Event post: Who What Where Wendigo

[hadrielmods]

THE RUNDOWN

Hope is still pretty exhausted and he needs a little help running things. Luckily, Fear and Rage are able to step up to the plate and give him a break by providing food for the people in the city!

Except, of course, some of the food they provide is a little too close to home. This would be nightmare fuel enough, but it's taken a step further by the new secret monsters that managed to sneak their way in through the Door when nobody was looking: wendigo spirits.

Wendigo are monsters featured in the video game Until Dawn. Their spirits are relatively harmless and they won't hurt anyone... until someone resorts to cannibalism and consumes human flesh. After this happens, the spirit descends upon the person with a curse, possessing them and forcing a horrific transformation.

Characters possessed by a wendigo will find themselves transforming into a monster over a period of twelve days. During the early days, the character will retain some humanity, but slowly lose their higher thought as the transformation progresses. Their skin will turn a mottled white, their limbs will elongate, and they will be gifted with superhuman strength, speed, and resilience. By February 26th, they will be full wendigo (if they're not dead yet).

Fully-transformed monsters have little desire beyond killing. While their eyesight has faded somewhat, they are highly capable of tracking their prey by sound and movement. They can also mimic other character's voices to lure their prey into compromising positions, and they're intelligent enough to not fall easily into traps. Lastly, it's rare that they keep any semblance of the people they were before the transformation, but strong emotional connections with people may still resonate with them. Or not- it's up to you.

THE CURE

The main cure to the wendigo possession will be death, as it will be far easier for Hope to separate the souls of the wendigo from the character's body after the character is dead. However, characters who possess Hope's Blessing (Rey and Big Boss), as well as other characters with healing-focused powers, will be able to halt and potentially reverse the transformation, though they will not be able to cleanse the character of the spirit entirely.

Hope will eventually make a post on February 18th and agree to cleanse the victims of their curse and their possessing spirits, but only if the character is on the altar in his temple. As one might imagine, this would be far easier to do if the wendigo were A) more human, or B) captured and forced into place somehow. We'll leave that part up to you.

Otherwise, upon death, the spirits will be freed from the character's bodies and they will be resurrected as they were before the event started, curse-free.

THE AFTERMATH

Any wendigo not dealt with by the 1st of March will be killed by Rage as a personal favor and slight apology to Hope.

The wendigo spirits may not be possessing people anymore, but that doesn't mean that they can just disappear. Hope will force the spirits into the tunnels, as he has for the other monsters that show up, and there they'll reside, completely harmless- unless some unfortunate tunnel explorers get lost and hungry someday in the future...

Additionally, Hope will yell at Fear and Rage for messing up the food supply and then replace all the infected food. No more accidental cannibalism!

THE OVERVIEW

► February 14th: The food supply is tampered with and characters who eat infected food will be possessed by wendigo. They'll start feeling bursts of uncontrollable anger and a deep-seated hunger.
► February 18th: Hope post! The transformation is impossible to ignore at this point.
► February 22nd: Transformation is nearly complete and characters may begin hunting at this point, as hunger and rage overcomes other emotions.
► February 26th: Transformation is complete. Wendigo time!
► March 1st: All wendigos still alive will be killed by Rage.

Edit: Ami made an awesome and helpful writeup of the effects of the wendigo powers and transformation for reference here!

Comments

[foundafamily]

Firo isn't a huge fan of killing if he doesn't have to, so he's available to help any partial wendigos get to Hope's altar after the post! After the complete transformation, he's less likely to be nice, so he's up for killing and/or fighting.

This also seems like an excellent opportunity to meet some neighbors if any unaffected people would like to team up.

[hopecanruinyou]

lloyd will be unaffected and prefer not to kill the wendigos if he has the option, and he definitely wouldn't be adverse to teaming up with someone!

[foundafamily]

Perfect, I think that'd be a really fun team-up!

I'm not sure what the best way to work the fighting might be--it it would be permitted to just npc the wendigo or if we should see if there's a wendigo out there who'd like to deal with them.

[thebigredog]

not sure tbh. tho i'm sure there will be plenty of people that need to be forced to hope's alter later in the event.

[foundafamily]

Okey dokey! I'll keep my eyes open for someone who may want in.

[circumitus]

If you don't mind me pile driving your inbox some more, I'd love to see how these two fair here. Rey is going to be unaffected as well and she has a stockpile of food that isn't human meat.

[foundafamily]

I welcome this pile-driving!

Firo's going to be holding off on the god-provided food for his first weeks anyway, because nobody just gives you stuff. But accepting food from a fellow captive that he can actually size up is much better than relying on your immortality to stave off starvation! So he may take her up on her stockpile, especially when he's a few days in on his brilliant plan.