House of Cards OOC

Hi guys, I made up a tag to cover the current plottiness happening: *outside vs in. Please try to use it when you make posts that will be involving it so we can try and keep things straight.

Or if you can think of a more clever term, we can change it, that's just what I made up after two minutes of thought.

Was also thinking of making up one to cover all the posts relating to the embezzlement plot and lotty and nicholas' unfortunate demises. If somebody wants to help me find them all and give them a good name, feel free. :)

So as you all might have noticed, there've been rumblings here and there about various factions of Deckians (I just made that word up) who don't particularly approve of so many Outsiders in positions of authority in the Deck. Not just the ones who are Faces, but in some cases any Outsiders who aren't 'in their place' performing menial jobs, for instance. Steadily, the tension is growing. Particularly since the last couple of years have been something of a roller-coaster with little chance for proper resolution (the murder of Andrew didn't entirely settle well with a lot of people, the Arcana came from Outside the Deck [so to speak] and jacked things up, the Deck starts doing the shimmy every night, more people disappear and are never heard from again, etc) and many people see these as a sign of the failure of those in charge to lead the Deck as it ought to be led. Because they aren't true Cards.

So basically, we figure there's a recipe in here of tension and a bunch of people with well-honed violent tendencies just waiting for the right impetus to set off a conflict. Probably in the next couple of days you will see a post go up regarding vandalism in Town that leads to businesses getting trashed and things getting stolen which sets off a chain reaction. Soon there will be Cards demanding answers, protests, graffiti, duels in the streets, et cetera et cetera. Lines drawn between those who think the Outsiders should be ousted, those who think the Old Blood are being ridiculously bigoted. Those who just wish things could go back to normal. You get the idea.

But a lot of it will be up to you. We want you guys to play with this too as this isn't going to go away overnight. So if you think you've got a character who might end up coming down on the "actually maybe we should put some proper Cards in charge to fix things" side or characters that want to preserve the current way of things, please feel free to volunteer. You can also volunteer up your characters' businesses, homes, or offices (or whatever) for vandalism/theft/whatever floats your boat. And of course the requisite payback.

And if you've got general suggests or other ideas, please toss those in too.

So I was thinking that maybe Johnny should lose his fiddle for a while. I'm open to how it happens...

Somebody nefarious intentionally steals it.
Somebody finds it when he sets it down for a moment to go to the bathroom and Cynric whoever was supposed to watch it is distracted for a moment and they think it's shiny so they make off with it.
Something dramatic happens and somebody thinks its lost and takes it home until they can find the owner.
Or whatever. Feel free to help me Make Something Up.

The upshot is that no matter how it goes missing, Johnny will Freak the Fuck Out looking for it and that ought to be entertaining.

Any takers?

The TL;DR rundown is that it's been discovered that money is being siphoned off the Deck's accounts, but no one knows who right now or how much has already been taken.

Sometime next week I will kill Edison O'Brien, and Lotty will die sometime early next month (or later depending on if people post reactionary things).

I was hoping people could post here telling me what you'd like to do so that I can make it easier for your characters to get involved. Maybe you want to find the body somewhere and/or make it look like you're involved in the scheme - I'm open to any suggestions, I'm just sometimes not in chat at the right time to catch what people want to do.

I want to be as inclusive and accommodating as possible, but obviously I can't put a body in three places at once. What I can do as a compromise is leave bits of evidence in places where your character stumbling upon it would be inevitable, such that it's easier to integrate you into the overarching plot.

Edison:
- Hadyn finds body in Diamond Castle.

Lotty:
- Jordan finds body in Maggie's garden. Maggie finds Jordan.

This morning Victor and Zoe left for the Spade Outpost so that she can audit the hell out of their accounts to see if that helps fish out the embezzling culprit. This will take two days; after that, Victor is taking her off to Paris/Vienna for a real honeymoon.

They shall return in 5-7 days. I know. I'm so exact.

So I was going to try to catch everyone involved in chat, and then I realized the likelihood of that actually happening was somewhere between slim and none, so HERE WE GO.

The general idea is that a ring of low-ranking Cards working primarily in Deck finance - either at the Castles, or at the bank in Town - concoct a plan to siphon off funds from the Suits. Also involved - possibly even the mastermind behind it - is Nicholas, the Diamond psychiatrist. They start with trace amounts of money that shouldn't really be noticed, but as they get bolder and more overconfident, it comes to the attention of characters working in those departments - namely Zoe in the Spades and Rita and Iggy in the Hearts. NPCly, Leona probably notices in the Clubs and Lotty Berthier in the Diamonds.

This puts the pressure on the embezzlement ring, and especially Nicholas, who is keen to cover his tracks. He first kills Edison O'Brien, the Five of Spades who was their inside man for the Spades, and then Lotty Berthier, who was susceptible to his flirting but now suspects something.

These two deaths lead to Cadogan getting rid of this Problem Diamond by killing him and trying to clean up the mess.

---

This is just what I've come up with after conversations with Song and Scy about it; obviously, other characters should be and can be involved! Particularly, I think it would be a great opportunity for the accountants to all get together and do stuff. And if anyone's like NO THIS WOULD SUCK CHANGE IT TO THIS about any of these things, I am totally open.

So we thought it might be helpful if there was a place players could come and put down what their characters were up to in regards to the plot, since there's a few things happening at once and we don't necessarily want something to get overlooked or toes stepped on. Plus people who aren't sure where they should get involved might get ideas. And basically everybody can hash out what they want to here. So...go to town? <3

To get things started, there's a few comment headers below for threads, if you've got something going on with that. Feel free to create your own threads if there's something we forgot (probably did, it's getting late!).

Since this is a little unusual circumstance. We thought we'd draw your attention to it.

After a plethora of outbursts over the years, among other things, and Clive and Katya's desire to show that the Spades are not the Suit they once were, after the fight Julien picked wit Säde on the Green recently, he has been summarily demoted back to the position of Nine of Spades and imprisoned in the Spade dungeons until April.

What does this mean for you?

Well,if you've harbored any ambition to create/make your character Ace of Spades...here is your opportunity. The rank is considered open and is not being held for anyone (not even Julien /tear).

Questions, comments, want some links to the context....please put them in the comments below.

:)

The Face Cards had a meeting this past week, so anything contained herein should now be known/carried out throughout the Deck among all suits. Correct me on anything!

- Some things removed from the houses disappear when the house they come from disappears. It is speculated, though unconfirmed, that if one is holding such an object at that time, they would disappear along with it. For now, this is assumed to be so.
- The Suits are leaning heavily on people to return anything they have taken. Different Suits have different approaches to retrieving them.
- It is generally assumed that all these disturbances are caused by the Arcana. However, in at least one house, there are indications that it may have come from Outside. As yet, the Outside origins of those houses are unconfirmed.
- Town volunteers have been mobilised since the start to check on their neighbours, making certain that no one is hurt/missing/other. This is becoming rapidly moot with the mini-migration into the castles.

Additions? Suggestions?

Due to the serious nature of the Outpost access, Katya deems it wise for the rulers of all four Suits to meet and discuss ideas and strategy. Currently, no one has any idea how long Outside will remain inaccessible. It's necessary to make sure all Suits have food and other supplies plus make provisions for the townsfolk.

Obviously, they will also be discussing the odd happenings, possible causes and solutions and maybe try to iron out an emergency plan.

I'm off next week, so a date then would work better. Tentatively Thursday, Dec. 27 or this weekend (Sat, 29th or Sun, 30th).

For now only Royals are invited; however, they may select to send another Face in their place or have them attend as well. If any Suit has people with other information who need to speak/be questioned rather than supplying a report to their own Suit, then they may come in for part of the meeting.

TL;DR Let me know if you can attend the meeting and what date works best for you. 8D

In a minute (or tonight, considering I have to go to work), Avery will be posting about an election for the Lord or Lady of Misrule for the Diamonds' Feast of Fools. Now, I could RNG, but it's far better to get volunteers, I think, so that the person named actually wants to do something with it.

If we don't get a volunteer, it'll be an NPC and you'll all be subjected to the most ridiculous decrees I can come up with on the 28th.

So. Help? :D

Just to keep everyone up to date...it may now be noticed that the King of Spades is nowhere to be found. Also missing is a suitcase's worth of clothes (and the jewelry he bought for Athena recently), if anyone is likely to go looking for such things. Rumors are running wild as to where he's gone.

• Some say he went chasing after Athena, unable to continue without her here in the Deck. Opinions are mixed on whether this is romantic or idiotic.
• Some say he went off Deck to track down a particular leak of information about the Deck, among those who remember he used to do this under Medea and Sean.
• Some look at the Ace sidelong and believe he finally succeeded in killing the King (Julien would say, if asked, he wouldn't have kept it a secret and done it in front of everyone in a Challenge if that was his wish).
• Some think perhaps the pressure of being King of Spades simply finally got to him and David lost his wits and was hidden away by the Faces.
• And of course, if you want to come up with something else to gossip about, there are many more theories about where the King has gone to entertain.

So if you want to have your character wonder he where he is or talk to others about it, feel free. The Faces will not divulge much, if anything, since they're trying to keep quiet that he's gone (because of course they have no idea where he's gotten to). Eventually (soon enough), though, they'll have to admit publicly that he's gone away and they don't know when he will return. Probably about the same time that Katya names a new King to replace the old one (so on that note, applications for King of Spades are open).

Any questions about what's going on or discussion of the plot or what you'd like your character to know/find out, please stick 'em in the comments. :)

(PS. This post is relevant to things for those who haven't seen it.)

This morning, Victor and Zoe departed for a five day romantic getaway in Prague with far more dresses and shoes than any woman needs. They will return on Friday, having missed the Halloween festival - which was sort of the point.

However, because no Victor trip off-Deck is complete without death or confronting the past: Ben will be slipping off-Deck tomorrow to aid Victor in killing Agent Hamish Ramsay of Interpol. Agent Ramsay was once Sergeant Ramsay of the Grampian Police Force and Ben's superior officer, and he's been chasing Victor ever since he and Ben initially arrested him thirteen years ago.

So now he gets to die.

Best vacation ever.

As far as Ben's Face Cards are concerned, he'll be off-Deck two days to take care of a personal issue. Which...isn't exactly a lie.

So, awhile back Ana found photos of creative yarn bombing. For those who don't know, it's a phenomena where knitters either clandestinely (though sometimes by invitation) gussy up public areas with knitting. We're talking knitting on statues, trees, sidewalks, just about anything.

Sophie's been knitting since forever. Last year she taught Elani. I'm sure there are a few other characters out there who might knit or would love to learn the basics enough to participate (or just help put the stuff up). Elani and Sophie decided here that the statues in Diamond Square could use some color in their lives. If you want to hit the green, I suppose it's doable.

This will probably happen the 3rd weekend of October (maybe the second) to at least give the semblance of time to knit stuff (though Sophie claims to have old ugly sweaters from her beginning days they could make the statues wear). If a different date works better for you, let us know!

If you're interested, comment.

In Briony's last post, she and Cooper came up with the idea of a community garden to be put on the Green where the fallen trees are from Gustave's magic - sort of a way of taking what's been destroyed and making it into something the entire Deck can participate in.

I think it'd be a fun, light thing for people to participate in, and I can think of some Cards who'd probably be interested - but I'm wondering if people would like to volunteer their people to be people that Cooper and Briony talk to about it? I'd also love garden ideas! I vaguely have some idea of flowers around the perimeter and fruits and vegetables towards the center, but I haven't gardened since college, so anyone with more experience and ideas should throw them at us.

Thank you! :D

Muzy

So last night, the Magician tried to perform a massive spell to rejoin the Deck land with the Arcana so everybody can be one big happy family (ahahahah) again.

Thanks to Säde, this did not work and the spell kind of blew up in their faces. It also spread out across the entire Deck before it dissipated. Your character may have just seen a flash of light out of the corner of their eye. They may have felt a breeze where there was no wind. They may have felt a sudden surge of energy, even. If they were near a window looking toward the Green or they were outside, they definitely would have seen a large flash of light coming from the center of the Green.

Just something you may want them to reference. <3

Qi, Vi and I have been continuing Daisy's plot for Isaac as she'd planned - she'd already started set up and it's what she wanted for the character.

So with that in mind, assume that Isaac has been away from work for a couple weeks as the glioma has worsened. Last week, directly after the embassy came down, he and Urania left the Deck to see a specialist; Chives went with them. Unfortunately, Isaac's tumor has progressed beyond the point of him being able to recover from it, and both Chives and Urania will return to the Deck alone next week after he passes.

A memorial will be held in October.

Okay! As promised- The Poll Is Here. Please limit your votes to no more than the top three you like best. You Should also only vote once, and please use journals associated with the game. Pleeeease. Non-game journals might be dismissed because I just don't know who it was that voted and assume it is a troll. (Or Hopeful citizen.)

Also- I did not duplicate the wonky magic suggestions because- well. :| The are all basically the same idea. Please don't be offended by that, but it just seemed silly to have the same plot repeated a few times. But please consider Ana and Song's suggestions to be part of the "Deck Magic Gone Haywire" plot.

Thanks!

( Now Vote: )

Brainstorming is a group or individual creativity technique by which efforts are made to find a conclusion for a specific problem by gathering a list of ideas spontaneously contributed by its member(s).



Ladies and Gents, may I have your attention. Today we, the modly ones, would like to hear all those wacky, zany, serious, morbid, romantic, sweet, horrid, and any other adjective you can come up with- Ideas. More important we want these ideas for a plot, as the Arcana plot will be coming to an end, and we need something else to help drive the future of them game.

The results of this exercise will be the next major plot (which with luck will not drag on quite as long). It will be player created and player driven! So that means that we need you. We need to you blow this place up for the next week. No idea is a bad idea in this exercise. See something you like? Hash out more details with the others (here, please don't do it in chat. We all need to be able to see this.)

The more ideas we produce, the better the material we have to work with. At the end of the week, all the ideas with been gathered up and another post will be made for all players to vote on the idea(s) they like best. You'll have the chance to vote for up to three ideas. The top three will be then taken by the mods and molded into a workable plot, then AGAIN you get to vote. Then, once the final tally is made- we will have our next plot.

In short? This needs Players to take part to work. Everyone together.

Things You Should Do

1) Any ideas should be something that is large, and game wide.
2) Suit Centric, so long as it would shake the whole deck.
3) Be Crazy.
4) Post as many ideas (in separate comments) as possible for +180 exp.

Things You Shouldn't Do

1) Suggest ideas centered around one character/small group of characters.
2) Be afraid that people will mock your ideas.
3) Mocking any idea here, calling it bad, or otherwise being rude.
4) If you are a punk, I'll deduct 180 exp, and drop you to level one again.

This is how it's going to go down:

Monday: Revue post. You can be in the audience, in a reception room, backstage, performing, what have you.

Tuesday through Friday: Carnival. There will be no specific post for this to prevent event fatigue, but feel free to post your characters as going to the carnival.

Friday: Song will post the ball.

Bam.