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.]

[NAVIGATION]

Prompt 1 β€’ Prompt 2 β€’ Prompt 3 β€’ Plotting β€’ Newsletter

[JUMP TO COMMENTS]
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: (whoa)

[personal profile] imaglyphwitch 2022-01-18 08:16 pm (UTC)(link)
There's a lot she was sure that each of them had gone through, and Luz was not at all unaffected by what was happening to Rose. All she had to do was imagine that her own mother knew what was happening with her and she could be sympathetic. What was more, there had to be a sadness in not having your kid here when all of this craziness seemed to happen to Rose in the first place.

And if Luz were perfectly honest with herself? She was missing a mother figure anyway. Eda wasn't perfect but she had been like a mother to Luz, so losing her had been pretty rough on her, and she hadn't really recovered since. So she leaned into the hug, crying only a little, because it was hard to be just tough in this kind of a situation.

"Don't apologize. You've dealt with a lot, and you still tried to help me. I'm really grateful for that."

Oh. Oh wait, there was more?

Luz held Rose's hand, because even though she had an idea of what was about to go down (Luz had seen horror movies, and pretty much seen some pretty visceral memories) she was also pretty aware this was going to test her threshold a bit
rosae: ( 𝑬𝑫𝑰𝑻𝑬𝑫 𝑩𝒀 𝑹𝑢𝑺𝑨𝑬 ) (Default)

cw: forced possession, themes of motherhood / pregnancy metaphor

[personal profile] rosae 2022-01-22 03:44 am (UTC)(link)
It's incredibly difficult to watch. Seeing it from an outsider's perspective almost makes her sick, the way the smaller body forces its way into hers, sinking right in. It had been painful, she remembers that. It wasn't an easy process. It was... unnatural.

And yet, paradoxically, there was something.... right about it, too. According to Dark Alessa, Rose was meant to fulfill this role. Because she was the one who chose Sharon nine years ago. She was The Mother, and though she never literally carried the baby within her body, now she would carry a form of her inside. She would protect the demon inside of her own body, keep it safe and take it into the Church.

And then she would release it, and let it have its revenge.

So Rose doesn't look away as the scene plays out, eyes locked right on her memory doppelgΓ€nger as she stands there, twitching and gasping, after the demon enters her. And then the memory seems to end, the rust-stained, nightmarish hospital room fading into a quiet silence.

"...I helped her.... get revenge on those people. The ones who hurt Alessa."

It was another nightmare, one filled with unspeakable blood and carnage. Rose's voice shakes as she tells this to Luz, but it isn't with shame. Even now, she doesn't... regret what she'd done. What does that make her...? Rose squeezes Luz's hand tightly, apologetic.

"I've done such horrible things. But.... I love them. All of them. Alessa, that other dark thing... They're Sharon, too."
imaglyphwitch: (choked up)

Re: cw: forced possession, themes of motherhood / pregnancy metaphor

[personal profile] imaglyphwitch 2022-01-22 06:51 pm (UTC)(link)
Luz knew that this was likely something that even Rose wasn't used to seeing: something entering her body and becoming one for the time that it had to do what it needed to, and she understood full well that the demon was exacting revenge for the girl that had been left in pain and weakened by the people in that church.

Luz knew a little about history. She knew that there were people who willingly allowed others to die and not bat an eye about it later, cementing the idea that good guys winning out was more of an anime or cartoon ending when the reality was much grimmer. This went into revenge, the place where Luz feared she had trod the day she had slaughtered those cave cannibal people in Deerington. Luz had not liked the idea that she could kill so freely, and of course the reality was that they would have been free to torture and eat others another day, and that was why she had done what she did. It wasn't a righteous act so much as it was one preventing more evil from happening.

"You aren't horrible, Rose. If you let them continue on, they would just do what they wanted to someone else. That's what real evil is: it festers, it takes anything good and warps it and makes it make sense in its own warped version of stuff. And you loved your daughter despite the pain. That was why you did it. I think you do love your daughter, very much. And anything taht was thrown at you, you fought it back to save her, like a mom would. That's really amazing."
rosae: ( 𝑬𝑫𝑰𝑻𝑬𝑫 𝑩𝒀 𝑹𝑢𝑺𝑨𝑬 ) (Default)

cw: mention of violence, gore, death

[personal profile] rosae 2022-01-28 03:12 am (UTC)(link)
It's something she hasn't properly absorbed, hasn't had time to β€” the thought of what had transpired in that hospital room. She'd let something dark and ancient into her body, welcomed it in, let it use her the way it needed to. ...She knows she'd do it again, if she had to. She'd protect that being in the shape of her little girl. She'd make sure no one ever hurt her, them, ever again.

Still, there are horrors to it, to what she'd helped to do. So many people had been.... massacred, and so brutally. Fortunately, the memory ends before any of what happened in the Church can be shown, but it lives on in Rose β€” the barbed wire ripping people apart, slicing through flesh so easily. She'd even stabbed someone, herself. She'd killed a person.

.....She knows she'd do that again, too. She doesn't know how to feel about that; it's a convoluted mixture of emotions within the woman, and wrapped up in all of that is the horror of Luz having witnessed all of this. God.... The young girl continues to speak with a wisdom that seems much too big for her small body. For her age. She's known terrible things too, and Rose turns to face her now, gently reaching up to cup Luz's face, frowning sadly at her.

"Thank you, sweetheart. You're right. Those people.... what they did to her.... They were evil." Warped in their ways, led into cruelty by Christabella, but they were adults and they had chosen to harm a child. Rose can never, ever forgive them. And she's glad they're dead. She shudders quietly, feels it move inside of her like a living force.

"I'm still so sorry that you had to see this, that you've had to.... see such horrible things." Before this, too. All of the terrors it's clear Luz has faced. "I promise, I'll protect you too. I'd do anything to keep you safe."
imaglyphwitch: (happy tears)

Re: cw: mention of violence, gore, death

[personal profile] imaglyphwitch 2022-01-28 05:24 am (UTC)(link)
Luz had learned a lot from being in Deerington, one of the more important things being that even if someone comes from a more torn world from you, you can empathize with them. It helped, she guessed, that she'd had some pretty traumatic things happen to her, with some losses that left her feeling pretty crushed, but she was able to keep going.

And Rose, she could see, at least knew that she wanted to keep Sharon safe, enough that it meant unleashing Alessa on those people. She could tell from the way everything was playing out that they would have killed Rose if they knew how close she was to Alessa. She understood enough that sometimes those that craved blood sometimes fell due to that very thing: you didn't out out that much bad juju and think that it wouldn't eventually come back to you. They allowed Sharon to be tortured and hurt, and in the end they created Alessa.

And she imagined that Rose was plagued by the same thing she'd been troubled by: was allowing vengeance for the ones hurt something she could live with? For Rose, in Luz's eyes, the answer seemed simple: if it saved Sharon.

That was a mother if she ever saw one.

"I've run into some evil people myself, actually. I didn't think they were real at first, not in the sense that they would just grab someone and hurt them because they could, a living being that wanted to live. And then at the farm, I saw it again, but you were there."

Like with Margot saving her in the cave, Luz would forever be grateful to Rose for saving her from real dismemberment.

"I don't like seeing bad things, but sometimes I think have to, so I'm reminded that there are things that need to be protected from that stuff. It's one of the reasons I try to make my magic stronger: that way I can help the way you helped me. But...thank you. That means a lot, and I know that's not an easy thing to promise."