LIFE
Original Concept and Coding by Crystal Tears
Brought to you by ChobiChibi
Riverside is a town a couple of miles south-east of a larger city called Yorkdale. It is what state agents would describe as up and coming, with a bustling town center. As well as branded shops, there are quite a number of individual retailers too. Not far from this is a small shopping mall containing a few department stores.
Running through the town is a river, hence the name of the town. There are many different styles of bridges crossing the river, connecting the older part of the town to the center which conveniently divides the two areas. The “New Town”, as most describe it, has more apartment buildings rather than houses, although they are not quite as high rise as they are in the neighbouring city. The banks along the “Old Town” side contain many restaurants and is famous for the number of different types of cuisine available. Some of these are actually rather pricey. Old Town's buildings are far less modern, and some would say more attractive than the ones of New Town.
“Police are investigating the murder of a young girl in the Grayling Park area of Riverside in the early hours of this morning. The body of the girl is yet to be identified, but it is believed that she is around seventeen years of age.
The body was found by a pair of joggers on their usual route at around 6am and are being questioned by the Police. No other witnesses have been reported, but detectives ask that anyone in the area between 2:40am and 3:10am to come forward.
The family have been informed and the Police ask residents to not walk alone at night in this area, particularly women under the age of 25, and be cautious of any suspicious activity.”
-Jessica Weaver, The Daily Inquirer, 15/06/2010
The Grayling Park area is in New Town, although a little way out from the center. It has one of the best schools in the area, boasting very good exam results. So much so, that some parents from the city send their children to it. It's a good area to live in, since it's that little farther back from the center, its crime rates are low. The murder of the young girl shocked the community.
“The young girl murdered yesterday has been named as eighteen year old Brooke Patterson, a student at Grayling Park High School, only a few weeks away from finishing her exams and graduating.
The Police have reported that she died of fatal stab wounds to the chest, neck and abdominal areas, with signs of struggle eminent from the cuts and bruises to her forearm and wrists. Blood tests reveal a large amount of alcohol in her system at the time of death and further tests showed that she had been raped prior to her death.
News of the death of Brooke was revealed to the school early this morning. “This is such a tragic loss,” headmaster Mr John Harris commented, “the students are deeply shocked. She was a popular and sporty girl, always active. We shall be offering students counselling if they require it and will support them in any way possible.”
So far, Brooke's parents have been unavailable for comment, but a close family friend described them as “distraught” at their loss.
The Police are continuing their investigations and urge anyone with any information regarding the event to come forward, particularly anyone driving through the area at the time.”
-Jessica Weaver, The Daily Inquirer, 16/06/2010
Riverside has great transport links to the city, with regular train and bus services available. Many choose to live here and commute to the city for work for this reason and the fact that property prices are lower.
“The body of another young woman was found outside Riverside Central train station yesterday evening. The Police have identified the body as Kaitlyn Chen, a 26 year old office worker. Just minutes from her home, Kaitlyn was hit around the head with a large, blunt object, raped whilst unconscious, and then beaten to death.
Her partner, 28 year old Victor Simmons, was arrested and taken into questioning, but was later released due to lack of any significant evidence and an alibi provided by another man living in their apartment building. Victor refused to answer any questions relating to the incident.
The investigation has caused small disruptions to departure times at the station, but services should return to normal by this evening.
Detectives believe that this could be related to the murder of school girl Brooke Patterson who died in the Grayling Park area last week, but this has not been confirmed. They have also collected CCTV footage from the train station in hope that a description of the murderer may be obtained. Police are urging residents to come forward with any information regarding either murder case and warning women not to travel alone at night.”
-Jessica Weaver, The Daily Inquirer, 21/06/2010
The second murder really seemed to hit home with the population of Riverside. Such things were unheard of in the town, surely it was more of an issue in the city? Crime in Riverside was normally quite low, and of course the occasional murder had happened, but not two in such a short space of time, seemingly random and perhaps unrelated.
But life has to move on. It is unhealthy to linger in such horrors and shut oneself away.
The Daily Inquirer is Riverside's largest newspaper, with offices in the New Town area, although many staff are based in Yorkdale as a lot of regional and global content is pulled from their paper. If you want to find out what's going on in Riverside, this is probably the best place to start.
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The idea of this RPG is that you can be whoever you want to be. Literally.
Riverside isn't just limited to what I've described. You can create new areas of the town whether it's a housing estate, business park, supermarket... Really, it's up to you!
It is essential that you know at least 2 other characters in the RPG for this to work. They can be friends, relatives, co-workers, acquaintances... Unless of course, you're new to Riverside, in which case I'd encourage you to bump into a few of the other players early on.
I'd really love some NPC's too, even if they're just the family and a few friends of your character. They don't have to be quite so detailed, but it would be nice to have an idea of who they are.
Don't concern yourself too much with the murders... Although if you're a young woman you might want to be wary of the late hours of the day, and if you're a young man, perhaps you should stay clear of the police? Wouldn't want to be in the wrong place at the wrong time now, would we? >:3
This can go at whatever pace that naturally happens. There's no goal other than to live really. I really hope this doesn't put you guys off XD;
Oh, and I rated it M for Mature because since this is life... Stuff happens... That y'know... Is M rated XD
Sign-up Sheet:
Name:
Age:
Gender:
Occupation:
Address: What kind of house do you live in and where in the town? Remember you're not restricted to the areas I've mentioned in the plot.
Appearance:
Personality:
Skills: Talk about those odd things that your character's good at that you wouldn't necessarily put in personality. Or perhaps even things they enjoy doing in their free time.
History: Please describe your upbringing and other useful things here like where you work, where you go to school, who you live with... That kinda thing.
Relationships:
Other:
Here's my first character, second to follow shortly.
Name: Jessica Weaver
Age: 25
Gender: Female
Occupation: Journalist, The Daily Inquirer
Address: An apartment in the center of town, about 15 minutes walk from the train station.
Appearance: Jessica is quite a thin framed woman, standing at around 5'5'', but not to the point where she looks unhealthy. Comfortably skinny, I guess she would describe it. Her hair is quite a light golden brown on top, but more mousey brown underneath, and is naturally quite wavy. She wishes that it would either sit in perfect curls or deadly straight, but it's more of a very controlled and looked after frizz, to be honest. It reaches just below her shoulders, with a fringe and bangs that frame her cute face and is normally tied back in some way, especially for work.
Normally she wears contact lenses, but on some rare occasions she'll be wearing her glasses that are quite small and rectangular, with plastic rims that are dark purple on the front and a dark pink on the inside. Her eyes themselves are hazel, leaning more to the green side of the colour.
Clothing wise, Jess enjoys showing off her figure, so even when she's not at work she'll pick outfits that flatter what little curves she has. She likes skinny jeans, dolly shoes and tops that maybe have a small frilly edging to them. Y'know, not anything over the top, but she likes pretty lacings and sometimes even flowery patterns, although nothing too bold. Pastel colours feature a lot in her wardrobe also. For work, she is always very formally dressed. Black and white feature often here, with black pencil skirts, white fitted blouses and black heels being rather common. She does love her pyjamas though, and if she doesn't have to leave the apartment, she will often spend the entire day in them.
Personality: Jess really has two sides to her personality that can easily be split into two sections: work and her normal self. She likes to conduct herself as professionally as possible, especially whilst doing serious interviews, and whilst addressing people in a formal manner, she can seem rather cold and unattached. She can sometimes be seen as quick to make accusations, but will always be just as hasty to apologise if she comes off as rude, or if it turns out that her hunch is wrong.
Otherwise, Jessica is a very friendly girl, always willing to help. She enjoys life to its fullest and would never have it any other way. She really enjoys the company of pretty much anyone, but lives alone and kinda likes it that way. She's never uncomfortable around new faces, but really doesn't like arguments. That doesn't mean she's not good at arguing, though, she just doesn't enjoy the raised voices. She likes things to be calm and organised, otherwise she sort of freaks out and panics. She's rather punctual, but isn't the kind to scold someone if they're late.
Unfortunately, Jessica's “work” personality can sometimes take over without her meaning it to. It just comes with her line of work to be a little bit suspicious and question things that seem too good to be true. She's curious in a good way though, since most of the time she just wants to get to know someone better.
Skills: She's an accomplished journalist, so she's rather good at writing. She's quite a good photographer also, but only a few of her pictures have made it into the paper, since they hire people specifically for that job... She's quite good at playing the Wii, if you count that as a skill! She's also a bit of a neat freak, so everything is always well organised, even piles of papers scattered around her are ordered in some kind of way that probably only makes sense to her. She enjoys cooking and isn't bad at it, but isn't exactly a master chef.
History: Jess has had a normal upbringing, I guess. Always did well in school, particularly with English language and English lit and developed a passion for journalism by writing for her school's paper. She studied it at college and got an internship at The Daily Inquirer. The editor was impressed with her work and motivation, so hired her. She wasn't born in Riverside, she's actually from another town around 40 miles away where her parents still live. She doesn't visit them often, but sees her brother since he's only in Yorkdale. Her parents wanted her to settle a little closer to home, since she's their baby girl, but her job offer was too good to be true so she couldn't pass it up.
Relationships: At work, she has a good friendship with her boss and editors. She also dated one of the other journalists, Jason Fletcher, which lasted around 6 months, but she broke it off a few months ago. He told everyone in the office that he dumped her, but still flirts with her. She really doesn't like him.
She knows many of the people in her apartment building and some of the local shopkeepers. Some people may also know her from when she's interviewed them for the paper.
Her parents live in another town and has an older brother that lives in Yorkdale. (Anyone who wants to be friends with her are very much welcome to!)
Other: I-I have no other O_o;
Let me know if you want your character to be friends with one of mine! :3 My other character is male, 17 and a senior at Grayling Park High School.