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Malleus Maleficarum Plotting Post
OCTOBER 27 - 30 | Malleus Maleficarum
The Anonymous Movement has, at last, tracked down the source of all this witchcraft and horror: that cottage that appeared at the first of the month is sitting on top of a portal that these witches (if they really are witches; that might make them too close to human) have ripped into the fabric of the City. They're using the misery of their spells to gather power for their own ends (and perhaps that black goat is their king?).
The Anonymous Movement will be sending a armed force of their own members and any volunteer citizens up the mountain to stop the witches. It won't be an easy fight. And, in the end, it will requite a sacrifice from those involved. But if you're prepared to make it, the witches can be banished and the portal can be closed.
There will be a post onpoly_tldr to organize those characters who wish to go on the quest. Characters who go on the quest will be asked to sacrifice something important to them--whether an object, a memory, an attachment, or an ability--to close the portal. This trade will be permanent (unless they make a deal with the Anonymous Movement later).
As the note says, this here is the organizational and plotting post!
Here's the short version of the events to go down from October 27 to October 30:
→ On October 27th, members of the Anonymous Movement, City NPCs, and player character volunteers will go up the mountain to fight the witches.
→ The witches will be setting up spells on the mountain that will work very much like the "Nightmares and Dreamscapes" curse wherein characters share visions and dreams. These spells will lead only to nightmares and bad memories, though.
→ A log will go up on October 27th on
tampered so characters can interact with each other's nightmares and visions. Set the scene in a starter comment and thread away! Just know that all the visions will be negative in nature.→ Characters will have to escape these visions, lest they die there. They can use logic, force, or emotional strength to escape--and to help others escape! (This event lasts multiple days because ICly it's a hard battle up where time is going to be wibbly-wobbly, as they say, in those visions and OOCly so everyone who wants in can get in.)
→ After escaping these visions, characters will reach the top of the mountain and the supposed location of the open portal the witches made. To close the portal, characters will have to sacrifice something of emotional significance to themselves permanently--an object, a memory, an ability, an attachement, &c.
→ We'll be making a final post on October 30th for any last plot-related interaction and so everyone whose character is sacrificing something will know when that something is gone.
Now, if you want more tl;dr background and backstory: On October 27th the Anonymous Movement will send a group of its members, some City NPC volunteers, and any characters who wish to volunteer to join in up the mountain to confront the witches. Everyone will be armed with whatever can be found--and that may involve bits of witch hazel, salt, blue beads, and other things said to repel witches.
The witches are draining the essence of the City with their spells, stirring up a lot of emotion and taking that on for their own use. Hence all the wretched stuff that's been happening in between the curses. And they're claiming more and more territory with their spells.
The City and all its inhabitants will either die or go mad if the witches are left unchecked. The Anonymous Movement has decided that they must confront the witches and drive them out, and they need help to do that.
Once the whole party gets up the mountain, the witches will be pretty quick to react. They'll set up spells designed to draw out the worst fears and most unpleasant emotions in the volunteers and stop them from getting any closer. These spells be similar to the spells that have been growing in the City all this past week but also a lot like the "Nightmares and Dreamscapes" curse where characters share dreams and can interact with each other in the dreamscapes.
In this event, the witches' spells will draw out images and scenes (remembered or imagined) from characters and then pull other characters into those scenes so they can all share the wonder of giant spiders (or whatever the horror might be). These spells are designed to mentally or emotionally "bleed" the characters trapped in them.
We'll be putting up a log on
tampered on the 27th so anyone who wants to post a nightmare scenario for others to interact with can. Just post a starter comment outlining the scene and then thread actions and interactions below it. It can be an unpleasant memory, a frightening situation, an illustration of a character's fear, a nightmare, the revelation of a dark secret, anything that would stir up intense negative emotions will do. The character who starts the thread will be in control of the scene. The characters who find themselves in caught in one of these spells will have to escape the scene by logic, by force, or by emotional strength (shonen manga declarations of "We can do it!" are welcome). They'll have to break free from the nightmare somehow, lest they perish in it.
So feel free to thread away, letting other characters in your character's nightmare, throwing your character into someone else's nightmare and so on.
Once everyone fights their way through the walls of nightmares and visions the witches have set up, they will find themselves in the clearing with the cottage.
And with the goat.
The coven of witches will be there in the clearing too, hovering overhead--for some they may appear as storybook witches on brooms, for others as beautiful women in diaphanous gowns, for others as twisting and morphing abstract iridescent shapes. These are no typical witches. Maybe "witches" is just what they're called but it's not an accurate description of what they are. They're defeated for the moment, no matter what they are.
The goat...will then speak. And, for this invasion of (what he has claimed as) his domain, he will demand sacrifices of the invaders, lest he destroy them all.
It's a snap decision--no one is sure who makes it, but someone gets the bright idea that if it's emotion they want, then it's emotion that they're gonna get. The sacrifices will not be blood or flesh but things of emotional importance.
If you choose to participate in this part of the plot, your character will have to give up something of emotional significance to them. It can be an object, a memory, an ability, an attachment, and so on. But it must have significance to the character. Please note that this offering is a permanent trade (unless plots happen later, obviously).
The goat, glutted on this outpouring of emotional offering, will then swallow the offerings, the witches, the cottage, and himself, thereby closing the portal that the witches tore open in the first place. The only sign of their having been there will be a circular bare patch on the mountainside where the goat had been tethered...
So! With that all set up, please feel free to plot and plan here, lay out ideas for nightmare visions, find nightmares into which your character can fall, and to ask any questions you might have.
Have at it, Poly!
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That goat.
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scott mccall
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Now, if the injury is due to something extremely specific--a very rare magic spell, a cut from a knife which is not in the City--that injury might be "translated" in the waking world to a more common kind of injury.
But a wound in the visions will result in a wound in the "waking world."
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hope this isn't too late...
Haven't decided yet what she will surrender to close the portal...