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soddersays2020-10-04 01:04 am
sodder) wrote in soddersays2020-10-04 01:04 am
Entry tags:
October 2020 Event Details + Plotting
OCTOBER 2020 EVENT DETAILS AND PLOTTING
Hello! On this post you will be able to find details about the upcoming event and the option to plot in the comments down below. You may also ask questions about the event on this page.
We will be posting the text from the prompts onto this page so you can see in full what your characters will be experiencing this month. We will then post the event live to the log community by the event's start date.
Event Start Date: October 11th
QUICK LINKS:
Event's Prelude: Here.
Event Questions: Here.
Live Event: Here.
Mini Event: Will contain a link once posted/if applicable.
EVENT PROMPTS (LINKS):
[Event Specific Content Warnings]
[Part One] - A safe haven in the library with an unusual Pthumerian librarian who encourages story telling, blood drunken rampages, and a whole lot of dead or dying bodies in the streets.
[Part Two] - Tumbling into madness and hallucinations, monster transformations and fighting, and looking just beyond the town limits to the unknown.
PLOTTING FORM: Here.
EVENT PROMPTS
Part ONE: The Librarian: Possible fourth-walling, possible spoilers per canon
Part ONE: Blood Fever: Blood, Consuming blood, rubbing blood on skin, blood lust, blood madness, drunken behavior because of blood, possible inclination to murder
Part ONE: Valley of the Dead: So many corpses, Blood rivers, Tortured souls/people, Buried/crushed by bodies, Possible guilt
Part TWO: Descent: Extreme insanity, Vivid Hallucinations, Dissociation, Mental splitting from reality, Possible unintentional abusive/violent behavior
Part TWO: My Guiding Moonlight: Monster transformations through a painless fashion, Possible body-horror centric monsters depending on player choice, Possible invasion of mental state, Monster-typical horror/gore/violence
Part TWO: Nightmare Frontier:➟ Distortion of reality, odd physics, possible hallucinations, Monster-typical horror/gore/violence, Possible killing of animal-type monster, Possible (light) poisoning, Dead monsters
PART ONE PROMPTS
THE LIBRARIAN
Start Date: October 11th
End Date: Fade away by the first week of November
Location: Deerington Public Library (Safe Zone for October)
The library has expanded on both the outside and the inside. There are more shelves and more books than there have ever been before. Books are stacked in towers and crammed between shelves. It is hardly up to code of how books should be stored, but there seems to be no other choice for the month. Overstuffed armchairs and sofas have been squished in among the books, offering plenty of seating for those seeking refuge.
Giant brass incense holders swing loftily from the rafters up above, tendrils of incense smoke pooling out of diamond-shaped holes. The air is hazy all throughout, smelling like ancient books and something muskier, deeper, something that must come from the incense themselves. Candles have been put everywhere as well and serve as the only viable light source inside of the library. Wax drips down over books, shelves, and sometimes even over the backs of armchairs. One would think they'd be a fire hazard, but this is an enchanted flame that doesn't seem to burn anything except for the wick.
Moving among the shelves is the Librarian. She glides across the floor silently, the torn edges of her gown whispering over the floor in her wake. A giant candle melts over her head, wax stiffened in rivers coursing over her face and shoulders. The Librarian keeps a knife out at all times, but there is something decidedly not threatening about her disposition. Mostly she keeps to herself, gliding past Sleepers and replacing candles once others have gone out and restocking the incense holders.
"We must be diligent in this month of madness," one can hear her whispering sometimes. She only ever whispers. "The Hunters cannot reach us this month. We are to fend for ourselves. The field is too dense and the blood runs thick. And every drop of Sleeper blood that falls...falls down into the Waking World."
It might as well be nonsense, but it might be nonsense worth paying attention to. The Librarian appears to be completely blind, but she will listen to those who talk. She can help people find books and seem to welcome Sleepers into the protection of her library.
Although she whispers, she does not encourage Sleepers to do the same. Instead, she floats about, telling Sleepers the importance of stories.
"True immortality is dependent on how long people will talk about you after you have ceased to exist," she says, "Stories remind us that we are not alone in this world. Stories connect us to people we have never met, never known. Pick a story from the shelves or tell one of your very own."
Everywhere around the library people are telling stories of their own lives or perhaps have picked out one of their favorite books to read from. Other people are making up stories on the spot or retelling old lore from their own worlds. The thing is...The Librarian seems to be right.
Everyone who partakes in story-telling, whether it's listening to someone else tell a story or telling one yourself, Sleepers will feel steadier mentally. This will help provide relief from blood-drunkness and general madness from the month's events. Monsters cannot get into the Library and seem to keep away.
The more a Sleeper resonates with a story, the more they will feel empowered. Some stories may even heal minor injuries if the storytelling is theatric, thorough enough.
INFORMATION:
1. There will be incense and enchanted candles that Sleepers can take home with them when they leave the Library. Candles will not burn anything but the wicks and will last the same amount of time as a regular candle.
2. Sleepers can sleep/stay in the Library the entire month. They will have to bring their own food and drink though. The Librarian encourages as much.
3. If you work at the library, the Librarian will likely have you stocking candles and incense as well. She will also probably enlist you to help keep stories moving around the Library.
4. There are more books than ever in the library this month. Characters may be able to find rare/unique books from their own canons among the shelves. You can also have your character find the books they themselves come from if you want. Books can be taken out of the library/technically stolen.
BLOOD FEVER
Start Date: October 11th
End Date: Fade away throughout October and November depending upon player choice.
Location: All locations.
The scent of blood in the air should make one gag. It should drive one to disgust. This October, however, it seems to have the opposite effect. People may begin to find the scent as welcoming as roses or a home-cooked meal. Some might leave their faucets running to watch their sinks fill with blood, entranced by the deep red flow.
Then there are the ones who grow ravenous about blood. It is not enough to smell it. They must dip their fingers into blood, paint it over their walls, their faces. It becomes religious to them, dire for them to touch and taste and feel and smell and see.
"Blood of my blood, blood of the moon, blood of the Sleepers and Hunters alike." It's a redundant phrase that seems to continually pass the lips of people drunken by blood. They don't seem to recognize how unusual the behavior is, brushing off concerns from loved ones.
The euphoria caused by blood can make people reckless and energetic. They will feel bold and determined, and the more they interact with blood, the more they will feel like they can accomplish anything in the world. That they are strong and renewed. Blood is rebirth, blood is power, blood is everything and more. But the more blood people soak up, the more manic their euphoria will become. They will be driven to forget themselves and dedicate themselves solely to the bloodletting of the town. This might mean they want to splash blood everywhere they can or cause blood sacrifices either of their own bodies or other creatures/Sleepers. This can drive a person easily to murder that they will argue is justifiable, reasonable.
"We must honor the blood of the dream!" They will cry, hysterically.
Other blood-drunk behavior will include behavior typically associated with alcohol-drunk such as stumbling around, slurred speech, lapses of memory. People may even feel hangover or withdrawal-like side effects if they routinely ingest/wear blood only to abruptly stop.
Some characters may be driven to want to actively drink blood or bathe in blood, and those who do will find that they really do become more powerful. Or perhaps they become more beautiful, more youthful in appearance. It isn't just a mental frenzy - there really is some power in the blood this month. Anyone's or anything's blood will do.
INFORMATION:
1. Opting out of blood drunken behavior requires very little. Some characters simply won't be impacted by it the way others are.
2. Characters do not need to be blood-and-flesh creatures themselves to get blood drunk.
3. You can make a character as deranged by blood or go a more mild route. Blood drunken behavior may cause characters to leave safe houses/safe areas more willingly.
VALLEY OF THE DEAD
Start Date: Every 12th hour from October 11th onward
End Date: Will steadily go away by the end of October/beginning of November
Location: Streets of Deerington
Every 12th hour there will be a rush of wind that sweeps through the entire town and every house, every building, no matter how tightly shut your windows may be or how secure your doors are. The wind is warm, damp, and it lasts only a minute, barely strong enough to make papers rustle across tables. Then it is gone, and you can hear a low murmuring chant from somewhere in an indistinguishable language. It's coming from outside and it may be exceptionally tempting to go see what it is. You'll notice that during this hour, windows and doorways become blacked out. In order to see where the chanting comes from, you must open your front door and step outside.
It will look as if Deerington has been buried...Beneath bodies. There's moaning wails all around you, and you see body after body stacked over your home, over other homes, lining the streets. The bodies are practically unrecognizable. Mostly humanoid, but slick with blood. Some are mostly rotten away to the skeletons beneath, but others are writhing, arms stretching out, cries for help lost in the billions of other cries among them. The streets run with thick, waist-deep blood, and every couple of feet are the Messengers with their safe haven. Only around them is there no gore or bodies - a small safe spot and a possible way to travel in the mess.
It is easy to be driven mad among the bodies. You may see them as all the people you have ever killed, all of the Sleepers you have known, all of the people you have loved - or they may just be a faceless abomination of corpses and writhing bodies, crying for help, crying for their suffering to end.
This bloodied nightmare last for only an hour. The longer you stay out in it, the more you will notice the bodies will start to break down and vanish. The blood in the streets will drain down into the sewers, and once the hour has passed, the streets are void of the horrific amount of bodies that lined them just moments before.
If you are unlucky enough to be out in the streets when the hour strikes, you yourself might be inexplicably sucked into the walls of bodies, crushed beneath the weight, and you might need someone to hopefully be able to hear your cries from the piles.
INFORMATION:
1. The prompt will last exactly one hour each time. This will only occur to those unfortunate enough to be traveling in the streets or without incense at this time.
2. To avoid this prompt, characters can merely stay inside during this time. This prompt only occurs in the streets/the National Park/the general setting. It will not spill into character homes.
3. Characters can possibly be crushed to death in the piles or drown in the blood rivers.
4. Blood-drunk characters may be severely impacted by this prompt.
PART TWO PROMPTS
DESCENT
Start Date: October 11th
End Date: Effects of this may last well beyond October depending per player choice
Location: All locations.
Those who may avoid getting blood drunk still will struggle with the overwhelming pressure of insanity throughout the month. Sleep deprivation and listening to the miserable howls of monsters and dying people in the streets is enough to drive anyone crazy. It's more than that though. That damned moon feels like it is watching everything, even your most private thoughts, most private moments, and it starts to feel impossible to escape.
It creeps into the safety of your home. You swear you had just closed that door that now hangs open, the dark of the hallway beyond seeming impossibly deep. Your animals seem to stop and watch things you cannot see. There's a pressure that dips onto your mattress while you try to relax, but when you look, nothing is there. Clicking groans erupt from beneath your bed, down your hall, into your basement. You feel like something is with you, something is coming for you.
And maybe you see it. Some distorted creature, long-limbed and sloping across your bathroom floor with a jaw that wags back and forth, broken. You can feel it when it scratches a claw across your face. You watch it turn the faucet in your shower to boiling hot to burn your skin. You see its ominous letters left in blood on your walls...
But do you really? As you stumble into the Descent, you start to see this haunting follow you around, but is there really anything there? You may have someone who cares enough to snap you out of it, might have to go through a seance to purge the sanity from your mind, or maybe you will be overrun with so much you finally turn into a monster yourself...
But it is not impossible to be saved. Once you come back from the Descent, you cannot fall into it again, and you will see that it was indeed you who had scratched yourself. It was you that wrote those haunting messages. It was you being your own worst nightmare...
...And maybe someone else's.
INFORMATION:
1. Characters who partake in the other prompts may actually find it is easier to avoid full Descent.
2. Characters with magical abilities or access to medication / other grounded sanity-control measures may be able to avoid this prompt.
3. Incense cannot combat this prompt.
4. All monsters seen are meant to be hallucinations. That means they can look like anything you want them to. Any damage caused to the house or character(s) will be done by the character struggling with the Descent.
MY GUIDING MOONLIGHT
Start Date: October 11th
End Date: Monster madnesses can last throughout October and November. All people will go back to their tattoos by the first week of December at the latest.
Location: All locations.
Those undergoing enormous stress and breaks of sanity whether through insomnia or blood-fever or the Descent or regular stress will notice that their tattoos begin to pulse and hurt. It feels as if something is trying to crawl its way out and it can be agonizing to deal with, even if you usually don't experience pain. There is some relief to be found in soothing creams and running a tattoo underwater, and there is more relief to be found if someone you are close with rubs your tattoo. Sleeper touch seems to quiet whatever it is crawling beneath the skin...
But not forever. Not for some Sleepers. Eventually, the pain will consume you, and then all at once: it is gone.
Your tattoo will glow white, flecks of pale light peeling off of your tattoo until the little flecks make a 3D rendition of your tattoo right before your very eyes. It looks like a ghost, and you can feel and hear your thoughts and memories pouring from this little ghostly suspension of your tattoo. But you cannot reach out to it. You cannot do anything. Your body has grown cold, numb, and if anyone is near, they will have seen that your skin from head to toe has looked like it's been dipped in lead. You leave your home, leave wherever it is your tattoo slid out of you, and you walk the streets of Deerington.
There is no pain. There is nothing at all. Your body begins to drip across the cement, falling apart, but you are not afraid. You are reduced to a puddle of black ink, and out of that ink, you rise again. This time as something so much more: you have become a monster.
The exhaust from insomnia, the madness from the blood, or the Descent have abandoned you. You feel purified. Absolute. Closer to the real you than you have ever felt in your life. You do not feel cruelty or kindness, but you understand your design in this world now. You must peel back this layer from the town. You can see it as a monster, you can see the streaks of energy that swirl throughout the town. Between buildings, among Sleepers, in the sky. It's all around you, shrouding you, and you realize you can touch it. You can feel not only other Sleepers, but Sodder, Mother Superior, Ramona, Cynthia, the Mayor, and the Dog Keeper - you can feel everything. So you must begin to rip away at the layers, pull that energy that feels like silk in your jaws or between your hands.
Of course, anything that comes across you might drive you mad. You are focused on your work, but from afar, it may look like a monster terrorizing the streets. You may not be able to recognize friends, loved ones, or innocent people. You may crush and destroy those who get in your way.
How To Be Brought Back To Yourself
That little glowing image of your tattoo? Yeah, that's gonna be important. If you make your way back to it naturally, you'll be transformed back into your normal self through a similar way you transformed into a monster.
You can also be lead there by people ushering you along (people would have to know what tattoo belongs to who - or then again, they could coincidentally lead you to the right one). Being a few feet within the tattoo will trigger a reverse transformation.
Alternatively, however, if people discover your floating tattoo but have no idea what you may look like as a monster or where you might be...They will notice their own tattoo respond, also peeling off to glow and join with yours. Their bodies will by the tattoo, but their minds will be sent to join yours as you rampage in your monster form. This is the Fusion.
Fusion
They join you wherever you are in your Headspace. Players can interpret the headspace to look however they think a character's Headspace would look, but there should be some sort of "external access" like a window that serves as the character's "eyes" to the world (like Inside Out, okay).
There, the characters will manifest as their usual selves and be able to talk.
The character who decided to fuse will have complete control over their mental state when entering this Headspace. If they were going mad before, they will feel unusually calm, well-rested. They can help guide a character back to sanity and back to their tattoo.
Alternatively, the two characters can work together to fight as a monster. This will include having to feel each other's emotions/maybe even see glimpses of memories. You can interpret how complicated this can be or how simple. It can be like Pacific Rim style of controlling a monster together, or you can get a bit more metaphorical.
Either way, the character who fused with the monsterfied character will eventually grow weak and incapable of staying in the Headspace forever. They will eventually fade back to where the tattoo is hovering.
INFORMATION:
1. Characters can completely lose themselves to their monster versions. However, they have a great chance of having some sense of control.
2. It is impossible for them to be identical to how they actually are as a monster, but they may retain some of their core personality/morals if they have been properly helped by another Sleeper. This means you can play a character in control of their monster form to some extent.
3. Sleepers can be helpful and aid in fights in their monster form while they are in the controlled state. They are vulnerable to going back to madness and consistent care is a must for keeping them in the right state of mind.
4. Characters cannot experience a physical injury while in the Headspace since it is technically their minds, not their bodies.
5. If a character is "killed" as a monster, they will manifest back through their tattoo abruptly. This will be excruciatingly painful for a character and they will struggle for a long while after with telling the difference between dreams, reality, memories, and the like. The same thing will happen to a character who is in their Headspace at the same time.
6. All those who are a monster will feel a powerful connection to the "moon" (the eyes) up in the sky and they may at times be seemingly entranced by them. This will further cement them in madness.
NIGHTMARE FRONTIER
Start Date: October 11th
End Date: The Nightmare Frontier will still look as though it's accessible throughout November, but by the first week of November, Sleepers will find that they cannot venture that far out again and will instead suffer the usual consequences of trying to leave Deerington - even if they are a monster.
Location: Beyond town limits.
For once one can venture for miles beyond Deerington. Farther than anyone has been able to go, but there is a dense, heavy smog. The yellow fog crackles through the air, pungent in odor, drawing monsters from within Deerington and from beyond. You can see their vast, immense shapes moving through the murky yellow. It's hard to breathe in and you may want to bring a face cover if you choose the bad choice of navigating this smog. The smog also will cause people's eyes to burn and their mouths to grow dry. You really will want to cover up and plan ahead before venturing this far.
One can easily lose themselves in the rolling smog beyond. As you walk, the familiar landscape of Deerington's lush Maine woods and fields gives way to something far more sinister. The landscape becomes jagged red stone with gaping flesh holes expending fumes of that toxic yellow smog. Near those fleshy holes and you'll find they have a ring of teeth ready to chomp anything that comes too close.
The smog can completely distort reality. Gravity may become unreliable. Random objects float through the smog, objects that you wouldn't expect to find out in this strange wasteland. You might see items you once had in your childhood among the rocks, random pieces of furniture. It is easy to forget one's self, forget why you might have come out to the smog, but one can steady themselves by touching their tattoos or having someone else touch them. Stay close. Stay together.
Monsters have been born in this smog and they crash through the terrain with clear intention to head straight for Deerington - which you thankfully can still see in the distance. Other monsters, whether monsters from the smog or Sleepers transformed into monsters, will attack those monsters - and it's impossible to tell if it's to hunt for food or if it is out of some sense to protect Deerington. Either way, it's a dangerous place to be if you have nothing to fight with or no skill to hide.
The roar of the ocean can also be heard out in the smog. If you walk far enough, you will come across a massive, red ocean slamming again and again against a black sand shore. It may strike some as familiar, and on the broken waves, you can see the ruins of hundreds of ships.
And hundreds of destroyed lighthouses.
Those who go into the ocean will find that it tastes of ink and destroys all senses. It is easy to drown in that water. Some lucky few may only be consumed by the water and come back out a transformed monster. But that's only if you're lucky. If you stay by the waters long enough, you might see some strange crablike creatures scurrying out of the ocean to feast on the bodies of dead monsters that may wash up along the shore or that have fallen out of the smoggy skies.
If you sit and listen, you will hear a strange chittering language passing among the crab creatures. It should be unrecognizable. You know you have never heard it before, and yet, you can understand exactly what they are saying:
"The box! Where is the box? It must be found and it must be solved."
"But will they be ready? Can they handle reality?"
"They will have no choice. She will teach them that. She is a woman of faith, after all. Reality is her specialty."
"Maybe so...But that box...Where is that puzzle?"
INFORMATION:
1. Those who have been transformed into monsters can breathe in the smog without a problem and will not be subjected to hallucinations.
2. Although the smog is disorienting one can still find their way back to Deerington eventually.
3. The crab creature's statement is a hint to the mini-event connected to this event that will be released in November.
4. The crab creatures will run away if anyone tries to attack them - but they can be killed easily and they are non-toxic to eat. At most they might try and pinch people and can cause broken bones - but only if they catch you. Their bite is mildly poisonous and can cause joints to swell but is nonfatal. It is meant to make someone incapable of chasing after them as they escape and will fade away after an hour or so or if properly extracted via magic/medical care.
PLOTTING FORM
Please feel free to use the following form to help format your plans for the month:
iwamine shuu | hatoful boyfriend
Preferred Player Contact:
OOC Limits: Don't murder him, it's his first month plz
Desired CR: All! He's a new birb so all takers are welcome.
Unwanted CR: N/A
Event Ideas:
- Shuu would like to do more research into these phenomenon so he'll be reaching out to scientists and veterans to get their take. He also doesn't mind hanging out in the library to help with research.
- Shuu would also like to take a few dead bodies for research purposes so feel free to spot him carting off some. If you want him to cart off one of your characters, I'm game! I'm also down for someone rescuing him because he's a 5'6" partridge and fights like an idiot.
- Shuu will be subject to hallucinations and see the birds he's experimented on, humans he's killed. But he'll be bothered by the fact that he's not haunted by the one bird he wants to see more than anyone else. He won't be violent, mostly deeply melancholic.
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