⇨ New Location: WISMUTH

[ringleaders]

PREPARATION↴ On Day 1 of the new season, the carnival will depart from their lunar vacation and return to the regular carnival grounds. New arrivals will be given their official trailer assignments, and veterans will be asked to go over their trades with the newbies, to get them ready for the next touring location. Performers will be expected to put together some new performance routines, security and nightrunners will be asked to do some military training, etc. Then, on Day 6, the carnival will enter its new location. Rather than integrating itself with the new world, the carnival will be connected via portal to a central park area in the city. Of course, the "vibrancy" effects mentioned below will still be allowed to leak into the carnival itself through this connection. The intent will be to spent a couple days exploring before going into Performance Week, but the carnival will be interrupted part way through their tour by the firm hand of plot. SETTING↴ Wismuth is a large coastal city on the east shore of what would usually be the United States. The world it's part of is an Earth variant, meaning that while some aspects may be different, overall it will contain a similar look and feel to Earth many are accustomed to, including some overlapping celebrities, corporations, and technologies. Its most notable feature is that this planet is a part of what is called a 'Pillar of Creation' - a focal point of Creation's energies in the multiverse. The significance of this term will be explained in more detail as the plot moves on. The immediate effects of this trait are that everything in Wismuth, and in the world surrounding it, is filled with an unusual sort of vibrancy - colours seem brighter, sounds seems to resonate more deeply, and all other physical sensations will strike visitors as oddly intense, including their own emotions. It's a subtle effect rather than anything that will be overtly disorientating, but it's almost as if everything is more "real" here than it is anywhere else. Obviously, the locals have had plenty of time to grow accustomed to this. On the bright side, as a tourist, you have the opportunity to experiment with this sensation as a form of recreation. Wismuth won't read as overtly magical to anyone sensitive to such things, but magic will seem to flow with particular ease while you're here. It won't necessarily make a mage considerably more powerful, but it will put less strain on their efforts, and will somehow feel more "natural." While some realities may fight the presence of magic, this world seems quite the opposite. Technology is somewhat more advanced here, allowing for better medical care, a healthier planet, and other mostly idyllic additions to society. Though the current year is still 2018, the qualities of this place seem to have resulted in things developing more quickly and positively. Make no mistake, though - people can still be assholes. PATRONS↴ ► THE STAR GUARDIANS: Along with all the regular people - who will be vast majority of the individuals the carnival will experience - there are also the Star Guardians: Defenders of Creation, Heralds of the Stars! The short version is that they are basically magical girls fueled by the rawest force of Creation in multiverse, and the ones that will seeking the carnival's audience are here on a particular mission. This world's nature as a Pillar of Creation makes it of great multiversal importance, and it is their duty to defend it from the forces of the Void at any cost! And, hey, it'd be really great if you could help them out? (NOTE: Some concepts and artwork for the Star Guardians are taken from League of Legends, but this event will not actually be using a canonical version of them, so LoL is irrelevant to this event besides a few basic ideas and pretty pictures.) DANGERS↴ ► THE VOID: In a constant struggle with the powers of Creation, there is the emptiness of Void. The Void craves nothing more than the total elimination of reality, to drag the multiverse back into the nonexistance from which it sprung. Worse, the Void has its own army of corrupted magical girls - because of course it does. More information about the Harbingers of Void will released later. REWARDS↴ The main reward of this event will be the opportunity for your character to temporarily become either a STAR GUARDIAN or a HARBINGER OF VOID due to plot events that will happen midway through the event. Yes, this means that there will be some evil brainwashing going on, which is a popular demand! However - there will be limited slots for both Guardians and Harbingers (probably to the tune of 10-12 each), so not all characters will be automatically included in this. Slots will be able to be purchased with AC points if there is significant demand. CHANGES↴ There will be some available changes from this event, but the specifics will be determined later on. At the least, there will probably be a general common/uncommon change available from being near a Pillar of Creation. Beyond that, this is a PLOTTING POST, which means you can use it to make plans! The game chat is also a great place to discuss plots, so we welcome you to pop on in if you haven't already! The calendar has been updated with event timing.

Comments

⇨ QUESTIONS

[ringleaders]

If you have questions I can probably answer them.

[textsfromhotland]

THIS

THIS IS ALPHYS' LIFEBLOOD

She absolutely without a doubt needs to be a magical girl. It would be her dream come true! Barring that, she can teach everyone all about the magical girl genre!

[textsfromhotland]

OKAY LET'S PLOT FOR REAL

ALPHYS is going to be a guardian! Right now I'm thinking she's going to be the Guardian of Kawaii and her outfit is going to look a little like this! Her magic staff shoots adorable heart beams at people! She's still going to do her best to educate everyone about magical girls, too.

HINAWA meanwhile is going to be fretting over everyone who gets turned into Harbingers. why does mind control keep happening you guise D:

[destiny_key]

I NEED SORA TO BE A MAGICAL BOY. I NEED IT.

I've had Sora get brainwashed/kidnapped/otherwise get got by the bad guys like three times in the past year, and as fun as that is, he needs a break and a turn to be the Hero like he's supposed to! Hit me up if you have any ideas for me, though!

Also I wanna put the boy in a pretty outfit. So sue me.

"SHOPPING LIST" for Thieves & Conmen & People Who Need Stuff

[atouts]

Hey LC, your gloomy Acquistioner here with a "not actually plot-related plotting but it's an Earth variant and maybe we need supplies" comment.

For Thieves & Conmen: Feel free to use picking up this stuff as log prompt fodder or to just handwave saying 'yeah, I did this thing', whichever you like. This is just an optional to-do list that, while ICly expected of them, is not required to be played out stealing and conning and such.

For everyone else: Please reply to this comment to add anything that might be needed. Anything suspect will require supervisor permission and Childermass may decline requests on account of being kind of a jerk. It'll be assumed these things have been ICly requested.

List to follow below, etc, etc.

A LIST OF THINGS that will very likely be stolen, because thieves

[atouts]

Do not reply to this comment, thanks.

- Potatoes (for Rin aka the Cookhouse)
- Other food in larger quantities, general restock of Earth food supplies (also for Cookhouse)
- Cigarettes
- Booze, no specification as to what kind (for one Jonathan Strange). Additional non-magical alcohol reserved for Cookhouse use (aka Mundane Stuff We Couldn't Get On The Moon).
- Books (mundane), including textbooks and material for teaching young children.
- Additional packs and storage for the Nightriders.
- Coffee supplies for the Cookhouse.
- Coffeemakers for the various workplaces (or for storage until someone else also wants one).
- Cases of energy drinks to the Cookhouse.
- Tea and tea-related supplies (requested by Mr. Gold but suggesting to get enough for Cookhouse use as well).
- A spinning wheel for Wardrobe, great wheel preferred.

[kingsroads]

STRANGE WANTS BOOZE

and Cole can definitely steal some cigarettes and then probably yammer someone's ear off because holy crud, did you know these are bad for you???

Re: "SHOPPING LIST" for Thieves & Conmen & People Who Need Stuff

[moonfang]

Zangetsu will be DELIGHTFULLY INVISIBLE in this world unless he's schlepping around in his meatsuit, so your wish is his command, boss.

[reflash]

getting in that race for magical girl transformations aw yeah

magical boy yukio is a healer class. his familiar is hachiro a cute little snake with too many eyes that either bites healing into people or fuses with yukio to shoot glowing blue healing flames at people ~☆


also just in general (especially if i don't get into the magical girl signups in time) yukio will be looking into that "better medical care" and trying to collect information/textbooks/useful things to improve your carnival medical experience.

also medical checkups for... lots of people. yukio needs to get medical records so he can make sure youre not dying.

[scientificist]

Yukio, if you can get carnival members to AGREE to checkups you're his favourite employee.

[dressedtothe]

Gonna try for magical girl 9S!!

But regardless of whether he gets to be the magical boy, 9S is going to be a chicken for a short period of time. Why is he a chicken? Because thanks Strange, smoking the faerie weed was a Great Idea.

[espigeon]

Turning into a bird is rough but ngl, Julien will find that funny.

[kingsroads]

Cole is one who I'm probably going to toss in the magical girl bloodbath for spots because come on, he's pretty much got the power of heart already. no matter what, he'll spend most of the event very eager to help and eager to see what's up and also probably almost get hit by a car because fantasy canons don't know this modern day nonsense.

Strange is going to get high in a park and make bad decisions. Sorry 9S. He will not almost get hit by a car because this isn't his first modern day rodeo but will probably do some research into this Pillar of Creation stuff and also expand his fashion sense by wearing jeans & t-shirts. As always, he's able to help out people who suddenly find themselves shoved with weird magical powers because he thinks he knows everything.

[chronosynthesis]

I want Syr to catch up with Cole in general but trying to figure out modern technology together sounds hilarious. Tyrian magitech is just far enough removed that Syrlya can recognize a number of concepts but not at all in actual form, and also what the hell is a blender.

[scientificist]

Above all, Herbert is going to be doing research in the modern day advanced university libraries suddenly available to him. He's going to take a lot of notes and write down the names of a lot of required textbooks for Acquisitions and do his best to make sure the med tent is stocked properly.

I'm also going to try and make him a Harbinger of Life. Which would mean a lot of flinging syringes around and making angry reanimated things with his Spark and also he'd have a Marabou Stork for a familiar that would mostly just hang around beside him and look like it was judging people and fly him away from danger.

Either way, he's going to keep doing research to improve his reagent because there's no reason being evil should stop his own personal scientific progress.

If he doesn't magical boy then he'll have to try and wrangle a trip to a morgue out of Acquisitions somehow....

[atouts]

wrangle a trip to a morgue out of Acquisitions somehow....

Herbert discovers one of the few things Childermass won't agree to steal without an extremely good reason very soon if that happens.

[spaghettimonster]

Papyrus is in the running for abducted into the Harbingers, because sub-team Campy Evil sounds like a fun time to put him through. I'm straight up borrowing Underfell stuff for the aesthetic if he gets in, and expect it to be on the sillier side of things. Frisk and Sans in particular could recognize the return of his I, THE GREAT PAPYRUS, WILL CAPTURE YOU! demeanor, only now with even more sincerity and intensity than ever.

Whether things will get more serious depends on how plot stuff goes, and whether he gets in. More plans to come.

[stillwinningthehardway]

Scout's like Papyrus... no... and dread that she'll have to kill him. (Scout no this isn't that kind of event)

NIGHTRUNNER + LAMBERT PLOTTING

[whattaprick]

Lambert's off to the magical girl races, but I don't have too much planned for him on a personal level so I'm content to see how things go. He will likely be slightly uncomfortable due to how much this world reminds him of Portland, and he may be involved in hijacking a bike off some poor civilian for a high-speed chase (that or his horse will turn into a magical bike, we'll see how that goes). He's a little leery of the whole 'things are more intense' effect.

Nightrunners (scouts and mercenaries) will be expected to report in with any useful information that they gather, verbally or written. We can play threads out or handwave it, as per your preference! He would also encourage people to pair up if they can vs. going it alone, and with so many new people around, it's probably a good time to get to know your coworkers.

Lambert's standing orders (which he would have issued before their arrival) are to keep an eye out for any potential danger or valuable resources and report back on anything unusual. Nightrunners are expected to check in at least once a day, even if it's to say nothing more than 'nothing to report'; let me know if your character sticks to this or fails to check in regularly so I can figure out if Lambert would be alarmed or annoyed!

He'll also request that they try not to do anything that's going to end up in anyone getting kidnapped, and keep an eye on other members of the Carnival, because the Carnival has a history of that sort of thing happening to people.

[insidescoop]

HIM

CARLY

BIKE RACE AT SOME DAY OR ANOTHER

but also after seeing this picture of a tiny kid next to a shire horse I need to have Reira meet Pig like burning ok- (The Bike Race is bigger NEED though...)

YUYA + SYRLYA

[hippocarnival]

YUYA

Is in the running for being a star guardian! Assuming that goes through, he's going to get barrier and warding based powers to compliment what he's already been doing, basically being support for the team and running around cleaning up the messes the Harbingers of Void make. He'll definitely be calling out ridiculous attack names and probably give himself a superhero moniker to go by.

IDEAS:
- Protecting other carnival members, fighting alongside guardians, hitching rides from other guardians who can fly around because Yuya Can Not. Also just hassle him about it, he's gonna ham this shit up.
- Tourism! Especially the free time days he'll want to like, wander around and try weird foods and see attractions.
- Other performers getting back into practicing acts together?
- He's actually from an era close to this one so like, if anyone needs any explanation of technology he's one of the better sources of information.
- Idk hit me up with ideas.

SYRLYA

Will just be his usual self but hilariously underpowered considering how strong all the guardians and harbingers are. That said, he's still a Nightrunner so he'll still be following Lambert's instructions and supporting carnival efforts as best he can. Training week is probably just getting to know the rest of the new Nightrunners, training, etc.

IDEAS:
- He's from a pre-modern canon and missed Portland for easy understanding of technology. What the fuck is half this stuff. How does it work.
- Support the guardian effort, his powers are at least pretty good for recon stuff
- Maybe give him reason to use the bloodstone for the comparative powerboost
- Continue to study dangerous magic, magic demonstrations, magic party.
- Shenanigans. This is the wildcard.

[kingsroads]

look, obviously the best thing to do while all the magical girls are off shooting sparkles at each other is to find out about this pillar of creation and poke it with a stick

CHILDERMASS

[atouts]

First and foremost, Acquisitions stuff can be requested up here. Minor things feasibly within the setting are okay. Bigger things require supervisor and/or mod approval. Pro-tip for requesting items, if it's something that could be useful in bulk, a+.

But for Childermass specifically, he'll mostly just be... doing his job. That either entails picking up items personally or babysitting/aiding his crew as they do the work in his place. He's available to go along (via thread) or to just discuss business (also via thread or via inbox).

HOWEVER, if he ends up in one of the Harbinger spots, he will become the Harbinger of Fortune for the remainder of the plot aka a jerkass villain who robs museums and charity balls or whatever. Yes, that's right, 40-year-old magical girl anime villain I guess. He will look somewhere along the lines of this, just obviously paler, silver jewelry instead of gold, and his badass glowing blue scar fae marks on his chest. It's awful. I know. You're welcome.

And if he doesn't, I'd be down for him getting caught in the Guardian-Harbinger crossfire as a hostage or something. He'll be thoroughly unimpressed and sigh a lot. yep he's a Harbinger rip Childermass

MARI MAKINAMI (ILLUMINATI)

[motivenotfound]

MARI will be a Harbinger, wielding her trademark Lance of Longinus and controlling probability with her Spark of Fate.

Fate, in this case, is defined by a theme from her canon, The Fate of Destruction is also the Joy of Rebirth.

Basically, she's gotten a little stuck on the Fate of Destruction part. Just can't stay away from apocalypses, that girl.

But she's getting her wish to be a catgirl, because her costume will be a plugsuit-inspired deal featuring gunmetal-and-black tabby stripes, a super cute cat tail, and a collar with a big silver bell on it. Correspondingly, her sinister magical companion Peacat will be growing some eyes to match her. She's calling him Tabris right now, for some reason.

Tragically, her lengthy apocalyptic resume means she knows how to do the maximum amount of damage with minimum amounts of effort. Highway overpasses, dams, power plants and so on are all fair game.

Look, we can't all be Steven "Where's Your Villainous Monologue" Universe.

[fourthscribe]

"She's calling him Tabris right now, for some reason."

OPENS MOUTH, SILENT SCREECHING EMERGES FROM THE BLACK PIT OF VOID

FOSTER VAN DENEND

[criticallyfucked]

[Might volunteer to be a Guardian Familiar, but I don't know if anyone would want him.]

FOSTER will be surprisingly invested in this event once things really get going. The Void is basically all he's about, but the Ringmaster will be very obviously not a fan of it, and he wants very badly to prove he can do something right.

As a result, he's going to be pretty invested in helping(?!)

Two things of note:

Foster has insider information about the Pillars of Creation, as well as the Void/Creation conflict.

During the retrieval of the Rose in Heartstone Manor, Foster stole a book from the Prince's study, and he has ICly read about Void and Creation as the most primal forces in the multiverse, and the roles of the Pillars of Creation in existence. Not the universe, the multiverse. Turns out they're a whole Thing. He'll willingly discuss this more ICly if he thinks you need informing.

Partway through the event, Herbert will be injecting Foster with Reagent. [Trigger warning: needles, brains]

Herbert, as a Harbinger, will be going through with his plans to turn Foster into his perfect assistant, and will be forcibly injecting Reagent into Foster's brain. (Forcibly because Foster has a massive medical phobia and will not be cooperating at all.)

Because of Herbert's ridiculous Harbinger power boost, the presence of a Pillar of Creation, and, uh, the fact that Herbert actually does something similar in canon, it will... mostly work to restore certain parts of his brain.

So stay tuned for THAT nonsense.

TANYUU KARIBUSA

[fourthscribe]

HEY GUYS DID YOU WANT A WHOLE FUCKTON OF HORRIFYING MUSHI INFECTIONS GOING ON? NO? well sucks to be y'all then

Tanyuu is getting kidnapped and brainwashed into being the Harbinger of Balance, which hilariously means she's going to be throwing balance off everywhere by creating highly dangerous mushi and setting them on Wismuth at large. Of course, this is a bit of a blind, seeing as her real goal is to get the Forbidden Mushi leg back out of RM's possession. I don't forsee that succeeding, since RM knows how fuckoff dangerous that thing is, but she's going to give that a good college try while also erasing swathes of people from reality for funsies.

I have yet to decide what's happening to poor Haruki, but Keiko is definitely getting dragged into animal companion land.

[dontpokethat]

hhhhey sis could you maybe not

like, just a thought

don't

CARLY NAGISA

[fortuneglass]

For the first half of the event (Or, well, anything Pre Guardians-Harbringers), Carly's going to be her usual busy beaver self. Aside from making good use of the new supplies in the Wardrobe Tent, she'll be going around with her Camera to take pictures of everything (as usual), and more importantly giving her re-painted bike a good spin. It's Awesome, after all.

And then she'll become a Harbringer

Carly's focus will be Fulfillment-but where typically this was her working hard to make other's dreams of greatness come true (putting heart and soul into the things she crafts toward it), now...

Now you could say she's tying loose ends. Carly's magic manifests in strings, and strings of flame, and her weapon-the bow gifted from the Manor's Hunt-suits this well. For the most part though, expect lots of strings.

And lots of string puns-EVIL! Carly will do what her canon form of this did not-she's still Carly this time, which means she's pulling from her time as an actual villain to be the HAMMIEST QUEEN OF THE DARK EVER. There will be Evil Laughs, there will be Manic Grins, and more importantly there will be monologues and an expectancy to follow some sort of script-like format because dammit there's a PROCEDURE HERE.

She might actually use her fire toward that, in fact. Nerd.

Aside from all that, she has Nuna the Alolan Marowak acting as her familiar-she'll likely be an enormous attack lizard most of the time.


she also looks pretty good, for a goober-

LAVELLAN

[dirthena]

Lavellan is going to embrace her Dirthamen vallaslin and become the Harbinger of Secrets, which means she's going to be all up in everyone's business to an unusually shady degree, if anyone's into that nonsense. If anyone has any dirty laundry they want aired or delivered to another person for drama's sake, I would be more than happy to aid w/that! Sowing seeds of discontent by exposing secrets and other nonsense will be her Magical Girl Villain role, as well as sitting on a pile of secrets. Maybe? We'll see. Her familiar will be a raven with glowing purple eyes, so that will ALSO be fun.

Probably wandering around dressed in this while her staff will be replaced with this, but more black and shadowy and glowy.

Otherwise she's going to be wandering around, trying to learn everything she can b/c what is modern technology, what are cars and how do they work and someone please explain the internet to her.

[hurtcomfort]

hopping over to your plotting post b/c you know, a good "exposing secrets" thing could be Lavellan just tattling about the fact that Cole had that serial killer phase. perfect for all the drama afterwards

but before that, we definitely need a 'fantasy canon discovers fast food' thread or something equally dumb

Rita Mordio

[anti_nonsense]

During the break:

- Rita will be finishing the manuscript for the book she's writing about blastia! She's ready to show people, for those who are willing to read through painstakingly detailed descriptions of blastia and magic formulas.

- She's now officially a mercenary! Other nightriders can welcome her to the team (or not), encourage her to train, goad her into sparring with them, or whatever! I'm also up for pairing her up with people while checking out the new world!

For the event:

Rita will be joining the Star Guardians as the Guardian of Knowledge! Her Litten, Francis, will be her familiar as she battles the forces of evil with an oversized magic book for a weapon. The book can be used offensively in a number of ways, such as throwing a flurry of razor-sharp pages at an enemy, or turning its interior into a portal from which weapons or elemental magic can be drawn. Even if pages are torn from the book, it doesn't seem to deplete.

The book's other purpose is for knowledge. If Rita uses her magic hacking ability while transformed, the book will record the information she sees. Additionally, if one focuses while touching a page from the book, they can imbue it with information. While the actual text in the book may appear as nonsensical runes to most, another person who touches a page imbued with information will telepathically receive that knowledge. Imprinting information on a page can only be done consensually, and it will only record information that is truthful as far as the one recording it knows.

Her costume will be mostly orange and white, maybe something like this?

Other than that, she'll be pretty stoked about this world, and she's going to want to check out its technology and experiment with using magic with the vibrancy effects.

MIKO AND GINKO

[pullingamiko]

So MIKO is gonna be joining the Guardians which she's gonna be pretty hyped about bear with me while i continue to try to figure out a spark for her

Anyway what i DO know is that her Whismur, Screamo, is going to be acting as her familiar - in the form of an itty bitty bunny. Who turns into a guitar, which is used for MAGIC ATTACKS, because sometimes that's just how it is.

GINKO is not joining either team, but WILL be having some Problems dealing with 1. the whole vibrancy thing, especially as it relates to emotions, and 2. the fact that his sister has been evil-brainwashed oh god this is a nightmare.

Fortunately he will be able to actually be helpful with her mushi attacks, since that's... literally his job. But there will inevitably be some Drama here.

[whattaprick]

I really want a stupid teamup where Miko gets to ride on the back of Lambert's bike and hit people with the pool noodle she got him??? But basically them both being guardians is too good an opportunity to pass up.

[tacosgay]

Taako is, as those of you who have me added on plurk have seen, a Harbinger. His spark is Love, and, inverted, it means he's able to manipulate and suppress people's affections/relationships with one-another, as well as forming fake bonds to make people serve him. Basically, think of it as a weird kind of mind control. He'll have his casting glaive, along with some fire effects, though he'll likely mostly use that for theatrical effect.

also he has a phoenix bc birds are cool and Symbolism

THESE ARE MY ONLY PLANS FOR HIM THO, anybody wanna have him do something terrible to your character or maybe just. defeat him???

FANTASIA FESTIVALLLL

[whattaprick]

With the concert log up, it's time to figure out what your character is doing and how they're getting there! Do you have skillsets to offer or a plan for your dudes and wanna see who else is interested in teaming up with yours (and/or watch them crash and burn spectacularly)? Do you need an excuse for your character to be there but haven't quite figured out how? Does someone need to save your character from brainwashing? Feel free to sound off here.

[dressedtothe]

9S has offered his assistance, his contribution to the general plan ("plan") being trying to shut down the power to the concert (or otherwise disrupt the equipment if that turns out to not be feasible). He figures that there might be some kind of software/circuit system that manages the power/other stage equipment, which means it's something that he could, theoretically, hack into and disable.

But he does need someone to help him get inside to do any of that, especially because, surprise surprise, he can't fight humans and thus wouldn't be able to put up any resistance against Security if he's caught.