CHARP! The Lies That Bind - September Thursday 9th @ 12 Noon to 3PM Central

[Diana]

THE LIES THAT BIND
THURSDAY SEPTEMBER 9TH @ 12PM - 3PM CENTRAL TIME​

Emerson, Pennsylvania is a fast growing city; home to several wealthy families, established businesses and of course the occasional nutcase. It's a city like any other, but when skeletons come out - everyone has their story. Jeremiah Douglas has recently passed away - his death striking unsettling news to many people. A single event that ties the binds of otherwise unconnected lives.

Like in any soap opera, you are playing a character in this interesting city. There's no such thing as a quiet normal life for someone living in Emerson. There is always a mysterious murder, a cheating lover, a stalker, a big trial, dead babies, kidnappings, charity balls, and bitch fights. Life is a never ending whirlwind of dramatic events. Events that you bring to the table with your characters and their history.

Our story begins at the end of Jeremiah Douglas' funeral. He was an interesting man - but with secrets! Characters might know this man - or think they knew him! His death will bring up mystery and complications. How does it affect your character?

EVENT INFO

WHO: Everyone is invited! Character Bios/Pics are not required, but totally encouraged! Post 'em if you got 'em.

WHAT: This is modern "realistic" setting. No supernatural characters or real magic, please! But if it can happen on a soap opera, it can happen here.

WHEN: THURSDAY SEPTEMBER 9TH @ 12PM TO 3PM CENTRAL TIME

WHERE: Join us in the LIES THAT BIND chat room. You'll find the link to our chats in the CHAT tab when it's time to play.

HOW: This is a SOCIAL SETTING WITH IMPROVISATIONAL GAME MASTERING. That means the object of this roleplay is to interact with other characters, and from those interactions I will create a plot and story around you. There will be action moments, where strange events will happen and your characters will have to work together to resolve it. With this ChaRP "lol random" behaviors are discouraged -- what your character says and does will have in game consequences, so choose wisely!

My roleplays are always NEWBIE FRIENDLY so even if you are terrible at roleplay or have never participated in a ChaRP before, this will be easy for you to get involved in. :D Ask questions, let me know when you need help. I often give tips and direction out of character in the main chat room when people need a little direction.

EASY CHARP TIPS!

Try to show up a good 10 to 15 minutes before the ChaRP is to begin. That way you can read up on any important info, and it makes it easier for your GM to know how to start off the ChaRP when there's a head count.

Don't worry if another player is doing something similar to your idea. DO IT ANYWAY! Similarities and things in common happen in real life too. Everyone also plays differently, so two characters who are both "sweet and shy" will still end up being totally unique people. Two assassins could create a fun and interesting conflict!

Talking to other players about their character before the roleplay is a GREAT way to create connections and background for your own!

Post SHORT AND FAST. Charps are very quick pace and contain a LOT of players. Players can't wait 20 minutes for you to write a wall of text, and if there's too much text they won't be able to read it fast enough and will MISS details. If it takes you longer than two minutes to type your post, you are taking too long and might get lost in the action. This is an exercise in quick and concise writing!

Make sure your character name is mentioned in every post, close to the start of it if possible. This is especially helpful when there's many players, so we know who is playing what character.

Like in Real Life, a character may not be able to acknowledge or notice your character immediately because they are engaged in doing something else. (For example a new character walking in to the room, but the other characters arguing about muffins and do not see them.) Don't get discouraged if you go can't get someone to interact with you right away. Just keep posting and doing actions with your character, or even approach others who also seem to be idle and it WILL happen.

Do not take events in the roleplay personally or assume that bad reactions are because they think you/your character sucks. Everyone is playing a character and reacting to things as their character would!

 

[Zarko Straadi]

Unfortunately, I'm going to be out of town on the 12th, so I won't be able to make this one. :(

 

[Diana]

I'm having a STRUGGLE DAY so this charp is being reschedule for SEPTEMBER! This setup deserves my full attention! O:

 

[Zarko Straadi]

I'm sorry that you had a struggle day, but I'm glad I'll get to join this CHARP after all! ;)

 

[Diana]

This charp is todaaaaay in one hour!

 

[Zarko Straadi]

Name: Quinn Sevin
Age: 60
Role: Tycoon, Pillar of the Community
Personality: Quinn is a hard-driving, ruthless competitor for whom no amount of wealth, power, and status can ever be enough. He is aloof and distant to his family, especially his youngest daughter Sylvie. Despite this, he donates enough to the right causes, sponsors or attends the right functions, and otherwise flawlessly plays the role of the philanthropist businessman and community leader.

Background: Quinn is the CEO of Sevin Financial, a big investment firm. Its closet is full to the brim with more skeletons than the Paris Catacombs. Quinn has climbed to the top over the backs of his own employees, as well as countless small homeowners and tenants, the employees and officers of other companies Sevin Financial has raided and liquidated, along with all manner of market manipulation and corporate skullduggery. He rules over a hornets' nest of conniving and scheming executives, and has managed to keep them in line and his many dark secrets under wraps...until now.

Family Secret: Quinn is extremely disappointed that he has no sons, and he does not consider either of his daughters worthy to inherit his empire.



Name: Olivia Sevin

Age: 53

Role: Matriarch, Queen Bee Socialite, Pillar of the Community

Personality: On the surface, she is the epitome of graciousness and charm. She makes every effort to present the image of the perfect loving mother of the perfect family. But her velvet glove conceals an iron fist. Cross her, and she will cut you to ribbons then watch you bleed out with the sweetest smile.

Background: Olivia was born into the House of Hohenheim, a once-mighty German aristocratic family whose fortunes had been on the decline since the fall of the Kaiser. By the time Olivia entered her teens, they could no longer afford to keep up pretenses. Olivia was determined that she would not be a relic of faded glory working in some rubbish middle-class job. Instead, she married the most ruthless, ambitious young man she could find, and poured her considerable intellect and social skills into helping him rise to the top.

Family Secret: Olivia has had her share of affairs; in fact, her eldest daughter Danae is the daughter of another man.















Name: Danae Sevin

Age: 23

Role: Spoiled Princess, Debutante, The Perfect Daughter

Personality: Danae is beautiful, charismatic, socially adept, and a talented gymnast and dancer. She lives for the limelight and enjoys being the apple of her parents' eyes.

Background: From birth, Danae was the daughter her parents wanted. Even as a small child she exhibited precocious social skills and an instinctive ability to use them in ways that helped her parents, such as charming important business associates of her father's, or being the most popular girl at prestigious Winslow Preparatory Academy and bringing the children of major movers and shakers into her orbit. Even her one major failing--conceiving a child out of wedlock in high school--came up roses when she bore the son her father wished he'd had.
Family Secret: She was conceived in an adulterous affair, but she does not know this.
















Name: Sofia Sevin

Age: 18

Role: The Innocent

Personality: Sophie is highly intelligent and science-oriented, but also a dreamer and a mystic, and a bit of a rebel in her own way. She loves nature, ecological design, and esoteric topics like sacred geometry and altered states of consciousness. She has a passion for using advanced technology and spiritual exploration to make the world a better place. Sophia is highly eccentric, and not too good at picking up on social cues. Her attention tends to flit from one thing to the next like a butterfly in a field of flowers. Her tastes in clothes range to the exotic and unusual, and she is completely oblivious to the idea of "fitting in" or climbing the popularity ladder.

Background: After Danae was born, Quinn and Olivia needed only one thing to make their Perfect Family complete: a son. Instead, they got Sofia.
No matter how hard she tried, Sophia could never measure up to Danae, or to her parents' standards. In school, she was a millstone around her sister's neck, the unwanted little tag-along who always made Danae's efforts to be the Queen Bee extra difficult. Her parents made Danae take her to parties and social functions in hope that she'd catch on and become a younger version of her sister.

As their careers advanced, Quinn and Madeline had less time for their children. For Danae, they could make time, especially for important events like recitals and birthdays; for Sophia, not so much. When Sophie joined her sister at Winslow Preparatory School, the elite private high school where her parents met, her life took a turn for the worse. She was quickly singled out as the school weirdo, which only made Danae hate her more. Children of rich and powerful people who were used to getting away with almost anything subjected her to an escalating spiral of cruelty.

Then, she got a break, of sorts: Danae got pregnant out of wedlock, causing a scandal for the family. For a time, Sophia became the favorite...until Quinn and Madeline found out that Danae was going to have a boy. The Perfect Family would be complete at last. Danae's star rose again at home, and it was readily apparent that The Baby would take over the universe as soon as he was born. Meanwhile, at school Danae scrambled to rescue her popularity by joining the others' attacks on Sophia.

Cycling across a high bridge on her way from school, the idea struck Sophia: she could jump, end her misery, and leave her family happier in her absence. She dismounted her bike, climbed the railing, and looked down into the water below. Danae and her friends drove up, and pulled over. The others started shouting "Jump! Jump!" and goading Danae to join them. Danae, angry with her sister for resorting to such a ploy for attention, gave in and joined them. When she heard her sister's voice, Sophia turned and looked her in the eye, and that's when Danae knew she'd made a horrible mistake.

Sophia looked down into the water again and spread out her arms, preparing to jump. But as she stood there, letting go of her life and all the pain it contained, she had a sudden awakening to the beauty of the river and its gorge, the trees, and the pattern integrities of nature. The boundary of her self fell away, and she felt a sense of oneness with everything. Could she really give up all the beauty in the world for a bunch of mean school children? Filled with awe, she broke into laughter.

"You think this is funny, bitch?" one of the boys said as he ran up, and gave her a shove.

Sophie hit a patch of water without any rocks, but she broke her back and nearly drowned before a group of rafters pulled her out of the water. She awakened in the hospital filled with joy and zest for life, even though the doctors told her she would never walk again. She abandoned all efforts to measure up to Danae, and instead set out to discover and manifest her authentic self. She talked her parents into letting her stay home and learn from private tutors and online education platforms, which gave her the freedom to explore her increasingly wide-ranging interests.

Danae's friends talked her into a pact of silence, where they all agreed to claim that Sophia had jumped. Danae's guilt grew over the next couple years, until she finally confessed. The boy who had shoved Sophie was the son of a state Supreme Court justice, scion of a wealthy and powerful family. Knowing full well there would be a "boys will be boys" defense, a media circus, and no assurance the boy would even face any serious consequences, Quinn opted to avoid a public scandal while using underhanded and often illegal means to ruin the boy's family and drive him to suicide. He did this not out of any particular love for Sofia, but out of conviction that no attack on anything of his can be allowed to go unpunished.

Sofia does not know any of this. So far as she is aware, her parents are the high-society paragons they present themselves as, to whom she can never measure up.

Family Secret: Sofia is on the autism spectrum, and is a bisexual.



Name: Connor Sevin

Age: 6

Role: The Pampered Cutie

Personality: Connor is ebullient and mischievous, and more than a little spoiled. He knows that Copernicus was wrong, because the Universe revolves around him.

Background: Connor came to be when Danae went to a party with an excess of alcohol, drugs, and cute guys. Though he was a family scandal for a time, when Quinn and Olivia found out their unexpected grandchild would be a boy, he became the final puzzle piece for their ideal family.

Family Secret: None yet.

 

[Zarko Straadi]

THE LOGS THAT BIND

• 
  Diana:
  WELCOME TO THE LIES THAT BIND!
  
  
  Today at 10:31 AM

• 
  Diana:
  
  
  
  

  OFFICIAL EVENT - CHARP! The Lies That Bind - September Thursday 9th @ 12 Noon to 3PM Central

  
  THE LIES THAT BIND THURSDAY SEPTEMBER 9TH @ 12PM - 3PM CENTRAL TIME Emerson, Pennsylvania is a fast growing city; home to several wealthy families, established businesses and of course the occasional nutcase. It's a city like any other, but when skeletons come out - everyone has their story...
  
  
  
  www.iwakuroleplay.com
  
  
  
  
  
  Today at 10:31 AM

• 
  Diana:
  This is a modern "soap opera" style setting. We begin at the end of the funeral of a man all characters are connected to in some way. What secrets will we find out? What drama might happen?
  
  
  Today at 10:32 AM

• 
  Diana:
  TYPE FAST AND KEEP IT BRIEF! We're paying in real time, so if you take too long you might miss out on the action. If you write too much, people miss details! Stick to 10 sentences or less.
  
  
  Today at 10:33 AM

• 
  Diana:
  Put your character's name in the first sentence of each post so we know who is playing who. You can also make use of color bbcode to help differentiate your posts from others!
  
  
  Today at 10:33 AM

• 
  Diana:
  Game Master posts appear in this bright bold yellow, so pay attention to those! They're giving you hints and directions for what to do next.
  
  
  Today at 10:34 AM

• 
  Diana:
  My roleplays are always NEWBIE FRIENDLY! Don't worry about making mistakes or getting confused -- I am always in the main chat room to help answer questions or turn you in the right direction.
  
  
  Today at 10:34 AM

• 
  Diana:
  (◉,◉) (◉◇◉) (⊙,◉) (⊙◇◉)
  
  
  Today at 10:34 AM
• 
  Diana:
  The weather was a grim fog of grey; a suitable atmosphere for the funeral of Jeremiah Douglas. There wasn't a person in town that didn't know the man in one fashion or another. His reputation had been churning in the rumor mills for decades. The man's death had come as a huge shock to everyone -- and the circumstances were still under investigation. Once the speeches wrapped up and the casket lowered, people started making their way out of the cemetery back towards their parked cars. Few remained to pay their last respects as rain threatened to start pouring at any moment.
  
  
  Today at 10:52 AM
• 
  Zarko Straadi:
  Sofia turned the Starship around, careful to avoid wrecking the grass, and started to wheel toward Father's limousine, lost in thought. Death. Mr. Douglas had visited the Family house on several occasions, but Sofia couldn't say she knew him well. A week and a half ago, she'd seen him, a living, animated, conscious being. Now...his physicality at least, was reduced to an inanimate thing being lowered into the ground never to be seen again, except perhaps by archaeologists someday. Everyone else, it seemed, did know him well. During the sermon, she'd looked around a bit, noticing subtexts and nuances of expression and interaction among the others that were like a foreign language. "Sofia!" Olivia hissed under her breath, "Don't be in such a hurry!" Pulled from her thoughts, she noticed that the others seemed inclined to mingle, despite the looming threat of rain.
  
  
  Today at 11:10 AM
• 
  Diana:
  As soon as Sofia was alone (in at least that her family was consumed with interacting with other mourners) a tall figure in a hoodie, smelling heavily of cigarette smoke knelt down to her wheelchair. "I need you to give a message to Danae," he grumbled out as softly as he could. With the hood over his head, it was clear that he didn't want anyone to recognize who he was.
  
  
  Today at 11:17 AM
• 
  Zarko Straadi:
  Danae rolled her eyes at her sister's usual cluelessness, but kept her mouth shut. Connor tugged at her hand, which held his, hoping to pull free so he could round up some of the other kids close to his age and get some play going now that the boring grownup stuff was over. "Stay with mommy, dear," she said. "Who's that?" Danae asked, noticing the hooded figure crouched next to Sofia's wheelchair. Quinn and Olivia glanced over, noting the suspicious individual, but could not recognize him with his face shrouded. "Who wears a hoodie to a funeral?" Danae said with a hint of sneer in her voice.
  
  
  Today at 11:20 AM
• 
  Zarko Straadi:
  Sofia coughed softly in reaction to the unexpected smell. "Sorry," she said. "Deliver a message? Like a spy?" she said. Out of curiosity, she tried to lower her head to see under his hood.
  
  
  Today at 11:24 AM
• 
  Diana:
  All Sofia could really see was the shadow a scruffy face and a bit of a frown before he turned his head. "Yeah, sure. Like a spy. Tell he knows what she did. She'll know what that means."
  
  
  Today at 11:27 AM
• 
  Zarko Straadi:
  "Do you...want something from her?" Sofia asked. The message sounded ominous. "Oh--and, who's 'he?' If I say 'He knows what you did' she might think 'he' is you, which would be inaccurate unless 'he' is you. And what do I do if she doesn't know what you mean?"
  
  
  58 minutes ago
• 
  Diana:
  He certainly wasn't prepared for this sort of questioning because he'd forgotten he was trying to keep a low profile and had turned to give her an incredulous stare. Now Sofia could see he was a young man, probably about the same age as Danae, but really didn't seem like the type that'd be her friend or run around in her usual social circles. He wasn't particularly handsome either, and his nose looked like it had been broken once or twice. "Just give her the message, alright? Spies don't need details."
  
  
  54 minutes ago
• 
  Zarko Straadi:
  Sofia gave him a quizzical look. "I am not able to generate a plausible mental model for the context of this situation. ...If she did something to hurt you, I'm sorry. I'll deliver your message," she said, then started to turn away. "Oh, uh--if you knew Mr. Douglas well, my condolences," she said, then rolled over to rejoin her family. "What was that about?" Danae asked. "Got a boyfriend?" "Wha? No. He wanted me to tell you, 'He knows what you did.'"
  
  
  40 minutes ago
• 
  Zarko Straadi:
  Danae's eyes flashed angrily at her sister. Did you have to say that right in front of Mom and Dad?! "Someone you know?" Quinn asked. Danae huffed. "No, just some creeper weirdo trying to start sh--stuff at a funeral, maybe he wants to film our reactions and put it on TikTok or something, I dunno," she said, casting a glance toward where she'd last seen Hoodie Man.
  
  
  37 minutes ago
• 
  Diana:
  Hoodie man hadn't left yet. In fact as predicted he was close enough nearby to get a good look at Danae's response. He himself lifted a hand and flipped her the middle finger. Something was definitely up with that!
  
  
  34 minutes ago
• 
  Diana:
  "I can't believe the man is dead," exclaimed a woman nearby. She was in one of Quinn's social clubs, but not a friend of the family. "I didn't even know he was a therapist. Imagine all the secrets he's died with." commented the lady she was speaking to. They both softly laughed - but discreetly. It was a funeral after all. "The police are still investigating. You know that means they suspect murder? Half of the people here must be his clients, do you think?"
  
  
  30 minutes ago
• 
  Zarko Straadi:
  Danae hiked her chin and turned away, signaling that she had far too much class to flip someone the bird in public, and at a funeral no less! "Dear, is this something we ought to have the police look into?" Quinn said. Danae shook her head. "He's probably just some loser I wouldn't go out with," she said. "Hmm. Well, if he becomes a problem," Quinn said, "let me know and I'll have him dealt with. One can never be too careful." He turned to look the young man over.
  
  
  23 minutes ago
• 
  Zarko Straadi:
  Murder? Sofia thought. And he was a therapist? Was Mother planning on having him...for me? she wondered. There had been talk between Mother and Father about having her see a therapist on account of...well, Sofia wasn't precisely sure, but probably something to do with the fact that she wasn't good at people. But Mother had leaned against the idea, concerned that if word got out it would...cause people-problems of some sort or other that Sofia couldn't suss out from half-overheard conversations. Sofia had been relieved at the time, but if Mother had been consulting with Mr. Douglas about therapy, it meant she was still at risk of facing assessment for failure to be normal. A mix of relief and guilt hit her. She wouldn't be having her mind dissected by Mr. Douglas either, not now.
• 
  
• TO BE CONTINUED....