oocinthenight | Entries tagged with !gameplan

GAMEPLAN: MARCH
You've all been warned, and you've all been preparing. The World Eater which has been searching out that faint source of life all this time has finally come to sate its hunger.

But together, you've come up with a plan. The question now is: will it work?

MARCH 01 - 14

Town becomes ever quieter as the familiar, friendly spirits continue to slip away. If caught up to and asked, they'll explain - they're doing it because they care. Because you've reminded so many of them of the people they used to be, and they know that when the World Eater arrives, they won't be able to resist its commands. This would be no reset with a few designated survivors, it would be a complete massacre. So they thank you, and leave quickly before they can regret their decisions. They hope to see you on the other side of the conflict.

And the few who are left, creeping in the shadows and hiding in the trees? You're right to be suspicious.

As of mid-February, the missile silo has been found, but it's in questionably-operational shape. Time for one last big decision - pool the remaining time and effort into hauling supplies up into the mountains so you can launch the bomb from the silo? Or rely on Weaver and the drone you've seen her working on?

The silo is far from the Helix Station portal, but close to the equipment at Solis' Lab. Firing the bomb from there would mean greater distance between people and the World Eater - but there are green-eyes all around the area which will surely be looking for opportunities to pick people off, so defense will have to focus on holding them off. Thankfully, it sounds like some people have been using the tools at Solis' Lab to try and re-create the potion that shields people from the mental effects of the green-eyes and the World Eater itself - maybe that will help?

Letting Weaver pilot her drone means combatants will be more directly involved in fighting and delaying the World Eater itself to try and provide an opening, like in the fight at the Helix Station. People could remain closer to Bonfire Square and the station portal for an easy escape - if they can survive the fight. There will be hostile spirits for sure either way, but at least it's not the core of what seems to have become the Many-Eyed green-eye's territory. At least Weaver's drone is much, much larger this time, as far as anyone can see, but will it work?

Speaking of green-eyed spirits, it sounds like they're now fighting each other, too - but given their deeply violent nature, maybe this is no surprise. The many-eyed spirit, first encountered in the mines, has been working on turning spirits (and dead Wild Hunt members) into green-eyes in a bid for power and control. Not all of the green-eyes like the idea of obeying it (or anything else) and at least one has brought a proposal to the people of Beacon: they want to use the upcoming chaos to turn on the many-eyed spirit, and all they ask is that you let them do that without interfering. Attack one of these temporary allies, and the whole truce is off. But is this a trap? Are they trustworthy?

One final tool at your disposal: Weaver has agreed to allow Kuai Liang and a few others of his choice to have control over one of the submarines. If you need to use it to get closer to the World Eater, or to flee from it down to the Helix Station, that's now a possibility you can discuss and make contingency plans for.

Please feel free to assume that all of the above is now common knowledge ICly if you want your character to know. From March 1-14, it's time to make these last few decisions, move torches, get people prepared to man the portal, and load up on ammo and weapons (which Weaver can gladly supply if you need something special, just ask!). The final fight is just around the corner.

What ultimately happens will depend entirely on these last few decisions. Please indicate your character's preference for silo or drone in the comments below; the majority option will dictate which occurs for the final log. Consider them carefully. Of course, if your character individually refuses to cooperate or wants to go off and do their own thing they're free to but know that being a few people down will impact the outcome for the group. Unless you explicitly state otherwise, it will be assumed that no matter what your individual vote reads, your character will contribute to whatever the majority decision ends up being, so don't worry about that at all. If you need to discuss below before voting, please absolutely feel free to do so.

Voting must be completed by March 7. There will be an OOC post shortly after that will describe the outcome of the vote and allow for people to assign their characters to various duties or locations as desired for the final fight, and will lay out any remaining details (if any come up between now and then).

MARCH 15 - 31: ENDGAME

On March 15, the World Eater arrives, and with it, the endgame log will be posted.

Included as part of the log will be an RNG header for injury rolls similar to that which was used at the conclusion of the Helix Station event. This will hopefully allow you to know in advance what might happen to your character during the fight so you can incorporate it into threads, if you like. This log will include the outcome of all your decisions to date and how the group fares as a whole against the greatest threat they've ever seen - don't miss it!

Finally, on April 2, an epilogue post will go up so that anyone who wishes to remain in Beacon, to depart for elsewhere, to type up what their characters do after, and so on will have a space to do so. The fate of the spirits, occasionally a topic of conversation, will also be made clear here. Know that all of the Next Night comms will remain open so that anyone who wants to continue in the setting together will absolutely be able to do so for however long they like.

ooc news

I've said it before a few dozen times and I'll say it again: thank you so much to everyone who has stuck around from In The Night, who joined in after when it became The Next Night, and who has supported each and every one of us along the way. We're all here because we love this story and these characters, and I couldn't have done it without all of you.

I hope March and April will bring a satisfying conclusion to this crazy journey started by Mippins and Leucrotta and carried onward by everyone who has moderated and played and helped out. I'm looking forward to seeing how it all turns out!

If I have missed anything that your character has been working on that could contribute to the defense of Beacon or the attack on the World Eater, I apologize - please make sure to mention it in the comments below!

•••
As always, 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:

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

the tl;dr

March 7: Silo/Drone vote ends

March ~8: Endgame OOC post

March 15: Endgame log

April 2: Epilogue

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nextnightmods

GAMEPLAN: FEBRUARY
It's nearly February already! Read on to see what's in store for the upcoming month of The Next Night.

FEBRUARY 01 - 13

As February makes its entrance, the temperature continues to plummet. Spending much time outside at all could put you at risk for frostbite. You might want to team up to get the monthly supplies indoors - and even then, the general store, the department stores in the downtown blocks, even the interiors of homes and rooms start to feel awfully frigid as the heating systems battle the deep freeze outside.

And is it your imagination, or are even your movements sluggish? The spirits in town seem alert and able to help you get back indoors if you're having trouble, and have filled any lingering empty spots in the various kitchens of inns, hotels, bars and restaurants, all trying to make sure you have hot food and hot drinks. Thanks, spirits!

Until, midway through the month, some of them begin to disappear. Where are they going, and why? Whether you left a wish on the tree or not, some of them might even leave you a little something before they disappear into the darkness.

Although no log is planned for these events, anyone interested is welcome to create one for braving the cold or trying to find missing spirits. Anything given to your characters by the spirits will come through the post office, so keep an eye on those inboxes!

FEBRUARY 14 - 28

And now, it's time to get to work. That World Eater is on its way, after all. Weaver, Clara, and the few spirits remaining around town are all available to help out. Clara will help anyone in need of anything at Solis' labs, while Weaver runs people back and forth to the Helix Station for the supplies and workshops there.

And how are the spirits helping? Well - cookies, apparently. Cookies which, upon eating, make you more truthful, more affectionate, more outgoing. They're doing their best to spread goodwill! Take some for yourself, gift some to the people who mean the most to you. In our event A Girl, A Boy, and a Graveyard, which will run from February 14-22, you'll have this chance to make final confessions, cement the bonds you've made, and celebrate the life you've lived together in all this darkness. It might be your last chance.

ooc news

As a reminder, there will be no activity check for the remainder of the game. Thanks to all those who made it this far, we couldn't have done it without you! Please do, however, remember to check in for January, and please read over and add to the endgame plotting post if you haven't done so yet.

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!

•••
As always, 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:

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

the tl;dr

February 1: Item arrival

February 12: Spirits begin leaving town, OOC post for the event

February 14-22: A Girl, A Boy, and a Graveyard event

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nextnightmods

GAMEPLAN: JANUARY
Hey there Beacon bits! Hopefully you're all having a good end to the month here amidst this strange set of long-distance holidays and new online family gatherings. January will mark the start of 2021, and also the start of a stretch of endgame-related events. Let's see what's in store!

JANUARY 01-15

On January 2, we will have our monthly item restock! (ICly, this will occur on January 1 - but your mod knows she will be busy that day!) Don't forget to make your requests for the requisitioning crew at Solis' lab to handle. Once again, the spirits have decided it's time to ring in the new year for you all with their wild mix of traditions they've been introduced to and just absolutely love, so watch out as they scurry everywhere, smashing plates, providing apple core fortune readings, and dyeing your underwear red.

They also have something they'd like you all to share in, and for that reason, the item restock will include an event log. With the help of the spirit known as Lush Green, the forest spirits have selected a beloved tree and will haul it to Bonfire Square for a week for everyone to decorate. They ask that you all place or tie at least one object with personal meaning on the tree, and/or to make a wish by hanging a note on one of the branches. While that's happening, other spirits will be hard at work breaking through the ice on the lake's surface so that a team of them can plunge into those freezing depths and drag the tree down below. Hopefully that will bring you all lots of good luck for the upcoming months!

JANUARY 16-31

Wow, it really took those spirits a lot of work to break through that ice, didn't it. Did the lake freeze that solidly last year? It is really cold. And abnormally dry, too - no new snow falls all month in these bone-chilling temperatures, and the resulting static electricity makes your hair stand on end and your friends get zapped when you try to hug them.

By January 16, the torches start to flicker occasionally and grow noticeably dimmer. Many of the spirits cluster close to town, quiet and nervous, while other familiar masked faces seem impossible to find.

Needles fall from the evergreens, then entire branches, plummeting to the frozen ground and shattering with a sound that echoes through the forest.

Well, it isn't like you weren't warned.

Then, on January 18, Weaver will post to the network to describe some of her latest research and help everyone organize what needs to be done. This will be accompanied by an OOC post for similar planning purposes. Ultimately, the results of both of these posts will direct what happens in February and March with the plot, so don't miss it! We'll be able to help handwave and determine outcomes of explores that need to be done but that people haven't had time for, and as with the cat herd posts, there will be a baton pass if you have ideas that you or your character are not fully able to see through but that someone else might like to follow up on.

This gameplan post is a great place to make suggestions ahead of time if you know your character wants to do something. It's never too early to coordinate! And don't worry - January is the last month that we will have AC, and participating in the upcoming coordination OOC post to help decide the remainder of the game will count toward that AC.

ooc news

Don't forget: because of the New Year holiday, December check-in closes on January 4 - so you all have a few extra days this time.

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!

•••
As always, 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:

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

the tl;dr

January 2: All the Trees of the Field event begins

January 4: December check-in ends

January 9: All the Trees of the Field event ends

January 16: Torches and trees begin to show signs of what's to come

January 18: Weaver NPC post; OOC coordination post

January 22: Activity Check begins

January 31: Activity Check ends

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nextnightmods

GAMEPLAN: DECEMBER
Hey all! We have some important announcements in the OOC section of this post, so make sure not to skip it. Also, if you haven't posted to the November Activity Check, please do so soon! Meanwhile, read on to see what's coming up in-game for the month.

DECEMBER 1-12

As usual, on December 1 we have the arrival of any items ordered through the portal. Don't forget to make your requests by the end of the month! This is a great time to think up some gifts if you come from a world or culture that celebrates various gift-giving winter holidays, after all. Just cross your fingers that the request goes through as intended!

A new TDM will also go up on December 1. As a reminder, these now take the place of the intro logs - so all players, current or potential or otherwise, are welcome to toplevel and tag on TDM prompts. From December 1-12, the portal appears to be acting strangely all sorts of people temporarily appear - in a mini-fourth wall event! Do you have alternate character journals who might be fun to play in Beacon for just a week or so? Friends interested in checking out the setting and meeting Beacon's residents? The TDM is of course always open to anyone who wants to tag in, but we'll have a couple of prompts specifically encouraging this, so jump on in and enjoy! And for those unfamiliar with what a fourth wall event might entail, or curious about how that even works in Beacon, we'll make sure it's clear on the TDM post itself - or feel free to ask questions below.

Then, on December 8, you'll be hearing from the network of spirits that have their eyes and ears on the world around you in an NPC network post. Something is lurking just outside town, and farther away, something big is on the move...

DECEMBER 12-31

On December 12, the weather turns strange. The change of season has already been marked by trace snow flurries in the past few days, but while walking to and from various places in town, you might find yourself caught in a whiteout. The winds swirl harshly and tiny crystalline fragments of ice are caught in its pull, surrounding you and reflecting your lantern light so brightly that you can hardly see your own hands held out before you. Will you stay put? Will you try and wander your way to safety? The whiteouts end after a few minutes, leaving snowy spirals on the ground around you - and possibly leaving you somewhere unexpected. How will you find your way back? Can the people of Beacon come together to think up some sort of safety net?

The whiteouts last through December 17. Unlike most weather events, this one will come with an event log post - for there is more to it than just strange weather, if those footprints in the snow are any indication.

ooc news

Hey folks, a couple announcements, as promised. First, once again, thanks to Kitty and Carlee for everything they've done as mods. They will now be moving on, leaving Lauren and Yuul in charge of steering the ship. Given the pace of the GPSL at present, we've decided not to take on additional mods but if that changes, we'll be sure to let you all know.

Second, December's AC will be check-in only. Holidays are a busy time! We will still require people to check in, but AC will run a few extra days through January 4, so that nobody (mods included) is required to be sitting at the computer on New Year's Even stressing about posting things.

Third, it's time we start planning for an endgame. The December TDM will be the last TDM posted, although applications will remain open at least through February. While dates can still be a little bit flexible based on character actions, we are currently eyeing an endgame event potentially for March, with any epilogue/follow-up posts to occur throughout April. This will mean a full year's run for TNN after the original closure of ITN, which feels appropriate and well within the timeframe originally planned for the full story.

This means characters will really need to get moving on enacting their desired plans. We know how hard that can be to organize, though, so once again, feel free to start outlining things in the comments here. ICly, characters will be made aware that they need to get a move on during this month's NPC post, and hopefully a few months is plenty of time to organize and act. Characters currently have all the tools needed for several different options, and now just need to decide if they want to kill the World Eater using bombs, try to bail to another world and save themselves, try and trap the World Eater and somehow send it somewhere else, or possibly other ideas - but those three are the main ones we have seen discussed. Because December is such a busy month IRL, we'll have another post in January summing up progress that's more targeted specifically for characters' endgame planning, but now is a great time to really start thinking about it!

•••
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!

As always, 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:

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

the tl;dr

December 1: TDM, items

December 8: NPC post

December 12: Shivers (I've Got 'Em) event begins

December 17: Shivers (I've Got 'Em) event ends

December 22: Check-in begins

January 4: Check-in ends

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nextnightmods

GAMEPLAN: NOVEMBER
Hello, Beacon Bits! Below, you will find the upcoming monthly plans, as well as some very important OOC announcements, so please be sure to read through this post in its entirety. Also, a reminder that Activity Check is currently running and closes at the end of Saturday, October 31. Don't forget to comment to the post!

NOVEMBER 01-16

The portal will deliver its usual monthly restock of supplies on November 1. If you have anything your character would like to order, now's the time to get it in! With winter approaching, it might be smart to plan ahead in terms of clothing and supplies - you never know when things could go terribly wrong in Beacon.

For November, we will continue to use the last Test Drive Meme, so feel free to continue or start new threads with those prompts any time this coming month!

The spirits seem a little extra-cautious around the start of the month too, as if feeling generally uneasy. But considering what happened in the mines as well as all over town, who can blame them? Be sure to read up on the summary here! Somewhere out there in the forest, a new threat has begun to lurk, feeding off despair, fear, and misery in Beacon and its surroundings.

So perhaps that's why the spirits decide it's time to help you all ward off the ever-oppressive darkness, especially when they find there's an abundance of winter root vegetables in the monthly restock - which all seem to vanish within a few days of arrival.

On November 5, the turnips, parsnips, potatoes and rutabagas all reappear around the Bonfire, now carved and decorated by the spirits. There is one for every person in Beacon, in fact - and maybe a few more. But how do you find your turnip? It turns out that each one has an attached fond memory or comforting sensation specific to someone else in town. Picking up the vegetable allows the holder to feel or see whatever is attached to it - so maybe you can help reunite someone with their daikon that reminds them of their mother's strength, or a jicama that plays a story from a grandparent.

Beyond just this, the spirits have gotten into Clara's torches, messing up her inventory, and she's quite distraught. But it is soon discovered that the spirits have given a sort of boon to the torches themselves - for if you focus on a torch, you can imbue it with a message. Place them around town, give them to your friends, and help spread the light as autumn darkens the once-starry skies with clouds, and the wind blows with the promise of winter's ice and snow.

NOVEMBER 17-30

Speaking of winter, Beacon will experience a cold snap from November 17-21. The wind will pick up and blow stiffly on the 17th, and then snow will fall for the remaining few days until things become a bit more temperate again on the 21st. Is it an early taste of a brutal winter to come or just a coincidence? Or is something else afoot?

The end of the month is intentionally pretty open here - we know many of you will be busy with holidays and wanted to leave it light, plus this gives plenty of time to enjoy this month's event and wrap up past ones that people may still be catching up on. Stay cozy and stay safe!

ooc news

Kitty: Hi everyone. It truly pains me to say this, but as October comes to a close, so will my characters arc in the game. Life has been hard for all of us, and I especially feel the adverse effect on my ability to write and even my ability to be a mod for the game. I have a lot on my plate with full time teaching, wrapping a masters degree, and just the stress of a pandemic. The result has just grown to be too much for me. As much as I love this game and it's players, I think the best call for me and Next Night itself is to step down and leave it in more energized hands. Matt will be leaving as October ends and I myself will be around in a limited mod capacity for November, and entirely stepped down by December. Thanks so much for the fun, the love, and the slow dances in the dark. This has been one of the best game experiences of my life, and I am so grateful for the experience. Keep on trucking, my beloved bacon bits!

Carlee: Hello everybody. It breaks my heart to say so, but Elektra and Megara's time with the game is also coming to an end with the end of the month. I will be staying around to help out with modding through November and out of the game entirely by December. This year has been a difficult one for all of us, myself included, and I've decided it's better for the game and for myself if I step down as a mod and as a player. I've loved my journey in this game and the opportunities it's given me to grow as a writer and to mod for the very first time, and I am so grateful to all of you for giving me that chance. Thank you all so much, and best of luck! ♥

Lauren: Hey all, I know that 2020 has been something else, and many of us are struggling to find the creative energy to RP. I totally get it. I intend to stick around and keep this place going for as long as people are interested in playing here, within reason, but I'll need a bit of help. If you are interested in the overall lore of the game and setting, eager to create more of it, and have the time and energy to spare in order to help write and run the events and NPCs, please PM this mod journal with the subject header MOD ASSISTANT. There's no big audition process or questionnaire, we all pretty much know each other by now, I just genuinely don't know who's interested and who has the time. I'll pick someone around the end of November and fill you in. Please note that use of discord is a requirement as it's the easiest way to keep everything organized, currently.

Thanks, everyone. ♥

Now is a good opportunity to revisit the last State of the Game post as well as Cat Herd 2. We've implemented many of the requested changes and suggestions, and although we were unable to get an EMP ad up in time for last month, we can still do so this month. That aside, how are you guys feeling about the current state of things? Any additional suggestions or requests that would make The Next Night more engaging to you as players? As for the Cat Herd, please use that comment space to make OOC plans! Characters in Beacon now have nearly all of the resources they need to make some big decisions. This is intended to be the planning phase of this GPSL's story, with the last phase being the execution of the plan that is ultimately decided on, but as has always been the case, if characters are unable to settle on a preferred plan, a Bad End is still very possible. Because it's much easier to coordinate big town-spanning plans and organizing OOCly, please feel free to take this opportunity to do so in addition to whatever conversations happen between characters in threads!

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!

•••
As always, 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:

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

the tl;dr

November 1: OOC item restock

November 5: Ghost Towns event begins

November 16: Ghost Towns event ends

November 17-21: Early cold snap

November 22-30: Activity Check

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nextnightmods

GAMEPLAN: OCTOBER
We're on the eve of Spooky Month! Taking into account our State of The Game post, there are a few changes we'd like to address in this post.

First and foremost, we have already implemented the idea of rolling apps. Now, prospective and current players can put in applications whenever they have one ready. In lieu of monthly intro posts, TDMs will be used as a ground for new players to dig into the setting and existing players to have new prompts to play with between big monthly events.

Secondly, starting with October, we will be instating a limited ac policy. All players not on hiatus are expected to show proof of activity, even if it is just a single comment. We want to see increased engagement with events and players. Interactions on TDM posts and participation in explores will both count for a proof.

Lastly, we are working on a Cat Herd to show what progress has been made and what directions are lingering for players to explore. It's a work in progress so please give us a bit of time to get it finished and presentable! We welcome and expect dialogue and questions, and are excited to share it with you soon.

With those announcements, let's get into the October Game Plan!

OCTOBER 1 - 18

The first half of the month will be a quiet start. The weather is cool, and supplies arrive per the usual schedule. Characters might have to deal with a few tricksters feeling the spooky season, as spirits are leaving trick versions of the supplies and personalized requests.

On top of that, there will be a sudden influx of pumpkins into Beacon. Big ones, small ones, hideous ones, doesn't matter. They're everywhere, with vines curling and curving and carpeting just about everything. It's strange how they all seem to already have faces carved in the front... and it's strange how they don't seem to stick to one place, too.

Longtime residents of Beacon might remember that graves have a peculiar trick this time of year. In a flashback to the Graves event of In The Night, characters new and old will have a chance to see their own grave, as well as to share the experience of exactly how they landed in one... whether they like it or not.

Lastly, in a gesture that is more treat that trick, some spirits have provided tools to repair a handcart recently discovered at the Trainyard. Characters are welcome to put a little elbow grease into fixing it. Might be easier than roughing their way down the track... as the group that explored in that direction believes that the Mine is at the end of the track, and multiple people from Beacon will be needed to explore the structure at the end of the month.

All these prompts and a few more will be available to all players, prospective and existing, on the TDM that will be posted October 1.

On October 5, expect an NPC post - it seems one of the spirits from the HUNGER AND THIRST event got its hands on a tablet, and they have some thanks to give for all the gifts, as well as a little bit more.

OCTOBER 19 - 31

Speaking of exploring the mine, anyone who wishes to take part will head off down the track on October 19th. This will be the kick-off of the event A MONSTER'S HERE. There will be no obvious signs of threat at the outset; however, characters that head down into the mine will find themselves trapped in the mine, full of opportunities to explore what happened there as they fight to survive in a confined, dangerous space with plenty of feral, violent spirits.

While we don't want to give everything away too soon, this event will require the group that goes to the mine to make a decision on how to proceed with the spirits they are trapped with. There will be risk of injury and death as well as plot information to characters that brave the event.

Whether you've gone to the mine or stayed back in Beacon, you'll still have to face your fears - and so will everyone else, as everyone's personal worst fears become exposed to one another.

The event will end ICly on October 23rd, allowing time for characters to thoroughly explore, find their way out again, and return to Beacon to share what they've learned. A post will be provided for sharing information, recovering and discussion around the bonfire.

ooc news

There are some updates to pages reflecting the changes in AC expectations, new app cycles, and Calendar changes. Remember to look out for the Cat Herd! And if you haven't completed the September check-in yet, please do so soon!

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!

•••
As always, 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:

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

the tl;dr

October 1: TDM Post + Item Delivery post

October 5: Spirit NPC network post

October 15: A Monster's Here event info

October 19: A Monster's Here begins

October 21: Check-in begins

October 27: A Monster's Here wrap-up

October 31: Check-in ends

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

nextnightmods

GAMEPLAN: SEPTEMBER
Greetings, Next Night folks! We hope August has been good to you and yours, and that you're looking forward to September. We sure are! Here's what we have in store:

SEPTEMBER 01 - 15

The arrival of September means the arrival of autumn in Beacon. And after last month's heat wave, the change in weather might be quite welcome! Temperatures begin to cool down throughout the month to a more moderate average in the 50s-60s Fahrenheit as the wind picks up and blows cool air from the lake into town, bringing with it clouds and a few intermittent showers.

September 1 also marks the portal firing back up on its usual schedule, as it brings in items and potentially new people! Characters interested in helping these things go smoothly should sign up at Solis' Lab, as a few of the former assistants seem to have been lost over the last couple of months, and all who want to help are encouraged to do so.

The transition between summer and autumn brings with it some tumultuous weather, and from September 10-13 there will be sporadic thunderstorms, complete with lightning that, while bright up in the clouds, doesn't manage to actually cause any flashes of light in the surrounding area. It sure does bring some rain and even hail, though, off and on during those few days.

SEPTEMBER 16 - 30

Around September 17-18, the spirits around town start to look a little... anxious. If caught up to and pressed for information, they all convey a similar message whether through attempted speech or charades: outsiders are coming.

On September 19, Hunger and Thirst begins as creatures emerge from the forest. Forest spirits, it turns out - but ones who have never visited Beacon before. These spirits from deep within the woods, far outside of town, look much like the ones that people in Beacon are used to, which is to say they look like all sorts of strange creatures of all sizes and shapes, all with masks. But their behavior sets them apart. Did you leave clothes out and forget to lock your door? You might find a spirit curiously chewing them, or trying to put them on upside-down. You might find them dangling from your windowsill trying to get a curious look at you, or running up and down paths picking up torches and putting them in awkward places, and generally being nuisances (more than usual, somehow).

But many of the spirits take a different approach. Although shy, they seek something. Some token, some gift, some offering. And in return, they will give you something - including fragments of their past memories, further uncovering some of what has happened here in Beacon over time, whether before the World Eaters came or perhaps some time in between then and now, when the lighthouse beacon shone across the lake and past keepers tried to help fight back the darkness.

Lastly, some of these spirits are trickier than the others. They aren't interested in offerings. They are interested in drowning you; in baiting you off into the darkness to wander, lost. To run off with your lantern, separating you from that which keeps you alive. Be careful: while most of the strange wild spirits believe you could be friends, not all of them treat life and death the same way we do.

ooc news

On September 15, we will have a new CR meme! As always, this is a great way to check in with other players, see whose characters are up to what activities, and make new connections and plans for going forward, or just see who you might click with and get some threads going!

We are not planning to write a new test drive meme for September. Instead, we will continue to use the August TDM, and will post a new TDM every other month, alternating months between it and the CR meme.

September will remain check-in only for AC and we anticipate that we will remain check-in for the foreseeable future. Applications and check-in will begin on September 21 and will run through the end of the month!

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!

•••
As always, 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:

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

the tl;dr

September 1: Intro log

September 10-13: Thunderstorms

September 15: CR Meme

September 19-30: Hunger and Thirst

September 21: Apps Open, Check-in begins

September 29: Apps close

September 30: Check-in ends

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

nextnightmods

GAMEPLAN: AUGUST
Hello, Next Nighters! July was a hell of a month, and thusly the August plan will be a little bit slower. This would be a great time to take advantage of NPCs like Weaver, Diode, and Clara, as well as dig into explorations that you've got burning at the back of your mind! In addition to that, though, here is what you can expect for the month of August.

AUGUST 01 - 14

Like clockwork, the automated systems at the lab kick into high gear, resulting in newcomers finding their way to Beacon, as well as the monthly influx of supplies. There's a bit more time for characters to get in requests... Even if they might come in a bit weird. Weaver has offered to help with Portal Repairs, though that will have to be pursued ICly to come into effect!

The supplies are all over, just like last time... Though, less helpfully, the spirits are not quite as helpful in collecting them. Characters might have to play a bit of Hide and Seek with the upstarts to recover all supplies, though it's all fun and games in the end and eventually the spirits will stop running off with that new pair of underwear you really need. Eventually.

As a lot happened both below and above the lake, this would be a great place to put together a town meeting of sorts. And of course, Intro Logs are always a good avenue for meeting new characters and introducing them ICly to how things work in Beacon!

On August 10th, Beacon will undergo a bit of a heat wave. Temperatures will skyrocket, and characters will find little relief, as air conditioning is not particularly common in a world without a sun. It might seem an especially good time to try the lake shore, though, perhaps that's a bit of a brave choice. They're going to have to tough it out for the week, utilizing whatever way they can to cool down.

AUGUST 15 - 31

At the smack-dab middle of the month, a new Test Drive will go up! Keep your eyes open, and make sure to tell your friends!

After the heat finally lets up, the forest spirits will start putting together a surprise of sorts for the residents of Beacon. And boy, do they know that doesn't sound the most appealing. Surprises from the spirits don't always go so well, historically. But this time around, the well-meaning spirits of Beacon seem to have decided that the group has earned a well-deserved break. How does one enjoy a break in the summer? Well, go to the Amusement Park! Of course!

The spirits will get a few of the games up and running, and entice characters to stop by with promises of rewards and prizes. The Lunch Lady, rarely seen outside of the school, demands the residents of Beacon attempt to best them in a Pie Making Contest. May the best Pie Maker stand above the rest! Of course, there's bound to be a Pie Eating Contest after.

For characters (and players) that might want to delve into something a little more spooky, there is a Funhouse. I'm sure nothing bad could be in that, especially not in the month of National Clown Week.

The amusements will run for a good part of the end of the month, allowing characters to have a little fun, let their hair down, and just recover from all their grievous injuries. Take a breather, Beacon Bits: You deserve it!

To round out the month, Applications and Player Check-In will be posted on August 22. They will both close at the end of the month.

ooc news

Is there a plot you're hoping to run yourself? Let us know here! If there is something your character would like to add to the monthly bulletin, let us know here! If your character wants to help out at the lab to improve future item deliveries and new arrivals as well as lantern repairs, here's the spot! And as always, we have a spot for questions below. Last but not least, see the comment here to share about explores/ideas/plot developments that currently have been left unanswered. We as a mod team have a few to share and welcome other players to share as well, for the sake of newcomers. This would be a great place to go to find an idea for an explore or for something your character to dig into a little bit more.

Another update: we've come to a few conclusions based on ideas raised in our State of the Game post.

For the time being, we will continue running apps Monthly as well as Intros monthly. We decided this was a good place for characters to congregate, and that it could be overwhelming for new players to take the reins right away. If this stands to change in the future, we'll let you know!
We will continue to operate on a check-in basis in August. While running AC is potentially something we intend to do, as things stand now we thing it makes sense to stick to check-in for now.

•••

As always, 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 this toplevel and the small form below to kickstart your plotting plans:

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

the tl;dr

August 1st: Intro Log

August 7 - 14: Heat Wave

August 15: TDM

August 17-31: Cotton Candy Hearts Event

August 22: Apps Open, check-in starts

August 30: Apps close

August 31: Check-in ends

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

nextnightmods

GAMEPLAN: JULY
Wow, June sure flew by quickly, didn't it? July is now just around the corner. Before we cover what's in store for next month, please make sure you've checked in for June! Again, no strict AC/comment proofs are required - we know things are still kind of crazy out there right now, so just let us know if you're still with us!

For more OOC reminders and other info, scroll down to the bottom of this post.

July 1-15

On July 1st, we will have an Intro Log! The experimental portal technology in Dr. Solis' lab that so many have been working hard on understanding is activated for the first time! Let's see how well you've all managed to make sense of her notes, shall we? In addition to newcomers, all items that were requested before July 1 will also arrive. That's right - there's still time to get your orders in!

July 1 also marks one whole year since the last reset! Wow. That's a big anniversary, so congrats to those who made it this far! The forest spirits will have little gifts to give out to everyone on the intro log as a sign of appreciation - and we swear, no Parade tricks this time.

By now, you may have seen this network post from a group that made it to the radio tower (and the ooc location discovery will be up for this soon!), where they discovered a repeating SOS message from the Night Market. It sounds like something terrible happened there and they need help - perhaps this is why they weren't able to arrive as scheduled last month?

So after a few days to input the coordinates from the message, orient the newbies, and then get organized, on July 8, all you Beacon Bits who wish to go visit the Helix Station will be able to board the submarines and venture beneath the lake for the Beyond the Sea event. As mentioned in the SOS message in the radio tower, the people of the Night Market have come under attack by what they think might be an adolescent World Eater. What exactly happened down there, and what remains of the Helix Station? We'll give you all more details in an upcoming OOC post, but characters will be divided into teams to explore the station and fight off the creature - or creatures? - that have attacked it. By July 15, either the people of Beacon will emerge victorious, or not - but the submarines will have recharged and will be able to transport people back to the surface on that date.

If you want your character to venture to the Helix Station, please make sure to comment under the BEYOND THE SEA SIGNUP header so we can organize groups. The number of teams, and the number of characters per team, will depend on how many are interested in participating. Once we have a feel for this, we'll be able to provide more details on the OOC post for the event, which will go up on July 3rd.

If you have previously NPCed a Night Market vendor, please comment here and let us know!

Then, on July 15 we'll get a new Test Drive Meme up and running!

July 16-31

On July 18, we'll put up the first CR Meme we've had in a while! As a reminder, this is an OOC event to help everyone coordinate on what their characters are doing and who might be fun to build CR with, especially as we'll have some new players joining us this month.

On July 20th, Beacon's own host of giant periodical spirit-cicadas hatches! Oh dear! For about a week, swarms of these immense and very noisy insects will cover everything - trees, your house, that sandwich you were about to eat. They buzz loudly at all hours, and they crunch underfoot when you can't manage to avoid stepping on them. Ew. As with weather events, this swarm will not have a log associated with it (but feel free to write up your own if you like), and by July 30 they will all have flown off on their own. Try not to get too grossed-out in the meantime - or enjoy them if that's your thing.

Finally, to round out the month, on July 22 we will re-open apps and will also post the July check-in, both of which will close at the end of the month as usual.

Have an idea for a plot you'd like to run yourself? Please feel free to let us know here!

ooc news

Applications are still open through the end of June 29! Please feel free to pass the word around.

July's AC will remain a check-in with the bonus explore token as we began issuing this month for people who submitted an activity proof. Get out there and get exploring!

Want to help improve the portal tech in Solis' lab? Don't forget to sign up here!

In the comments below, you'll find the LOOKING FOR GROUP header. If you're interested in doing any kind of exploring in the coming month, go ahead and fill out the posted form under that header, and then comment 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!

•••
As always, 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:

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

the tl;dr

July 1: Intro log

July 3: OOC info: Beyond the Sea

July 8-15: Beyond the Sea

July 15: Test Drive Meme

July 18: CR Meme

July 20: Cicadas!! weather event

July 22: Apps open, check-in begins

July 30: Apps close

July 31: Check-in ends

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

nextnightmods

GAMEPLAN: JUNE
Hey everyone, ready for the plan for June? See below for event details and more - and especially please check the OOC section for some small reminders.

As always, please make sure to respond to the check-in if you haven't already! We do not post warning lists, so please make sure you've commented. Failure to comment by the end of the check-in period will result in being swept from the game..

june 1-15

When June 1 rolls around, the town will discover that yet again, the ferry does not arrive. Hm. Supplies are dwindling perilously low, and many buildings still require extensive repairs so keep these things in mind for this month, and maybe consider fixing a few places up with the form on the setting page!

The lack of new people and items can be explained by the lighthouse's collapse, and while the group that discovered Dr. Solis' lab found a potential set of machines to fill that gap, it seems it still needs some tweaking in order to do that particular job. As soon as the explore wraps up, the location post for the lab will have OOC signups where your characters can pitch in to help unravel the secrets of Dr. Solis' experimental technology. Characters will be able to help work out the machinery that repairs lanterns, or fine-tune the ability to retrieve items and people, or even help discover how to actually target a location in Beacon where these will appear. Previously, it must have been at Helix Station where the proper portal is, but now they will have some control over the location of new arrivals! Things may be a bit wonky the first month, but with time they will surely get better at operating the tech, right?

This mechanic will largely work through a combination of RNG and the number of signups, much like the flood event. This way, everyone can help contribute even if they aren't technologically-oriented, if they like. Sure, if you know some quantum physics, maybe you'll be the one working out the best equations to bring in your favorite types of food, but others can do things like bring in supplies from storage to the 3D printers, or rewire the cables in the lab, or even do some reading up and organizing of Dr. Solis' notes. Plenty of jobs for everyone!

Next, we will have an NPC post on June 5th from Beacon's newest member: Clara, the (former) assistant to Dr. Solis. She has a request for all of you, but also this post will serve as a general in-person mingle for anyone wishing to meet her in person at the Bonfire Square.

On June 8-10, Beacon will experience a meteor shower! This is essentially a weather event so please feel free to incorporate it into logs and threads however you like, but there will not be a separate event log posted.

On June 14th, the Night Market does not arrive as was scheduled. If you were hoping you'd be able to restock on some supplies when they come to the harbor, welp - so much for that. Wonder what happened to them?

Also on June 14th, our main event for June, We All Still Die, will begin. The flood was catastrophic, and yet finally there's hope on the horizon - lanterns can be repaired and soon, fresh supplies and new visitors will arrive. Plus, before the world went dark, the longest day was around this time of year. All of this sounds like cause for celebration, according to the spirits! They just want to cheer you up, and for the first time, help you welcome back the eventual return of the sun - even if that's still a long way off.

To do this, they've taken a previous Beacon resident's sun-welcoming tradition and made it their own! For part one, The spirits will begin by setting out all kinds of foresty crafting supplies - big sheets of bark, fresh and dried plants and flowers and boughs, some handmade grass and bark cord, branches and stones and more, all so you can make your own masks. They all wear masks, and maybe it's time you considered doing so as well! They'll also hand out some instruments if you don't have one of your own - pan pipes, flutes, maracas, and other easily handmade instruments which you can decorate to your liking!

june 16-30

The spirits will give everyone a couple of days to get their masks just right before We All Still Die part two commences on June 16. Festivities begin in the middle of Bonfire Square where the spirits have gathered everyone to witness the ritual sacrifice of a few of their own. What a delight, to be chosen to die at a party! Remnants of these sacrificed spirits will be offered to all attendees to take part of, for surely you're all hungry and thirsty by now, as not even the greenhouse's boost in growth can completely take over for feeding everyone an entire month. At this point, the spirits gather up everyone for a parade route. Yes, that's right - that parade.

What happens if you join in all the festivities, and what happens if you resist? Well, you'll just have to wait for the full event writeup for the details! ICly, this event will run through June 18.

And on June 20, the night before the new moon, a faint blue-green tint can be visible on the waves of the lake. Spirit bioluminescense will be visible through the 22nd on these three darkest days of the month, and while it doesn't really cast any more light than any other non-functional light source does, it's very pretty. Happy solstice!

ooc news

Because Dr. Solis' lab has been discovered and work on calibrating the machinery has begun, on June 22 we will be opening apps! As mentioned on the Test Drive Meme, we will have 20 player slots open for this app round, double the usual amount. In future app rounds, we will have 10 slots open each month until the player cap is reached.

Speaking of the TDM, please do go check it out and tag around so that new potential applicants can test-drive their characters!

As mentioned on this month's activity check, June's AC will also be a check-in. However, players who submit an AC proof of 5 log or 10 network comments will receive one bonus explore token which can be used in July for an extra explore.

Also, remember those torches you collected at the start of the month? If you haven't already, let us know where they ended up. If we don't hear back, eventually we will assume they were added to the bonfire. Also hey, item requests will open back up this month! Put in your requests and if RNG cooperates based on the number of people working on the machinery (as mentioned above) then your items will be delivered on July 1 with the new batch of Beacon residents.

•••
As always, 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:

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

the tl;dr

June 5: NPC post

June 8-10: Meteor shower weather event

June 14-15: Event: We All Still Die, Part 1

June 16-18: Event: We All Still Die, Part 2

June 20-22: Bioluminesence weather event

June 22: Apps open; check-in begins

June 29: Apps close

June 30: Check-in ends

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

nextnightmods

GAMEPLAN: MAY
Hello, Beacon Bits! Thank you once again for bearing with us through this transition period. Here's what the plan for May looks like!

May 1-15

We're sure you're all exhausted from battling that flood for two whole weeks. Late on April 30 the rain begins to taper off, and on May 1 the clouds part, revealing the starry night sky. The water recedes, the river sinks back down to its usual height, and the extent of the flood's destruction is revealed. The good news is that your hard work really paid off! Many of the key structures in town were protected from the worst of the storm. Others, however, are definitely inaccessible or in need of serious repair.

We are working on updating the Setting page to reflect new details on the state of the town and will reveal that on May 1. However, some key locations that may be helpful for planning: The Invincible, The Landmark Hotel, the General Store, the Greenhouse and the Shopping Center are among the buildings that are in pretty good shape! Much harder-hit were the Village housing, Beacon General Hospital, and the poor Town Hall. All locations have been affected to some degree, and unfortunately, all bridges have been destroyed by that raging river.

Therefore, on May 1, expect a post to the logs comm! With Me All Along is an event that's like an intro log, but - no ferry arrives. Good thing you fought so hard to protect those supplies, huh? There are no newcomers and no restock in sight. Characters will also realize many familiar faces seem to be missing. Rastus' hut has washed away, trying to reach out to Dr. Solis provokes no response, and -

Ah. Yes. That ever-present, steady beam of light, the beacon marking Beacon's location on the lake, has gone out. The entire lighthouse, it seems, has fallen victim to the storm as the cliffs at its base finally eroded into the water. Well. Huh.

Time to get rebuilding. Also, time to locate some missing torches. While most were spared, the bonfire is missing 18 of them. Finding torches in Beacon is a bit like finding a brightly-lit needle in a haystack - still sort of tricky! But it seems that Rastus, the missing bonfire keeper, may have left you some helpful tools to do so. There's also a message on the network - from a username never seen before?

May 15-31

April showers bring May flowers, right? Once the ground isn't so ultra-soggy, on May 15, flowers start to peek from the cracks in the mud and bloom throughout the town and forest! Look for some of these lovely new delights, which will also be collected and handed out by spirits who seem to want to help you guys celebrate the fact you're all still here.

This second half of May is left intentionally open-ended right now as there may be new locations and new game tools encountered in this time that will have some bearing on what happens. So please, watch for updates!

If any players want to run a player plot in this time, feel free to drop by with suggestions. One such possibility might be a memorial event - especially as the town hall has been wrecked pretty badly by the storm and what remains of the previous memorial wall may be hard, if not impossible, to access. If this or any other idea interests you, let us know!

ooc news

We are hoping to have explores reopened and operating soon after the log is up! These will be crucial for solving what happened to some of Beacon's missing people, as well as key to re-enabling the ability to get new people and new items into town. We may yet make some changes to the explore system but for now, please know that only one explore per character per month will be possible in order to help us keep up while we continue updating pages and working out other details.

If all goes well, in mid- to late May we may be able to consider posting a TDM so that prospective players can start enjoying themselves in the setting, with the ultimate goal of reopening apps! While we don't have an exact date for doing so yet as it partly hinges on IC actions, we do intend to welcome new players as soon as we can and will keep you all posted on the dates for those.

While we have now updated the housing and tablet/app pages to reflect characters on the taken list, players who were in ITN at the time of its closing are still allowed to re-add themselves on the taken list through the end of May if they wish to come along. Missing characters can simply have been lost in the woods due to the flood (or hiding, or on autopilot). Characters who dropped from ITN before the game's closing will need to re-app once applications are running again.

One more little note about Night Market dealings - if your character had asked a question of the Hint-O-Matic machine and received an answer, suffering an effect from doing so is completely optional and can start up any time during or after the flood so as not to force retcons of flood event threads. Feel free to come up with your own random penalty effect, or forgo it, whichever you prefer.

On May 22-31 we will put up the May check-in. As mentioned before, we will not be doing AC at this moment in time due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Players will still be required to check in and summarize their characters' actions for March and April.

Finally, please welcome the list crew! Updating everything from ITN so we can continue to maintain it is a monumental task and we've grabbed people who volunteered on the interest check to help us with the changeover. Thank you to Daz, Laura, Mawi, and Yuul for all their assistance! As always, you can find ways to contact them or any of the other people behind the scenes at our mod contact page.

•••
As always, 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:

the tl;dr

May 1: The flood ends

Key NPCs are missing, no ferry arrives, and much of the town has been damaged in the flood

But don't let that get you down, for new opportunities arise from the mud.

May 15: Also, flowers arise from the mud too. Neat!

May 22: Check-in begins

Mid- to late May: Based on explore results and our own workload during the transition, we hope to be able to post a TDM and re-enable apps and item requests soon!

May 31: Check-in ends

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

inthenightmods

GAMEPLAN: APRIL

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.

april 1-15

The month will begin with our intro log on April 1! It'll be a regular ol' intro log this time, as per our new app cycle. If you need a refresher on how that cycle works, check out the announcement we made about it!

For this month's intro log, the ferry will arrive with small bottles of colorful sand scattered over the deck, through the bunkrooms, and all over the item deliveries in the cargo bay. There's no telling where they came from, but characters will feel oddly compelled to pick them up, even if only to knock them out of the way.

But get too close to the bottles, and they burst like little firecrackers, showering everyone in the vicinity with sand. Contact with the sand doesn't seem to do much at first! But whether the effects hit after a few minutes or a few hours, each character who's touched the sand will find themselves feeling in desperate need of a nap. They'll need to lie down and sleep soon or run the risk of passing out on their feet.

Once asleep, characters will find themselves... in the sunshiny Beacon of the past! Ahhhh!!!

Except, this time, it's actually pretty nice! We'll have a few past-Beacon prompts for characters to enjoy the town in its heyday, or at least the dreamscape version of it. There don't seem to be any nasty forest spirit tricks this time, and characters will be able to wake up whenever they like by hailing a cab.

Next up in April, the Night Market is in town again! They'll arrive at the docks to open up shop from April 10-12. We've still got one player-NPC slot left for the upcoming visit, so if you're interested in tossing your hat into the ring, make sure you've submitted double AC!

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

april 16-30

In the last half of April, we've got rain. Lots and lots and lots of rain. So much rain that we're making a whole event out of it!

The torrential rains will begin late on April 18, triggering our Bottom of the River event the following day. The event and the rains will continue until April 24, when the weather will finally clear up. The rain and wind will wreak havoc on the town, flooding the lowland areas near Bonfire Square and the village and triggering mudslides along the cliffs and mountains. Most of the current locations in game will be under threat of damage or destruction, including character residences. Roofs might collapse, trees might damage cabins, a flash flood might sweep away the bonfire—some damage is inevitable, and some can be defended against.

At the start of the event, we'll post a list of the various locations in peril and you'll be able to sign up your characters to aid wherever you like—that is, wherever they can get to. Some locations will be more dangerous than others, and signing up to help in those danger zones will earn you a good ol' RNG complication. All locations, however, will need manpower to save them.

The amount of damage a location takes will depend on whether or not enough people sign up to defend it, but we aren't going to tell you how many people are needed in each location. ICly, characters wouldn't be able to know that! OOCly, it'll be part of the fun. Everyone in town piling into two or three locations isn't a great use of your numbers, but spread yourselves too thin and you won't be strong enough to stave off nature.

Regardless of how well everyone does with allocating resources, the town will suffer permanent damage in the event, as it's not possible to save all of the locations. The odds are against you here, but that's no reason to throw in the towel! It's just time to make some choices as a community.

Since this event will be so reliant on IC communication, we're gonna do something a little weird! When we post the OOC event info on April 14, we'll also put up a network post forward-dated to the beginning of the event. The post will be Robin encouraging characters to organize themselves as the town floods, and we're forward-dating it in order to give players a chance to thread out IC planning without needing to rush and boomerang once the event begins. Because it's forward-dated, this means that players will have ample time to plan, but characters won't! It's a crisis! They gotta think on their feet!

To sum up: you will have a choice in what sort of locations, situations, and risks you sign up for, but you will not know how successful any of these efforts are until the event ends.

There's some good news, though! Because the weather station was discovered, characters will be able to know about the oncoming rainstorm up to three days in advance! They will not be able to predict how devastating or lengthy it will be, but everyone in town will be able to know they've got some heavy rain coming. If your character would take reasonable precautions based on that info, you'll be able to report that on the OOC info post, but please stay IC here! We'll take these precautions into account as we total up the damages post-event, but we'll exclude any that blur IC/OOC knowledge.

Oh, and uh, important thing: All of Beacon's rivers will overflow, washing away all existing bridges and splitting the town into thirds for the duration of the event. All characters will be stuck on whatever side of the river they start on, even characters with teleportation abilities. Why? It's a mystery! We'll tell you when the event launches! Point is, everyone stays on their side of the river, no exceptions. And "their side" will be determined by us! We'll base our decision on IC factors, and that's all we're going to say about that for now. No influencing the system!

When the rains finally let up and the event comes to an end, the river will recede back to normal and characters will be able to cross it same as before, but all damage that the town sustains during the event is permanent, including the loss of the bridges. Better get to building! Good thing we have that Wild Hunt hired hand mechanic launching in May, huh?

•••
And finally, to wrap up the month, Dr. Solis will put up another network post on April 27. Remember that old lantern project she mentioned in her last post? It's time to get that ball rolling.

ooc news

And that's April for you! To wrap things up, here are our OOC announcements for the month!
If you haven't checked it out already, please be sure to give our recent mod announcement a read! It details what you can expect from our new faction system that will be introduced in May, which will also begin act 2! Exciting stuff. Any questions about the faction system should be directed to that announcement, as well.

We're working on the next game history update! You can expect that page to be updated before the intro log on April 1.

Speaking of updates, we'll be working on a number of game page updates throughout April as we build in the faction mechanic. This will include game pages for each faction and further details about how it'll all work, of course, but please keep in mind that the mechanic itself won't launch until we announce it to the game at large. These game page updates will also include getting Dr. Solis and Kimiko integrated as NPCs, too. Dr. Solis will have a network inbox available soon, but Kimiko (and Pluto) will only be around for chatting at specific times... until it's faction time, anyway. Keep an eye out for these updates if you like, but we'll be sure to announce any important stuff when we're ready to debut it.

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

April 1: Intro log
April 10-12: Night Market
April 15: HMD
April 18-24: Torrential rains flood the town
April 19-24: Bottom of the River event
April 22-30: Activity Check
April 27: Dr. Solis NPC post

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pages	\|	rules • faq • taken • mod contact • player contact • calendar • setting • exploration • item requests • full nav

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

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inthenightmods

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

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pages	\|	rules • faq • taken • mod contact • player contact • calendar • setting • exploration • item requests • full nav

inthenightmods

GAMEPLAN: JANUARY

Hey there, Beacon bits! We hope you've had a nice holiday season, and happy almost new year!

As always, please make sure to respond to the activity check if you haven't already! December's AC is just a check-in, but you do still have to check in. We do not post warning lists, so please make sure you've posted.

january 1-15

The month will begin with our intro log on January 1! Welcome, Beacon bitties! This month's intro log will feature a myriad of New Year's traditions from... around the world, theoretically, but maybe it's just an excuse for forest spirits to pelt people with pomegranates and hang onions everywhere? It's good luck, or something. The ferry will also bring with it any specialty orders arranged with Pluto during this last Night Market visit.

The first half of the month will be relatively quiet after the intro log, but, uh oh, there's a winter storm on the horizon. A nasty blizzard will sweep through the town from January 7-11. Constant, heavy snowfall, high winds, and temperatures low as -20 F will plague the town, making travel especially difficult. At least there's plenty of snow for fort-building and snowball fights if you're willing to brave the outdoors!

Typical winter weather will resume after the blizzard is over, but the town will be covered in a layer of snow at least a foot or two deep (though plenty deeper in some places) until the spring thaw in a couple of months. The snow is here to stay! Luckily, the forest spirits in town are kind enough to provide snow removal service for all of the unlocked areas of the map. No one has to wade through waist-deep snow to get around Beacon, but all bets are off if you head out into the forest.

Another neat weather feature that will continue until the spring thaw: On January 13, Lake Red Jacket's shoreline will begin to freeze over. It doesn't happen overnight, though. The ice sheets will eventually cover most of the harbor area, though only the shallow waters near the beach will freeze, not the entire lake. The sheets of ice are thick enough to walk on without fear of falling through, but do let us know in an exploration if your character attempts to walk out onto the ice past where it would be safe to swim! Again, the lake's edge will remain frozen over until the spring thaw in a couple of months.

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

january 16-31

The second half of the month will kick off with yet another weather event! We have a lot of them this month. This time, characters can look forward to colorful knitted decor covering the town. On January 18, Beacon will fall victim to a yarnbomb! Whoever's responsible must've had a lot of time on their hands, as no surface will be spared. The carnage will be cleaned up by the following day, but all of the yarn and knitted decorations are free for the taking! If you want your character to find some winter wear or blankets to keep warm this season, have at it!

Next, we have our event for the month! Turn the Lights Off will run January 20-30, and it will introduce a new permanent game mechanic! The event itself is a "choose-your-own-horror" style event where characters will experience a myriad of effects at their player's discretion, all with varying severity. A list of bodily, psychological, and reality-warping afflictions will be available for players to choose from, as well as the amount of time in which they stay present. Affected characters will be identifiable by irregularities in their lanterns, and while these irregularities may flicker in and out, they're never truly gone, even after the event has passed.

More details on this new game mechanic will be released closer to and during the event, but some things to clarify right off the bat: The mechanic (and thus the event) are entirely opt-in, and it's designed to be hands-off for us mods. This means we're designing the system to have as much player autonomy as possible, given you folks the opportunity to inflict terror and mayhem on your characters to whichever degree warms your rude little hearts.

This mechanic is being implemented in response to feedback from our last HMD, so thank you to those of you that chimed in to help us improve the game! We hope that this mechanic will address the concerns brought up there.

Finally, the month will wrap up with one final weather event! ...Sort of! In honor of the Chinese New Year on January 25, a small collection of forest spirits have elected to host a celebration in honor of the Rat King's continued reign. Their majesty may be viewed being paraded around Bonfire Square in a palanquin, carried by ever-shrieking forest spirits. If you aren't sure who the Rat King is, that's probably for the best, but they came to town back in August and show up every now and then in true cryptid fashion.

ooc news

And lastly, here's our OOC announcements for the month!
Our application process will be getting an overhaul before the next app round. We'll announce the changes once we're getting ready to open apps again, but keep an eye out for those changes if you're looking to enable friends or bring in another character! The goal of this update is to simplify/streamline the application process, similar to our recent update to the explorations system.

Related to apps, we're increasing our total player cap to 70 and our cast caps to 7 beginning with the January app round. Exciting! That said, we want to tell you upfront that we're unlike to raise the player cap beyond 70 for any future app rounds. It's purely a numbers thing! We want to make sure our game population stays manageable for us as mods so that we won't have to sacrifice content, and we feel that 70 players is our upper limit. On that note, cast caps are unlikely to raise past 7, as well.

We've added posting guidelines to the OOC comm to better articulate the difference between some of our game comms! The main takeaway here is to please remember to post memes to our meme comm, memesinthenight

We're working on updating the game history page, but it's not quite done yet! Apologies for the delay and thanks for your patience, as we're still settling into our new mod team dynamic. Speaking of, as the plot of the game continues to thicken, we decided to create a sort of "mod helper" position—a game historian whose sole responsibility would be to keep track of the game plot and keep the game history page up to date. We're happy to announce that Dubs will be filling that position for us! Welcome aboard, chum. To be clear, Dubs will only be doing game history stuff and won't have access to the mod journal or any other modly things, so all mod correspondence can still just be directed to Mippins, Kit, and Danielle. We'll be updating the mod contact page soon to spell all this out, too. Thank you all for your continued patience as we get our new system in place behind the scenes!

Hey, remember that time we were like, if you get double AC you get to play an NPC maybe? Stay tuned for deets on that during January's activity check, but here's what you need to know in the meantime: If you're interested in playing an NPC vendor during the Night Market's next visit, aim for double AC this month! Players who make double AC will be entered into a drawing for that opportunity.

the tl;dr

January 1: Intro log
January 7: Blizzard begins
January 11: Blizzard ends
January 13: Lake Red Jacket's shoreline begins to freeze
January 15: TDM; CR meme
January 18: The town gets yarnbombed!
January 20: Turn the Lights Off begins
January 22: Apps open; AC begins
January 25: Year of the Rat celebration
January 29: Apps close
January 30: Turn the Lights Off ends
January 31: AC ends

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inthenightmods

GAMEPLAN: DECEMBER

Howdy, players, and happy holidays as we dive into December!

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!

enter mr. sandman wrap

So, that event, huh? The onslaught of the green-eyed spirits will finally end on November 30 as the spirits abruptly retreat back into the forest, giving up on their goal... whatever it was.

The defenders managed to protect the town quite well! Thanks to them, there's been no major property damage, although the windows of the Invincible have been boarded up and barricades have been placed both there and in the armory... The town's a bit worse for wear, but nothing a few days of tidying up can't fix.

The dreamers, meanwhile, managed to learn quite a bit about Beacon! In order to give the dreamers the opportunity to finish up event threads, digest the info they've learned, and share that info with the masses, we won't be compiling the event info until next month's game history update. All of the neat plot details can be found in the dreamer side of the event for anyone that's OOCly curious, but ICly, everything that happened in the dreams will need to be shared between characters in order to become public knowledge. Until January, that is. Then it will all be available in town hall!

Dreamers, as promised, will wake up alive and unharmed, free from any dream injuries they sustained... Except, uh oh, it seems that these dreams have left some residual effects in their wake. Throughout the month, dreamers will experience phantom pains from injuries they sustained in the dream, hallucinations of things they saw in the dream, and nightmares about, well, the dream. Can't let y'all get off totally sans consequences, can we? These residual effects can be as minor or as intense as you like, and will wear off by the time January rolls around.

As an additional note, we mods have already been in contact with our dreamer groups, but just so everyone's on the same page: We're extending the investigation threads for some groups in order to allow for a proper wrap-up. All threads will be finished by December 7, for those of you playing along at home. 👍

We will not be posted a wrap-up log for the event, as the intro log is right around the corner! Instead, you're welcome to post your own logs for regrouping/waking up post-event, or you may thread that out on the intro log in order to get the newbies involved. Some IC stuff will be going down on the intro log as well to add some flair to post-event regrouping. So, let's get to that, shall we?

december 1-16

The month will begin with our intro log on December 1! Welcome, Beacon bitties! This month's intro log will run fairly smoothly, thank goodness. No attacking rat spirits, no reckless hijackings, no strange lights in the water... Just the ferry arriving at the brand new dock with a crop of new arrivals.

And hey, the ferry showing up just happens to coincide with the weekly bulletin! Though... we haven't heard from Robin since the event started, have we? 🤔

It's probably fine.

Anyway, it's December, which means it's winter! The new season will kick off with a sleet storm from December 2-4, which will leave everything in town covered in a thin layer of ice. It's not enough to impart any negative consequences, and it does look pretty... but also, it's cold, with the temperatures averaging 15-25 F. Good thing all the buildings somehow have heat. Oh, and we've got a little meteor shower on December 9, too! What a great reason to brave the chill in the air.

Our first event for the month, Pleader, will run from December 12-16. Despite the ominous title, there's (probably) nothing to fear from this event. Some of you may recall Robin mentioning some friends of hers due to show up in December, and show up they will. In the wee hours of December 12, blue lights will appear just under the waves in the harbor, approaching the dock, until the lights surface entirely. They're submarines, glowing a dim blue now that they're up out of the water, and the fleet is three vessels strong. They've brought with them a floating bridge system to attach to the harbor's main dock to allow access to all three submarines, and they start to unpack...

By "morning", under the light of the full moon, the Night Market is open for business! They'll introduce themselves properly when they arrive, but this small group of NPCs will be camped out at the harbor until December 16 to offer a variety of goods not currently available in Beacon. Items from home? Magical goods? Spells and services to help you out in this dark world? The Night Market can hook you up... for a price. :)

Better yet, the Night Market will return to Beacon every other month, docking at the harbor for a couple of days to trade goods, services, and information with the townsfolk. There's a lot of cool stuff that'll come about as a result of the Night Market's introduction, but more on that once the event drops!

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

december 17-31

The back end of December will be nice and relaxing, both for characters in game and, hopefully, for players as well! Some thundersnow will roll in on December 18, and, er, some mysterious snowmen (snow spirits? they don't all look men-like, exactly...) will appear in town on December 28, for starters. The snowmen, while mildly creepy, seem to just be decorative, at least.

Our holiday event, Feast of Lights, will run December 23-30, and it's modeled after Hanukkah! Characters will be compelled to exchange gifts and kind words with each other, and forest spirits will have decorated the town with many, many candles borrowed from the bonfire (Rastus is cool with it). On top of that, the forest spirits will also deliver gifts of their own to the Beacon bits: dreidels! These dreidels come with instructions for a dreidel game that apparently everyone is meant to play, though the instructions are... vague, at best.

ICly, anyway. OOCly, the rules are simple: When playing The Dreidel Game: Beacon Edition, characters will spin the dreidel (and you can decide the results on your own!) to play a game of chance, and whichever of its four sides the dreidel lands on will dictate either a gift or a consequence for that character. There's two pretty good options, and two less than great options, but characters will be compelled to play the game regardless.

These games will not involve mod interaction and can be played out at your leisure, but we'll provide a list of potential gifts/consequences that could arise from playing the game. The dreidels may be kept after the event, though they'll lose their magical gift/consequence-bestowing properties after the event ends.

ooc news

And lastly, we have just one little OOC announcement this month!

For the month of December, AC will be a check-in with no required comment counts. That said, we'll be offering a bonus prize to anyone who does make full AC for the month: an AC "token" which will count for half AC for some future month.

If you have a strike on your record going into December, you may still just check in, as we know this time of the year can be rough offline. If you opt to check in, though, it will not count toward clearing your strike.

the tl;dr

December 1: Intro log
December 12: Pleader begins
December 15: TDM; HMD
December 16: Pleader ends
December 20: Reserves open
December 22: Reserves close; Apps open; AC begins
December 23: Feast of Lights begins
December 29: Apps close
December 30: Feast of Lights ends
January 1: AC ends (because no one's closing AC at midnight on New Year's Eve, heck that, y'all get an extra day)

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inthenightmods

GAMEPLAN: NOVEMBER

Hey there, Beacon bits! Thanks for hanging out with us for past month!

As we head into November, 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!

november 1-15

The month will begin with our intro log on November 1! Welcome, Beacon bitties! You've come at a great time, given that the entire town's been waiting for your arrival with baited breath. What's going to happen with... the ferry?

...But you'll be waiting a bit longer, unfortunately! 😃

What we will tell you is this: The ferry will arrive safe and sound, almost as if it had never crashed in the first place... Almost. All newbies and supplies will be delivered as per usual—the typical store restocks, that is. Rastus can't exactly order items when the ferry's fate is up in the air.

After the newbies arrive, it's not long before another mini-event is on the horizon! Light Up the Night will run November 5-7, and it'll kick off with an NPC post from your local Lighthouse Keeper! In honor of the earthly celebration of Bonfire Night, Robin will be asking the citizens of Beacon to spread the wealth a bit. That's right, it's time to take torches from the bonfire and light up the town! They've got all those torches just sitting there in the bonfire, so she wants everyone to put them to use!

While Rastus will readily be handing out torches for permanent placement around town, you do still need to report torch-taking and placement to the item requests page so that we can update our records accordingly. More info on how the event will work will be released once it's a bit closer.

Weather-wise, winter is steadily approaching and is due to hit on December 1! Until then, it's the usual cold, blustery, drizzly weather with some bouts of heavy fog mixed in throughout the month. Take a look at the calendar to see when to expect the fog to roll in.

And lastly for the first half of the month, we've got our TDM and CR meme to look forward to on November 15! Exciting stuff. What a relaxing start to the month, don't you think?

november 16-30

But, ha ha ha, November's not going to stay relaxing. Things have been getting a little too cozy around here. Can't have that.

November 16 will kick off our Enter Mr. Sandman event, which entails... A harvest feast! Wowie! Overnight, and somehow without anyone seeing, the forest spirits will set up a long, long table in Bonfire Square, piled high with all kinds of delicious goodies. There's enough seats for everyone in town, so take a seat and tuck in!

...Or maybe that's not such a good idea.

Characters who partake at the feast will find themselves quite sleepy afterward. Once midnight hits, anyone who has eaten any food from the feast will slip into a coma, unable to be awoken by any attempts from the outside world. Those tryptophan myths really do check out, huh?

Comatose characters will "wake up" seemingly just a few minutes after they've conked out, and they'll find themselves... in the sunshine? It's the same Beacon they left upon falling asleep, but now, the sunlight is bright overhead and songbirds can be heard throughout the forest. The bonfire has been replaced by an ornate fountain, like a proper town square, and there's no lighthouse out on the peninsula. Strange.

Meanwhile, characters who have not eaten from the feast are still awake, unawares of what their sleeping counterparts are up to. Probably for the best, really, as awake characters will have their own troubles to deal with. It's awfully convenient for some certain more hostile forest spirits that a good chunk of the town is defenseless...

OOCly, here's the skinny: Enter Mr. Sandman will be a horror event that splits the town into two groups: The comatose characters (who will get to explore dream Beacon of the past), and awake characters (who will have to defend the town from the green-eyed spirits). Both options will include heavy horror elements, but in different ways.

Comatose characters will be treated to quieter, psychological horror as they learn more about the town. Players/characters who enjoy customized headgames, solving mysteries, and working in small, assigned groups to explore and learn about the plot, this one's for you. This is essentially the "opt out" for the more intense, potentially triggering, more physically-oriented horror that the awake characters will experience.

Awake characters, on the other hand, will be getting body horror and gore (and then some). Defending the town will take some serious effort, and it will be very dangerous. No one stays awake without paying the price. Players/characters who enjoy action, combat, violence, monsters, free-for-all planning (no group assignments, we mean), and physical status effects should consider staying awake through the event! In general, do you want us to fuck your character up? You've come to the right place. However, keep in mind that staying awake does mean your character has a very high chance of dying or at least suffering some serious maiming.

Time-wise, this event is a long one! It'll finally wrap up on November 29, but how it will end depends on you all. :) The Lighthouse Keeper's all out of deus ex machinas after the whole ferry incident, so don't blow it!

As a final note: Sign-ups for this event will go up well in advance, so you'll have plenty of time to plan!

ooc news

We have a couple of big changes to announce! So, let's get down to business.

First of all, we're going to make some changes to our explorations system, and as we work to get that system revamped, we are closing the exploration page entirely until November 3. This means we will continue with any explorations currently underway, but no new exploration requests will be accepted from now until November 3.

More information about the changes will be released when explorations open again, but in the meantime, here's the gist of what you can expect:

We're ditching the expeditions/minor explores system. Instead, we'll be simplifying it to just general explorations without categories, which some of you may remember from when the game first opened.
We're implementing a "time limit" to keep explores easier to track. With the current system, it's a bit tough for us to keep track of what's active and what's not! So, once a mod response is sent out, players will have one week to tag us back. If that week passes, we'll be considering that exploration closed. To be extra clear: the time it takes for us mods to respond to your exploration is not included in that time limit. The timer starts fresh each time we tag you back.
Similarly, explorations over 2 weeks old will be wrapped in the next mod response. This is to prevent explorations from dragging on for too long, which will slow up our system, but more importantly, it'll make for awkward timing issues in the game! We don't want to leave players waiting on exploration outcomes to be able to engage with the rest of the game.
Characters may only embark on one exploration at a time, no matter how small. Pretty self explanatory! One at a time, please. If you play more than one character, you may send them on concurrent explorations, but keep in mind that we might deny exploration requests like this to give other players a chance to hop in.
We'll be instating a limit of 8 total explorations before we close the queue to new submissions. To explain how we drummed up that random number, here's a look at how things will function behind the scenes: Explorations will be assigned to an individual mod to handle from start to finish, which will help us speed things up as... well, how we were doing it before isn't important, but it clearly wasn't working! Assigning explores in this way, as well as limiting each mod's individual workload to 2 explores at a time, will allow us to respond to players in a much more timely manner.

And that's the sum of it! All of these changes might sound a bit intimidating or disheartening, but the whole reason we're overhauling the system is to lighten the workload on ourselves so that we're not holding up the bus! Streamlining and efficiency are two of our big goals behind the scenes, and the current explores system wasn't working as intended. So, we're trying something new! Please feel free to ask questions below, but do remember that the new system will officially start on November 3, and more information will be available then.

•••
Next, a quick message from mod Leu: due to several factors (none of them are anyone's fault, don't worry!) I have decided to step down— or rather, sort of diagonally?— from my post as "head mod". I'll now officially be known as the "vice mod". My primary duties will remain much the same as they are now; apps, faq, npcs, plot, and so forth. Nothing will really change on the player side of things, just on the mod end. To be clear, I am not leaving the mod team, just moving into a slightly different role. Mippins is now the sole head mod, though you can still feel free to ask me questions about the game or come to me with issues and concerns. Thank you for your understanding!

•••
And lastly, we have some small modly updates! These are features we've implemented over the course of the month, though none of them were big enough to warrant a whole-ass mod announcement on the OOC comm. Instead, these updates as well as any other future updates will appear in the gameplans for the month! So, here's what we've got:

The player plots page has been updated to better explain what exactly counts as a "player plot".

We've created a new FAQ offshoot page to house questions asked over the game's Discord server! This feature was requested by some players on our recent HMD, and we're excited to roll it out! Players asking questions over the Discord will now be required to post their questions/our answers to said page so that no one outside of the server is left out. This page can be found linked at the top of the FAQ page.

Reminder! If your character has taken a torch from the bonfire for exploration purposes, make sure to either have them return the torch or let us know where they've permanently placed it! The torches currently in use can be seen here, and you can also find this spreadsheet linked on the page.

In addition, please remember that characters must request a torch via the item requests page in order to count having that torch as game canon! This applies even if you're just using the torch for an explore; stating in the explore itself that you have a torch doesn't count if it's not logged on the item requests page.

Reminder! If your character is in charge of a player project, please give the page a read to make sure your project's info is up to date! Some of the projects are still listed as works in progress, and we want to make sure the info on the page accurately reflects the state of the project! The player responsible for the project is also responsible for keeping us in the loop with regard to updates.

the tl;dr

November 1: Intro log
November 5: Light Up the Night begins
November 7: Light Up the Night ends
November 15: TDM; CR meme
November 16: Enter Mr. Sandman begins
November 20: Reserves open
November 22: Reserves close; Apps open; AC begins
November 29: Apps close; Enter Mr. Sandman ends
November 30: AC ends

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inthenightmods

GAMEPLAN: OCTOBER

Hey there, players! Welcome to... The month of spooky!!! 👻🎃🍬

As we head into October, please make sure to respond to the activity check if you haven't already! We do not post warned lists, so make sure to get your AC in!

october 1-8

As per usual, the month will begin with our intro log on October 1! And we have not one, not two, but three exciting announcements regarding the intro log!
First, thanks to some wonderful and proactive players, all tablets will now feature a welcome message with information about Beacon. It's mostly to catch new arrivals up on the current situation, but it's available for all!

Second, if you participated in the recent scavenger hunt event, make sure to stop by the ferry to pick up your prize! If you haven't yet submitted your scavenger hunt selfies, there's still time! Head over to the Lighthouse Keeper's event post to submit your selfies. Submissions will be accepted until the end of the month, but the sooner your get your stuff in, the better! (for me, that is, says mippins. but also it'll be nice to have one less thing to worry about before the end of the month, hm?)

And lastly, some intrepid adventurers have decided to take matters into their own hands by hijacking the ferry. Great idea, boys! However, shortly after the ferry docks and well before all the supplies in the cargo hold are unloaded, the ferry, with its new captains Crowley, Bucky, and Aziraphale will crash headlong into the docks. Uh oh.

What does that mean for, well, everything? Here's the short version: The ferry sinks, the docks are destroyed, and anything still on the ferry once it capsizes is lost forever. This includes stuff like personal packages and the monthly store restocks! Anyone on the dock or the ferry at the time of the crash will likely suffer some injuries too, ranging from cuts and bruises to broken bones and concussions, the type of stuff you'd incur from a semi-serious car wreck. Or maybe something more serious? Dealer's choice.

This player plot is opt-in, meaning you're more than welcome to assume your character escaped unscathed and/or managed to recover their personal package without issue. That said, the entire monthly store restock will be lost unless characters attempt to rescue it! If your character would chip in to help, let us know below. They'll be RNG'd for a mild injury, but each character will be able to salvage one day's worth of supplies.

As for the ferry... It sure is at the bottom of the lake! What that bodes for the next intro log remains to be seen.

Will should certainly have something to say about this month's intro antics, and you'll hear all about it in his network post on October 3! He's got a couple of new apps to share with you all.

Also on October 3, characters can look forward to mass carrion flower blooms throughout the forest! Titan arum, rafflesia, and other carrion flowers will pop up around town, never too close to any structures or paths but even so, the stench is hard to miss. Though the flowers only bloom for a day or two, they have the distinct smell of rotting meat and decaying flesh. The last of these flowers will bloom on October 7, and the thunderstorm on October 8 will wash away the last of the yucky scents.

october 9-17

Alright, it's time for our big event for the month. Bury a Friend will run October 9-17. Throughout the event, characters will hallucinate distortions in reality: objects moving when they shouldn't, people's proportions looking just a bit off, voices in an empty room, and so on. They're small things at first, easily chalked up to the mind playing tricks in the darkness, but as the event goes on, they become more intense and more difficult to separate from reality. By the final days, sometimes people won't even look like people anymore, but more like forest spirits or even corpses.

The most notable hallucinations, though, are the hands. Characters will see and feel disembodied hands reaching out from the darkness to puppet others—and themselves, on occasion—grasping roughly and shoving limbs around in jerky motions. Sometimes they even interact beyond the puppeteering, opening doors and knocking things off shelves, for example. Is it better or worse when you can see the poltergeist?

If you'd like an example of these hands at work, here's a sneak peak of our event song: Bury a Friend by Billie Eilish (cw for needles, flashing lights). Creepy, huh?

As per usual, we've got our monthly TDM on October 15, as well as the bimonthly HMD. Following that, characters can look forward to the first frost of the season on October 17! Winter's just around the corner, it seems. (What? No, not that Winters. He's still quite dead.)

october 18-31

The month will begin to wind down with some choppy waters and high waves on the lake from October 21-23. Characters down by the beach (like attempting to rebuild a dock, perhaps?) should steer clear of the water for those couple of days. The waves are loud enough that they can be heard faintly from town. Some dense fog will roll in on October 31 as well, just sticking around until November 1, but it'll be back—November's gonna be a foggy one.

And finally, in celebration of Halloween, some of the local forest spirits will be putting on a play in Bonfire Square on October 30 & 31! The play will be about a very spooky local legend... The Fire Snatchers! To further drive home the point of the play—Fire Snatcher awareness, that is—the forest spirits will spend these two days flitting about town snatchin' stuff right out from under you. That shiny new weapon of yours? Consider it snatched. Bite of cake on your fork? Also snatched. Your glasses? Snatched. Tablet? Snatched. Torch? Snatched. Fingernails? Sna—ah, erm, well. You get the picture. It's all in good fun, surely.

Oh, and the ferry's supposed to come again next month, isn't it? Hm...

HM...

ooc news

And lastly, we have some modly updates! These are reminders for the playerbase, features we've implemented over the course of the month, or other small notes that weren't quite big enough to warrant a whole-ass mod announcement on the OOC comm. Instead, these updates as well as any other future updates will appear in the gameplans for the month! So, here's what we've got:

We've made some updates to our game rules! To be clear, we haven't changed any rules so much as revisited the wording to grant some additional clarity, especially regarding how the process works if you need to report another player's behavior. Please give the updates a read at your earliest convenience!

We've also made some minor updates to the setting page to reflect recent discoveries and changes to the town in the past month or so. In particular, we've included links to relevant "townie" forest spirits and we've noted where torches are permanently placed around town.

There's been a lot of speculation regarding a certain library book... This conversation isn't available to the public, but OOCly, here's a little clue as to what's up with that! This clue brought to you by your mods not wanting you to fly too far off track, but we love all the speculation!

Reminder! If your character has taken a torch from the bonfire for exploration purposes, make sure to either have them return the torch or let us know where they've permanently placed it! The torches currently in use can be seen here, and you can also find this spreadsheet linked on the page.

Reminder! If your character is in charge of a player project, please give the page a read to make sure your project's info is up to date! Some of the projects are still listed as works in progress, and we want to make sure the info on the page accurately reflects the state of the project! The player responsible for the project is also responsible for keeping us in the loop with regard to updates.

Finally, we wanted to extend a formal invitation for players to drop ideas for holiday celebrations into the suggestion box! Now that the game has found itself and gotten through the beginning stages, we're going to begin incorporating real holiday celebrations into our monthly events. However, we don't want to limit the holidays to the white American Christianity-based culture holidays that we on the mod team have grown up with. So! While we have a list going for holidays we already plan to incorporate at some point down the road, we would love to hear ideas from you folks, our dear players, both because you've all proven to have amazing ideas already and because we're especially interested in doing our research! Ripping off of other cultures and appropriating traditions is absolutely not our goal, which is why it's important to us to hear from you folks if you've got suggestions or if you'd like to drop us some notes on how to properly represent a holiday that you celebrate. Thank you!

And that's all for October! As always, let us know below if you have any questions. Thanks, you rock stars. 😎

the tl;dr

October 1: Intro log
October 3: Will network post; Corpse flowers begin to bloom
October 7: End of the corpse flower blooms
October 8: Thunderstorm
October 9: Bury a Friend begins
October 15: TDM; HMD
October 17: Bury a Friends ends; First frost
October 20: Reserves open
October 21: Choppy waters begin
October 22: Reserves close; Apps open; AC begins
October 23: Choppy waters end
October 29: Apps close
October 30: Lose Your Soul begins
October 31: Lost Your Soul ends; AC ends; Fog begins

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inthenightmods

GAMEPLAN: SEPTEMBER

Hey there, players! Congrats on completing what we mods have been referring to as the "tutorial phase"! Winters is dead, the Lighthouse Keeper is back on the network, and a message from Will will be arriving on the network in a few days... It's time to get down to business and kick off Act One of the plot properly. How exciting! Thank you all for sticking with us.

As we head into September, please make sure to respond to the activity check if you haven't already! Everyone's required to post this month, and we will not be doing a warned list, so please make sure you've posted! Also, applications close tomorrow night, so be sure to get your app in if you're still planning to bring in another character.

september 1-15

The month will begin with our intro log on September 1! Let's all do our best to give the newbies a big welcome, especially since Winters won't be around to give everyone the "Welcome to Beacon" spi—wait. Uh oh! Winters won't be around to give the "Welcome to Beacon" spiel!!! Well, heck. The newbies will be able to catch up on the plot thus far by checking out the town hall and past network posts, but now it's up to the town's current residents to fill in new arrivals on how this place works.

And, oh, what's this? There will be a special delivery for every character in game on the intro log. What could it be? Hopefully something better than a pile of rats.

The start of the month also comes with a change in the weather, as autumn begins! Characters can expect temperatures of around 45-55 F, and the weather will typically be cloudy with on and off drizzling and a cool wind blowing in off the lake. This weather will be the new norm until December, when winter will begin. As always, keep an eye on the calendar for any special weather events. We won't put up separate logs or announcements for weather events; they're just for extra flavor!

On September 3, watch out for a network post by Will to finally unveil that one little detail he's been keeping from you since the start. At last, PCs and NPCs alike will be on the same page! Isn't that great?

Well, maybe. It might also freak everyone out, which Rastus is not here for, especially after what happened with last month's party and lighthouse expedition. A lot of people died or went missing, and the whole town has felt those aftershocks in one way or another. So, on September 6 and 7, characters will be able to find Rastus down at the harbor for the For Everything a Reason event. At the harbor, Rastus will have collected a number of small stones that he's enchanted to glow with a soft, yellow light. These stones can be placed in crafted paper lanterns fastened to small paper boats, which can then be set adrift on the lake in tribute to those that we've lost. Rastus hopes that this memorial send-off will help everyone to mourn and move on... and to rebuild some burnt bridges with the forest spirits, some of whom will also be in attendance. They have their own people to mourn too, after all.

The lake and weather will be oddly calm during this event, and this calm weather will remain in effect from September 6-9. Enjoy it while you can, because then it's back to blustery drizzles.

To cap off the first half of the month, our TDM and CR Meme will both go up on September 15.

september 16-30

The second half of September will begin with our big event for the month: Gather Up, which will run from September 16-25! The Lighthouse Keeper is back on the network now thanks to the help of everyone involved with last month's event, and she's been brainstorming ideas for how to perk up the town after all the sadness and loss lately... not to mention she'd like to extend an olive branch since she was greeted with so much tension.

Her idea? A scavenger hunt! But not just any scavenger hunt. She's designed this one to accomplish a multitude of goals: to cheer everyone up, to help characters learn more about this world, and to give herself a little taste of the community. Characters will be tasked with finding particular locations, people, and forest spirits and asked to take selfies with them to count as a find. Some of the scavenger hunt items will involve mod interaction, but most will be left up to you folks to play out amongst yourselves.

Characters can submit their finds to Robin at the end of the event, and everyone who participates will receive a special prize depending on how many of the items they were able to get! OOCly, some of the finds can be handwaved and, while the number of items will determine the prize, it's not a case of "more finds = better prize". We encourage everyone to submit their finds based on what their character would reasonably be able to accomplish! You don't have to worry about missing out on important stuff if your character wouldn't ICly find very much, if anything at all.

Other than the Gather Up event, watch out for a meteor shower on September 18! The skies will be clear enough all day for characters to witness the rain of stars from above.

ooc news

First of all, thank you all so much for bearing with us as we tested out the gamewide HMD! From our point of view, it seemed to go pretty well, so! From this point forward, private/personal HMDs will no longer be required, as the gamewide HMDs will replace the need for them. Private/personal HMDs will still be linked on the taken page, but including them is now optional. If you would like us to remove your HMD link from the taken page, just let us know in a comment to that page!

Just to remind you all of the gamewide HMD schedule: the CR meme and the gamewide HMD will alternate. In August, we had our first HMD, so in September, it's CR meme time! We'll have another HMD in October, and so on from there.

And lastly, we have some small modly updates! These are features we've implemented over the course of the month, though none of them were big enough to warrant a whole-ass mod announcement on the OOC comm. Instead, these updates as well as any other future updates will appear in the gameplans for the month! So, here's what we've got:

The NPC page now includes the Lighthouse Keeper, and Winters has been, er, updated. Same goes for the taken and network/tablet pages; they've been updated to account for the NPC switcheroo.
The exploration page no longer includes the option to ask Winters for help. The Lighthouse Keeper has mentioned that she's willing to give clues about locations and exploring the town, but you'll have to go to her directly for that.
Just a little note to remind everyone that the weekly bulletin will now come to you in network post form as opposed to a physical newspaper! The perks of getting Robin back on the network are varied and vast.
The game history page isn't updated just yet, but it will be by the time the intro log rolls around! Keep an eye out for that.
Lastly, stay tuned for another fun game page that will go live before the intro log! We'll make a separate announcement for that.

the tl;dr

September 1: Intro log; Autumn begins
September 3: Will's NPC post
September 6: For Everything a Reason begins; The weather is calm and quiet
September 7: For Everything a Reason ends
September 9: The calm weather is replaced by typical autumn weather
September 15: TDM; CR Meme
September 16: Gather Up begins
September 18: Meteor shower
September 20: Reserves open
September 22: Reserves close; Apps open; AC begins
September 25: Gather Up ends
September 29: Apps close
September 30: AC ends

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inthenightmods

GAMEPLAN: AUGUST

Hey there, players! Can you believe it's been a month already? Anyway, we'll be doing these little gameplans just before the start of each month to give you all an idea of what to expect in the coming weeks. These gameplans will include a brief description of upcoming events, a general schedule for the month, and any minor mod updates (i.e. not warranting a full mod announcement) that we have for you all.

As we head into August, please make sure to respond to the activity check if you haven't already! Everyone's required to post this month, and we will not be doing a warned list, so please make sure you've posted! Also, applications close tonight, so be sure to get your app in if you're still planning to bring in a second character.

august 1-14

The month will begin with our intro log on August 1! Welcome, fresh blood! Winters will be around to give his "hi you're dead be careful with your lantern etc. etc." spiel, though he won't hang around for very long! This time, it's up to you folks to get the new characters up to speed. It's all about community, as Winters would say.

But, uh oh, there's a bit of an issue with the ferry this month. It's been infested with rats! Forest spirit rats, of course, and they're hungry. Let's just hope they won't eat through too many of the month's supplies... Fortunately, though, they seem eager to hop off the ferry once it's close to shore! Unfortunately, that means they're making their way downtown. That could be a bit of a problem.

If the rats aren't dealt with during the intro log, they'll at least get driven out of town on August 5 with the start of a torrential downpour! The rain will last for two straight days, and then will turn into a thunderstorm, which will then cause flash flooding. Beacon's going to be awfully soggy until the rain and floods finally clear up on August 10. But for those five days, be careful with your lanterns and, erm, keep an eye on the bonfire. Not even water can put out the bonfire, but wood does float, and Rastus can't swim. Bon voyage, bonfire!

Just kidding. Mostly. The bonfire will probably be fine, but it's not like characters will know that. Feel free to use this downpour however you like, as it's just a weather event and we won't actually be putting up a log for it.

You'll also want to look out for OOC signups for the lighthouse expedition on August 8. This is the expedition Winters talked about in his recent network post. We'll have more info on the OOC post itself, of course, but here's the short version of how it will work: Players will be able to sign up their character(s) to contribute to various parts of the lighthouse expedition and forest spirit party. We'll choose the groups via random number generator to keep things fair. The RNG drawings will be player-based in that if you play two characters and one is chosen, your other character will be removed from the running. We're aiming to make space for approximately 25-30 players to contribute directly to this plot. If you aren't able to get involved directly, there will be more opportunities for this kind of plot-related stuff in the future! In the meantime, you can enjoy the event! Which, speaking of...

august 15-31

The second half of the month is where stuff gets a bit busy! Let's start with the Do You Realize? event, shall we?

Do You Realize? will be split into two halves, with part one running August 15-17. The first part of the event will be... A party! How nice! The forest spirits have decided to throw y'all a big WELCOME TO BEACON!!! bash. Yes, it's about a month late for the first batch of arrivals, but look, the forest spirits are a shy and wary bunch. It's thanks to the kindness, respect, and friendship shown to the forest spirits by many of you in town that they're willing to come out into the open for a meet-cute. As a group, you've been... APPROVED!

Anyway, some lucky players will be able to impart their influence on said party by working with the forest spirits in one big party planning committee! Yay! Forest spirits both familiar and unfamiliar, cute and creepy, friendly and... well, neutral-ish, if we're being generous will be in attendance, and everyone in town is invited. The party will take place in Bonfire Square, and the particulars will depend on what the party planning committee comes up with.

On the night of August 17, the expedition to the lighthouse will begin. How this expedition pans out will depend heavily on the players involved, so we can't tell you much about how things will go just yet! All you need to know is this: Using the party as a distraction was a great idea, but alas, it was never destined to work completely. Suddenly, the lighthouse fog horn will start blaring in frantic melody, almost like a song, until...

Well, you'll just have to wait to find out. It probably won't be good, though! We'll have more details on this event when the OOC post for it goes up. To top it all off, there will be a mysterious NPC post on August 20 immediately following the event! Who that comes from will depend on how the expedition goes.

In less dramatic news, we'll have some ominous heat lightning on August 18, and our TDM goes up on August 15!

ooc news

Some players came our way with a suggestion that we've decided to try out, so keep an eye out for the gamewide HMD post on August 15. The HMD post will go up in the OOC comm, oocinthenight, and it will be locked to players in the game. Every player will be required to toplevel so that other players can offer feedback. We'll have a toplevel for us as mods, as well. This feedback can be critical, but we of course won't allow harassment or anything of the sort. On the flipside, no one should use the HMD as a love meme, either! The intent here is to offer each other thoughtful feedback that will help us grow as RPers, and it's tough to grow from both bashing and gushing alike. We'll have more details on the post itself.

But mods, you ask, why bother with a gamewide HMD if we've already got required HMDs on our journal? That redundancy hasn't been lost on us, but ultimately, since the IC and OOC communities in this game are critical to its success, we thought a group HMD would be plenty beneficial too. Kind of like a little roundtable discussion where we can offer advice on the things we can improve on and praise for the things we're already knocking out of the park. That said, please do let us know below if you have questions or comments!

In the future, the CR meme and the gamewide HMD will alternate. In July, we had the CR meme, so in August, it's HMD time! We'll have another CR meme in September, and so on from there.

And lastly, we have some small modly updates! These are features we've implemented over the course of the month, though none of them were big enough to warrant a whole-ass mod announcement on the OOC comm. Instead, these updates as well as any other future updates will appear in the gameplans for the month! So, here's what we've got:

The NPC page now includes a more thorough description of the forest spirits, as well as descriptions of some of the notable forest spirits around town.
The taken page has been updated to include player/canon cap numbers, and all of the character names now link to that character's app (so long as that app was given the go ahead to be unscreened).
We've updated the calendar to include weather events, as well as the schedule for August.

the tl;dr

August 1: Intro log
August 5: The rain begins
August 7: The rain becomes a storm
August 8: The storm continues and flash floods begin; OOC signups for the Do You Realize? event
August 10: The storms and flooding finally end; OOC signups close and groups will be contacted shortly thereafter
August 15: TDM; HMD; Do You Realize? P1 begins
August 18: Do You Realize? P1 ends while P2 begins; Heat lightning lights up the sky
August 19: Do You Realize? P2 ends
August 20: NPC network post; Reserves open
August 22: Reserves close; Apps open; AC begins
August 29: Apps close
August 31: AC ends

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