The 8th Floor Mods (ministry_mod) wrote in thbreakroom, @ 2011-05-01 01:42:00 |
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► Mod Notes ► A lot of you didn't pass the activity requirements for this month. Quick recap: you need 2 journals a month, and 1 thread to pass the monthly activity check. We understand that April means finals and end-of-school madness for a lot of you but if there's any other reason you find meeting the requirements difficult, let us know! We're here to help! If you'd like to help us, we'd love any suggestions you have on how to make being active easier for you. ► Please tag your thread posts as that's how we track activity - if your activity status seems wrong on the right, it might be because of a lack of tagging on posts. If you're jumping onto an OTA thread, you have the ability to tag yourself. If you're setting up a thread, tag both people. Don't feel bad, your mods have slipped and not tagged themselves all the time either, but we're not going to go through the comm and tag everyone - it's your responsibility to make sure you pass activity checks. You can hover over your smiley or check mark to see how many threads/journals we have recorded for you. ► Again, now that OC family members and friends are unplayable, head on over to the frontpagenews drop box to offer up your OCs for Daily Prophet news and Witch Weekly gossip. Include their name, their relationship to your character, a PB (this won't make that PB off-limits to new characters who are actually being played), a short description of them and a list of things they might appear in the DP or WW for. ► Character Gains/Losses We lost Ginny Weasley, Asteria Greengrass, Shaela Fawcett, Rosmerta, and Terry Boot We gained two new players in April! New player Jess has given us Neville Longbottom and other new player Squeaky has given us George Weasley Please type your username into the box below, then press "Friends Button." Remember to do it for each of your characters. You have to be logged into a journal to use it for that particular journal. ► Ongoing Events The Ministry's restrictions are still in place, meaning that movement outside the home must take place by Floo or apparation only in densely-populated muggle areas. Broom-travel is no longer authorized no matter how far away one is from muggles, and travel by foot or by muggle means through dense muggle areas is permitted only by certain Ministry personnel. To everyone's dismay, the Quidditch Playoffs are still on hold because of financial concerns. The Ministry restrictions on travel have made it unlikely that enough fans would be able to attend to offset the costs. ► Upcoming Events The 2nd is Victory Day! There will be games, food, memorabilia, speeches, a moment of silence for the fallen and the evening ends with fireworks. During the fireworks, the Dark Mark will be cast and Aurors will place an anti-Apparation jinx over the entire area, sending everyone spilling out of Hogsmeade and into Muggle areas. Daphne Greengrass will be caught doing magic and harming a Muggle in the melee. On the 8th, the Greengrass parents will disappear. The wards in the house will be up, the house clean and empty and no trace of the two will be left behind. Early speculation will point towards a bookie but once it's revealed that all debts had been paid off, speculation will turn towards Rabastan Lestrange. On Friday the 13th, mysterious letters will be sent out offering your character a chance to participate in the "Change Your Luck!" Scavenger Hunt. This is a light, fluffy, death-free plot that will continue for several months and will offer both characters and players the chance to solve the puzzles by searching Witch Weekly, the Daily Prophet and character journals for clues. Your character isn't required to participate if it's not something they'd be interested in or if they've got other things to occupy their time. It is possible to jump in later if you choose not to get involved from the beginning. Ian and Morag will be married on the 18th! The wedding will be held at Gylen castle. On the 21st, a Quidditch dinner/auction fundraiser will be held to raise the money the League needs to get playoffs going again. Dinner is ten Galleons and there will be a silent auction full of donated Quidditch memorabelia At 10pm on the 28th, the Malfoys will meet with Lestrange behind the face of Big Ben in London. A fight will break out between them at 10:07pm, briefly stalling the clock and causing it to run slower. Narcissa Malfoy will be killed at 10:20, at which point the clock will stop for 90 minutes. Muggles notice the clock stopping (it really happened, as a matter of fact) but word of the murder is restricted to the Wizarding World. Although Lucius Malfoy survives, he refuses to tell DoMLE officials who killed her but witness descriptions lead Aurors to conclude that Lestrange was involved. ► Behind the Scenes The Ministry is going to begin cracking down on those who are violating the restrictions. Violators will receive a small fee of 25 Galleons (125 pounds) and spend the night in one of the Ministry's holding cells for their first offence. Rose Zeller will be arrested by Ron Weasley on the 5th, Megan Jones will be arrested by John Dawlish on the 16th and Lee Jordan will be arrested by Neville Longbottom on the 24th. If those dates don't work out for you, please change them right away. At the beginning of the month, the mood in the Wizarding World is excited. Victory Day happens on May 2nd. The Dark Mark will cause any happy feelings to go. This isn't goblin disappearances or fires anymore - it's been five years since the last Dark Mark was seen. This starts a crackdown on violators of the Ministry regulations against being in Muggle areas. The disappearance of the Greengrasses, plus the murder of a Malfoy will cause panic to start brewing in pureblood circles - especially those who supported the Dark Lord. Fears of who will or won't be next begin to rise, and some prominent purebloods put increasing pressure on the Minister and Auror team to find Lestrange. There's many a speculation that the 'Enemies of Wizardingkind' list is authored by Lestrange and has something to do with what Lestrange deemed 'bad' actions during the war, what with the mix of 'dark' and 'light' names. Other wild theories about the list start to crop up and people begin to be genuinely worried if they or someone they know is on the list. As May fades into June, uncertainty and a dark pall find themselves creeping heavily over the Wizarding World. So much for an 'era of peace'. OSTENDO, is still recruiting new members. For those of you who don't remember, OSTENDO's goal is to reveal the existance of magic to muggles. This group operates in independent cells, with each cell having only a passing knowledge of the rest, so that one turncoat can't take the rest down. While every cell knows that OSTENDO's purpose is to repeal the Statute of Secrecy, different cells hold different ideas about what should happen once the Statute is gone. For example, some think that muggles and wizards should be fully integrated, some think that wizards should be the masters of muggles, some think that wizards should come out to muggles but still live apart and some are just plain weird. Within our game, there are two cells, one for those who are generally pro-muggle and one for those who are generally anti-muggle. We're looking for volunteers for both groups, and for volunteers to be unsuccessfully recruited as well. If you're not sure whether or not your character would join, you can always decide later. Even if there's no "recruitment drive" going, you can still contact the player of someone currently in the group and ask them to recruit your character. Pro-Muggle Cell Current Members: Penelope Clearwater Lee Jordan Volunteers to be recruited (successful): Ian Urquhart Volunteers to be recruited (unsuccessful): Anti-Muggle Cell Current Members: Draco Malfoy Volunteers to be recruited (successful): Gwen Montgomery Volunteers to be recruited (unsuccessful): And the flip side of that is, of course, The 'Enemies of Wizardkind' List. It's full of the names of people who OSTENDO believes would oppose overturning the Statute of Secrecy, though the TRUE nature of the List is unknown to the general public, and even most members of OSTENDO. As you can see, not all names on the list are visible there. In fact, your character might be on that list. If you think they would have been noted as an enemy but weren't, let us know and they can be added. We're not making a new list or anything, but we're noting it on the character page and it might have some effect later in the game. ENEMIES: Mandy Brocklehurst John Dawlish Pansy Higgs Morag MacDougal Padma Patil If you're on this enemies list and would like to have something terrible happen to your character in June, let us know. Limit: One. First come, first served. ► Summary Terence and Pansy have a dinner out. Penny and Lee set Ashmen's house on fire. Draco survived dinner with Ron and Hermione. Later, Hermiones sends a warning about the mistreatment of elves and is disgusted by the events of dinner. Daily Prophet is released - Ashmen fire and Ministry review. Padma worries about the fire and is exicted about her move. Padma runs into Megan while shopping for a baby shower. Parvati and Padma have tea. Lee is done with women. Dawlish seeks more information on Penelope from Ron. Parvati has a job at Elephantine. Rose relates the history of the popes and expresses displeasure at the new one. Anthony and Padma share a seder meal with his family. Asteria and Draco discuss what to do about her parents. Pansy recieves several gifts for her birthday. Later, she thanks everyone and wonders what to do about Asteria. Witch Weekly is released Cormac watches his neice and is aghast at the idea of working in the Ministry. Morag blows off the Weekly and shares a picture of her new house. Anthony regrets his interview with Weekly. Megan needs a new hobby. Parvati reacts badly to the Weekly's mention of her. Hermione is glad she never buys the Weekly that she reads. Lee sends Padma the glasses she requested. Penny takes candy bunnies hostage and is relieved the Aurors have stopped following her. Rose had a good Easter and is excited about her new relationship with Daphne. Fleur had an enjoyable Easter with her family. Mandy wishes everyone a belated Easter and is stressed about the move. Cormac gets into drunk fights with his father. Anthony twisted his ankle and ponders a pub night. Neville's plants don't kill Algie and he ponders how to escape Gran. Neville accidentally floos into Parvati's flat. Penny sends Cormac a picture of a deceased bunny hostage. Gwen is glad for the warm weather and a new play. Anthony is lost at the Ministry, and Susan helps him out. Zacharias talks about his new summer camp and asks Pansy and Terence to double date with him and Susan. Cormac and Megan meet at a pub. Megan has a lousy day. Ian gives Morag a gift. DRACO GOT PUNCHED IN THE FACE! YAY! And Mandy cleared him for work again. Hermione needs more hours in her day. George announces a sale. Morag talks about Beltane, bridezillas and babies. Padma has officially moved to Diagon Alley. Penelope explains muggle technology. |