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faderiftooc2019-05-15 11:49 am
faderifting) wrote in faderiftooc2019-05-15 11:49 am
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EVENT: TRUTH BOMB
EVENT: TRUTH BOMB
This cycle’s quasi-jamjar mod event involves an honesty EMP (not really technically an EMP, it’s actually just some rifted-in magic thing) that will force everyone to tell the truth for two days. There’s an event log up over here—and everyone is welcome to make separate logs or rookery posts as desired—and further details below.
EFFECTS
During this event, it will be impossible for anyone affected to say anything that they don’t actually believe is true.
Whether or not something is objectively true won’t matter, only whether the person sincerely thinks it is. They’ll still be able to use figures of speech and hyperbole. “I’m so hungry I could eat a whole horse” is fine, even though they clearly couldn’t eat a horse, as long as they sincerely believe that they’re really hungry and aren’t intentionally using the figure of speech to be duplicitous, such as trying to convince someone that they really are literally capable of eating an entire horse.
They also won’t be compelled to be exceedingly precise or completely literal, as long as the lack of precision isn’t intentionally dishonest. So someone can say “I love you” and not be required to specify “in a platonic way only.” Or they can say “you’re an asshole” and not “you’re being an asshole at this moment but you are not literally a sentient asshole or always an asshole in every conceivable way at all times,” as long as they mean whatever thing they’re imprecisely communicating and aren’t intentionally being misleading. Basically, you don’t have to carefully construct technicality-proof sentences to participate.
Otherwise, the effect will vary in strength depending on how close each person is to the bomb when it goes off, so you can calibrate exactly how much you want your character to suffer by making up a reason for them to be closer to or further from Ground Zero. You don’t need to worry about exactly how many feet away from it your character is at the time or why. You can just pick the level of effect you want and wave your hand vaguely at where your character would have been at the time.
CLOSE: Characters who are in the lower levels or ground level of the Templar Tower, including the surrounding courtyards and so on, will be the most strongly affected and will experience an overwhelming compulsion to be forthcoming to everyone, about everything. This is for people who want to go full throttle and can manifest as stream of consciousness rambling, making public confessions to everyone over the sending crystals, etc.
MIDDLING: Characters who are somewhere in the middle will feel a compulsion to be forthcoming, but it will be something people can resist with enough conscious effort and willpower, though doing so will make them dwell obsessively on whatever information they might intentionally be withholding or talking around. This might ultimately end in seeking out specific people to correct prior lies or make confessions, resisting for a while but then cracking and admitting something unprompted, etc.
FAR: Character who are further away—on the complete other side of the Gallows, in the uppermost levels, etc.—will not be able to knowingly lie, but they won’t feel any compulsion, or at most a very weak and easily resisted compulsion, to share the truth. They will be perfectly capable of shutting up for the duration of the event, if they want to play the silent game, or of attempting to talk around anything they don’t want to be truthful about (though their success at that will depend on how good they are at it and how obvious it is that they’re obfuscating).
NOT IN THE GALLOWS: Characters who aren’t in the Gallows at the time the bomb goes off won’t be affected at all, but they can still come back to the fortress during the event and make fun of everyone who is.
We're not going to go around policing precisely where you draw the lines between these categories or making sure your character’s dialogue conforms exactly to the guidelines, but please just go with the spirit of the event! There are plenty of ways you can opt out or have your character retain the ability to pick their words more carefully if that's your preference without bending the rules described so far that it makes other characters look dumb for not doing the same.
TIMING
The event will begin around midday on Bloomingtide 15 and continue for approximately 36 hours. After that, the effects will taper off gradually depending on how strongly someone was affected. People who are in the weakest category (see above) will recover first, leaving some time for you to play around with one character being able to lie while another isn’t. The effects will be completely gone within 48 hours.
Until the effects completely clear, no one will be permitted to leave the Gallows—though it’s fine for anyone who wasn’t in the Gallows already to come back—to make sure a bunch of people incapable of keeping secrets aren’t going out drinking with the general public. That would be bad.
There will be a headcount, too, so if your character tries swimming to shore despite being told to stay put, they might be in trouble.
CONCLUSION
The effects will end on their own after around two days. The device that caused it is in the Gallows’ storage—it was a nondescript metal ball, but it will have sort of burst open on one side to reveal a geode-like center—and was only good for one use, so while finding it and studying it is a smart move, it will never yield any further information or work a second time.
OPTING OUT
If you don’t want your character to be affected, they just need to not be in the Gallows when the bomb goes off; if you don’t want to engage with the event at all, they can stay gone the whole time, either because they heard what’s going on and decide to stay away or because they’re busy elsewhere and don’t know anything is happening until it’s over.
QUESTIONS
no subject
ex. can one make an audible confession to a hallway, or say it in a language they hope the other person doesn't know?
no subject
no subject
(frozen comment) PLOT COMMENT FORM
no subject
CATEGORY: Middling
DREAMS:
+ Blurting out some catty opinions in public
+ Confessing selective bits of his Mysterious Past that can be misconstrued
+ Talking about any of the other alarming shit he never talks about
+ Locking Leander in his room to keep him quiet
+ Come talk to him while he's stuck sitting in the hallway outside Lea's room, what could go wrong
CHARACTER: Max
CATEGORY: Far
DREAMS:
+ Gathering other people's secrets for later use (maybe yours?)
+ Strategic truth telling in an effort to make people trust her
+ Accidentally having a soft moment, could be fun to jumpstart new or established CR
+ Uncomfortable levels of honesty about her extreme practicality or goals: also fab
no subject
CATEGORY: Middling
DREAMS:
- Let's complicate our CR.
- If you want an unkind person to have one or more of your secrets, and later menace them with said secrets, come here.
- If you yourself are an unkind person and want to try some ill-advised blackmail, come here.
- 100% down for petty one-off fights with anyone, if you just want an excuse to write a FIGHT. FIGHT ME.
- But imagine a spontaneous hook-up that seems cool at first, then becomes awkward due to So Much Honesty.
- At some point, Ilias is going to extract Lea with a giant stage hook and lock him up, presumably to prevent him from being executed for weird mage crimes. An action-spammy and/or crystal conversation would be perfect for this interruption. (Handwavey witnessing from nearby is also possible if you just want to gossip.)