![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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.
.
no subject
1. For player characters to join Morningstar, the characters themselves need to express this interest to either Gaby or El (this can be handwaved) and the players need to let us know here! Recruitment is not necessarily immediate, with something of an unofficial provisional period for characters to better earn the trust of the organization. This will be done via them being tapped for tasks or jobs and carrying these out successfully.
Joining Morningstar does not mean not being able to work elsewhere – the opposite, in fact! As Morningstar are a rebel organization, it's necessary for its members to have normal, everyday lives and jobs so as to best remain undetected by the authorities.
(We're not entirely sure from your questions if this is a route you'd like Kylo Ren to go, so please let us know in response if you are interested in him joining Morningstar!)
2. New Amsterdam has two large crime organizations and a plethora of smaller street gangs. The two organizations are the Petrov Family and the Riverside Mob, and a few of the largest and most well known street gangs are the Kings, the 66, the Warlocks and the Hi-Jacks. While the Petrov Family and the Riverside Mob have been operating under truce for several years now, their decades long feud continues through the street gangs associated with their operations.
To get involved with any of the organized crime in the city, a character would need to start with being introduced to a gang. The best ways to go about this would be to spend time at a bar a gang frequents and befriending one of their members, or participating in one of the illegal sports the gangs run and impressing them that way. Those illegal sports are underground fighting rings, illegal robot dog fights, and street racing (hovercars, hoverbikes and hoverblades). They hold these sports for the gambling alongside the illegal card dens they also run.
3. There are both illegal and legal courier opportunities in New Amsterdam. Couriers commonly use hoverbikes or regular bicycles, and can be asked to carry packages both of the physical kind and of the digital kind. The latter is most commonly utilized by corporations and criminals needing to securely move data from one location to another, and is very high risk due to the dangers of storing such large data packets on an individuals' neural implant for too long a length of time.
There are several (legal) courier companies throughout New Amsterdam. Most of them operate on vehicles that they lease from the company itself, paying a monthly fee. Employees are allowed to bring these vehicles home, and they are registered to their neural implants for the duration of their employment. If the vehicle is damaged, wrecked or stolen, the employee is responsible for paying for repairs or a replacement.
These jobs require very little education or work experience. All employees of courier companies have to pass a basic background check to ensure that they don't have a criminal record, while illegal couriering is usually handled more informally by gang associated individuals.
4. Hoverbikes cost the equivalent of what a motorbike would cost now, so are very expensive. Bicycles are cheaper, but slower and ground-bound.
5. There are no physical libraries as there are no physical books except in the private collections of the very rich. We have answered a similar question here for more detail on how books and information can be accessed instead.
6. The relationship between Earth and the colonies is somewhat distant but otherwise fine. The colonies are not independent. They are run under the same government, and are reliant on Earth to send supplies. They have also only been populated quite recently, so are not culturally split from Earth. There is some resentment for Earth population living in better conditions and treated better, and many colonists feel they were deceived about what kind of lives they were leaving Earth to live. It is rare for a colony resident to move back to Earth, as this would cost a large amount of money (and would not have the possibility of government subsidy like moving the other way), but this background would not impede them from any jobs.
This said, it's unfortunately not possible for Morningstar to provide any characters with any backgrounds that involve military or police service, as these are not records they have the ability to alter or fake in a way that would hold up under any scrutiny. Characters hoping to go into this line of work, either officially or through private companies, would need to start from scratch.
no subject
i think i'll probably go with the courier route, which is what i'd initially considered, with him being involved with morningstar as well, and look at ways to involve him with the gangs gradually. it will be a good way to give him something to do in between events.
no subject
no subject
following on from that, i was thinking of having him look into milking some of the venom from the crab creatures (glass was very helpful in suggesting ways this could be managed) and so wanted to ask if:
a. this would be allowed. from what i understand he'd need to get samples of the tentacles themselves, which would need to be stored, and an eventual means to agitate the samples into giving up the venom. storage would take up the immediate priority, obviously.
and b. morningstar would have a lab/some sort of storage he could make use of? if approved i was hoping to rope in people with a more scientific/biology bend to do the analyzing/figuring out that side of things, to build cr and also get looking at where the creatures themselves might have originated from. if they had been engineered, etc.
and finally c. morningstar would have any interest in the samples/information gathered from the samples, should gathering them (a task i expect will be challenging but hopefully not impossible) be approved.
also, before i forget... i know the city is going to have a memorial event. will there be a log for it or are we allowed to make our own? because this seemed like a good time to try to gather the samples i mentioned above but didn't want to jump the gun, obviously.
no subject
no subject