exploration

[inthenightmods]

EXPLORATION

ACTIVE EXPLORATION SLOTS: 0/8

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 EMBARK ON AN EXPLORATION, please fill out the form below:

<b>player name(s):</b> (please list ALL PLAYERS involved with the exploration!) <b>character(s):</b> (please list ALL CHARACTERS involved with the exploration!) <b>area of exploration:</b> (please be as specific as possible! we need to know where your character is/is trying to go.) <b>date(s) of exploration:</b> (you may forward or back date by up to two weeks from the current date.) <b>plan:</b> (what, specifically, are you doing? this is the place to detail the plan in full, so be sure to include all of the relevant details so that we can factor it all into our response. consider questions like: what's the goal? are you bringing supplies or torches? does anyone have experience or training that could assist with your plan? is anyone already injured or impaired? tell us what your plan is! AS A REMINDER, EXPLORATIONS WILL TYPICALLY ONLY RECEIVE ONE RESPONSE TO DETAIL THE RESULT, so it's important to be clear about your intentions and plans!) <b>is your group willing to accept risk of serious injury/death?</b> (a simple yes/no is all we need, and please only give ONE ANSWER for the whole group. a "yes" here doesn't automatically mean you'll all die horribly, and a "no" doesn't mean you won't get anything cool. we'll check permissions posts before injuring/killing characters.)

To BUILD A STRUCTURE or ALTER THE SETTING, please fill out the form below:

<b>player name(s):</b> (please only list the names of the players ORGANIZING construction/alteration.) <b>character(s):</b> (please list ALL CHARACTERS involved with construction/alteration.) <b>location:</b> (please be as specific as possible so that we can add it to the map!) <b>start date:</b> (when does this project BEGIN? based on the details you provide in this submission, we'll let you know how long it will take the characters to complete the project.) <b>plan:</b> (this is the place to tell us how the construction/alteration is going to happen! hit us up with as many details as you have, as we'll be using this plan to determine the length of the project.) <b>description:</b> (what does the finished product look like? this is the description as it will appear VERBATIM on the setting page.)

Please note that with the recent discovery of the medical center, each player may only explore the medical center ONCE for the time being in order to give everyone a chance to get involved. If exploration requests die down and there are still areas to be uncovered, we may lift that rule. We'll make an announcement in the OOC comm should that happen.

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Comments

[darkeyed]

player name(s): Shira and Mina.
character(s): M.K. and Melisandre (voktys).
area of exploration: The church and its shady trapdoor situation.
winters? I MEAN neither of them would probably think to go to him at the time it's happening, but if there's an opportunity to get his take, for sure.
notes: With the two of them hanging out in the church, and Mel being curious about the door in her new home, once it's brought to his attention there's a high chance M.K. would simply use super strength to try and bust through it, given it's wooden and theoretically breakable. Please, god, let it be an Indiana Jones-style booby trap waiting to go off, or a life supply of Skittles.

[inthenightmods]

Sadly, it is not a life supply of Skittles. But it's also not a booby trap, so, you know, little miracles!

When M.K. strikes the door, it doesn't feel like he's hitting a flimsy wooden panel. Instead it feels more like punching a thick brick wall or a cement floor. Like there's something harder underneath, and that sort of diffuses the energy of the hit. The wood remains unbroken— for now.

However, about three seconds later, there is a second loud bang. This one comes from the other side of the door.

(As a side note, if these two do decide to go ask Winters, or any other NPC, about the door, please just let us know here and we'll let you know what they'd say or do!)

TIMING

[voktys]

mel would very much ask winters or will, splitting the difference with m.k. (sorry rastus, you kind of freak her out), regarding the... mysterious hozier in her basement.

sidenote, she would leave a small offering of food by the trapdoor after, in some attempt to pacify aforementioned mysterious hozier. she'd also leave a note with that, a standard apology for the disturbance and some hoping for good, uh, neighbourly relations.

Just C/Ping this since you both asked at the EXACT same moment good work

[inthenightmods]

Will looks very suspicious and not at all pleased to be asked about the Church trapdoor. He'll offer only the same information that he's offered to others: "There is something or someone that brings people back. The door is probably how. You're better off not obsessing over it."

Winters has the following to say: "You shouldn't waste your time with that door. No one's ever been able to open it. Best you concentrate on exploring the woods instead. But, don't worry. What's behind it won't hurt you."

As for the offerings left by Melisandre, they will remain where they are until no one is present in the sanctuary, after which time they will vanish.

As for M.K. repeating his attempts to break the door, the metal is quite thick, so it would only take on surface scratches and minor damage. The banging does not continue, but a faint scraping sound may be heard at least once.

we posted at the same time, JINX

[darkeyed]

At least Hozier didn't pop out to sing a little ditty about going to church.

Follow up for the hulks in the crowd who can punch through metal material: does the metal part reflect any dents from repeated attempts? If it keeps banging back, I'm calling it, we're going full People Under the Stairs, abort abort.

Regarding NPCs, both of them would probably split the difference and approach Winters and Will if you feel like being wordy on both of their accounts! (Sorry, Rastus, you're still too weird for M.K. at least, but he still loves you, buddy, really.......)

Just C/Ping this since you both asked at the EXACT same moment good work

[inthenightmods]

Will looks very suspicious and not at all pleased to be asked about the Church trapdoor. He'll offer only the same information that he's offered to others: "There is something or someone that brings people back. The door is probably how. You're better off not obsessing over it."

Winters has the following to say: "You shouldn't waste your time with that door. No one's ever been able to open it. Best you concentrate on exploring the woods instead. But, don't worry. What's behind it won't hurt you."

As for the offerings left by Melisandre, they will remain where they are until no one is present in the sanctuary, after which time they will vanish.

As for M.K. repeating his attempts to break the door, the metal is quite thick, so it would only take on surface scratches and minor damage. The banging does not continue, but a faint scraping sound may be heard at least once.

[darkeyed]

I apologize on behalf of myself and everyone who now how has to read this cursed thread(s) and our crappy Vulcan mindmeld jokes...

Thank you, mods! Good lord, this sure went some places already, LMAO. He'll pass the deets along, feel free to assume other characters can learn about it through word-of-mouth!

[inthenightmods]

Will do!