Attention Soul Campaign!This post will tackle phase 2 of our event. We know the post is long, but please read the entire post carefully, since we will be opening up sign ups for characters at the end of the post.
When, Where, and What’s Coming?The event will happen on the
2nd of February in-game, and will be one week long irl.
At first light, sentries assigned to patrol the borders of the cities will see something in the distance:
► Corpses moving and shuffling in the direction of the city (zombies, yes). The witches have been raising the dead in the hopes of feeding their kishin eggs with it, but have ultimately failed to reap souls this way. Doesn’t mean they can’t use the reanimated dead for other things, though. Don't worry though, these zombies aren't infectious to people even if they're good at biting. Their mouths
are dirty and rotten though, so you might want to get checked for rabies
we only jest!
► A cloud of black birds flying in the distance. In the midst of this cloud will be witches on their broomsticks. They are here to take advantage of the city in its chaos and more besides.
The city alarms will go off, adding to the effects of the Black Blood. Fortunately, this will give the city some time to evacuate its civilians into its underground bunkers or in their houses.
What is the enemy going to do?The enemy will hit the city by mid morning with a vengeance. The witches will make a quick and vicious attack at Shibusen, searching for the witch traitor that has been feeding our mission board’s Investigation missions in order to murder her.
The dead are mindless for the most part and have only one aim in mind: to eat anything living in order to acquire their souls. These will not turn into kishin eggs because they no longer have a soul to corrupt, but that won’t stop them from yearning for it.
Very, very large ravens and other carrion birds will be swooping at meisters and weapons, picking up as many Shibusen agents -- students and guests alike -- as they can handle. This is a kidnapping attempt, and the victims will be brought out of the city in haste.
Do you want to be kidnapped?A. Mass Kidnapping Victims and the Morality MachineThe witches have obtained blueprints of Eibon's Moral Manipulation Machine and created a prototype of the device. As its name implies, it uses magic to manipulate a subject's morality. By lowering a person's morality, they become evil, and by raising it, it can make them good. Subjects who have had their morality lowered will experience increased madness, and they will find themselves capable of committing atrocities they normally wouldn't. Through the Moral Manipulation Machine, their personalities will change drastically, and they'll become more malicious and sadistic.
The witches are looking to pad their own forces by kidnapping a bunch of guests and using the device on them, so characters being kidnapped can undergo the procedure, or players can opt out but still get kidnapped -- their characters will get thrown into the dungeons to be fed to kishin eggs instead. Fortunately Shibusen and its agents (that means you guests!) will rescue them before it happens. Unfortunately they will witness other prisoners (mainly hapless NPCs) getting killed and being reaped of their souls.
The effects of the MMM aren't permanent. It's still a prototype, thankfully, so subjects will go back to normal the moment they're rescued and brought out of the base. Alternately, they can also run into rescuers or prisoners they have deep bonds with and hope that their friends can help snap them out of it; a big shock, or very good CR can bring them back to normal.
So what are the choices that Phase 2 participants have for this round?
► Get kidnapped, go through moral manipulation, and help the witches in any or all of the following tasks: help feed NPCs to kishin eggs, become minions and patrol the base, fight off Shibusen rescuers in Phase 3.
► Get kidnapped, opt out of moral manipulation, and get thrown into the kishin egg food dungeon.
► Stay in the city and form part of the rescuing force for Phase 3.
Note that the victims of the MMM will remember everything they did while they were evil, while the kidnap victims may be extremely traumatized by their experiences, so consider its effects on your character’s development before signing up for this.
We are also seeking players who are looking to drop their characters at this point and have no plans of reapping them in the future (characters that die here do not get reapped with their memories of Death City intact). For this event, players who want to drop their characters can allow them to be among those kidnapped, to be killed and eaten by kishin eggs. Please consider this option very carefully, since it may have drastic effect on your character’s CR -- if you’re willing, please indicate the character’s planned death in the sign up below.
B. Hexed CharactersThis section is applicable only to the Hexed. We had characters similarly kidnapped in an event a long time ago, called the Hexed. The Hexed were experimented on and infused with some Witch magic that allowed them certain new abilities (changing to a specific animal change or one magical ability) in exchange for their sanity and planting the Seed of Destruction in them.
The Witches want their Hexed back and finish the work that was rudely interrupted by Shibusen and their agents in the past; unfortunately for them, they can’t replicate the work because their primary surgeons were eliminated. This means that the witch birds will be specifically targeting to pick up the Hexed on top of the other agents they are trying to take from the city.
What are they going to do to the Hexed? The witches will be making a (mostly hasty) attempt at injecting the Black Blood into the Hexed to speed up the process of turning them against Shibusen and releasing their second abilities. The Black Blood in higher levels in the Hexed will cause them to act violently, as if mad and psychopathic, responding in full to the pull of the Seed of Destruction within them.
This process is irreversible will may make the Hexed very, very twitchy in the future after their rescue. Fortunately, Black Blood does become dormant and Shibusen has its ways of keeping it down and somewhat under control. Like the original conditions of the Hexed, using their magic in any way makes them more and more prone to madness and the darker thoughts of the Seed in them.
Like with the other kidnap victims, we are giving plenty of options to opt out or pick only the experiences that you want for your character. Here are some of your options:
► The Hexed players have the option of avoiding the kidnapping by getting their characters saved before they are picked up, hiding in the shelters, etc.
► If they get kidnapped, they have the option of getting passed over for the Black Blood procedure and coming out of the experience relatively unscathed (they might have been mistakenly put in the feeding pits, for example), or get subjected to the MMM instead.
► Hexed undergoing the MMM will be more vicious than normal, but this will not unlock the second ability. The effects will be the same as the kidnappees in the earlier section, though more vicious than even those
► Hexed undergoing the Black Blood can choose if they want their characters to resist the change or temporarily join with the Witches and become their minions for the duration of the event.
Signing up to be kidnappedBefore signing up for the kidnapping, please make sure that you’ve given the decision enough thought. Either experiences may impact your character’s development significantly, so we can’t emphasize this part enough.
Please note that your characters, if kidnapped, will be gone from the city for at least 2 in-game days. There will be a log set up for the victims for Feb 3 in-game.
When you’re sure about signing up for the kidnapping and what you want to do, please sign up
here using this template:
If we get too many volunteers, we will choose the characters via randomizer. The deadline of sign ups is March 10, 2012, USA time. We will announce the names on March 11, 2012, USA time, and you can also coordinate between the kidnapping characters then.
How does the day end?Ultimately, the day will end in a narrow victory for Death City, either by driving the witches out or the witches willingly retreating. Without the witch necromancer to control them, the zombies will lose their animation and fall on their own. There will be a log for the attack, a log for the clinic, and a log for the cleaning up for the city.
The dead people won’t turn characters into zombies if they bite them, but are more likely to give infections and tetanus and all of those awful germs that you can get from a dead person’s mouth, so anyone who gets injured by a zombie will need to come in for vaccination and other medicine.
Phase 3, the rescue of the kidnapping victims, will be coordinated in a different post at a later time. The rescue will happen on Feb 4 in-game.
Everyone, please feel free to use this post as a planning post for the event.
For questions, please comment
here or email us at soulcampaign@gmail.com.
Thank you!