wellie: (Default)
Well Mod ([personal profile] wellie) wrote in [community profile] wellcome2023-12-30 07:54 pm
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4.3 Event Plotting

4.3 Event Plotting

OOC announcements

Welcome to the end of cycle 4! Things look a little different this time around, and a lot the same.

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. There will be a end of the event (and end of year 1!) sum up posted toward the end of January.

Use the happenings form to report on what your character’s been up to! Did you break something? Did you get into a screaming match in the middle of town? Spill the tea! Everyone’s thirsty for gossip.

Post any bulletins to the bulletin board. Remember that this is now on the new [community profile] wellcomms community. And remember that you can annoy everyone in town by using your walkie talkie! What will your character do with all this power?!
Plotting/CR form

Fill out as much or as little of this form as you like:


New this month

At the Staywell

The dining hall features one long table and the same meals every day: a nice, continental breakfast, sandwiches for lunch, and a roast for dinner.

The fires are built up high, and there's a new hot chocolate bar in the parlor, complete with mini marshmallows. It always seems stocked up, and the chocolate is very good: rich and deep and just the right amount of sweet. Oddly, there's also a jar of cayenne pepper too, in case that's something you want in your chocolate.

Several new books appear in the parlor throughout the month:
Silent Night, Deadly Night: A Holiday Homicide

Sleigh Ride to Suspicion: A Snowy Crime Tale

Yeti's Yuletide Yarn: A Cold-Blooded Comedy Caper

Navigating the Winter Storm: A Self-Help Toolkit for Life's Challenges

Penguin Power: Embracing Confidence in Your Tuxedo

Snowga: Achieving Zen in Subzero Temperatures

The General Store

The General Store has its usual, new selection of renaissance knick-knacks, and a new stock of hand mirrors that have rhinestone encrusted backs.

The walkie talkies for purchase are now all compatible with the network, and you can pick up some little charms that you can tie onto your walkie talkie, themed to renaissance faires and the old west (think cowboy boots, swords, fairies, etc).

Around town

The tavern’s special for the month: ice cream! Yeah, that's a great idea!

The pub is offering various cocktails, most of which are a deep, dark red and come in fancy glassware.

When you visit the few other locations in town, you’ll find the employees friendly and welcoming, although they may say some strange things, in addition to the handful of phrases they usually say:
The receptionist: "Having trouble keeping you all straight these days! The Manor is truly thriving."

Owner of the General Store: "I tried to argue with my mirror, but it just reflected my points!" He laughs heartily at his own joke.

The bartender: "In for a cold one."

The waiter: Looks very uncomfortable. His voice is oddly high and he looks around with fear in his eyes. However, he doesn't deviate from his script aside from this.

The gravedigger: Is very hard to track down this month. It's nearly impossible to find your way to the graveyard. If you happen to, she does not look happy to see you there.

The sheriff: Stares wistfully out of the window in the bath house reception with a towel draped over his arm.


Whiteout
Content warnings: natural disasters, avalanche, cabin fever, crushing to death, strong possibility of death by snow
The snow doesn't stop. In fact, it gets much worse, falling thick and fast, building up around the buildings. Travel is difficult outside of the beaten path between the main buildings in town. The wind is frigid, and stepping outside will make your eyelashes frost after only a few minutes.

If you do go off the beaten path, it's easy to get lost. It's snowing so hard that your path might seal up behind you. For the first week or so, going into the forest offers some reprieve--at least from the driving snow--but finding your way back to the town is nearly impossible without some sort of help.

Snow hammers the town. It piles up. And up. And up. By week two, it's difficult even to travel to the tavern. In the whiteout conditions—by week two, it's a near-constant blizzard—even trying to go get a drink might just be a death sentence.

By week three, the Staywell is snowed in completely, the snow five feet high. The doors are frozen shut. There's still food and warmth to be found inside, which is great, because the rest of Wellstone is completely inaccessible, buried in snow. Hope everyone gets along, because you're stuck together for two weeks.

Week four, naturally, takes a turn for the worse. You might pray for a break in the weather, but there is none in sight. A constant screaming blizzard whips outside the Staywell, driving heavy wet snow into high drifts against its walls and windows. The first day, you can't see out of the first floor windows. Then the second. Then the third. Thin daylight peeks through the windows on the fourth floor until the last day of the month, when it's completely shut in. The roof creaks and groans under the weight. There's no telling how high it's piled on top of the Staywell, how heavy it is, until the last day of the month: about an hour before midnight, the world goes quiet except for the distant, muffled snap of ice and the creaking protest of the Staywell. The quiet lasts all of five minutes, and is splintered by an awful tearing crash when the roof bursts and snow pours in, trapping anyone unlucky enough to be on the fourth floor.

This seems to trigger an avalanche, which comes thundering in from all sides, breaking through the floors, pouring down the stairs. Avoid it as you might, it makes quick work of the Staywell and those inside it. There are few places to hide, if any, and it just keeps coming, burying the entire building in a frozen grave.

tl;dr:
  • The snow gets worse and worse over the month. Week one, it's hard to leave the center of town. By week two, it's impossible to go anywhere that's not one of the main buildings.
  • Week three everyone is snowed in at the Staywell.
  • Week four, the snow is burying the Staywell.
  • The last day of the month, the snow creates an avalanche through the Staywell, effectively crushing everyone to death.
  • As usual, you don't have to play out a character's death, and if it happens because of the storm, it does not have to count as a death per the memory mechanics.

Another Path
Content warnings: headaches, potential bleeding from the face, brain stuff that could lead to death
Coming out of the snow, you see a familiar face: someone who looks an awful lot like you. Only, a different you. A you who is who you could have been, if you'd made different choices, been born under different circumstances, in a different world.

Meet your alternate universe self.

You can choose any type of AU you want, including simply bringing the doubles from previous cycles back. The AUs know their whole history, and aren't missing any memories. They can know as much or as little about your character's time in Wellstone as you'd like. These AUs are like you, but also not like you.

The AUs try to integrate themselves into the ever-shrinking footprint of Wellstone. The one thing that unites them is that they feel second to you, the canon versions of them, and they hate you for that. They feel that they might be erased from this world at any second. Depending on they type of AU they are, they might want different things: they might want to replace you, like the doubles did, or they might want to sabotage you and ruin your reputation. They might want to make different choices than you did. They might want to be liked better by your friends than you are. If they want to replace you, they may try to capture or kill you, and they may pursue this doggedly to achieve their goal.

Your AUs will find themselves trapped in the Staywell with you the last two weeks of the month. This does make it pretty cramped in there. They seem to have their own rooms, but are difficult to follow when they don't want to be. They come and go as they please, and you never seem to know when one might appear, or where. If a character does find themself in a AU's room, it looks identical to the character's room in the Staywell, only the opposite orientation.

The AUs' touch will still hurt you, and anyone else they touch (except for other AUs). Their touch makes your head hurt, like the kind of hurt of trying to remember something you forgot. If they hold on too long, your head will feel like it's going to explode. If they hold on even longer, you may start bleeding from the face, and this may cause death.

tl;dr:
  • Your character now has an AU self wandering around! This AU can be anything: their double from a previous cycle, a canon AU, a crossover AU, a completely new AU.
  • The AUs feel inferior to their canon selves and want to replace them. This may mean they want to kill their canon selves, or that they want to ruin their reputation, or take their place socially.
  • If you touch an AU, your head hurts terribly. If they hold on too long, this could cause death.

Seeing red
Content warnings: death, murder, hallucinations, paranoia, hauntings, blood, compulsion to confess
The first time you and your AU touch, you gain a memory. However, this memory isn't yours. It isn't a canon memory, but one from the AU: a memory of a time for which you feel a great, heavy guilt. This will be a memory of time they killed someone, either directly or through the repercussions of their actions. This is not a canon memory and should be something completely made up. When you see this memory in your head for the first time, you then see blood on your hands, on your skin. No one else can see the blood but you.

If you have killed your double in a previous cycle, you may gain an additional fake memory, similarly of a time when you hurt or killed someone.

Your character will not be able to tell that these are not canon memories. The only way to discern that they are fake is through seeing blood on your hands afterwards, although your character will most likely have no reason to think that this makes the memory fake.

As the month progresses, you'll feel more and more intense guilt about this memory. You'll start seeing blood seeping out of the walls, bloody steps in the snow, blood on your hands.

This sense of guilt becomes more and more acute, and you may find yourself more prone to lashing out, physically or emotionally, particularly if you are in an enclosed space. You feel like others are staring at you, like they know your secret. Confessing it only makes the sense of guilt and hallucinations of blood go away for a short period of time.

If your character looks into a mirror, or a reflective surface, you see the reflection of the person, or people, who you supposedly killed looking back at you. They may talk or scream, but you can't hear them. They may even beat on the inside of the mirror glass, but can't get out.

You may also feel more likely to confess other things, too. Anything weighing on you might slip out as an attempt to assuage the sense of guilt.

The only way to make the guilt go away permanently is to kill your AU self, or for someone else to kill them. If your AU self is killed, the guilt brought on by the fake memory washes away and you feel lighter, and the world less harsh and judgemental.

There are no memory points to be gained during this event. The fake memories do not cost memory points, however it might be prudent to record them on the memory mechanics page.

tl;dr:
  • When you first touch your AU self, you gain a false memory of a time when your AU self killed someone or caused someone to be killed.
  • You feel a great, terrible guilt around this death, and see blood on your hands, in the snow, on other people.
  • You feel paranoid and are prone to lash out at others, particularly once everyone is trapped in the Staywell for the last two weeks of the month.
  • If you look into a mirror, you see the person or people you killed reflected back at you, screaming or begging for mercy.
  • Confessing your guilt relieves the guilt and the hallucinations of blood for a short time.
  • Killing your AU self relieves the guilt and hallucinations permanently.
  • The false memories do not cost memory points.
  • The guilt and hallucinations will be gone at the beginning of cycle 5, no matter if you kill your AU or not.

sighsheavily: (Default)

[personal profile] sighsheavily 2023-12-31 01:11 am (UTC)(link)
"If you have killed your double in a previous cycle, you may gain an additional fake memory, similarly of a time when you hurt or killed someone."

Can this also apply if you've killed someone else's double?
sighsheavily: (Default)

[personal profile] sighsheavily 2023-12-31 01:26 am (UTC)(link)
OK ONE MORE: do any of those self-help/winter survival books actually have useful tidbits in them
necrolord: <user name="thebutt"> (brick and mortar thick as scripture)

[personal profile] necrolord 2023-12-31 01:31 am (UTC)(link)
1. Do the cocktails contain double blood? John is the local expert in cocktails containing double blood.

2. Does the general store contain any actually useful first aid stuff like bandages and painkiller, or no?
anglophone: (Default)

[personal profile] anglophone 2023-12-31 02:26 am (UTC)(link)
Just double checking: will the false memories persist after the event?
more_magic: (17)

[personal profile] more_magic 2023-12-31 02:36 am (UTC)(link)
For characters who have not been through an end-of-cycle event before now (and therefore do not have an established previous-cycle double who could theoretically return), is having a purely AU double the only permitted option?
more_magic: (Default)

[personal profile] more_magic 2023-12-31 04:07 am (UTC)(link)
Wonderful, thanks! Now I just have to decide what route to take...
forgeabettertomorrow: (eyyyyyy this guuuuuy)

[personal profile] forgeabettertomorrow 2024-01-01 01:47 am (UTC)(link)
OKAY IT'S BEEN A FEW MONTHS NOW

So while the Staywell is being snowed in, Darin is going to spend some time looking for any indication of THE DOOR from the previous iteration of the Staywell. He's going to be knocking around walls and floors listening for hollow sounds. He's also interested in seeking out some kind of floor plan of the mansion that he can use as a map. He wants to see if everything matches up, if there are walls that seem like they shouldn't be there...literally anything.
more_magic: (63)

[personal profile] more_magic 2024-01-01 05:44 am (UTC)(link)
Your name: Caitlin
Your pronouns: she/her
Contact: [plurk.com profile] gripyfish

Character name: Daniel Arlington
General ideas or plans for the month: It's Danny's first end-of-cycle event, here we gooooooo

Becca and I have already discussed having Danny help with Pal's CSI: Wellstone Manor investigation, so that's definitely happening, I'm excited. Still trying to figure out his AU double (see below for more), but once that gets sorted there will probably be shenanigans. Otherwise, he's here for whatever horrible nonsense the month brings!

AU ideas: Originally, I had been banking on these doubles being the same as previous evil double iterations, so the AU thing threw me for a loop! That said, even though it's possible to bring Darlington an Original Flavor double even for this, I think I'm going to move my original plans down the road a bit for extra trauma fun later on.

As of now, I'm kicking around a couple new AU ideas, feedback absolutely appreciated:

Horrible Teen Danny: Darlington at seventeen, weary and cynical and been on his own too long, the lost prince of a crumbling manor. This version of him lost his belief in magic and something beyond the dull, everyday grind of real life; maybe he made the elixir he makes in canon and it didn't work, maybe he never thought to make it at all. If this kid shows up, he'll be moping around the manor, probably trying to wreck Danny's good name in some way and/or just generally being insufferable. Probably pretty easy to kill, though, if that's your jam.

Deal with the Devil Darlington: Actually different from our current Secret Demon Darlington! There's a point in Hell Bent where each of our main characters get shown a version of what their lives could become if one of them agrees to remain in Hell: is it real? is it not? no one knows! This Darlington is older and has finally achieved his ultimate goal of knowing everything, understanding all of the world's mysteries, magic in his blood and power in his hands. He also basically has psychometric powers--can touch a book and absorb its contents, view the scope of someone's life by holding their hand, can see the history of an object in an instant. May be pretty formidable if he shows up, but also wildly fun to play with and might be good to involve in whatever horribleness other folks have planned with their doubles.

He's With the Band: The version of Darlington that's actually in a band with some UConn guys (which in canon is the excuse he uses on his freshman roommates to explain why he's out so late every week doing stuff with Lethe). Not actually considering this one, except for the sheer hilarity of it. He would come in knowing all the instruments our Darlington doesn't remember he's good at, though, which might be good for entertainment when everyone's trapped together and getting cabin fever. Definitely easy to kill, and if he tries to get a jam band together, you may want to.

Event ideas: This will all depend a lot on what kind of double I end up going with, but ideally I'd like Darlington to survive through the end of the cycle. As of now, he's here to contribute to people's plans--let's talk and see what comes of it.

Are you planning to create a log this month? Leaning towards no and just tagging around, but that may change!
necrolord: <user name="thebutt"> (brick and mortar thick as scripture)

John Gaius | The Locked Tomb

[personal profile] necrolord 2024-01-01 06:48 am (UTC)(link)
Your name: Rona
Your pronouns: she/her
Contact: [plurk.com profile] ochrona

Character name: John Gaius
Plans for the month: Friends, homies, pals. John has a FULL PLATE. I'm not looking to add anything major unless we have existing CR, but I welcome reactions and fallout for all this bullshit! I also welcome moments of softness or levity to break up the drama. Gaze upon this bountiful chaos:
  • John kills Alec's double (Hijack).
  • John kills Qrow's double.
  • John kills Yuri's double.
  • John kills Cece's double. Palamedes will be investigating all these murders and realize it was John.
  • John has horrifying ill-advised sex with DDax. He later tries to kill DDax and is almost tricked into killing the real Dax, which is very upsetting for everyone.
  • Yuri attacks John for being a sus murderous bastard. Gideon steps in to fight on his behalf.
  • Darin attacks John for killing Cece's double. They make a commotion in the lobby.
  • John finds out that Gideon is his daughter. He ends the cycle with her double (Kiriona) sitting at his side. He does not kill her.
There might be additional double-murders! DoubleJohn will be around briefly, but John will not be gaining a false memory. I want to keep the focus on real-John making some terrible decisions and flexing his power on what he sees as acceptable targets, for what he sees as the greater good. He will not harm any actual PCs.

tl;dr the local king of necromancy is going on a murder spree. This is fine.
necrolord: =+ (to the heavens)

[personal profile] necrolord 2024-01-01 06:57 am (UTC)(link)
For a character regaining soul-sensing powers, do doubles have souls? Do they feel like the souls of the people they're mimicking, or do they instead feel similar to every other double? How does this compare to the soul of the receptionist?
anglophone: (Default)

[personal profile] anglophone 2024-01-01 02:00 pm (UTC)(link)
Would there be any interesting consequences from a double hijacking the receptionist repeatedly for several hours at a time?
toteninsel: (Default)

[personal profile] toteninsel 2024-01-01 05:33 pm (UTC)(link)
Ariane has the ability to induce hallucinations in humans and beings with human-like minds. Can she give the AU doubles hallucinations?
anglophone: (Default)

Beth's Boys

[personal profile] anglophone 2024-01-01 06:17 pm (UTC)(link)
Your name: Beth
Your pronouns: She/her
Contact: [plurk.com profile] terriblepurpose, terriblepurpose on Discord, or PM
anglophone: (004 | let gravity win)

Alec | Worm

[personal profile] anglophone 2024-01-01 06:34 pm (UTC)(link)
Character name: Alec
General ideas or plans for the month:
This is going to be a very bad month for Alec. The events will hit him hard on a lot of vulnerable points, and having come to terms with the certainty they’ll die at the end of the cycle isn’t making him as resigned about it as he thinks he could be.

Alec will be dressing down considerably for the month, swapping his lace and ruffles for practical white tunics, black leggings, and knee high boots. People might notice that he seems slightly more tuned in than usual. Early in the month, he’ll be showing up with a pair of black eyes, which he’ll blame on slipping on ice. After how he busted his face in the swooning contest, he thinks this is pretty plausible.

My general intent is to turn up the stress on Alec's emotional state this event. I'm opening inviting heavy threads, although I will, as always, leave space for lighter and happier moments.

AU ideas:
Alec’s AU is a version of himself that never managed to leave home. Hijack 2.0 has none of the awful whimsy of Alec’s original double, replacing it with desensitized violence. Jean-Paul ‘Hijack’ Vasil is quiet, methodical, and hollowed out. Physically, he’s slightly more sickly looking than Alec, has shorter hair, and a fresh, shiny facial scar from a sharp object running from his jawline up to below his left eye instead of Alec’s neck to elbow scar on his left side.

Event ideas:
Whiteout
Alec won’t really mind being confined to one place for the last half of the month. Compared to everything else happening, this is relatively fine! He may be defacing the walls with various forms of art to pass the time.

Another Path
Hijack will start his existence by tracking Alec down and attacking him somewhere in the hotel, and after that will be hiding out in the hotel until being killed by John Gaius early in the double death spree. I'm planning to keep threads involving Hijack limited to closed starters just because I want to make sure we discuss limits and potential content warnings in advance.

Hijack will also be puppeting the receptionist for a period of time, then getting into a fight with him that will end in the receptionist’s gory death. I’ll have a Happenings post up for this when it’s relevant. Hijack’s wet and creepy skeleton will be found in the vicinity of the receptionist’s blood explosion.

Alec will lie about having seen his double as much as he can get away with, as per his double's instructions.

Seeing Red
Alec will receive two false memories from contact with his double. The first will be of murdering a stranger, and the second will be of dragging his older sister back home after she tried to run away.

This event is especially bad for Alec due to the attendant guilt. His normal muted emotional state being disrupted by an external intrusive feeling like this hits right on his fundamental childhood trauma, although he won't be displaying this on the surface much. It’s unlikely he’ll be driven to confess anything unless someone pushes him to, since he’s striving to pretend that none of this is happening to him at all.

However, Alec is potentially a great person to confess to, since he keeps people’s secrets and is a nonjudgmental listener when it comes to terrible things people may or may not have done.

Are you planning to create a log this month? Y (closed and open starters)
hellonspectacles: (Default)

[personal profile] hellonspectacles 2024-01-01 07:59 pm (UTC)(link)
Continuing the soul horror question train!

Pal has two related canon abilities that I’d love for him to regain and use to experiment with the ghosts and NPCs (who he, at this point, are assumes are somehow connected) next cycle:

1. Pal can jump his soul into a body and puppet it, sort of the way Alec can. But we also have an indication that while inside the body, he can talk to and “physically” interact with another soul occupying that body, even if the other soul (or souls) does not want him there and tries to push him out. What would happen if he tried to hop into an npc’s body to chat with the soul(s) inside?

2. Pal can also anchor (or trap) ghosts/souls to objects. In tlt, this is easier to do if the object is a human body or a piece of one with some kind of genetic connection to the person (ie., their own body or a relative’s body), but it’s also possible to do with any object. Could he do this with one of the ghosts he and Cece have been communicating with? What would happen if he tried?

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