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driftfleet_ooc2015-05-04 06:57 pm
spaceshipit) wrote in driftfleet_ooc2015-05-04 06:57 pm
Entry tags:
May star system
Whether or not your ships are back in top form, the Marsiva is moving onto the next star system, and taking you with her! There are no further attacks or signs of the mysterious ships that had swooped in before. The fleet's journey into the May system is a peaceful one.
This star system's stations will be available all month, while the planet will not come into range until May 11th.
As the fleet follows the flow of traffic away from the famous Virtual Reality Dome, you all dive into a flashy, fast-past strip of space that the glowing billboards claim is known as the "42nd East-Arm Road to Riches!" This high-traffic area seems to be another tourist trap of sorts, situated near a crossroad of interstellar traffic that Marsiva's range doesn't quite reach. You can't get to whatever populated byway the advertisements mention, but you can visit all the fun things set up here to entice the many passersby.
Interference:
Strangely, passengers will notice a slight interference in their broadcasts and elsewhere over the network as they approach this new stretch of space. It’s nothing more than just a little extra static and flutter in the signal, and doesn't seem to be harmful. However, passengers who had traveled through the January star system may notice interference patterns similar to what the fleet flew through around that time. This interference will grow steadily worse the closer they get to this month’s planet (see “Planet” section below).
Basic Stations:
As always, there are several basic way stations along the Marsiva’s route. They look more or less like your typical way station, but with a garish casino theme to everything. There, you can buy supplies, continue your ship repairs, or spend your money at the many cheap (but extremely rigged) slot machines scattered around.
Characters looking for jobs out here will find more opportunities to act as hired guards, help deliver shipments, take care of space-rodent infestations, or help the resident shopkeepers with their storefronts. There is next to no law enforcement on these stations--save for what people hire themselves--so you can steal as long as you don’t get caught by someone else's hired watchdog.
Casino Stations:
Several enormous, glowing stations will immediately stand out from the others--glitzy, neon-ringed casinos where your characters can park and gamble away all of their hard-earned ratings money! These monstrosities are built to draw in those looking who miss planetside comforts, and yearn for a few bites of glamor--all for just a little bit of cash! There is no darkness here, with the way the sea of space between the stations is absolutely choked with dancing advertisements.
→ Lodging:
On these casino stations, your characters have the option of renting cheap rooms, which aren't much more than glorified closets... but they have pull-out beds, coffee makers, and showers with unlimited hot water. If visitors are looking for something much more lavish, they can also shell out for very expensive themed suites, complete with fancy furniture, an indoor jacuzzi, and the best mattresses that money can buy. Room service options include food, fancy alcohols, romantic gift baskets, or even a classy companion for the evening. Passengers who are relatively new to the fleet will likely not be able to afford these suites, but could possibly pool their resources and share one... as long as they don't mind sharing a bed or sleeping on the couches or floor.
→ Shopping and Salons:
A large wing of each casino station is devoted to nothing but shopping! There are boundless ways to spend your money here, but you will have to stick to the small, boring way stations if you're looking for a deal. All of the wares sold in the casinos are well-made and expensive. Here, characters can buy high-end clothing, makeup, jewelry, overpriced novelty items, books, decorations, and more! The only weapons anyone can seem to find are either flashy ray guns or small laser-knives--both of which have an outrageously short battery life. These are functional and just as dangerous as any weapon of their type, but are obviously meant to adorn an enthusiasts collection than see real battle. If you're planning on purchasing one of these bad boys, be prepared to keep them plugged into your ship's power outlets for frequent rechargings. And again, characters new to the fleet (or who possess poor ratings or bad spending habits) probably won’t be able to afford much of these items on their own. Time to either make money, or make friends!
In additions to shops selling material possessions, there are also several in-station spas, massage rooms, beauty salons, saunas, and tattoo parlors. Get a piercing, get your hair dyed, or get that manicure you know you deserve!
→ Other Attractions:
There are several stages with rotating shows--at any point your character could step in to watch a laser show, a magic show, a live dance number, or a comedian’s performance (though some of the jokes are not exactly easy to follow if you’re not from the right star system). There are also several dance halls-- some of which are classy affairs, where you can dress your best and enjoy neon-colored cocktails while frolicking the night away, while others follow a more typical nightclub theme, complete with deafeningly loud music and people you can buy illicit substances from.
Beyond that, there are restaurants, piano bars, bar bars, lounges, indoor gardens, and impressive water features all over the stations. Basically, the whole place is like a giant adult mall--expensive, but with plenty to wander around and see!
→ Gambling:
And now we come to the heart of the Road to Riches! As expected, the huge central hub of each casino station is devoted to gambling. Here, your characters can play traditional slot machines, card games, dice games, and even a few unusual gambling games with foreign rules that are hard to follow. There is also some sort of televised race that visitors can bet on, involving several different kinds of alien animals, but... Good luck figuring out how that one works, or even who’s winning...
In general, visitors who gamble are going to lose more money than they win. If your character is unnaturally good at gambling, however, maybe they’ll have better luck! Characters may cheat as well, but at their own risk!
When a visitor wins something at any game (including slot machines) they receive a voucher. The only way to tell what prize the voucher is for is to take it to one of the enormous automated winnings-machines and cash it in! ICly, it’s hard to tell if there is any rhyme or reason to what prize they will receive, but it’s absolutely up to the player to decide what their characters get!
Things that can come out of the prize machine:
→ Security:
There is formidable robotic security on these stations, but they are mostly there to keep rowdy visitors from disrupting other paying customers. If you cause a big enough scene or damage property, you will be escorted from the area. Repeat offenders may be brought back to their ship and banned from that particular station.
There is a chance that you can get away with small theft or light cheating, but be careful about it! There are cameras everywhere, after all. Someone is watching.
→ Jobs:
Still need money? Did you lose the shirt off your back in a game of poker? Visitors can find extra work on these stations as waiters, dishwashers, security (in short hour-long shifts), card dealers, etc. They may also notice that many of the people working here are also working off debts themselves--and this is the only way they are ever going to be allowed to leave.
The Planet
- in range from May 11th - 31st
With how bright and shining the Road to Riches strip is, who would want to venture away from its glow? No one, apparently, because the region around the nearby green planet is entirely devoid of traffic. There aren't even any way stations near its orbit. Bystanders you meet on the casinos will either say the planet is useless, dead, or owned by some company that has it protected as some kind of reserve so that no one can build on it. None of the stories ring totally true, but no one seems to care enough to investigate further. The planet is in the perfect spot to be brought in as part of the Road to Riches spectacle, but no one wants to touch it. Whatever its story really is, something is keeping people from trying to colonize it.
→ At A Distance
Looking like a perfect green marble and gauzed with clouds, the planet might have once been beautiful... Now, there's a thick ring of debris caught in its orbit. Whether this dangerous debris is the remnant of some kind of past destruction, or just the garbage from years and years of illegal dumping, it makes lingering in its orbit a tricky affair.
And for those who were around in January, the planet may seem kind of familiar. Though it's not cut in half like the cloudy, mysterious, singing planet from about four months before had been, this one has a few strikingly similar characteristics. It is entirely blanketed in thick forest... and something seems to be calling.
→ Interference
The closer that the ships get to the green planet, the worse the interference over every frequency of the network becomes. Broadcasts are clogged with static, messages are delayed, and communication becomes almost impossible in orbit around the planet.
There's no singing this time, but it does seem like there is something underneath all of the buzzing static that is clogging your frequencies. Listen long enough, and passengers will begin to hear what sounds like words trying to break through the interference. While they're welcome to try, no amount of tuning, amplifying, filtering, or recording will make the messages come through any clearer. However, those who are especially sensitive to magic or psychic contact will hear the messages slightly more coherently, and on a more frequent basis, than others. They still won't be able to pick out specific words, but they may be able to tell that the message they are listening to is being spoken in some language from their home.
→ In Orbit
Sticking around in the planet's orbit is very dangerous, due to the debris field. Passengers would have a safer time either taking individual shuttles down through the debris field (a gamble, depending on how confident you are at flying those things), or plunging straight through the curtain with the whole ship and landing on the planet itself. While the debris poses a threat to all ships, those without a pilot on board will definitely take some damage. The auto-pilot programming sucks at dodging.
If a ship dares to brave the field of debris anyway and set itself up in orbit around the planet, scanners will be able to pick up the fact that the planet is absolutely seething with life.
Once you hit orbit (or get even closer), those who are connected to magic or psychic energies will feel a call to the planet's surface. The longer they are in this range, the stronger the pull will be. If the character in question is a magical creature that possesses a "true form" or some manifestation of their otherworldly energy, (or is a magical creature that is already particularly monstrous or obviously inhuman,) they will feel a specific desire to delve into the trees of the planet and take on that form. Ultimately, how powerfully they feel this impulse, and how consciously they realize that they're feeling it, is up to the player. No player is required to have their character actually follow the impulse if they'd rather not deal with it--and those characters will simply be among those who resist the call.
→ On The Surface
While almost every inch of the planet is blanketed by impenetrable forest, there are a few grassy, elevated mesas large enough for several ships to park at once. From there, passengers can look out over the top of endless forest canopy, or begin to wade into the forest itself.
Once they begin to explore, it quickly becomes apparent that this forest edge is very akin to an island shoreline, and the trees around the mesas form an ancient sea. The canopy stays at a regular height, but the floor of the green ocean drops away, gradually sloping down to overwhelming depths as the light closes out overhead. The deeper you go, the larger and more exotic the plants and animals become. Fungi increase in size and complexity, until growths resembling huge, spore-clouded coral can be glimpsed high up on the sides of trees. Luminescent flocks of birds drift like currents of krill overhead, herds of silvery cat-size mice break and scatter through stands of soft weeds, and the shadows of titanic herbivores loom only in the deepest of undisturbed darkness ahead.
→ Exploring
The shoreline is relatively tame, being safe for all types of passengers. For anyone whose world has such a biome, this forest will seem surprisingly familiar. A little ways in, they may even begin to recognize specific plant species found in the wilderness of their homeworlds. The darkness closes in pretty fast after that, however, and explorers will probably need a source of light to venture deeper.
All electronics and machinery seem to have trouble functioning here (there may even be a few failed starts before ships can take off again), and this effect increases with the depth of the forest-sea. Flashlights and other artificial sources of light fail to be reliable here, so explorers may need to rely on natural or magical sources of light.
By and large, animal life will scatter at the approach of intruders, opting to avoid instead of attack. Though the spoor of massive predators can be found, the animals themselves are never seen. ...During the day, at least.
As long as the sun is up, intruders can explore as far as they want. The planet is mostly sleeping during the day. (see notes on Nighttime below.)
→ Magical Characters
Any character who could be considered magical, or who uses a supernatural source of energy, will find themselves recharged by spending time on this planet. This planet infuses its visitors with energy, and this effect grows as they venture deeper into the trees. Even magical items can potentially be recharged by submerging them in the forest-sea.
And those characters who obey the call to dive into the forest and shift to their 'true' forms will feel compelled to stay there for the night. All other characters, however, will feel a growing sense of dread as the sun sinks lower in the sky...
→ Nighttime and Other Dangers
Despite the initial allure of the planet, a deep, primal fear will begin to leech into anyone still intruding on the planet's surface as night begins to fall. They somehow know that things in the depths of the green ocean are waking, and something terrible will happen if they stay.
The only passengers who won't be bothered by the fear are any creatures who have already shifted to their true, magical form, and delved into the forest. And those passengers will be overwhelmed by the need to stay the night in the forest, if they linger long enough for the compulsion to grip them. They will then dive into the darkness and lose memory of everything that happens that night--aside from fleeting memories of skirting craters left by the hooves of giant elk, and roaming trails in the waving weeds carved by giant rats. They will find their way to the shore in the morning, confused and a little ragged, but absolutely brimming with magical energy. And once they spend one night in the forest, these passengers will not feel the same compulsion to stay there again.
In addition to staying on the planet at night, when it clearly wants you gone, the forest can be angered in other ways--a few plants can be gathered, dirt and stone can be dug up, animals can be hunted, but the planet doesn't like it. Do too much of it, make too much of a mess, and it will begin to fight back.
First, plants will begin to retaliate. Grasping roots and vines can become a danger, as well as thorns sprouting out of plants where there hadn't been any previously. Then, giant animals of increasing size will roll in. Flocks of blackbirds the size of golden eagles, rats the size of dogs--and then the size of horses, and then elephants. And if these warnings aren't heeded, in the depths of the trees, at the bottom of the ocean, will boom a distant howling. And this would be the time to run.
→ In Conclusion
If you want to push your luck with the nighttime planet, or see just how angry you can make it, reply to this post and we can hash out the consequences. Just don't say I didn't warn you. :}
Also, if anyone has something specific in mind that is not covered here, or want to do any particularly adventuresome exploring that you'd maybe like mod feedback on (or mod participation/description in a certain thread or something) reply below anytime throughout the month, and we can discuss!
This goes for any questions or ideas you have, really. Reply here and we can figure things out and/or give you things to play with.
Otherwise, just go ahead and wing it! Go frolic in the scary forest ocean, or avoid the whole terrifying thing, to your heart's content.
Also, please feel free to use this post for all planning, plotting, and discussion needs you might have for anything game-related for the entire month! Enjoy!
This star system's stations will be available all month, while the planet will not come into range until May 11th.
As the fleet follows the flow of traffic away from the famous Virtual Reality Dome, you all dive into a flashy, fast-past strip of space that the glowing billboards claim is known as the "42nd East-Arm Road to Riches!" This high-traffic area seems to be another tourist trap of sorts, situated near a crossroad of interstellar traffic that Marsiva's range doesn't quite reach. You can't get to whatever populated byway the advertisements mention, but you can visit all the fun things set up here to entice the many passersby.
Interference:
Strangely, passengers will notice a slight interference in their broadcasts and elsewhere over the network as they approach this new stretch of space. It’s nothing more than just a little extra static and flutter in the signal, and doesn't seem to be harmful. However, passengers who had traveled through the January star system may notice interference patterns similar to what the fleet flew through around that time. This interference will grow steadily worse the closer they get to this month’s planet (see “Planet” section below).
Basic Stations:
As always, there are several basic way stations along the Marsiva’s route. They look more or less like your typical way station, but with a garish casino theme to everything. There, you can buy supplies, continue your ship repairs, or spend your money at the many cheap (but extremely rigged) slot machines scattered around.
Characters looking for jobs out here will find more opportunities to act as hired guards, help deliver shipments, take care of space-rodent infestations, or help the resident shopkeepers with their storefronts. There is next to no law enforcement on these stations--save for what people hire themselves--so you can steal as long as you don’t get caught by someone else's hired watchdog.
Casino Stations:
Several enormous, glowing stations will immediately stand out from the others--glitzy, neon-ringed casinos where your characters can park and gamble away all of their hard-earned ratings money! These monstrosities are built to draw in those looking who miss planetside comforts, and yearn for a few bites of glamor--all for just a little bit of cash! There is no darkness here, with the way the sea of space between the stations is absolutely choked with dancing advertisements.
→ Lodging:
On these casino stations, your characters have the option of renting cheap rooms, which aren't much more than glorified closets... but they have pull-out beds, coffee makers, and showers with unlimited hot water. If visitors are looking for something much more lavish, they can also shell out for very expensive themed suites, complete with fancy furniture, an indoor jacuzzi, and the best mattresses that money can buy. Room service options include food, fancy alcohols, romantic gift baskets, or even a classy companion for the evening. Passengers who are relatively new to the fleet will likely not be able to afford these suites, but could possibly pool their resources and share one... as long as they don't mind sharing a bed or sleeping on the couches or floor.
→ Shopping and Salons:
A large wing of each casino station is devoted to nothing but shopping! There are boundless ways to spend your money here, but you will have to stick to the small, boring way stations if you're looking for a deal. All of the wares sold in the casinos are well-made and expensive. Here, characters can buy high-end clothing, makeup, jewelry, overpriced novelty items, books, decorations, and more! The only weapons anyone can seem to find are either flashy ray guns or small laser-knives--both of which have an outrageously short battery life. These are functional and just as dangerous as any weapon of their type, but are obviously meant to adorn an enthusiasts collection than see real battle. If you're planning on purchasing one of these bad boys, be prepared to keep them plugged into your ship's power outlets for frequent rechargings. And again, characters new to the fleet (or who possess poor ratings or bad spending habits) probably won’t be able to afford much of these items on their own. Time to either make money, or make friends!
In additions to shops selling material possessions, there are also several in-station spas, massage rooms, beauty salons, saunas, and tattoo parlors. Get a piercing, get your hair dyed, or get that manicure you know you deserve!
→ Other Attractions:
There are several stages with rotating shows--at any point your character could step in to watch a laser show, a magic show, a live dance number, or a comedian’s performance (though some of the jokes are not exactly easy to follow if you’re not from the right star system). There are also several dance halls-- some of which are classy affairs, where you can dress your best and enjoy neon-colored cocktails while frolicking the night away, while others follow a more typical nightclub theme, complete with deafeningly loud music and people you can buy illicit substances from.
Beyond that, there are restaurants, piano bars, bar bars, lounges, indoor gardens, and impressive water features all over the stations. Basically, the whole place is like a giant adult mall--expensive, but with plenty to wander around and see!
→ Gambling:
And now we come to the heart of the Road to Riches! As expected, the huge central hub of each casino station is devoted to gambling. Here, your characters can play traditional slot machines, card games, dice games, and even a few unusual gambling games with foreign rules that are hard to follow. There is also some sort of televised race that visitors can bet on, involving several different kinds of alien animals, but... Good luck figuring out how that one works, or even who’s winning...
In general, visitors who gamble are going to lose more money than they win. If your character is unnaturally good at gambling, however, maybe they’ll have better luck! Characters may cheat as well, but at their own risk!
When a visitor wins something at any game (including slot machines) they receive a voucher. The only way to tell what prize the voucher is for is to take it to one of the enormous automated winnings-machines and cash it in! ICly, it’s hard to tell if there is any rhyme or reason to what prize they will receive, but it’s absolutely up to the player to decide what their characters get!
Things that can come out of the prize machine:
Money! Win anywhere from 5 to 1000 credits, transferred directly into your bank account. A specific item that is important to your character. This item cannot be a weapon, a live pet, or anything larger than said character can lift. It can, however, be an animated construct or small/relatively harmless magical item. (*COUGH ALLEN NOW IS YOUR CHANCE COUGH*). A non-specific item from your character’s world, such as a generic sword, an elven gown, a CD player, a tsungi horn, season eight of some TV show, etc. Currency from your character's world (such as gil, double dollars, latinum, dubloons, and so on) in similar amounts as above. Ironically, there is nowhere to exchange this currency for universal credits, making this prize pretty much useless. Consumable prizes from your character's world. Examples include healing potions, junk food, mana crystals, war rations, paopu fruit, chewable vitamins, Yoshi berries, gysahl greens, lembas bread, potatoes, booze, or whatever else you think would be funny for your character to get.
→ Security:
There is formidable robotic security on these stations, but they are mostly there to keep rowdy visitors from disrupting other paying customers. If you cause a big enough scene or damage property, you will be escorted from the area. Repeat offenders may be brought back to their ship and banned from that particular station.
There is a chance that you can get away with small theft or light cheating, but be careful about it! There are cameras everywhere, after all. Someone is watching.
→ Jobs:
Still need money? Did you lose the shirt off your back in a game of poker? Visitors can find extra work on these stations as waiters, dishwashers, security (in short hour-long shifts), card dealers, etc. They may also notice that many of the people working here are also working off debts themselves--and this is the only way they are ever going to be allowed to leave.
The Planet
- in range from May 11th - 31st
With how bright and shining the Road to Riches strip is, who would want to venture away from its glow? No one, apparently, because the region around the nearby green planet is entirely devoid of traffic. There aren't even any way stations near its orbit. Bystanders you meet on the casinos will either say the planet is useless, dead, or owned by some company that has it protected as some kind of reserve so that no one can build on it. None of the stories ring totally true, but no one seems to care enough to investigate further. The planet is in the perfect spot to be brought in as part of the Road to Riches spectacle, but no one wants to touch it. Whatever its story really is, something is keeping people from trying to colonize it.
→ At A Distance
Looking like a perfect green marble and gauzed with clouds, the planet might have once been beautiful... Now, there's a thick ring of debris caught in its orbit. Whether this dangerous debris is the remnant of some kind of past destruction, or just the garbage from years and years of illegal dumping, it makes lingering in its orbit a tricky affair.
And for those who were around in January, the planet may seem kind of familiar. Though it's not cut in half like the cloudy, mysterious, singing planet from about four months before had been, this one has a few strikingly similar characteristics. It is entirely blanketed in thick forest... and something seems to be calling.
→ Interference
The closer that the ships get to the green planet, the worse the interference over every frequency of the network becomes. Broadcasts are clogged with static, messages are delayed, and communication becomes almost impossible in orbit around the planet.
There's no singing this time, but it does seem like there is something underneath all of the buzzing static that is clogging your frequencies. Listen long enough, and passengers will begin to hear what sounds like words trying to break through the interference. While they're welcome to try, no amount of tuning, amplifying, filtering, or recording will make the messages come through any clearer. However, those who are especially sensitive to magic or psychic contact will hear the messages slightly more coherently, and on a more frequent basis, than others. They still won't be able to pick out specific words, but they may be able to tell that the message they are listening to is being spoken in some language from their home.
→ In Orbit
Sticking around in the planet's orbit is very dangerous, due to the debris field. Passengers would have a safer time either taking individual shuttles down through the debris field (a gamble, depending on how confident you are at flying those things), or plunging straight through the curtain with the whole ship and landing on the planet itself. While the debris poses a threat to all ships, those without a pilot on board will definitely take some damage. The auto-pilot programming sucks at dodging.
If a ship dares to brave the field of debris anyway and set itself up in orbit around the planet, scanners will be able to pick up the fact that the planet is absolutely seething with life.
Once you hit orbit (or get even closer), those who are connected to magic or psychic energies will feel a call to the planet's surface. The longer they are in this range, the stronger the pull will be. If the character in question is a magical creature that possesses a "true form" or some manifestation of their otherworldly energy, (or is a magical creature that is already particularly monstrous or obviously inhuman,) they will feel a specific desire to delve into the trees of the planet and take on that form. Ultimately, how powerfully they feel this impulse, and how consciously they realize that they're feeling it, is up to the player. No player is required to have their character actually follow the impulse if they'd rather not deal with it--and those characters will simply be among those who resist the call.
→ On The Surface
While almost every inch of the planet is blanketed by impenetrable forest, there are a few grassy, elevated mesas large enough for several ships to park at once. From there, passengers can look out over the top of endless forest canopy, or begin to wade into the forest itself.
Once they begin to explore, it quickly becomes apparent that this forest edge is very akin to an island shoreline, and the trees around the mesas form an ancient sea. The canopy stays at a regular height, but the floor of the green ocean drops away, gradually sloping down to overwhelming depths as the light closes out overhead. The deeper you go, the larger and more exotic the plants and animals become. Fungi increase in size and complexity, until growths resembling huge, spore-clouded coral can be glimpsed high up on the sides of trees. Luminescent flocks of birds drift like currents of krill overhead, herds of silvery cat-size mice break and scatter through stands of soft weeds, and the shadows of titanic herbivores loom only in the deepest of undisturbed darkness ahead.
→ Exploring
The shoreline is relatively tame, being safe for all types of passengers. For anyone whose world has such a biome, this forest will seem surprisingly familiar. A little ways in, they may even begin to recognize specific plant species found in the wilderness of their homeworlds. The darkness closes in pretty fast after that, however, and explorers will probably need a source of light to venture deeper.
All electronics and machinery seem to have trouble functioning here (there may even be a few failed starts before ships can take off again), and this effect increases with the depth of the forest-sea. Flashlights and other artificial sources of light fail to be reliable here, so explorers may need to rely on natural or magical sources of light.
By and large, animal life will scatter at the approach of intruders, opting to avoid instead of attack. Though the spoor of massive predators can be found, the animals themselves are never seen. ...During the day, at least.
As long as the sun is up, intruders can explore as far as they want. The planet is mostly sleeping during the day. (see notes on Nighttime below.)
→ Magical Characters
Any character who could be considered magical, or who uses a supernatural source of energy, will find themselves recharged by spending time on this planet. This planet infuses its visitors with energy, and this effect grows as they venture deeper into the trees. Even magical items can potentially be recharged by submerging them in the forest-sea.
And those characters who obey the call to dive into the forest and shift to their 'true' forms will feel compelled to stay there for the night. All other characters, however, will feel a growing sense of dread as the sun sinks lower in the sky...
→ Nighttime and Other Dangers
Despite the initial allure of the planet, a deep, primal fear will begin to leech into anyone still intruding on the planet's surface as night begins to fall. They somehow know that things in the depths of the green ocean are waking, and something terrible will happen if they stay.
The only passengers who won't be bothered by the fear are any creatures who have already shifted to their true, magical form, and delved into the forest. And those passengers will be overwhelmed by the need to stay the night in the forest, if they linger long enough for the compulsion to grip them. They will then dive into the darkness and lose memory of everything that happens that night--aside from fleeting memories of skirting craters left by the hooves of giant elk, and roaming trails in the waving weeds carved by giant rats. They will find their way to the shore in the morning, confused and a little ragged, but absolutely brimming with magical energy. And once they spend one night in the forest, these passengers will not feel the same compulsion to stay there again.
In addition to staying on the planet at night, when it clearly wants you gone, the forest can be angered in other ways--a few plants can be gathered, dirt and stone can be dug up, animals can be hunted, but the planet doesn't like it. Do too much of it, make too much of a mess, and it will begin to fight back.
First, plants will begin to retaliate. Grasping roots and vines can become a danger, as well as thorns sprouting out of plants where there hadn't been any previously. Then, giant animals of increasing size will roll in. Flocks of blackbirds the size of golden eagles, rats the size of dogs--and then the size of horses, and then elephants. And if these warnings aren't heeded, in the depths of the trees, at the bottom of the ocean, will boom a distant howling. And this would be the time to run.
→ In Conclusion
If you want to push your luck with the nighttime planet, or see just how angry you can make it, reply to this post and we can hash out the consequences. Just don't say I didn't warn you. :}
Also, if anyone has something specific in mind that is not covered here, or want to do any particularly adventuresome exploring that you'd maybe like mod feedback on (or mod participation/description in a certain thread or something) reply below anytime throughout the month, and we can discuss!
This goes for any questions or ideas you have, really. Reply here and we can figure things out and/or give you things to play with.
Otherwise, just go ahead and wing it! Go frolic in the scary forest ocean, or avoid the whole terrifying thing, to your heart's content.
Also, please feel free to use this post for all planning, plotting, and discussion needs you might have for anything game-related for the entire month! Enjoy!
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