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asgardfinis2019-10-02 07:29 pm
asgardmods) wrote in asgardfinis2019-10-02 07:29 pm
MOD POST: OCTOBER EVENTS DESCRIPTION
 Hey, y'all! Faith here with our good fun nothing bad ever battle plot for October. Most of you answered our player poll with resounding support for running a longer event this month, which is super awesome. Thank you as always for your amazing feedback and support, we are incredibly grateful for your help improving this game as we go. I'm hopeful that what we've got in store for you will be fun and a little bit spooky too! A couple quick announcements/reminders before that too:
As discussed previously, there will be two parts to October's event. This first part will take place on October 8 to coincide with our intro log. The second part will happen a week or so later and will stretch for several days; this will be when our combat takes place, and there will be an opt-out event for those that choose not to participate in it. It's a little ICly weird to space it out like this considering the plot urgency, but we want you to have enough time OOCly to thread out the first part so bear with us when it comes to the in-game time awkwardness. Haha ❧ october 8: don't say it, don't say it.This bright morning is a bit chillier than previous months, signaling a change in the weather. Most of the trees around town still seem a vibrant green, but some of the leaves are changing color and being carried away in the wind. It's the beginnings of autumn in Asgard, and while the shift in the weather is rather comfortable and relaxed, the city itself seems to be swept up into a furor of its own. It starts with a message that pops up on everyone's bracelet early in the day. There will be an NPC post on the 8th to discuss the matter ICly, but for the sake of expediency, the gist of it will be this: New dangers have been discovered beyond Asgard's territory. There are those in need of our assistance, but whether or not the Wanderers accompany us on this venture is your decision to make. Your presence here has been kept largely hidden from the rest of Yggdrasil, and leaving the safety of our kingdom might break that secrecy. To compound the issue, more of you have arrived overnight, and all of you may be affected by what you choose to do next.As it implies, the gods are asking you all to come to a decision on this: will the Wanderers venture out into the world face this new threat alongside the gods, or will they stay here in the city where it's relatively safe? This is a group decision; individuals will still be welcome to join the party even if the majority decide not to go, but the idea is that any Wanderers leaving the relative anonymity of the kingdom might alert other beings in the world to the Wanderers' presence in general. We're making this post mostly for the social conflict of it, so you guys can ICly discuss this amongst your characters! OOCly, we're assuming that at least a large portion of you will want to go anyway so that we don't have to wait until the post is launched on the 8th to reveal the rest of this plot. This one is A Doozy, so we want you to have plenty of time to plot and prepare for it! This is because our enemy for this event will be the White Walkers from Game of Thrones! Lalli found a wight in the forest, and now all of Asgard knows they're here. Thankfully, the Game of Thrones cast formed the War Council for this very possibility, which means Asgard is relatively prepared for this sudden invasion. If your character attended some of the Council's meetings, they would've at some point seen Jon Snow wax poetic about the end of the world - or their world, at least, and now Winter seems to be coming for Asgard. ❧ prepare the preparations.
the White Walkers
the Night King
All of this will be discussed on the 8th as the city rallies to arms and prepares for potential refugees. Asgard was built to house the human race from the dangers of the world beyond this kingdom, and though this threat may not have originated here, it is no less important for them to act now and save lives. Whether the Wanderers join them or not, Asgard will serve its purpose and fight to bring these mortals into safety. ❧ october 18 - 21: winter is coming.Those willing to join this fight will be leaving at the crack of dawn on October 18. Travelling with a large caravan of wagons driven by the eight-legged horses, nearly a third of human Asgardians, and the gods Tyr, Heimdall, Mimir, and Honir, the Wanderers will be guided along a safe path through the forest to the outskirts of Asgard for the first time. Those that remain in the city will be able to see them off, but will only see a distantly bright light if they don't exit the forest itself. Please note that once you have entered the pathway through the forest, you can no longer access the network until you have returned to the city at the end of the plot. From there, each group for this plot branches off into their respective logs. The following will only apply to those that join the venture to face the White Walkers; those that remain behind can jump to the next section to find out what happens back in Asgard. ❧ travel details.After a day of travel through the strangely intense landscape of Yggdrasil outside of Asgard's territory, the caravan will find a small cluster of houses - a few dozen humans living there at best - that invite them to stop for the night and discuss the threat at hand. It seems to be safe here, but they talk about passing news of trouble not far away. Leaving at dawn again on October 19, the caravan will come upon another settlement by midday, barely more developed than the last but overcrowded by far. As they stop to speak to them, the Wanderers will learn that many of them have fled here from neighboring areas without actually having seen anything for themselves. They all say they thought it was just a story, some imaginary rumor that's been spreading for awhile, although no one can say for sure when they first started hearing them. The others that have fled here, the ones that have seen something - they are fearful, they are desperate, and they know "they are coming this way." Seeing the need to give some relief here as much as whatever lies ahead, Tyr stops here - we'll call this Settlement One for future reference - with anyone that wants to hang back as medical relief for any potential injured or to help reassure the natives that they will do their best to get them out of here safely. The Wanderers might want to set up secondary precautions against the Army of the Undead here, and the natives are turning to them for an idea of what it means to be protected by Asgard. This is a potential stopping point for those that don't want to leap head first into battle… although there's no saying it won't lead head-first into you. ;) The caravan continues from there with a few less wagons and a hurried urgency underfoot. When they come upon the next grouping of buildings - what might've been the start of a township given enough time, and what we'll call Settlement Two - the sun is already setting, and the only humans that remain are those too injured to travel and those too stubborn to leave them behind. The gods decide that this is where they'll make their stand against the coming Army of the Undead. The natives begin unloading the dragonglass from the wagons, and the Wanderers can help them build barricades or start digging hasty trenches in a perimeter around the area. This is the major stopping point for this part of the plot. They are basically going to let the Army come to them so they can find and kill the Night King, and they will need as many people as possible to be prepared for that fight. However, Honir will be pressing on with a small group of volunteers. The others will call it foolish when night is already falling, but he insists that they need to go as far as they can go to see how bad the damage is - and if there's still anyone they can save. There are a few things to consider before participating in this part of the plot:
For those that remain behind for the siege, October 20 doesn't exactly come the next day as expected. In fact, the sun doesn't seem to rise at all, and as people begin to wake in confusion, a storm approaches from the horizon (cw: violence, gore). Everyone scrambles to their positions, and from this point forward, the fight is on! ❧ combat details.
There will be a minor intermission in combat for this period! Everyone that waited at Settlement One will have to deal with the sudden arrival of their injured and battle-weary companions and the news that they have less than 10 hours before the Army arrives. The goal at this point is to kill the Night King and destroy the Army in its entirety; if you can take down some of the White Walkers in the process, this will help diminish the active threat!
to kill the Night King
to save the undead Wanderers
UPDATE: Ultimately, by the end of the battle, the Night King will fall and the Army of the Undead will be stopped. How many Wanderers die in the process and how many human natives are saved will depend on your team efforts here! This one is a little harder to gauge in terms of how your specific plans will affect the outcome of the event, so we'll say that depending on the planning done on this post prior to the event, we will scale a certain number of human natives saved overall. This doesn't necessarily mean we're looking for something specific to be successful; we'd just like to see y'all dig in deep with the plot in your hands, and we'll reward you with some thankful new residents of Asgard. The Long Night ends when the Night King is killed, and winter leaves with him. The ride back to Asgard is fraught with anxious energy as they collect the rest of any survivors they can find and continue on their way. It's uncanny and surreal, in a way. With the loss of that magic's influence on this world, Yggdrasil's sky returns to the unrelenting brightness of color and heat gone astray - a far cry from the cold, suffocating death that faced them just a day ago. They rest, they wake, and they pass safely through the barrier of the forest once again to arrive in a solemn but grateful Asgard. The city is ready for you to rest, heal, and breathe fresh air somewhere you can almost - almost - feel safe. ❧ october 19 - 21: idle hands & restless hearts (opt-out).On October 19, when things have mostly settled down from the departure of more than half of the city's population, if the Wanderers are included - there is a noticeable absence left behind, an abrupt emptiness in a space that wasn't overly crowded to begin with. Many of the native Asgardians left behind are anxious and afraid, and that nervous energy seems to echo in the silence of this massive, vacant city. But there's work to be done, and no time to wait. If all goes well on this mission as one can only hope it will, there will be injured that need tended to and they'll need housing for new arrivals. All of the gods left in the city rally those around to help with these preparations, and there will be a host of tasks your character can participate in:
While all of these efforts are underway, the biggest project overall is creating new space in the very literal sense. Asgard's territory stretches for miles, but most of that is occupied by the forest that operates as a barrier between the city and the outside world. When the city needs room to grow, the forest gives way. Right before noon on October 19, the ground of the city will begin to emit a faint golden glow in intricate woven lines that trace back to Odin where he stands in the castle courtyard, directly in the center of the city. After a few minutes of this, when the sun sits directly above them in the sky, the light flashes into a glaring brightness for the briefest moment - and when it fades, a wide ring of the trees has disappeared in place of the same floating motes of golden life magic some of you might recognize from a long time ago. This swirling magic rapidly gets to work forming new buildings of the same style and arrangement in each of the districts as the glowing motes pull together to form solid structures, and the Wanderers can watch as the city literally builds itself. However, as the magic coalesces to give form to new objects, it also seems to form odd shapes in odd places - humanoid shapes, like gently glowing specters of people that aren't really there. For the next two days, these specters will be hanging around the city and generally being a nuisance while the city is preoccupied with more serious matters. One might follow you around for several hours, or be standing stock still in your bathroom all day when you really need to use it. You might find one walking along a path and disappear only to reappear again to start over. Some sit on the ground and shiver while others cling to the closest source of heat. The specters are tangible and can be touched, which is part of what makes them so annoying; they bump into things and linger in crowded pathways and generally don't care what they interrupt in the process. They don't seem entirely sentient and none of them speak, although some may make low moans or quiet sniffles, ambient noises related to whatever action they seem caught in. And if you pay enough attention to them, you will be able to tell that they are caught in some kind of loop: there's something specific tethering them to one place or one task, and they hang there in the way until that task is satisfied in some way, at which point they dissipate into golden light and vanish. You can consider this kind of like the White Mushrooms from Kingdom Hearts. Each specter needs something specific to be dispersed, and this can be anything at all. For one hugging its arms and shivering, you could wrap them in a blanket or even set them on fire, as long as they are "warmed" in some way. For one standing in your bathroom and moaning in front of the mirror, turning on the sink might be enough to send them away. For one that's pacing back and forth crying, you could talk to them with words of reassurance or use some kind of calming magic to bring them peace. The idea to keep in mind for this is that these specters are the embodiment of the anxiety felt throughout the city while the battle wages from afar. Magic has given the worries and fears of those left behind a shape that can be interacted with and calmed, soothing those anxieties in an oddly literal way. While they can be innocuous little things like the examples listed above, they can also manifest as specific thoughts that your character may have, as long as they can be represented in some kind of loop. If your character is worried about someone that left dying in battle, a specter could appear behind you that looks around incessantly for something it can't find. If you're helping with the relief efforts but you're getting tired of moving things around town, a specter might lay down on top of what you're carrying and refuse to move. If your character is angry that any of this is even happening, a corresponding specter could stomp around angrily in circles, huffing and puffing along the way. Your specters don't have to necessarily tie into the plot event itself; the idea is any emotion you're carrying around with you is taking a tangible form and hanging around rather obnoxiously. Every time you successfully give a specter what it's looking for, it will freeze in place for a moment before silently dispersing back into golden motes of dust and fading away. When this happens, your next inhale will be a deep, calming one - and you will be momentarily granted a vision of what the specter represented. This isn't quite like sharing a memory or someone's thoughts; it's more like you see a version of them carrying out the core of whatever loop the specter was caught in. If it was fretting around, pacing back and forth in front of a window, you might catch a glimpse of the specter's owner sitting beside a window and staring through it longingly. If it was angry and blustery, you might see a vision of its owner yelling about something. These visions only last a few seconds at most, and you can plot with each other to discuss what you might learn from someone else's specter - or maybe you disperse one of your own and learn something about yourself instead! The specters are annoying but otherwise harmless - until October 20, when the natives and the gods are frustrated to find that they haven't left by morning and more continue appearing. Over the course of the day, they become increasingly aggressive, sometimes actively pushing someone or making vague shouting sounds at them. It seems that as more time passes without hearing news from the caravan, the anxieties of the city deepen and the specters respond in kind. By the time night falls and these golden specters cast a bright light against the darkness, they have become hostile towards anyone they come in contact with. They slam doors in people's faces, block pathways and knock items out of people's hands, and some of them outright attack on sight. At this point, magic is the most effective at dispersing them. They have a limited ability to actually harm anyone, but their hostility isn't as easily calmed with blankets and kind words anymore. If one is charging right at you and bellowing loudly, a blast of ice might be enough to "cool" it down. If one is towering above you and refusing to move, a gust of wind to blow it away or a spell to move around it might force it to back down. You'll have to get creative or even ask for help with getting rid of particularly troublesome ones that just won't relent without the right magic to break them. At this stage of the event, when you successfully get rid of a specter, the vision lasts for closer to a minute and gives you deeper insight into what's agitating its owner, even if they aren't outwardly expressing those concerns themselves. Whether you find a way to disperse the ones you come across or simply resort to hiding from them, all of them will have vanished by the time the sun rises on October 21. The caravan doesn't return until much later in the day, so any relief felt from the disappearance of the specters is still laced with the same fear that summoned them in the first place. Regardless, everything is successfully ready and in place by the time the forest path reopens and the wagons return with countless injured and fearful new residents. Times are strange and tense for everyone, but at the very least, both Asgardians and the Wanderers can rest with the reassurance that everyone is here safely - at least for now. ❧ october events summary.Since we know this plot is a real doozy and there's a lot of information packed in here, it might be easiest to read this first and then look for the relevant information above!
Oof. This is a longass doozy of a post, friends, but there's a lot of plot to hand out and (hopefully) plenty to play with. Please be sure to let us know if you have any questions/comments/concerns/dirty jokes in the comments section below or on the mod contact page, and let us know what you think of this event in terms of pacing! We'll touch base in November again and figure out where to go from there. Thank you all so so much for being here, and we hope you enjoy October's dose of spooky and horror!  navigation. |
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