reddosmod: (Default)
Deer Country Mod ([personal profile] reddosmod) wrote in [community profile] deercountry2021-12-08 02:19 am

I'd go back in time and change it, but I can't

DECEMBER 2021 EVENT
Hello! We are trying a new style of event this December with archival-like entries that characters can ICly find in the Archives. This should allow characters to be able to plan against certain events that occur in-game and do research ahead of time, during the event, or after the fact.

The idea is that these prompts will provide you with all the possibilities characters could theoretically face from the prompt. We hope this leaves more open-ended opportunities for people to engage with. Anything mentioned in the excerpts could be an experience characters encounter. You can always ask for clarification on any prompt on the plotting page.

This is a way to keep all event prompts relevant since new characters would be able to "read up" on these events/excerpts by visiting the Archives or other such resources for information about past events and what they can anticipate from the setting.

We hope this new style makes sense and is fun for players to work with! They will rely on players creating more of the atmosphere than the prompts, but we think that the prompts will provide the perfect guidance as to what the atmosphere should feel like. Enjoy!

IMAGE DESCRIPTORS IN ORDER OF APPEARANCE

Prompt One
[Image One: Holiday themed antler decoration.]
[Image Two: White stag with perfect, circular antlers with bits of ice attached.]

Prompt Two
[Image One: Sculpture of white rabbit with neck caught in a snare. Non-graphic.]
[Image Two: Person in red cloak and wolf mask turning around.]

Prompt Three
[Image One: Puppet making bloody snow angel in snow.]
[Image Two: Bloodied hands wrapped in bandages clenching.]

WINTER MOURNING
WHEN: Begins in December and can last until the end of Feb.
WHERE: Everywhere
CONTENT WARNINGS: Spoilers for various canons, survival situations, forced memory share


[A passage from Rituals of Trench: Remembering Our Pasts reads the following:]

"A long-standing tradition to celebrate Bone Season is for Deerians to collect antlers and bones salvaged from natural resources and create decorative home accents. These antler-bone decors are known formally as Winter Mournings and can be found in almost every residential home throughout Deer Country. Winter Mournings can be made to look like wreaths, candle holders, or simply an antler with a bow hung up on a wall.

Winter Mournings is seen as a way to honor one's past tribulations and how one has managed to survive and overcome hardships during their life. Winter Mournings serves as a testament to survival and a willingness to keep surviving even when things look bleak and dismal.

Creating Winter Mournings is considered a blessing to the Pthumerians Dorothea, Remina, and Argonaut. You will know if the blessing was accepted once your Winter Mourning begins to glow like the moon. Touch your Winter Mourning and you will be pulled back in time to a memory of a specific time when you or someone else had to survive something physically or mentally challenging. For some, it is merely a memory that cannot hurt, but for others, you may want to proceed with caution as it has been known to pull people physically back to times of war.

One cannot choose which memory they wind up in if it is their own, a friend's, or a complete stranger's. Winter Mournings was designed to create a sense of union and empathy among residents and is meant to open your mind and heart to those who have suffered around you. It is time you explore your past, or someone else's past, with an open mind and see how the other side has lived through hard times. These memories are known to be from adolescence, adulthood, or sometimes even futures that have not yet happened or timelines you have never known. After all, Remina sees all past and all history. That means they see all of your past and history too.

No memory lasts forever though. Once the memory has been concluded, you shall be brought back to the present by the Winter Mourning Stag: a great white beast with a circle of frozen antlers. It will come to you when the time is ready, and you will return to the present like waking from a dazzling dream.

Experiencing Winter Mournings can stabilize one's mood and provide restful sleep after, even if the memories may be difficult to swallow. It truly is a tribute to honor past horrors and traumas. Some memories are painful to remember, but forgetting them will never do anyone any good either. So hang your Winter Mournings and remember what matters.

Survive another day. You are worth it."

FAQ

1. Winter Mournings can produce new memories every time you touch them or the same memory.

2. Characters cannot choose what the memory is.

3. Characters can arrive in each other's memories regardless of if they already know each other. Multiple people can experience the same memory.

4. You can either experience the memory as a memory you can't touch or experience - or you can physically be in the memory and have to survive the situation as well. If you die in memory, your body will die wherever you had been touching the Winter Mourning.

5. Palebloods are capable of altering memories or how they or others experience memories.

6. Characters can be pulled into memories at random - as long as one of the characters in the memory share is touching a Winter Mourning at first.
RUN, RABBIT, RUN
WHEN: Month of December
WHERE: Everywhere/the woods
CONTENT WARNINGS: Themes of hunting, ghosts, curses, attempts at animal violence, hunting people based on blood types.


[An excerpt from Legends of Trench: Curses and Causations reads the following:]

"One of the most notorious legends of Trench is without a doubt the tale of The Huntress and the Hare. Most Trenchies have been told this tale since they were children, but for those unfamiliar, settle in.

This story begins with a mischievous god and an ambitious huntress. The Pthumerian Dorothea loved to play tricks on hunters trying to survive the Bone Season, setting animals free from traps and remaking the traps to catch the hunters instead. One day, a darkblood Huntress was fed up with Dorothea preventing her from catching food for her family and decided to settle the score. The Huntress began to hunt for Dorothea specifically, but it is no small feat hunting the god of trickery and survival.

The Huntress started to rely on her darkblood powers to alter reality to make the perfect traps. Innocuous trees turned into glue traps that anyone would stick to until they were freed by a darkblood or death took their pain from them. Walking through bushes would snag legs and necks, effectively trapping whatever creatures were unfortunate enough to wander for food. Magical snares and beartraps lock around victims with unrelenting force, leaving people and animals to try for help until they cry no more. While this took many innocent lives in the woods, animals, and people alike, it never seemed to work on Dorothea.

Dorothea continued to outwit the Huntress until she eventually drove the Huntress insane. The Huntress died without ever catching Dorothea, but they say her vengeful spirit awakens in winter and begins to set her traps yet again. The Huntress sends her traps and her dead animals after vilebloods and warmbloods to spite Dorothea and hope to maybe catch the god's attention. But Dorothea is no passive god. Dorothea spurs vilebloods and warmbloods to defend themselves against darkbloods and coldbloods.

Infamously, this has created enormous tension between the blood types during December some years, and it is said that the blood lust has caused the types to begin hunting one another regardless of old friendships and alliances. Beware the Huntress's curse. Some believe darkbloods and coldbloods can still hear her haunting commands and cries from the Trenchwood.

They say there is no ease for the tension between the bloodtypes until December has passed, but some believe palebloods may provide relief if they are willing."

FAQ

1. Characters will increasingly feel the urge to actively hunt one another using traps/etc.

2. The Huntress's curse includes undead animals/beasts chasing after warmbloods and vilebloods and magical traps. Players can invent unique traps for their characters.

3. There will be an innate urge to chase/hide from one another.

4. The curse can be broken by paleblood intervention, character death, or a gradual wearing off by the end of the month.
LOCKJOINT
WHEN: All of Bone Season
WHERE: On Sleeper bodies
CONTENT WARNINGS: Mild body horror, blood magic curses, physical curses, cures through blood ministration/blood letting, possible skin removal, injuries, possible death via starvation/exposure.


[An passage from The Sleeper Condition; Chapter 13: Bodily Aches and More. Found exclusively at the Lumenarium:]

"Generally speaking, Sleeper blood allows Sleepers to navigate this world without the fear of illness and disease. However, no organic body is perfect, and Sleeper blood has its own set of ailments to fret over. Blood Ministers have studied the phenomena of Lockjoint for years now and believe that it is linked to the crystalization found in Sleeper death, though the exact connection remains unknown.

Lockjoint tends to begin and last throughout Bone Season. Some Sleepers may never experience it, but for many, it becomes a reoccurring issue to dread each season. This condition forces blood magic to gather at the joints and effectively lock up. Sleepers find it difficult to move their bodies at the bends, fingers, knees, shoulders, etc without some form of discomfort. Minimal lockjoint can be painful and annoyance, but critical lockjoint can be fatal.

The most severe cases of lockjoint documented have shown Sleepers to have crystalization form over their joints, rendering parts of their bodies completely immobile. Some Sleepers have been found dead in this condition, all their joints crystallized, and it is believed most died from natural causes thereafter.

One can determine they are experiencing lockjoint when the coloration around the joints begins to darken in color, typically looking like a bruise. Calcification may occur rapidly the more magic a Sleeper uses or the more they expose themselves to outside elements. It is imperative that Sleepers remain properly clothed during Bone Season, even if they are coldbloods, and to invest in enchanted clothes that can lock in heat.

A known cure for lockjoint is the art of bloodletting. Puncturing the joints with small incisions seems to allow a release of the built-up magic and can provide immediate relief to the Sleeper. Catching lockjoint early is imperative. Alternative methods are soaking in hot springs and salted water.

Those who are in a more severe state will have to carefully have the crystals removed. This will likely remove the skin as well. Local anesthesia is highly recommended for the procedure. This process is known to leave scarring. The crystals can be saved and used as bloodstones from whoever they were harvested from. If you find a Sleeper dead from lockjoint, make sure to harvest the crystals as they are incredibly valuable.

This curse is believed to stem from Sleeper blood magic congealing within the body in contrast with the atmospheric magic of Bone Season. There is no known prevention for lockjoint. Lockjoint can impact all Sleepers regardless of bloodtype or the material their bodies are made from."

FAQ

1. This impacts characters regardless of blood type or their body - meaning it can impact characters with metal/plastic/plant/wood/etc bodies.

2. Players can choose how rapid or severe this gets and how quickly they can be healed.
CODING
imaglyphwitch: (gustanamo)

[personal profile] imaglyphwitch 2021-12-28 04:32 am (UTC)(link)
Midoriya. With Luz, friends always would come first, even over comforts. She did motion for him to come indoors though, as it was pretty cold and she didn't want Midoriya catching sickness.

"Then get in here, and show me what happened, will ya?"

Now that he's indoors Luz is going to notice that he's got the bags and the tiredness working on him. She sighed, shaking her head, and was already seeming to make preparations in order.

"Ok, I'm making us tea, soup, and getting you a hot towel. While I'm doing that, you can tell me how you got all roughed up. I need the deets."
wannasmash: "Sorry, I've already made my bad life decisions." (serious down)

[personal profile] wannasmash 2021-12-29 01:06 am (UTC)(link)
cw: smells like ptsd broski /point at eyes points at deku

He sets down the pastry box and finds the nearest place to sit and slough off his shoes. They're boots he picked up a while ago for the rain, not proper snow boots. He's at least insulated his feet with multiple layers of socks. He slowly eases off his puffy jacket. Bandages poke out of the ends of both sleeves of his hoodie. He's well-mummied.

"Luz-san, I've already been to the hospital, and I've been stuck at home for days. There's no need for all that," he says gently but firmly.

He turns away to hang his jacket, thinking fervently that she doesn't need to hear the details. A trembling shade of fear passes behind his eyes as they bore intensely into the gloves he's stowing in the pocket. Then the ripples fade as quickly as they came. The dread of seeing others hurt, the one thing he can't take, is managed, for now. He goes about his day. He talks to people normally. But it burrows and plants deeper roots, waiting to tap insidiously against the cracks of his new map of scars, usually in the darkest hours of the night.

He can't ignore Luz's signs of blood corruption. Fine, he'll come right out and say it: "I brought you something because I figured I wouldn't be the only one who had a rough time last month."
imaglyphwitch: (...leave the stove on?)

[personal profile] imaglyphwitch 2021-12-29 02:26 am (UTC)(link)
Luz opened her mouth, then closed it. Really, would she have said the same thing if she'd gone through all of that? Yes, she would have. In fact, Midoriya did the smart thing of actually going to the hospital, and after everything that happened Luz couldn't bear to even do that. It reminded her too much of Deerington when she'd woken up in the asylum. Funny how bad experiences tended to change things that would have been naturally sensible to do as something you avoided.

"All right, if you say so. It's not like I know any healers anyway. I'm really sorry that you got hurt though. I...had a little bit of a run in with some stuff recently too."

He wasn't the only one who didn't exactly want to revel in the details. Similarly, she had seen people suffering too, but the degree to which that had happened, the details and the sights she'd been subjected to, it was no wonder she'd had corruption settling in.

Luz looked up. "What's that?"
wannasmash: "My personal life is FUBAR." (worried tired explain)

[personal profile] wannasmash 2021-12-31 02:47 am (UTC)(link)
He had to seek out the Blood Ministers. He'd have bled out otherwise, and he doesn't have a healer in his party. It helped that Todoroki visited him there. Midoriya takes a small breath, barely audible, and lets it out slowly. Just as he suspected, Luz's corruption is due to what happened last month, but it still hurts to hear. He's not sure if he can smile to reassure her that everything will be OK, but he can be strong for a friend. He doesn't want to scare or burden Luz with what he went through, but he wants to be there for her if she wants to talk.

"I wasn't sure what you liked, so I got a bit of everything at Lysithea's..."

He hangs up his scarf and shyly opens the pastry box. It is indeed crammed with a smorgasbord of pastries neatly wrapped, boxed, or cushioned by a conscientious (and very patient) employee. The only thing Midoriya knew he wanted to include for sure was weeping wafers.

He fixes Luz with a prolonged, direct look, and he allows his eyes to open up with concern. It's a double-edged sword, putting himself out there like this, but he'd regret it if he didn't say anything to a hurting friend. He learned that lesson the hard way. He tries very hard, but he can't keep a slight tremor from his otherwise low voice.

"You helped me before, that time during the Black Parade. So... if you want to talk... I can listen."
imaglyphwitch: (the hell is that?)

[personal profile] imaglyphwitch 2021-12-31 02:22 pm (UTC)(link)
"Oh, I like most of her stuff. I should know: I work at her shop part time! She and I go back to Deerington actually, although the shop is totally new thing for her."

Luz could be spurred to talk about what happened, but it definitely helped to have the right kind of circumstances. Considering what they were talking about though, Luz went for a weeping wafer first and immediately felt a bit calmer. Because they were by the house, she hopped in for a moment, then came back with a mug of hot chocolate for the both of them.

Luz took a drink, not saying anything for a while. Finally, she turned to Midoriya.

"It was honestly, the first time, pretty frightening. I've been held hostage before, you'd see it in one of my memories, but having it happen in Deerington and then here were much worse. Being a ransom is bad, but having one experience revolve around people planning to eat you is totally different. The farm was...well, you know. I'm sure you smelled and saw quite a lot."
wannasmash: "You're not OK." (worried shook)

[personal profile] wannasmash 2022-01-04 07:40 am (UTC)(link)
cw: mention of kidnapping and how it feels

"I didn't know... So it looks like I got you food from work..." he says apologetically.

He eases himself into a chair and patiently waits for Luz to speak, allowing the silence to exist in the warm steam of the hot chocolate and the lessening of the ache in his knees now that he's sitting. His fingers twitch where he curls them loosely in his lap. He can't figure out why his jaw feels weird until he realizes he's clenching his teeth.

"I'm sorry I wasn't--"

Does he think he can save everyone by being there and rushing into everything? He can just hear Sir Nighteye admonishing him: That's arrogant thinking. Midoriya was right to carefully manage his blood corruption so he wouldn't be a liability. He did save people. It's just that... Luz wasn't one of them.

"Being held hostage... can make you feel like you've lost all control... that you're weak. You're not. I know you're not. And it's not your fault, either. Sometimes strong people think it is, because they can do some things others can't. Or maybe it's because someone told them so. That's not true either. I know--"

He stops. It's not his story to tell.
imaglyphwitch: (Lost the game)

[personal profile] imaglyphwitch 2022-01-04 06:23 pm (UTC)(link)
"Look, you definitely don't have to worry about that. I like where I work! The person who's the boss of that place, we go back to Deerington. It's honestly surprising to see her how she is now: she was only slightly older than me before, but she's a little more now."

That was its own can of worms though, so Luz will leave that be. The fact remained that "work" didn't really feel like that to her.

"Don't be. You're not a pale blood, Midoriya-kun. You technically can't influence the memory, and honestly? You shouldn't. I needed to learn a lesson that night: how to lose something I cared about, and know how strong I needed to be in order to get it back. It's a shame you didn't see me when I went to get her back! I was honestly pretty impressive!"

Luz took a drink of her chocolate a moment. "It means they got the drop on you first. That part stinks, but it can happen to the best of us. It depends on what's in your favor at the time. Honestly, that's one of the lessons I had to learn. But it's not that simple either. There are times where I wish I was stronger, of course there are. If there's one thing I hate, its seeing my friends suffer and not being able to do anything about it."
wannasmash: "Thanks, but..." (tired hiding)

[personal profile] wannasmash 2022-01-21 06:10 am (UTC)(link)
Luz had seemed broken down in the memory, and Midoriya hadn't known whether or not a rescue had been attempted. Midoriya quirks a brief smile. It's not really a true one. Just an upturn of one side of his mouth is what he can manage, to show her that he's glad to see Luz is talking about learning from the experience instead of trying to shove it down (and failing to).

He presses his lips together and looks down. Her feelings are so similar to his own that he feels seen without wanting to be at all. He and Luz share the same hate, the same fear. In the Sleeper Farm, he saw people hurt, including people he knew. He was already someone who jumped in to save people. The Zealot cultists stood in direct opposition to who he was at his core. They made his friends bleed, and Midoriya wasn't powerful enough to prevent that.

His eyes are dry, dark, and hollow.

"Me too. I hate it too. I don't... I don't want it to happen again. It's not that easy to smile afterward, isn't it, like everything's alright." Some people can. Everyone's different. But he could only lie with his smile. "But... helping each other, it's like we can pick each other up. It's strong. You're strong."

He remembers he has hot chocolate and takes a sip. It does more than just warm him.

"Is that what happened last month too?" he asks gently.
imaglyphwitch: (Fakesmile)

[personal profile] imaglyphwitch 2022-01-21 06:27 am (UTC)(link)
That smile was a familiar one to Luz. How could it not be? She'd had to wear that smile when people were telling her not to take on so much, when they thought she was just trying to be older than she was. She'd even been told enough that they didn't want to see Luz break, that she should still strive to stay a kid. In theory, Luz really wished she could do things that way, that she could let the older people handle how bad some of this got.

But Luz had lived in Deerington and knew that was an illusion. Between some of the kids who's lives were impacted severely back home to how they were struggling to deal with the horrors of Deerington, Luz learned that maturity come from the things that happened to you, not just from age. When a lot of things happened, you had to use everything that you had, and hopefully, that would be enough.

Luz was not the carefree girl she was before Deerington, and that was in part why she chose to live in Trench to begin with.

"No, it's not easy to smile. People think it is, but those smiles take work, and they have to be backed up by, well, intention. You have to want to let that person know you can be strong, and that you can give them some of your own strength with the smile."

She took another drink of her cocoa. "That depends on what you're asking about last month. Lots of stuff happened."
wannasmash: "Sorry, I've already made my bad life decisions." (serious down)

[personal profile] wannasmash 2022-02-02 08:17 am (UTC)(link)
Midoriya can count himself among those who can still return sound after a bad event. After his first work-study was so abruptly cut short, helping someone else smile was healing for him as well. Being happy for someone else and working hard to achieve that helped him cope too. He hadn't expected that. He simply wanted to help.

He curls his fingers a little tighter around his cup and frowns into the warm drink. He can't even bring himself to look stricken at having to specify which among a list of terrible things. Of course, of course a lot happened. Why wouldn't it?

"One thing at a time, I guess. The thing we both can't stand: That feeling of not being able to protect people right in front of us."
imaglyphwitch: (earnest intentions)

[personal profile] imaglyphwitch 2022-02-02 12:04 pm (UTC)(link)
Luz had to go and take things slowly depending on what exactly happened. If it happened to someone else, she'd do her best to try and make things better within her power, based on the things that person liked or what they needed. For her own peril and traumas, she usually needed a little bit of time for reflection and trying to rebuild herself up. While she was aware this is not necessarily a winning combination, there are also no psychiatrists in Deerington or Trench, so she tried to go with what made the most sense.

Luz, meanwhile, gets a few more marshmallows for her hot chocolate before sitting back down and talking again.

"I can relate to that. It's especially frustrating if they're hurting in a way you can't fix. Emotional pain, or things that happened to them that you just can't fix. The best you can do is try to talk through their troubles and see if there's anything you can possibly do to help."