Halloween is a holiday that takes place during the week or two before October 31st. Unlike most of the rest of the game, there are many player-to-player interactions, and the choices you choose affect everyone else.
For the details of specific years see:
- Halloween 2009
- Halloween 2010
- Halloween 2011
- Halloween 2012
- Halloween 2013
- Halloween 2014
- Halloween 2015
- Halloween 2016
- Halloween 2017
- Halloween 2018
- Halloween 2019
- Halloween 2020
- Halloween 2021
- Halloween 2022
For a rundown of all the sweet Halloween loot, see Halloween Rewards.
And for costume ideas see Halloween Costumes.
Additionally, the Urban Lore skill summons candy apples in place of its normal drops on Halloween night.
History of events
Metroplex U kicked off the Halloween celebrations in 2009 by planning a party in the university dorms. Although it was supposed to restricted to students only, many people managed to snag a ticket to sneak in. Emily Davers, the student council president, was in charge, directing people to help set up decorations or purchase supplies (punch, candy, fake skeletons and the like). The setup was further complicated by a plan to spike the refreshments with Eclipse or with alcohol - some hipster kids leading the first campaign, and Charles Freese III (along with his frat) leading the latter. Throughout the week leading up to Halloween, people battled to spike the punch to their liking - in the end it was a definite hipster win; what was supposed to be a quiet halloween party was quickly transformed into an Eclipse-fueled nightmare.
In the chaos, one of the students transformed into a mysterious flaming avatar of a woman. Some students bowed down to her, while others fought her and others tried to purge the eclipse from her system.
The party ended in disaster, with many deaths. (Some claim there were as many as 571 casualties). Several students (including Emily and Freese) were taken to the Utgard Midgard lab to recuperate for several months. The morning after the party, a giant crystal tree was found growing in the middle of the dorms. There are rumours that the avatar of flames can still be seen in some of the pieces.
Hoping to avoid the results of the previous year, Emily arranged for the Emerald Gift to play a concert at the school for 2010's Halloween. She launched a fundraising drive to pay for the show; the top fundraisers each day got a free ticket to the event. Some of the concert's funds were also paid for by Midgard's mysterious Project Utgard. Charles Freese, unhappy with his treatment from Midgard the previous year, decided to throw his own party in the Happy Hour.
With less than a week to Halloween left, work on setting up the stage started. Some people decided to make things more interesting by adding writhing cables and reactive gel to the sound system. A mysterious portal to an Emerald City appeared - some people struggled to close it off, others chose to add to it. Before the portal could get big enough to do any damage, the Emerald Gift took to the stage.
The concert resulted in a relatively peaceful night. A collection of memorabilia was published to commemorate the event.
Halloween 2011 started with another funding drive, and because Midgard dropped out as sponsor (officially at least), it was on a larger scale than last year. Emily was once again back in charge, along with a few new characters: Jess, a fellow student, ran the funding drive; and Janet Barsukov, a Midgard executive, helped with the planning.
Jess's ambitious plans this year included not only bring back the Emerald Gift, but also giant animatronic dinosaurs and a haunted house. Over the course of a few weeks before halloween, the students (with some outside help) managed to raise over 4,000,000 credits towards the party. Janet helped too, starting a fundraiser for a holographic laser show.
The party preparations went smoothly, more or less the same as the previous year. Some people helped build, some people stashed Eclipse, some people replaced the speaker wiring with writhing cables. Once the stage was built, another portal appeared over the stage. Some people got further in than last year, but no one managed to reach the strange glimmering city. During the setup, some people attacked Janet, but she would reappear half an hour later, unscathed and unconcerned. Starting on the 18th, people started receiving a message from an unknown sender, containing nothing but an amorphous hologram - probably related to the Avatar of Flame from the 2009 party.
The party was a hit! The Emerald Gift played their show with giant holograms soaring through the air. The haunted house maze didn't quite get finished, but it featured a giant T-Rex, so what more do you need? Charles "Chuck" Freese was mysteriously absent from the party, although he did seem to contact a few students.
For halloween 2012, Jess stepped up as halloween coordinator, with an ambitious plan to host the party in the newly-renovated art museum. Some people were unhappy with the planned move, but that might be their only choice with the dorms off limits thanks to some mysterious half-completed Midgard experiment in the basement (at least according to Watson Jr.'s conspiracy theories). The students (with some outside help) petitioned the university administration to host the party in one area or another.
On the 28th, Jess got tentative approval to host the party in the museum. It was a scramble to get the first floor of the museum finished and all the punch and decorations brought in. In the end it was a successful party except for the fact that the dorms exploded.
For the week after the party, many people tried to dig into the rubble of the dorms and find survivors. As people got deeper into the pit, strange hallucinations started appearing. At first, the guards started going crazy. Then some of the students who were killed came back to life as zombies, and even further down strange holograms started appearing.
Before the diggers could quite reach the bottom Janet showed up again to put a stop to things. She determined there was no hope in saving the infested guards and the only solution was a clean wipe. Before the source of the mysterious holograms could be discovered, she blew up the whole area.
Reconstruction on the dorms took place over the course of the following year - still a work in progress.
Despite the tragedies from previous years, for Halloween 2013, various students decided to have a halloween party in the remnants of the dorms. The first few days before halloween revolved around adding bricks, girders and the like to reinforce the dorms. A couple days later, a Novos signal could be traced to hack the security cameras, revealing a massive set of blast doors — as well as a massive swarm of (twisted) drones.
When the drones had been sufficiently subdued and the doors opened, access to the area Beneath The Dorms was opened up. A mysterious set of broken lab machinery was discovered underground only a couple days before Halloween — everyone scrambled to repair it with lasers but there were insufficient supplies before the party.
On Halloween itself, the Hall of Sculptures was unlocked for the first time (including a bunch of Halloween-specific encounters). Scarecrows galore. In the dorms themselves, a last-minute uprising of punks took over (thanks to the efforts of certain players…) and everyone celebrated with beer and burning barrels. The mystery of the broken lab was left undiscovered.
The Halloween 2014 was set in the hall of sculptures, with a haunted maze set up in the hall of paintings in the art museum. A large shipment of decorations was rerouted and many of the shipment drones had to be hacked in order to bring supplies to the party (with moderate success by the players). It seems that we didn't quote get as many resources needed to make a truely awesome maze.
Julia the Special Collactions curator was introduced, as well as Jess reprising her role as event curator.
The Halloween 2015 party was held in the Oldtown records office. Midgard Records opened up access to the Party Floor for folks with a Midgard records ID or records Halloween ID. Art students, punks and Omega alumni all push for their vision of what the party should be. Hired security attempt to keep people from spiking the punch with Eclipse. Jess 2015 ran the usual fundraising campaign - the funds going to get tickets for various student groups (art students, Omegas, punks, guards and "donors" (players)).
The party starts. Security's attempts at keeping the punch clean did not go well. People very quickly started sensing a strange atmosphere to the party, and then attendees started turning into ghouls and other monsters. The party quickly transformed into a hellscape of meat and chains, from which players could attempt to rescue other partygoers.
Midgard blamed the violence on anti-corporate terrorists, and security directed players to Lattes! to pick up their participation rewards. Aftereffects of the party leaked into the Records Office, resulting in several new encounters.
The Halloween 2016 party was held in the Oldtown apartment building. Jess ran her usual fundraising campaign with three new recordings available. During the party setup, people were given the choice to help set up speakers or set up a spooky maze. People could cue up tracks for the party, and barrels of punch could be spiked/antidoted on the Docks.
The Halloween party was heavily spiked with Eclipse so quickly descended into a watery chaos (First Voice being the most commonly cued track). There were also some extra raven encounters in the maze.
The Halloween 2017 party was held in the banquet room of Silver Tower, made up to look like a haunted forest, with spooky flying skulls and moving gargoyles. Materials were sourced via Silver Courier drones.
Despite a number of employee casualties during setup, the party was eventually put together, with plenty of wine and bobbing for apples. The theme for the year's costumes ended up being fancy cybernetics, after a bit of back and forth between that and classical styling.
Despite the efforts of security, a number of apples and wine glasses were spiked with Eclipse, leading to casualties among the attendees. This did not, however, rise to the level of an actual etheric incursion, keeping the body count relatively in check.
The Halloween 2018 event returned to the banquet room of Silver Tower. Various folks were enticed to attend by giving out wolf masks or vampire teeth before hand. A giant mirror maze was constructed, along with speakers apparently just designed to emit static.
The party itself had a blood fountain (without enough blood to fill it), and for those that chose to take Eclipse, wolfman guards, mirrored spiders and whispering dolls.
The Halloween 2019 event returned to the banquet room of Silver Tower. The party decorations involved a cavern theme, along with liberal usage of decorative webbing, which can now be crafted as long as you have some to start with. Suitable for Midgard's scheduled launch of the SD6 model spider drone on Halloween. Players were also able to help set up the speakers, including with some unusual components.
The party itself had a working blood fountain this year, which seemed to have a mesmerizing effect. The greater danger, though, seemed to be the sound system, eventually leading people to wander into cavernous spaces that shouldn't have been able to fit, and hounds chasing after students, soon joined by spiders and finally a corrupted spider boss fight with a bit of a puzzle to it, which dropped crystallized music.
After things got out of hand, an apparent Midgard employee recommended evacuation, and players who stuck around found him making the point rather more forcefully. When defeated he dropped a locked datareader, which proved to be a puzzle that took some time to figure out, but could eventually be transformed into a Fenris tome.
The Halloween 2020 saw Yvonne take over from Jess as party coordinator. The party setup took place in the Parking Garage, under Downtown. Midgard withdrew as sponsor last minute. The setup included various blood-related decorations, a skeletal tree and a donation box for counterculture cyberware. Some Omegas may have been involved. The Third Eye also [insert details].
New cyberware recipes unlocked include Recording Bone Leg, Crystal Focus Skull, Gesturing Bone Arm. A glowing bone was also available.
Halloween 2021 saw the return of Yvonne as party coordinator, and a return to the Parking Garage. Without Midgard pushing on the scales, the theme ended up being mostly a fairly straightforward Halloween rave, but with a bit of a fairy tale touch. The main centerpiece being a large PolyClay fountain, although the skeletal tree made another appearance.
The party was largely a peaceful affair, though those tripping on Eclipse could get into a bit of trouble if they stared at the fountain for too long.
Playing around with PolyClay and the book of fairy tales could unlock quest cooking recipes for the clay fairy, clay horse, clay mushroom, and clay worm. It was also possible to get a staring blossom from the skeletal tree.
