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westwhere2023-05-15 05:49 pm
groundrules) wrote in westwhere2023-05-15 05:49 pm
Entry tags:
- 2ha: chu wanning,
- arc vi,
- arcane: caitlyn,
- breaking bad: jesse pinkman,
- doctor who: clara oswald,
- doctor who: river song,
- doctor who: the doctor,
- final fantasy xiv: stephanivien,
- harry potter: hermione granger,
- horizon: aloy,
- kingdom of the wicked: emilia,
- kingdom of the wicked: wrath,
- legend of fei: xie yun,
- mcu: america chavez,
- mcu: kamala khan,
- mcu: natasha romanova,
- mcu: wanda maximoff,
- oh! my emperor: beitang moran,
- oh! my emperor: su xunxian,
- original: red,
- outlander: claire fraser,
- penny dreadful: vanessa ives,
- test drive,
- tian guan ci fu: xie lian,
- umbrella academy: allison,
- umbrella academy: five,
- untamed: lan sizhui,
- warcraft: wrathion,
- warframe: kahl 175,
- zettai karen children: kumoi yuuri
the sunken | part i
Welcome to the first log of Arc VI: the Sunken, which covers 15 May – 2 June and doubles as a test drive meme.
Back/forward date as needed! The calendar date suggestions are indicative.
The TDM is open to everyone! If you decide to apply to the game, you can get an invite from current players or the upcoming enabling meme — or participate in the test drive meme and get in touch @
groundrules to chat things over. We currently have 13 slots available for new players. Test drivers can use this post for logs and network posts — old timers, please make your network posts at
eastbound. LOST AT SEA | TEST DRIVE TOURISTS
You wake, gasping, in a stormy sea, your thoughts slowed to a confused trickle. Skill, floating wood or a kindly stranger — who you can’t understand — help you to reach shore.
Villagers discover you collapsed on sand and provide critical (if rickety) communication and translation devices. They say you are in Sunken Yancai, a fishing village progressively overtaken by waters and cursed by the secretive ‘ladies of the lake’ to transit through time.
- ■ Rescuers group newcomers and supply questionable village couture, warm meals and accommodations in abandoned, half-flooded homes or spare small boats anchored in Yancai’s waterways. Huddle up, recover your strength and don’t think too hard on why your memories are hazy over the next three days.
■ Come morning, you visit village leader Quanze Tsaymien, then the sorceress Karsa — who explains you are otherworlders summoned into Akhuras by undead lords who wish to weaponise you in their battle against humans and one another. Karsa is an associate of the Merchant, who leads otherworlders towards ancient transport beacons east.
■ One such beacon rests dormant in Yancai. The group must infiltrate the village and wait a few weeks until it shifts to a point back in time when the beacon was active.
■ Newcomers are handed passport papers with their new identities in Yancai, where they may be known as a bankrupt merchant, perpetually drunk sailor, whale hunter, raft surveyor, mermaid who has just gained their legs, crab collector... feel free to invent a dutifullyhilariousapt role for their seaside sojourn.
OLD TIMERS | THE DRIFTING
You dragged yourself here in a haze. You arrived long ago, as if in a dream. You were born and bred in this village. In truth, your memories of reaching lively Yancai feel nebulous and alarmingly inconsequential.
Characters are facilitated new identities and dwellings by the Merchant, or believe they have had them all along.
- ■ A weary Karsa warns to say nothing to party members with altered memories, until the sorcery that affects them runs its course.
■ Memory-altered characters progressively regain their memories within three to five days (by 20 May). They have their memories partially or fully back at night ( midnight to 5 a.m.). Throughout the day, memory regains can trigger migraines, eerie confusion and paranoia.
■ Hauntings begin once characters have fully regained their memories.
■ Once everyone is ‘back to normal,’ Karsa explains that Yancai periodically transits through time. The memory alterations are a magical solution endorsed by the village council, which ensures locals mentally weather these shifts. Villagers continue to blithely accept you as part of the community.
(DON'T) HOLD YOUR BREATH
Karsa reunites the existing party and newcomers, issuing first assignments. The Merchants’s information suggests the beacon of Yancai will be online once the village travels in time within weeks. A dubious Karsa asks the party to check on the beacon, located in the former House of Commerce of the largely inundated merchants’ district. Reach it by rowing boat.
- ■ Villagers say the Master of Commerce, a famous musician, took precautions against intruders.
■ All ground and lower floor entryways of the palatial House were boarded to restrict flooding. To enter, pick locks or climb the putrid stairwell towards upper balconies.
■ Inside, the hissing of running water — and, in the lower levels, of thin, slippery leeches whose bite numbs your limbs, while they attempt to feed. You seem to experience pronounced vertigo when entering any decaying rooms covered in black mould.
■ The beacon is located on a dais in the basement vault room, where water rises near 1 meter. Only a few scattered scrolls and golden decorations remain among decorations, while a large ceiling carving writes, greed deafens man to the cries of his conscience; music sets him free.
■ Some tiles of the marbled floor stand out as you wade — step on one, and all doors abruptly slam shut, while dozens of obscured holes in the wall start to rapidly spill water, threatening to fill the room to the ceiling within the hour. You hear the tinny, waning sound of a village song played from a hidden source.
■ To stop the pouring water and open the doors, sing the song you hear, or find the music box that produces it amid debris on the water-covered floors. Wind it, and it plays its song in reverse, revealing the voice of a laughing elderly man who says, Depressingly, Anurr was right to worry.
■ Don’t forget to check the beacon — and report back to Karsa that it looks structurally untarnished.
THEY SLEEP
After surprising revelations at previous citadels, Karsa tasks you to investigate just how… permanent death is in Yancai. Villagers share that their dead are buried in a strange rite at sea — part of which will take place within days.
- ■ The dead are ‘entombed’ in one-man sarcophagi ships with carved and chained lids that depict their likeness. These burial boats are set at sea on the first day of each season and return three months later.
■ Join the harbours around 22 May, when mourners gather to receive the burial boats. Characters must pretend to be greatly anguished relatives, acquaintances or debt collectors to join the grieving.
■ The boats float towards you, seemingly of their own volition. Gaze afar and spot a boat carrying a man in black — the same who haunts some characters — who observes until the last burial ship has reached the piers, before he disappears.
■ Sailors draw up the boats and unpeel the untouched chains and lids, to reveal… no corpses. Peer closer and find neither biological signs (stench, liquids) of discomposure, nor the magical chillness of spaces where cadavers have lingered long. Scratch marks litter the inside of some boat lids.
■ Mourners seem grateful that the waters have ‘accepted’ the bodies. Some say that their relatives whose boats have yet to return must have been stolen by the ‘ladies of the lake,’ a villainous witch coven. Speak to mourners or sailors for clues.
■ Linger long near opened burial boats, and you feel tempted to throw yourself into the sea, slowly losing consciousness — until someone rescues you.
AMONG US
On 25 May, village leader Quanze Tsaymien drags the chained and half feral mistress Miang-si to households and Yancai’s largest market square.
The young woman, he says, was seduced by the ladies of the lake — the furtive witch coven that condemned Yancai to time travel. Luckily, the village elders have… coaxed Miang-si back onto the righteous path.
- ■ Miang-si is brought door-to-door to point out her 'accomplices.' Ill at ease, villagers whisper of similar witch hunts leading to false accusations and blood-curdling repercussions.
■ Both men and women are suspected and brought before Miang-si. Perhaps she takes an eerie interest in you, getting especially close to catch your scent, touch or remark on (in)visible hurts, or even dotingly kiss you. If you whisper quickly while she’s near, you might be able to ask one question.
■ If you are patient and kind to Miang-si, she briefly squeezes your hand as she withdraws. Within the hour, you find blood writ on your palm that warns, Our fat moon rises red.
■ If you are agitated, or if Quanze rushes her during your visit, Miang-si erupts into sudden, side-splitting cackling — while you find yourself croaking like a toad, or transforming into one and retaining human speech. The spell dissolves after eight hours.
■ Quanze’s long-suffering men say this sorcery breaks faster if you kiss one of the curmudgeonly emerald toads that hide in some of Yancai’s lakes. Catch one such delightful, slime-spitting creature or barter it from merchants at a costly premium.
ILL MET BY MOONLIGHT
A full moon is set to rise within days of Miang-si’s visit, on 27 May — just as Yancai shows signs of time shifting. Villagers are prone to stilling and staring askance, seeming lost or adrift.
The village itself evolves: one moment, the same house appears freshly new, then drowned, while waterways overfill with water, then seem barren. Overall, the village deteriorates.
- ■ That day, the sun suffers a midday eclipse, while droves of black birds circle the woods and village outskirts, attacking those who come close.
■ The waters increasingly thicken and darken, preventing boats from entering certain waterways.
■ An exceedingly bright moon and a diffuse lunar replica rise with nightfall. Come midnight, the village is alive with the sounds of ripping, structural collapse and shrieks. Tar-covered corpses emerge from the waters, clawing on and climbing up piers. They swarm, drawing passers-by into waters to drown them. Help them — and foremost, yourself.
■ Light and fire keep the dead at bay. On some waterways, wildfire now spells, WHAT IS WET WAS WRONGED
■ Weaker alone, fresh corpses climb into your rowing boat, pretending they are innocents who seek shelter. They betray themselves by speaking very slowly, struggling to keep track of the conversation or obliviously peppering it with details of their death. They stubbornly ask questions about you, repeating your answers, and become violent if you say they are dead. Push them into the water at first opportunity.
■ Quanze Tsaymien and other men of the village take arms, urging villagers to barricade in the nearest home, harbour or warehouse and weather the night. They advise to be silent and beware the dead who imitate living voices, warning not to touch any black mould or water that suddenly appear in your home — which alert the dead of your presence within.
■ Some dead try to tear you apart, while others seek to feed you a disgusting, tar-like black mould. A small taste of it makes you sluggish and feeble for two-three hours, while an entire fistful can kill.
■ If the undead infiltrate your house, hold your breath, do not move and keep from screaming. The dead have weak sight and olfactory senses and might pass you by, as long as you stay silent. It can be more efficient to fool than kill the dead.
■ By 5 a.m., houses start to replenish themselves, gaining a new appearance, while water and mould retreat. The dead withdraw into waterways. Outside doors have been marked with blood: vertical lines tell how many living people remain inside; horizontal ones count how many within died overnight.
■ You step to seize a brave new day — while Yancai enters a new time period (further details due in the next plot update).
NOTES
- ■ The game enabling meme goes up on 25 May.
■ Hit up available NPCs here or in their new inbox!
■ QUESTIONS.
no subject
[Moran opens the door a bit wider, just wide enough for Five to see a few crabs scuttling about.]
Xunxian has asked them to keep off the bed, so at least there is that. What extraordinarily mundane yet incredibly annoying task have you been assigned to?
no subject
Recruiting. [ He shrugs. It's stupid, but he isn't necessarily against a job that ensures most people will keep their distance from him. ] Xunxian talks to crabs?
no subject
[And well, obviously Five is not trying to be very successful at this time so...]
Would you like to come in for a while? You don't need to take crabs if you don't need any.
no subject
Just the two of you here?
no subject
There are others who call the building home but we still get a bit of privacy. And I managed to... borrow some tea before we got off the train.
[Yes, he stole a whole tin of what they called the good stuff and what he calls passable before he alighted, and he's not sorry.]
no subject
Sounds comfortable. [ Aside from the crabs. He's fairly sure Moran hasn't forgotten who he is, but it's worth asking. ] You remember the train. Have you ever been here before?
no subject
He'll still make you a cup of the good tea, because he is a good host.]
... Of course not. What kind of questions is that?
Yes, I remember everything, no, I don't seem to be afflicted by the same brain fog as some of our comrades. There's not need to play twenty questions to ask about that, master Five.
no subject
That makes one of you. [ Really shows how he's been strapped for sane company, because he's going to ask an opinion. ] What do you make of it?
no subject
[Or if action is needed to restore it, but if that's the case, some clue should present itself at some point.]
No one is in immediate danger, so far. So there is no need to panic.
no subject
Is that where you're at now? As long as you're not in immediate danger, you don't mind?
no subject
[He knows he never said he didn't mind, he said there is no need to panic. That's different. And he was talking about everyone, not just himself.]
Forcing people to remember when there is clearly a spell at paly is likely to cause more harm than good. What other options do you have?
no subject
You'd rather step back and let them live their fake lives in peace? We can't count on it wearing off fast enough, and whatever happened to them could spread if we don't know the source. There's no logical reason why you were spared.
no subject
[Please, he's all ears.]
They do have some memories, and it fluctuates. All signs point to the fact that this will fade in time, and that rushing it is useless. And if it were a true danger to our group in a way that would endanger our exit from this world, I am quite sure our patron would have informed us.
Rushing head first will solve nothing. Observation hurts no one.
no subject
You believe in him that much? If everyone lost their memories, it'd make things a lot easier on him. [ And yes, maybe he did just avoid his question. ] What else have you observed?
no subject
It's not about believing. It's about practicality.
[You should try practicality Five, it usually works better than paranoia.
And guess who is not going to answer your question since you didn't answer his? he's just going to have a sip of tea.]
no subject
What about this seems practical to you?
no subject
This is not a race of speed, it's one of endurance.
no subject
no subject
[Patience, Five. Patience is a virtue.]
no subject
Because we keep letting this happen. We're always kept in the dark so they can put us anywhere they want. There's no negotiating, we just give it all away for nothing.
no subject
[Let's face it, Five, you don't have any more solutions than anyone else, and you barely trust anyone in this group anyway.]
We're surviving. That is the main objective. Surviving and evading capture, and if possible, go home. If our current circumstances are so abhorrent, then what's your proposition?
no subject
That's your objective. [ Let's clear that up right now. Barely surviving is the baseline of what he's trying to accomplish. ] They're afraid of us. Of what we can do to their world, and they've tried us because we're always faced with a crisis so we don't have time to come up with a better plan.
I'm not saying I have the answers, but after two years of this, don't you think it's time we take another approach? Maybe work out a better deal that doesn't involve stealing our memories and pitting us against some other magical force that they clearly know more about than they're telling us.
no subject
[Moran got confirmation from the Merchant that they would be abandoned without any qualms if it became more beneficial, and to be honest he expects nothing less. It's practical, and he would d exactly the same thing.]
But even if you did not come to the negotiating table from a position of weakness, how do you propose to convince anyone to follow you on this path. You have not exactly cultivated trust and good will among us.
no subject
For all he's helped and fought beside them, he's always been explicit in exactly how much he trusts them, and Moran seems to take exception to that. It'd be so much simpler if they could just reach the same conclusions on their own. ]
We'd have to be able to organize for something like that. Most of them don't have a clue who I am.
no subject
[Pardon the raised eyebrow, Five, it's the disbelief.
(Also he doesn't care that you don't trust them, he cares that you think they're stupid and yes, there's a difference).]
There are other things you appear to overestimate, Master Five. But by all means, if you want to start a campaign for this, I am going to watch it with interest.
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