PLOT: angels and demons

[realitymods]

Angels and Demons
October 15th - November 15th

i see the angels
i'll lead them to your door
there is no escape now
no mercy no more

overview.
On the night of October 14th, the stars and galaxies begin to go out one by one. Pop. Pop. Pop. And then they go out faster. Pop. Pop pop. Pop pop poppoppoppoppop. The Plane is plunged into darkness once again, and silence.

After about ten minutes, the lights come back on. But they have brought friends, and some of them are familiar. Some of them look just like you. Some of them want to be you.

You can't go home, but you don't want to stay here.

There is no opt-out for this plot.

the first problem.
Say hello again to the angels. They look like your character, but incredibly androgynous in body, or moreso. They're completely neuter with scraggly white wings and no clothes. They can talk, too, but they don't have any memories besides their names and a singleminded goal or purpose relevant to your character. They are not hostile unless bothered, but once they are? They have all your character's powers.

You get one angel per Plane death. So let's say your character died twice: he'll have two angels. They might look alike, but one of them might be focused on getting to the end boss and the other might be looking for his best friend.

There's one more thing: one of the angels will have the desire to kill the others, including your character. Because if all the duplicates are eliminated, that means the one that's left is the real one. If you only have one angel, this still applies.

Have fun with that.

the second problem.
But for every light, there's an equal amount of shadow. Or... Shadows. Maybe your character hasn't died yet. That's okay. Or maybe they have. Whatever. They have issues, and the Machine is going to help you with them.

Whether you like it or not.

Remember that survey you filled out? That's relevant now. Because there could be a mirror of your character, identical in every way except for golden eyes. But here's the thing-- they're everything your character wants to hide, everything they ever repressed. The thing that makes Shadows terrifying is that they're truthful. If your character has a bad inferiority complex, his shadow might encourage him to break out of it and be incredibly prideful, while simultaneously berating said character for being too weak.

The powers your character's shadow wields are up to you. Maybe it's a physical fight, or some kind of logic chess-- that's cool too. You can face them alone or in groups. You can also request a mod to help you with the NPCing (which is what the surveys are for).

Your character only has one Shadow.

the solution.
The monsters must be purged.

Angels can be killed, but they have the same powerset as your character, including whatever Plane powerups they received during other deaths. So if your character got fire manipulation and died again, then that second death will be able to cast fire too. Call it an upgrade. If your character has some kind of invincibility given to him by the Plane, then that is temporarily cancelled for plot reasons.

As for Shadows, the only way to truly defeat one is to accept it and embrace those parts of yourself that you're ashamed of. But you can fail. If your character loses against his Shadow or refuses to accept it, the Shadow will turn into a giant evil monster (of your choosing) that will try to kill your character.

Death is possible in both instances, and will result in a standard Plane death. And that Plane death will spawn an angel.

So tread carefully. Fears and lies and actions all have consequences.

the final result.
It's hard to fight yourself. Even if characters aren't successful at cleaning up the Plane, they'll be taken care of at the end. Wolfgang will be making a reappearance and fixing it all.

This is the yearly Halloween plot, so there will be no true opt-out. You can have angels, a shadow, both, or neither. But your character can't hide at home. If you want your character to help others fight their monsters, or simply take notes and avoid danger as much as possible, that's totally up to you.

(The Shadow half of this plot was brought to you by the lovely minds of Maggie and Tsu. Thank you for helping me make the Octoberplot even worse than usual! ♥)