Event E2/Proposal Alyred
While this entry did not make the shortlist, you are welcome to continue discussing & planning to run your event after the E2 event period. A new thread has been started for non-shortlist entry discussion.
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This is an entry for E2: The Event Event. |
| Alyred 13 Ghosts |
A fortress, a mystery, and a search for lost souls.
| Player Profile | Timeline | ||
| Audience | Explorers, treasure hunters, logical thinkers. | Elapsed time | Until finished (possibly one day, possibly weeks). |
| Unit of Entry | Crew/flag, individual entrants or arbitrary teams. | Participant Time | Variable. |
| Expected Participation | 1 to 12 players can complete the quest, but many can try. | Judging Time | Winners will be in possession of one or more of 12 items. |
| Platform | Forums and Sage Ocean (Possibly others as well). | ||
Contents
Details
Event Description
A legend says that once, many decades ago, there were thirteen privateers of varying flags that found it was better to work together than to fight amongst themselves. They joined forces, and with each able to focus primarily on his or her own specialties, they soon had the entire archipelago in a stranglehold.
Cyclops Jack took care of finances. Steel-hearted Kari ran the shops, making sure all production was met. Angelic Sally and Carismatic Pete were ambassadors to the region's inhabited islands, enforcing the will of the flag onto others. Slimy Alec ran the underworld with a tight grip on all parlor games. Accurate Samson, Swarthy Hank, and Adventurous Dean were brilliant behind the navigation wheel, and protected the island nearly single-handedly from the blockades of the navy and imperial fleets. Bright Amy strategized every move the flag made, and all plans were double-checked by Wise Ophelia, the flag's senior advisor. Quiet Ollie organized the rest of the military; his excellent eye for talent and love of coordinating the training, recruiting, and advancement kept the pirates under him a force feared by the entire ocean.
Finally, we come to the glue, a charismatic Pirate by the name of Charming Sam. Sam was the pirate to bring the other 12 together, and kept the fighting to a minimum. Little did he know what his place would eventually be.
It came to pass that greed was the undoing of the pirate flag, and one of the members rose up against Sam, stabbing his back from the shadows on a dark, moonless night. Unfortunately for our murderer, the other pirates all had alibis, and knew where each other was -- Each pirate had a clue to the innocence of one other.
The murderer was discovered just in time to be seen sailing away from the docks, in a grand frigate piled high with as many pieces of eight as the boat would carry and yet float. He had gathered a bare minimum of vagabonds from the docks to keep it moving, promises of riches beyond their wildest dreams keeping them from asking many questions.
The others piled into a ship of their own, and chased the cursed pirate down. He sailed into a large, unknown cave in the broken Cliffs of Insanity (inconceivable!), turning to fire upon his chasers.
Rather than walk into the trap, his chasers fired at the entrance to the cave, collapsing it onto the murderer's ship and trapping it there forever.
Or so they thought.
Legend tells that the murderer, with his remaining crewmen, was able to tunnel his way out the back of the cave (setting traps behind him to protect his booty for later) and then lure the remaining pirates to remote islands one by one. There, he set his crew upon them and had them cold-bloodedly murdered in revenge. His plot completed, the murderer retreated back to his new hideout; the flag fell to pieces behind him without their leaders.
But the tale is not yet through!
Loyalists to the flag had tracked down the murderer, and lay in wait for him when he returned. The trap was almost sprung, but at the last moment, the murderer saw one of the warning traps had been sprung, and had his eleven most trusted crewmen flee with him, leaving the rest to be captured by the loyalists.
Nobody knows what happened to those 12 men, but some have said the ghosts of the slain hold the key to the information -- and each of the 12 men hold a gemstone, which, when all 12 are placed in a certain formation on the wall, opens the door to the treasure...
Every Day/Week/Month (Time period is adjustable) a clue will be given somewhere in the forums to the location of one of the ghosts. This clue can take the form of a riddle, a cryptogram, or a change of some sort (a changed graphic ala Google's changing logo, for instance) on a YPPedia page.
The identity can be gleaned, "Clue" style, by eliminating the others as possibilities -- with clues given by the ghosts, won through ghostly sword combat. Once the ghosts have been beaten, a clue will be given, along with the last known location of one of the men holding a gemstone. The clue will act as a programmatic piece to unlock the location of the gem-key, which can be acquired by only one person. Thus, the first 12 people to solve this puzzle will be the finalists. Each person only has one chance to defeat the ghost and the keyholder per day -- this will allow someone else to try if the person does not succeed. Once the finalists have placed their gems in the vault door and have opened it, Charming Sam's ghost will appear and will ask to reveal the murderer to him, as given from the clues -- If they choose poorly, they will have their booty cut to 1/10th of its original value. They will need to work together to discover the identity, unless one person has won all the clues on the ocean. Whether they choose correctly or incorrectly, the ghost of the (now departed) murderer will appear to take revenge on the twelve, a tournament format that the winner is challenged by the ghost himself. If the player wins, the grand frigate (black on black) is awarded by Charming Sam using his ghostly powers in gratitude to make the wall trapping the frigate in collapse. Should the ghost defeat the player, the second in the tournament will be challenged, until one of them either wins or the ghost defeats all of them. Should the ghost win, the ghost will depart with a cackle and the cave will collapse on the frigate, sealing it in forever.
Judging
Automatic by items acquired and answers to puzzles.
Prizes
Grand frigate for the one who beats the ghost of the murderer, after the identity is discovered. Each pirate will get the gems he found as a trinket, and will get a division of the booty determined by how many of the 12 trinkets he found. Prize purse to be divided is 120,000 PoE; it will drop to 12,000 should they get the ghost's name wrong.
Help Required
Volunteer Assistance
Volunteers may be necessary, either to control the ghosts or co-ordinate plans for items. Event characters may work as well instead of NPC's.
OM Assistance
Help with prizes, help with managing ghost characters and NPC's with keys, minor coding for the "cave" location.
Workshop Coaching
Many small things will need to be worked out, either with prize appearance and the coding for how to enter the proper name, with string recognition coding and a few other odds and ends. Artwork will probably need to be done. Some ideas are adjustable, such as colored nautilus shells standing in for gems, or a cave door with an old woman who has "lost her shells" (Last remaining member of the crew, totally insane) instead of a cave door.
History
Previous Similar Events
Some of the coding changes done with the Halloween zombie event.
Qualifications
All of my experience comes from running and coding MUDs and playing roleplaying games, both tabletop game-mastering and computer software RPG's such as Neverwinter Nights.
