[personal profile] powersthatbe
The Triad Creation Tourney
March 12-April 21


Her Majesty’s Royal Academy of the Arts, the foremost magical arts academy of Great Britain, is hosting the triannual Triad Creation Tourney, in which they and two other magical schools--the United States’ Lone Star Academy and Japan’s Teikoku Majutsu-shi no Gakuen--compete to create the ultimate magical artistic creation. This year, however, things are far from going as planned. With rumors of cheating rampant and a would-be evil overlord having snuck into the school, the Travelers will have their work cut out for them getting this Triad Creation Tourney to its end!

World Info | Creativity Magic | The Schools & Their House/Dormitory Systems | Casting Call/Plot Role Announcements | Skills | Infiltrator/Investigator Roles | Infiltrator Directory | Calendar | Locations | Player Resources | Questions | Plotting
[personal profile] powersthatbe
It’s Tough To Be a God
A walkabout set in the world of Lightside/Darkside
January 15 - February 24


On the remote, largely barren island of Sunday, devout elves known as the Prudencians toil and observe their many religious practices, as they wait for the day when their gods - the Goodly Ones - will bless them with their presences. They know that one day they will come, because their most holy text, the Goodly Book, says so:

“And lo, when the time of Salvation is near, the Goodly Ones will come to the Great Rock. They will come with the rising sun and the falling waves, and bring with them their blessings.”

But there’s a snag in this holy prophecy: because it’s not the gods who arrive on the Great Rock. It’s the Investigators. And so now the Investigators must pretend to be the Goodly Ones. Which isn’t the easiest of tasks, not when the religion they are supposedly divine representatives of comes with a great many sins and confusing and often contradictory religious instructions. Failure to successfully pass as a Goodly One will be branded as fake gods - a most heinous sin - and punished with manual labour and dreary drudgework.

Turns out it’s not so easy to be a god.

World Info | Locations | Roles/"Casting Call" | Skills | Calendar | Player Resources | Questions | Plotting
[personal profile] 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
[personal profile] powersthatbe
Ghosts of Liminal Past
November 30th-December 9th
Read more... )
Ghosts of Liminal Present
December 10th-December 19th
Read more... )
Ghosts of Liminal Future
December 20th-December 29th
Read more... )
Questions go in the comments on this post, and Liminal Past plotting goes over here! Happy Holidays, Synodiporia! December AC will be a Pass month, as we’ve done a couple times in the past - if you have Standard or Skill AC you’re welcome to submit it and bank the passes (1 per character) for another month.
[personal profile] powersthatbe
NIGHT FALLS ON YENSID
October 5-November 14


The land of Yensid was once primarily populated by three species--humans, the Stonefolk, and the Forest Folk. For generations, the three of them lived together in harmony, the bonds of which were strengthened by three parts of the Amulet of Yensid, which were brought together each year in a ceremony designed to strengthen the magic of the land. The Stonefolk and Forest Folk in particular rely upon this magic, for without it, Stonefolk become statues, and the Forest Folk become simple beasts. The humans simply used magic to make their lives a little easier.

But the amulet was lost, the magic went out of the land, and now only the humans rule. The Stonefolk and Forest Folk are thought of as nothing more than myth, but there's something to that myth...and parts of an amulet have just been put on display a thousand years later in the year 201X.

Enter the Travelers, with more history in this world than they know - indeed, Yensid was another of the jaunts lost to Moebius, and their last visit was at the time the pieces of the amulet were lost. Can they make up for their past failure this time around?

World Info | Casting Call/Plot Role Announcements | Locations/Map | Skills | Calendar | Veteran Information | Infiltrator/Investigator Roles | Infiltrator Directory | Player Resources | Questions | Plotting | First Jaunt Plotting Help
[personal profile] powersthatbe
Dragon Hatchery
our very first player-created walkabout
August 7th - September 16th


Welcome to the desert planet of Jangwa. Jangwa is the native planet of several species of lizard-birds that the human colonists have named “dragons” and after centuries of exploitation, there’s a planet-wide effort to reintroduce dragons to the wild and save the crumbling ecosystems that depend on them.

The Sah’afar District Dragon Rehabilitation Center is one of the keystones of that effort. The center takes care of eggs and young hatchlings, helping to teach them skills to survive in the wild, as well as giving them medical attention. Some dragons have been rescued from the hands of poachers who use them for illegal dragon cock-fighting, or irreparably harm young hatchlings to be shipped off planet for an equally illegal exotic pet trade. Other dragons have telempathic bonds with humans, and will never be fully wild, but their hatchlings, if raised carefully, can be introduced to the desert with less dependence on the humans that have settled the planet.

Due to an expected hatching boom, the Sah’afar Center has put out a call for volunteers to help juggle all the extra work of caring for so many hatchlings, but also to increase security, as poachers are always desperate to steal newly hatched dragons. A youth program has agreed to send a group of children and teens, and there have also been a large number of adult volunteers. As the sun rises for another day of desert heat, all of these volunteers have been dropped off at a way station to wait for hovertrucks from the center to pick them up and take them the final distance.

World Info | Map | Dragon Species | Roles/"Casting Call" | Skills | Calendar | Player Resources | Questions | Plotting
[personal profile] powersthatbe
THE UNQUIET DEAD
An Eldritch Ghost Story Jaunt In the City of Harrogate
August 7th–September 16th


Harrogate is a little British resort town with a dark past. A little over one hundred and twenty years ago, a large portion of the town died when a fire consumed a theater in the middle of a performance. But time passed, the dead were forgotten, and everyone rebuilt.

But in death, as in taxes, forgetting something doesn’t always make it go away. Harrogate has been dying of the same forces that kill towns everywhere: a sluggish economy, a stagnant middle class, corrupt management, being a tourist town in a decade when nobody can afford to be a tourist in England. It’s a slow, grim death, but a mundane one. Ignorable. The sort of thing that starts a clawing existential dread in your heart, but you push it down and get on with your day because that’s life, after all. That pain and uncertainty? That is normal.

What is happening now is anything but normal. People have been seeing ghosts. Not diaphanous white figures. Just - people. People they lost. Reflected in windshields, mirrors, still water - just for a moment. Hearing their voice on the wind, or in the creaking of a settling house at night. Probably just the power of suggestion. Probably, except that it’s happened to almost everyone, even people who didn’t know that this was going around like a rumor, or the flu.

Artie Grove has just died. A local celebrity, a philanthropist and former child actor, Artie was always considered the luck of the town, almost like a mascot, and their sweet, too-public romance with a stranded tourist was the stuff of gossip right up to their star-spangled wedding last month. Now Artie’s gone, car wrapped around a bridge abutment in one of those accidents that looks like a deliberate and unhappy act. Shocked, devastated, the town - and an all-too-cynically welcome flood of tourists - have come into Harrogate to pay their respects. But when wild, undismissable supernatural events plague the funeral - what will everyone think? Is it a public health crisis? Mass hallucination? Publicity stunt? Cover-up?

Of course, it can’t really be the spirits of the dead. Can it?

Travelers are struck with a worse problem. Mundane circumstances, fewer people here than expected—it must be a Walkabout, mustn’t it? Only—Harrogate’s a horror story among Travelers, one of those where almost everyone dying was actually the best available end to the Jaunt. Is this really the same town?

And some Travelers—investigators and infiltrators alike—will be waking up in an empty, mist-wracked city full of dark memories that echo. Ghosts, knowing and unknowing, will slowly discover that there are no revivals here—but possession of the living is far too easy… whatever that portends.

It’s coming. Soon. And death, or the dead, and the twists and turns of wicked history may be the only way to stop it, if the living cannot be made to see the truth.

World Info | History | Casting Call/Plot Role Announcements | Skills | Infiltrator/Investigator Roles | Infiltrator Directory | Calendar | Map/Locations | Player Resources | Plotting | Questions | Opt-In Permissions
[personal profile] powersthatbe
Escape from Junkworld: Shopping Trip
An outer space walkabout
June 9th–July 19th


It had been a long voyage, full of strange and unexpected events (especially in the first half of their escape), but the refugees from Junkworld Gehenna finally reached their destination, a class-M moon belonging to the gas giant known only by its alpha-numerical designation: S16P3J4W11V18, so chosen because a few of the former Junkworlders had ties with a smuggling group that had their secret base there. With help from the smugglers, the former Junkworlders were able to make themselves a new home on the forest-covered moon.

With the influx of refugees, there was finally enough of a labor force for smugglers and Junkworlders alike to start taking advantage of the moon’s natural resources. Now, more than a year since the refugees made it planetside, the Junkworlders’ ship, The Empress of Moths, has been sent with a hold full of trade goods to Portabellow Station: a hollowed-out planetoid whose interior is one extremely large marketplace. Here refugees and smugglers alike can sell their goods, buy supplies, and trade goods and services, while the Empress herself undergoes a rather thorough refurbishing at the ship docks.

Of course, what refugees and smugglers alike don’t realize is that there are still bounties on many of them--and some of those bounties are for fairly high sums.

World Info | Species Info | Infiltrator Roles | Skills | Calendar | Technology | Player Resources | Questions | Plotting
[personal profile] powersthatbe
Showtime!
Phase Three, Jaunt Four
June 9th–July 19th


It’s the Fourth of July Weekend in the year of 198x and the Starlight Music Festival is being held in a natural amphitheatre in the Santa Carlita Mountains of California. Two headlining acts, famous for their inability to get along, have traveled all the way from the City of Angels to play on the final night of the festival, with a slate of new-and-up-and-coming acts to fill in for the nights before. The only problem is staffing. For some reason, about half the roadies hired by the festival committee seemed to have gone missing on the way up, causing the concert organizer to call back for reinforcements.

Meanwhile, the secret and nameless government organization that makes its home in Area 54 underneath Fort Arde has recently had a bit of a… security breach. One of the organization’s top agents has been dispatched to solve the problems created by that breach and their investigations have led them to the music festival.

When one of the supporting acts also disappears from the Festival, it’s up to the Travelers to find a way to fill in for the missing group, solve the disappearances, and maybe, just maybe, figure out their root cause.

Casting Call/Plot Role Announcements | Skills | Infiltrator Roles | Investigator Roles | Calendar | Locations | Infiltrator Directory | Resources | Questions | Plotting
[personal profile] powersthatbe
Olympus Upended
A Jaunt through uncharted times in Mythic Greece
April 10 - May 25/26


Sing, O Muse, of the dusk of the Age of Heroes
Of those days when the gods disappeared from the skies
And the sun and the moon and the earth were troubled
By chaos and darkness, fell beasts and foul magic.

A generation past did the walls of Troy fall.
Those great kings and heroes reside now in Hades.
Their children rule but only echo their glory
And divide their empire, the once-great Achaia.

Olympus rises above Iolchis unconquered
Unansw’ring mortal prayer or query, isolate.
At its feet they gather, burning fires, and now dream
Of a climb they will dare, and daring, remedy their questions…


It is a dark time for the Achaians. The capital city of Mycenae has been sacked by the Heraclides, barbarian grandchildren of the Olympian god of strength, and no central rule has risen up to replace the shattered House of Atreus. The Pythia, snake-priestess of Delphi, has declared that this is the last year of the Age of Heroes, and no-one is certain what Age will follow after, or what the end of an age means.

Weeks ago, earthquakes, whirlpools, and tidal waves began to trouble the coastline. The sun and moon became irregular in their courses, causing days of burning drought to be followed by blizzards, disordering the tides. Some days the sun is dim and sullen, other days unbearable. Mountains spew fire and liquid rock, crevices open in the earth and breathe forth foul gasses - all signs indicate that Zeus, Poseidon, and Hades are all wrathful, and that something ails both Apollo and Artemis. But no oracles or prophecies reveal how their favor was lost, or how it can be regained.

Across the land, the powers of the gods have begun manifesting in unsuspecting hands, unfamiliar places. The gods have chosen heroes to empower in times past, but always they gave a little instruction as well, and now that is missing, and their gifts seem to be scattered at random.

In the city of Iolchis, which lies near to the foothills of Mount Olympus, new heroes, foreign travelers, sages, priests, and kings all gather to consult with one another. What do these disasters and omens mean? What should be done? Already, there is talk of daring blasphemy - of attempting to climb the heights of Olympus and laying these troubles directly at the feet of the gods. Such a thing has never been successfully accomplished, and all who tried in the past were struck down. But now… can any other measure save Achaia?

World Info | Locations/Map | Casting Call/Plot Role Announcements | Skills | Calendar | Investigator Roles | Infiltrator Roles | Infiltrator Directory | Resources/Ancient Greece FAQ | Questions | Plotting
[personal profile] powersthatbe
THE LOHENGRIN GEIST PROJECT
A return to supernatural Sarmatia
February 15th - March 27th


It’s been a year and a half since the Sarmatian supernatural community’s very first election ended in a draw - and Zed Moreno, a vampire banker of some repute, skipped town with most of the Kurgan’s money after it was discovered he’d rigged several voting machines. After quite a bit of finagling, the co-Princes have finally arranged for some cash flow back into the Kurgan’s coffers.

Of course, this money-making scheme isn’t entirely popular, as it involves renting out lodgings to an all-human American film crew. The aspiring cinematographers are looking to capitalise on the success of last summer’s Blair Witch Project with a shakycam ‘found footage’ movie of their very own - and they’ve chased urban legends about the Kurgan and its former Prince all the way to Sarmatia.

The humans don’t know just what they’ve chased, and the local vampires and werewolves are hoping to keep it that way. But with a bunch of actors bumbling around their territories at all hours, filming anything and everything they come across, will the charade of Normal Human Life survive the month of filming?

Calendar | World Info | Map | Vampires | Werewolves | Corvigers | Investigator & Infiltrator Roles | Skills | Questions | Plotting

Pogémon!

Feb. 4th, 2017 04:56 pm
[personal profile] powersthatbe
Pogémon!
Phase Three, Jaunt Two
February 15th-March 27th


Two years ago, a hot new game took the human world by storm--Pogemon, Pog Monsters, was the hit of every schoolyard and even a few business boardrooms as the game's incredible appeal spread like wildfire. But soon, the monsters on the actual pogs started coming to life, causing all sorts of havoc. The monsters actually existed in another world, and the forces behind Pogemon were seeking to bring the worlds together. What these mysterious forces didn't count on was lone Pogemon bonding with human players of the game, the Slammers, and standing against them in order to save both worlds. The worlds were saved, and a gateway between the two was left open and maintained, carefully guarded over, so that Pogemon could continue to come to the human world in order to train and become stronger.

But now, just when it seems like all the danger is long in the past, new threats are starting to emerge. The mysterious Delta Factor is starting to manifest in some of the Pogemon, causing them to evolve in strange and dangerous new ways. The government is starting to take a stronger interest into the activity of the monsters, threatening the human world and the monster world's coexistence. And there are still other, far more shadowy threats to take into account...

Casting Call/Plot Role Announcements | Skills | Pre-Jaunt Timeline | Pogemon Info | Investigator Roles | Calendar | Locations | Infiltrator Directory | Resources | Questions | Plotting
[personal profile] powersthatbe
The Haunted Isle
Phase Three, Jaunt One
December 18th-January 28th


The Powder Keg
The gunpowder smuggler Pulao has had a long, uncomfortable voyage. Last summer, she arrived at the secret port on the Bando Peninsula to find a province deeply in revolt, no longer selling gunpowder but manufacturing it for its own use. The captain was blackmailed into carrying away a group of prominent Bando rebels fleeing half a step ahead of the emperor’s assassins. Following an exiled scholar’s rumor, the harried pirates sought a paradisical haven past the edge of mapped waters… but they were not the first to find it. The Pulao was waylaid at the edge of the Labyrinthine Shoals by a school of mermaids, bloody-mouthed and flint-speared, wearing coral and shell armor and ready for war. The mermaids have come, they say, looking for their kin, and like lampreys they latched onto the Pulao and helped it navigate to the center of the Shoals.

The Match
Two years and three months ago, a fleeing band of rebel mermaids and three pirate ships met by chance formed a tenuous alliance and plunged through the Shoals to find the mountainous atoll and clear lagoon in their center, escaping pursuit by both naval forces and a kraken sent by the Dread Empress of the mermaids. One of the three ships sank in the shallows just offshore. One was grounded and cast up the beach on its side. And one made anchor safely. Christening their new home Crownbreaker Isle, the pirates settled into the lush tropical jungle that shrouded just above the beach, and the merfolk divided into two groups - the Stricken, with their dangerous, cannibalistic disease, went into the reefs about the Isle, while the healthy mermaids remained in the lagoon in the island’s interior. Within a week of settling, a disturbing number of the sailors vanished, all at once - and suspicion has never entirely lifted from the Stricken, although shrewder minds noticed all the vanished came from the same wrecked vessel, and wondered.

Six months of shore leave, however, are enough to make any wanderlust-driven buccaneer run mad, and eighteen months past, the Harbinger set sail, taking with her both pirates disillusioned by paradise and mermaids who wondered if their ongoing fight for freedom still continued in the depths. The isolated community has suffered leadership struggles, the odd duel or feud, but it has flourished, scavenging the wrecked and beached vessels for good waterproof timber with which to build a village.

Then, they see sails on the horizon. And those sails do not belong to the Harbinger. Stricken scouts report armed mermaids in charge - the newcomers have guns, magic, a working vessel besides. They’re a threat, an unknown, and even making them disappear might draw further foreign attention. The only advantage the Crownbreakers possess is their familiarity with the island and its reefs.


The Burning Fuse
A game of hide and seek ensues, using jungle copses, underground springs and pools, the impression of a haunted island left in the form of an abandoned ghost town. But it cannot last. Will discovery bring trust or conflict, acceptance or conquest, unity or yet another exile? Who is to blame for those - on both sides, new and old, human and mer - who go missing? As the Investigators arrive - aboard their own ship, seemingly conjured from Liminal Space - they represent another dangerous unknown to all involved. And after the first night all spend on the island, a distant, throbbing song sounds from the deeps beyond the Shoals, leaving Sirens glassy-eyed with wonder...


Casting Call | Skills | Glossary | World Info | Calendar | Locations/Map | Infiltrator Directory | Questions | A Note for Players New & Old | Pulao Plotting | Crownbreaker Plotting | Investigator Roles & Plotting
[personal profile] powersthatbe
Over the course of (about) five weeks and four liminal events, the Powers The Be will prepare for Phase III of the contest they (and we) call Synodiporia by dividing up the remaining Travelers evenly between them. After this event, every new Traveler will be marked the moment they first appear in Liminal Space.

What’s this going to look like in practice?

For four weeks, while unique situations present themselves in Liminal Space, Travelers who have already been marked will be separated from those who have not by a transparent barrier dividing Liminal Space in two. Those with teleportation skills can still cross the barrier - it’s more a cosmetic touch than anything else. Slowly, Travelers will disappear from the Unmarked side, and re-appear on the Marked side, until everyone has been Marked.

Travelers, when Marked, or if already Marked, will have the chance to have a brief encounter with the Major Arcana Marking them (or who Marked them before). Given just how many of these threads the moderators will have to write, they will happen a few Arcana at a time, and players should expect delays in the completion of these threads. Which Arcana are having conversations each week will be noted on the posts themselves.

Characters who have not yet been marked should comment on the screened post linked here with their character name. In a screened comment, they will be presented with the list of Arcana who might be interested in marking them. If any obvious choices are missing, or any absolutely, positively, unacceptable choices are presented, a substitution or veto can be placed. However, players cannot choose specifically which Acana marks their character, and cannot choose not to be marked. Because we are giving each Arcana an equal number of Marks for this event, we ask that players only exercise their veto if they must - the logistics are already pretty complex!

If your character has already been Marked, since no skill proofs are necessary for Marks after this point, your character will receive a free Mark Skill instead - a new category of skills we will be unveiling in late November. (Note: This is separate from the planned free regular skill this month.)

The scheduling for all of this has been made much more complex by Matt’s being away for election work, necessitating delays in rolling out new pages we hoped to have up before this event began. We will all be working our hardest to finish the page changes before the holidays, so that in January, when Phase III gets going, all the new information and new pages will be readily available.

What will everyone be doing when they’re not being Marked? Well, the Liminal Events we have planned for this period of time should keep characters busy with player-driven content. In Week One, characters, while navigating a mazelike Liminal Space, will see some of their CR differently: illusions will make their friends appear to be Someone Significant from their past, which may spark awkward confessions, squabbles, or very confusing reunions. In Week Two, as characters explore a very linear, obstacle-heavy Liminal Space, they will be randomly affected by areas which make them behave more like the archetype associated with one or more Tarot Arcana - not necessarily the ones who have Marked them. A list of archetypes will be provided for reference. In Week Three, characters can, at player-option, flash back to relive previous infiltrations, in a Liminal Space with images and themes drawn from past jaunts. Finally, in Week Four, characters will receive a preview of some of the dangers ahead of them, as the Arcana attempt to explain, as directly as they know how, why they desire human help.
[personal profile] powersthatbe
Lightside/Darkside
a clockpunk/fantasy jaunt
September 15-October 25


Tensions are brewing in the elven city of January, renowned for its intricate clockwork technology. Long ago, a plague struck, leaving in its wake a unique cultural divide between day and night; Lightsiders, those on the city streets from sunrise to sunset, have no night vision whatsoever, and Darksiders, their nocturnal counterparts, are so light-sensitive that the slightest bit of illumination renders them blind. At dawn and twilight, both groups can see equally clearly - which is ‘not well at all,’ but it’s better than nothing, allowing an hour or two of overlap, if necessary.

This division has by no means prevented communication or even connections across communities, by way of codes, couriers, or sound-carrying vents and grilles, nor does it stop the most adventurous from exploring as best they can, but only foreigners or Dusklings, rare members of the community seemingly unaffected by light levels, truly have the freedom to move about as they will.

But rebellion is forming on the edges of this strictly divided society, and the recent establishment and expansion of a Duskling district isn’t exactly helping matters. The cause is unclear, but many people blame the sudden influx of Dusklings for loss of land, among other problems. If these two separate-yet-not communities don’t learn about each other quickly, January may be done for at any time of day or night…

World Info | Skills | Casting Call | Investigator Roles | Calendar | Locations | Infiltrator Directory | Map | Questions | Plotting
[personal profile] powersthatbe
VILLAINS AND VIGILANTES

A Superheroic Jaunt

July 10th-August 21st


THE PRESENT--
Newport is a town on a small island to the south of England, and it has the highest population of Empowered anywhere in the world. The Manticore Knights and the White Company both have recruiting offices there - because Newport is Great Britain’s gateway to the supernatural. Any supernatural items are shipped through Newport, and every Empowered working for a visa has a six-month quarantine and observation period there. Buckingham Palace, Big Ben, and the London Eye have simply been casualties in one too many supernatural disasters, and relocating everything to an offshore filtering process is meant to keep the mainland safe. And it’s worked - but of course, that just means all the trouble was relocated. Empowered terrorists under investigation hide there. Empowered thieves seeking Spiritual artifacts target there. Enemies of the state who want to strike a blow against the White Company, the all-immigrant foreign supernatural service of Britain, or the Manticore Knights, King Malcolm Doyle’s bodyguards and secret police, know just where to attack. The beleaguered isle may have been designed to withstand trouble, but that design is stress-tested all the time.


THE DISTANT PAST--
It all started in 1910. When Halley’s Comet passed through the skies of England, it didn’t visit alone. The particles of the comet’s tail opened windows in between Earth and the Spirit World, and and while only a select few humans or Spirits have directly traveled between the two, contracts were struck to transfer powers, stolen items slipped through the cracks, spells and rituals learned on either side - with the result that, while there’s one common origin for all supernatural abilities, the Empowered range from women with the strength, ferocity and swim speed of killer whales, to high school boys who put on the armor of Legendary Knights and gain their prowess, to lawyers whose grasp of contract language lets them summon and control lesser demons, to renegade spirits hiding out in human bodies and learning what it means to live as a mortal -- all the wild flavors of vigilantism and metahumanity, springing from a single common source.

THE RECENT PAST--
Five years ago (Year After Comet 101), halfway across the world in Kau Lung, the Chinese equivalent of Newport, invaders from an unknown corner of the spirit world, possessing the Empowered or manifesting in bodies made of ectoplasm, launched a terrorist assault on the consular garrison of the Manticore Knights. Assassinating over a quarter of the garrison including the commander before they vanished, their incursion spurred a major international incident, and the Kau Lung Incursion has lead to the Manticore Knights training a few specialists - the Exorcist Corps, who work to be able to sense or construct defenses against possessing spirits.

THE FUTURE--
Newport is preparing for the opening of a Solomon Ring - a teleportation gateway to the spirit world, a new ‘port’ for the Empowered to use for trade and travel between England and the most mysterious of frontiers beyond. And Malcolm Doyle, King of England, and his wife, Queen Gloriana (both Empowered of considerable ability themselves), are coming to Newport for the inauguration of the Ring. It’s a decision not without some controversy - it’s the first direct, permanent gateway to be opened in centuries, according to scholars, and the only one in history whose opening and closing were controlled on the Earthly side. Many Empowered think it risky - risky enough to voice dissent or organize protests, which the Manticore Knights tend to frown on.

It’s a very tense and interesting month to be trapped in Newport...

World Info | Powers/Skills | Map | Calendar | Casting Call | Infiltrator Directory | Traveler History | Team Sign-Ups | RNG Trump Encounters | Questions | Plotting
[personal profile] powersthatbe
Message In A Bottle

May 11th-June 11th


It’s clear right away that something is different. The Travelers sent on this Walkabout will all appear next to one another on a ragged temperate coastline under the bright light of day… all together, but all alone. There does not appear to be anyone else on the island, and hence, there are no Infiltrators. Exploring the island for necessities like food & shelter, if those are not available Liminally, will uncover a ruined city, and geography recognizable to any long-term veterans as the remains of Plathville, the lone city on Belljar Island, a troubled place they once visited. But there are other ruins in the forests, the mountainside, even under the sea, and something is responsible for the spherical forcefield that’s only barely visible around the island - seen by the way it distorts waves and clouds as they pass through it.

What’s here? What happened here? And why have they come here?

The more they search, the more they’ll find not only answers, but other questions.

World Info | Map | Skills | Plotting | Questions
[personal profile] powersthatbe
Roman Holiday

May 11th-June 11th


The year is 63 CE. The resort of Stabiae is a playground for the wealthy. But those with money still have problems, grand in scale, and they travel to evade, to forget… or solve them. From private estates to spas and stadiums, beaches and baths to temples and retreats, there are distractions of all kinds, and as Roman nobles come equipped with full households of families, servants, and slaves, it isn’t only the noblemen who enjoy the chance to get away from it all. Then there are the festivals - Lemuria, the annual exorcism of spirits, rendering the month unlucky for marriages; Mercuriala, celebration of the god of merchants; Agonalia, a sacrifice for the city’s defense marked by drinking and dancing, the Ludi Piscatorii, fishermen’s games, celebrated with gladiatorial combat in the arena of Pompeii and the biggest fish-fry ever held in a temple; and Vestalia, a celebration reserved only for women. The Romans like an excuse to party.

But it isn’t all parties. There’s a once-rich family with a pressing debt to pay, a senator whose patronage and promises come and go like the wind, a pair of lovers cursed by unhappy circumstance to be parted, a shrewd mother despairing for her hapless child, and the struggle between higher position and family reunion between rival patriarchs’ slaves. Nothing world-shaking, but certainly life-changing events one an all, played out against the backdrop of a sun-drenched harbor, a vine-covered countryside of sprawling rustic villas, and the impressive splendor of a smoking mountain.

Welcome, fair Travelers, to Naples, where the best efforts to forget life’s woes may generate woe in turn, and precious few of life’s triumphs last beyond an hourglass’ turn.

World Info | Casting Call | Investigator Roles | Calendar | Locations | Skills | Infiltrator Directory | Glossary | Player Resources | Questions | Plotting
[personal profile] powersthatbe
The Jack of Spades

An Ace of Spades prequel

March 16th-April 19th



Read more... )



Mod Note: As is more typical on a walkabout, there will only be two mod-posted mingles, an opening nightclub scene at Jaunt start, and the meeting in the lawyer's room about ten days out from jaunt close. Everything else, including what and whether your character is inheriting, are completely up to playerbase plotting and imagination.

Locations | Player Resources | Skills | Questions | Plotting

Profile

synodiporia_ooc: (Default)
Synodiporia OOC community

Current Investigation

Now: Questing Country: Harmonic Resonance
September 1 - October 10
Current Tag: !harmonic resonance

August 2021

S M T W T F S
1234567
891011121314
15161718192021
22232425262728
293031    

Most Popular Tags

Style Credit

Expand Cut Tags

No cut tags
Page generated Jul. 17th, 2025 11:28 am
Powered by Dreamwidth Studios