Zonko's Chat Effects
Zonko's has parked a stand in the Prefect's Lounge selling one-shot chat effects: spectacles that burst out of your chat line and across the whole screen, once, in front of everyone in the room. The show lasts about two seconds. The sentence stays.
Where to Find It
The stand sits in the Prefect's Lounge (the Lodge), under Zonko's Chat Effects in the nav. There is no shopfront in Hogsmeade; the punch bowl apparently draws the better crowd.
The Cabinet
Five effects are stocked. Each purchase is a single charge of that one effect.
| Effect | Tier | Price |
|---|---|---|
| Firework | standard | 10 donator points (DP) |
| Confetti | standard | 10 DP |
| Snow Flurry | standard | 10 DP |
| Bat Swarm | premium | 25 DP |
| Golden Sparks | premium | 25 DP |
VIP members pay 20% less, rounded by the same rule as every cosmetic (see VIP Membership): 8 DP for the standard effects and 20 DP for the premium pair. The cabinet shows a member both numbers, the member price and the regular one, so nobody has to do the arithmetic or take the clerk's word for it. The cabinet lists the price in force when you visit. Staff retune prices now and then; the number on the shelf is the number that charges.
Buying a Charge
Buying banks one charge to your name, from the cabinet or from the wand panel. The shop shows your current balance and the exact cost first, and asks once more before any points move. A charge does not expire, and buying two of the same effect gives you two; they wait politely in a queue of one.
Setting an effect off spends the charge exactly once, whether or not anyone was watching. Zonko regards the empty room as your problem.
The Monthly Free Charge (VIP)
An active VIP member, monthly or annual, gets one free charge of every effect each calendar month, delivered with the rest of the monthly bulk (the beans, the Streak Freeze). It tops you up to one; it does not pile. Skip a month and you still have one, not two. The wand panel and the cabinet both say 1 free this month (VIP) beside any effect you have it for, and a free charge is always spent before any you bought, so the purchased ones are never touched. An unspent free charge expires at the next month boundary, and if the membership lapses you simply do not receive the next one. Charges you paid for never expire either way.
Setting One Off
Every chat box has a wand button in the same row, just before Add Message. The small number on it is how many charges you hold. Press it and a small panel opens above the chat, listing what you hold, each line named and counted. Fire spends one charge of that effect. The panel closes and your page stays exactly where it was: no reload, no trip back to the top, the same way Add Message posts a line.
Hold nothing and the wand is still there, on the theory that you cannot want what you have never heard of.
Under the Fire buttons the panel keeps a Buy charges list with every effect, your price and your balance. An effect you hold none of wears a small padlock; one you hold some of wears a count instead (×3). Press a line and the panel asks once, naming the effect and the price, before any points move. Say yes and the charge is yours on the spot, its Fire button appears, and the chat carries on underneath without a reload. It is the same purchase the cabinet makes, at the same price, through the same till; Zonko simply walked the till over to your chat box.
The effect lands in the chat you were reading, as a sentence in your name: Ginny launches a swarm of bats! The moment that line reaches each reader's chat, the effect plays across whatever part of the page that reader is looking at, for about two seconds. It comes in from the edges of their screen, so someone scrolled halfway down the House rules still gets the full show, and if your line is in view it heads that way:
- Firework: a rocket climbs from the bottom of the screen (under your line, when your line is in view) and bursts into a ring of sparks that hangs in the air before it fades.
- Confetti: cannons in both bottom corners fire paper across the whole screen. It tumbles and drifts down like the real thing, minus the sweeping.
- Snow Flurry: snow falls over the whole screen, small flakes far off and a few large ones close to the glass.
- Bat Swarm: a flock of pale violet bats with glowing yellow eyes sweeps in from one side of the screen, dives, and swoops off out the other.
- Golden Sparks: a fountain of gold springs from the bottom of the screen while stray glints wink elsewhere on the page.
It plays once per reader, and then the line sits in the history like every other line of chat, which is to say, quietly. While it plays, the floating magic that normally drifts across the background steps aside, so the two never compete; it comes back on its own once the show is over.
The spectacle floats above the page without blocking anything: links and the chat box keep working underneath. A slow computer, or a window that was hiding behind another one, does not cancel it; only your own preferences can.
Cooldowns
Effects stay special by staying rare. Each chat room keeps its own clocks: a room allows one effect at a time, with 45 seconds before the next, and each player gets one every 3 minutes in that room. Fire in another room and its clocks are the ones that matter; nothing carries over between rooms. Staff can tune both numbers. The clocks run off the effect lines already sitting in the chat; there is nothing extra to wait on or to be charged for.
If you fire during a cooldown, no charge is used, free or bought, and none of the clocks move. The chat still gets one plain line in your name saying you tried (tries to launch a swarm of bats, but the room is still sparkling), at most one per minute, and you see a quiet note under the chat box, again without the page moving: The room is still sparkling. for the room's clock, or Your wand needs a moment to recharge. for yours, each followed by the part that matters: The magic isn't working right now: try back in about 3 minutes. The note names the actual wait. Two people firing in the same second do not both get through; one does, and the other gets the note.
Other People's Effects
Preferences carries a switch, Show other players' chat effects, on by default. Turn it off and other players' effects stop playing for you: no spectacle, no tint, only their sentence. Your own effects still play, because you bought them and would like to see the result. This is separate from the floating-animations switch, which turns off all of it.
The Sentence Is the Message
The sentence, not the animation, carries the content. Screen readers announce it like any new line of chat. If your device asks for reduced motion, nothing flies across the screen. Instead the line gets a bright frame in the effect's color and a large still picture of the effect beside it (a firework burst, a scatter of confetti, snowflakes, bats, or gold stars), named underneath. It fades in, holds for about two seconds, and fades out; nothing moves, grows, or flashes. Afterwards the line keeps a tint in the effect's color and a small four-pointed star (✦). If you have turned floating effects off in your preferences, you get only that tint and star, and nothing else appears. Either way the sentence is unchanged. Nothing you need is ever carried by the sparkle alone.
Fine Print
- Effects fire only from the wand panel. Typing an effect's trigger into the chat box by hand posts an ordinary message with the trigger removed; the panel is the whole ceremony.
- A chat area that is not open for effects refuses the charge and returns it untouched.
- Two of the same effect set off back to back both land. The room gets two. This is the point.
- A fizzle (a genuinely failed fire) spends nothing; the receipt says so.