EVENT | ZUGZWANG, PART 1 & 2 | SEPTEMBER 21-28

[ironwood]

/German ˈtsuːktsvaŋ/ "compulsion to move"; noun.
1. a situation that occurs in chess and other games of strategy where a player is forced play instead of pass the turn
2. to make a choice between two moves, both of which which will knowingly damage your position
This is the first part of a two-part event, starting on September 21st and going through until September 27th. The second part of this event will be revealed on September 28th.

As some Foreigners continue to be affected by the cultists' poison, the symptoms of which might even be steadily growing worse, other characters are going to be experiencing something very different, and it has nothing to do with the electrical blackouts which accompanied the heat wave.

Abilities Go Haywire For Everyone - September 21-25

Starting on Sept 21st and continuing through the 25th, the Foreigners' magical abilities will be unstable and unpredictable to the point of being dangerous. Earlier in the week, this instability will be less severe, more of a nuisance than actively detrimental. As the week goes on, however, the instability will grow. Fluctuations in power level might allow some characters to feel normal one minute, overly powerful the next, and barely functioning only a minute later, ultimately leaving them feeling mentally or physically exhausted and weak; other characters might try to use their powers and achieve results very different from what they expect. The fluctuation cycles could repeat themselves anywhere from once to dozens of times during the week, or only cycle once at all, whereas unintended side effects of spells or magic can last the entirety of the five days.

The effects will vary as widely as the characters' abilities do, but one thing is clear – any Foreigner who possesses magical ability will suddenly have a very, very hard time controlling or harnessing that ability. Even those Foreigners without magical ability are getting a taste of this, as minor forms of unpredictable abilities are transferring temporarily over to them. Are they jealous of a friend's magic? Congratulations, they now have a little of it!... with frankly disastrous effects. We want every player to enjoy this event, so be creative with how your character is affected, from fully life ruining to only minorly worrisome!

Please note that Asti's boons, given to the hatchlings' foster parents during the midsummer festival in exchange for looking after the baby turtles, will not be affected during the duration of this event; they will function as normal.

Abilities Are Nullified - September 26-27

Characters may or may not discover ways to live with the fluctuations and may even have grown accustomed to them. However, from September 25-27, all the Foreigners' magical abilities will be completely dead. Characters will be utterly unable to use them; they will feel cut off from their source, not have the energy or mental focus for them, etc. Any Foreigner ability fueled by or involving magic will be affected by this – only powers which characters absolutely need in order to survive will still work. Think of it as being caught in Evandau's nullification field except expanded to include the entire turtle. After the events of the last five days, some characters might even consider this a blessing.

As mentioned above, Asti's Boons will not be affected during the duration of this event.

ZUGZWANG, PART 2 - September 28

Full OOC post located here

Remember that this is the first part of a two-part event, and effects won't begin until September 21st! The second part of the event will be announced on September 28th, so check back to this post for that section to be updated! (A reminder will go up in the OOC comm ad on plurk tushan once that part of the plot is revealed.)

If you have questions, please post them to the QUESTIONS section of the comments. Otherwise, feel free to use this post to plot what your character(s) may be up to during the event!

Comments

QUESTIONS

[ironwood]

Questions relating to the event go here!

QUESTIONS

[wrathfulkhan]

Figures someone will try and rules-lawyer the shit out of this, so, why not me!:

Will Foreigner technology be affected at all, esp. if it falls into the Clarke's Law territory ("any sufficiently advanced technology will be indistinguishable from magic", etc.)?

I'm, uh. ASKING FOR A FRIEND.

Re: QUESTIONS

[ruinsprofessor]

Obviously Raine's artes are right out, and that actually sorta nixes her boon, too, but would the nullification also cut off her ability to sense mana? It's biological, but definitely magical too, so...

[gistful]

Sigils are inherently magical but you don't need magic to use them. Would they still work? (Especially relevant for the Hotel because sigils are the only things keeping it intact while in Keeliai.)

[akito]

How will the ability to detect the taint be affected? Is that considered magic, or just a learned skill?

[akito]

so let's say someone went to asti's head and tried to contact him to ask him what he would like done his nieces and nephews' bodies

... yeah.

would he have any response to that? /sob

Re: QUESTIONS

[akito]

Approximately how soon after Malicant's announcement will the Kedan be reacting with rioting/violence/paranoia? Will it be a few hours, half a day, etc., after absorbing what just happened, or immediate?

QUESTIONS

[redlightgreenlight]

With all the death and stuff, will lost souls be wandering the halls in general?

[gistful]

Questions re: the portals in the palace! The circles are presented as slightly different but reminiscent of portal-entrances. Do either of them contain white-marble and obsidian? Is the one in the ritual chamber more inclined to planal-related symbols than the one to the turtle's head?

Basically Sol has been researching Dreaming portals and I want to know if it's possible for him to tell where the circle in the ritual-chamber went, if anywhere.

[denyamenti]

Jack's powers will be acting up, so potential for freezing oops there! If not people than objects that he goes to pick up. I'm mean so I'd kind of like him to have a close call with a person though, so if anyone wants to get very nearly bad frostbitten, that's cool. get it He will be really surprised to find he's basically put back to normal for the last two days, and it'll be bittersweet. Really tempted to have him revert to his original colouring, y/n?

River will quite enjoy being normal, even though her abilities are medically enhanced instead of magic, it's good enough to squeeze in. Now some of hers are physical conditioning and that will stay, less stimuli might mean more stable??

Bakura will definitely not be able to summon anything reliably, and then not at all. He also won't be able to use the Ring for anything. people with grudges take note He will still be able to communicate with his ghosts though 'cause I'm not that awful today.

[akito]

I'm open to Jack having a close call with Akito. Since his gifted Waterbending will be intact, he could get injured by it if you'd like, but heal it afterwards and laugh it off.

Also really interested in seeing River during the event! :) I'm canonblind to her, but the threads we've had before have been fun! Akito quite likes her, even if they haven't interacted much.

[redlightgreenlight]

Raine's player told me she wants to see a Valdis/Bakura thread and I think it could be rather fun (and slightly dangerous).

[everylittlegirl]

I volunteer Costigan for Jack or Bakura stuff if you'd like.

[onethirdthesoul]

Since I'm totally gonna have Ryou have a couple of clumsy "where did these powers come from" moments, I feel we should do something... With Jack or Bakura? I don't know.

Jack could freeze Ryou's feet to the floor or something too. I have a lot of dumb ideas.

[lordhotman]

Tonraq and Zuko's bending will be erratic.

Zuko especially since he's still fighting with the whole being poisoned thing. He'll go from making tiny little poofs of flame and smoke to sudden huge blasts of Sozin's comet level flames with little effort at all. He might even accidentally generate lightning. Power outages anyone?

Since Tonraq is a waterbender he might accidentally burst pipes or freeze things. And that could potentially even include anything that has water in it.

[akito]

Suddenly imagining Zuko accidentally setting fire to the Wood Sector, since that's where Katara and Akito share a suite (and apparently where Zuko's been spending a bit of time?)

a.k.a. I'm up for doing something with either of your guys! I keep meaning to tag you anyway. ;u;

[michaeljangelo]

Mike was given the gift of emotional amplification.
ie, if you're around him you feel what he feels.
During the event this "around him" level is going to expand. Normally it's within a room-sized sphere. I think for the duration of the event it's going to be quite larger than that, for people who wish to participate.

Mike's been rather depressed, bordering on angry lately...what with the loss of his cousins. So...keep that in mind.

Aang is going to be taking a page from Tonraq and Zuko, and have his bending increased ten fold. Which, should prove interesting.

[akito]

Aaaang

just don't ruin the skates he made you :c

[royalguard_style]

We've already discussed this partially over Plurk, but how specific are these emotions, especially since they're going to be strengthened? Could someone who's in very close proximity feel something as specific as "I miss my family"?

[everylittlegirl]

Costigan will be running around trying to control things. This is just further proof of his reasons to hate magic.

Hayley actually has magic so her limited knowledge will be going weird and she'll accidentally be pushing and pulling people for maximum awkward. Please plot with me.

Mike might get some tech magic stuff, but idk yet. Open to idea and plotting.

[onethirdthesoul]

Ryou will totally be getting random bursts of some other powers (probably just ice or fire since that's what his roomies have) especially since he keeps talking about how ~cool~ they are and he ~wishes he had some~. So if anybody wants to get caught up in that, it could be fun! I'm mostly going to play this part up for laughs, tbh.

I'm also up for just about anything else, and with Ryou getting involved in some more serious stuff.

Solomon/Anton plotting

[gistful]

Solomon will have trouble controlling his magic in much the same way he did when he arrived, on a purely practical level. He'll also have shadows clustering around him at alternative intervals. Thanks to Asti's boon he still won't be feeling the addictive effects, though given the sharpness of clarity that offers he won't be having fun with that later on in the week, and will probably avoid places steeped in death/have trouble interacting with people with a lot of death around them.

Anton will start merging with the gist and feeling all those emotions the gist inhabits directly, which he hasn't properly done in, oh, five centuries. Since he won't know specifically what's happening he'll probably wind up clearing the Hotel and locking himself inside it, so he'll be hard to get to unless you have a key, know how to unlock the magic-locked doors or have enough raw power to get through the wards to break open a window or something.

(Dante, Raine and Skulduggery would all have keys.)

At the tail end of the week he's going to be very violent, very angry, and struggling very hard with keeping all that in check. And still be stupid powerful in the meantime.

[royalguard_style]

Dante will be struggling to stay human, and will often devil trigger at random times, turning him into this. He will also frequently forget his own strength, and will fluctuate from accidentally breaking things to having trouble opening jars.

In the event of any kind of fight, he will be reduced to using only his sword and gauntlets during the entire ordeal. His bullet-creation magic takes a great deal of skill and control to perform, which means it will be rendered nil by this event, and he will not be able to use his non-magical guns. Pandora and Lucifer will also be acting up, which means that Dante will have to hide them someplace where they will do minimal damage. This can either be hand-waved or done on-screen.

[akito]

Akito doesn't have any natural superpowers or abilities, so he'll be pretty much unaffected. His senses of smell and hearing might get a bit wonky now and then though, since both are better-than-average to begin with, and he got his hearing tweaked a bit during the last landfall.

His Asti-given Waterbending will be unaffected for the duration of the event. So yeah. 8D)-/

[ruinsprofessor]

the fact that he's maintaining his healing powers is a huge plus and Raine's going to definitely want his help around the hospital even more, if he doesn't mind?

[ruinsprofessor]

Raine I think will be fluctuating purely in a power level sense. Basic healing spells coming out overpowered, the big stuff undershooting what she was aiming for. The same will go for her offensive spells. I don't think she'll get the two mixed up, fortunately.

On a more emotional level she's going to be very frustrated by her lack of control (and a number of other factors, stacking), and will probably end up working herself to exhaustion at least once during the week. She will... probably snap at people.

I'm not sure if any of this in specific will lend itself to things, but I'm always open to plotting. c:

/30 minutes late with starbucks

[onethirdthesoul]

We should do a thing! Just because I'd love for Raine and Ryou to talk again. I'm gonna have Ryou getting bursts of powers, combined with Raine's, maybe we could have some fun/not so fun for them accidents.

He could also just sense her frustration and attempt to make her feel less so.