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

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 • Prompt 2 • Prompt 3 • Plotting • 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

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

WINTER MOURNING — GRANDMA'S ROOM CW: OCCULT SYMBOLS & THEMES ; CULT BUSINESS ; DEMONIC POSSESSION ; IDENTITY BLEND/CONFUSION

( This isn't Peter's memory.

He knows that as soon as he opens his eyes and you open yours beside him, both of you taking in your surroundings. You're in the room of a home: big and old and faded. The sunlight filtered through the curtains reveals dust collected at the corners where wall meets floor, and an odd heavy stillness hangs over — as though no one's been living in this house for quite some time, even though an entire family has been. The floors of this room, like the rest of the house, are wooden and scuffed and cold beneath your feet.

The room is very empty. Its walls are blank, save for a mirror hanging up. There are a few pieces of dated furniture, and a photo or two.

On the surface, the room may seem innocuous, but perhaps you immediately see what's strange about it, what suggests a connection to something dark and dangerous and ancient. The triangle etched into the floorboards. The chair that faces the corner of the room, looking towards where one of the points of the triangle gestures to. Someone must have sat here, staring in that direction.

Perhaps, if you are inclined to such things — sensitive to them — you can feel that something lingers.

The young man beside you (tall, thin, hair a mess of wild curls and tired eyes circled in dark) certainly seems affected. He's just staring, gaze wide and nostrils flaring slightly, breathing in and out through them like an animal, tense and strange and looking around. Is it that he recognises this room, or is it that he's a stranger to it? It's hard to tell by looking at him, but he's clearly disturbed. )

This can't be right. ( He says, quietly. After a moment, he repeats those words again. Clearly, he doesn't seem to think he should be here. But inside of him, someone else flickers gently like a humming lightbulb within Peter, watching, sensing. Someone who knows this room very well.

Beside you, the person this memory is connected to (he, she, they) makes a sudden strange sound. A very soft click of the tongue. )

CORRUPTION — DEMON DECEMBER CW: DEMONIC POSSESSION & RELATED PHYSICAL SYMPTOMS/BEHAVIOURS | CORRUPTION INFORMATION

( It's been building over time. At first, impossible to detect — the symptoms of it are so like Peter's usual existence now, after all. A perpetual illness, a consistent exhaustion. Lapses in time and memory and self. For so long now, there have been days he's woken and had to work to remember his own name. To try to separate himself from the tangled pieces of Other wound within him. That isn't anything particularly new for Peter these days, even if it's nothing he could ever really get used to — the cold hazy fog within, the feeling of never truly being himself anymore, not fully. This place has made the demon's presence within him even more clear, no longer trapped within a dreamscape.

It grows worse. Pain makes it grow worse like it always does, hollows Peter out more and more until he's emptier and emptier, the way he was made to be two years ago in order for the demon to successfully be locked into him. (His fate.) Those things rip at him again over the course of November: things like pain and loss and guilt and ache and terror. The sleeper farm, the zealots, the loss of one friend and the near-death of another. By the time the cold white of December sets in, the middle stages of his Corruption have sunken inwards like a disease, and he doesn't know it until he's barely even Peter anymore, most days.

He's something else. Something that comes up from the well deep inside of him, quivering with an increasingly growing aggression, scraping wildly with fingers curved like claws and the scream of Other filtered so horrifically through human vocal chords (his mother chases him like an animal, beyond the capability for speech, growling and snarling and screaming; her teeth are bared, the whites of her eyes are wide and wild, she barely looks like herself anymore; she chases him up into the attic and claws and bangs her head against the bottom of the trapdoor so fast that it becomes a rapid, inhuman rhythm; he cries and moans and pleads Mommy, please stop, but his mother is gone and the howling thing in her place is so hungry to consume him: not to swallow him whole but to peel him open and get inside him where it knows it belongs. He can't wake up, he can't wake up, the nightmare won't end.)

(Was he always afraid of her, or afraid of becoming her? The same way she feared becoming her mother? A horror, a deep dread, passed on and on and on.)

Through December, he often goes to the places Paimon knows, whether drawn towards people the demon has a positive connection to or a negative one. It could be anywhere at all, but he can often be encountered out on the streets as he wanders, unfeeling of the cold. He generally won't attack without some kind of provocation — but this could be in the form of someone shouting too loudly, or dropping something with a clatter, or any kind of abrupt shift in the energy he's so sensitive to. It could be that he sees someone Paimon's on bad terms with, or otherwise would have a reason to confront aggressively. It could be that you're a Vileblood, and aggression ripples in him towards you like instinct; the hunt is on, after all, and the demon is primed to stalk and kill. There are many reasons that Peter — now so much more demon than Peter — would give pursuit, but you might find yourself the unfortunate victim.

Perhaps you hear him first: an angry cluck of the tongue, an alien-like chittering coming from upwards. Perhaps you see him, then, clinging to the side of the nearest building, long limbs bent at odd angles, eyes swollen with black, nested in shadow. Perhaps you make eye contact, and perhaps that's when he springs — launches, sometimes scuttling down the side of the building, sometimes falling from it with a loud thud like the swollen body of a spider. Sometimes flying, limbs scrabbling. However it is, he'll end up on the ground and he'll give chase. Hope you're a fast runner.

Or maybe you encounter him when he's not outright hostile and instead just generally being really spooky. A twitching thing that looks like the young man maybe you know, but a tremour consistently convulses down his nerve endings, leaves them raw and buzzing like a live wire. You might see him... floating around, hovering several inches off the ground like a spectre, eyes held wide. Or maybe you hear him speaking in tongues, a garble of languages and not-languages, an amalgamation of ancient things and sounds inbetween them: hisses and slurps and chirps and clicks and growls and wheezes. Maybe you see him bent inwards: all six feet of the boy's height curled like a crushed spider, moving around on the floor with his head hanging upside down. This is... fine.

Or maybe you just.... see him up in on the ceiling somewhere. A shop (your shop???) or inside one of Trench's other establishments; he could be anywhere. He doesn't seem to be doing anything, just tucked up against the ceiling with his back pressed against the corner of it, staring down with unblinking eyes. Hostility might be on the brink, however, depending on how you react to him, or if he knows you (or doesn't know you). .....He seems to be staring at your throat.

"Peter" isn't completely gone, however. Not just yet. Peter comes back sometimes, rarely — as though in a dream, and unable to recall the name "Peter" unless it's explicitly coaxed out of him, sometimes not even then — but there will still be some times the uncharacteristic anger quells, and he's simply left strange and confused and bruised soft. Especially when he starts to see physical changes beginning to happen towards the end of the month — the skin of his hands and feet starting to stain black as though ash is creeping up over them, slowly consuming more and more of his skin. It also begins to spread from around his eyes, the tips of his ears, his tongue.... It frightens him — terrifies him — there might be enough left of himself to accept help.

But in the time it takes for help to actually be attempted, his demon side will take over again, and it won't understand the concept of help; it will resist attempts to calm it with teeth bared and blackened hands ready to claw your eyes out. ......Maybe you try to wrangle him anyway. Maybe you've had the misfortune to have to deal with Paimon in his more Feral Moods before and assume you can again — but by this point, no matter your connection to the demon king, he will react unfavourably. There is no reasoning with him, no coaxing down from this frenzied state. Easing the Corruption within Peter will require stronger methods: blood ritual or ministration, medication.... brute force or spellwork to get him held down. Though Palebloods might actually be able to assist with calming down the effects of The Hunt in him, at least, leaving him.... slightly less feral but perhaps still prone to smashing his head into yours. )

WILDCARD / ETC

^{ooc ➤ plurk (skeletals) / discord (large bat#2354) / pm / Peter's plot post
Feel free to toss something else at me or hit me up for plotting / a more specific starter!
Also, respond in prose if that's your preference, and I'll gladly follow suit.}

Edited 2021-12-09 02:13 (UTC)

[Who knew Hebrew school would come in handy in a post-apocalyptic pseudo-Victorian city?

Kyle spent much of November poring over texts in the Archive, and December has been no different with that - when he's not getting into trouble, he's usually hunched over his desk with a book, taking notes. Some of this research had been for personal use, but some of it had been for Peter.

Kyle's been learning an awful lot about Solomonic magic.

And so he makes his way to Peter's home - they both live in Gaze so it's really not a long trek - with a bookbag slung over his shoulder and a paper sack of rugelach in one hand. Because who doesn't like treats?

Kyle knocks at the door of Peter's townhouse and stands on the stoop, humming.]

( When the knock comes at the door, Peter was pretty close to it already — he was, in fact, standing in the hallway, facing the wall and just staring at it, occasionally muttering quietly in something that isn't any kind of discernable language.

He'd been doing this for about 45 minutes.

The knock draws him out of this odd spell enough that he turns towards the door, confused. It draws a tiny bit of Peter back out, because the human part of him still remembers what a knock at the door means. It means.. someone's here; it means you answer it.

Hesitantly, he approaches the door and opens it very slowly with gloved hands, just peering through the crack of it for a moment before he opens it to expose himself. He doesn't look... good, worse than even usual. His eyes seem sunken, like the usual dark circles are blacker; Kyle might notice that an ash-like black actually seems to be spreading from beneath them.

Peter just stares at the older, seems to be searching his features like he's trying to remember who he is. Finally, he addresses him with brows slowly knitting, seeming confused. )

.....Boy.

( He can't remember his name....... )

Peter Graham 👑 Hereditary

Demon December: Clavicula Salomonis

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totally okay with this slowly (or.. less slowly, depending on paimon) turning more feral/hostile!

PERFECT :'DDD

winter mourning

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Re: Peter Graham 👑 Hereditary

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Grandmother...

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Demon December

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demon december

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Demon December

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Demon Days: Willful Machine (Lysithea's shop)

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grandma's room

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wildcard | time for blood ritual demon/witch business

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