wellcome | 2.3 Event

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OOC announcements

Welcome to month 3 of cycle 2! The storm is back, and it's worse than ever.

This time, there will be no event post on the main comm. Instead, make your own logs to include these prompts, and any other prompts you want to add. Near the end of the month, when only the hotel is left standing, a log will go live for everyone present there or in the graveyard. There is no mini-event this month.

Use the permanent change report form if your character damages or makes permanent changes to anything. Damage and change is permanent for the cycle.

Post any bulletins to the bulletin board.

Plotting/CR form

NEW THIS MONTH

The hotel’s special for the month: bandannas and goggles.

The food at the buffet is far worse than you’re used to: it’s bland and flavorless, and oddly gritty. Your room doesn’t get refreshed every day. In fact, if you look closely, your room looks far worse for wear than you remember: there are cracks in the ceiling, it gets hotter in the day and colder at night, dust and dirt are built up in the corners.

When you visit the few other locations in town, you’ll find the employees quiet and fearful, and they may say some strange things, in addition to the handful of phrases they usually say:

The receptionist: “Might still be worth going out. Don’t want you to get cabin fever!”

Owner of the General Store: “Still got some jam! Livens up just about anything.”

The bartender: “Thinking about packing it in ‘til this storm blows over.”

The waiter: “It isn’t so bad! We’ll make it through this, we always do.”

The gravedigger: Watches you from in her shack in the graveyard.

The sheriff: Sits at his desk, and doesn’t frequent the saloon.

Looks like it’s going to be a bumpy month.

THE STORM

Content warnings: choking, being trapped, potentially being buried alive

Week 1

During the day, the heat settles to a slightly more reasonable level. It’s eerily quiet. Animals can be seen hightailing it out of town. Jackrabbits flee into the night, snakes and scorpions appear in broad daylight, trying to get the hell out of dodge. There is a distinct lack of birdsong. Out on the horizon, a massive dark wall gathers. The rifts from last month still criss-cross town, yawning darkly.

On the edge of town, unmoving, massive dust-shrouded mounds rise from the sand, circling the town haphazardly.

At night, high, hot winds whistle past the Staywell.

Dust devils whirl down the streets, knocking loose boards from buildings and flinging sand into eyes and ears and mouths.

Week 2

The sandstorm rolls in fast: one minute you are on the street in the heat of the sun; the next, it’s as black as midnight, wind is whipping past your ears and shoving sand into your face. You may want to board up your own windows.

Sandstorms roar to life in the blink of an eye, lasting anywhere from minutes to hours, with no clear pattern. If you’re caught outside when the storm begins, it can be almost impossible to find your way back into shelter. Sand whips at you with what feels like malice. It gets into your eyes and your nose and your ears, clogging your senses, making it hard to breathe. It’s sharp enough to scrape and cut you bloody, seeking out your soft parts like it’s guided that way. You can protect yourself by covering your skin, ears, and eyes from the sand.

To make things worse: massive bugs, ranging in size from mosquitos to large dogs, roll in with the storms, seemingly brought in waves every time sand hits the town. They are predatory and they are angry, and gnaw away at anything they can find.

The Diner’s windows shatter, and it closes down and the waiter is nowhere to be seen. Bugs cover the General Store, making it inaccessible (unless you want to wade through flesh-eating bugs). The Cactus Pad boards up its windows, and the bartender is often found sweeping sand out of the saloon. The pool is full of dust and grit, turning the water a churning, awful yellow.

The rifts are gone, filled up with treacherous shifting sand so that they blend perfectly into the landscape. Tread carefully, though: they're still under there, and all that loose quicksand might just suck you right down into one.

The only place untouched by the storms (and bugs) is the graveyard, which is once again free of sand, and full of a calming golden light.

Week 3

By the third week, only a few scant hours of each day are clear of sand and wind. If you venture out during those hours, the town looks almost unrecognizable, lifeless and half-buried under sand. Pockets of quicksand lurk here and there, undetectable until you’re already thigh-deep in one.

The wind is choked with strange, unearthly sounds: howling, whining, buzzing like thousands of insects crawling into your ears. It’s strong enough that you can feel it in your teeth, burrowing into you.

The diner is half-buried by a shifting, treacherous sand dune, and cut off by a shifting morass of quicksand between it and the rest of town. The General Store, the Cactus Pad, and the jail are also completely buried in fine, shifting sand. The bartender, the general store owner, and the sheriff are nowhere to be found. Bugs start to congregate on the north side of the Staywell, gnawing on the facade.

Week 4

The Staywell is an island in a formless sea of sand. The rest of the town is gone, reduced to flat plain. Outside, the storm rages constantly, cutting off the sun, so that the light is either heavy and red or black as midnight. Voices on the wind scream constant warnings, calling out the names of characters in town, screaming high and fast, under the whine and drone of shifting sand booming through the sky. The entire thing is a morass, liable to suck down anyone who walks into the sand.

Only a thin path of safety remains. It leads from the Staywell to the graveyard, although it too is dotted with quicksand and hard to navigate safely without testing the way in front of you somehow.

The only NPC left in town, the receptionist, seems unconcerned. He politely tells you “bit windy out there.” That’s the only dialogue he says.

tl;dr:

Week 1: All the animals are gone, and dust devils kick up in the streets. Strange sand-mounds circle the town.

Week 2: Sandstorms hit the town at all hours, making the outdoors inhospitable. The diner is closed. The sand hurts, and tries to find its way into your soft, squishy parts. Giant predatory insects make their way into town.

Week 3: The sandstorms are near-constant, and quicksand dots what’s left of the town. The wind is full of howling and awful buzzing.

Week 4: Sucking, choking sand has blanketed the town around the Staywell, leaving it a lone island in an endless dune sea. Only a quicksand-filled path connects the Staywell to the graveyard.

BUZZING

Content warnings: insects, biting, paralysis, being buried alive, burrowing insects & body horror

With the sharp, biting mouths of locusts and the grasping claws and poison tails of scorpions, the bugs brought in by the storms are fast, strong, and very dangerous. They seem to be coming from every direction. Their sting is capable of incapacitating a grown adult, and the larger the insect, the more potent and quick the effect. It may take 30 smaller stings or one very, very big one to render you completely unable to move, which is dangerous in all this shifting, sliding sand. Worse than that, these bugs will seemingly just about anything: they'll be found in clusters on buildings, chewing on the surface of the Staywell and any building left standing; they'll eat supplies and clothing and people, if they can manage it.

The big ones are bad, but arguably, the smaller ones are worse: they clog every surface not covered in sand, buzzing horribly, trying to find any soft surface to burrow into. They are particularly attracted to the rotting wounds left by doubles on people’s skin. Probably bandage those up unless you want to find yourself without a couple limbs.

While they’ll happily attack anyone they happen to bump into in a sandstorm, they seem to be particularly attracted to silence. Noise confuses and disorients them, disrupting their buzzing drone and making it difficult for them to locate their prey.

tl;dr:

Massive bugs roll in during week 2 of the storms, coming in waves, ready to eat everything and anything, including people.
They are locust-like creatures with buzzing wings and nasty pincers & stingers, which can paralyze you. They'll also try to burrow into open wounds.
They are attracted to silence and repelled by noise.

Double Trouble

Content warnings: Potential psychological and physical horror, body horror, rotting flesh

Last time, the sandstorms brought in more than just sand, and this time around, it’s no different. Familiar figures materialize with the winds: your doubles. They’re back, and they’re worse than ever.

Everyone has an identical doppelganger. As before, these doubles are no ordinary doppelgangers: they are the absolute worst version of you, the version of yourself you are most afraid of becoming. They’ve disappointed your parents and let your friends down; they are arrogant, smug, weak-willed, sniveling.

If your double was killed during Cycle 1, they won’t materialize this time until late month, and when they do, they won’t be nearly as stong. In fact, they will be more wraithlike, like a particularly solid ghost, though they will have the same rotting effect when touched.

If your double previously appeared in Cycle 1 and was not killed, or you’ve never had one, congrats: they’re stronger and meaner this time around!

They are hellbent on replacing you by any means necessary. They will, just as before, try to tear your life apart in whatever way seems most: attacking your friends and your relationships, trashing your room and your reputation with strength, skills, and weapons beyond anything you’re capable of.

When they touch you, from the point of contact outward, searing pain rolls under your skin as it begins to rot. Your thoughts, memories, and sense of self warp and turn to hazy static. The longer they hold on, the worse these effects will be, and the stronger the doppelganger will get. If they hold on long enough, you’ll simply die.

Killing your double is the only way to reverse any of these effects. It will be hard, and it will be bloody and probably a little scarring, but it can be done. When they die, they’ll fall down in place and quickly rot before your eyes. Over the course of several minutes, they’ll become a bloody skeleton.

They’ll appear seemingly out of nowhere and disappear again when it’s convenient, although they can certainly be tracked, if you’re fast enough to follow.

If they aren’t killed, they’ll stalk you all month long, trying to ruin your life and take your place. Good luck!

tl;dr:

You have a doppelganger! They’re the worst version of you. They try to take your place and be seen as you.

If you have already killed your double once, they will be weaker this time around.
They try to destroy your life in any way possible and replace you in it.

If they touch you, pain seers through you and your skin begins to rot. Your sense of self deteriorates. If they hold on long enough, you will die.

Killing your double reverses the effects on your body. When killed, the double will rot into a bloody skeleton.

In Loving Memory

Content warnings: confronting your own death, secret-spilling

During these sandstorms, the graveyard is a balm. It’s quiet and still, no matter how raging the storm outside. The graves are in their usual state of disrepair; the gravedigger can be found sweeping sand off some. The bugs and the doubles seem to keep their distance, making it a real safe haven. The light is gold, and the air is thick and watchful.

If you wander in the graveyard for even a few minutes, you’ll quickly come across a particular grave: your own. Maybe you’ve seen it before, maybe it’s brand-new to you, but either way, it’s a grave, wooden or stone, old and shabby and marked very clearly with your name. If you’ve been in here before, you’ve likely seen it, with just your name and nothing else.

Now it looks a little different.

Here lies, your grave now reads, or perhaps In loving memory of, followed by your name. Beneath that are a few lines of smaller text: an epitaph. Specifically, an epitaph stating, instead of who you are or your greatest accomplishment, something bad that you’ve done in your life. It could be something you regret, or someone that you hurt, or a fact about yourself.

Once you set eyes on your gravestone, you will be compelled to read all of the text aloud to whoever is nearby. The moment you do, a familiar pain will spread through your temples: the associated memory with whatever you just read. Maybe it’s a specific moment in time you regret, or the memory of a person that you hurt, or something to back up whatever the epitaph is telling you.

This is your memory-regain prompt for this month! Interacting with the gravestone is enough to regain you a memory worth up to two points. If you choose to use this regain, it must be on the memory associated with your grave’s epitaph.

tl;dr:

The graveyard is one of the only safe places in town, and this month it feels like a sanctuary.

You'll be able to easily find your own grave, which now has an epitaph describing you badly, or something bad you've done.

You'll be compelled to read this aloud, and it will trigger a memory-regain associated with the words.

2.3 Event

Week 1

Week 2

Week 3

Week 4

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