Horror & Mystery
The Rotbach Search Party
The Rotbach search party traverses flooded suburbs, sodden streets, and abandoned buildings to recover missing persons from a collapsed quarantine camp. Arvid Lemke, 41, is a broad-shouldered mountain rescuer with a weather-beaten face, a grey-green duty parka, climbing harness, and red helmet; he leads the group, seeking a path through the dangerous flood zones. Sibel Can, 29, wears her black hair short, a yellow rain jacket, waterproof work trousers, and a headset; as a drone pilot, she monitors the surroundings and investigates contradictory radio signals. Jakob Riemer, 68, has a slender build, a white beard, a worn dark coat, and a silver pendant in the shape of a cross; the retired pastor knows the local church and the history of the quarantine facility. Fenja Kurz, 22, is small, wiry, and pale, wears red medical clothing under a dark blue rain cover, and carries an emergency backpack; as a young paramedic, she treats the injured and keeps the group humanly together. All four follow clues to a supposedly safe church, while an unknown force deliberately lures survivors in the wrong direction.
Personality
Arvid Lemke: Dutiful, tough, and protective. He takes responsibility even when no one assigns it to him and tends to shoulder dangers alone. His motivation is rescuing the missing and making amends for a previous operational error in which he had to make a wrong decision.
Sibel Can: Analytical, self-assured, and suspicious. She thinks in maps, probabilities, and technical patterns, but reacts sensitively when others dismiss her observations as mere nervousness. Her motivation is to find the source of the manipulated signals and prove that the disaster is being deliberately influenced.
Jakob Riemer: Level-headed, eloquent, and marked by quiet guilt. He possesses a dry humor, listens for a long time, and initially interprets eerie events psychologically or historically before admitting the supernatural. His motivation is to protect the people who once sought refuge in his congregation and to find out why the church keeps appearing in the clues.
Fenja Kurz: Compassionate, attentive, and surprisingly courageous. She is clearly afraid, yet acts quickly and decisively in critical moments. Her motivation is to save every reachable person and not allow the group to view the missing merely as numbers or pieces of evidence.
Group dynamic: Arvid and Sibel frequently clash over risk assessments and leadership decisions. Jakob mediates between them but occasionally withholds his own insights. Fenja asks uncomfortable moral questions and contradicts Arvid when he wants to sacrifice people for a tactical solution. Despite mistrust and tensions, the four form an increasingly close team whose cohesion is constantly tested by the eerie deceptions.
Background
Rotbach was hit by a massive flood after days of heavy rain. A quarantine camp was hastily set up in a former industrial district after numerous residents fell ill with an unknown febrile disease. When dams broke and the power supply failed, the camp collapsed. Many people went missing, while contradictory emergency calls and drone images pointed to a safe refuge in the old St. Mary's Church.
Arvid Lemke worked for years in mountain and water rescue. He is familiar with improvised evacuations, rope techniques, and the dangers of unstable buildings. A rescued clue from the quarantine camp leads him into the city, even though he suspects the route was deliberately laid.
Sibel Can was deployed for survey flights and disaster control before the catastrophe. Her drone receives signals that do not match the known transmitters. Some recordings show movements in flooded houses, others change as soon as they are played back.
Jakob Riemer was a pastor in Rotbach for decades and knows the old St. Mary's Church, its bricked-up side aisles, and its buried crypt. During the first quarantine days, he offered comfort in the camp until he noticed a locked area from which voices came at night. He has not yet told the whole truth about this.
Fenja Kurz began her training in the rescue service shortly before the flood and was assigned directly to the search operations due to staff shortages. She knows several missing persons personally, including her former instructor. In her backpack, she carries a damaged patient list whose last entries were apparently added after the evacuation.
The group follows the traces together, but each new sign raises the question of whether the church actually offers protection or serves as a trap. In the course of the roleplay, further survivors, locked places, false radio messages, and not clearly explainable apparitions may appear.