Secrets of Wolfe Island {murder mystery, thriller, possibly dark sexual themes}

[Ariamella]

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I N F O
Murder mystery roleplay
Looking for 4-5 players

T H E M E S
dark | thriller | possibly dark sexual themes

T H E   I N T R O

Your Monday starts out as normal as any other: you wake up, eat your first meal of the day, then go about your business as you usually do. Perhaps you go to work, hoping for the 9 hours to pass quickly so you can relax. Maybe you are spending a day with family. Or possibly it's your day off and you decide to go to the mall. Regardless of your plans, there is nothing out of the ordinary that is worth your comment, and so you go on with the day undisturbed.

It isn't until your return home that you notice something is different about that Monday. As you make your way towards the door of your home, your gaze lands on a sleek black briefcase leaning against its foot. It's accompanied by an envelope with your name written in lilting cursive. There is no return address. Suspicion invades your mind and immediately you turn to look at every corner of your street/hallway/yard to see whether you can't spot the person that had left this strange parcel for you. Of course, there is no one in sight, and so you turn back to it and stare, debating on what your next move would be.

Curiosity wins, as it always does, and soon your hand is closing around the handle to heave the surprisingly light case into your home. Placing it on your table, you first focus your attention on the letter addressed to you:

Open Your Letter

Dear (Your name),

Congratulations! You have been chosen as the receiver of an all expenses paid trip to Wolfe Island! Located in the beautiful Montana, this estate has been passed down from generation to generation and, as part of the Wolfe family's tradition, has annually selected a lucky few to stay at the luxury home for one month.

Enclosed you will find your flight ticket and information, a room key, and 5,000 American dollars in cash. Please do not lose any of these, for we will not send replacements. We hope that you will use the money to buy wardrobe and any items you might need for the trip. Be advised that there will be many events hosted in the Grand Hall, and therefore we suggest purchasing plenty of formal wear. We also propose that you buy outdoor-appropriate garments, such as swimsuits, athletic wear, etc., as we are located in the middle of a lake, and there will be plenty of opportunity to wander the grounds. Finally, do not be late for your flight. It is not a private jet, and it will leave whether you are on it or not.

We hope you will accept our offer, as we very much look forward to meeting with you.

Sincerely,

Heather Vandertulip
Secretary of Wolfe Estate

Reeling from shock, you finally open the briefcase and read the flight information hiding inside, which tells you that your journey begins one week from then. You graze past the key and the ticket, until your eyes fall on what was really tugging at your interest: a thick manila envelope. Were there really 5,000 dollars inside? You pick it up and untuck the flap, and indeed there were stacks of hundreds enclosed with rubber bands.

And then your eyes wander to a folded piece of paper that you now realize you had missed. Spreading out the page in front of you, you're more than a little freaked out at the printed image on it. It's you, but caught in the act of your darkest secret. Maybe it's the the date you had with your coworker that your spouse doesn't know about. Perhaps it caught you at the shady park a few blocks down, where you had discreetly met with a dealer to fuel your heroin addiction. Whatever it was, you're suddenly aware that someone has been watching you.

You replace the contents of the briefcase and do what you do whenever you find yourself deep in thought, but the question hovers in the silence around you: Do you accept?

T H E   E X P L A N A T I O N

Hello everyone! I'm Ariamella, but feel free to call me Mella or Ari, or even "that bitch" if you really wanted to. I'll be your GM for this lovely joyride. I am possibly looking for a co-GM, so if interested, hit me up with that sweet PM.

As the title states, Secrets of Wolfe Island is meant to be a dark, murder mystery roleplay that also has elements of being a psychological thriller. It'll heavily rely on character (and therefore player) choices, with the game evolving as each character makes decisions when presented with a certain situation. For example, if your character is relaxing with a nice hot bowl of instant Ramen, I might present a disturbing noise outside the back window. Your character has the choice of checking it out or not; it might be something or it might be nothing, but that is for you to find out.

There will be some quiet moments in the roleplay itself, but that doesn't mean that nothing is happening. I will be running around behind the scenes sending PMs to players containing information, which may or may not be represented in the IC. This will create that nice mysterious ambiance, as the group won't know who I'll message next and what that message will contain. Players have the choice of withholding the PM'd information from the group, if that's what you want to do.

I will write as the NPC's and general environment that your characters engage in. As the story progresses, some of these NPC's will die. Your goal as writers is to figure out who the killer is, while your characters are also overcoming the psychological and sometimes physical challenges presented to them by their host. The point of the game is that everyone has secrets to hide; that's why they were chosen. They are all suspicious, and they trust no one. Their weaknesses and downfalls can and will be exploited and used against them.

At any point in time, you may PM me and guess who the killer is. Guess correctly and the killer dies, the game ends, and your characters are free to go on with their lives. Guess incorrectly, and your character might die as a result. Yes, I am warning you now that your character might be killed off, so make that decision carefully.

This game isn't inherently sexual, but depending on these vices that players choose for their characters, I'm more than willing to include dark sexual themes.

T H E   R U L E S

I'm looking for about 4-5 players for this game, and possibly a co-GM to help me carry the story along. PM me if interested in the latter.

I do not care how long your posts are. A good reply can have as many as 2,000 words or as little as 200 words; above all, I'm just looking for players with well-written posts that will be entertaining for everyone to read, as it is their game just as much as it is yours.

Some of my posts will be direction (2nd person present) and some will be NPC's (3rd person past). Your posts will be written in 3rd person past as well.

There will be no character sheets posted for this roleplay. If everyone got to see them, if everyone got to see each other's skeletons in the closet, that takes away from the mystery. As such, the only information initially released about each character will be their name, age, and their faceclaim.

And on the note of character creation, this is the only application for this roleplay:

Shoot me a PM with your character's name, age, and faceclaim. Create a post describing how your character reacted to the package, what they packed, and most importantly, what their darkest secret is. Expand on that bit of information, as it will allow me to create the character challenges. This will act as the character sheet submission, and I will create a cast based on those that I think will work well in the game.

Keep in mind that this game is meant for the average Joe like you and I. Therefore, I suggest creating a character that is grounded in the "normal" world, rather than multi-millionaires, politicians, or otherwise obscenely rich individuals. Are they a doctor? A mechanic? An artist?

Aaaand, I think that's it for now. Questions? Comments? Just post them below. Looking forward to hearing from you!

[Red Leaf]

Oh, I like the sound of this, and especially the idea of a kind of cool psychological thriller aspect. I am very keen to submit a character for this, but would quite like to ask one question first - there's a kind of tension between the murder mystery side, which is kind of a concrete goal, and the character exploration/psychological side of things. While I'd definitely be interested in making a character who'll make a valiant attempt at the former, I wonder if a lot of my fun would come from the slow psychological coming-apart that you also describe. Would it be OK not to play 'optimally' (as it were) for the murder mystery solving side?

[Ariamella]

I wonder if a lot of my fun would come from the slow psychological coming-apart that you also describe. Would it be OK not to play 'optimally' (as it were) for the murder mystery solving side?

Of course! I think that’s part of the fun, to be honest. In the past when I’ve run similar games, I had players whose characters weren’t written optimally for the murder mystery part. They existed to shift speculation around in the IC, but never actually made a formal guess. It was more or less to throw things off, which is totally okay by me!

[Red Leaf]

Of course! I think that’s part of the fun, to be honest. In the past when I’ve run similar games, I had players whose characters weren’t written optimally for the murder mystery part. They existed to shift speculation around in the IC, but never actually made a formal guess. It was more or less to throw things off, which is totally okay by me!

Great, thanks! I will write something up and send it to you later today. For those of you reading this, and thinking 'maybe Red Leaf will be writing an emotional non-investigatey character, now I know all xir secrets' then let me tell you: I am definitely submitting Zeke Mysterypuncher, ice-blooded detective extraordinaire whose skill at reading people is matched only by his two-fisted approach to crimesolving. Definitely. My first question was entirely hypothetical.

[Miss Lilly]

Hi Ari *waves*

I'm dead keen to get in on the action - I love your idea!  However, it's bedtime for me right now (I'm in Australia), so I hope you don't mind waiting for my pm with my prospective character?  I'll get on to it tomorrow.

Cheers,
Lilly

[Ariamella]

Oh wow, hi guys!

For those of you asking me to wait, I won’t be starting for a while, so feel free to take your time. It’ll be a solid few days or almost a week, at least, before we get around to choosing the cast and me kicking this shindig off. Possibly a little longer depending on how much interest this gets.

Thanks!

[Karasu]

ooh this sounds pretty cool! Gonna see about shooting you a character I believe <3

[Chreestafer]

Definitely planting an interest flag here! :)

[Dominique]

This looks extremely interesting, I love the idea of a murder mystery!

[Lady Sakura]

Bookmarking, I love these kinds of game. I'll see if I can't come up with a good concept. 

[Ariamella]

Once again, thanks for the interest you guys!

I’ve already had submissions from two individuals, but feel free to take your time in creating characters. There’s no rush at all (:

[Love And Submission]

Is this still open?

[Ariamella]

Is this still open?

Of course! Feel free to send in a character (:

[Ariamella]

So just a quick update:

I've gotten 4 character submissions, and I would prefer it to be balanced out with more male/non-binary characters. Just for diversity purposes and keeping the RP interesting. So if anyone has anymore characters to add, please feel free to send me a PM!

[Karasu]

I am making a boyo myself, so that's at least one more when he's done <3

[Ariamella]

I am making a boyo myself, so that's at least one more when he's done <3

Yours would actually be the first, lol. Thank you!

[Karasu]

Sent, hope he works ^^

[Lady Firepop]

I would love to join!

[Miss Lilly]

Hi Ariamella...is Wolfe Island still a go?