OUROBOROS RETROGRADE - Jaunt info

[powersthatbe]

Ouroboros Retrograde
A timey-wimey return to Questing Country
January 15-February 24

Questing Country is a dreamspace shared by the young people of many species. In Questing Country, lucid dreamers are empowered by magic and guided by spirit companions to fight their own nightmares, slay the collective nightmares of their people, change the world by learning how to be heroes in waking and dreaming worlds, and literally change the dreams of all people for the better. The landscape of Questing Country 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. Only young and innocent people are 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. The nightmares have their own magic. 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. The most famous are Valences - collective wishes that can be sought and achieved so that one young dreamer can make their hope into reality - but there are others. A year after the last Valence was achieved, the constant Aspect of Questing Country that allows clear communication between Spirit Companions and Dreamers has passed into retrograde, which happens every so often, rendering messages unclear. More unusually, the constant Aspect of Questing Country that accounts for linear time is also in retrograde, causing those boundaries we take for granted between past and future to grow hazy, bridging times of crisis, and allowing the Powers of the past and the Wisdom of the future to collaborate on their dreams.

-Several centuries in the past, the Champions that fight the nightmares caused by the Diabolin Empire, who are themselves seen as Waking Nightmares more monster than being - these brave, outmatched Champions seeking to free the elves and the Hecatites from slavery - are dealing with something terrifying to them beyond even the Diabolin or the mystery of an Ouroboros Retrograde: the Rise of the Adversaries. These Champions and Oracles know that a Champion who gives in to despair becomes a Pillar, but they have never heard of a Dreamer who fights on their own behalf and defies the wisdom of Spirit Companions, and they may not trust corrupt futures in which these threatening new Adversaries are common. Surely, this is a future to be averted.

-In the first year after an unexpected Double Valence, in addition to both Communication and Time being out of their usual alignments, the Dreamers know to expect the return of the Travelers - a people pulled from their worlds by mysterious dream-beings like and unlike their companions, but infinitely more powerful. The Oracles noticed when so many Champions vanished after the Valence was achieved, discovered why, and predicted the Travelers’ return.

-And a generation later, in the first year of the Starquakes, the Dreaming people have been troubled by the vast and powerful dreams of alien minds. Portions of Questing Country have vanished in dreams of light and fire, or of cold and aurora and static, the march of mountains, storms of dust, seas of lava - and yet none of them harmful, simply overwhelming. But harmful or not, the Quests of Champions are interrupted when whole dream-continents vanish, and their ability to shape the Known Worlds is disrupted. Worse, their faith in that ability may be shaken; if a generation of Champions learns and believes that they are helpless to defy larger forces, it may become the truth - permanently...

As the three timelines temporarily converge, can the generations of the past and future make sense of each other’s dreams, worldviews, and agendas, and rediscover the power, wisdom, agency, and resistance to change the Known Worlds?

We can only hope.

The Known Worlds | Species | Dream Forms | Roles | Changing Roles | Timelines & Summaries | Bonds & Bonded Groups | Casting Call/Plot Role Announcements | Glossary | Skills | Calendar | Who’s the What of Which | Player Resources | Questions/FAQ | Plotting

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BONDS & BONDED GROUPS

[powersthatbe]

Bonded are a supernaturally connected group of Champions & Oracles, which may rarely include an Adversary or a Pillar. Bonded fight and work together and are stronger for it, but any gain they make is also divided between them, and a Bond that is large or unwieldy is unlikely to get much of anywhere in Questing Country. A small Bond can face down bigger challenges, but the power of a Valence can only go to ONE of them, possibly at random, so a Bond is commonly only made of people who love and trust one another with near-absolute devotion. Bonded can share physical health, mental resilience, magical power, & supernatural insight. Their familiars & spirit animals may combine into a larger creature called a volksgeist, often used as a mount or battle companion. (After the jaunt, players who kept both their spirit companions and True Bond with each other can still have their companions form volksgeists.)

For purposes of game balance and CR generation, Bonds will usually be from 4 to 6 people in size, although you may ask to form a larger or smaller Bond. Single-canon Bonds are permissible but discouraged. A Bond may be a long-standing team, or it may be a group of people who are thrown together during the events of the plot forming new connections.

If you want to be a part of a Bond, but do not have a group in mind, comment here and we will randomize Bonded companions for you. If you have a small Bond and would be open to random individuals joining it, let us know, and we’ll set that up for you as well.

Dreamers of the Adversary generation sometimes use Sanctions, magically binding oaths whose consequences are enforced automatically. A Sanction must be either entered into voluntarily by any two or more individuals, who afterwards share a weaker version of a True Bond; be unanimously agreed to by all but one member of a bond group; or be ritually imposed upon an Adversary without a bond group by a bond group of four or more individuals. An individual with a True Bond cannot have a Sanction forced on them from outside their bond group.