"The Event", as it came to be known in certain circles, occurred between December 17th and 18th, 1902. Beginning at 22:12 GMT on the 17th, an unprecedented amount of interference began on the transatlantic telegraph lines. This continued until 07:24 GMT on the 18th.
Starting shortly after midnight AST on the 18th and continuing on into the early evening, each child born in Nova Scotia during this period was described as "incomplete." Hands, feet, eyes, noses, and mouths were missing. Some were born dead, missing any facial features at all. Most of the rest died within hours. Only one of the children is recorded as having survived to adulthood.
On the 18th in Skerries, Co. Dublin, Ireland, a fisherman's wife reported finding that her cat had birthed kittens in the night. What was unusual about this litter was that each kitten allegedly had a human feature: tiny infant hands, human eyes, a child's mouth, etc. She offered to sell them to several universities for study, but the photographs of them were denounced as "fakes" by experts and outside of the county she was derided as a fool.
Several earthquakes were reported around the "ring of fire" in the Pacific starting on the 18th at approximately 12:15 GMT+14. A young aristocratic Dutchman by the name of Dirk de Graeff who was in New Guinea at the time claimed a tribe of people--the Dunyawu--sacrificed a boy and ate him in response to the earthquakes. "After the last of the child's flesh was stripped from his bones, the ground ceased its movements," De Graeff wrote. He claimed the ritual was finished by 21:30 GMT+14. No further proof of the existence of the Dunyawu beyond De Graeff's notes was ever found, leading many to think he had conflated the names of two separate tribes or created them whole cloth.
Unusual storms were reported in coastal cities across the globe. In the midst of a particularly heavy electrical storm a swarm of ants evacuated their colony in Mvezo, South Africa. Several people were skeletonized within moments before the ants simply marched off.
By the time the sun set on the eastern coast of North America on the 18th, the Event was over. Because of the isolated nature of each sign, only a select few became aware that they were connected. Aside from the time frame, the only other sign that implied it was a single event was that a number of children born during it in coastal cities across the world were unusually gifted. Twenty-five years after the Event, De Graeff began collecting the now adult children of the Event.
This is their story.
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This game takes place in the spring of 1928, with a party of at least five young adventurers. If people are interested, I'll put up a dossier for "gifts" and backgrounds of the party for people to choose from and then PM players character sheets which can be personalized from there. The emphasis is going to be more on story-telling and adventure than factoring stats, though I will use stats and dice to decide the outcome of things. I'm using a simplified game system I've used for running online RPGs before, so no prior experience on the part of the players is needed.
The game will have ancient deities, weird science, cannibalism, seafaring adventure, and flappers.