Once decisions have been made, Zo climbs up into the crown of the machine. It whirls about, and for an instant, the heart of it opens, where Ruana's mummified corpse sits where it always has been, hidden away. There's a feeling like being pulled--those who are going with friends will be pulled in the same direction, but those parting ways will see the others fade away around them. There's a feeling like floating and then like falling countless miles or maybe countless years-- And then things are okay. You're where you wanted to be. The last imprint of Animus is that of an empty world being torn asunder by a crying child, before that child is finally put to sleep. And now you can go on with your lives, or start new ones.



Maybe a day passes. Maybe a week. Maybe a month. It doesn't matter how long, what matters is that you are, if even for just an instant, alone. A door appears. You can open it, if you want. You can step through it, too--to a Tower that floats in a void. It's only five rooms high, but if you want, you can build it higher with the tools on the bottommost floor. You can make it into whatever you want. And you can go wherever you want.

There's a note on a table on the highest floor--a room filled with countless doors, surrounded by every gift Zo has ever been given, even the last.

If you can see this, I did it! I managed to save a little bit of the Tower. You can do what you want with it, and this floor lets you move between worlds! It takes a little getting used to, but you can even think doors into existence. It might take some work getting each door to go where you want, but you guys can do it!

Please be happy!

Zo

And if you want, you can go.


THANK YOU FOR PLAYING.

Hello, Animus! We hope you've been interested in endgame so far. We're coming up on the end soon. However, as we're sure you all are aware, it has now taken us over two months to get to this point. We failed to plan for such a pace and we are aware that it has caused some conflict and loss of interest in the playerbase. This is absolutely not the kind of endgame we want for this wonderful playerbase.

Therefore, we are going to be projecting an endgame date of September 1st. If at all possible, we would like to have the game almost or completely wrapped up by that date. We are not going to immediately shut it down if it isn't, but we will look into expediting the process if a conclusion has not been reached by then. Please keep this in mind as you plan your further involvement! The mod team will be diligent in moving the game towards its end, and we hope to have your support in this endeavor.

Thank you!

It has come to our attention that a member of the playerbase has been harassing people within the game and generally making them uncomfortable while refusing to stop. We have been given concrete evidence of this occurring to multiple players, and in light of that the player in question has been banned. We would like to remind people of our harassment policies: namely, if you repeatedly and knowingly cross the boundaries of others we reserve the right to ban you without a warning. We would also like to ask that anyone who has a problem with another player please come to us right away, especially if you have evidence to provide us with. This will help us be able to deal with the situation much more quickly.

Thank you,
Tower of Animus Administration

In the morning, some characters may wake up finding they've been moved to a new room overnight. If they have been moved, they'll find the following note by their bed:

There's not as many people here now, so I thought some of you might be pretty lonely! I moved everybody closer together!
Zo

Please check to see if your character was moved to a new room! No roommates have been split up, but entire rooms have been combined when possible. If we've made any mistakes regarding placing two of your characters in the same room let us know and we'll fix it.

A breakthrough in the collar research happens this month: the fluid contents have been successfully separated out. Most of the compounds are used for various kinds of stabilization and cannot be removed from the mix without killing the subject. One, however, is of note: it nullifies the true abilities the characters have. It would be easy enough to create collar fluid compounds that do not have this drug--somewhat more difficult would be figuring out how to get it into the collars. Still, if managed, real abilities would slowly return.

Provided a way to replace the collar fluid can be discovered, the following rules and restrictions apply to returned abilities:

1. Upon receiving the new liquid, all powers will be nullified for one week. Real and glamour powers are completely inactive.
2. After one week, real abilities will slowly return. They will start out quite weak and will only return to full strength after one month, with a few exceptions.
3. Characters will not be able to access any abilities that involve traveling to a different dimension or universe. Characters cannot utilize any form of astral projection, or in general any abilities which require their soul to completely leave their body. This means some forms of possession are still not allowed, although others might be. Ask if you're not sure. Characters cannot teleport or otherwise "fast travel" into the administrative levels or through the elevator shafts. Characters cannot regain immortality or near-immortality.
4. Attempting to use extremely destructive, wide-range abilities will result in the Tower rendering the character unconscious. This would be along the lines of anything that would affect/ruin the entire Tower or a large portion of the Tower.
5. If a character dies or otherwise has their collar fluid replaced with normal collar fluid, they must repeat the process again to regain their real abilities.

As always, if you have any questions, you can ask under the thread!

Hello, Animus! We are pleased to announce that, after much debate, we have come to a conclusion on the matter of the plot moderator slot.

We will be appointing BB as our new plot mod, and due to the anticipated increase in plot pacing from here on out, we'll also be moving Plus up from assistant mod to full plot mod!

Thank you to everyone who applied! Congratulations to both our new plot mods, and please give BB a warm welcome as the newest member of the Animus moderation team!

Hello, Animus. We come to you today with a very important announcement: Tower of Animus will be ending in approximately one year. In June of 2014 the game will have reached its end. Why are we announcing this now? To prepare you for the future, of course! Here are some important dates:

The bestiary will close for new monsters in January.
Player plots will close on January 31.
Our last application cycle will be in April.
The final activity check will be next May.

This June will mark a very plot-important happening for the Tower, and as such the plot will become faster and more involved. While there will still be downtime (July, for example), Animus is going into a stage where the tension mounts up to its final conclusion. Of special importance is how this game ends depends on you. There are several options on what can happen at this point, and now more than ever the situation is going to depend on all of you getting involved and searching out ways to interact with the plot and break through the mysteries of the Tower.

Everything will be a little more clear once June comes, of course. Stay tuned! If you have any questions, you can put them in the questions thread as usual.

Hey guys! We're approaching an important time in Animus's plot, and we're going to need someone else on board to help us out as the plot gets more involved. This application is for a plot moderation position--you would be working closely with Mel and Cee to plan out what's going to happen in the future. This position does involve knowing the rest of Animus's plot, so if you want to remain in the dark this isn't the position for you. This position will require enough time to help plan out events, NPC, and generally work with players for plot positions. Additionally, you will be expected to help with applications. You must have been a member of Animus for four consecutive months in order to apply, and you must be expecting to remain in the game for some time to come.

If you would like to apply, fill out the following form and submit it to this (screened) post:

<b>Name:</b> <b>Time Zone:</b> <b>Characters Played:</b> <b>Contact Info:</b> <b>How long have you played in Animus?</b> <b>How much free time do you have?</b> <b>Why do you think you would be a good moderator?</b> (We'd like at least a few sentences, please!)

Applications will close May 28 at 11:59PM EST.

Applications, reservations, the bestiary post, and player plots will be closed for June. They will be available again in July.

A new section has been added to the game information. Characters can now be chosen to be brainwashed and act as spies for the administration at any time, provided you sign up OOCly on the page. All information necessary should be given in the link; if you have any questions, go ahead and ask in the question section that will be in this post!

Hello, Animus! We are bringing you a couple of changes!

Starting next application cycle, we will be allowing three slots per character--that is one OU and two AU versions per individual character. This will be handled basically identically to how we handle the two versions we allow now, so we don't really have to say more than that. All the rules about apping AUs and OUs still apply to these.

However, because this has the potential to really inflate some of our casts, we have instated a canon cap. The cap has been set at thirty characters per canon. This is easy to check: just go to the taken list and you'll see the current number of characters in each canon underneath the canon's name.

Reservations will be capped similarly: we will not allow more reservations than there are slots for those reservations. Speaking of these, reservations will have the first shot at open slots: if there are two open slots and we get three applications, the last of which was reserved, then that reserved character will get one of the available slots provided it's accepted. This only applies before reservations expire; that is, you have to have your application submitted before the third of the month. After reservations are taken care of/after they all expire, slots will be handled on a first come, first serve basis. In the event of a character being asked for revisions, we will wait three days for the revisions to come in before filling the slot with another character.

Now, where does this leave your cast? For most of you, you're fine--there are only three casts approaching this cap. However, if you are in the Persona, Homestuck, and/or Fate/ casts, this may apply to your cast quickly. Currently (note this does not count new characters who have not been added to the taken list yet) Homestuck and Persona have 24 characters and Fate/ has 21; this puts these casts within reach of the limit. Please be aware of this when enabling and applying into these casts, thank you!

EDIT: Persona and Puella Magi players, your canons have been consolidated. What does this mean? This means that Puella Magi Madoka Magica and Puella Magi Kazumi Magica canons are now one thing: Puella Magi. Persona cast, this means Persona 1, Persona 2, Persona 3, and Persona 4 are are now all under the Persona Series cast. No tags have been changed. This means your casts have a higher number of characters toward the cap--Puella Magi has 10 cast members while Persona has 24--and it also means you fall under the rules about casts. You cannot app more than two characters from the same cast. If you are already playing more than two characters you may keep all of your characters. You will be grandfathered in; it wouldn't be fair to you guys to take them away. What this does mean is that if you drop them you will not be able to pick them back up again until you are playing fewer than two Persona characters.

The monster creation page will now accept unique monsters whose origin will be the Tower itself.

The NPC page has been updated.

One new floor has been added to the Tower:

Floor One Hundred One: Flying/Supernatural powers do not work on this floor. This floor floats, broken off from what's above and below--to get to it, one has to step onto the top of the last, glowing stair going up or down, when one will be teleported onto the hanging gardens. Stepping onto either glowing up or down arrow will provide passage off of this floating island. There are thousands of plants of all shape and size here, pressing against the top of the floors above it and hanging down off the edges onto the floors beneath it. Despite being so high up it seems to have an atmosphere all its own such that plants and those who travel through the gardens can survive.

On the evening of Riki's final day in charge the sounds of construction grind to a halt. Everyone in the Tower then blacks out and wakes up missing one hour. When they do, they will have found the Tower has expanded just a little bit:

( New Floors; LONG )

These new floors bring with them new jobs as well as a new feature of the Tower: the mailroom. Go to the linked pages for more information on these.

As you may have noticed, the bestiary has been updated! Most of the submitted monsters were added; please check to see what changes were made to the creatures before you use them. Bestiary pages are now alphabetical by monster.

We have also made a change in the way monster creation works. Monster creation will be closed until March, when it will work on a monthly schedule: monster creation will be open alongside applications. Therefore, monster creation will be open from the 1st to the 8th of each month. During this time you may post any monsters you wish to see in the Tower! Be aware, though, that the bestiary is lower priority than applications, and so they may take a little longer to get added than the applications take to get processed.

Additionally, starting in March you will be able to submit non-canon monsters. This means you can offer up monsters of your own creation that will have their world listed as "Tower". We will scrutinize these monsters more carefully, though--and we don't want too many of these--so not all of them will get in.

Have fun thinking up monsters!

We have had a discussion and decided to open up the option to have two additional character slots provided the following conditions are met:

1. The person applying for an additional slot must have had the same five characters for at least three months.

2. The person applying for an additional slot must have made double activity with all of their characters for three consecutive months. These months have to be directly previous to when you are applying for a new character slot. Additionally, this activity must have taken place in at least two separate posts with at least two separate characters.

3. If you wish to apply for a seventh character, all of the above must be true for all six of your characters.

4. If at any time you drop a character, you must reapply for your sixth/seventh slot anew (therefore you would not be able to app a new sixth/seventh character for three months).

If you would like to request an additional character slot, please go here!

As you may have known, we had moderator applications not too long ago. We have come to a decision and, given the size of the game, we have added two new moderators to the team! Please welcome Plus and Mii to the moderator team! They will be helping out with applications and lists--they don't know the plot, so please don't bring your plot questions to them.

Give them a warm welcome, guys!

Okay, guys, we have been down one mod since Wingus stepped down and we think it's time we opened up applications for someone new. This is for an assistant moderator position--we need someone to help with lists and applications. You won't need to help with the plot, so you can still apply for this job even if you don't want to have the plot spoiled for you. You must have been in the game for a minimum of three months to apply.

If you would like to apply, fill out the following form and submit it to this (screened) post:

<b>Name:</b> <b>Time Zone:</b> <b>Characters Played:</b> <b>Contact Info:</b> <b>How long have you played in Animus?</b> <b>How much free time do you have?</b> <b>Why do you think you would be a good moderator?</b> (We'd like at least a few sentences, please!)

Applications are closed.

A few important things in this so make sure to read it all!

1. Animus will be switching to monthly application cycles. Do to our changing schedules and the increasing number of applications we receive weekly (usually 15-20 or more every week), the best way for us to structure plots and get applications processed at a good speed is with this method.

The cycle will be as follows:
-The last seven days of the month, the activity check will happen and reservations will open. These reservations will be good for two days into the period of time applications are open.
-The first seven days of the month, applications will be open. Reservations will expire on the second, to give people time to submit applications for reserved characters if the person who has them on reserve doesn't go through with it.

This change will take place next week: we will process apps as normal this Sunday and next Sunday, and from then on the application cycle will take place. Reservations will close tomorrow, but any made until then will be valid until Sunday.

2. The activity check level is increasing in September. Not a big change: in September you will be expected to provide ten comments instead of five; if you take a strike, you will have to provide twenty comments the following month instead of ten. Again, this does not change the August activity check at all.

3. The way trunks work will be changed. Instead of being able to fill an entire trunk with as many items as you wish everyone will be limited to six items; this is the reason trunks were temporarily removed in the Breach event. We will also be eliminating the trunk page and instead asking that you all list trunk contents in your journal and provide a link. This will be part of August's activity check, so you have some time to consider which six items you want your character to have. Anything needed to make the character playable does not count toward this count (a wheelchair, for example).

4. We will be adding a new information page about the network. Therefore, we are asking you all for your input: what would you like to know about the network? There will be a thread for this in this post; please post your questions there. We will answer them and this information will also be added to the network information page.

Hello Animus! We have completed our mod selection process; thank you to everyone who applied, it was tough picking! In the end we have decided to take on two mods, one as a "proper" plot/app/etc mod and one as an assistant who will handle lists and also process apps etc.

Our new plot/application mod will be Cee, and our assistant list/application mod will be Pixle! Congratulations to both of them. Give them a warm welcome!

Ru is going to be stepping down as a moderator--thank you, Rue, for helping out! She'll be staying on to help with apps and such until we get a new moderator, but we will be needing a new one, so it's moderator application time!

We would like a moderator who can assist with applications, so being available for at least some amount of time on weekends is good. We also would like plot assistance, which involves working with Mel and the opportunity to assist in running plots/run plots on your own if you'd like. You also get to know all the cool secrets ahead of time and hold them over other players' heads!

If you would like to apply to be a moderator, please fill out this form and submit it to this (screened) post:

<b>Name:</b> <b>Time Zone:</b> <b>Characters Played:</b> <b>How long have you played in Animus?</b> <b>How much free time do you have?</b> <b>Why do you think you would be a good moderator?</b> (We'd like at least a few sentences, please!)

You have until May 26 to submit an application.