apocalypsehowooc | Event OOC - The Ballad of Thomazine Younger

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Event OOC - The Ballad of Thomazine Younger

The Ballad of Thomazine Younger - OOC

Summaries and content warnings for each prompt in the event are provided below. Please pose questions to the designated mod comment, and plot away!

➥ Ghosts of Yesteryear: 16-20 April
➥ Outfoxed at Foxhill: 19-20 April
➥ Those Meddling Kids: 20-24 April
➥ And You Must Ask Yourself: 16 April - Ongoing

➥ Ghosts of Yesteryear
(cw: references to blackmail, plague, fire, being buried alive, altered mental states, spying, and cannibalism; implied eye injury)

Urban legend Thomazine "Tammy" Younger, the Witch Queen of Dogtown, has been trending in local papers as well as local gossip. Widely varying and contradictory stories about just what sort of witchcraft she got up to seem to be gaining popularity, accusing this fringe historical figure of everything from starting a plague to baking her neighbors into pies. What's more, she's actually been spotted on the outskirts of Dogtown. At least, an old woman has been seen just inside the fence. Or is it multiple women, all with different faces and features? And just why does this ghost sometimes vanish right before your eyes, but other times dodge behind a tree or tromp quite solidly through the undergrowth to make her exit? Something strange is afoot here.

➥ Outfoxed at Foxhill
(cw: alcohol, dolls, potential for injury)

ADI recruits volunteers to investigate the situation in Dogtown with Tammy Younger's ghost more closely. The park seems… almost normal? It's suspicious! But it seems the only two places anyone can get to are the park exits and Fox Hill. Fox Hill, itself, is heavily booby trapped with characters having to go through quite the ordeal to try to reach the top. Whether it's nets that leave you hanging in the air or pits that sprain ankles and leave you stuck farther down than is reasonable, this is a bit of a nightmare. There are signs of the ghost, though. Phosphorescent trails, liquor bottles, and strange stick dolls. Race to the top! There must be something worth getting to up there if it's this much trouble.

➥ Those Meddling Kids
(cw: stalking, potential child endangerment)

Ghost sightings and odd occurrences are being reported around town and ADI has just the people for the job. Characters are sent alone, in pairs, or in small groups to investigate the recent sightings and hopefully bust a ghost or two along the way; time to do what you’re good at and hit those streets to find the source or even a ghost or two.

➥ And You Must Ask Yourself
(cw: spiders, allusion to swarms, sleepwalking, compulsion)

Those touched by Gus the Bus will find themselves waking up very suddenly in Dogtown with another person by their side. They've avoided the hazards of this place while asleep, but now they need to navigate back out again. Gus-marked characters may continue to experience sleepwalking and compulsions that take them into Dogtown. Gus continues (and will continue) to be around and an encounter with him to get your character marked is possible. Players are welcome to play with this as an IC mechanic to get reluctant characters in on the Dogtown Search mechanic. There is much still to explore!

A Handy Plotting Form

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Can a character run multiple searches at once? For example, they buddy up with character A in one thread and B in another, so two search requests are made.

I have a couple of silly ideas and I'm curious if anything would come of them!

-Eda might try leaving booze for Tammy on fox hill. She doesn't really approve of cursing the place/being some kind of avatar, but she DOES kinda vibe with old woman who threatens to curse your wagons unless you pay her in whisky.

-once she finds out it's kids involved she might like, try to get in with them by talking to them about thinking it's neat they want to people to remember the stories and also maaaaybe offer that if they hypothetically needed another spooky witch for their spooky witch sightings, where would someone sign up?

Yes, this is possible! The only limit is the standard limit of two square searches max per week. This is an ongoing mechanic, though, not something just in effect for the event, so you could ultimately have many partners over time!

1. The 'spirit' of Tammy appreciates these offerings. Some of the empty bottles will turn up on Fox Hill for those going investigating. Thank you for your contributions to youthful indiscretion, Eda.

2. This is definitely a possibility. You're welcome to add a little more color and depth to the NPCs and even identify a leader amongst them for Eda to reach out to. They'll be suspicious of the assistance of an adult, but Eda being herself, she'll likely be able to win at least some of them over. If she gets too involved with them, though, please bear in mind that these kids were lucky to avoid the actual Entities of Dogtown. Eda's presence and influence will get them targeted, and she'll note that they'll start to disappear or turn up dead over the next few months. Please let us know if you want to move ahead with something like that as we'll likely incorporate elements of it into the overall game plot.

Hmmm!!! I'm thinking about it!

She wouldn't be trying to get involved with them indefinitely--basically, because of the more actually supernatural seeming Tammy sightings, she would try to build enough trust to figure out if any of them are actually involved Entity shenanigans and/or have had contact with an actual spirit/apparent spirit. (Somewhat ironically, because she's worried they're already going to get themselves hurt.)

She'd also be trying to figure out if they know any actual secrets about Dogtown, including just how they're having luck navigating it.

If there's not much on that front, she'd try to steer them away from doing their pranks in Dogtown, and then most likely leave them alone.

All that in mind, I'm still happy for it to go terribly wrong.

While the kids are certainly rife with lots of hearsay and stories they swear are true because they totally know the person it happened to, none of them seem to have much direct contact. At least none they'd be willing to talk about so readily.

As to how they're navigating, that's a trade secret! However, some who might take more of a shine to Eda will admit they either don't go that deep into it themselves while others look at her with confusion. Isn't it just a spooky forest, after all?

Those same kids might turn up maimed, traumatized, and one of them dead in the following month, however, which will certainly dry up some of the teen's pranks soon enough

I'm down for that, it seems like there's enough reasons to worry they're mixed up in things already that I can see her trying to balance investigating that with not getting too close to anyone and still have someone die.

Also! An entirely unrelated question, but: would (assuming she was feeding enough) detaching the arm with the web tattoo have any effect on the nightmares/sleepwalking? My guess would be no but I want to have her try it in universe so I might as well ask!

Alas! While the arm remains intact, Gus' tattoo effects will remain in full force. She may even find herself 'waking' with the arm reattached. Clearly, she did that herself. ::::3

So, in theory, if Manji accidentally thought he was attacking a ghost and chopped off a kid's arm...

...would the mods be okay with that? As he would like to keep it until ADI figure out he's got a new arm and make him get rid of it.

The mods are OOCly fine with this. ADI personnel would be ICly outraged if they find out he cut off a teen's arm and just stole it for himself. Especially if he did nothing to aid the teen that he injured (who will react about how you'd expect a normal teenager to react to suddenly having their arm chopped off). He's welcome to be vague, but this may well come back to bite him later because 'kid loses arm to man with sword' discussion in the community is going to lead them to one suspect.

If the source of Manji's ill-got arm is discovered, he would be immediately captured and jailed by ADI personnel. The length of his imprisonment might be anywhere from two weeks to a month, but once he's out, he'll be under harsh native ADI and even off-world ADI NPC scrutiny for the remainder of his run in the game. That's just not on, bro.

Manji (even if he won't outwardly show it much) is going to be horrified to find he attacked a kid and not a real ghost. He would do his best to help the kid - such as try to stop the bleeding and then try to get him help. It's just carrying a kid to a hospital is going to be a whole lot easier with two arms instead of one. Which is the point where he will likely 'steal' the arm.

I was kind of thinking ADI is going to find out VERY quickly (if mods OOC-ly were okay with it. I didn't want to get too far in case it wasn't.) as someone of Manji's description showing up to a local hospital claiming he chopped a kid's arm off in self defence is going to ping them quickly.

While Manji, if he thought modern medicine could reattach the arm, would be willing to chop the "borrowed" arm back off to return it - I'm guessing there will already be staff trying to contain the man covered in blood and admitting he just chopped off a kid's arm. And they especially aren't going to give him enough time to self harm to return the arm/let him keep his weapon. At which point, as he's not interested in being arrested, Manji will flee without having time to 'give the arm back'.

Manji won't lie if they question him as to how he came to have two right arms. Or why the right arm on the left side of his body is slimmer than the other. He'd be blunt, honest, and to the point. He thought he was attacking a ghost, used the arm to get the kid help, didn't get the chance to return it, seemed like a waste to just throw it away.

I am 100% happy for Manji to be in ongoing trouble for this action and to be jailed for some time if ADI wanted to arrest him.

With that color to the situation, ADI would be more understanding, especially if Manji actually explains. He'll still be held in lockdown until the arm falls off, but they won't keep him past that. They will confiscate his fancy light sword that they've been ignoring up until this point and keep a closer eye on him, but accidents happen. They all thought the ghosts were real. Everyone just has to feel collectively terrible now for terrorizing teens.

Manji says: how about no? He likes having two arms.

Aka - how upfront is ADI going to be about their intentions of having the arm come off? Depending on how they approach/word their request Manji may do one of two things:

1. Hurry things along and just chop the arm off himself.
2. Make a run for it and remove himself from ADI.

If they try to trick him to bring him in to remove the arm he'll likely fall for it. Although once he's free again he will also then try to cut ties from ADI and tell everyone he can about their trickery as he hands in his two weeks notice. (two weeks notice being him flipping the bird as he walks out of the building and not come back.)

Being honest as to why they don't want him to keep two arms he may be more willing to help. If all they say is: that magic worries them - he will say tough shit he has his worm magic with or without this arm so he should keep it as it will help him fight real ghosts in the future. If they can't give a better reason then that he may try to run.

If they give a reason such as: they want to try to reattach the arm to the kid (even if they're just lying) or give a reason why him having both arms could actually hurt past them being scared about him becoming an avatar then he will be willing to just get rid of it. He'll even do the messy chop-chop part himself for them. No need to wait.

ADI will not bother to lie to Manji. The arm attaching is evidence to them that he's generating supernatural fear. Understandable for what just happened with the kid, but they're not going to let him keep it because that would mean he's still purposefully feeding a patron. After what's happened with Hickey, they're not going to mess around with that.

We'd like you to make a decision on what's going to happen here, though. Would you like Manji to remain and chop off the arm himself, or would you like him to disengage from ADI? If the latter, please let us know how you intend to keep him engaged with the plot. If the former, please let us know what reasonable additional explanations would work to get Manji to cooperate. ADI can provide those!

I'm assuming ADI are going to be very persistent in catching Manji to remove the arm should he try to run? (Especially after what happened with Hickey.)

Cards on the table: my activity hasn't been where I would like it to be so I have been considering dropping for a bit. I'm debating having Manji being on the run as the reason why he leaves the game. Haven't 100% decided so I'm weighing my options. The other option is ADI carting him off, taking the arm, and then him lingering around out of spite and bitterness towards them.

They will be persistent, yes.

While we would be sad to see you go, that could definitely be an option for Manji if you want him to remain alive elsewhere in the setting. If you would like to keep him in the game, they can catch him and get the arm off of him. We would note that major changes to the game status quo will be occurring as a result of the Arc 2 finale that is kicking off this month. Just so you're aware of what's coming up.

I'm thinking that is what I will do - have them eventually catch him and after being stubborn for a bit, he tells them to just chop it off so he can get back into the game a bit faster. See if maybe the new bitterness towards ADI might spark a creative fire under my butt again.

And I do want to stress that it's nothing to do with the game itself as to why I've been considering dropping because I do love this game. I just haven't ever really fully recovered my free time from a life event last year and I know I'm not giving the game the attention it deserves lately due to other things calling for my attention in the last couple months.

We can definitely go with that! Manji will be one-armed and free for the start of the event, in that case.

No need to ever explain something like that, but we appreciate the kind words all the same!

SOMETHING I'VE JUST REMEMBERED! ~~Okay, remembered a day or so ago, but finally had time to do a quick canon review because anime yadda yadda BS to understand and I wanted to make sure I got it right.~~

When ADI do approach him, Manji will tell them that there is a good chance they can still reattach the arm to the kid because--

CW: MENTION OF WORMS/BODY HORROR

Manji's holy worms basically would 'infect' the arm as soon as Manji attached it to himself. When they remove the arm from him they will have a small window to reattach it to the kid with no complications. As in the worms will be able to reattach the arm as if it was never cut off. The kid WILL NOT be immortal forever as the worms will eventually die off.

If Manji explained this to ADI how willing might they be to help him get the arm back to the kid/get it reattached? It would be using some supernatural abilities to do so, but it's temporary and - hey! Kid gets their arm back! Or would they be against reattaching it in any way except by modern medical standards?

This raises an interesting conundrum for ADI and Manji will get a front row seat to an argument that will play out between Neil Grace (Head of Security) and Nia Lehrer (Warden of ADI).

Neil is categorically against allowing the reattachment of the arm by supernatural means. He thinks this is going to traumatize the teen further than it already has and having an arm tainted by the Corruption is going to poison any chance at an emotional recovery. He thinks it might well lead to the teen even becoming an avatar, themselves. Or at least a major target for the Corruption.

Nia is more inclined to allow it because it will give the teen their arm back. Just this one time, she thinks they can make an exception to repair the damage that was done. This will be a life-altering experience, but it doesn't need to maim the teen, as well. They can even make a point to have ADI work with the teen and bring them into the fold to oversee their protection.

Ultimately, because Nia is the leader of ADI, her choice will win out and the kid will get their arm back. You're free to make up what details you'd like about this teen, but from this point forward, they will be heavily traumatized (twice over) and have the phantom sensation of worms wriggling in their shoulder for the rest of their life.

Edited 2023-05-11 04:52 (UTC)

Love that!

Also, quick thought: if the Manji incident didn't discourage the kids enough on its own, Eda probably suggested they lay low for a while a bit sooner than I'd pictured, just given that. (Also in case it's relevant, I went with her having met the one that lost an arm but I've been loose on any other details)

Noted! The kids are... definitely going to be discouraged by one of their friends losing an arm, BUT NOT REALLY??? So, they'll be laying low. Ish.

His bad, bro. Big whoopise?

Very belated question: if someone tried to keep themselves out of Dogtown by going to bed with restraints or supervision, how effective would that be? Would there be consequences?

Also: if they're unaffected while asleep, is it possible for them to sleepwalk deeper into Dogtown than they might get with the overnight mechanic? In other OOC words, would a sleepwalker be able to explore a square more than five squares away from the entrance without having to spend the night?

The restraints will need to be particular and something that your character would not typically be able to get themselves out of. But those or supervision would potentially work to keep someone from sleep-walking off. Something else to keep in mind is that sleep-walking characters may appear to be awake and even briefly converse with others, even if their conversation may be strangely stilted. Hope the person watching you knows you well.

We're going to say yes to this to facilitate additional exploration. Coming OUT of Dogtown while awake would still be at a normal speed, though. So, if they go 10 squares in while sleeping, it's going to take them around a day and a half to actually get out. Enjoy the woods in your pajamas.

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Event OOC - The Ballad of Thomazine Younger

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CW: Child endangerment and body horror

CW: Child endangerment and body horror

CW: Child endangerment and body horror

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