introductory mingle: FEAST OF THE DYING

[riverviewmod]

who: everyone in Riverview!
what: Introductory Log and Feast of the Dying
when: Feast of the Dying from October 1st-8th; various other prompts over the whole month of October.
where: Anywhere around the city.
warnings: please put any necessary warnings in the subject lines

feast of the dying

In the days leading up to October 1st, residents new and old will notice preparations beginning, a flurry of activity getting the city ready for the upcoming celebration: the Feast of the Dying. There is an old, widely-known, and widely-believed superstition or proverb in Riverview Quarantine: 'The greater your fear of death, the easier it is for death to find you.' This is a cornerstone belief of a lot of the residents of the Quarantine, most of whom have survived intensely difficult and violent pasts on their own worlds and who are still willing and eager to throw themselves into exploring and settling new worlds, starting their lives fresh. To honor this spirit, the Feast of the Dying is a celebration of the transition between life and death, an opportunity to face death both figuratively and literally, and come out on top.

celebrating the transition from life to death

During the month of October, a particular natural phenomenon on the moon weakens the boundaries between the worlds of the living and the dead, allowing for the crossover of those dead into the world of the living, with ghosts from the pasts of both the residents and the Quarantine itself to take corporeal form. The festivities during this time feature tests of courage in highly haunted places, escape rooms both virtual and physical with varying levels of danger, and the week-long Feast of the Dying itself, between October 1st and 8th this year.

i. ghosts from the past

During the 10th month of every year on the moon, due to a complex series of chemical, electromagnetic, and magical forces that no one has ever exactly distinguished or completely understands, the boundaries between the worlds of the living and the dead are weakened almost to the point of nonexistence. During this time, residents of the moon are able to see and interact with the dead - ghosts, manifesting in ways that run the gamut from being a strange sense of being watched or being visible or audible all the way to more corporeal spirits that can affect the world around them. The barriers are weaker in some parts of the city than they are in others, with some areas experiencing little to no ghost activity, while others are so populated with these ghosts that residents can barely go a few feet without running into one. The ghosts are generally the unsettled dead, people who died violently, or who were lost, seeking a place to call home, and their behavior is as varied as it was while they were alive. Some ghosts are angry and vengeful, some are simply lonely and lost.

While some people tend to interact with the ghosts only a little and as necessary, others avoid them as completely as possible, and yet others actively seek out souls who are suffering and try to ease that so they can stop coming back year after year. There are other people who have found that ghosts from their home worlds have come through with them, following them through the portal when they arrived, even if they did not die on the moon...

Whether facing death or making peace with those who have died, this is a time to reflect.

A Few OOC Guidelines:
● Characters may see or interact with ghosts from the Quarantine's past. These people will be as varied as the NPCs, from a multitude of different worlds, and characters are welcome to either engage or avoid, as players wish.
● Most Quarantine-based ghosts will have died in either the Great War with the neighboring reality or in the Pandemic that wiped out the population of the Abandoned City years ago.
● Characters may also see or interact with ghosts from their own or other characters' canons, providing the character in question is dead in canon and is not currently being played in the game.
● Canon-based ghosts should not be simply transplanted into the game as they were in canon - they are ghosts, and therefore 'not quite right,' and should not be used as an excuse to NPC a canonmate for a month. These ghosts are there to be used as plot devices to open up new avenues of CR, to create angst, to help a character make peace with their past, or other similar reasons.
● Ghosts should not be complete corporeal physical presences indistinguishable from living people, but barring this, how strongly the ghosts manifest and how much they can interact with the world around them is up to player discretion. Ghosts shouldn't be present the whole month straight, but can disappear and reappear at random times.

● Mod questions and plotting regarding this prompt can be found here.

ii. the feast of the dying

The month's holiday is named after a long-standing tradition in the Quarantine - the Feast of the Dying - that starts at sundown on the first day of the month and continues until sunrise on the ninth day. The Feast of the Dying is a costumed masquerade-style party that is continuously available for the entire week. Set up by volunteers specializing in both magic and science, the Feast of the Dying is hosted in a large conference center that has been decorated and magically altered to provide a very formal, intensely creepy atmosphere. The decor can run the gamut from fancy and classy decorations featuring iconic skeletons or ghosts to incredibly realistic catacombs or any other frightening settings that you can think of. Rooms often become more and more foggy the more people enter them to mingle, and in many rooms the air pressure will be slightly played with to make the atmosphere seem more oppressive and spooky. Costumes and masks are required, and anything from a Halloween-style costume to a formal outfit with mask is acceptable.

Players can feel free to go wild with ideas for decor at the Feast, including linking to inspiration images in their posts - it is, essentially, like having a Masquerade ball inside a disturbingly realistic haunted house.

The venue the Feast is held in includes several large rooms intended for dancing with different themes and decorations that can change off and on throughout the week, two large dining rooms where feasts will be held at mealtimes and snacks or drinks (alcoholic or non-alcoholic) will be promptly served to anyone who sits at one of the tables, and a plethora of rooms meant for mingling and relaxing. Additionally, there are a large number of smaller lockable rooms set up for sleeping or private encounters.

iii. escape rooms

One of the fun and more commercialized aspects of the season are the many Escape Rooms that pop up throughout the Quarantine. Residents are encouraged to test their survival skills by grouping up with friends or strangers to escape difficult and scary situations together by solving a series of puzzles.

Escape Rooms can be either physical, set up inside buildings with realistic decorations, or they can be Virtual Reality, where the players don VR masks and cooperate in a virtual world. While the former can be more challenging and realistic, the latter provides for higher stakes. Physical Escape Rooms are generally set up to avoid any kind of physical harm to participants, but the Virtual Reality Escape Rooms can simulate pain and injury quite handily, and therefore can put participants in more dangerous situations.

While players can make up an Escape Room that uses whatever theme they like, some prompts are below:

● Zombie Attack
● Torture Machines or Traps
● Cannibal Warlock
● Wrongly Convicted: Escape from Prison
● Escape from Sewer Monsters
● Mad Scientist Experiments

iv. tests of courage

As mentioned before, there are certain parts of the city where the ghost activity is much stronger than elsewhere. These are places where terrible things have happened - hospitals that treated the ill during the Pandemic, insane asylums or prisons where inmates were mistreated, homes where terrible murders happened, places exposed to dark magic, and other similar places. Every year during October, these places are shut down or vacated (unless they were already sitting empty) and entrance is allowed to people wishing to partake in a traditional Test of Courage - to enter these deeply haunted and dangerous places, and stay there as long as possible, sometimes even overnight.

In these particularly vulnerable and terrifying places, ghost activity is intense and almost constant. Characters will encounter strange sounds, smells, and visions; will encounter ghosts that are capable of throwing items or people; and most of all, they will experience powerful and realistic hallucinations due to the sheer lack of boundary between the worlds of the living and dead in these areas. Whether the hallucinations are manifestations of their own worst fears, the ghosts retelling their own tortured stories, or any other kind of terrifying vision, they feel very real. While characters will not be injured by the hallucinations, the sensations of pain, pleasure, hunger, thirst, or other sensations will be almost impossible to tell from the real thing until the hallucination subsides at daylight.

While the haunted locations are highly unlikely to kill characters, whether or not they experience serious injury due to physical actions they do while under the influence of a hallucination (eg. falling down a flight of stairs) or attacks from ghosts (eg. an angry ghost throws books at a character) is up to player discretion.

v. roommates or wildcard

Feel free to use this prompt to meet new roommates, for the purpose of getting to know each other, or hit up the mod-posted prompt to create a Communal Housing floor mingle. Or, if you have an idea for a prompt that isn't in this list, set during the Feast of the Dying, feel free to write it up!

visual inspiration

click on thumbnails for larger view; images may contain disturbing themes


Credit: image i: Olivier Le Gall; image ii: John Watkiss; image iii: unknown (wallpapersfan); image iv: signed (pinterest); images v and vi: unknown (pinterest)

navigation

Comments

Beverly Crusher | OTA

[dancingmd]

i. ghosts from the past
It’s innocuous enough, at first. The faint whisper in the dark, a cold brush of air against her cheek: things she can easily dismiss as her imagination getting the better of her, especially alone in her apartment at night. But the whispering becomes more persistent and the chill deepens as the days go on. She’s heard tales of ghosts from other residents, but of course, there’s no such thing… right? It’s simply that time of year when spooky stories abound.

Except one evening, she’s taking a stroll along the river, and there’s the voice again, only this time, it calls out to her, clear and distinct:

Beverly.

The hairs on the back of her neck stand up on end. She knows that voice, she’d know it anywhere, doesn’t matter if it’s been 17 years or 170. Impossible, she thinks. Yet there are few things in her life that proved to be so.

She turns. “Hello? Is someone there?”

ii. the feast of the dying (but also still ghosts)
By the end of the week, Jack Crusher become more than a voice. He’s taken on a more visible form, like an old, old hologram: a faded and untouchable version of reality. He’s as handsome as she remembers, except for the jagged wound running down half his face and cutting across his throat. As ghosts go, he’s relatively unobtrusive, seemingly content just to be near her, never demanding answers or revenge, as he needs neither.

The only thing he asks is, Just one more dance?

“Oh, Jack…”

Please. Then I’ll go.

And so that’s how she ends up here tonight at the Feast of the Dying with a ghost for a dance partner. Strange, yet fitting. And with the fog and the dark, maybe no one notices anyway. She holds up a palm to Jack. They cannot clasp hands anymore but he presses his palm to hers as best he can, sending an unpleasant cold throughout her body. No matter though. It’s the chance to say goodbye that they never had before. They stay off to the side of the dance floor, their conversation soft and somber as they sway.

The song draws to a close and he begins to fade away, feet first, until there’s nothing left but a voice, I love you. Then he’s gone, gone and she’s left standing with tears pouring down her face behind her mask. With a deep shuddering breath, she disappears into the crowd, desperate to find a more private space for her grief. Eventually, she ends up outside the dance hall, back pressed against the wall as she tries to compose herself.

v. wildcard!
She won't be doing any tests of courage (other than maybe taking care of you if you get hurt) but anything else is a-okay!

2

[scholiast]

(Lucretia, lingering on the outskirts of the room with a drink in hand might not have noticed Beverly and her ghostly companion at all if she hadn't taken a seat to people watch: as it is, after a moment she spots the two slowly revolving in a corner together. The sight gives her pause. It's the way that they're trying to touch despite being unable to coupled with the insight she has into Beverly's past that tells her this is a moment best left uninterrupted. She even manages not to spy even though she's deeply curious, glancing back only as the song ends. She misses Jack's slow disappearance, but a couple of witch lights pass through the low hanging fog as the music starts up again, illuminating Beverly's tear streaked face as she pushes slowly through the crowd. Lucretia's heart sinks.

Abandoning her drink she follows, picking her way across the hall in careful pursuit. Beverly leads the both of them outside, and that's where Lucretia finds her, her back against the wall.)

Beverly, (she says as she approaches, unsure if it's okay to touch. Lucretia's very sure she knows exactly who the ghost had been after all, and perhaps Beverly wants to be alone to deal with this? Still, she at least wants her to know that she's here, should she need a hand to hold.

Her brow is furrowed, expression soft, unjudging.)

Are you okay?

[dancingmd]

(By the time Lucretia finds her, Beverly's already ripped off her mask and it lies discarded on the ground beside her. She starts at the sound of her name and for a moment, the walls go up. This is a private grief and her instinct is not to let anyone see, to not burden anyone else with it.)

I...

(But Lucretia is not just anyone, is she? And so the walls quickly crumble. She shakes her head as her eyes well up with a fresh round of tears. Words are impossible. Instead, she steps forward to wrap herself around Lucretia, knowing she will be welcomed with understanding.)

[scholiast]

(Oh, Beverly.

Lucretia puts her arms around her and holds her close, feathering a kiss to her temple. If she doesn't want to talk, that's fine. Lucretia had seen that little wall go up briefly between them; and she understands what that's like. Not knowing what to say in the face of something that's upset you, being reluctant to let people see you so unguarded.

For now she'll just keep Beverly close, and rub comforting circles on her back with the palm of her hand until she's ready.)

[dancingmd]

(Beverly's not usually one to give into to full-on sobbing, but the build up over all these months of being away from home and being confronted quite literally with the ghosts of her past has proven too much. She buries her face in the safety of Lucretia's shoulder. This perhaps, more than any words she's said or kisses she's given, is a testament to her feelings about Lucretia.

Eventually, though, she does cry herself out and is able to lift her head again, revealing puffy eyes and a red blotchy face. She gives Lucretia a weak, faltering smile.)

Thank you.

[scholiast]

(The sound of Beverly's misery saddens her, of course, but at the same time it seems like this is a cry long overdue. Lucretia holds her through it until she leans back and lifts her head; she gives Beverly a sympathetic, searching look as she lifts her hands to cup her face for a moment, wipe underneath her eyes with her thumbs.

It's hard, seeing her so upset.)

Of course.

[dancingmd]

(Her eyes close and she leans gently into Lucretia's hands, grateful for the comfort.)

He came back. Jack. I'm sorry I didn't tell you.

[scholiast]

It's okay.

(Lucretia very much wants Beverly to know this, that she understands why this would have been difficult to talk about. She hesitates.)

I saw you dancing.

[dancingmd]

(She opens her eyes again, for a moment surprised, but of course it makes sense. They were hardly a typical pairing. Lucretia was hardly the only person who would have noticed.)

He... he needed to say goodbye.

(She ducks her head, her feet shuffling worriedly.)

Do you think...do you think he's been following me all these years and I haven't heard him?

2

[somakemelaugh]

There's far too much in this world to be sad about for him to try and let it get the better of him, especially on a night like tonight. This month is the one month of the year that he refuses to mourn anything, but he can't stay blissfully happy and dancing the night away the whole time as if he had energy for days. He does need to take a break for a while, and when he does, he notices a curious thing. The couple off to the side, the pair of them who he thought one of them might or might not have seemed completely solid, seems to have parted ways, and now the woman is leaving.

Normally he would have left it be, but she does seem rather upset, and she does seem strangely familiar. So he follows along, to sate his interest in the situation, and... Oh, it does look like she's rather upset. At first, he thinks it best to walk away and let her handle herself. He's no good at this sort of thing and she's already offended by him, but something urges him to stay.

And she did help the young Earl. And she was kind enough to answer his questions about the boy's condition.

Mind made, he steps quietly over to a spot against the wall a modest distance away and pulls his braids over his shoulders and leans back against the wall without a word, lips held in a neural line. He won't offer anything more than she would ask, just a familiar presence, even if they haven't had the most pleasant encounters in the past.

[dancingmd]

Normally, this is one of Beverly's favorite times of year and she usually relishes in the opportunity to dress up in something clever and fun, but this year she went with something more subtle and conventional: a simple black cocktail dress with feathered capelet and raven masquerade mask. She's grateful for the mask offering an extra layer of protection from prying eyes when she was escaping the crowd, and most especially now. When Undertaker appears, she stiffens. Admittedly, ever since Ciel's asthma attack, she's softened to his guardian somewhat, but not enough to want him around in a moment like this.

"Did you follow me?"

[somakemelaugh]

There's nothing for him to hide here, not that he would try. "In short, yes." He shifts a foot, putting the heel of one boot against the wall behind them. "I saw someone leave, thought I recognized her, found you here as you were and decided to linger. Now, here I am."

Because this is perfectly normal for him, wandering to places where he's better not wanted. But there is no humor in his tone, no teasing. There is simply matter of fact, nothing more. He may well be talking about the weather, keeping it neutral.

[dancingmd]

"I appreciate the concern, but I'll be alright. I wouldn't want to keep you from the party."

[somakemelaugh]

His head turns ever so slightly in her direction, as if he might be eying her through his bangs, left hanging in his face as always despite the braids. It seems as though he won't respond, but then his lips quirk up in a light grin. "As you wish."

He leans forward and steps away from the wall, taking a moment to offer her a shallow bow. "Milady." With that, he turns to leave her to her own devices.

[dancingmd]

She doesn't look back at him, just stares grimly ahead. But before he gets a chance to leave, she asks, "Did you have ghosts, in your universe?"

If anyone would know, she figures, it'd be an undertaker.

[somakemelaugh]

He hadn't expected her to call out to him after he turned to go, but she does. It's a strange thing, the question even more curious. He slows to a stop and, after a moment, turns his head, not enough to look over his shoulder at her. "Everywhere."

[dancingmd]

"You've encountered them yourself?"

i!

[spellslots]

[Taako's been a little wary about going out, considering the ghosts, but he's braved it today just for the hell of it, finding a spot by the water to practice a few spells.

At some point, he was joined by some ghosts, a small family of mongoose who seem pleased to see him, one of them settling into his lap as he weaves spells through the air. People walk nearby occasionally, going about their daily business, but he doesn't think much of it until he hears a familiar voice.

She's a little distance away, so Taako hops to his feet and makes his way towards her, his ghosts following behind at a lazy pace, apparently not too worried about losing track of him.]

Hey, Beverly, you good?

[dancingmd]

Taako...

[Her brow furrows.]

Did you call my name just now?

[He didn't. She knows deep down that he didn't, but it's hard to acknowledge. This is the easier explanation.]

[spellslots]

I said it like a whole five seconds ago but not before that, I heard you talking first.

[He has a feeling that he knows what's happening here, but he isn't going to push Beverly on it.

A ghostly mongoose reaches Taako's legs and starts climbing up him to settle on his shoulder, but since it weighs literally nothing, he doesn't pay it much attention.]

[dancingmd]

[He may not notice bit she certainly does. Her eyes widen at the sight of the little ghost.]

Um...Taako?

[spellslots]

[It takes him a second; but he follows her gaze to the mongoose and shrugs, his shoulder moving through the ghost a little.]

Oh, this is, uh-- [He straight up fucking chitters, like an animal would, because that's the mongoose's name, in its own language.] He's chill, but are you good?

[dancingmd]

[How is he so casual about this???]

... no, because not only am I hearing voices I'm also pretty damn sure that you have a ghost mongoose sitting on your shoulder right now even though that should be impossible.

[spellslots]

[It takes him a second, before he thinks he figures out what the issue is here.]

Beverly, darling, the grim reaper is in love with me, ghosts aren't anything new.

[dancingmd]

[She has no idea whether to take that seriously or not but after a moment she decides she better.]

Well they are to me!

[Obviously.]