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











fists_of_funny: (yang68)

[personal profile] fists_of_funny 2025-05-25 04:38 am (UTC)(link)
Yeah, Faith is gonna need a second, Yang can clock that, and not just by looking at her. Her senses have been kicked into overdrive by her transformed state, and Yang can smell the stress emanating off the Slayer.

As Yang tears into the intellect devourers, she's careful to keep herself between them and Faith, acting like a furry shield wall until her friend can get herself together. For the moment, she's handling herself fine; she's enjoying the opportunity to be able to cut completely loose, 100% guilt-free.

I gotta tell you Faith, when I'm in control? Being a werewolf is fun as HELL.

Will a little light banter help put Faith more at ease? She's a banter-y kind of person by nature, after all.
definitionofcrazy: (75)

[personal profile] definitionofcrazy 2025-05-27 06:19 am (UTC)(link)
"Definitely more fun when you're on my side."

It does help a little, but mostly it just makes the shame sting more. She should be better than this. She should be the one fighting.

She tries, at least. As one of the intellect devourers flanks around to try and get at Yang's back, she lunges forward, driving her knife into the brainlike center mass-

"Sorry, friend. Boss wants ya dead."
"Why?"
"Y'know, I never thought to ask."
The middle-aged professor's face switches from horror to pain as she drives her knife into his stomach, his life fleeing his body with an undignified groan-


The knife, still buried in the now-dead monster to the hilt, slips from her grasp. She stumbles back, staring down at her hand. She tells herself that it's not blood, that it's not human, but it doesn't help.

Finally, the blind panic wins out- she turns on her heel and sprints, and several of the intellect devourers follow suit.
fists_of_funny: (yang125)

[personal profile] fists_of_funny 2025-06-06 04:38 am (UTC)(link)
Yang's senses pick up the intellect devourer trying to get around her while she's otherwise occupied, but fortunately Faith recovers enough in time to take care of that. Thanks, Faith. Glad you've got my ba—

The sudden image of stabbing a man, middle-aged, flabby, scared and confused, his eyes wide with fear and confusion as Yang drives a knife into his chest, hearing his final, terrified gasp as his body goes limp in her grip comes on so suddenly and violently that it causes Yang to shudder violently, tossing the dead intellect devourer away. It takes a moment for understanding to set in; it wasn't her doing those things.

It was Faith. A memory shaken loose by the act of stabbing the intellect devourer, and thanks to the telepathy, Yang saw it all. And then Faith is running, fleeing the battle and seemingly herself, and several intellect devourers follow after.

Trying to parse the memory Yang just observed, of the young woman she's come to know, like, and even admire, flippantly murdering a man, not knowing or even caring why he had to die, can come later. Right now, Faith is in full panic mode and Slayer or not, the intellect devourers will swarm her. Yang disengages from the ones in front of her, with a warning swipe of her clawed hands and a roar, hoping these things are smart enough to understand STAY AWAY before dropping to all fours and loping after the fleeing Slayer and her pursuers.

Faith, you've gotta get ahold of yourself! If you let this panic take over, you're brain monster food, okay? Don't let the fear win!
definitionofcrazy: (144)

[personal profile] definitionofcrazy 2025-06-11 05:30 am (UTC)(link)
Faith is in full panic meltdown mode, and so her initial response to the mental contact is hostility, instinctively yearning to lash out.

Fortunately, she recognizes that, and she seizes on that feeling. She needs to get a hold of herself. That fight response can help. She just needs to aim it at the right targets- Yang's not the threat here.

She doesn't stop running, but she at least moves with more purpose. She sprints for the vehicles. The shields gave out under the onslaught, but she can at least get some space, some separation, something to protect herself. She jumps on top of her Jeep, staring around her wildly, still visibly struggling to control her panic. She no longer has her knife, but she's got her hands raised and ready to attack any Intellect Devourers that jump up after her. She's got this. She can handle this. She can-

"So you're just gonna take off again. Make us clean up yet another one of your messes."

That's not what this is, that's not-

"You go out that door now, you'll be running for the rest of your life. And my bet is, it's gonna be a pretty short run."

Stop!

The desperate mental cry does, at least, seem to keep the intrusive thoughts at bay for a moment.