The Pirate Queen is leaving the Garden, so what does that mean for all of you?

At this point in time, the Pirate Queen is not taking on passengers (as she herself has said) but she is willing to bring back items in a few months time.

Will she do this for free? Absolutely not. It's time to barter.

Summary: July is the month of extremes, both hot and cold. Here in the Garden, the Dog days will truly begin, the sun beating overhead as a sultry humidity seeps in to everything. There is the smell of thunder on the breeze, and Lake Sanguine, ruby red, has sprouted a layer of... beautiful water lilies.

[OOC] July 1st: Activity check! & Announcements!
July 2th: A selection of women are kidnapped from the Garden, the Damsel along with them.
⇒ This is the setup for the month's event.
⇒ Messages from kidnapped victims may be received.
July 9th: A call to arms is given by the Warrior Princess to rescue the hostages.
⇒ Forward scouts will be deployed.
⇒ Engineers will begin work on flying machines.
⇒ Battle plans will be made and eventually enacted.
⇒ Ambassadors work feverishly to assuage either Queen.
[OOC] July 15th: HMD
⇒ The official Queen of Hearts HMD will occur on July 15th. Participation is optional.
July 23th: A decision is reached. Warriors are called off the field.
⇒ The hostages will be returned, aftermath will be accounted for.
⇒ Say hello to your new NPC.

damsels

july plot

Beneath the cut is a full outline of this month's event, please use it to BEGIN YOUR PLOTTING.
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Greetings Garden-goers!

On this fine day, the 14th of May, new visitors are approaching. Or perhaps they won't be a stranger to you at all. They do say a mother always knows her own! Or is it that one can never forget their mother? Well, nevermind it! Last month's eggs have become this month's trouble. A swarm of fair-folk have hatched from within and some are returning to pay their thanks to their mothers. Isn't that a nice surprise?

Now here's the nitty-gritty:

This is a two week long event, there will be faeries in the Garden until May 28th, with a few updates from us along the way.

Let us know if you have any questions, and please feel free to use the post to talk amongst yourselves.

As some may have already noticed, April Fool's has passed and therefore spring has actually arrived in the Gardens. Warmth has spread through every area, and all new types of flowers and plants are blooming. Sorry for those with allergies!

We would also like to welcome our new mod Vee (jemerite)! We're very happy to have her as part of our team. Please wish her well ♥

( event under here! )

As seen in this post, the Queen is not exactly in the best of shape at the moment. What's going on and what does this mean for the Gardens and its inhabitants?

( you can find out under this cut. )

Aaaand the results of the randomizer are:

( behind a cut )

The Queen would never let a holiday such as Valentine's Day go by without a little push for her favorite subjects. That's why, beginning on the 14th and ending on the 21st, characters will find themselves bound to another.

( details under here! )

Starting today, mistletoe will appear all around the Gardens, excluding the wild places.

Should two characters happen to meet under one, intentionally or by mistake, an invisible wall will appear around them. It is impossible to get out of this wall, no matter what power they use, and the wall will only disappear once the two have kissed. This can be any type of kiss; cheek, mouth, etc., though characters may not ICly know this.

Every time two people kiss under a mistletoe plant, a berry on a large mistletoe in the orchard will fall. A sign nearby the plant says, "A surprise will come if all the berries fall!" And sure enough, if they do all fall by the 15th, the Queen has planned an enjoyable surprise for the characters.

Questions or plotting may go here!

After all that scary business, the Queen has decided it's time to reward the Gardens with music. But not just any music! This music will affect the moods of the characters.

( plot under here )

The event has come to an end, and as seen in the Healer's post, the gate has not been closed, but sealed. This only means that the monsters can no longer enter the Gardens, but the characters are free to move in and out of The Hollow as they please. They will still need to wear costumes if they don't want to be noticed, however, and if too much of a disturbance is caused, the Crone will hear about it.

Characters who have been harmed or killed will be healed or revived, respectively.

( extra info about The Hollow )

REMINDER:
♡ Since new players may not know about this, submissions for QoH's first IC secrets post are still open! They'll close on the 1st, so get your secrets in!

The Healer is fed up and, as she has said, is taking a vacation. This vacation won't be anywhere in the Gardens, however, and characters will find that a gate to a new world has opened for all to access. Though the inhabitants of the other world may want to explore the Gardens, too.
( plot details under here! )

After randomizing everyone who participated in the fair contests, we've found our winners! Though, as the Queen would say, you're all winners since you were able to bond with your fellow women.

( winners under cut! )

As the characters have heard from The Girl, there's going to be a fair on the 15th of this month! And what would be a fair without competitions?

There will be four competitions you can sign your characters up for, each will be paired off randomly by the mods for new CR chances. You are free to sign up for however many you want, and your character will have a new partner for each competition.

If your character would not willingly participate but you want to sign them up, go ahead! The characters will have to compete if signed up or face "punishment" if they don't, which will be explained by the Queen at the beginning of each competition.

( Competitions, rules and explanations under cut )

Due to some questions raised about the length of this part of the event, we're pushing the end date forward to Friday the 19th to give everyone a little more time to do related IC business.

( behind a cut for your convenience )

On an unrelated note, the Queen of Hearts bimonthly HMD post will be posted later today, so if you'd like to participate, don't forget to keep an eye out for it.

Now that the storm is over and the characters may leave their shelters, new, inconspicuous flowers have bloomed in the Gardens...

The flowers themselves look quite normal. They don't stand out and the characters will most likely hardly notice them. However, as the days go on, more and more seem to grow around the Gardens. Some may even start to creep up on the vine. There is something much more to them than perhaps even the Incarnae know what to do with.

Their growth coincides with strange happenings in the Gardens, of course. As the characters fall asleep, others may notice they now have the ability to walk and interact with each other's dreams, whether they like it or not. This culminates in mass dreams in which they find that, other than the apparent dreams, they are running into mythical creatures and repeated imagery that, while hard to make out, hint at something deeper in the Gardens.

But as time goes on these dreams become less harmless. The Gardens themselves seem unstable and characters may notice cracks are starting to form in the Necessities, the flora, even thin air. Not only that, but the creatures take on larger, darker forms and may even attack.

A log will be put up for mass dreams that the characters can walk through, and the mods will respond individually with obstacles your character(s) might face. You are free to post dreams outside of the log as well.

As for things previously damaged in the storm, the animals are slowly working on rebuilding them. Be patient with them!

Of course, questions can go in this post.

Starting today, massive thunderstorms have broken out in the Gardens. They will last through Monday the 8th.

What does this mean for your character(s)?

The majority of locations in which the characters could conceivably find shelter from the storm have been damaged. While the damage will repair itself after the storm ends (a fact not necessarily obvious to the characters, although some who have been in the Gardens for long enough might guess at it), for the time being they are unsuitable for habitation. The only locations in which the characters may take shelter are:

• The nine Necessities.
  
• The library.
  
• The arcade.
  

This is a fairly obvious ploy (though it may or may not be the doing of the Queen; it's impossible to tell) to get characters together all in one place for the purposes of social interaction. Where each of the characters stay is up to the players in question.

The storm is quite fierce, and characters who try to venture out into it are immediately assailed by torrential rain and high winds. Fortunately, each of the Necessities are equipped with food and drinks, and characters who may be staying in the library or the arcade will have food brought to them by the birds periodically — miraculously still in edible condition despite the weather. Characters who live in one of the damaged buildings are also free to bring whatever food and supplies they can with them for their temporary relocation.

Feel free to use this post for plotting and discussing where your characters will stay in the threads provided and what they will do for the duration of the storm. The weather will return to normal on August 8th, when the next phase of the plot will begin.

If you have any questions, ask and we'll do our best to answer. ♥