oocinthenight | GAMEPLAN: FEBRUARY

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GAMEPLAN: FEBRUARY

GAMEPLAN: FEBRUARY

Hey there, Beacon bits!

As always, please make sure to respond to the activity check if you haven't already! We do not post warning lists, so please make sure you've posted.

february 1-15

The month will begin with our intro log on February 1! Welcome, Beacon bitties! This month's intro log will feature our first ever cat herd, which is kind of a silly name that started as a joke but then we kept calling it that and, well, that's just the name now. Here's what you can expect from said cat herd:

The cat herding post will be mostly an OOC thing, and our goal is to make sure the entire playerbase is back on the same page regarding game plot, mechanics, and resources. The cat herd will feature four main sections: A recap of the entire game plot at this stage in the game; a compilation of unsolved plot threads/questions that we feel are the main areas in which characters should be focusing their attention; a list of both IC and OOC game resources that both mods and players alike find helpful for gameplay; and a "getting involved" section with ideas/prompts to facilitate projects and community involvement without directly pursuing the game plot or requiring mod involvement. This cat herd is gonna be a big post, but we're hoping it'll serve as a touchstone for players to reference for months to come. We'll do more of these in the future as we see a need for them.

Although the cat herd will mostly be for touching base on an OOC level, we'll be incorporating it into the intro log so that characters can be ICly caught up, as well. Similar to the town hall meetings Cao Pi has been organizing (which, hey, we love seeing those), Rastus will call all of Beacon's residents to a town-wide meeting held in Bonfire Square so that characters can share information and brainstorm plans for moving forward. This will give players an opportunity to thread out IC dispersal of info on the cat herd, but players are also welcome to handwave their character learning all of the plot information described on the OOC cat herd. If you want to play it out, awesome, but if not? No worries! Assume your character went, listened, and is now up to speed on all the stuff they gotta know.

ICly, this cat herd meeting in Bonfire Square will take place on February 3 to give newcomers a chance to get settled in town before being thrust into a big ol' plot debriefing. The IC meeting will still happen as part of the intro log, though, as 1) the intro log covers the first three days of the month, and 2) we didn't want to overwhelm players/pull attention away from the intro log by making it a separate thing.

OOCly, the cat herd will be posted... sometime between now and the intro log! It's a large project, so we'll debut it as soon as we're able. If you have questions about any of this cat herd stuff, we ask that you sit tight for now! Your questions may be answered on the cat herd itself, or if nothing else, you'll be able to ask questions once all of that information is available.

•••
Anyway! On February 2, it's Groundhog Day! Throughout the day, dozens of small woodland forest spirit critters will pop out from burrows deep beneath the snow, scurrying off into the trees to get a head start on preparing for the spring thaw. These critters will be sticking around permanently, meaning the forest of Beacon are now teeming with small wildlife! They're all forest spirits, but characters will be able to regularly encounter creatures like mice, groundhogs, badgers, squirrels, weasels, raccoons, beavers, skunks, possums, and other small, rodent/rodent-adjacent critters. Neat!

Next, the Night Market will be in town February 7-9! A log will be posted for this, but it won't be a full-blown event like it was last time. Since the Night Market will now be in town every other month (you can check out the schedule for future months on the calendar!), the visits will no longer be accompanied by an OOC info/plotting post. The available merchants and their stock will be revealed in the log itself, and the permanent Night Market purchase page will be updated at that time.

Additionally, if you've submitted double AC for a chance to play a Night Market NPC, we'll do the RNG drawing after AC closes, and the winners will be contacted on February 1. We'll be selecting 2 players from the January AC round since we'll have two player-created shopkeepers, but in future months, we'll select just one person per AC round. Check out the details on this month's activity check for more information on this process.

Following the Night Market visit, we've got another winter storm! An ice storm will blown through town on February 11-12. Temperatures won't dip as low as they did during January's blizzard, but freezing rain will coat the town in a layer of ice.

And lastly for the first half of the month, we've got our HMD to look forward to on February 15!

february 16-29

The second half of the month will begin with our big event for February! The Night We Met will run February 16-21, and will feature a weather event: the aurora! The eerily beautiful green lights will be on full display throughout the event, dancing in silence overhead and illuminating the night sky more brightly than even the full moon. And hey, the aurora will even cast light! This is the brightest Beacon has been since the very first batch of new arrivals landed back in July.

That sure is neat, and there sure is more to it than that, but we're going to keep the event details mostly under wraps until the OOC info post. :) A fun surprise!

Here's what you do get to know: It's memshare time, y'all. The Night We Met will have a bunch of lore stuff attached, so it'll be a bit more than just standard memsharing, but the main feature of the event for you all to play with will be the chance to share memories between characters. The memories can be shared voluntarily, accidentally, or even forcefully if you want to play that route. The characters will even be able to keep these memories after the event. Feel free to pocket some memories for memshare shenanigans in the future!

There will be, however, two small restrictions for the memories that can be shared during this event. All of the shared memories must 1) come from a time pre-death/arrival in Beacon, and 2) focus on a person/people that your character has left behind. The latter rule is fairly flexible and we're happy to let you all interpret it how you like, but lore-wise, the idea is that this event will remind characters of those they have left behind in death.

So, go ahead and start brainstorming which memories you might like to inflict upon your CR! Feel free to ask questions below if you have them, but we'll be releasing more details and context closer to the event.

Finally, on the last day of the month—which, hey! It's a leap year! A bonus day! How exciting! On February 29, forest spirits around town seem to be taking this "leap year" thing to heart. They can be found playing leap frog with each other around town. Sure. Join 'em, if you're so inclined.

ooc news

And that's February for you! To wrap things up, here are our OOC announcements for the month!
We've made some minor updates to the mod contact page! We're planning a bunch of game page overhauls as we approach the cat herd, but since this one's done for now, here's what's new: If you need to get in contact with the mods privately, please do so through the mod journal or by PPing Mippins' personal plurk, mippins! The change here is that we're no longer going to consider discord DMs as a method for getting in touch with us, since it's tougher for us to stay organized over that platform. We're still happy to chat over discord for funsies, and we may offer to move conversations started with us through PMs/PPs to discord if the circumstances call for it, but please don't hit us up on discord for modly things. We'll redirect you to the proper channels should anyone forget and contact us in that way. 👍

We have some quick updates on the status of the game history page! First, we're prepping a rundown of the known plot thus far to put in the cat herd, so that all of that information will be crossposted to the game history page as well. Second, we're sorry to announce that Dubs has decided to step down from their position as game historian. They'll of course still be around as a player, though! The work they've done to compile game history for November and December will be featured in the cat herd and on the game history page. They've been a big help to us in prepping for all of that, so thank you, Dubs! Moving forward, we're not going to fill the game historian role just yet, but if/when we're ready to do that, we'll put up an announcement so that interested players can apply.

In response to some excellent feedback we received, we've decided to try out a new thing on the gameplans in order to facilitate more exploration plotting among players! In the comments below, you'll find the LOOKING FOR GROUP header. If you're interested in doing any kind of exploration in the coming month, go ahead and fill out the posted form under that header, and then comment amongst yourselves to make arrangements! Of course, this isn't required—it's just another way to plot stuff with other players. Maybe you've already got a plan and want some brave souls along on the journey with you, or maybe you're just looking to toss your character into an existing group. Whatever you're interested in, feel free to hit up the LFG thread if you'd like to plot exploration stuff for the month!

the tl;dr

February 1: Intro log; OOC cat herd
February 2: Groundhog Day! The critters of Beacon return to the forest
February 3: IC cat herd meeting (as part of the intro log)
February 7: Night Market arrives
February 9: Night Market leaves
February 11: Ice storm!
February 12: Ice storm!
February 15: HMD
February 16: The Night We Met begins; the aurora can be seen in the sky
February 21: The Night We Met ends; the aurora disappears
February 22: AC begins
February 29: AC ends

QUICKNAV
comms	\|	network • logs • memes • ooc
pages	\|	rules • faq • taken • mod contact • player contact • calendar • setting • exploration • item requests • full nav

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Okay obviously my amnesiac must know: do the shared memories have to be ones the character actually currently has or can the accidental/forced ones be brand new as of the sharing point? Like, can this be used as a memory recovery mechanic for those who have very few memories of pre-Beacon?

Second, because people get to keep memories from this event, I just want to make sure: sharing memories does not mean the original person loses them, it just means now both people know them?

1) You can totally use this as a memory recovery mechanic! The memories won't be pulled from character's heads so much as... distributed via weird time/space stuff, so as long as the memory involves your character and fits the above criteria, go nuts.

2) Yeah, no memories will be harmed in the making of this event. No one's losing anything! More specifically, the memories will exist in the form of physical objects that, when interacted with, will allow the character to experience that memory. This means that characters could re-experience memories or continue to share them with others after the event is over.

Oh that is fucking cool Bucky's broken chest of cool stuff is gonna get a little more full with this event :D

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

sits here as a fellow amnesiac, very curious about this answer

MEMSHARE MEMSHARE MEMSHARE MEMSHARE

Question: does "characters left behind" exclude those that came here to beacon and died?

It does not! So long as the memory is about a person that the character feels they have left behind in coming to Beacon, you're good to go. This means too that memories of characters currently in Beacon could also be fair game, since even close castmates may sometimes have different canonpoints, headcanons, interpretations of canon events, and so on.

YAAAAAASS

Can these be memories from prior to your death that were retroactively added to canon via, say, a recent DLC?

Provided the player who witnesses it consents to spoilers or has already played the DLC?

Or does this violate the spirit of the "no canon updates" rule?

Edited 2020-01-26 23:13 (UTC)

Yes, you can use retroactively-added memories! So long as your character would've experienced the memories before coming to Beacon, you're welcome to use 'em. On a sort of related note, headcanon memories are also fine.

In the case of canon material released within (roughly) one month of the event start, we just ask that you spoiler-warn accordingly. We do have a rule that players can't app from new canon material until one month after that material's release, but since this isn't apps and we can't exactly say "oh, just memshare next month!", we're fine with new material so long as players is respectful about it. We'll make a note about that on the OOC info post as well so it doesn't get missed!

WOW THANKS GUYS! :D

A question regarding the memory event!

When you mentioned the bit about how interacting with certain physical objects will be the trigger in-memory sharing, does it have to be an item that exists in Beacon or is it more of a 'represents the memory's contents' sort of object? Just want to be sure as I begin to plot stuff with others. :>

The items will appear in Beacon throughout the event, and they'll all be the same thing, though you'll have creative control over the designs on said thing. Think, like, Easter eggs! Everyone's memory-triggering item is an Easter egg, but you'll get to decide the colors and patterns and such that have been painted on it.

AHHHH! That's so cool and it's perfect for what I have in mind.

Thank you for the answers, mod! That definitely helps a lot with my plotting for this event. I'm so stoked for it.

Hi! Do the characters being remember still have to be alive at the time of the character's death or could it be someone they had already lost prior to their death?

The characters being remembered can be alive or dead!

If you're interested in doing any kind of exploration in the coming month and would like to plot with others in the game, comment to this header with the following form! Then, go ahead and plot amongst yourselves.

player: Nara (

mutanthairything, feel free to add me to plan it out!)
character(s): Duster
plans: Duster wants to explore the nightclub and start to clean it up so they can use it for an entertainment venue. He'll need people who can clear up debris, explore the place, and see what can be used.

Telekinesis makes for pretty safe clearing (and deceptively good self defense if it came to that), and Misty will brute force literally whatever it takes if it means this place can have more music-related anything, people of taste need a place to congregate!! New places are hit or miss for her but this is top priority.

She's either gonna tag along or make an absolute nuisance of herself trying to stake a claim, please let her do things Duster

Ashford would be interested if you are taking more group members!

player: Erica (PM THIS journal or find my plurk/discord here
character(s): Maes Hughes
plans: Several months back Maes was in one of the Dreams and made note of several locations on a map. One was Downtown, which we have discovered, but his next priority was a medical center out towards the western part of Beacon. A recent conversation with Robin confirmed this and also revealed a weather station. I don't know how close they are, so it's likely Maes would have to choose one...BUT maybe he could convince a second group to split and we could get two explores going with one heading towards the medical center and one towards the weather station?

Anyway, the plan is to take a group west to find one or both of these places. And it was suggested to him that the weather station might involve scaling some cliffs...so climbers or fliers would be a bonus for sure.

I am aiming to start this explore after the cat herd but before the ice storm, so possibly around Feb 8-10?
notes: Cao Pi is already part of the party. I also want to keep at least one or two slots open for possible new members. Keep an eye out for an IC network post from Maes asking about this.

Rosi is definitely interested in both of these places so either one you want him along on works for me! I'll keep him to just one so others get a shot. He'll also probably see if Will wants to come along to either location also since he's a smart science boy who knows smart science things.

Edit: I also know Stone has offered to help explore multiple times and Rosi would certainly mention his name for the weather station trip since he can not only fly but be big enough to also carry people.

Edited 2020-01-27 21:48 (UTC)

Sora would be so down for this one!! he likes EVERYONE in this party and he's very personally invested in at least the medical center, although he's got enough echoes to make a climb quite a bit safer for himself, at least!

slides in here SO this was a thing I was allowed to keep from Will's npc days: his group actually discovered the medical center! so it might be advantageous for him to come along to help find it, since he might vaguely know the direction.

(why hasn't he told anyone this icly, leu??? because no one has asked and he's a dick! that's why!)

If either group ends up with a vacancy and needs muscle, Link would probably agree to go along as the party's tank.

If you need fliers for the weather station, Cas here has a perfectly capable set of wings :3

Supes can def be a climber/flier, if that's anything y'all need. He even has the added bonus of being able to carry people on his back and in his arms, soooooo...

Otherwise, really excited to see the results of this!

player: Daimon
character(s): Prompto Argentum
plans: So everyone is exploring downtown, but Prompto wants to go check out the small lake past the scrapyard, near the mountains. It's already been discovered by him and a couple others, but they chose not to stay long and didn't interact with it much.

I'd like to have it happen the first week of February, because I think the Parade is in that area the rest of the month.
notes: He possibly has a party of three, including him, Lunafreya, and Somnus, but that's not set in stone. Last visit to the lake included creepy whispers and weird bioluminescent events.

Edited 2020-01-28 23:41 (UTC)

man i am super interested in this but sadly i'm already signed onto an explore at the beginning of feb. if you guys end up going this month would you mind sending me the link so i can follow along?

Belatedly...it's over here!

player: Maniette (

maniette HMU)
character(s): Fjord
plans: Rosinante got the idea stuck in Fjord's head that there might be an actual Spirit-y thing that guards/lurks in the rivers and is the responsible party for the people dying to the river, so he wants to check that shit out. For specificity's sake, he'll be exploring the stretch of river immediately south of the school and bike shop.

IDK when exactly this would be happening, but very likely within a week of the Cat Herding (let's say between Feb 4 - 12). Fjord can cast Water Breathing on up to 10 people, so that's his personal cap unless you can say honestly that you don't need to breathe. He'd probably actually want even fewer just bc he can't keep tabs on y'all otherwise.

He has Control Water as well, in case things get shitty in their immediate area bc then he can push back up to 100ft of water centred wherever he likes within 300ft

notes: Fjord's first POIs would absolutely be Mollymauk, and probably Rosinante as well, but y'all are under no obligation to actually come along. If this happens after the Night Market arrives he'll probably scour that for a bunch of potions to help resist mental compulsions, if that's at all possible.

Molly is here to make sure you don't make a deal with and/or fuck evil Ariel even if he has no idea about your cultist banging habits.

Molly DESERVES to know about Avantika at some point. It is his god given right as a Might Nein member.

Superman can breathe underwater as long as there isn't any Kryptonite around, so if there's any way for a total stranger to barge into this, he'd be down to help however he can! :Dd

Otherwise, SUPER STOKED to see the result of this!

Fjord is brand new, EVERYONE EXCEPT MOLLY is a total stranger.

That being said, if you'd like him to be less of a complete stranger to get this ball rolling I'd be more than happy to start something!

Hahaha, I'm down for it if you are! I've got the most bland-ass starter for Supes on his intro tlevel, but you can totally wildcard it if you'd rather. Or hit my inbox? Whichever is most convenient!

Generally Superman's been talking to anyone and everyone, and he won't say no to snacks or hot cocoa or something. LOL. His cape also glows because he's hiding his lantern under there, so it's pretty eyecatching if Fjord wants to catch him on a rooftop or just flying in the middle of... the sky in some random area........

Otherwise if Fjord has some open invitation for said river exploration, Kal'd sign up for it regardless just to Help. lmf

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

GAMEPLAN: FEBRUARY

QUESTIONS

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QUESTION REDUX

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LOOKING FOR GROUP

EXPLORATION: THE FALLOUT SHELTER

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EXPLORATION: Heading West -- Medical Center or Weather Station

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EXPLORATION: Southwest Lake

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EXPLORATION: THE RIVER. yes again

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