
However, the strange happenings around the city have spread to the school. Over the past year, there has been a total of twelve missing students, and none of them have been found. All of these students showed signs of having supernatural abilities. While there are small dorms near the Academy, the majority of the students live either in Old Cottonvale or in the Mission. Ethnically, Cottonvale is split 60/40 between Europeans and Latinos, with most of the Europeans descending from the original English colonists and most of the Latinos coming from Cuba or the Caribbean. Most non Latino international students live downtown, which is a more modern and trendy area being revitalized by multiple companies connected to Markov. The total population of the city is 3,100, with about 75 of those citizens being students at the Academy.
Abilities
While the source of each ability is currently unknown by the ones who possess them, in reality they are connected to internal energy, or Chi. Each ability is linked to the kind of Chi that is possessed by the user, which also is connected to personality. There are three different types of Chi, Positive, Negative, and Neutral. To put it simply and in terms of personality, Positive represents extraversion, Negative represents introversion, and Neutral represents ambiversion and anything in between. Positive Chi is seen in those who direct their energy towards the world around them, while Negative Chi is present in more introspective and solitary types of people. Those who switch between introversion and extraversion are typically part of the Neutral group, which is home to some of the more subtle abilities.
During the 1980s, there were several very powerful superhumans, but after their disappearance, you are part of the first group of superhumans to be sighted. Unfortunately for you, your abilities won't be very developed at this point in time, either because you can't use them at will yet or because you can but they aren't that strong. That will change later, but for now, you require training to hone these skills into something more useful. There is a sliding scale of rarity for abilities, with physical ones being the most common and psionic ones being the most rare, with elemental abilities falling in between. The balance may change in the future, though, because there have only been a small number of sightings so far.
The Story So Far
The city of Cottonvale is returning to relative normalcy after the October Death and the Fallen Star incidents, but the students of Cottonvale Academy quickly realized that that wasn't the end of the bad things happening in the town. Sloan Mercer, a junior, has recently disappeared, after allegedly having a vision of the future. Most of the students are now coming up with various conspiracy theories about what happened to Sloan, and where she is now...
Rules
1: I'm the OP, my word is law. Co-OPs have authority too and can accept applications.
2: At this point in the RP, you can't start out with very strong abilities, and if you do have strong abilities, you won't be able to control them well. Characters will grow in strength later.
3: You don't have to make super long posts but since this is more of a story driven RP than others, you should have decent writing skills.
4: If you go inactive for long periods without warning, your character may become part of the Lost, that is, part of the group of missing students.
5: If you want to start a major plotline, bring it up in this thread before doing it ICly.
Application
- Code: Select all
[spoiler=Application]
[box][align=center][size=120][b]Name Goes Here[/b][/size]
[img]Appearance Goes Here[/img][/align]
[b]Name:[/b]
[b]Age:[/b]
[b]Gender:[/b]
[b]Orientation:[/b]
[b]Hometown:[/b]
[b]Neighborhood:[/b]
[b]Abilities:[/b]
[b]Chi Type:[/b]
[b]Bio:[/b]
[b]Personality:[/b]
[b]RP Sample:[/b] (Unless we know you)
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