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route_292013-10-11 09:35 pm
these_balls) wrote in route_292013-10-11 09:35 pm
Entry tags:
There's Something Strange In The Neighborhood...
...AND IT'S A
SO WHAT'S GOING ON?
Well, remember back a few months ago, when Sabrina decided to mess around with her psychic powers attempting to contact the dead? Yeah, well, it turns out you can't just go messing around with the supernatural without the supernatural, um, noticing. And suffice to say, something's not too happy with Sabrina about that. People shouldn't trifle with things that don't belong to them, and when you do, there are going to be consequences. Unfortunately, the hand of justice here isn't being particularly precise when it comes to who specifically is to blame; it's a little more along the lines of "one of yours did this, and now you all have to pay for it."
See, the nightmares everyone's been having? That was the side effect of something getting its hooks into you — and a few members of your roster as well. And from the point of view of something that's never known anything but Pokemon Logic™, what's the worst punishment a person could possibly suffer?
That's right. Losing their Pokemon.
And that means everybody who's had that nightmarish bulls-eye painted on them in the preliminary stages of the plot is going on a field trip.
BOY, AM I SURE GLAD MY CHARACTER WASN'T ONE OF THE ONES HAVING NIGHTMARES! SO WHAT'S GOING TO HAPPEN TO THEM WHILE THIS PLOT IS RUNNING?
If your character is not going on the plot, they're going to have a relatively quiet — albeit spooky — week. The weather will largely follow the Route calendar in the daytime, but the evenings and nighttime hours will be plagued with random bouts of fog, high winds, storms, and the other sorts of generally hostile weather that tend to give people the sense that Mother Nature is having a bad day (and when Mother Nature's not happy, no one is happy.) The gyms will still be open for business, but a handwaved IC weather advisory will go around suggesting that trainers try to stay in the cities if possible, and to venture out onto the routes only at their own risk. There will also be swarms of Ghost-types lurking around, at the levels comparable to whatever area your character happens to be in at the current moment.
Oh, and they'll probably notice that a large majority of the people around them have passed out into something that looks a great deal like an Update Coma™, and while they're still shallowly breathing, they're also not waking up. Try to make them comfortable, at least, won't you?
FORGET THAT, I'M SIGNED UP FOR THIS FIELD TRIP. WHAT THE HECK IS HAPPENING TO ME?
Good question.
If you are going on the field trip (I.E. your character participated in the nightmares and is still going on the plot), they will be KOing into something eerily resembling an Update Coma™ at 11:59:59 PM on Thursday, October 24. When they wake up again, it will be 7:00 AM on Friday, October 25, and they will be...well, somewhere else.
OH, PLEASE, WILL YOU STOP BEING CRYPTIC ALREADY.
Sure thing. The "somewhere else" you're going to is Nightmare Castle.
Because it wouldn't be a modplot without a floorplan.
KEY:
• RED areas are inaccessible regions of the castle! How they're inaccessible will vary from place to place (and from person to person), so players are encouraged to be creative in making up reasons why their characters can't get in to those areas if they try. For example, they might find the door to be locked or jammed; they might find a section of wall has collapsed and blocked off the corridor; they might just run into an invisible wall or a lingering patch of obscuring fog that ultimately deters them. They might even discover a rather unpleasant-looking monster hanging around and decide they'd rather not take the chance; the sky's the limit here, but the reasons for the same door being blocked can vary from person to person, and we encourage you to use this to add to the IC confusion if you so desire!
• BROWN areas are secret passages! It won't be immediately obvious that these areas exist (naturally, being secret), but with some diligence and careful inspection, characters can find the opening and get inside. Whether it's from lifting a secret latch or just figuring out the wall is hollow and bashing the thing down, of course, is up to player discretion!
• AREA A — the Spooky Garden. — ROOM CHANGES — 10/28/13
The obvious object of note here is the pretty fountain bubbling merrily away in the center of this odd little patch of indoor flora; it's made of white marble and is your standard three-tier affair, surrounded by a modest "courtyard" of grass and wildflowers. The animal sculptures are probably Pokemon you recognize...though on second glance they look more like something you're pretty sure you saw back home...and come to think of it, on third glance they're starting to get a little unsettling somehow. Strange! However, if you can stand the spooky company, it's a fairly quiet place to sit and unwind. Maybe you'll be generous and throw P10 into the waters? Or maybe you'll dig in there and retrieve other people's contributions for your own benefit. Either way, be careful when you look into the water; who knows what faces you might see reflected!
• AREA B — the Grand Hall. — ROOM CHANGES — 10/28/13
This is where you and your fellowinmates visitors have woken up; everyone will originate here upon the start of the plot, but there's absolutely no restriction on how long you have to stay there, so feel free to take off running as soon as you like. If you decide to stay, though, you'll notice it's a fairly big room, generally rectangular, with walls of gray stone and a healthy coating of dust and cobwebs over most every surface. All things considered, there's not a lot actually in here: some scattered rubble, scraps of wood, tattered cloth, empty sconces on the wall. Poke around a bit and you might find a candle or some other helpful odds and ends, but by and large this seems to be a token Big Empty Room — not particularly helpful for anything but holding people, all things considered.
• AREA C — the Overgrown Tower.
Watch your head as you enter this room; contrary to what you might expect from a tower room, the ceiling is surprisingly low, and the dangling vines might give you a fright if you walk into one without paying attention! There isn't much of note in this room, outside of the plants seeping through the cracks in the cold gray stone and the delicate scent of flowers lingering in the air; not much, that is, save for the wooden rocking horse standing stationary in the center of the room — what could that be doing there?
• AREA D — the Wine Cellar.
Pretty self-explanatory, this one; this room is stocked full of creaky old wine casks and dusty bottles of what is presumably ridiculously well-aged alcohol, along with assorted bottling tools and the other odds and ends you might find in an old-school winery. Alas, no free shot at hitting the bottle for you, minors; characters who would not ordinarily be eligible to drink in Route will find that even if they crack one of these bottles open, the liquid inside turns to old water — or refuses to come out at all.
• AREA E — the Kitchen. — ROOM CHANGES — 10/28/13
Like the Wine Cellar, this is also pretty self-explanatory; search the cupboards and you might find food. Whether or not you're willing to try eating it is entirely up to you — who knows what might be in it, or how long it's been there, after all — but no one's likely to starve; when characters aren't in the Kitchen, they won't find themselves to be particularly hungry, regardless of how long it's been since they've last eaten. When they go inside, hunger will set in, but if they'd rather not eat to remedy the problem, then alleviating it is as simple as just leaving the room.
• AREA F — the Hall of Tapestries. — ROOM CHANGES — 10/28/13
A nice, long, intimidating hallway with a high arched ceiling and faded tapestries lining the walls. Visitors with a healthy sense of paranoia might notice that this room is a classic example of a "kill box"; there's only one exit on either end and nowhere to hide in the middle. But certainly there's no reason to be frightened while walking alone down this long, empty, echoing corridor — though depending on your nerves, it might be a reason to pick up your pace.
• AREA G — the Decaying Library.
Though it doesn't seem to have seen a caretaker in quite some time, the library comes fully stocked with enough books to keep the literary-inclined busy for a while. There's at least some valid information to be found, most of it detailing a region that doesn't seem to be Johto or Kanto. Descriptions of Mount Coronet and the ruins of Celestic Town, as well as details about what appear to be the creation of the world can be found here, among other things — including the demented ramblings of a man who seems determined to destroy the world and remake it in his image, and the surely coincidental story of a tragedy that occurred in a large manor not entirely unlike the one you've awakened in...
• AREA H — the Hidden Dungeon.
Hopefully you'll never have reason to visit here, but if you've taken up residence in a set of our finest wall manacles, well...enjoy your stay, we suppose. This room is only accessible through the secret passage designated in brown; in the event that your character suffers a critical injury during the course of this plot, after whiting out they will end up in this room, presumably in chains. Hopefully they've got a friend who can pick locks, or who'll otherwise come to spring them from their confinement! If not, it might be a loooooong wait until someone happens by.
• AREA I — the Haunted Terrace.
This area is also accessible by secret passage, and if you happened to find it in the daytime, you might be a bit disappointed to discover that it's pretty much just a big empty patio that looks as though it ought to be outdoors (and the occasional breeze passing through would seem to support that conclusion), but it's so heavily ringed by thick fog that you can't see more than a foot or two past the boundaries of the edges. On the other hand, if you've had the misfortune of coming here at night, you'll find it's quite the unappealing place to be — some of the patches of fog lurking about are actually monsters that will attack anyone who gets too close! The good news is, they'll only follow player characters as far as the end of the secret passage before turning back, but anything on the terrace or in the passage is fair game for an attack if you're not careful!
OH MY GOD THIS IS THE BEST THING I'VE EVER SEEN.
Seriously.
OKAY, SO THAT'S THE SETTING. NOW TELL ME ABOUT THE PLOT.
First off, this is a loosely scripted plot — meaning, there are certain key events that are going to happen along the way, but your characters will have a lot of freedom to explore and do things within the boundaries of those guided events. We'll go into more detail about what each specific day involves a little further down in the infopost, but for a quick overview, the timeline looks something like this:
• DAY ONE: Participating characters wake up in the Grand Hall (Area B) of Nightmare Castle. Reactions and preliminary exploration commence.
• NIGHT ONE: TheFire Nation castle monsters attack.
• DAY TWO: The stairwell to the Second Floor unlocks; characters notice that the backs of their hands have been marked by a glowing sigil.
• DAYS TWO THROUGH FIVE: Exploration of the castle, retrieval of lost Pokemon, uncovering of clues that will guide characters to the Final Boss Battle™.
• DAY SIX: The Final Boss Battle™ and adjudication of whether or not the characters have won the plot; either way, all characters are returned back to their coma'd selves as of 12:00:01 AM on Halloween.
Note that we're leaving characters a lot of leeway to get creative and pursue their own goals for the duration of this plot! Everyone's all in the same place, and there's a lot of stuff in the setting. If you have ideas for things you want to do, we encourage you to talk to us about them so we can try to facilitate that!
Other Important Points of Note:
• Characters who have gone to Nightmare Castle cannot have contact with characters not participating in the plot. While their Gears will function within the castle such that they can get in touch with anyone else in the castle, they will not see posts from characters back in Johto, nor with characters in Johto see anything that residents of Nightmare Castle post. Alas!
• The rule against fighting has been revoked; there's no police force here, so there's nobody to stop you from rumbling.
• The no-death provision has been modified. As you may have noticed in the descriptions above, if a character dies over the course of this plot, instead of whiting out and appearing in the nearest Pokemon Center, characters will white out and reawaken (healthy again) in chains in the dungeon. Characters attempting to use the white-out provision to be warped back home to a Pokemon Center will fail.
TABLE OF CONTENTS: THE DAYS OF THE PLOT
DAY ONE — THE ARRIVAL
At 7:00 AM on Friday, October 25, participating characters will wake up in the castle's Great Hall (Area B). They will be generally groggy to begin with; they will also have their backpacks and any items that they generally keep on their person. However, if they search their belongings, they will quickly discover that all of their Pokemon are gone. This also includes their Pokeballs; if characters tend to keep empty Pokeballs around, they may still have those in their inventories, but the ones already holding roster members will have all disappeared.
Characters will then be given the rest of the day to explore the castle, investigate the first floor map, and interact with each other as they please for the duration. There will be a mingle log inroute_1065 for this!
NIGHT ONE — THE HAUNTING
When the clock strikes 9:00 PM on October 25th, the castle will abruptly take on a much more malevolent tenor. While in the daylight hours things seemed pretty concrete and tangible, during the nighttime characters will find the castle experience to be much more dreamlike and vague. Things should feel a bit the way that they do in dreams (or nightmares) — normal, but perhaps not quite right somehow, with a general sense of foreboding. Players are welcome to get creative here; maybe things will seem to move when characters aren't expecting it, or the colors of an object will change between glances, or other equally spooky and not-quite-logical occurrences. Use your imagination!
During the nighttime hours (9:00 PM to 7:00 AM), the castle will also be haunted by monsters. These are nonspecific random encounter hauntings; if you don't want your character to have one, you're not obligated to! The only place in the castle where you are obligated to run into a monster is in Area I, the Haunted Terrace; otherwise, your chances of running into one are about 50/50, and if you absolutely don't want to encounter one, the designated safe zone is Area C, the Overgrown Tower. Obviously, this will not be explicitly made known ICly, but characters are welcome to figure it out if they should happen to notice that the monsters won't follow them into the Tower, or something similar.
The monsters will be influenced by but not identical to spooky things that your characters have seen in their own canons. So, for example, Princess Zelda would not see a ReDead, but she might see a generic creature that tends to lurch around and scream in a way that reminds her of one. This means that the appearance of the monsters will be different for everyone! This also means that yes, if two people encounter the same monster at the same time, they may see it completely differently. That's also fine! The dissonance adds to the spookiness.
Characters are allowed to fight the monsters! You can flee from them, fight them, attempt to talk to them (but why would you), whatever! If they attack you, it will hurt but leave no apparent physical damage; characters will just find themselves exhausted and in pain. If a character is subject to too many attacks, they will white out and appear in shackles in Area H, the Hidden Dungeon, and they will either have to break out or someone will have to come rescue them. Happy Haunting!
But assuming we all survive the first night, things then move on to...
DAY TWO — THE GLOWING SIGILS
Once the stress of surviving the first night has ceased, two things will occur at 7:00 AM on October 26th: all characters will wake up to discover (or otherwise notice, if they didn't sleep in the first place!) a glowing sigil on the back of their dominant hand, and a set of stairs leading up to the second floor of the castle, where previously there had only been a brick wall.
The sigils come in three colors: blue, pink, and gold. They will glow like phosphorescent light, but they won't be painful or burn to the touch. We will be using the Headcount Thread to RNG and assign people their sigil colors!
Each of the three sigil colors corresponds to a certain door on the Second Floor of the castle. Only people with the matching-colored sigil can unlock and open the door; it's as simple as placing your hand on it and then turning the knob. When you do so, your sigil will briefly glow with a new color and the door will unlock! There are three doors total, one for each color. And this is also where you'll find your missing Pokemon. What a coincidence, that you have three missing Pokemon and three colored doors!
Behind each sigil door is one missing Pokemon; these Pokemon will be found in their Pokeballs at a specific location in each sigil room. Also, all Pokeballs will be found in the same place in the room — for example, the Blue Sigil Room's Pokeball location might be "under the desk", and therefore every character will find their missing Pokeball under the desk. Two or more characters can be in the room at the same time, but there will always be only one Pokeball visible to them, and it will be the Pokemon they lost. If that seems weird, well. It's kinda dreamlike, innit?
This aspect of the plot encourages cooperation among players; if you want to get all three of your Pokemon back, you're going to have to find a way to open all three of the doors to go get them. If a character fails to open a door that one of their Pokemon is behind, they will lose that Pokemon permanently and will not receive it back at the end of the plot. However, we encourage players to get creative in problem-solving how to open the doors; some characters might work together and cooperate to get them open, while others might opt to just up and kidnap (WITH PERMISSION!) someone with a different-colored sigil and brute force it open that way.
If you ABSOLUTELY CANNOT find a way of getting all three doors open but want to regain all of your Pokemon, don't worry! We're not going to force anybody to lose their roster if they don't want to. If you can't find a way to get the doors open after a good-faith effort at attempting it, let us know and we'll provide a Handy Plot Contrivance™ to help you out.
Also, if your character did not come to Nightmare Castle with three Pokemon, the breakdown will be as follows:
• If they brought one Pokemon, it will always be behind the door that corresponds to the sigil on their hand.
• If they brought two Pokemon, one will be behind the door corresponding to their hand, and it's player's choice which door the other one is behind.
DAYS TWO THROUGH FIVE — UNRAVELING THE MYSTERIES
We anticipate that players will use these days of the plot as "free time" to engage in their own endeavors! Presumably at least part of them will be spent unlocking doors and retrieving Pokemon, but there will also be plenty of time for exploring both floors of the castle, fighting monsters at night, engaging in character interaction and small player plots, and so on. We encourage players to make their own action and "network" posts during this time!
Over the course of these days, characters will begin to observe strange messages appearing in various rooms around the castle; you'll receive more on the content of these in a subsequent plot post, but they will largely be directing characters toward uncovering the location of...wait for it...THE FINAL BOSS BATTLE.
DAY SIX — THE FINAL BOSS BATTLE
Having figured out where the Final Boss™ is lurking, characters will venture forth to go do battle! Again, we'll have a roundup/plotting post for this once we're closer to the actual battle and things become more relevant, but the battle mechanic that determines the "win" condition will essentially work like this:
We will be putting up an IC log inroute_1065 for people to thread out their adventures in fighting The Boss™. On the roundup post, we will have a thread designated for "proof of participation". In order to win the plot and defeat The Boss™, at least two-thirds of all characters participating in the plot (as determined by the signups on the Headcount Post) must make either a top-level comment or reply to a top-level comment on the Boss Fight Log Post, and then link it to us in the "Proof of Participation" thread. We'll give you the number to beat once we get closer to the plot and have a final tally of who all's there, but by 11:59:59 PM on October 30, at least two-thirds of the participating characters must have made at least one comment to the Battle Log and shown us proof of it in order to win the plot.
Assuming the players win, everyone in Nightmare Castle will wake up on Halloween morning back where they were before the plot started, and everyone in the game (regardless of whether they went to the castle or not) will receive a Fabulous Prize! Assuming the players don't win, everyone in the game will wake up on Halloween morning feeling vaguely disoriented and with a deep sense of foreboding (and sadly no Fabulous Prize). So it behooves you to cooperate and participate! WORK TOGETHER AND EVERYONE CAN PREVAIL!
THAT WAS A LOT OF READING.
We're sorry. It's a pretty ambitious plot. Hopefully you like the sound of it, though!
SO WHERE'S THIS SECOND-FLOOR MAP AND STUFF?
That will be unveiled when the Second Story unlocks on Day Two of the plot! Don't worry, there'll be a post for it and we'll plurk about it and everything.
AND THE SAME THING FOR THE FINAL BOSS FIGHT BATTLE DETAILS AND STUFF?
Bingo.
I HAVE A QUESTION YOU STILL DIDN'T ANSWER IN THIS MONOLITH OF A POST.
That's not particularly surprising. Please ask us about it here!
I HAVE A PLAYER PLOT I WANT TO RUN! WHERE DO I ASK YOU ABOUT THAT?
You do it in this thread here.
SO YOU'RE GOING TO BE PUTTING UP LOGS FOR US, RIGHT?
Yes. There will be two mod-created logs — one at the beginning of the plot and one at the end for the bossfight. For all the other interactions in between, we're encouraging players to make their own posts and tag around as usual.
HOLD UP. MY CHARACTER IS A NON-FIGHTER, AND THEY HAVE NO REASON TO SHOW UP TO A BOSS BATTLE, BUT YOU CLAIM WE'RE GOING TO LOSE THE PLOT IF WE DON'T GET ENOUGH PEOPLE. ISN'T THAT UNFAIRLY BIASED TOWARD CHARACTERS WHO ARE FIGHTERS?
Not at all, actually! All your character has to do is show up somewhere in the log in order to get credit for participating. That could mean they're in trouble and need a rescue, or they're helping out in some mundane way, or they run in just to scream and flee in terror, or they decide to pull a Leeroy Jenkins and throw their shoe at the Big Bad. The possibilities are endless, and we're not mandating that people fight. They just have to be there.
SO WHO'S THE BIG BAD, ANYWAY?
No comment.
IT'S DARKRAI, ISN'T IT.
CAN I USE THIS POST FOR PLOTTING WITH OTHER PEOPLE?
You sure can!
QUICK LINKS
QUESTIONS FOR MODS | PLAYER PLOT REQUESTS
SO WHAT'S GOING ON?
See, the nightmares everyone's been having? That was the side effect of something getting its hooks into you — and a few members of your roster as well. And from the point of view of something that's never known anything but Pokemon Logic™, what's the worst punishment a person could possibly suffer?
That's right. Losing their Pokemon.
And that means everybody who's had that nightmarish bulls-eye painted on them in the preliminary stages of the plot is going on a field trip.
BOY, AM I SURE GLAD MY CHARACTER WASN'T ONE OF THE ONES HAVING NIGHTMARES! SO WHAT'S GOING TO HAPPEN TO THEM WHILE THIS PLOT IS RUNNING?
Oh, and they'll probably notice that a large majority of the people around them have passed out into something that looks a great deal like an Update Coma™, and while they're still shallowly breathing, they're also not waking up. Try to make them comfortable, at least, won't you?
FORGET THAT, I'M SIGNED UP FOR THIS FIELD TRIP. WHAT THE HECK IS HAPPENING TO ME?
If you are going on the field trip (I.E. your character participated in the nightmares and is still going on the plot), they will be KOing into something eerily resembling an Update Coma™ at 11:59:59 PM on Thursday, October 24. When they wake up again, it will be 7:00 AM on Friday, October 25, and they will be...well, somewhere else.
OH, PLEASE, WILL YOU STOP BEING CRYPTIC ALREADY.
Because it wouldn't be a modplot without a floorplan.
KEY:
• BROWN areas are secret passages! It won't be immediately obvious that these areas exist (naturally, being secret), but with some diligence and careful inspection, characters can find the opening and get inside. Whether it's from lifting a secret latch or just figuring out the wall is hollow and bashing the thing down, of course, is up to player discretion!
• AREA A — the Spooky Garden. — ROOM CHANGES — 10/28/13
The obvious object of note here is the pretty fountain bubbling merrily away in the center of this odd little patch of indoor flora; it's made of white marble and is your standard three-tier affair, surrounded by a modest "courtyard" of grass and wildflowers. The animal sculptures are probably Pokemon you recognize...though on second glance they look more like something you're pretty sure you saw back home...and come to think of it, on third glance they're starting to get a little unsettling somehow. Strange! However, if you can stand the spooky company, it's a fairly quiet place to sit and unwind. Maybe you'll be generous and throw P10 into the waters? Or maybe you'll dig in there and retrieve other people's contributions for your own benefit. Either way, be careful when you look into the water; who knows what faces you might see reflected!
• AREA B — the Grand Hall. — ROOM CHANGES — 10/28/13
This is where you and your fellow
• AREA C — the Overgrown Tower.
Watch your head as you enter this room; contrary to what you might expect from a tower room, the ceiling is surprisingly low, and the dangling vines might give you a fright if you walk into one without paying attention! There isn't much of note in this room, outside of the plants seeping through the cracks in the cold gray stone and the delicate scent of flowers lingering in the air; not much, that is, save for the wooden rocking horse standing stationary in the center of the room — what could that be doing there?
• AREA D — the Wine Cellar.
Pretty self-explanatory, this one; this room is stocked full of creaky old wine casks and dusty bottles of what is presumably ridiculously well-aged alcohol, along with assorted bottling tools and the other odds and ends you might find in an old-school winery. Alas, no free shot at hitting the bottle for you, minors; characters who would not ordinarily be eligible to drink in Route will find that even if they crack one of these bottles open, the liquid inside turns to old water — or refuses to come out at all.
• AREA E — the Kitchen. — ROOM CHANGES — 10/28/13
Like the Wine Cellar, this is also pretty self-explanatory; search the cupboards and you might find food. Whether or not you're willing to try eating it is entirely up to you — who knows what might be in it, or how long it's been there, after all — but no one's likely to starve; when characters aren't in the Kitchen, they won't find themselves to be particularly hungry, regardless of how long it's been since they've last eaten. When they go inside, hunger will set in, but if they'd rather not eat to remedy the problem, then alleviating it is as simple as just leaving the room.
• AREA F — the Hall of Tapestries. — ROOM CHANGES — 10/28/13
A nice, long, intimidating hallway with a high arched ceiling and faded tapestries lining the walls. Visitors with a healthy sense of paranoia might notice that this room is a classic example of a "kill box"; there's only one exit on either end and nowhere to hide in the middle. But certainly there's no reason to be frightened while walking alone down this long, empty, echoing corridor — though depending on your nerves, it might be a reason to pick up your pace.
• AREA G — the Decaying Library.
Though it doesn't seem to have seen a caretaker in quite some time, the library comes fully stocked with enough books to keep the literary-inclined busy for a while. There's at least some valid information to be found, most of it detailing a region that doesn't seem to be Johto or Kanto. Descriptions of Mount Coronet and the ruins of Celestic Town, as well as details about what appear to be the creation of the world can be found here, among other things — including the demented ramblings of a man who seems determined to destroy the world and remake it in his image, and the surely coincidental story of a tragedy that occurred in a large manor not entirely unlike the one you've awakened in...
• AREA H — the Hidden Dungeon.
Hopefully you'll never have reason to visit here, but if you've taken up residence in a set of our finest wall manacles, well...enjoy your stay, we suppose. This room is only accessible through the secret passage designated in brown; in the event that your character suffers a critical injury during the course of this plot, after whiting out they will end up in this room, presumably in chains. Hopefully they've got a friend who can pick locks, or who'll otherwise come to spring them from their confinement! If not, it might be a loooooong wait until someone happens by.
• AREA I — the Haunted Terrace.
This area is also accessible by secret passage, and if you happened to find it in the daytime, you might be a bit disappointed to discover that it's pretty much just a big empty patio that looks as though it ought to be outdoors (and the occasional breeze passing through would seem to support that conclusion), but it's so heavily ringed by thick fog that you can't see more than a foot or two past the boundaries of the edges. On the other hand, if you've had the misfortune of coming here at night, you'll find it's quite the unappealing place to be — some of the patches of fog lurking about are actually monsters that will attack anyone who gets too close! The good news is, they'll only follow player characters as far as the end of the secret passage before turning back, but anything on the terrace or in the passage is fair game for an attack if you're not careful!
OH MY GOD THIS IS THE BEST THING I'VE EVER SEEN.
OKAY, SO THAT'S THE SETTING. NOW TELL ME ABOUT THE PLOT.
• DAY ONE: Participating characters wake up in the Grand Hall (Area B) of Nightmare Castle. Reactions and preliminary exploration commence.
• NIGHT ONE: The
• DAY TWO: The stairwell to the Second Floor unlocks; characters notice that the backs of their hands have been marked by a glowing sigil.
• DAYS TWO THROUGH FIVE: Exploration of the castle, retrieval of lost Pokemon, uncovering of clues that will guide characters to the Final Boss Battle™.
• DAY SIX: The Final Boss Battle™ and adjudication of whether or not the characters have won the plot; either way, all characters are returned back to their coma'd selves as of 12:00:01 AM on Halloween.
Note that we're leaving characters a lot of leeway to get creative and pursue their own goals for the duration of this plot! Everyone's all in the same place, and there's a lot of stuff in the setting. If you have ideas for things you want to do, we encourage you to talk to us about them so we can try to facilitate that!
Other Important Points of Note:
• Characters who have gone to Nightmare Castle cannot have contact with characters not participating in the plot. While their Gears will function within the castle such that they can get in touch with anyone else in the castle, they will not see posts from characters back in Johto, nor with characters in Johto see anything that residents of Nightmare Castle post. Alas!
• The rule against fighting has been revoked; there's no police force here, so there's nobody to stop you from rumbling.
• The no-death provision has been modified. As you may have noticed in the descriptions above, if a character dies over the course of this plot, instead of whiting out and appearing in the nearest Pokemon Center, characters will white out and reawaken (healthy again) in chains in the dungeon. Characters attempting to use the white-out provision to be warped back home to a Pokemon Center will fail.
DAY ONE — THE ARRIVAL
Characters will then be given the rest of the day to explore the castle, investigate the first floor map, and interact with each other as they please for the duration. There will be a mingle log in
route_1065 for this!NIGHT ONE — THE HAUNTING
During the nighttime hours (9:00 PM to 7:00 AM), the castle will also be haunted by monsters. These are nonspecific random encounter hauntings; if you don't want your character to have one, you're not obligated to! The only place in the castle where you are obligated to run into a monster is in Area I, the Haunted Terrace; otherwise, your chances of running into one are about 50/50, and if you absolutely don't want to encounter one, the designated safe zone is Area C, the Overgrown Tower. Obviously, this will not be explicitly made known ICly, but characters are welcome to figure it out if they should happen to notice that the monsters won't follow them into the Tower, or something similar.
The monsters will be influenced by but not identical to spooky things that your characters have seen in their own canons. So, for example, Princess Zelda would not see a ReDead, but she might see a generic creature that tends to lurch around and scream in a way that reminds her of one. This means that the appearance of the monsters will be different for everyone! This also means that yes, if two people encounter the same monster at the same time, they may see it completely differently. That's also fine! The dissonance adds to the spookiness.
Characters are allowed to fight the monsters! You can flee from them, fight them, attempt to talk to them (but why would you), whatever! If they attack you, it will hurt but leave no apparent physical damage; characters will just find themselves exhausted and in pain. If a character is subject to too many attacks, they will white out and appear in shackles in Area H, the Hidden Dungeon, and they will either have to break out or someone will have to come rescue them. Happy Haunting!
But assuming we all survive the first night, things then move on to...
DAY TWO — THE GLOWING SIGILS
The sigils come in three colors: blue, pink, and gold. They will glow like phosphorescent light, but they won't be painful or burn to the touch. We will be using the Headcount Thread to RNG and assign people their sigil colors!
Each of the three sigil colors corresponds to a certain door on the Second Floor of the castle. Only people with the matching-colored sigil can unlock and open the door; it's as simple as placing your hand on it and then turning the knob. When you do so, your sigil will briefly glow with a new color and the door will unlock! There are three doors total, one for each color. And this is also where you'll find your missing Pokemon. What a coincidence, that you have three missing Pokemon and three colored doors!
Behind each sigil door is one missing Pokemon; these Pokemon will be found in their Pokeballs at a specific location in each sigil room. Also, all Pokeballs will be found in the same place in the room — for example, the Blue Sigil Room's Pokeball location might be "under the desk", and therefore every character will find their missing Pokeball under the desk. Two or more characters can be in the room at the same time, but there will always be only one Pokeball visible to them, and it will be the Pokemon they lost. If that seems weird, well. It's kinda dreamlike, innit?
This aspect of the plot encourages cooperation among players; if you want to get all three of your Pokemon back, you're going to have to find a way to open all three of the doors to go get them. If a character fails to open a door that one of their Pokemon is behind, they will lose that Pokemon permanently and will not receive it back at the end of the plot. However, we encourage players to get creative in problem-solving how to open the doors; some characters might work together and cooperate to get them open, while others might opt to just up and kidnap (WITH PERMISSION!) someone with a different-colored sigil and brute force it open that way.
If you ABSOLUTELY CANNOT find a way of getting all three doors open but want to regain all of your Pokemon, don't worry! We're not going to force anybody to lose their roster if they don't want to. If you can't find a way to get the doors open after a good-faith effort at attempting it, let us know and we'll provide a Handy Plot Contrivance™ to help you out.
Also, if your character did not come to Nightmare Castle with three Pokemon, the breakdown will be as follows:
• If they brought one Pokemon, it will always be behind the door that corresponds to the sigil on their hand.
• If they brought two Pokemon, one will be behind the door corresponding to their hand, and it's player's choice which door the other one is behind.
DAYS TWO THROUGH FIVE — UNRAVELING THE MYSTERIES
Over the course of these days, characters will begin to observe strange messages appearing in various rooms around the castle; you'll receive more on the content of these in a subsequent plot post, but they will largely be directing characters toward uncovering the location of...wait for it...THE FINAL BOSS BATTLE.
DAY SIX — THE FINAL BOSS BATTLE
We will be putting up an IC log in
route_1065 for people to thread out their adventures in fighting The Boss™. On the roundup post, we will have a thread designated for "proof of participation". In order to win the plot and defeat The Boss™, at least two-thirds of all characters participating in the plot (as determined by the signups on the Headcount Post) must make either a top-level comment or reply to a top-level comment on the Boss Fight Log Post, and then link it to us in the "Proof of Participation" thread. We'll give you the number to beat once we get closer to the plot and have a final tally of who all's there, but by 11:59:59 PM on October 30, at least two-thirds of the participating characters must have made at least one comment to the Battle Log and shown us proof of it in order to win the plot.Assuming the players win, everyone in Nightmare Castle will wake up on Halloween morning back where they were before the plot started, and everyone in the game (regardless of whether they went to the castle or not) will receive a Fabulous Prize! Assuming the players don't win, everyone in the game will wake up on Halloween morning feeling vaguely disoriented and with a deep sense of foreboding (and sadly no Fabulous Prize). So it behooves you to cooperate and participate! WORK TOGETHER AND EVERYONE CAN PREVAIL!
THAT WAS A LOT OF READING.
SO WHERE'S THIS SECOND-FLOOR MAP AND STUFF?
AND THE SAME THING FOR THE FINAL BOSS FIGHT BATTLE DETAILS AND STUFF?
I HAVE A QUESTION YOU STILL DIDN'T ANSWER IN THIS MONOLITH OF A POST.
I HAVE A PLAYER PLOT I WANT TO RUN! WHERE DO I ASK YOU ABOUT THAT?
SO YOU'RE GOING TO BE PUTTING UP LOGS FOR US, RIGHT?
HOLD UP. MY CHARACTER IS A NON-FIGHTER, AND THEY HAVE NO REASON TO SHOW UP TO A BOSS BATTLE, BUT YOU CLAIM WE'RE GOING TO LOSE THE PLOT IF WE DON'T GET ENOUGH PEOPLE. ISN'T THAT UNFAIRLY BIASED TOWARD CHARACTERS WHO ARE FIGHTERS?
SO WHO'S THE BIG BAD, ANYWAY?
IT'S DARKRAI, ISN'T IT.
CAN I USE THIS POST FOR PLOTTING WITH OTHER PEOPLE?
QUESTIONS FOR MODS | PLAYER PLOT REQUESTS
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I am SO looking forward to all this! Hell yes to Light kicking ass with both the girls!
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