abovegrounds | May 2016 Plotting Post

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May 2016 Plotting Post

May 2016
Welcome to your May plotting post! You can make use of the information here to plot what your character will be doing in the next month.

The Night Council elections are finally upon us! The election provides an opportunity to shake up the current Night Council roster and to influence its future direction. The results will be announced on 6th May.

Did you know that 23rd May will mark the game's one-year anniversary? Look out for an OOC celebratory post on that day. We also have our next faction reward coming up mid-month. Check out the calendar for a quick summary of when things are happening.

Factions
The Night Council election campaign is heating up. Thus far the incumbent candidates are all in the lead in the polls, but anything could happen in the next few days.

As the election itself draws near, the East End Pack put forward a petition to the Night Council asking to be allowed to vote for the President and Vice President. Controversially, the petition was approved meaning the pack will be able to vote on 5th May, although the policy document stresses that this is a test case to "evaluate the willingness and ability of the East End Pack to participate in a democratic world". Rumours abound that the President herself was outvoted on this issue, and so the success of the petition is seen as a blow to her campaign.

Millicent, the Vampire Representative and leader of the Islington Nest, has kindly offered to organize and oversee the voting process for the East End Pack. In practice, this means that a single polling station will be set up in a small church in Greenwich and staffed by a gang of extremely hostile vampires whose presence is intended to intimidate and discourage potential voters. The tension between vampires and werewolves will continue throughout the month, as Millicent reminds the supernatural community what happens when she chooses to exercise her considerable power, and to beware the consequences of offering any real political influence to those filthy wolves.

Territories
Circle Daybreak is the most powerful faction in the city, with seven territories. See the Territories page for more information.

If your faction would like to claim a new territory, please comment to the appropriate thread. Players will then have three days from the date and time of the initial claim to sign up for the conflict. Anyone can sign up, but please only volunteer your character if they are a member of a faction involved in the conflict or they have IC reasons to actively help out. Please do not volunteer if you won't be able to participate in the plot.

If the outcome of the conflict is not already guaranteed, I will then look at the sign-ups list to calculate which faction will emerge victorious. It is up to players to plan and play out the actual conflict itself. If you comment to claim a territory, then you should also take the lead in planning and organizing it.

Minions
The following lucky minions will be promoted this month:

Greg Martin | Werewolf, East End Pack | Level 1
‣ Family man and pastor who was turned less than a year ago but has adapted well.

Meghan Duncan | Meta Human, Hillingdon Clan | Level 1
‣ A young pacifistic empath, one might question what she's doing with a group like Hillingdon. Then again, as a veritable group of outcasts, they have given her a place to call home. And she in turn provides them with in-house counselling services. Or would if anyone ever accepted her offer.

These minions will decide to leave town this month:

Tobias Dalton | Witch, Circle Daybreak | Level 2
‣ A young male witch who specialises in barrier and disruption spells.

Peyton Haines | Witch, Circle Midnight | Level 1
‣ Greenwich-based witch looking to form her own coven following the emergence of the Shadow Coven.

Michelle Stafford | Human, East End Pack | Level 2
‣ Sensitive and kind. Does not like conflict and avoids doing things that will generate conflict. Not turned.

Samuel Delgado | Shapeshifter, Hillingdon Clan | Level 1
‣ A young man with the ability to shapeshift into a rook. As such, he spends a great deal of time scouting for Hillingdon – and nearly as much explaining what a rook is. (IT'S NOT A RAVEN HOW MANY TIMES–).

Peter Dunn | Human, Seelie Court | Level 2
‣ A father of three with two ex-wives, Peter made a deal for a great fortune. And has to work for the fae now.

Kristoff Danielson | Vampire, Unseelie Court | Level 2
‣ A vampire with a rather unfortunate addiction to fae blood. A curse keeps him from drinking the unwilling, so he helps the court in exchange for his hits.

And these less fortunate minions will sadly die this month:

Jacob Potter | Werewolf, East End Pack | Level 1
‣ Newly graduated from university and led through his family's rite of passage to activate his curse.

Randal Shea | Human, Hillingdon Clan | Level 1
‣ Refuses to take any cases against werewolves. Won't explain why when asked but the rumour is that he's allergic and just too pig-headed to admit it.

Gregory "Gary" Gamou | Fae, Unseelie Court | Level 2
‣ A gashadokuro who's obsessed with fitness. Claims to get up early every day to jog.

Factions may decide how and when their minions die, leave town or receive a promotion. Feel free to work these developments into any of this month's plots.

Drops
The following characters will be leaving this month:

Siobhan Aitken | Circle Daybreak | growsowngoats | Left town 15/04/16
Illya Kuryakin | Redbright Institute/Night Council | fatherswatch | Left town 21/04/16
Soeki Crowe | Circle Midnight | crowedthedead | Left town 21/04/16
Joscelin FitzThomas de Lisle | Islington Nest | dredefulchilde | Leaves town 30/04/16

Their faction may decide the exact details of how characters leave and incorporate their exit into their plots if they wish.

Events

1st April-4th May – ELECTION CAMPAIGN. The Night Council candidates will be campaigning for your votes right up until the evening before the election. Expect eager volunteers to be knocking on your door with flyers, slogans and persuasive arguments, and community events aiming to reach out to the various factions. The nominees are always looking for more volunteers to campaign on their behalf.

1st May – BELTANE.* The fire festival of Beltane is a time of celebration for witches, marking the beginning of summer. It is traditional for covens to light a bonfire, wear flower crowns and perform fertility rites. The first day of May is also when the barrier between the mortal world and the Other Realm is at its thinnest, which is why some witches still leave offerings to appease the fae who may be passing through.

5th May – NIGHT COUNCIL ELECTION. The day of the election! Polling stations open at 1am, to allow vampires who can't walk in the daylight to cast their vote. They close at 10pm, with volunteers spending the rest of the night frantically counting up the votes in order to announce the results as early as possible. There is of course no possibility of vote rigging or corruption during this time.

6th May – ELECTION RESULTS. The election results will be announced at the Night Council headquarters, with live feeds to the Redbright Institute, significant Daybreak covens, the Jolly Roger in Islington, and Hillingdon House. Community leaders are expected to gather at the Night Council HQ to witness the results, which they can then communicate to their factions.

9th May – NIGHT COUNCIL SWEARING IN. The new or re-elected members of the Night Council officially take their seats. This is a private ceremony, witnessed only by selected Guardians and rank-and-file colleagues from the Night Council.

13th-15th May – BLOODFEST. To celebrate her inevitable victory in the election, Millicent allows the Islington Nest to go wild for three days. Her vampires can hunt, feast, kill and turn whomever they please, wherever they please. The result is a three-day bender of raucous parties, street hunts, murders, robberies and even arson. The event will be written off as gang violence by the local police, but the supernatural community know that on these three nights they'd better stay at home.

21st May – FULL MOON / WOLF HUNT. It's that time of the month for werewolves, but tonight Millicent has laid a bounty on every single werewolf's head. Her message to the Islington Nest is this: the vampire that brings her the highest number of wolf pelts will receive an instant promotion and her personal favour. It's going to be a long and bloody night.

24th-28th May – CHELSEA FLOWER SHOW. Enjoy the wondrous displays created by gardeners all over London. Who says that city life can't be green?

28th May-5th June – SCHOOL HOLIDAY. It's the final break before exam term. Enjoy it while you can, kids.

*This event will be incorporated into the upcoming test drive meme.

Plots
The following prompts are up for grabs this month:

1) Missing person alert. A member of the royal family has gone missing, kidnapped by a supernatural type who intends to blackmail them by learning royal secrets. Reward: £5000 and a free trip to Buckingham Palace. – Claimed by Autumn
2) People claim to have filmed a big cat roaming in Hyde Park. It's a shapeshifter who has been cursed to remain permanently in animal form.
3) Property developers have unearthed an ancient mystical curse that calls forth a fae to hunt down and kill anyone who disturbs a particular patch of land.
4) You are involved in a production of A Midsummer Night's Dream. With real fae.

About plots and events
• You may claim one plot prompt per month.
• You can also run your own plots based on the events listed above, or create your own.
• If you claim a plot, then you also volunteer to take the lead OOCly i.e. planning and organizing with other players, deciding on the outcome, setting a timeline etc.
• Once you have claimed a plot, you should introduce it ICly within the next month.
• Plots may not be entirely handwaved. You may handwave some of the plot, but you should play out at least part of it.
• Some plots will require NPCs as well as player characters to fill different roles. Please feel free to make up and play the NPCs yourselves.
• Plots are generally open-ended enough that you can make them big or small. It is up to the player who claims the plot to decide how they would like to handle it. You may want to do open sign-ups for your plot and specify whether there is a limit on how many characters can participate.
• Plots can also be self-contained or form part of an ongoing storyline. Again, it is your choice on how you would like to handle it.
• Please feel free to integrate plots and events or join plots up where appropriate. For example, if you claim a plot that involves a murder, why not choose an event during which the murder could happen? As long as the mod and other players are aware of your plans, I'm happy to accommodate.
• Do not ask the mod to explain what the plot is and what your character should do or discover. That is up to you. These plot ideas are just that, ideas, and it is up to you to run with them and decide how and why these events are happening, what your characters are going to do about it, and what the consequences will be.
• You may ask the mod questions pertaining to game mythology, to check that what you are planning to do makes sense within the game world.
• This list is not meant to be limiting in any way! Player plots are also very welcome.
• If you have an idea for a player plot, please feel free to comment here and see if there is any interest. Run it by the mod first if you're unsure of anything.

Threaded | Flat

Comment here to claim a territory! Please complete the following:

Plot lead(s): Who is going to run this plot? This should be you, but you can also list any other players who will be co-running the plot with you.
Faction: The faction that is claiming the territory.
Territory claimed: The territory that you are making a move on. It must be adjacent to a territory that your faction already owns.
When this will happen: Give the timeline for your plot. This should be in the next month. If you haven't decided on an exact date yet, a rough approximation is fine.

And here is the same information in a handy form for you to fill out:

Once a claim has been posted, players should then reply to the comment and state the faction they are supporting to sign up. Please only sign up if you intend to participate in the plot.

Do not use this thread to start plotting. This thread is for claims and sign-ups only. Please start a separate thread or post to plot.

Comment here to claim a plot from the prompt list. Please complete the following:

Plot claimed: Which plot are you claiming?
Plot lead(s): Who is going to run this plot? This should be you, but you can also list any other players who will be co-running the plot with you.
When this will happen: Give the timeline for your plot. This should be in the next month. If you haven't decided on an exact date yet, a rough approximation is fine.

And here is the same information in a handy form for you to fill out:

Do not use this thread to start plotting. This thread is for claims only. Please start a separate thread or post to plot.

Comment here if you are running your own player plot or event. This could be one of the events listed in the calendar. Please complete the following:

Plot/Event: What is your plot?
Plot lead(s): Who is going to run this plot? This should be you, but you can also list any other players who will be co-running the plot with you.
When this will happen: Give the timeline for your plot. This should be in the next month. If you haven't decided on an exact date yet, a rough approximation is fine.

And here is the same information in a handy form for you to fill out:

Do not use this thread to start plotting. This thread is for claims only. Please start a separate thread or post to plot.

Comment here to ask for and offer CR!

It's also election day, but more importantly Lancelot's Birthday.

It MIGHT be sunny.

Either way there will be cake and beer and things WHO WANTS IN

Bloodfest is a free-for-all for Vampires to take and do who and what they want without consequences. But even they should know that doesn't mean grabbing one of the title-less daughter-in-laws who frequents a pub in Islington twice a week is a good idea. It gets worse when the culprit, a mousy little vampire with little influence trying to force himself up the ranks without doing anything to earn the rank, decides to threaten said Royal with Vampirism in exchange for her family giving up the goods.

Obviously the Palace doesn't want any Blue Blood spilled over this and they can't have the supernatural society become public knowledge, either. A discreet call for aid has resulted in Daryl taking a bounty out of a fairy tale and he's going to need some help to rescue this princess.

Who's in?

Edited 2016-04-29 03:30 (UTC)

Kyle is used to working in a squad to get shit done. After seeing all the political bullshit going on and how prejudiced the system is at every turn, he's going to start putting together his own group of vigilante types to try to protect people and potentially to help support/defend claims or to defend the little guy, etc etc.

What, precisely, the group does would be up to the group and IC interactions. I'm hoping for this to be a longer term idea, rather than a one-time thing, but as with any good group, characters would be free to leave (and probably to return).

Joining will be dependent on IC interactions obviously, but will be open to any faction and race (except evil/proud vampires, because Kyle hates you).

Please let me know if you'd be interested in your character getting involved with something like this and, if so, what they could do / what skills they would bring!

This whole collecting wolf pelts is not cool, so partially in retaliation and partially to prevent Islington from coming after the wolves again, Alex is going to try to kill Millicent.

This could go really badly for her or it could go well, I'm open to either.

She won't ask for a lot of help beyond going to James for support/back-up, but word could get around. If anybody wants to help or hinder her, or otherwise get involved in any way, let me know! Let's work out how this will go down.

so Kenzi - being a newborn and prone to having poor impulse control is gonna have a bit of a ~moment~ during the bloodfest. All that partying and general bloodfesting will result in Kenzi losing her shit and attacking people.

DOES ANYONE WANT TO SIGN UP TO STOP HER (it'll be p simple) OR BE ATTACKED?

Let's talk about what we'd like to do next now that we know the election results! For example, are there any candidates that you would like to pressure to make good on their promises after supporting them during the election campaign? Are you wondering how on earth Gilbert Norrell lost (spoiler alert: it was a fix)? Would you like to send Sylvia a congratulatory card? Say it here.

So, Coward is passed about this. His alliance is in major danger because of this.

But he can't directly act.

So... he's going to be "hunting."

The vampires participating, that is. And taking the pelts they've already gotten to give you Millicent to play along.

He will happily enlist subtle assistance to try and keep some of the blood down or punish those hunting.

Also would love someone to see him out and get the wrong idea. And just general night plotting. So hit me up.

So Jean-Claude decided to throw a party at Guilty Pleasures last month, and mock the election nominees in doing so. Including Millicent herself.

Needless to say, the Duchess of Islington was not happy about that little scene, and thus did Jean-Claude find himself demoted at the beginning of this month, from the Earl of Poplar to a simple Baron, as punishment for his errors in judgment.

HOWEVER, coinciding with the time of the bloodfest, Jean-Claude will discover that Cherry, a shifter who dances for him on the club on ladies' night and who also happened to have portrayed Millicent in his little display, has gone missing. And Jean-Claude has a pretty good idea why, given the timing of the thing.

Jean-Claude will put the word out on the street of his missing dancer, so who wants to help track a shifter kidnapped by Millicent's loyalists for an unpopular vampire in the middle of vampire mayhem? :)

Edited 2016-05-12 23:29 (UTC)

So, there's been a little background chat around this off here but hopefully we can get something concrete going!

Here is the sequence of events, as I understand them:

- Norrell, as of the 6th of May, lost the election! He is, understandably angry, and demands a recount
○ He can demand a recount only in a few specific boroughs. Someone on rigging team (Eames/Nancy) let me know if you would like him to pick safe boroughs only or hit one suspicious borough, etc
- Norrell, regardless of if he has evidence or not, will claim the rigging is a fae ploy purely because he dislikes the fae. He will be very loud.
- Childermass is long suffering and will look into this for him, following a string of clues Eames has planted to lead him elsewhere to a Midnight coven (Maybe beginning week of the 9th or 16? Teresa, confirm?)
- Norrell will support a bid by the East End pack regardless of the fuss in a low key way against Havering (12th)
- Childermass will get too close and run into Finnick, probably getting nastily injured at this point (Threading kicked off)
- Childermass will probably then get yelled at by Norrell who is unhelpful

At this point, Norrell is still a problem regardless of losing, so over to fae team! The tentative plan:

- Someone needs to hit up Elizabeth, who is close to Norrell (in his coven), and knows his schedule. She doesn't like him.
- Nancy has an offer from Norrell that she can hide at his place if she needs to. Nancy can abuse this.
- Norrell lives in Westminster, where Fae doors can now be opened
- Between all these witches, they can set Norrell up by getting into his house and having him dragged away through a fae door.

The end game is for Norrell to be generally cursed and incapacitated in some way where his fae is uncertain.

So, am I missing anything! Does anyone have any questions, plans for when to start their parts, etc? Anyone who isn't involved feel they would be?

Edited 2016-05-23 20:16 (UTC)

Bleeding heart that he is, Lancelot won't be happy about all Millicents goings on either.

Thus, while the Kill Millicent team are plotting her demise Lancelot is going to get roped in by Jean-Claude.

Convinced into the idea that perhaps pushing back at Islington would send a message, he is going to do just that by leading a claim against Southwark.

By obviously sheer total and utter coincidence this is going to cause a little chaos just as the Millicent assassins creep in and try go bring her down.

... When he finds out he has been used, he may well be upset and will probably not put up a fight over peaceably handing Southwark back to the new management, depending how peaceably everyone approaches this.

So! For this to be the best distraction and ICly all fit in, when is the best start date for everyone? Before the 28th, or on the 28th? I was thinking before so she's still reeling and all and not immediately on guard to current hostility, but on could work too so she's distracting trying to send people to defend still? Let me know!

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QUESTIONS

CLAIM A TERRITORY

CLAIM A PLOT

RUN A PLOT/EVENT

CR PLANNING

IT'S LANCELOT'S BIRTHDAY

Close Your Eyes And Think Of What England Could Be

AVENGERS ASSEMBLE

KILL MILLICENT

BLOODFEST RAGER

POLITICS AS USUAL

Hunting the Wolfhunt

A Woman Scorned

Bring Down Norrell

Distract Millicent