Dystopian Announcement Forum, SWC March '22

Greetings, citizens! It appears that you have chanced upon the secret scrolls of the Rebels. Pore over their contents carefully; you’ll need all the information you’ll get if you are to triumph over the oppressive oligarchy.


✧-ˋˏA Warm Welcomeˎˊ-✧

It’s the first day of camp, and on the surface, all’s well. A fire burns in the hearth, and the common room bristles with the laughter and chaos of your fellow campers. There are splashes of colour on the carpet, where banners and guidebooks were put together and panels repainted. Rich tapestries of a glorious generation eons apart from yours, adorn the walls, and antiques from a bygone era are placed precariously on shelves protected by bulletproof glass. You close your eyes and allow yourself to relax when a streak of black flashes before you. All of a sudden, the walls come alive, and ivy chokes the once burning fireplace. The tapestries twist unto themselves and contort into cannonballs, all aimed dangerously towards you. The hall falls eerily silent, the happy bustle you once heard is replaced by the howling wind and rattling chains…
And then it drops. The fragile illusion you inhabited flickers into existence once more, but even now, something seems amiss. It dawns upon you that the bricks you thought lay behind the patterned cloth enclosing them, aren’t really bricks—but metal-clad prison bars.

Welcome to Dystopian, where forlorn hopes and echoes reside. We hope you enjoy your stay <3


✧-ˋˏStorylineˎˊ-✧

Power is like a serpent; it creeps in, a mere opportunity, from the undergrowth, when you least expect it to. It escapes your notice, at first, but gradually, it grows, feeding off insecurity and desire—until at last you cannot ignore its monstrous head, threatening to consume you if you do not tame it, if you do not feed it, if you shut it up and pretend it doesn’t exist. Thus did the Old Generation rise to power.
You do not recall the lambent city lights fading, the bonds that tied you to your family and neighbours withering, crumbling to nothingness. You are alone, always have been, eyes eternally raised upward to that whitewashed building, secured by innumerable locks, aloof, mysterious, forbidden. You can feel your pulse racing, your feet weighed down but forcing you onward. Edict upon edict, broadcast upon broadcast; the dictums of authoritarian voices have influenced your every action, your every word—that is, until now.
All is not lost, for those who raise their voices above the rest and work hard to fulfill their dreams will seldom go unrewarded. There are yet a few biomes with collectable resources left; granted they might only supply the needs of half the existing populace, but a little hope is better than none at all, and this is a cause worth fighting for.

A yellow dragonfly flutters before you, beautiful in its delicacy—does it herald a brighter future, a new beginning? Only time can tell.

Update 3/1/22: Join hands with those who have suffered by your side and complete tasks to obtain keys. Once the cabin has collectively collected a thousand keys, you shall be equipped to break into the Old Generation’s hideout and overthrow them—although it won’t be the last of your trials, it shall be a start, and that is something.

Update 3/21/22: scroll down ;)

✧-ˋˏSharing Writing (IMPORTANT!!)ˎˊ-✧

Upon intensive discussion, the rules pertaining to sharing writing have been changed, and it is now compulsory for campers and leaders alike to use the megathread, unless they have good reasons not to, in which case it is vital that the hosts are consulted ^^ For more details, head here.

✧-ˋˏIn-Cabin Currencyˎˊ-✧

Hopefully you’ve read the Cabin Guide before coming here, but in case you haven’t, keys are our in-cabin currency, and shall propel the plot forward. They can be earned by completing set tasks *cough* DAILIES, WEEKLIES *cough*

Winning a Word War: 5 keys
Completing a Daily: 10 keys
Hitting the 1k Word Benchmark: 20 keys
Turning in a Weekly: 40 keys

✧-ˋˏStatsˎˊ-

Cabin ranking: 4


✧-ˋˏPuzzlesˎˊ-✧

Although they shan't earn you points, it can't be denied that puzzles are fun to solve, so here is your brain teaser for the day:

Riddle me this:
'What is cloaked in ashen coal
And turns silvery white when unrolled;
Whose lilting voice does return
Every utterance, syllable spoken,
Whose image evokes a picture of rebellion?'

~

If you have any queries whatsoever, feel free to voice them, and they shall certainly be addressed!


~

Many thanks to @. waterlily7859; the formatting and structure of this post is heavily based on the one she drafted ^^"

Second Storyline Part Annoucment:

The Old Generation has fallen.

Everything should be fine now, right? Apparently not.

There are those who wish for a perfect world. A utopia in which death and hunger don’t exist. Where you can live in eternal bliss. These are the utopians.

Then there are those who wish for a more twisted world. A half-dystopian sort of world with flaws and trouble and worries. There cannot be light without darkness, right? That’s what the dystopians believe.

Disputes have already started through the streets. A clear government leader has not risen yet. No one knows how to continue from this point. How are we going to build a nation from here? Are we going to build a dystopia or utopia? What are we planning, striving for? All you can do is keep surviving. Chaos is imminent everywhere. The amount of crimes committed has never been higher. Everyday you walk with the notion that the world could crumble that day. Each step you take is full of uncertainty. You’re not sure you will survive. Perhaps the Old Generation was right?

No. Tyranny is not the way to rule a government. But it is unclear if the dystopians and utopians can coexist peacefully with each other. It is decided that there will be a vote. Simple rules. Majority wins.

Who knew the vote would be so split? Recount after recount. The decision for either a utopian world or (rather loose) dystopian world has remained 50-50. The two sides had no choice but to split. Leave and fend for themselves, collecting resources to build their new world. Whichever world progressed further would overpower the other and win. The competition begins.

Congratulations on overthrowing the Old Generation! We are most definitely not offended that you barged through our building and threatened us. We are also totally not salty at all that we have to sit locked up! (just kidding, you guys did an amazing job!) But your challenges are not over yet. You still have one more important decision to decide. How will you go about your new world? Will it become a utopia or (loose) dystopia? It’s up to the two sides to battle it out.

There are 5 different resources (R) to collect for your new world. Water (W), Fleece (F), Lumber (L), Metal (M), and Stone (S), which correlates with five biomes: ocean, grassland, taiga, desert, and tundra. Winning a word war is worth 1 resource, doing the daily is worth 2 resources, doing the weekly is worth 5 resources, etc., more can be found in the studio description. Once you earn these resources, you can choose which materials you want to collect. Then comment in the cabin: ”+1 water and +1 metal for doing the daily!” or “+2 water for doing the daily!” You can choose which materials you want to collect and how many of each you want to collect. You must state which types of materials you want to collect with your gained resource; you can not save up your resources and convert them later (exception for the 5 R every 25k team word total, which one of the leaders will ask in the comments what you want to convert that to). Now that you have these materials, you can build buildings to help your team earn points! A total of 10 types of buildings can be built, which can be found in the description of the studio. To gain points from building buildings, you must have more of that type of building than the other team; if it is a tie, nobody gets the points associated with that building. By having the most of a type of building, you effectively “capture” it along with gaining the points associated with that building (e.g. Utopia team has 3 Roadways while Dystopia team has 1 Roadway, Utopia team captures the Roadways and earns 500 points; Utopia team has 2 Prisons while Dystopia team has 2 Prisons, nobody captures the Prisons, points go to nobody).

All transactions are final, so try to talk with your teammates before purchasing items in case you want to save materials for something. At least one other teammate must reply with an agreement to your transaction in the comments for a leader to update the description. In the end, the team with the most points wins! Each unused resource is also worth 50 points, so don’t worry if you don’t get to spend all of your resources in the end (these will be tallied up at the end of camp).

And with that, it’s time to begin the competition. Make sure to prioritize life over SWC, and best of luck to both of you! <33

Thanks to @waterlily7859 for writing most of this!

Aces. And. Spades THIS IS AMAZINGGGGGGGG