Plot Title: Wrinkles
Plot Coordinator: Rane
Plot Purpose: To provide another global TP. To address Kendra’s concerns about portkey
use in the game. This plot in
particular targets Department of Mysteries, the Dark Faction, the ever present
MLE, MAC who will surely play a role in sealing up the problems, and the rest
of the grid as well as they become exposed to the effects.
Plot Dates: I intend for this plot to begin in IC
summer, OOCly I am hoping that falls after the April – First 2 weeks of May
hiatus. So basically I’m looking to
kick off events at the mid-May point.
Plot Backstory: Currently on grid just about everyone seems
to have a portkey or access to portkeys.
People in danger of getting targeted by the Dark are provided emergency
portkeys. The Dark Wizards carry
portkeys around that look like smooth, dark stones, and use them to
escape. Portkeys have played a major
role in a number of kidnapping plots: so far as long as the kidnappers have
been able to figure out how to slip an unauthorized portkey through security
cracks the victims are in trouble. Law
Enforcement has used them far less for themselves and has remained judicious.
The Department of Transportation is understaffed. They’re having trouble keeping up with
portkey regulation and the detection of unregulated portkeys. They just can’t track them down fast enough
or write enough tickets to cover it.
There was a massive flight of Ministry employees this summer when the
badness hit the fan, and DoT was one of the departments that suffered the
loss. Thus far they’ve been unable to
contain the problem or even understand its extent.
Plot Execution:
Month 1: Rumbles
- Security Measures: This is nothing more than a response by the DEC and the 3
characters working with it.
Donelle, Driscoll, and Basil or any combination of the above begin
working on a portable portkey scanner that looks and acts a little like an
airport security wand. It would
allow MLE to begin scanning entrants to a room for illegal portkeys to
prevent any more instances of portkey kidnapping. Driscoll is in a unique position to try
to slow this research down, sabotauge it, or stop it, but the research on
this thing begins after a review of the MLE cases which shows the number
of times that portkeys have become an issue. This scanner is simply for personal, small things though the
DEC might wish to begin discussing creations which could give DOT an edge
in finding unauthorized portkeys over a broader range of geography. I’d like them to begin working on this
now so that the RP around this can continue to do their thing. Donelle is of course safehoused this
summer, but it was mentioned that she could work and perhaps she can have
an escort to and from work.
Or…she’s old enough to Apparate there. How this turns out is variable: there’s various things that
the Dark, through Driscoll or with his help, can do about this effort and
I’d sort of like to see where they go with this aspect.
- Dreams of You:
Also in this phase of the plot – people begin sharing dreams. They may not be aware they’re sharing
dreams at first. A first year
could end up sharing a dream with a dark wizard. They can be serious, whimsical, wish fulfillment – at this
phase it’s a great way for different characters who wouldn’t normally meet
to find themselves in a situation together, or characters who would meet
but perhaps have some business or fears with one another to share a
dream. If Department of Mysteries
becomes aware of the shared dream phenomenon I could see them going around
and trying to collect instances and narratives of these dreams, expanding
RP in a different direction. It
allows some situations to get played out that would not normally due to
the ICC or thematic nature of them – at this point they are just dreams,
vivid, yes, shared, yes, but just dreams and should not pose a threat to
the game base.
Month 2: Ripples and Rifts
- A Shift in Reality:
Those who have been using portkeys on a regular basis now start to
encounter a strange and difficult phenomena…some aspects of their dreams
start to come true. These scenes
should be carefully GM’d to say what actually comes true, and will be
presented as such when offered to the playerbase. That is, you can continue to do regular
shared dream sequences without intervention, because this phenomena
doesn’t happen with every dream, but if you want something to come true
you’ll need an RP Gen’s help. At
this stage the changes are very small.
For example, if Perry had a nightmare about becoming like Twist, he
might wake up to find his tattoo missing, or to find out that he looks a
little older (and thus even more like his uncle). Someone who dreams about being followed
might find that feeling follows them in real life, and that they are in
fact being followed by a persistent chill or breeze and that they see
something just out of the corner of their eye that goes away when they
turn around. Note as well that the
people in danger of having this happen are the ones who have been using portkeys
a lot. Not just carrying around
your emergency portkey, but using them.
The Dark is probably in the most danger of some of this happening,
but there are other characters, particularly in MLE with the portkey
problem. Again, Department of
Mysteries can start cataloguing and researching this phenomenon. In addition little tears start to
appear, for just a moment, in the air after someone has just used a
portkey. They’re gone less than a
moment later.
- An Investigation Begins:
Above and beyond any weirdness going on with little tears in the
air, the DoT wants to crack down on unauthorized portkey use, and the MLE
would probably like it if criminals quit getting away because they have a
portkey in their pocket. Using
Amos I’m going to initiate an investigative process that will lead to a
raid on the #1 supplier of illegal portkeys in the area. The raid should happen at the end of
month 2, beginning of month 3.
This also cuts down on the incidents of rifts so that the world
isn’t tearing apart or anything when it gets even worse. This event might be what helps
Department of Mysteries figure out what’s causing the problem…the
incidences of portkeys drop and the after-rifts get a little smaller. The Dark has to start thinking of some
other solutions and some RP should probably get going around this. What they decide to do should be left
to the PCs. Also note that the #2
supplier is still out there.
Month 3:
Some Really Really Big Problems
- Shadows Shadows Everywhere: This is where the dreams start to become dangerous, and only a select
phenomena will really be chosen out by the GM. A few subjects of people’s nightmares are actually going to
get out and about. This provides
some fighting RP for a variety of people, some potential scare RP. They’re just shadows really, shadows
of what could be – but as this is happening the portkey rifts continue to
grow larger and every time one is formed the shadow grows stronger. Someone dreams about an old enemy or
deceased friend? They might get a revisit from the shadow version of
it…the shadows are killable, but killing them seems to make them all the
more real and the rifts start getting to the point where a person can
look right through them. They
seem to resist being walked through, however, and when one gets big
enough a DoM person could observe it looks a little like the Veil between
the underworld and the real world and, if they haven’t started doing so
already, they can warn people not to try to walk into these rifts. (If they do it’s a Sirius-esque death,
cause the rift closes, seals them in and leaves them there).
- Solving the Problem:
As in Dementor’s Castle, what I’d like to see is people RPing
together and throwing out solutions to solve the problem. How the problem is ultimately solved
could happen through the Mysteries evaluating portkeys that cause the
problem and instituting some sort of standard, through some sort of
device that closes the rifts, etc.
There probably should be another raid on the #2 supplier of the
portkeys. The end result should
be heavier licensing, less trigger happy use of the things, the security
measures in place or defeated that DEC is working on, and everyone less
inclined to just whip out a portkey when there are other options.