isleofavalon | EVENT ✨ Wolf's Moon

Entry tags:

EVENT ✨ Wolf's Moon

QUICK NAV: LOGS ⚔️️ NETWORK ⚔️️ MEMES ⚔️️ OOC ⚔️️ NAVIGATION

This is the event log. If you have questions about y event, reply to this comment HERE. Click here to view top-level comments only.

The Fairy Queen sends out an invitation for all otherworlders to an eccentric party with ulterior motives that aren't necessarily bad.. after all, they're protecting players from a ritualistic curse cast by escaped convicts from the Elphame prison. But that doesn't mean it's the party's entirely safe either.

CONTENT WARNINGS:

1st Prompt: Mild elements of body horror in the fairy queen's description (paragraph starting with "Opening the message"); this paragraph is description only and may be skipped without loss of content.
2nd Prompt: Ball prompts include reference to drugs, alcohol, smooching, and fake murder.
3rd Prompt: May have potential for mild body horror depending on player preference, as it features cynanthropy/lycanthropy.

The night before the full moon, a message is sent out to all the otherworlders in the land. In each person's inbox, the message sender reads simply "ELPHAME" and appears to have a verified account, despite that looking into it doesn't seem to reveal much content. The profile pic is simply a picture of a mushroom. Opening the message will reveal a video recording. For the first full minute, a woman simply stares into the video through one pure white eye and one wholly black eye. Her hair is white and fair and longer than can be seen in the video of her torso. Her skin is sallow, gray more than any other color, and her décolleté is peppered with what seems to be shells of mushrooms growing out of her flesh like they would on a tree, patches of bleeding tooth mushroom creeping down the side of her neck.
Atop her head, a headpiece made of platinum formed into the tiniest branches, filled with leaves of precious stones- diamonds, rubies, emeralds, sapphires, and moldavite trailing down in long chains that keep her hair out of her face. Her lips are just slightly parted, painted in what seems to be an enchanted design that shifts patterns as she moves, as if they were a green screened galaxy in real life. There is a stud in the bow of her lips, and the top of her clothing appears to be colorful, but is only visible toward the top of her frame, as her top is low-cut to account for the fungi. A number of small stitched scars are visible, but largely healed. She tilts her head slightly. Even though it's only a video recording, it feels as though she is looking directly at your character. "You are busy bees..." A soft voice speaks, almost as if the wind itself is whispering in your ear and not from a recorded video. "Busy bees could barely bother, but bother is basically all you do. I bequeath you busy bees a bidding. Bother blithely, busy bees, in Elphame as bristling beauties are bound to do. A ball before you, beneath the Wolf's Moon big and bright, betwixt burgeoning fae blooms. Do not baa, do not bray, bruin nor boar will keep big bad wolf at bay. Bop and bounce, ballet you may, or brawl your basest behaviors in my ballroom before break of day. Broadcast not your boorish bumf, though, or busy bees will be broken brisker than bats banished from Beelzebub's borders and bound. Bless my bestowal and with bated breath I shall bade you betokened truth, if truth be told." Whether or not your character understood what was actually said or their brain shut down in the middle of those barely benign instructions, they may additionally notice fairy circles made of tiny mushrooms start to crop up regardless of where they are in Avalon.
	Once night falls, if a character dances in them they will be transported to a costume party within the ballroom of the fairy queen in Nicnevin. Costumes will be magically applied upon arrival, based on a favorite childhood fantasy. (Did they want to be an astronaut? A dinosaur? A cowboy? A cat? That's what they'll appear as.) You can choose from any age of childhood for your character, depending on whether you want to go funny or more serious about their later childhood dreams. Whatever your character chooses to do as part of the party, the following party happenings should be noted:
1. If your character or anyone they know uses your character's name or reveals enough information about themself, they will become unable to disobey the fairy queen in future events. They've technically been warned about this in the fairy queen's message, even if it wasn't easy to understand. B. Alternately, you can have your character's name be captured by a more mischievous party guest fae and play with that as you will. You can be released either by someone else killing your captured fae for you, or the fae saying your name backward. So if your character's name is Stevie, they would have to trick the fairy into saying Eivets. This option to NPC your own fae captor is endable on your own terms, but 1a will be on the fae queen's terms down the line. 2. The party itself is a protected area; refusal to attend or leaving the party before sunset will subject characters to the Wolf's Moon, which has been put under a ritual by a prisoner group released from the fae prison during the previous dark web quest, Banyanished. This ball is being held as a gift to otherworlders to protect them from the second part of this event. (See below for details.) Characters will be told that they are in a protective area if they try to leave and to trust the fairy queen, but will not be forced to stay against their will by the fae. The only people who may try to stop your character from leaving beyond telling them this information are other player characters. 3. Dancing, food (fairy food), psychedelics and drink will be provided to those of age who want them throughout the night. If the partygoers don't seem to be having a good time or the party grows dull, the fairy queen (dressed in the award-winning submission to the Elphame Trader's contest some time ago) will make a demand participation in a party game*. If your character is standing around and not participating in the general activities, they may be coerced to participate. Anyone may join willingly as well, of course. The following party games will be played throughout the night:

a bottle on the floor

Spin the Bottle, Elphame Rules:

Fairies are quite randy creatures at times, and the first game played is none other than spin the bottle. The rules are as such: when it is your turn, you are blinded by fairy magic and must spin the bottle. Once the bottle stops spinning, the person the bottle lands on will kiss them. The person who is kissed must guess who from the circle kissed them; a correct guess will mean they stay in and the blindness spell will be lifted. An incorrect guess will eject them from the circle and they will wander around blind for the duration of the game until a winner is declared. Feel free to play out gameplay or your character needing assistance after being ejected from the game circle.

Truth or Dare:

The standard game of truth or dare. Don't forget to be very careful, as certain truths may have dire consequences. (See point 1, be very careful.) You can play issuing and completing dares or asking and answering truths with other player characters or receive dares from NPC'd fairies, which may escalate to dangerous and magical lengths. The only solid rule is that no dares are permitted to require exiting the party to complete, and lying during a truth gives permission to fairies to steal your tongue from you if they discover your lie at any point, even after the party is over.

a woman gasping dramatically with subs that say "Escandalo!"

a woman threatening a balloon with a knife

Balloon Game:
Everyone loves a good murder game! Everyone is outfitted with a single balloon. You may secure the balloon to yourself for 2 minutes before the start of the game. In the center of the game circle is a pile of close-range weapons varying in usefulness from binoculars and pots to knives, slingshots, axes and more. Magic is also permitted. If your balloon "pops" you are "dead" and will float to the ceiling to fly around until the end of the game, out of harm's way. Do not commit any actual murder or the balloon of the deceased will immediately wrap around you in a full rubber bodysuit and imprison you until the fairy queen can deal judgment. (If this happens, notify a mod so we can discuss Queen Elphame's judgment with you OOC.)

Helping to empower otherworlders to improve their chances of saving the world is the kind of task that can be a little.. subjective. A little questionable when it comes to consent, at times. After all, no one is here with their consent and no one was bonded with their familiar or given magic with their consent. What's a little more empowerment? Certainly, a group of imprisoned lycanthrope wizards seem to think they have something of a solution to increasing other worlders' potentials: a ritual using the Wolf Moon of January's full moon cycle to transform unprotected otherworlders into fellow cynanthropes or, in layman's terms, werewolves and other types of weredogs. Anyone not protected (at the party) will be affected by the curse ritual.

dog in front of full moon

Cynanthropes in Avalon have the following characteristics:

Character is now able to transform into a humanoid dog or wolf form to the extent the player chooses (go ears/tail or full-furry)
Experiences enhanced strength, enhanced sense of smell, night vision, blood lust, and characteristics similar to the character's dog or wolf breed.
These effects are only applicable the day before, the day of, and the day after the full moon from sundown to sunrise on each day.
Note that new weredogs/wolves do not have control over their instincts for the first few months of transformations and will behave aggressively. If in an emotional state, they can lose control of their transformed form regardless of how long they have been cursed.
Though characters can be killed by normal means throughout the month, they can only be killed by silver bullets during the 3-day full moon cycle
Full-time side effects include cravings for meat, animal mages having mild influence over them, being able to eat food from Elphame without being bound to the land, and the occasional hair ball.
It is up to players how painful they want the transformation to be/not to be; you can play this how you want and chalk it up to ritual reaction variation.

Cynanthrope ritual curses are particularly strong and require at least two siphoners working together to break the curse, a counter-curse potion (only available through events), or a deal with a powerful being such as the fairy queen or Morganna.

If your character did not attend the party, left the fairy queen's party, or wasn't at the Red Springs (protected by the mysterious crystals that turn it red during the full moon-- conveniently for your excuse not to participate in either prompt if you want to opt out!) they will become a werewolf or weredog.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[Oh boy, what a question. Chara takes a moment to consider their answer.]

Sure, although I'm pretty sure you'll forget about it by the time spring rolls around.

[And that is the actual truth, oddly enough.]

Nope~ I'll hold you to it.

[ He grins teasingly, but it's wiped away with a look of surprise, revelation, and then a different, smarmier teasing grin, as he aaaalmost leans back to shift positions, but catches himself, and shoots Chara a look that illustrates all of that internal flash. He's determined to win this stupid dare. ]

Okay, so, uh— since I can't move... I guess truth for me, too, heh.

Uh-huh.

[Truth, eh? Chara is just going to think a little bit, trying to come up with a good question... So that will totally waste at least a minute of Alberto's dare.]

Truth, so... How many people here know what you really are?

[ The question catches Alberto off-guard, and he has to think about it, letting his eyes drift up in thought. There's a slight knot growing in his brow as he considers, his lips moving slightly, silently, recounting names to himself inwardly, before answering after a beat with a decisive: ]

...Six. And a magic talking not-cat on the network. So seven. You and your brother, two guys who are the same as me, a girl our age who does something similar, and that sky monster lady I told you about, the one you said tries too hard to be a mom. I told her, in the end. We're fine now. [ He skips a beat, an odd look coming over his face as he raises a brow at Chara. Yeah, just. Steering the conversation away from this truth slightly. He doesn't trust this fairy shit. ] ...You were totally right, though, heh — she definitely tries too hard, hah...

[ Was that a read? He smirks and crinkles his eyes as if it kind of is. He has never had a mom, he doesn't know how moms are supposed to act exactly, but even if he did, he has a feeling Della's, uh, Struggling with That. It was easily the most bizarre evening he's ever spent with a grown-up, talking so openly and with so much parity and vulnerability, but... hey, even if she's trying too hard, even if she's not even good at it, Alberto likes her, and figures she'll probably be a good mom when she gets the chance. But, uh, he ain't her kid. It'll take more than one nice dinner and a sled to win him over that much. But he likes Della. Even if she's the weirdest adult he's ever met in his life. ]

Huh.

[Chara has no idea who any of the others could even be, then again it's not like they get around much. They keep to themselves way too much.

And at Alberto mentioning that Della tries too hard they smile, Della seemed like an adult who would be easy to read to Chara. And probably someone easily manipulated, good for her that Chara hasn't actually had a chance to try that theory out.]

That's less people than I thought, you don't strike me as the type to be able to keep stuff like that secret.

What? I'm a great secret-keeper! What's that supposed to mean?!

[ Alberto looks incredulous, clearly catching himself again before trying to gesture or lean forward, the concentration on which just deepens his little scowl. He thinks six people plus a magic talking not-cat is kind of a lot for his liking, truth be told, more than he'd expected to tell, so he's surprised to hear this retort. ]

That you're not trustworthy, or at least you got that air about you.

[Oh yeah, Chara is now just trying to egg Alberto on. See if they can get him to move before time is up. Boy five minutes is pretty long when you think about it.]

[ Alberto opens his mouth to say something, almost leaning forward again to gesture as he claps back, but once more catches himself and strengthens the position he's been keeping, contorting his face as if to physically shut himself up. He just narrows his eyes at Chara. They know how to get a rise out of him, that's for sure. Not that it's particularly hard... but Chara can play Alberto like a fiddle by this point. This, in particular, like every other time Chara's made Alberto mad, strikes a tender chord he's rather insecure about — because he's afraid Chara's right, somewhere deep down. ]

...I'm very trustworthy, I'll have you know! You've got that air about you, eh!

[ His go-to reaction when he's mad usually seems to be ad hominem, just turning the insult back on Chara every time. But while on the one hand, he doesn't really mean it because he does count Chara as a friend and thusly must trust them to some degree... on the other hand, he really kind of doesn't, because Chara is arguably a strange kid and does shit like this just to get under his skin, and he knows it! He's not truly bothered, trusting at least that on some level it's just teasing to get his goat, but mannaggia, it works like a charm... ]

Edited 2022-02-03 06:28 (UTC)

[Chara has learned, the hard way, how to rile folks up. It's a skill they can say they learned from their human parents, and probably the only good thing in their opinion that they got from them.

They're going to lean back now and check their phone.]

About two minutes left.

[Why stick to the topic of trust when they can bring up how much time is left for Alberto to stay still?]

[ The reminder of the time left just deepens his scowl. He’s still stuck on being accused of being untrustworthy, ahem. People who are totally trustworthy probably wouldn’t be so hung up on it. Between his hubris, his hot temper, overexcitable impulses, his ignorance of the human world and just life and people in general, plus a complete lack of foresight and relatively weak emotional regulation, uh… it’s probably a fair assessment to say Alberto’s probably not the most trustworthy. Even if he is pretty good at keeping secrets under his hat and usually has good intentions toward the people he likes. That’s not all that goes into trust.

He can’t help but think of that day on the beach with Luca and Giulia, after commandeering Giulia’s bike out of jealousy and crashing it into the sea, and… everything else that came after. He learned from that experience, but still could stand to learn more in hindsight. Just because a problem was resolved, doesn’t mean it’s no longer relevant; he’s still got plenty to learn about trust. Burning Massimo’s boat was also a breech of trust. He’s done a lot to break people’s trust, come to think of it… And—

Silenzio, Bruno. Basta. Enough of that.

Alberto steels his pose, determined to win this stupid dare, but he doesn’t offer another response — well, not a verbal one, anyway. He just glowers at Chara (AKA: pouting) and that look says all, says even more than he’d like it to, probably. Why does Chara know how to push all his buttons?! Five minutes really is a long time.

Regardless… it’s Chara’s turn to choose truth or dare now, so whether Alberto speaks the words to explicitly redirect the conversation, he’ll just, uh, glare this invitation at them. Yeah. ]

[It takes a moment or two before Chara realizes oh yeah, it's their turn again isn't it?

Maybe they even forget to just see if it makes Alberto squirm, maybe not. Either way they're going to sit in silence for a time before they go "Oh" and give a response to the unsaid "Truth or Dare" question.]

Truth again, I guess.

[They're not really feeling up for any dares they imagine that Alberto would come up with.]

[ Alberto barely squirms in that interim silence, but keeps his eyes pointedly fixed on Chara in an almost challenging glare. But when the child finally speaks up, his face softens, a bit more ruminative but still discerning. He wants to get even, but at the same time, is it really worth it... Chara's his friend, after all. It takes him pause to come up with a question, still staring at them with narrowed eyes and pursed lips in thought, but comes up with a question that might strike a tender chord as much as it might just be open and elucidating. He's not so practiced at getting a rise out of people as Chara is; that's not his game. But for the sake of this game? Seems like he should take the opportunity to ask real questions, the stuff that normally wouldn't come up, wouldn't be discussed so bluntly. And if Chara's cutting to the quick, well... ]

...What are you most afraid of?

[ He delivers the question with an uncharacteristic gravity in his voice. But then after a beat, hastily tags on some clarification to really drive that home, though in much more his usual tongue-in-cheek, offhand, snarky tone. ]

And don't say something dumb like spiders or shrimp or something. I mean for real.

[ Ominous as that is, it begs the question: who the fuck is afraid of shrimp ]

Afraid of?

[Good question, once you kill yourself via poison there isn't much to be scared of. Chara looks thoughtful, considering an answer. Really they don't have one so they're just going to make one up.]

Skeletons.

[It's kind of semi-true, even if it's just one certain skeleton and it's not outright fear but more annoyance but hey it's an answer.]

Like, actual skeletons, or the weird magic-monster-skeletons-who've-always-been-skeletons from your world, you told me about a long time ago?

[ A valid question. ]

Both.

[A valid answer in response!]

Why?

[ Alberto's seen a fair few skeletons at the bottom of the ocean in his short life. ~~It's Italy. There are more than a fair few skeletons in the bottom of the ocean.~~ Doesn't really creep him out now. He's surprised it creeps Chara out, who seems so unflappable. He's not even sure he believes they're telling the truth, frankly, that said. ]

Why not?

[Don't get Chara started on Sans, they'd be here forever if they get started on that subject.]

They're basically rocks. Old, creepy rocks. S'not like they're gonna come back to life and get you or something. I mean— except the weird magic alive ones, I guess. But I don't know anything about those.

Bones and rocks are two totally different things, also you have a skeleton inside you right now.

[Gonna get an anatomy lesson here now.]

I know that. So do you, ragazza. I meant once they've been dead a long time, it might as well be a rock. So why's that scary?

[ Hey, he doesn't know a lot of things, but he knows the basics! ...Sometimes!!! ]

When they can get up and come after you? That's scary on its own.

[And hey... there is a small beep from Chara's phone, looks like the time is up for Alberto's dare.]

[ Alberto's got a response locked and loaded, but when the alarm chimes, he's stopped short, mouth hanging open from being about to speak — but then he gives a dramatic roll of the eyes, practically rolling his head along too, and drags both his hands down his face with a groan. Then collapses backwards onto the floor, going completely limp but for a theatrical little jolt on impact as he hits the ground, just for added effect. He lays there with one leg out, one leg up on bent knee, arms splayed all the way out on the ground, as if exhausted. Looks maybe especially silly spread out on the floor like this, given that he's wearing a fancy suit. Not that he's ever cared about getting dirty; goofing around is always the highest priority. ]

I think I've only sat completely motionless for that long when I was, like, sleeping... That was the worst dare, mia cara. Cruel. You're cruel~

[ He's obviously joking, even using the affectionate little pun he's so amused by, really laying it on thick in a breathy, exasperated, sarcastic voice... but... i-is he actually joking, really? But, uh, even if it's not totally inaccurate, clearly it's all in good fun, still. ]

[Hey it got Alberto to stop asking about skeletons, so saved by the beep for Chara. Even if it resulted in Alberto acting like a goof over the whole thing.

In fact being called cruel just makes Chara grin a big old grin.]

I don't think sleep should even count, because everyone is still, kinda, when they sleep.

Even when I'm asleep, I move!

[ He flops his arms against the ground melodramatically, staring at the ceiling of the ballroom he's just... lying in. ]

Man... I dunno how you and your brother do it... Or my friends back home... School.

[ He says the word with vitriol. ]

Just... ugh, sit all day. I'd go crazy.

[ He can't control his body. His mind, maybe slightly. His body? If he doesn't move, then he can't control his mind, even slightly! ]

Man you don't sit all day, they do give you breaks.

[Just going to lean forward a bit to get a better look at old floppy Alberto.]

Also it helps you get better with your magic.

EVENT ✨ Wolf's Moon

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

cw: suicide mentions

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

(no subject)

(no subject)

(no subject)

(no subject)

(no subject)

(no subject)

(no subject)

(no subject)