[EVENT] 4th Wall - SHADOW WALKERS

[khuimods]

Characters: Everyone
Date: July 16-31, 2018
Location: Aifaran and the rest of the archipelago.
Situation: 4th Wall! Temporary Dreamfolk have begun appearing in Aifaran.
Warnings/Rating: None. Though please warn for things in the headers at your own discretion.

Khu Ioduan's first 4th wall event is here - so we'd first like to extend a warm welcome to anyone newcomers to the game. We're excited to have you here and hope you enjoy your time in Khu! For everyone, this is a great opportunity to try out new characters and bounce around ideas - we hope everyone has fun!


And the silence of short days, the silence of the year, the shadow...

ANOMALIES

July had already been a strange month for the inhabitants of Aifaran. The Narrakra returned with more questions than answers about its crew, and the thick fog and and the oppressive heat lingered like an awkward and unwanted houseguest who couldn't take a hint to leave. Perhaps it was a trick of the light, or perhaps it was just the torrid weather getting to people, but some could swear to seeing shadowy figures in the persistent haze.

By the 16th, the sanity of these individuals is no longer in question. The shadowy figures had become abundant for all to see, wandering the city as though in a daze before fading into obscurity.

ARRIVAL

The strange shadows that had appeared throughout the city have manifested… people. Perhaps even people other Dreamfolk recognize. As they step into existence, the obscure phantasms have taken on a sinister countenance. They peer at the world with blank, hollow eyes, and bare a mouth of invisible teeth with malevolent grins. They are otherwise indistinguishable from other shadows save for these alarming features, and they are attached to the newly-arrived Dreamfolk, marking them as somehow...different. Hovering at these visitors' heels, following them around at every step, impossible to banish.

The citizens give them a wide berth, some even crossing the street or outright fleeing in terror to avoid these new arrivals. There have been so many bad omens of late, none are keen to take any chances.

The shadows can't physically affect anything, but boy do they have personality; there's a lot of sinister grinning going on, and they tend to mimed mockery, sometimes going so far as to mimic the emotions of the person they're attached to -- sometimes even those emotions that person might not wish were shown. The extent of this is, of course, within your discretion to play with.

FESTIVAL

The arrival of these especially transient Dreamfolk is usually met with celebration, an impromptu festival that aims to give them a condensed experience of Aifaran in the short time that they're here. The grinning shadow companions that come attached to this particular batch of Dreamfolk has put a slight damper on the usual festivities, but some people are determined to make the best of it.

In order to help make the new Dreamfolk feel more at home, some enterprising individuals have taken it upon themselves to paint the town… greyscale. Instead of the usual riot of color, a small area around the Dreaming Bridge is quickly decorated in greys and blacks. An few enterprising confectioners start selling candied versions of the grinning phantasms; some of them are true to nasty form, but others have been made to look much cuter than the actual shadows attached to people. All, of course, are delicious. In the same fashion, some tailors have conspired to provide plushies in similar form.

It's not all fun and games. A theatrical troupe takes over a shopfront for rent and turns it into a haunted house featuring spooky legends from around the archipelago. The troupe makes a serious effort at being scary, including a convincing representation of the Night Fisher lurking in the building - although if anyone comments on this creature, the staff will only give them confused looks and insist that wasn't one of the attractions.

---

OOC Notes:

4th Wall visitors are going to be arriving with a maniacally grinning shadow dogging them for their stay in Aifaran. These specters cannot be banished or destroyed, but nor can they interact with anything physically, including the visitor themselves! They make up for it in BIG PERSONALITY though, because they're kind of shitheads.

* * *

Just a quick reminder that anyone is welcome to the 4th Wall event whether they play or have ever played in Khu Ioduan or not, and that both canon and original characters, as well as CRAU and canon OCs are allowed. If you are unsure whether your visiting character falls under these categories, check out our Application FAQ for more detail!

Please note that we do not accept AU characters like genderbends/Rule 63 characters, crack versions (like fandom Abridged series), etc. If you have any questions, please ask us!

The newcomers are Dreamfolk and will ICly be referred to as such by the native residents of Aifaran, but there are a couple of important differences between them and the Dreamfolk who live in the city long-term, namely:

• Fourth-wall characters will not have Talent tattoos. In a nutshell: Dreamfolk usually get a magical tattoo with that provides them with a new ability upon arrival. This tattoo is also what keeps Dreamfolk anchored to Aifaran's world, Konryu.


• Fourth-wall characters will be able to reply to network posts, but not create their own. This will be explained as a Dreaming glitch -- the consoles and yimos will register their names, but not let them make their own broadcasts, similar to how a real-life forum distinguishes between someone being logged-in and someone being logged-out while still labeling their replies with a nickname. Fourth-wall characters can also reply to character's IC inboxes using this same reasoning. Similarly, due to the way the community’s posting/membership allowances work, fourth-wall characters will not be able to make their own logs but are encouraged to make use of the mod-posted or catch-all posts made by members of the game. (Catch-all posts are essentially those made to cover a great length of time or a particular setting.)


• We'd like to remind everyone that this is a "live" 4th wall, meaning that what happens during the event will be completely remembered after the event ends, and any setting impact/changes/decisions that occur because of the 4th wall characters will be upheld.


• If you are bringing a character back that you've played during a previous 4th Wall event in our legacy game Tu Shanshu, you are welcome to have them remember that previous time! Or, if you'd prefer to bring them in "fresh", that's fine too. And of course, any characters who were previously played in game (either Tu Shanshu or Khu Ioduan) can retain those memories.


• Don’t forget the Setting page is available here as well, for your setting-related needs as the event progresses. Please note that while powers are typically not nerfed in the Khu Ioduan setting, we do limit world-or-game breaking powers as a matter of course. We welcome everyone to try out the game’s setting, but characters who are brought in solely to disrupt or "break" the game will be asked to leave.


• For organization purposes, we'd greatly appreciate it if logs and network posts involving 4th wall characters could be tagged with the %4th wall comm tags. Your mods thank you!

CHARACTER SIGNUPS & POSTING

Our 4TH WALL EVENT CHECK IN comment for characters wishing posting access for the duration of the event is open! Remember that you can request new characters to be added even after the beginning of the event, up until July 31st, the last day of the event and the day when the fourth-wall characters will ICly disappear from the city.

After that point, posting access will be maintained for any guest characters up until August 8th, to allow any threads still being played out to finish up. However, we do request that no 4th wall characters tag any posts dated August 1st and onward, as ICly their characters would have left the city by that point.

If you have any questions regarding these rules for the 4th wall, please ask them in the OOC Questions comment below.

Comments

[pastlanternlight]

That's not that reassuring. [She doesn't sound very sure about it not being alive, but then, alive candy probably would've reacted in some way by now. Candy people have never been very good at sitting still like these things are.

At the offer, she glances towards the other girl with a faintly curious look.]

I guess. I mean, sugar burns pretty well as far as I know.

[It's a lot harder and more pointless to eat things that don't burn well for someone like her.]

I think this works??

[unfavorableinstigation]

Not in the grand scheme of things, I guess not.

[And Phoebe's explanation doesn't get much confusion out of her - she certainly looks like she means what she says literally. She steps over to the stall: first reaching for her Manual, she remembers last-minute to go for the starter money she'd gotten at the Dreaming Bridge. This isn't the Crossings; there are no free meals for those on errantry here!]

Two, please.

[pastlanternlight]

[In the meantime, Flame Princess takes a look at some of the other nearby stalls. It's not completely different to the kind of fare that would show up at a festival in Ooo, but there's still enough idiosyncrasies that it makes her curious about how exactly this world works.]

Maybe this world doesn't have Candy People, if this is like, a normal thing here. [Which is a weird idea, but the only explanation she can think of for them being so chill about selling non-living candy to people who just showed up out of nowhere.]

[unfavorableinstigation]

[After some intense whispering in the Speech (/-yes, that is exactly what I mean-/), the transaction goes off without a hitch, and she returns with a treat in each hand.

Nita nods.]

Sounds about right.

[Most worlds didn't have Candy People, in Nita's experience - though she didn't doubt that they existed even back home.]

[pastlanternlight]

[Flame Princess lets out a faintly irritated sounding noise, as if the whole thing is annoying to deal with, but deflates before too long and turns her attention to the new face. She's a bit hesitant to offer her own hand out for one of the sweets until the other girl does, since there's the risk of accidentally bumping and burning her.]

So are you human or what, there seems to be a few of those around here among all the other cool weird species.

[It wouldn't be as much of note if humans were as common in her own world, but this is way more humans than she's ever seen in one place.]

[unfavorableinstigation]

[Nita appreciates the level of caution - playing with open flame is more her sister's thing, not hers.]

Human, yeah. In a mixed-species setting like this, though, there does seem to be a lot of us...

[Nita can sort-of relate to this one; in the Crossings, humans and even humanoids are very much a minority.]

[pastlanternlight]

There's definitely a lot compared to what I know. [Waving a hand, she makes a few floating dots of flame to indicate the number of humans she's seen so far, maybe a dozen or so.] There's just one I've ever met in my world.

[The dots spin together and make the shape of a head in a bear-eared hood before dissipating into a wisp of acrid smoke.] Are there many where you come from?

[unfavorableinstigation]

[Nita takes in the "flame show" with close focus, nodding once they all merge then disappear.]

On Earth? Over seven billion. Humanoids are kind of a minority in the universe I'm from, though.

['Kind of' is the best way to put it.]

[pastlanternlight]

[That...sounds like a ridiculous amount, quite frankly, to the point Flame Princess almost laughs at the absurdity.]

That doesn't sound like a minority to me, but I guess if you say so. It's your universe.

[She's pretty sure Ooo doesn't even have a single million people put together, though it's hard to tell with how spread-out everyone is.]

[unfavorableinstigation]

... You wouldn't happen to be in contact with other planets back home, would you?

[Because that might explain the disparity; Nita's own 'verse has 'the billion homeworlds'. Not all places come like that - or even most.

Meanwhile, her shadow just indicates 'blah, blah, blah' as best it can.]

[pastlanternlight]

Not really...I mean, we've had stuff from space try to attack us, but that doesn't happen that often.

[And usually it's weird comets or cosmic powers, not actual other civilisations. Though she might have heard Finn talking about things on Mars once or twice.]

[unfavorableinstigation]

Though, I guess it's better than it being common... or not being able to stop it.

[An alien invasion might be a bit much.

Nita takes a bite out of her shadow, which pretends to asphyxiate itself.]

Assuming that's what you mean by 'try', anyway.