Horrific Visions

Dreamers feel themselves slip from the more comfortable wandering of their sleeping minds to find themselves somewhere familiar under a darkened void sky. Is it a nightmare or a visit to a different reality? Is this a glimpse of the future? As they take in the horrors of a world ruled by the Black Empire, their sanity begins to slip. No one can remain here long and survive.

The unsleeping feel a creeping chill as blackness rapidly overtakes their sight. Suddenly, the world around them changes as if a curtain has been raised on reality. Are they actually here, in this hellish place? Is this a hallucination? Does it even matter? As their sanity is worn away, it's clear that, vision or reality, no one can linger here.

Escape is the only chance of survival.

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Horrific visions are a thing! These will be 2-3 people max shared experiences, vaguely based on/inspired by the visions of N'zoth scenarios. Sign up below if you want to participate! If you have a regular schedule, post what days are best. Whoever's schedules line up will get shoved in together. Bond with your coworkers over witnessing the doom of familiar landscapes! Fun for the whole gang!

OPT IN: Post with your sign up if you would like to opt in for 1-2 day debuffs that last beyond the horrific vision itself. They are based on, but not exactly like, the ingame mechanics. Such as... being chased by your own shadow, nightmares, paranoia and lashing out at others, compulsions, etc. Some may cause mechanical, roll based debuffs while others are more for flavor. They will fade over the day or two time frame, which can be played however you want!

:)

Marbelma Snowshoe is in.

She's had a recurring nightmare LONG before N'zoth showed up, and I could see the Old God taking that nightmare and pumping it up to 11...

Oh, and my schedule is fairly flexible.  I'm not really available on Fridays, but any other day would work fine.

EDIT:  Actually, I DO have a thing on the 25th of January as well, so that date won't work either.

Mams is in! It would make no sense for her not to be in! Also opt in for 2 day horrific debuffs!

Weekdays work well for me!

Ordom is in! Because he hasnt spent enough of his 5000 years in terrible nightmare-scapes...

Weekdays are generally best for me. Thursdays are usually busy for me.

Do robots dream of electric sheep?

Oh no, the ones here are cultists!

Seda is onboard. I should be able to be available anytime that’s after 5 cst.

As a player I am always down for a bad time, which is unfortunate for my characters.

Sign Arin right on up for those!

Terrible mental visions designed to torment their viewers?

Sounds like Carmina’s old job. I’ll tag her in too.

This is entirely in Lasarra's wheelhouse, if bodies are needed I volunteer the shadow priest.

Now that all of the visions are complete, here are links to the raw chatlogs of them. They aren't edited for readability necessarily, just copy and pasted straight from my chatlogger. All rolls are also missing, but you can figure out via context clues how well most of 'em went (or, usually, didn't go). All whispers to individual people, usually setting up their first few seconds and often giving them some sort of compulsion mission, are also absent.

Horrific Vision 1 - Seda and Arin in Dun Morogh and Ironforge

Horrific Vision 2 - Jo, Mamua, and Ordom in Aerie Peak

Horrific Vision 3 - Carmina, Marb, and Mamua in Stormwind

Horrific Vision 4 - Seda, Rian'vys, and Ordom in the ruins of Teldrassil and Darnassus

Horrific Vision 5 - Seda and Jo in Ulduar (a bit different from the rest, and starting in Vezax's boss chamber moving outward)

Thanks to everyone who participated! This was pretty experimental but I think it was very successful in what it was designed to do. I had a ton of fun planning and running them. Ingame circumstances allowing, I'll definitely try to do something similar in the future should there be powers at play capable of these sorts of things.

Here's a bit of an explanation about the behind the scenes mechanics and story, for anyone interested! There are spoilers for a few things that happen in the chatlogs, though, so read those first if you want.

There was a sliding scale for sanity loss rolls. Baseline ran something like:

1 = -15
2-30 = -10
31-60 = -5
61-80 = -3
81-99 = -2
100 = +1

Those numbers weren't hard and fast, though, and I think just about every event I reduced the amount of sanity lost based on a couple of factors. Namely how hard hitting the circumstance calling for the check was, but also how the character had been reacting to traumatic visions so far and where they were at sanity-wise already. So, for instance, when Seda found dead Servitors in the Ironforge safehouse, that was going to be following the above numbers because she hadn't been doing too well already and the realization was devastating. But for something a bit smaller scale, or if the actual number would push the player down to having 0 sanity, I would modify it. Didn't want everyone going insane every event. It actually only happened once! To all three people, one by one. Darnassus was rough.

The next biggest mechanic was what I called Madness Affixes in my notes. They were based on, and sometimes identical to, the ingame mechanics in the horrific vision scenarios, but tweaked a bit to work in an RP setting obviously. Scorched Earth, Haunting Shadows, Bloodthirsty, and Entomophobia were the ones I mostly used. Some worked a bit better than others, I think, and I started favoring the ones that were easier to RP. Whenever someone had a considerable (usually 5+) sanity loss, I'd sic one of those on them. There were only two at play per event at any given night, based both on the characters and players attending and also on the location. Most often they would be posted in raid chat, but not always.

After that, there were also lesser compulsions that I would typically whisper to people. If the situation wasn't dire enough for an affix, or if there was so much going on in the RP or mechanically that it felt like overburdening to add one, I would go with a compulsion instead. Stuff like -- uncontrollable tremors (usually docking caster rolls), rapid mood swings, compulsive rituals, or a phobia of something. Usually weighted towards the tremors and phobias, because those are easier to express in RP. Especially with so much going on already. I would try to match a compulsion and an affix if they seemed like they had a lot of RP potential. For example, tremors and entomophobia -- unable to stop shaking while you think insects are crawling around under your clothes. They play off each other well. Same with mood swings and bloodthirst.

I kept it to one affix and one compulsion per player max, to not overload them with things to put into play. It seemed to go pretty well!

Lastly, the story itself. All of the events, in my headcanon at least, are in the same alternate timeline. They aren't dreams, per say, but glimpses into another, worse future. The fight in Ny'alotha was lost and the Empire started expanding north in Kalimdor. After the two Horde capitals fell, their attention turned to the Kingdoms because Stormwind was a major base of resistance operations. After a lengthy war of attrition in southern Eastern Kingdoms, taking the better part of a year, Stormwind fell in a colossal loss of life (which Group Three saw the direct aftermath of). With the northward expansion on Kalimdor unchecked with Orgrimmar gone, the cultists set up shop in the ruins of Teldrassil to begin twisting souls and draining them for power (Group Four).

After Stormwind fell, the Empire marched north to instate a puppet leadership in Ironforge by mind controlling Moira's now-teenage son and killing the Council members (which Group One saw the aftermath of, after a few weeks has passed). They continued north from there, taking the less well defended dwarven lands past Ironforge relatively easily. Aerie Peak was the last stand of the Alliance, as it's our most northern town and fairly well defended. After a violent engagement, the city fell as well (Group Two).

The will behind these visions had finally made enough repeated intrusions into certain minds that they were able to warp the dreamers' perception of reality and allowed two faceless ones to be, essentially, remotely piloted out of Ulduar to continue their master's work in the Storm Peaks (Group Five).

And that's that! I hope y'all had as much fun as I did! :3