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Hymn of Static takes place in the town of Silent Hill. Currently, the main locations for events occur in Old Silent Hill and South Vale, with two outer-city-limits locations. Locations such as Portland and South Ashfield will be added as the game grows and character's paths lead them further and further into the mythos of the town and cult.
Beginning the Game
All characters awaken in the same location, the Overlook where James Sunderland starts out in Silent Hill 2. For those not familiar with the game, the Overlook is in the bottom right corner of South Vale. Characters will be given at the outset, regardless of being a Penitent or Damned, a small communicator device used for transferring information from one side of Silent Hill to the other, one notebook with 100 spiral-bound paged, lined on one side and blank on the other with folders on the covers, two pens, one black and one red, and either a flashlight or a radio. As characters progress through the town, they will be able to obtain their missing equipment, as well as tools to repair them once damaged.
Living in Silent Hill
Day and night do not exist in Silent Hill as they do in the real world, but rather there is a Waking period where the town, while being abandoned and having an occasional monster, is relatively safe; compared to the Nightmare period, where all manner of the worst creatures haunt the visions of the characters.
Waking, or Normal Silent Hill appears to be an American industry town where the phrase "has seen better days" is a gross understatement. The only people in the town besides the characters are corpses, manifestations of people who once lived in the town. Houses and businesses alike are closed, shuttered against the pervasive fog that billows through the town off of Lake Toluca, one of the town's two industries of yore. The construction in the towns, seeming to have cropped up in the wake of some great natural disaster, has been left abandoned, temporary chain-link fences put up in some places, gaping holes left in others, cars teetering over the edge, having been abandoned by their owners.
An occasional monster will walk through the street, though they tend to be weak monsters like Patient Demons or Demon Dogs, and are easily avoided. Occasionally, monsters will also lurk inside of buildings, waiting in the dark for the unwary, but by and large, these too, can be avoided.
Nightmare Silent Hill, in comparison, changes with the sound of a siren, coming from somewhere in the lake, and will slowly pick up into other speakers within the town as the darkness engulfs the streets. In this Nightmare, street layouts and buildings change, rendering previous maps sometimes useless as a character may find themselves walking through a location that had spontaneously appeared, beyond the physical constraints of their maps. Monsters here are stronger and more numerous, with many different types pilfered from character's home worlds. The most important function of NSH is that the town itself begins to actively attack characters, both physically and psychologically. Holes will appear in the middle of floors, leading to Nowhere, messages and puzzles will be left behind with the express purpose of taunting and upsetting characters and unnerving them past their breaking points.
Nowhere is the third state of the town, while not being a part of the town itself. Characters who find themselves fallen down a hole to Nowhere, are killed, or are otherwise incapacitated will wake up to find themselves in Nowhere, an amalgamation of areas they have visited in Silent Hill, alone. In order to leave, they must complete objectives stated within a message left for them at the time of their arrival. Characters in Nowhere disappear from Silent Hill physically, and are only able to contact other characters through scratchy, broken posts if they so choose to.
Exploring Silent Hill
Depending upon the day and time, some locations have already been mapped out by the moderators, providing a general guideline for what characters will see once they enter into the location. this may change for specific groups. Keep in mind that this is a general guide, meant to help players operate without needing moderation, and not set in stone.
Eating and Sleeping
Despite all of the darkness that pervades the town, there are several places where the taint is entirely absent, protecting characters and allowing them a respite from the horrors that surround them, and where they can pick up food and items that are guaranteed not to curse or poison them. Because of the nature of the town, being as powerful as it is, these places are small.
The list of places that are completely safe from intrusion from the Otherworld follow:
Jack's Inn, South Vale
K. Gordon's House, Old Silent Hill
Balkan Church, Old Silent Hill
This list includes places where characters can obtain fresh food. Despite the safety of the food, there may still be intrusion from Otherworldly forces.
Grand Market, South Vale
Convenience Store and Liquor, Old Silent Hill
Activity Checks
Activity is the most important thing for the game to run. After all, it is the measure at which the story progresses. Because of the nature of the game, activity will be checked each week by characters (or players) replying to a mod activity check post. This posting window will start on Friday, and end at least 48 hours later, on Sunday. In this window, one journal needs to reply to the post, giving a list of their characters, and what they've accomplished in the past week or what they hope to accomplish in the next one. If a character is between logs, a link/mention of a journal post is suitable. It is important to note, however, that a player who does not make at least one post a week in a log they are involved in will be penalized and put on probation. Probation simply means that they cannot apply for a new character, and have one week to make a post in their logs before that character is stripped from them. A player who has a character stripped from them will not be allowed to apply for that character again for a week.
Hiatuses
The exception to the aforementioned activity policy would be for a planned and announced hiatus. A player is urged to post their hiatus, preferably with some notice for players and moderators. A player on hiatus is temporarily written out of the story for the purposes of the larger game. The characters that get written out will find themselves in Nowhere upon the player's return, and will be allowed to re-join another group in progress.
This has been put in place in order to allow the game play to move with as few interruptions as possible, and to prevent penalizing any of the players. Real life is always more important than this or any community, but at the same time, many players have experienced stalemates when one person goes on hiatus, leaving plots to languish. It is our hope that this system allows for not only the players still around to be able to continue, but to allow the player who has temporarily left to be gently integrated back into the game after a long absence.
Puzzles
Puzzles are important gameplay element in Hymn of Static, being both obstacles that need to be overcome, as well as metaphors for situations the characters are in conflict over in their regular, normal lives.
If anyone has any ideas for puzzles or plots they'd like to see happen, by all means, let us know! We'd be more than happy to hear them and discuss about how best to implement them.
Link here