SEARCH REQUESTS

At game start, the map is completely unexplored and covered by a "fog of war" obscuring its features. New characters will be randomly dropped onto the island's shores; from there, to uncover tiles on the map and figure out more about where they are, search requests are required to document movement, attempt to uncover hidden materials and passages, discover or confront dangers, find old ruins and create new settlements, and potentially, solve puzzles related to the mystery of the island itself.

RULES AND GUIDELINES

Search requests are a required mechanic of this game. A search request for the current AC cycle must be submitted in order to pass AC without a strike.
Mistakes in search requests will never be penalized. Don't be afraid to eyeball a distance or make an approximate guess; if the math doesn't quite match up, or the path doesn't exist, I will offer alternate destinations and work with you in order to decide how the search request will resolve.
Search requests will rarely be immediately fatal. Unless your character is doing something intentionally reckless, I will do my best to offer paths of escape for any sudden dangers that arise.
You can be as precise or as vague as you want. If you want to exactly plot out the squares your character will travel through and search every IC day, that is totally fine. It's also fine to simply report that your character is staying in one place all month, or to give a starting point and a desired destination, with a general request to search a wide area. Just note that, the more vague you are in your request, the more I will extrapolate to fill in the blanks.
Retroactive/backdated search requests are allowed. They just can't be used for the current month's AC if they fall outside of the current month's AC period, or overwrite a previously submitted search request. Forward-dated search requests are also allowed as long as they fall within the same IC day that the request was posted (for example, if you post a search request on IC Day 30 morning, you can make that search request last for the entirety of IC day 30, not just the morning of).
Thoroughly searching a square, rather than just traveling through it, halves movement through that square. So if you choose to search every square along a path, you'll only travel half as far as someone moving with purpose to a destination. Remember that simply traveling through a square will still fully reveal it.
IC Days are split into three 8-hour increments. Each of these corresponds to one OOC day. Morning is from 4AM -> 11:59AM, Day is from 12PM -> 7:59PM, and Night is 8PM -> 3:59AM.
Several examples of search requests are provided below to help illustrate how they work. If you still have questions, please ask them in the FAQ (or in your search request!).

MAP REFERENCE/TRAVEL CONDITIONS

TRAVEL CONDITIONS | IC DAYS 15 → 17

MORNING

DAY

NIGHT

BEACH

OCEAN*

JUNGLE

FOOTHILLS

MOUNTAINS

4 squares/hour
(32 total)
3 square visibility

4 squares/hour
(32 total)
5 square visibility

4 squares/hour
(32 total)
1 square visibility

2 squares/hour
(16 total)
3 square visibility

2 squares/hour
(16 total)
5 square visibility

2 squares/hour
(16 total)
1 square visibility

1 square/hour
(8 total)
0 square visibility

2 squares/hour
(16 total)
2 square visibility

2 squares/hour
(16 total)
3 square visibility

1 square/hour
(8 total)
1 square visibility

1 square/hour
(8 total)
5 square visibility

1 square/hour
(8 total)
7 square visibility

1 square/hour
(8 total)
3 square visibility

*The average human can only tread water for three hours

LEGEND

- Preexisting Structure

- Ocean

- Reef

- Deep Water

- River

- Natural Landmark

- Beach

- Jungle

- Mangroves

- Character-Made Landmark

- Foothills

- Mountain

Click on any of the map tiles for details.

III

VII

VIII

XII

XIII

XIV

XVI

SUBMISSIONS

# | A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | J | K | L | M | N | O | P | Q | R | S | T | U | V | W | X | Y | Z
All new characters will be given a toplevel to this post. To submit a search request, fill out the below form and copy/paste it as a response to your toplevel.

IC DATES: The IC dates the search request covers (I would also recommend putting this in the subject line to make it easier to keyword search later). You can use whole days, partial days, or a combination of either. To verify what IC days line up with real-world days and events, consult the Calendar.

STARTING SQUARE: The square your character is starting their search request on, format TILE.COLUMN.ROW. This should line up with your previous search request, or your starting location if newly arrived/revived.

ENDING SQUARE: The square your character is ending their search request on. If you're not sure where they'll end up (the area is unexplored/your character has a vague idea of where they want to go/you're not sure on the math/etc.), you can give a more rough answer here. Something like "they want to make it to Tile II," or "as close to II.AA.3 as possible" are perfectly valid answers.

DETAILS: The meat of your request. This is where you describe:

The path your character is taking,
The squares you want them to search,
Any special actions your character is taking during this period of time (or inaction), and
Any other special notes or questions you might have about this request.

Again, you can provide as much or as little information as you want; saying that your character is simply moving from point A to point B without searching anything is 100% acceptable.

NAVIGATION

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Oh my god...

OK HAHAAHAHA is there any blood on the bear trap or broken arrows? What kind of fletching do the arrows have? What kind of condition is the bear trap in?

BLOODWISE: Is the blood still wet? What color is it (dark red, bright red, pink and frothy, some scary other option)? How thick/wide is the trail? Is the trail only on the ground, or is there blood/blood spatter higher up, say on grass or tree trunks? Does "directly through the field of trees" mean the trail's basically cutting a straight path?

Any tracks near the trail/where it begins (since he won't be following it...yet) or signs of struggle?

He won't pay close attention to anything that isn't...bloody...but what's the belt buckle made out of/how elaborate is it? Does it have a design on it? What's the shiv made of?

There's blood on the bear trap and one of the arrows; the other one is clean, having apparently missed its mark. The fletching has been broken off of the arrows or otherwise shredded to the point of unrecognizability. The bear trap is missing quite a few teeth, but could still function as a suitable vise if reset.

The blood is still wet, a mixture of bright red and frothy, and forms a trail of isolated spatters along the ground and ground-hugging bushes. It's not a straight path, weaving around larger cover, but the general direction is straight west towards the cabin.

Interestingly, aside from the site directly around the bear trap, signs of a struggle and tracks leading to and away from it are notably absent. No broken branches, no disturbed piles of leaves...someone - either the creature fleeing or the one that caught it - had very precise control over the situation, whatever that was.

The belt buckle is solid metal, good quality and elegantly simple. Some swirling designs are carved around the edges of the base. The shiv is much less sophisticated; it appears to have been carved out of an old toothbrush.

Edited (english is hard) 2023-10-24 12:41 (UTC)

Thank you so much for all these, uh, juicy details!

A FEW MORE QUESTIONS: how old does the bear trap look, design-wise? Is there any information Rust could (quickly) glean about its origins (a part stamped with the manufacturer's name or something along those lines)?

Where does he find the snapped bowstring, what is it made of, and about how long is it?

Edited 2023-10-25 01:27 (UTC)

In spite of its apparent wear, the design of the bear trap itself is modern (2020's modern, not Rust modern). No identifying details on it as far as Rust can find.

The snapped bowstring is partially buried in the underbrush of one of the foothills tiles, appears to be made out of hemp or some other sturdy plant material, and is around a foot long.

Search Requests

SEARCH REQUESTS

RULES AND GUIDELINES

MAP REFERENCE/TRAVEL CONDITIONS

SUBMISSIONS

cw: very specific blood questions

CW: very specific blood answers

no subject

no subject