Twelve famed New Zealanders (none of whom have any design experience) have convened to decide on one flag design out of ten possible choices. Each committee member has their own favoured designs, and with a bit of luck, enough people will be able to agree on a design to be voted on by the wider public. Exciting, right?

Oh, there's one other thing.

The *reason* that everyone has their own favoured designs is that, unbeknownst to the others, everyone in the room is an acolyte of a different arcane being. Your being has promised to bring about the apocalypse, and spare you, if a particular design is selected. So you'd better make sure that flag has a fern on it if you want to be alive this time tomorrow...

--

'Raising the Standards' is a LARP of two halves. In the first half, the players must try and agree on a flag design, trading off various 'win conditions' about the contents of the flag. In the second half, players must attempt to survive the apocalypse that the first half has caused. This is a costume-light, rules-light, seriousness-light game, where the OOC goals are to stack the deck against the characters, and then to either survive or die in a satisfying way.

2277, May 17, Asteroid Habitat Aoraki Mountain, Captain's Address to Crew:

"People, we've done this before. The system newcomer Oblivion, whatever its mass, is just another flying rock. Killing rocks is our trade - we have the technology, the manpower, and the will. Earth will not fall on our watch."

2278, April 4, Asteroid Habitat Aoraki Mountain, Captain's Address to Crew:

"... in light of Oblivion 3's failure due to catastrophic equipment malfunction, technical crews will be inspecting Aoraki's infrastructure early this year. We trust that our crew will behave in the spirit of Aoraki as Oblivion passes through our orbit..."

2278, April 4, Captain's Private Log

"This isn't over."

For more than a hundred years the people of Earth and its surrounding space habitats have been fighting the Rock War - a collection of solid masses are passing willy-nilly through the Solar System, many of which could profoundly damage the mother planet. Most have been neutralised - humanity is winning! But now the largest planet-killer of them all, code-named Oblivion, has defeated the last three attempts to divert it. Soon it will pass through the orbit of Asteroid Habitat Aoraki Mountain, almost close enough to see, and the Captain has one last desperate gambit in mind...

But oh - this will cost. Join the habitat's officers in the last two hours before an irrevocable decision is made. Sometimes there aren't any good choices.

What compromises will you make, in the Face of Oblivion?

Everyone expected another attack after 9-11; be it from Islamic extremists, Arab dissenters or even Russian hard liners. But no one could conceive that the strike would come from those calling themselves true American patriots.

And yet it was. In the space of barely a second, half of Oklahoma was wiped off the face of the earth; devastated by the largest nuclear device to be detonated in the history of man.

The year is 2023, and America is no longer a country of freedom and democracy.

Garou, better known as werewolves, are spiritual warriors, created to defend the world against unspeakable cosmological evils. Unfortunately, they are not without flaws of their own, and some say they have caused more damage to their cause than they have prevented.