NORTHERN LIGHTS - WALKABOUT INFO

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Northern Lights
A winter holiday walkabout with a twist
May 7 - June 16

Finland may not be a typical winter tourism destination, but the Levi ski resort in Lapland does well enough for itself, especially during the polar nights, when the aurora borealis is visible in the (extremely long-lasting) night sky. What fewer people know is that once every five years, the polar night brings even more mysteries with it than just a 24-plus-hour period of darkness.

The average polar night lasts for days or even weeks, but every five years it’s a bit shorter - only 36 hours or so. On these shorter longest nights, some visitors to the resort find themselves transformed into animals - they bear a mark connecting the animal to their human shape, and they can communicate with other transformed people and animals of the same species. No one is sure why this happens, or why the ability to shift forms lingers after the polar night ends; what they do know is it’s probably best not to discuss it with anyone who goes through the night unaffected.

This year, that may be easier said than done, as possibly-sinister forces are lurking at the resort, intent on prying into the secrets of the land...

World Info | Locations/Map | Infiltrator/Investigator Roles | Calendar | Skills | Player Resources | Questions | Plotting

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WORLD INFO

[powersthatbe]

The year is 2006. Finland has just won Eurovision, so Lordi's "Hard Rock Hallelujah" is everywhere on the radio.

Whether your character gets into animal shenanigans or not, this is a good chance for a lovely winter vacation. Characters can learn to ski or snowboard, go on a snowmobile ride, or even visit Santa Claus's house.

Shapeshifters can communicate with each other across species lines while transformed, and with mundane animals of their shifted species (dogs, foxes or reindeer), but not with untransformed humans. Each type of shapeshifter also has a unique ability to their species; transformed huskies have exceptional danger sense, transformed Arctic foxes have supremely sharp hearing, and transformed reindeer can fly.

The government-type agents lurking around the ski resort, who have finally pieced together the frequency with which this mystery recurs, aren’t… the greatest at blending in, as a whole (for NPCs; infiltrating agents may be played as competently or not as the player likes). For one thing, they have a tendency to wear their suits and sunglasses no matter what they’re doing, and it’s not immediately clear whose government they work for. Probably some Scandinavian country or other, but not necessarily Finland’s government. Regular tourists and investigators don’t know why there’s all these folks in suits on vacation at the same time, to start out.