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Who: Verso and Lune
Status: Closed
Where: Along the coast of Eltrut
What: Missing Namazu hunting and siren shenanigans
Warnings: Usual Expedition 33 spoilers

( then I'm going down with it. )

It's been a while since we've done a full code push rather than just hotfixes for bugs, so we are well overdue! Depending on availability, we're aiming to do one sometime soon; we'll let you know specifics once we've worked out good timing for everyone who needs to be available.

However! The reason it's been so long is we kept trying to get some of the stuff that's pending to "really finished" instead of just "mostly finished", and then we once again looked around and went "oh no, this is a really big code push with a lot of changes". Those make us nervous, because while we do a lot of testing ourselves, y'all are really creative in how you use the site and we inevitably find a bunch of edge cases when we let you loose on new code with your real-world data!

So, if folks have some spare time in the next few days, it would be a huge help if you could spend half an hour or so using the site the same way you normally do but with the "Site-Wide Canary" beta features flag turned on. Canary mode is a sort of "live testing" mode: it's your real data, but running the most up-to-date code.

Canary mode always does have a few glitches -- there may be missing text strings or errors about missing database properties, which is a limitation of how we run it. We don't need to know about those, but anything else weird that you run into, leave a comment with what you were trying to do and the error message you got.

I'll repeat that the "here be dragons" caution that's on the beta features page: some things may be broken, so don't use it for when you're doing something important. But a few more eyeballs on it before the push will help the push go more smoothly for everyone.

For folks who want to concentrate on what's changing, we haven't finished the second code tour of what's going to be in this push, but the ffirst one has a good chunk of what's going to be going live. (We'll get the second half done ASAP!)

As June is around the corner, I figure I compile information concerning the player plot I've been working towards. There are parts I'm interested in having character interactions if people would like to partake and will be noted where in the information. If there's something else you think your character would like to have themselves involved in, feel free to drop your suggestion in the comments as well! For the most part, I'm keeping key parts to small groups to ensure things are done in a timely matter, but things like, dealing with his army or your character being infected themselves can be done without my involvement.

Some things to note as to how we got to this point and why he will behave the way he does: Shadow was created with DNA from a world conqueroring alien race the Black Arms. They are a hivemind race who invade worlds to essentially drain the planet dry of it's resources. Any living organisms either become food, or assimilated into their army.

The blood has been inactive up to this point and various incidents have led to his blood "reactivating". On top of that, he has depleted his chaos emerald's positive energy, leaving it an empty husk of negative energy and it starts to take from Shadow's own chaos energy, eventually fusing itself with him. Thus leading to him craving more and more energy to satiate the chaos emerald, but he will never be able to replenish it. With his limiter rings gone, the energy level isn't being regulated and "leaks". Thus he will never fulfill the emerald's demand for energy.

This post will only cover events that will happen next month and I'll be talking about the last part in June.

Timeline:

Stage 1 and Stage 1.5: Shadow will turn into a larger creature and start hunting organisms and create his army. He will then eventually "disappear", gone into a coccoon himself to evolve into his final form. Both happen in June.

Stage 2: Happens in July. Shadow is reborn from the cocoon and becomes the queen true leader of his army. His goal now is to take everything this world has to offer and engulf it into enternal darkness. Big boss fight, preventing him from getting to a Leviathan. Shadow will "die".

Post-Event: Clean up remnants of Shadow's Army. Any part of them can latch onto others and rebuild, potentially becoming the new leader of his army. People who were possessed can still have vague feelings and have dreams/thoughts that are not theirs. Someone can potentially locate Shadow's whereabouts due to this. This will only last for one month. Shadow will be held at the Conservatory to recover. This will be in August.

CW: This plot has body horror and parasitic concepts, death, zombie-like symptoms and potentially implied cannibalism. Taking a lot of inspiration from the Alien films as well.

Stage 1

With the Black Arms blood active, chaos emerald taking control and lacking his limiter rings, Shadow will become a larger creature, taller than most humans at this form. At first, incidents are more isolated. He is selecting specific targets like farms, villages with lower population. Easy targets to gather energy from.

Abilities:
- Able to drain the life force of others through contact. Good way to track him is following trails where plant-life and organisms have been sucked dry.
- Has control over darkness. Can hide in shadows, shadow weapon extensions from his body, and create an area of darkness.
- Regeneration.
- Create spears of chaos energy to use as a weapon
- Fast and stealthy predator-type. Strikes quick and with precision.
- Control over time, aka chaos control and can slow time around him.
- Though more active at night, he is able to hunt in the daytime.
- Able to morph and transform his body to suit the situation.

I currently can thread out with up to 2 characters who would like to encounter him in this state. Just let me know and we can work something out and what you like to get out of this encounter.

He will eventually be able to create, larval creatures from himself. At this stage, they are not able to survive in daylight and will only move around at night. They will latch (CW: Body Horror) themselves onto other organisms and take control of them. If you like your character to be possesed, it's player's choice if you want your characters to be braindead or aware of what's happening. When a larva takes control, the host joins a mind network with others who have been possessed, along with hearing Shadow.

What does this mean?
- Your character will feel and hear thoughts of others who have been taken. Dreams can also be shared this way.
- They will hear Shadow commanding them to either hunt for him, or further expand his army by kidnapping others to be food for the larvas.
- Looking for 1-2 who like to dream share/fight back with Shadow and can meet the Maria that exist in his soul

Similar to face huggers in Alien, they are extremely difficult to remove from the host. They will tighten their hold on the host, or release a paralyzing mist when damaged. The paralyzing effects are only temporary, meant to keep potential hosts down long enough for other larvas to approach and possess them, or be taken to Shadow to be fed. Worse case, if enough harm is done to them, they can explode, taking a chunk of whatever body part they were attached to, and spreading the paralyzing mist.

If your character has a strong mental state, you can eventually repel Shadow and the larva's control. You'll still be left in a weaken state afterwards.

The one way to correctly remove them safely, is to force them under sunlight. They cannot survive in daylight and will simply shrival up, releasing their host. The host will be in a temporary coma. Some say getting some vitamin D keeping them under sunlight will help them regain consciousness. But people can be creative about how to solve this! Players must figure this solution out to deal with the larvas themselves. If someone wants their character to broadcast this discovery, go for it!

During the daytime, the larva will hide themselves either in homes or caves, essentially any dark spaces, taking their host with them if they have one. Now why keep them instead of just feeding them to Shadow?

There's a third thing the larvas can do, evolve. When the larva has devoured enough nutrients from it's host, it will find a secluded place and put itself and the host in a cocoon. Upon hatching, they will have properly fused with it's host. At this stage, it is not reversible until the completion of the player plot. Note that this can happen at any point during the player plot. So if you wanted your character to go through this, but not lose out on doing other things in the game, you can wait until July to have this happen to them.

Whatever traits the host had that was beneficial will be enhanced. Larger claws, teeth, more potent magic, etc etc. Some are capable of morphing parts of their bodies into whatever, claws into blades, etc etc. What they make is up to the player's imagination! These new creatures will become Shadow's army and are able to traverse in the daytime.

Samples of creatures (I do not have time to "Shadowfy" these creatures so I'm just taking from Black Arm's designs. Just to give some ideas.):
Human-based/Agile Animalfolk
Human-based 2/Brute Animalfolk
Plant-Based
Animal-Based (Sea Creature or Insect-type)
Animal-Based (Large Land creature type)
Animal-Based (Worm-like type)
Animal-Based (Flying creatures)
Fox-Based as an example of picking up traits of what the larva had possessed.

They're all resilient, but not invincible. They cannot regenerate like their master and do not take well to holy/light-based magic.

Stage 1.5

Halfway through the month, reports of Shadow's sighting will suddenly run dry. Almost as if he had completely disappeared. It will eventually be discovered where Shadow had gone, an uninhabitated island where he has buried himself beneath the earth, incased in a cocoon. Who will make this broadcast has already been accounted for. Characters can come to this island and will notice the area is in this eternal night, even when it's the middle of the day. The land is barren and there's metal scrap poking out from the dirt in various places. Going beneath the earth, there will be various tunnels with walls made of metal instead of dirt. These will be pieces from a space colony.

Characters will not be able to deal with Shadow at this time. Those who manage to get close to the cocoon, will be enveloped in darkness and will simply be spit back out, or driven mad as they get lost in the darkness.

What can be done, is rescuing the hostages his army have brought to him. They are left there in cocoons either to evolve, or become his food. Other things that can be found are husks of various individuals that have already been drained of their life force. There are also nurseries where larvas are in flesh-like eggs until ready to take a host. They can be destroyed with fire and holy magic. Part of Shadow's army will also be stationed here on the island, so it won't be an easy task to rescue everyone.



And that's should be everything for the first part! Obviously opt-outable if not interested, and I tuned this plot the best I could to allow anyone to participate in whatever parts that interest them for their own developments. If you like to have a thread with me, feel free comment and let me know what you like to do in this post! Any questions can also be posted here.

Who: Rokurou and various
Status: Closed
Where: Various
What: A giant catchall log for those who want to join Rokurou in his quest for finding a cursed sword. Going to just use this for all threads regardless of month. If interested, I have a plotting comment here!
Warnings: Probably violence with all the fights that will happen in these threads

Who: Lio Fotia and co.
Status: Closed
Where: Around
What: Just your random everyday catch-all
Warnings: None, will update as threads evolve

See comments for threads

Type: Text
Sender ID: Anonymous (Hawks)
To: Public
Subject: General advice
Warnings: None intended, will update if necessary.




Have you ever had to reinvent yourself?

I mean, have to might be a bit much, but let's say you get a chance to, and maybe there's some things you want to leave behind, and anything that could've been stopping you before, isn't.

How would you do it?

It just seems like an awkward conversation to have.

Who: Zack Fair & Vincent Valentine
Status: Closed
Where: Somewhere around the docked Seventh Heaven.
What: Zack has some questions for the resident "vampire" after he turned into a mysterious monster right in front of Zack's eyes.
Warnings: Tba.

( and suddenly to my surprise )