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meadowlarkooc2020-01-13 02:32 pm
EVENT 008
Months ago in August 2511, a man who goes by the name of Ball held a party, colloquially referred to as the Insomniac's Ball. The people of New Amsterdam had to stand out to Ball so that they could earn an invite for that event, and so that they could potentially attend the ball the following year. There was always the chance that the ball could be the key to meeting the event's benefactor. Not long after the Insomniac's Ball, shrines began to spring up around New Amsterdam featuring certain geometric imagery and pictures of some of the Displaced's past exploits. This same geometric imagery had been present at the Insomniac's Ball.
In November 2511, the Displaced started to learn more after meeting with both Ball and some of his associates. The Displaced learned that the imagery associated with the Displaced on the shrines was evidence that their existence was "proof of god." According to the mythology of Ball and his associates, there are seven gods in this world that were responsible for creation, but at some point, they went to "sleep." The Displaced are supposedly associated with the gods in some way, and their involvement in this world is linked to that. Ball said that by visiting four locations, they would begin to uncover the truth about themselves. Not long after, Ball supplied four locations to the four Displaced: New Rio de Janeiro, New Cairo, New Oslo, and Mt. Everest.
Now that it's February 2512, the Displaced have planned two expeditions to two locations: New Oslo and Mt. Everest. An unknown, as yet invisible player enters the fray. Thanks to various resources at this group's disposal, they become aware of the two itineraries to Mt. Everest and New Oslo planned by the Displaced. In response, they begin to move, gathering resources so that they can deploy and intercept some of the Displaced. Where does the interception with this mysterious group happen? For some, it's before they get on a train to leave New Amsterdam; for others, it's as they hit New Beijing or as they arrive in New Oslo.
The end goal for those "intercepted" Displaced? Oddly enough: New Rio and New Cairo. Whoever's involved in this "interception" has a vested interest in seeing this particular operation completed successfully, and the Displaced's plans weren't going to cut it. But these kidnapped Displaced are taken to these other two locations against their wills, while drugged, and while being handled by an unfriendly group of mercenaries who aren't keen to answer any questions.
The framework of this event is straightforward: the characters visit four locations, explore them, and unlock what will eventually be Meadowlark's fast travel system. This system will enable more movement between cities so that players can explore the world at large without being cut off from their CR for long periods of time. In time, this unlock even out into space, with the characters utilizing their resources in order to expand beyond Earth itself. However, there are still a lot of mysteries to be uncovered at each of these four locations, allowing players dig into aspects of the past of this world, as well as role-play their character role-playing Indiana Jones. Temporarily!
◉ There will be four separate locations: New Cairo, New Rio de Janiero, New Oslo, and Mt. Everest. New Cairo and New Rio de Janeiro will be visited via "interception"/kidnapping. New Oslo and Mt. Everest will be found via research, well-timed dreams, and exploring the areas where they've been pointed to beforehand.
◉ There is a reason why the operations in New Oslo and at Mt. Everest are not being stopped, as well as a reason why some of the Displaced are being redirected like this. This will be addressed later, but it is a mystery to address.
◉ Anyone who chooses to stay behind in New Amsterdam can still be kidnapped, ensuring that there are the proper numbers at the four locations. Anyone whose character might have wanted to sit out the trips to New Oslo and Mt. Everest can find themselves waking up in New Cairo or New Rio.
◉ At each of the locations, there will be ruins to explore and scale, as well as creatures to confront and a whole lot of pieces of the past. We'll be expanding more on the four locations and what players will be able to find within them in the log. This isn't secrecy: we just need to do a bit of research to build up the imagery involved!
Both Mt. Everest and New Oslo will be visited of the Displaced's free will. How they find their final destinations is ultimately up to the players involved at these locations. Of course, they will find their numbers somewhat depleted from what's been planned thanks to the abductions, and how they proceed once these abductions happen is up to you. Do they try to find their lost friends, or continue on their path?
◉ The location in New Oslo is on what was once the western coast of the isle of Norway, underneath the original site of Avaldsnes Kongsgård estate. There were once numerous Kongsgård estates on Norway. While little remains of the original Avaldsnes Kongsgård, the gate is located under that site. Don't worry: no one's going to have to dive into the water. That area has been carefully preserved as New Oslo was developed to be what it is today in 2512.
◉ Travel to New Oslo is fairly easy out of New Amsterdam. Tourists can book a train to the location. As a common tourist site, they will find many hotels open for reservations, especially since it's the off season.
◉ The location on Mt. Everest is at the remains of the Rongbuk Monastery. While this monastery hasn't been used for centuries and has fallen to ruin, it was once one of the original sites for expeditions to Mt. Everest. As such, none of the characters will need to scale Mt. Everest itself, not unless they want to go in that direction foolishly.
◉ Travel to Mt. Everest is far more complicated. The band heading in that direction will need to stop off in New Beijing, hop on a boat, and head over to New Delhi so they can travel north. Once they're within range of Mt. Everest, they will need to sit in quarantine for 12 hours.
◈ However, travel to Mt. Everest should take longer! We're streamlining it for the sake of the event and for the sake of enjoyable RP. Some of it going overtly smoothly should stand out to the characters, as if someone is greasing the wheels for where they're supposed to end up.
◉ Via research, asking the locals, and some deductive reasoning, the characters can easily come by these locations without having to employ any special Displaced powers to get to where they're going. For instance: looking into how people used to get to Mt. Everest can easily bring people to Rongbuk. For Avaldsnes, they can ask locals for historical sites that appear to be present despite the unusual nature of current New Oslo.
◉ Should any of this research fail, there is a deus ex machina option where the characters can get clues via their dreams when they're close to the gates themselves. These clues will help with future Googling.
The abducted characters will be brought to these locations, and the sites of the gates will already be determined. Rather than needing to do research, whoever abducted the characters will know where to go, and they will find themselves at the openings of the ruins themselves. These abductors will look like well-armed mercenaries. They'll be wearing armor and concealing their identities, and the Displaced will be too drugged to cause any problems … at first. The expedition won't start until the drugs are out of their systems, though.
◉ The location in New Rio de Janeiro is located underneath the original statue of Christ the Redeemer. However, the gate underneath this statue has been there for a much longer period of time, having been constructed before the Portuguese colonization of the area.
◉ The location in New Cairo is under the Great Pyramid of Giza. While this location is primarily steeped and buried in sand at this point, whoever's hired the abductors has excavated a path inside, having dug deep underneath to find the gate location that was always hidden beneath the pyramid itself. Because with all this sacred geometry, there had to be a pyramid somewhere, right?
◉ Though the Displaced will be drugged for much of their journeys, they will know that they've been taken on a train in between injections of whatever drug is in their systems. There will be no compulsion drugs, however, so they will just be heavily sedated.
◉ The abducted Displaced will be provided with hiking boots, backpacks full of gear, food, and supplies, as well as a great deal of water to ensure that their trek through the ruins goes well.
◈ Some of these supplies, at random, will be drugged and will cause random effects. No one is required to undergo these effects—we just wanted to add on something a little fun!
◈ These effects include a feeling of fatigue and nausea, which will quickly worsen into something else, causing a feeling of rage and misdirected vengeance. They may also have golden eyes and may feel their canines grow and sharpen inside of their mouth (a change that will cause a great deal of pain). Other effects include hallucinations, as well as memories of major and bloody displays of violence. They may remember being an animal on the hunt, and will struggle with being able to tell the difference between fiction and reality.
◈ This effect won't last forever, but will be able to be cured by touching the Displaced in question for five minutes. This "cure" will cause a searing pain before transitioning to a feeling of peace and then sadness.
◈ While under the influence of this diluted food, the Displaced will be able to heal from any harm rapidly.
◉ The mercenaries will act as stoic guides. Of course, that's assuming they're allowed to remain the entire time. Unlike the UNA, these guys aren't nearly unbeatable, and they don't know what to expect from the Displaced.
◈ In advance: please feel free to take out the mercenaries! No need to ask for permission. They were the cannon fodder the Displaced found along the way.
◈ Taking out the mercenaries may land the Displaced some weapons and equipment, such as their body armor, since whoever packed their bags didn't take care to provide any for them. Guess they weren't that concerned?
The ruins themselves will have a lot of trials for the Displaced to face, though many of them will be overcome through the blue stuff in their chests. Regardless of what they believe, the blue stuff will be the key to most of the ruins, and a touch of their palm will unlock doors and help them find the way. Most notably, the abducted Displaced will have the choice to leave behind the mercenaries if they haven't taken them out.
◉ There will be video game style puzzles. Lining up the symbols, making sure a beam of light ends up pointing at the right place? All that good stuff. The final key to each of these puzzles will be pressing their hands into an indentation. Anyone who can't figure out the puzzle can touch their hand to the indentation in advance, getting a flash of what they should do to solve the puzzle. It's like a video game walkthrough being beamed inside of their heads for any annoying puzzles.
◈ As a note: These puzzles are optional. The whole ruin could just as easily be a "platforming puzzle" to get through (IE lots of difficult climbing and jumping), and some characters could find alternate (and even longer, more difficult?) routes without the puzzles in their way. We know that creating puzzles and obstacles for characters isn't everyone's jam.
◉ Want a good fight? The abductors will have the mercenaries to take out, but every Displaced will come across oddly evolved creatures. Ever wanted your character to fight a bear? Or a bear-like creature? Now's their chance! Most of these animals will be ferocious in nature, and will act as guardians for the gates.
◉ There will be lots of bits of history here. We're not being vague just to be vague, but because we want to dig in in the interim time between this post and the log going up to ensure we etch out these ruins. If you happen to know a lot about one of these four areas and would like to see something, let us know! We'll happily integrate it.
◉ Despite the end goal being the gates, anyone can steal away with whatever they find. Ancient, regional weapons that are more than a little rusted? Check. What about what appears to be mass burials for any kind of biological research? There might be some of those, too. Relics to figure out that might be linked to the so-called gods and their worshippers? What about specialized ones that link to the blue junk? They may not be able to figure it out right away, but they will in time. We know characters are going to take stuff, so feel free to do just that.
◈ We're going to have a section on the log that will act as a turn in for the objects that your character found, with the results of what was found and how to go further with it put together on the aftermath post. We're leaving this completely open-ended, though we'll be coming up with the effects of these weapons and tools later!
The end goal of this event has always been the gates. Each of the four groups will potentially end up at these final destinations, and will be individually tasked with the goal of figuring out how to activate that gate. None of these gates were built in tandem with one another, being the end result of very different cultures creating connections in the world.
◉ These gates can be activated in any number of ways. It could be as simple as the Displaced standing on a triangle while holding hands to create a conduit between each of them. Or it could be something difficult, such as several displays of of their in-game power to send through energy and "charge" the gate itself.
◉ If you have any ideas for how to solve this, let us know! We want it to be fun to play out, and even a little baffling. If the characters do hilarious things to try to activate them, we'd find it funny, too.
◉ We're thinking that we'll let the players assigned to each gate decide which way they've activated it. We'll set up a voting post so that they can decide.
◉ The four gates being activated will open travel between the four locations. If they weren't built in tandem, how does that even work? That's a mystery.
◉ The activation will also unlock a final location, which will be available in the aftermath log! The characters will be made aware of this location once the last gate is activated, since they'll all have a vision. As such, we would prefer that you do not thread past the final activation. Assuming, of course, they all do get activated.
Unlike our last event, this one is a lot more teamwork oriented, forcing the characters to work in tandem to unlock something that may help them answer some questions about why they're in this world and what their powers mean. Of course, looking at the above information, you may be wondering how those questions are answered. Any meaning they find in this excursion is up to you, the players, as we don't want to tell you how to have them respond.
Down below, there will be signups for abduction! If you want your character to be abducted, feel free. If you want your character to head into a gate without being abducted, that is fine, too! We will admit that we're hoping to evenly spread our character base among the four gates, and we hope that this will present opportunities to diversify CR along the way.
EDIT: We're closing signups on January 20th and posting the lists so people can begin to plan according to location!
As for some ideas of what they can do throughout all of this:
DISCUSS/RECONNECT: Since a major part of this event involves the Displaced being split up, we suspect that the network will be a key for reconnecting, sharing notes, and figuring out what's happened. No one will be split off from the Morningstar network at any time, so the Displaced can feel free to share notes and discuss how to handle things there the entire time. Also, of course, there is one more question: why were some of the Displaced abducted and brought to the other two gates? Who would pay mercenaries to do this?
RESEARCH: Even for the New Cairo and New Rio de Janeiro groups, research will be key. We wanted to leave it open-ended for the Mt. Everest and New Oslo groups to figure out how they find their locations, but the New Cairo and New Rio de Janeiro groups can easily utilize the internet to figure out what the heck is going on, where they are, and more. The mercenaries won't be answering many questions. Why? Well, part of that is that they were hired to haul their "packages" to whatever is at the end of these ruins, and they weren't given anymore information.
INDIANA JONES TIME: "Being Indy," so to speak, covers a lot of areas: reconnaissance, solving puzzles, and even trying to do research while taking pictures of whatever they find along the way. Need to pointlessly climb something to get a better view? There will be opportunities for that, too, in each of the ruins.
FIGHT MERCS AND MONSTERS: (Like that alliteration? We hope you do!) If anyone wants to shake off their mercenary "guides," they can feel free through any means necessary. As for the creatures, it may be a little confusing as to how they got there in the first place. These golden-eyed animals will not be friendly, and many of them will take the shape of animals known to be violent and feral. Buffalos, boars, bears, hippos, and rhinos? Yup. What about alligators and crocodiles? Yep. Oh, and don't forget cassowaries, too! Only the buffalos may have scales and teeth like a croc, being some weird merger of the two (a crocauffalo!? A buffocodile?!).
DILUTED FOOD AND STATUS EFFECTS: As a fun wrench from a mysterious person involved, we decided to throw in some status effects based on our second event, with some fun new additions These will only be available to the characters in New Cairo and New Rio de Janeiro—unless someone kills and eats the monsters on the New Oslo and Mt. Everest excursions. Which, well. OK.
SABOTAGE: While we envisioned this to be a teamwork-intensive event, we didn't want to leave this option out. If your character is the type to go rogue and hide answers to a puzzle or screw over other people? Be our guest. Make sure to communicate with the other players involved in that expedition, but we personally love seeing conflict like this play out.
DITCH: Again, teamwork oriented, but we wouldn't be surprised if a few characters might decide to say "screw it" and leave all this crap behind. Want to have your character be the one who sulks around the entrance of a ruin, waiting for the others to come out? Go ahead. Or maybe they find their way back to the city in question and wait for everything to blow over at a local bar.
Obviously, this event has been conceived as a way of opening up fast travel so characters can easily visit other cities without being caught up in long travel times, and so that we can eventually open up space for more exploration. However, while the straightforward basics of the event itself are set in stone, what they find, how they explore the ruins, and what they do with the gates is ultimately up to our playerbase. As such, if there is anything you'd like to see out of this event, please respond to our questions section below!
Unlike many of our other events, we assume that this one will have a set destination in mind: activating the gates so that the fast travel system can be unlocked. However, we are open to this failing. Hearing about their abducted comrades could keep the Displaced from locating their final destinations. There could always be that person who is so opposed to the very theory behind all of this that they sabotage the entire excursion. In addition, we know that some characters will be difficult to abduct due to their training. However, if you want this to happen anyway, we're happy to work with you to make sure it happens.
We are envisioning this as a two-part event: the first log (which goes up on JANUARY 25) and then the aftermath. The first log will cover the research, abductions, and eventual expeditions in the ruins (with the bulk of the log dedicated to the ruins themselves). The second log will cover the aftermath of the activation of the gates.
Characters will continue to have access to the network throughout the event. They can feel free to reach out to El and Gaby, but neither will have eyes and ears on their situation, so they won't be much help. The Displaced are encouraged to work together to figure out this particular pickle.
There is one power level up available for this event, granted for a thread of at least 5 log/action comments containing your character in the ruins themselves. Since the ruins are involved with the overall metaplot, they will not need to use their powers in this thread for the power-up! They will need to reach the 5 comments required by MARCH 6TH to be eligible. Submission will be handled on the wrap up post.
Goro Akechi
Taking Down Mercs: Despite his smaller frame, Akechi is actually a capable fighter and will help take down some mercs to get some gear, and will take a couple guns so he's sure he has what he needs in hand.
Drugged Food: Definitely interested in Akechi getting impacted by the drugged food. Akechi is Incredibly unstable so having the drugged food will just make his instability shine. Who wants to get shot??
Powers: Akechi also has an ability to make someone go berserk and mind control someone for ten minutes. I think I'm going to have him use the mercs this way, but would anyone else be interested in it? I'm down for the full consequences of it after the fact.
Indy stuff: Akechi runs the gamut of Persona 5 dungeons all on his own, and when he finally joins the protagonists, he still runs his side gig because he thinks they need his backup. Basically, he's damn good at dungeon crawling, puzzles, and getting out alive. Too good, even. He won't play well with others and may need to constantly be reminded not to fuck off on his own. He thinks the Displaced are all morons, so feel free to keep his ego in check.