TDM 007

[etrayamods]

content warnings for this TDM include: violence, potential death, body horror, physical transformation, loss of senses, loss of autonomy ⏵ arrival⏴ Arrival does not happen as Aurora usually plans for it. New characters are introduced to the AI, then informed of a mission that they are required to participate in before they can return to their home base of Etraya. A world called Aphaia is falling apart, and while there is nothing they can do to resolve this broken world, they can participate in the Gamerunner's Stratagem. Their mission is simple: step through the glowing purple portal that Aurora creates once they've had time to listen to her, and survive until a similar portal reopens in front of them, allowing them to return to Etraya. The Gamerunner's Stratagem is something they have been working on building for quite some time. She informs all newcomers that they will not be present on this world that long: their exit will appear to them exactly when it's meant to, allowing them to meet the others who have been recruited to save their worlds. She provides each and every arrival with an earpiece, allowing them to communicate with the other Etrayans. Aurora suggests taking a bag full of supplies along with them, which she will fill with a few generic items as well as any specific items they may need: synthetic blood for vampires, protein bars for those who may burn through calories faster, medication for anyone who requires it. ⏵ aphaia ⏴ Aphaia is a neon-lit, chaotic planet. Cameras are everywhere, every action and inaction is judged by the 'audience'. Towering holograms advertise upcoming events while flashing leader boards track the most "popular" players. Contestants are thrown into challenges, many of which are games of skill, survival, and deception all to keep the viewers entertained. Not participating is an option! However, avoiding playing along and not putting on a show will quickly cause participants' score to go down, and scores that reach zero? Well. Unfortunately, there are only so many resources left on Aphaia. Their wildlife has died off, their planet is falling apart, and most others in this galaxy were either destroyed from the inside out, or warring planets trying to gain control of remaining resources destroyed them to avoid others getting involved. Their natural resources are depleted, and only those who manage to keep their scores up are given the luxury of having any supplies. As soon as one steps foot on Aphaia, as soon as they breathe, they intake nanotechnology which tracks their oxygen consumption, their food, everything they do or need. As soon as their scores reach zero? They disappear. There one moment, and completely gone the next. Their communicators go offline, and while everything they were carrying will be left behind, no one will be able to find them. They are simply--gone, erased from existence. This is a death and counts as a death as outlined in the game FAQ! Please keep this in mind. "Points" that go towards their total score will be assigned to contestants from the moment they drop down on planet. This will be visible using the HUD on their earpiece, and will be randomized at the beginning. For the sake of the TDM, we ask that no one be assigned Paragon initially, but you're free to use other ranks! The possible rankings are: 100: PARAGON 99-80: LUMINARY 79-70: CHAMPION 69-50: CONTENDER 49-30: UNDERLING 30-0: SHADE Ranks may change daily, or even hourly depending on the kind of situation one has found themselves in. Are they having a very public break up in which it comes out that they wronged their ex? They may go from a Champion to a Shade before they can even blink. Did they save a defenseless reporter from the big bad villain of the week? They may find themselves quickly elevated up to Luminary and given all the benefits that comes with being upper class. The world is their oyster, they only need to figure out how they'd like to utilize it! Aphaia is broken up into four districts. The Colosseum is a dynamic battle arena where combatants fight for entertainment, with shifting environments controlled by the audience. Victories earn points, while losses depend on performance. The Symposium is a lavish social hub for top contestants, where alliances and betrayals are made under the audience’s watchful eye. The Agora is the public center of Aphaia, where contestants engage with the audience through polls, interviews, and challenges to maintain popularity. It also houses the contestants in high-rise apartments. And Backalleys provide hidden spaces with intentional blind spots for secret dealings, though the Gamerunner is always aware of what happens there. ⏵ st★rlight soirée ⏴ Something special is happening in the Colosseum. Lights flicker as the arena shifts, rearranging itself into a grand, glittering ballroom - if a ballroom had stadium seating, paparazzi drones, and an ever-changing floor plan designed to disorient those within it. Silver chandeliers pulse with artificial starlight, their glow refracted through the crystalline floors. Music swells, but it sounds - unnatural. It thrums through your veins, setting your blood alight with the urge to dance. Why is the ballroom designed as if intentionally put together to throw off one's balance? Well, it's time for the Panopticon Prom, of course! The Panopticon Prom isn't just an adventure in dancing and impressing your most recent crush. It's a test of endurance, cunning, grace, and charm. The floor beneath your feet moves as if it has a mind of it's own, shifting to the beat like a living creature all of it's own. It tilts, undulates, even vanishing in sections to keep dancers on edge. After all, it's difficult to keep up one's pace if they're falling through a hole in the floor to the foam pit below. Drones zip through the air, catching every stumble, every misstep, and every attempt to throw off others on the dance floor. This is a competition, after all; and what fun is a dance battle without having the freedom to thwart someone else on their road to victory? The rules are simple: You must dance with a partner. This can be an ally, an enemy, or someone you intend on using as a stepping stone to victory. It matters not, as long as you have one hand (or limb) on them at all times. The longer you last, the better your chances. Endurance is the name of the game, meaning one must pace themselves on the dance floor. While epic twirls and impressive moves will garner more attention, it may also hurt your chances in the long run. You may sabotage others by throwing them off balance, but keep in mind: everything is televised, and it won't stay secret for long. The arena adapts to the chaos. Expect sudden obstacles, environmental shifts, and sudden changes in the music's tempo. Gravity may shift, walls may close in, but participants can't let that stop them - they must continue to dance, if they wish to win. The audience is watching. Who will make the final cut and become Prom King and Queen? Everyone is vying for the titles: it doesn't matter what rank you started at when you joined the Panopticon Prom. Whoever wins becomes a Paragon until their points drop. There aren't many opportunities to sail through the rankings, but this is a sure way to do it. As long as they can keep up. ⏵ casino royale ⏴ Out in the Agora, another popular quarterly event is being set up! The Casino Royale has been destroyed countless times, but it seems as if the Gamerunner just can't let it go - every time it gets knocked down, it gets rebuilt. There is one rule. One must take a turn at the revolving wheel just inside the door as their entry fee, and whatever the wheel lands on, they must maintain until they exit the building for the night. Sometimes, this is easier: an effect they have no control over and cannot undo even if they wanted to. Sometimes, this is more difficult: an assigned task they must complete. Failure to abide by the wheel once means receiving a penalty. Twice? Certain death if caught by any employee. The wheel's effects are as follows: 1 You must speak entirely in rhyme. 2 Your body has become unnaturally delicate. The smallest injury hurts like a fatal wound. 3 You must avoid stepping into any sources of light. Doing so causes massive burns to appear on any area of your skin where light has touched. 4 You have been transformed into an animal! You can still think as you had before, but you cannot speak or communicate easily. 5 You have been cursed with supernatural strength, but cannot control it. 6 Time doesn't flow normally for you anymore. Each mistake you make makes you visibly younger, slowly erasing your experiences, skills, or even memories. 7 You can no longer form your own words, but only repeat what others have said to you. 8 You cannot meet another person's gaze. 9 You can no longer turn around, physically or metaphorically. If you try to return where you came from, you'll find that the pathway no longer exists. 10 You are given a specific letter that you must avoid using out loud entirely. "A"? Better hope you know enough words without one. 11 Every time you speak, your words come true - but never in the way you intended. Trying to control this is futile; the monkey's paw curls with every new sentence. 12 Within the casino, you lose the ability to feel anything. No pain, no pleasure, no warmth, and no cold. At first it may feel like a blessing - until you realize you cannot feel hunger, or tell if you're injured. 13 Regardless of if you've drunken anything, you still act inebriated. The effect only gets worse the longer you stay. 14 No one can see you. You are invisible, even if you are still able to reach out and touch or converse with those around you. 15 Any special ability you have is gone. You are reduced down to what an average human being is capable of - regardless of if you are human. 16 Violent impulses become impossible to ignore. You are rage incarnate, and you will be heard. 17 Every time you make a decision - to walk into an area, to start a conversation, anything, a small thread pulls loose from your clothing or your skin. Keep making choices, and you may become entirely undone. 18 You may speak freely, but for every syllable you say, your ability to hear slowly fades. You may want to watch your word count - too many, and you may not be able to hear at all. 19 Perhaps you arrived with a friend, or beside a stranger. It matters not: whoever came in either just before or just after you, you feel a powerful urge to protect them to the point of aggression. 20 Love is in the air - at least it is for you. Every time you meet someone's gaze, you feel the need to try and make them fall in love with you, through whatever means necessary. The casino is alive with the hum of conversation, the clink of glasses, and the steady whirl of the roulette wheels. Golden chandeliers cast a warm glow over velvet-lined tables, where fortunes are made and lost with the flick of a wrist. But something feels. . . off. The dealers never blink. The cards never seem random. And the house always wins - always. Maybe it's just paranoia, or maybe this casino is something more than just a den of chance. Tonight, you're not here just to play; you're here on a mission. You've arrived dressed to kill, blending into the sea of bodies filling the casino's floors. But you're not here to win points or boost your social standing - you're here to win intel. Somewhere in this casino is a single flash drive containing information on just how Aphaia maintains their system. The only problem? The House knows someone is coming for it. After all, they're well-aware of the game: whoever retrieves the flash drive will obtain information on how to flip the script, to change the rules of the game to fit their wants and needs, rather than following the current Gamerunner. After all, this is the Gamerunner's Stratagem that Aurora has sent them out on! Many apply for 'employment' within the Casino Royale in hopes of getting insider information on where the flash drive is hidden and what it looks like. However, it seems that even the employees have no clue where it has been hidden. ⏵ NOTES ⏴ This is an extension of our Aphaia Mission! We have included enough information in this post that catching up to current in game logs isn't necessary to play with it, but you are welcome to use any part of the Aphaia setting in your prompts as you'd like. Current players are also welcome to bring the events from this TDM into their in-game threads. This mission can happen outside of time as needed! Incoming characters will find themselves introduced to Aphaia as they arrive. Current characters may find Aurora calling on them to visit Aphaia after the current mission for the Gamerunner's Stratagem. Characters already in game are welcome to post to the TDM, too! Please mark them as current characters in your header. Threads can be kept as game canon as long as both characters get into the game! Please direct all questions relating to this log to our mod queries comment! All other questions can be directed to our FAQ. ⏵FULL NAVIGATION⏴

Comments

mod queries.

[etrayamods]

[limiterrings]

Hi! Since violence isn't banned outside Symposium, what happens if you kill outside of it? Also, are the dealers whatever we imagine them to be since they're aliens so could they take up human appearances, and are they able to die?

[etrayamods]

If one kills outside the Symposium. . . people die! There is no jail on Aphaia, and no punishment for killing outside of public reaction.

The dealers are mostly bipedal aliens, but they range in appearance from close to human, to much less human. They are able to be killed.

[limiterrings]

SO TRUE, people die when they are killed... anyway, I like the sound of that, thank you! :)

[copsormasks]

Question! At the prom are folks wearing what they came in or are they being provided formal wear?

[etrayamods]

This is up to you! Either they can get rushed off into formal wear before the dance, or they can show up in whatever they arrived in.

Investigations

[hauntedsnowfall]

Is there any way to investigate the death of this world/why it’s dying?

Are there other citizens beyond the Etrayans within this world? Do they know the world is dying? Is there a way to save/escort the citizens into safety?

[etrayamods]

Investigating why Aphaia is dying will be relatively simple - they can simply ask the natives, or check around. The answer that they'll get is a "it's just our world's time" . Further research will show that the very fabric of their reality is ripping apart. Their planets are dying, their atmosphere is beyond repair, and they've given up hope of being able to fix it.

There are a lot of citizens of Aphaia! They have opted to enjoy their final days entertained, thus the system set up by the Gamerunner. We're not saying save/escorting the citizens to safety is impossible, but it's not something that Aurora would have a way to fix, and she cannot offer to house the natives. So it'd be difficult, and more on the characters to discuss amongst themselves to find an alternate way to save them.

[hauntedsnowfall]

So this is not something Lady Aurora can help with… most troubling.

Thank you for the swift answer!

[catsclaws]

Felicia is teaming up with Crane (who is invisible) to break into a security room to use the casino's own security to search for the flash drive location. Any outcomes of this effort, please let me know!

[etrayamods]

What are they looking for in the security room?

The flash drive is hidden within the casino, but it isn't actively utilized by anyone, and not even the staff of the casino know where it's hidden. They'll be able to see several people sifting through corners and looking around for it during their time in the security room, but there won't be a paper trail to the flash drive's location.

[hurtling]

hi my lovely mods, similar to the question above, james is working with one of the shadows to break in and just loot in general (aside from the flash drive). what can they realistically find/get or what are the consequences if caught?

[etrayamods]

There's a lot they can loot: cards, random knickknacks, pearl necklaces off of wealthy appearing ladies, wiring from machines - anything that you would think you could find in a casino is lootable.

As for consequences: they may catch the eye of some of the casino workers, who would do their best to chase them off. But there is no law against looting on Aphaia, it's survival of the fittest (and funnest), so they would likely be either killed, or told to never come back (not that they can force them to never return, but their return would be met with those working in the casino trying to prevent their entrance).

[limiterrings]

hiii! i was thinking about the curse wheel, so what if a character tried to edit the entry fees to something else on the spot of the wheel. if a person lands on a newly written fee, would it work or will it only do what was originally written there?

[etrayamods]

It would only be what is originally written there, unfortunately! One may be able to fuss with the surface of the wheel, but it's curses aren't changeable by outside sources.

[fireboost]

Hello! Since resources are thin on Aphaia, is it still possible to find city staples like a libraries for people to study for the quiz segments? Otherwise, is there any other way to get ahold of books?

[etrayamods]

There is a library on Aphaia! Due to some.. previous vandalism and need for paper, the amount of physical books within is a little thin, but there is a computer hub with access to countless virtual books. They could use this for studying.

[venatoris]

What would happen if a character tried to break the curse wheel?

[etrayamods]

The wheel wouldn't break, but whatever curse the wheel landed on during the attempts at breaking it would effect the character.

In example, if Dean knocks it over and the arrow moves, he'll get stuck with that effect. If he kicks at it while it's on the ground and it moves again, he'll also get that additional one. Further attempts will just lead to further effects.

[geats]

Lets say someone tries to cheat at cards in a ploy to get the House's attention. What would the consequences possibly be?

[etrayamods]

There are no consequences to cheating. :)

Perhaps the House wants to see how far one can get via refusing to follow the rules.

[unaliveyourself]

1) what would happen if characters tried cheating at the card games? e.g. sleight of hand misdirections/swapping hands, extra cards smuggled up sleeves, etc


2) are strategies like counting cards possible in this casino?

[etrayamods]

We will refer you to a question we just answered here!

There are no consequences to cheating. Counting cards wouldn't work, however. After all, what's laid out on the tables never seems random. Maybe the dealer is also cheating!

Back at it again

[hauntedsnowfall]

At the Casino Royale - Are there any side halls, back halls, places clearly even employees are restricted from, or areas of interest that a snooping man could get into?

While he is nervous as for why Lady Aurora wants the flash drive with the information on how this place is run, he is still compelled to be a good dog and find it. Perhaps stealing it could throw the system out of balance and those weaker will have a more fair shot at getting resources.

[etrayamods]

To find this out, Dmitri will have to go to places employees are to find out where they might not be allowed to go. Will he attempt to go into Employee Only areas? And if so, will he do this by disguising himself or by force?