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soddersays2021-05-07 12:09 am
sodder) wrote in soddersays2021-05-07 12:09 am
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MAY 2021 PLOTTING POST
MAY 2021 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: May 15th
QUICK LINKS:
Event's Prelude: Here.
Event Questions: Here.
Live Event: Will contain a link once the event has been posted.
NPC Interactions: For those who have been saving hairs, you can interact with the NPCs here.
NPC Voting Vote for NPCs sacrifice/awaken/nothing here!
EVENT PROMPTS:
[Event Specific Content Warnings]
[The Mist Reclaims] - The mist comes back down from Mount Rheum bringing back some familiar, eldritch abominations with it.
[Shedding] - The Wastes begin to die and Sleepers find out who they are.
[It Follows] - Sleepers wind up in the Mayor's House accidentally and are stalked/haunted by Mother Superior.
[Sunny Side Up] - Sleepers are given the chance to vote on whether NPCs are sacrificed, awaken, or if they choose to do nothing through eggs.
PLOTTING FORM: Here.
EVENT PROMPTS
The Mist Reclaims: Lovecraftian monsters, insect monsters, insect horror, potentially laying eggs in people, poison, death by insect sings/swelling/allergic reactions, man-eating monsters, tentacles, blood in gif.
Shedding: Bloody gif, inevitable death of NPCs, time shenanigans, duplicates of Sleepers, suggestion of alternate universes/timelines, shedding, peeling skin, potential fourth-walling.
It Follows: Fourth-walling, existensial crisis, harassment, death threats towards family/children, Silent Hill-esque changing of scenery, distorted body gif, being stalked/haunted, ghost themes, allusion towards child endangerment/harm.
Sunny Side Up: Themes of rebirth/birth/new life, destroying eggs/new life, possible allusion to killing NPCs/self, ingesting hair.
PART ONE PROMPTS
Mist Reclaims
Start Date: May 7th
End Date: End of May
Location: Everywhere
They come for you in the stillness of the mist. Writhing and trembling they approach. You stand no chance in this mortal plane of existence. The little ones come first. They light down on windows and outside of your homes and shelters, humming like wasps, seemingly harmless, but nothing with a stinger could possibly be that harmless. They only eat scavenged food, but if they feel threatened by you they will sting you as close to your heart as they possibly can. They have a fast-acting poison that swells up the sting site to twice the size of your head. It takes only a matter of seconds for the poison to completely suffocate you. Those with abilities or fast-acting poison remedies may be able to treat it, but don't hold out for that.
The little ones are preyed upon by significantly larger, more violent flying creatures. While these snappers don't necessarily hunt humans, they don't seem capable of caring to distinguish their prey. If you happen to be in the same area as one that's hunting the little ones, you might get attacked. They use their sharp beak-like appendages to break bones and rip into skin - who wants to go that way? These creatures can see perfectly in the mist and will effortlessly be able to stalk and hunt lost Sleepers. They are not silent fliers - often sounding like giant bats flapping through the sky.
Then come the tentacles. This is for the truly unlucky. No one can see the full appearance of whatever creature this is, but should you stand in the open mist for too long, you might run into it. Tentacles slither across the ground and wrap around your body, clinging, crushing. Some even seem to have mouths and teeth that will rip into your muscles and eat you alive if they get the chance. These tentacles can be cut down with swords and weapons, but trying to fight several tentacles at once can be a challenge on a good day. Tracking them back to the same creature seems impossible, and it might be that there is no creature attached to them at all. Perhaps it is merely an extension of the mist...
These creatures infest the entire town, feeding and invading homes. As they are not magical, wards won't hold them off. These are old-fashioned flesh-and-exoskeleton monsters. They care nothing for humanity and are simply responding to their environment.
The lumbering giants that occasionally walk through town are responsible for taking down several power lines and crushing through residential areas. The only good thing about these massive beasts is that they are so large they don't seem to have any interest in small creatures. They are entirely non-violent. The snappers can be seen flying around them, occasionally taking shelter among the tentacles, and it would seem that they co-exist.
Despite the small creatures being the easiest to deal with, they are also the most invasive. The stingers will invade homes through pipes, will make nests of spider-web-like material all throughout the town. They lay their eggs in these nests and reproduce at an alarmingly fast rate. If they are able, they will use corpses or comatose Sleepers as their nest so that when their babies hatch, they will have fresh meat to feed on.
Man, these guys fucking suck.
INFORMATION:
1. All monsters in the mist can be defeated by regular human means re; guns/knives/blunt objects/blunt force/burning/etc. The bigger ones might just be more difficult to kill.
2. Light does attract all of the flying creatures.
3. Eggs/nests can be destroyed with fire.
Shedding
Start Date: May 7th
End Date: End of May
Location: Everywhere
Perhaps it is something in the mist. Maybe it is the dream collapsing in on itself. You feel maybe those two things are related somehow. It gets harder to breathe, harder to think clearly. The impending dread of The End is nigh and does anyone really know what's about to happen?
You're not the only one impacted by this heavy feeling. Wastes stumble around in the mist, wandering into places of shelter with you, huddling close. It's the first time Wastes have really allowed themselves to be near Sleepers this way, but then it becomes clear as to why they might be feeling braver. You start to see the blood. It's pouring out of their head, over their masks. They stumble and collapse, gasping. Maybe...Maybe you should take their masks off? Surely by now...They could live without?
Take the mask off and underneath is...
You.
Your friends. Your family. But they aren't images. It isn't a trick of the mind. It's really you. Except for a thinner, more hollowed-out version of you. You after you have been surviving the worst fight of your life after hundreds of years. Some of the Wastes are recognizable, some are completely strange, original citizens from Deerington, but at the end of the day, it had been Sleepers who became true citizens of Deerington too, isn't it? All this time, Sleepers had been assimilating to the town even if they didn't realize it. Was this some bizarre time loop?
You can't even bother to ask the Wastes because most of them have died by the time they collapsed. But you may be able to get an answer out of a few of them if you catch them in time.
"Different versions of us have always existed...different timelines. You...The deer...us...the monsters...What's the difference? It's always been about what path we come from. What door we stepped through. There are a hundred different lives you can live. You're just the star of the one you're in right now."
Some of the Wastes were citizens of Deerington before Sodder and they look the most worn, the most exhausted. They somehow manage to last longer than the Sleepers.
"Maybe in the Waking World we'll see you again. Maybe this time...We can all be a little braver...We were just so scared for so long..."
More blood rushes from their heads, and you may be fortunate enough to hold them in their last few minutes of life.
"She was wrong, you know," one of the Wastes says, "The layers aren't peeling away. They aren't crumbling. Breaking..." A deep breath.
"They're shedding. Like...a snake skin. Shedding away to something new. Something stronger...And maybe even...Something better...The snake...I've seen the snake...She waits for us all. She was one of the children too...One of the others...She'll understand better than most."
It isn't just the Wastes that are bleeding out. Some Sleepers may start to bleed from the head as well and may die from this process - however, it's more likely that they will survive. They need only lay down and rest. Once the blood has dried, they can peel it off, and it will have thickened up to the consistency of snakeskin. Beneath the shed layer will be healthy, new skin. Some Sleepers might even find that their new skin has lost some scars or wrinkles or has healed wounds. Maybe not a pleasant experience but apparently not the worst, either.
INFORMATION:
1. There can be a variety of replicas of Sleepers. These are supposed to be "dark timelines" of your characters who have, theoretically, lived in Deerington for 100+ years.
2. You can invent original characters to represent Waste NPCs and extend conversations further than what we have supplied.
3. "The Snake" is a reference to a major NPC that will feature in Chp2.
4. This prompt can happen at any time anywhere.
PART TWO PROMPTS
IT FOLLOWS
Start Date: May 7th
End Date: End of May
Location: Everywhere but technically the Mayor's House
"Do you really think you deserve a second chance?"
The words whisper through your mind one day.
"Do you really believe people back home miss you? Need you?"
You can feel the temperature drop around you and the pressure grow heavy.
"What is the worth of an imaginary friend? That's all you really are, isn't it? Just an imaginary friend for a lonely child?" The voice laughs, slithering away. After that, you feel alone for a while. You might hear the voice while you're with other people, or it might just have entered your mind from an unknown source.
Yet you increasingly feel less alone. Even while you're with other people, all of you can't help but feel like someone else is there with you. You see the shadow of a nun slide across the floor, see the flicker of her robes as she steps around a corner just as you turn to look.
You can't help but start to obsess with her presence. As you do, the world around you begins to warp. Once you decide to chase after Mother Superior, you wind up in some house, maybe yours, maybe a stranger's, and you start to track her through seemingly endless hallways. The halls seem normal at first. Plain walls with family pictures on them. Stop and look and you will recognize family photographs of Cynthia, Roderick and Sodder wrapped up in bandages but in typical little girl dresses.
You repeat the same few hallways and as you do they grow more chaotic. The pictures look defiled, faces of monsters drawn over the family. Questions in bold red letters written across the wall: "LET THE SODDERS ROT IN THE HELL THEY CAME FROM!"
You come across torn-up books, ruined toys. More ominous graffiti:
"KILLERS!"
"MONSTERS!"
"YOU KILLED MY SON" "MY DAUGHTER" "MY FRIEND"
"LEAVE OUR TOWN"
"THE WITCHES DESERVED DEATH"
"THE MAYOR IS A FALSE PROPHET"
You stop walking the halls and soon find yourself walking throughout the Mayor's House. It's completely ordinary this time around but you come to realize that this is the real Mayor's House. This isn't as blurry and strange as it usually was. This was what was left after Sodder was put to sleep, or perhaps the days leading up to it. It looked like people had invaded the home. Tipped over furniture, smashed everything, left the threatening graffiti. Somewhere a shattered guitar lays in pieces. Sodder's room was destroyed, covered in black paint. You can hear fuzzy recordings of a child laughing that cuts to a woman crying that cut to a child screaming, a man yelling. People yelling. It's an unsettling soundtrack to your adventure through the Sodder home.
This was the truth of the Sodder's family downfall. The chandelier in their dining room yanked down, broken and full of cobwebs. As you explore the ruins of this family home, you can hear someone moving in the house beside you. Blood begins to drip down from the corners of each room, and at last, you turn the right corner, and Mother Superior is standing at the end of a hall.
Only she's not in her typical nun outfit. This is her without her face covering, without her disguise. This is her in her human form, staggeringly tall, one eye missing, skin pale, ruined, mouth foul and grimacing. Maybe she had once maintained a pleasant human form, but the years had eroded her to this ghost-like shell. Her head twitches back and forth, a gurgled noise emitting from her throat.
"You cannot...Possibly understand...The sacrifices..." Mother Superior says, twitching forward, her fingers breaking and resetting, again and again, her shoulders lurching back and forth. "You have no idea...What we were willing...to turn ourselves into...You...Ungrateful...Naive...Child of the dream..."
As she steps towards you, the blood starts to pour faster from the walls, pooling on the ground and making everything slick and hot. Mother Superior rushes at you with a screech.
Then she vanishes just as she reaches out. A laugh rings out. "You have no idea...how to deal with me...Any of us..."
This will lead to a bit of a wild goose chase if one desires. Mother Superior will "haunt" your character, terrorizing them by randomly making the walls curl and bleed, making pieces of furniture drop over, maybe by replacing pictures on the walls with pictures of them, pictures of corpses. This is meant to be a mental game that could wind up with physical injuries if you're not careful.
"Defeating" Mother Superior can be done in a variety of ways. One can insist on believing in themselves, not believing in Mother Superior or the rumors of the townspeople. One can also collect unique items from around the house (such as pieces of Cynthia's guitar, parts of Sodder's toys, pictures of Roderick and his family) and perform sacrificial steps (burning them, etc). We leave it open to interpretation how characters "defeat" Mother Superior though it should generally be done in a ghost/possession freeing sort of style and can be as simple or complex as you want it to be.
Whenever Mother Superior's "ghost" is purged from the home, the entire home will fill with mist before clearing away to reveal the Mayor's House in its regular state without all of the blood. But Sleepers will discover that the destruction and hateful graffiti was real, unfortunately.
INFORMATION:
1. Characters can escape this prompt by actually going out the front door of the Mayor's House. They will wind up in the regular version of Deerington and be safe. If they tried to go back in, they would fail.
Sunny Side Up
Start Date: May 7th
End Date: Voting finalized on the 5th
Location: Everywhere
They begin to appear throughout town one by one: paper bags. These bags look as if something had been left to rot inside, the bottoms heavy with black liquid, oozing at the corners. The bags shift and tremble and coming from the bag is the sound of a shrieking baby. Surely...No? No. Deerington has never had babies before. Not real ones. But that's definitely the sound of a screaming baby, high-pitched wailing that goes on and on.
And then you notice...Your name written on the bag. The name you go by most often, the name you consider to be your true name. The shrieking gets louder and the bag starts to shake as if something is writhing around inside. You have to look.
You can't see anything inside. It's just a dark hole. Which means you might have to put your hand inside. Your fingers touch something damp, warm, and writhing. You can feel something slide and shift, but then it becomes hard. Solid.
Round.
The baby's screaming stops and the thing in your palm feels suspiciously like...an egg.
Take it out and alas - it is exactly that. An egg. The moment you have it out of the bag, you can feel something warm and pulsing within the egg. Hold it up to the light and you can even see the small, beating heart inside. You can't focus too long on the first egg because the bag starts to cry again and there are more eggs to take out.
There are a total of seven eggs in the bag. Some might be covered in a thick film of black grime and gore. Others might be perfectly clean.
SODDER'S EGG: This egg has a translucent hard shell. It's a perfect sphere and roughly the size of a baseball. Along with the beating heart inside, one can also see what appears to be a great amount of dark hair...Or are they tentacles? The soft crying of a girl can be heard from this egg.
CYNTHIA'S EGG: This egg looks the most like a regular chicken egg both in size and color. When held up to the light, the heart developed within isn't beating at all, but you can still see its shape and the arteries stretching out from the heart. What looks like a flower can be seen growing out of the heart. You can hear a woman humming from this egg.
MOTHER SUPERIOR'S EGG: This egg looks more like a fossilized stone. It's the heaviest of the eggs, dark gray and hard, cold. You can barely see into it up against the light. But you can feel the heartbeat from within. It pulses against your palm slow and steadily. You can't hear anything from this egg, but you do feel an uneasy sense of dread.
RAMONA'S EGG: This egg looks like it was made out of sheet metal and welded together to form a perfect egg. It's the size of an ostrich egg and has a small glass window on one side. Inside is a golden liquid and at the center is what appears to be a heart made entirely out of deer antlers. The heart doesn't move, but dim red light pulses somewhere from deep within.
THE DOG KEEPER'S EGG: This is the tiniest egg and feels the most delicate. It looks like a robin's egg except with golden tints instead of blue. It's difficult to see the heartbeat inside of this one as well, but it moves quite a lot like it's ready to hatch any second. It will roll around in your palm and you can even hear a gentle cracking though you can't actually see it forming any cracks. You can hear a puppy's whimper from this one.
THE MAYOR'S EGG: This egg looks and feels like jelly. It's more of a fish's egg than a traditional egg and one doesn't even need to be held up to the light inside. What looks like tentacles wrapped up can be seen inside of the egg and occasionally they slide around. The egg is slick and cold, but whatever's inside is certainly alive. This egg makes no noise, but it does seem to constantly smell strongly of ink and paper.
YOUR EGG: This egg is meant to represent your character. It can look/feel like anything, but it should have some unique interior to represent the "core" of your character's life - whether that's a heartbeat, a flower, mechanics, stardust, or whatever substance. Characters will know immediately that this is their egg and that they have a soul-deep connection and that this egg represents the potential for their "new life."
Once you have examined the eggs, the paper bag will topple itself over and a strange creature's head will jut out from the bag. The Moss King. The Moss King does not feel like a threat, but the intimidation of his presence is undeniable. Whoever this is, he has an energy that fills up the entire space.
"It is time, Sleeper. What will you bet on? Do you bet that when this is all done and over with, you wake up in your own world? Or do you bet that something greater is beyond...?" The voice speaks to all Sleepers from within their own minds. It does not necessarily have to come in the form of a voice, but it will be communicated one way or another. Sleepers will know what they are being told.
"What shall you sacrifice? Do you sacrifice the girl? Or do you awaken her? Do you sacrifice the Nun or do you dare to wake her? How about the father? The mother? Is it cruel to awaken her to a world that has forsaken her or shall she be mercifully sacrificed? And the loyal Dog Keeper? Do you wake him? Or do you sacrifice his efforts? Ramona? Has she not sacrificed all of you or do you believe she deserves her own chance to go home? I do wonder..."
The Moss King's voice fades, his eyes glowing pale, white light.
"And what of you, Sleeper? Do you want to wake up? Or do you intend to sacrifice yourself for this world? For each other? What do you think of honor? What do you need? One must wonder..." The Moss king pauses. "Or...Perhaps you shall do nothing. Step idly aside and leave these eggs alone. But what will that lead to? You see, doing nothing is sometimes worse than doing something. Doing nothing...makes you complacent to the evil of the world, does it not?"
"And for those of you with the hairs..." The Moss King shifts around, "Now is the time to consume."
The Moss King's head begins to melt away, turning to a black tarlike substance.
"Destroy the egg. Or nurture the egg. Or ignore the egg. What world...do you want to create...For it is how we choose to treat new life..."
Then the Moss King is gone and you are left with the biggest decision in your life.
What will you do?
INFORMATION:
1. Every single Sleeper will find these bags. You can choose to have them appear in their Blessing Baskets, on their front steps, in their fridge, on their bed, or somewhere completely random. It's entirely up to you where the character finds their bag.
2. This is for voting on the NPCs. Please reference this post for voting on what your character will do with their eggs. Voting will end on June 5th and results will be posted.
3. Characters will find out what happens to their eggs, the NPCs, and what door is unlocked on the fifth. Characters will innately understand that their choices will influence which door is opened.
4. At this time, characters who have collected NPC hairs from March's Event or The Dog Keeper's Mini Event will be able to swallow the hair for a direct encounter with the NPCs before their final moments.
The post for what happens with that can be found here.
5. Destroying eggs is as easy as destroying a regular egg. This will represent the "sacrifice" of the NPCs. Mother Superior's is the hardest to break, but it is possible with regular human means. The Mayor's is impossible to "break" but one can still smash it. Arguably the best way to destroy the eggs is to burn them.
If you would prefer a less "violent" means of "destroying" the egg/sacrificing it then your character may simply bury it in the earth, boil it, or put it in a freezer.
6. Nurturing the egg will involve typical things to nurture eggs such as keeping them warm, protected, in a safe location. This will equate to choosing to "awaken" the NPCs.
7. Characters can choose to literally do nothing with the eggs re putting them back in the bag or putting them somewhere out of sight, out of mind.
8. It should be noted that characters do not know if "sacrifice" or "awaken" equate to "killing" or "saving" and instead will have to be discussed among each other to determine what the circumstances could possibly mean.
9. Since this will largely depend on voter turnout, you will have to wait until the June event to figure out what "happens" when the eggs are interacted with. For characters who make immediate choices to destroy any eggs, it will seem like "nothing" is going to happen, but they will feel a distinct weight settle over them like they are now being watched.
10. Yes, asshole, you can eat the fucking egg. Really though, if you have a character that would try and eat the eggs they can cook them like an ordinary egg but it should lead to some horrific things. You may choose how a character is cursed/what happens to them but it should be connected to their personal feelings towards relationships or their relationship to the NPCs. Maybe they die on the spot or grow a second head or can't touch anyone for the remainder of the game. Really up to you!
NPC VOTING
Please reference our voting post here to make your official votes. We recommend that characters engage in discussion to make the decision as ICly realistic as possible. Each character is allowed one vote per NPC. You are not technically required to vote but we do encourage it as it will help determine the setting for Chapter 2.
Thank you and good luck!
PLOTTING FORM
Please feel free to use the following form to help format your plans for the month:
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