reddosmod: (Default)
Deer Country Mod ([personal profile] reddosmod) wrote in [community profile] deercountry2021-11-08 02:50 pm

No tears, please. It's a waste of good suffering.

NOVEMBER 2021 EVENT
IMAGE DESCRIPTORS IN ORDER OF APPEARANCE

Prompt One
[Image One: Red mushrooms with white spots growing rapidly.]
[Image Two: Mushrooms on log with morning mist. ] Within Prompt: Orange mushrooms walking on small, greenfeet. Jellyfish-like mushroom with mini-mushrooms growing on top. Vine-like mushrooms with clear heads. Blue mushrooms.

Prompt Two
[Image One: Corpse pinned to chainlink fence with man standing in front.]
[Image Two: Limbless, headless, semi-naked bloody bodies wiggling in walls.]

Prompt Three
[Image One: Disfigured humanoid with skin stretched over eyes and chattering, exposed teeth.]
[Image Two: Large organ-like structure pulsating with a human head attached on top via metal contraption.]

MUSHABOOMING
WHEN: Month of November
WHERE: Everywhere
CONTENT WARNINGS: Poisonous mushrooms that induce paralysis and suffocation and violent hallucinations.


Come November, Trench is flourishing with a wide variety of mushrooms. Mushrooms can be found growing in the woods, around your house, and maybe even on your house if you're especially lucky...Or unlucky, depending on the type of mushroom.

The mushroom is considered to be arguably the most important food source in Trench. It's the easiest to find and grow, and one of the easiest to harvest. It's a dependable source of protein and can fill people up. They are filled with vitamins that directly help your blood and heart health and can help keep your digestive system on track. But not everyone is a mushroom farmer and most Trenchies wind up foraging for their own mushrooms. Woven baskets are sold just about everywhere to help forage. Omens are extremely good at scenting out edible mushrooms.

The following edible mushrooms can be found/grown throughout Trench: button, portobello, cremini, oyster, chanterelle, porcini, black trumpets, morels, enoki, shimeji, shiitake, and giant puffballs. If you are extremely lucky, you might even find rare truffles. Truffles can be exchanged for highly valuable goods such as magnificent jewels and specialized weapons. Or you can keep the truffles to yourself and use them in a nice dish.

It is said there are hundreds of unique species of mushrooms to Trench. The following mushrooms are permanent features in Trench and can be found most commonly during Bone Season:

WALKING TERRORS

These parasitic mushrooms seem to "walk" around the forest floor. Arcane scholars have determined that their motion is actually just a natural response to stimuli in the environment and helps the fungi to spread its spores onto living hosts. Once you have been exposed to a cloud of these spores, you will immediately begin to hallucinate the world around you warping into a terrifying hellscape. Some say that Walking Terrors have driven people to beasthood in a matter of minutes. But there is a huge benefit to finding Walking Terrors: their caps, once dried and crushed down, are an ample treatment option for corruption. The tricky part is actually getting them. Covering your entire body, head to toe, completely is one way of avoiding the spores and probably the easiest way. Does anyone have a hazmat suit? Another option is knowing a darkblood or someone with similar abilities who can manipulate the direction of the spores in the air by pushing them away. Once the caps have been removed from the rest of the mushroom, the spores seem to lose their nightmarish quality and, at most, will just make you sneeze.


FLOATERS

These mushrooms come out exclusively at night and float lazily through the air. They bob and bump around, their tentacles searching for something to cling to and settle on. They mostly search for tree branches but have been known to accidentally cling to animals and people. The tentacles paralyze any sentient being it lands on. The good thing is that the cap and the little mushrooms on top are completely harmless to touch so if you have a buddy around, they can pull them off with no problem. You'll regain the ability to move your body a few seconds after the tentacles have been removed. The paralytic quality of these tentacles do not impact vilebloods. These mushrooms dried out and cooked are said to amplify electric abilities in coldbloods for a short moment of time. They can also be used to enchant an item with paralytic properties.


WEEPERS

These rare mushrooms can pop up just about anywhere. Only one grows every hundred feet or so and they don't get any bigger than a penny. Weepers are highly sought after since they have been known to greatly reduce corruption. Consuming a Weeper raw will immediately calm someone down, get rid of any current anxiety, wash away depression and paranoia, and clear the mind of hallucinations. Weepers can sharpen the mind and help increase focus. The effect lasts for days and sometimes even weeks. It isn't a permanent cure but it sure beats having a panic attack. Weepers can be collected and saved indefinitely. There are no other uses for them than mental relief, and they must be consumed raw. Cooking a Weeper will get rid of its healing properties - but it does add great flavor to a dish! If a mentally stable person eats them, there will be no effect.


BLUE CHEEKS

These radiant mushrooms grow in clusters on healthy trees and seem to thrive among vegetation. You might find Blue Cheeks in your own garden. They are certainly pretty, but you don't want to eat these. They will cause you to slowly suffocate - even if you don't typically need to "breathe" in the traditional way. It's an agonizing way to go. Your body will start to experience micro-seizures as it locks up, your throat slowly closing up, lungs squeezing inward. It will begin to feel like someone is sitting on your chest and there will be no relief. Your cheeks start to turn blue. Most who eat Blue Cheeks wind up dead, but if someone forcibly makes you vomit shortly after consuming a Blue Cheek, you may be able to survive. Some harvest Blue Cheeks and smash them up to coat their weapons in the jelly-like substance. This substance causes the same effect but must be used while the Blue Cheek jam is still wet. It will stay wet for an hour.

THE SLEEPER FARM
WHEN: Month of November
WHERE: Everywhere + The Sleeper Farm
CONTENT WARNINGS: Kidnapping, claustrophobia, harvesting blood/organs, imprisonment, temporary nerf of powers, blood sacrifice, brief amnesia, confusion, loss of time, breathing in blood, treatment of humanoids(?) like livestock, themes of meat markets, themes of torture, mutilated corpses, mutilating injuries.


The blood pollution is thick this month and the more a Sleeper is exposed, the more a Sleeper will find themselves falling into a strange stupor. You seem to forget what you were doing, where you are, what time it is. You will find it increasingly difficult to use your blood powers. Some may lose their new abilities entirely. It's like trying to wake up from a deep dream, everything's sluggish and hazy.

Then you blink. That's all. Maybe you went to sleep or wash your face. When you open your eyes again, you're somewhere else entirely and have no recollection of how you got there. Your body has a deep ache, you're filthy, hungry, and feel like it's somehow been days. You have nothing on you except a drab red jumpsuit. No shoes. No Omni. No weapons.

THE STALLS: 1st FLOOR


If you're lucky, you wake up in a stall with another Sleeper (or more). You can hear and feel the dull vibration of heavy machinery chugging around you; you can smell oil and something thick and musty fermenting.

You are in some way restrained upon waking, whether through shackles to the wall, one another, or some other means. Whatever put you here doesn't want you to escape. You can barely access your powers (for now), but maybe you can find help in nearby Sleepers.

Once you escape, you almost wish you had stayed in your stall. The stalls are the only thing that's farmlike about the Sleeper Farm. It's an architectural masterpiece of steel pistons gyrating, metal staircases heading in every direction, steam-powered doors that exhale open upon an approach. Oil drips continually from above, like filthy rainfall, but every now and then, so does blood of all kind. Never enough to detect the source immediately though.

Your only real option left is to...explore. And this metal palace is huge. You will find various tools for construction around: wrenches, hammers, saws, nails, anything you'd find at a hardware store. You could come across workboots, protective gloves, helmets with lights. The metal around you is boiling hot, and if you're not careful, getting burns is all too easy. You can hear something banging around above. You may even see movement through metal slots of humanoids rushing away. Then you start to find the source of the blood...

STORAGE: 2-9th Floors


Sleepers have been strung up in various locations. Maybe they are ones you recognize, maybe they are you (if you're unlucky enough to wake up like that), or maybe they are completely foreign to you, maimed beyond recognition. Many have been pinned up and mutilated in some way, whether fully skinned and bled dry, or body parts removed, skin carved into. Some have buckets beneath them to collect blood while others seem to have been decoratively destroyed. There is no saving some, but there is saving many. Some might have only just been strung up, still alive, still fully intact, and without any harm done just yet...But no matter what, most won't remember how they got there.

The further you go, the more bodies you come across. Some bodies have been rolled up into bags and tossed into empty rooms in piles. The floor is slick with blood, and the metal maze becomes increasingly complex with tighter turns and thicker blood pollution. It becomes difficult to breathe without ingesting in some kind of blood - but on the other hand...Your powers begin to work because of it. You can start to feel it coming back to you. You can feel yourself slowly start to regain your strength. Which is probably for the best, since you're not out of this hell just yet.

BLOOD HARVEST: 10th Floor


You enter a perfect, circular room built out of pure bloodstone from the different blood types, neatly flushed together in a mesmerizing display of artistry and architecture. At the center of a room is an enormous golden statue of The Tower, hands held out with palms open.

Filling the palms of the statue and surrounding the base of the Tower are hundreds of organs, perfectly intact, given to the statue in sacrifice. The miraculous thing, however, is the fact that most of the organs still seem to be functioning - or at the very least, they aren't rotting the way they should be. It isn't something one wishes to look at for too long.

More importantly, are the five doors that represent the five different blood types. Each door is made from the same gray wood, but with a single bloodstone in the center. Beyond the door is where you come to discover the true horror of where you are.

You're in a Sleeper Farm. Sleepers have been organized by blood types into a vast room. Some cannot be saved, opened up on tables, their organs already carved out and given over to the sacrifice. Others are still alive, but hooked up to tubes, their blood being pumped into vats kept in the ceiling. More disturbingly are the bodies of Sleepers that barely look like Sleepers at all anymore - they have been stripped so thoroughly of everything, left like hunks of meat on hooks. There are fires stoked towards the back, with shelves of jars with blood vials and bloodstones.

It's probably time to wonder who did this to you. Who brought you to this place?

And probably how the hell you get out.

QUICK FACTS

1. To avoid this prompt, you can simply handwave your character getting lucky or Wearing a gas mask and full facial/bodily coverage to help keep the likelihood of blood pollution impact lower.

2. If characters don't have eyes, any variation of vulnerability will count (ie; turning away from something, putting on headphones, etc).

3. Characters cannot have their Omni or any other item in this prompt except items they find along the way. They can still summon their Omens. Omens can help guide Sleepers, and provide communication. One can use Omens to transmit messages to the Network. However, characters cannot find their way to this location from outside. This is a by-chance location.

4. You can choose your character's level of restraint (muzzles/handcuffs/etc) and how easily they can escape them (maybe the shackles can be broken apart with enough strength or you need a nearby key).

5. Those whose Patron is the Tower will be able to more easily navigate the Sleeper Farm and figure out its continually moving parts. They may get a "telepathic" swaying by the Tower to go in the right direction. They will also instinctively know that they are inside the Tower's body in some way.

6. Characters can wake up in any part of the Tower and experience this prompt multiple times.

7. To get out, one must sacrifice some sort of blood or an organ directly to the Tower whether their own or someone else's. This will transport a Sleeper back into town in a random location. Alternatively: Moon Presence will be saving Sleepers by "pulling" them out of this place at random. It will feel a lot like traveling through the lamps, but Sleepers will realize it's the Moon Presence instead. She will place them back in their homes. This can be done at any time.

8. This prompt is meant to go hand-in-hand with the third prompt, but it is not required to engage with both.

BLOOD CRAZED ZEALOTS
WHEN: Month of November
WHERE: ???? Everywhere and the Sleeper Farm
CONTENT WARNINGS: Severe disorientation, psychological horror, paradoxical horror, feelings of being trapped/lost, Cenobites/beings with extreme bodily modifications, themes of mental and physical torture.


You are not alone in the Sleeper Farm, and someone powerful has brought you here. It wasn't the Tower though. It was someone obsessed with the Tower. Or...obsessed with blood.

They lurk throughout Trench, never letting themselves be known until they want to be known. They abduct Sleepers in the blink of an eye, masters of reality-bending and experts of blood abilities.

Meet the Blood-Crazed Zealots.

Or, as you will come to learn through various interactions, ancient Sleepers who have been exposed to blood pollution for far too long and who have been completely corrupt by it. These are masters of their blood magic, darkblood magicians who can snap their fingers and rip a Sleeper off the streets. Palebloods who can make you forget who you are, where you are. Vilebloods who have mastered the exact skill of extracting blood and harvesting it for bloodstones and sacrifices. Warmbloods who have gladly given their bodies up to power the Tower. Coldbloods who keep the metal machinery of the Sleeper Farm running perfectly.

These are the Sleepers who learned to survive in a different way, Sleepers who learned to cohesively blend their skills together to not only survive but excel. Most have completely disfigured themselves, claiming it to be an act of religious commitment to the "Patron Pthumerians that guide us."

The Blood Crazed Zealots believe that they must continually sacrifice Sleepers to the Tower primarily in order to keep the city of Trench strong against corruption. And the thing is...They technically aren't wrong. The Bone Season is when Trench becomes the weakest, so the Blood Crazed Zealots work overtime to get the blood pumping into the streets.

These beings are naturally sadistic, uninterested in compassion. Yet they show the potential for what Sleepers could learn, and if you're clever enough, you may even be able to get a Blood Crazed Zealot to pause and teach you a thing about your own blood type. They are ruthless and powerful, but far from irrational or stupid. Corrupt they may be, senseless they are not.

Some of you may wake up to one of these creatures torturing you or torturing a friend. You may catch them in the streets of Trench, turning a corner, and that may be your chance to follow them into the Sleeper Farm by stepping into the black holes they leave in their wake when teleporting.

The Blood Crazed Zealots can summon hooks from nowhere and snare you in their traps. They can get extremely creative and oftentimes will enjoy dragging out the agony. They know how to drain Sleepers of their blood and their powers...So how is one to even combat one of these?

Use their own game against them, of course. Blood is power and you might as well use yours. Blood Crazed Zealots are tied to their word and obey the law of the blood. If you create a blood oath with one of these Blood Crazed Zealots that's just clever enough, you may be able to protect yourself and a few others. But be careful. Blood oaths with Blood Crazed Zealots can have loopholes. Ask to be set free and they might let your body go, but keep your mind to drive you insane.

Despite their power, they are still limited in what they can do. They can't be everywhere at once, and one can hide from them. They can even be killed if a Sleeper properly regains their strength.

QUICK FACTS

1. You can create your own variation of a Blood Crazed Zealot. Their general concept is inspired by cenobites, but the general concept is a humanoid-being who looks like they have sacrificed a good deal of their body.

2. They will communicate this information openly to Sleepers who ask about it as well as tell Sleepers about other lore and facts about blood types/the Pthumerians.

3. Their powers are based on regular blood type powers (ie; a coldblood BCZ could torture people with electricity.) Some are much weaker than others.

4. They would not accept a new Sleeper who wanted to become "one of them" since they are created after decades of exposure to blood pollution.

5. People can run into these both in the Sleeper Farm and in Trench. One could convince a Blood Crazed Zealot to bring them to the Sleeper Farm in order to save others.
CODING
onerthes: (05)

Gathering!

[personal profile] onerthes 2021-11-10 10:27 pm (UTC)(link)
"Expert? Oh my no. I've been reading up, but I'm still really working on the whole mastery of fungi. It uh... seems a bit more important right now, doesn't it?" she said as she came up towards him. There was a very good chance she was actually in this part of the community to see him, given her distaste for Cassandra as a district.

There was also a possibility she was just lost. "Wei Wuxian, how are you? Having a little trouble with them?"
chenqing_player: (Sincere)

[personal profile] chenqing_player 2021-11-11 01:00 am (UTC)(link)
He smiles and sets his basket down so he can dust off his hands. Dirty from pulling the mushrooms from the ground and everywhere else the little spores seem to be attaching.

"I'm just collecting them at the moment and I thought I'd try to figure out what was safe later. There doesn't seem to be any shortage of mushrooms at the moment."

He is glad to see a familiar face even if she did just wander up aimlessly, "I've been good enough. This kind of work keeps me distracted." And that keeps the loneliness at bay. "How have you been?"
onerthes: (04)

[personal profile] onerthes 2021-11-14 03:05 am (UTC)(link)
"I'd begun doing as the natives recommended myself. There are planters. Wads of sawdust and wood chips that are carefully secured. Mushrooms are planted in them and they grow in a controlled way. So I've had a few planters of oysters and the like around, but this? This is quite a bit ... more than I was used to seeing in town." She shook her head, frowning and then laughing.

"It's quite the task, is it not? But they seem to think these are a good replacement for meat, even if you need quite a bit to make up for it." Still, she didn't mind that much. "And a distraction now and again is not a bad thing for us, I think."
chenqing_player: (Default)

[personal profile] chenqing_player 2021-11-14 03:50 am (UTC)(link)
He wrinkles his nose a little at the thought of a diet consisting of nothing but mushrooms. He never was one for the Lan diet of salad and no taste. He liked his foods to have some spice to them and he wonders if he can make mushrooms into a spicier dish.

"I think more of an accent to meat would be good. But if it becomes a shortage I think I'd rather starve then eat nothing much mushroom. Guess I better plan ahead just in case."

Because winter is coming and since they don't know what it is going to be like in this place it is better to be safe then sorry. "I want to research all of the different ways I can use these. Certains ones might be good for medicinal purposes if crushed up and prepared the right way."
onerthes: (Commission: Pls Ask first) (16)

[personal profile] onerthes 2021-11-17 04:23 am (UTC)(link)
At the very least, mushrooms could be spiced up properly, but making that the primary if not only protein both was a little repetitive, and also problematic just because of the bulk involved. Even the best mushrooms didn't have as much as meats. Still, he could definitely get the spice he liked.

"A little planning wouldn't hurt. It seems that the meat is a bit untrustworthy, which doesn't actually surprise me. Given the whole matter of blood corruption, they likely have to be careful even of the fish." And she had seen those fishermen. Dire folk...

"Have you encountered any particularly useful specimens yet?"
chenqing_player: (Sincere)

[personal profile] chenqing_player 2021-11-17 09:43 pm (UTC)(link)
"Still mostly in the testing phase right now. I want to make sure I have tested quite a few of them to make sure there isn't any nasty side effects." The last thing he wants to do is use something as a remedy only for it to turn around and be worse then whatever it was helping to cure.

"You have any tips on any of them? The more information I have, the better off the experiments will go."

Even if something seems insignificant it can mean a lot when it comes to figuring out how to use them.
onerthes: (Default)

[personal profile] onerthes 2021-11-22 04:18 am (UTC)(link)
"I have. If you happen to see any waddling around, be leery of them. Their caps are valuable as a medicine, but those spores they release have a really nasty, hallucinatory kick." She shook her head. She'd seen the impact on a few people already, and it was something to be avoided.

"As for the oyster mushrooms I've been growing at home? They go very good in a strong broth and stock."
chenqing_player: (oh i see!)

[personal profile] chenqing_player 2021-11-22 10:31 pm (UTC)(link)
He nods as he listens. This is all good to know. If a mushroom is safe for food then it will also be safe in medication but might not have any useful healing attributes. But he can store those for meals. The other mushroom definitely has potential for medications. He just needs to make sure to keep them straight because it would not be good to put the hallucination mushroom in a soup.

"So if the spores could be harvested they could also be used as a weapon in some ways."

Because medicines and food are great, but ways to defend oneself is also important.
onerthes: (05)

[personal profile] onerthes 2021-11-25 10:20 pm (UTC)(link)
"I haven't attempted to use them as a weapon exactly. We'd have to see if the spores can be stored as a grenade of sorts," she said, frowning and tapping her lips. "And considering that it caused hallucinations, that one might be a bit of a double-edged sword. If you could weaponize the floating ones maybe. I saw a few of those, and they seemed quite good at paralyzing creatures, even if they were essentially harmless."
chenqing_player: (oh i see!)

[personal profile] chenqing_player 2021-11-27 04:26 pm (UTC)(link)
"It's something worth experimenting with. If this one ends up being anything like the last one then having ways to defend ourselves could come in handy." And Wei Wuxian isn't afraid of trying to come up with new and possibly controversial means of doing things.

"My blood type is supposed to be good with controlling things from afar so I'm the best one to try and figure this out."
onerthes: (11)

[personal profile] onerthes 2021-11-29 07:54 pm (UTC)(link)
"Well, if you want to take the risk, poison is definitely an edge. One never knows what poisons actually work on such things, after all." She was all in favor of the less orthodox methods herself. She just wasn't great with poisons really.

"Hmmm, you're darkblooded, aren't you? The powdery, glittering blood."
chenqing_player: (Default)

[personal profile] chenqing_player 2021-12-02 04:39 pm (UTC)(link)
"I am. Still getting used to all of it but if I can figure out the abilities it gives me then it could come in handy. I don't have a choice but to deal with it, so best to take advantage of it."

It's not quite the same as having a golden core but it is still an internal force that gives him an extra ability. All he needs to do is figure out how to harness and and use it. Unfortunately his attempts so far haven't gone well but this kind of stuff takes time.
onerthes: (Default)

[personal profile] onerthes 2021-12-04 05:50 pm (UTC)(link)
"We have little option, but yes. With the right kind of preparations we can learn what they do, and the limits. Just be careful, in case there are side effects." The way she said 'if' sounded a bit more like when. She just assumed at this point.

"At leaast, though, they seem somewhat stable, though the phases of the moon seem to alter this on a monthly basis."
chenqing_player: (Default)

[personal profile] chenqing_player 2021-12-07 02:08 am (UTC)(link)
"I've noticed that as well. This place has a lot of little quirks that keep popping up." Which doesn't make him feel very confident. He doesn't like how things are ever changing. He is worried hat eventually these changes are going to reveal something bigger. He tries to stay optimistic but the last world dampened some of this spirit.
onerthes: (02)

[personal profile] onerthes 2021-12-07 09:29 pm (UTC)(link)
"At least it is more obviously cyclical now, and very much tied to the moon phases. It helps us to get a sense for the pace of how everything will move, if not yet what will happen." Having the clear pace would help them time when they needed to investigate, when they needed to be ready for novel problems, and if they could get through a year? Maybe they'd have a pattern.
chenqing_player: (oh i see!)

[personal profile] chenqing_player 2021-12-08 01:53 am (UTC)(link)
"And the more information we know the better." He nods in agreement. He has always been a proponent for knowing as much as he can about something. Solving mysteries is just something that he has doe a lot of in his lifetime. And there is no bigger mystery then this new world.
onerthes: (Default)

[personal profile] onerthes 2021-12-09 07:37 pm (UTC)(link)
"The process of recording will be important. I'm not entirely sure how sturdy what they have for recording is here, but in the dream we were constantly dealing with lost information of one form or another." She might need to work on that. Her old trick didn't work anymore.
chenqing_player: (Default)

[personal profile] chenqing_player 2021-12-10 04:26 am (UTC)(link)
"I used to write a lot of things down. It was good to document everything we could since memories could be altered." And it is something he got used to doing at home. Of course those notes eventually got used like teaching manuals for those that wanted to play with dark cultivation...

"And if we document it and get sent away, the information can still be left for anyone who comes after all."
onerthes: (Default)

[personal profile] onerthes 2021-12-11 02:27 am (UTC)(link)
"Precisely. And the academy is here, so we can go to Gaze to leave it behind for others beyond our time." She certainly felt it was worth doing. But, given her current state of relative powerlessness, trapped with only the ability to see the future and visions, she wasn't entirely sure about how to do that yet. Other than paper, and that could be so flimsy.

"Still, it's something to work towards."