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the_plateau2025-01-02 04:47 pm
indigo_league) wrote in the_plateau2025-01-02 04:47 pm
Entry tags:
Snorunt Fortunes 2025...?
Save Our Snorunts!
There exists an old superstition that Snorunts bring luck and good fortune to those that treasure them. "Look into a rich man's past, and you will find a Snorunt there," is something you might hear from older relatives to explain why some of us enjoy more fortune than others.
Well. It turns out those old people are right. Up to a point, at least.
Whether they actually bring good or bad luck themselves or if there is some luck-giving entity that is just very concerned with Snorunt Treatment is something that can be discussed at length, but the fact remains that how you treat a Snorunt can definitely affect your luck in life.
And normally, characters would get to experience it for themselves starting in the first few days of January... but in 2025, something seems to be wrong. Where are the Snorunts...?
What's going on?
Rather than the normal swarm of Snorunts long-time characters may have come to expect, the Snorunts that come stumbling into town this time are... well, okay, they're always shivering. But they're also sneezing! And they're definitely not their normal, perky, mischievous little selves - they seem downright fatigued. A lot of them haven't even made it into towns, hence the small numbers.
On top of that, they're accompanied by a number of equally miserable Glalies and Froslass; it seems like all these ice Pokemon have come down with an unfortunate new strain of Pokerus! It's no joke, let me tell you: you haven't seen a sneeze until you've seen a Glalie full-body sneeze.
The Snorunts really aren't up to bestowing fortunes intentionally, at least not at the moment...
Uh oh. Can we help?
You sure can! The Nurse Joys are on the case, but there are too many Snorunts for them to handle this alone. They're asking for volunteers.
How your characters help is up to you, but here are some ideas if you'd like inspiration!
- Bring sick Pokemon from out in the wild to Pokemon Centers.
- Courier medicine over to field treatment locations. But careful to keep the medicine warm, it's ruined if it freezes!
- Help sew masks for Glalies to cough into - human-sized masks just won't cut it.
- Find lumps of pure ice for feeding Snorunt.
- Make big batches of Pokemon-safe cough drops (or big batches of food for the nurses and helpers!)
- Provide enrichment for a bedridden Froslass: find little easy things for them to freeze, that they can manage even when fatigued
so they don't try to freeze the nurses. - Sanitize medical equipment by heating it! But careful to do it slowly with anything made of glass... it gets cold being used on these Ice Pokemon.
A log will be going up for this plot on January 6th!
What was that about "intentionally"?
Over the course of January, characters will be struck randomly by mild bursts of good and bad luck. More often bad.
Fortunately, these bursts don't seem to last as long as a true Snorunt fortune, only a few hours at most. But there's nothing stopping your character from getting struck several times in a row...
For these short bursts, you're welcome to decide the effects for yourself! General guidelines: stick to game mechanics for this one, nothing like being able to catch an extra shiny.
What about the character-specific Snorunt fortunes? Are they still happening?
In an effort to encourage and reward activity, this years' custom Snorunt fortunes are going to be a reward for plot participation!
Don't worry, the requirements aren't very intense - aside from the usual description of how your character will interact with the Snorunt, we'd like to see a link to a thread related to the plot, with at least 3 comments from your character. (It doesn't need to be on the event log - you're perfectly welcome to make your own post!)
Please respond with those two things to this mod comment - you can submit as early as you'd like, and submissions will stay open until February 7th. Fortunes will be given out starting in the last week of January.
ICly, the Snorunts (and Glalies and Froslass) will recover around the end of the month and promptly get up to their usual shenanigans - but with a particular eye toward the people who helped them. Unfortunately, they may have a grudge toward medical attention they didn't enjoy, and they're as fickle as usual...
Fortunes will affect characters through the month of February rather than January.
Anything else?
Anyone who participates in the plot can choose to have their character's Pokemon get infected with this strain of Pokerus.
Unfortunately for any infected Pokemon, while they won't be as badly affected as the Snorunts, they'll still be miserable and full of sneezes for a week. They won't be up to battling (or leveling up) at all. But once they've recovered, they'll have two weeks where they're unusually full of vigor, and can level up to twice as fast as usual!
That's two weeks with up to 10 levels a week rather than 5 - or a whopping 16 levels rather than 8, for Trainers.
Snorunt Fortunes!
- A description of how your character deals with the Snorunts this year! This can be while they're sick/during the plot, during their more traditional swarm at the end of the month, or both.
- A link to a thread related to the plot, with at least 3 comments from you!
The submission deadline is February 7th. We'll be starting to respond with fortunes in late January, but feel free to comment early!no subject
During the plot itself, Emporio is quite busy; well aware that New Bark is without teleport access, he and others spend a lot of the time acting as a courier for both medication, supplies, and even sick pokemon. They were quick to spread news and ideas to others to get the help moving in other similar areas too.
It means a delay on opening his gym Officially of course, but it's well worth it, and Emporio actually makes use of the structure itself to help shelter any ill pokemon as well. Once the disease is passed, they do have to start clearing them out...but they'll at least be encouraged into the play-zone that is the wintery obstacle course out back. It's partly for their own good- in all his attempts to help, some of his own pokemon are sick now, and he needs to focus on them!
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Emporio wanted trainers to staff his Gym, help teach classes, and keep an eye on challengers? In February, the only NPC applicants are absolutely insufferable! Some of them are just plain old unsuitable, like ones that are clearly vastly overestimating their wilderness survival knowledge but are very convinced otherwise. Some are at least qualified and can be trusted to keep an eye on challengers, but their idea of customer service or effective teaching is so abysmal that it's probably a dealbreaker. The rare few "best" options are both qualified and passable at working with customers/students... but have at least one extremely infuriating personality trait or habit behind the scenes.
(And if Emporio's already employed anyone better - somehow all of them have an emergency come up in February and are unavailable for at least the whole month! Sometimes it's a good emergency, sometimes a bad one, but all of them simply cannot work.)
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At least he has time to pokerus train???
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Jotaro has a soft spot for the Snorunts. His own Glalie, Omikuji, was a Snorunt he caught from a swarm last year. Throughout the event, he and Emporio have been carting supplies and Pokemon between New Bark and Cherrygrove City as well as talking to others about how they can better help the Snorunt. He's been pretty activate with trying to help them but will take more of a backseat once they're better during their swarm, where he'll be just keeping an eye on them.
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Whatever research Jotaro sets his mind to will go astonishingly well! If he needs to find a large amount of rare Pokemon to compare, they'll be unusually common while he's in the area. If he needs to observe Pokemon behavior, he will constantly be finding perfect spots where he doesn't have to spend hours waiting. If he needs some fresh ideas, there'll be a budding Pokemon Professor passing by with their tangentially related research, eager to have a discussion!
Unfortunately... he will also spend the whole month with one specific Wattrel absolutely obsessed with stealing his research notes and any tools he brings, for whatever reason. Or maybe even his Pokeballs! It's constant and exhausting, and if Jotaro tries to prioritize protecting one specific thing, that is exactly the thing the Wattrel will immediately decide is an extra special treat.
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Jotaro's gonna walk out of this with a hatred for Wattrels. Fighting is weak against Flying his ass, he will punch a bird.
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In the early part of the outbreak Min tried to help while keeping a distance to try and protect Boo, Ryan's Froslass. Cecil gave him some masks to try and help him out, but unfortunately she and a few other members of their team still managed to get sick.
Since then... honestly, his methods didn't change too much. Min started out by delivering ice produced by his ice-types and delivering medicine, and that's what he kept on doing after. Maybe even with a little more desperation after seeing Boo and the others get ill too. Although he focused his efforts on Kanto where he has easy access to anywhere that has a warp he did briefly venture over to Goldenrod City because
I wanted to tag folks over in Johtoof a temporary shortage of medicine.Once everyone seems to be doing better Min will likely not be paying the Snorunt as much mind. It's been a busy few weeks and he's ready for some rest.
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Chicken Choice Judy's new album is doing remarkably well! Physical stores have sold out of their initial modest stock and are reaching out for more, and digital sales are proceeding at a healthy clip. It's quite a success!
Unfortunately... Min-Gi in particular seems to be getting plagued by Internet Problems. No, don't worry, at least it's not weird interactions with fans! Instead, something seems to have been mislabeled somewhere, and instead of going to their agent or publisher or whoever else would be a reasonable contact, all those store order requests are going directly to Min. And so are the bug reports when something goes wrong with the digital downloads or streaming!
On top of that, if Min tries to respond, or forward it to a more reasonable recipient, his messaging will also get borked and it'll end up sent to a random trainer. Have fun with that!
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Cecil has been sewing a lot of masks, and so have his Pokémon! It's a team effort, really. He's also been preparing large pots of soup and stew for the nurses in his downtime, since he has access to two kitchens. (The majority of his team did NOT help with that part. Thankfully for everyone else.)
Of course, this means that when the swarm comes, he's pretty low on supplies and food. Any hungry Snorunt will be fed, but portions might be slightly smaller than usual. Or there could be less variety available. Only two types of sandwich meat instead of five, the horror!
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This February, apparently someone published some sort of article on the Lunar Gym? Or a blog post or something? Whatever it is, it's attrracted a lot of tourists (some of which will happily buy Cecil's leftover eggs at a premium, if he happens to get his egg mountain in February)... and towards the end of the month, a TV show host?
The TV host has an offer for Cecil - if he can find another otherworlder to take on his Gym while being filmed, not only will they both be paid for their trouble, the host will also pull on some strings. He'll get both Cecil and his challenger one TM of their choice each... a TM that doesn't have to currently be available, seasonally or otherwise! This offer does not expire at the end of this month, either, Cecil has the rest of the year to take him up on it.
The TV host is very intently meeting the eyes of Cecil's Pokemon as he makes this offer, making sure that they hear it as well. He Knows.
...actually, are the Snorunts sure this is good luck??
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During the event, Harry was living at Ecruteak City to prepare for his gym battle bid against Pryce when the Snorunts begin to fall ill. This ends up putting a hold on his plans as he begins to volunteer in carefully taking the Snorunts to clinics and the city’s Pokémon Center. He also offers to deliver medicinal masks and medicine in order to help in the recovery process and bring in updates on the ongoing situation as much as he can.
In addition, he does part time volunteer work at the Pokémon Center in helping the Nurse Joys out with running basic tasks to keep the Center running as normal during the pandemic, looking after the Pokémon and bringing in much needed supplies.
Once things begin to settle down, Harry is going to be a bit more cautious with the Snorunts given his previous experiences with them, although he will give them snacks in the form of cookies and sandwiches whenever he crosses paths with them again.
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The next time Harry and his Pokemon do any practice for their battle against Pryce, they'll encounter a cheer squad of Ghost Pokemon - a group with the full variety of Ghost Pokemon that can be found in Ecruteak! Aside from doing their best impression of sports fans for the remainder of the day, the Ghost squad will eventually seem to want Harry to do something for them.
It will take a bit of work figuring out what they're pantomiming - even if Harry's Pokemon could normally translate for him, the Ghost Pokemon insist on charades, it seems to be part of their game - but Harry should be able to figure it out eventually. They want him to play a prank on another otherworlder! Or on an otherworlder's Pokemon, that works too. If Harry takes them up on this and successfully pulls a prank (or fails in a funny way), they will reward him with an egg... one that will hatch into an unusually pink Minccino!
Whether or not Harry does go through with a prank, the cheering of their own personal fan club will boost his Pokemons' confidence. When he does finally take on Pryce, even if it's not in February, his Pokemon will land critical hits unusually often! (Remind us of this when you submit for the badge!)
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Isabela was at Olivine City when the Snorunts begin to feel sick. She begins a delivery service between Olivine City and Ecruteak City, bringing in masks, medicine, blankets and other medical supplies to the affected areas. Plus she also sends in several Snorunts to the clinics and the Pokémon Center whenever she finds them out in the open.
As for what happens after the Snorunts’ recovery, she is going to let them stay in her rental’s backyard so they can have somewhere to live in and rest up. She will even give them nice cups of cocoa and cookies as a benevolent peace offer.
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For some reason, in February, one of Isabela's Pokemon just... decides they want to gift her a bountiful clutch of eggs. Here's the catch, though: having eggs with another of Isabela's Pokemon just isn't romantic and dramatic enough for February. They see each other all the time! No, no, they are gonna have eggs with a different otherworld trainer's Pokemon. They insist.
If one of Isabela's Pokemon is indeed able to have eggs with another character's Pokemon in February, the resulting baby Pokemon will... all hatch with a random Egg Move, even if neither of the parents have it. Huh?? How'd that happen?
(To determine this randomly, please stick the possible egg moves into this randomizer and run it once per egg! If the other character is a Breeder, you may go ahead and use the Breeder clutch size; if the other character is also a Trainer, please stick to the Trainer clutch size.)
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During the event, Fluttershy has been looking for sick Snorunts and taking them to the Poke Center, helping treat them where she can, and even helping move recovering Snorunts to the daycare to recover and make more room for more sick Pokemon to be treated.
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Somehow, this month, eggs at the Daycare will constantly be getting lost and mixed up. One day Fluttershy will see that some Pokemon have produced some eggs - the next they'll be missing and she'll have to run all over the place before finding them somewhere completely improbable. (How did they end up on the roof?! Those weren't Flying Pokemon!) Another day she'll discover barely in time, just before someone comes for a pick up, that two sets of Pokemon have somehow swapped their eggs. You'd almost think they were doing it on purpose! And in at least one instance, she will outright have to chase down a trainer who's already left, apologize, and tell them they left with someone else's eggs...
However... her boss will definitely see and appreciate everything she (and her coworkers) are putting up with this month. Toward the end of the month, when things calm down, everyone at the Daycare will be getting gigantic care baskets! Inside of Fluttershy's is everything you could want for a truly decadent spa day - including an exceptionally fluffy bathrobe embroidered with an egg pattern - plus a large package of sweet treats. On top, lovingly wrapped in a fancy bow, is one Mirror Herb.
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On one hand, Doppio managed to skim a not insignificant amount of resources meant for the Snorunts off the top, surreptitiously delivering them to Team Rocket instead. On the other hand, that does mean most of what he helped to transport made it to the intended destination, and that has to count for something, right?... Right??
He also ended up sewing Glalie-sized masks at some point - successfully, albeit at the cost of several drops of his blood more than once daily.
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Namely: something in the Rocket paperwork seems to have gone awry, because even though he's an Alpha, and even though he has a specific mission he's working on... for the full month of February, he'll be getting form message nastygrams about how he hasn't provided his required Pokemon in the last four weeks and he's about to be cut from the team! They will keep cropping up no matter how many times he contacts tech and HR staff about it - they'll agree, they'll do their best to correct it, and yet two days later Doppio will get yet another nastygram. (And you don't want to be bothering Admins about this kind of thing, do you?? If he does, he'll find throughout this month they're always busy, unavailable, or in a very bad mood for unrelated reasons...)
Even worse than the nastygrams: they come with the associated issue of his allowance, necessities, and access to Rocket facilities being intermittently denied throughout the month. It's not consistent - he will sometimes get those things - and he can probably bully his way into facilities either way... but it will take some arguing with overeager newbies who don't recognize him.
At the end of the month, it'll be discovered that a Porygon somehow escaped from the Game Corner and has been wreaking havoc with the Team Rocket systems! Why only Doppio was affected, the world may never know... but at least he can take out his temper on whichever employee at the Game Corner let this happen?
Re: Snorunt Fortunes!
That said, some of them probably will anyway... maybe even Keith himself from staying outside too long. He's also a prime candidate for getting surprised by a Glalie sneeze. Ouch.
After the outbreak fades, Keith goes back to just trying to do normal things if he and his Pokémon aren't stuck recovering themselves... and that means hopefully just trying to act normal and not do anything special either in favor or against the Snorunts once they start their swarm. He's really trying not to end up with bad luck again.
Re: Snorunt Fortunes!
Objects Keith is looking for throughout the month of February will often be... weirdly swapped around? Sometimes this is annoying - if he's looking for something around his home, he'll often find something else in its place, and have to go track down that object's original location to find what he actually needed. Sometimes this is actually kind of nice and helpful - if Keith goes shopping this month, he might find objects that are normally not available in the area have been swapped in, albeit in exchange for whatever he was trying to get. (How did that Sweet get here, aren't those only available in Pallet Town? What about that TM, that's all the way from over in Cherrygrove!)
Sometimes, however, this is downright alarming - perhaps Keith will find that one of his Pokeballs has swapped with another otherworlder trainer's, and have terrible flashbacks to Silph Co's server outage. But if this does happen... Weirdly, whether Keith manages to get his Pokemon back or keeps whatever got swapped, both of these Pokemon will have learned one random TM move they did not already know. Mysterious!
(Please stick all unlearned TM moves the Pokemon can learn into this randomizer to determine what move they get! You may do Pokemon swaps with as many other players as you'd like, but this TM effect will only apply to the first swap that you do.)
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Loop headed to Kanto for unrelated reasons right before the Snorunt outbreak and got stuck there without a train ticket back. This meant that, while they did sign up to help with Snorunts, they weren't able to use warp pads. Instead the Nurse Joys assigned them to drag supplies out to field camps in the middle of routes, then bring sicker Pokemon back into towns.
Near the end of the Snorunt outbreak, their own Pokemon finally caught Pokerus and couldn't battle - which made it unsafe to travel even if Loop were willing to force their Pokemon to do it! So for the last week, Loop stayed in Saffron and helped with odd jobs around the Pokemon Center. They're at best passable at cooking and sewing, so this probably involved things like entertaining bedridden Pokemon and washing sheets/dishes.
Once the Snorunts are recovered... well, Loop has no experience with previous years! So the most they do is give a friendly wave when they see a Snorunt passing by. As for their Pokemon - all are up to playing with Snorunt, though Burnoît is too sleepy to have much stamina. Alfinse will even share his food, if he happens to be snacking while any Snorunt are around! On the other hand, Fleuirk tends to play pretty rough...
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For this grave misdoing, Loop been saddled with Great Misfortune. Throughout February, every time they do their laundry, whether it be at the laundromat, at the Pokemon Center, or at the house of a welcoming friend, a brand new heavily dyed tee shirt, or a marker, or a rogue slime collection from 2018 will find its way into the wash with Loop's things. Their laundry comes out tinged vaguely pink, or splotchy purple, and in one baffling case, fully plaid!
Loop, you simply could not have known. Not about Stinky the Snorunt, or, ironically, about what it has inflicted upon you, given your chromatically limited sensibilities.
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Envy, while not very big on the idea going out of his way to help the Snorunts generally, did give one of them a balloon to distract it. And then immediately regretted that when several more decided they wanted one too. Bad luck from him refusing to blow up infinite balloons for them led to him, Scar, and four of the little guys falling into a sinkhole by Mt. Mortar. From there, the two of them had to make their way out of the cave while also taking care of the sick Snorunt and keeping any of them from wandering off into the dark because whoops got attached.
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It comes in the form of a very industrious, determined Bibarel that has shown up at Envy and Heather's gym site the next time Envy goes out to take a look at it! It lives in the area, and it absolutely will not allow for damaged buildings on its watch.
Not unless it is doing the damage itself with some nibbling.It's already repaired any damage caused by the weather - or, at least, any repairs that can be performed with a helpful application of branches and mud....well, it'll prevent any further damage through the rest of winter, at any rate! It's really quite sturdy.
The Bibarel has also left behind a single egg inside the gym site. If Envy hatches it, he will find it's a Bidoof with its hidden ability! (He may also catch the Bibarel if he's willing to spend some time chasing it around, but the Bibarel is totally normal.)
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Ryan's been assisting Min-Gi on the side, mostly by staying home and taking care of the pokemon while Min takes a more active role. On top of that though, he did his best to try and take care of his own Froslass Boo. He kept her isolated from the others, took her outside to play in the snow and freeze things so she wouldn't get too bored, and even fed her lots of frozen orange slices! Unfortunately, with Min-Gi helping out Boo did eventually catch it, and Ryan did his best to both take care of her and make sure as few of their pokemon caught it as he could.
Once she gets better, Ryan will be so relieved, but he's also sure to ask Min how everything's going with the more direct help. He's following along, even if he's not the one directly handing out meds to the outbreak snorunts.
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Of course, everything about Chicken Choice Judy's album doing well applies to Ryan just as much as Min-Gi... but while Min-Gi is struggling with a deluge of emails and bug reports, Ryan will be dealing with a deluge of actual, physical mail. Namely... a constant stream of fruit baskets?
They do not stop. Every day the postal worker drops off at least two more, giving Ryan weirder and weirder looks as the month goes on. This is way more fruit than even the whole household full of Pokemon could keep up with eating, forget just Ryan and Min-Gi. This is the entire contents of a grocery store's fruits section.
All of the baskets are addressed to Ryan, but always with his name misspelled - sometimes very slightly, sometimes astonishingly badly. The vast majority do not have return addresses or cards or anything like that.... but about once a week, a random one will show up with a card! Inside will be a different otherworlder's name every time - also misspelled. If followed up on, the baskets do not seem to have actually come from whoever's mangled name is on the card. A mystery!
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Ulaz spent the plot trying his best to take care of the Snorunts and their evolutions - washing equipment, searching for sick Pokemon, providing medication and bringing them back to the Pokemon Center, his Pokemon helping with transport and trying to keep the Froslass entertained.
When they are feeling better and it is the traditional swarm, he will let them stay on his property and provide for them if they want to hang around before moving on. Food and friends to play with.
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Throughout February, whenever Ulaz tries to take a flight with Bet, the two of them will be rolling the metaphorical dice. Half the time the flight is completely uneventful, even pleasant (assuming the weather cooperates). The other half the time... the two will find themselves getting mobbed by flocks of bird Pokemon that are utterly convinced Bet is planning to go after their eggs. The only time this is guaranteed not to happen is when the weather is so nasty they probably don't want to be flying anyway!
Ulaz, of course, may catch some of the bird Pokemon if he wishes! Even if the Pokemon usually aren't naturally occurring in the area, he and Bet may be confronted by Murkrows, Pidgeys, Pikipeks, Natus, Taillows, Wingulls, Starlys, Pidoves, Fletchlings, Rookidees... or, particularly alarmingly, Skarmories. That said, trying to capture or battle an entire flock is a lost cause. Unless, that is, Ulaz manages to convince another trainer to go flying with him - two trainers with relatively high-levelled flying Pokemon can force them to back off!
SUBMISSIONS CLOSED