Haunted Summer!
Aren't the dorms lovely this time of year? We hope your students and grads have been enjoying their comfort this week, because come the crack of 12:01 a.m. Fandom time on Friday morning, everyone in the dorms will be greeted by an invasion of mutated, Manilow-resistent stolp bugs, serenading them with the only appropriate song for the day. Over. And over. And over. Na, na, na, na everyday. It's like your iPod's stuck on Replay.
What Dooooo?
Come Saturday morning when the bugs are still singing their buggy little hearts out, the administration will evacuate everybody by ferry over to new IKEA-donated quarters on the shore of Ingvar. Quarters that weren't supposed to be finished until next summer, so they're liveable, but not exactly tested for little things like consistent electricity and temperatures or lack of weeping women at the foot of your bed in the middle of the night. Whoops.
Apparently you get what you pay for -- in this case, walls, rooms, and furnishings made from bits and pieces that were returned to the store (or never even got sold) due to furniture-related tragedy.
What Does It Look Like?
We're so glad you asked! It looks like this:
Exterior 1
Exterior 2
Exterior 3
1st Floor (big pic linked)
2nd Floor (big pic linked)
3rd Floor (big pic linked)
4th Floor (big pic linked)
There's a ramp up from the ferry and beach area, a kitchen/dining room on the ground floor, and a working (but erratic) lift as well as stairs to all floors including the roof. Almost every part of the house is open for use; the surrounding environs, not so much.
Where Do I Sleep?
In your room, with your roomie! (Yes, you can sneak back to the dorms for Stuff and Things, but Rebecca Black. Over and over and over and over...)
Where Can I Go?
Bedroom posts go in personal journals and work just like dorm rooms would, including general "talk to your roomie's player if you're going to do something that could affect their character" courtesy, and students/grads only except by special plot-necessary arrangement.
Places open for posting in the fandomhighdorms comm:
*The porch - it wraps around the house and is open to any characters including teachers and townies.
*The parlors - the first floor parlor is open to visitors, like the porch. The parlors on the 2nd and 3rd floors work just like the dorm common rooms, except no kitchenettes.
*The kitchen/dining room - the reason there's no kitchenettes. This area and the blocks of bedrooms directly above it on the 2nd and 3rd floors are the only guaranteed non-haunted places in the house. They're right above the HVAC unit in the basement, whose vibrations mess with the ghosts' ability to interact with our plane of reality.
*The roof - there's lift and stair access and it's got a great view of Fandom.
*The attic - it's dark, drafty, and full of some very old friends, who, though they can't leave the attic, will act exactly the way they did when they visited Fandom, if your character heads up there. If your character takes one out of the attic, it'll revert to being just a doll, though the ghosts might try to mess with you by moving it around. (The attic is accessible only via the stairs from 3rd floor parlor below.)
We've added a "haunted house" tag to the dorms comm to use for any of these posts.
Places open for posting in the fandomtownies comm:
*Ingvar beach - it's a mix of rocky and sandy, and there's room enough to lay out in the sun or build yourself a campfire if you so desire. Open to any characters including teachers and townies.
*The Ferry - one leaves every hour between 6 a.m. and 10 p.m., traveling from Fandom Island to Ingvar and back. The trips are handwavy unless you actually want some interaction atop the waves, so before making a new ferry post, check your friendslist to see if there's already a recent one up! If you do make a post, just be sure to note what time it is and which direction it's going -- to Fandom or to Ingvar. Open to any characters including teachers and townies.
You can use the "ingvar island" tag in townies for Ingvar Beach posts, and we've also added a separate "ingvar ferry" tag.
Where Can I NOT Go?
* The basement - it's locked off to anyone but admin/maintenance.
* Somebody else's room except with their permission, yo.
* Room 13. It's locked, it's dark, it's cold, it's empty beyond emptiness, and if you're in any way psychically sensitive, getting near it or touching any of the adjoining walls will freak you right the frak out.
* Anywhere outside the house besides the porch/ramp, the ferry dock and the beach attached to it. Ingvar (and Fandom) really don't want you exploring the rest of the baby island, so everything else is covered with densely-packed oak and pine trees that will helpfully bar your way or send you walking in dizzy, paranoid circles until you come out exactly where you went in.
BLAH BLAH BLAH Get to the Good Stuff. What About The Hauntings?
Places you won't experience spectral phenomena: the kitchen/dining area, those bedrooms marked as not haunted on the list, the beach, the ferry, and pretty much anyplace else not physically part of the house. (If you try to explore the woods, you'll get lost and feel like someone's watching you, but that's Ingvar, not ghosts. Mostly.)
Places you might experience spectral phenomena: the porch, the parlors, the bathrooms, the hallways, the bedrooms (except for those marked not haunted on the list), the lift and stairwells, the attic, the roof.
General creepy stuff (can be modded anywhere/anytime)
* cold spots
* electronics and lights flickering, malfunctioning, or going out entirely (Same for plumbing! Disembodied flushes ahoy!)
* the feeling that someone/something is watching you/following you
* nonspecific fear of...everything
* shadows moving where they shouldn't be
* disembodied laughing, crying, or singing
* brief moments/patches of strong negative emotion (sadness, anger, shame, loneliness -- the kind of psychic impressions you might get from people who... died of furniture)
* brief impressions of curiosity, playfulness, or other more interactive emotions (from more active ghosts who are aware and not just stuck replaying their deaths)
* doors and floorboards creaking
* small objects moving or disappearing when you're not looking at them
* angry cursing of the sort that could only come from trying to assemble something whose instructions were translated from Farsi to Norwegian by way of Tagalog
* phantom wi-fi routers with disturbing names that you can never quite connect to, even though they say they're unprotected
* misty or shadowy figures, vague enough that you can't make out facial features, but can tell general body shape, man/woman/child - clothing styles range from the 1950's through the early 2000's.
* Cold hands grabbing your hand or foot if you fall asleep with it hanging off the bed
Specific ghosts and where they hang out
The Mother-In-Law: 1st floor parlor. She was bricked into a wall when she outstayed her welcome; parts of that wall were used in the parlor, and due to the nature of her death, she can't leave it. She's rarely visible, but when she does appear (or when the gifted sense her psychically), she looks like this. She likes to change the tv station to soap operas, shopping channels, or the 700 Club (especially if you're watching something racy), and will make disapproving tsk tsk tsk noises (or even audibly biotchy comments) at anyone she thinks is dressed too provactively (aka in anything made after 1958) or otherwise not living up to her behavioral standards. Crumbs on the sofa? SNIFF. WELL, THEN.
The Smushed One: 2nd floor parlor. A bookcase named Ingo fell on him. He mostly groans and makes books fall off shelves, but can occasionally give people who hang out in that room for a long time a really nasty headache. (Not on purpose; he's just projecting his concussion.) He doesn't appear visibly; even psychics will only sense him as the impression of a GIANT DOOMY TSUNAMI OF BOOKS falling toward them. He also doesn't leave the parlor, because smushed.
The Girl Who Hides Her Face: 3rd floor parlor most often, but she'll also wander the halls and rooms, sometimes even on other floors. She put this chair together, then died of SHAME. Yes, the chair is in the parlor. Yes, you can sit on it. (If you do, you'll hear a young woman mutter, "Oh god oh god oh god what have I done....") Otherwise, she's a pale visual apparition dressed in relatively modern clothes, whose face is always hidden by her hands.
The Children of Småland: Outdoors on the roof, sometimes on the porch or in hallways. You won't see them at all, but you'll hear giggling, running, and general sounds of children playing, and you might see a ball or other toy roll out of nowhere. They may also venture down to bedrooms and parlors to steal your toys, which you'll find later somewhere else in the house. Oddly, they don't go anywhere near the attic. Those dolls even creep the ghosts out.
The Little Lost Girl: She tends to cry in stairwells, bathrooms (regardless of gender), and hallways. She'll only physically appear in the stairwells/on the stairs, and only to someone alone -- at which point you'll see a small Asian-American girl (around four years old) with long pigtails, carrying a teddy bear, slightly glowy and translucent. She'll speak, but the only things she'll say are "Mommy, where are you?" and (directly to your character) "Can you help me find my mommy?" She'll also put out her hand if you offer to help her, and you'll feel a faint, cold sensation of small fingers in yours, if you take it. However, she'll disappear as soon as you leave the stairwell, or as soon as more than one person enters that area. Anyone who's ever offered to help her, or who's just very good with children, may also unexpectedly feel that small, cold hand in theirs when they're walking down a hallway, especially at night. She won't be visible or respond in any way, and the hand will disappear immediately if you look down, or once you get where you're going, if you don't look.
These are by no means the only ghosts around -- they're just the only ones who will come out of hiding enough to be identified at this point.
Q & A
Q: Can our characters talk to the ghosts?
A: To, yes, but the ghosts aren't able to hold real conversations or tell you about themselves, etc. They might knock, move objects, cry, repeat the things they usually say more forcefully or directly in reaction to someone addressing them, and it's cool to mod that kind of interaction to your heart's content.
Q: Are the ghosts or the general phenomena dangerous?
A: No. Scary, sure, able to mess with your mind, sure, but they won't/can't harm anyone. Most of them are just confused or sad. The Mother-In-Law is a straight-up beeyotch and people who can feel such things may well sense that she's a bad spirit, but her powers are limited to minor tantrums and sneering at you.
Q: Will things get violent, will blood pour from the walls, will there be screams and large furniture flying?
A: Not generally. If there's day/night when the spirits are especially stirred up, we'll make an OOC post ahead of time to let you know the types of unusual effects you can play with.
Q: What's the etiquette for modding supernatural stuff?
A: If you're planning a post with specific people, check in to make sure they're cool with playing that. If you're making an open post, either include the shenanigans in the narrative or in an OOC note, so people know what they're throwing their characters at. If you didn't make the post and there's no note saying spookiness is welcome, check in with the person who did make the post before modding weird stuff happening. Just your basic "communicate with people before introducing something new into a scene" deal, really.
If you have other questions, feel free to throw them at us in the comments!
What Dooooo?
Come Saturday morning when the bugs are still singing their buggy little hearts out, the administration will evacuate everybody by ferry over to new IKEA-donated quarters on the shore of Ingvar. Quarters that weren't supposed to be finished until next summer, so they're liveable, but not exactly tested for little things like consistent electricity and temperatures or lack of weeping women at the foot of your bed in the middle of the night. Whoops.
Apparently you get what you pay for -- in this case, walls, rooms, and furnishings made from bits and pieces that were returned to the store (or never even got sold) due to furniture-related tragedy.
What Does It Look Like?
We're so glad you asked! It looks like this:
Exterior 1
Exterior 2
Exterior 3
1st Floor (big pic linked)
2nd Floor (big pic linked)
3rd Floor (big pic linked)
4th Floor (big pic linked)
There's a ramp up from the ferry and beach area, a kitchen/dining room on the ground floor, and a working (but erratic) lift as well as stairs to all floors including the roof. Almost every part of the house is open for use; the surrounding environs, not so much.
Where Do I Sleep?
In your room, with your roomie! (Yes, you can sneak back to the dorms for Stuff and Things, but Rebecca Black. Over and over and over and over...)
Where Can I Go?
Bedroom posts go in personal journals and work just like dorm rooms would, including general "talk to your roomie's player if you're going to do something that could affect their character" courtesy, and students/grads only except by special plot-necessary arrangement.
Places open for posting in the fandomhighdorms comm:
*The porch - it wraps around the house and is open to any characters including teachers and townies.
*The parlors - the first floor parlor is open to visitors, like the porch. The parlors on the 2nd and 3rd floors work just like the dorm common rooms, except no kitchenettes.
*The kitchen/dining room - the reason there's no kitchenettes. This area and the blocks of bedrooms directly above it on the 2nd and 3rd floors are the only guaranteed non-haunted places in the house. They're right above the HVAC unit in the basement, whose vibrations mess with the ghosts' ability to interact with our plane of reality.
*The roof - there's lift and stair access and it's got a great view of Fandom.
*The attic - it's dark, drafty, and full of some very old friends, who, though they can't leave the attic, will act exactly the way they did when they visited Fandom, if your character heads up there. If your character takes one out of the attic, it'll revert to being just a doll, though the ghosts might try to mess with you by moving it around. (The attic is accessible only via the stairs from 3rd floor parlor below.)
We've added a "haunted house" tag to the dorms comm to use for any of these posts.
Places open for posting in the fandomtownies comm:
*Ingvar beach - it's a mix of rocky and sandy, and there's room enough to lay out in the sun or build yourself a campfire if you so desire. Open to any characters including teachers and townies.
*The Ferry - one leaves every hour between 6 a.m. and 10 p.m., traveling from Fandom Island to Ingvar and back. The trips are handwavy unless you actually want some interaction atop the waves, so before making a new ferry post, check your friendslist to see if there's already a recent one up! If you do make a post, just be sure to note what time it is and which direction it's going -- to Fandom or to Ingvar. Open to any characters including teachers and townies.
You can use the "ingvar island" tag in townies for Ingvar Beach posts, and we've also added a separate "ingvar ferry" tag.
Where Can I NOT Go?
* The basement - it's locked off to anyone but admin/maintenance.
* Somebody else's room except with their permission, yo.
* Room 13. It's locked, it's dark, it's cold, it's empty beyond emptiness, and if you're in any way psychically sensitive, getting near it or touching any of the adjoining walls will freak you right the frak out.
* Anywhere outside the house besides the porch/ramp, the ferry dock and the beach attached to it. Ingvar (and Fandom) really don't want you exploring the rest of the baby island, so everything else is covered with densely-packed oak and pine trees that will helpfully bar your way or send you walking in dizzy, paranoid circles until you come out exactly where you went in.
BLAH BLAH BLAH Get to the Good Stuff. What About The Hauntings?
Places you won't experience spectral phenomena: the kitchen/dining area, those bedrooms marked as not haunted on the list, the beach, the ferry, and pretty much anyplace else not physically part of the house. (If you try to explore the woods, you'll get lost and feel like someone's watching you, but that's Ingvar, not ghosts. Mostly.)
Places you might experience spectral phenomena: the porch, the parlors, the bathrooms, the hallways, the bedrooms (except for those marked not haunted on the list), the lift and stairwells, the attic, the roof.
General creepy stuff (can be modded anywhere/anytime)
* cold spots
* electronics and lights flickering, malfunctioning, or going out entirely (Same for plumbing! Disembodied flushes ahoy!)
* the feeling that someone/something is watching you/following you
* nonspecific fear of...everything
* shadows moving where they shouldn't be
* disembodied laughing, crying, or singing
* brief moments/patches of strong negative emotion (sadness, anger, shame, loneliness -- the kind of psychic impressions you might get from people who... died of furniture)
* brief impressions of curiosity, playfulness, or other more interactive emotions (from more active ghosts who are aware and not just stuck replaying their deaths)
* doors and floorboards creaking
* small objects moving or disappearing when you're not looking at them
* angry cursing of the sort that could only come from trying to assemble something whose instructions were translated from Farsi to Norwegian by way of Tagalog
* phantom wi-fi routers with disturbing names that you can never quite connect to, even though they say they're unprotected
* misty or shadowy figures, vague enough that you can't make out facial features, but can tell general body shape, man/woman/child - clothing styles range from the 1950's through the early 2000's.
* Cold hands grabbing your hand or foot if you fall asleep with it hanging off the bed
Specific ghosts and where they hang out
The Mother-In-Law: 1st floor parlor. She was bricked into a wall when she outstayed her welcome; parts of that wall were used in the parlor, and due to the nature of her death, she can't leave it. She's rarely visible, but when she does appear (or when the gifted sense her psychically), she looks like this. She likes to change the tv station to soap operas, shopping channels, or the 700 Club (especially if you're watching something racy), and will make disapproving tsk tsk tsk noises (or even audibly biotchy comments) at anyone she thinks is dressed too provactively (aka in anything made after 1958) or otherwise not living up to her behavioral standards. Crumbs on the sofa? SNIFF. WELL, THEN.
The Smushed One: 2nd floor parlor. A bookcase named Ingo fell on him. He mostly groans and makes books fall off shelves, but can occasionally give people who hang out in that room for a long time a really nasty headache. (Not on purpose; he's just projecting his concussion.) He doesn't appear visibly; even psychics will only sense him as the impression of a GIANT DOOMY TSUNAMI OF BOOKS falling toward them. He also doesn't leave the parlor, because smushed.
The Girl Who Hides Her Face: 3rd floor parlor most often, but she'll also wander the halls and rooms, sometimes even on other floors. She put this chair together, then died of SHAME. Yes, the chair is in the parlor. Yes, you can sit on it. (If you do, you'll hear a young woman mutter, "Oh god oh god oh god what have I done....") Otherwise, she's a pale visual apparition dressed in relatively modern clothes, whose face is always hidden by her hands.
The Children of Småland: Outdoors on the roof, sometimes on the porch or in hallways. You won't see them at all, but you'll hear giggling, running, and general sounds of children playing, and you might see a ball or other toy roll out of nowhere. They may also venture down to bedrooms and parlors to steal your toys, which you'll find later somewhere else in the house. Oddly, they don't go anywhere near the attic. Those dolls even creep the ghosts out.
The Little Lost Girl: She tends to cry in stairwells, bathrooms (regardless of gender), and hallways. She'll only physically appear in the stairwells/on the stairs, and only to someone alone -- at which point you'll see a small Asian-American girl (around four years old) with long pigtails, carrying a teddy bear, slightly glowy and translucent. She'll speak, but the only things she'll say are "Mommy, where are you?" and (directly to your character) "Can you help me find my mommy?" She'll also put out her hand if you offer to help her, and you'll feel a faint, cold sensation of small fingers in yours, if you take it. However, she'll disappear as soon as you leave the stairwell, or as soon as more than one person enters that area. Anyone who's ever offered to help her, or who's just very good with children, may also unexpectedly feel that small, cold hand in theirs when they're walking down a hallway, especially at night. She won't be visible or respond in any way, and the hand will disappear immediately if you look down, or once you get where you're going, if you don't look.
These are by no means the only ghosts around -- they're just the only ones who will come out of hiding enough to be identified at this point.
Q & A
Q: Can our characters talk to the ghosts?
A: To, yes, but the ghosts aren't able to hold real conversations or tell you about themselves, etc. They might knock, move objects, cry, repeat the things they usually say more forcefully or directly in reaction to someone addressing them, and it's cool to mod that kind of interaction to your heart's content.
Q: Are the ghosts or the general phenomena dangerous?
A: No. Scary, sure, able to mess with your mind, sure, but they won't/can't harm anyone. Most of them are just confused or sad. The Mother-In-Law is a straight-up beeyotch and people who can feel such things may well sense that she's a bad spirit, but her powers are limited to minor tantrums and sneering at you.
Q: Will things get violent, will blood pour from the walls, will there be screams and large furniture flying?
A: Not generally. If there's day/night when the spirits are especially stirred up, we'll make an OOC post ahead of time to let you know the types of unusual effects you can play with.
Q: What's the etiquette for modding supernatural stuff?
A: If you're planning a post with specific people, check in to make sure they're cool with playing that. If you're making an open post, either include the shenanigans in the narrative or in an OOC note, so people know what they're throwing their characters at. If you didn't make the post and there's no note saying spookiness is welcome, check in with the person who did make the post before modding weird stuff happening. Just your basic "communicate with people before introducing something new into a scene" deal, really.
If you have other questions, feel free to throw them at us in the comments!