doingtheuglycry | CAN CRY: FOURTH TDM

CAN CRY: FOURTH TDM
Welcome back to Can Cry's fourth TDM! If you're unfamiliar with the game, then you can check out the interest check, FAQ, world & setting info page and the powers and abilities page to get up to speed! Due to the slightly wonky timeline, threads on the Can Cry TDM are overall not considered canon, but players may consider individual threads to be canon for their CR. Characters on the TDM will have access to all of their starter powers as outlined on the powers page as well as two unique abilities to play around with as you please. Some prompts and location details have been provided below for you to play around with but please feel free to go hog wild and have fun!
AVARITIA
Larger than life and brighter than bright, Avaritia is the Greed layer of Purgatory. Despite sitting under a permanent night sky, Avaritia blazes with light of all kinds, in searing, strobing neon colours. Jazzy, mid-tempo music spills out from every corner of the streets and there always seems to be someone laughing, shouting, crying or making some manner of raucous noise. Unlike the previous two layers, Avaritia does not have any pretense of being a real, functioning settlement and instead presents itself as a city-sized monument to hubris and gambling. It's... well, it's Vegas, baby! Or it's a rough approximation of the general aesthetic and feel of Las Vegas's repuation, but, you know. Same difference, really. As well as being perpetually dark, Avaritia is also perpetually rainy. For the most part, this is just a thin drizzle that only barely makes itself known but on occasion, the heavens will really open up. Because of this 24/7 rainfall, the streets are constantly damp and dotted with puddles which quite frankly, with all the lights and signs reflecting in the wet asphalt and puddles, looks fucking dope. This, combined with the thin fog that's constantly seeping through the place, gives Avaritia a similarly disorienting effect as Limbo, where it can be hard to exactly find your way through the streets, even if you have a good idea of where you're going. The actual structure of Avaritia is rather scattershot. Rather than streets, most of the buildings are grouped together into small clusters, leaving wide open spaces of asphalt for people to congregate. This is to provide room both for the tidal wave of Spectres constantly coming and going but also for the many pop-up stands and kiosks that are pitching their wares to potential customers. Some of what they're selling is food, but a lot of it is gaudy accessories or clothes or trinkets or any kind of overpriced souvenier you can imagine. What does stand out in Avarita, however, are the four main buildings that the entire layer is more or less built around: the two banking towers, the vault and of course, the casino. Each of these buildings stands out against the skyline and the other buildings in its own way, so if you're ever terribly lost, you can use these as a landmark to re-orient yourself. Avaritia is markedly different from the previous two layers in that it runs very much on our old friend, capitalism. Unlike Limbo or Invidia, you won't be able to trade or barter here. The only kind of payment the residents will accept is cold hard cash, in the form of fat golden coins, colloquially referred to as "novas". Each coin is printed with a denomination of either 5, 10, 25 or 50 and prices in Avaritia run high – even your average shit-tier fast food meal will easily run you thirty nova. How you make money in Avaritia is up to you – but even if they won't barter, the Spectres of Avaritia are always up for a good gamble... Avaritia is a big-ass location, so to get the full lowdown on all the deets, check out the location page!
QUESTS
Since it's up to Executors to maintain order in Purgatory, this also means they need to resolve any issues that crop up for the Spectres occupying it. You can come up with any sort of quest you like, but here are some ideas to get you started: ⚝ A fight has broken out in the casino between a handful of Specters who were gambling together at a card table. One accused the other of cheating, the other made a very rude remark about the first Specter's parentage and now the gloves are off! You'd better break up the fight and see just how much weight that cheating accusation has. ⚝ You hear a rumor of disappearances in some of the more run-down areas of Avaritia and when you go to investigate you find a stray Revenant that's found its way up to the Layer from the Underside! It's causing chaos and no end of property damage so you'd better be rid of it. ⚝ While out and about, you hear rumors that the theater is being haunted by a masked woman who calls herself a "Phantom" and is demanding payment from the owners of the casino for some unexplained slight. She's uh, not the most original soul but does she have a legitimate beef? You'd better investigate and find out! ⚝ While giving the casino a try, you happen to get lucky and strike it rich with a small fortune! Lucky you! Of course, now you have to deal with the absolute mob of Specters coming your all way who just want to borrow (or outright steal) some or all of your cash. Feel free to NPC Spectres as you need for this TDM!
THE UNDERSIDE OF AVARITIA
Descending into the Avaritia Underside is like willingly throwing yourself into the deepest, darkest pits of sensory hell. The Greed Layer has never been a particularly friendly looking place but with it distorted into a labyrinth of flashing neon signs, oversized casino machines and Revenants swarming the streets, it's as though everything that makes Avaritia unbearable has been turned all the way up to eleven. It's... not a fun place to be! To make matters worse, things are loud here – as well as all the noise from the casino machines, music blares from an unseen source and the Revenants laugh and chatter and babble between themselves even as they fight and kill for the grubby Nova coins that can be found scattered around. It's a deeply unpleasant place to be, but this is where Greta has ended up and if you want to proceed then you have no choice but to plunge into this neon-drenched hellscape. AREAS OF INTEREST ⚝ Main Street: The main street of the Underside is kind of a hot mess. Whatever buildings might have made up this street before are long gone, some crushed and destroyed by the regular outpourings of coins from the giant slot machines and some having been ravaged and destroyed in some fight or other between Revenants. The street is lined with grubby, battered novas that have changed hands so often that the metal has worn smooth. Even so, the Revenants here fight over the money viciously, biting and scratching and killing over even a single coin. ⚝ Fort Nyx: The already labyrinthine layout of Fort Nyx's underground vaults has somehow managed to get even more confusing with the transition to the underside. The upper layer that once housed the bank has vanished entirely, leaving wibbly wobbly corridors that snake down deep into the depths of the vaults. You'll want to move fast as you travel through here, as the vault doors will occasionally burst open and a particularly aggressive Revenant will burst out, intent on protecting whatever meager treasures it's managed to collect and keep in the safe. ⚝ Et Voila Casino: You might have heard the term 'casino pit' before but this is pretty ridiculous! The interior of the casino has been replaced with a knee-deep deposit of gold novas that's not super easy to walk through. To make matters worse, there appears to be some kind of sinkhole at the center of the building that all the coins are gradually being pulled into. Thankfully, there's plenty of dilapidated casino machines and fixtures to climb up onto and keep yourself safe... but the place is absolutely flooded with Revenants who have absolutely woken up and chosen violence today. Stay on your toes! This is a general prompt for combat-oriented testing, to allow characters to experiment with their new powers as Executors! Because of that, and because combat will function slightly differently in-game, this section is pretty loosey goosey. Like previous posts, you are free to invent locations and NPC Revenants to make things more fun and exciting! If you would like some ideas for what sort of Revenants to battle, you can check out this video to see what sort of enemies exist in the original game, but beware that it does contain spoilers for Crystar.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Gambling Time

["Genius" doesn't remember much of her old life, but somehow she finds herself drawn into one of the card games. Almost automatically, she finds her mind pulling up probabilities and numbers, and slowly a pile of novas starts accumulating in front of her. Unfortunately for her, that gets several security Specters on her tail.]

Hey now, counting cards is a perfectly legitimate stratagem here! [She objects even as she's being slowly escorted out of this building, feet dragging against the floor as she tries to struggle against them.]

Underside

[She's got no idea how she ended up here, but right now she's kind of clinging to the top of a giant slot machine as a foxlike monster takes swipes at her legs and she tries to crawl out of its way. When she sees someone else, she immediately calls out to them.]

Excuse me? A little help here? You wouldn't leave a young lady all on her own, would you?

[OOC note: Susie's canon has a lot of warnings. Please take a look at her permissions post to be informed about them!]

Edited 2021-08-31 12:15 (UTC)

[ Lucky Number 7 ]

Ding! Ding! Ding! Ding! Ding!

At first, the young man currently known as "Prehnite" doesn't realize it's his machine making the jackpot noises. He isn't interested in gambling, and had only put a coin in the slots as a cover for some time to think about what he's learned (or hasn't learned) about this Layer. So he blinks, as surprised as anyone, when the screen in front of him starts flashing and the prize slot starts gushing tokens.

He blinks again when, as one, the people around him swivel to stare at him like vultures. Then all dive for the chips on the floor.

Prehnite turns in his chair, hands up placatingly. He doesn't really mind if some of his winnings are stolen - as long as he can contribute to his fellow Executors' upkeep, he's good - but this much fervor...this isn't natural. He's concerned.

"Now, now, let's calm down..."

Which is the last anyone hears of him before the swelling wave overtakes him, and he disappears, hands and all, into the crowd.

[ Executor Duty ]

"Where'd it go?!"

Landing with a flutter of wings, the Kamen Rider (....?) pursuing the stray Revenant runs up to a local shopkeeper, who is staring in dismay at the giant bite someone's taken out of his awning.

"The monster that did that!" Prehnite calls, pointing at the awning. "Which direction did it head??"

"I can't believe this!" moans the shopkeeper. "It's going to cost so much to replace that...!!! How will I explain this to my wife...?!"

Prehnite turns to his fellow Executor, thoughtful. "The locals won't help. If I search from the sky, can you take the streets?"

[ Digi Vu ]

Prehnite is sitting in the Executors' hideout, a small, steaming cup of green tea in easy reach. He's looking over some documents, frowning.

"This doesn't make sense...."

His job at the bank has yielded extremely odd results. There's a vault with an incredible amount of money within it - but money only ever goes in! None ever comes out.

What could this mean???

it's raining, it's pouring--

[Rose hasn't gotten the memo on the whole 'constantly raining' thing. She'd already been whimpering quietly to herself at the drizzle, trying to side-step puddles and keep her clothes nice-- but when the full-out rain starts? She screeches, up at the sky like it's personally victimized her, and she tries to scramble out of the rain as quickly as possible. She slams against a wall, her entire body pushed flat against the building, and sniffles, trying to hold back tears.]

Oh, no no no-- no, no, no--- [She's desperately trying to wring the water out of her dress. Honestly, she deserved this for wearing velvet---]

Why? It's going to dry and get all awful and--- [this is like, the least bad thing to happen all month, but she's still acting like the world is ending.]

Down on Mainstreet

[Rose is... never quiet. But at least this time, she has a reason to be screeching and squawking. She kicks the coin away from her, into the direction of the Revenant that was coming her way.]

Take it! Take it, Oh my--- What's wrong with these things?! It's just money, it's not like it's something important-- [She lets out an undignified sound, taking several unstable steps backwards. Someone-- anyone? Save her?]

Must you make such a fuss? Welcome to Avaritia, the entire place is a rainy hellhole.

[Wolfsbane's leaning against the doorframe, frowning.]

Oh, well-- [Ah... She's making a scene. Rose flushes, rocking back on her heels, away from the doorway, and fans her face with a hand.]

I suppose I don't must make a fuss, but it seems a shame not to, doesn't it? [The goofy goggles that were on top of her head get pulled down over her eyes, her lips curved into a shape that can only mean despair.] I ought to have worried more about the rain before, ought to have planned for the rainy hellhole-- [She squeaks the word out.] -- and now I look like a fool, a drenched rat of a fool.

Unfortunately, that's how this layer is. It's a good thing you ended up here instead of in the slums. You'd be soaked even if you went inside, unless you found one of the houses Lion renovated.

Watch out!

[ ....because there's a dark green blur speeding down from the sky, bearing a lance. The incoming Executor is aiming to pin the Revenant in place, in order to give Rose a chance to put some distance between herself and the enemy. ]

Are you all right?

[Rose is quick, but never in the way she wants to be-- she fumbles out of the way, shrieking and splashing through a puddle-- but for what it's worth? She seems okay, as she quickly makes known through rapid-fire speech.]

Oh! Yes, Yes, I'm alright-- I'm afraid I'm much noisier than I am actually in danger-- Wow, look at you go--

[ And here's the Revenant pinned. Prehnite tries to spare a glance for Rose, though, to confirm she's okay. ]

This Layer runs on greed. Can you transform?

[ This monster is unruly! Scrabbling at him, scrabbling for its coin...He eyes said coin, thinking fast. ]

CAN CRY: FOURTH TDM

Susan Hana Nishio | Kamisama No Iutoori Ni

Ken Ichijouji (age 19, DON'T JUDGE ME) | Digimon Adventure: Last Evolution Kizuna

matilda hamilton | oc

rain

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down on mainstreet

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