let's set d o w n some (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
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westwhere2022-02-20 06:30 pm
groundrules) wrote in westwhere2022-02-20 06:30 pm
Entry tags:
- 2ha: chu wanning,
- arc iii,
- asoiaf: daenerys targaryen,
- final fantasy vii: rufus shinra,
- game of thrones: jon snow,
- harry potter: hermione granger,
- house of ravens,
- kingdom of the wicked: wrath,
- mo dao zu shi: xiao xingchen,
- oh! my emperor: beitang moran,
- oh! my emperor: su xunxian,
- original: winnifred prismall,
- persona 5: akira,
- star wars: slick,
- sword of frost: yun yifeng,
- test drive,
- the gifted: lorna dane,
- the gifted: marcos diaz,
- tian guan ci fu: xie lian,
- tokyo ghoul: kaneki ken,
- umbrella academy: allison,
- umbrella academy: diego,
- umbrella academy: five,
- untamed: lan wangji,
- untamed: wei wuxian,
- untamed: wen qing,
- warcraft: anduin wrynn,
- warcraft: wrathion,
- watch_dogs: wrench,
- wheel of time: moiraine,
- witcher: yennefer
arc iii: house of ravens | arrival
Hi, everyone! Our Arc III arrival event covers 20 Feb-11 March and doubles as a test drive. Participants don’t need an invite to apply by 11 March. Reserves live here. Try to label if you’re a test drive tourist or an old timer — and have fun!
TDM TOURISTS: THE SCENIC ROUTE
You flinch awake, hand weighed by a sharp stick, stone, or makeshift torch. Your clothes sit stiff, splattered with dried dirt and dusted leaves. Here and there, scratches and shallow wounds litter your limbs, the marks of days of dazed survival alone that you mistily remember. Your strength and supernatural powers are currently largely depleted, but should recover within two to three days.
As they journey, characters discover stretches of the eerily silent forests briefly transform into woodlands or recognisable spots of nature from their home worlds — perhaps they’re now seeing the meadows outside their home towns, their backyard orchard, or a fondly remembered lake pier. These images are short-lived illusions that other characters can also see.
Mind your steps: the mirages try to lure characters deep into the forest, where unfriendly animals and hidden pits wait.
A. THE MORE, THE MERRIER
Trailing through the labyrinthine woods, you stumble upon a group of heavily armed bandits who are already herding several captives. Depending on how agitated you are, expect shackles, leashes and tusk pendants that allow characters to speak and glean local tongues — including the thugs' barked instructions. The outlaws are on a three-day voyage to cursed village Ke-Waihu, where they intend to sell their prisoners to the Hok-Shinn criminal clan.
- ■ Ensure fellow captives survive the trek, avoiding leg-hold traps, snares and hunting nets.
■ Beatings continue, but morale never improves: help mouthy prisoners with their tasks or wounds.
■ Capture or forage food — and stop naïve captives from going deeper into the forest to follow glimpses of beautiful (wo)men or cries for help. There’s nobody there.
■ At night, prisoners are locked in stitched-shut tents — get friendly quickly.
B. JUST CRUISING
The bandits never saw you coming — but you’ve been watching them collect their prey. Perhaps you’ve even found others like you — also spared enslavement, but condemned to trail after the thugs towards Ke-Waihu. Characters can pick up discarded translation and communication tusk pendants, scraps of food and frail weapons.
- ■ Beware: superstitious thieves frequently patrol at night, while woodland predators are emboldened by the absence of fires.
■ Leave messages or instructions to the bandits’ captives (tree husk carvings, anyone?) and maybe try to rescue them.
■ ...or leave them for dead and trot on to Ke-Waihu. You savage.
OLD TIMERS: CURSES FOR ONE, CURSES FOR ALL
After a bumpy ride aboard the Salamera II, the party arrive at idyllic village Ke-Waihu.
They are greeted by Hok-Shinn Weisi, the slippery mayor who officially helms Ke-Waihu, while his brother Sairen leads the clan’s heavy underground ventures. Weisi’s flippant and spoiled son Taksui is the Merchant’s local liaison. The botanist Enam and his apprentices set out to explore, taking the group's baggage along.
- ■ Weisi was told the party members are families of Taravast refugees, seeking finer fates in Ke-Waihu. Each family has been assigned a humble but serviceable dwelling — see what luck has in store for you.
■ Weisi officially welcomes the newcomers in Ke-Waihu’s main bustling marketplace. Every merchant, fishmonger and beggar stops to watch as foreigners are briefly stripped of their ostentatious jewels, clothes or weapons, soaked in iced water and told to embrace the village by accepting its old, its new, its ugliness and its truths.
■ To join the community, characters must absorb and redeem the wrongdoings of a deceased ancestor. They are served flasks of a thick, bitter brew that slides down mildly corrosive and cold.
■ The brew’s effects vary: some drinkers feel only a sudden, electric awareness of the story behind the curse they inherited. Others feel scalded from the inside, agonising for hours. The ancestral curse effects start to take hold that night.
■ Characters are sent off to their new homes in Ke-Waihu — but are contacted within hours by one of Enam’s anguished apprentices. His master and his peers were captured by bandits while inspecting the elusive forests for plant specimens. These wicked men took everything: your goods, your Ellethian high fashion, your extra weapons, even your Sleeping Zenobius. Go get’em — but beware the deadly illusions of Ke-Waihu’s forest.
ALL TOGETHER NOW
The thugs, the old timers, the test drive prisoners and their creepy watchers collide in the mist-drowned forests of Ke-Waihu.
A. BANDIT BANE
- ■ Infiltrate the thug group in, kick some outlaws’ teeth on the way out.
■ Release and escort roughened-up newcomers to Ke-Waihu, picking up strays along the way.
■ One of the thugs snitches that the remaining stolen loot is hoarded in a nearby secluded cave, drowned under foliage. The entrance is watched by large, agitated boars with startlingly hard, but not impervious skin. With gold, gems, guns within reach, anyone for pork dinner?
■ After speaking with the new arrivals, party botanist and guide Enam confirms they have been summoned to serve as weapons in this world’s ongoing conflict between warring undead factions. The Merchant, Enam’s collaborator and the party’s patron, is leading otherworlders east, where forgotten beacons might return them home.
■ The villagers Ke-Waihu, Ke-Waiar and Ke-Waicai reportedly know the location of such a beacon. They will unveil it if the party breaks the curse of the House of Ravens.
B. THE BLUSHING BRIDE
When the group returns, Ke-Waihu is celebrating the joyous procession of dozens of lavish 'weddings.' The (false) rites are carried out to commemorate the marriage of a huntsman and his fox bride...
- ■ The roads are awash with flower petals and rice, houses extend their hospitality freely, and the rich give away coin. Even Hok-Shinn clansmen don their finest garments and hand out gifts and favours, while lawmen grant pardons to captives held for minor offences.
■ Villagers pose as 'brides' and 'grooms' to play act public weddings. Characters are asked to participate as brides and grooms, or to join the wedding retinue of a NPC villager. Characters can unknowingly marry, but not become foxes.
■ The evening culminates in a grand market fete, with stalls offering sickly sweets and strong alcohols. Poets recite love songs, professional weepers wail to strangers that they lost their children to insidious in-laws, and petty clashes erupt among merrymakers.
■ Some of the NPC fox 'brides' seem to grow wide-eyed and alert, suspicious of the many hunting dogs that watchmen walk around the marketplace.
■ Come nightfall, 'wedded' pairs are escorted to suites in a large and extravagant inn. For each 'couple,' accommodations comprise one room for the retinue and a linked conjugal bedroom.
IF CHARACTERS MARRY A (FOX) 'SPOUSE':
- ■ They are handed three pieces of parchment before they are locked into the marital suite with their consort and their retinue.
■ Once alone in their 'marital quarter,' characters first enjoy polite conversation with their spouse, whose eyes start to glimmer golden, while their teeth and claws lengthen, their mouths distort to snouts and their hair reddens. The fox brides do not seem aware they are, in fact, foxes, but try to scratch, bite or maim their partners. Viciously quick, strong and prone to thralling their victims into spells of lethargy, these foxes could get the best of you — happily, the little parchment papers you received can share some survival tips.
■ Fool the fox spouse into thinking you are already married or pledged to someone in your retinue. Affronted, the fox bride will exile you out of the wedding room. Refresh the salt lines that surround the conjugal room, and gently steer the fox back if it flees overnight.
■ Your retinue and you should impersonate a hunting hound, down to howling, running on all-fours and sniffling. The fox will hurriedly isolate itself in the conjugal room, but will actively try to escape at night. Keep every inn door and window closed.
■ Become a widow(er). Call your retinue and make the best of your fists and a butter knife. You will need to kill the spouse a few times before they stay fully dead, each time reviving more and more fox-like in appearance.
AS A WEDDING RETINUE MEMBER:
- ■ Awkwardly hold watch outside the conjugal bedroom of the dashing NPC
cannon foddergroom and his fox bride.
■ The NPC groom might request help as above — or might fall deathly silent. If that happens, villagers instruct, character must loudly ask if the wine pleases the couple. The flushed, visibly fox-like bride will then open the door to complain their new consort — clawed dead in the marital bed — won’t even share a wine cup with them. The fox does not seem to grasp they have killed their groom.
■ Defeat the fox at drinking — the fox bride can hold its cups, but slipping in some of the relaxing opiates on hand will help the cause. Sneak the NPC groom's corpse out with a buddy when the fox drops asleep.
■ Or prove you are a fairer marital prospect by verbally wooing the fox or doing battle with your retinue companion, to prove your worth. Your wingman may wish to throw the fight, feed lines, or generally smoulder. The fox bride will offer the NPC corpse as a betrothal gift.
Come morning, the villagers open the now-delapidated inn. Those who survive fox weddings receive braided bracelets of red, golden and tangerine rope, earning good will in the village. The murderous fox brides have disappeared — in their place, yellowed and dust-drenched bones 'sleep' in the marital beds, covered by withered and torn wedding clothes.
Villagers share the whole story: a huntsman encountered a fox goddess in the forest, when she had taken the shape of a beautiful woman. Lovestruck, he brought her back to Ke-Waihu as his wife — but the horrified villager slaughtered her and her husband on their wedding night. The fox god cursed the village to relieve yearly 'fox weddings,' during which the bones of those murdered during the previous 'conjugal' festivities rise as brides to terrorise new spouses.
Skipping the fox wedding rites, villagers say, shrivels their crops and depletes their food stocks for several seasons.
C. A-HUNTING WE WILL GO
It’s all fun and wedding games, until one of the victims of the recent nuptials is the son of influential wine merchant Saguk Chaomin. He vengefully sponsors a a hunt to finally lift the foxes’ curse.
- ■ Saguk Chaomin assigns weapons — from knives, spears and sharpened sticks to bows, arrows and rifles operating on gun powder — alongside lanterns and climbing rope to the brave adventurers. The contingent splinters into smaller groups to avoid detection.
■ The forests now aggressively conspire to lead characters to their deaths: whether it’s through fostering illusions that trip them into gullies, or decrepit bridges that crumble, sending travellers into whirling river waters. Animals (excluding wolves) attack travellers fiercely. Keep a hunting hound close.
■ Characters with unusual physical features or suspicious behaviours — from supernatural powers to a fear of dogs — are accused of being shape-shifting foxes.
■ Fox spirits assume a mortal but resilient shape the day after the wedding — strong, large, feral and willy. They’re quick to bite, and their presence dulls the senses of hunters.
■ To exorcise the foxes, kill their mortal bodies or obliterate or repair their small, decaying forest altars. These are stone rings the size of one’s hand, often hidden at the root of ancient trees. Cleanse the altars of filth, vermin and predatory creatures, and replenish the stones with fresh river pieces. Beware rare fox spirits that come to protect altars or hide their young.
D. WELL, WELL, WELL
In the wake of the weddings, characters head to their abodes, while test drivers are garrisoned in communal temporary shelters. Over the next few days, everyone may notice:
- ■ Villagers have a marrow-deep fear of the Hok-Shinn clan, whose members behave as if they are immune from repercussions.
■ Villagers tell eerie tales of strange encounters in their locked stables, abandoned houses or wells — they have seen a creature with the head of a beautiful woman, whose hair braids to form her snake-like body. 'She' slithers away once discovered.
■ Word spreads across the marketplace that dark waters have returned. A farmer’s well has dried, leaving only a thickened, tar-like liquid at the bottom. Another villager shamefully admits his well also dried a month ago, clogged by dark filth — the fount was old, and he assumed it had naturally depleted.
■ Horrified villagers speak no more of this, but superstitiously volunteer flower and food tributes for the Ka-Sanwon volcano. Mayor Hok-Shinn Weisi intercedes to reserve the resources for the upcoming return of the patron lord of the volcano’s three villages — the undead Beastmaster.
1
Plunging into ice cold water generally isn't advisable for a dragon, it drops their high body temperatures down far too sharply. Unfortunately saying 'I'd rather not be in ice water, thank you, I'm a dragon' would rather give things away. In the spirit of keeping things quiet, then, he's given up his things despite his inclination otherwise and let it all happen.
Still: his white linen shirt is damp, his curls are weighted down with cold water and he looks both cold and miserable. He's doing his level best not to shiver, but the slight quake is visible nonetheless. ]
I'm hoping the households have bathing facilities.
[ You know, to warm up with a nice hot bath. He's an intellectual, you see. He likes to be clean and warm and comfortable. ]
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She turns towards Wrathion, and the quake is visible, and concerning. They're far enough from the eyes of the villagers, who are by now concerned with others of their cohort, that she doesn't worry so much about performing magic.
This isn't the Doxe's palace anymore. There's no guards about to come harass her for helping a friend (?) out.]
Let me give you a hand. [She did give him an entire lecture about letting others help him once, didn't she? It's her duty of care now to help, to let him let her.
Logic.
She steps closer, quickly (very quickly) diverting her gaze away from the damp shirt, up to his eyes, and then quickly to just a point on his chin that's not so bloody imposing. Wand in her right hand, she touches his elbow with her left one, and very subtly swishes and flick a Heating Charm to life. It won't dry his hair and clothes (that would take more swishing and flicking and be more visible), but it'll remove the feeling of being chilled to the bone while the air takes care of them.]
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Several things happen, however. First, just as he opens his mouth to protest she steps closer and he is briefly distracted by wondering what she's about to do. Secondly, she touches his elbow. Wrathion isn't terribly used to being touched, even in this mild sort of gesture. His mouth snaps shut and he goes slightly tense. Well, he supposes he was... supposed to be letting others help him.
Thirdly, he feels a rush of warmth. Hopefully this is in fact, her doing something, and he's not just flushing awkwardly. He did feel some sort of wave of magic. ]
Ah.
[ He blinks owlishly, a wave of uncertainty passing over him. Well, at least he's warm -- even if he is warm and damp still. Better than cold and damp.
... Her hand is still on his arm. It reminds him of Anduin, studying him expectantly while holding his arm in Taravast. ]
... Thank you.
[ There, acknowledgement that she helped and gratitude for it. This is the right response, he thinks? ]
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Thank you - snaps her out of her reverie, and she looks up, a momentary flash of flustered panic, the oh god, don't have noticed.]
Yes, pleasure - my pleasure. Don't worry about it.
[She lets the arm go now. Tugs her sleeves down. Clears her throat. Other things.] I can probably dry your clothes with a spell, but I'd rather not show my hand in public yet. Not until we know how these people react to magic.
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Human behaviour is still something of a mystery to him, and the exact meaning of this gesture is included in that. Anduin had flustered too, and he's not... exactly sure why, still? ]
Of course. Perhaps we can find somewhere quieter?
[ He would like his clothes dry, if he can help it. Hands free, he lifts them to twist some of the damp curls of hair around his fingers, trying to carefully wring a little more water out onto the ground if he can. Better than it continuing to run onto his shirt. ]
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Sure! Let's - let's take a walk. [Towards some place between houses, where there's no eager eyes on them, so she can do that quick spell. Because she has no idea where she's meant to live, yet.]
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Wherever suits you.
[ He says, beginning to move toward the houses.
Yes, Hermione, do slip into a dark alleyway between houses with him. That will look completely fine. There's nothing suspicious about it. ]
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They're just walking towards that cluster of houses over there, and when the alleyway pops into view, they're going to dip into it. The initiations, whatever they are, are still happening in the main part of the village (if it can be called a square), so she can only hope the others are distracted.]
So, what are you? [Very bluntly, with just a pause afterwards, before she clarifies:] I mean, in the sense that you seemed deeply uncomfortable with being subjected to that cold bath. You can't be that posh here, you know? We're meant to blend in.
[As much as people running from Taravast would blend.
The truth is, she does want to know what he is. The red eyes, the growling, the strangely elevated body temperature. Wrathion can't be entirely human. Maybe he isn't. She is dying to know, because she likes to Know Things, but she won't push it. (Today.)
Quickly, without waiting for him to answer her, she performs her spells. Leaves him dry as the desert. (But perhaps the hair's left with some static electricity in it.)]
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Blend in? He huffs, reassembles his answer, and is about to answer again when a flurry of magic hits him.
He blinks, feeling his shirt warily and then lifting his hand to his hair. It's instinct for someone this vain to check, and the desire to check is proven wise. He sighs and begins winding it around his fingers to try and tame it. ]
You're telling me I should enjoy being plunged into ice water?
[ Yes, he's well aware this isn't an answer. ]
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I'm sorry about the hair, I've not mastered a seamless drying spell yet.
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[ Since they've established nobody would enjoy it.
He's not even going to acknowledge the comment about his hair. He's just going to keep winding it, slowly, until it's acceptable. He's dry now and he's feeling better, slowly, for it -- so on balance it seems worth it. ]
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Yes, that must be it. She's just disquieted by the whole thing.]
I'm sorry - whatever it is I'm feeling after the cold bath, I've tried to take it out on you. That wasn't fair of me.
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He winds a few more strands of hair into more acceptable curls then leans back against the wall of the building behind him, folds his arms thoughtfully. ]
It's naturally to find being asked to accept a curse disquieting.
[ Seriously, who does that? These people are... peculiar. ]
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[She sighs.] Sometimes I wonder how much better off we'd be if we veered off the path, out of his control and manipulation, and just. Figured this out on our own. If we could.
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[ And one who was sympathetic about it. Wrathion pauses, thoughtful. ]
I have wondered if the Merchant is invested in our fate due to his previous... association with the research in Ellethia. I wonder if the mirrors relate to all that is happening in more ways than we understand.
[ If so, it would be detrimental to lose him as a source of information. Unfortunately. ]
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It's not a far stretch, to remember a benevolent old headmaster, who pulled his students into a war without giving them tools to fight it, without giving them information. Or with it being fed drip by drip to them.
She's been thinking about Dumbledore a lot, while here. Harry would not be proud.]
What did you learn in Elletheia? [She hasn't forgotten someone made a wish, here.]
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[ He frowns slowly. ]
They suffered.
[ He remembers it, the sensation of overwhelming terror. The desperation, to survive. To live. ]
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[Who else? The whole ghost place reeked of suffering. All the ruins, the mermaids, the undead. Undeath is such a thing here, she's almost hoping that Tom Riddle never sets foot here.]
Then...was ending their sleep a mercy?
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[ Not just the sleepers. Everyone in Ellethia, in that tower. Wrathion tips his head back against the wall, a tired sort of weight settling on him as he turns over her question.
Was it a mercy? To end their suffering? ]
I have thought before that there was only one solution, that there was no way to undo the suffering inflicted on someone. I was proven wrong, years later. It was too late by then. I often wonder if, had I set myself on the right path back then, I would have been able to devise a solution in time to save them.
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Of course no, she's frowning for other reasons. The conversation is riveting enough, and she's not easily distracted by a pretty face.
Not that she's got an opinion on the face. She doesn't, because she's busy.]
There should always be a way to undo the suffering done onto someone. I'm not sure what happened, in your home, but...
Some people are capable of redeeming themselves, Wrathion. Some don't want to.
[An unsure shrug.] I'm going based on personal experience here, so I know it doesn't come with an understanding of all circumstances. But there is never a bad time to set yourself on the right path.
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I can never change the actions of my past, but I can forge a new legacy to leave behind.
His eyes slide down to settle on her, thoughtful, and linger in silence. ]
You're right.
[ He says finally. Of course Hermione is right! About which part, though? ]
My body temperature is higher than yours. The icy water dropped it too quickly.
[ Is this the right path? He doesn't know. Yet allowing at least a little trust, he has learned, helps people to trust you in turn. ]
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She meets his unsettlingly red eyes, breath held for a moment, and she nods.
Noted.]
Did the spells help?
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Yes. The cold does not normally bother me so much, it was the shock I suspect.
[ The abrupt difference in temperature between his own and the ice water. ]
Eyes like mine are not entirely uncommon in my home. Elves who are exposed to strong sources of magic for extended periods of time often development a permanent glow to their eyes.
[ Since he knows that's her other criticism. How the fuck are glowing eyes blending in, eh? ]
I didn't think to hide them in Taravast. It seems more an admission of guilt to do so after people have seen them.
[ Yes, he can hide it. ]
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Maybe by knowing, next time something like this happens, she'll recall his body temperature runs higher and know what is flamboyance and what is real stress.]
It's proof of how biased and human-centric my world is, in comparison. Humans rule it, especially the magical part of it, and witches and wizards seem to believe that any living being that is not fully human is a creature, and lesser.
[Werewolves, giants, Veelas to name a few, but she's had centaur professors, she's rescued hippogriffs and dragons. Liberated House Elves.]
That's not a mentality I agree with, by the way.
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[ Being inhuman is not, after all, to be lesser in Azeroth. Wrathion would argue plenty of races are, in fact, greater than humans in many ways.
That's probably rude, though, and he can resist mentioning it.
Still, the fact that her world is human-centric does explain a little of her reactions to him. ]
Do I frighten you?
[ She always seems a little nervous. Is that it? Is she less used to non-humans? ]
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