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

[inthenightmods]

(Hello!!!!!)

It does seem that when they return the next day, the offerings have been taken. Upon repeating this, day by day, the spirits will grow bolder. At first, they'll hear soft, chittering whispers. Rustling movements just out of sight, but they can never catch a glimpse of anything. At first, they only accept the offerings when Daylight and Annie have already left.

But then, finally, when they come back, something tentatively creeps out from the foliage. The spirit is small and covered completely in fur and paper flowers. The mask it wears is so big on its small body it keeps having to adjust it with its dainty little paws. For now, it looks curious as it watches them with large, glowing eyes.

[sunborne]

(Hello, Postmaster General!!)

Daylight is going to be very excited upon seeing the spirit when he and Annie return. Basically, he will let out a sound that's pure happy '!!!!' and Annie will have to hold him back. As to keep him calm so he doesn't run off and do anything too rash. When that's been done and settled, a newly calmed Daylight will begin to visibly make a paper flower to add to the spirit's impressive collection. A new 'hello, proper!' gift for the spirit.

While he's doing this, Annie will attempt to establish a baseline of communication by speaking with the spirit as Daylight makes the flower. She's trying to find out if the forest-dwelling spirits understand human speech and/or simple signs, like the ones located in the town and village. The most important words for her are 'hello' and 'friends' at the start of this hopefully-a-conversation...!

The two will try to stay at a respectful distance, with Annie clearly taking the lead and Daylight sitting on the ground to make himself appear smaller and less threatening.

[inthenightmods]

It's a good move that they choose not to come too close, as the delicate-looking spirit flinches nervously at Daylight's happy exclamation, regardless of how well-meaning it was. For the most part, once it seems to relax again, the spirit appears to mostly be focused on the gift that Daylight is making. It occasionally adjusts its mask or paws at its own fur fussily.

Still, whenever it glances at Annie as she talks, there's clear recognition in its big, bright eyes. It doesn't make any kind of response, really, but she'll still get the feeling that she's being understood.

It's...it's a start.

[sunborne]

After some thought, Annie decides to let Daylight take the lead for the time being. She's happy to confirm the fact that the forest dwellers can understand them and, for now, will watch how the spirit and Daylight will interact with each other. She's pretty curious to see if the spirit will stick around or not.

When Daylight finishes making the paper flower, he gently places it on the ground and then takes a few steps back with Annie in tow - Just to show he and Annie aren't up to anything tricky-like with the spirit here. Upon realising that Annie has quietly given him the reins, Day looks pretty nervous but he promises himself to do his best and show he's friendly...!

Though he doesn't think the spirit will detect it, he pushes friendliness-kindness-hello into his EM field and pushes it out towards the spirit. All the while he speaks, his winglets moving up and down in what he hopes equals, 'Good tidings' in wingcant. "Hi there- Um... I'm Daylight and this is my friend, Annie." He turns to Annie with a nod of his helm before looking back at the spirit, smiling nicely as he can. "Sorry for, um, spooking you earlier. I promise you that we don't mean you any harm. The moment you want us to leave, we'll leave. I promise. But- Hear me out?"

He takes a deep breath, trying to figure out what to say next now. "So... Um... The flower here-" He gestures to the flower he had made and had settled on the ground just moments earlier. "This is a caster lily. Where I'm from - Where my mom's family is from, really - it means an offer of friendship and good faith. An invitation to become banner brothers, those who become close through adversity and mystery. That's what we want to offer to you and your friends and- And anyone else who's interested in the idea of it.

"It's- It's been weird, I'm not gonna lie. The events that brought us here. What's happened so far and what we learned for far. It's weird and new and different and that's- That's why we're reaching out to you. We want to learn from you guys. About your home. About your lives. About the ways that we can help each other." He tries to wiggle his winglets into something that says, 'Honesty' while pushing sincerity into his field at the same time. "Because we're here now, you know? We're here and you're here and I think we can work together towards... something."

[inthenightmods]

The spirit plops down as Daylight speaks. Or, well, it's so fluffy that the movement more or less just kind of looks like it sinks a little bit. It grooms itself patiently as the explanation is made, and when Daylight goes quiet, it watches the two of them. Daylight, Annie, Daylight, Annie.

And then it gets up and it scampers away. Perhaps not the most promising interaction, so it seems. But then! Perhaps just as they're beginning to think that the sentiment has gone unheard, the spirit returns carrying a load of long, slender branches in its tiny paws. With unspeakable deftness, it twists them, one after another, until it's formed a hoop. And then, within the hoop, it crafts an intricate web of branches.

When it takes the flower, it leaves this offering in return.

[sunborne]

(I'm so sorry I thought I replied to this with our ending comment...!. ; ; )

After some initial rush of sadness at the supposedly disheartening turn of events, Daylight perks up at the return of the spirit and gets even more excited to see what they're doing with the sticks...!

Success! Daylight's winglets wiggle, excited as heck by this much progress being made. He does his best to keep his excitement contained, not wanting to spook the spirit off, but he's clearly happy by how his winglets continue to flick up and down and his EM field pulses with positive emotions.

He looks over at Annie for a second, wondering if it's okay to get the item or not. After getting her go ahead, as she's also happy with what went down, Daylight will walk over and kneel down to pick up the token and then bow his helm in thanks to the spirit.

"Thank you! Really- Thank you so much. We'll do what we can to treasure this token, spirit friend." Daylight turns back to Annie to see what they do next and sees their agreed-upon signal that they've probably done all they could for this occasion. "Um- We have to go now but- But, like I said, my name is Daylight and my friend's name is Annie. We really want to do what we can to create strong ties with one another and I think this is a good beginning.

"I promise that we'll try to visit here again and try to leave you more gifts Gotta help you continue looking snazzy!" Daylight then stands up and gives a half bow, his winglets now lowering down and angling themselves as a sign of respect. "Take care, okay? It was really nice meeting you."

[inthenightmods]

The spirit bows back. Or, well, it's hard to say. The creature is so small and fuzzy it's hard to tell. But presumably with the way the mask shift, it bows. And then, very quickly gathering itself up, it scampers away.