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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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no subject
1. Lance and Nate are planning to go hit up some of the ruins! This is both because Lance wants to see them and because they plan to look for any other bird motifs that may have been missed while people were focused on more important stuff (like solving puzzles.) From what I saw it looked like there were bird god themes at both Everest and Cairo, so Lance and Nate are planning to check out Oslo and Rio to see if they also fit the pattern. Lance is also pretty fascinated by the color-coding sort of thing, so he'll be looking for anything else related to that too.
2. Lance is also particularly interested in the James Henries mystery. As far as he (and I) understand, it seems like James Henries exists/existed in ML-world (not just Zerzura) and was the CEO of Giles-Bell, but that it was too long ago for him to still be alive if he had a normal lifespan. However, there's also the stuff about the mystery guy who shows up over the span of a hundred years without aging.
So I'm thinking the first place to start is looking into what history does exist for James Henries as CEO of Giles-Bell, and try to just get a general idea of the basics about him. This includes trying to find any pictures of him; if he was CEO of such a big company, hopefully there might be pictures (and if there aren't, that's interesting to know too!) If there are pictures, he'll then want to try to compare them to the pictures of the unaging guy, just in case there's a reasonable resemblance there that indicates a lead worth pursuing. If not, he's interested in the idea of facial recognition for the mystery guy if that's a possible thing.
So yeah! I have some other ideas of stuff to look at, but these seem like the easiest to get going on right away. c:
no subject
1. For this first point, we'll say that there aren't any additional birds to be found in either New Oslo or New Rio. You can feel free to have Nate and Lance go and explore, take part in any trials, and so on, but they're unlikely to cover any new information! The log containing a lot of the information about what they would find is here. Anyone else who might want to tag along can for this little adventure!
We want to add that this doesn't mean you should stop looking for birds! Aside from the name of the game, "birds" are obviously a motif.
2. This is a two part question, so we'll handle it for each!
re: James Henries: We actually have an obituary of James here on our Zerzura aftermath, so Lance could easily dig that up! Quiet and introverted, he never married after he stepped down as the CEO of Giles Bell, and there are few records that remain of him. Odd, considering that like many of the leaders of corporations in 2512, he was following in the footsteps of his family. He got the position because of his blood and name more than his talent. He was terrible at it, so his presence in Giles Bell history isn't remembered. As in, they tend to pretend it doesn't exist. What Marta got as a piece of information is carefully concealed and difficult to find. Giles Bell would rather pretend that James Henries was never in charge.
We'll add that there are still a few more pieces of JH/James Henries information out there to find that we believe haven't been reported. One piece went out to Drake Holloway, who's still in game if you'd like to hit up Ana!
Now, as for what James Henries looks like: he'll look a lot like a 68-year-old version of this guy. Note the ears! The picture will be without glasses. This guy will look a lot like what Johann Grey looks like now (
We'd like to finish out with a note: it's definitely meant to be strange that there's a lack of information about James Henries available. He was a legacy, after all, and he was already living in the heavy surveillance and digital era. So, how is there so little? He may have been a piss poor CEO, but he was still a CEO.
re: the guy throughout the ages: that is not James Henries, from the looks of it. Interestingly enough, trying to do facial recognition or even search back through archives will come up with a whole lotta nothing. It's like this guy doesn't exist. The only search that will come up will be the forum post. It's almost like these images were put together to mess with someone, but it's odd that they can't find a source on the images beyond the forum itself. They had to come from somewhere, right?
Feel free to follow up with any questions or leads! We want to add that both of these have a number of places to go, as well as potential to run into other players' ongoing plots.
no subject
1. Sounds good! It'll be a fun little nerd vacation, at least. And I will definitely keep an eye out for bird stuff~
2. Ooooh this is all super interesting! I'll definitely message Ana about that potential lead re: Henries, especially since Lance and Drake are friends so I've got plenty of ic excuse to get into that conversation.
Similarly, Lance knows Jack so I think I can probably figure out a good way for this icly to come up! Jyn also just mentioned to Lance that Johann has clones so I'm presuming that's another interesting bit to this plot?
As far as the lack of info on Henries goes, that's definitely something Lance will notice and so I'm going to think about some more potential avenues for looking into that further and get back to you on it when I have some more time for it. c:
Re: unaging dude, also very interesting! Same as above; I definitely want to think about more potential things to try to explore with this, I just haven't had any time lately, alas. So I will for sure be back with more questions about all of this, especially once some of the ic threads play out a bit more.
Thank you! <3