fandomhigh_ooc | Spring BDE Info

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Spring BDE Info - What You Need

Welcome Leland Gaunt, our newest townie! He has a very special store, one that sells the thing you want most in the world. Something you need. Of course, there's a price ...

BDE INFO

Leland Gaunt (of Stephen King's Needful Things) will be arriving in Fandom momentarily. For those of you not familiar with the book, no worries, we're doing a very loose adaptation as it is. (And we don't talk about that abomination of a movie.)

Leland Gaunt sells interesting items. Maybe it's a sword once owned by a legendary figure from your world. Maybe it's a painting of a girl having a picnic -- and the girl looks exactly like your dead little sister. Maybe it's a bracelet that will allow you perfect control over your powers.

The point is: whatever it is, you need it. But he's not selling for cash. He wants something far more precious, something that only you can give him.

Maybe he'll ask Elsa for one of the crown jewels of Arendelle, or Eleanor for a drop of her very potent blood. Maybe he'll ask Rapunzel for a strand of her hair, or Squall for one of his Guardian Forces.

But those people may not be coming in to the store, so he'll have to get creative. Maybe he'll ask Celia for one of the crown jewels of Arendelle, forcing her to decide between that thing she needs and stealing from a dear friend. Or maybe he'll ask a student who doesn't even know Eleanor to bring him a drop of her blood.

The items he sells are, of course, are charmed. Cursed, really, and chock-full of poison -- not literal arsenic, but the psychic/metaphysical variety -- so they will be bleeding into those characters' systems bit by bit by bit. Not that it matters. NOTHING MATTERS BUT THE SHINY.

This will all come to a head in late March, but there will be more info on that as we get closer to it. This post is just to introduce the concept of the BDE.

WHO IS LELAND GAUNT?

He's not even remotely human. Technically, he's an avatar of the Elder God Nyarlathotep. He's very old, very powerful, and his favorite pastime is wandering the world sowing chaos. (The movie made him into the literal Christian devil. This is why we don't discuss the movie.)

Most telepaths and empaths will only be able to sense that he's very strongly shielded. If you accidentally touch him, however, your skin will immediately crawl, and you will feel strongly nauseous. So he goes out of his way not to touch people.

There are always exceptions, so if you feel your character would be able to sense the massive evil, please comment below. Note that this means your character will not get to have an item or, in fact, ever meet Leland Gaunt pre-finale; the store will always be closed when your character tries to stop by.

HOW DOES THE STORE WORK?

It's going to be posted like any other Fandom store. Come in and browse, and leave again. Drop by and buy a non-cursed item, like a Persian rug or an antique lamp. Orrrrrr, drop in and pick up that special cursed something that you so desperately need.

WHO DOES THIS INVOLVE?

The items are entirely opt-in. Sign in (in the subsequent post) to claim one, and ride out the consequences.

Characters may also choose to sign up to offer rare priceless items to be stolen, for someone else to trade to Leland Gaunt; i.e., if Rapunzel does not want an item, she could sign up donating a strand of her hair for someone to steal.

If you don't fall in either category, from now until the finale starts, all you will notice will be that odd little things in Fandom are starting to go wrong. The teal deer are feral one day. The waters of the cove are pure black another. These will be posted OOC to give people a general head's-up. Feel free to mod that your picnic in the Preserve just happened to miss those rabid deer, for example.

The finale will of course need brave volunteers for various purposes, but that will be revealed at a later date, for the sake of not making this post more confusing that it may already be.

HOW DO I GET AN ITEM?

There will be sign-ups in a following post, as well as sign-ups for donating an item, and brainstorming to help anyone who has questions about the process. There's also going to be a huge finale the week of March 22-29, so we can get rid of Leland Gaunt, but sign-ups for that are going to come later.

IF I GET AN ITEM, HOW CRAZY DO I BECOME, AND WHEN?

Firstly, the items are charmed in such a way that you DO NOT want to tell anyone the truth about how you got it. If someone knows, they could take it away from you and it is YOURS, DAMMIT! Other people cannot be trusted. If asked directly about that new bracelet, your character will be highly inclined to lie: I found it, I bought it on the mainland, I've always had it.

Other than that, the important thing about the craziness that it's going to be gradual. Maybe you start out just a touch more paranoid than usual. Maybe you're a little shifty-eyed and suspicious of your friends. At the beginning, you have your item and you love everything, but of course you can't trust those Other People who might want to take it!!!

Again, things won't hit critical mass until late March, just before the finale starts. Earlier than that, how much it affects your character is entirely up to you. Pick a silly fight with your SO, or double-bolt your door ... whatever makes sense IC.

By the time the finale rolls around, this is going to be a matter of life or death. Nothing matters except your object, and you'll kill anyone who threatens your ability to hold on to it. Or maybe you regret what you did to get it, and you hate yourself for being unable to let it go ... but you still can't. Maybe you spend hours staring at it with a listless sigh, unable to leave your room. Things will be full-on crazy at the end.

WHEN CAN I GET AN ITEM, AND WHEN CAN I GET RID OF IT AGAIN?

You can obtain an item any time from the store's Grand Opening on March (cough) to its Grand Closing, March 24. When you sign up for an item, let us know what week your character will be stopping in: Week 1 (until March 7th), 2 (8-14), 3 (15-21) or 4 (22-24).

If your character would like to break the spell over him or her and rejoin the land of the non-cursed, he or she is free to do so after March 24th. One Fandomite will be the first to break the spell, on March 24th, and report in to the research team; after he or she does so, there will be a crack in Leland Gaunt's hold over everyone else, allowing others to begin to reject their items.

I HAVE A QUESTION!

Those go below! Please wait for the (minimal) OCD.

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Ping here if the store should always be closed for you, because you'd know he was evil inside of two minutes.

The store should always be closed for Ghanima, because, well, Truthsayer. She'd know very fast, and probably attempt to kill him on the spot.

That said, feel free to have people try to steal something from her/related to her if needed! Just hit me up OOC-ly first.

I'm going to toss Atton in here. I mean, Jedi, plus oodles of experience with evil people and how they evil after being an evil person among evil people for a considerable amount of time. (Plus he's canonically That One Genre Savvy Guy constantly going FFS HOW CAN YOU NOT TELL X IS EVIL.)

Going back and forth on Ed, who would probably be able to tell Leland was hostile to him if he used his Eagle Vision, but might not think to try. (Let's go with no trouble on Ed for now since I can wrangle him into 'not noticing' a whole lot easier than, say, Atton.)

Edited 2015-03-01 17:23 (UTC)

I'm going to stick Anakin here too because of similar-to-Atton experiences, plus almost ten years of "bad shit happens every spring and fall" Fandom knowledge.

Not fully sure if Momoko is going to be on the island for all of this, but if her friends start acting weird she will be looking into it... and never able to find this store open. Huh. weird. But she totally sensed a black aura in this direction.

Probably throw Bruce here, too. He's just too suspicious of everything, plus still the World's Greatest Detective.

Yeah, put Bob here. Much as I'd love to play with him, he'd see the "massively old and powerful" thing in a heartbeat (so to speak).

Okay, given the answer below...yeah, put Hannibal here, too. He knows what sneaky smells like.

I'm going to say that Roland's faced off enough against the Darkness to recognizes it when he ~~sees~~ Hears it. (He doesn't see auras, he hears them.) So he goes here.

Should probably be closed for Jack, too, both for werewolf-ness and for detective-ness.

My Force sensitive types should go here, probably. So that's Sia, and Jaina should I actually get around to her visiting like I'm planning.

Wrong account, but Tahiri, Stephanie, and Kennedy would all go here in the event that they drop in for a visit, on account of Jedi-ness, junior-detective-ness, and Slay-dar respectively.

Cosette would be oblivious to this, but I'm going back and forth on Éponine, who I think recognizes shifty types well enough to be suspicious. Not sure if that's enough to count, though.

Basically, it's whether you think she'd catch on too soon that that antiques store guy is the one behind all of those mysterious occurrences lately. If you're worried she might, then have her avoid Leland Gaunt and be avoided in turn.

If I'm understanding right (AND I MAY NOT BE), if it's just a "he's not quite on the up-and-up," that's not necessarily world-ending if she shrugs it off as "well, neither are some of the other people around here." It's more, is she going to put together too quickly that he's the one people ought to be focusing in on.

This might sound like a non-answer, but honestly, we're leaving this up to individual players; we don't want anyone feeling like they can't play in the cursed item free-for-all, but we also don't want anyone feeling boxed in a la "but my character would know he's the bad guy, and I have to have him/her play dumb for the next two weeks, and that sucks."

Does that help at all?

Karla also goes here! His psychic scent is probably craaaaawling with evil. But she's open to being stolen from or otherwise messed with by others!

Jones may figure out who Leland is.

But won't stop him just because she wants to see what would happen.

Then she's totally welcome to pop in. ♥

Those go here. Unless they are questions about the specifics of the item-getting process: that is getting its own post, to be put up momentarily.

Who's all running this plot? I know it's not admin-run, one player involved, but if there are any questions or anything, who should we go to?

I was wondering this same thing. Stealthiness is cool and all, but I like knowing who's behind big projects like this.

Sorry, I wasn't meaning to stealth exactly; just hadn't found a place to work in "HI THIS IS (NAME)" yet without it seeming forced.

The me behind the "I" that I keep typing is Relly (HI!) and Shannon's got my back on this; there's another player doing helpful stuff on the back-end who may not want to be named for fear of it looking like I'm saying So-and-So Is Officially In Charge As Well. (But she can out herself if she wants.) Noah also has offered behind-the-scenes organizational help.

I just added an e-mail for him: needfully . yours @ gmail . com, which is forwarding to at least me at the moment and possibly more of us later on (when other people awaken and discover that I have created an e-mail account). So if you have questions, send them there, or if I happen to be on IM, you can flag me down.

It's meeeeeeeeeeeeee. I'm She-Who's-Not-Being-Named -- I'm not like, at all in charge, but I'm helping with stuff organizationally. (Because I'm a flake these days, and shouldn't be In Charge of Things.)

Is he evil like, actively doing and projecting EVIL or is he just sowing a little discord a' la Coyote but has alignment evil?

I ask because Momoko can't see/sense evil auras unless the person is actively being or plotting evil.

He's sowing discord, but his motives are ultimately on the evil side; he likes this island and thinks it would make a nifty toy to have. So his goal is both evil and chaos, and he's got his fingers in many pies to that extent.

MMmmmm pies.

(Momoko's needs are easy)

So, is "I would never trust you, you seem shifty and I know what that looks like" reason enough to put Hannibal on the above list? If he met Leland, he'd just sort of assess him as a fellow predator and leave him alone until/unless folks he cares about start getting weird.

It's ultimately your call. If you want Hannibal to get a cursed item, or even to shop at the antiques store, I'd say assume he wouldn't notice; if you think Hannibal would spot the bad guy and thus collapse the BDE in on itself halfway in, with an astute "It's him, he's the one mucking it all up," then have him avoid and be avoided in turn.

Could two people want the same thing? Like, say Romeo and Tybalt were still in the game -- would it amuse Leland to make them try to outbid each other for, e.g., Juliet's wedding dress, or would he have separate items for each of them?

Let me know if this doesn't make sense.

It totally makes sense. My answer is, weirdly, "both/either, by player preference."

If two characters want the same thing in a generic sense -- i.e., two vampires would like a charm that can help them walk in daylight -- we were going to assume he had duplicates, because Leland is super-prepared like that.

If two characters want the same specific thing, and the players in question don't want to have any IC conflict over it, Leland Gaunt would be perfectly capable of selling them each a duplicate/fake and laughing to himself over it.

If two characters want the same specific thing, and the players do want to have some juicy IC conflict over it, Leland Gaunt would love to rub his hands together and make them jump through hoops and fight each other for it. Either indirectly -- outbid him! -- or possibly even directly -- lock him in a closet so he can't ask me for it, and it's yours.

Really, this could also apply to the vampire-sunlight charm above, if all the players involved wanted there to be a power struggle.

Leland is down for whatever causes the most chaotic messiness, and we're down for whatever the players in question think would be the most fun.

Does that work?

Works perfectly, TY!

Leland Gaunt is not allowed to end the world. (Meh, that doesn't sound like fun to him anyway.)

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Spring BDE Info - What You Need

I Can Smell What The Rock Is Cooking. I Mean, Leland.

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OOC