larkers | PLOT ENGAGEMENT

PLOT ENGAGEMENT

> PLOT ENGAGEMENT

What is Plot Engagement and how does it work within Meadowlark? This is the page where players can come discuss with us how to facilitate plots within the setting. However, there will be occasions where a plot doesn't work within Meadowlark's world, and we'll suggest alternative routes. For small worldbuilding or gameplay details, please direct your question to the FAQ. If you're ever not sure if you're at the right page, don't worry—we'll help you get it sorted out. We know we have a load of info!

In addition, you do not need to have a complete plot in mind when you come to us. We aim for plot engagement to be more of a conversation between us and our players. If we propose a plot angle and it's not to your liking, we're more than happy to work with you to come up with something more to your tastes.

WHEN WILL YOU HEAR BACK?

◉ All Plot Engagement answers go out on Sunday, except during events.
◉ The deadline to submit a question and ensure you'll hear back from us on Sunday is 11:59 PM UTC on Saturday.

PLOT ENGAGEMENT INCLUDES

◉ Player plots! If you'd like your character to become a mafia boss, this is your place to start. Typically, this involves anything that could impact the setting or other player characters.
◉ Character career advancement that gives the character additional power or status within the setting.
◉ Metaplot exploration and information! We plan all events to give characters something to explore after the event ends. This is the place to do it!

SUBMISSION TIPS

◉ Specify what your character is looking for when they're investigating. What questions are they asking and what angle are they trying to explore?
◉ If you have a specific goal in mind but don't know how to reach it, please let us know.
◉ If you link a thread to us, please summarize it! That helps us process the plot in question.
◉ Don't worry about not knowing the setting like the back of your hand before you submit the plot—that's up to us! We're here to help you with any adjustments to get you on the right track.
◉ Plot engagement is meant to help with IC play so that characters can continue to interact. If you're not sure how to loop in others, let us know so that we can work with you on it! While this page is meant to be a conversation between players and mods, we know that the fun part of a plot is how it can change character arcs, spice up CR, and more.

NOTES & THINGS THAT YOU CAN HANDWAVE

◉ Characters always start out in entry level positions. Characters can update their skill sets to the 2512 standard through paid apprenticeships or internships.

◈ If a character is advancing within a major corporation (as noted on the Setting or Locations page) or one of its subsidiaries, we will need to approve this advancement.
◈ If a character becomes a supervisor at a local bar or other small business, we do not need to approve this advancement.

◉ Joining the police force within a city requires three months of IC training (six months OOC). There will be instances where this changes, and we'll keep you looped in on that.
◉ We'll approve whether someone has social media fame, but we will not be providing social media follower counts. Once you have a plot for how to use those followers, that's where we step in!
◉ All Morningstar business goes on our Morningstar page. Please feel free to discuss specific plots here (including joining), and go there for signups and anything else.
◉ Characters getting jobs, finding apartments, participating in the fighting rings, getting married, making workplace friends, the creation of minor NPCs, etc. do not need to be run by us. Please let us know if these expand into player plots or other plot bits!

QUICK LINKS

◉ Archived Plot Engagement: Previous Plot Engagement.
◉ FAQ: For small worldbuilding or gameplay details.
◉ Setting: Our setting page! We'll update as needed.
◉ Jobs: A reference for who's working where!
◉ Locations: Both major and minor locations within New Amsterdam, as well as outlines for other megacities.
◉ Mod Contact: For wider game concerns.
◉ The Story So Far: Gamewide plot events up to current (your CTRL+F best friend!).
◉ NPC page: Includes NPC blurbs and inboxes.
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Threaded | Top-Level Comments Only

Hey again Roni!

That sounds like a great plan. It'll absolutely get him a decent following of both people who agree with him and virulently disagree. His social media strategy will inspire a lot of debate, especially as he poses direct questions.

Of course, that debate won't be confined solely to his account. It'll bleed out, especially as he's tapping into some deep emotions and conversations people are already having, just much more quietly. Some of the political unrest has already been focused on the corporations that have been running the show, and a lot of people will be viewing Loki as a spokesperson for these views. While quite obviously none of the "official" media channels that are in the UN and corporations' pockets will be paying him any mind, larger influencers will. Considering the pull and reach that influencers have over social media, however, that isn't a bad thing.

He'll be getting all sorts of invitations—commentary style e-celebs asking him to come onto their Cooltalks for collabs, more serious literary channels asking him for interviews, etc. This will run the gamut from videos that will likely turn into silly comedy pieces to more measured conversations, so it's up to Loki which invitations he'll accept and which influencer spheres he'll court. If he does accept any, this will turn into a snowball effect, with more fans finding him and more creators clamoring for his attention.

In the real world, support will be quieter. Fans will start creating and wearing their own merch, focusing on symbols from Loki's work. He can monetize this, of course, and start selling his own official merch, and it will soon become clear that some of his fans are using these pieces (pins, t-shirts, etc.) as a sort of secretive way of displaying their political beliefs, both against the corporations and siding with the Cardinals/Displaced against the UN's smear campaign. Think how the mockingjay pin/Hunger Games hand symbol was used in protests in our world. For the most part, most of the activism side of his fandom will take place within already established social justice groups, but Loki could absolutely take more of a hands on approach and create his own "official" one.

She'd overall be resistant to finding a proper apartment at first - likely she'd snap at them that she hasn't lived in a building since she was eleven, and she isn't interested in starting now. There are two things that could eventually sway her, though: the onset of winter (assuming New Amsterdam gets cold!), and to a lesser extent, having a place to stash things that she doesn't want taken from her (though the lack of trust in digital currency will mean that she won't really believe that the building's owner will see her as having any rights to the place). That said, even if they do end up helping her get set up (which I'd definitely like; it's a step I'd been planning to have her take anyway once the weather started getting colder), she'll definitely continue to hunt and fish outside regardless. She'll probably keep sleeping outside sometimes too, if she's across the city when night falls, or if she's having a bad day and sleeping inside reminds her too much of the home/family she lost.

Edited 2021-03-08 04:52 (UTC)

Thanks mods!

I'm going to noodle on this a little more in which direction that he'd like to take, but I wanted to drop you a line and let you know he won't be creating any personal merchandise, but he'll be very pleased!

He'll most likely be going with an ouroboros, which will be stamped on the interior (digital) pages of his book.

First off: Sorry for how long this response took, I ended up moving houses shortly after it was posted and ended up with essentially-a-hiatus...

Second off: I love this! I think that would be a great group for him to appeal to; he does a lot of work with the military in canon and has a military commander style of leadership already so it's a familiar type of power he'd try to attain again.

He'd probably start out by reaching out to a few individual groups of discharged soldiers, maybe some that were making some trouble or that otherwise seem especially lost, with an overall "stern but caring strong patriarchal leader" vibe going on. He'd emphasize that the UNA are the ones who lost out by discarding them and that the soldiers were the heart of the whole operation, and that they still have plenty of potential left. Lots of "and I'd never betray you" with an emphasis on team-building/pulling through this together to play to the strength of their existing group bond and try to substitute some old-fashioned US-style army training exercise for that missing hive mind. tl;dr he'd try to offer the strong direction and authority they've suddenly found themselves lacking and promote himself as the better, caring leader who would never discard anyone like that.

Maybe he could start reaching out during Anime Naexpo, if the hurtful-in-hindsight propaganda anime is raising some hackles.

Sounds good to me! I don't have any NPCs in mind that Wade would want to approach, so if you've got something in mind then feel free to use them. I'm also open to having the NPC approaching Wade via a private message or something like that, or even just handwaving that they talked and then having Wade start out his new job soon afterwards.

Whatever works for you!

whoo ok... here i am, finally, with some north america stuff

1. setting out/making land!
my question about this is more focused on timing - tagging/rping for a long time solely on a boat will get tedious so i am highkey interested in what will take the least amount of time to get there.

thinking about starting points, we think setting out from the east coast of russia/siberia (whatever the eastern most city in russia is??) towards the western coast of north america/alaska could be the fastest? the bering straight is hella small 👀 this idea would come from jyn.

2. gates!
a handful of displaced will have relics with which to make gates upon landing, but i am not sure about transport and movement across the continent once they're there because we don't know what the continent is like yet, but they can plan on making multiple gates as quentin led people to get a bunch of relics prior. he will be leading this effort, but there are other people who have made a gate before joining (like kyna and jyn).

is it possible to bring transport of their own on the boat* to travel inland? do they need to?

3. boat plans!
cassian will not be advocating theft of boat as the displaced don't have a great rep at the moment, so the boat can be rented or built or charmed/borrowed out of some locals? not sure which is the most feasible.

many of the displaced going on this trip have a variety of powers that could help keep the boat safe from detection, or improve speed, etc. for example:
jyn: hydrokinesis & aerokinesis - gestures at water and air
killian jones: wind manipulation - speedy boat??
john conner: detecting electromagnetic fields - useful for literally sensing surveillance
ellie: invisibility - maybe can combine with another power to hide boat??
idk there could be more, i am going off what cassian and/or jyn know, or what people revealed in the network post about it.

cassian will stress that evading the surveillance is more important than destroying it, as it's better to be totally undetectable.

that's all i got for now.

Hi Iddy!

New Amsterdam definitely has some extremes—there aren't very many moderate months, so as they're slowly heading toward winter, she'll find that her NAPD buddies are worried about her sleeping outside. You can assume these friends did try to point out what benefits she could get from a situation, as well as try to educate her on renter rights (which are now being strongly enforced because of the Lieutenant Governor).

Otherwise, this is great. Feel free to touch back if any plots come up where Callisto might pull on these acquaintances for information, or even just use them to hide out (since they'll slowly grow fond of her, even if she's baffling to them). And, of course, if you have any ideas for her to make use of these ties, hit us back! We're happy to work with you on this.

Hi Cass,

No worries on the delay, and this all sounds good to us. We think that Homelander's approach would work well here, that he'd be appealing to them in a way that would resonate with them, and that his natural leader charm would also give him a leg-up.

We'll bring this up on the next calendar, but please also let us know if you think of any plots in which you'd like to leverage this group and have Homelander try to use them as a means to an end… or whatever else he might do!

Hi Kaiya --

Sorry if there was some confusion, but just to clarify: Wade will need to be the one reaching out to his Aerie contact/contacts, they won't know to reach out to him! That means he's going to have to do a little networking to even get the opportunity to meet with someone. We're not sure of the contacts that Wade made in the Aerie which could be useful to you now, so please feel free to expand on this and let us know what direction you'd like to go.

To be clear, this is something you can come up with retrospectively based on the background and position that you established with him within the Aerie! We just need to have some idea of how he would leverage these connections to get the kind of work he's interested in.

Awesome, I'm super into this; thanks so much!

Piggy-backing onto this original thread of questions/answers because it's related and it's been approximately 2 IC weeks since this new "job" would have started, so here are some new thoughts and queries I had:

• Roughly how many runs would he make on a weekly/monthly basis for Riverside? At what point is he considered "trustworthy" (or trustworthy enough, as organized crime systems tend to function less on a merit-based internal economy and more on an effectiveness in following orders)?

• To whom does he regularly report? What kind of dynamic is that? Does he see Rose with any regularity or on occasion to check in?

• If it's black market goods (prosthetics, drugs, weapons) that's more of a smuggling job than outright theft, unless they are also having him acquire items from legitimate businesses for them to replicate. Is that sort of where y'all were leaning with that assertion? Checking for clarification.

• What sort of internal help would they provide him beyond their documentation on urban surveillance and security? Equipment? A weapon?

• At what point would they be amenable to taking his recommendations on other thieves to incorporate into a small web?

Thanks for clearing things up!

Unfortunately I don't have an idea what NPCs Wade would have met in the Aerie, let alone which of them would have access to the type of information Wade would be looking for. He may have rubbed shoulders with quite a few people, after all-- it would be difficult to pinpoint one specific person and be like "that's who I need to talk to", especially since he probably wouldn't know that said individual had expertise in mercenary work. I doubt it would come up in conversation in the Aerie, considering Wade's line of work pretty much boiled down to "being a celebrity and occasional Quarry participant".

Not to mention I would be uncomfortable with just picking an NPC at random and deciding they spoke with Wade about this sort of thing during his time in the Aerie, as I feel like that would be metagaming and not fun for anyone involved. Any guidance you could give me on how we can make this work would be very much appreciated!

Hi Kaiya!

Just to clarify, we allow our players to make up any NPCs that they'd like, and if they make up someone who might have too much clout, we step in to let them know that that won't be possible (and such a thing has never actually happened). This is because Meadowlark's world has billions of people in it, allowing a lot of wiggle room. For the sake of our bandwidth as mods, we do ask that players help develop these NPCs on their own for their character's plots, as we haven't actually created all of the billions of NPCs. This also helps players develop their plots the way they'd like! We don't even have the names of all of the 104 megacities, haha.

So, in this case, your mercenary NPC would be some random mercenary who was aware of Wade in the Aerie, and you'd go from there. We're giving you leeway to create that mercenary, as well as the backstory they would have had with Wade.

We hope this helps!

Hi Mods!

As per Jason's Callout Post, Jay has to start working on taking down everything he's ever worked for. Jason thinks this is CR, but really, it's my chance to fuck up the gangs plot.

I'd like to start with a small thing, to see how quickly he could get an ID masker. If it means working odd jobs to get the money, that's fine. Jason's not above doing that.

But mainly, I'd like for him 1) to start tracking down the various ways to get something to mask his identity, and then 2) start following the gangs to figure out the right faction to focus on for challenging for a leadership role. he's gonna slow walk his way as necessary.

Thanks!

Edited 2021-03-21 03:10 (UTC)

Hi mods! In this conversation, Cassian approached Lexa after he and Jack realized that they both had their Kestrel tattoos and had the dreams you gave us. The three of them (Cassian, Jack, and Lexa) contacted other Kestrels IC and were told the info from all six dreams listed on this plot engagement page! Because of that, they decided to investigate the elements they pieced together.

Here's a general idea: Cassian and Jyn are going to New Moscow to investigate where the fancier spots are with good steak if there are any. Lexa and Cassian are going to be researching online to see if there's a restaurant or business called The Four Horsemen. We were wondering what will they find out if they do this? This is something Tomato and I talked out OOC before I posted this so we're on the same page. Thanks!

Edited 2021-03-21 04:52 (UTC)

Hello mods!

Just checking in that both Amos and Naomi are gonna be interested in the space colonies plot. Naomi's currently on hiatus buuuut once she's back we should be good to go on getting a start there!

Seconding our interest!! I should have my laptop back towards the end of the month, and Naomi will be the one to organize ICly.

Hi Tomato!

We're going to factor all of this into the event plotting (going up SOON) and eventual log! One adjustment we're making is that while they'll be setting out from the same location—that works for us!—they'll be heading further down the coast to take a small river through the US until they hit the Mississippi. Since we're aware that you don't exactly have a map of the location (and neither do the characters), we know that they might not realize the opportunity available to them! It's also because a lot of what we've planned in North America along the way does involve the heart of the US itself.

We've also made up a way to help them traverse the US, and that's been factored into the plotting post.

Thanks for doing the legwork for us! That helps a lot.

Hi Alex!

First off: we're fleshing this out on the go, so if any of this doesn't work for you, let us know and we can adjust it to make it more fun. We're focusing on Nate still training, and that training will both be learning how to duck surveillance, but also knowing how to view the infrastructure of the Riverside Mob itself.

1. In terms of "runs," he would still likely be undergoing training and learning the ropes of how the Riverside infrastructure works at this stage. While he's been with them for a while via the casino, he'd start to learn a lot of the backend stuff. However, it would be from a distance. He would see how they get their weapons, who their enemies are (these are more likely to be the corporations rather than the Petrov Family, the "rival" New Amsterdam mob), as well as what kind of work they need him doing. He'll also learn which gangs they do and don't support. For example: Jason's gang, the Outlaws, was causing problems for them before Jason disappeared, but now they seem to be in disarray. On the other side, the Hi-Jacks are a universally respected gang in New Amsterdam because of their technical know-how. They'll never be as big as the mob, but they have carved out a place for themselves in the city.

Beyond that, he would be helping out with smuggling runs: getting things onto trains undetected, getting into buildings and ducking surveillance to pick up things that were agreed upon, and similar activities. This would also prove to be a test on how good he is for the higher ups.

Right now, we'll say that they're more interested in how good he is and how well he can pull things off without screwing them over. It's less merit-based, and more that they're making sure they're right to invest in him. They are, however, interested in hearing any feedback on how they can do better. Oddly enough, they're going to be pretty open to that—as long as it doesn't backfire.

2. He'll be reporting to an underling of Johnny Sperling (we just made him up, so don't worry about not recognizing the name), who's in charge of the smuggling operations. Johnny handles a lot of the infrastructure related to these operations, and handles sales, deals, etc. His underling, Kasumi Watanabe (also just made up!), has been with the mob since she joined up ten years ago. She was recruited for her talents in smuggling as a part of a smaller gang, and that gang is now long defunct. Kasumi is bright and methodical—she's slight in build, but she definitely can handle herself.

Both Johnny and Kasumi report to Micaela Yavuz, the Head of Security for Riverstone, and Rose's right hand. We have a bit about Micaela here, in addition to what came out during the Aerie.

At this stage, we'll say that Mic, Johnny, and Kasumi are all evaluating Nate to make sure that Rose made the right decision, but they're also doing it because Rose asked. He'll be reporting directly to Rose and taking on special projects soon, but these are the people assigned to make sure he's ready. The fact of the matter is that they're still a direct line to her, and that will be known to everyone involved (so, that does include Nate!).

In addition, given what you said about him leading operations, this is where Nate could start showing some of the other lower mob members that he's innovative enough and willing to take charge. Johnny and Kasumi are going to give him the rope to do that so he can prove himself. They are preparing him to be someone important to their operation, but they can't expedite the process lest they make people mad (and they want Nate's integration to go smoothly).

3. It's definitely smuggling right now, but that's a part of the training. In time, we'll say we're envisioning it as one part thievery (stealing prototypes) and one part spywork so that they can make deals by showing they have the knowledge about what's coming on the market. With that knowledge, they can also blackmail contacts within various corporate subsidiaries to give them a cut.

This is what we'll use to build up into the Morningstar technology.

4. He would be given equipment and a weapon, but nothing is on the level of the Morningstar identity-masking tech. Since so much data and surveillance is held on off-site cloud servers, they have to be careful about what they use because they can't just tamper with the evidence. This is where crime is really difficult to pull off in Meadowlark's world, and it's part of what makes the mobs so tetchy.

5. In terms of recruitment, we'll say it's once he's past the training and evaluation period. This would likely be in late April to early May OOC, if that's all right! We have an event in there too we know has mustered some interest.

Hey Raina!

When it comes to masking identity, he'll need to get one of the Morningstar scrambler masks (since it's proprietary Morningstar technology). This does mean he'll need to get in with either El, Gaby, or other agents of Morningstar and go from there, and either earn their trust or find some other means of convincing them. A possibility is that El could have Jason do some jobs to sort of prove himself and thereby earn access to the tech. If you're interested in that, you could always send Jason to El's inbox to see how that plays out.

As for the gang stuff, we would say check out what we gave to Jessi over here. Jason may be able to exploit Durcell's hold over the gangs, possibly by getting in with them and then making use of that connection and relationship. Let us know what you think his approach might be based off of that information, or if anything in particular stands out to you that he would seize on.

Hey Dee!

There's no need to hit up New Moscow directly for the information on fancier steak spots, a lot of the information that they need can be found on the internet: There is, indeed, a restaurant called The Four Horsemen, and that restaurant is distinctly known for its steak!

Of course, Cassian and Jyn can hit New Moscow, and The Four Horsemen, up if they'd like, but they'd need a reservation in advance to even get in the door. Even then, there's a dress code and a certain prestige to the establishment, they'd most likely be turned away without a second thought.

Let us know what you guys think, or if you have any plans from there! But you've certainly hit the mark.

Hey guys!

Thanks so much for the interest check! Just hit us back when you're ready to get things underway and we'll get you started.

Hey guys,

Jason will probably tackle trying to get the scrambler mask, yeah. So I'll start a thread there.

As for the rest, just to make sure I'm understanding the overall gist correctly:

* Durcell is traumatized, and thus losing his touch.
* As part of the event that traumatized him, he has lost control of a significant piece of territory to the rebels.
* And therefore, there's a potential leadership vacuum if someone can come along with a stronger vision and case for leadership?

Hi checked with Tomato, we were wondering if it's about money or clout. If Cassian and Jyn had the money and dressed up, would they possibly get a reservation, or does it have to come from a powerful person too? Could Tomato make one of the servers one of his contacts as he has a whole collection of them to get in or get information about his coming and going?

hey guys! could you ballpark me the square footage we're looking at for the garage upstairs and then the bunker downstairs?

Threaded | Top-Level Comments Only

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PLOT ENGAGEMENT

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