I. July-August Jaunt Vote

We have three jaunt proposals for you to choose from for the summer. They are as follows:

Paramo Riconquista: The Festa Di Riconquista is when Paramo celebrates its history of naval victories - battles are re-enacted on old, mothballed ships, which are sunk in glorious fireworks displays, and jingoistic military pomp and patriotism rule the day. This Riconquista, however, two other groups have co-opted the agenda: foreign agitators are smuggling in gunpowder explosives in the guise of fireworks, and an alliance of pirates and mermaids is using the sinking wrecks as a cover to smuggle materials to undersea rebels (for a profit in mer-magic given to the pirates). But mistaken identities in the floating city’s black markets lead to the smuggled shipments being delivered to the wrong groups…

Emodriver Frame Phileon: Earth stands accused of a terrible crime, beset by the forces of the Aurigan Empire! The only advantage the Earth Defense Forces have is the Expression Virus, which allows them to channel emotions - and their new weapons drawing on it, the Emodriver Frames! But who benefits from this terrible war? Set in the far future of Doki Doki no Gakuen’s world, but requires no previous Doki knowledge. (Jaunt proposal by Bliss.)

Enterrado: In a frontier town in 1800s Nevada, a dead prospector is found with a large, rough nugget of pure silver in his bag. Who killed him is less important than where the site of his find is, in the mine-riddled hills around the city, and whether miners, bandidos, gunslingers, or outsiders will find it first - and what will befall anyone who’s suspected of having a lead on the stake.



Voting will close Tuesday, June 11th; a walkabout vote will follow at that time, if there’s sufficient player interest in having one. As usual, first-choice votes count for two points each, and second-choice votes count for one point.

II. And Now, A Word From Our Sponsors

Strap in, kids, this is an important one.

Synodiporia passed its five-year anniversary this spring. We on the mod team love everyone in this bar and everything the game has become… but the fact remains that we’re not drawing in a lot of new applicants, many long-term veterans of the game are leaving due to burnout, and even we’re feeling the strain.

As such, we’re looking at moving to Syn’s endgame within the next year, with an end window of March-July 2020. This does not necessarily mean the comms will close, depending on what that end point ends up looking like; if the comms stay open, the current mod team won’t be actively running jaunts. The long window is such to allow old players to return if they’d like without making them feel rushed, and to give us time to give Syn the final arc it deserves.

What does this mean going forward? We’re still sorting out the nuts and bolts, but we do have a few things pinned down:

*Following Beastfolk, there will be roughly five more jaunts, and at least one Liminal Space event.
*We are likely to throw one last fourth-wall event; apps will open on the regular between-jaunts cycle at least through the end of the year. After apps close, we will still be welcoming old players back with their idled characters.
*As many jaunts as possible will still be up for playerbase vote, but there are certain story notes we want to make sure we hit.
*We will do one final skill rollout, and may adjust the skill-gain thresholds for AC to allow more characters to pick up useful stuff.

What you’d like to see in terms of changing Activity/Skill thresholds or other game policy changes as we approach this finale is still very open to player feedback and discussion. Please let us know if you have any particular thoughts on the matter in the comments!

III. NPC Helper Mod Needed!

With AL’s recent departure from the game, we’re down one of our NPC helper mods. We have them tap in when we need a Familiar Face around on a jaunt (most often, either because no one’s volunteered for a plot role, or the particular role is too integral to be a played character), and sometimes fill in more generic NPC ranks. As with our other helper positions, helper mods are not involved in app review or handling player complaints.

If you’d like to pitch in, please let us know in the comments!

IV. Old/New Business

As always, if there’s an older issue we need a poke to consider, or something new you’d like to bring to the table, please let us know here!