Lost Weekends (OOC, Open and Interest)

[Tipod]

Two months, one week, three days, and twenty hours.

The frontier community of Crow Cut was once a friendly, if rugged settlement of woodsmen, small farmers, surveyors, trappers, and other blue-collar craftsmen plying their trade with naught but the tools of their forefathers and the skin of their teeth. Contracted by the Glorious Nation-State of Brossbia, a sovereign entity with little jurisdiction on this wild borderland, hardworking men, women, and children put in their all to make something of a virgin territory. Nobody knew what to call this strange new world. The state probably had a highfalutin name for it, but the settlers knew it only as one thing: opportunity. Fathers who struggled to make ends meet in the city laid the framework for farms, for smithies, for sawmills, for anything they could pass on to their sons and future generations. Families who could scarcely rub two nickels together found themselves in awe of the providence that awaited them if only they could knuckle down. Things would finally change.

Though the change that came was not serendipitous, but red and savage.

Not long after planting their seeds, farmers found their fields uprooted. Steads were battered in the night, holes smashed in the walls and ceilings. Livestock went missing.

Then the Biting Things came. Under cover of darkness, many homesteaders were dragged from their beds and hauled into the night, screams echoing until their cries were cut short by a juicy rending.

They were smart. First went the sheriff. Then the blacksmith. Then the farmers, and the doctor, the priest and mothers; the strong were taken, followed swiftly by the nurturing. All that remained were the children. Every night, they huddled together in the general store, a select group of teens standing watch as the little ones slept. No Biting Things approached, but they heard the hackling, snarling taunts from dusk until dawn.

It was exciting at first. No rules: every teen could smoke and drink as much as they felt like. Younger ones ignored their chores and played all day long. They could eat dessert first without washing their hands, and do it all while talking with full mouths. But it didn't take long for the novelty to wear off. It dawned on the older boys and girls that this frontier was a dangerous place. Wild animals here weren't just hungry, they were smart. The beasts toyed with them every night. Soon enough, the drinking was less a form of petty rebellion and more a means to escape cruel reality.  And what could they even do? No place was close enough to reach before nightfall. The county officials and their inspectors stopped showing up entirely, either too busy with some other crisis or dry-gulched by these creatures. As far as they knew, there was no outside world anymore. Just a foggy woodland, a veil hiding rows upon rows of sharp teeth waiting to grind all of them into mincemeat. All they could do was sit, and wait, and pray.

But there were no saviors here. Only drifters. And they knew it was only a matter of time before the hammer dropped.

_____

Brossbia is a small, being-centric country amidst a loose confederation of other, equally scrappy territories, all having broken off from their bloated sovereign overseas. Its two southern neighbors, Hiporah and Denghal, serve as buffers between several other nation-states of various compositions and as constant sources of irritation. While no one country has explicitly invaded the other, border towns and wayward children often find themselves inadvertently caught in the petty rivalries between states. Crow Cut in particular has already scared off two census takers and truant officers, eager to press any orphans they find into re-education and service.

Needless to say, locals tend to be wary of outsiders.
_____

This is something different. Most threads have a larger, more involved scope and take months, if not years to finish assuming they get far enough to begin with. This won't be like that. Its scope is small and will be short, focusing on what happens in a given area and only involving a handful of players (exact size to be determined based on interest, I'll be flexible about it). Posts generally will be once a week or earlier/more frequently, depending on how quickly players participate. Setting tech is mid-to-late 1800s.

The tone is most definitely mature, since... well, this isn't a Goonies type of adventure, people are going to get hurt very badly, NPC or otherwise.

Required sheet details follow thusly. PM them to me for approval before posting them in the thread.

Name
Age
Race/Species
Physical Description
Profession (soldier, frontiersman, adventurer, truant officer, merchant, freeloader, etc)
Talents/Skills/Abilities
Personality
Backstory, minor or major
Time of Arrival (anywhere from "now" to one week prior)

Fae need not apply, nor giant gryphons or dragons unless you can give me a really good reason. Beings, weres, humans, other Creatures are a-okay.

Let's see if we can't do something New and Fresh.