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westwhere2021-04-26 07:49 pm
groundrules) wrote in westwhere2021-04-26 07:49 pm
sa-hareth | the imperious
But you’re short on time for belly shaving. In a brief window of weather opportunity, the long-stalled, majestic vessel Imperious has approached the port citadel of Sa-Hareth for discharge, bringing along the dregs of her reputation in slave trafficking. She docks at 00:49 of the morning, with the captain, a two-man delegation, the chief of vessel trade and several guards heading to customs to declare her merchandise, then liaise with high merchant Torsten.
Onboard the Imperius, they leave behind an ancient treasure Torsten’s eastern partners have commissioned for delivery to reinforce local undead warlord Unhalad — along with several captives, fit for sustenance.
And in the roiling sea, circling the vessel, restless ripples as ice storms stoke.
NEW CHARACTERS | HERE COMES THE FRESH (FISH) MEAT
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• New characters find themselves aboard the vessel Imperious, in the last five to seven-day stretch of its voyage at sea. They come awake before a mirror in an otherwise wastefully deserted hall in the ship’s hull, to the sound of dying whispers. • Captives are temporarily drained and missing abilities or memories. Players can use this to cap powers as much as needed so they don’t sink the ship! They will recover their bearings in two and four days, but may be brought back to feed the mirror periodically. • Characters targeted to fuel the mirror again will spend a restless night of nightmares and hellish whispers prior. Memories of interacting with the mirror are nebulous. Those who recently faced it are given white masks during their recovery, which put them at ease. Those due to visit the mirror are offered red masks. • At sea, characters are kept unarmed and captive. They reside communally and must wash the decks, sew sails, or cleanse and gut the fish catch. • Sorcery aboard the Imperious allows characters to understand each other freely. |
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• While on deck, characters will notice a swarm of fishy pursuers — mermaids or their creature companions, who will attempt to hypnotically woo onlookers to bring them the mirror. Careful: they all have sharp fangs and appetites. • Two days before scheduled docking, vicious snow storms engulf Sa-Hareth and ice the seas, delaying the Imperious’ discharge. The mermaids fall increasingly sick as they circle the vessel in the cold. • After a time, the sea creatures return undead, feral and exclusively focused on the mirror, with some bodily throwing themselves against the ship in an attempt to submerge it to reach their target. • Finally, the Imperious docks, with some crew and sentinels exiting for formalities. Within the hour, explosions can be heard outside, and parts of the Imperious catch fire, sending most guards to investigate and leaving captives less closely monitored. • Run, fight your way out, find your dashing saviours, beware the fire and a sudden raid of (yes) humanoid undead aboard the vessel, jump into Sa-Hareths’ freezing embrace — just don’t fall overboard. • Characters will need to steal or receive thralled translation quartz pieces to understand each other once they’re off the Imperious. Guards have some; rescuers will bring more. • Inventory items can be recovered from the captain’s cabin. • Head here with all your mod questions! |
EXISTING PARTY | YO HO HO AND A BOTTLE OF... FIRE
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| • Word of the Imperious’ voyage spreads, but the vessel is delayed from docking by worsening weather conditions. • Ahead of the vessel’s discharge, characters may observe strange rippling in the water: mermaids and other sea creatures, circling the Imperious. They are alert, agitated, ready to hiss and claw if onlookers come near them. They speak incoherently of a coveted mirror. • Private guards are trotting around the port at Torsten’s behest, wary of a second robbery. Heist participants scouting the port should cloak and shield themselves as much as possible. • As the storms strike, the mermaids perish and return as undead. They grow exponentially violent as they hunt the mirror, actively trying to pull those who walk the piers into the water and shred them to pieces, to coat themselves in their living warmth. • The storms let off enough for the Imperious to dock. Seagulls alert Su Xunxian of its discharge past midnight, with Karsa also sending word. Her people use the party’s 13,000 coins to set off minor explosions and fireworks in front the Imperious, starting small fires aboard the vessel. • Characters can infiltrate the Imperious to rescue the captives in the cargo hull — an exhausted, confused and masked lot, who will need Karsa’s quartz pieces. Guards and slaves mention captives’ possessions are in the captain’s cabin. • It’s about to get crowded on the Imperious. Sighted, now and then: Unhalad’s undead, Karsa and her cloaked people, Haltham and even some of Anurr’s deathless factions — recognisable because of their red sleeve arm tattoos. In the water, mermaids start brutally attacking the Imperious. • Those who search the ship will find an eerie, raided hall, with a large shattered mirror. • Return the captives to the House of Dew. The final fate of the Imperious is in your hands. Consider damage to the port! • Go here with any mod questions! |
OLD & NEW (AND MAYBE BLUE) CHARACTERS
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Congratulations, you’re off the floating death trap. Characters can trot through the freezing Sa-Hareth, but beware the effects of long-term exposure to the magical cold: listlessness, fatigue, the urge to walk out into the mountains, and to burrow oneself in warmth. Head back to the luxurious, if declining House of Dew brothel that has been offering sanctuary to arrivals so far. For now, mistress Tamaiu also welcomes newcomers into the decrepit servants’ quarters. Old and arriving characters will have to share dinner, hot beverages and blankets for a few days, while further accommodations are arranged. The sorceress Karsa will rally newcomers to briefly explain the status quo: captives are in the frozen western citadel of Sa-Hareth. They have been rescued from the undead forces of reining warlord Unhalad, who faces new pressure to defend his territory from his deposed, but resurging rival, Anurr. Unhalad and his brethren use otherworld arrivals as an exotic resource, to absorb their skills or vital strength. The land’s only hope is to evacuate these strangers through long-lost eastern portals — a voyage in the works under the stewardship of her master, the Merchant. The long-unused portals might return everyone home, but the trip requires discretion and finance, and the weather’s an enemy now. Karsa will withdraw shortly, probably in a foul temper. She has not found her mirror. This isn’t a party, but celebrate staying alive. |
OOC HOUSEKEEPING
- • The event is optional, but counts as game canon if you participate.
• Applications opens at 00:01 GMT @ 3 May. If you think you’d like to throw one in, dropping a comment on the reserve / notice list helps give a heads up on how many apps to prepare for! Thank you in advance!
• Participating in the Test Drive Meme is not mandatory to apply, but all new characters accepted in this session will have been brought in as captives aboard the Imperious.
no subject
Yeah. [ He paused. ] There might be an enchantment on it, or the room, that muddles the mind before you even get up to it. Because, like - not to blow my own horn or anything, but I'm pretty damn good with defensive magic. So if I wasn't even able to get any of that up--
[ He cut off, raising his hands to look at the still and quiet tattoos, black ink across his skin. He grimaced. ]
Or they have some kind of anti-magic field up around here. That would suck.
no subject
[He gives a glance to the tattoos.]
Do they... do anything special?
[Both of his are hidden, one around his ankle inside his boot and the other by the bandage around his neck. Whats a little worrying is the one around his neck should be gone, and he has no idea why it's back.]
no subject
[ He got distracted immediately by the question, and looked up. ]
Huh? Oh, my tattoos? Um- [ He looks back down at them again. ] ... Yeah.
They're all, uh, different shit. Some of them I did myself - [ He points to the sleeping Magpie on his left wrist -] - some of them I designed and had a friend do for me. They're all enchanted. You, uh, you put the components into the ink creation, is the trick. Then the ink carries the magic into your skin.
This one helps me read the structure of novel magic, [ he says, brushing over the ink, ] - this one is basically a compass. I tap it, it points in the direction I name. Only a little more helpful because I can say "CN Tower" and it knows where to point, too - so it doesn't have to be cardinal directions. But it does have to be a place that I know of really well and have been to physically many times. And isn't, um, warded against this kind of thing.
no subject
[A lot more helpful than Xie Lian's, but then, that is not the shackles' primary purpose, and they serve their own purpose exceedingly well, it's just that said purpose is not beneficial to Xie Lian.]
Like making talismans into your own skin. I wonder if that would work? I would guess not, because a talisman is usually more something you need to fling at things, but there might be a way to materialize it...
I guess, if no one has done it before, there must be a reason. Maybe your magic works better for something like that.
no subject
The ones that help with protections or wards, definitely, some of the more elemental-based ones kind of require compoments on casting and it's easier to do it in other ways, but there's a lot of power in talismans, generally speaking. There's a reason so many cultures used variants of them! Most - huh, I wouldn't say most get flung, though. Most talismans tend to be worn - at least in Western traditions, and a lot of African ones. Anyway, uh -
Well -
With a lot of the magic I do, it's not exactly that no one's done it before so much as that people are so damned precious about their magic that they don't share it with anyone, and then the method gets lost, you know? So most of my work is, uh, 'recovery', I guess you could say.
no subject
[Seriously, there's so much magic here that's alien to Xie Lian, it's a little dizzying.]
The very essence of talisman magic is to be reversible. It needs to act fast but also it needs to be removable fast. If something needs to be more permanent, people might carve or paint it into stone, but mostly, it's ink on paper, or blood on paper or fabric. I do it with qi directly, but most humans can't do that.
... There are spells that are carved directly onto the body with tattoos. Usually, they're not good ones. Tattoos are considered a defilement of your body. So usually, they are marks for criminals. That's why we use them for punitive magic, not beneficial.
[It's... not something he would normally do, but he tugs at his neck bandage a little to show just a bit of the tattoo around his neck, before hiding it again.]
no subject
[ He chuckles, but... No, probably no one else knows what he means or why he thinks it's funny. ]
Ah - that makes sense. Yeah, the Chinese tradition uses paper talismans that way, even Mingyu-- [ He hesitated, a snippet of grief in his expression as he remembered just how far he was from home - but then it disappeared as the tattoo was bared, and he blinks. He didn't have time to read the magic in that brief snippet of a glance, and he's fairly sure it would be rude to ask to see it again, so instead he simply said: ]
What did you get it for?
no subject
I meddled in things I shouldn't have, and I made things worse for everyone involved, even though I was trying to help. People told me not to, but I ignored them and went against the laws of Heaven. So they put this curse shackle on me and banished me.