badfic_manor_mods (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
badfic_manor_mods) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
badfic_ooc2012-10-22 02:43 am
badfic_manor_mods) wrote in badfic_ooc2012-10-22 02:43 am
Entry tags:
Plot Post - Welcome (back?) to Silent Hill
Late Sunday night, the ominous fog outside thickened, enough that anyone looking out probably wouldn't see anything; if anyone was outside, visibility dropped to maybe a couple feet, at most, and there would've been a thick, oppressive feeling to the strange mist.
Edit/note: As per most of the "field trip" type plots, the "Manor" proper is "gone" for the week; people will find themselves in random locations across the town, at MUN preference - apologies for any confusion!
Monday morning, everyone is waking up scattered in Silent Hill; as this is a survival-type field trip, they could be just about anywhere, and will only have with them what they'd usually carry on them. Power nerfs are somewhat optional with some rules; if a character's powers would be something where they'd be able to breeze through monsters or obstacles, they'll get nerfed town to "normal" or "near-normal", but if their powers can make things more complicated, then feel free to leave them intact! For anyone with control issues, the Town will be trying to get them to lose it, for one example of a reason to leave powers intact, and psychics or those with sensing abilities will be aware of the morass they're walking through.
There is, however, one small gift from the previous plot; everyone will wake up with a little, bright colored, pumpkin-shaped basket next to them. Inside will be a couple handfuls of candy from the previous plot, a note reading "Yours to keep, no expiration - use wisely", and one of two items, at MUN option:
1) A small bottle of some kind of blue liquid, labelled "Healing Potion - One Dose". If drunk (or poured down someone's throat, depending), all injuries that person currently has heal; if there's chronic injuries or illnesses, or other negative lasting physical effects, the character will be free of them for one month's time.
2) A box with a single carved figurine of a ruby slipper. The inside lid reads: "Instructions: Rub the slipper and recite 'There's no place like home' - One Use". If used, the character and anyone within a five foot radius around them are transported to a replica of the character's living space in their home world, with everything there as they last left it. It will last for two days or until they attempt to leave the "home", at which point it will vanish, although clothes, books, or small mementos carried on someone's person will stay with them.
The gifts are permanent, or at least until used - as the "no expiration" note implies, they won't vanish at the end of this plot.
As always, feel free to pester mods with questions in chat, PM, IM, or wherever - due to "who's more familiar with the setting", most questions about how the place works should go to Birdy (Shirhanblade on AIM)!
Setting Info
For those that're psychic or sensitive, this is going to be a ~fun~ week! See, the Fog Realm and Otherside are basically two parts of something that's an artificially created realm; in canon-lore, they were part of a cult's attempts at bridging the gap for their apocalyptic "God", using the daughter of the cult's leader as a sacrifice and channel. According to their beliefs, their "God" would bring about Paradise by first purifying the world, cleansing it via suffering … although all indications are just that, if they succeeded, they'd be bringing about Hell on Earth. There's a few important things to know about it:
1) The "Town" is a living thing itself. It's not exactly what most would consider sapient, and doesn't have a clear intellect of its own, but it exists for a purpose, and the occasional reality shifts are the Town altering itself towards those goals.
2) It's a construct made real. Basically, the original ritual that created it used the power of the girl used as a foundation to generate an alternate dimension that would take and feed off of fears, guilt, anger, pain, suffering, hatred, traumas, inner demons, and everything bad, unpleasant, and negative in the mind and emotions of people around it, then use them as the foundation to spin its reality.
The basic foundation that it's working with is the original little town of Silent Hill mixed with the nightmares of first, Alessa, and then other people who've been trapped in it or passed through the town and unwittingly fed it. The monsters, as much as they'll behave like living creatures, are not; they're psychopomps, manifestations of one bit or another of something the town fed off that it's turned into something to hunt, harry, unnerve, and torment the people trapped in it. If you've got any questions how your character would perceive things, feel free to ask; for one example, with the KHR cast, monsters and most of the town would register as something like the "Real Illusions" generated by a Mist-user - not "real" per se, but physically solid enough to do harm.
This means the layout and map might shift; you can walk through a hole in a wall and turn around to find it gone… walk in a building off a street that gives a clear path both ways, and come out to find a sudden chasm across one direction… or have a street or hallway not go the direction it did when you'd first passed through there. The Town will be abusing this to break up groups larger than three people, at most, but it is perfectly possible to blunder into and even team up with other people!
3) It feeds off, and reacts to, the emotions and mental states of the people trapped within it! In general terms, this means that it'll try to mirror things - as explained in the spoiler post, there'll be little environmental cues and tweaks to the monsters that will be it trying to evoke reactions from the characters; someone who finds family and home important would find burned-out husks of homes and signs of murdered children, someone with a close friend might find tokens hinting that something bad happened to said friend or destroyed things that'd evoke that person.
One canon example is shifts in the "Nurse" monsters - they looked more monstrous to Harry, the adoptive father of "Alessa", while James, who had a lot of repressed and frustrated sexuality issues, saw them more pale-human looking and with slightly too-tight/too-low-cut uniforms. This does mean that there may be variances in how monsters look to different people, even if they're in the same place. Note that if there's a creature that's pinging off one person's issues - like the specific "stalkers" someone might invent for their character - they WILL appear to others; it's tweaks to details that might be different to different people, but the creature itself will still be there. (Again, a canon example from two is the Abstract Daddy, which was reflecting Angela's issues with her father; James was capable of interacting with and even fighting it, despite it not being "his".)
The more unsettled and bothered by this the character is, and the more they react, the more it'll feed off and amp up the harassment, while if a character is self-aware or has enough self-control to keep calm in the face of this, it'll have less to go on and will probably maintain the same level of harassment with occasional bursts of trying to startle or rattle them.
This is something that can be adjusted at MUN option, and we are leaving handling this up to you - if you don't want it trying too hard to drive your character nuts, it's got plenty of places to redirect its attention and may just not really get to them, and if your character is someone who has canon reasons to be very self-aware of their own flaws and weaknesses and have control over them, it's not going to get quite as much leverage. If your character is one that'll react less and you want to mess with them more, then you can just hand wave that the Town was trying harder on them!
4) BLACKBERRIES ARE YOUR FRIENDS. If there's a shift in reality or something that's a more active manifestation - like a monster - electronic devices will weird out! Blackberries will spit out static and different kinds of white noise and screeches that'll get louder as monsters get closer, and will get loud bursts of white-noise hiss when there's something about to change in the environment. Characters that're part mechanical will get this as a sort of scrambled input that isn't easy to make sense of, although one that's clever enough can probably figure out the correlation and use it to act as a sort of "radar" anyway.
However, attempts at using them to communicate will end up sending broken transmissions, with any network posts partly hijacked with images and background nose from the Dark Realm. This can go from dim images of the Dark Realm of where the character trying to post is, to flickers of monsters, to some kind of other message or interjection from a "stalker".
6) THERE'S TWO LAYERS TO IT. People will wake up, and spend most of the week, in the Fog Realm, which is basically a mostly empty, desolate, abandoned version of the town; a thick fog blankets everything, limiting visibility to maybe 20' clearly, and some of the buildings show signs of fire damage. Husks of cars are scattered about, but none of them are functional, and many are damaged; the weaker monster types show up occasionally, but it's mostly more tense than anything - there's enough to keep you on your toes, but not enough to be a massive giant threat; buildings range from empty and safe, to slightly more dangerous than outside. It's hard to tell what time it is, but in daytime it's bright enough to see comfortably while at night, the streetlights and outdoor lights on buildings will come on to provide some light to see by.
Under certain circumstances, characters will find themselves bounced to the Otherworld, the deeper and worse version.
Those about to get transported there will hear air raid sirens and there'll be warning flickers as things go dark around them, while the spreading "corruption" is a visible influence; this is a video example of what the effects run like, and the movie's visuals weren't bad for this either, although unlike in the video, characters won't have the sudden migraine/blackouts Heather does. They get to watch everything rot away and weird out as things go dark.
Blackberries CAN be used as a small light source in the Otherside! Things are much more rusted and burned out, barbed wire and metal chain-link is everywhere, strange fans and cruel bits of industrial machinery are all over, bloodstains are common, and the monsters are much more common as well as often tending toward the bigger and more aggressive ones; things stop trying to mimic a normal town and start going hellish. The good news is that transitions are usually temporary, and getting out of a certain area, past a worse monster, or weathering it out will be enough to get it to go back to the quieter Fog Realm. Conditions that could cause it to shift include a character freaking out badly enough, finding something where the Town is angling to try and make a harsher attempt at getting its hooks into them, a stronger monster approaching or a more meddlesome "Stalker", and spending time somewhere that's more of a strong point for the Town or something that'd evoke more of a reaction from the character.
It IS possible for two people to be in the same area with one in Otherside and the other in Fog Realm, in which case, they might catch snatches of voices, but won't actually be able to see or interact with each other - the two realms are separate planes!
Notable Places
The map isn't stable, so you can pretty much hand wave wherever you want characters to end up, or see places and have them blocked off, etc., at will! Just about anything you'd find in a normal town can be found here, including various shops, a police station, restaurants, etc., although it's hit or miss what will be safe and what will be dangerous.
Alchemilla Hospital: The main hospital, and one of the more dangerous locations in the town. It's prone to dumping people Otherworld without much warning, and even the Fog Realm side is ... well, unpleasant.
Church of the Holy Way: While it's built like a typical cathedral, there's no trappings of crosses or anything familiar to any normal religion. It's the main church of the Order, the cult that created Silent Hill, and as such, it's got a lot of strange books and such around it, as well as being pretty dangerous. Unlike many places, while it does look abandoned, it doesn't really shift much; the whole planar thing collapses here, so Otherworld creatures will appear here without warning, and if someone wants to try to delve into learning the lore, they can go through books and things here… although anyone damaging it may find one of the nastier monsters making sudden and very unpleasant appearances, or find themselves suddenly transported somewhere like Toluca Prison.
Heaven's Night: A strip club with three stories and a bar; generally relatively quiet, although depending on the person walking in something might spawn here.
Brookhaven Hospital: The secondary hospital in Silent Hill, with a wing for long-term care patients, and one that served as a sanitarium; one of the more dangerous places in town, inhabited by Nurses and other things and prone to being pretty unstable thanks to everything it's absorbed from the patients.
Lakeside Amusement Park: A large amusement park near Toluca Lake, with a roller coaster, a haunted house, a carousel, and bits of other rides and attractions; the carousel will occasionally start up and run for short periods of time and then stop, while recordings from attractions will sputter in and out. Another of the more dangerous locations.
Toluca Lake: A large freshwater lake the town is built along one side of; the Lakeside Amusement Park covers part of the coastal area, as well as a graveyard, the Lakeview Hotel, a small shopping mall, and Toluca Prison, originally a Civil War POW camp that was converted into a standard prison! You can generally reliably get around between these places if you can get to the lake; the graveyard is the quietest of them, the Hotel has History of the bad sort, and the prison's predictably horrifically dangerous and prone to dumping people Otherworld without warning.
Monsters and Creatures
For a general reference, the Wikia's page with the catalogue of monsters from the series is here. Besides Valtiel, most of the creatures aren't "actual creatures" - they're living manifestations of the same sort of stuff the town's fed off and reflecting. As such, they'll bleed, take damage, etc., and can be "killed", but will also reform after a while, and can appear out of nowhere sometimes. To psychics and characters with supernatural senses, their nature isn't that hard to detect, although it doesn't make them less of a threat to most. Anything from the wiki is fair game; some of the more common or important ones are listed below.
Character-Specific Stalkers: As mentioned in the Spoiler Post, if you really want to screw with your character, they can end up with a manifested form of their issues that's Just For Them - something persistent, nearly impossible to kill, and tailored to them. Pyramid Head is an in-canon example.
Stalkers won't be COMPLETELY relentless terminators in most cases; they're a definite threat, but are out to harry and unsettle as much as kill - in an Otherside area they'll be seen on the other side of a chain-link barrier, they'll show up out of nowhere to chase for short distances, be glimpsed tailing or lying in wait occasionally down one path, and their behavior might also be adjusted for what they're manifestations OF.
A "stalker" that's based more in guilt or self-destructive tendencies will be more aggressive, while one founded in fear of some implacable enemy might be more cunning and prone to harassment and tormenting.
You could also have a completely non-aggressive stalker born from frustrations or some more abstract situational-issue that will show up to lure, herd, or trick the character into a place that'll go Otherside, trigger reality-warps itself to tamper with escape routes, shut doors on the character or open doors for the monsters, etc..
Stalkers will not specifically resemble humans or anything living, although they can, and you can always use one of the more boss-type existing canon monsters for one if it fits. There will be a couple examples in a comment that're going to be inflicted on characters belonging to one of the mods here, with the "blackbirds" being an example of a more aggressive and fear-based stalker, while the harlequin will be more of a harassment and annoyance type. Abstract Daddy is another canon example of a "stalker", and also a demonstration that if your character's teamed up with someone, people can help each other with their respective stalkers. It's not necessary to have one, so if you have no ideas or don't want to have one, that's perfectly fine!
Pyramid Head: One of the more iconic creatures, and originally a "Stalker" for James Sunderland; with respect to our previously-played Pyramid Head and how commonly used he's been in canon, the Author is fudging. His purpose is basically punishing the guilty; he may show up to harry people that carry a large amount of guilt, whether it's deserved or not, and he'll behave much like the Stalkers outlined above. If someone manages to destroy him, he'll reform a few minutes later somewhere else and may be after them again for revenge. People that don't have something to trigger him hunting them probably won't encounter him.
Valtiel: The other creature that isn't just a manifestation, Valtiel is a direct servant of "God", the vaguely solar-identified goddess of the Order. Valtiel is non-combative and non-agressive, but able to manipulate the environment and cause shifts in reality - both changing and rearranging things, and shifting things between Fog and Otherside for people. He won't ever approach anyone closely, but may be seen working machinery or scuttling around, up walls, through doors, etc.; attempts at pursuing him will probably get one bounced to the Otherside and lead to a dead-end.
Dogs: Dog monsters can vary from the Double-heads to more zombie-looking things to creatures that look canine with heads made of masses of worms; they're not very bright, are easily distracted by corpses and bait, but move fairly fast and usually roam in packs of two or three. They're also not that strong, and while they can be dangerous, they're relatively easier to put down. They're fairly common baseline things since Alessa'd been scared by hostile large dogs when she was little, and often end up carrying the hospital bandages/burns imagery.
Lying Figures: Capable of walking awkwardly and slowly, they skitter quickly if knocked down, and can spew a poisonous mist from the slit in the front of their bodies. They can probably leave some good bruises from head butting or running into someone, and make someone a bit sick from the mist, but they're pretty weak and fairly fragile, if prone to being not-quite-dead and occasionally twitch-moving for one last attack if someone doesn't make sure they're dead. It's not coincidence that they're built in such a way as to evoke a straightjacketed figure - considering how often the place feeds off traumas and damage, it's no surprise that even without Alessa having been exposed to such, images relating to insanity have been impressed into the standard background noise.
Nurses: Welcome to fear of hospitals! These are mostly only found around the two hospitals, Alchemilla Hospital - which is the one that'll be inaccessible - and Brookhaven, which doubles as the sanitarium. They carry simple weapons and are about as fast as a normal human, a little stronger, and slightly tougher; it's less that they're more resilient or that they regenerate, and more that there's no sense of pain and it takes a bit more to disable them. Light, sound, and movement will get their attention; if one is quiet and careful, it's sometimes possible to sneak past them.
Flying things: There's a handful of these, mostly variants on bats, moths, and pterodactyls, with occasional crows that'll show up in reaction to people where birds are more of a trauma-twitch. They're small, fast, and sort of obnoxious things that smash easily - if you can hit them, and will occasionally travel in groups.
Grey Children: Welcome to what happens when part of the foundation is an abused and bullied child! They inhabit buildings in the Otherside; they move fast and have a distorted, childlike laugh when they attack, often come in groups of three or so, and can take a bit more of a beating than something that size should.
Closers: Big bruisers that show up in the Otherside, standing about seven feet tall in their normal, slightly hunched posture; the arms are large and heavy, swung as weapons, and have sharp blades that'll pop out of the front. Slow, large, take a good beating to put down, and persistent.
Hanged Scratcher: Born of a mix of insect specimens kept in collections and fears of abduction, they skitter along ceilings, move quickly, and will swing down to grab at people; they usually are seen alone, but can be a pretty startling ambush, and exist in the Otherside. They're pretty persistent and something you'd probably want a weapon for.
On that note about weapons, it's not that hard to find improved weapons. Somewhere within a range of wherever a given character wakes up there'll be something vaguely useful, whether it's a board with a nail through it, crowbar, a piece of pipe, or some other similar melee object. Firearms and more effective weapons won't be found this week. If a character had a weapon they were carrying with them, it will remain, although special powers will be limited the same as other powers getting nerfed down.
Why yes, this plot will be longer than one week. Also, things like a character-specific monster can be introduced during the plot and not necessarily show up stalking the character immediately!
Edit/note: As per most of the "field trip" type plots, the "Manor" proper is "gone" for the week; people will find themselves in random locations across the town, at MUN preference - apologies for any confusion!
Monday morning, everyone is waking up scattered in Silent Hill; as this is a survival-type field trip, they could be just about anywhere, and will only have with them what they'd usually carry on them. Power nerfs are somewhat optional with some rules; if a character's powers would be something where they'd be able to breeze through monsters or obstacles, they'll get nerfed town to "normal" or "near-normal", but if their powers can make things more complicated, then feel free to leave them intact! For anyone with control issues, the Town will be trying to get them to lose it, for one example of a reason to leave powers intact, and psychics or those with sensing abilities will be aware of the morass they're walking through.
There is, however, one small gift from the previous plot; everyone will wake up with a little, bright colored, pumpkin-shaped basket next to them. Inside will be a couple handfuls of candy from the previous plot, a note reading "Yours to keep, no expiration - use wisely", and one of two items, at MUN option:
1) A small bottle of some kind of blue liquid, labelled "Healing Potion - One Dose". If drunk (or poured down someone's throat, depending), all injuries that person currently has heal; if there's chronic injuries or illnesses, or other negative lasting physical effects, the character will be free of them for one month's time.
2) A box with a single carved figurine of a ruby slipper. The inside lid reads: "Instructions: Rub the slipper and recite 'There's no place like home' - One Use". If used, the character and anyone within a five foot radius around them are transported to a replica of the character's living space in their home world, with everything there as they last left it. It will last for two days or until they attempt to leave the "home", at which point it will vanish, although clothes, books, or small mementos carried on someone's person will stay with them.
The gifts are permanent, or at least until used - as the "no expiration" note implies, they won't vanish at the end of this plot.
As always, feel free to pester mods with questions in chat, PM, IM, or wherever - due to "who's more familiar with the setting", most questions about how the place works should go to Birdy (Shirhanblade on AIM)!
Setting Info
For those that're psychic or sensitive, this is going to be a ~fun~ week! See, the Fog Realm and Otherside are basically two parts of something that's an artificially created realm; in canon-lore, they were part of a cult's attempts at bridging the gap for their apocalyptic "God", using the daughter of the cult's leader as a sacrifice and channel. According to their beliefs, their "God" would bring about Paradise by first purifying the world, cleansing it via suffering … although all indications are just that, if they succeeded, they'd be bringing about Hell on Earth. There's a few important things to know about it:
1) The "Town" is a living thing itself. It's not exactly what most would consider sapient, and doesn't have a clear intellect of its own, but it exists for a purpose, and the occasional reality shifts are the Town altering itself towards those goals.
2) It's a construct made real. Basically, the original ritual that created it used the power of the girl used as a foundation to generate an alternate dimension that would take and feed off of fears, guilt, anger, pain, suffering, hatred, traumas, inner demons, and everything bad, unpleasant, and negative in the mind and emotions of people around it, then use them as the foundation to spin its reality.
The basic foundation that it's working with is the original little town of Silent Hill mixed with the nightmares of first, Alessa, and then other people who've been trapped in it or passed through the town and unwittingly fed it. The monsters, as much as they'll behave like living creatures, are not; they're psychopomps, manifestations of one bit or another of something the town fed off that it's turned into something to hunt, harry, unnerve, and torment the people trapped in it. If you've got any questions how your character would perceive things, feel free to ask; for one example, with the KHR cast, monsters and most of the town would register as something like the "Real Illusions" generated by a Mist-user - not "real" per se, but physically solid enough to do harm.
This means the layout and map might shift; you can walk through a hole in a wall and turn around to find it gone… walk in a building off a street that gives a clear path both ways, and come out to find a sudden chasm across one direction… or have a street or hallway not go the direction it did when you'd first passed through there. The Town will be abusing this to break up groups larger than three people, at most, but it is perfectly possible to blunder into and even team up with other people!
3) It feeds off, and reacts to, the emotions and mental states of the people trapped within it! In general terms, this means that it'll try to mirror things - as explained in the spoiler post, there'll be little environmental cues and tweaks to the monsters that will be it trying to evoke reactions from the characters; someone who finds family and home important would find burned-out husks of homes and signs of murdered children, someone with a close friend might find tokens hinting that something bad happened to said friend or destroyed things that'd evoke that person.
One canon example is shifts in the "Nurse" monsters - they looked more monstrous to Harry, the adoptive father of "Alessa", while James, who had a lot of repressed and frustrated sexuality issues, saw them more pale-human looking and with slightly too-tight/too-low-cut uniforms. This does mean that there may be variances in how monsters look to different people, even if they're in the same place. Note that if there's a creature that's pinging off one person's issues - like the specific "stalkers" someone might invent for their character - they WILL appear to others; it's tweaks to details that might be different to different people, but the creature itself will still be there. (Again, a canon example from two is the Abstract Daddy, which was reflecting Angela's issues with her father; James was capable of interacting with and even fighting it, despite it not being "his".)
The more unsettled and bothered by this the character is, and the more they react, the more it'll feed off and amp up the harassment, while if a character is self-aware or has enough self-control to keep calm in the face of this, it'll have less to go on and will probably maintain the same level of harassment with occasional bursts of trying to startle or rattle them.
This is something that can be adjusted at MUN option, and we are leaving handling this up to you - if you don't want it trying too hard to drive your character nuts, it's got plenty of places to redirect its attention and may just not really get to them, and if your character is someone who has canon reasons to be very self-aware of their own flaws and weaknesses and have control over them, it's not going to get quite as much leverage. If your character is one that'll react less and you want to mess with them more, then you can just hand wave that the Town was trying harder on them!
4) BLACKBERRIES ARE YOUR FRIENDS. If there's a shift in reality or something that's a more active manifestation - like a monster - electronic devices will weird out! Blackberries will spit out static and different kinds of white noise and screeches that'll get louder as monsters get closer, and will get loud bursts of white-noise hiss when there's something about to change in the environment. Characters that're part mechanical will get this as a sort of scrambled input that isn't easy to make sense of, although one that's clever enough can probably figure out the correlation and use it to act as a sort of "radar" anyway.
However, attempts at using them to communicate will end up sending broken transmissions, with any network posts partly hijacked with images and background nose from the Dark Realm. This can go from dim images of the Dark Realm of where the character trying to post is, to flickers of monsters, to some kind of other message or interjection from a "stalker".
6) THERE'S TWO LAYERS TO IT. People will wake up, and spend most of the week, in the Fog Realm, which is basically a mostly empty, desolate, abandoned version of the town; a thick fog blankets everything, limiting visibility to maybe 20' clearly, and some of the buildings show signs of fire damage. Husks of cars are scattered about, but none of them are functional, and many are damaged; the weaker monster types show up occasionally, but it's mostly more tense than anything - there's enough to keep you on your toes, but not enough to be a massive giant threat; buildings range from empty and safe, to slightly more dangerous than outside. It's hard to tell what time it is, but in daytime it's bright enough to see comfortably while at night, the streetlights and outdoor lights on buildings will come on to provide some light to see by.
Under certain circumstances, characters will find themselves bounced to the Otherworld, the deeper and worse version.
Those about to get transported there will hear air raid sirens and there'll be warning flickers as things go dark around them, while the spreading "corruption" is a visible influence; this is a video example of what the effects run like, and the movie's visuals weren't bad for this either, although unlike in the video, characters won't have the sudden migraine/blackouts Heather does. They get to watch everything rot away and weird out as things go dark.
Blackberries CAN be used as a small light source in the Otherside! Things are much more rusted and burned out, barbed wire and metal chain-link is everywhere, strange fans and cruel bits of industrial machinery are all over, bloodstains are common, and the monsters are much more common as well as often tending toward the bigger and more aggressive ones; things stop trying to mimic a normal town and start going hellish. The good news is that transitions are usually temporary, and getting out of a certain area, past a worse monster, or weathering it out will be enough to get it to go back to the quieter Fog Realm. Conditions that could cause it to shift include a character freaking out badly enough, finding something where the Town is angling to try and make a harsher attempt at getting its hooks into them, a stronger monster approaching or a more meddlesome "Stalker", and spending time somewhere that's more of a strong point for the Town or something that'd evoke more of a reaction from the character.
It IS possible for two people to be in the same area with one in Otherside and the other in Fog Realm, in which case, they might catch snatches of voices, but won't actually be able to see or interact with each other - the two realms are separate planes!
Notable Places
The map isn't stable, so you can pretty much hand wave wherever you want characters to end up, or see places and have them blocked off, etc., at will! Just about anything you'd find in a normal town can be found here, including various shops, a police station, restaurants, etc., although it's hit or miss what will be safe and what will be dangerous.
Alchemilla Hospital: The main hospital, and one of the more dangerous locations in the town. It's prone to dumping people Otherworld without much warning, and even the Fog Realm side is ... well, unpleasant.
Church of the Holy Way: While it's built like a typical cathedral, there's no trappings of crosses or anything familiar to any normal religion. It's the main church of the Order, the cult that created Silent Hill, and as such, it's got a lot of strange books and such around it, as well as being pretty dangerous. Unlike many places, while it does look abandoned, it doesn't really shift much; the whole planar thing collapses here, so Otherworld creatures will appear here without warning, and if someone wants to try to delve into learning the lore, they can go through books and things here… although anyone damaging it may find one of the nastier monsters making sudden and very unpleasant appearances, or find themselves suddenly transported somewhere like Toluca Prison.
Heaven's Night: A strip club with three stories and a bar; generally relatively quiet, although depending on the person walking in something might spawn here.
Brookhaven Hospital: The secondary hospital in Silent Hill, with a wing for long-term care patients, and one that served as a sanitarium; one of the more dangerous places in town, inhabited by Nurses and other things and prone to being pretty unstable thanks to everything it's absorbed from the patients.
Lakeside Amusement Park: A large amusement park near Toluca Lake, with a roller coaster, a haunted house, a carousel, and bits of other rides and attractions; the carousel will occasionally start up and run for short periods of time and then stop, while recordings from attractions will sputter in and out. Another of the more dangerous locations.
Toluca Lake: A large freshwater lake the town is built along one side of; the Lakeside Amusement Park covers part of the coastal area, as well as a graveyard, the Lakeview Hotel, a small shopping mall, and Toluca Prison, originally a Civil War POW camp that was converted into a standard prison! You can generally reliably get around between these places if you can get to the lake; the graveyard is the quietest of them, the Hotel has History of the bad sort, and the prison's predictably horrifically dangerous and prone to dumping people Otherworld without warning.
Monsters and Creatures
For a general reference, the Wikia's page with the catalogue of monsters from the series is here. Besides Valtiel, most of the creatures aren't "actual creatures" - they're living manifestations of the same sort of stuff the town's fed off and reflecting. As such, they'll bleed, take damage, etc., and can be "killed", but will also reform after a while, and can appear out of nowhere sometimes. To psychics and characters with supernatural senses, their nature isn't that hard to detect, although it doesn't make them less of a threat to most. Anything from the wiki is fair game; some of the more common or important ones are listed below.
Character-Specific Stalkers: As mentioned in the Spoiler Post, if you really want to screw with your character, they can end up with a manifested form of their issues that's Just For Them - something persistent, nearly impossible to kill, and tailored to them. Pyramid Head is an in-canon example.
Stalkers won't be COMPLETELY relentless terminators in most cases; they're a definite threat, but are out to harry and unsettle as much as kill - in an Otherside area they'll be seen on the other side of a chain-link barrier, they'll show up out of nowhere to chase for short distances, be glimpsed tailing or lying in wait occasionally down one path, and their behavior might also be adjusted for what they're manifestations OF.
A "stalker" that's based more in guilt or self-destructive tendencies will be more aggressive, while one founded in fear of some implacable enemy might be more cunning and prone to harassment and tormenting.
You could also have a completely non-aggressive stalker born from frustrations or some more abstract situational-issue that will show up to lure, herd, or trick the character into a place that'll go Otherside, trigger reality-warps itself to tamper with escape routes, shut doors on the character or open doors for the monsters, etc..
Stalkers will not specifically resemble humans or anything living, although they can, and you can always use one of the more boss-type existing canon monsters for one if it fits. There will be a couple examples in a comment that're going to be inflicted on characters belonging to one of the mods here, with the "blackbirds" being an example of a more aggressive and fear-based stalker, while the harlequin will be more of a harassment and annoyance type. Abstract Daddy is another canon example of a "stalker", and also a demonstration that if your character's teamed up with someone, people can help each other with their respective stalkers. It's not necessary to have one, so if you have no ideas or don't want to have one, that's perfectly fine!
Pyramid Head: One of the more iconic creatures, and originally a "Stalker" for James Sunderland; with respect to our previously-played Pyramid Head and how commonly used he's been in canon, the Author is fudging. His purpose is basically punishing the guilty; he may show up to harry people that carry a large amount of guilt, whether it's deserved or not, and he'll behave much like the Stalkers outlined above. If someone manages to destroy him, he'll reform a few minutes later somewhere else and may be after them again for revenge. People that don't have something to trigger him hunting them probably won't encounter him.
Valtiel: The other creature that isn't just a manifestation, Valtiel is a direct servant of "God", the vaguely solar-identified goddess of the Order. Valtiel is non-combative and non-agressive, but able to manipulate the environment and cause shifts in reality - both changing and rearranging things, and shifting things between Fog and Otherside for people. He won't ever approach anyone closely, but may be seen working machinery or scuttling around, up walls, through doors, etc.; attempts at pursuing him will probably get one bounced to the Otherside and lead to a dead-end.
Dogs: Dog monsters can vary from the Double-heads to more zombie-looking things to creatures that look canine with heads made of masses of worms; they're not very bright, are easily distracted by corpses and bait, but move fairly fast and usually roam in packs of two or three. They're also not that strong, and while they can be dangerous, they're relatively easier to put down. They're fairly common baseline things since Alessa'd been scared by hostile large dogs when she was little, and often end up carrying the hospital bandages/burns imagery.
Lying Figures: Capable of walking awkwardly and slowly, they skitter quickly if knocked down, and can spew a poisonous mist from the slit in the front of their bodies. They can probably leave some good bruises from head butting or running into someone, and make someone a bit sick from the mist, but they're pretty weak and fairly fragile, if prone to being not-quite-dead and occasionally twitch-moving for one last attack if someone doesn't make sure they're dead. It's not coincidence that they're built in such a way as to evoke a straightjacketed figure - considering how often the place feeds off traumas and damage, it's no surprise that even without Alessa having been exposed to such, images relating to insanity have been impressed into the standard background noise.
Nurses: Welcome to fear of hospitals! These are mostly only found around the two hospitals, Alchemilla Hospital - which is the one that'll be inaccessible - and Brookhaven, which doubles as the sanitarium. They carry simple weapons and are about as fast as a normal human, a little stronger, and slightly tougher; it's less that they're more resilient or that they regenerate, and more that there's no sense of pain and it takes a bit more to disable them. Light, sound, and movement will get their attention; if one is quiet and careful, it's sometimes possible to sneak past them.
Flying things: There's a handful of these, mostly variants on bats, moths, and pterodactyls, with occasional crows that'll show up in reaction to people where birds are more of a trauma-twitch. They're small, fast, and sort of obnoxious things that smash easily - if you can hit them, and will occasionally travel in groups.
Grey Children: Welcome to what happens when part of the foundation is an abused and bullied child! They inhabit buildings in the Otherside; they move fast and have a distorted, childlike laugh when they attack, often come in groups of three or so, and can take a bit more of a beating than something that size should.
Closers: Big bruisers that show up in the Otherside, standing about seven feet tall in their normal, slightly hunched posture; the arms are large and heavy, swung as weapons, and have sharp blades that'll pop out of the front. Slow, large, take a good beating to put down, and persistent.
Hanged Scratcher: Born of a mix of insect specimens kept in collections and fears of abduction, they skitter along ceilings, move quickly, and will swing down to grab at people; they usually are seen alone, but can be a pretty startling ambush, and exist in the Otherside. They're pretty persistent and something you'd probably want a weapon for.
On that note about weapons, it's not that hard to find improved weapons. Somewhere within a range of wherever a given character wakes up there'll be something vaguely useful, whether it's a board with a nail through it, crowbar, a piece of pipe, or some other similar melee object. Firearms and more effective weapons won't be found this week. If a character had a weapon they were carrying with them, it will remain, although special powers will be limited the same as other powers getting nerfed down.
Why yes, this plot will be longer than one week. Also, things like a character-specific monster can be introduced during the plot and not necessarily show up stalking the character immediately!
no subject
SAGURU: He's got the Black Organization in his world - a large, established, vicious, and VERY lethal crime syndicate, often associated with blackbirds and crows, and he's in a place where he honestly doesn't expect to survive going up against them.
He's going to have three "Stalkers" reflecting this of the bigger, nastier, aggressive variety. The "Blackbirds" are tall, shadowy figures, in basic outline almost like figures in trenchcoats - what hands are visible are a mass of blades, there doesn't seem to be anything INSIDE the clothes but darkness and something moving, the "coats" move more like wings in places than fabric or leather, and black feathers stick out in places/get shed behind them; they do occasionally use other weapons as well.
He's also going to get a lot more trouble from the small, existing SH-bestiary crows than almost anyone else, probably, and be running across wonderful things like dead doves caught in bits of barbed wire/broken glass, burned up playing cards, and the like.
REBORN: Gets a Stalker that will never actually attack, only show up occasionally and ...make the environment shift to be more obnoxious or obstructive; it's a tall sort of puppetlike figure in a tattered suit that looks like someone took a harlequin's motley and turned it into a really garish three-piece with a metal mask and hat where the "puppet's" "head" should be.
There's also going to be a lot of badly destroyed dead bodies in his area, with a lot of them fairly obviously basically "innocent bystanders" as well as others where it'd be harder to tell 'friend vs. foe'.
SPADE: May have run-ins with a Pyramid Head. With the amount of baggage he's carrying around and how much of it is still emotionally bleeding, he'll be getting tugged Otherworld fairly often; buildings around him will show damage that would suggest shelling or artillery fire, and there may actually be sourceless shells hitting around him in spurts when he's Otherworld. There will be fewer of the "dogs" as typical smaller monsters, replaced by black spiders with sharp-edged limbs that're about the same size.
no subject
Stalkers: Kid gets a manifestation of this asshole stalking him. How perfect that the Madness of Fear himself will follow him throughout Silent Hill, right? Most of what the asshole's going to do is basically scare poor Kid to death using hallucinations or driving Kid to try and kill himself while under the influence of those hallucinations.