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1.3 Event Plotting
1.3 Plotting & Happenings
OOC announcements
This one's a doozy! A couple reminders to get us started:This month, there is an IC event log, with comments for each week. Feel free to use this for your TLs, or create your own logs as usual. There will not be a mini-event mid-month.
Use the damage report form if your character damages or makes permanent changes to anything. Damage and change is permanent for the foreseeable future.
Post any bulletins to the bulletin board.
This post encompasses the month 1.3's events and effects. Use this post to plot with each other, using the form provided if you so choose.
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 more subdued than usual, and they may say some strange things, in addition to the handful of phrases they usually say:
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 more subdued than usual, and they may say some strange things, in addition to the handful of phrases they usually say:
The receptionist: “Bit windy out there.”
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.
BOARD THE WINDOWS
Content warnings: natural disasters, potential for injury by sand, bottomless pits
The weather steadily worsens over the month. Each week brings something new:
During the day, the heat has settled 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.
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.
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.
If you’re caught outside when the storm begins, it can be almost impossible to find your way back into shelter. Sandstorms roar to life in the blink of an eye, lasting anywhere from minutes to hours, with no clear pattern. 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.
The Diner’s windows shatter, and it closes down and the waiter is nowhere to be seen. The General Store and Cactus Pad board up their 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 only place untouched by the storms is the graveyard, which is oddly free of sand.
At random hours, the ground shakes, enough to fling objects from shelves and knock people into each other. Fissures and sinkholes split in the ground outside at during these earthquakes, enough to swallow entire buildings.
The sandstorms are near constant. Only a few scant hours of each day are clear of sand and wind, and if you venture out during those hours, the town looks almost unrecognizable, half-buried under sand, lifeless. The wind howls and whines, and there seem to be strange voices on it now, voices you half-recognize, shouting mournful warnings.
If you go out during a lull in the sand, you may find useful weapon handles poking up from the sand. The weapons are old and rusted, but still work. They can be any sort of weapon you’re familiar with, including the joke weapons from last month.
The diner is cut off from everything else by a massive gaping fissure in the ground. The General Store splits in two and shakes apart, its inventory swallowed by a sinkhole. The Cactus Pad closes and the jail is gone, replaced with a sand dune. The bartender, the general store owner, and the sheriff are nowhere to be found.
The Staywell is an island, the ground around it fallen away into bottomless darkness. Outside, the storm rages constantly, cutting off the sun, so that the light is either heavy and red or black as midnight. The voices on the wind scream constant warnings, calling out the names of characters in town, beckoning. Earthquakes shake the ground, hitting every hour or so. You can’t see it through the gloom, but you can hear the last of the buildings in town collapsing into sinkholes.
Only a spider-thin path of rock, treacherous and shaky, remains. It leads from the Staywell to the graveyard, although it’s hard to get there. It’s narrow, dropping off into seething sand or darkness. There are gaps, just big enough to jump across with a bit of force, and rocks tumble away from your feet as you walk. Hopefully it’s not a one-way trip.
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:
The weather steadily worsens over the month. Each week brings something new:
Week 1
During the day, the heat has settled 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.
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.
If you’re caught outside when the storm begins, it can be almost impossible to find your way back into shelter. Sandstorms roar to life in the blink of an eye, lasting anywhere from minutes to hours, with no clear pattern. 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.
The Diner’s windows shatter, and it closes down and the waiter is nowhere to be seen. The General Store and Cactus Pad board up their 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 only place untouched by the storms is the graveyard, which is oddly free of sand.
Week 3
At random hours, the ground shakes, enough to fling objects from shelves and knock people into each other. Fissures and sinkholes split in the ground outside at during these earthquakes, enough to swallow entire buildings.
The sandstorms are near constant. Only a few scant hours of each day are clear of sand and wind, and if you venture out during those hours, the town looks almost unrecognizable, half-buried under sand, lifeless. The wind howls and whines, and there seem to be strange voices on it now, voices you half-recognize, shouting mournful warnings.
If you go out during a lull in the sand, you may find useful weapon handles poking up from the sand. The weapons are old and rusted, but still work. They can be any sort of weapon you’re familiar with, including the joke weapons from last month.
The diner is cut off from everything else by a massive gaping fissure in the ground. The General Store splits in two and shakes apart, its inventory swallowed by a sinkhole. The Cactus Pad closes and the jail is gone, replaced with a sand dune. The bartender, the general store owner, and the sheriff are nowhere to be found.
Week 4
The Staywell is an island, the ground around it fallen away into bottomless darkness. Outside, the storm rages constantly, cutting off the sun, so that the light is either heavy and red or black as midnight. The voices on the wind scream constant warnings, calling out the names of characters in town, beckoning. Earthquakes shake the ground, hitting every hour or so. You can’t see it through the gloom, but you can hear the last of the buildings in town collapsing into sinkholes.
Only a spider-thin path of rock, treacherous and shaky, remains. It leads from the Staywell to the graveyard, although it’s hard to get there. It’s narrow, dropping off into seething sand or darkness. There are gaps, just big enough to jump across with a bit of force, and rocks tumble away from your feet as you walk. Hopefully it’s not a one-way trip.
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.
- Week 2: Sandstorms hit the town at all hours, making the outdoors inhospitable. The sand hurts, and tries to find its way into your soft, squishy parts. The wind howls with unearthly wails. The diner is closed.
- Week 3: The sandstorms are near-constant, and earthquakes shake the town. You can find weapons in the sand dunes. The diner is cut off from town by a fissure, the General Store falls into a sinkhole, the Cactus Pad closes, and the jail becomes a sand dune.
- Week 4: Earthquakes have shaken apart the ground around the Staywell, and it’s left on an island in the middle of deep fissures in the ground. Only a thin, treacherous path to the graveyard remains. Sandstorms, earthquakes, and unearthly wailing is constant.
- You can protect yourself from the sand by covering your whole body, but it still won’t be easy to go outside.
SEEING DOUBLE
Content warnings: Potential psychological and physical horror, body horror, rotting flesh
If the fleeing fauna and the whispering wind weren’t ominous enough, the first week also brings something strange. Appearing out of nowhere are familiar figures: yourselves.
Everyone seems to have an identical doppelganger. However, 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’ve committed every single crime on those wanted posters; they are arrogant, smug, weak-willed, sniveling.
They seem to know more about you than you do, and they will use that to try and convince you and everyone else that they’re the real version. They have memories that you don’t, know things you don’t. They are you, after all!
The doppelgangers try to tear your life apart in whatever way seems most fun to you. They can try to kill you or your friends with strength and weapons you don’t seem to have access to. They can try to ruin your reputation and the relationships you’ve built. They can do whatever would be most devastating to your character. They get more aggressive as the month goes along.
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 seems to be 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:
If the fleeing fauna and the whispering wind weren’t ominous enough, the first week also brings something strange. Appearing out of nowhere are familiar figures: yourselves.
Everyone seems to have an identical doppelganger. However, 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’ve committed every single crime on those wanted posters; they are arrogant, smug, weak-willed, sniveling.
They seem to know more about you than you do, and they will use that to try and convince you and everyone else that they’re the real version. They have memories that you don’t, know things you don’t. They are you, after all!
The doppelgangers try to tear your life apart in whatever way seems most fun to you. They can try to kill you or your friends with strength and weapons you don’t seem to have access to. They can try to ruin your reputation and the relationships you’ve built. They can do whatever would be most devastating to your character. They get more aggressive as the month goes along.
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 seems to be 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.
- They try to destroy your life: physically, emotionally, interpersonally. They become more aggressive throughout the month.
- 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.
DIGGING DEEPER
Content warnings: Grave digging, rotting flesh, decay
The path to the graveyard gets more and more treacherous as the month progresses. The first week, it's simply walking over. The second, you're buffeted by sand. The third, the ground shakes, the rumbling growing more and more dangerous the closer you get. The fourth, the narrow path is difficult to traverse, requiring jumps over chasms that descend further than you can see, along with the wind, sand, and tremors.
Once you enter the graveyard, the wind calms, somewhat, and the sand still blows, but is no longer as malicious. The graveyard seems to have aged since you were last here. The graves are more worn, the ground is crumbling, the gate dilapidated. Rubble and rocks scatter the area.
If you manage to track your double, they will lead you to the graveyard. Most of the graves have been dug up. When not trying to ruin your life, your double will return to a grave with your name on it. However, the doubles don’t want you to be there. They will attack if they catch you creeping through the graveyard. The gravedigger is nowhere to be found.
Deeper in the graveyard, where all the cracks seem to lead, is the well. The well looks like it was built yesterday: the stones are clean and dewy. A bucket rests on its lip. If you look in the well, you can't see the bottom.
What else do you find in the graveyard? Comment under the Exploration comment to search around.
tl;dr:
The path to the graveyard gets more and more treacherous as the month progresses. The first week, it's simply walking over. The second, you're buffeted by sand. The third, the ground shakes, the rumbling growing more and more dangerous the closer you get. The fourth, the narrow path is difficult to traverse, requiring jumps over chasms that descend further than you can see, along with the wind, sand, and tremors.
Once you enter the graveyard, the wind calms, somewhat, and the sand still blows, but is no longer as malicious. The graveyard seems to have aged since you were last here. The graves are more worn, the ground is crumbling, the gate dilapidated. Rubble and rocks scatter the area.
If you manage to track your double, they will lead you to the graveyard. Most of the graves have been dug up. When not trying to ruin your life, your double will return to a grave with your name on it. However, the doubles don’t want you to be there. They will attack if they catch you creeping through the graveyard. The gravedigger is nowhere to be found.
Deeper in the graveyard, where all the cracks seem to lead, is the well. The well looks like it was built yesterday: the stones are clean and dewy. A bucket rests on its lip. If you look in the well, you can't see the bottom.
What else do you find in the graveyard? Comment under the Exploration comment to search around.
tl;dr:
- Getting into the graveyard gets more difficult as the month goes along.
- The weather is less intense in the graveyard.
- Graves are dug up, and your double returns to the grave when they aren't bothering you or your friends.
- The well in the middle of the graveyard looks good as new.
Re: Exploration
Since the graveyard is dug up: are there any caskets or bodies visible? What would happen if someone
did some casual grave-robbingwent digging for bodies or caskets?no subject
There are no caskets visible in the graveyard, but there are a few bones that can be found poking out of rock piles here and there. Casual grave robbing is going to feel... bad. The vibes, when the earth is disturbed, are just awful. There's a pervasive sense of being watched from all angles, like every eye in the world is turned on Pal. Should he persevere and continue to dig, the earth will belch up an awful, rotting smell, and eventually, if he keeps going deep enough, Pal will find skeletons.
If he's aiming for a specific grave, let me know!
no subject
For the bones that are lying around: can their age be determined? Or the age of the person at their death, or any other facts about them (particularly, anything that a geneticist could determine by, say, looking at their DNA)?
Also, Pal has the ability to turn even a small piece of bone into a whole skeleton and program it to do basic things. Would anything unusual happen if evil!Pal did this?
AND SINCE YOU ASKED: What would Pal (or evil!Pal) find if he dug up his own grave?
no subject
The bones can absolutely be dated, and they're also scattered across time and age ranges. There are children here, and there are folks who seem to have lived long lives. They're anywhere from 50 to thousands of years old, and they are not universally human. They are all, despite their age, incredibly dry and brittle, and will be incredibly easy to break. Evil!Pal can certainly make skeletons out of these bones, and they'll listen to him, but they'll keep being incredibly fragile (MUCH more so than normal bone) and will shatter very easily.
Pal's own grave is empty, unless Evil!Pal has decided to take a nap in there. If he's very thorough, he may find scraps of what seem to be familiar bits of cloth mixed into the dirt.