activity check + admin

[groundrules]

Happy Hallowmonth, merry October, greetings to the third quarter — hope you're all unwinding!

ACTIVITY CHECK

Below is the list of characters for whom sufficient activity wasn't found in September. Please comment here to reclaim a character by 5 October or if their activity was missed!

Lorna Dane | The Gifted
Okita Souji | Hakuoki
Su Xunxian | Oh! My Emperor
Jens Macher | Triangle Strategy — two consecutive strikes, cannot be reclaimed

Unfortunately, very few people are using character tags right now — please do, or else your activity is very easy to miss, and we may need to move to a system where everyone tracks their own AC. Thank you!

ADMIN

■ UPDATED: October calendar + the latest installment of Clockwork Serthica story so far.

■ Our event/test drive remains active until 14 October — chef kisses to everyone making the newbies feel our version of welcome, which may or may not involve a bear! If you exhaust what there's to do early and want more, holler here, and we'll figure out something cute in the Mouse House.

■ For Jim and Finn, assume their mannequin friend creepily makes its way down in the Mouse House. Viktor's J-8S droid also follows. Kaneki, you're on your own finding dead meat here, buddy — but it does taste weirdly much more filling than what Minaras had to offer...

■ You'll get a Serthica status update on 19 October, but now's a good time to incorporate any plots/plans/adventures you folks want to explore in Serthica this month. Please drop off your suggestions and talk among each other — anything from 'raid a clock' to 'hold a three-thousand droid tango session in the square' accepted.

■ As characters resurface from the U n w i n d i n g, there's scope to mess with passport papers and switch up some allegiances. Drop a line by <5>October if you want your character to be reassigned from Eidris to Minaras, or the other way around — but know their false identity & role would have to re-written then, too. As previously, characters can still travel across the two areas. We may need to RNG this, if more than eight characters want to switch.

■ ...yes, we will wake up Zenobius this month.

■ Per last year's fine example: Halloween poll — how hard do we want to go? This is already mystery/fantasy/horror, so some of the flavour will be there anyway.

Comments

AC RECLAIMS

[groundrules]

Please drop off any missed activity or reclaim a character by 5 October — thank you!

[topoiran]

Please...

[groundrules]

Alrightee — that's full AC for October & November, please. Thanks!

[chromiums]

i'd like to reclaim, please!

[groundrules]

Sounds good — full AC for Oct-Nov, please!

MOUSE HOUSE

[groundrules]

...open for cheesing.

If a couple of you need more to do before 14 October draws close, we can figure out a mini-quest!

[bravelyrunsaway]

I would love some sort of mini quest that Licyn can see about drafting people into, mostly because I skipped having him tag around the TDM/Event (all on me). Could there be some low level fetch quests, or scavenging around for supplies.

I'm happy making all these up, was more wondering if something sprinkled in there could be a nod toward whatever's coming, or confirming what's happened. Or if there's dark water down here to stumble over in the process of just being Not As Shitty as they could be, as people.

... Also, Licyn's tackling this as a wolf, so one of the things I figured was some ROUS slaying as stress relief.

[groundrules]

Heya! Sure thing — how about this: while in the process of scavenging or trying to liberate some lamp oil barrels out of a deserted warehouse, Licyn and Company run into members of Remembrance who have been using this site as storage. If they play their parts well, given the recent 'conscription' efforts of Remembrance that have swollen numbers, Licyn & Co can be mistaken for recruits and made to carry the barrels to the new headquarters of Remembrance, which is currently being raised in a similarly abandoned home in a particularly dodgy neighbourhood of the Mouse House.

...it inevitably turns out that the 'black oil lamp' they're carrying is. Well. You-know-what dark water, it's always dark water that's been warded to mute some of its magical properties, while it's not in use. Remembrance is trying to recreate the womb walls.

Licyn & Co will have to figure out how to subtly evacuate themselves. Up to you if you want them to steal some dark water, set it on fire, set the entire headquarters on fire, start a fight or just get out now. The only real takeaway here is that there is a new headquarters, it's in the Mouse House, and Remembrance is not giving up on its dark water antics.

WISH WELL - PLAYERS BE PLOTTING

[groundrules]

Drop a line here (and best to summarise it in your comment headline too, if you can!) with something neat you'd like to organise or pursue with your character in October. Cue that great fiend, the player event. We can also try to incorporate some of this stuff in bigger plot updates too!

Absolutely no such thing as a bad suggestion, whether heavily plotty, SoL or out of the box. Feel free to talk to each other in the comments!

helping people in the mouse house and/or possible fun/games for the kids?

[thedreamer]

Sort of in the background since they've been in Serthica, the Doctor has wanted to do whatever he can to better things for the people (especially the children) in the Mouse House, and I believe there are other characters with a similar want, or perhaps have already done some things as well! Depending on what has maybe already been done or what anyone might be interested in doing, I'd love your thoughts if anything piques your interest:

Ideas:
► Money is pooled together and we work out the logistics of...what they can reasonably even do (decent furniture, better housing, better food, improvement of supply chain);

► Charming the people who have the money & power so there's at least the hope/promise of a consistent infrastructure improvement rather than just 'okay we'll deign to bequeath the "lower class citizens" with some money for a nice dinner roast and that's it and things never get better;

► (less plotty, more just pure fun/joy?) - A bunch of the group pools together whatever money they have & can reasonably spare and gets some random gifts from Eidris and Minaras and organize maybe a fun gift-giving/scavenger hunt/other game TBD for the kids? While ideally the Doctor would want to permanently improve conditions, he's also big on "be happy now while you can" so whatever joy they can find feels like a worthy cause.

[groundrules]

Send help, too adorable.

[blackscales]

Happy to have Wrathion make good on his offer to help via his connections.

[snowcleave]

Hi, so also in the background Fei has been bringing food to the orphans and trying to improve their situation! She had a conversation with Ma'am Mariol and asked if she'd be receptive to moving the children above, and after Mariol seemed receptive to raising the kids in actual sunlight (a thought that got Fei in the feels) she got it into her head that maybe getting them a better place to live might be an option.

Anyway she's reached out to Emilia since her cover story grants her a bit of influence and a lot of exposure to the money moves in Eidris, but Emilia (and the unwinding lbr) have pointed out that the above might not be safe for kids. They've still been working on raising money even if there's no solution (Emilia called in some favors for Dragon Bachelor so they could put the prize money towards it), and ooc we've been jokingly talking about staging some kind of Eastbound Aid benefit show to get more cash out of the rich folk topside.

But yes, since an actual long-term solution to help the kids continues to evade, maybe they should cross paths and put their heads together, and get some other like-minded folk into it.

[spoilers]

You know River will be onboard to help with this, though why charm when you can steal?? Because she thinks he's far too optimistic sometimes. But ultimately, she'll sigh and ask what the plan is.

that one time travel idea

[somebadnews]

This has been in my back pocket to use where it fits with game plot, but since you asked! It's still very on the table. I wrote it out in detail here: time travel shenanigans featuring dragon disaster. In the current arc, said dragon would appear in the non-dragon side, so that's fun.

Very flexible for input, but that's the basic idea. For your interest gauge. :>

Re: that one time travel idea

[groundrules]

Oooooh, yessss. I think that one would be super good as a post-arc thing, since it's pretty big scale — but if you've got any ideas more linked to Serthica, happy to integrate!

TURNCOATING

[groundrules]

Drop a line here (and best to summarise it in your comment headline too, if you can!) with something neat you'd like to organise or pursue with your character in October. Cue that great fiend, the player event. We can also try to incorporate some of this stuff in bigger plot updates too!

Absolutely no such thing as a bad suggestion, whether heavily plotty, SoL or out of the box. Feel free to talk to each other in the comments!

HALLOWEEN POLL

[groundrules]

We're already mystery-fantasy-horror, so we're not going to be able to fully walk away from our roots, but some people want a lower-key Halloween event, some want to rocknroll with blood. Please +1 your preference under the appropriate heading below, one vote/player — and please don't reply to each other. Thank you!

BLOOD, BABY, BLOOD

[groundrules]

+1 here for the full blood/gore/creature-from-hell experience.

+1

[somebadnews]

It's Halloween-y!

+1

[thebrideoffire]

Yes please

+1

[valeas]

did you say hell

+1

[thedreamer]

'tis the season

+1

[incantates]

it's not halloween without them

[groundrules]

+1 here if you're feeling things a bit more business casual.