Inspired by K2's "which camp would you choose" plurks, this month's mod event is OUTDOOR SURVIVAL PRACTICE. In light of Riftwatch's propensity for being trapped in the wilderness for prolonged periods of time, groups of 4 to 6 characters will be sent into the mountains to have a go at surviving for five days without any assistance or tools.


Characters will be organized into small groups, given some basic training on things like "how to start a fire" and "the following native plants are deadly so do not eat them," and then dropped off in a relatively remote but reasonably safe area of the mountains with instructions to make it to a particular other mountain to be picked up in five days.

Their assignment will be to safely navigate to that point while making their own tools and shelter, finding and catching their own food, etc. They won't be allowed to take anything with them except their clothes and a shared hunting knife and hatchet to get them started, but they also won't be patted down if they want to cheat. (If your character has something they would die or become seriously ill without, for whatever reason, or needs a cane or other mobility device, obviously that is an exception as well.)

The groups will be going one or two at a time, into different areas, rather than everyone doing this at once. They'll have crystal access and are welcome to make or participate in crystal posts while they're away, but using the crystals to cheat (e.g. by describing plants and asking if they're edible, or getting a refresher on star navigation or something) will be noted in their permanent records. If anyone becomes actually endangered or seriously injured or otherwise needs to call it quits, they can use their crystals to call for assistance and get a griffon airlift straight away.


For characters, this is not optional! Every character who is a member of Riftwatch will be required to participate, from Division Heads on down. The only exceptions are (1) people with anchors who have not formally joined up and (2) side characters who aren't members. Non-members are permitted to go, they're just not required. If your character has a division listed on the taken list, they're Riftwatch members and they have to go camping.

For players, obviously it is optional, in the sense that you can handwave that your character participated in this training but not actually write anything about it. To that end, we have three different tiers of sign-ups:

1. Characters you for sure want to write during this event. Characters in these groups will be given some optional obstacles/prompts to deal with during their camping trips.
   
2. Characters you don't know that you'll have time/energy/inspiration to actually write during the event, but you'd like to at least know who their group was for handwaved CR purposes or hashing out OOC how it went. You'll certainly be allowed to write something with them after all if you wind up with time/energy/inspiration, but we want to try to group folks with similar intentions to do or not do so.
   
3. Characters you just don't sign up at all, who will be assumed to have participated with some vague undefined group.

The aim here is to provide an easy opportunity to build new and different CR, so sign-ups will be a mix of RNG and us moving people around to make sure characters are grouped with at least a few people they don't already have obviously strong CR with.

The deadline to sign up is March 18, 2021. Teams and the log will go up on March 19, 2021.


However you want, but: our recommendation for logs for this is to do it like a banter meme, use action spam, do montages or quick scenes, and otherwise use it for low-pressure CR building. Doing standard logs is fine, too, if that's your group's jam.

This is meant to be lowkey, fun, and CR-development focused, so shenanigans are encouraged. If the group agrees to hitch a ride with a passing merchant to a village and stay in an inn and then hitch back to be picked up and claim they did the whole five days in the woods, they can. If they have a massive fight and split into two competing camps, that's hilarious. If you want to have the whole group nearly swept away in a flash flood and make them call for a rescue while having heartfelt conversations because they think they might die, that's great. There's no actual prize for being the best at this.

After everyone has had a few weeks to RP, there will also be a crystal-post debrief to discuss how things went, to say what areas people need more training in, to tattle on groupmates who had temper tantrums and kicked over your lean-to, etc.