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westwhere2022-01-03 07:56 pm
groundrules) wrote in westwhere2022-01-03 07:56 pm
Entry tags:
- 2ha: chu wanning,
- asoiaf: daenerys targaryen,
- avatar: zuko,
- dragon quest xi s: eleven,
- final fantasy vii: rufus shinra,
- harry potter: lily evans,
- interlude: ellethia,
- kingdom of the wicked: emilia,
- kingdom of the wicked: wrath,
- oh! my emperor: beitang moran,
- oh! my emperor: su xunxian,
- persona 5: akira,
- sarah connor chronicles: john connor,
- sword of frost: yun yifeng,
- the gifted: marcos diaz,
- tian guan ci fu: xie lian,
- tokyo ghoul: kaneki ken,
- umbrella academy: five,
- warcraft: anduin wrynn,
- warcraft: wrathion,
- watch_dogs: wrench,
- wheel of time: moiraine,
- witcher: yennefer
interlude: ellethia
En route to their next destination, the Merchant detours the party through his home citadel of Ellethia — the first, haunted casualty of the undead, now divided into Ellethia-Allayar and Ellethia-Hamsour.
Feel free to tag into this log or make your own posts!
ONE FOR THE ROAD
Macaluso Spina’s plans to escort the group out of Taravast are overturned by the Merchant’s transmission:
”It appears many of you remain indifferent to the stakes of our endeavour. So, you will see them. You go to Ellethia, jewel of innovation, the first cradle of the dead. My home.”
With the sorceress Karsa now gone, the party is entrusted to journey master and kindly-mannered biologist Enam.
Characters retain their bare essentials and what little can be carried on their backs. Magical storage is minimal. Everyone receives bags containing: three raw candles, a bundle of red clothes, a light blanket, two flasks of fresh water, a dagger, two bandage strips, two needles, strong thread, four textile patches, dried food, a pouch with two fistfuls of kiln-dried broken firewood and some flint. Supplies are replenished periodically.
Enam and his six assistants carry larger loads — with two aides transporting heavily bound humanoid forms. They’ve got you, Kaneki.
Ellethia requires delicate travel. The group first travels communally by ship, reaching the East Arakuthia Seas at sunset, meeting 25 small boats that can home between one and three passengers.
The group only travels at sea by night, when the depths are safest. The 3-17 January period covers two nights of seaborne travel, broken by journey on land across the two segments of Ellethia. Sea shipment will take characters from East Arakuthia to Ellethia-Allayar. A second voyage will later deliver them from Ellethia-Allayar to Ellethia-Hamsour. They spend roughly seven days at each land location.
TROUBLE AT SEA
The small boats have been thralled to slowly progress through mist and water to their destination. Enam quickly discloses the rules of seaborne engagement:
- ■ Keep the light. Enam offers each traveller a lit candle brazier to wave periodically around the boat and “ward away evil.”
■ If your candle blows out, rush to it light back with help from your boat-mate or other vessels.
■ If all of a boat’s candle lights have been died, travellers have three minutes to light fresh candle flames. The vessel begins to sink, seized by hands of rotting flesh and shadow. Undead mermaids attempt to drown those who fall in.
■ Sunken characters can be rescued by other vessels but remain “marked,” experiencing a bitter, unrelenting cold that no fire can tame. The saviours’ ship are intensely targeted by mermaids that seek to capsize it and collect their lost prize. You are rattled but safe as long as your lights hold.
■ Perhaps you dozed off, or briefly looked away — no matter your distraction, a newcomer (?) has now climbed into your boat, teeth chattering and terrified. These undead visitors are unaware of their condition and beg to be delivered to shore. They are not violent, unless ignored and often spark conversations. Over time, they become paranoid that they will not be rescued.
■ Those who share their names with these creatures feel compelled to take them to ground, where they trigger immediate medium-scale explosions. Other boat-mates or vessels can stop this.
■ Forcibly push your stowaway into water, trick them in, or pose a riddle they cannot solve.
AHOY, LAND
Ellethia has been cleaved into two — Allayar and Hamsour — by the Huntress, whose extended presence crumbled stone, decayed organic matter and eventually sunk districts and passageways. Crude bridges connect sectors of the citadel that have been partly submerged.
Although the tragedy of Ellethia occurred within the last decade, its ruins have been completely overrun by lush vegetation.
The following applies to both Ellethia-Allayar and Ellethia-Hamsour:
- ■ Characters must don their fashionable red gear once they reach land. Over 15 minutes of direct exposure to the crisp Ellethia air leads unprotected skin to erupt in a rash, then into gashes and tissue-deep decay. The wound fully regenerates within the hour.
■ Patch your party suit immediately, if it is torn.
■ Science-prone characters can notice no sign of radiation. Sorcerers feel no magic. Necromancers sense a complete absence of death.
■ There is no other human presence on land. Plants develop abundantly. Animals live an entire cycle of birth, growth, maturity and decay in the period between sunrise and sundown, reaching their prime around midday. Corpse remains patch back together into the creature’s new-born form at sunrise.
■ There are no human corpses anywhere.
TASKS
- ■ Forage or hunt. Replenish resources. Water from Ellethia’s canals is potable.
■ Help Enam find samples of the Widow’s Yearning. The plants grow in small fields whose scent woos travellers into a restful sleep they struggle to wake back from on their own. Widow’s Yearning can be ground into a potent hallucinogen.
■ Explore the pastoral surroundings.
ELLETHIA-ALLAYAR
The party first reaches Ellethia-Allayar, which hosts the ruins of the citadel’s seats of banking, commerce and governance. Ellethia-Allayar has been deeply flooded, with many streets partly overcome by water.
- ■ Amid torn-down halls of rhetoric and administration, characters can find bright flags on public office buildings, and glitter debris and street cups on the ground.
■ Several decaying pamphlets remain in the main piazza, whose halls have been submerged 1 meter underwater. If recovered, the pamphlets bemoan: Toss a Bone to Your Taxman: He’s Already Got the Meat, Gristle and Fat, Dowries: Sense or Sentiment? Join Tonight’s March for Free Wedlock, Who Watches through Your Mirrors?, Selling: Minor Palace with Main Street View and Cat, 90 Days Since Conscription: Where Are Your Sons?, Taravast Was Our Fathers’ Question, We Are the Answer.
■ Fresher pamphlets littered on public streets announce extended burial grounds in the botanical garden.
■ Roads and buildings show signs of clawing and trampling, along with spattering of long-dried blood.
■ The carriages, streetlights and infrastructure of Ellethia suggest a technology level near the 1800s.
THE SILENCE GAME
Ellethia-Allayar’s impromptu “canals” have made it a prime target for mermaids, who only infiltrate at midday — the peak of the accelerated animal life cycle.
■ Between noon and 13:00 each day, swathes of vicious mermaids storm the Allayar canals, working in packs to draw unsuspecting animals or humans into water. Some mermaids are dead, some living. While they always circle Ellethia during the day, they only proactively hunt in this period.
■ The thick fogs of Ellethia throw a boon: if they are very silent and very still, characters can hide even on low ground. Beware: the mermaids’ hearing has evolved to compensate their weaker sight, helping them locate close-by characters who speak or heave.
■ Mermaids imitate the animal calls and human voices they have heard to lure out prey.
■ Most central and public buildings are on low land.
Enam directs characters to their boats again to head to Ellethia-Hamsour within the week.
ELLETHIA-HAMSOUR
Unlike Allayar, Ellethia-Hamsour is a completely demolished territory, bordering a wasteland. Water infiltrations have been minimal.
The fog runs thicker than in Allayar, compounding the dangers of the collapsing, decayed roads and bridges.
The strong, vibrant greenery only breaks in coastal regions. Beneath the plant beds, you can find signs of the academic, science or technological districts. In some manicured gardens, flowers have overtaken hundreds of newer stone plates bearing local names and the marker, Truth Bows Only to the Sun.
Any remaining stone edifices display intense clawing and blood residue.
Characters are tasked to head to a distant lighthouse, lone in the horizon.
- ■ Characters become increasingly obsessed with reaching the lighthouse, often neglecting food, safety and sleep.
■ The single-minded focus leaves some vulnerable to being lured into steep pits or down cliff edges, into the sea.
■ Some characters become possessive of the lighthouse and plot to prevent their fellow travellers from reaching it. The lighthouse is not safe, if others get near it. It does not want them. Only you.
QUESTIONS
Ahoy Land!
Wrathion had put on most of it, but he'd been hesitating over the helmet. It limits his peripheral vision, his hearing, his sense of smell -- and it's also heavy and ugly and liable to ruin his hair.
Whatever the cause of what this suit protects against, surely it cannot harm a dragon?
Not that Wrathion is immune to harm, but if it's a sickness that touches humans --- ]
There is life, of a sort, but no human life.
[ He turns to her, helmet tucked under one arm. The absence of Drogon is marked by a quick glance over her, to the sky, then away thoughtfully. ]
I sense no magic here.
[ Troubling. If a magical event caused this, he'd feel its signature surely? ]
no subject
[It's not unpleasant to her, given that she wants to learn more about this army. She's only had a brief look at them, over before she could make a full analysis of their capabilities. Instead, she has to rely on secondhand accounts.
It's all frustrating, given the efficiency she worked under in Essos.]
Save for our own?
[Small though it may be.]
It seems almost dead or dormant. [She notes the glance and smiles towards the direction Drogon had flown off towards.] He doesn't seem disturbed by it. He hunts and flies and makes his lair as though this land were natural.
He doesn't like the water though.
no subject
[ He frowns at that, eyes flicking upward again, then out across the land.
Drogon may not be disturbed by it, yet Wrathion is. He doesn't like the water, or the land, or the fact that they are there. ]
Reconnaissance is a nice way to put it.
[ It's the sort of pleasant wording Anduin would use. ]
We're being made to see consequences, taught a lesson like children.
no subject
I would say it is more to let us understand the impact these creatures can cause and the devastation they bring.
It isn't about us directly, but rather to help inform us. There are many among us who have yet to see the Undead and what they can do. This will give us some idea.
no subject
[ A positive outlook. Wrathion does not trust easily, he does not see it so kindly as all that. ]
You saw the undead yourself?
[ She was there, he thinks, before her. If he did, she must have. Unless she was secluded away in safety? ]
please excuse the earlier typo
[No matter if she was the blood of the Dragon. She was still a mother.]
I did. I wanted to see them for myself and get a sense of their numbers and movements. There was no real danger, I was far enough away that they didn't see me.
no subject
Wrathion wonders about that. From her perspective? Or would others agree? ]
The dead can move surprisingly fast, all things considered. They do not tire. Keeping your distance was wise.
[ Speaking as someone who was chased.
He flits his gaze back over the area again, thoughtful. The lack of magic is, in and of itself, troubling -- but there's something else about this place too that nags at him. He cannot describe, what it is, only a sense of wrongness.
The right hand side of his face begins to tingle strangely, but Wrathion ignores it for the moment. ]
no subject
[She's eager to know, never satisfied with the information she's given. To fight an enemy, one must know an enemy, and this was unlike anything she faced before. She was, in lack of a better phrase, adrift at sea.]
You seem troubled?
[She watches him, noticing a little discomfort on his face, but it seemed as if he was more unnerved by their surroundings.]
no subject
He normally hides it better than this. He feels twice as troubled knowing it's visible how troubled he is. ]
I was recalling the last time I saw the undead here. One of them could command creatures, some kind of mind control. I wondered if Drogon was affected.
[ Like he was, but saying that confesses that he is indeed 'a creature' to be commanded. So we're not doing that.
However, a shadow does pass over one side of his face. A patch darkening his skin then smoothing over again. ]
no subject
He hasn't seemed any different so far. He doesn't like the land very much, but perhaps he wants to fly higher than he could at the citadel. He still responds to my commands and calls.
I think he is fine so far.
[But it seemed to trouble him far more than it did here.]
Are you concerned about being controlled?
no subject
I assume you would not want that.
[ If she thinks of this creature as her child.
A shadow rushes over one side of his face again, and this time in its wake a scale pattern emerges momentarily. Dark, with thin glowing lines defined in it. Wrathion frowns, reaches up to his face and runs fingers over the scale pattern.
Ah. Hmm. Yes, that definitely hurts. ]
no subject
[But she isn't even sure about the history of dragons. She knew barely anything about her own House.]
Of course I wouldn't. [There's a small hint of annoyance in her tone, offended by the mere suggestion.] I would never want him hurt.
[She stepped back, surprised by the scales, her amethyst eyes wide.]
What was that on your face?
no subject
[ He lets out a low growl of frustration, fumbles for his helmet and begins to pull it on and secure it. Ugly thing, but seemingly necessary. A useful experiment to confirm that, but perhaps he should have done so more privately. ]
Enam told us the very air here is dangerous, it seems he was correct.
[ We're just not going to directly address this and hope she assumes everyone's skin goes scaly when they begin to rot. ]
no subject
[Scales she recognizes. It might not be the swirl of color that she saw in her children, both when they were born and the eggs they hatched from. The brief look, it was clear that there was more to him. Something he was hiding.]
Is that an illusion of some sort?
[One of the few bits of magic that she knew.]
no subject
[ Injury, he supposes, describes something more actively done to him. Here, the natural environment simply began to eat at his skin -- and disturb his visage. ]
Why would I choose to cast illusory scales on myself?
[ Maybe that will confuse her away from suspecting anything. After all, why would he? ]