EVENT INFO: TURN THE LIGHTS OFF

[inthenightmods]

EVENT INFO: TURN THE LIGHTS OFF

the basics

On January 20, characters will start to notice that the flame of their lanterns have changed colors. Up until the end of the event, characters will experience a wide range of physical, emotional, and mental changes that correspond to these colors. A brief description for this is also available in the January gameplan, but read on for further details on what can be expected!

the details

Lantern malfunctions are now a permanent game mechanic that can be utilized at any time. Starting January 20th, lanterns begin to show more critical, previously unseen signs of wear and tear. Even if your character has not been irresponsible with their lantern, they're not immune from the effects that sweep through Beacon. Depending on what hue the light of your lantern takes on, characters will experience a variety of effects that will change their body, their mind, and their perception of their surroundings. The introduction of this mechanic is meant to provide players with the means of choosing their own style and severity of horror, so there's plenty of unique ways that this can be played with. Curious about how all of this works? Here's a list of details that should make things more clear:

• Currently, lanterns effects fall into three different categories: physical, emotional, and psychological. Each of these are represented by a different color (red, blue, and green respectively) and have an available effect in gentle, medium, and more extreme horror. That makes nine different total effects, all unique from one another, that can be played with! The tables below lays out each effect in further detail...and just because that's all that's available now doesn't mean there won't be more presented later down the line.


• Lanterns do not have to have a physical flame to experience these malfunctions.If your character has a lantern that looks or operates differently from a standard lantern, you can play around with how the effects physically appear. As long as the changes made still generally follow the red/blue/green color scheme, that's all that matters, so feel free to get creative!


• What changes your character experiences is up to you! There's no rule that determines which effect you get to play with; they're completely free to do with what you will. You can RNG it, pick your personal favorite, or pick one that you think would be most meaningful for your character specifically. Likewise, you're not locked into whatever you choose initially, so if you change your mind for any reason, there's no need to regret it! It's completely acceptable and within your right to stop playing with the effect at any point, reverting your character back to normal or choosing a completely different one instead.


• This event is completely opt-in. Not all characters have to experience lantern changes, as it's a mechanic that's meant to operate as a random, unpredictable occurrence. If you aren't comfortable with any one effect or it isn't your cup of tea, that's perfectly fine! The point of this event is to introduce a way to cater the game's level of horror to your own personal preference. If you're happy where you are, there's no need to force yourself to change your play style, and no explanation is required for your decision.


• There's no set duration for how long your character will remain under the influence of their altered lantern. They can experience these changes for the full event period or for as short as a few hours of a single day, whatever makes you most comfortable or gives you the variety of threads that you're looking for.


• Any of the effects that you choose to play with must be staggered and cannot be stacked. Characters will only experience one of the nine effects listed below at a time, but how any of them are presented is completely at your discretion. You can choose to change between effects at will, blasting through as many as all of them, as long as they don't occur simultaneously!


• There are no rules in how you choose to scale your effects. You can take a milder effect and gradually go heavier, start heavy and have it go backwards, or just stick to one level of severity. The only limit is your own preference!


• Characters can keep these changes after the event has ended. An official page will be added to the navigation with the information about the lantern effects that can be referenced at any point. OOCly, it's up to you to keep playing them or get rid of them, but ICly characters will have no explanation as to why this has happened or if they're really "cured". At least, not yet. All they know is that this is a completely unpredictable syndrome that can recur at any given point in time.

•••
Additionally, players are welcome to use this post for OOC event plotting! In fact, please do, as not everyone in the game has access to each other's plurks! If you'd like, you can use the small form below to kickstart your plotting plans:

<b>player:</b> (feel free to put your contact info here if you like!) <b>character(s):</b> <b>plans:</b> (have any plans already? or do you have plans you'd like to make? let the world know!) <b>notes:</b> (anything else worth mentioning, like permissions/opt-outs/hiatuses/etc.?)

the lanterns

RED LIGHT
TALL	GRANDE	VENTI
Your lantern is a light, pastel pink, with only superficial damage. As days pass, you start to feel minor aches and pains as you begin, slowly but surely, to change. The changes are small, but striking. Maybe the whites of your eyes have turned black, or maybe your teeth are sharpening into jagged points. A tail sprouts from the base of your spine, or horns break through your skin as they grow outward from your skull.	Your lantern is a passionate shade of vibrant red, the glass webbed with spiderweb cracks. There's a deep ache throbbing somewhere inside of you. Throughout the coming days you seem to change, but the changes are mangled and warped. Maybe your arm develops patches of scales, or maybe feathers sprout out of your scalp. In some capacity, you find yourself stuck between something halfway yourself and halfway something other.	Your lantern is glowing a deep, dark red, and the cracks that streak across its surface seem as if they'll cause it to break apart at any moment. Everything hurts. Very quickly, too quickly, your body transforms. Half of yourself, whether it's from the waist down or disturbingly scattered across the whole of your parts, is becoming something new. Maybe your legs shrivel and new appendages sprout until you're left with the limbs and abdomen of a spider. Maybe one side of you becomes thick and heavy with coarse fur and leathery skin.

BLUE LIGHT
TALL	GRANDE	VENTI
Your lantern is a light, pastel shade of blue, with only superficial damage. You feel a bubble of laughter stuck in your throat, a lightness to your thoughts and a pep in your step. It's a pleasant feeling, this persistent optimism. Only, the freeing sensation of being so carefree can start to become a burden when, in the face of loss, tragedy, or danger, all you can do is smile. Pain, death, and trauma all inspire laughter.	Your lantern is a calming shade of vibrant blue, the glass webbed with spiderweb cracks, and your whole body feels like it's alive with alarm. You know something bad is going to happen, and you can't stop looking over your shoulder. This is the calm before the storm, you're certain, and you can't sleep. How can you, when you have to remain alert and prepare for whatever-it-is that is surely about to strike?	Your lantern is glowing a deep, dark blue, and the cracks that streak across its surface seem as if they'll cause it to break apart at any moment. You feel angry, angry at everything and anything you can think of. The world, your circumstances, yourself, even your loved ones. It takes all your effort not to lash out with even the mildest of perceived provocations, as if you're looking for an excuse to vent your grievances.

GREEN LIGHT
TALL	GRANDE	VENTI
Your lantern is a light, pastel green, with only superficial damage. Time feels strange. Sometimes, it seems as if everyone around you is moving and speaking too slowly. Sometimes, too fast. Sometimes, it's as if everyone is frozen. Perhaps you experience only one of these sensations, or perhaps they alternate in rapid succession. When time stops, it can suddenly speed up to catch up to real time, as if a taut rubber band has been suddenly released.	Your lantern is an energizing shade of vibrant green, the glass webbed with spiderweb cracks. You're not sure you recognize yourself. Your thoughts, your voice, sometimes even your own face feel foreign. Do you question your motivations or your past? Something about you, whether it remains constant or changes, feels to you as if it's been warped.	Your lantern is glowing a deep, dark green, and the cracks that streak across its surface seem as if they'll cause it to break apart at any moment. Something is wrong with the world around you. Beacon's surface seems to bend and stretch like the reflections seen in the mirrors of a fun house. You may feel as if there's a slope where the surface is flat, or a sheer drop where none exists. It might leave you dizzy or disoriented, sick from vertigo, or uncertain of what visions you can trust.

the tl;dr

• January 20th: the lanterns begin to change.


• January 29: the event ends; many lanterns return to normal but some remain changed, depending on player discretion!

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Comments

[unpredict]

player: Jade / bogans or jaded#0421 @ disco
character(s): Kol Mikaelson.

plans: I'm particularly looking at blue and green lights for Kol, with a primary focus on blue. No physical changes for this guy. Without the lantern effects, Kol is already pretty paranoid, quickly prone to anger, and reckless, and these characteristics are extremely heightened because of his state as one of the first vampires in existence, so I kind of want to play into that since he's keeping himself under Lock and Key and being well-behaved.

I'm thinking of outing Kol as a vampire to a select few using this event, and maybe using it as my way to tap into Kol's soul hex that essentially makes him bloodthirsty and violent that I've been trying to build up CR for.

Blue Light — Venti

• Because Kol's an Original Vampire and capable of a lot of things, I'm thinking of having him be super hostile, super emotional, and super angry, and quite possibly attack someone? I don't want him to be outed if he attacks a character, just FYI. He doesn't respond kindly to that and I kind of like him living out his witch fantasy despite lacking the ability to tap into magic.

Blue Light — Tall
I want to start dealing with some emotional stuff to start propelling Kol forward, so I'm thinking:

• Since he's lost his girlfriend from home, he's been concealing and not feeling, and I kind of want to get him to deal with that with a few people since he'll never speak on it unless I have an opportunity to force him to. He feels guilty and lost, and he wants to be worth someone's love, so he's a bit insecure and I want this to be an opportunity where he begins to grow confident in the fact he 1) deserves to be loved and 2) deserves to live.
  
• His most recent canon death was at the hands of his older brother is something he doesn't speak on and is something I'd like him to actually acknowledge hurts him. He's lost decades of his life because Klaus and his siblings put him on ice by daggering him, and he's got a lot of resentment there that would be cool if someone validated him for feeling as angry as he does. I want to shed some more light on his family's fucked up nature to some! Kol's been painting a really rosy picture otherwise and hasn't been dealing with this Middle Child and I'm Not Good Enough syndromes.

Green Light — Grande

• Well, Kol spent an unknown amount of time in someone else's body, so I'd love to play with that and have him see/hear himself as Kaleb Westphall (who is a different English white guy)! Again, it kind of ties into my theme here of Kol feeling like he's not good enough. Someone tell him he's pretty.

Primary focus is Blue / Tall tbh. I do plan on having Kol snap out of this, and he's definitely available to assist in other character's little arcs for this event. My focus is getting to do a few of these since it'll help propel him forward for me!

notes: Detailed permissions, especially vampire-related information here. I don't want Kol outed as a vampire as he's been meticulous in making people think he's a witch, although I do want some interpersonal aftermath with it later to help build on CR and maybe start an arc for him where he comes to accept that being a vampire isn't all that bad (he hates it). LOVE YOURSELF, KOL.

[policier]

the "i'm not good enough" syndrome is highly relatable with this one. i'd love to do an emotional support thread if you're interested? javert's still learning how to be empathetic and compassionate, so this may help him as much as it could kol.

[unpredict]

sign me tf up!! who does kol need to kill? no one should be making his buddy javert feel like he's not good enough! but on a serious note: kol would be there to support javert however javert will let him, especially if someone who he views as family has made him feel like that.

and since javert's not necessarily a modern man, perhaps he can see that he's got a friend in the "old farts club" with kol.

[policier]

i'd love that!! javert has a lot of self esteem issues wrt his family (both of his parents were criminals and javert was born in a prison so his childhood was Not Good), so that's something they can commiserate about. i think javert almost told him that in one of their threads but he chickened out 😩

he's going to be so overwhelmed though. kol, why are you so good to him?

[unpredict]

tbh it's because he has great facial hair



and, you know, is a good person. BRING ON THE FUCKED UP FAMILIES. kol didn't need to like or trust javert any more than he already does 😭

[vampirella]

blue could be a good opportunity for them to spiderman point at each other about both being vampires, and honestly she wouldn't hold it against him much

if only bc she'd try and get him to do more stuff for her since he tried to kill her that one time

[unpredict]

LMFAO

okay but only if he gets a plate full of brownies and goods. but i'm so down!! it'd be nice to meet another vampire who isn't from his home and who is, you know, actually likeable. it'd be nice to talk to someone about the negatives and positives of being a vamp without feeling any judgement of the sort.

[notthatjason]

Wanna fight a demigod? Jason will be easy to set off cause he's going blue as well.

[unpredict]

omg

HOW BAD CAN THE FIGHT BE

on a scale of 1 kol just pushes jason over to 10 THERE'S BLOOD AND A LOT OF STABBING

[notthatjason]

Well I would prefer to not have either party die -- I'm not quite ready for Jason to deal with ACTUALLY killing someone and I would prefer to not have him die either. But Jason is stated in canon as being very durable and strong (able to go toe-to-toe with some of the minor gods and titans at least for a few rounds). So we can go pretty heavy too without Jason dying.

I just really want Jason to have a fight and then snap out of it and be like "oh gods I just tried to kill a friend" kind of deal and have some flashbacks to conversations he's had about losing control and how most of Jupiter's sons tend to go out that way (ie Hercules)

Reminder that there is also lightning and wind to deal with in a Jason fight.

[unpredict]

i am d o w n bc i feel the same way wrt death and all that jazz. but i'm happy for kol to be one of those pals!! i don't particularly want him to kill any one bc he's done a lot of that in his lifetime. i think he's up for feeling bad about harming a friend—he could use a lot of that!

...i have no idea how he'd even do wrt lightning and wind so i imagine the lightning would be enough to do some damage to kol. but all he has is more ~grounded abilities, so super hearing/strength/healing/durability/mind control/dream manipulation x1000 due to his age and his status as an ~original~, so kol's def going to lose this one! (i'm happy for lightning to knock him out!)

[antiwhat]

I don't know if it will be 100% helpful but Ellever can probably assist in the "you should definitely be angry, and that's okay" category. Her Other self will be out and resentful for being packed away since childhood. C':

[unpredict]

pls let's join hands in "the childhoods sucked" club. even though idrk what kol's childhood was like, his dad was an abusive viking and i'm sure it wasn't a walk in the park. he can definitely hopefully help her with her feelings, too! if kol is good for anything, it's actually preaching that families suck a lot of ass.

[antiwhat]

She'll certainly be in the mood to tell Kol all about being mostly confined inside because her dad was worried about her endbringer status. And then she got traumatized at ten years old because someone told her what she was, before she could really process it. It sucked a lot. c': This club needs shirts.

[unpredict]

they need to drink after this and cheers to being well-adjusted human beings 🍻

his dad hunted his family down (vampire hunting vampires, that's not cannibalism) and kol often got the blame for attracting daddy-o's attention, so he got [ SPROINKED ] with a special dagger that basically put him on ice. it happened a lot. 8( maybe they can bond over dads being shit!

he'll hate her dad if she hates everyone he's related to.