wildestmods | GAME CALENDAR/PLOT REQUESTS

GAME CALENDAR/PLOT REQUESTS

This post contains the upcoming schedule for the game and can be used to request player plots or suggest mod plots to the mods.

GAME CALENDAR

PLAYER PLOTS
Players are potentially allowed to run any kind of plot or event in the castle or somewhere in the game world within quest distance. These can occur during "plot" periods or during "rest periods" between other plots. Usually these will run alongside a mod-run plot, but larger player-run plots that run instead of a mod plot are allowed as long as the player gives the mods enough to work with if for some reason they have to stop running the plot halfway through.

Player plots can vary in size, from gamewide or capped at a certain number of participants. They can also be open or private. For instance, if players aren't feeling the mod plot currently running, they can potentially play out a private duo quest or a mission for a small handful of pre-established CR. This is to allow people plot alternatives if they're not digging gamewide mod or player-run plot(s) currently running.

Most player plots or off-castle threads can be run at any time without asking mod permission. The only exceptions, where mod permission is required, are the following:

if the plot will be on the moving castle itself

if the plot uses any named npcs from the major npcs page

if the plot is meant to target any targets involved with the Dark Lord or Unfinished Princess

if the plot will allow something powerful to be brought back to the castle.

These may be approved, but need to be put by the mods first.

If a plot doesn't have one of those things, players can run them without asking for permission.

PLAYER PLOT REQUEST

MOD PLOT SUGGESTION

Please give the mods up to 4 days to respond. If you have a plot idea but want to keep a part of it secret, please post all that you can here and contact the mods with the part you want to keep secret.

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MOD PLOT SUGGESTION
Plot Synopsis: Great metal-and-bone monstrosities somewhat resembling mantises or rats have been encountered. These "killing devices" are close to invulnerable, have bladed hands and teeth, and invoke terror everywhere they go. Not dissuaded by sunlight, not clumsy, and not particularly intelligent, their bodies are painted and adorned with the colors of the Unfinished Princess and seem to be her answer to the Nightrenders. Sometimes they descend on a village, kill all the adults, and carry away the children.

Ye squad comes to Haven, an armed and walled refugee camp placed in a defensible position. The camp is run by Lady Keladry of Mindelan, a huge, stoic knight of the realm of Tortall. Sworn to protect the refugees of her own country's wars, the young knight has in the Wilderlands taken on more charges to shelter and guide. As well as being a skilled warrior she is an exceptional leader who sees and knows how to bring out the strengths of the people and animals around her. Sparrows flock around her and make reports on what they've seen, and everyone from the soldiers to the camp cats recognizes her as the Protector of the Small.

But Haven is not safe. Parties of the enemy regularly try its defenses and are driven back. The worst are the killing devices, which simply scale the walls. Lady Kel knows they are the creation of a necromancer from her world, who powers them with the souls of murdered children. She knows where he is right now, and that he's close, and that he knows she's protecting literally hundreds of children that he'd happily turn into more devices. But no one who will listen is close enough to respond in time, and she knows well that if she abandons her post to pursue him it will be overrun. The lady knight asks for help assassinating him.

Length: Not super long. I'd like if some prompt in other action-heavy logs involved the appearance of killing devices (or they have their own dedicated log). There'd be a big log set next to/in Haven with some prompts for helping the refugees, assisting them in driving back enemy sallies, and hanging out with uncannily intelligent cats, dogs, and sparrows. There'd also be a smaller log for a party trekking out a couple days and going after the mage, which is a relatively simple endeavor.

Also, once the mage is dead all the killing devices will collapse and go inanimate.
Plot Location: Haven, a walled refugee camp supporting some farmland and several hundred people. It's important that this is in a place near some front or other, where there are some friendlies but they're NIMBY types who'd rather send some supplies than take on refugees themselves or even give them somewhere safer to set up camp.

And somewhere for the mage to be set up. In canon he's in a castle in enemy territory, with a subjugated village which has no remaining children, and the villagers help Kel sneak in. This could be the case here or he could be in a military camp, with more options for a focus on combat.

MOD PLOT SUGGESTION
Plot Synopsis: Based on "Paranorman", could also be described as "Silent Hill Lite". One day ye squad comes upon badly tended cropland and a ragged, damaged town that initially appears to be deserted. There are people there, resource-strapped and a little feral, who'll greet strikingly not-normal-human people with hostility that they have to be talked or intimidated down from. The sun is going down, there's not time to explain more than that they were cursed by a long-dead Witch, no one can leave the area, and monsters come at night and must be fought lest they turn anyone else!

Soon the monsters appear, appearing scattered throughout town! Most were townsfolk, some were Shadowhunters who turned rapidly after coming to town, and now resemble somewhat pathetic versions of monsters they particularly fear(ed). Actually, pay attention and all of the monsters are kind of pitiful and always seem to bluff or blunder and aren't actually capable of attacking. Mostly they hide, cluster together, or try to flee to the woods. Meanwhile the townsfolk become a frenzied mob howling for blood. There's a lot of friendly fire. They may turn on less enthusiastic townsfolk for "collaborating with the Witch." Oddly enough the people who turn are usually involved in scenarios like that... wonder why that is?

Quite a few of the monsters may have been slain by daybreak, but the townsfolk, exhausted, explain that they will all be back after sunset and their numbers only ever grow. Long ago they caught, tried, and executed an evil Witch who cursed the town with her dying breaths. A yearly ritual kept her asleep, but their translocation to the Wilderlands left the ritual-keepers behind and jarred her awake. The squad is more fearsome, better rested, and has a better chance of figuring things out - how about they go to the spooky ritual site in the woods where the Witch was buried?

The ritual is not hard to figure out based on notes left in the ritual-keepers' cabin, and it's not a difficult one to enact. It also reveals the truth of the old story - that the Witch was an eleven-year-old child killed in a witchhunting mania, who cursed her persecutors to be helpless and hated by the community, as she was. If anyone can manage to communicate with the monsters they'll find that the oldest of them are the people who killed the Witch. They're sorry for it now but can't undo what they did, and this punishment just keeps spilling over to affect more and more people. The reason Shadowhunters always turn quickly is because the curse reacts to their xenophobia.

Characters who can weather the Witch's hostility, talking to her like the scared and hurt kid lashing out that she is, can get her to calm and, if not forgive, at least move on and break the curse. This releases the monsters as well and the long-dead oldest ones fade away, but only the most recently turned actually turn all the way back... Looks like you've got to convince the townsfolk that their desire to mob up and murder people is the real monster, at least for long enough to get the cursed ones out!

If the squad simply completes the ritual, the Witch will sleep and all the monsters with her. The townsfolk will make ready and eager recruits for the Shadowhunters and may be encountered later and remember the squad, for good or ill. If the squad manages to break the curse they will also release the cursed Shadowhunters, some of whom can't go back to their organization now, some of whom can and will also remember them for good or ill.

Length: No more than a month oocly. Ideally it'd take minimum two days icly?
Plot Location: Blithe Hollow, a New England-ish town which had a tech level above what's permitted in Wilderlands but not so much higher that the population couldn't adjust. Mostly. They still point guns reflexively and use rifles as clubs.

MOD PLOT SUGGESTION
Plot Synopsis: First, twisted animals are spotted here and there in the Wilderlands. The general theme is "bigger, with larger claws and teeth and a meaner disposition" but spikes, thorns, and venom are common themes. Varied amalgamations of multiple animals and plants and even people are also a thing, and possibly even altered monsters. It soon becomes clear that there's a place in a large, stormy deep-winter region where creatures are getting mutated, and they're becoming a problem. A unit of orcs has been sent in there, too.

Entering the Pelagir Forest exposes one to a landscape that is colorful even in winter, where life has been warped and twisted by powerful magic worked millenia ago, which lingers still. Trees may reach for passersby or cringe away, whimpering and pulling their roots up to run off; animals may be fixed to the spot and scream or just stare. There's also a degree of Everything Trying To Kill You. More spikes and claws, more fusions, everything seems to have thorns, there are local monsters, it's a rough start. If the Moving Castle is taken along it's buffeted by storms and attacked regularly. After a few days some player characters may find the roots of their hair coming in in different colors and textures, though they're not going to be there long enough for anything really drastic or permanent (unless a player wants their character to have blue highlights/hair from here on out, I'm not their mom).

At that point it's possible to meet scouts from the Tayledras Vale. The Tayledras are an insular, wary people, but full disclosure they know Need and they're not stupid, so they'll let PCs into their shielded, no-mutating-here Vale. The Vale is a tropical paradise full of treehouses, lush vegetation, semi-intelligent birds of prey and all too intelligent corvids, and hot springs of all sizes. The Tayledras - who include humans closely bonded to those birds, four-foot-tall lizard servants, bear-sized talking gryphons, psychic white deer, and psychic giant wolves - have been trying to wrangle the local magic and tame the land around their Vale, which will result in Not So Much Monster Stuff, but being translocated to the Wilderlands has riled up all the resident monsters and forced the Tayledras to concentrate on defending the Vale, and they've taken a lot of injuries. Also, in Velgarth strong magic affects the weather, so they've had a lot of really nasty winter weather. If the region is calmed, some formidable people can be spared, including mages who can open Gates to cross great distances in an eyeblink.

So! Go on patrols and fight monsters in winter, including wyrsa (horse-sized reptillian grayhounds that eat magic and run in packs), so that the Tayledras can spare the time to work. Go out into a cleansed region to rescue kids/shepherds/etc who got caught out in a bad blizzard, and end up optionally holing up in emergency shelters during the storm with a good buddy. Relax in gardens and hot springs in the vale, attended by conscientious servant lizards, or question why the lizards are serving when they're also people. Get followed around by a talking wolf who really wants to know about your life so they can make it into stories! Keep icy buildup and weird organic growths off the Moving Castle!

Bonus: the wild magic effects aren't always predictable. If you find the orcs, some have died, turned into tree-things, or become bigger scarier monsters, but it's entirely possible that some have developed free will.

Length: At least a month?
Plot Location: A region based on part of the Pelagirs and a Tayledras Vale, from the Heralds of Valdemar canon.

Hi Joy! Em here.

So, this sounds like a fun idea; however, since it's so dependent on information from a canon none of the mods know, the mods can't run it solo or do the NPCing. I think we have two options here:

1. You run it as a player plot for a select number of opt-in players, whose characters get separated from the main group to participate for a few weeks. You would be doing basically all the facilitation here, and would have a lot of leeway in terms of how you want to run the plot.

2. You and I run it as a gamewide plot as co-runners, with you providing the main thrust of the plot and doing most of the drafting and me working on making sure it's accessible to canonblind people and providing feedback on logistics (how to structure posts, pacing, etc.)

Either way, it'd be your baby more than ours. The third option is that a much more generalized version of this plot plays out without it being bound to Heralds of Valdemar; the mods would be using our own NPCs that we created, and the setting wouldn't be Pelagirs, it'd be a more general colorful magical forest with creatures mutating due to magic. That way, the mods wouldn't have to feel bound to a canon they aren't well-versed in. I'm not sure when this would end up on the plot calendar, as I believe we have plans in the works until mid-April at the pace we're going.

Let me know how these sound and if any of them are options you wish to pursue.

-Em (on behalf of the mod team)

Cool cool! I was thinking some variant of 2, but I wouldn't actually use any specific canon characters or even a canonically depicted Tayledras clan, just for ease. This author's characters are all archetypes and it's not too hard to make OCs derivative of their species (ex: gryphons are always cheerful, loyal, vain, and can laugh at themselves, hertasi are often shy but anxious to serve and sassy when comfortable) so it wouldn't necessarily preclude mod-controlled NPCs. I'd have to give some background, I know.

I guest-ran an event several years ago back at lost_carnival and that was a lot of work even with less NPC involvement, but this is a smaller game and some handwaving is probably fine if it comes to that.

Sounds good. I'll reach out to you when we have some scheduling stuff figured out! -Em

I brought this up on plurk as a "Bad Luck" miniplot, not sure if it's more 'player' or 'mod'. This is taken from a Valdemar short story but isn't connected to the rest of the mythos, it's about a cursed object created by priests of a luck god to give to their enemies.

PLOT REQUEST
Synopsis: Someone has picked up what resembles a small bronze coin, unremarkable considering the wide range of currencies floating around the Wilderlands. Maybe it came from someone who seemed particularly hapless, pickpocketed or given as change or won in a game. Maybe it was taken off the corpse of someone who died in a weird way out in the wild. But it's not a coin - it's a cursed anti-luck talisman!

Now everything that can go wrong will go wrong. The weather turns immediately and the road turns to many different kinds of mud and puddle. Shoes leak and manifest small stones. Biting insects. Fires are hard to start except accidentally in places you don't want them. Allergies to completely new things, including certain party members, suddenly manifest. A cold sweeps the group, even people who never seem to get sick. Acne. Bags and pockets start letting in water or coming apart at the seams. Cursed weapons get a little touchy. The mirrors remain functional but become prone to cracking or getting weird smears. Food tends to get soaked or go off. And more! It's up to player discretion.

The disaster range is about one and a quarter miles and affects whoever's carrying it and generally their allies. It's possible to stay on top of a lot of the bad luck by careful, patient, exhaustive checking and re-checking but you can't control for everything and it's hard to keep all that up. I don't care to have this cause anything lethal or irrevocable, it's more to be kind of funny and cause frustration for the characters, but there'd be the general understanding that the talisman can cause more horrific bad luck if it's there long enough and there may be incidents of barely averting catastrophes, eg someone trips into a pit and is just barely saved. They have to get rid of it.

Unfortunately, throwing it away or leaving it behind just causes it to reappear, nor can it be forced on someone. Someone who has that lucky RNG item could use it to get rid of the thing. Otherwise you either have to get it un-cursed or someone has to take it, though they don't need to know what it is. The party's unable to give it back - the previous person is dead, or they were some innocent who was obviously suffering greatly from its presence and may not have known what they had, or they did know and booked it and with luck as it is there's no finding them. Do they give it to an ally or some other uninvolved party, knowing what will result? Do they go to some extra effort to get it to an enemy or a convenient set of bandits? I have no idea what un-cursing it would entail, maybe like in JRPGs where you gotta visit a shrine or temple and pay.

Length: How long do you think this will last? Not long. This is more an interlude between more substantial plots. Probably an open log, maybe some misfortune posting, and a discussion about what to do.
Plot Location: On the road at some point.

PLAYER PLOT REQUEST
Plot Runner's Name: Aran
Plot Title: The Bittersweet Dark Fantasy Plot
Preferred Start Date: TBD, but Near Future
Synopsis:

I'm still hashing this out, but I basically am interested in running a Berserk-themed horror/dark fantasy dungeon adventure plot with some dice elements to add spice and danger.

Gameplay wise:
- Format would be a hybrid of DWRP/tabletop with text threads as the primary vehicle. It would be a log posted up in the game comm like any other log event.
- The added Spice: I will be borrowing a streamlined dice system for plot-relevant successes or failures (example: Cthulu Dark's 6-sided player die + "insanity" die, but I will have to homebrew some combat in there). The focus will be RP, but with some things left to the Fates.
- A small discord server for keeping track of dice rolls would be needed. I would prefer to have all of us use the same Dice-bot. The results will be posted in the log thread.
- This event will have some permanent consequences for Guts (how terrible it is will depend on how it goes). Before I start the plot, I will discuss with players what their comfort levels are re: injury/death/trauma for their characters, of course. I can discuss the plot details over PM, though it is just broad strokes for now and I'm still hashing things out.

Length: OOCly, probably a couple of weeks depending on people's schedules. ICly, it would be maybe a couple days to a week.

Since I can't say the ending ahead of time, it will have to be a little more involved than what is required of a player plot so people arent taken out of the main quest for too long.

Plot Size: Small group having a sidequest (max 4. I'd like to keep it to one, maybe two threads).

Plot Location: TBD - a lair full of mystery and dark fantasy but it will take place in Berserk-verse. The world has reality warping horrors that can yoink people out of the current setting whenever is most convenient.

Will this have open signups? Due to the nature of the quest I'm going to do an interest check with his CR first, but if there's room I can do signups.

Go for it! wrt to the dice, we don't have a dicebot in the mod server. (So we can't just temporarily give you guys a channel.)

But you can make your own. While we'd prefer no general game discord server (or at least no official one), go ahead and make what you need to for the plot.

Will do! I actually have two questions for this plot while writing things up:

- Powers: For the duration that the characters are yoinked into Berserkverse, it may be necessary to tweak the limits to match the setting (since there's a whole lot of monsters that eat battalions of guys for lunch + people survive over the top anime injuries). If this is ok with the mods, it can be explained as some region-specific Astral Realm buff that goes away when the plot is over and people return.

- Item Drops: These are fun for game plot reasons, but I don't want to disbalance anything once people make it back. I was thinking they can go through a similar debuffing-state, vanish once they get back, have limited charges or some other similar thing. Let me know if you have a preference to how its handled!

edit: I just remembered that there are primitive gunpowder weapons lying around which would definitely be ones that vanish/break upon return if they get a pass for this plot. Magical objects I can limit to what is preferred.

Edited 2022-03-10 20:20 (UTC)

Go crazy! Temporary power scaling is fine. Like you suggested, it can just be in play while they're in Berserk-land and stop when they leave the area.

For item drops, just try to scale them to what we offer as AC rewards. (Or they're more powerful in Berserk-land and less powerful when they leave). There can be more powerful ones but make sure after they leave Berserk-land they weaken enough to have short duration or limited use. Maybe allow people have 2-3 as rewards in plot. You can either use the ones on the list or make up your own.

The gunpowder weapon limit also sounds good!

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GAME CALENDAR/PLOT REQUESTS

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