it all comes together.

[allodds]

REX MURPHY. reporter at the arkham advertiser. plot hound. accidental caretaker and friend. constantly living through series of unlikely events. can't explain it, and trying not to think too hard about it. nonbeliever of luck; believer of the "hidden world."

( indie rp of the arkham horror tabletop games / 21+ )

“When you are too close to the center of a mystery, there is no way to pull back and see the shape of it entire.” jeff vandermeer, annihilation (2012).

CODEX. rex (he/him) is a struggling reporter living in the city of arkham, where strange things are happening. he bears and is actively ignoring a "family curse" that causes him to be unlucky, but also immune to curses and blessings alike.

as an ARKHAM HORROR core set investigator, some of rex's story will be based on events in my solo play of the game. most notably, over the course of a series of strange events involving homicidal pigeons and underground cult to an eldritch god, rex befriended the lonely but crafty orphan girl, WENDY ADAMS (she/her). together, they solved the mystery of the latest occult disturbance, and stopped the plot of the silver twilight lodge. saving the city was small comfort when it put them in the crosshair of surviving cultists and the o'bannion street gang, who thought they had something to do with the death of their enforcer, michael mcglen... feeling responsible for the young girl, rex offered wendy a place to stay, as they try to get each other through whatever horror comes at them next.

CAST. (other characters that secretly exist on this blog at this point)

caesar, they/them, child of chinese railworkers turned sailor, pirate captain who shipwrecked and made a deal with the deep ones in exchange for their life. werefish(?) with big teeth.

dradeel, he/him, ex-sailor turned bartender, suffering ptsd from the terrible wreck at sea, having hallucinations and nightmares that he slowly comes to understand are visions of the future. terrified. modern day cassandra, including the red hair.

tarquin, he/him, wwi veteran with ptsd turned radical. white trans man estranged from his family not for his transness but for his disavowal of the country he's supposed to die for. saw the clash of empires from the trenches of their filth, vows to destroy them. imperfect revolutionary.

tecmessa, she/her, turkish refugee (1920s), widowed mother of a greco-turkish adolescent son, tired waitress and burgeoning lesbian. won't do anything that could put her and her son at risk, but will cook for her friends making molotov cocktails.

VERSES. rex fits best in settings with some elements of horror and/or mysteries. i'm very willing to adapt and improvise for corssovers; DRAGON AGE, CYBERPUNK 2077, DND, SILENT HILL, vampire or other gothic settings, general fantasy, modern... and the verse you and i come up with 🫵

CLUES.

i. what it says on the tin: this is an independent rp blog for rex murphy from the ARKHAM HORROR series. the portrayal is based on the game character card and my own playthrough.

ii. mature content may be present, within reason, ethics, and mutual agreement. i am over 30 and ask for my writing partners to be 21+. i use standard sized font because the small text is hard on my eyes. i would appreciate if you do too if we were to write together.

iii. arkham horror is set in the fictional 1920s massachusetts, usa, based on the work of h.p. lovecraft, who held deeply racist and harmful worldview—among other things. arkham horror does an okay job of not reproducing some of the most unsavory social mores and rules of the 1920s and lovecraft's world. nevertheless, i pledge no loyalty to the game's worldbuilding; i will and do modify things as i see fit, including rex's own story.

the fictional city of arkham is located in the state of massachusetts, generally presumed to be around boston. i'm not too rigid about the exact geography, and most of the time it just exists in the background. it is, however, a place steeped in colonial history (literally where the mayflower landed), and given how much of american horror is the manifestation of colonial guilt, it might at times become relevant and will be treated with care. on the note of how history is handled in this fictional 1920s, the short version is that you could consider it an alternative timeline where some things went differently after the american civil war; mainly that the 15th amendment did what it says on the tin, without jim crow, black codes, immigration bans, and other discriminatory red tapes to follow. however, this does not erase the legacy of colonialism and slavery; racism isn't "solved," as it formed the foundation of the modern world and will take greater initiative and imagination to overcome. when writing in this setting, we task the characters and challenge ourselves to inhibit this initiative and imagination. tl;dr, what is exclusionary and doesn't serve the player experience doesn't need to be there, but we aren't whitewashing american history either. i also have a time traveling/displacement verse that could put rex and wendy in other timelines and worlds.

iv. i am enthusiastically interested in various manners of au, crossovers, and original verses.

however, there are certain settings and subjects that i steer away from—typically because they are subjects i personally am unable to abstract from reality and romanticize to the extent necessary for me to engage with in rp as a form/genre, not because i think they shouldn't be written/studied/explored. among them:

characters that are current or aspiring police (including those in arkham horror, fantasy cops, and military special forces; foot soldiers evaluated on a case by case basis), nuclear destruction, organized sports, and settings/plots that centrally depict modern warfare or military campaign.

v. there is no catch-all list that can stipulate the comfort level in every scenario with everyone, so if anything emerges for me or for you, we will catch it during plotting.

vi. i try to be intentional about who i follow, only when i can see the possibility of our characters interacting. if i follow you, i likely already have an idea in my mind. this does not mean that i am only interested in that initial idea. it could just serve as a springboard for plotting and we could end up with something entirely different.

vii. i operate under the understanding that sometimes ideas, styles, availability, timing, etc don't work out. unfollowing, softblocking, and blocking are useful tools to keep the dash organized and enjoyable. there are no hard feelings about it. i hope this goes both ways.

viii. last updated mar 3, 2026

writer. sommer. he/him. 30+ queer poc. someone who foolishly engages with the history and studies of imperialism in these wicked times. it informs my writing and approach to media. i make mistakes, change my minds, learn new things and revise my opinions; open to corrections and conversations.

[allodds]

with the atrocious update to the notes/reblogs, the one workaround i've found to still be able to view the whole reblog chain is using the "reblogs graph" feature that otherwise serves minimum purpose

it's clunky and silly but serviceable as a temporary workaround until they hopefully have the sense to roll back this update

[marichive]

MULTIMUSE MEME: Send a " ⭐ " and I will list muses I would be interested in throwing at yours, or potential muse combinations if you are also a multi. If you like any of the suggested combinations, you are welcome to come plot or start interactions with them.

If you can't see / use the symbol for any reason, send " star! " instead. If you are a multi and you want to see which muses I would be interested in throwing against a specific muse of yours, send ⭐+ that muses name.

[allodds]

when i say caesar's a werefish this is what i mean

[allodds]

characters that secretly exist on this blog at this point

peacock, they/them, international spy assassin for a failed pan-asian resistance against north american military industrial complex. technically has their own sideblog (cbp77 centric)

caesar, they/them, child of chinese miners turned sailor, pirate captain who shipwrecked and made a deal with the deep ones in exchange for their life. werefish(?) with big teeth (arkham centric)

dradeel, he/him, ex-sailor turned bartender, suffering ptsd from the terrible wreck at sea, having hallucinations and nightmares that he slowly comes to understand are visions of the future. terrified. modern day cassandra, including the red hair (arkham centric)

tarquin, he/him, wwi veteran with ptsd turned radical. white trans man estranged from his family not for his transness but for his disavowal of the country he's supposed to die for. saw the clash of empires from the trenches of their filth, vows to destroy them. imperfect revolutionary (arkham centric)

tecmessa, she/her, turkish refugee (1920s), widowed mother of a greco-turkish adolescent son, tired waitress and burgeoning lesbian. won't do anything that could put her and her son at risk, but will cook for her friends making molotov cocktails (arkham centric)

[allodds]

'i'm not a sleeper.' oHMYGODDD. riku and wendy who got separated from the group or w/e and now have to travel alone for a bit? but it's been a night and a half and they've taken shelter somewhere. riku telling wendy to rest but maybe wendy, as exhausted as she is, asking when riku will sleep. ofc riku won't let a child have first, OR SECOND watch for that matter so she just motions for her to crawl into the sleeping bag they nicked off a scav or sth

WENDY TRIES TO HOLD BACK TEARS. they wouldn't help. tears won't illuminate the dark underground tunnel, block out the rumbling of armor trucks and drones overhead, nor soothe the humming exhaustion she feels radiating off riku @kitmitsu. all they would do is wet the ground further and make sleeping on it more uncomfortable.

she sniffles, disguising it as a deep breath (one way to appear brave, she's learned, is to stand taller, her back straighter, and make herself bigger by expanding the rib cage until it aches).

"i can stay up, too, y'know..." she says, quiet as a mouse, keen as a stoat. wendy shuffles onto the sleeping bag, pulling the edge up to her knees, but remains seated next to riku. "in the commercial districts... after the merchants closed up, we could hang out under the cover or in the back alley if it's not blocked off. but sometimes ncpd comes around... they're trouble. so we take turns as lookouts. the older kids go first, 'cause the young kids might fall asleep on accident if they're too tired. but we always promised to wake each other up when it's time to switch. it's more trouble in the morning if we didn't get enough sleep."

she pauses, looking up at riku's side profile with the discerning eyes of a child who spends her days watching the adults around her. "would you promise me... if i go to sleep now, you will wake me up later, so you could sleep too?"

[allodds]

testing matrix.org as a discord alternative if anyone wanna join

[allodds]

second option fluxer.app so far working a little better than matrix

[allodds]

stoat.chat another contender for me. the desktop app can't install properly (seems like a macos issue) but the web app is fine. and the mobile app works with android. but hearing a different story for ios...

[allodds]

testing matrix.org as a discord alternative if anyone wanna join

[allodds]

second option fluxer.app so far working a little better than matrix

[allodds]

testing matrix.org as a discord alternative if anyone wanna join

[allodds]

at this point this is no longer rex and wendy's blog but a secret third thing multi with an assortment of my characters thrown in the arkham setting-

[ofdruigh]

❝ you are not the player, but a piece on the board. ❞ from caesar?!

Having never considered her life to be particularly ordinary, the past week has brought even Brynn to the edges of what she can handle at a time. It's as if with every inch of land lost to the rising rivers, a piece of her patience is inevitably and irrevocably eroded. She has slept very little, all in all, the last few days, late to find sleep and early awoken by Dradeel's dreams. Much though as she tries to hide it, her fatigue has become etched into the darkness under her eyes and the now ever-present lines marking her forehead. Exhaustion chases her endlessly, in a relentless and vicious cycle of violence.

When some mysterious person appears as though out of nowhere, it becomes quickly apparent just which figure from the play of the skittish bartender's life has slithered back into it. And Brynn, already on edge, has little patience for their questioning. She has quickly placed herself between Dradeel and whom she assumes to be Caesar in an attempt to push them away from him. It has done little to dissolve their argument except add another voice into the mix.

Even after the initial revelation of how the pirate had survived—an image Brynn isn't likely to get out of her head anytime soon—there remains a tension she rather dislikes. It has kept her protectively poised in front of Dradeel. Caesar's companion, as of yet unintroduced, seems similarly tense, ready to jump into the fray the moment Brynn raises a hand against them. She considers them briefly, noting the knife at their belt, the dangerous glint in their eyes. But the pirate's words draw her attention back to them, her eyes narrowing slightly.

"And what does that make you, exactly?" It was an odd thing to say, but she figures nothing is odd anymore, these days. That's not to say she has the patience for cryptic metaphor. "Would it kill you to just tell us what the hell is going on? This isn't a game."

house of the dragon s2, with @4tunes

[allodds]

dark eyes glitter in the damp streets of arkham. under the pouring rain, THE TOWERING FIGURE squares their shoulders, plants their feet with a hunter's glee. (strange. how solid their steps are on the wet cobblestones, as though the water works for them. every slip and slide to a direction of their choosing, giving their movement a fluid and amphibian quality). "nah, it's not a game. it's a PLAN."

the rain grows heavier. something shifts in the air. a smell. iron and ammonia... like the docks have expanded outward and invaded all these nearby streets. fishy.

those dark eyes dart toward the slender figure shielded behind the huntress' back. (caesar would smirk, at that familiar visage, the familiar wide eyes and damp hair, pale face and trembling lips. how convincingly he performs innocence or vulnerability.) the sailor throws their companion a meaningful glance, cocking their chin at the man hiding in someone else's shadow and turning their attention back at him.

"oi, lil' flame. fancy seeing you here. didn't know you made it too—mind telling us how the fuck you manged that!?"

the wind picks up all of a sudden, blowing the rain sideways like a screen of silver needles; they pierce the skin, tearing what thin membrane remains on the surface. long black hair falls in the puddles by their feet like seaweed. they drop to all four as the skin on half of their face sloshes off, revealing the new structure underneath: a large, glossy eye, leathery, waterproof skin, thin lips and too many teeth—...

the redhead gasps, taking a stumbling step back, and only doesn't topple over when he catches the back of the huntress' shirt. the half man half beast monster pauses; their uneven eyes blink with one nictitating membrane. "well, would ya look at that." they sound a bit strained, as their spine elongates and breaks out the base into a long, whipping tail. "—guess we didn't foresee everything after all."

[wariver]

"I wish I'd acquired wisdom at less of a price."

red dead redemption ii accepting.

her back is turned. but her shoulders are stiff, poised .. at least it appeared so. she's studying the wall of books, scrolls, and other little trinkets. but one thing catches her eye, sitting on a wooden stand as @allodds says something about a price. no, she heard him and spares a glance before returning to the globe of the world.

so vast yet so small. a gentle touch of her finger and it spins slowly. right on america. sighing, she stretches to height, making her way slowly to the mister murphy.

" if you're using it to do good, it's already found its worth, don't you? " this type of field, you gotta use what's achieved, what's given. what you sought out in the first place. " do you regret it? "

[allodds]

HE HASN'T BEEN LOOKING AT HER. not exactly. the antique store is not small, but crammed in the way that containers of history and memory tend to be. REX breathes in, taking in the familiar scent of old books and dust older than him. they are here, alone, insulated by the walls of books and artifacts, while the shopkeeper is somewhere on the other side of the store, too trusting or too indifferent to pay attention to two unconventional customers.

they are an odd pair, rex is acutely aware. it is perhaps more unusual that the shopkeeper pays so little attention to them at all. but that tends to be his luck; strange things happen, and he would slide by, wondering if it was dumb luck or some clues he had missed.

"i don't know if i'm doing good," he says, quiet but frank. "it's a compulsion, maybe. i just need to find out. to prove it, somehow. that these strange things... these... evils, must have an explanation, if people only know where to look."

[notmorbid]

mapping the interior.

dialogue prompts from mapping the interior by stephen graham jones.

sleepwalkers are goal-oriented.

it doesn't make sense, but i don't think it's under any real compulsion to.

my words always get scrambled in my mouth.

what you're doing, it's pretending.

you knew before i did.

it's supposed to all be worth it, in the end.

i don't claim to be right or smart or good, or anything like that.

it was my fault, anyway.

that's not how the world works.

i've never remembered my dreams.

nothing happened, that i know of.

i hate you calling me _____.

i'm different now. better.

you look like _____.

i don't want to make you sad.

i won't let them hurt you.

it didn't even make sense, at first.

moms are capable of a lot.

it isn't an act anymore.

i wasn't exactly thinking rationally.

if you can delay pain, you delay it, don't you? even when it's inevitable?

i hoped my fear would give me wings.

you have to come from something, don't you?

i hope you don't blame yourself.

it was sixteen stitches. i didn't even feel them.

i'll be there next time. all the times after that, too.

i didn't know what was happening.

we're going to make it.

all i could do was watch.

you could sleep through anything.

i'm not a kid anymore.

that was my dad.

killers deserve what they get, don't they?

why am i still here?

i'm not sure i know what i'm seeing.

what can we do against _____?

if i ever have kids, i'm going to be different.

i meant it when i said it.

that wasn't what was supposed to happen.

it was easy money. the easiest money.

you didn't change. i did.

not knowing the rules doesn't mean they don't apply to you.

you're not even fighting back.

don't come back again.

____ really could have been anything.

i'm not sorry. i'd do it all over again.

everybody told me to stay away, but it was worth it.

it's hard to know where to start, exactly.

we just kept growing up.

that's not how it works in the real world.

there's more dark hallways than i knew, rooms i thought i'd never have to enter.

[k1tch3n]

"don't draw their gaze." in a narrow alleyway, cramped against each other as doom rolls through the city. there's something in the fog. they could feel its creeping movement, its breath moving the air, tickling the back of their necks... he touches his hand to her chin, gently, turning it away from the mouth of the alley and towards his face. "keep your eyes on me." / rex to tamara

   the spell had been a risk to cast — one that tamara had practiced on smaller objects, never on an actual entity, let alone several. the banishment spell had cleared a path for wendy to book it, and for rex to take tamara's hand and rush through. but it had left something there, too, just around the corner from her senses, staring at her. seeking her. beckoning her. left there... or created. or maybe it had always been there, and the gaping maw to their world she had pried open had just made her aware of its presence.

   her head pounds, a dense pressure building between her brows, threatening to split her open like an egg to the corner of a mixing bowl. her gaze swims, as unfocused as her shallow breaths, her ringing ears, even her own, conscious thought to fight back, to push out the fog from her mind, to look at rex, to register that he is speaking, that they have stopped running, all feel muffled, distorted like cotton in the back of one's teeth, like her awareness sits in wait, many, many barred doors away from her grasp.

   she feels a hand frame her chin, then makes out the sharp shape of rex's dark, handsome eyes, focused and unobstructed by his glasses as he peers over them at her. like waking from a bad dream, everything washes back to static, a rapidly receding wave, a thrum at the base of her neck. "rex, i—" tamara sounds almost surprised. she blinks, her breath still shaking. she blinks again, with every blink always finding anchor again in the intensity of his unwavering eyes. she collects the scattered fragments of her mind like loose pages strewn in the wind, and the glow in her eyes slowly dissipates.

   "i'm sorry — that was reckless of me." feeling slowly drips back to her hands, fingers yawning awake one by one, and she squeezes his hand firmly back. she can feel him drawing his hand away from her chin, and holds it there instead, more a plea for his touch than a demand, gently drawing the pad of her thumb down his wrist, settling at his elbow, as she finds her footing — the heels of her boots against cobblestone. then it occurs to her — "wendy—" she gasps, her jaw tightening as she fights the compulsion to seek the girl in the alley. "is she...?"

@allodds ft. rex murphy / hard in hightown.

[kitmitsu]

"you're warm. you're real." it doesn't matter, they know. technology is so good now even synthetic skin could be warm and flesh. but it's the principle of the thing that peacock still believes. they take her hand, folding it into theirs. it's not gentle, not dainty and coy like hooking their hand over the crook of the other's arm under the glittering light. in the privacy of the gaudy marble bathroom, there is no point in pretending these hands weren't made for harder tasks. they squeeze her hand, holding the pressure for a moment. two. thumb against the pulse on the inside of her wrist. they stand, and pull. "come on now, my lady, pick ourselves up. we have work to do."

@allodds + prompt / suggestive dialogue + action: always accepting.

it’s a whirlpool of sensation -- a merciless vortex that holds her captive, drawing her in and deeper, to the lightless pockets of her own mind to drown. breath comes thin and shallow. skin clammy, sweat-slick and pale. her pulse is a roiling rush in her ears, a frenzied flutter against peacock’s thumb. it feels achingly familiar, this. a little too reminiscent of her first kill, that same riptide pull of dread, catching her sudden and drawing her under before she could anchor herself.

she’s got one now, though -- crammed in the narrow space between riku’s legs, cold marble biting into their knees, the blunt and desperate drag of her nails against the skin of their palm. she can’t help it, digging in that is, trying to claw through skin and latch on. anchor. buoy. lighthouse burning through fog. them, peacock, the only thing standing in the way of a full-fledged breakdown that would bring the entire mission to irrevocable ruin.

“i—” he, no, they? she -- goes, willingly, reduced to a pliant thing that sits obedient in the heart of their palm. once hauled to her feet, riku’s knees wobble with the warning of giving out, but finds herself swiftly steadied in peacock’s hands. my lady? her? no. has her disguise been ruined? spoiled by the sting of tears wrenched free with the bile moments prior, or the cold sheen of sweat clinging to her skin like a second hide--

no. peacock’s gaze refutes her suspicions. of course, this face she wears is entirely her own, safe for the thin scar sketched across her eye by peacock’s precise hand. no makeup or modifications needed, nothing more fabricated and insincere than the expression she drags into place --

an approximate sum of ten muscles needed to craft the half-smile her brother’s known for wearing, yet her body logs the effort like she’s trying to bite off her own damn finger.

“two hours,” she rasps, temple gently knocking against the door with a dull thud, hands still folded over peacock’s. she feels vulnerable like this -- raw and awfully exposed, shedding a layer of her mental guard with every word, “i’ve got two hours in me, tops.” 

never mind that they have seen her at her barest, most vulnerable -- gun discarded and half-dressed in back alleys while she peeled off her tactical armor; foaming at the mouth’s corners and writhing on grimy factory floors; asking, no, pleading peacock to put a gun to her head if e-noch ever tried to attempt control, admitting that if it came to that, they’d be the only one she’d trust to do the job.

it’s a funny thing, to entrust peacock with her life like this, only to balk at the mere notion of them witnessing a meltdown. they handled it exceptionally well, better than she could give them credit for -- gentle in their approach that she assumes coded rather than chosen, not a kindness meant for her but born of a need to see the mission through. which, unfortunately, hinges on her (currently precarious) mental well-being.

“thank you,” a little too quick spoken to be sincere, though the dithery drop of her gaze reads more like embarrassment than deceit. she squeezes their hand, then reluctantly lets go. “i won’t fail you again.”

[allodds]

i can feel my heart in my knees. / millicent 2 rex

"YOU GET USED TO IT," he lies. it's easier than explaining how the hair raising chills and nausea eventually settle into your core, burrow into the back of your mind and crevices under your skull like a parasite. it lives there now. it itches sometimes, aches sometimes, and occasionally out of nowhere you experience a terrible bout of panic, radiating out of that space that has now forever become a part of you.

you get used to it. that's the truth. but it's not the whole true.

(you get used to it—because it changed you.)

"it's not one of the worst ones..." REX muses, leaning over the examiner's table to look at the cadaver—a generous description given the state. the shape laid out on the table is only vaguely recognizable as humanoid. there are limbs, a torso, a mass in the spot where a head would usually be. but something is twisted. changed. or perhaps it was never right in the first place. maybe it's the bloating. or the mutilation. or mutation. or something... something deeper and more disturbing, perching on the edge of comprehension, puncturing the periphery but yet out of reach. uncanny.

that little something in him—the part of him that has been changed; his vision that can never unsee—squirms, with a kind of recognition that is more cause for alarm than comfort.

"y'know that saying, or what you'd call it. things whispered by the campfire to give you the creeps. well, some of them have sense to them, no? if you think about it..." rex steps back, rubbing the back of his neck, near the base of his skull as though feeling for something. he glances over at the medical examiner @intromusic. " what is it that caused humans to evolve to fear something that looks just like them but not quite ?"

[allodds]

my brain is so fried it's hard to come up with or sustain thoughts on original plot, BUT, i've got the no ice in minnesota fundraising bundle and slowing working through the 1000+ indie ttrpgs. and what if we choose one of them to use as the template for our plot? featuring (some settings and details modified by me to be more conducive to rp) ...

before the worms - apocalyptic horror world infested with the Worms. the worms are parasitic eldritch creatures that feed on human suffering. they do not control humans, only encourage their worst impulses, of greed, evil, cruelty... the worms grow with every indulgence, and reward its host with power. there are those who happily make the trade, fraying their tethers to humanity and becoming hollowed. the worms live on the periphery of human consciousness. for those who have not seen it, the world is the same as always. but some have seen the worms, and the worms cannot be unseen.

devil's dream - two dreamers come together to share their dreams at a designated meeting spot. the dreams are oracles, and reveal secrets past, present, and future, if only they could understand the dreams, such is the purpose of these meetings. but some dreams come for the devil...

eyes on the prize - fake marriage/dating plot. partners of fraudulent union infiltrate high society/cult/organization/etc in order to achieve their respective or shared goals. they must keep up the rouse, trade in rumors, favors, and reputation, fool everyone else, and maybe themselves...

lay on hands - in a post-apocalyptic world of lingering blight, there are some who carry unique healing gifts to mend flesh, creatures, mind, soul, pestilence, or tech. they travel through the badlands seeking solace, coin, thrill, answers, or just a purpose for their gifts.

bloodbeam badlands - (not part of the bundle, but friend of someone who is) ... vampire western in irradiated mutated lands where the sun never sets. need i say more-

+ more... there's a lot of rulebooks and campaign modules in the bundle. if you're interested in a genre/story/flavor, i can probably find something for it.