Morgana, aka Mona, Miss Pussen, Stinkerpuss, Brat, and Tiny Kitten

Cait Sith, aka Cait, Mister Pussen, Fatty, Big Butt Cat, and Smelly Boy

1 Fusion Character: An SLC-Expressive with two abilities.
2 Expressive Characters: Characters with a single standard SLC-E ability.
2 Non-Expressive Characters: Characters with no superhuman abilities.
1 Augmented Character: A character with superhuman cybernetic enhancements.

Augmented characters aren't just someone who had a limb replaced after an accident or otherwise has prosthetics, an Augmented Character has superhuman abilities granted by technological means. Check out our work-in-progress primer on Augmented characters and give us any feedback you might find helpful! Applications for Augmented characters will open later this year when Volume 4 starts.

Augmented Technology

Augmented Characters are human beings who have been augmented through advanced technology to have extraordinary abilities. This is distinctly different from being SLC-Expressive and possessing a superhuman ability, but instead represents utilizing bleeding edge technology to "keep up" with superhuman people.

All Augmented characters are SLC-N—Non-Expressive—and use technology to gain a superhuman edge (but see Fusion Characters below). This technology may have a multitude of facets and applications and can be, generally speaking, more versatile than SLC-E abilities. In formatting your augmentations, provide a list of what physical augmentations you possess and what they do for you. While there is no hard and fast codification for what limitations there are for augmentations, a rule of thumb is that the more different things your character can do, the less exceptional all of them are.

For example, a character with eye augmentations that can see in varied spectrum of light from night vision to infrared likely also won't have tremendous superhuman strength. When designing your augmentations, consider versatility versus specialization.

Lastly, please consider the potential drawbacks of your augmentations. What conditions they tend to fail in, things they can't do or don't do well. Don't think of these as a balancing act for power, but rather interesting narrative hooks that can come up to present your character with new and unique challenges in the process of a story.

An example drawback would be that a character who possesses dermal enhancements that allow him to shrug off knife attacks becomes incredibly stiff and inflexible in extreme cold environments. Think about ways in which technology can break down and what kind of limitations that can present.

A good rule of thumb when designing your augmentations: The closer your augmentations bring you to an SLC-Expressive ability (superhuman strength, regeneration, etc) the less augmentations you should have.

When designing your augmentations, feel free to draw inspiration from cyberpunk and posthuman media such as Shadowrun, Cyberpunk 2020, Deus Ex, and other sources.

Universal Limitations

Augment technology is in its infancy in the String Theory universe. Superhuman augments are not yet widely available to consumers and are relegated to military and corporate laboratories around the world. As such, you must consider where your character gained their augmentations as a part of your background.

Furthermore, individuals undergoing human cybernetic augmentation all suffer from a universal neurological disorder known as Kauper-Engel Syndrome due to their way their components interact with the human nervous system. In order to combat Kauper-Engel Syndrome, characters must regularly take an anti-rejection drug. Presently this drug is difficult to come by and goes for extreme prices on the black market, allowing corporations and militaries around the world to control those with augmentations by controlling their access to essential medical care.

Sponsorship

Gaining cutting-edge cybernetic augmentations is the province of people with incredible corporate connections, military history, or otherwise access to organizations with multi-billion dollar finances. While your character is likely not wealthy, if they are augmented they may have an ongoing or past allegiance to an individual or corporation who is. The easiest way to gain access to these augmentations is by sponsorship from a corporation of military apparatus. Below are some suggested examples of corporations with cybernetics divisions that could have sponsored your character's augmentation. If your character is from a military background, it is still useful to determine what corporation was responsible for their augmentation. At present, the US Military does not have its own cybernetic augmentation program and no affiliated augmentation relationships.

Major Corporations

Major corporations drive the story of String Theory and are major players in the game's universe. It is recommended you take a major corporation sponsor

• Yamagato Industries: The largest and most player-facing corporate faction, Yamagato Industries is one of the most powerful tech companies in the world and has been experimenting with cybernetic augmentation since the middle of the Second American Civil War through Monica Dawson. Following their success with the YX Cestus prototype Yamagato Industries began exploring more widespread applications for cybernetic augmentation starting in 2019. Characters with sponsorship ties to Yamagato Industries are likely to be lifelong corporate employees who operate on a secret battlefield of corporate warfare against Yamagato's rivals.
• Crito Corporate: Crito Corporate has secretly been experimenting with cybernetic augmentation since 2012 but only achieved their breakthroughs in cybernetics in 2018. Crito Corporate's dark secret is the company's connection to the now-deposed Mitchell Administration of US Government that started the Second American Civil War. They paid for and operated inhumane experiments in the American desert resulting in horrific mindless abominations. Characters with sponsorship ties to Crito Corporate may have been unwilling participants in human experimentation that later escaped or villainous characters working as enforcers for Crito Corporate's personal anti-expressive agenda.
• Renautas-Weiss Nanotechnology: A newcomer to the field, Renautas-Weiss' cybernetics tend to involve advances in nanotechnology and are less visibly overt. Characters with a sponsorship tie to Renautas-Weiss Nanotechnology are likely volunteers for experimental programs, later offered jobs within Renautas-Weiss that leverage their newfound augmentations. You were likely a carefully-selected candidate with valuable skills and knowledge.
• [REDACTED]

Minor Corporations

Minor corporations have small story footprint and characters with associations to these smaller companies should speak directly to Manhattan about the implication of aligning with them.

• Praxis Heavy Industries: Collapsed in 2020 following a joint military operation on their United States branch, Praxis Heavy Industries was once the world's leading supplier of military cybertechnology augmentations. Praxis Heavy Industries had its hand in nearly every international military operation in the world with its primary focus in China and the Middle East. Numerous private military companies with cybernetically-enhanced fighters trace their augmentations back to Praxis Heavy Industries.
• Celerity Technology: Based out of Madagascar, Celerity Technology is a leader on replacement limb prosthetics and body-enhancing modifications. Celerity is a Pro-SLC-E corporation and as such does not provide augmentation support to nations or organizations with known anti-expressive sentiments.

Fusion Characters

SLC-E characters who possess two abilities (see our fusion characters helpfile) they may not also be augmented. An SLC-E character with a single ability and cybernetic enhancements takes up your Fusion character slot.

PYGMALION Characters

Players who volunteered for the Like Pygmalion storyline will have other options available to be discussed at a later date.

I would love to brainstorm with people if there's anyone else who remembers the kid who died but got better xD

Basically, Magnes will be retired at the end of volume 3. He won't be dying or anything, but will be gone from the city.

This is largely because I feel that Magnes has been brought to near his narrative conclusion, once I've tied up these loose ends. While there's always a slim chance I decide to do differently, my mind and feelings are pretty set on this happening. I ultimately feel as if there's not much more I can really do with him, and, as I've mentioned many times, Magnes was a character I'd basically retired after String Theory closed. It was nice being able to play him again and bring him to his full potential, but I really think it's time to formally put an end to things across this volume.

This post is for if anyone has any lingering things that they want to do with him. They will have the entire volume to do it, so there's no immediate rush. I felt everyone should have a chance.

As for what I'll be doing after Magnes, I'm basically adapting the OC I played for many years after I was done with Magnes. He never quite worked out where I played him, but was a character I had as much energy for playing as Magnes, who I don't believe ever truly reached his full potential. I always believed he would be great on String Theory, but never adapted him for a number of reasons that no longer apply. Consider it the stars aligning. I've discussed this character and adapting him with Manhattan, but I'm largely keeping it a secret until it's closer to the point where I'll be formally apping him. I do feel this character fits my modern play style more than Magnes did, given how old I was when I created Magnes, so I look forward to showing you this character who I have a lot of inspiration for.

But yeah, that's all. This isn't anything negative, there are no real negative feelings involved, and it'll otherwise be business as usual with all my other characters. This is more me making what I believe is a necessary creative decision for myself, and I hope that we can all have fun with Magnes with this time we have left!

Can a little insight be provided there?

• How many former members/leaders of Praxis are now working for Yamagato? How classified is this information? (Is it something chattered about by the common folks, like "wow, we're working with our former enemies now??", or something only leaders like Marlowe and Kay might know of, and know to keep quiet on?)
• Are those persons (i.e. Keller, Kravid, etc) relegated to only work in certain geographic areas to avoid the arm of the US and Chinese laws?
• What's the status on the black ops research they were performing, and what was done with the information? Was it all turned over and exposed, or?
• What is being done with any proprietary tech from Praxis? Were some scrapped, some moved forward, etc… Are there new tools for Yamagato folks to play with in their dev boxes?
• Especially, what happened with Alcatel Lucent and the lightRadio network? Is it gone? Is the GhostNet stronger than ever thanks to a combining of the two systems?

In 2020, we're doing it again and hosting another in-universe presidential election!

For 2020, we are going to have one "televised" debate that you will be able to write in questions for on September 29th. This will be a "live" broadcast played out on #radio on our Discord server. While there won't be a "call-in" segment, you will be able to feed live follow-up questions throughout the event.

For those who haven't been following along with the in-world politics, we've provided a cheat-sheet for you on who is running and what they represent as well as some relevant news posts and blog posts to help you get up to speed.

2020 Presidential Candidates
Libertarian	Independent	Democrat	Independent
Cedric Hesser	Joshua Harding	Frederick Medina	Raymond Praeger
Primary Policy Stances
SLC-E Registration
Registration laws should relax.	Maintain status-quo	Stricter Registration Laws	Maintain status-quo
Gun Control
Lax Gun Control	Return to Pre-War Gun Control Laws	Strict Gun Control	Return to Pre-War Gun Control Laws
Marijuana Decriminalization
Decriminalize and lets states decide on legalization	Legalize Federally	Anti-Decriminalization	Anti-Decriminalization
Additional Taxes on Wealthiest Americans
No	Yes	No	No
Foreign Policy (Does America need to intervene and combat Mazdak internationally?)
No	No	Yes	No
Should US Cancel Existing Student Debt
No	Yes	No	No
Climate Change (Do You Support a Congressional Plan to Tackle Global Warming By Investing in Sustainable Energy Sources)
No	Yes	No	Yes
Immigration (Should America Continue to Accept SLC-E Refugees From Other Nations as Asylym Seekers)
No	Yes	No	Yes
Healthcare (Do You Support Medicare-For-All)
No	Yes	No	No
Changes to Democracy (Do you support eliminating the electoral college in favor of the popular vote?)
Yes	No	No	Yes

There are two sides to DS:
1) Legitimate charity work that Monica will continue to foster and expand over the course of the volume. At the beginning, this has a lot of focus on SLC-E positive people and vets from the second civil war. Monica will be looking to expand this into rebuilding efforts as we progress.

2) The secret society bits that are less well known and not a public part of anything. While once DS puppeted chunks of the government and the wealthy, with the loss of the other leadership and the knowledge that they had moles within their own ranks, Monica is not forcing her foot back in that door. Her focus will be on quietly investigating our presidential hopefuls and reconnecting with big businesses and wealthy/influential people around the Safe Zone. She knows her own position is vastly weakened from where the society once was and she's still weighing her options on how much she wants to visibly sway certain groups. So step one is gathering information. If you have a character interested in SPYING and SNEAKYSNEAKY and are interested in such things, let me know.

<3

All Wolfhound Members are going to be invited to the Capitol Manor in May to meet the President and be awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom with Distinction, the highest civilian honor that can be bestowed. This is a recognition for Wolfhound's accomplishments through the Civil War and up to the operation in Praxia. This won't be an on-camera scene, but is something that you are free to do backdated scenes around on your own.

Through the timeskip, Wolfhound will be restructured from a group with multiple strike teams to a single agile company that can deploy different configurations of specialists at a whim. This is basically codifying how we've been running Wolfhound since about the Humanis Falls event a couple years ago.

As such, all strike teams are being retired.

Wolfhound members will be given new code names, which will soon be added to the faction wiki page.

There will be some retirements and new recruits, but I'll leave that unstated for now until we're out of the finales.

The raid was covered in international news media though the identities of many of the agents involved were protected except for those listed in the article. That said, every SESA character who participated in Eight-Pointed Star Part IV will be invited to Kansas City, MO to the Capital Manor where they will be awarded the Public Safety Officer Medal of Valor for their participation in the operation.

In the months that follow, SESA is in a state of disarray when it is discovered that both Secretary Claudia Zimmerman and PR chief Alice Shaw were murdered following their abduction in February. SESA appoints Madeline Choi (who up until that point was the Director of SESA-NY) to become the new Secretary of SESA. In a surprising move, the Director of HUMINT (a covert intelligence branch of the DIA) named Farah Nazan-Gutierrez is appointed the new director of SESA-NY, with Voss remaining as Deputy Director.

In addition, there are some new structural changes that Director Nazan will instate:

1) Corbin Ayers will be promoted to assistant to the Deputy Director. This means that PCs looking for special authorizations or to file reports will do so through Corbin or Deputy-Director Voss. Feel free to throw scenes at Corbin to discuss SESA related stuff.

2) Nicole Miller will be promoted to assistant to the Director. This means that Special Agents (of which right now is just Corbin but will also include the Yamagato Industries, Wolfhound, and Raytech liaisons when those roles are filled) will report directly to Nicole for their operations.

If you have further questions about SESA in V3 or anything else that has occurred let me know!

After Dragonslayer, Part VIII finishes and the finale of Volume 2 has ended, we will jump into Volume III: Horizons. But we won't be picking up from March 1st, instead our story will pick up a full six months after the end of Volume 2, ICly in September of 2020 (even though we'll start roleplaying there in the OOC month of August).

Between now and when you do your first scene of Volume 3, you are entitled to submit a +Request on-game for a "Timeskip" update. A timeskip +request is not mandatory but instead is an optional request by which you can rearrange where your character is, what they've been doing, and request ability or skill upgrades regarding their activities in that time.

• If you post a scene set in Volume 3, you may not submit a Timeskip +Request.

What Does A Timeskip Request Look Like?

A +request for timeskip activity is one or two paragraphs detailing what your character has been doing for the last 6 months followed by a bullet-point list of requests for change you would like to make with them. An example might be:

Kain has started working for the d'Sarthe group as an enforcer. He's breaking legs and doing dirty work for Gideon on the side, while maintaining his construction job part time. Kain has been isolating himself from his friends and family and secretly moved to Staten Island without telling anyone.

• Upgrade Kain's "streetwise" skill to reflect knowledge he has about the Prime Timeline, now that he's had time to naturalize here and get his bearings as a native from another timeline.
• Join the d'Sarthe group faction

Another example would be:

Julie has quit her job as a nurse at Elmhurst Hospital and has applied for a position teaching SLC-Expressive children biology at the Winslow-Crawford university on Roosevelt Island. She's moved from the Elmhurst neighborhood to Roosevelt Island to be closer to work and during the timeskip also got involved with the "tree killer" plot, helping to track down the person responsible for turning Emily into a tree. Julie will also be getting a fusion power that she discovers over the timeskip, detailed in a separate +request.

• Become a teacher at the Winslow-Crawford academy (which might require a special favor from Peyton since she doesn't have a teacher's license or a degree because she was *raised by mad scientists*. Maybe this won't work and she'll wind up somewhere else?
• Move to Roosevelt Island if the job pans out.
• Fusion ability, upgrade app separate

The more you want to change about your character or have happen to them in the 6 month timeskip, the more you'll need to write.

We will be accepting Volume 3 Timeskip +Requests starting Monday July 27th and we will continue accepting them through Volume III. But please remember once you post a scene set in Volume 3, you may not submit a Timeskip +Request.

What happens if I don't submit a Timeskip Request?

Nothing! If you don't submit an app and want to just get into Volume 3 when it starts, you're assumed to have just sort of lived the same life you were living and that nothing unusual or extraordinary happened in the intervening months! It's the safe option if there's nothing you would like to change about the character (faction placement, skill or ability upgrades, etc).

Not that even if you don't submit a Timeskip Request, Volume III will still not be open for players until after the Volume II finale as posted so everyone gets to start off together.

How will we be handling Timeskip scenes?

If you were here for our return in 2018, timeskip scenes will be handled just like the 2012-2017 time period, where you can post backdated scenes at your leisure, should you desire to. You can find the timeskip logs page here. We will make an announcement when timeskip scenes can be posted.

What will have changed in the Safe Zone and beyond by the time Volume III starts?

We will have a 2020 Timeskip Guide up this weekend with details on what to expect. This will be broken down by changes to the Safe Zone as well as general events that have transpired in the intervening months.

Cassandra, on the other hand…she's my baby. I want to treat her nice, all things considered. Get her involved. Let her be a source of information - a benefit, rather than a hindrance. I would like her to be one of the evolved that becomes a fusion character - I like the idea of her having another ability that is tangentially based off of her ability to see the past. The obvious one is 'precognition,' but as I told Elisabeth in a chat, I don't know if Cassandra, mentally could deal with seeing the past, the present, and the future at the same time. If there's not something that really stands out, I might give Manny the choice and roll the dice to see what I get. It's always fun to see what he comes up with for characters' abilities.

This is my thought for Cassandra.

Life in general would see Cassandra actually stepping back from using her abilities. Clamping down. Putting the brakes on. With Caspar's pennies still out there, very few people have the ability to call in a favor to get her to go through the agony of reading from them, but she will because it's important. Pretty much Elisabeth is the only one who can get her to consistently see the past…well, Aurora can, too, but she knows that the girl will just want to watch Broadway shows, which is fine by Cassandra. Perhaps Eve, with promises of drinking and debauchery.

Cassandra will have gotten her own place in New York somewhere and, with the constant availability of power, and the government providing a stipend for her being dumped into this reality, I was thinking that she can go into business for herself, baking. I want her to create a small bakery on grid that people can visit. Different fresh bread every day, fresh croissants, maybe even fruit when she can get it. NPC's with jobs, learning how to bake. I like the idea of Cassandra creating something that people need, something that requires patience, timing, and a good amount of yeast and flour. It could act as a small hub to get together, and who knows? One of Caspar's pennies might make its way across the counter. It has been +requested and approved.

Other than that…I'm kind of lost on Cassandra. I know I want to her to participate in the upcoming plots, and with the world IRL slowly getting back to somewhat normal, I should be able to dip a toe in for scenes. I'd like her to find someone to date, too, but that's more social than anything.

Any suggestions?

More details will arrive in the coming weeks.

Our list of depowered characters is:

• Abby
• Asi
• Brynn
• Faulkner
• Gillian
• Kaylee
• Isa
• Nicole
• Shaw
• Squeaks
• Zachery
• Yi-Min

Please Note: Being depowered for this storyline does not provide you with a new Expressive character alt-slot.

There will be more details on this plot and how to get involved if you didn't volunteer in the coming weeks.

Oops I Volunteered Again

In the middle of Volume II we requested blind volunteers for a storyline. Well, suckers, it's actually two. If you are in the volunteer list below, you've become a special part of both the Ordinary World and the Like Pygmalion storylines (see that storyline's thread for more info). We are not accepting further volunteers as we had to create bespoke elements of this storyline over the last several months. Our volunteer list is:

• Abby
• Asami (Asi)
• Brynn
• Faulkner
• Gillian
• Kaylee
• Isa
• Nicole
• Shaw
• Squeaks
• Zachery
• Yi-Min

Volunteers will have special backgrounds prewritten for their Ordinary World counterparts. Staff is working to design specific bespoke origin stories for these parallel versions of your characters that put you in precarious, interesting, and exciting places befitting your preferred play-styles and personalities. There will be more information on what fresh hell you volunteered for in time.

Non-Volunteers

If your name isn't on the volunteers list above, congratulations, you're going to experience the Ordinary World on your own terms. Like when we were running the Garden of Forking Paths storyline you will be able to create a short-form +job application for your parallel-timeline self in a world where powers don't exist. Even if your character only exists because of strange abilities you still can exist in this timeline. We will work with you to make one. As with our other parallel universe stories, you may only app one (1) character to this timeline, so choose wisely!

Details on what the timeline looks like and how to app will be provided in the coming weeks.

Furthermore, if you've done a scene fixing up a neighborhood, a building, or building something we'd love to see it reflected on the wiki in the updated Safe Zone!

Some changes that are coming:

• Reliable Power: Rolling blackouts within the Safe Zone are a thing of the past as Yamagato Industries finishes their infrastructure work.
• Train Routes: The Safe Zone will get a train station located at the former HQ of the 91st Military Police Battalion which will service all Safe Zone neighborhoods and provide train service to Albany and Rochester. This will be entirely above-ground for the time being.
• Roosevelt Island Returns!: Roosevelt Island's construction will have completed, opening the Winslow-Crawford Academy of the Gifted on its premises as well as residential and recreational facilities.
• Staten Island: Staten Island will officially join the Safe Zone as part of the New York Reclimation project. More on this in the future.
• Ruins of the Bronx and Ruins of Queens: Criminal enterprises will move into the ruins as law begins to push out those not loyal to Gideon d'Sarthe's growing criminal empire.
• Liberty Island Detention Center is being decommissioned. Plans to rebuild the Statue of Liberty will commence in 2020.
• Rikers Island Prison will reopen in NY becoming the Safe Zone's first prison.
• JFK Airport will be reopened adding greater national and international flight capabilities to the Safe Zone.

As a part of that you will be able to do a "soft reset" of your character during these six months of downtime. Are you unsatisfied with what faction your character is in? Where they are living? Want to mix things up? This will be an opportunity for you to do a little gentle reinvention of your character by injecting some off-camera change into their lives. This time-skip period will be handled via optional flashback scenes similar to the 2012-2016 time-skip we did between Book I and Book II.

Staff will provide you with guidelines for this timeskip and you will need to make a +request for your timeskip in the form of roughly a paragraph description of what you'd like your character to be doing and how you'd like them to be doing it. Please note that our factions in Volume III will also be changing as follows:

• Shedda-Dinu will be retired as an active faction, replaced by Asar-Dinu (judge's all-seeing eye), a new sect of the organization. Surviving Shedda-Dinu characters will be given the opportunity to slide into roles within Asar-Dinu at your option. More information on Asar-Dinu will be provided soon.
• Wolfhound will be moving their headquarters from Rochester NY to the Safe Zone in light of the city's expansion. Wolfhound will also be restructuring internally, moving away as the group goes through many changes.
• The Deveaux Society becomes a primary PC-led faction.
• The Safe Zone Cooperative is retired as a faction and moved into the "other orgs" category.
• The D'Sarthe Group moves into a primary faction role as the chief criminal enterprise in the Safe Zone.

Factions not listed won't be undergoing any major changes.

More information will be provided here in the coming weeks!

If you do encounter any problems, contact staff or ping me off-site; don't expect that I'll check @mail. I will check back on this thread through the end of this week in case anything comes up immediately, or to answer any questions you might have.

Without further ado, here is the player's guide to changes in +jobs:

Job Info

When viewing a job, there is now a 'Modified' field that tracks submission, note addition, note removal, and job close. (Reviewer changes and manual status updates do not count for this purpose.)

For those who have jobs in queue Right Now, you may notice that current text in the modified field is a little wonky. This is just an artifact of the copy-over and will be supplanted in time.

Related to this, jobs that have been modified since your last view are now flagged in the queue with an asterisk and a yellow number. That is, whenever staff add a note to your job, the queue will display a visual indicator of that change. (Staff get the same display when anyone else adds notes.) It is still on you to check +jobs to see that indicator.

Be aware that if someone adds a note and then retracts it, the job will still count as 'changed' even though the net effect is nil. If you don't see an obvious difference, check the modified field, it'll tell why the indicator appeared.

Completely separate from all that, there is also now a capacity gauge for notes, the better for everyone to be aware of when the buffer's running out.

Job Closing

The previous norm was to use "DENIED" for both cases of "sorry, no" and "please revise", which some were less than entirely happy with. Going forward, the new code "MODIFY" is available for closing out a request that needs to be revised and resubmitted.

Also, the @mail sent on job close will no longer include a copy of the job. This is because…

Job Archive

…the +oldjob command set can now be used by players to view their own job archives.

Be advised that +oldjob uses absolute job IDs, i.e. a sequential ID based on time of submission. It also will display both open and closed jobs. This means that for any open job you have, there will be a queue ID used with +jobs and a different absolute ID used with +oldjobs. They are not cross-compatible.

Anyway, the closing @mail now points you to the +oldjob record where you can view the job in full — including the whole body of your request and any notes.

There are also several subcommands for paging through your job history (i.e. +oldjobs/top, /before, and /after). '+oldjobs' by itself will list any of your jobs that are in the 20 most recently closed game-wide. Right this moment, though, be aware it won't show anything at all; that list will be populated as jobs are closed from this point forward.

Helpfiles

You will find quick command references under '+help request' (unchanged) and '+help jobs'.

The commands you're familiar with from the prior version all remain the same.

I've had Eve ICly making prank phone calls to people (Robyn) over the course of the last two volumes and I wanted to do a montage of her doing so and open it up to MOAR PEOPLE. If you would like to be apart of Eve's Noir Detective Crank Call Series PLS tell meh the char below. Perf if they have already met and we can figure something hilarious out if they have never interacted!

<3

So one of the pieces of feedback we got at Convergence was that the depth of lore of String-Theory can be daunting at times. A lot of the information is categorized across our wiki (and admittedly some of it isn't!). But finding exactly what you need to know and where, especially with Wikidot's broken search function can be daunting.

I'd like to hear what people's biggest challenges are in understanding the storylines we have going on and what you all would feel would be most helpful to get you back in and involved without necessarily having to read 200+ scenes at a time. My goal is to take feedback from this thread back to the staff wiki and from there potentially build a new database page that helps explain/codify stuff better for everyone.

Your feedback here is extra critical, even if you don't have any concerns with following the plot. What's worked best for you? What doesn't work at all? What absolutely is missing and needs to be on the wiki?

That's just a handful of the questions I'd love to have answered!

Right now I'm also working on developing a method to allow for both more time/more opportunities for personal-rp driven scenes and suggestions on how to dovetail them with the overall metaplot storylines. But right now I want to focus on ground-level events that are open to either the entire game or specific factions.

Are there some things you'd like to see staff/storytellers facilitate? I'd love to hear from you!

What do you personally like? What do you personally dislike? What have we not touched on at all?

I really appreciate any and all feedback I get!

Some of you already have things in the happening. Others do not.

Please put your name here if you consent to getting things.

So… if you have need of me, here's my slate of PCs.

• Chess (currently living off Yamagato's dime while trying not to be murdered)
• Peyton (doing #SchoolThings and #MomThings)
• Tasha (doing #LawyerThings and #SZCThings)
• Finn (Doing #ProvidenceThings and #LabradorThings)
• Nick (Doing #SpyThings but around as needed)

Of course, Blood/Sand is also going on (it is going, I promise!)

The bigger thing for me, however, is hashing out where he stands with various Providence residents/Remnant members. If you live in Providence or are a part of the Remnant militia, I'd like to set up some basic stuff, like 1 on 1 dynamics, any history, that kind of thing. NPCs count too, if you like.

Safe Zone wise, he might have known you if you were a fence or criminal type, but I am not as invested in those; might be fun to make some new friends! ;)

Long-term

• Teo will get his PI license I promise, it won't just be off-the-books shenanigans.
• He will be focusing primarily on persons believed to be missing, that have either not been reported to Law Enforcement agencies, or whom agencies are too bogged down to search for. This will range wildly, from families broken up by Civil War (and off in the West), unregistered Evolved to former/criminals, the occasional wealthy persons trying to get preliminary investigation in before anything.

Friends in Factions

• Law enforcement character relationships are welcome, as the NYPD starts to ramp up again. Teo would divert cases appropriately to the PD and SESA. I might be able to run little things for y'all in mod capacity if you want to join in.
• Informants, lawyers, other types of appropriate relationships are also welcome.
• Yes I will finally use Teo's drones for something I guess. Traditional bugging seems a little bit less over-the-top, but I don't think we necessarily have to avoid over-the-top in these parts.
• This will also connect up with my Time to Rest plot.

Or what if

• DO YOU ALSO WANT TO RP A PI? Let's watch Veronica Mars together plan to start a group agency, some time in the next several months.
  • Office worker and/or an assistant is, etc. also welcome. This does not have to be permanent of course! You will be invited to shenanigans.

Inception

Note as of April 2019, Teo isn't thinking about this at all right now, so I'm not sure how the idea will pop into his head. Right now I'm entertaining 2 possible realities:

1. In a hysterical fit of pique, he tries to find the individuals Francois had his affairs with, and stalk them (no plans to actually confront). In which case I would love to have willing enablers along for the ride who, for personal reasons, want to actually help him do this. Note, IC enthusiasm is absolutely required, and it may even have to be partly your PC's "idea"; this is not the thing where he'd wheedle or coerce anyone in. Upon finding An Individual who may or may not actually be Francois' paramour, we find that this person iS OUR FIRST CASE, and we will somehow weirdly find ourselves promising to help them.
2. Alternatively, not involving marital problems at all Teo will stumble into a case. Maybe just in the Sheepshead Bay neighborhood. Join me! It's happening.

Our First Case

Regardless of Option 1 or 2, I've already determined that the case itself will most likely be: a parent is extremely concerned about their child, who has been out of communication for about 2 weeks, living in one of the 'little dead zones' of Illinois with the separated spouse. There will be a road trip, maximum 1 week long, we'll save some people, you'll have to be stupid brave, it'll be fun.

Notes

• Teo's superpower is Astral Projection, which allows him to dreamwalk, communicate telepathically (no control, illusions), and observe through other people's five senses (no thought-reading). He will use this a lot for investigation. If you think we could have a fun power interaction, or you have another thought related to his abilities, throw me a hook.
• Teo's mental health will most likely still be very poor through this time, and he'll run into all kinds of triggers, especially his immense sense of guilt and toxicity surrounding children and other civilians facing harm. Hooks regarding this are welcome!

i'm looking to consolidate and plan some RP with my PCs, as i'm finding it difficult to reach my tendrils out and tap people for RP, or indicate that I'd like to be tapped for RP. as such, this is kind of an indulgent thread — while scenes that revolve around 'plot' are welcome, this isn't for planning my own plot delivery so much as getting my own characters a little more integrated, and just picking up more general character scenes.

below are a few hooks and the scenes i already have lined up. i've done this kind of in order of motivation/tangible ideas and desires.

francois:

• wolfhounds in general during their time of decompression.
• old friends he hasn't talked to in a long time? especially the ones presumed dead? hmu.
• INFAMOUS MARRIAGE PROBLEMS may sneak their way into meta but he tends not to open up about them unless the other person is fairly mature and close to him. i'd be very down to have conversations around this w anyone who might fit the bill and can tolerate it.

gabriel/byron/etienne:

• at this stage, probably more the byron and etienne identities, but if anyone has specific desire and cause to reach out to gabriel, i welcome it.
• byron vs other providence pcs.
• etienne and staten island shenanigans.

logan

• this is probably the trickiest one bc when i went on spontaneous hiatus in the middle of some crucial plot things, but i'd like to do some backdated stuff with him over the past year to get a sense of what's been happening, so anyone who is friendly or has a connection and would like to do something, let me know.

benji

• also a little drifty, but i am listing her here to indicate willingness, i just don't have specific ideas right now. I WILL, probably, once i am more in the swing of things.

scenes in progress and planned for:

• logan -> hana backdated scene
• logan -> tamara finishing scene
• logan -> nick backdated flood scene
• francois -> devon (other wolfhunds?)
• benji -> ryanruskins scene

let me know if there is something you'd like to do, or something i have forgotten!

/snorkels back into docs

At the moment, I'm looking more for ongoing interactions than for random social scenes. These could be based on shared history / some past encounter, or new connections that are built up as we go forward. I've got a short list of potential hooks on his charpage, and other ideas are welcome, too.

Reply here or ping me direclty if you're interested!

WE WOULD LOVe it if anybody who played in 2011 would let us know here if they would have agreed to witness. Most likely, they would have asked anyone who was:

• A friend
• Not an ex-boyfriend/girlfriend in any sense of the term
• Have either positive relationships with at least 1 man, and neutral+ with the other
• OK with the gay

We will then try to retro-engineer how they would have been invited.

Any vignette drafts we create will be discussed with and run by you before we post them of course!

There's been some interest on the Providence front in taking down a few of the cephalopods that are roaming the area. Eileen is coordinating the effort, but in order to be successful, the Remnant crew needs supplies.

So we're going to set up some quests so Kara can upgrade the armory. I will confer with Rockefeller about things Hector may need as well, but in the meantime, I'm looking for volunteers:

• To go out into the world to scavenge for supplies on both the armory list and Hector's list.
• To GM for the above (they can also participate with their own characters).

I'm trying to get everyone in the habit of running things for each other with staff guidance this volume so we aren't spread so thin, and so we don't encounter delays. 3 scenes of 2-3 people each running simultaneously, stewarded by 3 different individuals will move the plot along a lot faster than one GM trying to pose in three documents at once. I can provide a location, an obstacle, and the loot to the GM, and how the sequence plays out would be left to their discretion.

Leave a note here if interested!

Wants to GM

Wants to be GMed

• Max
• Chris

Background

When Yamagato Park was founded in 2015, a planting ceremony for cherry blossoms took place at Bensonhurst Park. Since then, the carefully-manicured trees have matured and are ready for their first debut. Charitable organizers are delighted at the opportunity to rally around the blooms in New York, and have worked with the Yamagato Fellowship to reinstate celebrations and culture sharing opportunities that were lost with the destruction of Washington D.C and the overgrowth of the Brooklyn Botanic Gardens in Park Slope.

Out of town tourists and Safe Zone residents alike are welcomed to the Yamagato Park festivities that will take place over the first two weeks of April. Many events that would normally take place at the National Cherry Blossom Festival will be reproduced in Yamagato Park and surrounding areas in the New York City Safe Zone.

Events planned include a special art showing at the Fellowship Center, a 2.5k/5k run, historical and contemporary movie screenings, musical demonstrations, and other miscellaneous cultural exchange events.

On-Screen Opportunities

Currently planning on 3 doc events:

• Pink Tie Party event
• Kite Day event
• After-hours Hanami Illumination event.

The intention here is that interested parties could have scenes at other activities/events planned throughout the 2-week period.

Want to buddy up with someone for the 5k? Hell yeah, go for it! Want to do a chill hanami viewing as a live thing? Yay live scenes~~

Pink Tie Party

Kite Day

Hanami

Illumination

• Is there something you want to do with your character(s) that you need help with from other players or staff? Pitch it here!
• Interested in running something for other people? Ditto.
• Struggling with long-term character arcs or purpose? Other players might be able to help you out.
• Is there a plot or a conflict you want to get involved in and don't know how? We can probably crowdsource a solution.
• Don't ever be afraid to ask for help. We're all here for each other.

Though Zachery was only ever officially part of Warren's Los Locos and the Institute, he did his very best to keep notes on almost literally everything that was going on around him and the people he was associated with for nearly five whole years. Almost anything he was remotely involved in had names, locations, hypothetical plans of action and (where possible) results logged. Maybe less so for anything that involved something that might incriminate him, but— that's another matter.

All this, in order to sit pretty in court and help put some very important people get in trouble so he could get in LESS trouble. A lot of them probably would have done time anyway, but maybe some of them would have flown under the radar if not for a very thorough rat who, at times, almost seemed to DELIGHT in his court duties. Leave it to a former law student to know exactly what to say.

Now, I don't want to step on anyone's toes, and we don't have to get unnecessarily specific, but I do think it could present some possible fun to know who, exactly, may have gotten screwed over by JUST the wrong connection suddenly being made by some random schmuck. BIG things are probably off the table, since he was never on the forefront of the action, but you never know what slips through the cracks. NPC or PC, throw 'em at me, because I'd like to make another LIST. This time for people to watch out for, maybe. Anyone?

What Harry Potter house does your character belong to? It doesn't matter whether or not they're Evolved. I will keep a master list here because this is relevant somehow.

Gryffindor
Walter Trafford
Tasha Renard-Lazarro
Chess Lang
Geneva Stevenson
Noa Gitelman
Devon Clendaniel
Lance Gerken
Richard Ray
Lucille Ryans, 10" blackthorn with a dragon hearstring core
Benjamin Ryans
Claire Bennet
Huruma, Springy Acacia Wand 14" Grootslang Scale Core
Weasel, Apple Wood Wand with a dragon heartstring core, 12 ¾" and rigid flexibility
Elisabeth, Fir, dragon heartstring, fairly flexible, 13 inches

Slytherin
Eileen Ruskin, 11" hawthorn with a thestral tail-hair core (reasonably supple)
Margaux Maxwell
Charity Thornton
Peyton Whitney
Yi-Min Yeh
Isabelle Ashford, 9" yew with a phoenix feather core
Athena Green
Godfrey Wells

Ravenclaw
Nick Ruskin
Squeaks, 10.5" alder with a unicorn hair core (flexible)
Eve Mas, 12" spruce with a unicorn hair core
Emily Epstein, 10" hawthorn unicorn hair core replaced with hippogriff feather core
Tetsuyama Asi, 9" cypress with Kirin tailhair core
Kaylee Sumter
Sylvester Sandoval, 10" black walnut with a dragon heartstring core (stiff)
Bao-Wei, Unyielding Pine Wand 11" Dragon Heartstring Core

Hufflepuff
Ingrid Ryans, 8" willow with a unicorn hair core (quite bendy)
Sasha Kozlow, 12" cedar with a rougarou hair core (unbending)
Johannes Moser
Finn Shepherd
Spencer Greaves
Phoenix
Kara Prince, 7.5" yew with a dragon heartstring core
Hailey Gerken
Delia Ryans
Seren Evans, 11.75" sycamore thestral tailhair core treated with fairywing
Delilah Trafford, Firm Oak Wand 10.7" Augurey Feather Core
Remi Davignon, Elm Wood Wand with a unicorn hair core, 11 ¾" and brittle flexibility
Thomas Cooper
Jonathan Smith
Megan, willow, unicorn hair, firm and a bit unyielding
Brynn, cedar, unicorn hair, just a touch brittle, 9 inches

EDIT: If you want, you can choose a wand and a patronus too.

https://www.reddit.com/r/harrypotter/comments/3v4wqi/wand_flexibilities/
https://aminoapps.com/c/harry-potter/page/item/list-of-wand-cores/gRTK_Iq3xeKrJMzYE5lpnKJxM3q5Zw
https://harrypotter.fandom.com/wiki/Wand_core
https://www.pottermore.com/writing-by-jk-rowling/wand-woods

We have:

• Eileen (M)
• Iago (M)
• Danko (M)
• Lang (M)
• Finn (M)
• Kara (M)
• Yi-Min (M/Praxis)
• Byron/Gabriel (M)
• Reena
• Paul
• Max
• Ollie
• Hector (M)
• Tara (M)
• Odette (M)
• Charity (M)
• Johannes (M)

M stands for militia-affiliated, which means they are currently hanging out at: http://string-theory.wikidot.com/location:sunken-factory

Which is everyone except for Max, Ollie, Paul, and Reena, who live in Providence proper and are considered neighbors/among the people that the militia is protecting just by being in the area and scaring other militias off. This is a large group of characters, both consisting of both PCs and NPCs, so there's lots of mixing and matching we can do.

As a reminder, people are free to come and go as they please, pursue other things and generally be true to themselves. Iago took some people to go rescue Hector, for example, so if you want to go on a globetrotting adventure or lend yourself to other things this coming volume, you are more than welcome to. Providence is a safe place for you to land when you get back, or a base of operations for things you might want to do in the region, depending on your personal needs/desires.

I will be running the following scenes in the next block of time:

• Scavenging missions in nearby ghost cities with obstacles characters must confront, including Humanis First holdouts, the cephalopod monsters Raytech accidentally let into Prime when they opened a test portal, AND MORE.
• Some sequence that gets Odette/Addie back to Magnes and Elaine based on people's availability.
• A train robbery, after the scavenging missions so I have a feel for what dynamics are like and know the most dramatic way to set it up.

I would love for people to build social scenes around the day-to-day life of living out in the Barrens, and encourage folks to also run their own events if they are so inclined! The more we help each other out and run things for each other based on needs/wants/desires, the more fun we're all going to have.

All ideas below.

Please post below.

A leitmotifs can be a piece of music (or even a part of a greater piece of music) that represents a character, an idea, a type of event, anything really.

For example, in volume 1, something I did was use Who Will Know from Shin Godzilla as Magnes' leitmotif whenever something would involve him, black holes, or just the general existential idea of his ability when it would involve the concept of the "void": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CrXTS10h2WI

My final use of this was when I blatantly put it in a scene with Wasteland Magnes, as he is the Magnes who most deeply and closely associated with the Void (I intend to do a backdated solo scene between Magnes and Wasteland Magnes in the future, as it was a rather essential character point to me that I needed to do). However, in my head, this song as a leitmotif would have likely played for the final time during the possession of Eve and the death of Elaine, conceptually tying in the Entity with Magnes' concept and perception of the Void as a living thing, and thus wrapping it up as a leitmotif (which is why I intend to choose new ones in volume 2).

Komm Süsser Tod from End of Evangelion was used at the end of the fight with Virus Kazimir, because in my head it was a leitmotif for the end of young Magnes' youth and a sort of grand reflection on the culmination of his youthful mistakes. While he would come to make many more mistakes, these were for different reasons than simple inexperience and immaturity, which to me is what Komm Süsser Tod represented. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oIscL-Bjsq4

Also, as a general leitmotif for the travelers, I tended to use Muse's The Dark Side: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e0UWT0dFSQE

For volume 2 I intend to think a lot more extensively about leitmotifs and what I associate things with in specific situations. I intend to have ones for specific interactions with specific people, the idea of specific people, and all kinds of stuff.

As we're and RP and not a movie, I think the ideal approach to leitmotifs is to think of what different things would have if your character was the main character in a movie. What leitmotifs, from their perspective, would be associated with the world that they're living? How do you want to paint a picture of your character's reality?

I think this is a bit more interesting than simply making a playlist. Come up with your leitmotif songs and explain why that song applies to the idea/character/situation! I think it'll be fun. And yeah this means you can have themes that sort of represent your character's idea/relationship of other characters. Like, what would play when your character's most hated enemy enters the room?

Have fun!

addendum: Yes I am aware that full songs are generally not leitmotifs, but it's the most practical way of thinking of them for an RP.

Here's what a basic effort key looks like:

Now let's take a look at Robyn and Eve for examples of how an effort key lines up with the talents of an ability!

Volatile Phasing (Eve)

Eve possesses the ability to take on an insubstantial form that causes damage to whatever she passes through. This state is Eve's natural form and it is a struggle for her to maintain a corporeal body, let alone maintain her incorporeal one in any controllable state. At rest, Eve is an indistinct cloud of semi-opaque crimson light that causes molecules within to move in an agitated state, much as though affected by microwave emission. At rest, Eve cannot control her shape or move herself, and remains in a fixed place. In this form she cannot communicate, cannot be communicated with by telepaths (though they recognize that the cloud of energy possesses a conscious mind). Eve automatically enters this state whenever she is rendered unconscious or falls asleep. Over time, Eve will be able to learn to control this unfortunate circumstance by controlling the molecular makeup of her form.

Talents

Photokinesis (Robyn)

Robyn possesses the ability to absorb photons in her body, collecting light within a 30-foot radius around herself. Photons, once absorbed, are stored as electromagnetic energy within Quinn's body and are absorbed by the natural EM field that all SLC-Expressive people emit. All of Robyn's talents with this ability stem from her power to absorb and harness photons. During the events of Arkfall, while under the effects of amphodynamine and Gillian's augmentation, Robyn absorbed photons from a 300-foot radius and overloaded herself, resulting in a long-term ability burn out from which she has only begun to recover. Pushing herself beyond her normal 30-foot limitations by way of augmentation risks similar burnout; normal use does not.

Talents

My 2019 alt lineup will be Magnes, Warren, Alister, Rasheed, and Amadeus.

Magnes:

Aside from the fallout with the Elaine stuff and getting Addie back, my current intent for Magnes is to handle things with the band on a personal level (if you're one of the band people you know who you are, that includes the groupies), meet up with Kimiko to try to get a position within Yamagato and help whoever they can.

I think using Magnes as a proxy to go the Yamagato route is probably a good approach for anyone who isn't going the Raytech route. On an OOC level the reason Magnes isn't going to officially work for Raytech is because that's a huge Warren plot area and I don't want to double over. ICly because 1. Elaine is at Yamagato. 2. Yamagato has ridiculous futuristic apartments, and he's going to want that for Addie. 3. Magnes kind of trusts Kimiko more on the running a stable company thing >__<.

Other plans for Magnes will include pursuing Pete Varlane and learning more about his history, finding out about Clara and his mother, and learning the still unknown answers about himself and what he is.

I'd also like to ICly touch base with other travelers if possible, and I want to do things with Denisa, Lucy and Mala and the Prime Lighthouse Kids in general.

Alister:

Probably whatever Ellis wants to do. Also if any boat people from Flood want to join him, feel free.

Amadeus:

He's going to be very casual. I don't have any immediate plans.

Hit on Delia? Fight Zhao?

Rasheed:

I want to have more scenes with SESA people and people outside of SESA, more connections in general. I don't mind running some one-shot things. Give me a writing prompt and I'll run with it if you have a SESA scene in mind.

Outside of that, I pitched plot stuff so I imagine Manhattan will want to do things. If anyone else wants to do things let me know.

Warren:

If Ellis hasn't thought of anything regarding my pitch, then what I want to do is scrap the pitch entirely and have Warren interact with Providence in some way. I think I've developed a more grounded pitch since I started playing him more regularly.

Aside from that, Warren is just going to get around and get involved in stuff by proxy of being Warren. Manhattan can feel free to pull the trigger on any plans, but yeah we'll see what happens.

Internally, Warren has a lot of Stuff going on, but that'll be a sort of ongoing character thing.

You:

Any comments about what you want to do or what you think I should do are appreciated.

https://soundcloud.com/duansparkles/lookingglasssound/s-Qpk6m

WAIT: there's been a great point made made by The Hooms

Claim an Unassigned Month

First step is access the Book 1 Tagging Spreadsheet and put your name down in a cell to claim a month. We will be starting at http://string-theory.wikidot.com/logs:past and then moving on to August 2008 and moving down in order, please don't jump around.

Tag Scenes

Go through your assigned month and open each scene and tag the individuals within. When you do, please take a look at their character page names and check to make sure we haven't had any transpositions. For example, char:Miles is not the same character as afchar:Miles. Skip this scene and make a note of it in the notes section (and create a new tab in the spreadsheet for that year and month and link to the log there). If you run into things like that, we may need to determine how best to proceed, so bring up your issues you run into here and we'll address them as we encounter them.

Resolve Month

Once every scene in a month has been tagged and there's no more unresolved issues to discuss/fix, mark the month with a Y in the Complete column and pick a new unassigned month to work on.

I'm going to keep it at that for now. Once we start hitting issues we'll adjust this list of operations and come up with practices on how to handle them. I've already got a reply for the "Miles" issue which will follow this post.

{01101000011101000111010001110000011100110011101000101111001011110111100101101111011101010111010001110101001011100110001001100101001011110011010101000001001100100111001001010101001100110101001101110000011000010110011101001001}
{010101000110100001100101001000000111011001101001011001010111011100100000011001100111001001101111011011010010000001110101011100000010000001101000011001010111001001100101}
{}

• https://youtu.be/5A2rU3SpagI
• the view from up here

{}
{01101000011101000111010001110000011100110011101000101111001011110111100101101111011101010111010001110101001011100110001001100101001011110100100101001110011101000110001001110110001100110110001101100100001100010100001001000001}
{0111010001101111001000000110000100100000011000110110111101100011011010110111001001101111011000010110001101101000}

{01101000011101000111010001110000011100110011101000101111001011110111100101101111011101010111010001110101001011100110001001100101001011110111011101101011010100000100110100110100010011010011011001100010011011100100001000110100}
{011010010111001100100000011101000111001001100001011011100111001101100110011011110111001001101101011000010111010001101001011101100110010100100000}
{}

• https://youtu.be/INtbv3cd1BA
• to a coackroach

{01101000011101000111010001110000011100110011101000101111001011110111100101101111011101010111010001110101001011100110001001100101001011110111011101101011010100000100110100110100010011010011011001100010011011100100001000110100}
{011010010111001100100000011101000111001001100001011011100111001101100110011011110111001001101101011000010111010001101001011101100110010100100000}

• https://youtu.be/wkPM4M6bnB4
• is transformative

{}
{01101000011101000111010001110000011100110011101000101111001011110111100101101111011101010111010001110101001011100110001001100101001011110011010000110000010001100110100101001101011110010010110101100001011010110011000001101011}
{01110111011010000110000101110100001000000110010001100101011001100110100101101110011001010111001100100000011101000110100001100101001000000110111001100001011101000111010101110010011001010010000001101111011001100010000001111001011011110111010101110010001000000111001001100101011000010110110001101001011101000111100100111111}

• https://youtu.be/40FiMy-ak0k
• what defines the nature of your reality

{01101000011101000111010001110000011100110011101000101111001011110111100101101111011101010111010001110101001011100110001001100101001011110111100001101100010001010100001001101011011000100011100001000010011011000110100001110011}
{0110010001101111011011100010011101110100001000000110011101101111001000000110110001101111011011110110101101101001011011100110011100100000011001100110111101110010001000000111010001101000011001010010000001100001011011100111001101110111011001010111001000100000}
{}
{-}
.

• https://youtu.be/xlEBkb8Blhs
• don't go looking for the answer

((edited to include the miss Robyn provided. Thank you! ♥))

So! If you'd like to do this do the following!
1) Find an image to use as a postcard (it doesn't actually have to be a postcard…)
2) put text on it — picmonkey.com is great if you don't have PhotoShop
3) @Mail me at Greenwich or gmail me at Greenwichtheory at gmail dot com (except normal style - just avoiding spam) with the image and what character it's for — or, well, not, you don't have to tell me! it's a secret after all. I won't tell who sent me what!

When I have a decent sized batch, I'll put them in a Doc and post it here so we can all wonder whose secret is whose.

If you have any questions, leave them here!

Here's the link! https://goo.gl/forms/ascYLjh41avkSo962

I have a few slated already (including finishing Inklady obviously).

I'm not asking for volunteers so much as an indication of interest. List the alts you intend to be playing in Volume 2 and any kind of preferences you might have for a feel of the plot. I realize I didn't follow thru on most of this request last time, but I was too swamped for it (for which I apologize). I plan to structure myself a little better this time around, and without Forking Paths and time-limits, it shouldn't be half as saturated.

If you would rather not post on the forum my @mail is totally open and you can page too! All pages go to a spawn window so as long as the spawn doesn't break I will eventually see it if I am not there.

This post is about where I plan on focusing as a staffer for Volume 2, given my limited time and resources, and how people can get involved in the plots I'll be running in 2019.

Most of you probably remember Providence, the post-war settlement located out in the New Jersey Pine Barrens. For those who don't, we have a whole page on it here: http://string-theory.wikidot.com/location:providence

Over the summer, Eileen has moved some of the Sedro-Woolley folks who wanted to leave the Dead Zone into the area, integrating these people with those who have been living in Providence since the end of the war. Those who wanted to start a new life have, joining up with existing farms and homesteads, or by building their own. Neither she nor any of the other more militant members of the Sedro-Woolley colony have thrown their weight around; instead, they've opted to remain on the fringes of the settlement like elusive, well-meaning wolves protecting the people of Providence from the threat of larger predators out in the Pine Barrens. Predators like other militias, remnants of Humanis First turned Pure Earth, human traffickers, cultists, etc.

I'll be developing this relationship in V2, which will be about "leveling up" the settlement with the limited resources that are available. We'll have scavenging runs to ghost towns or destroyed cities like Philadelphia for supplies like medicine; we'll quietly target supply shipments by large companies like Yamagato who can absorb the loss; we'll come into conflict with other factions at some point, like Shedda Dinu and others, all in the name of providing a better life for those who don't trust the government enough to live inside the Safe Zone - or who believe their quality of life is better where they are.

Think Robin Hood meets Walking Dead, and you have a pretty good idea of what I plan on doing this volume. This is a great place for people to play if they're missing the Ferryman lifestyle of Book One, while still giving them the freedom to go into the Safe Zone whenever they want and interact with people there.

I'm looking for people who either want to join up with Providence's aloof protectors (Eileen, Finn, Lang, Kara, Tara, etc.) or who want to create characters who have their own farms or homesteads somewhere in the region and maintain autonomy that the protectors can interact on a daly basis/trade with/help out as necessary. Providence is a community without defined leadership — and everyone who lives there likes it that way. There is leadership among the settlement's new protectors, however, but it's run very much the same way the Vanguard remnant was. That is to say: like a pack of wolves where there are definitely one or two dominant people pushing an agenda, but decisions are largely made as a group for the benefit of the group.

We've got a Kara in-app at the moment, but I welcome both mercenary-types and pacifists. It's going to be an interesting bend of people, and I'll tailor plots specifically to who we get.

This thread will serve as a place to bounce ideas off one another and brainstorm. Have at it!

• Is there something you want to do with your character(s) that you need help with from other players or staff? Pitch it here!
• Interested in running something for other people? Ditto.
• Struggling with long-term character arcs or purpose? Other players might be able to help you out.
• Is there a plot or a conflict you want to get involved in and don't know how? We can probably crowdsource a solution.

Don't ever be afraid to ask for help. We're all here for each other.

Second, Geneva's been approved! As I'm unsure how to go about putting things in motion RP-wise, with this google docs stuff, I thought I could post here to hopefully get the ball rolling.

Possible hooks:
Lighthouse - Geneva's a former Lighthouse kid who lived there for quite a long time, since around 2008. She would likely be familiar with any other Lighthouse regulars, whether kids or adults, and have formed some kind of relationship with them (whether hostile, friendly, etc.) Would love to get to know all you Lighthouse peeps/affiliates in RP.

Revolutionary wannabe - Ok so Geneva may have missed the "glory days" of the war, since she wasn't allowed to be a freedom fighter on account of being too young (glares at Lighthouse babysitters), but she very much still hates the anti-Evolved. A lot. I don't know what might come of this or how, but she would love to knock some heads. Maybe she could eventually end up tracking down some Company scum, or even finding out what happened to her sister in the Company who knows

Bottom line is, I'm happy for her to become a tool used by someone else in this aspect.

Employment - Yeah, Geneva's a bum who needs a job. Specifically she's interested in helping to rebuild, or otherwise using her Evolved powers for something productive. Maybe Raytech? Somewhere else where she could be put to use?

Other - Given Geneva's nature as a literal drifter, it'd probably be possible to have her run into your character at a variety of points. Just hit me up.

Hey, guys! If I made a page for this for Book Two, would y'all help me fill it out?

Please note this will not include some secret-y things I have planned, in which people will probably find themselves sent something when I have a slot open.

Feel free to request my PCs or NPCs. I will use this to keep a reminder on things people want, but don't feel bad if you want to tell me you don't want it anymore when I get some space in my dance card and send you a thing.

If you have a specific request that you don't want to state on the forum, drop me an @mail.

over the next week or so, i'm gonna be hitting back the logs i have. if there is anything new you would like to do, or anything older than the dawn of time that you'd like to pick back up, or even anything outstanding you'd like to handwave or delete, please let me know here or in pages or @mails, whatever is comfortable. mostly i am attempting to get myself back on the wagon and get a sense of check of where you guys are at too, in relation to our rp.

on a serious note, thanks to those who reached out or gave encouragement over the past month, i appreciated it, even if i could not quite return the favour with activity until right now. things i am responsible for that are plot related will be resolved as priority with the help of fellow staffers, this thread is just about my PCs.

https://en.shindanmaker.com/671644

Robyn:

Robyn Quinn, Black Solar Brigand, should have been a cutscene instead of a fight.

Location: Forbidden Road
Ability: Court of the Mirror
Quote: "No one will get in my way."

(I feel so called out)

Iris:
Iris Earhardt, Veteran Laughter, drops a pretty mount… not that you'll get it.

Location: Sunset Cosmos
Ability: Lightspeed Ray
Quote: "We duel!"

(Iris stole Quinn's ability!)

Ling:
Ling Chao, Prince's Dystopia, broke raid groups due to Ling Chao's difficulty.

Location: Forgotten Dungeon
Ability: Arcana Influence
Quote: "They're counting on me."

(And that sounds more like Iris, hmm…)

Rules:

• Pick up to (does not have to be) six Pokémon that your character might use as their chosen group.
• Pick from any of the regions' available Pokémon.
• You can pick legendary or Ultra Beast or Mewtwo or whatever, we don't judge.
• You can pick more than one set of teams if you can't decide (but the challenge is to pick up to only six!)
• Don't be an asshole and say someone's choice of Pokémon is not a good choice or is weak or is dumb or does not fit their character.
• Don't be an asshole and pick some other player's character's Pokéteam for them.
• No, you don't have to know the Smogon freakin' movesets or whatever the heck. Pick purely on aesthetic if you want.
• Have FUN with it. This is seriously just for purposes of being nerds about Pokémon and String Theory.

Example:
Luther's team might be: Nidoking, Chesnaught, Munchlax, Scraggy, Bastiodon, Lycanroc (Dusk)

What I'd like to do is a little thing where people who want to sign up for it will have a chance for people to anonymously say AWESOME ONLY things about them (I'll do this through google forms and will not ask for your names or emails in doing so.) I will consolidate those lovely comments and send them to the person in question so that they know they are loved and appreciated.

I think what I'll do is try to do like 3 people once a week until we've rotated through them. You can sign up at any point, and I'll add you to the rotation. After everyone's had a turn, we'll take a break and if people like it, start the rotation again, if you want.

So what do you have to do?
1) If you want to volunteer as tribute so people can anonymously compliment you, REPLY to this thread and I’ll put you on the Bucket List.
2) Let's say on Sunday, I'll put up the form for us to shower the with our praises. Obviously, only nice things will be shared with them. Remember, it's for the player, not the characters. If you sign up, try to do the form for others of course, but anyone can answer the form for anyone else.
3) I'll close the forms and send out the compilation and pick the next 3 people.
4. Lather rinse repeat.

• (Prime) Luther/Sera: Rude
• (Prime) Squeaks/Zhao: Nine Lives
• (Prime) Jonathan/Kam: In a Whisper

If I've missed anyone here, reply and let me know what characters I owe you stuff on and what the general idea of the scene was! Don't worry about how long that list is, some of those scenes are short! :)

https://kevan.org/nohari?view=Eve-ST - Nohari
https://kevan.org/johari?name=eve-st -Johari

Namely, I am looking for:

• Basically anything for Tamara
• Anyone interested in corresponding by digital and/or radio means

Obviously, correspondence is contingent on cell/internet access or having a radio transmitter (as well as receiver), but we can figure out the details as befits a given scene.

Tamara

Tamara has been in the Safe Zone virtually since its beginning, so there's a lot of opportunity for both social and professional connections here. I'm happy to do either kind of scene — whether your character's consulted the sybil in past (or present), they have prior connections that bring them together (incl. by way of Colette/Tasha), they just happen to be in the same place at the same time, socializing in the market or over lunch, Tam helping out with some project, providing an intervention at a key moment… the options are many.

Kiran Apila

K.Apila is a moniker Hana used back in original String Theory days, although only sporadically. During the timeskip, she dusted off this identity, gave it a full name, and started using it much more systematically. That said, Kiran is not known as an alterego of Hana… unless you're one of the handful who have encountered K.Apila before. Note that conversations with K.Apila also do not represent Hana fishing for intel — if you drop something interesting, of course, she'll take note of it, but this is an 'off-duty' identity.

Kiran mostly specializes in topics philosophical and existential. It can provide an unbiased ear, an independent sounding board, or just a means of whiling away the time before some appointment or event. Kiran can also be a conversational partner for radio operators (amateur or otherwise), including during the war.

Tenzin Amas

T.Amas is a digital entity with way too much time on its hands and a surfeit of idle curiosity. It is not above casually interjecting itself into your business, whatever that business may be. On the one hand, it is liable to dispense unwanted (possibly unnecessary, and even irrelevant) advice, and on the other to ask prying questions. It is by and large interested in learning things, where said things have less to do with factual information and more with how people work, what makes them tick. Evolved abilities are another good topic for discussion.

You're welcome to reply here, ping me by page or @mail, or even just go ahead and set up a doc if you have something specific in mind. I am best available by docs, but can do live scenes if they're arranged in advance.