Monthly Rundown: April Edition

[hadrielmods]

It's time to gear up for endgame. We're on a new world, we've got some new plans, and at least for now the Null haven't descended from the sky to destroy us all. Buckle in, and check out how it's all gonna unfold. There's a LOT to do this month, but it's up to you how much you want to participate in!

As always, if you ever have any suggestions or feedback you'd like to offer us mods, remember you can always drop us a line here! Also, please remember to hit up the Current AC post if you have AC for the month! Characters accepted in March do not require AC proofs, but we do require a check-in on the post!

APRIL PART 1: THE SETUP

You're on a new world, with new creatures and new dangers and a whole shitload of trees and plants. Luckily, that'll all provide some decent cover for everyone, because the Null are coming. Sooner or later, they'll find you, and you picked this world so there'll be time to prepare for that final attack. That's what April is all about.

This month will have a different format than past months. Rather than a couple of events scattered throughout the month, it will have almost non-stop god events, with only a couple of days downtime between them. These are designed to give the gods the power they will need to fight the Null. All of these events will be opt-in, which means your character does not have to participate if you do not want them to. While these events are going on, the gods will also be assisting all of you with your own projects - whether that involves fighting the Null, investigating the Door, or anything else. The outcome of the final battle depends on both the power gained by the events and your actions, so get busy!

It all begins on April 3rd. This will be a Sorrow event that involves being compelled to share the secret that will make the person you're talking to the saddest. More details will be announced in an OOC post a few days from now.

This event ends on the 9th, and immediately afterwards, on April 10th, the Door brings in its final batch of newbies. And of course, another batch of monsters - in this case, Shugguraths from the video game Borderlands: The Pre-sequel.

Shugguraths are large creatures that creepily float through the sky, spitting corrosive acid at whatever they view as an enemy - so, you. Except of course for the ones that can shock you with electricity, the ones that can freeze you, the ones that can turn invisible... look, there's a few different kinds, and none of them are fun. Unless you love dying and being dead.

APRIL PART 2: MORE GOD POWER-UPS

In the interests of keeping this monthly rundown below 10,000 words, each god event in April will just get a small summary in this post. There will be more details and an extended writeup in OOC posts a few days before the beginning of each event. Remember, you don't have to participate in every event, or even in any of them! It's totally up to you.

The second event will begin on April 12th and end on April 16th. This will be a Hope event that will give every person affected a source of hope, inspiration, and perhaps leadership... in the form of someone else in the city. Haven't you always wanted someone to put up on that pedestal?

Then we'll have a Rage event from April 18th-April 22nd. This will be somewhat less murderous than recent Rage events - instead, it'll be you, seized with the urge to troll the shit out of your friends. Pranks, jokes, mean-spirited tricks, anything that will make you laugh and make them angry.

From April 24th-May 2nd we'll have a combo Tranquility and Confusion event which will have some of those involved with their emotions dialed down extremely low, and some with their emotions dialed all the way up to 11 - but who is affected by which god could switch in a moment.

APRIL PART 3: PREPARATION

This part is all up to you. While the gods are running their events, getting as much power as they can to face the Null, everything else is in your hands.

What will your characters do? Propose a sneak attack? Use some of the tech or intelligence they found on the ice planet? Train the non-fighters? Stock up on medical supplies, train nurses for the inevitable casualties? Build defenses? Build weapons? The sky's the limit, and the gods are ready to help.

Please comment under this starter with a brief description of what your character plans to do and if they need a god's help to do it. We will take your plans and get back to you with whatever information, effects, or logs might be necessary. Again, this is totally in your hands! Feel free to form groups or do things on your own, assist with many projects or focus on just one. What you all choose to do will help shape both what happens during the coming Null attack and what happens during Hadriel's endgame.

APRIL EXTRA: A POLL

One last thing for this month! To cap off these nonstop god events, we'd like to offer the chance to repeat one past event. We've done a lot over the years at Hadriel, and we have a lot of folks who have missed out on events for one reason to another. So we're going to run a couple polls to see which past event people might want to repeat. Once chosen, we'll schedule it to happen during May.

Today, you just need to vote for the god. On April 5th, we'll close the poll and tally up the votes, and later in the month we'll run another poll to decide which event to repeat. Take a look at this Google doc to get an idea of which events will be available, and which god was in charge of which event. Then go ahead and vote!

Do you want something hopeful? Something sad? Something terrifying? Or maybe something that will inspire love! Whatever god you'd like to get a repeat from, let us know below! When the god is chosen, we'll write up short descriptions of each of their events, and you can choose which one sounds like the most fun. Obviously, this is an OOC poll! Your character has no knowledge of it.

Unfortunately, Dreamwidth does not seem to want us to use their poll creator for this, so after several failed attempts we gave up - this time, the poll will be right over here!. Hopefully we'll have more luck with the follow-up poll!

TO RECAP...

► April 3rd-9th: Sorrow Event
► April 10th: Intro log!
► April 12th-16th: Hope Event
► April 18th-22nd: Rage Event
► April 24th-May 2nd: Tranquility/Confusion Event
► April 23rd-30th: Activity Check
As a final note, our schedule for the month is viewable on the calendar!

Comments

[hadrielmods]

Apologies for the lateness of this response! Law and Alphys are working on this and we've been in touch with Alphys' player on the progress of such a plot.

It would be possible to create and administer a Null virus, to infect the null with god emotions or something else altogether- however, [Name] would likely play a pivotal role in this, as from our observation thusfar it seems that not many characters interested in this plot have the required extensive coding skills to spearhead something like this on their own. [Name] will be able to help in this regard, as well as to administer the virus if brought to the Null hub- however, in doing so, it would be destroyed by the Null firewall (which, of course, would come as some sort of surprise- it could be a known risk going in but [Name] would anticipate living through it).

There is unfortunately no way to manipulate the Null to create a shield capable of repelling the god virus- since the issue comes from the composition of energy from the gods themselves, one would have to look into the gods for that and ultimately, taking the gods apart in a way that would prevent them from affecting the Null would be akin to killing them.

However, there is definitely a possibility of distracting the Null, splitting their forces, or using their communications to fight them on better terrain. [Name] is capable of using the Null frequency and codes to do so- or they can teach someone else the necessary statements. However, using the communications array to draw the Null into a trap would almost certainly lead to some sort of retaliation and likely the Null shutting down this particular array. That doesn't necessarily mean that you cannot proceed with the infection plot, however- just that you'd need to find another array on a different planet.

[circumitus]

Okay, cool! Rey has definitely been thinking of using it to split the forces or control where they fight, which she is bringing up here if any of the NPCs might have a say in it (since unfortunately, Rey wouldn't approach [Name] herself for help. She still doesn't trust the cute little 'bot, though the idea of them dying via the firewall would make even her feel pretty bad, mang).

But yeah, good stuff. I can work with this ICly, so knowing that it's a possibility is a nifty start.