Event: Breaking Down

[snowblindmods]

BREAKING DOWN

Earlier, you stole away the light, and that was good. Later, you spoke of fears. You let them out into the world: your own little lights. And today, on the morning of day 220, you can see them flickering and glowing inside your mouths. You might notice the message from @ADMIN on the tablets before everything else happens: Anomaly processing error. Attempting to adjust nanomachine output. Please stand by. After that, the fears begin to leak out. For some, it's a subtle sort of thing, something they might not notice alone. Their fears begin to creep into those around them, nudging at the psyches of friends and enemies and strangers. Those around them begin to experience the fear as if it were their own, seeing visions of the things their minds have suddenly learned to be afraid of. The closer someone is, the worse it gets--the fears of any traveling companions you may have can become paralyzing terrors that you may scarcely understand. You can feel the fears of anyone in the same zone of the map as you--they come and go, and the closer to you they are, the worse they get. Someone who is on the opposite end of the industrial zone may be barely a frightened whisper, but someone in the same house at you will infest your thoughts and create your nightmares. For others, the creeping fear is much more obvious. It crawls across your skin and into your bones, it burrows through your muscles and pounds at your skull. Physically, you change. You become something frightening, monstrous: you have become a manifestation of that which you fear, and the rot infests your mind, too. The light in your mouth has gone out. Someone has taken it and you want it back. Any light will do--the ones the others carry with them works just as well as the one you can no longer find. Sometimes, you're almost normal. Sometimes, you can resist the urge to swallow up that light. Sometimes, you can't do anything but attack. It's even possible to become one of these awful monsters and still be subjected to the fears of those around you--it doesn't happen to everyone, but some people are just especially unlucky. Of course, you can always avoid everyone else, right? There's plenty of space in town to get away. And sometimes that's true--sometimes, you're where you're supposed to be in Norfinbury. Other times, though--not all the time, but sometimes, when the world seems to swim and you feel unconsciousness pulling at you--you and many others are pulled back into that strange, impossible Escheresque world. While you're there, it's easy to reach even people across town. Characters who elect to become monsters manifesting their fears can transform in many ways, though they must remain within character size limits (a maximum of ten feet tall). These can be as abstract or specific as you want in regards to their fears: a character who is afraid of sharks can become a monstrous shark, but they could also become a more disjointed monster of water and cartilage that doesn't look like it should stay together. Monsters may have abilities that match the fear they represent, though they can't go beyond the power level one might expect from a low level video game character: in general, they should be intimidating to other characters, but not insurmountable obstacles. A character who represents fear of the dark could have the ability to make the area around them pitch black, for example, or our shark monster friend could have the ability to swim through the snow like it's water. Characters who are successfully attacked are knocked out upon physical contact with one of the monsters. The monsters themselves do not physically injure anyone: instead, they steal the light from the character and move on. Characters whose lights are stolen are no longer of interest to monster characters for the remainder of the event. Having your light stolen or stealing lights may have other effects in the future. You can make up a monster on your own or you can request that a moderator create your monster. If your monster character successfully steals someone's light, please reply here.

Comments

QUESTIONS

[snowblindmods]

[coyoteking]

If one of someone's primary fears is the death of another person, but they turned into a monster, would the monster want to protect that person, or steal their light?

[snowblindmods]

That's up to you!

[thewarningafter]

If a character with a pet turns into a monster, does the pet stay itself? Do they leave the pet behind when they go to Escherspace? Would the pet still recognize them for who they are?

Also, will other people still feel the fears of people who have turned into monsters?

[snowblindmods]

1) The pet will stay itself, will be left behind when someone goes into Escherspace, and may or may not recognize a character for what they are--that part's up to you.

2) That's up to the player of the monster character.

[godsspeed]

How coherent/in control is it reasonable for a character to stay while in monster form? Would they still be able to communicate while "almost normal"? What about when the urge to attack is getting too strong to ignore?

[snowblindmods]

You have a lot of control over this! If you'd like your character to be rendered incapable of speech, be it because of a lack of control or because their mouths simply don't work that way anymore, you can, but if you'd like them to remain capable of speech, that's cool too. When the attack urge is getting very strong they would be increasingly more focused on that than they would be on speaking. If you mean could they warn someone, it's possible, but it's also possible that the urge could come on too quickly/too strongly/they don't realize until it's too late (depending on what you as a player would like to play out).

[deus_ex_phs]

How does this affect character movements for the two IC days that this event is listed as lasting? Do we still submit movements based on their actions during this event? Or will they wake up on Day 222 and find that they haven't moved anywhere?

[snowblindmods]

Characters can move as normal with square movements. They'll go back to wherever they were last whenever they leave Escherland, but I'm not going to worry about you guys keeping track of the timing of that, so just go ahead and submit movements as usual.

Re: QUESTIONS

[bookofnope]

Just making sure I got this right - it's possible to have characters quick-travel across the map during this event?

[snowblindmods]

They can't quick travel across the map, but when they're in Escherland, they can interact with everyone else also in Escherland for as long as they're there. When they leave Escherland, they're wherever they were before they left. You can submit movements as normal during the event.

[0thingsonmymind]

here is my standard "what happens if we film it" question:
do the lights show up on camera at all? do the monster characters still appear as monsters? would a monster filming make any difference?
also how does the escherverse show up on film?

[snowblindmods]

Attempting to film anything in Escherverse results in a completely static-filled image, accompanied by the lovely sound of static. It's not a very useful video. Filming people in the real world has turned everyone into walking static, though the surroundings still look normal enough. If you filmed someone (monster or not) standing in the snow in front of a house, for example, you would be able to see the house and the snow and the sky just fine, but whoever's being filmed is just a big ball of ever-shifting static. The people who have their lights are glowing static, though.

[jumpthegun]

For those who are transformed, will they be compelled to only attack people who have not transformed, or could they go after their 'fellows' as it were?

[snowblindmods]

They won't be compelled to attack other monsters because other monsters don't have light to steal. They could attack another monster if they were trying to protect someone else/trying to steal their prey/idk they just don't like each other, though.

[0thingsonmymind]

what happens to a character's stuff while they're in the escherverse? does it go with them or stay behind and wait for them to come back?
what about stuff (particularly clothes) of monster characters who are no longer equipped to carry or wear it?

[snowblindmods]

Their stuff stays behind to wait for them to come back. Clothes will either tear to pieces or fall off, depending on what you'd like to happen to it (or characters can remove it before it gets torn to pieces).

[bywolves]

Can you be a regular person one night, and a monster the next, or is it one or the other?

[snowblindmods]

One or the other.

Re: QUESTIONS

[rattlingthestars]

If a character has their light stolen, how long are they out for?

Do they feel any different when they wake up? Are they aware that their light is gone?

[snowblindmods]

They're out for the rest of the day they had their light stolen. They don't feel any different when they wake up, and they will be able to see their light is gone while the event is happening. They may not be aware if they're unconscious through the end of the event, because then the ability to see them would go away anyway.

[rubikscomplex]

At the end of the event, do characters just revert back to their human forms?

[snowblindmods]

Yup! It can be a really sudden thing or it can be a slower transformation back, depending on what you'd like, but everyone will be back to normal before lockdown ends on the last day of the event.