EVENT: Storm Warning

[glencolans]

EVENT: STORM WARNING

It's been a little more than half a month now of in-game time, and while characters have discovered plenty of oddities and dangers that have kept them on their toes, one thing that has remained pretty reliable has been the weather. Always a balmy 90F/32C during the day and 60F/16C at night, with sunny skies that show only a smattering of rain during the peak of afternoon to quench the thirsts of those characters that don't have reliable sources of fresh water yet. It runs like clockwork...almost suspiciously regular, in fact. Surely a place like this sees more fluctuations in the local environment, right? Maybe they're just in an especially stable part of the world, meteorologically speaking?

Signs of something strange going on start to appear during Day 017. Characters looking out to sea at the familiar fuzzy black line may notice that it seems darker and more prominent than usual, with noticeable tendrils of deep gray-blue starting to spiderweb over the horizon, approaching faster as night falls, right up until it becomes too dark to see them against the evening sky. Sudden flashes of light, like bursts of lightning, briefly illuminate the fuzzy, ragged lines overhead, the only blemishes in an otherwise clear night. The stars seem to warp around and outline them until, past midnight, it almost looks like the sky itself is cracking open like the shell of a dropped egg.

Then, soon after the start of Morning 018, the metaphorical egg shatters - and all hell breaks loose. The stars disappear behind a roiling, swirling mass of black clouds that billow downward, accompanied by instant torrential downpours, near constant lightning strikes, and howling winds that drive the surrounding ocean into a frenzy. And it simply doesn't let up, for three whole days.

DETAILS

This event will start on IC Morning 018 and will run through Night 020 (August 3rd). During this time, movement will be heavily restricted - consider movement to be 0 squares for all terrain, and visibility to be reduced to 1 square during morning and day, and 0 squares at night. Traveling will be incredibly dangerous basically anywhere you go, with especially poor conditions on beach squares and bordering rivers, where storm surges and flooding pose a very real risk to anyone camping or moving through those locations. Other weather-related hazards may present themselves depending on what characters attempt to do and where they go to try and wait out the storm.

But where the storm takes away, it also gives. Please comment below with one item or animal from your character's canon that they would recognize if they saw it. Use this form for your comment:

<b>CHARACTER:</b> Your character. <b>CANON:</b> Your character's canon, specifying AU/CRAU if relevant. <b>ITEM OR ANIMAL?:</b> Is this an inanimate object or a creature? <b>DESCRIPTION/RELEVANCE:</b> A brief description of the item or animal, plus how it relates to your character. <b>SPECIAL ABILITIES:</b> Does the item or animal have any special powers, or is it magical?

Keep these points in mind when choosing your item/creature:

• The item/animal cannot be sapient.
• If the item/animal is magical/has superhuman abilities of any kind, they may be dampened, but could possibly retain some of their original weirdness; I won't tell you what parts are kept and what parts aren't.
• Your character might not be the one that finds their item/animal.
• Your item may show up in fragments or broken in some way, or your animal may show up dead or be killed by other characters/NPCs; please don't recommend something if the idea of these outcomes upsets you or would make your character unhappy to the point of unplayability.

You do not have to recommend anything, and since search requests during this time period will likely be backdated for some time, don't worry about missing the event window to post a suggestion. All comments are screened to keep suggestions a surprise for other players/characters, but I won't stop you from discussing your own choices OOCly if you want to.

As always, if you have any questions, please post them below. Comments in this thread will be unscreened.

Comments

QUESTIONS

[glencolans]

[aluminumandash]

Sorry to be That Guy, but will walkies work as usual during the event? Any interference or chance of weather damage?

[glencolans]

The walkies work absolutely fine! No interference or static, which is convenient, but also probably kind of weird. They appear to be waterproof.

[aluminumandash]

MAKES U THINK...

(thank you!)

[aluminumandash]

I'M BACK will there any notable change in animal activity—agitation, avoiding certain areas, what have you—prior to the storm? (And if so, about when would it start?)

[glencolans]

There would be some signs of increased animal activity in the ocean late Night 017 - roiling water far from shore from agitated bait balls of fish - but aside from this, it seems all the wildlife on the island is just as caught off-guard as the characters are.

[aluminumandash]

Rip to Rust...thanks!

[backsassin]

Are there any techonological or size limits to the recognizable items? Could Zam's blaster or speeder (basically a flying car) show up? I assume such powerful items would show up busted, but could they still theoretically appear?

[glencolans]

Nope! The more large, powerful, or advanced the item/animal is, however, the more likely it is to show up broken/dismantled/dead. Not a guarantee, just an increased chance.

[backsassin]

Great, thanks!

[salamanca]

HEY SO, the odds of this actually ending up being needed are extremely, extremely slim, verging on none, but I'm just curious...

If someone were on a boat or a raft and rafting down a flooding river, is that still a 0 movement or would you be able to move in that instance up until you got struck by lightning?

[glencolans]

Assuming that this hypothetical person does not crash and die, fall off and drown, or get struck by lightning (and die), their raft adventure would give them increased movement as they travel down the river! Possibly even by a lot, depending on how nice the dice are to them.