CARNIVAL TIMELINE

[ringleaders]

GAME PREHISTORY↴ Since Lost Carnival allows for the option of applying for characters who have been in the carnival for up to three years already, a timeline has been written up for their reference, giving a rough idea of what kind of events have occurred in those three years. This list doesn't include absolutely every stop the carnival has made in the duration, but it includes enough that it should allow people who are crafting carnival backstories to have a better idea of the context their character has been existing within. If you are applying for a veteran character, please make sure you read all the entries that would have taken place after they have arrived. The most recent year of content is the most important, in that regard. THREE YEARS AGO↴ SEASON ONE: Summerlands: A peaceful realm of eternal summer, comparable to the idea of Elysian Fields. A species of summer fae live there, and this visit was less about performing and more about relaxing and enjoying the sights - though there were plenty of opportunities to show off one's skills if they were inclined. Hive Queen: Essentially an entire world filled with nothing but bee creatures who share a hivemind with their Queen. Really, the entire experience was just performing for the Hive Queen over and over again - each individual vessel was only an extension of her will, after all. Trees: Something that the Ringmaster insisted on, but most of the workers didn't really understand. The carnival performed in a series of forests, to what were ostensibly motionless trees. According to her, they enjoyed it. Angels: Not angels in the pretty people with wings kind of way - these were the kind of angels made of balls of wings and thousands of blinking eyes, and spinning wheels of abstract fire. Much like the trees, they were very difficult to read. However, they seemed to enjoy what they saw, even if it was with way too many eyeballs. SEASON TWO: Bird People: This was mostly just bringing in visitors from a world filled with sapient bird people, and not in a humanoid sense. Just big people birds that can use tools well enough to build a civilization. Honestly, the fact that it's a race of intelligent people that act exactly like parrots was enough to make this strange. Omnipresent Super Being: Another string of performances, entirely for one entity. This particular entity is apparently a long term patron of the carnival - a naturally formless being that is omnipresent within its world. It could conjure bodies to interact more personally with the games and acts, but ultimately it was the same being experiencing it all simultaneously. Despite being a bit unsettling in essence, however, most come away from meeting OSB with the impression that they are actually quite charming. Future Japan: It was Japan, except in the future. Not particularly dystopian or utopian, just... in the future. Multiverse's Got Talent: Exactly what it sounds like. The entire carnival was entered into a multiversal talent contest, with acts from universes of all kinds. They didn't win, but it's possible that they had fun. Demolition Derby: The carnival visited a highly advanced species in their home solar system, as they fondly bid it farewell with a series of vast festivals, knowing that it would soon be consumed by the red giant that its sun had become. Most people can't claim to have been to a wake for an entire solar system before, but those that worked this particular tour now can! TWO YEARS AGO↴ SEASON ONE: Elementals: Performing in an elemental realm filled with creatures and spirits of the four elements. They weren't a bad audience, though they did have an unfortunate tendency towards property damage. Robots: Performing on a world that contains a tiered society of robots, based around their functions. Some are small and simplistically built, while others are essentially full androids, though not all are humanoid. All of them are perfectly sentient, though. In order to visit the world itself, carnival workers had to disguise themselves as robots. Demon Realm: Performing for something that was sort of a hell dimension. Not exactly filled with torture or anything, but the patrons from it were certainly on the chaotic evil side and really interested in the more lascivious parts of the carnival. The Warden was working overtime kicking them out, but the ones that stuck around had a lot of treasure to offer. King's Court: A realm that was more or less a single kingdom, run by a hard to please, all powerful King. The carnival actually entered this world to perform right in his court, and there were some attempted beheadings of carnival workers that he found objectionable in some way or another. It ended when the Ringmaster stole the prized jewel of his treasurey and everyone ran away. Musicverse: A world where music is magic and magic is music. You know how it is. It was a lot like earth, except for magic refused to function without being accompanied by song based casting. That, and people would find themselves compelled to sing whenever they were filled with any kind of emotion. SEASON TWO: Rules Lawyer Sprites: Visiting a world filled with winged sprites while the carnival was being cleaned by commission sprite workers. (The best cleaners in the multiverse!) Its society is based entirely around following sets of arbitrary rules that change every day. Breaking them results in one being thrown in jail, though the line up to being given an actual punishment is so long it never actually goes anywhere. Gray Aliens: Performing for a dimension of small, grey, and large headed interdimensional beings that were hard to read and very quiet. (Probably due to communicating with each other telepathically.) Their interest in most things about the carnival seemed to be purely scientific. Immortal Children: Performing for a realm filled with nothing but god-like, immortal children. They were millenia old, but acted exactly like human children too. Performing for them was difficult, and half of the carnival found themselves playing as babysitters for the entire duration, while not really being able to consistently tell the children no. That 60's Show: It appeared to literally just be a planet like earth, in the 60's. A lot of the people who ended up in the carnival were also high. Fashion Planet: A world based entirely around aesthetic and fashion. Those that came to the carnival were very opinionated, or even offended by the dress of the people there, and some of the workers that visited the actual planet found themselves receiving non consensual makeovers - that were sometimes traumatizingly extreme. Asgardian Soldiers: Performing on commission for a large group of Asgardian soldiers, before they returned to interstellar war. Many plates were smashed. ONE YEAR AGO↴ SEASON ONE: The Nether Realm: Not as bad as it sounds. This was performing in some kind of spirit realm, and the patrons that came to the carnival were almost entirely ghosts. They were sometimes depressing and weird, but ultimately not as difficult to work with as some other realms. Getting them to have a good time was sort of its own reward. Wizards: Essentially the Harry Potter universe. Almost all of the visitors were wizards, and they were sort of obnoxious know it alls about everything, and assumed that everything they saw fit into their own world's code of magic. Scifi Utopia: An idyllic future world in an post-scarcity culture. The Ringmaster figured they probably needed some excitement, since they were so used to knowing everything. The carnival certainly baffled the hell out of a lot of them, but they were actually pretty nice about it. Superheroes: A good old DC or Marvel clone world, you know how it is. Some supervillains appeared to attempt to bargain for some kind of rare magical item the Ringmaster had, and then heroes arrived to stop them. The Warden spent a significant amount of time chasing the lot of them around. Steampunk: You know what steampunk is. Omnipresent Super Being: A return trip to visit the OSB. It turns out that visiting this same venue once every few years is something the Ringmaster has been doing for literal centuries. This visit is much the same as the last, except for the part where the OSB offered some warnings regarding danger on the horizon. Vampire World: This is a big one, and probably one of the most relevant events in recent carnival history. The carnival was visiting a world much like Earth, with a split human and vampire population, along with some other general supernatural activity. Along with performing, the Ringmaster was commissioned to aid a portion of the resident human population in fighting off a group of vampire warlords. The Ringmaster accepted, and sent the Nightrider and their crew to deal with it. Unfortunately, the vampires turned out to be more of a challenge to deal with than expected. While the Nightrider’s operation was a success, the remaining vampires were able to follow the team back to the carnival - something that even the Ringmaster had never anticipated. They invaded the carnival’s realm and attacked its workers with surprisingly powerful sorcerery, causing quite a bit of damage and killing a small number of carnival employees, including the current Warden. Eventually the vampires were kicked out by the collective efforts of the carnival, but it was a significant blow to moral. Death is not common in the carnival, and the weight of dealing with the whole ordeal resulted in an above average quantity of workers deciding to leave the carnival when their current contracts came to an end. The year’s first season came to a violent end, and most of the next one would be spent in repair. SEASON TWO: Summerlands: Though the Ringmaster never stated as much, the trip to the Summerlands that followed the vampire attacks was an opportunity to rest more than it was to perform. The carnival spent over a month in its idyllic glades, sometimes performing with the local summer fae for entertainment but ultimately just being allowed to do what they pleased. In the end, it felt like the carnival only ended up moving on because a few of its members reminded the Ringmaster that two months was quite a long time in mortal terms, because she had ostensibly forgotten. [info] Crossroads: Though there were some scattered visits to bordering dimensions, most of the rest of season two of the year was spent here, which is essentially a kind of interdimensional nexus similar to the one that was visited for Universe’s Got Talent. They were ultimately so many random things here that it was hard to nail down any particular themes, as the local populace was about as mixed as the carnival’s. The carnival managed to put on a few smaller shows in alternate venues, as the actual carnival grounds were still being repaired. [info] GAME START↴ SEASON ONE: New Recruits: Still low in numbers from the aftermath of Vampire World, the carnival has begun a particularly heavy recruitment campaign to fill out its numbers, just in time for the start of a new year. [log] Realm of Dreams: A dimensional space filled entirely with wandering dreamers from other universes, the Realm of Dreams is governed by a being called Morpheus who is largely defined by what dreams currently exist within its realm. Dangerous dream forms called Nightmares made fairly rampant attacks against carnival during the performance week, and a few people made the mistake of sleeping without the aid of a dream catcher to protect themselves from possessions, but over all the security team managed to avert any major disasters. [info | logs] The Matrix: In a version of Earth that has been taken over by advanced artificial intelligence, humans have been relegated to captivity within an enormous virtual simulation called the Matrix while their brains serve as batteries to their robot overlords. And, the Ringmaster decided to come perform for these people, for some reason. Though the workers initially had some fun messing around in the virtual realm, this turned sour when the Matrix's police force, called 'Agents', abducted three members of the carnival and forcefully interrogated them. Sending back their captives with robotic plants, the Agents used that connection to upload themselves directly into the carnival, resulting in a brief but chaotic gunfight. Deciding that enough was enough, the Ringmaster forcefully expelled all the visitors and cancelled the second performance week, opting to move on to a new location. [info | logs] Interlude I: Knowing that the Agents shouldn't have been able to get through her defensive wards, the Ringmaster searches the grounds for evidence of contamination. As it turns out, she finds a demonic sigil burned into the ground deep within the forest, and determines that it was left by the vampires that attacked them several months earlier. Showing her discovery to the supervisor team, the Ringmaster expresses the desire to magically counter the owner of the sigil in order to remove the curse and fix her wards, but doesn't explain exactly how she'll do so. [log] Atlantis: A grand ocean realm, filled with nothing but water, merfolk, and the vast City of Atlantis. All of the carnival's workers are transfigured into merfolk during this visit in order to accommodate the aquatic environment, and a great many magical artifacts and items are bought or found within the Atlantean markets. The locals tell tales of a deadly and powerful Sea Witch, who is capable of granting one's darkest desires with her devilry, but no one dares to approach her. Towards the end of the visit, the Ringmaster abruptly declares that she has become mortal and vulnerable to violence, and remains so for three days before returning to normal. Afterwards, she explains to the carnival via the network that she had turned mortal as part of a gamble with the Seawitch, and that she had won simply because her workers refrained from killing her during her time of weakness. [info | logs | radio] Interlude II: Having apparently won a set of obsidian daggers that can open a portal to hell in her wager with the Seawitch, the Ringmaster recruits the aid of the carnival’s best mages to pull off a dark ritual intended to curse the snot out of the demon lord responsible for the curse mark and past vampire attacks. Eat shit, Satan! [log] The Celebration: Enthused about her success with removing the curse mark and the apparent loyalty of her workers, the Ringmaster decides to reward everyone with a trip to the Celebration – a dimensional realm filled with nothing but a massive and every changing luxury resort, and guests from all over the multiverse. While it seemed good in theory, it turns out that the place also has the effect of slowly brainwashing its guests towards a state of mindless hedonism, and a lot of carnival workers end up far exceeding their comfort zone. As uncomfortable as that aspect may have been, however, the worst of it is only seen at the climatic Masquerade event - somehow, the vampires pursuing the carnival have followed them to the Celebration grounds, and the supervisors and several other workers are captured and/or turned into fledgling vampires! It sucks. [info | logs] Hell: After the vampire fight at the Celebration, most of the Supervisors and a subsection of turned workers were whisked away to a hell dimension, while everyone else retreated back to the carnival. The fledgling vampires were left in a pit to fight to the death with other neonates, while the Supervisors were imprisoned and tortured. All of this turned out to be a revenge plot orchestrated by Morningstar, the leader of the vampires that had attacked the carnival months previous, with the intent of luring the Ringmaster into a confrontation. Unfortunately for Morningstar, her ploy succeeded in luring the Ringmaster, but with the combined effort of a rescue team of carnival members and the Ringmaster’s considerable prowess, it failed in securing a victory. The battle ended with the Ringmaster turning into a gigantic dragon and eating Morningstar’s heart. [info | logs] Alola: Since apparently her first reward was a huge failure, the Ringmaster attempts to reward her workers again with some rest and relaxation on the islands of Alola, a tropical region of a world inhabited by a variety of elemental species called Pokemon. This time things went much more smoothly, with the only major hiccup being that Jonothan Strange accidentally summoned a Winter Fae into the carnival, coating it with snow and ice for a day or two. Strange ultimately managed to un-summon the fae, but not before it cryptically revealed an ominous connection to the Ringmaster. By the end of the trip, most members of the carnival had adopted a Pokemon of their own, and were permitted to take them along with the carnival when it left. [info | logs] Mainframe: [info | logs] Portland: [info | logs | finale | summary] Summerlands: [info | logs] Greysol: [info | logs] Heartstone Manor: [info | logs] The Moon: [info | logs] SEASON TWO: Wismuth: [info | logs]