February 2017 Plotting Post

[undergroundmods]

February 2017
Welcome to your February plotting post! You can make use of the information here to plot what your character will be doing in the next month. Have you thought about having your character join the Night Council? This month you can! Guardian nominations are now open, and will close on the 4th. Mid-month we'll have our next faction reward and towards the end of the month will be a new test drive meme.

I'd also like to thank everyone who responded to the State of the Game update in the last HMD post! It was extremely useful to get your feedback and as a result I've been planning out some future scenarios that will take us through the next few months. The first visible sign of that is Samantha Okeke, a new NPC who made her debut on the Night Train. Expect to see more of her in the coming months.

In the meantime, check out the calendar for a quick summary of when things are happening. You can also check the game timeline to see what has happened in the game so far.

Factions
The last month has seen two new players in London's political world make their entrance. The first is John Cooper, who won Islington's recent election to become the new Vampire Representative. Many who saw him with a witch on his arm on the Night Train in January are wondering how he will change the dynamics of the Night Council, not to mention how his relationship with Jean-Claude will affect the Islington Nest. Democracy is a brave new world for vampires in London, and it remains to be seen how this experiment will come to fruition.

The second new face is that of Samantha Okeke who will be announced as the new Mother of Witches at the end of January. Little is known about the new Mother who is only thirty-one years old, but rumours are already beginning to circulate that she and Sylvia Redbright do not get along. Samantha will make her first official appearance in her new role during Imbolc, an event hosted at the Redbright Institute and open to all who wish to celebrate with the witches.

Meanwhile, February means two things. One, Lupercalia is coming up and the East End Pack's leader Katherine Moore has decided that the festival is the perfect time to strengthen the pack's numbers. Accordingly, the pack will be looking for enemies they can sacrifice in order to turn members of the pack who have not yet activated their curse.

Finally, this month sees another round of recruitment for the Night Council, as every supernatural community is invited to submit their nominations for potential Guardians. The Council chooses from those offered, and new Guardians are officially inaugurated in the second week of February. Since all vampires were ejected from the Council along with Raymond Harris last year, there are no vampire Guardians left. The Council is not making any particular effort to encourage vampire nominations, but the good news (for vampires) is that they're no longer banned.

Territories
There were no territory changes in January which means that Circle Daybreak and Islington Nest remain the joint top factions, with seven territories each. 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:

Torrence "Tub" Lauberg | Vampire, Islington Nest | Level 1
‣ Once an aristocrat, now he owns a sweet shop. Come visit if you're in need of penny sweets or liquorice allsorts.

These minions will decide to leave town this month:

Ingrid Lewis | Witch, Circle Daybreak | Level 1
‣ An older witch who specialises in potions and enchantments.

Laureen Nightingale | Witch, Circle Daybreak | Level 2
‣ A young witch who specialises in potions. She enjoys the scientific approach to mixing amounts and testing results.

Greg Martin | Werewolf, East End Pack | Level 2
‣ Family man and pastor who was turned less than a year ago but has adapted well.

Sebastien | Vampire, Islington Nest | Level 1
‣ A French vampire upstart, Sebastien likes to pretend he was once a member of the French nobility for all those gullible enough to buy the act, but really he was only turned in the sixties.

Iona | Vampire, Islington Nest | Level 2
‣ One of the oldest vampires in the city, she might have once been a formidable foe but now she cares little for your petty dramas. As far as she is concerned, her cats are the only thing left for her in this world, and while you may laugh, god save you if you do so to her face.

And these less fortunate minions will sadly die this month:

River McConnell | Witch, Circle Daybreak | Level 2
‣ River spent a year kidnapped by the fae and raised among them, something she seems convinced now makes her an expert on all things fae.

Jessica White | Human, Islington Nest | Level 2
‣ A human ally who hangs around for the purposes of providing a willing meal. She thinks vampires are super cool and super hot and most of them keep her around for the groupie factor more than anything else.

Želimir | Fae, Unseelie Court | Level 1
‣ A wish-granting fae with a mean streak.

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.

Events

2nd February – IMBOLC.* The festival of Imbolc marks the coming of spring. Traditionally, young witches are initiated to become full-fledged members of their covens, wearing garlands of the earliest spring flowers e.g. daffodils or snowdrops. It's a time for new beginnings and so this event will also mark Samantha Okeke's first official appearance as Mother of Witches. She's hosting an open celebration at the Redbright Institute courtesy of the previous Mother, because they totally get along, why would you think otherwise.

3rd February – GUARDIAN NOMINATIONS. Every six months the supernatural communities of London are invited to nominate potential Guardian candidates to join the Night Council. The Council members decide which Guardians to accept. Comment here to nominate your character!

10th February – GUARDIAN INITIATION.* The chosen Guardians will attend an initiation ceremony at Westminster, where they will be officially brought into the fold.

11th February – FULL MOON. Werewolves, it's that time of the month! Will you chain yourself up or spend the night in a cage? Roam wild in the London parks? Or perhaps find a witch to make you a wolfsbane potion. Whatever you choose, better be prepared.

11th-19th February – SCHOOL HOLIDAY. It's half-term, just in time for Valentine's Day. Lucky you.

14th February – VALENTINE'S DAY. Love, romance, a chance to tell that special someone how you feel... Or a cynical marketing ploy to sell cards and chocolate. You decide. Of course, if the fae get involved and decide to play Cupid, you may not have a choice.

15th February – LUPERCALIA. An ancient Roman ritual, the Wolf Festival is observed by many werewolf packs and some shapeshifters too. It is still tradition in the older shapeshifter families to kill an animal of their own form and wear its skin during the celebrations. Meanwhile, werewolves mark the occasion by honouring those in their pack who have recently activated their curse. Some packs take this a step further and carry out ritual killings, activating the curses of young members of the pack to prepare them for their first transformation. This year, Katherine Moore of the East End Pack wants all young men and older women in the pack who have not yet activated their curse to do so. That means they need living humans to kill (sadly, vampires and fae don't count), so her orders to the pack are to capture suitable victims alive (e.g. werewolf hunters, regular human criminals) so that they can be sacrificed for the good of the pack.

*There will be a mod-posted log for this event.

Plots
The following prompts are up for grabs this month:

1) There is a bounty on a vampire hunter who seems to be taking this whole hunting business a bit too seriously and is targeting any and all vampires they can find. They're persistent and well-armed. Reward: £500 and a Blood Replenisher
2) A "feral" shapeshifter has been discovered living in Hyde Park. Still a child, they've spent most of their life in animal form and have very little idea of how to function amongst humans. Should they be integrated back into society, or left to survive in the wild? – Claimed by Autumn
3) You wake up in the middle of a field with no memory of who you are. In order to regain your identity, you must connect with the people that matter to you most. – Claimed by Emily
4) A mischievous fae casts a spell that causes various supernatural residents to have romantic dreams about the person they most secretly desire. If two people dream about each other, they'll have the same dream. – Claimed by Saro

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.

Comments

Samantha and other NPCs

[brightwitch]

Right guys, I want to give a quick rundown of where I see things going with Samantha and how this could affect factions in general. There are several things here that could have a big impact on individual characters and factions, if you choose to get involved. So let's plot!

Samantha's goals
You may have noticed one odd thing about Samantha's profile on the Elites page, which is that unlike all the other witch NPCs she's actually against the Redbright Institute. This is because she doesn't approve of the whole "let's all get along and work together" thing. Witches Forever is where it's at. For a long time, Redbright and Daybreak have been closely aligned and controlled a large part of London between them. Samantha is going to change all that. One of my goals for her is to cause a rift between Redbright and Daybreak, which could ultimately result in the two factions turning on one another.

But before that, Samantha is going to pursue a number of goals that will put her on a direct collision course with Sylvia:

1) Change the definition of dark magic to no longer include summoning magic, so that witches can freely recruit fae to use in their magic.
The aim is to lay the groundwork in February in order to petition the Council or force its hand in March. To that end, Samantha will be wooing the Night Council NPCs and she will also want to speak to Cooper to get his buy-in.

2) Change the seal in Daybreak territories that prevents fae from being summoned so that fae still can't open doors in Daybreak territory, but they can be summoned by witches.
This one is dependent on the first, but she might just do it as a way of forcing the Council's hand if she doesn't get her way.

3) Investigate Seelie/Unseelie territory to identify potential weaknesses and select fae to recruit as servants.
Samantha's view is that the only reason fae should be in London at all is if they're working for a witch. The moment she has succeeded in changing the law she will be targeting fae to enslave, and in the meantime she'll be identifying potential targets.

So, would any player character fae like to be captured by Samantha? The likelihood is that this would either precede or follow a territory claim against the Seelie/Unseelie Court in March or April. Being made a familiar or simply forced into servitude would cause the fae to switch alliances to Circle Daybreak. This plot would be temporary, but it could well last for several months so it would require a serious commitment. It would also likely be traumatic for the character involved because they would lose their freedom and be forced to work against the Seelie/Unseelie Court. Let me know if you're interested!

4) Make friends with the werewolves.
Samantha has spotted that the werewolves are feeling left out of London politics right now and she thinks there's an opportunity to ally with them first against the fae and then against the Islington Nest. To that end she will be approaching Katherine Moore this month to offer a potential alliance, and she may consider offering the East End Pack moonlight jewellery in return for their allegiance. East End Pack players, let me know what you think about this and if you would like to talk to either Samantha or Katherine about it!

One last note, this may sound like it's set in stone, but of course much will depend on how player characters react. Let me know how you'd like to get your character involved if you're interested (or discuss ideas if you're not sure yet!) and I can adapt accordingly.

[knightscode]

This would make Lancelot super uneasy, from a Daybreak perspective, because as much as he knows individual fae can be perfectly nice people he can't help but feel a little safer when living under a seal. Fae kidnapping backstory and all. Was a part of the early faction wars. There are just some biases that are harder to undo.

How would she be selling it to Daybreak? And, I suppose, since Lance is technically a part of the Night Council via the Guardian division -- would she actually try to sell it to him or does she not care a fig because she's the law now so tough.

[brightwitch]

She'll be selling it to Daybreak under the banner of WITCHES ARE AWESOME AND SHOULD UNLOCK THEIR FULL POTENTIAL. And she'll be arguing that the best way to make London safer for witches is to empower witches to fight back with every tool at their disposal, including fae. The fae shouldn't hold any territory in London, and Samantha's policy is going to pave the way for witches to take back what's theirs.

She'll be making a speech along these lines at the Imbolc event, Lancelot is gonna love it.

As for selling it to Lancelot, she would be very interested to meet Lancelot! She'll want to know where his true allegiances lie. Is he very much Sylvia's man or can she persuade him that this is for the greater good of Daybreak? If she has to, she'll ignore Lancelot and go straight past him but she'd like to get him on side if possible.

[knightscode]

He feels oddly like he's heard this greater good argument before.

It sounds like it will be a very hard sell because he's not convinced slavery is better than fae kidnapping people but he'll listen politely at least while possibly internally screaming.

[falsify]

Oh boy, binding is quite tempting. Eames could be quite a lucrative target, if very difficult bc a) what even is his true name, and b) he's pretty powerful. On the other hand I think I'd like to have him free to try and figure out what's going on once stuff starts getting squiffy.

I can say that if the Council acquiesces, that would immediately terminate their (admittedly shaky) pact of non-aggression and Eames would start looking for ways to dismantle both Daybreak and the Night Council. He's never liked Sylvia but he could respect her at least, this is just awful.

He has also been considering making friends with the new Alpha, so they could have a bidding war on that front.

[brightwitch]

It sounds like you're undecided on the first point, so let me know if you do decide to volunteer Eames to be captured!

The rest sounds good! I'll make Katherine available at the Imbolc event then, if Eames wants to get in early and talk to her.

[falsify]

Sounds great! He'd definitely like to have a word and try to woo her

[ghoulaid]

redbright vs daybreak sounds so cool. i will have so much popcorn ready.

as for the wolves! well, this one in particular. he's a salty lil piece of bacon. he's kind of soured on the whole council idea. his line of thinking is like, what right do a bunch of snooty witches and vampires have to tell him what to do anyway? how dare they try to be the boss of him when there aren't even any wolves on the council? etc etc. that kind of FUCK THE POLICE, grudgey attitude is pretty central to his character and he's going to be a real, real hard sell on anything involving the council... or even witches in general at this point in time.

watching samantha (who's a witch in the first place so shame on her, that's strike one) stick her fingers in to all kinds of council pies will make him wary of her pretty quickly. when he finds out she's gunning for summoning fae and using them for servants, he's going to be soooo far against her so fast that he'll probably give himself whiplash. that's another huge no-no issue for him personally. he will he get very loud and possibly very destructive towards her/her faction's territories once that comes in to play. he'll push hard for katherine to either ally with the fae or at least not trust samantha. if katherine is open to conversations about it he'll def talk her ear off. i'm totally open to him talking to samantha too if for some reason you want to participate in the rp equivalent of setting an entire landfill on fire.

ofc, he's a dumb newbie puppy so i totally get it if katherine brushes him off. she's grown, she will do whatever she wants.

but wow offering even a few pieces of moonlight jewelry is such a dirty move omg, i can see how that could win over katherine and/or the pack in general. it's so rude. i love it.

[brightwitch]

i'm totally open to him talking to samantha too if for some reason you want to participate in the rp equivalent of setting an entire landfill on fire.

This sounds like something I need to experience. Samantha and Katherine will both be at the Imbolc event so that would be a good opportunity to talk to them! At this point there will be no explicit indication that she's aiming to recruit fae servants, however. Maybe she can tempt Ghoul with the possibility of a moonlight ring of his very own...

[ghoulaid]

R U D E.

yeah, while the fae thing is under wraps he'll be grumpy, but not outright hateful. pre-fae he'll just see her as another snobby witch who ~ain't the boss of me~, post-fae is when the shit would hit the fan. so any time before she starts collecting fae like pokemon, he could maybe be tricked in to thinking she possibly won't be so bad. if she's a sneaky snake about it.

[outstandingbalance]

Natasha is going to be very wary of a schism growing between Daybreak and Redbright. She's not exactly an optimist or naive about the politics of the situation, but she's pretty in favor of Redbright as an institute all the same. She's run into some suspicion and what have you there, but they still gave her a chance, and that goes a long way for her.

At this point, she won't take any real action. She's not in a position to be making decisions or anything, and she realizes that. Buuuut she probably be trying to find more about about Samantha. JJust quietly seeing if she can dig up any dirt.

[brightwitch]

If she wants to hand over that dirt to Sylvia, Sylvia would be very grateful. Although ironically, Sylvia is probably your best initial source of information about Samantha. She probably has some old school friends around too if Natasha wants to pursue further leads.

[outstandingbalance]

She'll broach the topic with Sylvia, if she gets the chance. Just... fishing for leads, probably. If you're okay with playing something out?

[emotioneater]

As far as Cooper's role on the Night Council goes, he's very intrigued by this idea. Personal bias against the fae, considering what's happened to him in his past at their hands, are definitely going to be coloring his opinion. Also, having dated a witch who was part of Midnight in the past means he's more inclined to bend the rules in terms of what is considered to be dark magic.

But, considering that the vampires only just got their position back on the Council and are still sitting on a precarious perch, he's going to be having a long discussion with Jean-Claude first to consider his opinion on the matter.

[brightwitch]

Excellent. Would you be good for them to have a chat at the Imbolc event?

[emotioneater]

Sounds good to me! I'll tag in eventually.

[stauncherhearted]

HELLO!

I'm already here for what's going with Samantha and Nancy, especially as they'll be around each other a considerable amount with the Council and they are not off to a good start. and guess who has Cooper's ear? and his heart? I'm up for really anything. But I'm incredibly excited for what this means for everyone!

Evie, rn, is likely going to be watching and waiting, studying both sides carefully. She's not in the mood to make any more rash decisions.

[brightwitch]

Samantha has a few different ideas about how witchcraft should be practised so it will be interesting to see how Nancy reacts to that!

[thelittlemerman]

I had to think a little on it but given that Finnick has binding-related trauma baked in to his backstory I think I'd like to keep him free for the time being, but obviously he would be furious about this and is probably going to be plotting to destroy Samantha somehow from the moment he finds out it's happening. I'm down for him being investigated but otherwise I think he'll be trying to gather opposition from the fae side of things :')

[brightwitch]

Makes sense! This entire plot will be very relevant to Finnick's prior history, so it could be an interesting opportunity for him.

[injectablefame]

I would love to see where an alliance like that could go! Party would be a little less into opposing the Fae than Islington and might need a little convincing, but he's but a lowly beta, anyway, and pack first.

[brightwitch]

I've yet to decide whether East End choose to ally with Circle Daybreak or the Seelie/Unseelie Court! Katherine is being approached by both. It seems like you guys would be fine with either though, is that fair?

Update on Samantha's progress

[brightwitch]

An update on where we are with Samantha's goals, in advance of this weekend's plotting post!

1) Change the definition of dark magic to no longer include summoning magic, so that witches can freely recruit fae to use in their magic.
I'm pencilling in the petition to happen around mid-March, as Samantha will have spoken to all the Night Council NPCs by then. I have also checked with Cooper and they will have a hand-waved conversation where Cooper agrees to support the petition. Cooper was the make-or-break character here (Sylvia and Nora voting against, Peter and Yasmine voting for), so with his support the petition will be successful and the Night Council will revise its definition of dark magic by the end of March.

2) Change the seal in Daybreak territories that prevents fae from being summoned so that fae still can't open doors in Daybreak territory, but they can be summoned by witches.
This will happen after the Night Council has revised its definition of dark magic, so probably in April.

3) Investigate Seelie/Unseelie territory to identify potential weaknesses and select fae to recruit as servants.
Mogget has been doing this on Samantha's behalf. He has already issued an ultimatum to Eames. The proposal was rejected. He has also been recruiting hunters from Hillingdon to scope out the area. Threads with player characters are still in-progress, but if no player characters take on the task, we can assume that a couple of NPC hunters will be hanging around fae territory between now and early March.

Circle Daybreak will then be gearing up for a territory claim on the Seelie/Unseelie Court in early March. This will be supported by the Redbright Institute and East End Pack and Samantha would like to get Hillingdon Clan onside too but that looks unlikely.

Thus far no player character fae has volunteered to be captured, so it's likely that I'll be looking to do something along those lines with fae NPCs. I'm thinking that fae would start to go missing after the territory claim (regardless of the outcome) and this could be the start of an ongoing plot. More info in the upcoming plotting post!

4) Make friends with the werewolves.
Katherine Moore, the alpha of the East End Pack, was approached by both Circle Daybreak and the Seelie/Unseelie Court about forming an alliance. As per this conversation with Eames, she has chosen to side with Circle Daybreak as Samantha promised her that she would help Katherine to fight the vampires, a commitment that Eames was unable to make. That's why Katherine will now be ordering the pack to support Circle Daybreak when they make their claim on Seelie/Unseelie territory.

It's also worth noting that all of this is going to piss off Sylvia immensely because she will support Circle Daybreak's territory claim as a show of solidarity (and because she doesn't like fae), only to find that Samantha has actually managed to convince the Night Council to go along with her plans to open the way for witches to start recruiting fae servants. She's going to have to start thinking seriously about whether the Redbright Institute should always support Circle Daybreak. It's a tough choice.

To be clear on where this is going and help you start thinking about future plans: I do not intend to run any territory claims in April. My aim is to get the ball rolling in March and then give you the space to run with it. Based on the attitudes of the NPC leaders, the goals of their factions will look something like this:

• East End Pack wants to fight back against the Islington Nest with help from Circle Daybreak
• Seelie/Unseelie Court is pissed off at Circle Daybreak and wants revenge
• Redbright Institute is worried about Circle Daybreak's activities and will withdraw their support

Whether you choose to advance your faction's goals through territory claims or some other means is entirely up to you. I'm open to ideas! It's probably a bit early at this stage to start planning for April, but I wanted to give a sense of the general direction of the plot so that we can start creating some momentum. Comments welcome!

[falsify]

It's 7:30 and I haven't slept so this may end up a little incoherent, but the short version is basically:


Anyway WRT the vote, you can bet Eames is gonna raise one hell of a stink about it. Once it's passed, he'll probably be wanting to approach Sylvia about it - they may not like eachother, but he's fairly certain their dedication to protecting their respective people is in alignment on this matter. (Obviously there's no way for him to know who voted what way, but between that and Nora agreeing to something something fae interests, it seems fairly clear who voted for what to him.) He'll also be making it very clear that if nothing can be done to overturn the verdict, that whole non-aggression deal they agreed to is out the window. (You know, once I reread the thread and figure out a way for him to wriggle out of it.)

The thread hasn't been finished yet, but Jean-Claude owes him a favour so Eames will be trying to make him pay up in terms of agreeing to defend fae when witches come a'calling. So if that's something Islington players have any thoughts or feelings about, come at me.

Also Cooper is dead to him now.

[baisant]

1) Circle Daybreak is kind of terrifying
2) Jean-Claude takes a moment to stare at his hands and wonder whether this isn't some sort of deja vu, only this time he cannot decapitate her and take over her faction alas

ANYWAY YES now that I am not up to my eyeballs in trying to find a new job and I have a moment to think and look at what this is all saying and process it all in terms of Islington etc, I realize that Islington is late on the faction reward but I wonder if it might be used for this in some way. Gently directs my thoughts towards that post...