rules/game info.

[cambium]

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RULES

Please be kind to your fellow players and remember that ooc ≠ ic. Characters are encouraged to work together and share information, but please do not infomod or godmod. Content warnings should be included in the subject line or at the top of a post, or alternatively, threads with mature content may be played in a character journal. Passing monthly AC is required to stay in the game. There is no strike system, so behave yourselves. If any concerns arise, please contact the mod.

GAME INFO

PREMISE

Austice is a short run, panfandom, character development focused, mystery game in a small town setting, with inspiration drawn from previous DWRP games cetana and yogen. There will be horror elements to the game, with all the blood, guts, and gore that comes with the genre, but horror is not the main focus of the game. It's just a mildly spooky town. Your characters will be fine.

The game is expected to run for a maximum of one year, depending on pacing, with one main event posted at the start of each month and potentially smaller mini-events in between. These events may involve small investigative missions, but are initiated by the characters and not via an OOC sign up list.

The game operates on a 1:1 time scale to the real world calendar. Monthly events will go up on the first Saturday of the month whenever the mod wakes up, and AC will be due on the last day of each month. There will be no monthly TDMs, but occasionally there will be prompts on the main event logs open for TDM purposes.

cambium is the mod account.
austice is the main community, where logs will be posted.
penitente is the OOC community, where monthly updates, plotting posts and memes can be posted.

APPLICATIONS

Applications are currently open by invitation from a current player. In order to invite another player, you must have completed AC for your character for at least one month, meaning hiatus and check-ins are not included. There is no reserve system.

Players are allowed one character in the game to start, and may app a second character after passing AC for at least two consecutive months (first month check-in counts) with their first. There is currently no cast cap, but this may be subject to change in the future.

Appable characters include canon characters, original characters, and silent/customizable protagonists. At this time, duplicate characters and CRAU characters will not be accepted. New canons must be out for at least 1 month before they can be apped.

There is no age or size limit, with the understanding that very young/dependent characters and either extremes of size may have difficulty engaging with the game and its characters. There is no forced humanization and canon powers remain, although they may be tempered depending on the nature of the power; this will be discussed with the player upon acceptance into the game.

ARRIVAL

Characters arrive in the same state as their canonpoint. Any injuries and their severity remain, but those with fatal wounds find that they will not die from them. It'll still hurt, though. Please refer to the "Death" section below for more information about the game's death mechanics. For characters who are dead in canon, they may be apped from the moment of death, or post-death only if they have a canon form post-death (eg. a spirit, either as is or possessing a body or object). If their post-death form is horribly multilated or blown to smithereens, we can try to work something out, but remember you're the one who wanted this, not me.

Characters also arrive with the clothing and items on their immediate person, excluding any pets or living things. Characters with hammerspace are limited to a maximum of five items previously kept in their hammerspace and will lose access to infinite storage.

Although characters arrive largely as they were at their canonpoint, there are several changes they will immediately notice:

1. They also arrive with one minor item of sentimental value that was not on their immediate person, and belongs to a different character in their canon.
2. They will find on their person a gemstone small enough to fit in the palm of their hand. Players will decide the gemstone's color(s) in the app, along with a general description of its appearance (polished or rough, speckled or striped, simple or complex, etc). All gemstones, however, come in one predominant color, and are chipped or scratched or damaged in some way. Damaging the gemstones result in emotional pain and/or memory loss depending on the severity of damage, and a stone damaged beyond repair is equivalent to death. Information about gemstones can be found here.
3. They will be missing two memories, and one additional memory has been altered, decided by the player upon apping into the game. More information is given on the applications page.

POWERS

As stated above, characters arrive with their canon powers, although if they need a medium and do not have it on their person at their canon point, the medium will need to be regained through bonus points. Exceptions to the above are any powers that may be considered game breaking; this will be discussed upon apping, if not already done beforehand.

Characters with powers will find that they come a little more difficult during the day, almost akin to when they first learned to use their powers. From sundown to sunrise, however, the dampening is gone and powers can be used as usual.

There may be opportunities for characters to learn minor in-game powers in the future, I haven't decided yet. You guys will need to unlock this.

SETTING

More detailed information is given on the game's locations page, but as a brief overview, the game is set in a small rustic town in the middle of nowhere, with boundaries set by a large body of water, a forest, and train tracks running through a plain. The train schedule is erratic, and may be responsible for the arrival of new characters and/or canon items requested through bonus activity. Characters are free to board the train, swim across the water, wander through the forest, etc, but will not find anything of importance outside the game's setting, and if the character is unable to return, they're out of the game.

As stated above, canon powers appear to be weaker during the day and stronger at night, the time of day and number of hours varying between sundown and sunrise as the seasons pass. The vast majority of NPCs will make their way indoors before sundown, as the darkness brings in a thick fog, and the thick fog creates monstrous distortions throughout the town. A representation of the foggy nighttime town can be found in this video (tw: eyes), in which characters may approach monsters and other strange structures only to find them reverting back into whorls on a tree, or a smudged window pane, or even other characters. All distortions will appear as normal again when the character is close enough to see detail through the fog, dependent on the character's eyesight.

Animals can be found in the water and the forest, although they're all a bit "off" in some way, be it extra pair of legs or double jaws. Think "biblically accurate," as termed by Wolfie. You can try to kill them. Then they will try to kill you.

Characters may chose to live on their own, in communal housing, on the streets, etc, with communal housing being unlockable in the near future after the start of the game. Overall, it's a quiet place with lots of empty space and not a lot of people.

NPCS

There are few memorable NPCs in town, aka please don't make me play two dozen NPCs by myself again, and named NPCs exist largely to help integrate characters into the setting and make general OOC knowledge ICly learned through handwaved interactions.

As stated above, NPCs will not be found outside after sundown unless explicitly requested by a character. During the day, they can occasionally be found around town, although sometimes they disappear when you lose sight of them and won't be seen for days at a time. A list of interactable NPCs can be found on the NPC contact page.

COMMUNICATION

There's an auto-translator. It's magic.

Upon arriving in town, characters will be able to "register" with the town official by providing a drop of blood or something similar, after which characters will receive a flip phone that opens on the long edge, like a Nintendo DS. Characters will enter a username of their choosing, and can contact other characters via text, calls, and/or video once they've learned and recorded the other characters' usernames. Messages can be sent to one person or a group of people. General public broadcasts are also an option, but they will be delivered to all characters and NPCs with a phone.

If characters have their own phones, they will be able to contact one another but will not have access to the town's messaging system. With these personal phones, reception is very spotty around town, with calls ringing and ringing but never connecting, and texts marked as sent but remaining unread.

This is all completely optional, and characters may choose to refuse or register at a later time.

INJURY AND DEATH

Injuries obtained in game are non-fatal, just like injuries a character arrives with from their canonpoint. All the pain and suffering remains, though, until the person is stitched up and bones are reset, and even then the healing process takes some time for full recovery.

Non-fatal injuries take the normal amount of time to heal, but the healing of otherwise fatal injuries is expedited to anywhere from a week to a month depending on severity. Lost body parts will rot away as new ones grow in, a character drained of blood will slowly refill their veins, a character who is poisoned will feel sicker and sicker until it is out of their system, etc.

Tangentially, characters will not be able to die of hunger or thirst, although neglecting food and water will still result in that gnawing emptiness in the stomach and parched pressure of the chest. Neither will they be able to die of extreme temperatures, although the numbing cold and blistering heat are still miserable.

There will be opportunity for deaths in mod-run missions, but will always be opt-in by the player. Deaths that occur in threads must be agreed upon by both players. The only way to truly die in this game is if the character's gemstone is broken beyond repair.

ACTIVITY REQUIREMENTS

To remain in the game, players must complete AC by the end of each month by submitting thread proofs to their toplevel on the permanent AC page. New characters are exempt from AC for the first calendar month they join, but must still submit a check-in proof to their toplevel for AC. A reminder will be given upon acceptance.

Currently, AC consists of one of the following:

- One open post/toplevel + one to two threads from a different post/toplevel with a combined total of at least 10 comments from you
OR - Two to three threads with a combined total of 15 comments from you

These threads may be started in the current or previous month, but only comments from the current month will count towards the comment count.

IC inbox threads may count as one of the proofs but not all. There will be no reminders posted on the game plurk or OOC community.

BONUS ACTIVITY

Threads that are not used for AC can be submitted for bonuses. To request bonuses, AC must first be completed for the current month; new characters must submit AC in lieu of the newbie check-in pass. Unlike threads used for AC, there is no expiration date for bonus activity threads, and they can be banked for the future.

Threads for bonuses must have at least five comments from you, and are submitted as a bundle of three threads per bonus. More information about bonuses can be found on the bonus activity page.

HIATUS AND DROPS

As failure to complete AC results in a drop from the game, please utilize the hiatus/drops page accordingly. A hiatus cannot be taken two months in a row, and must be requested at least five days before the end of the month. In case of any extenuating circumstances, please contact the mod as soon as you're able. For the courtesy of other players, please use the drop page instead of idling out if you feel the game is not a good fit.

MOD CONTACT

The mod can be contacted in a variety of ways. Most reliably is the mod contact page. All comments are screened by default, so if you want to send something anonymously, please use a sock account or otherwise you won't be able to see the reply. Other options are given on the mod contact page.

QUESTIONS

Pertinent information from general questions will be added to this page as they come up. For questions about the game in general, please ask below for other players to reference. Canon or character specific questions may be asked below or through other forms of mod contact.

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Comments

[rottencactus]

I apologize if this should be on the locations page, but-!

For the town itself, with it being small and rustic, what part of the world would you say the architecture/aesthetic leans itself towards? Is this small European rustic? Or perhaps something else.

[cambium]

I know next to nothing about architecture but from what I imagine, yes it'll lean towards European/western rustic, in my mind it's mostly houses made from wood or stone, most of them looking like they were constructed by hand with varying degrees of professionalism. So a simple house may look like this (outside) or this (inside), stone houses like this, fancier more modern ones like this rarely but do exist. Overall, characters can see hints of styles from around the world and from different time periods, suggestive of these houses built by many different people over a great length of time who've moved into the houses after the original occupants left and modified them to suit their tastes. But mostly hand built due to the location and lack of heavy machinery and factories.

[ribticklers]

Question about the network and cell phones! If a character has their own cell phone from home, provided they gave the number to someone, they would still be able to contact that person, right? They just can't connect to the network of usernames and can't see public broadcasts over that network.

[cambium]

Yes, that's correct! Cellphones between characters will work as normal, but they won't be able to access the network, like it's a separate non-downloadable messaging app that's preinstalled to the in-game phones only.

[spaghettimonster]

Question re: the gems, both the sizing and the complexity of their designs. I see above that they're "small enough to fit in the palm of their hand," with details like rough/polished - is the intent that they'd be cut something like gemstones for jewelry specifically, or would any carved crystal be good? (I may be thinking of ~2" crystal skulls).

[cambium]

Any carved crystal would be okay, just nothing with super intricate detail. Or they might've had super intricate detail once upon a time but it's broken off, details are fragile like that.

[hanikamu]

Hi! What happens when two gemstones touch? On that note, is it possible for gemstones to scratch or damage each other?

[cambium]

They explo— no they don't. There's some warmth felt throughout both people's bodies whose gemstones touch, but just slightly. If they're bashed together, though, they can for sure scratch/damage each other, but they damage each other equally.

Scratches evoke some manner of emotional pain, whether it's sorrow or fury or distress. If the gemstones are damaged enough that pieces chip off, people will start losing memories.

[solitairy]

Hello! If a character's information is only available in a non-English language but has fan translations, and is scheduled to release at a later date, is it acceptable to app them? Or do I have to wait the standard one month after the English localization is released?

[cambium]

If the fan translation is easily accessible (eg gathered in one or a few places, not scattered in bits and pieces to the winds) then it's acceptable to app them! Otherwise it'll be the standard one month for courtesy of other players.

[beepositive]

Hello! Two unrelated questions: first, would we be able to use IC contact threads for AC? And second, would anything happen if characters don't keep their sentimental items? Like in my specific case, my character would give it back to its owner.

[cambium]

IC contact threads can count as one of the proofs but not both; I'll add that to the info above and the ac page!

Letting go of their sentimental items is perfectly fine, whether that's chucking them out into the lake or giving them back to their rightful owners. Returning items may come with a sense of closure, and discarding items may come with a sense of regret, but maybe that's just their conscience speaking.

[mirristry]

Hi there! So Phil here has a chronic condition that requires a very specific medicine on a regular basis to keep it managed... how would something like that be handled in the setting?

[cambium]

He'll just have to suffer without... sorry, Phil. But he won't die from it, and a supply of medicine can be gained though bonus activity that'll last him the rest of his time in the game

[rottencactus]

I have some questions about the residence halls!

Poppy halls has small houses. About how many bedrooms are we talking here. (How many idols can we cram into one house-)

Also! can you hand off your phone to someone who has not registered with the town so they can use it to get inside, or is the scanner smart enough to figure out when the phone is in the wrong persons hands.

[cambium]

Poppy houses are mostly 1-2 bedrooms, 1 bathroom. You can cram a dozen idols inside one if you try hard enough.

And yes, you can hand your phone off to somebody else to access the residence halls! if you trust them enough to not read your messages and post things in your name. There is no security on these things

[ricordi]

Hello! If someone doesn't know who owns a specific item (like if it was used by multiple people, or they never saw who actually pulled it out of their pocket), is it still acceptable as a sentimental item?

[cambium]

Yes, that would be fine! as long as the character has a sense of "hm, I'm not supposed to have this" then it's all good

[earnedmystripes]

out of curiosity, will canon updates be available at any point in the future?

[cambium]

They will! How it happens will be a case by case basis and how it happens will most likely be tailored to what's going on in the game atm, so players just need to shoot the mod account a pm or something when they want to canon update

[intertwins]

helloooooo, I'm sorry if this is really obvious but I had a quick question about having a character as a forgotten memory before I play too much stuff out!

I'm going to use Lumine here as an example since she's the one I need it for, but she's silent during the majority of quest cutscenes except for when the player chooses dialogue options for her (although she's not silent for her voiced lines under character info and such or some of the cinematic scenes). If she were to forget Paimon, who often speaks for her during those times, would there be any vague sense of "I feel like there's someone that was with me", or would it just be a clean cut off (maybe she thinks she says Paimon's lines instead or the Lumine-equivalent of them? whatever seems most appropriate!)?

[cambium]

These cases would be player's choice! whichever would be more fun to play, as long as it's stated in the app what forgetting that character entails

[hundredpower]

If the calendar is 1:1 with the real world calendar, are the months also the same? Is there a way of characters confirming this (via checking the phones provided etc.)?

[cambium]

Yes, for simplicity, all the provided phones are synched up together with the real world calendar
As a side note, canon phones brought in by the characters will still tick along according to their canonpoint

[bodyoftheseus]

Okay so I have a question regarding memories -

Cyberpunk has what's called an Agent. It's basically a smartphone but more. Imagine if Siri/Bixby/Alexa was close enough to an AI it could pass the Turing test and for people who are particularly lonely they can act as surrogate friends or partners. (V doesn't use his like that but it exists and honestly? The Cyberpunk RED rulebook makes me so sad sometimes lmfao)

The point is that I noticed with the T&B characters their phones didn't match up with each other bc they ig came from different canon points idk so how would that work with not an AI that records everything that goes on and keeps a database of information for recall later... With regards to altered memories, would the data in the Agent be altered as well? Or would the data conflict with the memories?

[cambium]

The data in the Agent would align with canon, aka it'll conflict with any altered memories, just like if any other character is presented with hard evidence that their memories are wrong, like a photo or diary showing them otherwise

[solitairy]

okay hi hello i am back...

if a character is ill in canon and requires something specific for it, how will this need be met?

[cambium]

they'll just have to suffer
aka they can eventually get something for it via bonuses, but nothing will be provided by default. If they end up dying from their illness and triggering the death revival mechanic, it's player choice how much healing is provided (all the way cured vs only back to default)

[earnedmystripes]

What is the deadline to put in for bonus AC? I realized slightly belatedly that I was defaulting to the schedule of my other game where I'd have the first week of the month to gather up my threads from the last month, but I might be mistaken about that.

[cambium]

I guess technically the last day of the month, in that every new month the regular AC must be completed before bonuses can be submitted, even if the bonus threads are from the month prior. Threads for bonuses don't expire, though, so if you miss turning them in one month you can carry them over to the next.

[cranekin]

A question about the sentimental item: Can it belong to a NPC type of character?

Context: Tsuru takes something from essentially a NPC (but named and important) character and uses it to impersonate them for [spoiler] reasons. When the story is over, he visits the owner's grave, pays his respects, and leaves it. It's an important item or else I wouldn't ask but I wanted to make sure it was okay since it doesn't belong to like... a major canon character.

[cambium]

Yep, that's totally fine!

[rottencactus]

I do not see this on locations anywhere so here i am to ask. Does the town have a medical facility? Or anything that seems to imply it carries medical supplies?

[cambium]

There doesn't seem to be a formal hospital or clinic or anything of the sort! Some houses have basic first aid kits behind the bathroom mirror or in a closet somewhere, but that's about the extent of medical supplies

[incompletely]

Hey Ori! Just to confirm: If we're interested in apping a second, does the October check-in count towards the two consecutive months of passing AC?

[cambium]

Yes, the check-in does count for one month's AC! I'll add that to the faq

[rottencactus]

Hello ori i am here for something special

Mayoi had an idea and he's gotten a fair amount of support to do it. I would like to know a few things so that I can establish this little project of his.

1. will there will be NPC interference if they start to carry this out/if mayoi were to go to lark and ask him his opinion on doing this what he might say

2. A general idea of just what they can find and stock pile

3. if this is a silly idea and something next week will render all of this moot.

I'd like to do a log for this sometime maybe at the end of the month or at the start of december depending on plot stuff. If it all goes well it could be something we add to the game lore/info page?

[cambium]

1) Lark will reiterate what he's been saying this entire time about the townspeople being back any day now, but he's been saying that for a month now and the conviction isn't quite there anymore. That aside, he'll let Mayoi know that plenty of the houses tend to be empty even when everybody he knew was living in town, and the townspeople mostly left things alone and didn't bother scavenging things much for themselves, so there's probably plenty to be found. Overall he's pretty neutral about it, as he is with most things

2) Anything that can commonly be found in a home is fair game, things like clothing, bedding, small furniture, etc. Food tends towards dry things like nuts and flour, or small individually wrapped snacks with questionable expiration dates. Houses have running water which are serviceable for washing and drinking if boiled, otherwise there are wells around the neighborhood which draw up clean safe potable groundwater. Hygiene and medical supplies... are scarce... Luna took some people in search of medical supplies and she's a nurse with medical knowledge, so she's probably gathered anything serviceable in town. There's no medicine to be found. They can maybe make their own soap from animal fat or something. Candles and lanterns are plentiful, but they might have trouble finding matches or things to light them with. The only real weapons that can be found are gardening tools or the one blowtorch I let Luna and the idol boys find or if Barnaby ever discloses where he hid all the spears. There are no knives in town other than the few Kokichi and Ib left alone.

3) Overall, yea! all of this is totally plausible and can be added to the game lore/info/locations/whatever page for reference!

[anbruch]

an entirely left-field question, but:

on a scale of 1-10, how amenable are the biblically accurate birds in the forest to cohabitating with humans. you know, in case someone would like to use one as a messenger bird in the near future. because cellphones are sus to people not from after the 1980s.

this is very important, clearly.

[cambium]

Not very, although somebody with a lot of persistence may be able to eventually win the conditional trust of one of the birds. Since Diluc has trained falcons, he might be able to, with mixed results. Feed the bird well and they'll be more likely to listen, bonus points if they can gnaw on his fingers from time to time

[mythmaker]

Hello! I was hoping I could ask about the sky. I was linked to a past event in the discord server that says the sky is starless. Has that remained true since then, or was that only for the event? Can stars be seen at night, or is there anything to be gained if one checks the sky every night despite the fog? Or is the sky also monstrous eye nightmares.

[cambium]

There are no stars at night u_u not yet
Typical nights have thick enough fog that you can barely see anything in the sky anyways besides the faint glow of the monstrous eye nightmare moon maybe, so characters might not be aware of that fact; during that event when there was no fog at night it just confirmed that there are no stars

[ribticklers]

Now that the characters have learned their gemstones have some connection to their lives, if Sans checked his soul, would it look any different? Normally monster souls look like white upside-down hearts. In Undertale, the soul is "the very culmination of your being," so might as well check in on that.

[cambium]

It looks... the same! for now.

[ribticklers]

FUN NEW IMMEDIATE QUESTION SORRY ORI but since we have this whole missing person question here, and Sans can see LV, would Suou's LV have gone up? An accidental murder is still a murder but OOCly we wanted to check that a murder actually happened first and Suou didn't just smash some random rock, so...

[cambium]

His LV did go up... but Ala did also show her gemstone to at least one person iirc so oocly it wasn't Ala, she's fine, probably, some other guy's soul got shattered instead

[atthefarshore]

Can Phil recreate the amulet with it working......................... :0

[cambium]

Yes, from what I understand of how his magic works! which is basically copying things as they are

[heavyliesthecrown]

Question! If Tsukasa goes back to the train where the gem is shattered, will the pieces still be there for him to gather up? Just making sure.

[cambium]

For the sake of closure, yes, he can find the shattered gem, completely untouched from when he'd left it