In the Night Moderators (
inthenightmods) wrote2018-05-09 11:11 pm
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exploration

EXPLORATION
Explorations are currently OPEN. They will close again when we run out of active exploration slots.
Building a structure may be done at any time and does not affect the active exploration slots.
•••
The forest engulfing Beacon is dense and uncharted, but that just means there's never a shortage of cool stuff to discover lurking off the beaten path. There's always new locations, plot clues, or extra resources to be found, so although venturing into the woods is always dangerous, the rewards may just outweigh the risks.
Once you come up with a plan, please fill out and submit the form below. We'll respond in one of two ways, depending on the nature of your exploration:
- In most cases, we'll respond with a single write-up detailing the outcome of your exploration. For example, characters venturing out into a particular part of the woods may discover a new location! In that case, you'll receive a full description of that new location, along with any other details worth noting, such as forest spirit encounters or difficulties along the way. If your group would then like to react to any of this or explore that location after its discovery, you can then respond with your own write-up of everything your group would investigate, and we'll let you know what happens as a result. And that's it! Then the exploration is wrapped, the location becomes available to the game at large, and you're welcome to thread out any details of the exploration if you like.
- In limited cases, an exploration request will open a dialogue between the players and mods to determine the outcome of your exploration. For example, characters attempting to interact with forest spirits may get the chance to play out that encounter, whether it be a pleasant conversation or, uh, the forest spirit trying to kill you, since that happens sometimes. Explorations of this nature will not always result in a response like this, as it'll depend on our availability as mods. If you're interested in doing an exploration like this and don't want to leave it up to chance, PM us! We'll work with you to schedule an encounter.
Regardless of which type of exploration you end up with, what you do during an exploration is entirely up to you, so feel free to get creative! We always try to reward creativity in some way, even if it's not a success in the way that you hoped for.
Before you embark on your quest, here's everything you need to know about explorations:
- Exploring uncharted territory is intended to be dangerous, and there is always a risk of failure, injury, and other setbacks. If you're not on board with these risks, exploration may not be in the cards for you.
- That said, the exploration form includes an opt-in for serious injury and death. If you aren't interested in having your character(s) at risk for that stuff at this time, you can let us know upfront. Please keep in mind that opting out of serious injury/death does not mean you're opting out of the above risks of failure, injury, and other setbacks. Those risks are always in play during explorations. In addition, while opting out of serious risks doesn't mean you'll get a watered down exploration, some discoveries lurking out in the forest are reserved for risk-taking characters. For example, opting out of serious risks eliminates the chance of running into the hostile green-eyed spirits, so characters interested in pursuing green-eyed spirit plot threads will have to put themselves on the line to do so.
- If you choose to opt into the risks of serious injury and death, your character's safety is forfeit and you give the mods the right to maim accordingly (though, of course, we'll check permissions posts in doing so). This does not mean that groups opting into these risks will always be tormented and killed! It's just helpful for us to know your preferences and expectations upfront. Please keep in mind that opting into the risk of serious injury or death applies to the whole group, not just individual characters.
- Explorations into the area of Beacon currently occupied by the Parade will always be extra dangerous. Characters will run the risk of encountering the Parade itself, but besides that, the Parade's presence gets all the forest spirits in the area extra revved up, increasing their hostility. We'll give you the "danger zone warning" at the top of the exploration if you're about to head into Parade-infested territory, as characters may be seriously injured or killed at any point during an exploration within the parade route. You can check the Parade's schedule on the calendar page.
- Chance of success will be left up to a mix of mod discretion and RNG. We'll typically use a RNG to determine what you find, if anything, but we'll also take player/character ingenuity into account. In short: If you have a solid, creative plan, you're more likely to be rewarded for that. Aimlessly wandering won't always get you nothing, but it's less likely to earn you something neat for your trouble. (However, please do be encouraged to follow the dumb idea that's in your character's heart. We will reward for IC idiocy, too.)
- Having torches from the bonfire with you will also increase your chance of success, though be careful: If you lose the torches while exploring, someone will have to recover them or they're lost forever. Additionally, you must request torches through the item request page in order to take them on explorations. Torches not logged through the item requests page are not considered game canon.
- Once you receive a mod response to your exploration, you will have one week to tag us back. If that week timer runs out, we'll consider that exploration closed, and mod responses will stop. You're welcome to handwave your own IC conclusion to the exploration at that point. To be extra clear: the time it takes for us mods to respond to your exploration is not included in that time limit. The timer starts fresh each time we tag you back.
- Explorations over two weeks old will be wrapped in the next mod response. This is to prevent explorations from dragging on for too long, which will slow up our system, but more importantly, it'll make for awkward timing issues in the game! We don't want to leave players waiting on exploration outcomes to be able to engage with the rest of the game.
- Characters may only embark on one exploration at a time, no matter how small. Pretty self explanatory! One at a time, please. If you play more than one character, you may send them on concurrent explorations, but keep in mind that we might deny exploration requests like this to give other players a chance to hop in.
- We will only accept a maximum of 8 active explorations at a time. If those 8 slots fill up, we'll close the queue to new submissions until we're able to wrap some of the active adventures. This number is based on mod availability.
- Explorations will always be closed during events except under rare special circumstances. Similarly, explorations can't be forward- or back-dated to happen during an event. Go do event things instead!
- You can also submit an "exploration" to build a new structure on this page! Just use the appropriate form below.
To BUILD A STRUCTURE or ALTER THE SETTING, please fill out the form below:
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no subject
character(s): Ignis Scientia
area of exploration: The Library, The Post Office, The Landmark Inn, the Scrap Yard
date(s) of exploration: After the event, 25th and 26th of February
plan: Over these two days, Ignis will visit every "hospitable" spirit that is tending to local places- The Librarian, the Postmaster General, The Concierge, the Broker. He will also try to stop any friendly spirit he sees on the edges of the forest, offering them some baked snacks (sugar and oatmeal cookies), in an attempt to strike a conversation with them. He will also be wearing a makeshift mask, made out of twigs and old leaves and scraps of wood.
He has been studying the spirit language provided to them, and he learned that morse code is also a way to communicate with them. The main thing that he wants to figure out is 'why are they wearing masks'? He remembers that at the party months ago, masks were handed out freely, but he thought it was because, well, it was a party. Sort of (it didn't end well).
He will do his best to be as polite as he can, especially with the Concierge and the Librarian. For the Broker he has found several interesting metal pieces from the scrap yard (he found a slinky, few very big nails, a bit of shiny copper wire, his creepy tea set) in case the spirit refuses to share information without items. He's ready to do odd-jobs for Postmaster General.
Basically, he wants any and all information he can find about masks- why are they wearing them, why they prefer humans to wear them and what is their general purpose. He won't be accepting "they are pretty", "fashionable" and "cool" as an answer and will continue asking.
is your group willing to accept risk of serious injury/death? Yes
no subject
The Postmaster General tugs at Ignis' clothes with one spindly arm as if to question why Ignis is wearing his garments, as well, and the Broker, accepting of the trade, scratches at their fur before hooking their claws on either side of their mask and tugging, showing Ignis that the mask simply does not budge.
no subject
He'll revisit Postmaster General and gift him a pen. You know, for letters he sends
to librarianSo... masks are not masks. Masks are faces. Okay, that's cleared up.
The only one other question he has left (which I forgot to list) before he lets little spirits be is "why do they want the residents of Beacon to wear them". Again 'cool' and 'it's clothes' won't really satisfy him, but he'll come to terms with it if he gets nothing and only the latter one.
no subject
The Broker abandons their post to fly past Ignis deeper into the store, and after a decent amount of rummaging, comes back and drops three hats onto the counter: a fez, a turban, and a kippah!
This is all he'll be able to get out of anyone; if Ignis isn't sure what the correlation may be, himself, perhaps someone else in town might recognize the significance!
The Broker thanks Ignis for his business before dozing off at their perch.