agentleooc | event 04 plotting

This month, we're going to roll the plotting and intro post into one spot. There is a top-level just for new players here.

The morning that comes with the new Strangers’ arrival is an ominous one. Somber mood becomes stark, horrifying reality soon enough. In the night, a coven of Black Widows sneaked into Draega and broke a young witch who had the potential to be a good, strong Queen. The Blood are reeling, shocked and stunned by this egregious attack on a child.

While the Guilds and the Ebon Council use this as an opportunity to attack Fayura for her inability to defend the city, Fayura reaches out to the Strangers and requests they help her find the coven who attacked the young girl. To do this, she sends them out into the city, where tangled webs the coven wove in the night ensnare their minds and cause them to live through dark memories and terrible visions. Characters can be trapped in the web and acting out the memories, break into the web to free someone else, or try to change the course of the memory. As always, if you would like to take a prompt in another direction, you are welcome to do so.

PLEASE BE AWARE: The prompts featuring tangled webs are laden with triggering content. Each prompt has a trigger warning beside the header so that you are aware of the content inside the prompt. Most of the triggering content is not described in detail, and in many cases is only alluded to or described in passing.

You can read the full event here. The post is currently locked for responses and will open at 8PM EST on the 18th. Take this time to talk to each other about what you’re interested in doing and accomplishing in this event.

Questions should be asked here. For this event, Queen Fayura will be available to answer questions. Some of the NPCs may utilize the Farcasters, so keep an eye on the network as well. As always, you may drive the cityfolk as you please.

Some additional information…

► Fayura and the little girl’s father will be available for questions with the first prompt. The little girl who was broken is in the residence and under Allairavar’s guard with her mother. No one will be allowed to speak with her. For your OOC understanding: being broken is deeply traumatic, often results in insanity, and is a despicable mental violation considered worse than any other by the Blood. Everyone in the residence wants to give the young witch the time she needs to heal and a safe space in which to do it.

► Fayura has asked the Strangers to discover the witches who attacked the young girl and the city at large. If you would like to bring a suspect before Fayura, Grejor, or Niall, you may volunteer to do so here within the next 48 hours. Anyone may volunteer to bring in a suspect. The mod team will randomly assign suspects to characters who chose to bring a suspect forward. For example, if CharA, CharB, and CharC want to bring suspects forward, the mods will take Suspect1, Suspect2, and Suspect3 and randomly assign them to each character.

► After 48 hours, the mods will post a suspect list in the OOC community. Each suspect will be accompanied by a short dossier. Using this information and hints in the IC event post, characters may accuse up to three suspects of being part of the coven.

► We understand that many of the prompts for this event containing triggering material. As such, players are encouraged to share information OOCly as handwaved character conversations. Please also feel free to have these discussions in-character in the network community.

► For each correct accusation, the player who brought that suspect before the faction leaders will be able to assign 5 points of influence to any faction of their choice. For example, if Tony Stark brought SuspectA before Niall and SuspectA is correctly identified as a part of the Black Widow coven, Tony will be allowed to award 5 points of influence to the faction of his choice. Characters can and should pressure each other to support one faction over another. Tony will also gain 1 point of reputation with each member of the faction he awards influence to.

► As a whole, the Strangers will be able to determine which faction should deal with the accused Black Widows. This will result in that faction gaining a significant amount of influence within the city—the exact amount will be determined when we update influence, but will be no more than 10 points.

After this event…

► New players can assume that characters know all the information given in the info pages. Whether you handwave a conversation with random NPCs or assume that Loren answered your characters' questions, as of the end of the event all PCs have been informed of the landen Guilds, the Ebon Council, and the state of the world.

► Characters may move out of the Queen's Residence and establish their homes elsewhere. Many buildings in the city are empty and in need of repairs, but no one will stop Strangers from moving in.

► Any one who remains at the Queen's Residence will receive a modest stipend, enough to cover food and drink. Loren will make clear that Strangers who do not live at the residence will not be afforded this money but also that Strangers who do stay are considered part of the Queen's court in as much as actions they take will reflect back on the court.

► Allairavar reminds everyone who chooses to stay at the residence that if you live with the court, you practice with the court. He expects all the Strangers who stay to be on the practice fields with everyone else at dawn. To those who are reticent, he explains that no one needs to learn how to fight only how to defend long enough for help (he seems to imply himself) to arrive.