let's set d o w n some (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
groundrules) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
westwhere2021-09-17 07:35 pm
groundrules) wrote in westwhere2021-09-17 07:35 pm
Entry tags:
- avatar: zuko,
- doctor who: the doctor,
- harry potter: lily evans,
- mo dao zu shi: xiao xingchen,
- oh! my emperor: beitang moran,
- oh! my emperor: su xunxian,
- original: emmet fox martin,
- star wars: anakin skywalker,
- taravast,
- test drive,
- tian guan ci fu: xie lian,
- umbrella academy: allison,
- watch_dogs: wrench
headed straight for the witches' castle
Welcome to the bashful event covering 17 September – 9 October, working double duty as a test drive meme (TDM).
Existing players can strut their stuff here, or make separate logs & network posts. Our TDMing guests are stranded in this playground, but can include network options among play prompts.
If you’re test driving a character, you can apply them until 8 October without a game invite. Apps stay open beyond that, but you might need an invite or please get in touch @ groundrules to figure something out..
Cousins Macaluso and Vannozza Spina vie for the favour of the witches of Bessis, in their bid to succeed their grandfather Bonaccorso as liege of magical citadel Taravast. In exchange for their endorsement, the Bessis have asked both electoral candidates to present extraordinary sorcery at a fete commemorating the Bessis truce with fellow court witches of Attaryl.
On the day of the
It’s all fun and games if you’re enjoying Bessis hospitality upstairs — test drive characters might be rating their hotel stay a little less enthusiastically.
TDM TOURISTS
Days ago, you woke up sequestered in an immense bird cage, chained near the ceiling of a tall, dark room that once served as a library or academic hall. Imprisoned with you are several strangers, equally warded from their supernatural powers and partly sedated — all the better to amuse the nearly two dozen (visibly) undead who roam the room, despite being loosely fettered to posts. They often swing for your cage, but fail to reach it.
- ■ Sorcerer sentries briefly release characters daily to feed or bathe in a repurposed nearby quarter with a large pool.
■ Characters receive basic devices that translate speech and writing, so they can understand their caretakers’ instructions. All along, the guards urge, Keep the animals distracted.
■ The undead reek of burning and wail their hurts. They are gifted in telepathy and often mentally share memories of carnage — two armies of sorcerers, one raining fire upon its enemies. At night, the undead seek to control the minds of caged characters, luring them to come down or harm others.
■ Necromancers sometimes visit to study the undead. The latest necromancer guest temporarily immobilises the creatures and throws three bundles of identical keys into the cage — he reveals he is employed by a Merchant, who wants the outsiders to travel east and return to their homes. They are currently in Taravast, captives of the witches of Bessis, who hold annual celebrations tonight. The keys will help with escaping the cage and accessing nearby tunnels.
■ The necromancer leaves behind rope, two daggers, and three potion vials that generate mist once smashed on the ground. Leave within an hour of your dinner, he says, before releasing the undead from his magic.
■ Get out. As soon as you can, running like hell from guards and the undead. If caught, the undead will rip you to bathe in your body’s waters and ease their burns.
■ The underground tower tunnels are patrolled by guards, who can be overpowered by groups. Characters will recover any supernatural powers within 40 minutes of leaving their prison. Escape tip? Steal the guards’ clothes.
■ The tunnels inevitably lead to the aqueducts, allowing you to meet Vannozza’s group.
UPSTAIRS
The halls of the Bessis sprawl over a pristine ivory tower, whose walls refract light in homage to the witches’ devotion to fire.
The tower receives guests today to celebrate the armistice between the sorcery schools of Bessis and Attaryl. The two groups futilely sought to slaughter each other many moons ago, with the Bessis notoriously gaining the upper hand — explaining the tense smiles of the Attaryl witches on premise.
The event is a standard Taravast masque: if there were coin to spare, someone poured it into the obscene dining displays and alcoholic fountains. Enjoy dimmed lights, the rare pickpocket or recreational narcotic — or test your luck at gambling tables, where winners can claim a forcibly extorted secret from losers over games of dice or cards.
Come masked and visibly unarmed — weapons are confiscated at the doors. Smuggle them in. Just outside the tower, take a walk through labyrinthine walled gardens surrounding a deep water moat and leading to abandoned aqueduct pipelines.
OF NOTE:
- ■ Magical sentries — armed with swords and fire spells — watch the banquet halls, stairs and outside grounds.
■ Bessis practitioners showcase fire, wind, water and air dances in the reception halls, along with performing token duels. Get involved, if you want.
■ Don Urbano, a respected Bessis sorcerer returned from abroad, announces his betrothal with Wen Qing, as orchestratedand financedby Beitang Moran.
■ Come sundown, Macaluso invites fete guests, Vannozza and the Bessis to join him on the balconies and behold the canal moats, where swims his recently captured white dragon. The creature is magnificent but tense, its ice power crackling.
ASSIGNMENTS:
- ■ Run recon of the halls. Keep track of guards, divert them from the aqueducts and alert your friends downstairs of their presence. Be obnoxious, loud and attention-grabbing when sentries get near the opened aqueduct entrance.
■ One of the night’s most profligate gamblers, Caterina Zalle, leads a coalition that produces magical weapons. She is allegedly in talks with forces abroad that fight their undead oppressors. Even tipsy, she only speaks with those who best her at the gambling table — pair up and figure out how tocheatimprove your chances, then drop a line here to win donna Caterina’s answer(s).
DOWN BELOW
A jaded spirit, Vannozza knows Macaluso’s historical patronage of the Bessis makes them unlikely to favour her. Better to take advantage of leaked information: the Bessis hide a secret that’s required them to mysteriously invite necromancers each day. Learn what the Bessis are shrouding, so Vannozza can extort them later.
The lady offers her protegees — and anyone dragged along for the ride — a map to abandoned aqueducts accessible through the sentry-patrolled gardens that surround the tower of the Bessis. Guards will be thinner at the start of the evening festivities, but keep in touch with your counterparts upstairs, who can distract them while you infiltrate.
- ■ The aqueducts can be entered through a shielded gateway that will require characters to dig extensively for access. Divert the guards creatively: use magic, tricks, everyone is a hapless beggar or a drunk...
■ The intricate waterways once served Bessis sorcerers who specialise in water arts. The pipelines range from roomy and rusted to highly claustrophobic and slick with a coating of dark tar that gradually starts to follow you.
■ You find out quickly why the pipes were abandoned: the tar starts to accrue behind you, taking your shape and diplomatically doing its best to choke or drown you. Luckily, the creatures disperse after scant minutes — characters who traversed the Stairs of Sighs will recognise this is the same molten tar found in the rocky corridors.
■ Brace yourselves — for a short stretch, the canal dips into the moat surrounding the tower, home to Macaluso’s dragon. The creature is currently peaceful, but its constant chill has largely frozen the waters. Swim across the moat through ice pellets to re-enter the canals.
■ The aqueducts ease characters into pool quarters, which show signs of recent use for bathing. In the nearby corridors, guards are posted before a room that erupts in frequent howls. Get in, somehow —
■ ...and find a large study hall with an immense suspended cage, a series of freshly freed newcomers and undead witches, who use telepathy, levitation and light mind control to their advantage.
■ Now, you take your newcomer fools, choose between returning through the aqueducts or daring the heavily guarded tower corridors — and you run.
EVERYONE TOGETHER NOW
Nothing spices a party like nearly two dozen undead witches that seek to salve their burn wounds with the blood of the living. Some undead invade the banquet halls, others the gardens, while a few head into the aqueducts. They use telepathy, levitation and mind control diligently — and wear the decayed insignia of witches of Attaryl.
The chaos and the undead that enter the moat agitate the water dragon, who goes on hours of rampage, breathing sheets and walls of ice around the tower and effectively locking everyone within for two-three days.
...with the wandering undead. The witches of Bessis assist with fire magic and torches, but it’s every man for himself. Beware: the dragon starts with magical attacks, but quickly progresses to throwing itself bodily to topple the tower.
TO-DO LIST:
- ■ Calm or immobilise the berserk dragon to ease the ice storms
■ Capture the fire-fearing undead
■ Protect and evacuate Taravast’s useless 1%
■ Stay alive?
NOTES & MAP
■ Old timers: GO HERE to vote on the fates of the dragon
■ TDMers: TDM events count as game canon if you app in! TDM questions here.
no subject
[ With a smile he happily took the offered hand and gave it a friendly shake. While he himself wasn't big into tattoos they were awfully creative. Maybe some day he too would get one. ]
It's nice to meet you too! If only the circumstances were better...
[ But he had hope they would be out of here and free in no time at all. ]
How is your bomb going?
no subject
[a beat]
But uh -- almost done. Gimme, like, thirty more seconds.
[and then he's going to go back to it, making short work of the bomb before putting his phone back together. when all's said and done, he holds the Doctor's sonic screwdriver back out to him]
Okay, so, it should work like one of those party snap firework things they sell around Fourth of July. [you know the ones] Theoretically, anyway.
[obviously, he didn't have time to test it]
no subject
[ Not that he wanted to make their lot any harder but he also didn't want to be torn apart by them during their escape attempt.
His sonic screwdriver was plucked deftly from Wrench's hand and given a little twirl before being secreted back into a pocket. ]
I suppose there is nothing left to do now but wait until after dinner.
no subject
[he's never heard those called that before, but he thinks that's a great name. he'll definitely be using it in the future]
But ... yeah. [and all at once, he's a little more serious, a little more subdued] I guess now we just wait until dinner. [a beat] You wanna play tic-tac-toe?
[better than sitting in silence until then. also convenient for a timeskip or to fade out on]
no subject
I'd love a game of noughts and crosses!
[ Not only would it help to pass the time but with their minds occupied on the game it would make them far more difficult to be controlled by those sad burned creatures down below. ]
I call the crosses!
no subject
[and since the floor of the cage isn't exactly clean, he can draw them a little board in the dirt. he gestures to it, the mask bright. (^_^) hopefully, this does help keep the zombies out]
You go first.
no subject
Several hours later once the cell of the floor was full of little game scribblings their dinner arrived putting a halt to the festivities. One had to make a show of eating so the guards didn't get suspicious about any lingering escape plans. But soon they would find themselves alone again and instead of writing either a naught or a cross on the ground the Doctor wrote a simple, "Now." ]
no subject
[ -- and then it's time to go. nodding once, all at once quiet for all that he's chattered this entire time, Wrench moves for the door, makeshift bomb in one hand, rope in the other. he'll tie the latter off near the cage door, so they can use it to climb down]
no subject
I imagine there will be quite a fuss kicked up as soon as we start climbing down but wait until we are near the floor before tossing your bomb into the crowd? We can use that distraction right before we hit the floor.
[ Rope fastened and looking pretty secure the Doctor gestures ever so politely towards the open cage door. ]
After you.
no subject
[he offers the Doctor a salute, that said, and then he throws the slack of end of the rope down before following, himself. and once he's closer to the ground (and once the Doctor gets close enough, too), he tosses the bomb into the horde of undead] Hey, guys! Catch!
[he looks away just in time for it to go off, as bright and loud as promised, and in the confusion that follows, drops off the end of the rope and bolts for the door. he expects the Doctor will follow. he'll absolutely go back for him, if he isn't for whatever reason]
Amazing thread, thank you!
The Doctor had dropped from the rope soon after Wrench had cleared the area and run towards the nearest door, slamming it shut behind them and bolting it securely against their pursuers. Only once he had spent several moments leaning against the door to catch his breath did he straighten up to wipe his brow with a handkerchief to discover... he was alone. Some how in the rush to escape he had gotten turned around. ]
Wrench? Oh dear...
[ He had made it safely out of the room they had been held in but he had taken a different doorway to escape. ]
We must have gotten separated back there. Well, I'm sure he is alright.
[ Resourceful guy that Wrench was he would surely be alright. Anyway, the Doctor cast a last glance back at the bolted door which was now being pounded on by countless undead fists from the other side, Wrench wouldn't still be in there. He was safely out of that mess and with so many undead out there trying to get in here... its not like going back was an option. The only choice was to head off into the murky tunnels. They had to lead some where. ]