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westwhere2023-01-06 07:33 pm
groundrules) wrote in westwhere2023-01-06 07:33 pm
Entry tags:
- 2ha: chu wanning,
- arcane: jinx,
- arcane: vi,
- arcane: viktor,
- asoiaf: daenerys targaryen,
- better call saul: jimmy mcgill,
- better call saul: kim wexler,
- doctor who: clara oswald,
- doctor who: the doctor,
- final fantasy xiv: vrtra,
- game of thrones: jon snow,
- mcu: kamala khan,
- mcu: wanda maximoff,
- mcu: yelena,
- mo dao zu shi: xiao xingchen,
- oh! my emperor: beitang moran,
- original: licyn mansbane,
- owl house: eda clawthorne,
- penny dreadful: vanessa ives,
- star trek: leonard mccoy (aos),
- star wars: merrin,
- test drive,
- the gifted: marcos diaz,
- tian guan ci fu: xie lian,
- touken ranbu: kanesada,
- umbrella academy: allison,
- umbrella academy: five,
- warcraft: anduin wrynn,
- warcraft: wrathion,
- warframe: kahl 175,
- x-men: charles xavier,
- zettai karen children: kumoi yuuri
sand in your eyes
And onwards, through the cursed desert. The mini-journey Arc covers 6-21 January and doubles as a test drive meme. Participants do not need an invite to apply this round. Have fun!
A HOUSE UNITED WILL SAND | SOILMATES | A PYRAMID SCHEME
A SANDING OVATION
Sand in your eyes, down your throat, stifling. You wake half-buried in high dunes, crawling towards helping hands. Thirst vanquishes you.
You are quickly offered a translation and communication pendant and introduced to the leader of the caravan that saved you — good Mazyar, who thanks the stars for your most incredible luck to be rescued by his generous and humble self. For he is not a man for idle praise, but he has sold salt to salt makers, he was courted by seven of the five great trade guilds and brought peace to the Stairs of Sighs…
Mazyar reveals you are in Akhuras, where undead lieges seek to weaponise you in their war for dominion. Mazyar’s good but less successful friend, the elusive Merchant ferries otherworlders east, where ancient beacons can transport them home.
Retire for now and regain your strength. Come morning, further otherworlders will arrive from Serthica — and your journey may begin.
ONE SAND WASHES THE OTHER
The veteran party reunites with newcomers in the desert, and with the merchant Mazyar — who once guided them through the Stairs of Sighs. His caravan is protected by the Scavengers —deathly a tribe of hardened desert raiders. They bring water flasks, supplies, cooling suits and tents to share. Their snail-like carriage mounts can transport the weak.
You are bound for the seized citadel of Alem, swarmed on each side by undead battalions. To access it, you must obtain one of the enormous sand worms that trawl the deserts, which can be deployed to create underground passageways.
The Scavengers will lead the caravan through haunted dunes, the worms’ traditional hunting grounds and temple-fortress Uruksithar.
A HOUSE UNITED WILL SAND
The group first reaches the Valley of Unchaining, bordered by high cliffs and fang-like stones. Here and there, discover bloodied footprints, half-buried shackles and red chains. You might even stumble upon an eroded tombstone inscribed, H R SL EP THE UNCH IN D. At its feet are dulled dagger blades and rough calcar stone.
COULD DIE FROM LAUGHTER
You fool, never eat alone. Happen by the camp’s outskirts with your dinner, and you might glimpse the silhouettes of starved desert hyenas, their eyes glistening green. They will come close if you bear raw meat or bleeding wounds.
- ■ Scavengers say, if you see the hyenas, throw them food or a cloth drenched in fresh blood, then run without looking back until you no longer hear their cruel cries.
■ Some hyenas mimic rasped human voices, begging help or calling your name. One feeble hyena wears a chain of red shackles around its neck.
■ If you look back while chased, you find the green stare of the hyenas fixed upon you. You are gradually overcome by starvation, violence and the urge to dismember prey and feast on raw flesh. Player’s choice on whether characters can resist this compulsion, which disappears at dawns, or if they taste blood.
■ Scavengers will deny you entrance into the camp if you appear possessed in this way.
SANDIMENTAL VALUE
You walk the Valley, Scavengers say, and Mother Death walks with you. A once handsome crone might appear beside you, bare-footed and dressed in clean linens. She remains silent unless spoken to and flinches if you move suddenly, as if she fears being struck.
- ■ Treat the Crone kindly, and she entrusts you with a small pouch holding a fraction of her ashes, which she wants scattered from the hills.
■ Use rope and climbing hooks and take cover behind stone formations. Beware the violent sand whirlwinds that batter the cliffs, threatening to plunge you down or choke you with sand.
■ If you succeed, the Crone appears to watch her scattering ashes and bless you with good luck for the rest of your journey. Your kindness, she says, reminds her of her daughter.
SOILMATES
The three-day walk to Uruksithar traverses the sand worms’ hunting grounds, where dunes shift periodically in sharp, tectonic waves. Watch your step and don’t be surprised if your tent sinks at night.
- ■ The Scavengers organise daily reconnaissance parties in the desert hills. Stay with them to unbury dune treasures.
■ The brave & brazen can try to catch sand worms. The massive creatures erupt overground periodically, catching prey in their large mouths, or crushing it beneath their heft as they plunge in the depths — creating large sinkholes in the process.
■ On its back, each sand worm has a few darker scales that draw the shape of a rune. To tame a sand worm, you must find its rune, then write the symbol on the worm’s back using blood from your hands. Report your catch by 23:59 on 17 January!
■ The sand worm bonds with you for three weeks until the next full moonrise, or until you draw the same rune on your cut hand.
■ Those who secure a sand worm find it grudgingly follows them underground for the rest of the journey. The creature can only be steered or ridden.
■ Some sand worms are vicious, old and sufficiently magical to retaliate by taking the link over and forcing their bonded humans to experience their lives — briefly sensitive to light and strong sounds, or unable to speak. Some might experience mild fevers. All symptoms disappear when the bond breaks.
A PYRAMID SCHEME
At last, welcome to Uruksithar, former jewel of the desert — now reduced to rusted gates and tattered walls of wind-lashed stone.
The abandoned palace-fortress features a row of minor temples and barren gardens that surround a great, ruinous pit. The state of residential furnishings suggests the grounds were lived mere years prior. Walk north to find a a large pool of thickened black water that exudes a cold, unsettling presence. Veteran party members know what to expect.
Nail scratches on some temple walls read, we, who did not sleep or i ask the wind to grieve our chains. By the pit, a stone plate helpfully says, drop by drop, even base water turns to poison.
The Scavengers disperse to raid the temples, advising you to carry water everywhere. One raider mentions that the local Temple of Ra’esh stores silver waters that can woo sand worms.
OCTOPUS PRIME
Uruksithar’s great gong strikes every two hours, to groans and shudders from the abyssal pit. Scavengers immediately take cover behind walls, bind themselves to columns or rush into crumbling residences.
- ■ For five minutes, as the gong sounds a pathetic dirge, a bouquet of tentacles erupts from the pit, sweeping nearby streets to capture living things.
■ Throwing water on the tentacles forces them to retreat, while black liquid from the northern pool burns them down. Further tendrils emerge until the gong quiets.
■ Should you fall into the pit, use your climbing hooks to latch onto the walls and don’t look down. A grotesque, sharp-toothed mouth awaits below to devour you, amid the squelching sounds of the tissue and material it has been masticating for decades. It won’t give up its lunch easily.
TOMB AND GLOOM
Ra’esh the Bright-maker, he who saw but peace beneath the skies. His humble temple is anonymous among numerous worship grounds. Scavengers say, four years ago, a wanderer sculpted an eye with a sun for a pupil on the entrance door. Take a torch and head in.
- ■ Long-stripped of its glory, the maze-like Temple of Ra’esh is now cold stone, stale window-less corridors and heavy doors that snap down from the ceiling.
■ Distant susurrations of water point you towards your destination.
■ As you walk in, pay attention to the engravings near the entryway of each temple room. Some depict arrows, forecasting spikes will burst up from floors tiles. Sculpted drops hint pouring water in this spot will open a door. Open a door with an engraving of large serpents, and… well. The engravings can help characters navigate the maze and completely avoid its traps. Feel free to make up your own engravings & traps, if you want!
■ The altar room contains a pool with pearlescent waters that surround a woman fully bandaged in gauze, her sight obscured. She is bound to a column with chains and shackles akin to those found in the desert. Rare peeks of her skin show it rotting or sickly pale.
■ She asks either if you are her mother, come for her at last. Do you engage?
■ Take water from the pool, and you can lure a sand worm to you once you have exited Uruksithar. Hazed, but sweet-tempered, it will follow you underground and allow you to ride it for the three weeks until the next full moonrise. These sand worms won’t give you a hard time during the bond period. Report your worm too by 23:59 on 17 January!
NOTES
- ■ Test driving & in-game characters can top level logs here — test driving characters can also put up network posts in this space c:
■ Feel free to investigate the mystery of the chains and shackles, but no pressure — it’s not critical to Arc V.
■ Hit up NPCs!
■ Navigation top.
☆ rest in pieces
( the forgotten, the discarded, few often thought about what happened after death and those that did... so many of those assumptions were as far from the truth as they were close to it, just never quite right )
There's always rules with the dead.
no subject
The dead are as loud as the living at times.
( She says, voice dry as their surroundings. )
The problem with rules is not knowing which ones reign here, or which ones are worth breaking, to what effect. I'm not unfamiliar with the dead of my world. The ones here, I don't know. Do you?
no subject
( but there's always time and a witch often becomes familiar with them quickly )
But even unknowing of them respect of their space can be given, a wish to not disturb them. And if you do... a bargain may help.
no subject
( Not that she's in the mood to reach out to the ghosts of this land, but if it gains the insight she needs, she'll do so. The insight of how are we being pulled here and how do we permanently end the ones responsible. The answer of how to go back already exists, she's listened, verified from listening longer that it's worked, has guttered out for a few, but worked for more. The few who returned undigested by their travel across space and time settled in probabilities as high that the journey worked as advertised. Getting home was happening: destroying the undead lieges proposed as responsible would be an entirely different sort of satisfaction.
Dream big. Then do. )
What bargain do you believe holds them hostage to truth and honesty in dealings?
( Wednesday contemplating instead the touch of her hands on stone, if memory will ricochet through her in the electric dissatisfaction of a freak electrical storm, lacking any fuzzy aftermath to mark its passage. Or if, more likely, nothing will happen at all. )
no subject
( a seance hadn't been her initial thought but she's no stranger to them nor would she entirely be opposed to one if it had merit )
Sometimes a bargain may be individual if you know the spirit enough. Often simply... dispatching them is the safest course.
no subject
( Not an exhaustive list. Just the first three things to come to mind. )
You're an exorcist by trade or training?
no subject
I'm a witch.
( self-explanatory, to her at least. the dead and all things comes with her craft )
Have you held a seance before?
no subject
( Not that her own recently manifested ability isn't also witch aligned, but that's neither here nor there, unless she decides to slap hands on the tombstone and see if anything happens.
She's teetering toward perhaps. The problem being firm was not knowing if it would work and lead her to the kind of recovery that took hours to days. )
Several. I don't enjoy speaking with the dead anymore than the living, but I've had motivation to try in recent months. I assume you have as well. Do you have any other ready means of contacting or reading the dead or their deaths?
no subject
( and in limited uses manipulating time, though lilith's not going to suggest that )
What would you like from them?
no subject
Without being drawn under?
( By the vision, by the violence in her case. She only sees the darker things, the deaths come or yet to arrive. While Goody Addams said she could only learn to ride them out, slowly devoured by the paranoia of knowing intimately people's worsts, there really seems to be a limit on how much murder everyone can commit. Probably.
Maybe even here, but she holds no hope for that. )
Answers. You?
no subject
( she's not trying to brag (not entirely) but just stating a fact. this girl doesn't know the kind of witch that she is but it's a good place to start )
I can direct you through it to find your answers.
no subject
I don't have trouble find visions. ( A pause, for a beat. ) They have trouble leaving me.
no subject
( an interesting development. she'd perhaps hoped but she knows from experience many teenagers have a fascination with the dead outside of any formal teaching about it )
How easily do you find these visions?
no subject
( Though her father's lineage is heavy in witchcraft and its skills, and her mother isn't without her own. Wednesday still isn't interested in the word, specifically, or the expectations, which are as limiting as many labels are, in her world.
For an extended moment, she considers not answering at all. Strangers aren't owed explanations from her, let alone personal ones. Only this is... useless, as a secret, if she does touch someone or something and end up suffering the physical effects of a vision. Probably, possibly, it's worth telling some in their shared circumstances. )
Easily as touching, involuntary as thought.
no subject
( lilith imagined that it could easily be either, both would signify a lack of control from a new power or one that she knew little about, particularly if others around her were unable to teach her about it. she declined being a witch, which indicated a lack of coven and perhaps a lack of tutelage. it would make a power feared or undesired )
no subject
It's not psychometry.
( Not anything she touches, then, but it is a blend of unpredictable with anyone or anything she touches. )
And it's as likely to be the past as the future. The violent past, the violent future.