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soddersays2021-06-05 12:35 am
sodder) wrote in soddersays2021-06-05 12:35 am
Entry tags:
Final Event Plotting + Chapter 2 PLotting
JUNE 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: June 5th
QUICK LINKS:
Vote Reveal Information: Here.
Chapter 2 Setting Information: Here.
Event Questions: Here.
Live Event: Here
NPC Conclusion Companion Event: For those who care to see the fate of the NPCs, you can interact here.
EVENT PROMPTS:
[Event Specific Content Warnings]
[leaving deerington: going home] - Sleepers who plan to leave Deerington/those they have met and return home...Or maybe not.
[staying in deerington: leave it to fate] - Sleepers who risk staying in Deerington for as long as possible.
[go beyond deerington: go to the waking world] - Sleepers who choose to go to the Flesh Door and walk through it.
PLOTTING FORM: Here.
EVENT PROMPTS
Overall warnings: Themes of existensial crisis, willingness to sacrifice life, ritualistic sacrifices, possible themes of amensia, themes of reincarnation, allusion to possible drowning, time-bending/reality-bending themes.
END CHAPTER PROMPTS
leaving deerington: going home
Start Date: June 5th
End Date: September 1st
Location: Everywhere
The sight can be seen all across Deerington. Out beyond the edges of town is a massive wall of black smoke, crackling with purple lightning. The Edge. There seems to be a tornado-like effect from the wall, debris lifting up from the ground and being pulled toward its intimidating dark. Yet despite its unsettling appearance, there's something equally welcoming about it. Whatever is behind that wall is beyond Deerington. You can finally leave the town after all these years. You will no longer feel the strange effects of attempting to travel miles beyond the town.
But before you cross that boundary, you first must step into the smokey wall. It goes up further than the eye can see. Those who are capable of flight will find that they are no longer limited by Deerington's usual warps. Instead, once they reach above the clouds, they will find that the smokey wall is more of a smokey dome, curling over the entire town, but somehow not obscuring the moons.
The nearer you get to the wall, the more clear it becomes: this is your ticket home. You can feel the pull. Purple electricity snaps off your skin, making goosebumps crawl down your body. You can hear your world in echoes from the wall, hear familiar shouts from loved ones, hear the clanging of swords of a battle you had left behind; you hear your life. You can feel your life as you had known it.
It doesn't hurt to step into the smoke. You enter a whirling wasteland of black sand and strong winds. The only reason you can see around you is because of the constant snaps of purple lightning above. You can see gargantuan creatures in the smoke, masses of limbs and eyes swirling about. You see a massive whale lazily floating across, its underbelly lit up with purple light, sixteen eyes on its face. It swoops over you and lets out a melodious call. But there are other creatures less indifferent to your existence. Lurking monsters eager for Sleeper blood. But you're not left to your own devices. You are met by a massive white deer with frost-encrusted antlers, its white fur giving off a constant, warm glow. It has come to help you find your way in the dark. It may even scare or fight off monsters that try to hurt you.
There's no end in sight. You simply must walk in the Right Direction. You can feel yourself moving further than anyone has ever gotten from Deerington. You may have companions with you and all of you can be walking to your own separate worlds, or perhaps you are heading for one world in particular.
You're not sure what you're looking for until you see it: a Lighthouse.
Its light serves as a beacon amidst the Edge's darkness, no monsters near it, and a fixed point to walk towards. When you arrive, you see that there are dozens of Lighthouses nearby, shining their own lights. You have simply found your world's first.
Will you enter it? Will you go home?
Or perhaps...You may return to Deerington. In which case, if you do, the Last Deer will be ready to guide you back to town.
But if you do enter the Lighthouse...
You wake up. Back in your world. Your real world. This is no hallucination, no trick of Deerington's. You're truly back where you came from. Maybe it's even the bed you remember falling asleep in. Either way...It's not long after the canon point you've come from. Only a night's rest or only a couple of minutes.
Your body is even exactly as you remember it: maybe a few years younger, none of the scars from Deerington present, and not even the tattoo.
You begin to wonder if it all had just been one long-winded dream. But God, it had felt so realistic. You can remember the pain. You can remember the people. But there's no evidence of it anywhere. Not your Fluid and not even the last outfit you had been wearing in Deerington. It's like nothing had ever happened.
For some, you may be relieved. May go back to your normal life and live again, occasionally wondering about that strange, long dream. Sometimes you'll see a deer hesitate on the side of the road and you'll swear it looks at you like it knows you. But no...You're overthinking things.
It was just a dream...
No. You can't accept that everything that happened was a dream. Not after everything you have been through. Maybe you lost years or months of your life but you remember it. Even your imagination couldn't be that wild.
The more you start to believe in the possibility again, the more unusual your world becomes. Things start to blur at the edges and you begin to see those familiar wisps of silver light coming down from the sky.
Then one day you find an antler in your bed, among your things, and you know it wasn't just a dream after all.
Now, will you try to find your way back?
INFORMATION:
1. Characters can bring each other back to their own worlds simply by entering the same Lighthouse together.
3. Running into violent monsters is entirely optional. Any kind of monster could be present in the Edge as it is the collective nightmare conscious of Deerington.
4. This is intentionally set up so that people can use this as a proper segway to conclude character arcs OR have them return home briefly before going to Chapter 2. Entirely up to you which route you go.
5. People can choose how characters "get back" to Deerington - but they WILL wind up in Chapter 2. You can have characters go to sleep with the antler or stab themselves with the antler or burn the antler etc.
6. Since characters can go home with other characters, you can also explore characters being in each other's homes for a while before going back to Deerington OR explore them actually coming to adjust in another character's canon world.
7. This prompt is intended to assure characters that them leaving their worlds behind will not negatively impact their worlds/their old lives. This is to allow characters to move onto the new Chapter without guilt. Characters can have visionary confirmation of this information through dreams or through other characters telling them that no one in the other worlds even realize they're gone/no impact was made by their absence.
stay in deerington: leave it to fate.
Start Date: June 5th
End Date: September 1st
Location: Everywhere
You had seen it start to happen with the deer back in May and now it’s happening to you. Thin tendrils of glittering white light begin to pull off your skin and rise up into the air. At first, it only happens once or twice, but then it begins to happen every time you’re near another Sleeper. You can feel something fluttering within you, and maybe you’re scared, but mostly you feel an odd sense of comfort and relief.
The nightmare is ending.
It is truly ending.
What this means beyond that is unknown to you, but you’re not scared anymore. Not of this part of the story. You can feel something beyond this world, can feel yourself starting to change, can feel yourself beginning to be part of that world. You’re ready to be part of that world. That’s a step you know you’re going to take – it’s just a matter of when. For some people, this means walking through the door. For others, you may choose to stay in Deerington longer, watch yourself fleck away to this new reality day by day or maybe all at once. It’s painless. It’s peaceful. It’s not an ugly way to go. Your body turns to light and then you’re gone in a dazzling glare. You can’t choose when the glow finally consumes you, but you might have more time than you think left.
You know you’re going to have to go eventually, but this might be a good time to tie off some loose ends. Make sure that other Sleepers are helped.
After all, while the glow is a peaceful thing, some may still panic. Some may still despair at the upcoming goodbye. Not everyone will feel this relief. It might be your job to seek those who struggle.
You’re not the only one. You will see Wastes walking among the ruins of Deerington and finding Sleepers. It seems like after years of kindness displayed to the Wastes, the Wastes are returning the favor. You will see Wastes holding Sleepers through the glow. You will see the Wayward Waste the most though. She will rest a Sleeper's head in her lap and wait for them while they vanish.
She will seek out Sleepers confused and frightened and although she does not speak, she will hold hands, and she will help Sleepers find one another. She will often be seen crawling on top of the debris and removing a pair of binoculars from her suitcase to stare over the horizon.
If one is to ask her if they will see her again, if she will be okay, she will nod and sign: “I’m coming with you. I’m just making sure to be the one to shut the door after all of us have left.” Someone has to stay behind in that final moment and that someone is apparently the Wayward Watcher.
As the end nears, characters will find that there they are less hungry, less tired. They don't necessarily feel more energetic, but they feel somewhat less real. It might be easy to start speculating if you really were part of a dream if you really were just some fictional character. For some the existential dread might be too much, Wastes flocking to comfort you, but for others, it might be oddly soothing. It might feel like you're allowing the universe to take care of your soul, as if you trust it to do what needs to be done.
go beyond deerington: go to the waking world
Start Date: June 5th
End Date: September 1st
Location: Flesh Falls Sinkhole - the Flesh Door and beyond
"Even in this darkest of nights, I see the moonlight..."
Some brave souls may decide to go to the Flesh Door itself and see what happens next. By June 5th, the door has swung open completely and all that can be seen is murky darkness. But what's more surprising is that you can't smell blood at all: you can smell the ocean. Step closer to the door and you can feel warm saltwater misting against your face, can hear the dull roar of waves. After a few seconds, a pale face peers out from the dark at you. To many, this is a familiar face. Deerington's very own God of Death. It turns away, but you can see its face bobbing forward. It plans to walk beside you on this journey.
A good thing too. Stepping through the door immediately makes the doorway vanish behind you. If you stepped through with someone, you'll want to grab their hand or else it might be easy to lose one another in this bottomless dark. The God of Death walks silently ahead, never looking back, but always keeping its pace to match yours. It does not intend to lose you.
It feels like walking on air - as if you're only just barely finding your footing. You can hear things moving around you, suctioning slurps, bubbling water, incomprehensible whispering. Occasionally, a rancid odor cuts through the ocean breeze, but the deeper you go, the fainter both the scent of the ocean and rot become. The air becomes sweet with the scent of flowers and you find your footing across patches of pale, glowing white flowers. The darkness fades away and above you hangs a massive red moon, Moon Presence suspended in the air. The Death God seems to have vanished entirely.
"Come now, Sleeper," Moon Presence whispers, her voice a blend of something monstrous and something like Cynthia's voice sounded when she was in her humanoid form. "Are you ready to be born anew?" She floats down closer, resting upon the earth before you, behemoth and radiant with renewed power.
"You need not take this second chance alone. Do not be afraid, kind Sleeper. I will keep you safe in the new world when I can."
She tips her head around, and you find that you are in this field of white flowers surrounded by an endless ocean.
"The ocean will bring you to where you need to go. You will not need a boat. Just let the waves carry you away. The Pthumerian Ocean will do the rest. You might panic at first, but eventually, it'll feel natural. Like you've always been a part of the ocean - and just when you forget your own name, you'll wash up on the shores of Trench, in your new body. In your new life. Cleansed of your old one. Just as I will be."
She moves towards the ocean, sliding into the crashing waves. There are no more parting words. You can watch her go all the way out, far as you can see, and then the waves take her under. The flowers around you seem to sigh in relief, white pollen floating up into the air. It makes you feel hazy and calm. Perhaps one last parting gift from Moon Presence to making your leave easier.
Maybe you choose to sit on this floral beach with your companions, or maybe you've come alone and sat around long enough for someone to find you. It's a big decision, after all. But what you do know is you don't want to go back.
Even if you did, there's no door to go back to. Once you have stepped through the Flesh Door, you're in this world indefinitely until you return to the ocean. The longer Sleepers stay on the beach, the more they will be tempted to swim into the ocean.
While this does seem fatalistic, it is intended to be a magical-based ritual that transports characters into Trench's setting. The last things characters will truly be able to comprehend before the "waves take them" is comfortable darkness and a keen awareness that they are not dying. It is not intended to be a fearful or intense situation, but for many, it may be extremely sad and possibly intimidating.
Characters do not need to journey together to find each other on the beach. Theoretically, the remaining Sleepers could all go successfully at once. Entire groups can go to the floral beach or one person can go and wind up running into another.
PLOTTING FORM - FINAL PLOTTING FORM
Please feel free to use the following form to help format your plans for the month. Feel free to use this space as a plotting space for the remainder of the game and a little bit of plotting for Chapter 2:
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