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)

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Comments

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?"

[somakemelaugh]

Had he encountered them himself? He tilts his head back, looking up to a sky that hasn't shown him stars in decades though his poor sight. Oh, the things he could tell her about souls. More importantly, what is it she wants to know? He feels that this is going somewhere, but he decides to stay carefully away from asking outright. She's already in a delicate condition and he's not so terrible that he would prod at that.

"More times than I care to count."

[dancingmd]

To be expected, she supposes, given his line of work. She's done her own fair share of work in the morgue and she wonders if she'd be able to stand it if she had to deal with the souls of the deceased as well.

"I'm sorry to hear that."

[somakemelaugh]

The grin widens, more out of amusement from her sympathies for him than anything. "Please, don't waste that on me. I made my own bed and I'll lie in it."

She hasn't run him off yet, not completely, and he'd been compliant in her wish to send him away before, but here now he reconsiders it. "Are you so sure you want to be alone right now?" Maybe she had a friend she could call, someone who was already at the party.

[dancingmd]

No, she doesn't want to be alone yet she doesn't find his presence particularly comforting either. Grief is something she is generally unwilling to share with most people.

She looks over at him and sighs. That infernal grin of his - only in the hospital did it disappear. "I'm just trying to understand this phenomenon better. We don't have ghosts where I am from."

[somakemelaugh]

In part, he wished she had asked him to find a friend of hers, or that she would have decided to call a friend to her side. He is no friend to her, only an acquaintance through her assistance to the young Earl, but her wants in this time are understandable. He doesn't know who she was dancing with, only that the man must have meant something to her to have her shaken so after his departure, but he does know a thing or two about the afterlife.

Rather than keep his back to her, since they're continuing to talk and it'd be a bit rude, he turns so she has his side now, though he makes no move to go back to her. "Most people go their entire lives without seeing ghosts, spirits, souls - whatever you might call them. They're one and the same. If this is just a quirk of the city, I don't know for sure, but I can say I haven't seen anything like it here until just recently. This month... it tends to be a powerful month for the dead. I wonder if it's the same across worlds."

That would be quite interesting to find out. He's only ever had his own experiences around England within his time period. In that thought, he found a question for her. "Do you ever hear people in your world talk about having seen their life flash before their eyes when they felt close to death?"

[dancingmd]

"No." She shakes her head. "Not seriously anyway. It's a turn of phrase of course, but usually just used in exaggeration."

[somakemelaugh]

Well, then. He couldn't fault them, of course, but if he'd taken the job seriously still, he might have been a little miffed about that. "Oh? That's a shame. How things change in the future, in your world."

[dancingmd]

"I don't think it's a case of being from the future, I think it's a case of being from a different universe." Where the dead stay dead and ghosts are just stories.

[somakemelaugh]

He shrugged a shoulder. "It might be that, or it might be so far into my future and your past we've no recollection of it at all. Neither would surprise me, not now. Not after all of this."

[dancingmd]

"True enough." She doubts they're from the same timeline but she supposes it's not impossible. "I've been there, you know. The nineteenth century. Not England but... Quite a culture shock."

[somakemelaugh]

He wouldn't know either way. Some he would guess weren't from his world but others? No telling. "Quite. How did you like your visit?"

[dancingmd]

"I can't say I particularly enjoyed it... But then I spent a large amount of my time in a cholera ward." In a corset. With men who were dismissive of her. Probably would have had more fun at one of Guinan's parties talking to Mark Twain but alas.

[somakemelaugh]

Oh, cholera. Lovely. He shakes his head. "Not quite the shining example of my own time that you should have seen. I would have suggested a beach side resort or a cabin in the hills myself, maybe a walk around London's streets - in the daytime."

Really, there were far better things to see in his time than the inside of a hospital. "Or is that not the first time you've been to my time and you needed to see something else?"

[dancingmd]

"No, it was the first - and only - time so far. We try not to interfere with the timeline. In fact, we were there to stop someone else from altering it significantly."

[somakemelaugh]

In response, he shook his head. What she was talking about came right out of story books to him, but there were things about his world that she might not believe herself. Maybe that was just the way of it, no matter what time they'd come from originally. People just didn't live long enough to see things others had lived to see, and seeing was believing.

"Still seems so unreal to me that you can do things like this. Then again, you did save a young boy from death by suffocation with a vapor I've never before seen. I'm inclined to take your word for it, hard as it is to accept."

[dancingmd]

Yes. Things like death gods.

She smiles. "Thank you. I know it all seems a little unbelievable, but then... so does this, our being here in Riverview, meeting each other at all."

[somakemelaugh]

Oh, he's no god, miss, but he does know a few.

He hummed and looked back to her again. "Aye, you're not wrong about that. It's a change from the norm, much as I'm not too crazy about all of the culture shock of it, or at least wasn't at first, but I've been used to it for a little while now. Trying to be." He gave a light shrug. What could he say?