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asphodelmods2012-11-05 09:22 pm
dream_phee) wrote in asphodelmods2012-11-05 09:22 pm
Entry tags:
When in Asphodel--
Here we have all or at least a fair amount of the information you might need to play a resident of Asphodel. Anything that's come up in initial building or as a player question should be covered, so take a look! If you don't find your answers here, then feel free to contact a moderator.
The Basics // Little Town // Peculiar Folk // Seven Pieces // Oh Death
THE BASICS
Asphodel is a community-based game, with the majority of in-character activity taking place on threads atasphodelmeadows. Any casual/ooc interactions should be kept to asphodelooc. Most IC activity should be face-to-face and written in prose-style, but phone call interactions are a possible outlet for shorthand, dialogue tagging. Texting, video phones, or other common but modern interaction style won't be allowed, since this game is set in a world mirroring the year 1996.
Time passage in the game will be casual, with only a loose tie to real time. Players can backdate and forward date up to a week as needed, as long as continuity of other threads is taken into account. Minor detail inconsistencies are understandable, if "prior" threads are in progress, but please keep it under control. No one should be posting a character walking about on October 23rd, if that muse died on the 21st.
The rating is set to Adult for potential content, but all such content will be locked to members only and/or moved to journals. This game will contain horror elements and won't ban sexual or language content, but don't presume everyone's happy to have it pop up without warning.
There's no limits to how many characters a player can take on. Just keep it sensible, and if you're applying for multiple roles, try and keep them in play. There will be no activity checks for the moment, but the rules could change if someone claims 10 characters who never show up. Of the muses you take on, there are no limits on canons, doubles, AUs, or former game muses. Just no real life people, unless they're from a fictional adaptation. Any characters without obvious source material must have some explanations for the mod. Links to sources, information in the journals, or write-ups with the application will work fine.
Whoever you bring into the game is morphed into an average human. No special powers, abilities, or so on. Inherent skills like swimming or strong math skills are the only exception. They also cannot leave Asphodel, nor inherently know "what the deal is" with the place. The ignorance and mystery are part of the challenge, and they have to earn the right to deeper insight.
LITTLE TOWN
Asphodel may have no set country or sense of time, but its influences are not hard to miss.
The layout of official buildings in the center, businesses surrounding, and households edging town screams of a small New England American town, complete with a seashore on the southern end. But the woods surrounding it are especially thick, swallowing the few roads out of Asphodel. The actual details of town are also largely mixed between Western and Japanese locales, including such sites as a church and temple in its center, and pachinko at the local bar.
On the town structure itself, the town is shockingly symmetrical in its layout, with the important buildings squared out in the center, and the businesses and personal homes circling out around it in two rings, before fading into the seaside and woods, with only a small zoo and cemetery breaking the treeline. The unusual conformity of the environment is just another hint of how everything here, for all its realism and detail, came together at once, like miniatures on a game board.
Which is really the point.
Despite the in-game strict control of environment, the players have the opportunity of create their own abode. If your character has a house, store, business, or any other such haunt you may want to provide for them, you can fill out the form for it here and make it an official part of Asphodel. You can also post on the thread if you have a suggestion for a public site or community center of some sort, and it will be considered for approval as well.
The only thing to keep in mind in where to put your new additions to town is the list below, as certain types of buildings go in certain areas.
PECULIAR FOLK
But what about the people - your own characters' role in this? Why, they are the built-in pieces! The behavior of a "Non-Player Character" would fit every resident to a tee, from the by rotom actions they make and routes they take, to the limited level and dimension of interaction they provide for each other. Any shift off their usual path or raised questions of their world will only confuse them, and be dismissed before they get back to their pre-set lives, sabotaging any chance of happiness that comes along.
And they would be stuck that way forever, if happenstance didn't drop at least one piece of their memory into their lap.
Once one is found (and it's suggested your muse find the first piece upon introduction into the game, or shortly thereafter), the muses will start shaking loose from their defined roles in Asphodel, but in spades. Everyone will start out struggling against their own internal code to keep to their Asphodel lives, just as it will only slowly dawn on them to question their surroundings, the passage of time, and why they make such bad choices. With each piece that will fade a little more, but the fact remains - it's an uphill battle.
SEVEN PIECES
All the residents' lost identities were stripped, transformed, and discarded in the form of items - or "pieces" - scattered randomly across Asphodel. The pieces have no set logic, save they are all links to who the person used to be. The former Snow White might be bound to a blue bird in a tree, or the mind-washed Doctor Who might be connected to a miniature police box in a thrift shop. They can be former belongings, animals, paintings of places or events, or just abstract representations of something important to the person. As long as it fits into the scenery of Asphodel, it could be someone's piece.
You should also remember, since doubles and muses from the same series are allowed, some "pieces" might be similar. But no one should share a literal piece, and if you're going to use the same piece-source as another muse, it should be represented in a different way. (i.e. two Harry Potters might pick the Golden Snitch, but the second picker needs it as a picture, shrunken marble, or so on.) It's a good idea to check the character list for any potential piece uses.
As the muses move around time, they might easily come across one of their pieces, as most are mixed in with the environment of town. Should they find them, they will experience different effects, slowly regaining awareness of who they really are. If they find all seven, they will not only know themselves, but that they are dead and this world cannot be a proper one. Everything beyond that must be discovered separately, but it's essential to freeing them from Inoue's influence.
Of the pieces, five of them should be within the city limits, but everyone has at least two lost somewhere in the dangerous wooded outskirts. By that point, your muse might well be approached by Inoue himself, or someone even shadier. Finding the last two will involve real danger, as well as less chance of success.
The first piece is a freebie, given it's near necessary for game play. To find any additional piece piece, you need to post on this page with which muse you want to find one. A moderator will roll at random.org to see if your muse succeeds. There's a one in three chance with pieces second through fifth, and one in seven for the last two out in the woods. If you win, your muse can find it when you wish. If you lose, you can roll again in two weeks. It should be noted that if the item is something of power - like Harry Potter's wand or Sailor Moon's brooch - it is sapped of power in Asphodel.
For each piece found, there is a specific effect on the character:
One extra feature is, while Inoue has no memories to find, he does have a few items of his own lost about Asphodel. He won't be telling why he wants them, but there is a notice up on his shop door of seven items he is missing "from a childhood board game." Your muse has a chance of finding one of them and turning them in, just like they can find their own items. But given their importance and what Inoue might give for them, with a wise trader, each muse can find only one, and you have to roll for them, too, with a chance of one in ten.
You can't roll for the muse's own pieces in the same cycle... But the chance to dodge his high prices for a deal might be worth the shot.
OH DEATH
For all its quaint if dreary atmosphere, Asphodel has more than a few threats below the surface. For unexplained reasons, the woods surrounding the town are filled to the brim with wolves, all vicious and hostile to humans. While they keep to the trees, no one should be encouraged to wander the forest. A similar threat hangs over sailing from port or walking the streets at night. There's no bodies dropped on doorsteps, or washed up to shore, nor even left by scavenging wolves, but still residents disappear if they wander too far from sight.
And yet the same people will be back with a little time, showing back up at work or school with tales of going out of town for a week - for vacation, for a visit, for work. Everyone has some story to explain it, and everyone goes back about their lives.
Unless someone is recovering their memories, noticing the discrepancies, or actually witnesses the events.
Because despite the grand secret of everyone in Asphodel being dead, all residents can die. And do, if they wander in the wrong place and should get unlucky. But with everyone dead, there's no place for them to go, and Inoue can't "spare" any trapped soul. As such, Asphodel "recycles" them back into town under the excuse of a short absence, no worse for the wear. Save of course any memories and identity they might have regained. When they return, any found "pieces" are re-scattered, and they will be back to the ignorant, cursed state of the average Asphodel citizen.
The only way this can be dodged is through the help of a fellow player and character. Yes, the victim might still die and return in a week's time, but if someone should approach Inoue and be willing to sacrifice something of their own, the deal maker might just put in the time to allow the lost to return completely intact, no wounds, no memories lost. That's worth any price, isn't it?
All that aside, no one will find their muse randomly killed at any point in the game. If characters stay within the city, caught up in the angst of Asphodel life, their "life" is safe. But, if the character finds most of their pieces, wanders towards the city limits, or directly confronts Inoue, things change. All three have various risks involved. Even then, no one will be pushed to let their character die, but there will be likely plotting discussion on the subject. Taking IC risks involves an expectation of real consequences.
If you play with fire, you could get burnt.
The Basics // Little Town // Peculiar Folk // Seven Pieces // Oh Death
THE BASICS
Asphodel is a community-based game, with the majority of in-character activity taking place on threads at
asphodelmeadows. Any casual/ooc interactions should be kept to asphodelooc. Most IC activity should be face-to-face and written in prose-style, but phone call interactions are a possible outlet for shorthand, dialogue tagging. Texting, video phones, or other common but modern interaction style won't be allowed, since this game is set in a world mirroring the year 1996.Time passage in the game will be casual, with only a loose tie to real time. Players can backdate and forward date up to a week as needed, as long as continuity of other threads is taken into account. Minor detail inconsistencies are understandable, if "prior" threads are in progress, but please keep it under control. No one should be posting a character walking about on October 23rd, if that muse died on the 21st.
The rating is set to Adult for potential content, but all such content will be locked to members only and/or moved to journals. This game will contain horror elements and won't ban sexual or language content, but don't presume everyone's happy to have it pop up without warning.
There's no limits to how many characters a player can take on. Just keep it sensible, and if you're applying for multiple roles, try and keep them in play. There will be no activity checks for the moment, but the rules could change if someone claims 10 characters who never show up. Of the muses you take on, there are no limits on canons, doubles, AUs, or former game muses. Just no real life people, unless they're from a fictional adaptation. Any characters without obvious source material must have some explanations for the mod. Links to sources, information in the journals, or write-ups with the application will work fine.
Whoever you bring into the game is morphed into an average human. No special powers, abilities, or so on. Inherent skills like swimming or strong math skills are the only exception. They also cannot leave Asphodel, nor inherently know "what the deal is" with the place. The ignorance and mystery are part of the challenge, and they have to earn the right to deeper insight.
LITTLE TOWN
Asphodel may have no set country or sense of time, but its influences are not hard to miss.
The layout of official buildings in the center, businesses surrounding, and households edging town screams of a small New England American town, complete with a seashore on the southern end. But the woods surrounding it are especially thick, swallowing the few roads out of Asphodel. The actual details of town are also largely mixed between Western and Japanese locales, including such sites as a church and temple in its center, and pachinko at the local bar.
On the town structure itself, the town is shockingly symmetrical in its layout, with the important buildings squared out in the center, and the businesses and personal homes circling out around it in two rings, before fading into the seaside and woods, with only a small zoo and cemetery breaking the treeline. The unusual conformity of the environment is just another hint of how everything here, for all its realism and detail, came together at once, like miniatures on a game board.
Which is really the point.
Despite the in-game strict control of environment, the players have the opportunity of create their own abode. If your character has a house, store, business, or any other such haunt you may want to provide for them, you can fill out the form for it here and make it an official part of Asphodel. You can also post on the thread if you have a suggestion for a public site or community center of some sort, and it will be considered for approval as well.
The only thing to keep in mind in where to put your new additions to town is the list below, as certain types of buildings go in certain areas.
PECULIAR FOLK
But what about the people - your own characters' role in this? Why, they are the built-in pieces! The behavior of a "Non-Player Character" would fit every resident to a tee, from the by rotom actions they make and routes they take, to the limited level and dimension of interaction they provide for each other. Any shift off their usual path or raised questions of their world will only confuse them, and be dismissed before they get back to their pre-set lives, sabotaging any chance of happiness that comes along.
And they would be stuck that way forever, if happenstance didn't drop at least one piece of their memory into their lap.
Once one is found (and it's suggested your muse find the first piece upon introduction into the game, or shortly thereafter), the muses will start shaking loose from their defined roles in Asphodel, but in spades. Everyone will start out struggling against their own internal code to keep to their Asphodel lives, just as it will only slowly dawn on them to question their surroundings, the passage of time, and why they make such bad choices. With each piece that will fade a little more, but the fact remains - it's an uphill battle.
SEVEN PIECES
All the residents' lost identities were stripped, transformed, and discarded in the form of items - or "pieces" - scattered randomly across Asphodel. The pieces have no set logic, save they are all links to who the person used to be. The former Snow White might be bound to a blue bird in a tree, or the mind-washed Doctor Who might be connected to a miniature police box in a thrift shop. They can be former belongings, animals, paintings of places or events, or just abstract representations of something important to the person. As long as it fits into the scenery of Asphodel, it could be someone's piece.
You should also remember, since doubles and muses from the same series are allowed, some "pieces" might be similar. But no one should share a literal piece, and if you're going to use the same piece-source as another muse, it should be represented in a different way. (i.e. two Harry Potters might pick the Golden Snitch, but the second picker needs it as a picture, shrunken marble, or so on.) It's a good idea to check the character list for any potential piece uses.
As the muses move around time, they might easily come across one of their pieces, as most are mixed in with the environment of town. Should they find them, they will experience different effects, slowly regaining awareness of who they really are. If they find all seven, they will not only know themselves, but that they are dead and this world cannot be a proper one. Everything beyond that must be discovered separately, but it's essential to freeing them from Inoue's influence.
Of the pieces, five of them should be within the city limits, but everyone has at least two lost somewhere in the dangerous wooded outskirts. By that point, your muse might well be approached by Inoue himself, or someone even shadier. Finding the last two will involve real danger, as well as less chance of success.
The first piece is a freebie, given it's near necessary for game play. To find any additional piece piece, you need to post on this page with which muse you want to find one. A moderator will roll at random.org to see if your muse succeeds. There's a one in three chance with pieces second through fifth, and one in seven for the last two out in the woods. If you win, your muse can find it when you wish. If you lose, you can roll again in two weeks. It should be noted that if the item is something of power - like Harry Potter's wand or Sailor Moon's brooch - it is sapped of power in Asphodel.
For each piece found, there is a specific effect on the character:
| First: | There's an instant feeling of “wrong” about Asphodel, of being out of place. If they've died in Asphodel before, they'll recall their local activities. (Recent events, friends made, etc.) |
| Second: | Muses start inexplicably reacting to things differently, based on original past. They sometimes get dreams and sudden, vivid flashes of another life. |
| Third: | Muses will become aware of Asphodel's quirks, such as time passage and NPC behavior. They're now consciously capable of recognizing their seven pieces as “theirs.” |
| Fourth: | While names and distinct facts escape them, the muses will recognize familiar faces around them. The sign on Inoue's door offering deals will be visible and understandable now. |
| Fifth: | They'll be able to look at someone and say “-you were my sister/friend/parent” with certainty. The flashes are now full-on, but unconnected memories, allowing past awareness in broken chunks. |
| Sixth: | If they had anything extraordinary about them, they remember it now - even if they can't make use of it. Ex. Harry's a wizard, Goku's a Saiyan, Peter could fly... |
| Seventh: | Full recovery. They remember their death and any other remaining memories. |
You can't roll for the muse's own pieces in the same cycle... But the chance to dodge his high prices for a deal might be worth the shot.
OH DEATH
For all its quaint if dreary atmosphere, Asphodel has more than a few threats below the surface. For unexplained reasons, the woods surrounding the town are filled to the brim with wolves, all vicious and hostile to humans. While they keep to the trees, no one should be encouraged to wander the forest. A similar threat hangs over sailing from port or walking the streets at night. There's no bodies dropped on doorsteps, or washed up to shore, nor even left by scavenging wolves, but still residents disappear if they wander too far from sight.
And yet the same people will be back with a little time, showing back up at work or school with tales of going out of town for a week - for vacation, for a visit, for work. Everyone has some story to explain it, and everyone goes back about their lives.
Unless someone is recovering their memories, noticing the discrepancies, or actually witnesses the events.
Because despite the grand secret of everyone in Asphodel being dead, all residents can die. And do, if they wander in the wrong place and should get unlucky. But with everyone dead, there's no place for them to go, and Inoue can't "spare" any trapped soul. As such, Asphodel "recycles" them back into town under the excuse of a short absence, no worse for the wear. Save of course any memories and identity they might have regained. When they return, any found "pieces" are re-scattered, and they will be back to the ignorant, cursed state of the average Asphodel citizen.
The only way this can be dodged is through the help of a fellow player and character. Yes, the victim might still die and return in a week's time, but if someone should approach Inoue and be willing to sacrifice something of their own, the deal maker might just put in the time to allow the lost to return completely intact, no wounds, no memories lost. That's worth any price, isn't it?
All that aside, no one will find their muse randomly killed at any point in the game. If characters stay within the city, caught up in the angst of Asphodel life, their "life" is safe. But, if the character finds most of their pieces, wanders towards the city limits, or directly confronts Inoue, things change. All three have various risks involved. Even then, no one will be pushed to let their character die, but there will be likely plotting discussion on the subject. Taking IC risks involves an expectation of real consequences.
If you play with fire, you could get burnt.