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westwhere2022-08-13 03:17 pm
groundrules) wrote in westwhere2022-08-13 03:17 pm
Entry tags:
- 2ha: chu wanning,
- arc iv,
- asoiaf: daenerys targaryen,
- baldur's gate: astarion,
- doctor who: river song,
- doctor who: the doctor,
- game of thrones: jon snow,
- kingdom of the wicked: emilia,
- kingdom of the wicked: wrath,
- legend of fei: xie yun,
- legend of fei: zhou fei,
- mo dao zu shi: xiao xingchen,
- oh! my emperor: beitang moran,
- oh! my emperor: su xunxian,
- original: red,
- owl house: eda clawthorne,
- penny dreadful: vanessa ives,
- serthica,
- shadowhunters: magnus bane,
- star trek: jim kirk (aos),
- star trek: leonard mccoy (aos),
- star trek: una,
- star wars: finn,
- the gifted: marcos diaz,
- tian guan ci fu: xie lian,
- touken ranbu: kanesada,
- umbrella academy: allison,
- umbrella academy: five,
- warcraft: anduin wrynn,
- warcraft: wrathion,
- word of honor: zhou zishu
serthica: war & peace
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!
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
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.”
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.”
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.
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.
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.
no subject
[ He's impressed by the young lad's relative calm, and equally so that he understands the dragon is simply stressed. He's known far too many who would criticize the dragon for just being a dragon, rather than empathizing with her plight. ]
She's had a rough go of it, you're right. If we're calm, I believe she'll be as well.
And I'll follow you to your shack when you're ready to move, draw some pictures for you. Think she'll be alright now. [ Of course, they won't really know until they try, but there's the two of them now, at least. ]
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[It does sound a bit dangerous to have dragons in a city, too. Xie Lian is very used to supernatural creatures, and he honestly prefers to leave dragons alone whenever possible. They have their own thing going on and shouldn't be disturbed.]
Let's just move slowly, ah? If she gets too agitated, we can always run.
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[ The dragons should be treated with caution, certainly, and a healthy amount of respect. The Doctor being the Doctor, though, can't help being endlessly thrilled by them. ]
Oh, running's good. I've perfected that. But, yes, let's save that only if necessary. Don't want to alarm her.
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[He also doesn't seem to worried about that, and he isn't. He hasn't ben able to do the job properly since day one, so he's decided not to stress out about it.]
I should probably warn you that my luck in general is really bad. Usually, if something can go wrong, when I'm around, it will.
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So, if things go wrong around the pair of us, well, we cancel each other out, don't we? And all will be perfectly well, not a care in the world for either of us!
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There is someone in my life who used to do that for me too. Balance out my bad luck with his good one. He's not here, though, and I wouldn't presume to demand anything, but thank you for... mitigating, I guess? Every little can help.
My bad luck comes from a curse, so as long as it's on me, there isn't much I can do to take care of it, but other people definitely can influence it.
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[ He's a curious sort of course, and not always tactful, so he'll launch right into the questions. ]
Now a curse, that's something different. What happened to you?
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[At least he believed so back then.]
Back home, I had actually broken through the curses, but when I arrived here, they were back on. They don't bother me much, I lived with them for centuries so I'm used to it.
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We've all done terrible things. Okay, that's an exaggeration. Some of us have. You say your punishment was deserved; takes a lot to admit that. Tells me you're on the right path.
What were these curses, exactly?
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[He'll take responsibility where needed.]
One of the shackles takes away my luck. The other one seals most of my power and prevents me from dying.
... Not that I'm very easy to kill to start with, but it does stop anything from actually doing it.
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Well, we'll leave that one on. Won't have you dying. Not on my watch. [ As if he has any authority or power in this. But, he's just like that. He looks after people. Or tries to, anyway. ]
Your power, though, what does it do? Anything to do with immortality?
[ Since he mentioned not being easily to kill. ]
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[You know, as simple as that.]
Where I am from, gods are not immortal in the strictest sense. You can kill them, and they can lose their power and their 'immortality'. It's just very, very unlikely to happen to a powerful God with a lot of believers.
There was a time it almost happened to me but ... I got better. I was banished from Heaven twice, actually. Because of the punishment. But every time I ascended again, and now I don't think I'll have that problem again. Not back home, anyway.
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A God. Of course you are! Met a fair few in my time. Been a while, though, and oh, it's always a pleasure. And now here we are! I know a bit about that, the living a very long time bit, but not being entirely immortal. I'm a Time Lord. An alien, from a distant planet a long way from here. A thousand years old now, by my estimation. You know how it is, though. You get on in years, do a bit of time traveling, you lose count.
Well! It is very good to meet you. Officially. Now we know each other better.
I don't know all the rules of Heaven, of course, you'd know better than me, but just talking to you now, I can't imagine why you'd ever be banished, or ever again, at least.
((TGCF/HOB spoilers for those who want to avoid))
[Alien? Planets? What?]
I... cant say I've ever heard of that before. I've heard of the Wind Master, and the Water Master and the Earth Master, but never of a Time Lord.
But yes, you do tend to lose count after a while. I guess you're still a bit older than me, though. By my count, I'm a little over 800.
[And that's rare. Even among 'immortals' here, he hasn't really met many people older than he is that he knows of.]
My banishments are... a bit of a long story. I actually asked for the second one. But these days, it definitely won't happen anymore. I'm... well, I guess technically, now I'm the Heavenly Emperor? So to be banished, I'd have to banish myself.
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[ He doesn't really get around to explaining any further than that, whoops. He's distracted, just more interested in his new friend's story than anything else. At the mention of Water Master, Wind Master, and Earth Master, he can't help, briefly, thinking of his old nemesis and even older friend, simply called the Master. Gone now, like the other Time Lords. Not something he likes to speak of often, of course, not like he did in his previous life. ]
800, still young! Oh, I remember being 800. I was so much nimbler, less aches and pains. [ He's joking, though it would be hard to tell from his tone, this is just how he always is. ]
Heavenly Emperor. Oh, now there's a new one for me. Why did you ask for your second banishment? It felt like something you deserved?
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[He's completely ready to take this in stride. As for the second banishment...]
It came at a time when I had just done some... rather terrible things. I was technically pardoned because I helped defeat a Ghost Calamity who was provoking a lot of incidents, but I asked the heavenly Emperor of the time to let me go back to the mortal world instead. I needed... I needed to be away, and to think about what I had done.
To restore my faith in the world that I had almost lost.
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When you live to be 800, it's almost unavoidable, doing terrible things. What's important is understanding what you've done, knowing it was terrible, and doing everything you can to change and do better.
Was your faith restored or is it a work in progress?
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You know, when humans become gods, they take all that they are with them. The good and the bad. And as much as I wanted to do good and be a beacon of hope for my people, I was a spoiled child when I ascended.
Sometimes, it takes time to understand what your masters were trying to teach you.
... Ah, my place is right there. I don't have any food, sorry, but there's some tea, if you'd like.
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You sound very wise and very grown. Certainly, all of your 800 years. You know, I've met people older than you who didn't sound nearly so wise. You could have gone down a different path with all that power, but you recognized your need to change. We should all be more like that. Like you.
[ He includes himself in that, in a roundabout way. ]
No sorries allowed, not when you've been kind. Tea will suit me, promise.
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[Let him busy himself with heating water because he's a bit embarrassed by all the compliments.]
My faith was restored by the person who gave me this. [He touches the bamboo hat hanging around his neck, a bit battered but well-tended to.] I still keep it with me so I won't forget again.
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That's only fun, you know. Wise and foolish, sane and a little mad. All the best people are a mix of everything.
The person who gave you that - a friend would you say? Good friends are treasures, aren't they?
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It was such a little thing, but it was enough.
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Something we could probably all use more of, truthfully. Those reminders, however small.