serthica: war & peace

[groundrules]

Clockwork Serthica’s arrival event stretches til around 3 September. You’re welcome to hit up this log or make your own entries. Characters not assigned to a region can still access it, as long as they’re discreet.

Please share cool plot clues via network — and have fun!

WAR & PEACE

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SUMMARY: The Merchant assigns the group to determine if the dead lurk within Serthica’s adversarial halves. Eidris and Minaras hold a summit to normalise trade within Serthica’s elusive Neutral Zone — while a resistance movements attempts to capture Minaras lead figure Arabella. In Eidris, locals must calm a maddened dragon and her cohort and retrieve her hatching eggs. Minaras hosts its eerie civic indoctrination that seeks to extirpate physical and moral decay.


FAIR FORTUNE | SWITZERLAND | EIDRIS: THERE BE DRAGONS | MINARAS: EYES ON YOU

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FAIR FORTUNE

The party at sea is smuggled into Serthica with help from false passport papers secured by their Mouse House companions. The two groups meet at Serthica’s port customs, in time for the Merchant’s private transmission:

”Good afternoon. I salute and thank the efforts of our recent additions. You performed exceptionally.

You will hear Serthica is sundered by war, sickness and irreconcilable differences. In truth, she is likely divided by the interests of those who weaponise fear and manipulate opportunity.

In Eidris, they claim Minaraians are not human. In Minaras, they speak the same of Eidris. Disgust, dismay and paranoia have created a… system of profound physical avoidance. If this is mere fearmongering, it is distasteful, but inconsequential. However… if one of the citadel’s halves has succumbed to the dead, who now know to feign they yet live… this marks a dire escalation. You must study this.

Your transportation beacon sleeps in the holy grounds of Vassarizhia. It will light within months, when the Heart’s clock quiets for its annual winding. You may visit the grounds during the upcoming trade summit.

While in Serthica, your only objectives are to survive until the beacon’s eye opens, and to discover the dead present. I pray but question you will prevail.”

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SWITZERLAND

After a lengthy inspection of their passport papers, the party is steered towards the Sanctuary of Serthica’s Neutral Zone — a vast institute near Serthica’s great clock tower. Here, representatives of Eidris and Minaras assemble at midday for peaceful negotiations to improve distant trade relations.

■ The Merchant recommends mingling to broaden your investigation into Serthica’s dead. Even Minaras leading figurehead Arabella will attend.

■ For peace-keeping, entrants to the Sanctuary must surrender their weapons or allow them to be sealed, if they want to carry them in. Weapons are released on departure. Physical enhancements that characters cannot remove (ex: vampire fangs) are excepted.

■ Those who are unwilling to give up or seal their weapons can head on to Eidris and Minaras.

■ Summit attendants receive badges reflecting their Serthica identities, or can divert the greeting droid and liberate the insignia of a delayed delegation. Higher-ranking badges earns you more lenient treatment and higher security clearance.

■ Eidris attendants receive golden armbands or scarves, those of Minaras dark blue.

■ In bustling halls, officials negotiate grain exchanges, new train railways, the currency exchange rate and the saddening conditions of Mouse House exiles. Alas, if only someone (not them) could help.

■ Those drafted into the talks are toasted with a green, mint-like potion — an unadvertised truth serum intended to keep negotiations honest. The potion’s effects last two to four hours, compelling truth but not speech. But do talk: candour wins answers.

■ Artisans display their finest novelty items in the main reception hall. Aggressively enthusiastic traders seek testers and investors for their wares — potent opiates, goggles that show you the world in 10 years’ time, even detailed plans for luxury teahouses offering droid companionship. Extricate yourself with as much coin and dignity as possible.

SLEEP, CHILD, SLEEP

■ The great clock of the Neutral Zone strikes 18:00, triggering a light three-minute earthquake and the rise of nocturnal Minaras.

■ The Sanctuary loses all electric power. As servants rush for candles, you might notice some native summit delegates behave peculiarly: their eyes look glassy, faces trapped in an expression of comical, exaggerated dismay. Many are frozen in tense positions. Others move in sluggish, uncoordinated and jerky spasms. One might catch your wrist and attempt to speak in staggered, guttural croaks.

■ Lights return once the earthquake finishes. Locals resume regularly and do not seem to have noticed any erratic behaviour.

SLEEP, CHILD, SLEEP
CONTENT WARNING: TERROR ATTACK

■ Starting her speech, Arabella of Minaras calls a tribute for those lost to the great Culling sickness that struck Serthica mere years before. The vigil is interrupted by a fusillade of rifle shots fired from outside, through the Sanctuary’s wall-long windows.

■ The bullets exclusively target Minaras delegates and do not contain gunpowder, but a thickened, pale liquid. Once shot, those wounded experience a hysterical, incontrollable terror and the certainty that their greatest fear is hunting them. Many of the shot delegates develop an instant flight response and seek to claw their way out of the Sanctuary, with no care for whom they trample in their path. This terror lasts 30-60 minutes. Please content warn if you graphically describe your character’s greatest fear.

■ As rifle gunshots die down, a voice from outside introduces the Remembrance coalition, pledging safety if the summit surrenders Arabella.

■ The Sanctuary activates emergency measures: protective magical wards start to slowly reinforce, while attendants risk their lives to return characters’ weapons.

■ You could team up and help Arabella’s few remaining guards to escort her to safety in Minaras. Drop a line if you take this route.

■ Outside, you find the Sanctuary’s grounds have been drenched in a thick fog that barely allows you to see steps ahead. Your senses dull, and you are gradually prone to sleep — while masked men close in with rifles and vicious droid hunting hounds.

■ Help Sanctuary guards take out the assailants — and submit your character for a RNG draw to interrogate a lone captive.

■ Characters who later investigate the Sanctuary can find some of its windows have been very carefully pricked, fissured or even minutely holed, easing the way for attack.

Crawl back to your home base in Eidris or Minaras — you need the beauty sleep.

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EIDRIS | THERE BE DRAGONS

Eidris’s relaxed atmosphere might balm your rattled nerves after the Sanctuary’s disasters. Startled citizens gather to offer you help settling in, while dragons seek you out to curl up and nuzzle.

Eidris is governed by natural order and harmony, achieved through firm etiquette, consideration and reminders to slow down. You can hole up in a room in one of the many abandoned and repurposed villas, or group up to take a whole house. Local technology is a blend of mechanical gears and magic that substitutes fuels. Sorcerers are frequent, boastful and admired.

Dig deeper, and you’ll find the people of Eidris are unwilling to linger on negative experiences and gradually lose memory of them. If queried, many natives have normalised intermittent amnesia, with some using their link to their dragons to stay anchored in the present.

■ Acclimate to your roles in Eidris and enjoy the sweet welcome of neighbourly gifted meals and knitwear and a personal, signed letter of support from king Thivar.

■ Eidris prepares for the rare hatching of dragon eggs, lain by the beautiful fire-breathing Aiva — one of the fewer martial dragons used by Eidris’ military. Two weeks into your stay (around 25 August, forward date at will), word spreads that Aiva’s mate has been deeply injured by a Minaras scouting ship during the 6:00-7:00 overlap period when the two citadel halves are both overground.

■ A panicked, distrustful Aiva collects her silver-shelled eggs from the formal nest quarters, hiding them on the rooftops or in the balconies of tall, dangerous buildings. Several other martial dragons assist Aiva by guarding these hideaways until the young dragons can hatch.

■ Eidris calls back most transport dragons to avoid altercation with their fire-breathing, paranoid brethren. This might strand some riders on the nearest decrepit rooftop, while testy dragons fly by. They don’t initiate attack, but are more prone to warning tail sweeps or light charring, if you come close.

■ Dragon lord Cain d’Ubiq urges riders that can reconnect with their dragons to help retrieve the 1m, 50-kg eggs and deliver them back to the dragon grounds nest before they hatch by sundown — terrorising the baby dragons that wake alone and ripping into local architecture. Other riders are needed to spread a trail of deep incense smoke in the air that can soothe dragons from their outburst. Lend a hand!

■ Characters who enlisted for dragon riding on arrival could be middling riders by this point.

■ Aiva’s children hatch moments before the clock ticks 18:00 and Minaras also surges overground. Characters linked to a dragon feel the birth: first as an overwhelming exuberance, then as an all-consuming and irrational dread that briefly reduces them to inexplicable tears.

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MINARAS | EYES ON YOU

A sharp departure from Eidris’ laissez-faire is watchful Minaras, where citizens obsess with schedules, orderliness and time — as if every second is both borrowed and wasted.

Newcomers can choose between one-person 2.5x2.5m ‘sleep units’ in packed industrial homes, or pool funds to rent small refurbished alcoves that once served as hospital or science halls. Space is a luxury, silence a myth: helper droids constantly fuss after their masters, steam engines cough outside, and the gentle thrum on the streets betrays the current-shifting omnipresence of large Watch ships.

Civic sound systems periodically bleat reminders for citizens to STAY HALE, STAY WHOLE, alongside tips for basic droid care, the latest in scientific discoveries, paid ads and reminders not to park your robotic carriage near hydrants.

■ Quickly learn the ropes of your assumed identity, as Minaraians have a duty to report peculiar behaviours.

■ Watch ships prevent lawbreaking while Minaras is overground. Crime rates spike rapidly when Minaras falls underground.

■ More than violence, Minaraians appear to fear their pocket watch times being wrong, filth and sickness. The smallest cough earns a stern glance and a wide berth.

■ As part of Minaras’ periodic social indoctrination, you are robotically escorted alongside your peers and other unrelated Minaraians to a civic integration centre. Here, you take turns before a mechanical droid sphinx labelled ASCLEPIOS that asks, ”What rots you? and compels an honest answer (this can be emotional, mental or physical sickness, minor or severe).

■ A painless tattoo appears on the back of your hand, listing your Decay (ex: ‘malnourishment,’ ‘a choleric temper’). Others in the indoctrination centre must help you mend through acts of care (ex: cooking you a meal, helping you meditate). The tattoo fades after 72 hours, or once sufficient acts of care have ‘cured’ you.

■ After one week (around 20 August, but feel free to forward date), a transmission from Arabella informs watch, aerial, military and health units that Minaras is changing the daily schedule of its scout ships. The last scouts will now be deployed at 4:15am and return to base by 5:00am.

QUESTIONS

Comments

I do!

[balancedwire]

The question, to a point, amuses Xie Yun. His wife was probably making this harder on herself than she really needed to. After all, would it not be like a normal human? The dragons would get to know one another and then fall in love. Or perhaps they stalked one another until one fell in love with them. There was, honestly, no telling where all of that was concerned.

The dragons were beautiful creatures. It also, to a point, should not amuse him that Fei was staying partially behind him. As if he could shield her from a creature that could eat them in one single bite. Not that anyone would ever want to be eaten by a dragon.

"Ask their favorite color. Ask them where their favorite place to fly is. Everyone has a favorite place, including majestic creatures like these, I'm sure."

[snowcleave]

"Favorite place to fly," Fei repeats the words, testing them out as she glances off to the side and mulls it over. After a moment spent dwelling she hums in approval, patting Xie Yun's shoulder while she nods.

"So smart." Then, because he's given her the idea– "what's my favorite color?"

In truth, if the tables were turned she's not sure she could answer, never having been the sort of person who might value information like that as important until the moment it became grounds for making a match between two dragons. If Xie Yun knew she'd taken to shades of pale yellow, it stood to reason that these trifles were more important than she realized.

[balancedwire]

A favorite place to fly would be a good question for a dragon and their rider. However, he gives a small at the pat to his shoulder and that nod. Obviously, his wife thought it was a decent enough idea. Something for her to use. Maybe he will make her a scroll and write down questions for her to use on a daily basis.

"You prefer yellow to other colors."

Being observant is one thing that Xie Yun was. Perhaps they should add color to the questions that the dragons and riders are asked. Something that might seem trivial but was rather important. Why shouldn't it be? Even asking what one's favorite food could be important too.

[snowcleave]

He's right and it makes her smile, though she catches herself before it has a chance to evolve into a full-fledged grin.

"You're right." Then, once she's decided to take a risk and see if her instincts are correct, Fei looks to Xie Yun intently. "You like light green or blue."

Or maybe she just liked him in those colors - she felt very foolish spending so much time thinking about this.

"Favorite food, and, do they like music, maybe?"

[balancedwire]

He takes note of that smile and loves every moment of it. Her smiles, to him, were the best. Even if she tried to make a big deal out of it and tried not to smile. That? It didn't always work in her favor and she knew it. It definitely didn't work in her favor around him.

"I do like light green and blue."

Both of those colors were ones that he favored over others. Even if he could wear just about anything and make it look good. Like his black outfits or the red or the white. However, he preferred his light greens or blues.

"Favorite food and whether they like music is a good start too."

[snowcleave]

"Perhaps I should be grateful that you were so persistent and straightforward, I didn't need to rely on questions like these." She is grateful, actually, but that's none of his business.

"Have you gone up to any of the dragons yet?" Fei looks around them, eyeing a few riders and their dragons in the distance, still not sure she's going to actually get the nerve up to try riding one of these things, however in tune with them she's supposed to pretend as though she is.