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?

[powersthatare]

Correct! The post tomorrow will have specific instructions in an ooc note under its prompt, like week 1 did!

[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?

[awitchdidit]

Chiming in to remind myself to read this thread and also note that Beatrice has Liminal Bridge; I planned to have her put two and two together about the separate Liminal Spaces and recognize that this is an option for "reviving herself" this week.

She might not go with it, but if she does, it also opens up Blood for the Dead as a potentially useful skill, or it could be used for some Showmanship dealing with the ghost baddies. More of an idea than a plan at this point.

[powersthatare]

1. A Ghost can be temporarily bound by Bando Summoning and or Greek Necromancy, and physically disrupted by Eldritch Defense means... other than resolving ghostly emotions, permanent destruction is hypothetically impossible. Emotional destabilization could make a ghost ineffectual but still dangerous... other, deeper eldritch means mught bind it permanently.

2. In his own dreams, when lucid, he can not control invaders but he can control the environment itself.

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?

Re: Questions & Concerns

[fridgeninja]

Correct.

[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.

[powersthatare]

Remind an absent-minded mod (or absent-modded mind) whether Brainstorm is a Favor skill or what Jaunt it comes from so we can look up its particulars and make sure you get full value out of it?

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

[powersthatare]

Most ghosts cannot pass through solid objects, so doors and windows will be enough. Those who CAN pass through solid objects would need the really gratuitous markings to stop them.

That would probably be a separate skill, although he might be able to use it on specific jaunts like this one in which these specific rules of Spirit Sensitivity apply.

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?

Re: Questions & Concerns

[powersthatare]

The equivalent of an "all ports blocked" message. There is usually information moving through Liminal Space - now there is almost none, and all that remains is muted and sealed away.

[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.

[powersthatare]

Yes! That will be explicitly possible starting with the mingle that's about to go up!

[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?

[powersthatare]

Oooh.

... Yes, but they're milder and take longer to develop into nightmares.

[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?

[powersthatare]

Yes and yes - neither would be perfectly effective but both could thin the dangerous ghosts out or calm them down a great deal. Light/expel would weaken their forms, the song of calming would weaken their telekinesis.

[helborn]

Doublechecking - network is still text only, right?

[powersthatare]

Yep!

[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.)

[powersthatare]

For stories of Bern & Zed, we'd ask you to contact their players & ask them if they'd be likely to feature! There would otherwise be a few ghostly accounts of the family being haunted by restless ancestors, but nothing like this!

[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'?