Post by Zazu on Dec 20, 2006 20:55:12 GMT -5
Last year during December, on Endless Round, the predecessor to Kings and Vagabonds, we observed the Christmas season with a loose homage to Charles Dickens' "A Christmas Carol". We designated three weeks of December to be Past, Present and Future Weeks, to correspond with the cautionary specters from the story. During Past Week, everyone who wanted to participate RPed child versions of their characters . During Future Week, we played out scenes from the future, in which Scar and Zira had assumed control of the Pridelands and were treating the pride tyrannically. And for all three weeks, we RPed the presence of something unheard of in most of Africa--snow and ice. It was a fun and fairly successful event.
Since we're already living in the past, there's not much point in having a Past Week, and doing Present Week just for the snow and ice seems a little needless. But I'd love to do a Future Week between Christmas and New Year's Day! The other wizards agree with this idea, but we haven't reached a decision on what kind of event it's going to be. So we're opening it up to the players to decide! Here are the choices...
1: We can simply continue the plot from last year. This is where it stood: Sarafina had made the bold move of sharing the kills her hunting party brought down with her close pridesisters before bringing them back to be divvied up by Scar, who would share them in turn with hyenas. This traitorous act was sniffed out by Scar and Zira's spies, and they arrived to put an end to it. The result was that Sarafina and Ajenti were sentenced to be killed unless they could supply the entire pride's food needs every night thenceforth. A heated skirmish was just about to begin when the scene suddenly froze and the Ghost of Christmas Future spoke to Scar, leaving him to draw his own conclusions about his morality.
I think this storyline has a lot of potential. I imagine the lionesses of Pride Rock secretly making kills and letting Sarafina take the credit. Other prides could get involved out of sympathy, or make power grabs of their own. Otherwise, they could create their own future plots, since there was basically no activity outside of Pride Rock on ER last December. Our present day Sarafina is more than willing to continue this plot, and as I said to her, there could be a moving tragedy in the lesson of how a cruel ruler can turn good subjects against each other.
2: We could play out a future where Taka, not Mufasa, is chosen as the heir to Pride Rock. The players would be allowed to explain and play this out however they like. There are a lot of possibilities here, too. Are Ahadi and Uru still alive? Is Mufasa bitter, or does he take this news differently than Scar does in the canonical story? Do the hyenas get involved in the same way? Is it necessary to kill off Mufasa or Simba anymore? Could this possibly turn Scar into a good guy?
3: Chukizo suggested that for this heir-switching plot, instead of having the cubs be directly aged to adults, it could be done in stages by age--two or three days of them as adolescents, then two or three days of them as adults, then two or three days as elders. The rest of the MUCK would play out along a similar time scale. Essentially, this is three different Future Weeks, except that each one only lasts a few days.
4: We could also take this three-tiered approach, but extend the event well into January, giving each age level its own week. I wanted to do this all during December, but it never took off.
5: We could pick a different direction for the future entirely. Far future, generations down the line? Simba as king? Kovu? Who knows?
And bear in mind that a possibilty we don't choose to play out in Future Week may eventually turn out to be our MUCK's -real- future!
Since we're already living in the past, there's not much point in having a Past Week, and doing Present Week just for the snow and ice seems a little needless. But I'd love to do a Future Week between Christmas and New Year's Day! The other wizards agree with this idea, but we haven't reached a decision on what kind of event it's going to be. So we're opening it up to the players to decide! Here are the choices...
1: We can simply continue the plot from last year. This is where it stood: Sarafina had made the bold move of sharing the kills her hunting party brought down with her close pridesisters before bringing them back to be divvied up by Scar, who would share them in turn with hyenas. This traitorous act was sniffed out by Scar and Zira's spies, and they arrived to put an end to it. The result was that Sarafina and Ajenti were sentenced to be killed unless they could supply the entire pride's food needs every night thenceforth. A heated skirmish was just about to begin when the scene suddenly froze and the Ghost of Christmas Future spoke to Scar, leaving him to draw his own conclusions about his morality.
I think this storyline has a lot of potential. I imagine the lionesses of Pride Rock secretly making kills and letting Sarafina take the credit. Other prides could get involved out of sympathy, or make power grabs of their own. Otherwise, they could create their own future plots, since there was basically no activity outside of Pride Rock on ER last December. Our present day Sarafina is more than willing to continue this plot, and as I said to her, there could be a moving tragedy in the lesson of how a cruel ruler can turn good subjects against each other.
2: We could play out a future where Taka, not Mufasa, is chosen as the heir to Pride Rock. The players would be allowed to explain and play this out however they like. There are a lot of possibilities here, too. Are Ahadi and Uru still alive? Is Mufasa bitter, or does he take this news differently than Scar does in the canonical story? Do the hyenas get involved in the same way? Is it necessary to kill off Mufasa or Simba anymore? Could this possibly turn Scar into a good guy?
3: Chukizo suggested that for this heir-switching plot, instead of having the cubs be directly aged to adults, it could be done in stages by age--two or three days of them as adolescents, then two or three days of them as adults, then two or three days as elders. The rest of the MUCK would play out along a similar time scale. Essentially, this is three different Future Weeks, except that each one only lasts a few days.
4: We could also take this three-tiered approach, but extend the event well into January, giving each age level its own week. I wanted to do this all during December, but it never took off.
5: We could pick a different direction for the future entirely. Far future, generations down the line? Simba as king? Kovu? Who knows?
And bear in mind that a possibilty we don't choose to play out in Future Week may eventually turn out to be our MUCK's -real- future!
