((With heavy inspiration from the anime/manga 'Dandadan', this is the OOC page for a ghost and alien filled adventure at a campground in the Pacific Northwest.))
Hey, thanks for taking the job. I know it was a bit last-minute but we weren't sure of our final camper roster until last weekend. The pay isn't great, I'll admit, but you'll be spending your entire summer deep in the untouched Washington wilderness without any pesky 'laptops' or 'cellphone signal' to distract you from the beauty of nature. Or something like that... Anyway, you'll have your own cabin with 5 or 6 kiddos to watch over and your only job will be to make sure they have the best ding-dang summer of their lives. Seriously, it needs to be the
This last part is vitally important as the area is chalk-full of old caves and pitfalls so never leave the trails and feel free to keep up the 'Haunted Mine Shaft' stories if it keeps the kiddos in their bunks all night. Anyway, Susy and I are looking forward to finally meeting you next week! Campers arrive on the 13th of June so you'll have a few days to get acclimated and meet the other counselors before we get into the swing of things. Should be a nice and easy summer!
-Head Counselor Dave
Formerly an old mining town built on the shores of Guppy Lake near the end of the Western 'Gold Rush', this small campground spouts 8 large cabins, two pavilions, a dock, and an ampitheater. Six of the cabins consist of two long rows of bunk beds that will house each group of campers, roughly separated by age (8 through 14). Head Counselor Dave Mattis and Assistant Head Counselor Susy Smith live in the seventh cabin and the eighth houses the camp kitchen, which will be manned by the former two for the duration of the summer. The dock includes a long pier as well as a covered space for two dozen canoes and a small metal motar boat (for emergencies only) and the pavilions have plenty of tables and benches for meal time and craft activities. The nearest point of contact is a gas station roughly 40 minutes away by car and food and supply deliveries come in once per week on Sunday.
Beyond the campground itself is the North Cascades National Park, a mountainous region full of the remains of unmarked mining operations from the late 1800s. One particularly large mining shaft is only a short hike from the campground itself, coloquially dubbed 'The Haunted Mine Shaft' for its history of eerie tales of unexplained lights and sounds, though many of these are purely exagerations or fabrications by previous campers and staff. No one really knows just how true those stories are.
THE STAFF
THE WORLD
It's the modern era, filled with cell phones and YouTube and Starbucks and Spotify. Ghosts and aliens appear just as they do: often as overproduced History Channel shows or embarrasing articles in tabloids. Few know that these begins actually do exist, that psychic powers are real in a microscopic percentage of the human population, and that the Earth is constantly on the verge of galactic invasion if not for the horrifically powerful spirits and ghosts that unwittingly repel such alien beings with their own terrifying spiritual energies. Ghosts, spirits, yokai: these beings move among us, often unseen as either protectors or stalkers, or they lurk in the dark places their energies are drawn to and amplified. They can be just as dangerous to humans as the threats among the stars.
YOU
You are a new camp counselor, ready to start your summer at Camp Hideaway. You may have some latent psychic powers, ones you're completely unaware of, or perhaps you've always had some feeling of connection with the occult or the spiritual. Or perhaps you don't believe at all! Either way, while sitting around the camp fire during your second night at Camp Hideaway when someone suggests engaging in an old counselor tradition, one that finds you all stepping into the oppressive darkness of 'The Haunted Mineshaft' with flashlights and chalk in hand.
"Go down to the bottom of the main tunnel and write your name on the 'wall-of-terror'! Only then will you be considered a TRUE counselor of Camp Hideaway!"
PSYCHIC ABILITIES
These include all manner of natural, latent psychic manifestations such as Pyrokenisis, Telekenisis, Hydrokenisis, Telepathy, ect.
SPIRITUAL POWERS
This is strength or power that comes from outside influence, such as through the genuine worship of a God or Diety. It manifests through ritual actions, such as exorcisms, but can appear very similar to psychic abilities.
CURSES
There are two distinct forms of ethereal being: 'ghosts', which are the souls of a human lingering on earth due to a powerful bond or unfinished buisness, and 'spirits', which are emotional entities completely divorced from humanity and the human experience.
Ghosts who linger on Earth for too long will find their memories and emotional controls decay until they lose themselves completely and become spirits.
Spirits may either be former ghosts or otherworldy entities like gods, demigods, nature spirits, ect. who never lived as humans.
Beings from both categories may be well-meaning or malicious but spirits tend to lack the proper context to empathize with humans while ghosts often become lost in their own powerful emotions felt at death.
Either form may 'curse' a human, bestowing them with a portion of their energy. In most cases, this energy will feed off their host until their death, but occassionally it grants the host superhuman abilities in line with the being who cursed them. Using these abilities takes a toll, but could allow someone to combat other spirits or psychic forces.