PLANNING POST - INTO THE DEPTHS

[thewatchers]

PLANNING POST - INTO THE DEPTHS
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After reviewing the results of the OOC poll, there was a clear winner as to which plot thread you wanted to follow up the most. (For those who voted differently, we haven’t forgotten you - we’ll be doing something about it as time goes on.) With that in mind, here are the OOC details for the continuation to Something Riding.

In this mission, characters who follow the Dullahan’s lead will be able to discover a great advantage that Utultar holds power over, hidden deep in ancient fae territory; eliminating this advantage will give the Academy further insight into certain parts of Utultar’s power, as well as provide powerful aid.

Descending into these deep parts of the Outlands is no small feat, however. It requires characters to don the mask of a fairytale archetype, gaining strange powers that come with strange weaknesses as they undergo a journey into a place that obeys only its own rules. In addition, the sheer concentration of power that leaks from these deep places has the potential to transform your character in minor ways, giving them physical evidence of the journey that will stay with them permanently.

In addition, this part of the Outlands is a world unto itself that can be considered strange and alien even by those who have experience in Outlands travel. We will be providing guidance on what sort of things you can find here when the log goes up, but we encourage people to have fun and go wild in describing the places a character’s journey takes them through.

Archetypes
An archetype is a broad category under which one or several fairytales or myths can fall. (For examples of how an archetype works, please see this site.)

For the purposes of this event, characters use masks to take on the form of an avatar of something from that archetype in order to undergo a journey through the Outlands safely, and undertake a self-transformation of their own. Behind the mask, they see and relive their own personal version of that ‘tale’ made real, or they may participate in someone else’s and learn more about them - or both.

Characters aren’t limited to being the protagonist of such an archetype, either. A story about a dragon that kidnaps a princess, then is slain by a knight, can have a character be either the dragon, the princess, the knight - or even a strange, mutable combination of all three that becomes a new role entirely, if that suits the character best.

Characters are also able to share an archetype - a story has many forms, after all, and the personal interpretation of a story varies from one person to the next. They may also share a story- one character being the hypothetical dragon while another becomes that dragon’s knight.

Becoming an avatar of an archetype requires the character to wear a mask, and wearing a mask is necessary to walk safely while following the dullahan’s path. While in this part of the Outlands, they cannot remove the mask; it will be their choice as to whether to take it with them when they leave, and be able to invoke the strange powers it provides elsewhere.

Players can choose whether to keep these powers for their characters, as well as make minor physical changes to their appearances. We ask that if you decide to keep these powers, you update your applications as per the power updating rules.

We will not be providing mod-set archetypes for players to fit their characters into. The purpose of this post is for you to plot and choose what tales and powers best fit your character and exercise your creativity. This is also a post for making plans and ideas with one another - none of your characters will be alone on the journey, and they must help each other, or allow themselves to be helped, in order to discover what lies beyond and strike a great blow to the Herald.

Masks and Powers
Like the fairytales they categorise, an archetype’s various actors revolve around one specific theme. The power of a mask is guided by that theme; the mask that invokes a ruinous dragon may allow the user to pull on a dragon’s wings for flight like a cloak, or to utilize wicked claws or flaming breath. But only one of those things can be granted by wearing the mask, and in exchange, the user develops a weakness tied to it. The wings may be uniquely weak to arrows, or the firebreath may be turned aside by shields. Maybe the flames cannot burn the worthy or the wicked - it depends entirely on where the archetype originated, and what the purpose of the dragon is within the story.

Wearing a mask changes the appearance of a character for as long as the mask is on, depending on their role. This can be anything from the mask itself looking more alive and vivid to donning a thematic costume, but no matter what form they take, it always looks both vividly colourful and decidedly unreal - as if the character stepped out of a storybook, from within a painting, or off a theater’s stage.

Physical Changes
The Outlands is full of strange places, filled with their own kind of magic. When those places are disrupted and torn apart, the magic that once suffused itself throughout the land begins to leak out, potentially affecting anyone who passes through it.

Examples of physical changes a character may experience include, but are not limited to:
Patches of scales, feathers, leaves, or other features not native to a character’s species
Small changes not native to a character’s species (such as horns, spines, claws, eye changes, teeth changes, etc).
Changes to senses and how they perceive certain things (light, movement, magical phenomena, etc)
Magical ‘scarring’ with minor effects (patterns glowing in the dark, moving around the body, etc)

If there’s something in particular you would like to do and aren’t sure about, please feel free to use the toplevel below to ask and clarify anything you aren’t sure of! We want to make this mission an interesting and fun experience for everyone.

Ultimately, though, the thing to remember is this: see your story through to the end. We cannot promise a happy ever after, but we can tell you that there is something waiting on the other side.

If you make it that far.


code bases by tricklet