PLOT ENGAGEMENT (ARCHIVED)

[larkers]

> PLOT ENGAGEMENT (ARCHIVED)

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!

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.

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).
◉ 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

◉ 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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> NAVIGATION

Comments

[larkers]

Hi Gee!

So apartments are pretty much the only option that they'll have, but there are townhouse apartment situations where they would have two floors of space to work with. It wouldn't be an incredible amount of space, but it also wouldn't be as cramped and cozy as most of the starter apartments that the Displaced usually end up in early on.

The area of New Amsterdam is sort of up to you, but anything in the richer areas or the commercial/financial disticts where property is more in high demand would be much more expensive (so their mortgage payment would be much higher).

In terms of how long it takes, it probably depends on how much free time they have to put into the property! If they've got jobs keeping them busy and other responsibilities that they need to put their time toward, it would likely take a bit longer. Just throwing out a number for a ballpark, maybe two months to get it into better shape?

[nonscriptum]

Hiya! Good points, so I'll respond to/clarify these in order:

- No, let's say they'll work up a reasonable reputation there before asking for anything. They've been in this particular field long enough to know better. :')

- I'll say yes to the glowing, if only because we're framing it this way: they're not going in with the intention of showing off the glowing and getting carted off, they're going in with the intention of having a swell Boys Night at the casino and maybe feeling out what the mob vibe is. Nate's power is not well-defined (nor well-controlled) so both of them glowing is completely accidental.

- It's a fair assessment and one they'd agree with. It doesn't look great. They're keen on proving themselves if it means they might eventually establish some connections in this particular realm.

- ABSOLUTELY THIS DUMBASS IS ALWAYS CARTING AROUND SOME ANCIENT SHINY TRINKET so yes! He'll probably have one of the Nepalese artifacts he found back during the Everest expedition on him.

Hope that helps!

[bivariant]

makes sense to me! it was an attempt made very close to the wire after all :9

(frozen comment)

[dragonwarder]

ooc vote is for lynch :)

(frozen comment)

[warfares]

and now in the correct place, ooc vote for lynch

[heliophilous]

thank you, this is what i needed to know to try and get things rolling!

[larkers]

Hey Trace! Since we're putting together the calendar now, are you cool with us adding it to the news section?

[heliophilous]

yeah, that's totally fine! go ahead!

[larkers]

Awesome! 🤗🤗🤗

(frozen comment) Re: GUBERNATORIAL ELECTION

[closerift]

Cecily will be voting for Delafield-Chapin!

(frozen comment)

[larkers]

Freezing so we can write the calendar!

[righteously]

Hello yes it is I

I'd like to get Dean a little more involved, and thanks to a lovely suggestion I think it makes total sense to have him go into the Monster business. What with a monster apocalypse and all, he'd probably do what he does best and go Hunting — aka researching the lore/origin and weaknesses of these bad boys, and anything else he can dig up. He would also 10/10 abuse his 15 minutes of fame from all that chopping and glowing he did publicly if that benefits him at all.

[forcevisions]

Can Rey like ... change her name back to 'Rey' from 'Kira'? Since the UNA is gone?

[fossils]

Hi mods! I've been having Steve helping out with PRESERVE throughout the last event and the aftermath-- I realized I should've asked here first but in one of my logs I had him helping out at a pop-up food pantry, I hope that was okay!

I've been wondering how to get him a little more involved with PRESERVE, and if they might be the group to approach re: trying to set up more disaster prepared-ness initiatives/classes to help regular citizens be ready for another massive attack, maybe also with gathering what they learned about the individual monsters and decimating that information more widely if it already hasn't been done + offering to help with local self-defense classes (with a focus on how to assess your situation and know when to fight versus retreat, in the same vein as disaster prepardedness)

idk if this makes sense or if is feasible but tldr he's looking for ways to use his skillset to help out regular folks!

[rehandle]

This is so good thank you Tired marvels refurbishing a beat up New Amsterdam townhouse apartment... cute

One last question looking into the future, if they take a top (two) floor townhouse apartment would there be a possibility when they next have the available finances of getting ownership of the attic/roof and planning permission to do something up there?

[preseance]

Hey folks!

Just wanted to float the idea of an open-to-city residents/civilians support group to deal with the mental and emotional fallout of the monster attacks. Gene might look at running it through PRESERVE with use of their resources but if that falls through he'd also just do it on his own and get the word out, probably either through his job or maybe through digital fliers or something of that nature. he lowkey wants to involve some other PCs in this (tho that might end up handwaved, no one wants to play out round robin trauma discussion in a big group lmao) as a way for the Displaced to offer outreach and support to New Amsterdam citizenry and really focus on giving back to the community. maybe he'd try talking to gaby about it??


+ he's also starting to look at the possibility of getting involved with local volunteer chapters that are in a position to help drug addicts get into detox facilities or situations, sort of the same thing as above where if there aren't places that will accept volunteer help he's willing to do community outreach himself to get involved on a street level. I don't know what the level of resources available for addiction at, say, a homeless shelter versus a detox center versus any of the other methods The Future possibly uses, but I'd like an avenue to get him involved if possible!


help this man and his wild ptsd and inability to sit still literally ever find things to do in his downtime pls + thank.

[personalwar]

Having direct contact with some of the mercenaries would hopefully give him a chance to earn their trust at least to some degree, while maybe also being able to pick up on some information via listening in on the conversations they have amongst themselves. I assume they would be careful with what they said to each other in his presence (or when communicating with him about an op via implant), but are there any off-handed comments or other tidbits of information he might pick up on? Even if he doesn't have full context for them.

Jack would figure that there are tons of mercenary groups out there and that not all of them necessarily have any connection to the Displaced drop-offs or the kidnappings to the Gates, but in light of the monster event, he would bring up the Displaced as a general topic and try and gauge the mercenaries' feelings about them, to see if that reveals any possible connections to those topics or information they might have. What might he learn by doing this?

He wouldn't reveal himself as a Displaced right away with this set up, instead hoping to slowly learning more about the mercenaries via working with them, even if it's not directly.

[larkers]

Hey again, Ami!

1. They wouldn't state it outright, but it would be heavily implied that Gaby tends to represent the softer side of Morningstar.

2. They wouldn't entirely understand why he's asking about why people would or wouldn't join Morningstar. They'd answer, but it would be treated as something that should otherwise be a touch more obvious given the world itself.

Basically: it's a risk to join Morningstar. Before recent times, the UN had a staunch anti-Morningstar strategy. Speaking out for them could get someone arrested. Even being suspected as a member of Morningstar could lead to someone being disappeared, especially when sentiments would start to turn. Morningstar is the longest running rebel organization in recent history, but they aren't the first. Many others have been stamped out and stopped throughout the centuries since the UN took hold of the world.

Sentiments are changing. It's not that the world doesn't know that the UN is screwed up. It's that the oligarchical nature of the world means that the power structures couldn't be changed. Most people chose to duck their heads down and take care of themselves. Morningstar wasn't affecting change, even if they were helping people. They couldn't disrupt the structures of the world as a whole.

3&4. Morningstar is an anti-capitalist organization, so by and large, they want a world that actively supports its people and takes care of them without padding their own pockets. They just also believe that something like that will take time to deconstruct, even if things seem to be moving rapidly at the moment. They believe that will change over time.

Their goal is to eventually help create a world that governs itself, rather than is governed by money. They know that this is difficult to obtain, but they want to undo the UN's efforts that solidified during World War III and the human/AI war. Right now, this system is so entrenched, so impenetrable, that they know that the UN is already ramping up and developing ways to undo any of the current progress. What doesn't help is that the UN is very dangerous. Surveillance and money means that they can assert control where necessary, even if they can't keep eyes everywhere at all times. But if someone messes up? It means that the UN knows where to look.

Needless to say, public sentiment is that the UN "takes care of them"—for better or worse. The UN is powerful, and corporations help feed into them and train leaders to maintain this corrupt system. And monster attacks only show that the UN is powerless. It's where the UN is slipping up because they can't control that element (at least: "not yet").

5. In turn, some of the more ruthless of them would ask what Lance would do in their situation, given the hopelessness of it all. What would he expect them to do?

They'd also ask what Lance thinks Morningstar is out to do and what they hope to accomplish, basically to get a reading on what he thinks and feels. Does he trust them? Does he think they're dangerous?

Let us know how he'd follow up!

[larkers]

Hey Alex!

This sounds good.

Just to be certain, when you say "reasonable reputation," we'll assume that both Sam and Nate will go about their menial mob tasks (casino hands) as asked after Nate has proved himself to be a treasure hunter. He'll have to make sure that both Sam and him play nice (for now), or it's possible for consequences to fall back on Red Wings, and the mob will definitely make it clear.

They'll both be stationed under that capo. His name is Rion.

Let us know if there are any other questions.

[larkers]

Hi Em!

So here's a quick rundown, as promised, on Monster-Related Things:

First Monster Sighting: The first big monster attack in game happened not long after it started (link / link). Think big kaiju with little monsters rolling off its back. The big thing about these monsters is that they had golden eyes.

This monster eventually led to a rage sickness in our second event (link / link) because people were hoarding away monster parts, and they got set on fire. The only cure to this sickness was the Displaced setting their hands on them.

Afterward, the gangs helped produce a berserking drug based on this. Heavily diluted, it would send people into a berserking rage. It wouldn't require a cure, but it was eventually found out that anyone on this could be cured. This drug is still on the market, and it's safe to say that the recent monster attacks will lead to a rise in product being available. Plus, there are new elements to the monsters, so the drugs will change based on that, as well!

A few of the Displaced dug up information on these monsters and had them genetically tested, only to find out that they were strange genetic chimeras. None of this information is publicly available to the world at large, but it's pretty commonly known to the Displaced themselves. This information matches what was found by the researchers out of Antarctica in the papers that William released following the event.

These first and second events set up our monster lore in game, though there are a lot of elements that haven't yet been discovered.

Before we proceed, we want to clear up that there are two types of monsters: naturally occurring and ones that were engineered by Johann. The engineered monsters were created utilizing the DNA from the naturally occurring monsters. We'll clarify which of these we're referring to below, but the first "kaiju" attack counts as a "naturally occurring" monster. However, we're aware that we may not have made this terribly clear; as a result, Cassius' involvement with Johann may be needed to clear things up.

So, where are there other monster sightings?

Dreams: First, there were two monster attacks on New Tokyo and New Johannesburg that eventually led to our Dreams event. In the dreams, there were monsters with golden eyes that, when killed, disappeared in a bunch of glowing sparkles. After the dreams, reality seemed to be rewritten with New Tokyo and New Johannesburg experiencing horrible storms instead of monster attacks. Since these are dreams, neither category of monster type applies, but it's safe to say that they were based on naturally occurring monsters (since that's all the Displaced had seen up to that point).

Both inside and outside of New Amsterdam's walls: There are yellow-eyed chimeric creatures that started springing up outside of New Amsterdam's walls, and Jyn, Clarke, and Prompto all found them there during the EMP event. Afterward, these creatures started coming into the city, and would survive, especially thanks to the excessive greenery around the city afterward. The big thing about these creatures is that they were naturally occurring in nature, seeming as if they were natural evolutions of chimeric animals.

These are naturally occurring monsters/creatures/animals!

Laboratories: There are two laboratories with yellow-eyed creatures. The first showed up in an Arrival Log, and the second were found in the laboratory in New Magellan.

The guy linked to the second laboratory (Johann Parsons Grey) also screwed with Caroline, making her enraged (link, CW body horror and experimentation). Jyn posted about this here. She could be cured the same way as the rage sickness plot we mentioned above.

The laboratory monsters are engineered by Johann.

We saw that Dean is looking into reaching out to Cassius for information on Johann, but we wanted to give you the head's up that Cassius won't be keen to talk to Dean because Dean was very aggressive toward Cassius during the simulation event. We are fine with Dean reaching out to him, but we suggest you have an OOC backup to reach out to Cassius lest Dean fails to sweet talk our sensitive sassy AI.

The gates: There were chimeric-type creatures inside of all of the gates during our gates activation event. It's safe to say that there are still some lurking around within the depths of the gates themselves, waiting to attack.

For the people kidnapped to New Rio and New Cairo, they had rations that were tampered with that caused a version of the rage sickness. It's safe to say that this isn't a coincidence.

Finally, the gates monsters are naturally occurring.

Antarctica: There was a rejected research paper out of Antarctica that, combined with the laboratory findings in New Magellan, propelled Daenerys' eventual expedition to Antarctica. William did some hacking and eventual whistleblowing and released the information he found from those labs (link). While William's gone, the information is still out there. The DNA samples here were naturally occurring.

Monster attacks: Obviously, you were here, but this is the next part of this! So, linking for posterity. That said, these are naturally occurring.

Where to go from here?

Right now, we don't think Dean's monster-killing fame will serve him much yet, but we can definitely see it coming up as he begins to pick a direction to investigate. It's ultimately up to you which angle he takes. These monsters are intrinsically linked to Meadowlark's mythology and supernatural lore, so there is a lot of digging left to do. We also have enough wiggle room for monsters to be found hidden in places, and for some new monsters to be developed for playing purposes. Just let us know! And feel free to ask us any questions. We're very familiar with the metaplot of the monsters, but if you need any help with getting Dean to the right conclusions but aren't sure what you're missing, we're happy to help you along.

A network post with him asking the rest of the Displaced about the history of the monsters and the monster attacks might be a good idea, as the Displaced themselves carry a lot of this information!

[larkers]

Hi Tifa!

While the UNA is gone (which seems to be a temporary thing altogether thanks to the UN quickly taking the monster attack to mean that they can start recruiting again), the UN is not. Nothing the UNA did was without government permission or jurisdiction. Rey can look into changing her name back, but with the UN desperate to gain leverage against the Displaced now that they're making themselves known, it might paint a target onto her back. We would definitely be interested in running a plot where Rey has to deal with the negative consequences of this decision, but we'd like to know what you think!

[larkers]

Hi Jay!

PRESERVE tends to work in tandem with the UN and corporations in order to maintain its funding. While they provide disaster relief, they're not going to be able to support anything like self-defense classes (especially while the UN is particularly touchy about uprisings and anti-UN sentiment). That's not to say that this is outside of the realm of possibility! On the contrary, there's obviously a definite need for this, but Steve will need to look for other outlets to get it done. It'll be obvious that the NA PRESERVE volunteers have their hands tied; they might want to do a project with Steve, but they can't risk losing the financial support they do have around the world to keep helping in the ways they do help.

We will add that a number of Displaced (Clarke, Stephen, Damian, to name a few, but there are more as well) are interested in supporting a venture like this. We suggest that you have Steve propose it to the group to get it started, as well as potentially set up a website to disseminate information.

Oh, and a pop-up food pantry is fine!

Let us know if you have any other questions.

[larkers]

Hi Gee,

These buildings wouldn't really have any sort of attic space, and while Stephen and Tony would be allowed to use the roof periodically for gatherings or parties if they wanted to host, they couldn't have full ownership of it as it's a shared space for the entire building. On top of that, they probably wouldn't want to do anything on the roof that they wouldn't want people knowing about (super secret projects, etc.) due to surveillance.

Hope that makes sense!

[larkers]

Hi Roy!

Volunteer mental health services, including substance abuse programs, are largely handled through PRESERVE, so that would definitely be the best place for Eugene to go and volunteer his expertise when it comes to people who are suffering from PTSD. Once they did a background check on him and he went through an interview process for some vetting, they would allow him to function as a counselor to those in need.

Due to the fact that there is universal healthcare in this world which also covers mental health, a lot of the work would involve initial screening of people and intake to determine what they were suffering from so that they could be funneled to the correct medical professionals. There would also be people who don't necessarily want professional care, but instead someone to talk to, and PRESERVE would offer those sorts of services for people.

Hopefully this is more or less what you were looking for, but if there are any other ideas you have feel free to ask!

[larkers]

The mercenaries' opinions on the Displaced tend to vary, just as the general public's does. However, some of the mercs do seem to think the Displaced are trouble, though they won't say why outright. Some even seem a little afraid of them. There are rumors among the mercs about what the Displaced are capable of, some of it realistic and some not so much. Maybe the mess the Displaced made of that kidnapping mission has gotten around through word of mouth?

As for eavesdropping, he won't find much information there. The mercs tend to be tight-lipped around strangers, and so most of what he'll hear is the general sort of grumbling among coworkers. It is pretty clear that the different mercenary crews are aware of one another and gossip about each other, however. Apparently these guys aren't huge fans of the mercenaries that work for Pulsar. They tend to be dirtier and more underhanded on their jobs, and a few of the people Jack will overhear take issue with that, whether because they're afraid that will bring more scrutiny on their own work or just because they don't think those sort of tactics are necessary.

If he wants more sensitive, in-depth information, his best bet might be to grease the wheels so to speak, whether that be through his power or other means.