Jauntside: Week Two Summary/Week Three Plotting.

[powersthatbe]

Week Two Summary

A sinkhole opens at the intersection of Hookstone and Hornbeam, allowing a glimpse of the relics of Harrogate's unpleasant past.

Zed taunts the living exploring the sinkhole, and when he tires of that, moves on to attempting murder by taxi. James attempts to discreetly ward Thistle House against unnatural interference to create a safe haven from the coming storm. Father Brown prepares for a fight against malevolent entities, and patrols the area around the sinkhole for signs of demonic influence. Ace recognizes the uncovered relics for what they are, and attempts to warn off any overly intrepid explorers. Skye and Kris film their exploration of the sinkhole. Elle provides medical assistance to those injured in the collapse - or foolish enough to go down into the hole voluntarily - but otherwise continues to keep to herself.

Down in the burnt-out streets of old Harrogate, Innkeeper Laing is still searching for his son.

Those who venture into the burnt-out husk of the Harrogate theatre encounter things more troubling than lonely wanderers: a horde of tattered spirits, violent poltergeists, children's rhymes and reeking whirlwinds, electronic interference and distorted echoes, phantom smoke and floors that leak pus.

And while the explorers dare the sinkhole in Harrogate, Matthew and Riddick attempt to get in contact with Death of the Arcana - and find themselves in what might be a dead Arcana's space instead.

Raidou's attempts to continue his investigations Deathside are disrupted by disquieting visions. Alcuin's nightime excursions draw unfriendly attention from the local "health inspectors". Beatrice makes use of haunting as a method for passing messages to the Investigators on the living side.

Jason tries to get an explanation on the sudden diminishment of the psychic network. Riddick gives a possible partial explanation to those on the living side, which probably isn't comforting to anyone. Eren checks in after busting through from the walkabout.

Week Three Plotting

• At the beginning of this week, breathside, almost all dreams become vivid nightmares involving the dead. Possessions and poltergeist incidents become ten times more common than they already were. And the living can clearly and lucidly hear the dead in their dreams. The mass insomnia this inspires and public confusion or panic lead almost immediately to the government cordoning off the town, preventing any and all travel by road or rail from passing the city limits in either direction. The city government receives a notice that under the Emergency Powers Act, executive authority has been vested in agents of military intelligence already on site.



• Deathside, the number of roaming, restless spirits grows tenfold, and the newcomers are almost all mad, deteriorated ghosts, little more than chaotic extensions of some necromancer’s will. Travel becomes unsafe for this reason, leaving hiding and dreaming as the safest course of action - and in dreams, the Veil is now all but nonexistent, permitting clear communication with any living soul they choose to contact.



• On both sides of the veil, it is clear that whatever is afoot, time is rapidly running out to find the source of the danger and set things right. Whatever is coming up must be worse - unimaginably worse - than what has been seen so far. Even though knowledge of the unnatural is dangerous, ignorance is hardly safety, under the circumstances.



• A dream exploration prompt will be provided for Travelers to submit their exploration of deep and dangerous dreams, but rather than RNG, this week we will be looking for especially creative and daring experiments to reward with fragments of plot. (If you submitted yourself for RNG in week 1, & link us a dream exploration this week, you’ll have preference in getting selected for something now).

As always, the plot can be fully deciphered through interaction with Plot Infiltrators; this bonus mechanic is meant to provide more options and let more people participate, not replace CR-driven plotting. We’ve been trying a different exploration mechanic each week to see what works best; & will continue to do so. Before our final mingle goes up in ten days, but after threads from this mingle have started, we’ll post a poll asking players to decide what exploration mechanic or mechanics they want available in Week 4. We appreciate everyone being willing to try new things with us & see what’s most helpful in making the plot accessible to all interested parties!

Comments

Questions & Concerns

[powersthatare]

Put 'em here!

[helborn]

Question re: dream mechanics:

"(If you submitted yourself for RNG in week 1, & link us a dream exploration this week, you’ll have preference in getting selected for something now)."

So you have to write up a dream this week on your toplevel before submission and link it, or am I misinterpreting something?

[comebewe]

A few questions:

1. Matthew and Beato are gonna be trying to find some way to deal with Zed, and possibly also Bern. I know Matthew at least would be looking to find some way to imprison / permanently weaken / maybe even destroy them. Matthew has Eldritch Defence and Bando Summoning & No Distinction, while Beato has Necromancy from Greece - what sort of options might they have here?

2. Zed's also going to be trying to harass Matthew in his dreams. I know Eldritch Defence let him retreat from Bastet's dream into his own, but what, if any, defences might Matthew have when being attacked in his own dreams?

Re: Questions & Concerns

[thornsofmalkav]

So I am PRETTY SURE that what the MI6 is cordoning off currently includes everything on the map (so downtown Harrogate plus the residential districts Killingshall, Sicklinghall, and Burnbridge) but I MAY BE WRONG. So is that right?

[awitchdidit]

Separately from the above, it occurs to me that now may be the best time for Beato to use her Brainstorm for this Jaunt. Specifically, she wants to use it to learn how to stop the situation from further deteriorating, or if that's too vague to get an answer, the root cause of the sudden influx of insane dead.

She also wants to know how to force a ghost to pass on, but for that she's willing to use old-fashioned research and carefully asking other ghosts, or ask the living to research it for her.

Re: Questions & Concerns

[ninjayeehaw]

Is it possible to prevent ghosts from entering a building completely through gratuitous use of warding symbols and Eldritch Defence? Or would it be enough to just put them over entrances into the building, such as doors and windows?

(On a slight tangent - if I were to take Rodeo's animal form here as a skill, would it still include Spirit Sensitivity for him afterwards? Or would I have to take that as a separate skill?)

Re: Questions & Concerns

[brokers]

Should've asked this last week, but it completely slipped my mind until now - what would an attempt to Interface with the blank Liminal space, with an eye specifically towards finding out what prompted it to pack away all features, reveal?

[galvanizer]

Just a quick one - would it be possible to bring back dropped character's infiltrator roles (in this case Dick Grayson, the innkeeper's son and theatre actor who died onstage at Harrogate) for the ghosts? I know this won't count towards AC but just for the fun of it.

[comebewe]

Just wondering, in terms of the dream nightmares that are going on - do they still happen even when Investigators are sleeping in Liminal Space?

[capital_asset]

Would Siren Magic have any effect on the dead (deteriorated or otherwise), assuming the singer is on that side of the divide? I'm thinking specifically of the Song of Calming.

On a more general note, would light/expel magic have any effect on ghosts?

[helborn]

Doublechecking - network is still text only, right?

[comebewe]

Hiroshi/James has shared a book of supernatural stories accumulated by his family with Matthew. Would there be anything of particular relevance that Matthew might find in there?

(In particular, Matthew's going to be looking for anything that's similar to the current situation, as well as anything about ghosts / Bern and Zed in particular if they feature.)

[comebewe]

Does Eldritch Defence or Bando Summoning / No Distinction allow for any way of like, unpossessing people? (Like, say, by binding said spirit to something else instead of the person being possessed?) Or is it a case of 'nope, only Exorcism can do that'?

Summary Edition & Additiont

[powersthatare]

(Don't be a smart-aleck, wait until we have it up, please!)

Plotting

[powersthatbe]

[helborn]

Casper is going to be absolutely panicking and probably going to be running himself ragged and trying to not drain himself of magical energy entirely and possibly failing (which means he'll have to recharge by doing stupid, loud shit).

Someone please remind him to eat and/or sleep but he's going to be diving into ghostbusting hardcore and pushing for more exploration everywhere and digging into possibly dangerous shit. Can't stop won't stop not sure how to stop.

[comebewe]

Matthew will indeed be getting back from Starry Space, so he will in fact be around! No details going to be shared though, since things are still being threaded and that's not worked out.

Anyhow - in terms of this mingle, I'm planning for Matthew to take a more active role in trying to figure out what the hell is going on. Most likely by actually talking to ghosts as opposed to trying to avoid them, so if anyone on the deathside of things wants to plot something, let me know. (He's most likely to approach in person, rather than while dreaming - buuut dreaming is still an option).

Re: Plotting

[wickedestwitch]

Elle is going to be super done with this ghost nonsense, and also SUPER DONE with not being allowed out of town.

She is going to be in full Anger Mode at... pretty much everything really.

Alcuin - INVESTIGATOR

[willyousee]

Alcuin has been rapidly losing any fucks he had to give about staying hidden this Jaunt and may wind up essentially seeming like a magician/medium to the mundane populace because cantrips? Using them.
Talking about the past like it happened yesterday? Yep, that too.
Actively working on finding ways to seal that hole? You betcha.
Providing dreamless sleep for helpful infiltrators or plot-important infiltrators? Absolutely.
Talking to any ghosts he can get to manifest? Heck yes.
Going on Yolotube (if he can) to pass out more protective circles/runes/rituals/whathaveyou? With every ounce of passion he can summon up.

He may even brave the thrice-cursed bloody Network again to try and contact some people about seals and protective rituals. And he'll be having nightmares because he's making sure that Thorne has his dreamcatcher, so that'll be fun. (no. no it won't.)

Geralt of Rivia

[hatesportals]

Geralt is definitely going to be ghost hunting now that the mad ghosts are starting to appear. He will not be attacking the sane ghosts - only the insane ones. The sane ones he will try and send on through rituals. As he has no need for money, he'll not be taking "contracts" per se, but... let's just say this is something he's very used to.

(Also he might be trying to have Artie speak to Elle, with the help of Pearl and Casper.)

Anyone interested in spying on a ritual, meeting him in the church while he's meditating, or getting strong warnings for going anywhere near the Sinkhole or the Theater? Then poke Geralt. :3

[awitchdidit]

Yeah, swarms of the mad dead are bad. Beatrice is going to focus on finding the source of this problem, assuming she doesn't Double Die in the buried-theater thread I just remembered to tag. She's going to totally focus on this, part of which is going to be communing with our surviving mediums to get Breathside info on Zed, Bernkastel, and The Hole.

Most importantly, she wants to learn how to force ghosts to pass on. She could also do with data on binding them, but she's pretty sure she has a conspiracy theory on why that would be a bad idea long-term. She'll leave sealing The Hole to people with more Eldritch knowledge than her, but she's definitely going to be encouraging it.

[capital_asset]

Raidou will be probably be wanting to work on ways to stop Zed and/or Bernkastel and possibly get some of his own back against the former. He'll also be trying to subdue the newer, deteriorated ghosts, or at least helping other ghosts navigate through them; this may or may not involve some of his less mundane skills, provided he can use them without making himself more of a target.

In the meantime, he'll still be dealing with the mental trauma he got hit with from the sinkhole vision, and possibly adding one or two new traumas to that by encountering the other halves of their associated visions.

Kohaku Yuhara

[haremtrap]

Kohaku had a dream about the town getting cordoned off by government agents, so she's gonna be kind of freaking out when this all starts going down in real life. OTHER than that, uh....

I dunno, I'm tired right now, but I do want her to get a chance to talk to some ghosts. Anyone got anything good for that?

Re: Plotting

[ninjayeehaw]

Kinji/Kris will hopefully be having one of the sickawesome nightmares, but REGARDLESS--

He's gonna be reeling a bit from the whole spooky bullshit he went through last week, as well as Valerie, someone he considers close and in high regard, disappearing/dying (idk if he knows which), and severely frustrated by Yolotube being shut down at some point late in Week 2, so he's gonna be on a mission to help stop the ghosts and possession problem as much as he's physically able.

Which probably involves giving his entire CR protective charms or items or offering to sew it into their clothing in glow-in-the-dark thread or whatever. And setting up the museum/house with Skye so nothing spoopy can get in the buildings.

Gil/Gerard works in security, so maybe he can go and help involve himself with the military staff in some capacity to help out? basically ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Re: Plotting

[thornsofmalkav]

Thorne is going to try to pull herself out of her dead Raidou funk so that she can help the team, probably by researching. SADLY there's no way to get to the University that Dr. Durante works at, but maybe she could go bug the monk or something.

Maria is going to do her best to pretend she's a bad ghost while actually being a nice ghost. We shall see how that goes.

Delaunay/Agent Delaney is cordoning off the town with Agent Sigal. He's also revealing himself to be an MI6 agent and not a health inspector and will probably haul in some people for questioning. (Yolotubers and associates are on the top of his list.)