As of November 1st, the reinforced borders that separate incorporated Austin from the outside are now completed. Wide gates have been built into the walls of the city, patrolled by soldiers, to allow caravans of supplies to enter and exit. Citizens will notice a difference in a reduced zombie population within the city, though the soldiers and workers have not finished going through and clearing out every single building in the districts. Patches of zombies can be found here and there and citizens who stumble across any zombies should call the hotline for immediate assistance.
If you're thirsty for zombie encounters, feel free to have your characters meet a random zombie on the street whenever you'd like!
We Won The War; What Was It All For?
Now that relative peace has returned to the city, Mayor Clarke and Chief Kulseth are taking it upon themselves to make sure that warring factions won't be the death of Austin. They'll be holding a brunch at The Bar on November 3rd for the City Council & Cabinet, registered Hellhounds, APD, and US Soldiers to meet and mingle -- and, hopefully, not get into a fight. Maybe they'll find some common ground?
What Happens Now?
If you were looking for the petition plot in October and wondered what happened, well. THE WAIT IS OVER!
All that talk of relative peace and quiet is great, and over the last few months NPC entrepreneurs have settled in Austin to bring more businesses and city life to the city. (AKA: feel free to headcanon that there are more businesses in place than those run by played characters, and if you have an idea for an NPC business, let us know and we'll add it to the mod journal.) But it still feels like Austin is on the verge of a relapse into chaos, sometimes, especially since pretty much no one wants to go to the grocery store anymore despite the reduced number of zombies.
On November 4 (seriously, this time) Savannah Posey will be calling for Austin citizens to join her in asking the U.S. government for additional resources, funds, and help. Though they've made strides over the last five months to build up their city, she feels that after three years of being shut off from the rest of the country, and knowingly so, they're due for some sort of compensation. We'll see what happens after she submits the petition, assuming she gets enough signatures to do so...
New Connections November
In the interest of further developing our characters and getting more interactions and new plots under our belts, we are issuing an optional challenge that we are calling "New Connections November"!
We will be emailing all of you a list of your own characters, plus a player with whom we challenge you to write during this month. This is someone you don't usually play that character against, and in order to fulfill the challenge you must post a placeholder, in-progress threaded scene, or finished scene link to your activity check that features that pairing. This is not an additional requirement on top of the one activity piece requirement -- you can use your new connection challenge thread as your activity piece.
For each new connection challenge that you post before midnight PST on November 30, you can reduce your activity requirement for December. Hooray!
Example:
Justine is challenged to play Ryan McCormick against one of Joie's characters.
Joie is also challenged to play Paige Goodall against one of Justine's characters.
Justine and Joie write a Paige & Ryan scene to kill two zombies with one stone.
Both of them list that placeholder as a part of their November activity check and make a note that the scene is for the new connection challenge.
Both of them only need to fulfill activity for 5 characters in December.
Have fun (we hope) and happy writing!
Please Be Patient
We know that a bunch of you are interested in learning more about the outside world and are curious what your characters would find on the Internet besides Oprah and other entertainment information. WE ARE, TOO! Please bear with us while we figure that out. More information will be coming soon.
Calendar Cheat Sheet
November 1: Violet Holladay's birthday. The barricades are finished.
November 2: Savannah Posey's birthday.
November 3: Hellhound & Capitol brunch at The Bar.
November 4: Savannah Posey publishes her petition on the Freenet.
November 5: Maizie Wolfe's birthday.
Please feel free to use the above as fodder for Freenet posts & scenes. If you have questions or ideas -- or want suggestions on how to get your characters involved in the above -- comment and let us know!