𝕋ℍ𝔼 ℕ𝔼𝕏𝕋 ℕ𝕀𝔾ℍ𝕋. (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
nextnightmods) wrote2020-04-20 11:18 pm
nextnightmods) wrote2020-04-20 11:18 pm
SETTING.
SETTING
Beacon is approximately 15 miles across from its westernmost point to its easternmost point (for reference, walking along the path from Bonfire Square to the harbor is roughly a mile). The lakeshore east of the harbor is beaches that eventually give way to sand dunes and then rocky cliffs, while the shore leading up to the lighthouse and westward is cliff faces, sometimes with a drop more than fifty feet. The southwest border of the town is demarcated by steep hills and dense woods, so much so that the border is impassable. The forest within Beacon is dense as well, but with enough care, you can find your way around should you wish to explore beyond the currently discovered areas.
1 - a barbed wire fence
2 - the jailhouse
3 - a manhole cover leading down into a small sewer
4 - a walking excavator
5 - Lutece Labs
6 - a 5 bedroom cabin, renovated into a B&B
7 - a makeshift bridge
8 - a sturdy bridge
9 - a sturdy bridge
10 - an interim bridge
11 - a sturdy bridge
12 - a grain silo
13 - a hot spring
The locations on the map are divided into North Beacon, East Beacon, and West Beacon. There are three location categories: Core locations, one-off locations, and minor structures.
CORE LOCATIONS are few in number, and tend to be composed of multiple sub-locations. Discovering a core location will both advance the plot and unlock features of the game, such as new housing complexes, specialty shops, and even NPCs. These locations appear in gold on the map.
ONE-OFF LOCATIONS are essentially infinite. Beacon is ever-changing, and while we have plenty of ideas for one-off locations, we'll always take player suggestions into account. One-off locations may be large in terms of area, but they don't necessarily have multiple parts to them and will only sometimes tie into the plot of the game. These locations appear in green on the map.
MINOR STRUCTURES are listed and linked above. Minor structures include small details that don't merit full blown "location" status, but are still important to note on the map. Player-built structures, such as bridges and small buildings, will typically be included as minor structures. These structures appear in beige on the map.
As areas of the town are explored, trees will be removed from the map to unveil new paths and locations. Note also that the rivers cannot be crossed safely without a bridge, so let us know on the exploration page if you're attempting to cross. If a bridge is marked on the map, though, you're free to assume your character can cross whenever they please!
Once new areas in Beacon are discovered and the map is cleared accordingly, you can assume that any paths to this new location have been cleared as well! The forest spirits are very helpful that way. So, while travel time through dense forest may be painstakingly slow, once the trail has been blazed, any opened locations are then easily accessible.
As of January 14, the Parade is in town! Forever! Please see the Parade description for more details.
A note about the shops in town: Check this list to see if what sort of supplies are currently available in Beacon! Note that even if what you're looking for isn't specifically listed, if it fits within the limitations listed on the sheet, go ahead and assume it's in the stores somewhere. If you're unsure, feel free to put in a specialty request, and we'll let you know if it's something we currently have in town.
The wildlife in Beacon could be described in one of two manners: unusual or nonexistent. If looking for animals of any kind that you'd expect, hard as you might try, there doesn't appear to be anything to find. That isn't to say there aren't creatures, mind you, but they don't appear of a lesser intelligence. Trying to hunt them may prove to be more trouble than it's worth. Doing so may only lead to unfortunate, even deadly, consequences. Recently, it does seem that the forest activity has increased! Namely, minuscule spirits sporting even smaller masks can be found scuttling beneath the underbrush! That's right: the bugs are back, ghouls.
The plant life in Beacon is typical for what you would find in Michigan's Upper Peninsula. The trees are a mix of coniferous and deciduous, and in the warmer months, the forest floor is overgrown with ferns, grasses, and wildflowers. Plants seem to have no trouble flourishing in Beacon despite the lack of sunlight, though their growth cycles are affected by the seasons. Some of the trees have been marked with homemade wooden ornaments hung from branches here and there.
THE RIVERS
Beacon's rivers are strangely uniform, all spanning about 10-15 feet (3-4.5 meters) across, and the banks are made up of mossy boulders that look rather slippery. The waterline is a couple of feet (~a meter) below the rocky banks, so touching the water from the bank would be tricky to do given the slick state of the boulders.
The water has an odd movement to it. The surface seems calm as it flows toward the lake, but where the river meets the bank, the current is much faster, churning against the boulders and creating small whirlpools in the nooks. There's also a strange, almost galaxy-looking band of debris streaming down the center of the river. Watching the water for too long makes you feel a bit sleepy and light, as if you're floating, and not necessarily in an unpleasant way. You know it's probably a bad idea, but the longer you watch the current, the more tempted you are to go for a swim... Be careful. That water is dangerous.
Attempting to cross the river requires an exploration— especially now that the bridges have all been destroyed by the flood.
NORTH BEACON
THE LIGHTHOUSE
Across the bay and about five miles away from the harbor was the lighthouse. It's too far out to see much, so it was usually just a black tower barely visible along the horizon against the stars.
A black hill of rubble stands in its place, jutting sharply skyward. The silhouette of the tower and the red beam of light that shone from it, welcoming new arrivals for the past seventy-five years, are both gone.
Characters are now free to go to the lighthouse ruins! Let us know if you'd like to undertake a formal exploration there, but the forest leading to it no longer holds any threat and does not need an exploration to unlock it.
BONFIRE SQUARE
Bonfire Square is the central hub of Beacon. It's not a large area (just about the size of a typical city intersection), but it's equipped with all the essentials for surviving in this world. The bonfire is the main attraction, blazing over a story high in the middle of the square. Even when it's stretched thin, it's bright enough to light up the entirety of the cobblestone square. The fire is contained in a shallow pit that's been cordoned off, though benches circle the pit in case you want to hang around for a while.
A photo booth stands vigilantly just east of the bonfire! "A small metal structure. It's too small to be a house and completely open besides, but upon further inspection, a very beat-up wooden sign stuck in the ground nearby claims it's for 'PHOTOS' and also that it's 'Free to use! Pls don't destroy any props/decorations! :c'"
Around the square, you can find a handful of buildings that look straight out of an old mining town. Floorboards creak underfoot, splinters practically jump right off the walls at you, and you can't help but wonder when some cowpoke is going to proclaim this town ain't big enough. Nevertheless, this area includes the following locations:
The Invincible
The Invincible is the local tavern and inn. The first floor is a typical common area complete with a bar and a small dance floor which includes a jukebox. There's some minor flooding from the storm, and the front door has been removed. Forest spirits from the kitchen serve a basic selection of food and drink (including both alcohol and coffee). It's your standard bar and pub fare, and it's... passable. The bar itself is empty with no spirits around to bartend, but you're welcome to help yourself to the drinks. Most of the tables and chairs have been broken to various degrees and piled into a corner. Above the entrance outside the tavern is a sign that reads THE INVINCIBLE, the letters burned into weathered wood that looks like it was ripped off of an old ship. Underneath that is another sign, a simple plaque that reads WELCOME TO BEACON. THIS TOWN IS TOO SMALL FOR A TOWN DRUNK. WE ALL HAVE TO TAKE OUR TURN.
The interior of the pub is lit by one torch.
The Invincible's windows are boarded up (unless individually removed by residents) and remnants of barricade supplies rest at the main entrance as well as at the landings of each flight of stairs. However, the ground floor interior where the bar can be found is now painted from wall to wall with murals of blue skies, wide seas with sailing ships, fields of bright green grass and colorful flowers, and patches of abstract, swirling color.
Even better, the flooding has graced the front room with a statue from Boneset Park, and it's kind of appropriate for a bar setting, don't you think? It's miraculously unharmed, upright, and smiling away. (And heavy. Dead-center in the room and very very very heavy.)
Should you visit the stockroom behind the bar, where food was once stored, you will feel a deep chill, and will occasionally find black water puddles in the corners of the room.
Mounted on a wall near the door is a bare-bones bulletin board. There isn't much on it yet except a hand-written notice about PATROL INFORMATION. On it are names of people who go out on patrols, their possible routes, and when they are out and about. There is plenty of space to sign up yourself, if that's something your interested in coordinating. There is a pen tied to a piece of yarn tacked to the bulletin.
The upper two floors of The Invincible make up the "inn", though it's more of a permanent living quarters these days. It also seems that someone has left a log book here for their fellow inhabitants to reference at will.
Two torches have been placed outside of the Invincible's entrance.
General Store
If you're in need of something, the general store should be your first stop. The shop is small and its supplies are basic, but they'll get the job done in a pinch. On the muddy shelves you can find a small selection of groceries, simple hand tools and survival equipment, a thrift store's assortment of clothing suited to the current weather, essential housewares, and even the odd luxury like books and jewelry. The variety is lacking, but maybe you'll find what you're looking for in another part of town.
Starting in September, there also appears to be a selection of ocarinas available on the shelves! Anyone new might be able to puzzle out that these go with a specific text file that can be found on their tablet’s home screen. Characters can use the ocarinas to communicate these phrases to the forest spirits (and are welcome to try learning or communicating other phrases), but keep in mind that there's not much plot info to be learned from the forest spirits, at least not for right now.
The general store is lit by one torch set on the counter.
Town Hall
Beacon's town hall used to be an ominous brick building, complete with a clock tower that chimed on the hour. While the general structure is probably salvageable, there's no saving the former clock tower, unfortunately. It didn't survive the storm and collapsed. In the mess of rubble that used to be the foyer is a life-size statue of a person with the head of a cocker spaniel, now on its side. The cocker spaniel head rests a few feet away.
Further inside, a giant sinkhole has opened up in the middle of the town hall's archive, which used to house documents on Beacon's history. Any information on the game history page could have been learned ICly here (in the form of artifacts, journals, old bulletins, etc.; it's up to you), even if that information was outdated. Although they can't be put back in the archive at the moment (if at all), the records were saved thanks to the quick thinking of a local resident and now can be found at the school.
Painted on a now crumbling wall to the archive, you can just barely make out a large tree with names on its branches, and while there were once pictures pinned next to these names, they've been moved to the school. This Wall for the Remembered, started by a since departed Beaconite, was once open for public meditation and remembrance.
The walls also used to be lined with busts of unidentifiable people, but they've been broken into pieces now. Buried underneath all the debris is a log book for fellow inhabitants to reference, waiting to be dug up again.
THE HARBOR
The harbor is unassuming, its dock only just long enough to accommodate the ferry. There's not much to see here unless newcomers are arriving or there's an event going on, though the harbor is the only place in town to view the lighthouse across the bay. Beyond that, though? The lake stretches well beyond, eventually meshing with the horizon until you can't tell what's water and what's sky.
"On the path between the Harbor and Downtown, about a fifteen minute walk after passing the church, there's a post made of sturdy wood, propped up by a sizable pile of rocks. It sits in front of the mouth of the wooded isthmus that leads to lighthouse. The pole has a wooden sign affixed to it that reads: "Robin's Lighthouse -
Beach
A strip of sand runs along the southern coast of the bay, and technically you can call that a beach. The water is quite cold and swimming is ill-advised for a few reasons, but hey, it couldn't hurt so long as you're careful, right? Or maybe you'll have some luck fishing or looking for washed up treasure. An odd-looking (but appropriate) sculpture seems to have washed in from the flood. Further down the beach, past of mouth of the river, the sand abruptly juts up into dunes, and then into sheer, rocky cliffs. It's much the same heading north toward the lighthouse, too. Looks like this is the only beach in town.
Boathouse Ruins
The boathouse
Ore Dock
About a half a mile down the beach from the harbor is a massive ore dock that was once used to load ore onto barges. From the looks of it, it's been out of commission for a long, long time. The only trace left of the bridge that once connected the dock to land is the series of rotting wooden posts still peeking out over the waves between the beach and the dock. You can hop across these old support posts to walk into the lower level of the dock, though there's not much to find out there. Just a lot of concrete and the faint taste of copper on your lips. There aren't any stairs or ladders leading up to the dock's upper level.
DOWNTOWN
This once-bustling city center is just a three-block stretch of road with old brick buildings lining either side. Back in Beacon's heyday, this quaint little district would've been a great place to spend an evening, but now, it's dark and quiet and lifeless, just like the rest of the world. The emptiness resonates more deeply here, though, perhaps because of all the dark windows overlooking the long-dead streetlamps and empty storefronts. An outdoor patio juts out from one restaurant, tables ready and waiting for patrons that may never come. Distantly, the sound of waves crashing against the cliffs floats in from the north, a sound that would've never been heard over the ambiance of the town in life.
There are quite a few notable locations in downtown Beacon:
The Landmark Inn
A ritzy hotel in the center of it all, the Landmark provides residents of Beacon with high class room and board. A large fountain sits in front of the hotel, though it's not currently operational.
The hotel itself is a few stories tall, and its entrance features a set of solid double doors, although the scrap wood patches and mismatched hinges look a little rougher than the fine wood and fittings in the rest of the building. The lobby seems to be made up of just the reception lobby and what looks to be an upscale restaurant just past the front desk. The ground floor has some minor flooding due to the storm. Notably, there's a new resident settled just to the side of the reception desk. The Gacha Machine has been through it, and got a little rained on in the process. The sad song it hums seems sadder, and a little slower, at least on occasion. However, it still loves to be accessorized and talked to, even if the Gacha functionality has malfunctioned, it will still spit out riddles for anyone that has time on their hands. They just make a little less sense than before, that's all.
Lit with deliberate atmospheric dimness, the Landmark's restaurant is as ritzy as its lobby. Scarlet tablecloths alternate with white ones, each table and set of chairs solid oak. There's an atmosphere of class, and perhaps that's encouraged by the waitstaff spirits, who are always nearby to ensure the best possible experience.
Towards the back, the swinging doors to the kitchen prove that the kitchen staff is a little busier: six spirits rush about back there, washing dishes and cooking food, busy but clearly happy in their work.
Mounted on a wall near the door is a bare-bones bulletin board. There isn't much on it yet except a hand-written notice about PATROL INFORMATION. On it are names of people who go out on patrols, their possible routes, and when they are out and about. There is plenty of space to sign up yourself, if that's something your interested in coordinating. There is a pen tied to a piece of yarn tacked to the bulletin.
As far as the rooms go, they're all upstairs, and characters may wander freely through the hotel's floors, though all of the guest rooms are locked unless you check in with The Concierge at the front desk! These interactions can be handwaved—point is, it works like a normal hotel in that you need a key to get into the guest rooms, and getting a key requires you to check in. Characters may temporarily check into the hotel, but more importantly, they can live here! The Concierge won't issue keys for snooping in other characters' rooms, though, so don't even try!!!
A large logbook can be found at the front desk, which appears to be a record of past and current guests. The book is quite thick, and all of the entries are written in the red ink from a fountain pen, though they're all in different handwritings. Inspecting the book will reveal that all the pages up to this point have indeed been filled out by former guests, but they've all been crossed off and listed as checked out. Attempting to read the guest record will require—you guessed it—an exploration!
The hotel's upper floors can be accessed via the stairwell or the now-unlocked elevator! For more information about the hotel's guest rooms, please see the housing page.
The entrance to the Landmark is lit by one torch.
The Delft
The Delft seems to be a theater of some kind. The marquee out front formerly spelled out "HEAR FEAR ! EYES DIES" on one side and "H AK I YA YO" on the other. It now reads "E A R F AR !YES DI " and "H A IY O".
If characters entered the Delft theater before the flood, they were faced with faded carpets with cheesy patterns, glass counters containing candy bars and chocolates, little ropes indicating queues, all manned by various spirits ready to sell them all the candy and popcorn one would ever need. If one is daring enough to shove their way past the debris blocking the front doors now, they will find that the entire theater is fully flooded. Standing water and a lack of light underlines the destruction in this poor theater; soggy candy boxes and the odd little popcorn kernel float on the water's surface. Not a single spirit vendor can be found... Did they evacuate? Are they trapped further inside? Who knows!
Dark shapes twist under the water. If one stays here for too long, they might spot something moving in the unlit corners, poking from the walls, shifting inside the abandoned candy counters. Wait, there was something there, right? There was something in that chair in the lobby a second ago, wasn't there? Uh... well, it's gone now. It's probably fine.
Deeper inside are several rooms dedicated to live theaters and movie screens alike, with props and movie reels to spare. The projectors are in an even worse state of disrepair, but the large electrical box with spaces for five enormous batteries should... still be there, right? Four are hooked up a single projector each, and the fifth is for... something else, presumably. However, the box will probably take some getting to now.
Characters are free to clear the Delft's entryway and poke around the debris on their own, but getting past the water will require an exploration.
Shopping Center
A small, indoor shopping center comprised of a variety of stores! It seems to have made it out of the storm okay. It's dark and creepy inside, with some standing water left over from the flood. Some of the shops are open, though most things on the bottom floor are even soggier than they were before, if that's even possible, and... What's that? The dulcet tones of Muzak that are normally crackling over some distant speaker now sound a bit wrong. Just inside the entryway is an art feature! Five statues stand together in a group facing out toward the doors. Behind the statues, there's a little sitting area for tired shoppers to rest, complete with fake plants and trash bins and mall signage.
Near the entrance, players can find a clothing store, a jewelry shop, a specialty hat shop, and a grocery store! These shops are all currently available, and stock soggy wares appropriate to what you'd expect. Check the items spreadsheet for more info about what can be found in those stores.
Most of the mall is one level, but the far end of the mall opens into an atrium. The skylights overhead have blown out, which exacerbated the mall's many (many, many, many) flooding problems. A pair of nearby escalators are rusted through, and the elevator is most definitely not functional. It looks like someone took care of all of the tank and pipe repairs some time before the flood hit, but unfortunately, the lower floor is once again entirely flooded with 3-4 feet of water. Geez!
The lower level of the atrium contains an outdoor recreation shop, a janitorial corridor, and a tech shop that will need to be explored before they're available to the public! The crocodile spirits have been dealt with, the tech shop has been unlocked along with its overseer, and the burst pipe in the outdoor rec shop has been repaired. The water will need to be drained before the lower level of the shopping center is open for business. Almost... there...!!
The atrium's upper level is dry, though! A furniture store, a hair salon, and a kiosk selling tablet accessories (tablet cases, styluses, wireless keyboards, that sort of stuff) are all open for business. Check the items spreadsheet for more info about what can be found in those stores. The hair salon features a team of forest spirit stylists that are happy to provide basic salon services (hair cuts/styling/coloring, manicures, that sort of thing) to the residents of Beacon! Though, uh, they're forest spirits, so results may vary.
Courthouse
There's not much to the first floor of the courthouse—just a reception desk, some clerical offices, and a room of town records. It's quiet and dark and... ransacked, with papers and files tossed in every direction, furniture overturned unceremoniously, and thick gouges where claws have raked against the brick walls. Did the storm do this? It's hard to tell considering how bad it looked even before. A stairwell lies off to the side beyond a set of double doors, each with a large frosted glass window set into the upper half. In its heyday, this building must've been quite ornate.
Beyond the second floor landing lies a wide hallway meant to serve as a lobby to the adjoining courtroom. On the doors to the courtroom, there's a troubling amount of gouges in the wood, all concentrated on the upper half of the door. These were probably left by the hostile forest spirits that used to roam the courthouse, but those have been, er, dispatched!
All the furniture has been piled in the middle of the courtroom to make an honorable island for the judge to ride out the storm. The serious noises the judge makes to any visitors indicates perhaps they'd like their island to be disbanded and returned to something with some semblance of order, but for now the island remains.
The judge's office beyond is a hot mess. Some kind of large animal has been nesting in there, it seems. The furniture is all piled up to form a makeshift burrow. The shredded legal book papers that carpeted the floor like bedding are now soggy and gross.
It seems the only notable feature of this location is the honorable Skunk Judge. All rise for Skunk Judge!
Kickaxe Brewing Company
KBC is a local brewery inside of a building that looks to have been a small factory at some point. The bar is modestly large with a functional garage door taking up half the front. The few patio tables that had been scattered before it are now missing thanks to the storm.
Inside, the space is large and missing its many small coffee tables and chairs. The inside is industrial, but in a hipster kind of way: very neat and clean, but with enough paneling and support beams to indicate this space is rundown deliberately, not from neglect. For some reason the interior is completely slimy, all over the walls and floors and ceiling, anything you touch, it's gross. Faded soggy posters and shattered neon lights hang on the walls, along with a few faded photographs of black-and-white cityscapes that now hang crooked.
There's a small bar in back, with an older-seeming spirit ready to play bartender. A doorway in back reveals a semi functional brewery, for all your alcohol making needs! As in, yes, you can absolutely brew your own alcohol (or... other liquids?) here! The only problem is that the flood seems to have washed many of the supplies away.
Upstairs, there's another bar, but it's the performance area that dominates the space. Come sing a song, listen to a Beacon Bit do some slam poetry, or just get rowdy! While there used to be plenty of seating to enjoy the show, the storm carried them off to who knows where. Oh, and there's a large electrical box with spaces for five enormous batteries tucked into the wall—but hey, who cares about that when there's karaoke to sing?
The Fallout Shelter
This nightclub can be found on the second and third floors of the shopping center. True to its name, it weathered the storm and flooding quite well - while there's plenty of mud and water lingering in some areas, it's managed to make it out in one piece. Opening the doors to the the Fallout Shelter puts you immediately in the thick of things. No matter when you go inside, it seems like the place is booming with activity, and more importantly, with music. A set of hefty speakers sits at the forefront of the dance floor. Between them, a spirit, hunched and in focus, mans the turntables. Any songs available on the Songbird app might just turn up in the club.
Other spirits are always scattered on the dance floor, twirling without a care, squealing along to the music as they bounce around, some waving sticks around as glowstick substitutes. It does appear that there are some private rooms, but strange noises always seem to be coming from at least some of them. Better not open those if you don't want to see a bit more of some of the forest spirits than you ever bargained for. As the spirits party it up, another duo has taken up some room on the dance floor after being swept in by the flood. Though, instead of dancing, they look hard at work.
On the second floor of the nightclub is a bar. The music from downstairs is still audible, though not nearly as oppressive in its volume. Just like below, the bar is fully stocked and manned by spirits, with several more spirits generally found lounging around at tables and on stools with drinks in hands or munching on bowls of acorns.
Another interesting thing to note: there's an electrical box located backstage. It has two slots for batteries about the size of car batteries, though it doesn't look like your standard car battery would actually fit.
The whole place smells like weed. Wondering where you could get some of your own? Maybe one of the spirits here can hook you up. Rumor has it that the DJ might just be willing to sell you some cigarettes, cocaine, MDMA, or LSD if you're willing to pay... in bling! This forest spirit wants shiny stuff to wear, so hook them up and they'll hook you up right back! (Players are welcome to handwave these trades or play them out on their own!)
Storefronts
There are a handful of other small storefronts along the road as well, but they're locked up for the moment, devoid of any indication as to what may be inside. Strangely enough, the storefronts are... sparkling? Apparently, the dirty water from the flood somehow left the windows cleaner than they were before. The long abandoned restaurant storefront is the one exception, with multiple muddy handprints pressed to the windows. No amount of cleaning seems to remove them, either. These locations do not need to be explored! They'll all be made available once the other downtown locations have been thoroughly investigated.
THE CHURCH
Nestled in the woods just off the path north of Bonfire Square is the church, a small cathedral, composed of just a main sanctuary with a couple of off-shoot rooms, possibly once used for storage or private worship. The building looks quite run-down on the outside, and appears to be slightly sagging northward after the storm, but remains standing thanks to the hard work of dedicated volunteers. Inside, the pews are laid out neatly inside the sanctuary, clean and sturdy, but with minor scuff marks left over from the flood. Stained glass windows once ran along the walls from the entrance up to the altar, but water pressure and collisions with flood debris have now blown them all out, and they have been replaced with clear glass. Even though the architecture resembles a Catholic cathedral, everything else about the church is devoid of any particular religious affiliation. If you listen, you may hear church bells echoing faintly in the distance.
The main attraction is the altar of candles at the head of the church. Dozens of candles, some lit and some not, burn brightly and mysteriously, given that they're not part of the bonfire. The flames can't be transferred to anything, including other candles, and they seem to resemble the candlelight inside your lantern... Anyone paying attention will notice that candles light up at the death of Beacon's citizens, as well as snuff themselves out again when citizens are revived or new arrivals come to town.
On the floor in front of the wall housing the candle altar is a flat metal square set into the stones. It has no visible handles, though it looks like it might open somehow. The echo of rolling water persists below that sealed trap door. Nearby is a hand-made sign.
In front of the church where the path splits stands a sturdy signpost that points the way to various locations with approximate walking times! The sign for the Bonfire has info for the Invincible, the General Store, the Town Hall, and the Post Office, but does not mention Lutece Labs. It also indicates that the Bonfire is on the way to the village. The sign for Downtown also mentions that Robin's lighthouse (now destroyed) and the museum are on the way. At the bottom of the sign is a friendly warning to stay on the paths and use the bridges (also now destroyed) unless you're prepared to probably die.
The church is lit by one torch.
THE POST OFFICE
The post office is a small, one-room building just to the west of Bonfire Square. Inside, the single counter is manned by a tall, tired-looking forest spirit with very long, spider-like limbs: The Postmaster General! They can use those limbs to navigate the mail slots behind the counter, each of which has the name of a resident character scrawled on the label. The handwriting looks quite childish, like whoever wrote it was just getting the hang of writing letters.
The piranhas that once littered the floor of the post office are gone. The roof over the mail sorting room, once caved in by the storm, has now been rebuilt with recycled wood and shingles.
Characters are welcome to send letters, packages, or other mail items to each other or... to someone else, maybe? The Postmaster General will receive any incoming post and will dole out any parcels you may have in your mailbox, but don't you know, messing with other people's mail is illegal? There will be no snooping through other's private belongings!
If you would like to send mail to other characters in game, feel free to organize that directly between players. If you would like to attempt to send mail to an NPC or, erhm, to somewhere else, that's best done through the post office page. Same goes for if you'd like to check your own mail slot for any gifts. There might just be something waiting for you. (Though, less cryptically: If anything especially important arrives for your character, we'll drop it in your IC inbox!)
THE MUSEUM
The museum is a bizarre building that looks like it was made by jamming two other buildings together. It sits relatively close to the northern cliffs, which drop down to the lake far below. Jutting out over these cliffs is a kind of viewing platform, though it's difficult to really see anything out there but stars. Between this structure and the building proper is a strange little sculpture garden, the most prominent feature of which is the bronze statue of a woman on a pedestal. She has long hair and holds a clipboard under one arm, with a flame in her outstretched hand as she looks defiantly toward the sky. It looks like there used to be an inscription underneath, but it's been violently scratched away. The building's front facade faces the garden (and therefore the cliffs).
Evidently built on an unstable section of the cliff, most of the ground has collapsed below the museum's foundation after the storm, opening a large channel through the floor that's filled with deep black murky water. Not too far from the water is a torch lighting a crudely-made wooden sign, which has been scratched with a nail to read "No Swimming, Here Be Monsters." Above the words is a circle with a diagonal slash.
Through the shattered windows and missing front doors, one can see that much of the flooring and walls are just gone, along with whatever displays were here. Nothing in there seems stable anymore. Please note that, much like the lighthouse from the last iteration of the game, entering any point in the museum will put characters at serious risk of injury or death.
THE BIKE SHOP
A small building filled with dusty windows and, on one side, an enormous garage door stands not too far from the post office. The building's interior is just one room and a bit of a mess, with various tools and parts scattered over the shelves and floor, all of it covered in a thick layer of dust and cobwebs. Papers are scattered on the floor, but they're not so interesting. The content ranges, including scraps of a shop ledger, brochures for local mountain biking trails, guides to proper motorbike upkeep, and hobby magazines relating to bikes, mechanics, and... taxidermy and pin collecting? Sure.
Bicycles have been strewn about thanks to the floodwaters. Some are stuck in trees or lodged between wreckage; some have their wheel frames bent, their chains snapped. But most are able to be recovered! They just need a dedicated round of maintenance to fix them back into working order. Strangely, they seem to have rusted excessively for being submerged only a couple weeks. There are plenty of supplies to repair and upgrade them, too, should your character get a hankering to get their hands all greasy. Among the wild mess is at least one upright bike that seems to have ridden in from a certain park after the storm... On the other side, near the garage, there are a few motorbikes. They run on electricity, and they're ready for use so long as they've been given an opportunity to charge!
Characters may freely borrow bicycles and motorbikes from the bike shop! You don't need to report the borrowing anywhere (unless your character engages in any property damage), and you're welcome to assume your character can find functional bikes at all times. Bikes of any kind may only be ridden around the explored parts of town, though. These little vehicles won't be much help off the beaten path.
THE SCHOOL
A one-floor schoolhouse, with faded brick and ivy creeping over the forgotten walls. The windows are dark, but the door swings open when anyone approaches. Oddly enough, the floodwaters seem to have cleaned up the place. It's positively pristine.
The Wall of the Remembered has now been moved from the Town Hall into one of the first classrooms you reach should you enter the school. There is a large tree painted on one wall of the classroom with names and pictures -- some may have flood damage, but otherwise they're all accounted for. A table in one corner allows for people to add names if necessary and the room is clear for you to mourn or celebrate as you see fit for the person you are missing.
Adjacent to the Memorial Room is the Records Room, featuring a somewhat-organized collection of documents and artifacts recovered from the Town Hall which detail Beacon's history. Any information on the game history page can now be found here as an IC resource.
Past classrooms filled with broken bits of chalk and shattered blackboards lies a cafeteria, with little tables and chairs set out, ready to be used. In the back, towards the kitchen, there's a long metal counter, and behind it, a forest spirit is waiting.
With six arms, a squat body, and a mask that sweeps back into a hairnet, they stand behind the counter all day long, scraping a metal spoon against an empty container, doling out nothing to nobody. Nothing distracts them, although peppering them with questions will prove that they're fairly ill-tempered—they're working, don't ask them personal questions! But if characters want food, the spirit will serve them a typical school lunch meal—think along the lines of chicken nuggets, pizza, pasta, and so on.
There's also a unisex bathroom down the hall, should anyone have a few too many apple juices.
The storm may have left the school unharmed, but it does appear to have washed in a new student! A sculpture dangles next to the entrance, its chains tangled in the handles of the front door and among the nearby tree branches. Welcome back to school, kid!
The school's entrance is lit by one torch with an additional torch in the memorial room.
DAYBREAK ORPHANAGE
Nestled into the woods near the lakeshore in North Beacon, the four-floor Daybreak Orphanage looms wide in a gap between the trees. A rusted sign reading "C OS D" lies at the top of a short concrete stairway.
Immediately inside the front doors, the dusty entryway with its peeling paint leads to a main office and a hallway running east-west, while ahead is a sturdy-looking spiral staircase. The floor here is covered in mud, and it looks like the flood slammed open the office door with such force that the doorknob has broken entirely off. Inside the office are quite a lot of old files - some about staff members, and many about the children who lived here.
Following the hallway leads to multiple rooms in either direction:
A chapel and three small classrooms form one wing of the orphanage, to the left of the front door. The chapel, like the church, appears loosely Catholic in construction with its gothic arches, but features no clear denominational symbols. An altar and several pews are here, though the pews are child-sized. The classrooms include blackboards (one of which has fallen off the wall and hangs at an angle); twelve desks per room, all pushed against the walls and covered in mud; a teacher's desk; a variety of very dated posters; and low bookshelves lining boarded-up windows - although unfortunately most of the books are completely waterlogged and turn quickly to mush when handled. A door in each classroom leads out to the yard which now looks much like the rest of the woods, except for a few broken toys still lying within the bounds of a twisted, overgrown fenceline.
The opposite wing contains a kitchen, laundry room, and boiler room. The kitchen still holds a number of cooking utensils, but the gas line to the range doesn't seem to be working, and the oven door has rusted off its hinges. Still, it's a sizeable kitchen with an island for preparing food - and everything here seems targeted toward cooking in large batches. The laundry room has several non-functional washing machines, a linen closet with very musty off-white bedsheets, and another door to a side yard where a large metal bin contains several black plastic bags of children's clothing, securely tied shut. The boiler room holds, as might be expected, a damaged water heater and assorted other pieces of plumbing and electrical equipment.
Upstairs, all three remaining floors have dormitories, toilet and shower facilities, and each floor has a common dining room. Although it looks like the building was capable of holding over 100 children, most of the dormitories show no real signs of having been occupied other than the empty beds. The second floor is the one exception - for here there are toys and other personal belongings decorating a scattered handful of beds.
Daybreak Orphanage is occupied by several forest spirits. One tall, bent form draped in black rags paces the halls. Its face is entirely covered in fabric except for its lower jaw, which has pasty white skin stretched across it, and it has far too many hands on long, bony arms which grasp at anything it can reach, picking up objects and caressing them before setting them aside as it continues on. At the slightest sound or hint of movement it comes quickly to inspect the source, and can emit a horrendous high-volume, very stern-sounding screech when displeased. It seems particularly interested in chasing down the other spirits in the building, but evidently has a lot of difficulty in catching up with them.
The remaining occupants are a trio of fuzzy, rotund, long-eared raccoon-like spirits with playful masks. While walking through a doorway - or as you begin to head downstairs, thinking the path you just came through should be clear - you might stumble over a tripwire. Entering a room? Watch out for the bucket of muddy water above the door! These three play a variety of Home Alone-style pranks, scribble nonsense on the walls, and paint arrows on the floors that loop back around on themselves. But as soon as the bent, ragged tall spirit comes looking, they take cover under beds, in closets, or manage to slip into cracks in the walls they simply shouldn't be able to fit into. Watch your pockets, in case they start trying to take things!
SOLIS LABS
Dr. Maridel Solis' home and laboratory complex lies nestled deep in the woods at the foothills of the mountain range that borders Beacon to the southwest. The quiet, cozy little house is mostly buried in the earth itself, with a mossy roof and tiny windows. The buried home provides insulation and protection from the elements but also camouflage from the many curious - and occasionally belligerent - people who have made Beacon their home.
The house itself is divided into two levels: an initial entryway, with a writing desk, lanterns, and a few other personal effects, and then a stairway leading down to the bedroom, kitchen, toilet, and study. A small framed photo in the bedroom shows a man and woman who look to be about the same apparent age as Dr. Solis was when she was last seen, but the picture is worn and faded. Books in the study cover a variety of physics and mathematical subjects, and include a bound volume titled "Experimental verification of the quantum foam hypothesis. M. Solis, 1958." On the desk itself is a very dog-eared, well-loved copy of the book Arras de Cristal by Clara Lair.
A keypad-locked door in the study leads to a short earthen tunnel and another door - or at least its metal frame. The door itself has recessed into the wall and is open to the laboratory beyond. The lab is a fully-underground facility with white metal and concrete walls which lie in sharp contrast to the earthen home and tunnels surrounding it. It is composed of the following rooms:
Workshop: The machinery here is not at all uniform, and none of it looks contemporary with the 1970s as known by most from Earth. A set of tables down the middle of the room hold a variety of computers as well as equipment of a more mysterious nature, strung together by wires and cables and various homemade adapters. Lines run from monitors to what might be servers, across the ceiling, and across the floor although rubber mats have been placed over those to prevent tripping. Along one wall is a whiteboard covered in dry erase pen, and the numerous layers of writing and erasing yield equations that, to a highly-trained eye, show a complex but elegant series of calculations that describe a series of wormholes. It looks unfinished; more like brainstorming than serious work.
Along the far wall is a machine covered in knobs and dials. A flat metal bed on the right side of the machine falls about a centimeter if pressed, and a corresponding large dial facing the bed suggests something ought to be measured or weighed here. A door here leads to the printing room, while stairs downward lead to the device testing room.
The third wall has shelves and hooks covered in all sorts of strange tools, and a door which serves as an exit to the Beacon tunnel system. There is a larger amount of open concrete floor space here, and multiple workbenches with soldering irons, boxes of hardware parts, and labeled bins full of scrap metal, cables, and other resources.
Printing room: Rows of 3D printers fill this modestly-sized room, with each seemingly specialized for working at different sizes or with different materials. Shelves here mostly hold lanterns and lantern parts, as well as several unlit candles. Along the back wall are a few large metal tubs approximately ten feet in length. Inside one of these tubs are two cracked, unlit lanterns. By the tubs, a notebook sits on a table which at a glance holds a list of names and dates. A door here leads to storage.
Storage: A large warehouse of shelves full of raw materials for printing, more cables and wires and hardware, and boxes of broken lanterns. There is also a corner of the room dedicated to tinned, preserved, and dried foods; fertilizer and gardening equipment which looks dusty and unused; and household goods such as rope, blankets, cleaning supplies, and sewing materials.
One wall is dedicated to some very unusual sorts of objects, as well as what look to be preserved biological samples in jars.
A heavy metal door on the opposite wall from the entryway is closed and locked.
Device testing: Stairs from the workshop lead down to this very large room. At the base of the stairs are two computers hooked up to multiple monitors. The rest of the room is open, with large concentric circles on the ceiling and floor that mark measurements in a variety of units.
A strange patch of corrosion has damaged the floor in the center of the room. The metal of the floor, walls, and ceiling is warped and strained toward this central point as if it had liquefied and stretched. Metallic dust blankets the room and the computers, and anyone entering the room will notice sparks of light firing off apparently at random - although moving does not alter the location of these sparks, suggesting they take place in the eyes or brain of the viewer.
Beacon tunnels: The tunnel system that Dr. Solis used in order to retrieve bodies and lanterns for revival stretches from the workshop outward to several locations around town. Near the center of the tunnel system, approximately below the school, is the morgue where bodies were held temporarily in a set of open wooden caskets. The morgue has been colonized by a variety of fungal and slime mold species, and all caskets are now empty. Past this room, the tunnel forks, with one branch heading north and another heading west toward the lab. A rust-resistant galvanized green steel sign sits at the fork with "DR. SOLIS LAB" with an arrow pointing west.
Lab assistant sign-ups can be found here.
EAST BEACON
THE VILLAGE
The village is Beacon's residential zone, populated primarily with little houses and cabins. They're clustered together in haphazardly spread cul-de-sacs, and there looks to be 20 houses in total—10 a-frames and 10 cabins, all ranging in size. Most of these have serious damage because of the storm - collapsed walls, broken doors and windows, branches and bridges smashed against them. Others have had items washed off into other parts of Beacon. If you're thinking about moving to the suburbs, why? But also, let us know!
The housing isn't all you'll find in the village, though. The residential zone comes with a few charming community areas:
Boneset Park
Boneset Park is directly in the center of the village, and it has everything you need for a picnic or a game of baseball... sort of. The place could use some cleaning up, especially after the storm. There's at least a playground complete with all the standard (if broken) equipment, and a plot that's been blocked off for what looks to be a community garden.
Wait, are those benches in the trees?
Near the entrance of the park is an ice cream stand! Probably! It used to be a little booth with ice cream cones stacked on top of it, but now it's just a sad version of its former self as it lies uselessly on its side, completely waterlogged and missing wheels. Please help. The forest spirit that tended it—The Vendor—is reminiscent of a hermit crab, only ever peeking out halfway from their home inside the stand. To decorate themself for their station and call attention to outsiders, they have created... a hat! The hat is a surgical glove stuffed with leaves, some of which are poking out and have begun to tear at the stretchy material. It also looks like the word BEES has been scrawled messily onto the palm, though its hard to say why or if the spirit even did that themself. Speaking of their hat, they also sells balloons! The balloons are surgical gloves, custom-blown-up by the Vendor to complete your order! They, uh, aren't filled with helium or anything, though, so... Enjoy your inflated surgical glove tied to a string. It promises to drag sadly behind you and probably lose inflation after a day or two. It's a good deal.
Rec Center
The rec center is filled with enough standing water to slosh through. With that comes water damage, but at least the center hasn't been washed away! Don't mind the giant hole in the middle of the structure's roof... It's for, uh, letting in natural light. Inside, you can find quite a few things!
First, there's a gym with basketball hoops, mats, and adjoining locker room complete with showers and working lockers (assuming you can figure out the combination).
Next door is a fitness center with some basic, nonelectrical workout and sports equipment that haven't washed away (it's all a bit run-down, some of it is water logged, but it works! you might have to re-inflate the balls, though).
Across the entryway, you'll find an auditorium with a stage and rows of chairs stacked against one wall (and a working, if severely out of tune, piano).
And finally, in the back of the building there's a swimming pool that is, uh, filled with something resembling water, though it sure doesn't smell like it. Best to make sure you're up to date on all your shots before jumping in.
Beacon Public Library
The library still stands after the flood, the exterior brick walls still overgrown with ivy, but the interior has seen better days. The first floor was deeply flooded, the furniture upended and the walls dark and moist. All of the books down there are either gone or soaked, hanging in pulpy tatters from tilted, waterlogged shelves. (One of more damaged shelves has a pair of large footprint shaped watermarks on them. Hey, which clown used that poor shelf as a step stool for their clown shoes? Shame on you!) They were mostly fiction and probably nothing you've heard of before, but the modest collection appears to be even more modest than before. A new face has appeared after the storm, carried over by the flood and neatly deposited between two shelves.
Thankfully, the second floor went untouched, and a faint scurrying sound still echoes among the shelves as the library’s resident spirit flits between them, presumably checking on the remains of their dear library. They may even occasionally tend to their counter.
Still, nothing out of the ordinary seems to happen if you sit down to read for a while, and what stock remains continues to, hm. Fluctuate? It wouldn't hurt to keep an eye out for some more specific literature, maybe even something nonfiction.
That said, do let us know if you attempt to leave with a book. 😃
The outside of the library is lit by one torch, while the inside is lit by three torches. They're placed at separate points within the library and can be removed from their stands for browsing books.
THE MEDICAL CENTER
Beacon General Hospital is a boxy, sprawling building that makes up for its squat stature with its footprint. The facility is stretched over a large campus made up of interconnected buildings as well as outdoor recreation areas. A walking and fitness trail winds through the campus, and the central courtyard has plenty of serene picnic areas for those looking for a break from the dreary hospital halls. However, due to the storm, the hospital has been completely devastated. Structural damage leaves it unsafe and waterlogged.
For now, no actual medical supplies can be found on the hospital grounds. Various hospital equipment such as emesis basins, IV stands, wheelchairs, gurneys, and so forth can be found throughout the patient wards, but anything used for patient care isn't available. Anything other than the wheel chairs, gurneys, and some of the waiting room furniture has probably been washed away.
The hospital itself is split into a number of wings and wards, all long abandoned and in dire condition:
Patient Wards
The bulk of the hospital is made up of various inpatient wards: oncology, intensive care, geriatric, pediatric, maternity, etc. All of the wards have been stripped of their medical supplies and some of the furniture has been scattered haphazardly, but otherwise, it's empty hospital halls for miles. Strangely, the maternity and pediatric wards seem to have been closed down long before the rest of the hospital was abandoned, as those areas have had their furniture and equipment meticulously packed away.
Surgical Wing
The surgical wing is comprised of 12 operating rooms and two patient wards for pre- and post-op care. When the green-eyed spirits kidnapped residents to experiment on them, the captives were locked in the surgical wing. This location will need to be explored before it's available to the public.
Pharmacy
The pharmacy is a small area near the emergency room with a window that opens into the hallway. This location will need to be explored before it's available to the public.
Labs and Records
The various labs and hospital record archives can be found in the basement. After the flood, many of the records and papers have been destroyed. This location will need to be explored before it's available to the public.
Emergency Room
The ER is on the first floor right at the front of the hospital. This location will need to be explored before it's available to the public.
Additional Areas
There are a handful of other areas within the hospital that are currently blocked off and unable to be entered, including the cafeteria and radiology. There's also a small assisted living wing attached to the hospital. These locations do not need to be explored! They'll all be made available once the other medical center locations have been thoroughly investigated.
THE ARMORY
A flat, rectangular building near the coast, the Armory is hard to spot at first, since it's been covered in some sort of camouflage and the roof is thriving with plant-life. But once found, through its metal door is a veritable wonderland of weapons. Swords, bows, staves, maces, knives— you name it, it's here. Well, except for guns or explosives.
On the ground floor, racks and shelves that had once been scattered across the floor have been put back into their proper place, displaying the weapons that had once been embedded in the walls, floors, and ceilings. The table that had been used as a counter has been put to rights and has a yellowed paper note attached which reads "we do NOT provide guns and ammunition. ask at the range." with a little picture of a pistol X-ed out. Everything on the ground floor has been scrubbed clean. There's a table and chairs near the back of the room that's been set up as a first aid station, supplied with basic first aid supplies and CPR equipment. Hung up on the back wall is a handmade sign that reads "THE ARMORY."
In the large basement, on the wall opposite the one covered in makeshift targets, there are several straw-filled practice dummies as well as a trunk full of fencing equipment. Simple benches line the third wall, offering a place for people to rest in between sparring sessions.
The armory is lit by three torches. One outside the armory, one on the ground floor, and another in the basement.
THE SCRAPYARD
Surrounded by a tall, chain-link fence, reinforced with plates of corrugated steel and topped with razor wire, the scrapyard mostly consists of a sea of broken-down cars, none of which seem to be in working condition. There's plenty of other junk lying around, too, including the bones of a rusted-out boat hull with the words The Seaduction in very faded paint on the side.
In the midst of all the piles of metal is a garage-type building with two rooms: one containing typical scrappers' tools, and another that seems to have once been an office, containing a desk, an empty gumball machine, and a set of keys hanging on the wall next to a very faded "sexy pinups" calendar. Beside this building is the hulking shape of the scrapyard crane, brooding over all. Along with the heaps of metal are some stagnant puddles of water that seem to refuse to dissipate after the flood.
And guarding this place is its own resident spirit: the size of a pony and shaped like a dog, this many-fanged creature drags a length of chain behind it. After the flood, a doghouse has settled on top of one of the junked ships. The junkyard dog immediately took it over, and now can be seen snoozing comfortably in its new home. What's more, the storm seems to have washed in a new friend for it. What a lucky pup!
It seems to only be mollified with treats or brave belly-rubs. In other words, if you want the junk, you've got to be nice to the junkyard dog!
THE PAWN SHOP
A squat and nondescript building that can hardly be called a storefront as much as it can be called a crumbling shack, the pawn shop is nonetheless proudly marked by a sigil of three connected golden orbs. One story with a crooked ceiling, the shop has a few windows that can be spied through from the outside...? It used to be that, because of the items piled high against each wall, the windows hadn't been visible from the outside. But after the storm and flood, many of the items have washed into the lake. Additionally, a herd of strange cats now occupies the mangled shelves. The imposing bat-like spirit that runs the shop appears frantic and upset at most of their wares being washed away, looking very much like they could use some help.
Residents of Beacon can come here to purchase items of all kinds! If they're still left, that is. Watch your step, as a thick layer of mud has covered the floor after the flood. Most of what can be found is silly and, frankly, useless, but you never know what might get lost in the catalog that the shopkeeper has amassed over the years. Maybe you'll find something thought long forgotten, if you look hard enough or ask the right questions. Although these items are not free to take, the spirit doesn't seem altogether particular about what kind of items it will take as a trade; just be prepared to pick something up off the ground on your way in, if you aren't otherwise well-stocked.
OOCly, players are free to handwave what characters find within the pawn shop and what they traded to get it if they're only looking for something that can conceivably be found in a horrendously disorganized thrift store that doesn't believe in quality checking. However, if you'd like to have your character interact with the spirit or locate special items please submit that as an explore!
THE WEATHER STATION
If it weren't for the different rods sticking out from the squat, rectangular building, Beacon's weather station could be called nondescript. It's clear from a once-over that it hasn't been used recently. No spirits properly inhabit the inside or wait on standby to man the machinery, though there are signs that some have come and gone, hunkering down to wait out a storm or perhaps have a romantic pine cone dinner together.
For the most part, the place isn't much more than an office. A reception desk and cubicles sit empty and forgotten. Shallow pools of water left over from the storm take up most of the floor, but that's about all the damage that's been done. (How fitting that the weather station weathered the storm!) Plenty of weather reports can be found in drawers, but nothing is particularly interesting, and none of the data is dated. The building, although in need of a good cleaning, is a solid place to set up a shelter, though some of the paint on the outside has recently been scuffed if aesthetics are a dealbreaker. And, most excitingly: it contains working meteorological equipment! Use of this will allow characters to predict the town's weather up to three days in advance, freak occurrences aside.
What this means is ICly, events that are planned to involve bizarre weather occurrences, such as the yarn bomb event, won't be able to be predicted despite any available OOC plotting information. Players are welcome to check the calendar's weather report for natural weather events and have their character share this information without needing to ask permission through an exploration!
The weather station is lit by one torch.
THE AMUSEMENT PARK
Anyone will know the moment that they arrive at the amusement park. While it's nothing so extravagant as a place that's been built by an industry, the quaint location contains enough rides and games to satisfy a small community. As soon as you venture inside, a good amount of friendly, welcoming spirits start popping up to usher you inward, toward the booths that they manage.
Watch your step as they lead you in, though. There are puddles leftover from the storm all over the park that are deceptively deep -- we're talking 20 feet or more. Any character unfortunate enough to fall in and fortunate enough to climb out will hear the sound of the river rushing and a siren-like song for a few days. There's nothing to be found at the bottom... Though finding that out would be a dangerous feat in itself, as all the holes are barely 1.5 feet in diameter, the largest about the size of a small beach ball.
Although each spirit looks remarkably different, it seems that they've all put on an effort to be festive and somewhat coordinated, wearing different attempts at costuming to be... perhaps, somewhat clown-like? Fortunately, they don't look anything like actual clowns. Double fortunately, none of them appear to be outright hostile. The only ones that don't currently encourage any incoming patrons to play games are the ones that seem to be in charge of operating the rides. The reason for that is quite clear: none of the rides are currently running! While everything appears to be in functional, working order, it seems that the place lacks power. Anyone who happens upon the generator will find the source of the problem: it appears to be missing the three enormous batteries it needs to start. Something akin to the size of a car battery might do the trick, though surely something much more unique than that will be necessary.
Even in the dark, even not moving, the colors of the rides stand out through the gloom. Most of the equipment seems waterlogged and sketchy after the storm. Hard to say if any of it would work safely anymore, if power were ever to be restored. To one end sits the jovial Spinning Teacups, Carousel, Super Slide, and Fun House. At the other, the Tunnel of Love and Haunted House are stationed on either end of the Tower Drop. At the center of it all is the Ferris Wheel, encircled by Bumper Cars, the Mechanical Bull, Flying Chairs, and the swinging Viking Ship.
And naturally, impossible to miss, everything sits in the shadow of the park's main attraction.
The Euthanasia Coaster is massive, the drop of its hill towering over the park, so tall that the top of the track disappears against the night sky. Pamphlets and posters around the park advertise the specs of the coaster: a 500 meter drop allows the train to reach a speed of 220 mph before diving into seven consecutive inversions, subjecting passengers to a lethal force of 10 gs for upwards of a minute. The entire ride, start to finish, reportedly lasts about three and a half minutes, with two minutes dedicated solely to climbing the hill.
The entrance to the loading platform warns oncoming riders of the coaster's purpose, but once inside, all of the somber morbidity is replaced by banners bearing well-wishes and comforting messages. In the center of the platform, the coaster train waits for passengers.
At the other end of the track is a similar loading platform, however this platform is enclosed in a windowless shed to protect loved ones from the sight of unloading the passengers. Inside, the building is equipped with mechanical lifts and gurneys to assist workers with the bodies. From there, the track loops around to guide the train back to the loading platform, where the process begins anew.
Cause of death for the passengers, the pamphlets explain, is "prolonged cerebral hypoxia". The gravitational force on the passengers overpowers their hearts' ability to pump blood to their heads, starving their brains of oxygen and resulting in a "thrilling and euphoric exit from this life". If nothing else, the fine print promises a peaceful demise where passengers simply lose consciousness. Although they can’t fly all the way to the top of the ride, they’ll notice something green and glowing at the top of the tallest loop.
As for the games, there are a variety available to choose from, each with their own unique set of prizes! The ring toss will win you whatever secret, likely inconsequential item the spirit manning the booth has hidden beneath the respective bottles. At the goldfish toss, landing a ball into a goldfish bowl appears to win players...a goldfish bowl. It's possible that the spirit in charge of this one didn't quite get the concept of the game, but they make up for it in enthusiasm. At the booth where the aim is to knock down a tower of heavy milk bottles, a great many stuffed animals of all shapes and sizes are hanging ready to be brought home. Each one is crafted to look like a different forest spirit, and has been stuffed to the seams with leaves! Showing off your skills at the shooting gallery will, apparently, win you a thrown handful of assorted bullets to encourage your continued marksmanship. At the dart throw game, the carnie spirit in charge will delightfully offer you an appropriate amount of acorns for the balloons that you're able to pop, and the high-striker and dunk tank... well, those just seem to be for fun and bragging rights.
And of none of these are your thing, there are plenty of snacks to go around! (Yes, even after the flood - looks like the spirits were prepared.) Delicious carnival classics such as candied apples, popcorn, cotton candy, and deep-fried who-knows-what. Just make sure to specify to the snack booth spirits exactly what it is you want, or you may end up with some caramel-covered pine cones. All standard amusement park fun can be completely handwaved by the players utilizing it; feel free to come up with your own goofy prizes and spirit interactions!
THE GRAVEYARD
About a mile through the woods behind the pawn shop, between a few banks of trees, there is a fence that surrounds a graveyard, which was once protected with a lock that looks to have been recently broken by great force. The cemetery houses an alarming but not altogether surprising amount of headstones. The atmosphere is significantly gloomy and somber, as if it knows what it's holding. A path winds through the headstones, allowing for access to the graves in order to get a better look at their dates and wear. Some date back centuries, as far as the 1700s, but most are dated through the 1970s - more than half of the ones you'll find as you navigate your way through the space, and something almost as alarming as the sheer number of deaths through these dates is the fact that there are deaths of all ages, from infant to elderly, as if there was a significant event that lead to it; like a natural disaster or some other sort of catastrophic event. Some of them vary in size and design, sometimes resembling other structures. Surprisingly, for the fact that it is a graveyard and has a pretty large amount of headstones, the further you go, the less gloomy the atmosphere becomes - some of the headstones are almost comical in their engravings and how they've been erected, making you feel almost at ease as you explore.
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(Well, as at ease as one can get in a cemetery in a place that's eternally night.)
Also significant to note is that one of the graves appears to be made out of metal instead of stone. Upon further investigation, one will find a plaque, not inscribed with a date or with a name, but with a poem:
¡Quién sostiene las luces que cruzan en la sombra
de esta mi densa soledad tan rara!
Spirits will often be found around here, perching on the edge of headstones and leaving trinkets and flowers in the grass beds. They'll generally leave you alone, more often there to visit a friend than to cause any sort of mischief, but there are times where they gather in a group around one of the graves from the 1970s. It's never the same one and they don't look as if they want to be disturbed, but there's nothing that indicates that this is anything but spirits paying respects to the dead. If you stick around long enough, they may offer you a trinket before they vanish.
THE RADIO TOWER
The Radio Tower is stationed far southeast of the Scrapyard, in a mostly secluded, heavily forested area. The main structure is solidly constructed, though not in great repair. There are a bunch of broken windows, walls and fencing crawling with ivy. The fence between the outbuildings hangs ajar, and the short flight of stairs leads to a doorframe that curiously lacks a door.
The inside isn't in much better repair. It seems much like almost everything in the room had at one point been used as a blockade against the door. Now it's just scattered sadly around the place. All the contents are far past their prime, though the dark room is now lit by a single torch. New arrivals to the radio tower are smeared, bloody handprints. Wonder where those came from...
In a small room off the main one, there is a ladder heading upwards. The ladder leads to the radio tower proper, complete with a few barely functioning red lights. It's a bit of a climb to get all the way to the top, though the nest is in the best repair of the entire structure for anyone willing to make it. Well, except for the hole through the metal floor right at the foot of the ladder. Wonder what that's about!
The nest has a full set of radio implements, complete with all the dials and switches and consoles you could ever dream of. What do they do? Good question. Good news is, the radio station does come complete with all the manuals you'd possibly need to figure it out. Seems as if this could be a good way to communicate long distance, if it could be put back in working order. Notably, there are three nooses strung up in the rafters of the nest, though they are not likely to be put back in working order. They're very, very old.
Though, full disclosure, the radio tower seems to have a spirit lurking about. Uncanny and almost human looking, with huge grotesque hands on its arms and its legs, it scampers about like the world's worst spider-man. Below its mask, which almost looks like it is pushed to the top of its head, is a blank expanse of nothingness... until the mouth opens. Its presence seems to disrupt the radio signal, which does give a good indication it might be around... though it does make the fact it fancies the radio tower a bit of an issue. It will lash out violently given the opportunity, though perhaps not without reason. It is currently injured after tangling with the explorers, though distinctly not dead.
WEST BEACON
THE SCULPTURE PARK
Located across from the scrapyard on the opposite side of the river, a peculiar pathway surrounds a clearing of land. The space is akin to that of a park, but in the absence of a child's playground or sports fields was a smattering of sculptures that range from charming to bizarre. After the storm, many of them seem to have disappeared! The ones that remain are broken and ruined with missing heads or limbs that have been rubbed smooth of their features and are devoid of faces. The rust on these immobile metal sentinels marks them as the work of an artist of the distant past. What used to be a unique and eye-catching view now looks like an upturned graveyard. Five jellyfish drift around, trying to pick up the pieces with their jellyfish arms.
Venture far enough in, and the sculptures, as it turns out, aren't the only pieces of art that can be found. In the center of the park, a defunct gallery contains well-preserved pictures of the past...and come together to tell a grim sort of story. Aside from these photographs and miscellaneous forms of art, the single-roomed building contains no notable pieces of furniture or means to live by. There aren't any spirits that have chosen to roost within this barren relic.
THE GREENHOUSE
Sitting west of the village, just over the river, lies the greenhouse. It's a large building covered in thick glass windows (though one is broken), built to nurse a host of different plants. Pleasantly warm on the inside, it's clearly built to be used year-round. Strangely enough, the plants seem to be thriving after the storm. In fact, they're growing... faster? A sprout can flower and show fruit in about a week. Also, there's some interestingly colored weeds in there now? Wonder what those do?
There are tools both common and rare are neatly stacked against one wall, and there's plenty of rows for everyone to plant to their heart's desire. Seeds of common produce are available, as well as minor chemicals meant to encourage growth and discourage weeds.
Residents are more than welcome to stake out a plot or two! OOCly, players are encouraged to handwave who has what row: this is a community resource, so feel free to utilize it.
The interior of the greenhouse is lit by two torches.
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Re: BUILD STRUCTURE AND SETTING ALTERATION REQUESTS
character(s): Sora, Jason, Rosinante, Bucky, Javert, Fjord, Link
location: As spitballed here, there will be three bridges on the river separating the bonfire from the village, the post office from the greenhouse, and the village from the greenhouse!
start date: As soon as the flooding went down on the 1st, or possibly the day after!
plan: Jason will work together with Javert and Rosinante to get this project going, but it'll take this whole team of dudes to get it done in what they project to be about a week. The first bridge to take priority will be the bridge to the greenhouse from the post-office, since Duster is trapped over there, then they'll be focusing on making it a sturdier bridge. They'll probably need it if the ferry takes its sweet time. They'll make a similarly sturdy bridge over to the village, and then they'll build sort of an interim bridge between the village and the greenhouse so they have more ways to get over there. It probably will be a faster fix than the first two, but it's built with a good foundation so someone else can come by later and finish the job.
Lots of fallen trees and plenty of hardware stuff at the general stores mean that they won't be hard-pressed for supplies. Jason, Rosinante, and Fjord are capable builders of things, Javert and Bucky are responsible and capable of following plans, and Sora and Link are very good at whacking nails into things where directed. Additionally, Jason, Bucky, Sora, and Link are all, like, bonkers strong.
description: A sturdy bridge, a sturdy bridge, and an interim bridge! I'll write this later tbh (dabs)
no subject
We'll wait to do a map update roundup in case of other construction efforts or new discoveries, so watch this space! But consider the bridges now in place.