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Monthly Plotting Post | February
Monthly Plotting Post | Feb
FREAKY FEBRUARY!!
Hey all! Rose here! Blessed Imbolc and Happy Chinese New Year/Lunar New Year to all those who celebrate them! As we start to ring in the spring, Team Pumpkin is SUPER excited to bring you a ton of cool stuff!
I don't have a ton of preamble this month, aside from a few housekeeping items: please read the new game rules on our State of the Game post carefully, as well as the outline for our Merrymeet event. Also just as a heads up, because Merrymeet tends to be somewhat involved, and we have a mingle planned for Harbor Day (the anniversary of the post-Sail Migration potluck event), we will be giving a WIDE berth between our Feb event, Garden of Woe, and our March event, March Sadness. You have a lot of time between the two, so take your time at Merrymeet!
Our Winter TDM has one more reprint before we transition into Spring! The Valentines-esque changes really brought some new life to the event, so we’ll be leaving them as-is this time to give you crazy kids more opportunities to enjoy that Tunnel of Love. We look forward to seeing what epic conclusions the town-wide snowball war reaches by the end of February!
Since we’re going to be changing the Pokemon appearance schedule for 2025, we’re thinking we might like to give people one last crack at getting some cute grass and fairy-type friends during the month of March or April, possibly as a separate mini-event. Outside of that, we’re absolutely open to any Spring themed spookies, hijinks, or fun times you all can think of for the next season’s TDM. It will run through March, April, and May and we’re looking for warm-weather activities, floral themes, and plant-based mischief! Feel free to visit our suggestion box below.
Depression, loss, forced mood alteration
Merry meet, merry part, and merry meet again! It’s time for Pumpkin Hollow’s beloved spring fertility, flower, and romance festival. For those who were not here last year, Merrymeet is a formal outdoor garden party which takes place in the town square and festival green. Attendees are invited to dress in their floral finest to dance, eat, and welcome the spring as the weather slowly grows warmer! The event will commence with the procession of the Floral Court, the crowning of the Flower Queen, and the planting of the first flower!
But before we can have any of those things, we must elect the Flower Queen! Nominations for Flower Queen will be open below from now until 2/7. They can be for any person of a feminine-aligned gender who is over the age of 18, and should be someone who represents kindness, gentleness, and grace, as well as someone who has brought joy to others who deserves to have that joy reciprocated and recognized. You cannot nominate yourself. Once someone has nominated you, you must accept the nomination to be officially considered for candidacy. From 2/8 - 2/14, we will have a ballot box available on Google Forms where everyone can vote for the Flower Queen! (Players can vote once per character.)
Any Flower Queen candidates who did not win the vote will be members of the Floral Court and will be a part of the procession that leads the Queen to her seat of honor, where the rest of her court will share her table. Each member including the Queen will be asked to choose a courtier of any gender to be their plus-one at said head table. Then later, the Queen will be asked to take part in a ceremony in which she places a tulip bulb into the ground and blesses it, thus planting the first flower of the year. Her presence will also be requested the following year to crown the new queen. (Last year’s Flower Queen, Mary Dahl, is sadly no longer present, so the Queen from the year before that will be doing the honors again. Her name is Juniper Sweetwater, the local luthier.)
A note for this event: due to most player characters having heftier budgets this year, free outfit rentals will only be available to laggards and characters who have been in PH less than two months. All other PCs will need to purchase a Stylish or Lavish outfit for the normal price listed on the Shops page.
Of course, not all can be sunshine and rainbows. This is Pumpkin Hollow, after all. Partway through the event, an unfamiliar musical act will take the stage to play a haunting melody that will cause partygoers to think only of lost love, heartbreak, homesickness, and joyful times that can no longer be, filling the hearts of everyone in attendance with pain. This is the work of Efrain, the Prince of Sorrow’s Song, attempting to fuel his grand symphony and make his bid for power in the coming months. The band will be protected, which means that the only way to counteract this cruelty is to find ways within oneself and in others.
But what’s this? A ragtag group of adorable strangers, come to help spread whimsy, have arrived on the island! Thanks to some secret organizing by the mods n’ pals, the February event will have special guest characters played by five of Pumpkin Hollow’s finest! Stay tuned for more details on this special mini-event-within-an-event, March of the Bizzyboys! I’ll leave it to our guest players to reveal themselves via plotting posts so that people can strategize how to get in on the action.
Recap in Brief:
Hey all! Rose here! Blessed Imbolc and Happy Chinese New Year/Lunar New Year to all those who celebrate them! As we start to ring in the spring, Team Pumpkin is SUPER excited to bring you a ton of cool stuff!
I don't have a ton of preamble this month, aside from a few housekeeping items: please read the new game rules on our State of the Game post carefully, as well as the outline for our Merrymeet event. Also just as a heads up, because Merrymeet tends to be somewhat involved, and we have a mingle planned for Harbor Day (the anniversary of the post-Sail Migration potluck event), we will be giving a WIDE berth between our Feb event, Garden of Woe, and our March event, March Sadness. You have a lot of time between the two, so take your time at Merrymeet!
TDM
All Month
Our Winter TDM has one more reprint before we transition into Spring! The Valentines-esque changes really brought some new life to the event, so we’ll be leaving them as-is this time to give you crazy kids more opportunities to enjoy that Tunnel of Love. We look forward to seeing what epic conclusions the town-wide snowball war reaches by the end of February!
Since we’re going to be changing the Pokemon appearance schedule for 2025, we’re thinking we might like to give people one last crack at getting some cute grass and fairy-type friends during the month of March or April, possibly as a separate mini-event. Outside of that, we’re absolutely open to any Spring themed spookies, hijinks, or fun times you all can think of for the next season’s TDM. It will run through March, April, and May and we’re looking for warm-weather activities, floral themes, and plant-based mischief! Feel free to visit our suggestion box below.
GARDEN OF WOE
Main Event - February 15th
Content Warnings:Depression, loss, forced mood alteration
Merry meet, merry part, and merry meet again! It’s time for Pumpkin Hollow’s beloved spring fertility, flower, and romance festival. For those who were not here last year, Merrymeet is a formal outdoor garden party which takes place in the town square and festival green. Attendees are invited to dress in their floral finest to dance, eat, and welcome the spring as the weather slowly grows warmer! The event will commence with the procession of the Floral Court, the crowning of the Flower Queen, and the planting of the first flower!
But before we can have any of those things, we must elect the Flower Queen! Nominations for Flower Queen will be open below from now until 2/7. They can be for any person of a feminine-aligned gender who is over the age of 18, and should be someone who represents kindness, gentleness, and grace, as well as someone who has brought joy to others who deserves to have that joy reciprocated and recognized. You cannot nominate yourself. Once someone has nominated you, you must accept the nomination to be officially considered for candidacy. From 2/8 - 2/14, we will have a ballot box available on Google Forms where everyone can vote for the Flower Queen! (Players can vote once per character.)
Any Flower Queen candidates who did not win the vote will be members of the Floral Court and will be a part of the procession that leads the Queen to her seat of honor, where the rest of her court will share her table. Each member including the Queen will be asked to choose a courtier of any gender to be their plus-one at said head table. Then later, the Queen will be asked to take part in a ceremony in which she places a tulip bulb into the ground and blesses it, thus planting the first flower of the year. Her presence will also be requested the following year to crown the new queen. (Last year’s Flower Queen, Mary Dahl, is sadly no longer present, so the Queen from the year before that will be doing the honors again. Her name is Juniper Sweetwater, the local luthier.)
A note for this event: due to most player characters having heftier budgets this year, free outfit rentals will only be available to laggards and characters who have been in PH less than two months. All other PCs will need to purchase a Stylish or Lavish outfit for the normal price listed on the Shops page.
Of course, not all can be sunshine and rainbows. This is Pumpkin Hollow, after all. Partway through the event, an unfamiliar musical act will take the stage to play a haunting melody that will cause partygoers to think only of lost love, heartbreak, homesickness, and joyful times that can no longer be, filling the hearts of everyone in attendance with pain. This is the work of Efrain, the Prince of Sorrow’s Song, attempting to fuel his grand symphony and make his bid for power in the coming months. The band will be protected, which means that the only way to counteract this cruelty is to find ways within oneself and in others.
But what’s this? A ragtag group of adorable strangers, come to help spread whimsy, have arrived on the island! Thanks to some secret organizing by the mods n’ pals, the February event will have special guest characters played by five of Pumpkin Hollow’s finest! Stay tuned for more details on this special mini-event-within-an-event, March of the Bizzyboys! I’ll leave it to our guest players to reveal themselves via plotting posts so that people can strategize how to get in on the action.
Recap in Brief:
- Flower Queen NOMINATIONS are from Feb 1-7
- Flower Queen VOTING is from Feb 8-14
- Candidates for Flower Queen must be nominated by another person, then accept the nomination to finalize it.
- All candidates get a place in the Floral Court. They will sit at a special table and will each get a plus-one.
- The Flower Queen will have several obligations during the festival and must be prepared to perform them.
- Free formalwear rentals are ONLY available to Laggards and new characters (less than 2 months since apped). More established characters will need to be prepared to spend 300-500B on a formal outfit.
- The latter half of Merrymeet will be when things go sour. Having your character leave early will serve as our opt-out.
- Five guest characters played by non-mods will be available for this event! You are encouraged to plot with them.
CURRENT METAPLOT
The next two months are about to be a doozy when it comes to the meta plot. Efrain will be making appearances in February and March before his final stand at the end of March will take place, which will leave Aster as heir apparent to the Throne of Hell. Meanwhile, Nyarlathotep’s identity remains hidden.Additionally, Shen Qingqiu has discovered something very interesting in the basement of Dr. Elias Coldwood… Perhaps someone should talk to him about that!
Our current roadmap for the main mystery of Pumpkin Hollow is projected to last through to Fall or Winter of 2025, followed by a roughly 4-6 month pre-endgame event series. As we move forward toward many major events, we’re going to be looking for ways to empower characters to fight back against the looming threats through boons, demon deals, items, and rewards for personal achievements.
We’d like to remind folks that we are open to OOC guesses as to Nyarlathotep’s identity! DM Rose on Discord with your guess and three pieces of supporting evidence for a yes or no answer. Regardless of whether you get it right, you cannot tell any other player or use this information ICly, but if you’re correct we’ll add you to a special side chat we’re all piling into like sardines to yell in! Currently there are seven players who know the identity of Nyarlathotep (not counting mods). Come join the Vault of Eldritch Secrets!
Connor's Gang | Ellen Ripley, Grant Curly, The Lobby Boy
January has been a doozy for this poor woman. Her first month is spent clambering through her own and other’s nightmares, and when she comes to she’ll be clawing to make sense of it all. Between long shifts, she seeks out those people she’s come across in dreams, poking them about their respective backstories or searching for a bit of comfort. If you want to play out a post-dreamscape scene, I’m happy to plot something! I’m eager to see how these dream events will contribute to CR now and in the future. Seeing that Ripley is new to the Hollow and hasn’t established herself much, building CR is something I’d really like to continue doing.
She will be (begrudgingly) attending Merrymeet to see what all the fuss is about. As of now, Ripley isn’t going with anyone, so if you’d like to take her up on this, I’m happy to chat.
I’m hoping to get her involved in the meta-plot in whatever way I can, as well! Want to join her for an investigation? Will she and her mystery solving buddy (YOU!) be curtailed by supernatural forces? Or will they come up empty handed, wondering where they went wrong? Whatever it is, let’s do it! Small, smaller or insignificant, any adventure is a fun one. The mineshafts are a setting I’d like to play around with too; there’s a lot of spooky potential there. Now, I will need to do some heavy catching up on the meta-plot since I myself am a newcomer. Hopefully that’s okay, and we can still write something fun.
Grant Curly
Curly will be doing lots of settling in. I’d like to take it easy with him— lord knows this man needs a break. He’ll be joining Anya for the Merrymeet, so if you’d like to pull this big guy aside for a chat, feel free! Otherwise you’ll find him on the Bluffs, fixing up his new home. You might also catch him with an old rowboat propped up in the yard, tools scattered around the ground, him puffing away at a cigar. Want to help Curly in his personal quest fix this ol’ rower? Want to join him for a ride through mysterious waters? Who knows what you might come across…
I’d also like to get him involved in some co-worker threads, so if your muse works on Mipha’s Grace, let’s chat!
The Lobby Boy
Given the name Hugo by Olivia Fleischmann, The Lobby Boy finds himself with a bit of an attachment. He may or may not be attending Merrymeet as a guest, though I’d love to get him involved as some kind of help. The Lobby Boy is best fitted to serve, so serve he shall. Maybe he tries his hand at passing out hors d'oeuvres and fails miserably. Maybe he finds himself pledging his allegiance to certain nefarious influences. Who knows! But I’m always up to throw him at anyone, so if you want to meet my nasty Lobby Boy, he’s here.
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We'll have to finish the thread first but CT and Ripley definitely will need to talk about the nightmares, which I figure we can ultimately use an inbox or my last open for? But also: she could actually rope Ripley into being her plus one for the flower court table as joking 'retaliation' for the nomination, if you want, lmao.
I also want Melanie and Curly to meet since she's Anya's friend but I've been trying to get in gear to send her to his nightmares first, honestly.
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Retaliation is so funny omg; I'm game! Ripley will be a big grump about it (that's what you get, girl!) Then, when shit hits the fan perhaps they can do some investigating and whatnot.
That sounds great-- I haven't had muuuch interaction with his dream prompt, so whenever you're ready feel free to send her over! It'll be an interesting first meeting for them, for sure.
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o7 Inbox works, once we get through w/ the thread we can figure out who comes to who's, CT's definitely going to have her own questions.
This is what you get!! But yesss when shit gets weird they can work together about it.
I'll try and get to that today! (touch wood)
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Curly would certainly get familiar with Purple's weird quirks, from the immediately obvious wearing a diving helmet and only giving out a nickname thing to "snacking all the time, usually on meat" and "afraid of springs apparently". They're very cagey about why they're such a weirdo and usually deflect questions about that stuff with a joke or some bullshit anecdote that doesn't actually explain anything and may not even be true, but it's not too late to wander into their dreams and get some insight that way! (...As soon as I get the toplevel up. I keep getting held up by other stuff or just Brain Machine Broke.)
Also I hear Hugo's joined the Bizzyboys, which would make him coworkers with my Changeling: the Lost PC Moiré.
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And yes, he has! I have yet to actually interact with the Bizzyboy interview thread (I'm hoping to get to that soon or have it insinuated) but I have been wanting to write more Hugo. We could plan something out between him and Moiré; maybe they're working on some kind of around-town mystery?
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