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

[callada]

player name(s): Lauren, Sydney, Erica
character(s): Rosinante Donquixote, Kuai Liang, Maes Hughes
area of exploration: West of the museum, following Rosinante's trail map and Maes' dream-map to go to Downtown Beacon.
date(s) of exploration: January 1 onward as necessary
notes: They have two maps to go off of in order to search for downtown and will aim to explore the heck outta the place if they can get there. They will be bringing along 3 torches (if Rastus allows) for the added warmth as it's very cold out, and of course Kuai has his ice powers to help build them shelter if they need it, plus they'll be packing along enough food and water for a week, snowshoes and poles (if they come through as requested), and paint to blaze their way along trees so they don't lose their own trail for the return trip. Maes has his push knives, has made shift padding for them from blankets to serve as layers and he has teleportation powers should they become relevant.

Additionally, along the way but especially once in downtown (if they reach it) Rosi is looking for anything seemingly broken and mechanical that might have had computer components to strip and bring back.

[inthenightmods]

This gang is prepared, and between their various maps, they'll be able to follow the rough outline of a path leading from the museum westward. Travel is certainly made easier by their snow gear and torches, as well.

Within just a few hours of trailblazing, the group will find themselves in Downtown Beacon. "Downtown" is clearly relative, as this once-bustling city center is just a three-block stretch of road with old brick buildings lining either side. Back in Beacon's heyday, this quaint little district would've been a great place to spend an evening, but now, it's dark and quiet and lifeless, just like the rest of the world. The emptiness resonates more deeply here, though, perhaps because of all the dark windows overlooking the long-dead streetlamps and empty storefronts. An outdoor patio juts out from one restaurant, tables ready and waiting for patrons that may never come. Distantly, the sound of waves crashing against the cliffs floats in from the north, a sound that would've never been heard over the ambiance of the town in life.

So, hey, good work, team! You discovered a thing! Now you get to do the honors of exploring...

Downtown is a core location, which essentially means it's comprised of multiple smaller locations. Given that it's, you know, downtown, there's quite a few of these smaller locations. In particular:

• The Landmark Inn, a ritzy hotel in the center of it all. A large fountain sits in front of it, though it's not currently operational.
  
• The Delft seems to be a theater of some kind. "HEAR FEAR ! EYES DIES" is spelled out on one side of the marquee out front, and on the other, "H AK I YA YO".
  
• A small, indoor shopping center comprised of a variety of stores, though they'll have to go inside to check out what's there.
  
• A courthouse, the door of which has been barricaded with planks from the outside.
  
• Kickaxe Brewing Company, a brewery inside of a building that looks to have been a small factory at some point.
  
• The Fallout Shelter, a nightclub on the second and third floors of the shopping center.

There are a handful of other small storefronts along the road as well, but they're locked up for the moment, devoid of any indication as to what may be inside.

The group will have enough time on this trip to explore two of these locations... for Reasons. :) You don't have to choose both right now, and any stones left unturned in this exploration can always be further examined later. In other words, missing stuff doesn't mean it'll be gone forever.

Where would the gang like to start?

(Oh, and I'mma tell you straight up: The locked storefronts are locked because there's no interesting stuff in there right now! They'll all be made available once this location is revealed to the game at large.)

[paletteswap]

The team claims victory with some subtle nods at each other that for them are the equivalent of 90's tv show slow motion high-fives.

First off they'd like to explore the hotel. They're gonna try and go in through the front door assuming it's not boarded up or too difficult to break into. Time to check out the front desk and lobby before hopefully perusing some of the rooms. Their idea is that this can serve as additional housing for people in Beacon as their numbers seem to keep growing.

They'll be mainly checking to see if the structure safe for people to move into and what's still left around. (Beds, couches, mini-bar chocolate for $30). Also they're on the lookout for anything that might currently be residing here. Can never be too careful.

[inthenightmods]

The hotel is open, and the group will be able to enter without difficulty! There's even a cheery forest spirit who snaps to attention as soon as they enter. They bow gracefully, ready to assist with check-in!

The hotel itself is a few stories tall, and this ground floor seems to be made up of just the reception lobby and what looks to be an upscale restaurant just past the front desk. There's activity in the restaurant, too! No diners, but a small waitstaff of forest spirits is busy organizing silverware and menus, and there's quite a lot of hub bub coming from the kitchen.

As far as the rooms go, they're all upstairs, and the boys will be able to head up via the stairs if they like, or they may try the elevator next to the stairwell. None of the forest spirits will stop them, but the forest spirit at the front desk will let out a soft, warbly cough if they try to head upstairs before stopping at the desk first.

[callada]

Why hello there, spooky receptionist.

So these three will indeed attempt to talk with the spirit. Between general speech, Maes' Morse code translation, and Rosi pointing toward the stairs and miming looking around (plus a clumsy "friends, we come in peace" whistle), they attempt to convey that they would like to go up and have a look at the upper floors, and would like to claim a room for one night.

[inthenightmods]

Hello, tall clown man and company!

This forest spirit concierge doesn't seem to understand Morse code, but the gist of their message is easy enough to parse. The spirit nods as if Rosinante's whistle just dispensed some galaxy brain wisdom, and then they slide a large logbook across the desk. The spirit hands Rosinante an ornate, red-inked fountain pen and then gestures at the book, which appears to be a record of checked-in guests. The book is quite thick and it's open to a page near the middle; if the group flips through to check out the guest history, they'll see that all the pages up to this point have indeed been filled out by former guests, but they've all been crossed off and listed as checked out.

In any case! The page prompts Rosinante to list the name of each guest, as well as the room number they will be staying in. The concierge spirit helpfully passes over a list of rooms, as well! It provides the following information:

• The hotel has five floors of lodging (so six floors in total, including this lobby/restaurant floor for those playing along at home), with 22 available rooms in total. Seems like an awfully small amount of rooms given the size of the place, but the list says 22!


• Floors 2-5 have 5 rooms each, and they're all listed as having the same amenities as other lodging options already available in town, such as working utilities and a suite-style floorplan, suggesting these hotel rooms have been remodeled into apartments for longterm stays. Guests may also enjoy free WiFi, daily housekeeping services, a continental breakfast!


• Rooms 201-205 have 1 bedrooms, rooms 301-305 have 2 bedrooms, rooms 401-405 have 3 bedrooms, and rooms 501-505 have 4 bedrooms. All of the rooms have two bathrooms, though. Sure.


• Room service is available! You only need to call down to the front desk to place an order.


• Floor 6 has only two rooms, listed as The Penthouse Suite and The Honeymoon Suite. They have 6 bedrooms and, uh, 6 bathrooms. This hotel really digs its bathrooms, evidently. The Penthouse Suite description boasts about the BBQ grill that can hold so many pieces of charcoal, as well as shoe shine and contract killing services that can be requested at the front desk. The Honeymoon Suite, meanwhile, has Beacon's largest selection of honey, and they're proud to announce that both hot tubs are now shark-free! The description also apologizes that that bookshelves don't vibrate, but assures guests that the rest of the furniture does! Both of these suites also have access to a balloon artist (just call—you guessed it—the front desk). Many dollar signs have been doodled over the short description of The Penthouse Suite, while hearts have been doodled around The Honeymoon Suite.

All of the rooms are currently available, so the group may check into whichever they like! The hotel is also clearly structured for indefinite stays (not in a creepy way, just, like, you can live here), but checking out at any time is always an option.

Once they make their selection, the concierge forest spirit will hand them each a room key with their room number attached. From there, the concierge will direct them upstairs, which they can access via either the stairwell or the elevator.

[callada]

No wonder there are only 22 rooms, the building is more than half bathrooms, apparently.

The three discuss briefly and decide they want to check out a room, go have a look at it, then go check out the shopping area before they come back to sleep. They would like a 3-bedroom room, and sure, Rosinante will write their names in the guestbook.

After receiving the keys, they decide to take the stairs up so they can peek into hallways at least on the way up. Kuai and Rosinante head up first and enter the room they've checked out. Maes will follow, but first he would like to have a quick glance through that guestbook to read the crossed-out names on the very first page, and also to then skim through the rest and see if there are any other names he might recognize.

[inthenightmods]

Bathrooms are very important to humans and human-adjacents, the forest spirits have come to realize. The bathrooms make this hotel luxurious. A vacation destination!

The concierge spirit bows as Rosinante finishes signing in, and then turns to pluck three keys for room 403 off of the wall. Enjoy your stay, gentlemen!

Taking the stairs, Rosinante and Kuai will find that all of the hallways look about the same! There's nothing much to report there; they're just run-of-the-mill hotel hallways like one might expect to find in this style of building. It's all very ornate.

Arriving at their room, they'll realize that while the keys look vintage, there's no keyholes on the doors. Instead, there's a magnetic sensor like in a modern hotel that uses keycards. Pressing the key against the sensor will open the room marked on the key's tag, and only that room. No breaking and entering allowed!!!

The room itself is as promised. It is indeed an apartment pieced together by renovated hotel rooms, and it includes three separate bedrooms, two full bathrooms, and a large common space. The common space is open concept with a large living room area and an attached kitchen/dining area. It's furnished, too.

Beyond that, the rooms in this hotel adhere to the same "vague floorplan so you can make it up on your own" deal as the other housing areas already available in town. Does this room have an uncanny number of bunkbeds? Does the kitchen have technicolor shag carpeting? Is there a to-scale portrait of a man resembling Colonel Sanders? Maybe! Dealer's choice.

Maes may flip through the guestbook to his heart's content! It's very long, though—like, hundreds of pages long, would take hours if not days to sift through entirely, it's one hefty chonk of a book. But, hey, skimming a few pages is definitely possible. It's tough to read quickly as everything except what Rosinante just wrote in the book is scratched out, leaving some of the text illegible.

But! He'll notice two things of note: The names in the first couple dozen pages sound similar enough to suggest they're from the same culture (such as how looking through a western book of baby names might suggest North American or European origins), and later in the book, once the list of names show more variance, he'll spot the names Astoria, Diode Zipsell, Richie Tozier, Rastus, and Takashi Shirogane.

[callada]

Okay well. Since the room doesn't seem to have eldritch tentacles creeping from the corners (right now) and is about as normal as anyone expects anything to be in Beacon at this point, no need to hang around at the moment. Rosinante and Kuai will meet up with Maes who is understandably WTF??ing at some of those names, and it's all very intriguing but ain't nobody got time for a chonk like that right now. That can be for later and for some people with a lot of time on their hands. They will, however, briefly inspect the list of network connections with Kuai's guidance to see if the "free wi-fi" offered as part of room services is a separate network or if it's just the same one they already use.

But after, they'll head on over to the shopping center to take stock of what kind of shops are available! Meanwhile, along the way, Rosi is still looking for discarded things that might secretly be Computers so if there's anything like a ditched car (also wtf is a car we only know about boats and horses) or old discarded tablets from previous residents, he'd stop to check that out.

[inthenightmods]

Alas, the free WiFi is indeed just the regular old network. If any of the forest spirit employees are asked about the free WiFi, they'll respond quite excitedly, as if they're very proud to share this amenity with their guests. Free WiFi is important in hotels, they have learned! ...Even if the whole town already has free WiFi.

When the group leaves the Landmark to head towards the shopping center, they'll hear a jaunty song in the distance. It's instruments (or perhaps voices? it's too far away too tell) making the music, not a recording, and it's coming from the other end of downtown, in the opposite direction they'll have to travel to go to the shopping center. Something about the song leaves the group feeling both curious and uncomfortable.

Investigate or nah?

[callada]

Wild. They're initially conflicted, slightly - Kuai leans more curious than concerned, Rosinante is unnerved and wants to focus on their original intended mission, but Maes helps sway him - because if this thing is a dangerous thing they need to know that if people are going to live here.

So Rosi has a hand on his pistol and Maes has the hotel room in his mind in case of an emergency teleport situation, but they all decide to go investigate!

[inthenightmods]

:)

Heading down the road to investigate the music, the group will encounter...


The Parade

This lively bunch of forest spirits has assembled to form a parade chalk full of every spectacle one could imagine: floats that glow with some sort of bioluminescence, acrobats and dancers, stilt-walkers, fire-eaters (where did they get those torches...?), a marching band, forest spirits tossing candy and bead necklaces and party favors at any passing spectators... Is this Madris Gras? Carnaval? Halloween? Who can say! The spirits seem to have pulled inspiration from all walks of life.

The closer the group gets to the music, the more compelled they'll feel to find its source. Once the Parade is in view, they'll even be compelled to join the procession. Not a partier by nature? Too bad! Now sounds like a great time to start! Any concerns about safety and potentially hostile forest spirits and being a dead person in a dead world are whisked away by the majesty of the Parade, such a sight to behold, and it would be so very easy to give in and forget all their troubles forever...

These are probably fine things to feel, not worrying in the slightest!

Most importantly, though, the Parade has not yet spotted Rosinante, Kuai, and Maes. ICly, they'll all want to join in, but they can attempt to resist this impulse. OOCly, joining the Parade is very risky and carries with it a serious threat of injury or death. So, what do you say, gang? Join the Parade, or attempt to resist its influence?

Oh, and one more thing—The Parade seems to be heading down the newly discovered path connecting Downtown Beacon to the rest of the town! Yay, a new parade route!!!

[callada]

This is one bad rad party, lads. All three have experienced some serious downsides to the spirits' parties since arriving and while all that music and dancing sure looks fun, now is just not the time. Having to consciously resist isn't a great sign anyway, once they mention it to each other and realize what's happening.

Maes reaches out to Kuai and Rosinante and initially teleports them back to the hotel's front desk so they can drop off the keys. Maybe a little risky to delay, but they don't want the spirits thinking ill of them since they know the extra housing will be needed. And then it's time to try and book it back to town, hoping to beat the parade there. Kuai will periodically throw up ice walls behind them from tree trunk to tree trunk on their retreat if they can slip around the spirits and get in front of them, which surely won't stop the parade but might at least slow them down a little. A few extra seconds could save someone from having to dance for the rest of their lives!

[inthenightmods]

Aww, the Parade is very sad to have a group of party poopers on their hands. Or, they would be, if they had noticed they had spectators. It's a good thing they didn't, too! This exploration would have a much different ending. :)

The group is able to teleport back to the safety of the hotel. Smart thinking! The concierge spirit seems a little perplexed that the group wants to check out so soon, but sure! Their names are crossed out in the book, and the hotel is nothing but vacancies once again.

Whether it's the ice walls that delay the Parade's advance or some other force, once the boys are far enough ahead that the jaunty Parade music can no longer be heard wafting through the trees... They won't see it again for some time.

But! The Parade is still out there, somewhere, keeping the party going, and it's here to stay. More deets on this brand new mechanic once the location discovery post goes up! It's party time. It is never not party time. It is never not party time.

Given that downtown is a rather large core location with plenty of stuff yet to explore, we'll be doing this location reveal a little differently than we have in the past. For now, only the hotel will be opened as a public space that everyone can interact with as they choose. Which, hey, more housing! Yay! The rest of the area will need to be investigated through further explorations. We'll explain all that in the location discovery.

Good work, team, and uh, good luck with the Parade!

[callada]

Sweet, thanks! Excited to see what else people can find out there - and I'm sure these three are glad to be home intact this time. ;)