You guys like Storms of Chaos right?

[chaoticwhimsy]

Well, hopefully, because that's what's coming in the beginning of May! Basically, in Lightning Returns, Lumina is a weird little chaos child. Everywhere she goes, she leaks out this black cloud of the same stuff that is basically the deus ex machina evil cloud stuff of the Final Fantasy 13 universe. It tends to destroy everything.

SO, since she arrived, because she's not actually evil, just a little troll, she's been doing her best to hold all that chaos in. For months now. It leaks out of her when she isn't paying attention, but not enough to be dangerous. So she's been keeping it all safe to try and prevent it from doing damage. On top of that, when Yeul had her little mini-chaos cloud a few weeks ago, Lumina cleaned that up by absorbing it all into her! And Yeul's chaos is the high quality top shelf Chaos.

So, needless to say, Lumina is about to pop. And on May 4th, she is going to do just that, releasing a chaos cloud that will cover half of Ruby City, and then promptly pass out in the street for four days.



So here's how it'll go down: Sometime mid-morning on the fourth, Lumina will be on the street outside of the park when all the chaos she's been holding in (rather badly) is going to come out at once. She'll have a network post at the time, which will be the warning for this, and then she'll collapse. The chaos will do its thing, expanding and expanding, until it covers pretty much everything in the city east of the Obelisk, including the entire park and sections of the land outside of the city proper.

While this Chaos is not quite the world-ending chaos that Lumina has been talking about from back home, it is very unpleasant for people caught in it, especially anyone without any kind of magical or superior abilities. If you're a baseline human, this stuff is bad for you. It's hard to see in, hard to breath, and most importantly, causes an extremely heightened emotional reaction, depending on what the person might have been feeling lately. If they're angry, they'll get furious, if they're sad, they'll be miserable, if they're ridiculously happy, well...they're gonna be manic.

Now, the more powerful a person is, the less they're going to feel these effects, and the more easily they'll be able to move through the chaos. So someone on the power scale of Lightning or Sephiroth really won't be bothered much by it at all, they'll be able to move through it like normal, while someone like a keyblade wielder can probably function in it, but long-term exposure will begin to effect them. And someone like a normal human is going to be stumbling around, feeling horrible and needing to be rescued.

The effects wear off in about a day, once a person has been removed from the chaos.

But that's not all! Because the chaos, on top of being ridiculously unpleasant, also contains a bunch of monsters! Specifically, the six monsters on this list here. On the first day, as the cloud expands, only the small monsters will be encountered, by the end of the second day, the Cyclops and Zaltys will be running about too. And they will be hesitant to leave the chaos, but they can do so if people want to fight them in the 'safe' part of the city.

Additionally, the chaos has a different effect on the local monster population. Native monsters caught within the cloud will be stronger, faster, and more aggressive, though otherwise will behave exactly like they normally do. As the days go on, monsters from the areas outside the city will be attracted by the cloud itself, so people are welcome to encounter stronger, faster versions of the monsters from the RC bestiary, excluding the ones that require mod permission and the ones that are sentient, those will feel the effects the same way people do and will stay away.

During the course of the event, Lumina will be unconscious, and people will have to come up with ways to try and get rid of the chaos cloud! Which is possible! Caius will be absorbing some of it as the event goes on, and others may use powers to try and banish the chaos, or blow it out of the city, or whatever they are capable of! Just throw it down in the plotting idea and we can probably make it work!

Whatever chaos is left by the fourth day, Lumina will absorb when she wakes up, and teleport up into the mountains to release it. And then things will be back to normal!

TL:DR

- Starting May 4th, there will be a cloud of chaos covering the eastern half of the city and the park that will adversely effect people that enter it.
- It will also contain monsters included in the list above and local bestiary monsters, getting stronger as time passes. The strongest monsters will be out in force on May 7th.
- People will need to find ways to get rid of some of it, rescue people trapped inside it, and generally try to keep away from it.
- May 8th, in the evening, the last of the cloud will be gone!
- By the end of May 9th, anyone who had been caught in the cloud will be back to normal.

Lasting effects:
- The monsters on Lumina's list will be added to the bestiary, whoops!
- Clouds of chaos will occasionally be encountered beyond the forest and up to the mountains. These can be used for people that want to fight stronger monsters, or avoided as they like. They will not be drawn into the city itself.
- ???
- Profit!

You guys can use this post to plot, of course! Now that I remembered to turn off notifications. Whew.


EDIT: OH RIGHT! And someone needs to go and get Lumina since she'll be passed out on the ground in the middle of a cloud of evil darkness.

So. Volunteers?

Comments

QUESTIONS!

[chaoticwhimsy]

Not sure how your character would react to the chaos? Not sure about something else? HIT ME!

[zastyvshiy]

Hello! Quick question! :> Ok, you say that characters like Lightning and Sephiroth won't really feeling it; how powerful is that, exactly? I'm not really familiar with Final Fantasy, so I just wanna double check I understand. :0!

Also! Would characters who aren't human be affected? Like a robot. :>

Thanks a bunch in advance!

[captain_asthmatic]

Picking your brain on how you think Steve would react to it? I figure in terms of basic "power level" he's probably mid-range, maaaaaybe keyblade-wielder equivalent, but he also has no magical ability at all, so I don't know if that would drop him back into the more human range.

[departed_child_of_gods]

Another question: How do you suppose a ghost might react to it, since she's not technically human at all anymore?

[linefacingforever]

What about the Persona users? They've got power within their souls that they can bring out, but they're still just human beings. How would they be affected?

Re: QUESTIONS!

[yule]

i will try to do a little damage control with yeul, this might be the event i need to push her in the next direction.

Re: QUESTIONS!

[9thbest]

For normal characters hit by it, would it make them do things they normally wouldn't do because they could control their emotions better? Like, if someone really, REALLY hated someone, but normally would leave them alone because they could stop themselves from doing anything stupid, would they go out and try to kill that person?

Also, would non-humans (thinking of the Homestuck trolls specifically) be affected the same way humans would?

[neverbeamemory]

While you/we already established that the Chaos isn't going to affect Sephiroth in much any way in terms of emotional heightening/any physical detriment I did want to ask how it might feel to him if he purposefully extended his senses out to try and understand it.

In a similar way he might attempt to physically probe at another persons mind...

[raindownthesky]

Gonna see if I can work something out. Considering her history, now that she's technically human again, how do you think it would go with her. I know at one point in time she tried to help Yuel during her chaos fit. She was pretty floored, but communication was still steady. I want your opinion on this though.

[magicsprice]

So, I have it on good authority that Lumina's Chaos is not the badass stuff that Yeul has, so unlike my previous stint with it, it's possible that given Gold's own power level and nature perhaps (despite the fact his body is technically human), that he'll be up there with Sephiroth & Lightning, right?

He is after all immortal, has a crap load of power at his beck and call.

Re: QUESTIONS!

[sickjoke]

So I have a character with serious PTSD, and another with a severe mental illness they're managing. The one is baseline human, and the other.. also basically baseline human with gadgets and a bleach job (oh, rimshot!)

How badly is this going to mess with their heads?

[oncedevil]

This sounds exactly like it falls under Dante's area of expertise, but how do you fight a cloud mang what do you do to chase spooky evil darkness away? Do we need some holy water up in here?

IS IT TIME FOR SOME SORT OF BIZARRE DEMON RITUAL? Sure we can do this thang.

[lookingforhead]

Can Chaos Infusion make Celty stronger too?

[devil_fucking_dickens]

HELLO THERE!
As Jake is trying to prove himself an Ultimate Badass, he's going to spend most of this event fighting off monster as is. If he came across Lumina passed out in the middle of the mess, he would be more than happy to cart her off somewhere else! Being a God Tier Page of Hope with his powers recently 'fully' awakened, I don't think the Chaos is going to have much of an affect on him at all.

[psych0p0mps]

At least tell us he'll be wearing pants this time

Seriously though this seems like a great opportunity for Aradia and Jake to meet! Maybe they can help coordinate rescue efforts with whoever else isn't super nuts.

[bifroster]

Hhahaa oh, this is great.

Jane is so going to get caught in it and will be torn between happy and angry all because of Regulus and recent events and because she is an ordinary human. Wish her luck.

[snakesroarquietly]

Bawwww :D

[likesimpossible]

Oh, won't this be fun. Ten is already pretty emotionally unpredictable on a normal day, and getting caught up in this will only increase that.

He's going to start out trying to help as many people as he can, but the longer that goes on and the more he's exposed, he'll start noticing something's off.

[psych0p0mps]

Wedge pull up you can't do any more good back there

(That is to say, don't hurt yourself mister)

Sephiroth shenans here!

[neverbeamemory]

Sephiroth will be popcorning all of you flailing about under the effects of the Chaos. Pitiful humans that you all are xD

Haha, not literally, but close enough. Sephiroth has been interested in the Chaos for a while already and this is a perfect opportunity for him to learn more about this strange, Gaian-Lifestream like power. As detailed here he will be opening himself up to small threads of the Chaos at times, in the thickest clouds of the stuff, but he might also attempt to psychically piggy-back/probe one or two people to learn more of how the Chaos interacts with them in certain ways and why. He'll be very interested to learn that it's emotional-based, as his own forte is in dealing with the negative end of the emotional-spectrum.

Also, new monsters to be tried and tested, yes please! Just as with the Darkness and Heartless, he'll be too intrigued in these monsters and the Chaos they come from not to leap at any opportunity to take them on.

Re: Sephiroth shenans here!

[stylish_hunter]

Possible opportunity to get some CR here? Dante's probably going to take it upon himself to help with monster clean up and trying to find a way to disperse the cloud.

Finally a case to solve!

Being who and what he is he'll be largely unaffected by the cloud itself.

Lightning Shenans here! /look Ma I'm copyin'

[strikeoflightning]

She'll be up for saving anyone who is in distress. (She will also be seeking out Lumina because "no little vessel noooo".) But if you want her to swoop down and help your character, let me know here!

[snakesroarquietly]

Regulus is barely hanging on by a thread after his replacement House of Black has been cruelly decimated and Sephiroth humiliated him. Jane and new lizard notwithstanding, these haven't been good weeks for him. Living in a house on the east side is going to be the cherry on top. It's going to feed his despair/anger and self-destructive tendencies, the latter of which will have him biting off more than he can chew in a monster fight leading to more humiliation when he needs to be rescued by Gold yeah he's gonna be in a sparkly mood

North Italy will get off rather lightly in comparison, merely being even more annoyingly hyperactive than usual.

[lookingforhead]

Cloud will be doing what he can to help people out with it. But he will be vanishing at the end of the storm to coincide with my planned hiatus.

Celty will fare better, though perhaps the Chaos might make her act a bit erratic, we'll see. She'll be fine after the event though.

[whereishe]

Sounds like fun! I don't know if she can stop the chaos cloud but she will at least try. It will probably bring out the feelings she has been trying to ignore since she entered the city.

Yuna does have light spells and stuff. I don't know how this chaos is but she might do that to try and help.

[psych0p0mps]

Since Aradia is both a literal god tier and a lowblood scum, the chaos itself will have little to no effect on her. In fact it's entirely possible she'll sleep through the first few hours of it, lmfao.

Once she's up, though, she will be joining the rescue effort. Once she realizes how badly it affects ghosts in particular, she'll do everything in her power to save them (probably including the NPC ghosts, although given how poor their mental state is normally they're probably extra susceptible to begin with. lotta dead ghosts up in here). And let's hope she doesn't need anything out of her sylladex in there, since... it requires cooperative ghosts to get anything she wants out of it. HAHA...

Naturally, though, she will also provide help to any living persons she encounters who need it. Not by fighting monsters, if she can avoid it, but darting in to rescue people in the nick of time is right up her alley. Lemme know if you wanna do anything in particular, otherwise I'll just wing it as we go along.

[trigram]

Sofia is actually pretty up there in power, so the Chaos wouldn't bother her that much. I want it to have have some effect on her though, but that would happen later on when her magic resistance would be lowered along with her suit's battery power. She'll be experiencing flashbacks during the event.

Sofia would be saving anyone who got caught in the Chaos cloud, but she would focus more on helping get rid of it and the monsters within. I'm up for tag teaming.

[earlybird]

So Damian's gonna be recuperating from his fight against Mordred in his house on the east side, and will probs get caught up in the cloud - and he's gonna be piiiiissed and attacking anything that moves. Getting him out of the danger zone is a challenge in itself (whoa slow down there stabby), but kid's also probs gonna need a babysitter for the time it takes the effects to wear off (a day-ish, but could be a lot sooner if it means just getting him past the hellmurder stage?) - canonically he's an escape artist so locking him in a room does nothing.

Checking in, would anyone be up for that??

[questionslinger]

Eddie's skills at being an escape artist - and knowing how to combat that - might come in handy here?