JANUARY RUNDOWN.

[headandhand]

First, a little holiday gift from the mods! Activity check has been switched to check-in only this month - all you need do is comment that you’re checking in on the AC post, and you’re good! If you’ve done half AC, you’ll get a half-token for future use, i.e., use it on activity check if stuff came up and you only got five comments in. Turning in full AC still wins you a full token. Everyone gets an invite, too! Sorry it’s last-minute, but we hope you enjoy it anyway.

Now … onward to what’s planned for January!

It’s a new year, but the same story: activity check is due by Jan. 5, apps are open Jan. 1-7, NAPs will be happening Jan. 7-10. This month’s NAPs session will be held at the Gallows, the art gallery run by our very own Crazy Jane et. al. Bond with your new neighbors over the creepy art on display! Treat yo self to a plastic glass of cheap boxed wine and the spread of crackers, cheese, and grapes set out for all visitors to enjoy. And did someone say karaoke? Well, yeah, I just did, because there will be a karaoke machine set up in the corner, for all your group singalong needs.

For the rest of the month, the gloves are coming off. Buckle in, comrades!



After a few months of hibernation, the Heart finally re-emerges with another encrypted message delivered straight to your inbox, inviting everyone to another meeting in a different abandoned warehouse on Jan. 15. You’ve seen that their claims of danger are true now, thanks to the staged roboclone attacks, so it’s time to talk business. Clearly everyone will want to join the cause now, right?

Unfortunately, this meeting will end up going sideways, and not just as a result of the (well-earned) yells y’all have been saving up to hurl at these jokers. Remember how the Heart had a ‘90s hacker film protagonist named Travis on their side? Remember how he got brutally ripped to pieces and replaced by his machine doppelganger? Remember how people have their memories downloaded to the Head’s memory banks via the chip shoved in their noggins? Well, as a former member of the Heart, Robo-Travis has insight to the Heart’s methods and meeting places, and will be leading a squad of Iterations to this very warehouse during this very meeting. Predictably, chaos will ensue. The Iterations can (and probably should!) be fought off by those of you who are fighters and/or have special abilities, but most of the Heart, including Marie and Mello, will be captured during this operation.

The bad part of living in a cyberpunk dystopia is that there is no such thing as a fair trial for those who are deemed criminals. For actions as severe as the terrorism the Heart will be charged with, the usual sentences of community service or extracted memories just won’t do - these wrongdoers must be dealt with in a more severe manner. On Jan. 18, there will be a live broadcast on all channels of the public executions of all captured members of the Heart. These people will not be resurrected - their deaths will be permanent.

For all of you sadists out there, it will be possible for player characters to be captured and executed as part of this event, if you so wish - but remember, this is a permanent death! However, if you choose to go this route, you can still remain in the game! Your character will become their robotic double, subject to control by the Head. If you’re interested in doing this, sign up below and we’ll get in touch with more details.

Travis-bot will also be captured, by some of the players' characters who have previously expressed interest in attempting to deprogram and/or reprogram one of the doubles.

Now … the real question going forward becomes what next? This is the point in the game where we mods begin to turn over the eventual outcome of the game to the players. Mods will continue to provide background events such as NAPs and any city-wide effects (memory shares, for example), but the Heart has been dissolved, and any remaining members will not reassemble the group, so the shape the metaplot will take will depend on player choices. What do you and your characters want to do about what’s happening in the city, now that the Head has shown itself to be the homicidal lunatic it is? There will be a set of additional clues that turn up for distribution a few days after the execution, which might be important in your decisions on whether to take action, what kind, and when. Stay tuned for more on that later in the month.

We’re asking everyone to start discussing with each other in the OOC comm what your ideas and plans are for what your characters will do, starting with this post. Tell us about what you've been working on and what you want to do! All ideas are valid, though mods will weigh in if anything suggested wouldn’t be realistic for the parameters of the game. If you’ve ever played tabletop RPGs before, think of it like this: you have the setting and an objective, now you pick an action to take and the DM will tell you whether you will succeed or fail at it, and what the consequences will be. For example, if Jason gets a bad idea and decides he wants to blow up the mayor’s mansion, Koko would tell Rae that even though Jason has stealth and knowledge on his side, the mayor’s mansion is heavily monitored, and his probability of success is extremely low. If he does manage to succeed, the consequences will be a renewed manhunt for surviving members of the Heart, as the mayor would interpret this act of destruction as being related to the Heart’s previous efforts. If Jason fails, he would be carted off by Iterations and many bad things would happen to him. With this information, it would still be left up to Rae to decide whether to proceed with the explosive plan or discard the plan to do something else instead.

Please talk amongst yourselves and start making some awesome plans! There’s no rush to get everything sorted out immediately - the faster an end is reached, the sooner the game will be over. We’ve estimated that Dualis would run for one to two years, and we're only about six months in, but the timeline depends on what decisions are made by players OOCly and characters ICly. In other words, action doesn’t need to be taken immediately - there’s still plenty of information to be gathered, and wide-sweeping plans should take time to formulate.

Your mods will be here to help, of course, but one of the main goals of Dualis was to provide a game with player-determined outcomes. All you players now have the opportunity to take a more active role in deciding how this game ends, so consider your options and jump on in!

Got questions? Ask ‘em below!

Comments

QUESTIONS.

[headandhand]

Ask away!

[blitzcheer]

Is it possible to access AC rewards via half AC?

[headandhand]

this month, yes! go wild. c:

[sociallychallenged]

How thoroughly are they all going to be outed after this? Like how many will be found out as having known about the Heart, even if they weren't members? How many people will have to go on the run themselves?

[headandhand]

only as thoroughly outed as you want your characters to be! the iterations' main objective is capturing the members known to travisbot, so the pcs who've come to the meeting are kinda secondary at this point. if you want to play with being on the run, go for it, but it's not required. c:

[blitzcheer]

Travis-napping question! Do the mods want to NPC Travis for his napping, or are the players involved with the plan free to play it out themselves?

It isn't necessary (esp since you're NPCing the Heart convo!), just wanted to make sure it was a completely player thing. :)

[headandhand]

it can go either way! i'm happy to npc him if needed but if it's a straight up grab and bag, feel free to do that on your own. c: whenever there's questioning or experimenting or whatever, just let us know and we'll npc him then for sure.

EXECUTIONS.

[headandhand]

Wanna get your character nice and dead so they can return as a robot? Sign up here!

DISCUSSIONS.

[headandhand]

TALK AMONGST YOURSELVES.

[sociallychallenged]

HANK'S PART.

-Would anyone want to plan out how Travis gets grabbed and taken? I'm happy to arrange how any helpers found out beforehand?

-Hank still wants to find the other guy, the one from the memory. He knows his name and what he looks like.

-Anyone planning a giant coup, Hank's gonna encourage everyone to be careful about crossing the Head until the people of the city are unhooked from the Head's control. Otherwise they'll absolutely lose, he's sure of it, because it's literally millions of people the Head's not afraid to use as cannon fodder and he can use their chips to control them/mess with their heads.

-They have/will have actual brains in finding out how to disable the chips and they're gonna be seeking out ways to reprogram people. So anyone with technical/magical knowledge on how to do so (Lorna and Connor are two possible volunteers I think?) we kind of got the go ahead to work towards it. They're gonna need some more technical help.

DRIFTER'S STUFF

-Drifter's gonna be using all the suffering in the park to build a big ol' weapons core. He's also gonna go raid the swamp for magical animal parts and pull a heist for more goodies. Anyone wanna help with heist or weapons construction?



These are loose "might take a while" plans and it'd be nice to do the IC legwork so there's some thread references.

[blitzcheer]

Travis: YOOO if Hank wants any help grabbing the guy, Tidus would be up for this. He can reach a target fairly speedily and also his sleeping magic works on the robo-clones, so from there the issue would be getting Travis out safely, which coordinating with other characters would be neat.

[fuckregularpeople]

JANE STUFF

So for reference, Jane has never trusted the Head at all and has an alternate precognitive personality who predicted the upcoming executions in a painting (which is currently visible to anyone who walks by that building). Jane has been freaked the fuck out about this. She is 100% not on board with what the Head is doing and, while she doesn't totally agree with the Heart's methods, was willing to throw her hat into their ring.

The fun early January stuff: When the NAPs in the Gallows happen, Jane is going to be furious. She did not sign up for this. She's suspected from the beginning that NAPs are insidious and will fight this meetup as much as she can. She's tried to get herself thrown out of/banned from previous NAPs events and will likely demand people leave, argue with admins/Iterations on every detail she can, try to bar entry, etc. She won't be successful but she's going to fight tooth and nail against having the meetup in her gallery. Do not be too surprised if an extremely harsh personality comes out to try to set things right.

After all this tough Heart capture/execution stuff goes down, Jane's going to be up for anything that can bring down the Head and get her home. She's got a lot of personalities with superpowers that could potentially help, either offensively or behind the scenes, and might have even more once she gets that limiting chip out of her head which she will be eager to do. Likely personalities of note: Hammerhead, Katy, Lucy Fugue (for resistance), Flit (evasion/escape), Dr. Harrison (persuasion or deprogramming).


DUKE STUFF

Duke's fairly new in the scheme of things but has obviously noticed something's Not Right about Dualis. He's particularly interested in where the Head is getting its resources and people from and why (with a specific emphasis on food supply because where the fuck does this stuff come from, seriously?). He's skeptical and curious about the circumstances they're in and, while he's likely to join up with a resistance front when he realizes exactly what's going on/omg fucking executions omg, he is probably going to be most useful gathering intel or committing small crimes for information so that's what's most likely to happen whoever he ends up with. I'm down for doing more than that, of course, but that's where I think he'd be most helpful.

He's also going to be working at Isolated Pawn, which is sorta becoming something of a Dualis Item Shop (at least in theory so far. And I'm again going to ask everyone check out my suggestion post for items if they haven't already). A lot of stuff there could be helpful to characters in the game, and the shop's also a decent place to make connections or overhear gossip. Use that to your heart's content, if you so please.

He'll also be sensible/a fucking pessimist. He'll recognize there is a chance that, however they go about it, they'll fail. So he'll want to hide information for the next group of transplants to find, in case they don't make it.


Overall Duke and Jane both just want to get home. Jane's willing to do what she has to in order to make that happen. Duke will fight, but doesn't want to hurt anyone if it isn't necessary. I'm really curious to see what I can do with both of them in this plot, and I'm really eager to build off what other people are planning.

More weapons!

[firacrux]

I guess it's time for Seifer's well stocked and well used Junkshop (weapons shop for those not familiar with FF8) to use! After these shenanigans he'll be all about arming anyone and everyone who can lift something to bash robots with. You name it, he'll get it made. In addition he'll probably need some more hands on deck for getting weapons churned out quickly. Experienced smiths more than welcome.

[ferrokinetically]

Arkady

Has been continuously fucking with her powers to see what she can actually see and does have a log here where she saw Travis getting killed and how he was killed. She's seen other people have it happen to them in the future(?) and past. She's spent a LOT of time wandering around figuring just how many actual people may be left that aren't just roboty people. She's also aware of some of the Hearts plans now (like that they were responsible for releasing our roboty versions).

-If your character hasn't gotten much information about the plot and you want a quick jumping in point, I'd be happy to backtag that log to spread information.

-Or if you don't have the time for backtagging, leave a comment here. We can figure something out! She can also use her telepathy to info dump things into people's minds if anyone would like to use that. Just to help spread some general information around. Might make it easier for people to be on the same page in terms of knowledge.

-She can host telepathic meetings between large groups of people. These have been confirmed to be safe ways to discuss Secret Rebellion Plans. She won't be able to host them for too long as it will exhaust her but it could be a good way to make some plans if any group wants to organize anything. Such as rebelling or getting Travis or anything.

-She's willing to be a taxi service as well and can teleport one other person with her. I think the limit was one or two, I would have to look back. But if anyone needs rescue/quick travel/getting around I'm happy to throw her as a taxi.

-For anyone that has CR with her already: because things are getting more and more rough you can feel free to handwave/assume that she drops things off for your character now and then. Something that would cheer your character up like their favorite flower or sweets or alcohol.

Lorna

-There's been some talk of Lorna trying to help with Travis. She's got some lowlevel re-programming/hacking abilities because #reasons and might be able to help with the chips too. Or pulling them out of people to see what will happen (rip that person probably)

- She can sense metal and fuck with metal things so she'll be doing that. And also fights. If help is needed.

-She trusts like VERY few people so it's hard to get her more involved and I have failed there but that's about all the possibilities I've floated around with her.

[final7thheaven]

So Tifa here is actually really well-versed in rebellions FANCY THAT. Her bar is a front for the rebellion(-type thing) Cloud and co are organizing and there's a secret basement for meetings. It's been deemed about 80% safe from the Head, so if anyone needs a mostly-safe place to have mostly-private chats, feel free. There's a higher chance that Tifa will overhear things, as that is part of why she agreed to start the bar here. Bartenders hear things and are also good at getting people to talk.

If anyone wants to get hooked up with something related to the bar or the resistance group, feel free to drop a line. Tifa can pass names along to Cloud for the resistance and she can always use more help at the bar!

She also might start offering to train people in martial arts as things start to ramp up, so if anyone wants their characters to learn how to fight hand-to-hand, hit me up!

As far as the execution goes, Tifa is going to have some baaaaad flashbacks for a while. Who knew nearly getting publicly executed would become such a big trigger? :D I don't want her to catch the Head's attention, so she's not going to do much about it, but she's uh. probably not going to be in a good way for a while. Could be another "in" for resistance-type stuff, too!

[blitzcheer]

Tidus doesn't have any big plans on his own due to not being a great planner/thinker, but better as a guy to point at a thing to do if it involves smashing or collecting things. He's not discreet (as in, he's not the person you want to smooth talk anyone and he's not skilled in stealth like some characters), but he has skills that allow him to be quick and temporary blind opponents, put them to sleep, and he is going to be focusing on getting better about his everything since he can't handle being idle anyway, so might as well shape up.

Want someone to explore outside the city with?? heck he'll go. A fighty type to fight with? He's learning hand-to-hand, has good leg work and can use a sword (which he should have by january).

Also while he wants them to get their chips removed, he's low key afraid of what will happen to him if his comes out because he doesn't know if it's the reason he can physically exist. :( Good thing he doesn't have to think about it for a while!!!

I'm up for building CR though and just seeing where things lead us.

[hobocop]

So Harry will be way more clued into things by the event, thanks to Hank and the wee bulletin board messages? But he's also very much a human with a slightly limited skill-set when it comes to rad action packed things. He can punch things, has a gun (with no bullets) and MOST HELPFULLY a bottle of very, very high percentage alcohol and a suicidal necktie, which combine together to make a spirit bomb - something that can totally be used as a distraction and/or to set someone on fire.

That's it, that's all he can do. And problematically he'd want to do more which would likely get him killed, so yeah, if anyone can give him a heads up and tell him to get the fuck out of there and not be a hero, that'd be dope. That, or like... rescue his dumb ass.

BEYOND THAT, his big non-physical helpful thing is Shivers, his skill that gives him little flashes of what's happening in the city around him - something that could kinda work as a warning system just before shit goes down. So idk, if anyone wants a panicked ex-detective elbowing them furiously MOMENTS BEFORE, then just say. (Assuming that's fine with the mods, haha) :V

In general he's a nosy dude who wants to help regardless of his own usefulness, so let's do something. ✌️



...And yo, on a NAPS note, if anyone wants to have their character do karaoke, but fears their character wouldn't, please. Please let me throw this trash-heap at you. y'all are gonna sing and you're gonna love it. And he'll be singing whether you like it or not. Let's bare our souls, kids.

[silentnarration]

/slides in here.

Squall is available for the sharing of information. Most of them acquired from Hank. Unless he ends up distrusting and/or not liking your character for whatever reason, he wants to pull as many people as possible into the know and start preparing.

He'll be actively pushing for collecting resources, money, shelter, weapons, all that good stuff once the execution happens, so he'd like to have more people who can help with that or just need protection in general.

He'll be attending the meeting and helping with fighting iterations and getting as many people as he can out.

Meanwhile, he's given himself employment at Tifa's bar and will be trying to push himself into shadier sides of Dualis for more duos. (He doesn't know how so he's going to wing this.) He's a skilled gunblader, soldier, and has spell tattoos courtesy of Dualis (which he might add to).

I guess hit me up if you want surly unwitting-leader child soldier cr?

Loki and Vincent

[chaosvessel]

Loki

As always, Loki will be attending the NAPs, this time most likely with a less than shining praise for the environment (hole in the wall galleries aren't really his thing. Neither is boxed wine), but he'll be getting to know what new weapons have been added to their arsenal this month...er...people. what new people have arrived.

He missed the first meeting with the Heart, but he won't be missing this one, which means Loki, who has a personal hate-on for the Head for trying to replace him, is available for a means of escape. His magics that will be the most useful are combative: telekinesis and other offensive magic, but he can also just make himself and others invisible for up to an hour up to and including masking their passage silent. Physically, he's also a formidable hand to hand combatant, faster and more durable than most humans (he survived being Hulk-smashed with no moderate or severe injuries).

Going forward, while his first inclination will be to offer his leadership (because he's just that conceited) recent developments have made him realize his talents are better utilized if he doesn't have as public a persona. He will 100% be down with plotting the takeover, though. This town needs an enima. (I'll just be over here stealing other villain's lines)


Vincent

He's also made it a habit to attend the NAPs occurrences and he'll be here as well, as usual sticking to the shadows and hoping to glean information on the newcomers without having to engage in detailed conversations with them (he's really bad with people).

The broadcast for meeting with the Heart is going to draw his attention and his attendance, because like Cloud, he doesn't trust them and wants to know what they're up to. He's agile and a deadshot with his gun which will make him an asset in getting others to safety, and if someone wants to make him limit break let his beast out, that would be awesome! He's not a leader and never was and he won't even attempt to step up afterward, but he does believe they need to form a unified front. That being said, he'll probably align however Cloud does.

[axiomed]

Charles can:

- maintain telepathic communications within a certain radius.

- can tell who is a robot and who isn't.

- can maybe block out the chips? maybe temporarily.

nick + jaybirb

[metamorphotic]

nick will obviously be at the heart meeting, and she will be surviving the raid! and not only will she survive, she’ll be fighting off the iterations and protecting people as best she can while helping people get to the tunnels. nick will also out herself as a nightbane here, because that’s how she has powers. hope y’all enjoy meeting a giant creepy-looking doll monster!

she’ll be pretty hecked up after the execution and likely will be scarce for a bit but she will be receiving a package of documentation that was set up as a contingency by the now-dead heart leaders, which she will promptly turn over to hank, since she trusts him and he’s a leader type.

jason will likely be handwaved around the meeting, probably helping people escape and doing the sensible thing for once in NOT trying to fistfight a squad of goddamn robots. after, he will be making good on his offers to run a fight club and learning how to make weapons with seifer.

want anything else for these two idiots? hit me up!

[blitzcheer]

i am here to aw yeah fight club.

[final7thheaven]

1) FIGHT CLUB

2) ... welp, tifa's not going to be doing well after the execution, either. that's gonna be a bad time for all.

[crime_stopper]

Oh Sam is totally down for fight club bring it on. He's been feeling itchy and it would amuse me for people to think he's a total push over only to get their butts kicked.

[magneticfields]

Erik will be checking out the art gallery and probably not singing. He likes art that pushes boundaries.

I'm not going to be killing him this time around.

He will be attending the Heart meeting and I'd like to get him into some fights so I can have his powers not working. Raise the personal stakes kind of thing.

He will absolutely be interested in participating in whatever resistance forms after the Heart is dissolved. He can and will lone wolf it if need be. He's not interested in actually leading it, though, as at this point he has accepted the fact that he is not much of a leader. He is very good at recon, assassinations, making weapons, and tanking in a fight.

He's also EXTREMELY interested in getting that damned chip out of his head and having access to his powers. He doesn't like it when people poke around his thoughts uninvited (weird how often that's come up for him) and has been trying to keep himself from freaking out over it since they arrived.