empatheias_ooc | Mid-Month Announcement: June

— MID-MONTHLY MOD ANNOUNCEMENT: JUNE —

» CALENDAR

Here are the dates you should know for the rest of the month. The main calendar spreadsheet can be found here.

6/17: Test Drive.
6/22~6/23: Arehtei Q&A
6/24: Activity Check starts; Reservations open.
6/30: Activity Check ends.
7/01: Applications open.

No unusual weather, just typical sunny days with some seasonal rain.

» EMOTION TRACKER UPDATE

As always, it's kind of early to tell where the Emotion Tracker is going.

As a reminder, this is just a "mid-month" check to give everyone an idea of where the Emotion Tracker stands. If you haven't had a chance to submit your threads, don't worry! You can still submit and have it count for the final tally at the end of the month.

Here is a screenshot of the stats:

As usual, the crystal is currently in the red. Looking at things, although there's more general positive points, the apathy may be what's dipping it down. For now, Peromei is not looking so hot.

» PUZZLE SOLVED

As many know, there has been a dedicated group who have worked hard on that strange crystal device that appeared as a result of March's emotion shift. After a lot of trial and error, they have figured it out and reported their findings. There's a bit to it, so here's our official summary of what's happening here.

Teleportation device. The entire device is essentially a complex mechanism that allows for mass transportation over long distances instantly. There are safeguards against unwanted "invasions," but—well if there are workarounds, those would have to be figured out. (Hint: anything can be hacked.)
Locations. Since this device just appeared on the island, it had to originate somewhere else. But there are more of them around the world. Whether they are active or destroyed, however, is a different question altogether. Although, during their tests, the group may have a few received a few clues already... One known location is Shaarnath.
Shaarnath. It so happens that there is a device near where Shaarnath was founded and after being told about what happened on the island due to Aiada, a few technicians had also gone out to work on it. After managing to get the communications working again, the two groups managed to figure out how to fix the connection between both devices and get it working. Shaarnath will send supplies to help aid the recovery and rebuilding effort, and then diplomats will follow.
Ambassadors. A couple of ambassadors will arrive and the group who worked on the device as well as representatives will be able to speak with them. They will eventually make more of a public face, but that will come later.
Security. The entire site is overlooked by Enforcers, and Elios is also going to station himself there to make sure nothing happens to it.
Future. This device is definitely not there for a one time deal. It is basically our ticket to expand the game world and allow characters to become more proactive in terms of going down and exploring. There's still a few things to do before we can get that arc going, but that's the plan.

And that's basically it! Huzzah, the puzzle has been solved! The ambassador meeting will be a closed log for those involved, and it will occur sometime early next week, before the Arehtei Q&A detailed in the next section.

» AREHTEI Q&A

We apologize for the delay, but various real life situations have made it difficult for us to be able to set this up on a date where we're all available. However, as indicated in the timeline, we have it set for Wednesday or Thursday, the 22nd or 23rd. We're shooting for Wednesday, but just in case we are unable, then it will be Thursday.

Those who signed up on the lottery, are locked in and we are not accepting any new sign-ups. However, we do wish for those who commented to re-confirm here. In addition, we are going ahead and asking players to at least think about the kinds of questions their character will ask, as well as which Arehtei they may be interested in speaking to. Of course they can speak with more than one, but due to the number of sign-ups, we're going to put a few criteria and restrictions.

All Arehtei. All of the current six available Arehtei will be there: Aiada, Elios, Daimonia, Peromei, Sosyne, and Thras. We are still debating if this will be a physical meet or telepathic meet, but if it's physical then Daimonia and Thras will have crystals set up instead.
Open forum. The format of the Q&A is going to be an open discussion. This means the Arehtei will be able to hear and answer everything, and the characters will also do the same. Both parties can also threadjack and do piggybacks off anyone. Branching threads will be acceptable.
Try not to repeat. Since this Q&A is going to be open discussion, if a question or topic has already been covered and is asked in a later thread, we will simply link to the original answer rather than cover the topic again. So players, pay attention to what's been asked! As mentioned, you can piggy back off already asked questions.
Aiada. We know everyone wants to meet the new one! But to make things easier on us, we do request that any questions asked to Aiada be more about her. We also request to keep casual conversations limited. You can have casual conversations of course! Aiada would appreciate it. But if there is anything important you want to be covered, it would be best to get that out first so they can be addressed quickly, and then more relaxing conversation can happen after.
General questions. Any questions about the world at large are going to be open to all Arehtei. For your edification, the older Arehtei will be better suited to ask those questions regardless as Aiada will not know the answers. If someone does ask Aiada a world related question, another Arehtei may jump in instead to answer.

And that should be all! We encourage players to take this as an opportunity to ask the big questions as we are at a point in the game's life where such questions can be answered. There may still be some vague answers, but not as much as before.

» SO LET'S TALK ABOUT DEATH

For quick reminder, Kylo Ren was taken by some strange black ooze, which he later reported to be a being related to death. We didn't say much in our first mod post as we wanted this to be ICly introduced first, and there will be more IC introductions made later. But we can now talk a little more about what this is and its purpose.

Basically, due to the uptick in death plots, we needed something in-game to dole out better suited punishments since the ones used by the locals don't really do anything for the characters. Its origins, backstory, and everything else about it will be revealed ICly, but the only things you guys need to know are that it's like Empatheias's version of the Grim Reaper, it exists, and if there are to be any death plots or killings in general—this is the thing that characters will have to deal with. More severe or at least more character focused punishments will be doled out, and they will all have the purpose of deterring characters (and potentially players) from repeating it or committing the act at all. This includes not making it very fun to play out.

Which leads us to the topic of death plots in general.

Overall, we don't mind them happening. However, we are growing concerned about the rapid amount of them and how this is affecting things in-game. Not only for characters, but for the local NPCs. We know it's easy to forget the NPCs aren't just game fodder. But dissension exists and while we haven't pulled the trigger yet due to the complications that would come from it, we can make it very uncomfortable for characters to live in Verens due to how locals feel about all of this.

Thus, we are going to be a little more restrictive and selective about death plots from here on out.

Event based. If an in-game event provides opportunities for character deaths, that's A-OK. We do ask players to consider whether the character has to die or if it's just for the dramatic effect, but otherwise no extra step is needed.
Out of necessity. We know we have cannibals here, and so they have a legitimate excuse to kill NPCs for food. That's allowed, but not without some IC consequences. As far as we know, the NPCs that are getting offed are those that no one would really care too much about so it's not a problem yet. But Mr. Death Reaper may try to offer alternatives later on regardless.
Player plots. We're going to be a more selective about player plots that involve deaths of any kind, including one-time murders. They are allowed in general, but we are going to need to know the reason why it is happening. Those that have an actual purpose or can help push forward other events will be allowed, but those that are in it for just personal dramatic purposes may be rejected.

Like we said, we don't mind death plots in general, but there has been almost one death a month. We realize that the lack of permanence is a large part of the blame, and that exists mostly because trying to make sense of how a permanent death affects canon timeline as well as not have people trying death as an easy way out of the game is mind wracking. However, we're going to say it now—we can make deaths permanent if necessary, including making a character no longer able to be applied into the game, and we have the in-game mechanism to do it. (In fact, there is an actual in-game reason why characters don't have permanent deaths right now.)

But for now, we hope Mr. Death Reaper will be enough of an interesting deterrent—or at least make people think a few times before doing so.

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And that's about it. If you have any questions, concerns, or want things clarified, please comment here.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Player: Darkfeather
Character: Obi-Wan Kenobi
Alignment: Peromei
Have they spoken with an Arehtei before?: N
Rep? N
Arehtei: Any is acceptable really.
Question type: He will be asking about the death creature as well though considerably less yelling than Kylo Ren.
Anything else: He will be listening in on Kylo Ren's questions and answers and will keep quiet if everything he wants to know is covered there. But will interject his own questions if he needs to.

Mid-Month Announcement: June

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