outofsticks | OOC PLOTTING: Like Branches on a Tree

OOC UPDATES:

Hi, this section goes first this month (SURPRISE!) mostly for the flow of the post.
The bonus AC store was updated! The following new things are available:
- Ydalir now offers intermediate and major magic enchantments. If you want something enchanted and you’re not sure what “tier” it would be, feel free to ask us on the FAQ or the Discord Q&A. We realize these are kind of a vague way to shoehorn things into a category and our examples aren’t perfect.
- Since all of the Guardians have been assembled/acquired, they’re now offering blessings. These range from 5 to 20 threads total depending on how powerful they are. They’re meant to provide you with either a temporary or permanent boon, depending on the item in question. The effects are detailed on the bonus AC page proper, but the items are:
  - A bottle of Zahliya’s fire
  - A bottle of Sinann’s water
  - A magically enhanced antler from Moder
  - A… mystery organ :) from Callan
  - And a rainbow tailfeather from Aurora.
- After we see how people react to these new items, we will probably add more things in the future that are going to be cheaper. If anyone has something they super want, feel free to reach out to the mod team.
Wolfie will be taking a slight (not full) (but like 50%) mod hiatus during November to recover from burnout. This does not mean that Wolfie’s NPCs will be unavailable entirely, but this does mean that if contacted, responses will be much slower and/or the results of the thread will be handwaved. Unfortunately Wolfie’s brain is at war with Wolfie’s desire to be Doing. The general audience has already noticed this but now it’s ~official~.
- Wolfie’s NPCs for reference are: All 5 Guardians (Moder/Zahliya/Callan/Sinann/Aurora), Zonari, the Behemoth, Ydalir, Beiwe, Elsword (only for those who wind up in the Garden), & Renard when he's unlocked (untreed).
This is a bit in the future, but Wolfie has alluded to doing a monster transformation type of event and the note is being made now because we know having art/designs in place is important to people for these. So far the plans are just “it’s happening” and we don’t want to put any upper limits on what people can and can’t do, but if you’re designing something early: Make it fit in with the setting reasonably. That means no super mechanical designs (mechanics where limbs are missing or existing cybernetics are fine) — no computers for heads! Bonus points if flowers/plants are added, but this is not mandatory at all because it’s not a Corruption event.
- Also as a question for the audience: With an event like this, would you want it to be extended so people are a bit monster-y for longer than a month? Let the mods know, we’ve never done a super extended event so could be fun!
We slightly changed the plotting post template because at this point the old one is, well, old — almost 2 years! — and it’s time to change it to be more robust. Surprise! x2!

SETTING UPDATES:

So, speaking of those Guardians: Pure Vanilla & the other Guardians revived Aurora, the Sky Guardian. She is now available to contact freely on the NPCs page. With that comes a number of changes to the Grove itself:
- The aforementioned blessings become available (others may be added later if you guys decide you really like these).
- The native birds will often fly out and bring player characters mundane gifts (seeds, flowers, shiny things, a really cool stick, etc) as thanks for saving their patron deity.
- The barrier keeping people from flying more than 30 feet up has shattered and reformed higher up. The vertical height limit is now 100 feet from the Grove/150 feet when standing on the lower elevated beach off the cliffside. This does remove the… glitch? From Luca’s bar where the entire world stops rendering after you head 30 feet up and look out the window.
- The sun can occasionally be seen when the weather isn’t bad; it’s no longer almost constantly grey and overcast. One might even say the weather is “normal” and not “sad and depressing”.
Speaking of the weather, though: It’s Winter. It’s getting pretty cold. Throughout the month, small snowstorms will kick up, and this means that everyone’s flowers and vegetables will quit growing and die unless they’re in the greenhouse or otherwise indoors. Don’t worry, they’ll be back next spring, you don’t need to regain more seeds.
Normally, wintertime means that our friend the Black Sun/Forest/the antagonist guy goes into hibernation, and while that’s true this time, he has left one more small gift for everyone before he trundles off to go nap for 3 months.

PLOT UPDATES:

This month is a player plot! Everyone say “thanks Aspen” for the player plot!!
As the Black Sun goes to take his yearly nap, new pathways in the forest will open up, visible with or without the Golden Glasses and looking quite strange and inviting. Characters who walk into these pathways will be met with a dead end, where the fog wall will rush in behind them and trap them. A few hours later, they will emerge unscathed…
…but the characters themselves will be changed, mentally or physically or both. Other characters will still recognize you as “you” no matter what happens, and there’s the potential that other characters will not realise you’ve undergone changes and see you as “normal” (in the way they know you). You may look into the mirror and realise you’ve changed, or you may see nothing wrong and think you’re normal despite everything.
The Grove itself remains unchanged during this event, with only the characters themselves changing in minor to major ways. Memories themselves have been altered, too, with characters being led to believe that something different happened in their pasts. This can range from an early childhood memory being changed, to something within their time in the Grove being altered.
To quote Aspen’s provided example using Vash, some memory and therefore character alterations could be:
- Not following Nai into Tesla's chamber, thus preventing Nai from being able to access the system. The ship never crashed, and they all lived happily ever after.
- After finding his brother in his teens, the two banded together, with Vash believing that purging the world is a form of kindness and mercy for those that were trapped on No Man's Land. No one lived happily ever after.
- Vash decided to stay in the Grove after Wolfwood's death. He was never corrupted, and everyone lived happily ever after.
These AU memories will last for a month, and it can include multiple memories & physical traits being changed. This is your AU, have fun, go wild. The only thing off the table here is turning into another creature if your canon/CRAU doesn’t align with it — so for example, Ryslig CRAUs could be another monster and that would be fine, but Mizuki can’t turn into a Harpy and start flying. That said, if your physical change includes temporary, 1-month long false Corruption and that’s how you become a creature, that’s fine, just hide from Zahliya, he will not hesitate.
With all of that being said, if you re-enter the forest paths, you will come out with a different set of memories/physical changes. This is for all of you who are indecisive and want to play out several AUs, you know who you are.
Characters who are too smart to just walk into the forest may find themselves tempted by a voice calling to them, or see an illusion of someone else wandering in, etc etc. And of course, if this event is uninteresting to you, simply do not have your character walk into the woods and the AUing is avoidable.
Unrelated to the differing paths, we’re holding a lottery for a prophetic vision below as well! Beiwe and Ourania will contact whoever wins, asking them to tend to a newly re-emerged clutch of dragon eggs on the beach — the coming winter is to be harsh, and the eggs are no longer protected from the weather. This will begin the process of unlocking, well, baby dragons, and also draconic blessings aka dragon features.
It feels weird not ending this with the OOC section so OOC section 2: We love you guys, ok thanks.

Please use the following form for plotting:

Character:
Canon:
CR: Who is your character? Any special powers or things they have going on? Any specific CR you want to kickstart?
Plans: What’s on the agenda for this month? Any interactions with the monthly event? Other things you want to do?
Not Seeking: Anything you'd like to avoid.
Anything Else: A permissions post, opt-in for a character-specific power or whatever else.
Recent Posts or Toplevels: For things you posted that you want additional tag-ins on or that might’ve gone missed.
Past Life Plotting Toplevel: From ye olde post.
Meme: Make us laugh.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Character: Joshua
Canon: The World Ends With You

CR: Y'all know Joshua. He's suspicious. He's an internet troll. He's a Scorpio. He's a foodie. He's a walking Trivial Pursuit game. He likes the sound of his own voice. He has mental abilities and won't hesitate to trespass into your character's brain.

As far as CR goes, I always welcome negative CR so if it goes that way, it goes that way! Negative CR is a given for him because his alignment is chaotic asshole and he's gonna step on toes eventually. He does need some friends though, because he has the tendency to isolate and watch from a distance 90% of the time whoops.

Plans: Okay, AU stuff!

Josh's AU will be a twist on canon in the form of a role swap: rather than being the Composer right off the bat, he was an officer trying to hunt the Composer down and take them out. Current Composer was a detriment to the safety and stability of the district, and he coerced Hanekoma into teaching him the taboo Noise refinery sigil... which he ended up using on himself. So, now that he's installed himself as the new Composer, the Taboo soul code refining is still sticking around.

The differences:

• He has black inkstain-like coloration on one arm from the hand up nearly to the elbow, as well as other tattoo-like markings.
• He is just as likely to show up looking like a person as he is to look like a Noise. This means he could look like a ~~furry~~ bipedal anthro dragon, or he could just look like a full ass Noise dragon. Both forms are monochrome with a heavy focus on black.
• The Noise he can summon are now monochrome also.

Not Seeking: Nothing, bring it on, I can take it.

Anything Else: Joshua has a Permissions post! If you haven't already replied to it, please do!

Past Life Plotting Toplevel: Here!

Meme:

i can't believe joshua is a furry ahead of my furry event

I am a furry at heart I'd make them all furries all the time if I could

let's ignore the fact that I could have apped him as a ryslig AU I clearly failed there

Character: Clotted Cream Cookie
Canon: Cookie Run: Kingdom

CR: Clotted Cream is a once cookie now merman that just oozes charm and charisma. He's also a politician! For whatever that's worth. He's also very curious about how other people's worlds work, so he may have questions including what people do for a living and how happy the people are overall.

I'm looking for anything for him, honestly! I need to get him back out and about. Please harass him.

Plans: Oh boy oh boy it's AU time! For the AU, Clotted Cream is going to have lived a life where he was raised entirely in House Scone instead of being adopted into House Custard.

THIS MEANS: Though he will still have grace, eloquence, brilliance and ambition baked into his dough, without the experiences he was given by being in House Custard, this will all manifest slightly differently. Grace and eloquence still appear, but being pushed to the fringes of Republic high society and he and his mother being looked down upon means this is more applicable to those that aren't of high society. Where his mother is always nervous and apologetic, he is highly and sometimes aggressively protective of her, and the brilliance and ambition in his dough show themselves in crafty and antagonistic ways. Which means, he's going to be sharp-tongued and expecting the worst until proven otherwise.

Not Seeking: I'm not looking for another death for him, but that's about it!

Past Life Plotting Toplevel: Here!

Meme:

PERSONALLY, i think it's time livio made good on his prommy to make cc scones.

OH HE WOULD LOVE THAT he is always in the mood for a good scone

Character: Jiaoqiu
Canon: Honkai: Star Rail

CR: Jiaoqiu is a healer! He specializes in medicinal cooking, but he was also a military medic, so first aid, medicines, triage, trauma care, surgery, and all of that is also in his wheelhouse. He almost always has a smile on his face but still seems somewhat distant and doesn't talk much about himself. Overall very mysterious but he makes good food that makes you feel good, so 10/10??

Honestly I need to get him out and about, I've only had him here since the beginning of October but I got massively sidetracked with Joshua so he's sat along the sidelines thus far. I'd really like to get him some CR and get him involved in the game so he can take root.

Plans: I won't be putting Jiaoqiu in an AU this time, just because I'm more trying to focus on establishing him! That said, I know he and Pure Vanilla are working toward a big town-wide dinner for everyone, so maybe progress can be made on that this month.

Not Seeking: Nothing, bring it on, I'll take it. Except maybe for death.

Past Life Plotting Toplevel: i don't have one of these for him yet, I should do that

Meme:

i want him >:( i want him and ain to destroy kitchens together, i want them to heal things. ain will eat his cooking. and then be like "cool" when his mouth burns off

wrong account but I'm too lazy to switch

do you want him carnally-- but no I would love this, please let him cook for you, it is good food that is good for you and spice is superior and will help your lungs and many other things!!

kaed you're asking me if i want a man carnally??? me?????? on ain's journal even

also wonderful good ok, recent lore? said ain is a picky eater despite previously saying he wasn't so can't wait for this— (i love KOG's weird retcons) get ready

shove him right into your menclosure I'm not gonna complain

OH BOY OH BOY well thankfully Jiaoqiu knows how to feed picky eaters so he is well prepared for this I'm SO excited

OOC PLOTTING: Like Branches on a Tree

kaed's creachurs

jotchua

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clotted cream

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jiaoqiu

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