arc iii: house of ravens | arrival

[groundrules]

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!

COTTAGEVORE

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TDM TOURISTS | OLD TIMERS | COMMON PROMPTS | NOTES

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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.

» GO CAMPING, THEY SAID

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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.

» DUDE, WHERE’S MY COMATOSE SLEEPER?

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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.

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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 fodder groom 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.

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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.

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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.

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QUESTIONS

Comments

[inferus]

( Wrath raises an eyebrow - this group. From making vague magical wishes to offering up whatever they can without thought. ) Anyone who has use for you or what you are able to do will take you up on an offer of 'anything' without need for further questions after that, especially when it is well within their power to uphold their side of the bargain. You do not start negotiations with 'anything' as the opening bid.

[reparo]

[Chastised and berated, her favourite state to be in. It sinks a ball of dread into her stomach, and makes her grit her teeth for a moment, before she squares her shoulders off. Yes, that was a mistake, and one out of fear, and she can't afford that.]

Well, assume I've learned the lesson.

[Then, adds, because she can't quite let go of having the last word:] Hermione from Taravast might be the type to start negotiations with anything. I'd rather they think me soft and unthreatening, than wonder why I carry a wand and can do magic.

[inferus]

( Wrath would recognize his brothers anywhere, and he recognizes one of them now, flaring up with her refusal to not let it go without having the last word. He raises an eyebrow at her. ) I would consider it a lesson learned if your pride did not get in the way of you learning it.

The issue is not that they think you soft and unthreatening. ( That can, of course, be played to one's advantage. ) The issue is anyone who happened to overhear is now aware of what you're willing to do anything not to lose. You never reveal what you do not wish to lose - not to anyone but certainly not to a group of strangers. ( When Emilia stood beside him with the 'devil's horns' in her hand, he swallowed down each and every last reaction to it - not an ounce of it was revealed in his face or words. He acted as if it meant nothing at all to him even though they meant nearly everything to him - his wings, twisted and taken so long ago. )

[reparo]

[It rankles and makes her want to scowl, and it feels like a demerit. She did slip up like that, but hers isn't the Slytherin way, all cunning and thought out. She's a bloody reckless Gryffindor.]

Yes, well - anything I say now is going to sound like I'm arguing with you to get the last word, won't it?

[inferus]

If you have a valid point or can accept the mistake for what it is and learn from it then no, it won't. ( Wrath would not bother correcting if he did not find it important. This group only has one another to rely on at the end of the day, and he does believe this is all of their best chances to return to the worlds they are from by working together - and Hermione has shown more than only her pride but her anger in the past. That is what interests him, that is what he wants to help build, but anger can be dangerous if it's unwieldy. He is not used to working alongside others, he is used to ruling Hell and his House there and having people follow him without question, without having to re-establish why he is worth following. )

[reparo]

[Is this the beginning of a mentoring programme? She shouldn't be even looking for mentors, in this place, but...

She thinks back to the way panic flooded her senses at the idea of being locked up, wandless, alone one more time. Powerless. But she's seen people here wield magic in different wants, and whatever source the magic comes from seems to let them. Just like it lets her.

So she murmurs:] I should learn wandless casting. Depend less on it.

[inferus]

( Wrath gives a solitary nod of approval at her answer. It would be a valid lesson to take from the situation which just occurred. If she can reduce the meaning of her wand, she might not react so strongly to losing it. They are in a world which can reduce the powers even of the devil, and so he qualifies further: )

And learn how to defend yourself when your magic has been taken entirely from you. Unfortunately, this world has a habit of reducing our power. Regardless of how powerful you are, how much you have trained and how extensively you have prepared.

[reparo]

[That's enough to freeze the blood in her veins for a moment, the idea of having her powers further reduced, or even stripped away. Who is she, if she can't be of service with her magic and her spells? What use would anyone have of her?

She draws in a shaken breath, and glances at Wrath, for a brief moment.]

I know how to handle myself in the world without magic, but...defending myself? [There's an unsure little laugh. No, she's never had to fight without spells.]

[inferus]

( Wrath would prefer if their magic could never be stripped from any of them, but given the Huntress' ability to control him- him who fell from Heaven and lost everything for the simple ability to choose, who spent centuries crawling his way on to the throne of Hell-

This world has far more power than they realize, or simply, it is able to disrupt their own powers in ways they cannot be fully prepared for. )

It may never be necessary, but it is best to be prepared if it ever is. ( especially if she does not wish to reveal she has magic after their experiences in Taravast, which is smart. ...even if he would have gone about all of this quite differently. )

[reparo]

[He's full of lessons. And this advice, it sinks deep; she'll be thinking of it, for the weeks to come.]

I do like to be overprepared...

[A sigh, and the shadow of self-doubt passes, for now.] I would start trying wandless first.

[inferus]

( So full of lessons, so ancient, much devil. He finds himself wanting those who have been part of his House (those who are wrathful) to be successful, wanting the group itself to survive as difficult as it is to... watch over so many mortals at once. Wrath nods, satisfied enough with that answer for the time being. )

Following that, then learn to wield a dagger, learn when to hold your emotions in and when and how to unleash them, learn to read those who might threaten you and find their vulnerabilities before they find yours.

( There is much to learn beyond magic itself as useful and important as it is. She is right to want to be cautious with it which means learning alternatives. )

[reparo]

[Thus continues another installment of Satan's a good lad.

She has to wonder, then, if Emilia knows how to do all those things. If he taught her, or if she taught herself. It's a passing curiosity, because there is the matter of wielding a dagger.

It's how it starts, isn't it? First, you use Bellatrix's wand as your own. Next thing, you wield daggers. Her scar itches, accusingly, and she resists scratching it in front of him. How's that for control?]

You would make a very strict mentor, wouldn't you? [She shakes her head, and steels herself, shoulders back.] Thank you for the advice, Wrath. I will take it under consideration.

[as per her last email, let's just circle back.]

[inferus]

I am strict. It's often necessary. ( Wrath supposes everyone within his House would consider him more as the King of Hell than their mentor, but Anir, for instance, would possibly see him more in that mentorship role.

He certainly is not afraid to speak his tongue at times, which Wrath appreciates. Wrath levels her with a look- a long look of consideration before he nods in answer. Emilia did not appreciate what lessons he attempted to impart.

...for reasons like not trusting him, associating him with her sister's murder, knowing he was a malvagi- a Demon Prince of Hell. Just to name a few. )

You're welcome. ( And with that, he'll simply walk away, because the devil doesn't know how to have normal conversations that have a clear start and ending. )