synodiporia_ooc | Questing Country: The Next Jaunt.

QUESTING COUNTRY
July 22nd - August 26th

Nobody knows quite how Questing Country works. Any species who are capable of lucid dreams can enter it. Six Known Worlds are connected to it - planets which may or may not remember one another in the waking world, but whose Chosen have formed alliances through Questing Country for thousands of years. The landscape changes, but the place is real - anyone who dreams of Questing Country vanishes from their bed, and wakes up with the wounds, marks, or treasures they earned there. But a few things are clear: it taps into the most powerful beliefs in the minds of sentient beings. When those beliefs are too dangerous, Questing Country births strange talking beasts who lend abilities to the young, the only people hopeful and naive enough to believe one person really can change the world - and so, they’re the only people who ever have the chance to change it.

But there’s more to Questing Country than the Champions it anoints and their dangerous lives and uncertain fates. These troublesome beliefs - they take shape, too. The Fire Mushrooms range out from the place called Nuclear Winter. Hordes of Men in Black come from Conspiracy Country. If they’re not stopped here, they gain power in the dreams of the Known Worlds… and those are only a few of the more obvious ones.

Sometimes, though, the untapped powers of Questing Country find other shapes, as well. There are unstable nodes of energy called Valences that appear only a few times a generation… and when they do, Champions and Oracles and Adversaries all fling themselves into Questing Country with wild abandon. Because every Champion has some belief they’re fighting for, some hope they want to come true… and deep in their hearts, every Champion believes that one day, if they’re strong enough and pure enough, it will. The Valence is that belief, taken shape, the hope of hopes, the power to make dreams come true in an instant… but because Champions believe they have to prove themselves worthy, well, they’re right about that, too. To gain the Valence, they first have to succeed in a series of tests, tests that will send them against their friends and allies from across the worlds...

Age & Gender Swaps | Roles | Species | Casting Call | Bonds & Bonded | Skills | Calendar | World Info | Player Resources | Questions | Plotting

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Questing Country - the shared dream-space of all thinking species, metaphor made real, the place where the power of Champions comes from, and a physical space which they travel to train, learn, and do battle.

Collective Unconscious - not of one species, but of at least six. Most Champions & Oracles come from the listed species above, but other thinking races do exist, & can be devised by players. The Collective Unconscious is at the root of Questing Country, & of the power & knowledge of Champions & their ilk.

Spirit Animals - guides, embodiments of the collective unconscious, and as such, incredibly cryptic and mysterious, incapable of clear or straightforward communication, are responsible for selecting & anointing Champions. Spirit Animals seek Champions who believe in some great and selfless cause with great hope and idealism, and that cause can often somehow be represented by their Archetype.

Archetype - the grand symbolic idea which lends its power to a Champion or Oracle. Roses, Romance, Lions,Apples, Swords, Fire, Ice, Darkness, Light, Lightning - a theme or leitmotif to their magical powers. Not ALL magical powers of a magical girl will rely directly on their Archetype, but it forms the core of their identity & speciality, & probably has something to do with the cause they serve.

Dreamcatchers - devices made to siphon energy from Questing Country. Champions & Adversaries use them to replenish spent power, Oracles for knowledge. Pillars neither have nor need them, as their own abilities are built up but inaccessible.

Exoliminality - all of Questing Country is a Liminal Space, and so most Liminal powers work in Questing Country, but with reduced effect. The amount of space or material that can be manipulated is reduced by roughly half, the time it takes to do so multiplied (but not by one specific number), and it takes much more tangible effort. LIKEWISE because Travelers are attuned to something very like Questing Country, an Investigator can still become a Champion, Oracle, Adversary, or Pillar with the appropriate abilities and Archetypes if it suits their essential character.

Twilight Time - like Liminal Space, Questing Country can undergo vast and sweeping changes. These are preceded by Twilight Time, where things go dim and blurry around the edges, signalling a “change in the weather” which will remake the world around them.

Valence - the power of the collective unconscious sometimes forms a node of energy which can grant one wish. A Valence is hidden somewhere in Questing Country, and Oracles (or investigators with Questing Sense) can vaguely feel its presence and direction. A Valence will bestow itself on one worthy being to help them achieve their cause. Champions flock to Questing Country to prove themselves worthy of a Valance, using Nobility, Courage, & Genre-Savvy to make themselves the Ideal Champion, the narrative embodiment of a person worthy of having their wishes granted. This leads to a great deal of competition, but at the same time, most Champions recognize that they are all in this together, all branches of a common cause of hope and goodness, and would not dream of doing serious lasting harm to one another.