Weird Little Western Town

>Radios in town can pick up only four stations reliably: Country, Rock, Community Access, and Numbers.

>The town's general store sometimes gets shipments of strange, surreally off-brand versions of popular products.

>The bank in Main Street has been closed for decades, and they say something has been left trapped inside the vault.

>Mysterious lights in the sky have been seen around Mount Deception on and off since the nineteen-fifties.

>Old Route-8 passes through town to the north, and folks say its a graveyard of rusty, dusty abandoned vehicles.

>pic
does this really count as a town in America? Its literally 2 buildings

>King Falls AM
>Welcome To Night Vale

There are three houses and two businesses in that picture.

That's Perfection from Tremors you literal peasant.
If you haven't seen it, go watch it.

there are desert communities in Australia which are no bigger than that too, user

Yes. The smallest town I have seen personally was a house, a car fixit garage, a gas station, and that was it. It's on the map as a town, population 5.

>The bank in Main Street has been closed for decades, and they say something has been left trapped inside the vault.

>People say if you drive through Route 8 with your eyes closed for a mile, while stayin' on the road the whole way, you end up in another town, of another kind entirely.

>The vehicles along Route 8 are all that's left of the people who opened their eyes both too late and too soon.

>There's cell reception, despite no cell towers. But sometimes you get weird calls. They seem like 911 calls, as the people are always screaming.

>The pantry of the general store has a flickering light that nobody can seem to fix, even though they've replaced the bulb and the wiring. Sometimes when it comes back on, all the colors are wrong. And all the smells. And all the sounds.

>Not more than four streets and three dozen buildings make up the entirety of downtown and more than half of these are long shuttered. Even then, they may not be entirely abandoned.

>Every so often, strangers will come stumbling out of the desert, dehydrated and suffering from heatstroke, speaking strange languages and carrying strange currencies or identification.

>The tunnel on Barvey Road is a tricky place. They say that you can drive into it heading out of town and drive out of it heading back into town. They also say to never walk the tunnel.

>No less than three mines have opened and closed on the rocky slopes of Mt. Deception, each one suffering from devastating and inexplicable incidents, accidents and disasters.

>There is an old phone booth at one end of main street that rings every night just after Midnight. Those that answer it are said to receive an upsettingly prophetic message.

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>Back in 1972 the town was flooded with stampede of unusual albino lizards running from the direction of one of the old mines. Newspapers reported that, Ms. Matilda-May, the town's oldest resident at 102 at the time, said it's a regular occurance, every 46 years, this was her third time seeing them. When asked if it really actually happened every 46 years, she simply replied cryptically "It better." and would give no further information. They're due to run again this year.

>At the dead end of one of town's streets the power pole has a wire that drops down to pole in front of an empty lot of sand and scrub that contains only a mailbox, and a utility meter. That meter always runs up a might high power bill, but there's always a check in the mailbox on the first of the month that covers it to the cent. Nobody ever sees who puts the check in the mailbox.

>There's a running joke through the town to watch out for "man eating tumbleweed" on Old Route 8 that sets all the old-timers laughing. Except the Sarge, who runs the military surplus yard. He seems to dislike the joke emensely.

>There's a hard-packed sand trail the goes around the town, forming a figure 8 that circles the town, and a chunk of the desert out to one side pointing toward Mount Deception. Nobody's sure exactly why it's always so well tamped not many people bother to walk any lengh of it but it's always well trod and clear of weed and scrub.

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>Night Shift: Nevada Town Edition
I can dig it.

>Not loving the fact that like 70% of America is untamed wilderness/desert that has these bizarrely tiny blips that one would hardly consider civilization in the middle of nowhere

>Everyone feels bad for Merry Weatherbee, she's such a sweet girl, but nobody wants to talk to her. They aren't allowed to

>Ol' Dale at the gas station is the man to talk to if you want to hear about the world outside town. He's never around though

>If you ever see the man who wears snow boots, stop moving and close your eyes. He won't hurt you

>When Carl's Sub Shop shut down last year, nobody saw Carl or the shop ever again. The building is now an electronics shop that has been there since 1954

>There's an older fellow named Saul that occasionally comes into town to pick up basic groceries and, rarely, some pieces of mail. He's friendly enough and usually stops in the diner to eat lunch and chat with the locals. Thing is, the road Saul comes down to get into town doesn't go anywhere. It simply ends with a locked and overgrown gate. It's best not to bring this up if you decide to have a friendly chat with him.

>There's an abandoned house a few minutes outside of town with a life size white cross in the yard complete with a fading plaster Jesus. The story is the family that lived there was mighty religious, known for speaking in tongues and preaching the good book at every oppurtunity when in town, but one day they were all found dead by suicide. They had slit their wrists while praying around that big ole cross. That was back in the 60s and nowadays there are strange rumors about that house. They say that if you drive past it at night, the Jesus turns his head to follow your car.

>There's a man that lives out at the edge of town in beaten up old trailer. He's perpetually exhausted looking and doesn't like to look at or speak to anyone around town. His trailer is covered in warning/do not enter signs and on one occasion he's claimed to work for the government, but no one can concretely say what he does. Folks that pay attention notice that he drives out of town in his jeep ever night and returns before sun up. Occassionally, he'll take his trailer up into the high desert and not return for days or weeks. Inevitably, he returns looking even more haggard than usual and usually proceeds to nearly buy out the general store of ammo.

>Old Sarge sometimes references a place called 'Bliss' that was somewhere nearby. Whenever someone asks him about it, however, he ignores you and changes the subject.

>Every once in a while, a windstorm sweeps through town from the north, causing electronics and mechanics to malfunction or fail. If you listen to a payphone or a radio at that time, you'll hear nothing but static - or screaming. It's difficult to tell the difference.

>If there's ever a haze over Mount Deception, the locals ignore it, as if it had never existed at all. The bar always closes early on those nights.

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>There is a small, run-down stone chapel on a hill outside town, in which they say that a number of televisions and radios have been set playing a simulated sermon at the pulpit and on the pews.

>A large body of water named "Lost Lake" has been seen around town and has been included on local maps forever. This lake has never been seen or depicted in the same place twice.

>The town's sheriff and deputies are actually a good group of men and women, dedicated to keeping their small desert community safe, but sometimes find themselves out far past their depth.

>Occasionally, the wrecks along Old Route 8 seem to move and change, despite the fact that many of them have flat tires, no gasoline and look too old and rusty to go anywhere.

>People often use the community access radio station as a public forum to air grievances, share gossip and exchange local legends and conspiracy theories about recent goings-on.

nice thread

>Visitors to the town have two lodging options. They can stay at the rundown Cactus Corners Motel out by the highway, or the ramshackle Sergeant Hotel on Main Street. Both are haunted.

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>you'll hear nothing but static - or screaming. It's difficult to tell the difference.
As someone who works with a hand radio every day, this is actually very true.

I've been through Bliss a number of times. It's got a pretty decent café/gas station called the Roadrunner. I've only explored the town once, though. There's not much to it, but it seems nice enough. Even so, whenever my friends and I talk about it we refer to it as, "Ignorance."

>The Lucky Strike Mine up on the slopes of Mt. Deception will sometimes appear ablaze with light and abuzz with activity, despite having been closed down for the past fifty some-odd years.

>Folk have reported something "looking sort of like a dog" but acting strangely intelligent nosing through their garbage, climbing over their houses and leaving clawed graffiti around.

>Those foolhardy enough to try and walk the Barvey Road Tunnel claim to have gotten lost inside for hours, walking miles upon miles through the mountain before making it out again.

>The town once had a twin, on the other side of Mt. Deception, but that this other town just disappeared one night. Some say that you can still find your way there, if you're exceptionally unlucky.

>Although no one has ever seen a delivery made to the old general store and it constantly seems right on the brink of folding up, it always has what the townsfolk want or at least what they need.

I like your style, Dude.

>There is a poker game that's been going on for as long as anyone can remember. Nobody seems to pay it any mind. The coins they bet with make squishing sounds against the table.

>If you squint your eyes just right on a dusky night, the badlands look near enough like a rolling sea, and the telephone poles out along the road writhe like the masts of ships of the line.

>Work the local diner 12 AM to 12 PM
>No one comes in after 3 but it's cool since I get paid and weed's legal in Colorado
>Blazing one up and idly sweeping the floor
>Smoking hot chick comes in
>I'm talking fucking 15/10 boner inducing (I had a boner)
>"One milkshake please" holy shit the innuendo
>y-yes m-mam
>Gorilla walk to the counter and begin making her a milkshake
>She's staring at me the whole time
>Give her milkshake
>She drinks, no, sucks the shake, still watching me
>boner_war.avi
>She sits it down and licks her lips
>"How much is it?"
>t-t-t-two fifty
>"I don't have any money, can I repay you another way?"
>boner_war_lost.avi
>She comes around the counter and pulls my pants down
>I brace for a world of unearthly pleasure
>She goes to town
>Suddenly I go cold
>I look down
>She's bitten my fucking dick off
>Formerly hot chick is a hideous demon thing
>Groin is bleeding
>Want to scream but suddenly realization hits me like a train
>Spasm to get away from her but she holds tight and laughs in this booming voice
>Start to scream but get so fucking sick seeing my bloody no-dick
>Vomit on her and the floor
>Mom's spaghetti

Never working a diner job again, lemme tell ya.

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>>Old Sarge sometimes references a place called 'Bliss' that was somewhere nearby. Whenever someone asks him about it, however, he ignores you and changes the subject.

>I've been through Bliss a number of times. It's got a pretty decent café/gas station called the Roadrunner. I've only explored the town once, though. There's not much to it, but it seems nice enough. Even so, whenever my friends and I talk about it we refer to it as, "Ignorance."

>>The town once had a twin, on the other side of Mt. Deception, but that this other town just disappeared one night. Some say that you can still find your way there, if you're exceptionally unlucky.

These are all the same town.

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Why are you like this

>Some of the old timers that worked the mines before they shut down say that they broke into a vast cave system deep below Mount Deception, filled with strange, terrible, wonderful things.

>The "Hopscotch Building" is a tall, narrow old building found downtown and is named for the unsettling way it seems to move from street to street, day by day, when no one is watching.

>Every night around 2:00, the Sheriff's Station receives a call begging for an officer to come to 213 Reno Lane, when the house at that address has been empty for several decades.

It’s from a movie. But here in Nebraska, you can have farmsteads where your closest neighbor is an hour drive away.

It’s FUCKING great. Have fun choking on smog while I do my /out/ stuff with 1/8 the cost of your living

>Rusty Daniels has been retired for more than 30 yeas now, and his garage closed and shuttered for 20, ever since his son went away. But one thing that never changes is is old, beat up pop machine at the front of his closed store. Still lights up at night (barely) and still only costs a dime. The bottles it dispenses are classic glass bottles, and there's a big ole trash can of bottlecaps beside it. Every couple of days you can see Rusty wheel a hand-truck of soda bottles to the machine out of the back of his garage(though where he gets them from, nobody knows) and refill it, taking away the dimes in an old, beat up havana gold cigar box. The old timers in town love seeing the kids running around with old soda brands like NiHi Grape and Orange, RC Cola, and other brands you would swear have been discontinued for years now. And it's only the kids who buy from the machine. Well, not true. Every once in a while one of the old timers will ask Rusty if he can get one, and Rusty will just grin and say "Well sure, help youself, that's what it's there for." But there's always somethign in his grin that says he'll never say no if you ask, but that it's a good thing you asked first.

>For some reason, despite the fact it's a tiny town in the middle of nowhere, the town actually has two different power companies who service: it one to the east, and one to the west, with Declan Street(crosses Barvey Road, you know) being the cutoff. Whenever any of the workers that come by are asked, or anyone complains to the town council, the only answer they ever get is "Regulations", though they never say what regulation they're refering to. But if you've lived there a while, you've seen a utility truck slam on breaks and do a U-turn rather than cross a Declan Street intersection.

>There's an old chunk of weed-eaten tarmac in the desert nearby, with a pile of wood and corrugated tin that might have been a hanger. Some say it used to to be an airfield. Some say it still is.

Congratulations OP, you've made the best thread on Veeky Forums right now. This shit's brilliant.

I'm running a Monster of the Week campaign, but I'm really liking everything here so far. I was thinking of doing a spinoff with this kind of setting. What system would you guys recommend for this?

Something relatively rules light, like BRP, or some simple, universal system. I couldn’t imagine the mechanics being so important

>>There's an old chunk of weed-eaten tarmac in the desert nearby, with a pile of wood and corrugated tin that might have been a hanger. Some say it used to to be an airfield. Some say it still is.

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>the far side of Mt.Deception has a relatively large forest where locals used to hunt. They abandoned it when they started bagging deformed deer, six eyes, or three horns. Sarge sometimes is seen heading out that ways

>Though a relatively large forest for such an arid area like this, it was never huge and clung to the craggy side of the mountain like the last bit of hair on a balding man's head. Nowadays, though, there are folk that say the forest is far bigger on the inside than it looks on the outside.

Here ya go

Very interesting.

Could that be used to run a Night in the Woods style game?

>tfw this thread is what nightvale could have been
I weep

Fuck off faggot

>About an hour down the road towards Mount Deception, there's a turn you can take that leads to the old Sunrise 9 ranch. Many of the buildings still stand, but they're so run-down and ramshackle that they might collapse any minute. Even so, some people still mention seeing lights in that direction sometimes at night, and if one were to investigate the next morning, you might find strange hoof prints and a firepit in the sand.

>Old Sarge will tell you that there used to be a military base somewhere nearby in the 1960s, but nobody knows exactly where, and it's not on any map or guide to the area. One might give some consideration to the fact that some of the rusted trucks on the old road look like old army jeeps.

>I live out in the country and I'm not at all mad about it at all!
>I love that I'm so far away from the rest of humanity!
>Isolation isn't detrimental to the human condition at all!
>It costs more to live somewhere else anyways!
>I'm not mad!
>I'm not bitter!
>Smog is still a real problem that definitely exists in cities!

I'd kill myself rather than live outside of the city again. I wasted my best years talking to dogs and watching trees grow.

>They say that if you drive Old Route 8 at night, a rusty muscle car will pass you, challenging you to race. Some will tell you that it's not trying to race you at all. They'll tell you it's trying to outrun something.

>Every month, the town's post office receives a significant number of letters and parcels that have been returned to their senders, even though those senders never sent them to begin with.

>Legend has it that one of the town's three mines, no one can agree which one, was not looking for gold or silver under Mt. Deception. Legend has it they were looking for something stranger...

>Native Americans never settled the region, and widely considered it an ill-omened place. They were the ones who gave the nearby mountain the name it still bears to this day.

Probably, yea. It's extremely rules-light and great for a late night romp with friends.

How fucking mad you are. Countryside is so much better than your shitty.

Oh I know. I used to be a radio operator in Fort Bliss myself, so I know how that goes.

The city and the country both have their charms.

The town really was someplace, once, with a real bright future.Somewhere along the way though, that future dimmed and turned dark.

Dread

>there used to be a military base somewhere nearby in the 1960s

Maybe the old airfield and the military base are one and the same. Just a little Air Force radio relay and refueling depot. Maybe something bad came in on a transport plane and never left.

>Nobody knows why the natives called it Mount Deception though, they'll just tell you "It ain't as it seems"

>The local school kids will still sometimes use a trek up it as a right of passage/coming of age thing

>Those that come back tend to stick around town.

>To the north there's a big old creaky windmill in the distance. You can just see it if you look up Old Route-8

>Good ol' Dale knows when it was built, and what it's good for, but nobody has gotten around to asking him yet

>Out in the scrub, past the tunnel headed for the highway is a tank farm. About three large size round storage tanks attached to series of pipes that run about a quarter mile out into the desert and then dip down into the sand and disappear. A cinderblock wall and an electric fence, both topped with razer wire, surround the tank farm. It's probably not petroleum since neither the tanks nor the unmarked blue tanker trucks who make regular stops there have any flamability warning signs, leaving the locals guessing what it is.

>Everybody remember when Teddy had to put down his favourite pet. It was a desert hare he insisted was a female jackalope. When asked about the horns,he insisted she didn't have any "cause she's a doe, stupid". She got out one day, and didn't turn up again for a few months, finally appearing again with lots of gashes and wounds, and heavily pregnant. He took her to the vet a couple of towns over immeditely. When he came back the next day, he had a large cardboard box. Said he had to put her down, and brought her home to bury her. But that box was scratching and shaking something fierce. He did dig a hole and burry something that night, but he also started expanding the wire walled hutch out back.

>The kids say on days when there's no wind and the sun is directly overhead, if you grab a handfull of sand and throw it up with your eyes closed, you'll never hear it fall back to earth cause it just keeps going straight up.

>They also say the same is true about throwing sand at night, under a full moon, but for very different reasons.

>The town's school is a larger, grander building than the current student population requires. In fact, it's actually mostly empty, having been built at a time when the town's future looked brighter.

>Many of the town's legends are passed down by the school kids, most of their parents doing their best to ignore the strange and inexplicable happenings in and around the place.

>Pay no mind to the hand that pokes out the boards on the old school windows. He knows what he did, and he ain't got no one to blame but his own mischief and foolishness.

>No one knows which war "Sarge" actually fought in, and he's been here as long as anyone can remember.

>Ol' Dale's gas station only has one permanent employee other than Dale, who's never around, and thats Tony Hamlin
>Big fella, keeps an eye on the place, keeps the pumps going and hires some local teenagers to give him a hand running the place
>He's pretty laidback, mostly snoozing or reading some old book or another, except when a car he doesnt recognise from the town pulls in
>Doesn't matter if he's snoozing, in the back, middle of mopping, he goes right out and sizes up whatever's come in
>Mostly just lost city folk, roadtrippers or the occasional man here on business, he passes on some friendly advice and points em in the right direction ususally
>Sometimes the cars go right down into first and cruise past the pumps, occupants not even turning to look at him standing in the doorway
>Sometimes they roll in empty, he always hesitates before opening the door and putting into neutral, rolling it onto the roadside and calling the state patrol to come pick it up
>One time an old rusted junker from Route 8 was parked right at the pump waiting for Tony, but that was on halloween night so i wouldnt make anything of it, just kids messing with the poor guy
>It got him so worked up too, even had one of the teens stocking the shelves that night grab the shotgun from under the counter and keep it trained on him while he checked it out
>Strange fella, he even sleeps under the counter from what I heard, but nice enough

>Some of the people what came round for business know Tony, even if he don't know them
>In fact, most what come for business know lots of the folks of town on sight
>Never the same people on business though, and never the same business
>That one lady came round said she was up to some logging rights for the forest over Mt. Deception
>The other gal said it was mineral inspection of the mines
>That black fella said he was doing the annual audit for the government, we ain't never had one of them audits before
>Not a big deal though, they give the shops a customer and they don't stay long, a few days at most, but they never get a room at Cactus Corners or the Sergeant

>There are a number of old, hand-dug wells around town that have long since fallen into disuse. People say that you can sometimes hear whispered voices coming up from their bottoms.

>There is an ancient hippy woman that lives in an old Winnebago high up in the hills that people say is a witch that can see the past, future, and everything in between.

I'm not sure if you understood, Night in the Woods is a vidya.

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>if one of the wells offers you advice unprompted, it is always best to do the opposite, even if it sounds like it makes sense.

>Crazy Earl lives a couple of miles away down the road. If you need some vehicle part for a pre 1970 machine, he'll have it somewhere. You can only pay him with license plates however. He's quite proud of his plate collection and will show it to you after you get what you need.

>Crazy Earl Kowalski runs Kowalski Bros. Junkyard. Used to run it with his brother Eddy, though he doesn't like to talk about that now. Something to do with the weirdness down on Old Route 8, they say.

I lived in the city for a while, pretty much always hated it. Too many people around, too fast of pace, and worst of all, far too impersonal. It took me around 20 years of my life to come to terms with the fact that some people just have different tastes though, and the tightly knit nature of rural communities and lack of eclectic night life can be just as off-putting to some kinds of people.

I usually don't have much against urbanites, I just think the cities should stay where they are. But every year, they always encroach a little further out of their limits and eat up surrounding communities that it makes me more than a little nervous.

ya willing to swap?

>There used to be a old military airfield nearby, during the sixties. Strangest thing is sometimes kids still come through, claiming to be from the air force academy on assignment to a officer stationed there during the summer.

>In fact his war stories change from time to time. He has mentioned that he could load his Brown Bess 6 times a minute, that he had Rommel on his sights once and that he would rather kiss Willy Pete than face Neomicronians again.
>People however take his stories at face value.

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IMO, there's certain country areas that are really serene and pretty and nice. There's also country areas where you wonder how anyone could stand to waste away day by day there.

I know its the same with cities, but they always seem so much more appealing...

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>There's a crik up near Mt. Deception with some kind of fenced in property for miles and miles around it.
>Its hard to make out what exactly is in there, but it generally looks like a large mill.
>maybe 2.
>Every now and again, you might catch trucks and vans from both power companies headed out that way
>The locals tell you to ignore the gunshots and muffled explosions that echo out through the valley on those days and nights.

We've never come up with a name for this town, did we. Its disappeared twin has one.

>Sarge's "military surplus" store has things in stock from every war since 1776, and some other, stranger objects that he claims to have brought back from 'overseas'; except that nobody can tell what country they might be from.

what holy shit quads for truth. Tell us more user/s. This thread just became an /x/ thread

Desolation Point

Population: 1244

I'm not sure if you understood, asking "Could that be used to run a Night in the Woods style game?" implies that you would be running a tabletop roleplaying game in the style of the video game".

Sorry I'm just being autistic. It sounded like you thought I was asking if it would be a game I could run while in the woods at night.

>Population: 1244

My sides! Some poor sap must've painted an extra "4" at the end of the town sign.

>The sign at the front of town changes overnight whenever someone goes missing
>Or if someone shows up out of town
>It is always accurate
>Very strange that nobody knows where the 3/4 came from at the end though

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I understand this reference

>rumor travels fast in a small town like this
>sometimes it spreads before it actually happens, and someone will show up at your doorstep with a care package because they heard you'll break your arm in a week

I love you for noticing.
Gif is for you.

>contrary to popular belief, desolation point is not built on a indian burial ground, or holy site, or place of some famous battle.
>the indians were smart enough not to come anywhere near this place.

>I wasted my best years talking to dogs and watching trees grow.
that would make a great Country song lyric