December Plot!

[powersthatbe]

The Solstice Masquerade
December 10th - January 3rd

Nibiru is a harsh world, slow-turning, tilted close to a bright sun, and the people who live there have grown to revere night, cold, and the starry sky as instruments of blissful salvation. Their most important holiday, therefore, is the Winter Solstice, the coming of dark and snow to cool them for a few months before the threat of the sun renews itself. But there’s more to it than simple celebration. The people of Nibiru believe that unless the Great Orrery is ritually empowered once each year, the world will stop turning properly, and endless summer will destroy them all.

So, for the weeks leading up to the Solstice, the most sacred duty of Nibiru’s elite is to travel to the Orrery, a massive structure built with technology beyond their understanding, by absent beings they call the Starmovers, and revere as extraterrestrial angels. Wars stop for the Solstice. Trials are delayed. There are no elections, no marriages, no function of religion, government, or politics that can be allowed to interfere.

At the Orrery, the chosen delegates explore mazes of mysterious chambers that lock and unlock in response to stately celestial mathematics. They don ritual garb left there by the Starmovers. And they dance four ritual dances, each a week or so apart, in the great ballroom, wearing masks that cannot be removed, in order to keep the world turning.

This sacred celebration is a solemn thing, but for those less superstitious, it’s also a golden opportunity. In the ballroom, secret bargains can be struck. Forbidden affairs can begin, or end, in anonymity. Criminals may seek pardon, or perhaps new crimes. Treaties can be negotiated and signed, in violation of all taboo. But all of that relies on knowing who lies behind which mask.

And then there are those who seek other advantages - the technology and knowledge of the Starmovers. Even a little of it has helped revolutionize what the people of Nibiru are capable of, bringing them solar power, clockwork mechanisms, and a space race yet to be won - as well as laser weapons, advanced physics and chemistry, and other advances that place pseudo-Victorian cultures into a modern industrial revolution like that of the 1950s.

The people of Nibiru are living their lives on the brink of great changes they cannot yet understand. And the Travelers present may have to decide what’s more important: helping them… or taking dance lessons to save the world (if you believe in that kind of thing).


World Info | Countries | Political Movements | Religious Factions | Maps | Casting Call

Suggested Infiltrator Roles | Masquerade Mechanics | Schedule | Skills | Player Resources

Questions

Comments

World Info

[powersthatbe]

Only a small portion of Nibiru’s blasted deserts are inhabitable: islands, coastal regions, canyon-lands. Fierce conflict over resources has reduced twelve nations (who collectively called themselves “The Colonies”) to eight. The closest thing they recognize to an international authority is the Calendrical Parliament, a group of religious and scientific officials and diplomats from all nations who arrange the cease-fires and securities for those traveling to the Solstice masquerade, and who arrange the lotteries which determine who is invited. Of note, there are always more guests than invitations - stowaways, rebels, outlaws, the curious and ambitious are expected to be party-crashers. But only those invited are given secure travel by Parliament. The rest must find their own landships or ornithopters to carry them across the wastelands and into the northern mountains where the Orrery is.

The people of Nibiru believe that they were transplanted to this world by the Starmovers, possibly as punishment for some ancestral crime they have forgotten. The existence of extraterrestrials is taken for granted, although they have never met any - but any such beings would be treated like angels, demons, or other spirits, mystical figures of supernatural awe.

Centuries of life on Nibiru have also left its people largely nocturnal by habit, and their curse words, superstitions, and myths deal not with the threat of the dark unknown, but the fiery, blinding light.

The solarpunk and clockwork technology of Nibiru is meant to approximate 1950s technology, with a 19th-century aesthetic and some advanced optical & laser-based technologies.

The countries are listed below with broad stereotypes, international political movements noted, and different religions outlined so infiltrators can cherry-pick or mix & match a diverse backstory while giving excuses for CR with almost everyone. The factions all talk to one another! You will not need to be closeted with only a certain group of people, inside or outside the ballroom. And two Cyclical Progressives have more reason to work together than to fight, even if they belong to warring nations.

Countries

[powersthatbe]

Vendemiar: the best farmland & the finest foods of any kingdom, Vendemiarans are thought of as snobbish gourmands. Their sheltered coast is hard to attack, and their favored status as a trading partner keeps them rich & mostly safe from war. Think France.

Brumaire: this northern island-kingdom, known for its natural beauty and terrible weather, is isolated and strange. Of all the countries, it has the least need for winter, but requires technology for trade, as fog and icebergs make its waters un-navigable. Think Iceland.

Germinalia: this warlike and expansionist country sends river-raiders to carve bases into canyonsides far from home. Floreal & Thermidor are its especial targets, but Vendemiar has been targeted as well. Think if Genghis Khan’s Mongolian hordes had riverboats & lasers.

Floreal: a riverside kingdom with rich natural resources & underground cities, but its farmlands are constantly under threat, & its borders are shrinking. Government corruption & civil unrest are big worries as well. Think Colombia.

Prairial: a barren, militaristic dictatorship, its resource-poor lands mean it must expand to survive. Traditional rivals of Messidor, its people are taught to be nationalistic religious traditionalists with a distaste for political maneuvering. Think Iraq.

Messidor: a proud royal kingdom, absorbing other nations to protect them, prizing artistic, moral, & religious values, with the usual amount of hypocrisy. Ethnically & culturally diverse. Think India.

Thermidor: hot-headed, reactionary, embroiled in revolutionary politics & frequently unstable. They have a proud history of technological advancement that they do not live up to at present. Think Greece.

Fructidor: a wealthy island city-state, scrupulously neutral, closest to the Orrery. Famous for its diplomats, a place where any deal can be made, but also a home for refugees, outlaws, revolutionaries, & organized crime. Hong Kong meets the Bahamas.

Political Movements

[powersthatbe]

Traditionalist: believe in preserving old ways & restoring old national roles. Often nationalist & isolationist, they also wish to restore the four destroyed nations & advocate better treatment of refugees.

Cyclical: moderates who believe that the ups and downs of national fortunes are a natural, cyclical phenomenon that cannot be avoided. Advocates of the free market & globalization, since no nation’s prosperity or success can be relied upon for long. Very laissez-faire.

Nautilus: progressive/liberal cyclicals who believe that even if the cycle turns, conditions can be improved on, and progress must be built even if it comes at a steep short-term cost. Reformers, embracers of new ideas, technocrats & elitists.

Revolutionary: Disaffected or disenfranchised by the system, believers in breaking down national boundaries and systems of oppression & replacing them. Some revolutionaries believe in working for these goals within the law, some do not.

Religious Factions

[powersthatbe]

Preservationist: literalists/fundamentalists who believe that the will of the Starmovers must be strictly enforced. They are generally repressive & hypocritical in the way privileged & powerful religious movements often are, but contain many good, pious people to whom spirituality & strict standards are very important.

Progressive: humanist reformers, aspiring to be LIKE the Starmovers more than to FOLLOW them. Decentralized & disorganized, often lackadasical & unobservant about their own religion.

Personified: Those who believe the Starmovers spoken of in scriptures are literal, physical individuals, immortals, & worship the pantheon, placing reverence as more important than obedience.

Philosophical: those who believe the Starmovers are metaphorical beings, important ideas talked about, maybe representing a different metaphysical world, maybe not, but certainly not literal extraterrestrials.

Maps

[powersthatbe]

Casting Call

[powersthatbe]

Comment in this thread with your character's plotting plans, where infiltrator or investigator!

There are six plot-important infiltrator roles. If interested in one, comment here to make your case for why you should be cast in it! Some roles will not be cast until after applications are processed, so if you do not here back until the 8th, do not be surprised. Almost every country, and every political or religious group, will have at least one plot-important infiltrator representing their interests & roping them into intrigue.

1: A hedonistic diplomat who sees the masquerade as an excuse to cut loose and party.

2: A notorious criminal in disguise, here to blackmail their way to freedom.

3: A renaissance man seeking the secrets of the Orrery.

4: An unreliable patriot with a forbidden romance.

5: A snobby noble with a forbidden romance.

6: A priest-referee with a serious holy duty & an almost religious objection to fun.

Kicking this off!

[protect_and_serve]

Joscelin is infiltrating, a Vendemiaran delegate, a Nautiulus Personificationist. A young idealist, Joscelin is reverent, persuasive, and hoping to be chosen to serve the Calendrical Parliament. But he's also awed by the location, and likely to spend plenty of time gaping and exploring as he does dancing and making himself look like an exeplary young diplomat.

If you want hilarious awkwardness post-event, please sign up to flirt with Joscelin now.

Tim is going to be idled for the event.

Remy will be an investigator, staying laid back and alert, trying to figure out just what the Trumps want them to do here, but enjoying the luxury to its fullest and trying to lure everyone into a false sense of security, or coaching other Investigators on disguise, espionage, and skulduggery so they don't all get caught as intruders. Let me know if you want lessons from him, or just general hedonism!

Seta Souji, if he gets in, will be Investigating, very earnestly trying to discover who's behind which mask and generally playing the game as it's meant to be played. I think I'm bringing him in as a Veteran with a very brief tenure here before he disappeared, so he may be familiar to anyone who's been here since the Spark, but he'll be rusty and distracted and will want to get to know literally everyone.

[howexciting]

Just have Leonardo here, and he is going to be investigating again! (As hilarious as turning into himself for a Jaunt would be, I think someone else should get the role if possible so that Leo can geek out with the other renaissance man.)

Re: Casting Call

[rekkaning]

Rekka will be infiltrating as a partycrasher. She belongs to a revolutionary faction in Thermidor, but it's a cause she doesn't really believe in. (Joining a movement because all your peers are in it is a viable life strategy, right???) She's been given a sheet of talking points to attend the masquerade with.

[capital_asset]

Raidou is probably going to be an investigator in some form or other, although I'm still not 100% sure on that. Either way, feel free to flirt with him if you want to generate some post-Jaunt awkwardness.

[inexecution]

Souji's just going to be investigating... and probably won't even be participating in actual dancing, as he's still on the mend. But he'll be poking around at things and might use the anonymity thing as an excuse to be a (benign) troublemaker.

Howl may infiltrate, although I haven't really decided because he'd fit in, regardless, and I don't have a solid idea yet of which country/faction/etc. he'd fall into if he infiltrated. Which basically means I'm open for anything on that front if someone has an idea they'd like to try.

[willyousee]

Alcuin will be investigating! He will be attending each dance, as well as exploring and trying to find out as much information as he possibly can. All knowledge is worth having.

[wholeheaded]

Ambrose wil be Infiltrating because why not. He's a Hessidorian Nautilus and a familiar fixture at the Solstice ceremonies. Friendly and a bit flirty, scientifically curious and tolerant of other Colonies' cultures, he laments that the peaceful spirit of the Solstice is not maintained through the rest of the sun-blasted year. His religious leanings are generally progressive/philosophical, and it's rumored that he's one of the more accomplished dancers.

WANT: people to flirt with, people to referee, people to politically schoomze, people to science vigorously at.

[upcard]

Mai will most likely be investigating, and doing girly things like DOING CHIZURU'S HAIR and making her pretty for the ball. It's decided. That's going to happen.

Otherwise she'll probably be tongue-tied but more useless here than on the pirate ship, hooray? If anyone needs hair, make-up, clothing taken care of, she's your girl. I don't know guys, I've got nothing, let's make more CR.

[fixated]

Late to the party but at least it's before the event goes up! Still only really have vague ideas of what I'm doing to do but this is the start of what I'm thinking!

Jack Vessalius: is going to investigate/infiltrate as a member of the Vendemiar because soft living and diplomacy and snobbish nobleman is his everyday life back in canon. What in the world could go wrong here...

Hei/Li Shenshung: I'm thinking of going a slightly different route then usual with him and have him be a subtle investigator sticking his nose into the faction that's attempting to sneak into the orrery in order to steal artifacts/starmover technology which means more than likely affiliating himself with the Thermidor or Fructidor.

[shiroganeheir]

Naoto will be investigating, mostly because that is what she does with her life. She'll be talking to as many people as she can, and trying to understand exactly what the rules of this place are. She'll probably want to meet as many people as possible as well.

[tailforbrains]

Plotty plotty.

Neeshka is investigating this Jaunt, cuz I think it'll be hilarious to watch her fumble around and basically make a fool of herself cuz she's low-class and knows nothing about any of this fancy shit. Monkey is gonna be a bat, I guess, cuz that's the only idea I got :: headscratches ::

Riddick is infiltrating. Somehow. I don't know how yet ;.; Either a scientist (shut up, it'd be funny) or a politician's guard coming to get drunk a lot (also funny) or... I don't know :P Something. But he has to infiltrate, or he'll just roll his eyes at the whole thing and go hang out in the desert outside instead until it's over.

Someone hit me up with ideas or make me decision for me or something XD

[solvethepuzzle]

Ooookay. So. Plotting.

Hitsugaya will be Infiltrating this time around, as otherwise he'd have no real interest in any of this. As to specific details, he'll be a stowaway kid that came up here for his own reasons. And being an atheist would rather fit him, I think. That's . . . really all I've got ironed out right now; I'm still working on this.

Near will be Investigating, like a good little detective. Which in his case pretty much means observing people and talking to them. There's a lot about what's going on that he doesn't understand, and he would really like to get a handle on all this. He's not used to doing his own field work, so this could be interesting. Really, he could use someone to keep an eye on him; he's very fail at general life skills on his own.

BETTER LATE THAN NEVER!!!!!!

[surveyor]

AIGHT SO. Levi will be infiltrating this time around, as the shady mofo crashing the party (sort of) to steal your secrets. Or not so shady, if he plays it right.

He'll be impersonating a delegate from Brumaire, and under the pretense of collecting information to aid his country in 'strengthening trade relations' or some such load of shit, will be digging up as much dirt on Germinalia, Fructidor, Thermidor, and Prairial as he possibly can... While maintaining that he can't divulge anything about himself out of respect for the Starmovers' wishes. He's so pious, truly... He'll absolutely be using the fact that Brumaire is so isolated to his advantage.

I don't have a preference as to which place he wants the most crap on, I'll roll with whatever other people have going on as far as that's concerned, but basically he wants to go someplace and not be bothered, one way or another; he's lifted enough junk over the years to be reasonably well off but the notoriety is making it next to impossible for him to enjoy any of that. He's looking for a reset button, basically. Dude wants out, he's tired of this crap that he brought on himself, whoops.

If anyone specifically wants to be targeted for some (subtle) interrogating, let me know here or on plurk or by PM or however you'd like, just so OOCly I have some direction on who to hit up for Secrets. ICly, Levi will have been working with someone who's keeping him up to date on which important people might earn him the most info, so if your character is a prominent figure I'm down to play around with that too.

THAT SAID I am also down for doing pretty much anything with pretty much anyone. Levi will be taking lessons on How Not To Be Levi and I think it will be fun to play him trying to keep his actual personality under wraps while dealing with a bunch of people he wants nothing more than to mess with at every opportunity. He'll be on his best behavior... Kind of.

...There will probably be slip-ups, because where's the fun in a flawless plan??

Suggested Infiltrator Roles

[powersthatbe]

Spy, thief, partycrasher, priest, mystic, delegate, parliamentarian referee, politician, rich debutante, naive ingenue, plucky stowaway/social climber, infamous outlaw, revolutionary terrorist, radical atheist, curious scientist.

Masquerade Mechanics

[powersthatbe]

Interaction in the Orrery can take place inside or outside the ballroom. Outside the ballroom, characters may choose to be masked or unmasked. Inside, characters must be masked - the airlock-style doors will not open for unmasked people, and the masks will not be able to be removed by normal means within the ballroom. Height, build, and posture may give someone away, but voices will be muffled, and the masks connect with black cloth hoods or sleeves that conceal hair & other features.

Nothing prevents someone from simply telling someone else who they are save for religious taboo about asking or telling such things, plus the fact that most characters with agendas have an easier time getting away with them if only a few people know who they really are.

OOCly, everyone will be given access to the whocanname account for anonymous in-ballroom interactions. All characters will have their journals PMed with the keyword of the icon that matches their mask, and all characters posting to the ballroom posts should log into the whocanname account and use the appropriate icon to represent themselves.

Investigators are encouraged to use the psychic network to speculate about the identities of people behind the masks. At the end of the plot, a post with screened comments will go up, the three characters (infiltrator or investigator) to successfully guess the largest number of masked individuals will receive a bonus skill.

Schedule

[powersthatbe]

Investigators Arrive at the Orrery/Infiltrators board the Landship! - December 10th.

Infiltrators Arrive! - December 12th

The Welcome Dance & introductions. December 14th

The Constellation Dance & explorations. December 20th

The Procession Dance & formal dinner. December 27th

The Blizzard Dance & final party. January 1st

Skills

[powersthatbe]

Disguise, Astronomy, Optical & Laser Sciences, Starmover Technology, Formal Dance, Perfect Recall, Contortionism, Trapfinding, Prevarication.

Re: Skills

[wholeheaded]

LITERALLY FOREVER LATER: is it possible to have examples of what optical/laser sciences and Starmover tech would entail, a framework to build on, limitations? Would it be simply acquiring items or the knowledge of how to construct more of them? Or is it a "players make it up, mods decide if it works" thing?

Player Resources

[powersthatbe]

(coming soon)

Clothing/Jewelry - both male and female

[willyousee]

Should anyone be looking for assistance with inspiration for costuming and/or outfits, I collected rather a large number of links in this plurk. I've made my timeline public for the moment, so you don't even have to be my friend to use these resources.

If you have any other questions, or would like a more simple, step-by-step suggestion of how to go about making outfits for your character, by all means private message or private plurk me and I would be happy to assist in any way I can.

Have fun everyone!

Questions

[powersthatbe]

Ask them here!

Re: Questions

[momijizukamori]

Are characters going to be able to pick their own masquerade costumes/masks? What with the anon account....

(also tracking threads is going to be impossible for people who don't have a paid account)