The Mods of LifeAftr (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
lifeaftr_mods) wrote2017-06-28 12:17 pm
lifeaftr_mods) wrote2017-06-28 12:17 pm
Entry tags:
Search Requests
Search Requests
As a central element to the game, Search Requests may seem very daunting at first. Never fear! Below is a table of contents for this page that may help answer your questions, giving you the confidence to venture forth into the great unknown.
[ ♆ ] What Are Search Requests?
[ ♆ ] What Impacts a Search Request?
[ ♆ ] How Many Search Requests Can I Make?
[ ♆ ] Why are Searches Limited?
[ ♆ ] Islands Available
[ ♆ ] Search Request Form
The contents of many islands that make up the archipelago of LifeAftr require player exploration and participation to uncover and chart, as everything from the potential dangers, obstructions, and resources are randomized. Alongside adding weight to the potential dangers characters may face, it also gives you the potential to influence the game as much as possible.
Upon arrival to a new island, a blank map of the island's general shape will be provided with a grid, parsing the island into square sections for the purposes of exploration. Each of these squares are a base size of one mile by one mile in terms of width and breadth, unless otherwise noted. Each square is also labeled for player convenience. Characters who have access to boats or another means of traversing the ocean waters can perform search requests on surrounding waters.
Search Requests are intended to be used as a prompt for IC interactions. While not all search results will hold something of particular interest, such as finding new seeds or fruit, but in circumstances where enemies or information has been located, we encourage ICly threading out these results, or using them to foster new CR.
As of July 2018, there are new factors to take into account when submitting a Search Request:
[ ♆ ] GROUP SIZE limits the timeframe in which a search request can be completed. While a single mile may not seem so far to walk, thoroughly investigating a square mile is a different matter altogether. Depending on the size of a group, characters may choose to push on into an additional square at the cost of spending the night in the wilderness, potentially exposing themselves to other dangers - or in groups of four or more, split the group to cover the additional ground. Search Requests are currently limited to two squares maximum at a time, regardless of group size.
[ ♆ ] DIFFICULT TERRAIN such as mountainous regions, thickly wooded areas, or those under the sway of severe weather conditions may severely hamper a group in covering new ground. Due to this, search requests may be limited on occasion to one square per search, regardless of the group size. This restriction will be announced when relevant.
[ ♆ ] POTENTIAL RISKS can and will hinder characters set on searching more than one square. If searching an area thoroughly, it is assumed that your character is both taking their time, and covering as much of the ground in that square as possible. Obstructions, predators and catastrophes should be predominantly unavoidable due to this.
Beyond submitting a search, characters may also band together with others for an additional two search requests, but these requests must be submitted by another character.
Additionally, Search Requests may only be forward-dated up to two days ahead of the current date. As LifeAftr may sometimes see events suddenly beginning, forward-dating is limited to avoid the need to retcon.
In some circumstances, such as when an island is due to disappear - potentially for good! - we may lift these restrictions to allow those who'd like to further explore islands to go wild.
The following island(s) are currently available for exploration:
NASTRANDIR
The following island(s) are not currently available, but have individual locations pages for player perusal:
CAHYPDO
CHOL
IO
MAATI
MONSUN
NUIDAN
UMUI
ZIZIPHUS
no subject
Character name: Castor Westmoore
Character journal:
Character(s) accompanying: Keith, Alisaie, Zidane
Area searched: Nastrandir, D2
Date of search: 8/8
Additional notes: Exploring specifically for ruins and anything that can be learned about or salvaged from them. Castor is, as always, on the lookout for anything that can be mined out or greenery that can be brought back to cultivate.
NASTRANDIR - D2 | Σ REMNANT
The trek up through D2 is wet and humid, with gluey mud underfoot and dense trees trailing vines and curtains of lichen. The thick canopies overhead block the worst of the sun, but also trap the heat in with you, which can make the swamps of Nastrandir extremely damp and humid. It's recommended you bring water, or at least some means of cooling down, because the mud would be a pain to hike through even if it weren't so hot.
The swamp has a great deal of things characteristic of most swamps - tiny, whining insects that buzz in your ears and bite bare skin, the stink of an unfathomable amount of organic sludge, thin strands of spider's webs strung between trees, and the constant chirp and chime of all sorts of bugs that thrive in this kind of muggy climate.
It is worth noting that the environment starts to thin out the further north one progresses, as the swamp reaches the edges of Nastrandir's rockier regions. The environment also starts to thicken when you progress further south, though this at least comes with considerably more solid ground. D2 is, proportionally, mostly swamp, but there's reason to believe that the going might get easier if you head south.
But you were looking for ruins. And you're in luck! The westernmost part of D2 contains a smattering of buildings that look as though they were built from the same kind of stone that makes up most of Nastrandir's mountains. This probably isn't much of a surprise - Nastrandir doesn't seem to have any shortage of the stuff. Fortunately, this means that they've degraded less over time than they would if they were built of wood or clay or the like. Still, they look as though they might have been here a while. The rock is crumbled in places, bricks have fallen away from their placement, the sharper edges have been eroded by time, and there are only vague indications that some of these buildings may have once had wooden doors, as most anything that wasn't carved from rock looks to have rotted away. There are indications, too, that there was more to this ruin than just these buildings, but they're the ones built closest to the rock, and so the least likely to have gone the way of their fellows, which very well may have sunk into the swamp underneath over time.
The work done here, aged as it is, is very sturdy, though utilitarian. They look as though they might have been simple habitual spaces, though it's hard to guess. There's very little inside each of these ruined structures that might prove salvaging, but that doesn't mean there's nothing here of any note whatsoever.
Nestled in the midst of the scatter of old buildings - one can only guess what each one's purpose might have been, other than basic housing - there's something that issues a loud hiss of steam when travelers draw near. It trembles, joints groaning from the mud and rust that have been caked over the metallic sheen of its limbs, and then slowly, slowly...rights itself.
It stands. It's...pretty tall, at full height, though it's sunk into the mud somewhat. For a moment, it might look very familiar to those of your number who ever ventured onto Umui. It looks very much like a certain type of automaton, though this one isn't tangled up with any crops of flowers at all. It also looks different in texture and make - it's not as refined as the automatons on Umui, for one, and it looks as though it might have been made from different materials entirely. And it's just standing there, watching, like a sentinel.
Until you get too close.
Then it will turn, face you, and its chest cavity will hum with a low, grinding hiss of old circuits and servos. It will raise its hands when it sights you, and that is when the key difference between this construct and its fellows on Umui will come to prominence: the fact that its hands aren't hands at all.
They're guns.
They're guns that shoot energy-based projectiles, rapid-fire, with a hiss of smoke and streaks of orange-ish light. A flat, tinny tone will emit from the speaker that serves as its mouth, dull and emotionless:
The good news is that age has taken its toll on this automaton, and there appears to be only the one. It can't move very fast, due to the age of its parts and the viscosity of the mud underfoot, and once you get a fair enough distance away from the buildings, it won't give chase. It seems bent solely on protecting this small remainder of civilization.