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EVENT PLOTTING: THE COST OF INNOCENCE
The Cost of Innocence
As the Innocent's Moon reaches its peak, a shift will begin to be noticed across Horos. At first it appears in individual cases that could be explained by regular ennui or poor mental health, but as the zenith arrives, the clear supernaturality of the trend will become clear. Horosians, first in handfuls and then en masse, are succumbing to a strange malady characterized by a complete and utter indifference to the world around them.
This manifests most grievously with its victims losing all sense of self preservation, sometimes falling in combat or at the claws of wild beasts with a look of serenity on their faces. Others allow their hands to be burned in the fire as they cook, or are struck by falling objects that they may have otherwise avoided. There is no specific will to die; no, instead there is simply the absence of a will to fight or struggle, whether it be for their lives or anything else.
On the tenth day of Inoseri the cases may only be one in a thousand, but will gradually become more common as the full moon approaches, eventually settling at around one in fifty. Curiously, however, these ratios are not uniform; Venera, a city under the Regent's rule in the grasslands of the south, has an infection rate straying closer to one in ten. It is not entirely clear why, but something about Venera is causing the ailment to run rampant, and without intervention the results could become catastrophic to the citizen's way of life.
On the side of the Kenoma, to investigate will be an order. After all, Venera is the breadbasket of the Regent's empire, and without their abundant farmland being worked by its people, there will be food shortages continent wide. Even more important will be the Regent's implication that there is another force behind this infection... one that they will allege is the fault of the Pleroma.
The Pleroma themselves will have fewer immediate clues, but in the days leading up to the moon's zenith will experience dreams of depthless white. Word will spread to Godsblood soon enough, telling of the terrible phenomenon sweeping through Venera. Though they won't have a way of knowing why exactly, the Pleroma that hear of or witness the malady will have a feeling that they will find its source there.
❖ INCLUDED EVENT PROMPTS
This manifests most grievously with its victims losing all sense of self preservation, sometimes falling in combat or at the claws of wild beasts with a look of serenity on their faces. Others allow their hands to be burned in the fire as they cook, or are struck by falling objects that they may have otherwise avoided. There is no specific will to die; no, instead there is simply the absence of a will to fight or struggle, whether it be for their lives or anything else.
On the tenth day of Inoseri the cases may only be one in a thousand, but will gradually become more common as the full moon approaches, eventually settling at around one in fifty. Curiously, however, these ratios are not uniform; Venera, a city under the Regent's rule in the grasslands of the south, has an infection rate straying closer to one in ten. It is not entirely clear why, but something about Venera is causing the ailment to run rampant, and without intervention the results could become catastrophic to the citizen's way of life.
On the side of the Kenoma, to investigate will be an order. After all, Venera is the breadbasket of the Regent's empire, and without their abundant farmland being worked by its people, there will be food shortages continent wide. Even more important will be the Regent's implication that there is another force behind this infection... one that they will allege is the fault of the Pleroma.
The Pleroma themselves will have fewer immediate clues, but in the days leading up to the moon's zenith will experience dreams of depthless white. Word will spread to Godsblood soon enough, telling of the terrible phenomenon sweeping through Venera. Though they won't have a way of knowing why exactly, the Pleroma that hear of or witness the malady will have a feeling that they will find its source there.
❖ INCLUDED EVENT PROMPTS
◆ VENERA: Once a city embodying culture, passion, and romance, Venera has fallen on hard times since the loss of its patron Aion nearly a century ago. While still prized for their handicrafts, particularly their elaborate weaves and diverse artistic masterworks, they are scorned continent wide for their cowardice and desperate supplications to the Regent. Venerans are a people focused almost entirely inward, happy to ignore even the most grievous of wrongs if it meant continuing their way of life, and this was true even before the mysterious ailment took hold. Now it's unclear if they will even have the strength to go on.
◆ INNOCENT LEGACY: Those from the Legacy of the Innocent will continue to feel a sense of presence with them as the full moon arrives, with that presence only getting stronger as the month goes on. They may even hear a voice whispering in their ear, though they cannot make out the words.
◆ INNOCENCE CONTAGION: While at first the malady spreading across the continent will not seem to affect the Aions, once they arrive in Venera that will no longer be the case. Instead of repelling the effects, they will instead begin leeching it from the inflicted civilians they encounter, its power drawn into them like a sponge. As a result, they will end up taking on the malady's symptoms but enhanced and gone wild with their spiritual potency. Brand new side effects will be cultivated within them.
Along with the risk of a trance-like indifference to life, they may encounter any of the following: daydreams so deep they become subjectively real, a loss of sense of self, excessive malleability, or a loss of short term memory. They may also be several physical symptoms, including: a body-wide loss of pigment (partial or total), flesh that becomes stiff or porcelain-like that hinders movement and cracks (or breaks off entirely) when forced, the emergence of white feathers or wings from anywhere on the body, halos of light, or singular horns growing from the forehead. Advanced cases may result in becoming completely petrified, their very presence becoming a beacon for the power causing this. Physical and mental side effects may happen together or independently.
These side effects may be additionally enhanced for characters from the following Legacies:
MOD NOTE: All characters who go to Venera and participate in the event log will be awarded 1 Token, so please make sure to mark that on your AC. You will not receive the token if you don't claim it.
◆ INNOCENT LEGACY: Those from the Legacy of the Innocent will continue to feel a sense of presence with them as the full moon arrives, with that presence only getting stronger as the month goes on. They may even hear a voice whispering in their ear, though they cannot make out the words.
◆ INNOCENCE CONTAGION: While at first the malady spreading across the continent will not seem to affect the Aions, once they arrive in Venera that will no longer be the case. Instead of repelling the effects, they will instead begin leeching it from the inflicted civilians they encounter, its power drawn into them like a sponge. As a result, they will end up taking on the malady's symptoms but enhanced and gone wild with their spiritual potency. Brand new side effects will be cultivated within them.
Along with the risk of a trance-like indifference to life, they may encounter any of the following: daydreams so deep they become subjectively real, a loss of sense of self, excessive malleability, or a loss of short term memory. They may also be several physical symptoms, including: a body-wide loss of pigment (partial or total), flesh that becomes stiff or porcelain-like that hinders movement and cracks (or breaks off entirely) when forced, the emergence of white feathers or wings from anywhere on the body, halos of light, or singular horns growing from the forehead. Advanced cases may result in becoming completely petrified, their very presence becoming a beacon for the power causing this. Physical and mental side effects may happen together or independently.
These side effects may be additionally enhanced for characters from the following Legacies:
Innocent, Lover, Celebrant: As the Legacies most craving of comfort and the most welcoming of stagnation, Aions from these Legacies will not just more readily accept the contagion, but feel the urge to actively spread it to others. It will feel like doing them a kindness, as if simply removing the trouble associated with desire, action, and choice. Those that succumb to these temptations will be able to cause or speed their effects in other Aions with a touch. This feeling can be resisted, but is nagging. The arrival of the contagion will feel peaceful and right, as if they are communing with a higher force that deems it a necessity.
Visionary, Firebrand, Artisan: As the Legacies most attuned to feelings of unrest, obsession, change, innovation, and passion, these Aions will experience a violent clash between the energies of the Innocence Contagion and the energies of their own spirits. The same physical effects will manifests, but far more aggressively, with the Innocence warring against their natural essence. Their stone-like skin may crack and shatter painfully, the wings and feathers emerging with blood and violence instead of peace. Their predisposition towards resistance seems to only make the contagion attack them more doggedly, as if particularly determined to extinguish the threat they represent.
◆ THE CURE: In the face of this contagion, a solution will eventually become clear. The excess of Innocence can be banished by causing its opposite. This means, the cure to the infection is to inflict upset in whatever way possible: by dragging up their worst memories, getting a rise out of them, causing them pain, destroying their inner paradises with communion. Empathic connections during this event will be intensified, allowing characters to delve into each other's mindscapes. Ironically, causing your allies misery and torment may be the key to their salvation... but do you have the heart to inflict it?Visionary, Firebrand, Artisan: As the Legacies most attuned to feelings of unrest, obsession, change, innovation, and passion, these Aions will experience a violent clash between the energies of the Innocence Contagion and the energies of their own spirits. The same physical effects will manifests, but far more aggressively, with the Innocence warring against their natural essence. Their stone-like skin may crack and shatter painfully, the wings and feathers emerging with blood and violence instead of peace. Their predisposition towards resistance seems to only make the contagion attack them more doggedly, as if particularly determined to extinguish the threat they represent.
MOD NOTE: All characters who go to Venera and participate in the event log will be awarded 1 Token, so please make sure to mark that on your AC. You will not receive the token if you don't claim it.
makoto & yuuta
both of my boys are going to be very fucked up by this event in very different ways, so... let's see what we got here:
🩸 MAKOTO · KENOMA · FIREBRAND
Being a Firebrand, Makoto is going to be especially targeted by the contagion of innocence, and his own personal stance against what its symptoms are will make him even more alarming of a threat for the illness to want to wear down. Almost more than anything — more than pain, more than death — Makoto dreads indolence and loss of personal agency. He actually actively denies himself certain things in order to keep himself driven and near-immune to the temptations of laziness and falling into contentedness with what he has. The effects are largely going to be physical (he's going to be very fucked-up looking from all of the cracking skin and feathered wings trying to overtake his draconic ones by force), but the mental/emotional toll it's going to have on him will be one of exhaustion and irritation as he fights tooth and nail 24/7 against what the contagion is trying to lull him into.
Prior to the infection getting really bad, I'm open to any interactions with folks from the Kenoma or even the Pleroma as they rove around the city and investigate what's going on! He won't mind sharing information so long as it's mutually obtained.
Later on, however, Makoto is going to be very irritable, nasty, and violent... What's really funny to me is that his natural reflex in this state (which is to be horrible to people and try to cause them the most physical and/or emotional pain possible) will IRONICALLY help cure them of the effects. So if anyone wants to (inadvertently) help get cured or rifle around in his various past traumas to get him back on his feet, I am super interested in all of that! PLEASE BE AWARE that these past traumas include various content warnings, so we might need to discuss options of what scenes your character might see before heading into them. :3
💍 YUUTA · PLEROMA · LOVER
Again, more than happy to dig into some cross-faction CR when first arriving into the city and taking a look around. (:
Being a Lover, Yuuta is going to be highly susceptible to the innocence contagion. He will have comparatively fewer physical traits of the illness, but it will essentially manifest within him emotionally like his Big Time Depression making an aggressive come-back. And after he and all of his friends had put forth so much effort to get him past all of that...
For Yuuta, I think he will still be aware that the way he defeated this particular internal enemy last time was by forming bonds with others. The contagion, however, is going to twist this to its own advantage, so as he instinctually seeks others out to try to help himself, he's going to end up spreading the contagion via touch and his own mental state... If there's anyone who needs to be innocenced further, that is an option! Another option is that he's desperately going to need people to help snap him out of it. If anyone is interested in some thoughts or memories of Rika before or during she died and became a big cursed monster, this would be a good opportunity...! That was a very Rough time for Yuuta and still difficult for him to recall.
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No rush or pressure since I know you're on vacation for the start of the event but I'd enjoy doing something with either of your guys?? Preferably in the infection phase/mindfuckery and violence part of the event bc I'm kind of full up on investigation threads?
...Altho hmmm I just realized it might be kind of interesting if Ryu and Mako had like, a (relatively) normal first interaction prior to the whole Estinien murder thing??? IDK. I'm flexible!
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i'm certainly interested 👀 if we wanted to do something with makoto and ryu... heck, we could even handwave that they had a relatively pleasant introduction to one another in venera before the whole thing w estinien happens and then write out the fallout to that? just thinking that the aftermath would probs be more fun to write with that context rather than writing the meeting or both
if we wanted to do something w ryu and yuuta im also down for that..... if you want the poor boy infected a bit more (':
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Yeah god i'm trying to figure this out now that the event is in swing and I have a better idea of like, what kind of stuff is easiest for me to thread... I'm finding I'm preferring to actually thread out first meetings w/ Kenoma people since Ryunosuke's take on them can be like... very context dependent??? but I don't.... Want to overload the both of us dsklfklsdfmkl
While you were out we DID have a discussion in the Discord about how Ryunosuke will probably go a little apeshit after Makoto kills Estinien, though how that look kind of depends on what Makoto does... If he just bolts Ryu will probably try to chase him since he has a record of. Chasing after people who hurt his friends?? If Makoto sticks around on the scene.... IDK what Ryu will do, it's probably going to depend LOL.
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I'M NOT 100% SURE WHAT MAKOTO WILL DO we will just have to see but honestly he would probably just try to walk away and leave............... very casually leave his very casual murder
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Makoto tries to casually leave and Ryunosuke tackles him from behind like he's a target NPC in an assassin's creed chase mission
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LMAO GOD.... ryu........ youre going the right way for something very bad to happen to you
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