EVENT ✨ Wolf's Moon

[avalonmods]

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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:

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.

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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.

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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.
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.

Comments

[corruptedsave]

[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.

[prontissimo]

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! ]

[corruptedsave]

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.

[prontissimo]

You've gotta read all day, though — and listen — that's hard, too. [ It's not his strong point... Chara can probably tell just from texting with him... ]

Like— when I was a kid, whenever Dad was teaching me stuff, like reading and writing and stuff, if he thought I wasn't listening, he'd get mad.

[ As if he's not a kid anymore? And as if the experience of school is bound to be similar to his disinterested, disciplinarian father's homeschooling on a deserted island, assuming teachers will teach the same way...? ]

I don't need that in my life again...! Teaching myself stuff, there's no one to yell at me, hah...

[ He gives a wry smile, treating these statements a lot more casually than maybe he objectively should... but also speaking more openly about it easily, too, because it's Chara. He knows they get it. Chara knows the most about Alberto's dad than probably anyone, in fact. ]

Besides— I'm great at my magic. Look!

[ He splays his fingers in the air with one hand, and with the other limply pulls the carnation off his lapel and chucks it as high into the air as he can manage... all while still lying on the ground. But as it falls fast, he quickly conjures what looks like an iridescent, translucent bubble, and as the flower plummets, he swiftly catches it inside the bauble of hard light. He tosses the glasslike ball from one hand to the other back and forth a few times, then holds it up still for Chara to see. But after he lets it sit still in his palm for a brief moment, it disintegrates, the bubble bursting into a tiny flurry of faint sparkles and then dissolving into nothing... He impulsively lies the flower on his face, right under his nose, and continues to lay splayed out on the floor lazily, staring at the ceiling. ]

[corruptedsave]

Your dad sounds worse and worse every time you talk about him.

[Is all Chara has to say on that subject, as they stay quiet and watch Alberto's display of magic. Heck they'll even give a slow clap once he's done as well.]

Yeah but can you use it to protect yourself? That's important.

[prontissimo]

[ Alberto rolls his eyes at the comment about his dad, but doesn't retort. The point was teachers get mad if you don't pay attention — and in that time, his dad was a teacher... but it's true he hasn't painted a great picture of his dad to Chara. It feels like a lost cause to try to improve it now, though. He's not sure he even could...

So he just keeps on about the magic instead. ]

Yeah, I can create a shield — I'm working on it, at least. I know this guy — Signor Lan Wangji — you know him? Tall, long black hair, long white clothes, barely moves his face? Username's "boring," heh? He's teaching me. Light magic and sword-stuff. He's great at both.

[ The tone of his voice definitely starts to soften once he gets going about his studies with Lan Wangji instead of his father and school. It's barely been much time at all since they've decided to train together, but it's already so much promising than any other academic pursuits Alberto's taken on... however few and far between and entirely informal as those have been his whole life. ]

[corruptedsave]

[Chara has a low opinion of all dads, except Asgore, so yeah. Alberto is right to not make the attempt to improve Chara's opinion of his dad.

At the mention of Alberto's teacher of swords and magic Chara shakes their head 'no'.]

Never heard of him, or seen him around. And I guess it's good you've at least got someone to teach you how to not mess up but... What about your other magic?

[Alberto has got to know he can do more than Light magic, right? Right?]

[prontissimo]

Uhhh, I dunno! I don't think I have any. Does everyone have two magics?

[ He's heard many people do, but... he hasn't figured his out yet.

Though, it's a shame he hasn't, because this fairy ball would be an excellent occasion to practice his bargaining magic. He may well end up discovering it tonight if he gets himself in trouble, which is not so unlikely, who knows. ]

[corruptedsave]

Everyone has two magics, yes. I've got Dark and Blood, Asriel has two too.

[They honestly doubt that Alberto is the only one to have just one magic, no one is special like that around here.]

[prontissimo]

...Hm.

[ It draws a ruminative pause from him. Then, a bit abruptly, with a spike in energy as he sits up to face Chara again: ]

How'd you find out your second one? Maybe I've got two magics, too.

[ Far be it for him to go to school to find out, though. No way. ]

[corruptedsave]

How'd you think? It's called Blood magic for a reason.

[Honestly it's been long enough that Chara doesn't exactly remember how everyone got their second magics, and they don't really care.]