GAMEPLAN: MARCH

[inthenightmods]

GAMEPLAN: MARCH

Hey there, Beacon bits! Here's what we've got coming up next month!

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.

march 1-15

The month will begin with our ferry arrival and TDM on March 1! You can check out the announcement we made for a refresher on the new app cycle if you need it, but let's talk about how it's going to work in practice.

Two posts will go up on March 1—a ferry arrival post in the OOC comm, and the TDM in the meme comm. Nothing will be posted in the log comm.

The TDM won't be changing much in design, though the prompts will be more of a combination between our past TDM prompts and our intro log mini-events. You'll see what we mean about the content when the post goes up. Currently players are absolutely encouraged to thread on the TDM and count it as game canon! The TDM is like a bonus, kinda-sorta-fourth-wall event every other month. Pretty cool!

The ferry arrival post in the OOC comm will include all the stuff that's relevant to current players in-game. Everything need-to-know will be summarized on the ferry arrival post, so if you don't follow the meme comm, you don't have to worry about missing out on anything important. Intro log features means strictly for current players (item deliveries, yard sard, etc.) will be included on the ferry arrival post, as well.

Oh, hey, hm, it's our first ferry arrival without newcomers to town! We have something planned for that, but it's also gonna be a surprise! :) Robin will briefly address the issue to ICly buy some time for a more thorough explanation on...

March 3, when Dr. Solis will post to the network. A couple of persistent characters sealed the deal in convincing her to make her big debut, and now seems as good a time as any after the [REDACTED] on the TDM. She'll address what's up with no newcomers on the ferry in that post, and everyone will be able to chat with her freely from that point forward! Congrats, fam, you've unlocked an NPC. 👍

Oh, and remember that lantern Robin got a couple months back? Dr. Solis does! She'll be doling out some info about that in her post, as well.

•••
Since it's now March, that means it's now spring in town! The new average weather will be 60-65 F and clear, with strong gusts felt even deep within the forest. It's very windy near the lake this time of year. There will also be a bunch of rainstorms throughout the month! You can find the exact dates on the calendar. The rain won't be worryingly heavy, so some roofs might leak and a couple basements might flood, but no need to worry about anything catastrophic. Just normal rain, folks!

To celebrate the arrival of spring, the forest spirits will be putting on some holiday festivities on March 9-10. As soon as the full moon appears in the sky on March 9, forest spirits birds will return to Beacon! These spirits come in all shapes and sizes. If the species could be found in a temperate climate, it could reasonably be found in Beacon... and even if it's not strictly suitable for this biome, they're forest spirits, they don't give a hoot. The odd penguin or cassowary wouldn't be terribly out of place.

The bird spirits have brought with them colorful powders that they'll be, uh, lobbing into the faces of any suspecting Beacon bits. The more ground-bound forest spirits will be partaking in the fun too, and baskets of powder are scattered throughout town so that everyone can join in. It's spring!!!

...Sort of! It's still gonna take time for all that snow to melt and for the weather to really warm up. All the rain should help with that.

Speaking of rain, on March 13, everyone in town will have extraordinarily bad luck. That's super weird, and we have no idea what's up with that. 🤷‍♀️

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

march 16-31

The second half of the month will start relatively quietly. Enjoy the break, because we've got some big stuff happening with our event for the month, Wild Heart, which will run March 20-26, but it will be split into two parts.

Part 1 is March 20-22. On March 20, forest spirits will kidnap some characters around town, whisking them away to a secret location out in the unexplored woods. The characters remaining in town will be tasked with finding the kidnapped characters and liberating them.

But the characters left in town will have help! Remember those strange encounters with those mask-wearing folks during the aurora? On March 21, this masked faction will arrive in town with some good news and some bad news. The good news is that they're here to help in the rescue mission, and they've pinpointed the location of all the kidnapped characters: the medical center in East Beacon. The bad news is that the kidnapped characters are being tortured by the green-eyed spirits.

Players will be able to sign up to have their characters kidnapped during the first portion of the event, and all remaining characters will be considered part of the rescue party. Although obviously the kidnappees will be separated from the rescuers for the bulk of the first part of the event, there won't be any limitations on who can thread with each other, as the rescue mission will happen on March 22.

So, part one of the event: characters get kidnapped on March 20, the mask-wearing people show up on March 21 to help the remaining characters come up with a rescue plan, and that plan is enacted on March 22 as the rescuers storm the medical center to save the kidnapped/tortured characters. We'll be providing way more info than this when it comes time for signups in the week prior to the event, so stay tuned.

Once all the kidnapped characters are saved (or killed in the process, whichever), it's time for the second half of the event! Part 2 is March 23-26, and it will open with an NPC post... from Robin!

See, she's heard of these guys with the masks that just helped you all out. They're called the Wild Hunt, and she's not super fond of them. But, since they did just help save a bunch of you... Robin will permit them to stay in town for a few extra days to both explain themselves and help clean up any mess that was caused in part one.

The Wild Hunt's whole deal will remain ~*~mysterious~*~ until event time, but what you need to know now: they're a clan of reset survivors that live out in the mines, and OOCly, they'll function a bit like the Night Market! Except, where the Night Market deals in info, the Wild Hunt deals in manpower. Once they're introduced, characters will be able to contract NPC helpers to do things like build structures, teach survival/combat skills, and even scout locations to make exploration a little easier.

The second part of the event will be a demonstration of this helpfulness, as Wild Hunt members will remain in town to teach skills and repair anything in town that needs repairing. These minor NPCs will not be unique characters played by mods/players (at this time 👀), but instead the various stations will be set up similar to features like the coffee cart/candy shop at the Night Market, where players are welcome to play out those things on their own.

Oh, and the Wild Hunt's leader will be available at that time to answer the many thousand questions characters will likely have about these forest hermits... They have a lot to tell you all about, too.

Following the event, there will be yet another NPC post on March 28, but like so much of the plot stuff this month, it's gonna be a secret until it happens. Clever players may just be able to guess where this is all heading, since we are wrapping up act 1...

And the transition into act 2 will officially begin with the intro log on April 1, so stayed tuned! :)

ooc news

And that's March for you! To wrap things up, here are our OOC announcements for the month!

• We've added a new note to our explorations system! Explorations will always be closed during events except under rare special circumstances. Similarly, explorations can't be forward- or back-dated to happen during an event. We've closed explorations during events a few times in our game's history, and it works out pretty well for us behind the scenes! This will encourage players to focus on the event at hand, as well, without needing to worry about bonus stuff like explorations.


• Speaking of explorations, all characters will be free to explore the remaining unlockable bits of downtown on March 1. If you've already sent a character on a downtown exploration, you're now free to try again if you like! The courthouse and the lower level of the shopping center are the last remaining big unlocks for that area, so once they're fully explored, all the little store fronts left in downtown will open up as well! Check out this mod announcement if you need a refresher on the status of downtown.


• After the Wild Heart event, the medical center will be partially unlocked and available for further exploration! That area isn't as extensive as downtown, but since it's a core location, it will be revealed in the same way; the location itself will be safe to travel to, but independent locations within the med center will need further exploration.


• We're working on the next game history update! You can expect that page to be updated between the TDM/ferry arrival on March 1 and the Dr. Solis NPC post on March 3.


• 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

• March 1: Ferry arrival; TDM
  
• March 3: Dr. Solis NPC post
  
• March 9-10: Birds of Paradise weather event
  
• March 13: Bad Luck weather event
  
• March 15: CR meme
  
• March 20-22: Wild Heart Part 1
  
• March 22: Apps open; AC begins
  
• March 23: Robin NPC post
  
• March 23-26: Wild Heart Part 2
  
• March 28: ??? NPC post
  
• March 29: Apps close
  
• March 31: AC ends

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

Comments

QUESTIONS

[inthenightmods]

[savingthrows]

Would it be possible for Eleven to use her void abilities to spy on the torture victims, potentially reporting back some base details on their surrounding? Or rather: If this is due to event related things not something that can just happen but might fail, how would I go about submitting her attempt? ;)

[inthenightmods]

The short answer is yes, sort of! Eleven can use her void abilities to spy, but OOCly it would be for fun CR purposes, as Eleven won't be able to learn anything that would give the rescuers an advantage. Since the first part of the event has a lot of moving parts on the back end and it takes place over such a short period of time, the plot for part one is largely on rails and will happen as planned regardless.

ICly what this means is that Eleven can use the void to communicate with kidnapped characters, but she won't be able to learn their location or what exactly is happening to them. The green-eyeds spirits will be using their hallucination-inducing abilities on their captives, so any info that could help with the rescue mission would somehow be fuzzed out or blocked by the spirits. It's certainly possible that they could get wise to what she's doing and retaliate somehow, too.

The good news is that all this means you're welcome to play out Eleven using her void abilities however you like! If you have further questions to help you do this once the event info is posted, we'll be happy to answer them, but otherwise, play with it to your heart's content!

[vampirella]

will kidnapees have any ability to interact amongst themselves? 👀

[inthenightmods]

Yes! All the kidnappees will be kept in one location, and there will be enough, er, "downtime" for them to mingle.

[sunborne]

When the kidnappees are, well, kidnapped- Are they able to have one item on their person or will the forest spirits make sure they have nothing on their person?

Also! Will the spirits begin to act strangely to the lead up of Wild Heart? Like when Day is interacting and speaking with them, seeing how they are and stuff.

[inthenightmods]

The forest spirits will be confiscating any items characters have when they're grabbed, unfortunately. Characters can totally get them back, though! The forest spirits won't be doing much with them, just tossing everything in a pile elsewhere in the medical center.

The spirits won't show any signs that anything is up at all, actually. Troubling, perhaps.

[really_sketchy]

This is a question about Naminés weird power set.

I wanted to have her get kidnapped and I assume that more information will come in time but I was sort of preliminary wondering if she can possible project her form to Sora who is currently going to be a rescuer. It's something she does in canon and part of her "deeper connection" power. As long as she can keep focus, so likely for a short time if kidnapped and tortured. The player is cool with it and I assume she won't have much useful information but I wanted to make sure it was okay from a plot point of view.

If not that's cool! Just let me know. I'm sorta getting a feel for using her powers more outside of the context of the games which I rarely do. So thank you very much for taking the time to read this and consider my question. :D

[inthenightmods]

Yes, Naminé would be able to do this as far as we're concerned! There may be some event elements that would make this tough for her, but we trust you to decide that on your own once we release more info about the event.

The only stipulation that would apply is that Naminé wouldn't be able to convey any info that would give the rescuers an advantage. Things like the kidnapped characters' location or what's being done to them, for example. This is just because the plot for part one is largely on rails and will happen as planned regardless. The green-eyeds spirits will be using their hallucination-inducing abilities on their captives, so any info that could help with the rescue mission would somehow be fuzzed out or blocked by the spirits. It's certainly possible that they could get wise to what she's doing and retaliate somehow, too.

But! All of that stuff you're welcome to work into your own plotting however you like, since ultimately our answer is, yeah, you can do this. Hope that helps!

[really_sketchy]

That totally helps! Do you think that the spirits might feed her miss-information as well as possibly retaliate? Because that might be fun too. But yeah, I'll definitely play things by ear and make sure that she doesn't know anything.

LOOKING FOR GROUP

[inthenightmods]

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.

<b>player:</b> (feel free to put your contact info here if you like!) <b>character(s):</b> <b>plans:</b> (if you've already got a plan, awesome! tell us about it! if not, consider: are there any areas of town you're looking to explore? which aspects of the plot/setting are you most interested in pursuing? what could your character contribute to an exploration team?) <b>notes:</b> (anything else worth mentioning, like permissions/opt-outs/hiatuses/etc.?)

[callada]

player: Lauren
character(s): Rosinante
plans: Rosi here has been talking to a few others about exploring the lower level of the shopping center. He drafted a rough plan with Aziraphale involving several other characters he'd like to see come along, but I haven't had time to reach out to people plus I figure others might want to be involved. So far it looks like this:

- Initially attempt to speak with the crocodile spirits. This would require the help of someone like Daylight but I'm sure there are others out there who know spirit language and I just don't know about it! Misty was also brought up here by Aziraphale. The idea here is to continue to try and be good to the spirits as the first option, always, because nobody wants another massacre.

- If diplomacy fails they'll have to bring on the weapons. Lots of people could join in on this, there are plenty of you fighty types. Would also be beneficial to have a few who can fly in the group to help keep people out of the way of snappy crocodile mouths. Or just like, shoot at them / magic at them from the air anyway.

I guess let me know here who's interested in doing what!

notes: nah

[techtype]

Hello do you need someone to shoot at crocodiles?

[fjorgedinfire]

Fjord would like to propose that A; the crocodiles are territorial AF and not really in the mood to talk nor leave, and B; he can summon a literal demon (that is. Mostly under his control) to fight and distract them while everyone else goes and does More Sensible Things than fight crocodile spirits.

[sunborne]

Day will definitely attempt to help with the attempts of diplomacy. Please don't shoot the Cranky Crocs first...! For all the gang knows, the Cranky Crocs just really need some Snickers or Kit Kats.

[dadandgone]

Jason's been getting better at spirit language. Not nearly as good at it as Daylight, but he's been practicing with him and on his own time. The benefit of course is that Jason is also a fighty type and so if diplomacy fails it's not difficult to rebound into attack mode.

Courthouse

[legalcy]

player: Nara
character(s): Minimus Ambus
plans: So the courthouse is guarded by some hungry, hungry spirits. And Minimus wants to investigate. Hell start putting together a fighting team to work out a plan of attack, scouting the area and making some weapons. All I know is that he will make a scrapyard battle hammer, but otherwise I'm open to suggestions
notes: n/a

[sublimebeast]

Link definitely wants in on Project Courthouse, since he's already stuck his nose into that whole thing.

[worthallthis]

Bucky has plans to try and snipe them through the broken window. And/or the wall, depending on if his thermal imaging scope for his rifle works well enough. If that does NOT work he is down for joining the melee. Supersoldier + metal arm + lots of guns. (Look, Javert is his handler and a very important person to him, and these spirits hurt him. This is PERSONAL to Bucky XD )

[policier]

javert will definitely want to help with this since he was the one of the last ones to go into the courthouse. he's still hobbling around on his broken leg though so it may be best for him to stay outside and guard the door? he's got a high powered handgun coming in on the ferry soon so he can shoot whatever tries to run out.

[sunborne]

player: Melly! (You can add me on plurk (prognostic) if you want!)
character(s): Daylight vis Lornlit.

plans: Daylight got a music box from Dr. Solis back in December. Its cylinder plays something that's the equivalent of the spirits' language and she hinted in a letter that she later sent that he could try using this with spirits in the future. So clearly this means he and others should go into Spooky Murder Woods, trying to interact with old and/or new spirits. Heck, try to reach out to the Green-Eyed Spirits again to see how they'll react to it.

This will also be bundled up with the attempt to continue moving into the direction of where Daylight thinks the Radio Tower will be, either in hopes of finding it during the exploration or to clear the way for others who will attempt to look for it.

notes: Would prefer to do it in the first half of the month, around either March 6 - 8 or March 13 - 15.

[worthallthis]

Bucky's got a radio to try and test the radio tower with! Also no visiting green-eyes without him, man.

I vote doing it March 13-15 tho, as I have one other explore that is likely to happen first and I don't wanna hold you up. (I'm already holding up that other explore, oops.)

[mindofathief]

Ooooh music and spirits! Duster would be happy to look at that combination

[moderatelymaladjusted]

Hello and thanks for the ping. I'll have to check with Lausanne (Eliot Waugh) before committing to anything, but basically we had planned to get both guys straight up killed during the exploration, so there's that?

But yes, Quentin wants to find the radio tower and find a way to send a signal back to his own world (never going to happen, he just needs a plan to feel useful and then Bucky mentioned something about a radio tower back in december)

OOC INFORMATION

[sunborne]

PEOPLE INVOLVED.
Melly, Gail, Nara, Ireth, and Lausanne!

CHARACTERS INVOLVED.
Team Spirit Talkers: Daylight vis Lornlit. | sunborne + Duster | mindofathief.
Team Radio Tower: Bucky/Soldat | worthallthis + Quentin Coldwater | moderatelymaladjusted + Eliot Waugh | endlessflask.

DATE + INFORMATION
March 13 to 15. The two teams will run into each other in the woods that's close to the village. Once they team up, they'll head down south, towards the mountains that are along the coast.

After accidentally running across each other and deciding there's safety in numbers, the two gangs will meet up! The two groups have separate plans in mind and they are the following:

Team Radio Tower: Find the Radio Tower. Armed with a map and the geographical sketches that Daylight had sketched out from his previous exploration with Soldat + his memories from the coma-vision, the trio are setting out to try and find it. They're bringing along a ham radio that Soldat built, hoping to see if the ham radio is capable of emitting and receiving signals. If they find the Radio Tower and it's functional, Quentin hopes they can use the tower to try and contact home.

Team Spirit Talkers: Interact with the forest spirits! Primarily with the music box that Daylight received from Dr. Solis back in December, since he knows it can be used with them.

Everyone would have packed supplies to last them the trip and, in total, have three torches amongst themselves. Two that were borrowed from Rastus. One that Quentin personally owns. What they'll personally bring to the table is the following listed abilities/items:

Daylight.
He'll bring his arc gun for protection and is primed to summon shields or blasts if needed. He did not reach out to the green-eyed spirits like last time and will lead the others around the last location he and Soldat came across them. If needed, Daylight will try to use his energy to power the Radio Tower back to life, even if it puts him at risk of getting hurt or worse when pushing the limitations of his manipulation/generation of arc energy.

Soldat.
The most adept when it comes to physical activity and combat. He's very much the lone braincell protector of the gang. Soldat will bring lots of knives and guns on his person. Also knows morse code so any spirit who is more comfortable with that can communicate with Soldat in that way. He's making sure the food between the group will last during the trip.

Duster.
Also knows the spirit language and is also adept in combat! Specifically the Thief Arts, this gives him heightened speed and strength. It also allows him to run quickly and kick despite his limp. Duster will also bring along ten (10) wall staples to use as a makeshift ladder if they need to climb something. He's also a pretty great bassist.

Quentin.
Can conjure offensive magic! Things like missiles, knives/cutting motions and shields. Can also use spells to slam others into the ground and has minor healing. It must also be known that one summer, he went to cowboy camp. He can catch a horse and everything. Will share his torch with Eliot, if needed.

Eliot.
Is telekinetic like Quentin, so he can slam others around if needed during a fight. Also, the best-looking of the group since he's going for a stylish Hiker Chic look for himself when they go out. He will be specifically basking in the glow of the other torches and, thus, be in their light at all times.

Everyone is down for some death and injuries but especially Quentin and Eliot. It's, like, pretty much their end goal here. (RIP to the two.)