EVENT: JULY 17TH- JULY 27TH (projected)

[aungier_mods]

We promised you event information earlier this week- and here it is! Introducing...

The Night Terrors Event


Something is growing in Aungier House. Long after the household was driven to an early night, the cause of the drowsy humidity began to spread its filaments in the darkness once the threat of sunlight vanished- and when everyone is inevitably frightened awake after midnight, they’ll finally see just what it is.

The entire ground floor, first floor and most of the second and third floor will be covered in fungus. And not just any fungus: since the previous day, its main body has been polluting the air with its spores, inducing the humidity and drowsiness in those who breathe them. At their current density, however, they’ve also produced another side effect: psychogenic reactions.

What does this mean? A few things. First of all, the event will start with all characters waking from a horrifying nightmare- this may or may not be related to the memory regain due for all characters currently in the game. Even when they wake up, characters will find themselves feeling as though they’re still asleep; everything will have an unreal quality, and they may question their senses. More disturbingly, though, they’ll also be overwhelmed with a tremendous sense of fear and impending doom, though they won’t be able to place why they feel that way- which may make it all the more frightening for them. Finally, characters will still be feeling the hypnotic effects of the spores and will still feel very drowsy and inclined to go back to sleep- a feeling totally at odds with the two aforementioned effects.

The spores’ effects may also start to manifest in several other optional ways:

- Hallucinations: Characters may start to hallucinate objects, people or things in the corners of their vision that, when looked at directly, may disappear. Their vision may distort and they may imagine voices just out of earshot.

- Sleep-talking: Without realising it, characters may find their attention waning and their sentences tailing off into nonsense- or, in some cases, referring to phrases, concepts and suggestions they would have been familiar with their original canon that couldn't possibly exist in the Aungier universe, even calling other characters by the names of people they knew. They'll feel inclined to write it off as gibberish at the time and soon afterwards, but players are very welcome to refer back to this event as their memories return.

- Hysteria: In addition to the fear, characters may become paranoid, emotional and mistrustful- they're in a living nightmare and anything can hurt them, even (especially?) other people.

- Perceived invulnerability: Alternately, if this is a dream, doesn't that mean you can't really die? Characters may feel that they can't be hurt and may brush off damage.

- Sleep paralysis (see here): If characters start to drift off at any point, they may find themselves completely unable to move all or part of their body.


Remember, the only universal and mandatory effects will be the ongoing fear, drowsiness and the feeling of being in a waking dream. Feel free to pick and choose what your character experiences around those three. This event is due to take place from around 12:30 AM until approximately 6:30AM on November 4th (in-game)- though just how long it lasts will depend entirely on how quickly characters are able to get rid of the fungus. We’ll be posting more on the fungus itself when the event starts on Wednesday, the 17th, and it’ll go on for a week and a half.

Please use this post to organise CR, meetings and ways to solve the problem in-character!

Also! Given that the event will take place at night and the early hours of November 4th in game), we still haven’t decided on whether we should extend the ‘day’ and the aftermath into the next week. If we did, this in-game day would essentially last for two and a half weeks. What would you all prefer? If you’d rather just move on, we could also have a clause that says that staying up all night and residual spores from the fungus were enough to have most people sleep through to the next day, with the option of staying awake if you really want to. And feel free to ask any questions you may have, too.