monstertruckers: (Default)
monstertruckers ([personal profile] monstertruckers) wrote in [community profile] route666rp2025-05-06 05:39 pm

MAY EVENT LOG




Out of the thorn brush, the land still looks twisted and broken. And it turns a lot more jagged as rocks burst up and out of the ground like teeth… And keep reaching upwards, in defiance of all the gravity that should be pulling them down. The further up the rock spires reach, the more they splinter until the stones are free floating. The same happens to the threadbare trees, their branches and leaves breaking off and hovering in empty air. The nature of this place becomes clear: reach too high, and eventually gravity gives up.


















01: BATTLE GROUND


The ground grows rougher, pockmarked with craters and rents, like the landscape is scarred. A little further up the road is the source of those wounds. Curious Drifters will find a tangle of rock and metal reaching high up to the sky. It’s a snarl of wrecked vehicles, rock spires… And bodies.

Robotic hunters are half melted into the bones of a giant monster, and the lights have long since gone out of their lens eyes. Many of them still clutch weapons; swords, guns, and bullets by the bag-full. The hunters and weapons remain locked with the corpse of a horn crowned monster with arm length teeth, and it’s clear this tangle is the only thing that keeps the hunters or their weapons from floating off. Drifters can potentially loot the weapons… They just have to be careful about not floating off while they salvage equipment. The footing here is uneven, and the ground looks ready to break with a wrong step.

These hunters also carry prayer screen beads, but the data on them is horribly scrambled. Any attempts to tamper with them cause them to repeat a single message: “I STILL LIVE” before shorting out and shutting down.
02: HEALTH INVERSION
A building grows out of the valley; a hospital that has been turned upside down, and its foundations reach for the sky like weird tree branches. The hallways inside are all sorts of twisted up, and the building can’t seem to decide if Drifters should walk on the ceiling or the floors.

Twisted as the building is, ruins gutted by time and overgrown with vegetation… There is salvage available. Medical supplies, healing potions, healing herbs, all of it is bountiful in the hospital. The hospital is also rife with Husks, but all of them are inert… Or have already been broken apart long ago.

Then there’s the matter of the hospital screens flickering on in the wake of the Drifters. Warning lights try to flicker on, as old electronics try to scan the Drifters. The machines give up flickers of data, declaring Drifters to be “infected.” The old restraining systems of the hospital are still active, as manacles and straps alike shoot out, trying to restrain Drifters. The bonds keep them inert until they can be sedated and enclosed in what look like holding pens for violent patients. Best hope there’s someone around to help break a Drifter out.


03: SHARED THOUGHTS
The valley is overgrown with strange plants that glow with eerie light. Sometimes in camp stray glowing tumbleweeds roll through… And any contact has interesting side effects. Drifters will find they’re more aware and capable of picking up on unsaid things. These powers can the month. Each glow confers different abilities:

Blue Glow: Makes Drifters more empathetic in a psychic sense. They can register the emotions of those nearby, and may start to feel those same emotions.
Green Glow: Makes Drifters capable of projecting their emotions to other people.
Purple Glow: Gives Drifters telepathy, to hear and send thoughts to others.
Orange Glow: Grants Drifters limited psychometry. (Object reading.) Using it in the hospital or the battleground will yield unique visions and messages. Please comment to the mod/NPC thread below if your character wishes to do so!

Drifters can stack these effects, but this can overload their minds and force transformations. Those with Swarm traits will find it easier to handle psionic abilities. Additionally, ALL DRIFTERS who experience psionics will find themselves susceptible to Events 4 and 5.
04: MONSTER SHIFT, HIVE-MIND
Worryingly, extra contact with the glowing plants can not only stack mind abilities, but also force Swarm traits. The more a Drifter is overwhelmed by psionics, the more likely this is. Drifters will have access to all Swarm traits for this event, and the following:
+Psi Hunger. A need to eat psychic energy in the form of dreams, psi-infused objects (like sage brush) or even psychic minds.
+Psi Senses: luckily, Drifters can glimpse heavy psychic energy in the brush through enhanced senses, and pick out strange brain monsters. These are good eating for Swarm monsters… And there’s an unnervingly high number of them.
+Group Mind: compelled to link thoughts with other Drifters, to share emotions, memories, and achieve cohesion.
+An increasing reliance on telepathy/empathy/etc in place of speech.
+Increasing collectivist mindset. The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few; this becomes more evident during high stress situations.
+Compelled to spend more time in the wilds, absorbing power from plants and hunting prey in wilderness. May also be compelled to share this prey with others.
+Gravity Affinity: If possessing wings or the ability to wall climb, may freely hunt/traverse corrupted gravity areas.
05: WHAT DREAMS MAY COME
On several nights the wind picks up, and sage brush is uprooted and sent tumbling into camp. The plants trade their prior glow to something more baleful and crimson. With the wind whipping through the camp, it’s almost impossible to avoid unless a Drifter is already secure in the Convoy.

The effects aren’t immediately obvious, until the Convoy sleeps for the night… And that sleep is different. Namely the sleep is connected, showing both memories and dreams from other Drifters.

Memories from their pasts can blend together to form a strange dreamscape, that connected Drifters can travel through. But those dreams can easily turn into nightmares. Those who were exposed to the fear toxin in February will trend towards nightmares and may have their old fears make a reappearance.
If those nightmares are vivid and unsettling enough, they can force a transformation. (This may be either current monster traits, or a Swarm monster!) And then…



06: BRAIN ATTACK
It happens just before dawn, during the blue hour… Or perhaps it might be more apt to call it the red hour, with how the sky is stained crimson. It’s just bright enough to distinguish something moving in the hills. Drifters can pick out a rustling in the brush; something that isn’t wind. There’s something moving, crawling on claw tipped legs… And looking less like sage brush and more like a brain.

The Intellect Devourers numbers in the hundreds. Their claws scour the ground as they race towards the Convoy and smash into the shield. Numbers start to overwhelm the generator, along with the chaos the brain brush has sown with their psychic echoes.

The psychic echoes increase as they swarm the campsite, trying to drive Drifters into a frenzy with nightmares, fears, and strange visions. The brains are also ready to use those long sharp claws to tear anyone disoriented enough into ribbons, and start feasting on them.

06-A: BRAIN BRAWL
Hallucinations: The Intellect Devourers try to whip up more terrifying visions. Anything to disorient the entire Convoy, or drive the Drifters into a madness that leaves them transformed and too wild to easily counterattack. These hallucinations may be past trauma, or something a Drifter fears happening; the ultimate goal is to leave Drifters panicking, changed, and vulnerable.

Rally: Still, there’s one thing the Devourers didn’t anticipate: and that is how sharing a mental link has given the Drifters an anchor with each other. With all the psychic echoes spreading through the camp, any and all mental links from before can easily flare back up. Drifters who have shared dreams or some form of mental connection may still transform, but their mental link can keep their minds stable and coherent instead of growing feral.

Scars: Whether through brute force battles or mental link resistance, eventually the Convoy is able to shrug off the attack… But there is still some damage done. The shield generator has shorted out, and the Convoy itself has taken a few gashes and gouges. Not to mention any transformed Drifters will still need to be talked down. Luckily the mental links are still in place to help with that, and there’s a truck full of medical supplies to help with patching up any hurts.
MICRO ENCOUNTERS:

PLEASE NOTE! These are small bits of set dressing for players to include in threads if they wish, rather than full fledged prompts or events. You may handwave your exploration of these areas, or thread them out.

Disorientation: When wandering through the brush, Drifters may experience a swarm of disorientation: their thoughts suddenly scramble, they forget where they were going or what they were doing. They may also come to with a set of gashes along their legs, and a sense that they may have seen something in the sage brush move… Or maybe it was just the wind.

Float: Occasionally, parts of the road just give up their hold on the ground and go drifting skywards. Hopefully those chunks of road don’t take Drifters and their vehicles with them. Tough vehicles can likely survive the drop, while Fast vehicles can speed away before they float too far upwards. Drifters caught outside their vehicles will have to hope they have fast reflexes… Or are either good fliers or good jumpers for the leap back down.

Raining Down: On occasion, gravity will flicker and warp oddly… And that means that other odd things can fall where they used to float; rocks, plants, not to mention the odd bit of hardware and buildings. Watch for falling objects of various shapes and sizes!


NAVIGATION











bufudine: (searching for something lost :|)

[personal profile] bufudine 2025-05-14 09:39 am (UTC)(link)
At the sound of his name, Serph tilts his head and holds Akechi's gaze for a long moment before closing his eyes. His usual wings burst from his back, a flurry of feathers obscuring all visibility. But once they clear, Serph aappearance has returned to what he looks like in the waking world, winged and without the mark of his tribe.

He stretches his wings, light haloing him briefly. "This is Nirvana. A world where humans cannot live beneath the sun."
undyingcrow: (thinking)

[personal profile] undyingcrow 2025-05-14 04:52 pm (UTC)(link)
"Rather odd that it'd be called 'Nirvana,' unless it's a misnomer..." And yet, the parallels are there, however ominous. A curious thing indeed... "I wonder what it is about humans that renders them ill fit for this world."
bufudine: (Default)

[personal profile] bufudine 2025-05-15 10:09 am (UTC)(link)
"Nirvana isn't its true name. The remaining humans call this world Earth."

Still, it's hard for him to let go of calling it Nirvana. It was meant to be the promised land of peace. He was never over the disappointment of its falsehood.

Serph points upwards, towards the blindingly brilliant light of the black sun.

"God lives in the sun. And five years ago, that sun turned black. An incident that led to the appearance of demons."
undyingcrow: (distant)

[personal profile] undyingcrow 2025-05-15 05:48 pm (UTC)(link)
"How ironic." A weak snort of laughter escapes him. "In Revan, it's a broken moon, but a god was still offended, and monsters spread throughout the land. Your Nirvana was a lie, so for all we know, the same holds true in the present..."

Feelings of distrust, apprehension, and curiosity radiate from him, thanks to the sagebrush.

"So, how do the remaining humans survive? What makes them so special?"
bufudine: (come with me :|)

[personal profile] bufudine 2025-05-16 05:07 am (UTC)(link)
"They live underground or in domed cities."

Serph meets Akechi's eyes and radiating emotions unflinchingly.

"Or they turn themselves into demons."
undyingcrow: (wtf)

[personal profile] undyingcrow 2025-05-16 05:11 am (UTC)(link)
"And how do they achieve such a feat?"

Another possible parallel? But then, the transformations came from the moon... "Blessings," perhaps, but that sounds a great deal different.
bufudine: (Default)

[personal profile] bufudine 2025-05-16 06:02 am (UTC)(link)
"Sunlight, data from God, carries demon data. That data was refined into the Atma virus, which was tested on my world."

The brand on his face glows blue, and for a moment the silhouette of Varuna shimmers behind him, gnashing teeth bared.

"It was used on humans when the experiment was deemed a success." But not all of them; there's a reason there are humans who still live underground.
undyingcrow: (shock)

[personal profile] undyingcrow 2025-05-16 01:41 pm (UTC)(link)
That's...

Akechi's feathers fluff up, because apparently now the dream deigned to give him back his monster characteristics. The horns, talons, sharp teeth, a new scorpion tail, and his wings...

Well, no matter. It is what it is.

"Experiments... And the hospital seems well equipped for similar experimentation."
bufudine: (don't say that... :|)

[personal profile] bufudine 2025-05-18 01:19 pm (UTC)(link)
Serph shakes his head.

"That at least, is different. Our infection was... instantaneous. Our transformations, immediate and violent."
undyingcrow: (steepled fingers)

[personal profile] undyingcrow 2025-05-18 02:00 pm (UTC)(link)
"In some regards, I'd almost prefer that." The pristine image of Akechi's human form ripples. Shadows of wings, horns, feathers, and barbs fade in and out of sight, along with a scorpion's tail.

"I'm not fully changed, but now the parts that are entirely human feel out of place."
bufudine: (come with me :|)

[personal profile] bufudine 2025-05-20 04:46 am (UTC)(link)
Serph agrees with a nod. It feels strange to be some kind of human-monster hybrid, even if it does rather reflect his feelings about his existence. But the inconvenience of his wings mildly vexes him whenever they get in the way.

"Like humanity doesn't belong."

Serph gestures to the brand on his face before folding his arms.

"This mark is from the Atma virus. The mark for this transformation," he stretches his wings in demonstration, the feathers bending in an unnatural way, "is elsewhere. The two transformations seem incompatible."

His demon is unchanged from his ravenous, inhuman self, unmoved by the moon warp until his demon's hunger forces to revert.
undyingcrow: (wtf)

[personal profile] undyingcrow 2025-05-20 01:36 pm (UTC)(link)
"...Two sigils." Akechi's eyes slowly widen with the realization. It's another layer upon layers of parallels.

His left hand rests over his chest, and he looks down. "I only have the one sigil, concealed beneath my clothes. No other transformations to speak of.... but I do have my Persona, weakened though he may be."
bufudine: (shorty :|)

[personal profile] bufudine 2025-05-27 02:21 am (UTC)(link)
Although the people of the Junkyard were turned into terrible creatures and humanity turned on each other, Serph can't feel anger at what had been done. They were all fighting for survival, weren't they? Even if many of them were weak and resorted to underhanded methods.

Serph nods. "Maybe your Persona protects you from the Black Sun's rays." It's only a theory, but... "It's your 'true self', correct?"

The similarities to demons were striking. Just no unending, ravenous hunger.
undyingcrow: (steepled fingers)

[personal profile] undyingcrow 2025-05-27 05:17 am (UTC)(link)
"Hmm... it's not impossible. Personas do reflect our very souls, and they grant us the power to fight within the cognitive world."

So is Hereward comparable to a demon? It's a curious question. He certainly has the dark coloration that one would expect of a demonic entity, to say nothing of his curse skills...

"Whatever the case, it's not a terrible boon. I'd certainly rather not be reduced to stone, even if this is a dream."

And surely it must be. That's the only reasonable explanation...