A massive heatwave that comes and goes throughout the month seems to have gripped Havenwell! While they themselves cannot feel the heat, the natives can observe the effects it has on the offworlders and are quick to find methods to help them beat the heat. Scientists out of the research centers throughout the city develop and then begin promoting cooling drinks and cool packs that they sell at the temples, city centers, entertainment districts, outside their research centers, and other areas where offworlders tend to gather. These drinks and packs do seem to work well in beating the heat thankfully, and either imbibing the drinks or using the cool packs quickly help you ward off the rising temperatures. You're welcome to try and cool off on your own terms, but the unnatural heat will likely leave you lethargic and gross, if not outright sick, if you go too long without some outside support. There seems to be very little long-term relief to be found.

Unfortunately, for some people, they find that these drinks and packs are working too well. Weird quirks and side effects pop up and fade out at random, sometimes even compiling on top of each other! They never seem to last for very long, thankfully, but it can be a bit inconvenient when the following happens to you:

• You've beaten the heat and feel a cooling rush of relief as the heat escapes your body. But then the heat gives way to cold and that cold leaves your teeth chattering as you realize you can no longer regulate your body temperature and your body is quickly reaching wintery levels! Better find someone to help you warm up because you'll need to share body heat until this effect wears off in order to keep your lips from turning blue!
  
• Ah, that sweet sweet cooling relief radiates out from your core, pushing the heat out from the inside. It feels great to be this pleasantly cool while the summer heat beats down on you - until you touch something and it bursts into flame. Apparently the only way to get rid of all that heat is through transferring it to something else! Any inanimate object you touch (no people or animals!) starts to smoke and burn when your hands come into contact with it. Metals start to melt, your ice cold drink starts to boil, that nice little teddy bear you got starts to blacken and burn - it's a bit insane! Thankfully, your clothes and accessories you're wearing at the time the side effect takes hold don't seem to be subject to this inconvenience. You'll need some help to get about your day until the effect fades - which thankfully isn't that long! At most it lasts an hour, but an hour can seem very very long when you can't get your morning coffee in you.
  
• Do you know how your body naturally cools itself? Through sweat! And you're certainly sweating a lot now that the summer heat has taken its toll. After taking the scientists' concoctions, however, you might notice that, while you're definitely noticeable cooler, you've also ramped up the amount of sweat you're producing - to almost insane levels. Your hands are slippery, your feet are slippery, and even if you're wearing shoes, it seems to be leaking through, absolutely robbing you of any and all friction as you slip and slide around the city! Better have someone who can grab onto you and help you get about until the sweating abates or you'll find yourself careening around and into things willy-nilly.

This prompt was based on a player's suggestion! If you have a suggestion for a future event or prompt, please post them to us at the Mod Contact page or via PM to hugtopiamods.

The trend of offworlder goods being popular among the locals seems to be continuing with a new and weird trend in the entertainment district markets. Huggably cute, teddy-bear sized stuffed plushies in the offworlders' likenesses are being sold at various stores, but no one seems to know where they're coming from (or are just completely unwilling to give up their sources). These little pushies are insanely popular with the locals, with some special edition ones with various limited edition costumes going for a premium in Dora and getting traded among collectors. For those familiar, think of the old Beanie Baby craze, and you'll know just how dogged some of the collectors can be as they try to complete their offworlder sets. Of course, the locals aren't the only ones buying up these adorable little dolls and offworlders can find likenesses of themselves and their friends who are still in the city being sold at stores quite easily.

While it may be a weird diversion for some offworlders, for others, they may find something else that raises their hackles about this new toy trend. On occasion, people may start to feel phantom hugs, the feeling of someone giving them a lovely little squeeze, as they go about their day. While this doesn't count for contact, it's certainly weird to be alone and then suddenly feel someone you can't see hug you. Observant people might realize that this all started with the introduction of these plushies to the market, and through trial and error realize that they have some sort of connection to some plushies that share their likeness. If having phantom hugs isn't your thing, then it's time to go find whoever has your connected plushie and either get it back from them or sever the connection somehow! Thankfully only positive contact can be communicated through the plushie, so any damage or violence (why would you??) done to it isn't reflected via the connection.

But how does one sever the connection? Well, that's a bit of a problem because the merchants are absolutely baffled by this phenomenon. Any dolls they've sold to locals don't seem to be experiencing this issue - only ones sold to other offworlders. The plushies do seem to give a clue themselves, however, as they light up with a soft hue in the color of the character's god in the areas where they were last given positive physical contact. Maybe if you mimicked this contact on the plush or on the owner of the plush, it'd do something? It certainly seems like the gods are interfering in your lives again after all. The only places the plush will not light up is anywhere that consent would be needed to touch.

Alternatively, you could pull a plush heist and just steal it from its unsuspecting(?) owner. How you want to deal with this is up to you!

After concerted efforts to clean and repair the Factory, it seems it's finally open for business. Mostly. Through the efforts of the locals and the offworlders, the Factory machinery is back up and running, and the locals are thoroughly charmed by just how old it all is. As in, super old. They had stopped using this smelting and refining technology centuries ago for a very important reason: most of the machinery requires touch between two or more participants in order to work. This unique method of operation will require some tutoring to get used to, however, so anyone interested in learning must sign up with the de facto owners of the Factory in order to learn. It isn't easy to be both the power source AND the operator, but with enough practice, they're sure you can learn to master this age-old technique!

There are two types of classes running for those interested: Forging Basics, where you learn how to power and heat the forge to melt and create simple metal objects at first like spoons and rods, and Smelting Basics, where you learn how to power and smelt common ore like copper and iron into useable metals for the forge. For the Forge Classes, characters will need to stay in contact with each other to power the heat in the forge - which is a strange rainbow-colored fire. The longer they're in contact with one another, the longer the fire will stay lit, and the hotter the flame will get. Characters should keep one hand on the handles outside the forge, and their other hand on each other. For example, 15 minutes of contact in this method would translate to 30 minutes of continuous forge power. The characters can adjust the flame intensity by squeezing the handles in unison, a lighter touch will lower the intensity and a harder touch will increase it. Learning to get this touch and the timing down for the correct forging of metals is one of the hardest parts of the lessons and what the classes will primarily focus on. For the Smelting Classes, characters will need to learn how to power the smelting machinery through a method similar to the Forging Classes - one hand on each other and the other one the machinery handles. This time, however, the finesse and focus of the class is in learning how to use sensitive touch in unison to add the correct amounts of each ore and other materials to result in the purest form of metal ingot in the end.

You will need a partner to sign up for either class, but partners can also be randomly assigned. If you're interested, please sign up! (for those who missed out on the first round of assignments, do so ASAP!) The lessons themselves are largely handwaved, but in order to use the Factory equipment in the future, you must perform a thread between yourself and at least one other person where you learn the basics via these classes. The classes will be running from now on as an ongoing prompt for any interested.

For Class Sign-ups:
Character Name: Your character's name and journal
Class: Which class you're taking
Partner(s): Write your partner(s)'s names or request a random assignment
<b>Character Name:</b> Your character's name and journal <b>Class:</b> Which class you're taking <b>Partner(s):</b> Write your partner(s)'s names or request a random assignment