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oocinthenight2020-09-29 05:28 pm
nextnightmods) wrote in oocinthenight2020-09-29 05:28 pm
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CAT HERD #2
CAT HERD #2
Greetings, everyone! We know that this year has brought a lot of challenges which have made it difficult to keep abreast of the plot of The Next Night so far, and in turn, that makes it difficult to know where to go next. This post will hopefully summarize some of the key things that have happened since the last Cat Herd post in February of this year, and will outline some of the ways in which you can be involved in the plot and move it forward.
the plot
Currently, The Next Night remains on the original course described in the last post, and we are in Act 2 of the overall plot structure. Act 2, in summary, looks like this: the world eaters are coming, time is limited, and a plan to deal with them must be formed.
Of course, originally there were factions that would put forward their own plans. The Night Market sought to destroy the remaining world eaters with weaponry based on what their research suggested would be effective, while The Wild Hunt opted to do the opposite - to allow the world to succumb to death, seeing it as inevitable. A third "faction" was you, the players/characters in this world, who are free to come up with their own plan if those options were unsatisfactory.
But of course, in April, In The Night was brought to a close when the former mod team was no longer able to continue, and The Next Night carried on from that point. ICly, this was reflected in the flood, the collapse of the Lighthouse, the mysterious death of Dr. Solis, and the catastrophic final experiment in the Helix Station. But not all was lost in this destruction, for here are the outcomes of these events:
The Lighthouse: The town is now unable to be "reset" should a World Eater arrive. Robin is missing, presumed dead. The current group in Beacon is likely to be the last, and thus the burden of coming up with a solution lies firmly on their shoulders. For those who missed it, a reset used to be the duty of the Lighthouse Keeper. The machinery in the lighthouse allowed the keeper to broadcast a signal in the World Eater language which commanded all spirits to slaughter the inhabitants of the town except for a chosen few who would pass on information to the next group, and then to restore the town to some original state, thus reducing any restored light/life to a minimal level and making World Eaters much less likely to detect the few remaining survivors.
Dr. Solis: With the loss of the Lighthouse, Dr. Solis immediately set to trying to find an escape route to another world should the current group not come up with a plan in time. Unfortunately, this attempt went awry, and she seems to have vanished and her lantern is destroyed. However, the robot Clara sent out an emergency message and helped lead characters to Dr. Solis' lab. They now control for themselves the ability to acquire goods, repair lanterns, and bring in new people. Dr. Solis also left behind extensive notes on her own research into the portal, its abilities, and the worlds beyond.
The Helix Station: Pluto and her crew had one ultimate goal - destroy the World Eaters no matter the cost. The experiments they conducted on the spirits (especially the green-eyed spirits) and the nuclear bombs they were in the process of developing were discovered by players in the event BEYOND THE SEA. The event also revealed the fate of the crew - they had trapped a small World Eater to verify their drone-bomb-deployment system would work, but they were overcome by the green-eyed spirits contained in their own labs, which had previously been well under their control, and were unable to maintain a fight on two fronts, especially as madness inflicted by the World Eater's presence made even being in the station difficult. The World Eater was trapped and could even have been experimented on directly had they not encountered such difficulty, and Alistair, a Night Market crew member, devised a way to send it back through the portal but was unable to execute his plan. The people of Beacon ultimately used the bomb system to kill the World Eater. Its corpse remains in the station, as does all of the Night Market's research into other possible solutions.
One "faction" remains, and that is the spirits themselves. Over time, the familiar spirits of Beacon have warmed to the people there thanks to persistent and continued good relations. While a few may always individually be hazardous and hostile, those seem to have been pushed farther and farther to the outskirts of town. Word of the people who treat them well and who bring them hope has spread outside Beacon itself, and spirits who have avoided Beacon for decades, spirits who only visit to take part in a reset, and more are now slowly returning to speak with the people and share their experiences in our current event, HUNGER AND THIRST. The event is ongoing, but discoveries so far include that the forest spirits were once people, either from before the first World Eater or any time after; these spirits can become green-eyed spirits in intense, violent circumstances; the spirits have seen several failed attempts by past Beacon townspeople to destroy the World Eaters; and that as they still remember some fragments of their humanity, they wish to help.
At this point, all of the above information can be considered common knowledge. Especially now, when personal affairs can make it difficult to thread out all the things we want to, please feel free to assume that one way or another, in talking to the spirits or to other characters or through investigating the above locations, characters have had the opportunity to learn all of that information, leaving them free to act on it as they please. And they should - because while we continue to not have an extremely firm time limit on when the World Eaters will rediscover Beacon, they will come eventually. So, what do we do about that? Better come up with a plan!
moving forward
So, what do we do with all of that?
Again, as before, it is absolutely not necessary for every character and every player to be totally plot-driven. While The Next Night absolutely has a strong plot component, you should absolutely feel free to tag what you want to tag and enjoy what you enjoy at your own pace. That's part of what makes Beacon feel like a community after all - live your best un-lives and enjoy this strange, eternally-dark setting however you see fit.
But for those who are interested in the plot, who want to take part in moving the story forward but who are unsure of how to proceed, here are some things that can be done:
- Share information. Make a cool discovery? Befriend a spirit? Forge a new path, build a new structure, or learn something interesting about the town's history? Make sure everyone knows! While the town meetings, often hosted by Cao Pi to date, are an excellent and thorough way for all characters to be brought up to speed on relevant issues, don't feel like you need to have a big group log in order to get your info out there. A network post might be a quick and easy way to do it - or if your character is the old-fashioned sort, drop some informational flyers in everyone's box at the post office! We'll periodically do plot roundups like this one when it appears necessary, but you guys can also take action to keep everyone up to date, and doing so may spur conversations, exploration, and plans for the future.
- Explore. There are still undiscovered areas in town, many of which have been hinted at in one way or another, but you can't find them if you don't go looking! If you've never gone on an explore before and are not sure how, feel free to ask around, or take a look at past explore threads to get a sense of how they go. Or, use this post or the monthly gameplan to set up a group and pursue whatever interests you!
There are also lots of details in existing discovered locations that haven't been dug through yet, many of which are mentioned above in the plot section. Is your character interested in what the Night Market was working on? Interested in the worlds beyond the portal that Dr. Solis created? Simply curious about a specific building's past, or its current forest spirit residents? All of those can become explores and can unlock crucial information if you do a little searching.- Do some soul-searching. Again, this is Act 2, where the goal is to start to synthesize discoveries into a concrete plan. But what form do you want that plan to take? The Helix Station event offered several concrete options to deal with a similar problem on a smaller scale. Is it best to kill the World Eaters and hope that saves Beacon? Is it a better idea to find a way to send them away unharmed? Maybe you should all just escape, take this second chance at life you've been given and make it a good one if the problem is too big to solve. How do you feel? How do your friends feel? How do the forest spirits feel? Regardless of the details of how any of this could be done, what is your favored outcome if you could make that choice?
- Make a plan. Do you even want to bring life back to this dead world? Is it better to kill the World Eaters or to flee and find the afterlife you always dreamed of? Come together, decide as a group what you'd like to do. Look at all your options, the ideas held by various different people and factions in the past. Ask the NPCs what they suggest, if you need some guidance. Once you know what you want to do, think about what you need to accomplish that goal. What is it? Where can you find it? Information on how to achieve all sorts of results is now seeded throughout Beacon. It's up to you to pursue it.
Hopefully those bullet points give some concrete ideas for the sort of steps you can take next! If you need some hard specifics, read over the bolded text in the plot section above, and have a look at some of the ideas contained within it.
a few final leads
The Helix Station has a ton of information still and you guys are free to come and go any time you like. What is a World Eater's biology like? Go check out the corpse in the portal room, or the research notes on green-eyed spirits for other leads. Speaking of the portal room, go investigate that technology! They had the ability to pull specific items from specific worlds, remember? They also were working on methods to stun or weaken World Eaters, must have had some tools for creating bombs, and much more.
Where do you get bomb-making chemicals and elements like plutonium? Try the wastewater treatment plant which has all sorts of goodies. Delve into Dr. Solis' specimen storage at the lab - and maybe ask Clara if she knows about its contents. Do some more exploring to seek out the power plant, or one of the newest leads, an abandoned missile silo rumored to have a cache of unused radioactive material.
Want to abandon Beacon instead? Maybe it's not right to kill something that's just looking for a Sunday brunch, or maybe figuring out how is beyond your grasp. Maybe you just need to buy yourselves some time - that's what Dr. Solis was trying to do when she died, and all of her research on leaving through the portal for a different world is still around to be found in her lab. Perhaps compare her work with Alistair's at the Helix Station - both had intriguing ideas, and what if they can be put together?
Keep studying the spirits' language. How does it relate to the speech of the green-eyed spirits? What about the World Eater language - so far indeciperable, and yet the spirits can understand it? Maybe they can teach you something. Maybe it can even be used for something.
Unrelated to big final plots, but a tool that hasn't been looked into yet by characters in game, is the ability to heal long-term lantern damage and death consequences. This is something Pluto was able to attempt (poorly, with limited success) using experimental technology that must still exist at the Helix Station. Better, however, is that this was one of Dr. Solis' big projects before the flood. Experimenting with lanterns might be dangerous, but her lab is the place to get started!
Because of how it can be slow to thread all this out, especially in light of the pandemic, current school openings, upcoming holidays, wildfires, and so much more, we would love for the comments of this post to be a place where you can OOCly share information that we've missed here, pass ideas back and forth, and present ideas that you or your characters might have. And in general, outside the scope of this particular cat herd, please feel free to do this always - whether on event or gameplan posts, or wherever else you prefer. We trust all of you to remember the IC/OOC divide when it's important, but for something like this where a lot of information needs to be shared, boiled down into concise pieces, and where something needs to be done with all of it, you're absolutely welcome to share and handwave and plan OOCly as suits your own personal preferences if it helps you be involved in the plot.
Below, you will find three headers provided for your use:
- QUESTIONS. You have them, we're sure of it - so feel free to ask! We can't possibly have covered the entire scope of every detail in the post above, after all.
- GAME HINTS. Under this header, each player may ask 1 ooc question about the game plot, and we will give you a hint on how or where to discover that information ICly. Note that these are only hints, not full answers, and the more specific your question, the more specific our answer can be. We will do our best to be specific, though - this is a genuine resource we want you to be able to use. Think hard before asking, as you only get one question!
- BATON PASS. Have an idea, or a project, or an explore you think would be cool, but your character wouldn't be the one to organize it, or perhaps you're struggling to find the time? Have a fun player-led event or plot idea someone could use, or a plot hint you want to hand off to someone who is looking to get involved but might not know how? This is the place! Write up what you have, and others can take up that baton! Or if you're looking for ideas, check out this thread and see if anything catches your interest.
Thank you for making your way through all of this! We hope it's helpful for getting organized and making some progress. We're really enjoying this opportunity to keep Beacon going and we couldn't do it without all of you!
Additionally, players are welcome to use this post for OOC plotting and idea sharing! 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 plans, your explores, and any other project:
| QUICKNAV | |||
| comms | | | network β’ logs β’ memes β’ ooc | |
| pages | | | rules β’ faq β’ taken β’ mod contact β’ player contact β’ calendar β’ setting β’ exploration β’ item requests β’ full nav | |
QUESTIONS
GAME HINTS
BATON PASSING
no subject
character(s): Cao Pi
areas of interest: since he's taken it upon himself to call himself the "leader" here (lmao I know right) most of what Cao Pi does is organization and direction, which is hard for me oocly why do I have to like the plotty organizers all the time ugh. So handwaving that Cao Pi has given anyone hints, suggested a thing they could do with their skills, or even outright "ordered" them in a more direct suggestion is completely all right with me. His interest is in gathering as much information as they have at hand, determining where to go to get more, and then compiling everything so he can prove his mettle and lead the making or at least carrying out of plans.
notes: so the planned expedition to Helix station is building here, I think there may be room for one more in the explore if there's anyone extremely keen on seeing that carcass, fiddling with technology, or otherwise having the slightly-safer run of the station. They may only stay down a handful of days instead of two weeks this time, so everyone should be back in time for fear-sharing.
Cao Pi will also be addressing the network as soon as I can scrape together two brain cells to write it, in which he will also be sharing what he learned from the spirits during the event (IT'S BIG YO) and mentioning the Helix plans.
Long term...while he still vehemently disagrees with the Wild Hunt's whole schtick and refuses to go down without a fight, Zihuan has seen and heard things since the flood that have made him a bit more fatalistic. He's going to do everything he can to carry out whatever plans they all end up agreeing on, but if the aftermath looks like living in darkness for eternity and slowly turning into masked monsters, he's probably going to ask someone to snuff his lantern and leave it dark, if taking a portal to another world isn't an alternative. He doesn't see much point in trying to make this world livable, if they can't relight the sun, and if the spirits can't be restored back to human form or anything. He probably won't tell anyone this, at least not now. It may come up eventually, for some interesting CR. As far as the World Eaters go, he has no strong attachment to a particular plan, it's going to come down to which one seems the most likely to succeed after they take stock of their resources. For him, it's all about succeeding and not failing, not about feelings or ass-kicking or anything else.
no subject
character: javert
areas of interest: the only favorable outcome javert supports is killing the world eaters, and it's going to be very difficult to change his mind. he'll be most interested in looking in for ways to subdue and minimize the effects of their hallucinations, as well as a more effective way of slaying them. he will not go along with fleeing to another world, and will likely stay behind so he can die in peace, if that's what the group chooses to do.
he's still doing combat, first aid, and survival lessons at the armory three times a week. if you need an extra hand for any building projects, he's good for that, too. he helps out in solis' labs by bringing new people through the portal, and he has at least a somewhat general understanding of quantum physics thanks to his in-game cr.
you can assume any information regarding the wastewater treatment plant and his two spirit memories are common knowledge. and that javert either spoke to your character about it, or left a report to them in their mailbox.
no subject
character(s): Bucky/Soldat and Stone
areas of interest:
Soldat is focused on spirit communication and connection right now, because he seems to be good at that and it makes him happy? And the spirits keep saying they'll help if they have reason to, and that might be the one thing that turns the tide in an actual fight with the world eaters, since nobody else had that help. He also wants to learn the green-eyes dialect from Diode, and maybe see if he can start picking apart the World Eater language. Not that he wants to talk to them, exactly... but hell, who knows, maybe it will help them find a weakness.
He doesn't honestly think they can take out all the world eaters, which is his goal. Stop other worlds from being destroyed. They can maybe kill the one(s?) on Beacon's world but that won't stop the whole problem. His idea is to use the portal to target the world eaters and dump them into a dead universe where they can't hurt anything, and then lock that world off somehow. He has no idea if this is possible. Hopefully a trip to Helix will help him figure out if that's possible...
Stone is just here to bite world eaters, fly around and carry people places, and provide grouchy dragon support for people. He had an idea once to use some kind of poison light on them, but he doesn't have the technical knowledge to really DO much with it. He'd rather just bite them. I need to dump him on explores since he's really good for those, given his size and maneuverability. (Can you tell he's my secondary character here? XD )
Both of them have shared their spirit memories (4 for Soldat, 3 are done; 2 for Stone, 1 is done). Soldat probably wrote his down and just let people read the write-ups, not on-network but on actual paper because that's a lot less nerve-wracking for him. Stone just talked about 'em because he is a talky old man.