EVENT #12: INVOCATION - COORDINATION POST (PART 1)

[abraxasmods]

Event #12 - COORDINATION (1)

go to the OOC Plotting Post or IC Event Log

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This post is for coordination to prevent the IC Event Log from being overrun by OOC mod and player communications. Forms and instructions are available in this post.

Use this post to:

◎ Coordinate event plots with the mods
◎ Request a mod dice roll
◎ Submit noticeable actions
◎ Write rapid IC exchanges
◎ Investigate a plot point or track ongoing investigations

If you have any questions, see the Questions thread on the OOC Plotting Post.

Available Forms

For details on each form, see the sections below.
Be sure to reply under your assigned category if applicable.

Mod Communications

If you have an idea related to the event plot, communicate and coordinate with us here. This includes NPC meetings, requesting resources, destroying the environment, or anything else that may require mod permission. If we can't accommodate a request for any reason, we'll do our best to offer an alternative!

Contact Us

<b>Player Name:</b> <b>Character Name:</b> <b>Request:</b> (Describe what you'd like to do)

Randomization Request

Request a mod dice roll at any time for outcomes and consequences. Some actions require a dice roll to proceed, such as attacking an acolyte NPC or attempting to break anything major in the environment (chains, doors, walls). If you aren't sure, you can check with us.

Request here

<b>Player Name:</b> <b>Character Name:</b> <b>Action:</b> (Describe what your character is attempting to do and how) <b>Thread:</b> <a href="urlhere">Thread</a> (Link to the thread where this is taking place) <b>Notes:</b> (Anything else)

Notable Actions

Submit notable actions that are likely to gain attention from other players, such as fights or disturbances.

Submit a notable action

<b>Player Name:</b> <b>Character Name:</b> <b>When:</b> (Approximately when is this incident taking place?) <b>Where:</b> (Where is this incident taking place?) <b>What:</b> (Describe the incident) <b>Link:</b> <a href="urlhere">Thread</a> (If applicable. Actions can be submitted without a thread if they're minor, such as if your character snores loudly every night.)

IC Exchanges

Use this option for interactions you'd like to play out, but setting up a standard IC thread would be impracticable. For instance, if your character wants to speak to several people about an event they witnessed together, you might want to do an IC exchange.

Treat this like an informal IC network thread done in person, where character reactions, snippets of dialogue, and other details can be quickly played out and concluded in-game without committing to a full log thread. Exchanges are game canon and can count towards Activity Check under the category of a Network thread.

Start an IC exchange

Using the provided form is optional. Begin a thread freeform if you prefer.

<b>Where & when:</b> (Where and when is this exchange taking place?) <b>Purpose:</b> (What's the reason for this exchange?) <b>THREAD START</b> (Write the scenario, your character's actions, and any dialogue as usual)

Investigations

Several investigation paths are available for characters to interact with. Each assignment group will have their own set of investigation paths. You can investigate something as many times as you want, as long as there's a reasonable explanation for your character making their second attempt. Interacting with investigations might carry IC consequences. We'll try to telegraph when characters are at high risk of triggering something major. To investigate, fill out the form, then comment under the item you're investigating.

Interact with an Investigation

<b>Player Name:</b> <b>Character Name:</b> <b>Other characters involved:</b> <b>Action:</b> (Describe what your character is attempting to do and how. If multiple characters are taking action, include their actions.) <b>Thread:</b> <a href="urlhere">Thread</a> (Link to a top level or any other relevant threads. This is so we can review what the characters involved have been doing to best flavor the investigation outcome for you!) <b>Notes:</b> (Anything else)

Comments

[northerndragon]

Player Name: Elizabeth
Character Name: Jon Snow
Other characters involved: n/a

Action: Jon approaches castle mages with a neck scarf belonging to Mat and a hair ribbon belonging to Alicent and asks if they will be helpful in finding anyone, if there are spells that can be done, etc.
Thread: There isn't one, sorry. Dropping you a line about this shortly! 😭
Notes: This is an independent action Jon is taking based on alarming inbox messages from Mat and Alicent and the assumption that he's heard some rumblings about location spells. He is not capable of doing them on his own. He's probably been pretty careful about directly handling the items -- there are almost no forensics in Fake 1400, but I think the concept of magical contamination would still occur to him.

[abraxasmods]

Castle mages can perform a basic location spell that shows Jon the rough vicinity of each character's last known location, the areas where they were taken. This is determined by you and the players of those characters.

Jon can visit one of those locations to learn more. He can use whatever means and skills he determines is best to proceed. He may bring additional player characters for help, and may also pass the information openly to others for them to use.

Once you've decided your actions, you can let us know 1. the full details of where he will be going, what he's hoping to find, and who he's focusing on searching for, and 2. which characters are involved in the group (if any) and what he or they will be doing to investigate. Linking a thread will help give us more context so we can write you a suitable response!

[northerndragon]

Ok, here goes! No thread yet in the interests of time sensitivity, but one might spring from this.

This will be Jon and Galadriel looking into Alicent's vanishment.

Jon and Galadriel are relatively similar figures (serious, upstanding types who throw themselves into danger, worry about friends, are both concerned about potentially apocalyptic Dark Lord threats in their own worlds, will disobey direct orders if they think the reason is good enough, and are strong fighters and trackers, etc). She seems like a potentially pretty good partner for what's happening, with a good companionable vibe, and he knows she's friends with someone else who's missing, so he asks if she wants to check out the scene of an abduction that he's had tracked.

On the upside, for mod purposes: both of them have outdoor skills, hunting and tracking skills, and so on. On the downside, neither of them is genre-savvy: they are not aware of modern mystery story conventions and would likely approach this more like rangers than like detectives, but they would likely still notice the big stuff. They would certainly notice things like signs of a struggle, anything dropped in the vicinity, anything out of place, trails of blood, marks that shouldn't be there, burns, a lot of broken twigs (which Jon might write off as not necessarily significant unless he finds further details -- otherwise, it could be the work of an animal), etc etc. Expect a thorough search of the area, though.

Alicent disappeared from an isolated trail while riding with Wilhelm. I don't know if the horses came back. It is likely that Jon would check the trail they disappeared from and the areas around it, and that he would also talk to people in the stables to find out about the horses -- if they returned, if there was anything out of the ordinary about them when they did, etc.

It can probably be assumed that if Jon is remotely friendly with anyone around the castle, it's a few men at arms he knows from his frequent appearances in the training yard; some might have been around on neighboring paths. He is likely also a reasonably familiar face to a few tavern keepers and townspeople and groundskeepers and stable hands. And then there are Lord and/or Lady Townsend, Jon's employers, some silly rich people on the lowest end of the local nobility who might also conceivably have been riding on another trail -- or fooling around in the bushes with a current paramour. He and Galadriel will talk to anyone who they think might have been around!

Side note: I misread, made a mistake, and arranged to look into both of these (/covers face with hands). It'd be viable for the Mat one to not go anywhere, since other characters are already looking into it and I am still checking on his abduction circumstances with Faye. I had arranged for Jon and Rhy to look into that (as you may or may not have seen in chat), on the basis that Jon knows Rhy as an apparently good guy who has had some kind of entanglement with Mat. This is my bad -- maybe the scene is destroyed by the time they get to it (could be late, so other ppl can have gotten there first), or maybe Lena wants to have Rhy put in for this one?

[abraxasmods]

Examining the trail, Galadriel and Jon will discover horse tracks that lead them to an area of dense forest. There, they will find one of the missing horses. The area will contain a small jar that was left by mistake, though intriguingly it's caught in one the heavy boughs rather than dropped on the ground. Inside it is the remnants of a strange black substance, similar to what's been used to paint the sigil and noticed by others who have seen the sigil.

While the pair may not yet know this information, they can bring the jar back to the castle to examine its contents, share what they found on the network or Horizon, and more to discover what might come of it. You can follow up if they learn anything you feel they would be interested in taking action upon further.

If you'd like more information on the horse, you can tell us what occurred during the Alicent's abduction, including the state of horses, any violence, how loud or quiet the struggle, and so forth. This is so we can avoid dictating details regarding a player character's capture scenario. You can link the thread and/or coordinate with the players involved to let us know how the situation played out if the thread has not yet reached its conclusion.

Otherwise, you may presume they find nothing of interest regarding the horse. They can bring the horse back to the stable. The stable hand will be grateful.

Regarding Mat, characters are not restricted to only one investigation, but they do need to be submitted separately, especially if two different individuals and groups are involved. It would be possible for both avenues to be fruitful, but each one will need to be requested and threaded out.

[northerndragon]

Still coordinating with Carly on this for Galadriel, but here is Alicent's abduction thread!

Popped in that Mat investigation elsewhere... thanks so much!

[abraxasmods]

In this situation, there wouldn't be much evidence on the horse except that any supplies or money in the saddlebags would be untouched. This implies the acolytes have no interest in robbing or stealing anything.

[northerndragon]

Ty!

Pursuant to this, because I suspect it is likely to come up: what are the overall look and feel aspects of the black substance?

(Greasy, powdery, sticky, does it have any kind of particular smell, is it made of mushrooms and does it create hellish portals to the Pit, what happens if you try to use it as face paint camouflage which no one involved is going to, etc... you know, just the normal questions. Ok, maybe not those last few, maybe just the look and feel ones.)

[abraxasmods]

The substance has a thick and congealed consistency. The smell is unpleasant and herbal, but difficult to identify key components. Someone possessing enhanced senses and the experience to determine so may detect trace amounts of blood, but it would not be possible to tell what type of blood.