GCPS Archive
In the basement of the 2nd Street Lutheran Church is a desk, upon which sits two humming computer monitors and a whole host of books and journals. Papers clutter the desk’s surface, post-it notes and pens scattered about haphazardly on top of them. The walls around the desk are filled up with yet more books whose topics range from local folklore to esoteric stories from Europe to stolen corporate earnings reports.
This is the Archive of the GCPS, created by its members to help in their quest to uncover the mysteries of the world. Curated by the kindly Pastor Carmen, this is where the Paranomal Society conducts its research and study. A small fund contributes to internet and electricity costs, along with a small pool of cameras and recording equipment. A VCR and TV nearby can be used to look over any video media the Society may come across, and a small stereo system can be used to listen to tapes and other bits of audio.
The GCPS Archive is where the Greene County Paranormal Society, and thus the players, collates all their information on the supernatural and Greene County. Over the course of play, as players uncover mysteries and delve into secrets best left hidden, I will be updating this section. Some stuff will be entirely of my own creation, but PMing me things to add is more than encouraged. As well, after plots if players want to write up their own, in-character archive entries they are more than welcome to do so.
Greene CountyGreene County was originally peopled by the Native Americans, with the Kaskaskia being the most modern tribe to live there. The ancestors of the Kaskaskia built effigy and burial mounds across the county, marking territory and creating links to their ancestors and the world around them. French contact with the natives led to a slow decrease in their population and an increase in European settlers. A small trading fort was built on the Waapi River, named Fort Mignard after the French officer and voyageur who built it. The county would only see sporadic settlement until after the Louisiana Purchase, when waves of American and Scandinavian settlers would flood into the Midwest. The county grew around the small town of Johnsburro, moving from lumber and the fur trade to farming during the early 1800s.
Following the Industrial Revolution factories sprung up across the town, helping expand Johnsburro to provide jobs for new African-American migrants moving North. Greene County peaked with its population during the 60s, when Cyberfun and Harbinge Technologies moved their factories to the country. Following that and the steady decline of American industry the county has dwindled in importance.
A French trading post and fort established by Jean-Luc Mignard to help facilitate the movement of furs up and down the Waapi River. Fell into disuse after the Louisiana Purchase, though it had a small American garrison until after the Civil War. In the 60s it was deemed a historical site and a team of historians helped repair the old fort. A few miles north of Johnsburro it served as a prime field trip site for many of the local schools. However county funds have dwindled somewhat and the Fort is now only open during the summer months.
A set of four effigy mounds located in the Maanikaki Hills, just west of Johnsburro. Two birds, a man and a woman. Burial remains were found within the two human figures, but not the animal ones. Archeology teams from the University of Chicago have recently started combing the surrounding woods, believing that there might be more mounds still yet to be found.
A small farming community located just east of Johnsburro. A sleepy little town of just a few thousand people. Nothing much to do there besides get drunk, farm, watch TV and get into trouble.
A small town located just inside the Maanikaki Hills. Used to pull copper out of the ground before the mine ran out. Now mostly serves as a source of commuter labor for Johnsburro. Its mine museum is pretty cool, though no one’s been allowed in the actual mine for years.
A small town just on the southern edge of Johnsburro. While it used to have its own identity, with a cute main street and everything, Johnsburro has started to grow south and has begun to engulf the town. It is in danger of becoming little more than a suburb of its bigger neighbor.
The second largest town in the county. Like Johnsburro it is an old industrial town, though Newhampton has suffered much more than its rival. Its factories have all gone, their corporate owners packing up and moving manufacturing overseas, and it has been unable to pivot to take advantage of the Dot-Com Boom. The town has been ravaged and hollowed out by big box stores and chains, converted entirely to the growing service economy.
Founded in 1840 by Archibald D. Johnson, Johnsburro was originally created to capitalize off river trade up and down the Waapi, which itself was a tributary of the Illinois River. However after the civil war the town shifted over to industrial production, using the amount of labor freed up from the way to feed its industries. Originally it was host to the Peterson Steel Mill, Grant, Johnson and Sons Stove Plant and many other factories and mills, creating a thriving industrial sector that saw its peak during WW2, where the Harbinge Technologies plant helped provide computation machines and concrete to the US Navy.
During the 60s and 70s Johnsburro continued to prosper, though it was not safe from the social strife of that era. Anti-War and environmental protests against the big corporations were put on by the large social movements of the era. Harbinge Technologies, with its military connections, were a special target of ire by the protest movement. Radical and civil rights groups, the most notable being the Students For a Democratic Society, the Black Panthers, the American Indian Movement and a small collection of eco-protestors known as the Green Pact attempted to seize the Harbinge Plant following an especially brutal strike breaking action by the company. A bomb set off by a radical member of the Green Pact killed several police and scab workers, which escalated the protest into a riot that killed 20 people. Following that the protests were treated with extreme hostility by the police and eventually burned out.
In the modern era Johnsburro has moved to shift alongside a changing economy. Most of its industrial sector has left, leaving only two major factories in town. The old Harbinge Technologies plant and the newer Cyberfun plant. In place of the industrial model the town has embraced the internet, providing a great deal of start-up money for a number of entrepreneurs to create new websites and online businesses. Taking advantage of the Dot-Com bubble has seen prosperity rise up again, but brick and mortar stores downtown are starting to feel the pain. The Wal-Mart that opened up just last year has caused a great deal of trouble for local business, and some worry that it's only going to contribute to a growing drug problem, as meth and prescription pain pill use and abuse start to spread among rich and poor alike.
The main highschool for the town, named after a Methodist preacher who came to Illinois with Johnson, Abernathy is a fairly standard American school located near the center of town. A two story, brown brick building covered in windows and centered around a long hallway with two wings, almost every local is familiar with its white and green tiled halls. Cliques are common, exacerbated by the internet and its fueling of subcultures.
The other main secondary education option, Our Lady of the Rains is a small Catholic school on the northern outskirts of Johnsburro. The oldest school in the city, established by French missionaries in 1841, it functions as the ‘high-class’ private school counterpart to Abernathy. Its kids wear uniforms, get a slightly better class of meal and generally enjoy a bigger budget.
The only real place of higher education in the county, the community college serves all residents who want to obtain a degree but can’t go to a regular four year institution for whatever reason.
One of the main churches in Johnsburro and the meeting place for the Greene County Paranormal Society. Run by Pastor Carmen, a kindly old Chilean man, the church is a rather plain looking brick building. Its basement holds a small library, the main clue to the Pastor’s interest in the occult.
A small Catholic church built next to Our Lady of the Rains. Father Kasprowicz tends to his flock with less devotion than he perhaps did 30 years ago. Despite the fading in grandeur of the church, the Catholic population of Johnsburro still dutifully files in every Sunday.
The main ‘black’ or ‘African’ church in Johnsburro, the Baptist church tends to the spiritual needs of the town’s large African population. A place where potlucks and after service get togethers are still popular, even in the cynical 90s
While Johnsburro does not have an especially large Jewish population, there is enough of a presence to justify a Synagogue in town.
An Irish pub on Main Street, O’Hanrahan’s is one of the main social gathering places for much of the town. Founded by an Irish family from Chicago back in the 1910s, it has been passed down three generations to Lacey O’Hanrahan. Its back rooms are used by many organizations for a place to meet and discuss things in private.
A Goth nightclub located in the basement of an old watch repair shop on Allen Street. The target of ire from the entirety of Johnsburro’s moralistic population, as it has a reputation for decadence and Satanic rites. These are likely stories spread by its proprietor to gin up attention and cultivate a controversial air around the dank and smoky club.
The main hospital for Greene County, taking up a good chunk of real estate in the middle of town. Good pay and a welcoming community has kept it fairly well staffed, but better opportunities elsewhere may draw away well educated doctors in the future. Cyberfun has a program with the hospital where it supplies toys to children and experimental prosthetics to patients who need them.
A large factory on the edge of town, the Cyberfun plant is the second of the two factories still left in Johnsburro. There animatronics, toys, computer chips and other high tech products are created. A recent bout of layoffs at the plant and rumors of Cyberfun looking at Mexico for manufacturing following the US peacekeeping mission there has sparked fears that the plant may be shut down entirely.
The oldest of the two remaining factories in town, and the bigger one by far, the Harbinge plant is best known for the radios and home appliances it makes. However the plant also produces concrete and chemical compounds that Harbinge uses in its other products. The plant is famous for both its connections with the US Navy and the toxic nature of the runoff that sometimes spills into the Waapi River.
The old Peterson Steel Mill was never demolished or bought, instead left to rust and wither away under the elements. The land it sits on is tied up in a complex web of owners, the county and historical concerns, meaning that the property can’t be used. So it sits and rots, becoming a place teenagers drink and smoke at during the day and tell ghost stories about at night.
Harbinge Technologies is a company local to Johnsburro, being founded in the town in 1903. Originally a chemical and concrete company, Harbinge switched over to mainly focus on machining and HVAC during WW2 as part of a move to cultivate a relationship with the Navy. This relationship has remained strong throughout the years, even as Harbinge became more and more known for its home appliances than its chemical or machining work. Despite most people knowing the company for its washers and microwaves over anything else, its military-industrial work continues. Part of its Johnsburro plant is watched over carefully by federal agents, and rumors abound of black sites in the woods where it conducts chemical experiments for the Feds.
Cyberfun is best known for their work supplying animatronics for a wide variety of children’s attractions across the country. Disney and Universal Studios buy from them, as does the famous local children’s restaurant chain Bon’s Burgers. Beyond that their robotic toys are considered high tech luxury items, the top of any trendy kid’s Christmas and birthday lists. However Cyberfun does much more than that. The company is heavily invested into computing, both games and work on AI, and prosthetics and robotic work of all kinds.
Outside of Shawsonee a series of bodies have been found, each one cut open in precise ways and splayed out on slabs of stone with strange wooden carvings next to them. The first body was assumed to be a one off, but more and more hikers have been found dead in the same manner. The sheriffs are keeping information quiet to avoid a sensation, but news of a new serial killer are starting to spread.
In the suburbs all across the midwest a new ailment is spreading. A rash of suicides and domestic murders done by previously sane people. While few common threads have been found, rantings about ‘shadow people’ and ‘malformed faces’ have shown up in more and more reports. Johnsburro has suffered a few of these attacks.
The runoff from the Harbinge plant has grown worse recently, with the Waapi River near that part of the factory turning a foul grey from the toxic ooze. The plants on the banks of the river have started to die off, and finding dead fish and birds floating down the currents is more and more common. A few animals have started to have strange deformities and mutations. Environmental groups are not pleased.
It is said that the Peterson Mill is haunted by the ghost of several black workers who died there during an industrial accident. Local teens say that late at night you can hear the moans of the workers and see strange lights among the overgrown mill.
Johnsburro sent several of its boys to go fight in the Civil War, and very few came back alive. It is said that outside Derfolk if you go driving a certain country road you can see a troop of dead Union boys trying to march home.
Something big has been seen in the woods near Fort Mignard by local campers. Rangers and the police say its just a bear, but bored locals claim that bears don’t move the way it does.
Newhampton and Derfolk locals have said that vans carrying Feds in black suits have started coming around, patrolling the roads near isolated areas across the county. A few even have claimed that they’ve disappeared people who know too much. Though no one can ever say where exactly any of this has happened.
Author
Topic: Greene County Paranormal Society -- OOC Thread (Read 640 times)