songerein_ooc | { dream notes: #32

DREAM NOTES #32: APRIL 1, 2024

Phew, March kind of killed us all, huh? Good news is it's our annual Flower Festival event! But we also have a player plot featuring Nahida from Genshin Impact, incorporated with it, so that should spice things up a bit.

CALENDAR

The Official Calendar has been updated. Here is our current schedule for the month:

04/01: Plot With Me Meme

04/05: EMP/ATP

04/12: Event/TDM

04/24: Reserves Open

04/28-30: Activity Check

05/01: Apps open

05/03: Final apps due, begin processing apps

05/04~05: Player Intro, Open Log, Cr Meme

05/29-31: Activity Check

DREAM TREND: This month's dream trends may involve any of the following themes: new beginnings, flower overload, deja vu.

WEATHER: Winter is finally giving way to Spring, and with it come blue clear skies, warm weather with just a little bit of light jacket coolness in the late evenings and early mornings, and a dash of light rain every now and then.

OTHER NOTES: Spring is in the air! And perhaps due to the upcoming Flower Festival, it is buzzing with excitement and energy. So much so, pink sparks of static electricity will fill the air and a small jolt will invigorate anyone and give them a little pep in their step.

However, there is also a lot of pollen and while those with allergies might suffer, there may be some other effects happening… See the event notes for further details.

It's TDM month so if you know anyone who may be interested in the game, be sure to swing them over!

AC RESULTS

Congratulations to everyone who commented on our Activity Check! The following characters were removed from the game:

Senku Ishigami |

10billionpercent
Ralsei |

a_sweet_little_peach
Prompto Argentum |

chocobosnap
Yuki Tayuun |

egeiros
Gen Asagiri |

fun_thementalist
Ienzo |

lightresearch
Somnus Lucis Caelum |

luciing
Demyx |

melodiouspacifist
Ei |

overprotection
Trahearne |

pactmarshal
Ereshkigal |

queenofkur
Madhuri Qalli |

songbird_slayer
Aglovan |

thymebomb
Revali |

updrafting

If anyone was swept because they missed AC, you can reapply in the next cycle. Just fair warning, we will notice if this happens more than once and we may not allow immediate reapplication the next time.

This puts our player population to 55/85 70.

Given the reduced population of the game, we are now officially returning to our original game cap of 70. If we somehow have another explosion we'll raise it back up, but we're breathing a little sigh of relief that the game has settled down.

WORLD UPDATES

Be it new NPCs, creatures, places, or some other discovery or creation, the world of Songerein continues to grow! For official lists and information, refer to the World Directory and Bestiary. So here are a few things as a result of the Dream Board and other submissions:

Places:
The Wild Harvest serves various western and eastern style earth-based street food dishes. A special menu is rotated every month.

On the first day of the month, those who enter the Wild Harvest may notice a large banner hanging from the rafters; a few streamers attached to it along with sparkling bubbles to bring further attention to it(which Reaper obviously picked out himself).

Just Married! Congratulations to 76 and Reaper!
Spring is in the air, and it is no different within the Wild Harvest itself; more blooms decorate the various vines wrapped around support beams and rafters, their colors vivid and showing just how much life the pub-style restaurant truly holds. The crescent berries hanging low from some of these vines glowing brighter and larger, looking plump with juice and ready to pick. Soft pink petals drift and scatter across floor and tables thanks to the various number of cherry blossom cats and kittens play about. Those who come up to the bar may find a curiously long red-furred and golden-eyed cat perched near the register— fluffy and very friendly, smelling of sweet hibiscus.

There is the new addition of a cherry blossom shiba inu that greets some customers at the door, or can be found snoozing in the sun of the greenhouse garden. Venture out further into the garden where the lotus flower koi fish make a small waterfall fed pond their home and two new and rather long finned koi can now be found, causing cherry blossoms to float up to the pond's surface.

Watch your step in the greenhouse garden, a few smaller guests can be found picnicking there as well.

This month's Specials are:

Noodle Slide- Bundles of chilled Nagashi Somen are provided to guests along with a sweet and savory soy sauce and dashi broth to dip them in. This broth can be added to with sesame, wasabi paste, shredded seaweed, chopped green onions, and grated ginger to taste. Comes with a side of freshly pickled vegetables.

For those up for a little fun, there is an actual noodle slide set-up in the garden for guests to take their bundles of noodles and see how they fair at catching the flowing noodles.

Steak Quesadillas- Marinated steak fire grilled and chopped up are what fills these cheesy quesadillas, along with some chopped up bell peppers that have been grill kissed for that extra bit of smoke-flavor and color. A white queso marries it all together, sealed up with a bit of time on the griddle on both sides of the tortilla bundle.

Also comes in chicken or shrimp.

Carrot Cake Cupcakes- Frosted with a vanilla flavored cream cheese frosting, these cupcakes bring a warm and comforting flavor from the various notes of cinnamon, nutmeg, and ginger that goes so very well together. Sweet and spicy, the cupcakes are dense and pleasantly moist with chopped and toasted pecans to add something a little extra to your bite.

Marranitos- With a flavor profile and feel of gingerbread, these cookies are wonderfully sweet and spicy with a little twist by adding cocoa in the mix. These cute pig shaped cookies a delight to look at and to eat, having a pleasant snap to them while otherwise soft enough to easily bite. Chocolate, dark brown sugar, some fresh grated ginger delight the taste buds- and a mug of milk can be ordered right alongside a plate.

Vanilla & Mint Cream Soda- An in-house made mint cream soda that is refreshing on the tongue and pleasantly bubbly, then topped with a scoop of freshly house made vanilla ice cream that blends that creaminess in well for a sweet treat of a cooling drink.

Purple Haze- A vodka based cocktail, it brings a flavorful mix of blackberry and cranberries with a twist of raspberry that makes it deceitfully sweet and easy to drink. Chilled and garnished with a twist of lime to help balance out the sweetness with a touch of tart.

Other:

Soldier: 76 and Reaper are eloping! Everyone boo at that for not giving us a fun wedding to crash—
Clive and JIll, however, are having a wedding during the Flower Festival, so everyone congratulate them! They deserve it 😭😭😭
Isabela has announced plans to have a seasonal garden in Reverein, featuring flowers native to other characters' worlds.

MIRROR WORLD RESULTS

Eventually the craziness that happened with the mirrors was sorted out, and anyone who was still in the Mirror World was helped out of it. No one will be trapped there for eternity! This time— Jack will apologize, but he is curious about the strange city that was reflected in one of the mirrors, saying it looked familiar. Hmmm. In any case, no change on the Ice Queen, unfortunately, but she's at least sleeping peacefully. This particular plot point will have to be pinned to the side for now, but if anyone is interested in personally looking further into this, let us know! We will happily send those interested in investigative adventures that could help further things along without dragging everyone else into it.

Here are the results given from various submissions:

Mirrorside. Whether by force or their curiosity getting the better of them, 21 people entered the mirror world. While memories of their time there remain intact, some may wonder if it was worth remembering their experiences within the distorted world.

The Unknown. Three people had a nasty encounter with the Unknown but were able to mostly fend them off. For now.

Reflections of Worlds. Six reflections were seen from within the Mirror Wide of worlds that may have been familiar or feel unsettling in some way. These were the worlds seen within:

Aerith saw a reflection of her room in Hojo's lab.

Flowey had seen an abandoned metropolis that looks like it had gone through an apocalypse, the streets filled with noctaere roaming about.

Alastor saw a reflection of his part of Hell in 1933, which itself was a mirror of Earth at the time.

Iroh's reflection was of his home.

Najaran had seen a reflection of home and her master using a machine for seeing other worlds and other realities.

Cloud saw a reflection of Nibelheim, prior to the events of five years ago.

So now the mirrors are fixed, though some people may be wary about them for a while. Especially when people swear they still see shadows of the Unknown every now and then… But, let's get to the rewards!

Regain Bauble. Wahoo, all that hard work means a giant bauble bonus! Within the first week of the month, everyone will find a special little bauble (one) next to their pillow with a note that reads, "Thanks for helping! Throw this into the Wishing Well for a special item or use for something else (watch out for the glitter). Can also be used at the Observatory or gifted to others!" As briefly described, this bauble is basically the game's "regain token," though it has other uses. With this item, characters can throw it into the Wishing Well and receive the item they think about. All regains are manifestations of the item rather than the original and are affected by the game's limitations so nerfs may need to be applied. All regain submissions may be posted to the Regain Wishing Well entry.

ITEM: SPECIAL COMPACT MIRROR. Just what everyone wanted, right? Don't worry, this special compact mirror is not cursed in any way. While it won't grant anyone special transformation powers, it will help point out any smudges or dirt that may be in one's reflection so that one can look their very best!

ITEM: SPECIAL GLASS. A new type of glass material can be found around the beaches near the canyon that is stronger than most glass. Forged properly, it will be scratch proof and hard to break.

FLOWER FESTIVAL

It's the annual Flower Festival and after everything that's been going on, the locals are really working hard to have this festival be as fun and festive as possible. It will also be the first Flower Festival the Orkilins will have participated in, so efforts are doubled to ensure they make a grand impression, especially as the Orkilins will try to help contribute.

The IC and OOC dates will match for once! Thus both the Flower Festival and the log will begin on Friday, April 12 and will run through Sunday, April 14.

Beware the Pollen. As one can guess, a Flower Festival means there will be a lot of flowers. It also means that even before the festival begins, the trees will be exploding with flowers, and with it: pollen. As hinted in the "Other Notes" portion of the Calendar section, pollen will be a problem not only for those who suffer allergies, but they will have different effects depending on the type. With this we're going to let players have fun and have whatever effect they want to inflict on their character, but the gist of it is something extremely silly and possibly unfortunate may happen upon getting a good whiff of pollen. Could be erratic sneezing of bubbles to suddenly gaining a sparkly, glittery aura to even turning into a small creature with cute pink fairy wings. Ever wanted to be a flying cat? Well here you go! And it all begins with a sneeze.

…And yes if you want to do the sex pollen thing, you caaaaan. Just remember we're not a smut game!!

Other pranks. Although primarily known for the festival, it is April and with it comes April Fool's. Throughout the month, including the festival, various pranks will be pulled, so everyone should be careful. There is even a Prank Competition featured on the Dream Board.

Festival activities. There will be a number of different cute and fun flower themed festival activities. Without giving the whole list, some include flower crowns, red strings of fate, traditional "eat x food get y effect," special flowers that can share thoughts or dreams, a pool of flowers, a different take on the flower maze where everyone shrinks down in size. We'll also incorporate some Wonderland-esque themes, such as giant mushrooms, strange caterpillars, and more. And we'd like to thank our players for their suggestions! We're always open for more, so if there's a prompt you think would be fun to include, feel free to throw it at us!

Orkili HoloProjection. As part of their contribution for the festival, the Orkilins will provide a special stage with a holographic device similar to the one they use in their city to project the sky on the cavern ceilings. The one used for the festival will project whatever scene or thought from those behind the stage and create a unique performance no one will have seen before.

Last but not least, our traditional Flower King and Queen contest will be held again! Just a fun contest where characters can nominate anyone to be the "Flower Royal Court", which will include 2 Kings, 2 Queens, 2 Princes, and 2 Princesses. IC votes are submitted to see who will win. Characters can nominate and vote for as many people as they want, but they can only vote once for that person. The winners are chosen during the last day (April 14th) of the festival and are paired to spend some time together at the festival. They are also made to wear unique costumes for the whole day. What will the theme be this year, who knows~

Now here's how voting will work:

» Nomination Subthreads. There are two designated subthreads: Flower King and Flower Queen. Winners will be in the top 4 places, so 1st and 2nd will be the two kings/queens, and 3rd and 4th will be the two princes/princesses.

» IC Nominations. Characters are nominating each other ~~or themselves~~, so using your character journals, players will comment under the appropriate subthread with the nominated character's name in the subject (ex: Zack Fair). In the main body of the comment, you can include an image to act as a kind of poster ad for the character and we include a code for it. You will also indicate if the character should be in Day or Night court, but characters can vote for either. So if Zack is nominated for "Day," Joshua could vote for "Night" instead.

» Voting. Everyone replies with their character journals with +1 in the subject line. Remember, these are IC votes! You will also include whether the character should be voted for Day or Night. Should the character win, we will count and see which has more and slot them in if they have the most for that side. So if Zack wins 3rd with 10 votes and 6 are for Day, he'll be put in the Day court if the other Prince nomination, Ryu, is less. If Ryu has 7 votes for Day, then Ryu will be in Day court and Zack will be in Night.

» Unlimited nominations. Characters can nominate as many people as they want. Characters can also vote for as many people they want, however they can only vote once per person. So Anastasia could vote for Black Raisin Cookie, Tseng, and Venti, but can only comment once under each.

» Gender does not matter. Males can be Queens and females can be Kings. HOWEVER, they can only be nominated for one side, so if a character is nominated for Queen, they cannot be nominated for King.

» Previous winners are excluded. The previous winners of last year's festival cannot be nominated again. These include: Eustace, Venti, Link (BOTW), Lyria, Beat, and Gina. They can nominate other characters and vote, they just can't be nominated for the contest.

And that should be it! Everyone has until the end of Sunday, April 7 to submit their votes. We'll announce the winners on Tuesday so players have a few days before the festival to prepare.

That should be the basic idea of what to expect for the event!

Oh but wait.

There's a second part.

DEJA VU

While the main event is the Flower Festival, there will be a "small" little hiccup that will occur on the third and final day of the festival there will be a "small" little hiccup that will occur on the third and final day of the festival there will be a "small" little hiccup that will occur on the third and final day of the festival. Nahida will inadvertently create a dreamscape that will affect the entire town that will make everyone repeat the day until she is awakened. That's right, we have something of a "Groundhog's Day" effect occurring and there will be subtle changes and effects that will occur to help give a clue that something isn't right.

There will be a separate log for Nahida's dreamscape portion, and it can also be used as the TDM. Because the content is much heavier than the main Flower Festival event, it will be posted around Wednesday, April 17. This way, players can either focus on the fluff stuff featured in the Flower Festival, or do some heavier, nightmare related stuff with Nahida's log.

We will include some of the milder effects on the Flower Festival log since it is ICly occurring during the last, but they will not be disruptive to the log itself. It will mostly be things such as a strange sense of repeating the same action over again and becoming a little tired. Some flowers may seem to wither and need to be rejuvenated. Simple things that will be odd but not alarming. Some people may notice the loop and will want to go to Nahida's log to deal with it.

In order to combat the Groundhog effects and stop the withering from decaying further, characters will have to journey into Nahida's dreamscape to wake her. It will not be an easy trek through, as their own memories and emotions may test them, but those who can harness dreamotion energy will have an easier time. Those who succumb, however, may find themselves turning into Noctaere. Find Nahida and return her forgotten memories to her so that Reverein may be saved from this seemingly endless loop!

It can be assumed that Nahida will be freed after a few time loops have happened it can be assumed that Nahida will be freed after a few time loops have happened it can be assumed that Nahida will be freed after a few time loops have happened, so players can still plot for things later in the month.

DREAM BOARD

How the Dream Board works:

This is all optional, the quests are just extra content for players and while they can sometimes relate to upcoming or current events, they're just kind of "filler" stuff. Some will be set out in Songerein proper while others may involve dreams.
The Dream Board can be found at the Plaza and quests will automatically appear on it like a bulletin board. Some will also appear in the journals. Anyone can accept them and rewards automatically generated upon completion of the task. It's a dream world, it's full of magic, it just knows.
Quests can be done as many times as a character would do them and rewards will be delivered to the character upon completion.
If you have any questions, comment to the designated subthread.

ID	QUEST	REWARD
401	Dreamotion Flower Crowns. There are plants blooming here and there that look like nothing but blank stems. But when touched, flowers that correspond to a very specific emotion will begin to bloom from it. Why not try and weave a flower crown, channeling specific emotions to create the perfect array? They don't change when fully bloomed, so share them with a friend, too!	The perfect handmade flower crown for you and your friends, with meaning special to you.
402	Top-tier Pranks. It's prank season! You know what that means–do your best to pull off your best prank to as many people as possible! They say that the winner will be getting a rare and valuable prize...!	The real reward was the friends we made along the way :) (there is no prize, lmao)
403	Floral Orchesta. A particular little field of flowers and other flora has popped up just outside of Reverein. It isn't just any field, though–when smacked, each of these plants make a different noise or play a different note. Put a piece together that reflects your soul and feel the freedom of music!	Watch the little woodland creatures gather as you play music. Listen to them clap! Doesn't it heal the soul?
404	Catching Fire. Fire gold moths have appeared and have started to litter the skies at night. They glow so bright that it looks as if they are on fire. Although, they are not hot to the touch so jump and collect as many of these pretty gold bugs as possible. Capturing them in your hands will turn them into gold coins to keep that are very warm to the touch.	As many gold moth coins as you can catch.
405	Cockatrice Blocked. A large cockatrice is attempting to break into Reverein and cause a ruckus. It is either very hungry or is incredibly spooked and wants to escape the wildes. It is rampaging outside of the town and is slowly making its way for Reverein where it will stomp and wreck everything it sees if it gets in. Stop it before it can do that!	A rainbow-coloured cockatrice feather.
406	Sensory Overloaded. A strange phenomenon is occurring where you might wake up with one of your senses missing. Be it your sight, hearing or sense of taste it is now gone. With that, all of your other senses will be heightened for the duration in which your lost sense is gone. It can’t last more than a month, can it? Is there a way to reverse this effect?	The ability to increase one sense.

END NOTES

We've noticed that things have slowed down a bit for the game, and we just wanted to give everyone a heads up that we will be cutting back on the "intense" events from our side and try to return to a more "free" style that the game used to be in the beginning during the off-event months (as a reminder, the game was initially designed to be more sandboxy than plotty, we just kind of grew to be so very big that things shifted in a different direction than originally planned). That isn't to say we won't be providing any content, just more of a "this is probably a sign we need to step back a little and let everyone breathe to do their own thing" as well as reassess the pacing of things.

So for at least next month, expect more "this stuff is happening around the characters" to encourage players and characters to act in their own interests than needing to react to some new "problem of the month."

There is that "one thing" we've been trying to get to but haven't been able to properly place it without just chucking it out of nowhere, so that's why there's been a bit of a build up. Initially we hoped to have reached that "one thing" by now, but if we don't manage before the end of summer, then it will likely happen either in October or November.

We do have at least one player plot that's happening either in July or August, and we do have a big, fun event planned for the third anniversary in September.

But as always, we're open to feedback! If there's something on your mind and you have any suggestions or thoughts, you are welcome to our Mod Contact.

Any other questions related to what's in the notes or the upcoming event can be left here.

{ dream notes: #32 - april 1, 2024 }

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