outofsticks | October Plotting: It's Halloweeeeeeeeen

SETTING UPDATES

Mizuki made us a therapy office. Mizuki is in charge of this office. This is already reflected on the locations page and on the Grove map because technically it happened in September. Please see Mizuki for therapy, thank you. As a reminder, players are free to purchase one building per character for the continued expansion of the Grove, which can be anything you want, so long as you don’t mind cryptic plot clues attached. :)

The fog wall is now black. It will cause a highly painful burning sensation to the body when touched, regardless of if you have clothing in the way or not. Think of it like touching one of those fuzzy/spiky caterpillars where there’s no skin damage but everything hurts. In addition to this, touching the black fog will induce a high sense of dread/paranoia/doomsday feelings for half an hour after the contact breaks.

Zahliya is now contactable on the NPC Contact page. Thank you for playing with Wolfie’s dumb OC. Wolfie will continue to spew the dumbest plotlines you’ve ever seen at this game and you will all have to cope.

Moder has been eaten, thank you Mizuki.

As a reward for beating your first Large Game (the Volcano, in case that was unclear), the fog wall has pulled back slightly, north of the Inn! It is still black. Within it… are the burned remains of a town! Yaaaay! The town will be fully explorable in October, and we will have a relevant investigations toplevel there for anyone who wants to investigate it deeply.

PLOT UPDATES

It’s fuckin Halloween y’all, aka the best holiday, the only one that matters ever. We will have two coinciding plots: A Halloween Masquerade and a Pain Share.

MASQUERADE

At the far new north of the Grove, erected in the burned town a week after it is first discovered, is a circus tent. We are not actually going to the circus, but rather, we’re having a masquerade! The masquerade dances will begin every night at 10pm, and last until approximately 6am when the sun comes up, at which point the animated skeleton attendants will forcibly kick you out of the tent.

The dances will be frequented by ghosts that may look like people you knew in the past, dressed in Halloween masquerade attire. They will not be able to interact with player characters and will merely pass right through them, as if unaware they’re present. The skeletons, meanwhile, are literally just animated skeletons. They rattle when they walk and are not capable of speech, but will dance with you and serve you hors d'oeuvres. And also, again, kick you out if you try to stay past closing.

Halloween costumes can be regained free of charge (aka don’t go spend your bonus AC on these) as long as the outfits are non-magical, and I have to say this because one of you definitely has magical clothing somewhere. Yes, the outfit can include a prop, as long as that is also non-magical (and non-deadly!). I.e. if you’re dressing as the grim reaper you may have a scythe but the second that shit shoots magic or cuts a bitch it’s gotta go. I guess you could beat someone to death with a Spirit Halloween plastic scythe (not sponsored btw) but imagine the toll.

Masks are also free of charge. Player characters will have their pick of very cool, neat masks made of wood and other organic materials, ranging from simple to complex. Player’s choice on what these look like. Be careful, because donning these between 10pm-6am means you will be unable to remove them until the dance ends, regardless of where you are in the Grove.

PAIN SHARE

Mysterious marks akin to tattoos will show up on characters at the beginning of the month, starting at midnight on the 1st. These marks will match with at least one other person in the Grove, potentially more depending on player choices. These marks link characters physically and emotionally, but only for physical pain and negative emotions. This means your character will feel everything their partner(s) share, but it will be slightly diluted depending on how many people share the same mark. For example, if six people are sharing a mark and one of those six gets stabbed, the other five will feel the pain at 1/6th the intensity of the first character. Emotions, however, are shared full-force.

Characters can be bound to one person or multiple persons. They do not have to all be bound together unless you want to, i.e. Mizuki could be bound to both BB and Toge, but BB and Toge do not have to be bound to each other. Let me know if this doesn’t make sense.

These marks will persist until at least the end of the month. They could go longer, they could not. We will see how the forest feels about this. :)

Please thank Rubie for the suggestion for this part of the event!

OOC UPDATES

Wolfie is sorry about planning too many events last month :( Wolfie will do better (lying)

There will not be a subsequent mini-event this month. This is because a) Wolfie works in retail marketing and will actually die if one more thing is added to her plate and b) we have Forestquest/Addquest for those who signed up for it. Signups are closed, and we hope to use this as a test-drive for mod-led missions for future endeavours. Please Look Forward To It.

Clarification about AC was put on the AC page. This includes what we count as the AC period (from the 1st of the month to the last day of the month, unless otherwise specified), what we mean by “backtagged threads are allowed for AC”, and the check-in system (characters who just apped only have to check in, but please remember to post to your comment that you’re checking in).

The mod team checks AC on the last day of the month super late at night / the first day of the proceeding month. The mod team are also two (2) tired Americans, and we will flex to accommodate our not-American friends, i.e. if your timezone is 12 hours ahead of us it might look like you’re starting your AC thread in the prior month so just let us know if one of us hunts you down like “fix ur AC bro” and remind us that you’re not American. If anybody needs help with AC, let the mod team know.

We are trying to expand the bonus AC store with both magical & nonmagical items. We have a few ideas, but if you have something you’d like to see, feel free to ping the mods.

Please use the following form for plotting:

Character:
Status: Who is your character? What did they get up to last month and how is it impacting this month? Did they discover something? Are they harboring a clue? HMM
Seeking: Any CR or plot thread you want to kickstart!
Not Seeking: Anything you'd like to avoid.
Anything Else: A permissions post, opt-in for a character-specific power or whatever else.
Meme: you know you have one.

October Plotting: It's Halloweeeeeeeeen

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