Trick or Treat

markhawkman

WHAT are the Trick or Treaters?

Obviously they're not human, they're some sort of supernatural entities. But what sort? The only guess I can come up with is that they work for Krim in some way, but I'm not sure what.

bulgarex

You mean, other than a gimmick for the Blood Moon event?

There's nothing about creatures with this specific M.O. in the lore. (Frankly, the way the Blood Moon is executed doesn't make much sense from a setting perspective; but that's beside the issue here.) Halloween is inspired by the Celtic pagan festival of Samhain, which was considered a time when spirits of nature, of the dead, and the pagan gods could more easily cross from their Otherworld to the mundane one. Since all those things exist in the Champions Universe, the Trick or Treaters could be any of them. The back story of the current Blood Moon event is that Takofanes is taking advantage of the weakened barriers between worlds at this time to, ostensibly, conquer the world(?) His meddling might draw more of these creatures to Earth.

Given that the TTers are unpredictably either helpful or harmful, the best rationale I can think of for them is that they're faerie-folk from the dimension of Faerie, home to all the beings of human myth and folklore. Faeries are highly magical, deceptive, and infamously mercurial in temperament, generous or cruel as the mood strikes them.

markhawkman

Well, I guess that sounds about right.

markhawkman

I made an interesting observation today. The ToTers seem far more likely to be standing near enemies in the areas of the city with DEMON and Fire Demons. Might be a coincidence, but it seems a bit odd.

iamrune

In the first Blood Moon back in '09, the explanation in the original flavor text was that the Trick or Treater NPCs are actually normal citizens of MC who are afflicted with an enchantment that causes them to literally become what they dressed up for while going to costume parties and so on.

---everything below this point is how our role-playing Super groups deals with them based on this---

Coincidentally, our SG role-plays that they are innocents who are under an enchantment and defeat them to place them in holding cells until it wears off, or they can have the enchantment dispelled [extremely difficult while under the world-wide effects of the Blood Moon].

Note they never attack anyone unless directly interacted with, so will not typically attack other passersby unless they are accosted, and we head-cannon this as them fighting off the mental aspect of the transformation as most normal people would.

They are generally not to be held accountable for acts committed during magical coercion, and we even have a character or two who were permanently empowered by this enchantment for reasons specific to them.

We also have a character on the team who dressed up as an Anime Catgirl the year of her first Blood Moon in MC, and now reverts to a catgirl form every Bloodmoon although it doesn't affect her mental state too badly.

And of course, a couple wags even tried 'Dressing Up as Super Heroes" ahead of time and becoming meta-human heroes who only have their powers during the Blood Moon enchantment as a result of that.

From inference of this lore placed in the game, we role-play using the following 'rules';

It strikes semi randomly, and has so far never, ever affected anyone who dressed up as a specific person in history or fiction, such as a President, a specific mass murderer, Dracula [ any of them], or other named individual.

In most cases, the enchantment seems to prefer to work it's magic on people dressed up as classical monsters and animal costumes.

Transformations are only of a broad category, such as "Vampire, Werewolf, Catgirl, Mummy, Super-Hero, Robot", etc.

bulgarex

Thank you for that information, Rune. That makes more sense in context, although as your role-playing example illustrates, trying to make the explanation cover the in-game circumstances gets pretty convoluted, and doesn't really explain the randomly helpful aspect of the "enchantment." But that's trying to make more coherent something the developers probably never intended to hold up under close scrutiny anyway. It's just a fun gimmick to play with.

markhawkman

iamrune said:

In the first Blood Moon back in '09, the explanation in the original flavor text was that the Trick or Treater NPCs are actually normal citizens of MC who are afflicted with an enchantment that causes them to literally become what they dressed up for while going to costume parties and so on.

Interesting, but it doesn't quite fit with the way they always transform to fight you though. I mean... none of them dresses like a Frank or Mummy....

iamrune

markhawkman said:

iamrune said:

In the first Blood Moon back in '09, the explanation in the original flavor text was that the Trick or Treater NPCs are actually normal citizens of MC who are afflicted with an enchantment that causes them to literally become what they dressed up for while going to costume parties and so on.

Interesting, but it doesn't quite fit with the way they always transform to fight you though. I mean... none of them dresses like a Frank or Mummy....

Well, that's what the flavor text said back in the day. i wish I could find it but that was like two websites ago.

markhawkman

Yeah, it's a weird explanation, but not totally out of the question.

bulgarex

Again, I don't think the devs were worried about creating an ironclad rationale, just an excuse for a game element they thought would be fun. There's a lot in CO you can't scrutinize too closely if you want to just enjoy playing.

markhawkman

Yeah, it's kinda fun, and silly.

markhawkman

Soo... This year we actually HAVE flavor text for the event!!!!

Dweomer wrote:

Dark creatures have risen by the Blood Moon's power. Some have been masquerading around the city as trick or treaters, undoubtedly up to no good.

Go trick or treat around the city, perhaps you can flush some of them out and drive them back into the darkness.

Yeah, kinda vague....

grievehart

iamrune wrote: »

In the first Blood Moon back in '09, the explanation in the original flavor text was that the Trick or Treater NPCs are actually normal citizens of MC who are afflicted with an enchantment that causes them to literally become what they dressed up for while going to costume parties and so on.

Funny, It's litterally what happen in season 2 episode 6 "Halloween" from buffy the vampire slayer series.

markhawkman wrote: »

WHAT are the Trick or Treaters?

Obviously they're not human, they're some sort of supernatural entities. But what sort? The only guess I can come up with is that they work for Krim in some way, but I'm not sure what.

There is something i noted day one this year.
The black cats. In addition of greatly contributing to halloween and blood moon general ambiance, cats are always near ToT.
Where it become interesting is here. These cats emitts meow and hss sometimes. If you have the curiosity to check the NPC chat, majority of cats are named "Evil thing" (few others are named Nico weirdly). So i suppose the "facetious spirit" guilty for Tot this year manifest in these cats.

Or it's simply a private joke from Kaiserin after last anniversary cat event, the cat hate which followed, and this thread:
https://www.arcgames.com/en/forums/championsonline#/discussion/1211907/kitten-attacks-london-millennium-city-authorities-fear-the-worst-is-yet-to-come

bulgarex

Which seems to support what I always contend: take everything in CO seriously at your peril.

markhawkman

grievehart wrote: »

There is something i noted day one this year.
The black cats. In addition of greatly contributing to halloween and blood moon general ambiance, cats are always near ToT.
Where it become interesting is here. These cats emitts meow and hss sometimes. If you have the curiosity to check the NPC chat, majority of cats are named "Evil thing" (few others are named Nico weirdly). So i suppose the "facetious spirit" guilty for Tot this year manifest in these cats.

I'd noticed the noises, but never thought to check their names in NPC chat. Interesting, I wonder if it has anything to do with location?