Player Plot - The Eyes Have It? Not if we can help it!

[bindlestifflost]

Overview:
George attended a city council meeting when he heard they intended to pass an ordinance to make sleeping in public illegal, made an impassioned argument against it, and swayed the council to put off the vote. As a result, police patrols have increased to enforce anti-loitering laws already on the books as an olive branch to the wealthier citizens, breaking up groupings of 5 or more in the city limits.

He was then contacted by a civic organization, Helping Hands, working with the unhomed in Gloucester. He checked out their website, decided they were on the up and up, and made the decision to become more involved than just donating money. One of his ways of involvement will be to recruit his fellow ADI co-workers. As a result of this, there will be consequences. This event will be ongoing for two months, starting in November, and will tie into larger events in the game on the whole, so there will be no instant fixes or solutions, although concentrated efforts can help people.

Helping Hands:
If your character agrees to get involved with the organization, let me know. I was told we could create some NPC's as needed for the event, so the joint heads of Helping Hands are an energetic middle aged couple, Joyce and Belinda Everson. Joyce is in charge of on the ground work, a short, stocky woman with streaks of gray in her dark mid-length bob, reading glasses always on a colored bead chain around her neck, and a loud laugh. She's good at organizing, deciding what should go where, and is quick to sort people into roles where they're the most useful. She takes her work seriously, doesn't like tardiness or broken promises, and has a real commitment to the well-being of the community she serves. Belinda is taller and more willowy with blonde hair going to white. She's in charge of finances and donations, is less personable than her wife, and only really deals with volunteers who decide to get involved with fundraising. She'll listen to any good idea, and if she thinks it has promise, she'll work hard to make it happen.

Feel free to have your characters work with and interact with these ladies as needed. Keep in mind that if you're shady or violent, they will call the cops on you in a heartbeat. This organization is their baby. They protect it fiercely. Also feel free to create NPCs in the served community or overzealous cops to have to work around. I wasn't under the impression we would catch or figure out who's responsible at this time, so keep any actual antagonists shadowy and never fully seen or caught for now.

The Consequences:
Helping Hands and the people they help will be targeted by supernatural forces in a variety of ways. Eye-based graffiti will be painted on the headquarters and any buildings they frequent for meetings, fundraising, shelter, and the like. The graffiti will cause paranoia and distrust in those inside the buildings. Objects will also be left around to cause chaos and harm. So far we have:

X-ray Ring (mod suggestion): A ring that looks like it has an eye on the top of it where a gem would be set. Putting it on grants the wearer X-ray vision, but in the process, it inflicts increasing levels of pain on the eyes over the course of several days up to the point that even opening the eyes becomes excruciating. The ring cannot be removed once put on. The only way to get rid of it is to sever the finger it's on.

Glass Evil Eye Pendants (Linds suggestion) - Attract bad luck and negative interactions to any carrying them or who have them displayed in their office or homes.

Hallucination Glasses (Linds suggestion) - Supposedly from a charity for people who can't afford eye wear, they cause progressively worsening vision with hallucinations of terrible creatures just at the corners of the eyes. Taking them off stops the hallucinations, but the vision degradation is permanent.

The mods would love for a few more items to come into play for the event and would need to approve them. If you have any suggestions, I'll have a spot on the form below for it. On 10/10 I'll submit what we have to them and post what got approved as a reply to this post.

The Solution: We need to brainstorm ways our characters would help and protect Helping Hands and the people they serve. I'd imagine it's not immediately obvious something is happening. The graffiti might be subtle and the items difficult to trace or notice at first. It would be nice to have a build, an action phase, and then when December's game plot hits, it will also involve/affect this one. So maybe as a tentative time table, Nov.1-10 is the build phase when bad things begin to happen and eventually people put together the pattern, Nov. 11-30 is when people mobilize and start trying to track things down and counter them, as well as trying to find ways to protect the targeted. Volunteers can be targeted, too! That means us!

In December we'll see where it's going. Also potential complications, overzealous police and police harassment, the anti-loitering laws, and any other supernatural effects at play in town during this plot.

Fill out the form below if you want to be involved, and in November, I'll get a log up for it. I'm on hiatus this month.

<b>How will your character get involved with Helping Hands?</b> Keep in mind just donating money or food from a distance won't get your character targeted by the supernatural effects. They'll have to be more involved. <b>Cursed Item Suggestions:</b> Must be eye themed. Must ultimately be mod approved. <b>What will your character do to help once it's clear things are wrong?</b> Suggestions are research, artifact finding and retrieval (potentially dangerous), graffiti cleaning, security at targeted buildings to watch for the perpetrators (also potentially dangerous), guarding employees, volunteers, or those served (potentially dangerous), being targeted or affected by an artifact yourself (definitely dangerous.)

Comments

Update!

[bindlestifflost]

OK, guys! Here are the approved items for this plot.

X-ray Ring (mod suggestion): A ring that looks like it has an eye on the top of it where a gem would be set. Putting it on grants the wearer X-ray vision, but in the process, it inflicts increasing levels of pain on the eyes over the course of several days up to the point that even opening the eyes becomes excruciating. The ring cannot be removed once put on. The only way to get rid of it is to sever the finger it's on.

Glass Evil Eye Pendants (Linds suggestion) - Attract bad luck and negative interactions to any carrying them or who have them displayed in their office or homes.

Hallucination Glasses (Linds suggestion) - Supposedly from a charity for people who can't afford eye wear, they cause progressively worsening vision with hallucinations of terrible creatures just at the corners of the eyes. Taking them off stops the hallucinations, but the vision degradation is permanent.

Copy of Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See?, a children's book. Forces the reader (or anyone listening) to experience a traumatizing memory from the perspective of someone they care about. The memory will last as long as the book is being read. The reader will be forced to continue reading it, regardless of anything else happening/what they're experiencing. (Terri)

Antique magnifying glass. When used, whatever is being looked at will warp into the face of someone the user cares for, or the user themself. The hallucination will bleed from the eyes. When they put it down, the vision, the user's eyes will leak blood for up to ten minutes. Mostly harmless, but uncomfortable. (Alex)

Anonymously donated cans of black-eyed peas. Eating these peas causes one to develop parasitic infection in the eyes. Symtoms include swelling, bloody tears, possible blindness. (Shiny)

scarf with eye-like motifs: the scarf will cause the wearer to become incredibly suspicious of everyone around them. They will think other people secretly hate them, or are impostors, or are out to get them. The longer it’s worn, the more prominent the effects will be. The scarf is incredibly difficult to get off, and if worn for too long, becomes fused to exposed skin.

Eyeball chocolate candy: You know the one, chocolate balls wrapped up in colorful foil that makes it look like an eyeball. Upon eating one, the user victim can compel/influence someone to tell them the truth about something. The candy is highly addictive and the more it’s eaten, the more obsessed about truth the person will get. If too much is consumed, the person will be unable to stop themselves from hurting other people to pry the truth out of them. Maybe literally in some cases.

Confession pen: A perfectly innocuous looking pen, but if touched by a person, they will be compelled to start scribbling all their deepest, darkest secrets and truths over anything and everything. Sorry if they get it on your arm. The more exposure to the pen, the more the person becomes drawn and weak. It’s possible this can lead to death if it’s not taken away from said person. (Above 3 from Indy)

A Black eye pendant that causes hallucinations for the wearer to see images of the worst deeds or memories of whoever they're talking to while actively engaged with them. (Lysoke)

Kaleidoscope that shows you visions of a fantastic future that you want as you turn it, but when you stop looking through it, the worst things from your past manifest to harass you. Mod addition to the kaleidoscope is as follows: visions can be monsters or people that manifest within 15ft of the person using the kaleidoscope. Anyone within 15 ft can also be harassed by these monsters and potentially suffer (non fatal) injuries. (Sarah)

A painting or statue of a sad person/child/animal/etc that causes the individual looking at it to weep uncontrollably, with tears that burn both their eyes and skin. Persists until the painting/statue/etc is destroyed. (Jae)

A wooden chicken with big staring eyes. Initially it has excellent vibes--you want to pick up the chicken, looking at it will bring you good luck! This slowly deteriorates into the idea that if you're not looking at it (or it's not looking at you) something bad will happen. The paranoia increases until Not Looking At It feels like it will bring certain doom. The effect ends when it's destroyed. (James)

An analog wristwatch that makes the wearer certain that the first person they speak to after putting it on knows their deepest, darkest shame. The longer they wear it, the more urgent silencing the person seems, whether by begging, bribes, or violence. The effect can be ended by stopping the watch, or confessing the shameful thing to a third party. (PG)

As for guards and investigators in this plot, this was the mod reply:

Those standing guard will find their watches tested by seemingly normal people (with a range of ages and genders, but all adults), just ones very good at being slippery. They’re likely to test various guards at various times to see if they can get past them, but won’t actively engage in a fight. Attempts to lure guards away may occur and accidents can happen, but nothing lethal will be intended.

Those chased after will do what they can to lose their tail, including potential bodily harm in the form of obstructions being tossed in the way or jumps that are just a little too far, but again no targets will stop to engage the guards, just lose them.

Something they’ll be largely successful at! At first. Some runners slip up or especially tenacious and agile pursuants manage to keep up, and where they are led is to a warehouse on the outskirts of Gloucester (not the one where Kahlil was growing the vegetable lambs, to be clear).

Research can be done into this warehouse, but the results and an active battle plan won’t be finished until next month’s event. There’s likely only one good shot at investigating before whatever or whoever’s inside is moved, after all.

I'll be putting up an IC combined Network/Log post for the plot shortly. Feel free to interact with the NPCs as they're outlined above, and if you have any specific questions for me, just let me know!