February Event Information

[tabularasa_mods]

February Event Information February's event will introduce a few new concepts to the world: infection, empathy, and overgrowth. Like with all concepts, these will be long-term additions to the game's setting - however, the effects of these imprints will be amplified and accelerated for the month of February. For now, much like with our October event, you can consider the details below as temporary and the "final" version of these imprints will be introduced as part of the next start/end-of-the-month imprint update. There will also not be a dedicated mingle log for the February event, as there is no particular location or incident for us to build prompts around.

The central concept will feature body horror, specifically plants growing from characters' bodies. It is up to the individual how far you want to lean into the body horror elements, and we will ask that players use explicit content warnings if they plan on playing up these elements in their threads. If you would like to opt-out of this, it is fine to handwave or stick to early symptoms that don't include these more extreme elements, or to say that your character is lucky enough to avoid the affliction.

Characters may begin experiencing early symptoms starting today. Symptoms of what, you might ask?

Physical Infection
What happens when an injury is left untreated? Physical cuts and wounds, if they are not properly cleaned or covered up, are at risk of becoming infected. An infected person will first begin experiencing mild fever symptoms, followed by tiny roots and vines growing out of the wounded area. If the infection is allowed to continue growing unimpeded, it will eventually blossom into small flowers and begin spreading outward to the rest of the victim's body.

The appearance of the flowers will vary from person to person, and sometimes even from wound to wound. It might be a flower that holds a personal meaning to the afflicted, or it might be symbolically related to the cause of the injury. Whatever the case may be, their roots and vines will be painful and uncomfortable for the person affected.

Curing this type of infection is, thankfully, very simple. The roots of the infection must be removed from the victim's injury, and then the injury must be cleaned and bandaged to avoid a repeat infection. Removing the roots is no less painful than allowing them to grow, but it must be done to stop the process from continuing. Once this has been done, the injury will heal as normal and they'll experience no additional pain or suffering.

Physical wounds are simple to treat, but they are not the only type of injury one can receive. Emotional wounds are also at risk of triggering an infection.

Emotional Infection
The world's grasp of emotions is still quite loose, but it has decided that emotional pain and physical pain must be related to each other. If a person refuses to acknowledge their problems and allows them to fester in their heart, is that not the same as leaving a physical wound untreated? If they are both the same thing, then an emotional wound should also be at risk of infection.

An emotional wound must be a strong, unresolved feeling that the affected person cannot move on from. It can be an unrequited love they never confessed to, a fear that they're afraid to voice, guilt or regret over a secret they've kept for too long - whatever their wound is, it must be something they've left untreated, unacknowledged, or outright denied. The more they dwell on that festering emotion and keep it locked up within themselves, the greater the risk of infection.

Emotional infection will also start with a fever, but the roots will manifest within the chest of the affected person. It will first spread through the afflicted's lungs, causing lightheadedness, breathing difficulties, coughing, and other similar symptoms. If the infection continues to grow, flowers will begin to bloom within the afflicted person's lungs. Coughing up petals and blood will become increasingly frequent at this stage, eventually becoming whole flowers as the situation worsens. In the later stages the infection will begin to pierce out of the afflicted's body and flowers will grow from their chest, causing a great deal of pain and discomfort.

To cure an emotional infection, removing the physical roots isn't enough. Instead, the emotional root must be addressed: the afflicted must acknowledge and speak of the emotions they've been holding in, and they must feel some closure in the act. It's not enough to simply admit to something without context or only to oneself, they must confide in another person and receive acknowledgement in return. Once the emotional burden has been shared, the infection will begin to recede.

Recovering from an emotional infection will still take some time, unfortunately. The individual, once cured, will continue to experience a high fever as their body purges out the last of the physical roots. They will cough up the shrivelled remains of whatever is left in their lungs, and any external growth will also wither and fall off. External wounds left behind by emotional infection should also be cleaned and bandaged - you wouldn't want to be cured of one infection only to gain another.

Symptoms & Progression
Normally, infections would take a long time to set in and develop into the later stages. This is the first time the world has tried to create such a thing, however, so it may have made the whole process a tad too fast to start with.

Symptoms	Gestation
PHYSICAL: Itching/discomfort in wounded area, small vines may become visible after the first couple days. EMOTIONAL: Mild fever, fatigue, dizziness, lightheadedness, tightness in the chest, dry cough.	1-3 days
PHYSICAL: Mild fever, sharp pain and flowering vines growing visibly in wounded area. EMOTIONAL: High fever, chest pain, difficulty breathing, coughing up blood/petals.	5 days
PHYSICAL: Infection will continue to spread outward from the original wound, but no additional symptoms will occur. EMOTIONAL: Severe chest pain spreading outwards, coughing up blood/whole flowers.	7 days
PHYSICAL: No additional symptoms. EMOTIONAL: Vines and flowers piercing the body from within, external growth, flowers begin to spread rapidly to other parts of the body	10 days
PHYSICAL/EMOTIONAL: The untreated infection overwhelms the body, and something drastic occurs.	15+ days

Once an infection has been cured, fever symptoms may persist for up to as long as the full duration of the infection (ie. if an infection lasted 7 days, the fever may last another 1-7 days afterwards).

This accelerated infection process will last until the end of February, after which the process will be adjusted and slowed down significantly. However, infections will not be cured automatically. If a character is in late-stage symptoms by the end of the month, they will remain in that state until the infection has been dealt with.

What happens if a character is unable to cure their infection before the end of the month, while the infection symptoms are at their most potent? If the infection is allowed to overwhelm their body, there will be severe consequences and the possibility of permanent mutilation... but it is difficult to predict how the world will behave under such extreme conditions. If you would like your character to experience the final, unknown stage of infection, please contact the mod team once you have made your decision. The deadline for this option is February 28th 11:59 PM (UTC).

Optional Complications
Is your character too emotionally stable to be infected? Are their problems so firmly buried that they don't dwell on them anymore? Do you just want to make everything worse for them, because you can? Not to worry! We've prepared a couple extra options for those who need a push in the right direction.

Nightmares may occur more more frequently throughout the rest of February, dredging up old memories and agitating old wounds. These nightmares will grow in intensity along with an infection, forcing the afflicted character to acknowledge their lingering feelings. Once the infection has been addressed, the nightmares will cease.

Spirit empathy will be a new trait added to spirits as part of the imprint update on the 15th, which all characters classified as spirits may inherit. Pure spirits will gain the ability to sense the emotions of those around them, and corrupt spirits will gain the ability to force an emotion on someone else. A more detailed explanation will be given on the 15th.

For the month of February, these new abilities will be stronger due to the turbulent emotions the world is trying to process, and those undergoing an emotional infection may spread their infection to others through spirit-characters. A pure spirit may become affected by emotional baggage gleaned off another character - likewise, a corrupt spirit may unintentionally project their emotions onto another character. In either case, a second-hand emotional infection may occur. A second-hand infection can only be cured if the person it originated from is also cured. Fortunately, those afflicted by a second-hand infection will be plagued by the same emotions that the original victim is trying to hide, and the species of flower produced will also match. If the original victim has not been cured within a week, they may also begin to have nightmares containing further details.

Questions?
That sums up everything we have to say about the event! If you have any questions, please leave a comment on this post and we'll get back to you as soon as possible.

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Comments

[indigloaming]

How will the emotional infection affect characters who don't have lungs/mouths/blood/etc?

[tabularasa_mods]

For synthetic and constructed creatures, how the infection manifests is open to your interpretation. The easiest might be for the infection to start in the same general vicinity of where the organs should be, and emerge through whichever avenue they find. They will still have difficulty speaking, as if something is physically blocking their ability to do so.

[indigloaming]

Just to be clear, Indigo isn't synthetic or constructed, does that apply to her too?

[tabularasa_mods]

Yes, that would include other types of non-human/organic characters as well!

[begetblue]

Can characters be infected more than once?
Can a character have a physical and an emotional infection at the same time?

[tabularasa_mods]

It is possible for characters to be infected more than once. This may be more likely for physical infections, since emotional infections require something personally significant to be triggered.

Physical and emotional infections can exist in a host body simultaneously.

[begetblue]

Thank you!