westwhere | the chainings

the chainings

THE CHAININGS

Image source.

Escorted by shepherds, the party reaches most decadent Ephes — a citadel with a newly-raised, lethal army and ambitions of imperial expansion. The undead lady Messalina has approached the Senate of Ephes, asking for the citadel’s forces to liberate the unliving from the undead Brotherhood that “enslaves them.” In exchange, she pledges Ephes any territories she frees.

Ephes hides a beacon within the main temple of the world-making and world-ending chaotic Chained God, currently closed off while Senate leader Caius Justus considers Messalina’s proposal.

OBJECTIVE: Survive Ephes until the temple opens.

This first event of Arc VII lasts until 3 October. Use your character roles, pursue leads or nudge NPCs for clues!

POLITICS

Image source.

Politically-minded characters take residence with their benefactors and receive two iron chain bracelets, which represent the Chained God. These bracelets and the red-purplish trim of your white cloth identify your political standing and attract the nagging, desperate or aggressive public pleas of your petitioners.

You hear, hastening to attend Senate sessions, that long-serving leader Caius Justus is unlikely to earn a new mandate. His peaceful, sedentary governance is unsuited to Ephes’ military ambitions.

Pair up with party members and submit threads by 23:59 GMT on 27 September of bribing, cheating or outright fulfilling the needs of one of the politicians below, to secure their vote for or against Messalina.

■ War veteran-turned-politician Sextus Longinus wants to leave his mark permanently on Ephes.

■ Senator Publia Secunda has been struck with court summons on charges of tax evasion. The court claims it has proof she has been passing the precious wares on her ships as geese.

■ Senator Ovidius Petronius’s wife fled home, ruining his image as a family man, after he was caught in compromising circumstances with another woman.

■ Severus Silvanus was overcome by sickness and wishes to throw a party worth remembering as he lives out his final year.

■ Once a formidable soldier, Senator Cassia Floriana has been for years denied an audience by the priests of the temple of the Chained God because of the blood on her hands.

■ Maximilianus Tacitus wishes to eliminate his reputation for stinginess — while spending not one coin.

Note: if multiple players go for the same Senator, we’ll assume they had more than one vote to cast!

GLADIATORS | non-gladiators can spectate or patron

Image source.

Those assigned as gladiators are received by arena leader Laetio and housed in single or shared barracks cells in grounds near the largest stadiums.

Accommodations are scarce — pallets, hard stone ground — but food, healing and care are generously provided. Veteran gladiators are frequently measured and assessed. Strife is contained, and brawls are forbidden, while priestess of the Chained God visit periodically to bless warriors as ‘his children of chaos.’

At times, as you train or sleep, you sense you are watched. On other days, you wake from violent nightmares to see your wounds and bruises have vanished.

■ Newcomers are paired and taught how to throw fights, exaggerate their reactions and create slogans and outrageous personas. They are offered tattoos, haircuts and makeup.

■ You experience the first day in the arena around the OOC date of 18 September, when gladiators re-enact the Chained God’s first defeat and Chaining.

■ Characters can fight NPCs, each other, or demonic large beasts. These hefty creatures attack head first and thrash the arena, often striking spectators.

■ Injuries can happen when fighting beasts, but unlikely from other gladiators. The highest official attending a fight may choose the loser’s punishment, but must pay exorbitant fees for losses to the arena. After a noble boy orders a veteran gladiator severely beaten, you hear Laetio threatening the child’s anguished father with repercussions from Narula, leader of the Hand.

■ Submit a fight thread by 23:59 GMT on 27 September for the winner/s to address the stadium.

■ Other party members can pay or coax Laetio to receive their ‘favourite’ gladiator(s) overnight at their villas. Return by dawns.

WHITE NIGHT

One night (OOCly: 24 September), after gladiator games on the sixth of twelve Chainings, you wake up in a bleary haze, your thoughts and movements slow. Stifled screams and heavy footsteps erupt distantly. In pitch dark, you spot the slithering, deep silhouettes that are checking cells — progressing towards you.

■ If you glimpse their coarsely carved masks depicting wolves, you are overcome with a sudden, insurmountable terror and the certainty that your visitors are inhuman.

■ Stumbling, you flee your surprisingly open cell, overcome by dread that won’t abate until you find living company. Some of the emptied cells you pass by have been clearly ravaged. On the walls of three untouched cells of veteran gladiators, you see a wolf’s head coarsely painted in fresh blood. Hide with your companions, until sleep suddenly claims you.

■ The next day, you wake back in your sleeping quarters. Laetio accuses some gladiators of going mad from last night’s celebratory drink and destroying the cells. Servants have been cleaning attentively, with all blood paintings gone.

■ Your memories of the night are increasingly diffuse: at times you describe the intruders. At others, you speak of creatures or people from your own past that terrify you.

■ A veteran gladiator, the Beast of Brenne, is absent from the morning call. Laetio regretfully informs he perished from wounds incurred in yesterday’s games. He calls a toast to the Beast of Brenne and bans drink for the rest of the Chainings.

THE HAND

Image source.

Characters reach the barracks as part of a set of 100 new recruits. They are subjected to three days of intense training, ranging from running and parkour basics to weights and strength building, basic dagger combat and surviving hard (magically induced) weather conditions. The recruit batch is overseen by Hand leader Narula and members depend on each other for food or care.
Throughout this, recruits are made to heavily depend on Brother Narula, who negotiates and awards privileges and regularly visits for interviews not unlike interrogations. Recruits are largely orphans, convicts or disinherited — lone wolves, says Narula, who only find their pack in the Hand.

Every ten days of the 100 after recruitment, the worst performing five conscripts are removed from the ranks, stoking vicious competition and internal sabotage that Narula allows on the premise of soldiers needing both brawns and cunning.

Permanent injuries are banned. Beware blades left in your shoes and itchy, ground nettles powder on your uniforms.

HONEYED

Within days of receiving your assignments, you must shadow a group of Hand veterans and guard a Hive — an agricultural cluster outside of Ephes — during a grains transfer.

■ New recruits follow veteran soldiers into the eerily silent, vast farmland dominated by high rows of wheat and corn. You feel watched and something touches your legs and thighs. Within farmers’ hearing, veteran soldiers laugh it off as rabbits, snakes — but privately tell you to walk outside the line of vision of scarecrows littered in the fields.

■ The transfer proceeds peacefully until midday, when alarms blare, and a brawl starts near a defunct watering well: a dozen Hand veterans have gone berserk and attack indiscriminately. They are dark-eyed, heaving and struggle with speech and coordination. They seem less wrathful than anguished, desperately calling to ‘Make homes’ as they slaughter and sever limbs.

■ Immobilise the attackers, or take civilians to safety in warehouses.

■ The berserk soldiers are removed — allegedly taken for healing and discipline, but never seen again. At the barracks, Narula says the incident was the result of heatstroke.

MESSALINA’S INFILTRATORS

Image source.

Some party members join Messalina’s group as paid campaign aides. Stationed in the Senate’s summer villas outside of Ephes, the lady’s eclectic group comprises volatile magic users and necromancers, the undead and demonic creatures — who coexist in tenuous peace. It’s every wo/man to themselves after dark, when the villa walls and defences are drawn up and gates lock to prevent the indiscreet exit of a blood-thirsting demon.

Mid-summer

It becomes rapidly clear that Messalina does not trust the good will of Ephes and wants to cut a deal quickly by bribing, blackmailing, or interceding with Senate leader Caius Justus. She also seems unsettled by the Chained God, who she fears is a hidden undead liege controlling Ephes.

”Not every Sleeper sleeps deep.”

Messalina assigns party members to bolster the campaign of Maximus Faustus — previously a young, promising and popular politician with hopes of becoming Senate leader… who has been replaced by demonic shapeshifter Alir.

■ Infiltrate noble functions and learn what would steer patricians towards Faustus’ cause.

■ Patricians widely feel that Caius has been too sympathetic towards plebeians and neglectful of his own people. They want to see more grand gestures celebrating Ephes’ noblest class. See to it.
■ Some superstitiously associate Caius with the cult of the Chained God, whom the Senate leader brought back to forefront.

■ Alir is fiercely intelligent, quick-witted, dry — with little regard for humans, beyond their delicious hearts. Watch him while in public, as he succumbs to his hunger and lures innocents in dark corners to rip out their innards and feast on their flesh. Pay off or exterminate witnesses.

■ A derisive Alir questions Messalina’s plans for peaceful coexistence and the innocence of Ephes. He urges his caretakers to inspect Caius’s private home on the night of the full moon (OOCly: 20 September). You may take along other party members.

■ That night, Caius’ villa is well lit, bursting with song and closed from the inside. Scale the walls to enter and find a feast held by shadowy silhouettes of Caius’ ancestors. First they interact with you, then ignore you, then, increasingly inconvenienced, seem to recognise there is something wrong about you, before giving chase, daggers in hand.

■ On a high table in the great reception halls, you can find the entombment masks and personal effects of all of Caius’ ancestors who are present at the feast. Caius’ personal study contains nearly year-old letters of trade, reports on the fragility of the then-6,000-strong Hand and a broken worship tablet depicting the Chained God’s fourth Chaining.

■ In the kitchens, you find well-secured barrels of fish and wine — jump in together, or hear movement from the servants hidden within. You have time for one question.

CIVILIANS

Image source.

Characters assigned civilian roles may safely assume their Ephes posts for a handful of days, before the religious celebrations of the Chained God’s twelve Chainings start. The all-Father of the universe, the Chained God is set to birth, consume and rebirth the world, and was chained twelve times by the first heroes of humanity to contain his destruction.

■ The numerous priests of the Chained God wander the roads and mark the foreheads of civilians with salted ash — which briefly brings out your anger, greed or selfishness.

■ Priests say you feel the frustration of the bound Chained God. Some of those ash-touched experience visions of a heavily fettered, amorphous creature, struggling in agony in a cavernous room. Those with supernatural powers find their abilities are volatile for a day.

■ Those who ‘see’ the Chained God are brought and tested for holiness by Priestess Valeria, for it is known the Chained God chooses brief emissaries during the days of Chaining.

■ Newer acolytes greatly defend the religious cult: a great earthquake rattled the main temple of the Chained God last year during the Chainings, and falling debris only spared the faithful who prayed within.

Off with his —

On the sixth day of Chaining (OOCly: 23 September), the news shouter of Ephes’ main marketplace receives a pouch containing the decapitated head of Tavernus, brother of Ephes army leader Narula.

The shocked newscaster drops the head, shakily reading out the message stitched on the pouch: Animals die for men to live. Men die for gods to prosper. — a quote attributed to the Chained Gods and carved on his main temple’s outer walls.

Locals may share Tavernus was a taciturn man who previously served as Narula’s lieutenant in the Hand, before retiring five months prior and taking up agricultural trade.

Group up to investigate — and throw your hat in for a RNG pick to win the head.

NIGHT OF KNIVES | EVERYONE WELCOME

Image source.

The twelfth day of Chaining (OOCly: 29 September) ends the yearly religious festivities of the Chained God with multiple street celebrations and private dinners.

Popular political upstart Maximus Faustus holds his own night-long banquet, opening his doors to all.

The affair sprawls over multiple floors of Faustus’ enormous villa, with entertainment ranging from poetry, theatre, artistic and magical recitals on the lower floors to a gladiator performance and heavy opioids upstairs. Conveniently, the guest list includes every figurehead of Ephes and their main political and financial backers. Patricians seem amused but flattered by Faustus, who was ‘no one’ before Messalina’s support, but who has been generous in his appreciation of the city’s elite.

■ Sign up for a RNG draw for a conversation with Faustus by 23:59 GMT on 18 September.

■ No better time to publicise your feats or generosity. Why not have your character (including gladiators) perform or bring an offering?

■ Servants apologise as you smell an excess of musk and oud, hiding, they say, spillage from an accident caused by a fired manservant. You can still glimpse glinting trails of cleansed lamp oil.

■ Messalina attends the banquet for two hours, but hastily withdraws at midnight, after receiving a letter.

■ Towards the middle of the night, priestess Valeria asks to conduct a religious séance, allowing one person to channel the Chained God and speak to Ephes.

■ After 2 a.m., torch lights dim down, as twenty masked pantomimes enter the main banquet halls, shushing the rooms silent. In good spirit, they ridicule the partygoers, even poking fun at you with inside jokes they should not know about…

■ …before slashing the throats or stabbing some of the high-profile Senators present, sparking a chaotic stampede.

■ The main villa doors have been closed from the outside. Fire broke out within and spreads rapidly, after the rims of main halls curtains were drenched in lamp oil. Rescue some of the Senators, or help the crowds escape Faustus’ burning villa.

■ The assassins are exceptionally strong fighters whose combat style some might recognise from the Hand’s drills. They fluctuate between having physical bodies and merging with shadows.

■ Come morning, a list is found on the main hall floor of Faustus’ villa with an assassination contract for the murdered and targeted Senators. All had intended to support Messalina. The contract is signed with the seal of a ring showing a wolf in profile.

QUESTIONS

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[ Leisurely yes. But that means its easier to pay attention to the dogs behaviour, the buildings around them, the route they've taken. Jacob's been doing his best to build up a map of Ephes in his head, like he had with London. He's pretty sure theyre vaguely heading toward the political heart of the city.

...they really need to stop talking about hearts.]

Should we introduce them to a good butcher?

[ What else is there to talk about? Five isn't exactly known for his amazing skill with small talk. Even if he could tell some good stories if he cared to. ]

If you want the butcher to end up like that sap in the alley. [ He frowns as they round another corner and start leaving the market. ] It might not be as big of a deal as we're making it out to be. Assassinations are common enough.

I'm trying to problem solve. But if you're saying this thing will only eat what it's hunted, it might be signing its own death warrant.

[ The mention of assassinations makes Jacob scoff. ]

You don't have to tell me mate.

[ Of course he realises that Five probably means paid killings, not the work Jacob does, but then he realises Five doesn't know about any of that.

And for some reason the young man makes him think of Templars, so he decides not to elaborate. ]

It just has to learn to be smarter. Like not doing it in the middle of the day.

[ As if the main problem here isn't the killing, but the sloppy method. Although from that last comment, that might resonate with Jacob. ]

And what were you up to before you started fixating on our poor starving friend here?

I wonder if it can learn. Somethings can't- don't have the capacity.

[Not that it seems to matter. Whether it feeds in the night or daylight, it's still feeding on people. Tearing them apart, feasting on flesh. It's a horrific way for a life to end, and Jacob's seen some pretty nasty ways to go.]

Directly before, or in general?

You can train just about anything.

[ He happens to know that Alir is intelligent enough to pass for a senator, but he hasn't decided if he's going to share that much. Something he'll soon have to make his mind about with the direction the hound is moving.

He considers his question as they walk. He'd been asking to see how the vigilante gig translated here, or if he was just spinning his wheels before Five came along, but now that he mentions it. There was a time he was taking notes, looking for patterns among newcomers. Maybe he should pick that hobby back up. ]

I got a general idea of what you do, but if you remember the details, feel free to share.

[ They'll agree to disagree on that. Maybe there's been some advancement between Jacob's time and Five's, or they're from utterly different places with completely different creatures. Who knows? Who cares? Jacob just isn't going to waste his breath arguing.

Instead he focuses on the clarification, rolling his eyes as Five says he has a pretty good idea of what Jacob does. He's probably got some smart-arsed quip lined up for when Jacob questions that.

So he doesn't give him the satisfaction.]

I run a gang. I'm sure a smart bastard like you can fill in the blanks there.

[ Five is one who is much more comfortable with insults than small talk, and there’s an amused tug at the corner of his mouth when he slips a ‘bastard’ in. ]

You run it? [ That may seem like the perfect opportunity for a quip, but he’s momentarily curious. ] I didn’t peg you for something so organized. Is that what you were going for here?

[ It's not meant as an insult Five, unbunch your pantaloons. There's really no barb in it.m just a very rude, but ultimately casual way of talking. ]

Yeah.

[ Jacob misses it. The adventure, the trust. Its a family he never had before, but he's not talking to Five about that.]

Hardly been here long enough to get my feet under the table. But no. We move about too much, can't build a gang if we're jumping from town to town.

[ Don't spoil the one thing he likes about you.

His eyes flick back to the hound, who seems to be moving faster, and he pointedly keeps the subject on Jacob and his gang. ]

How long has it been?

Since I got here? Not even a month.

[ Which he knows isn't any time at all. Still, he doesn't have the same connections in Ephes that he did in London, doesn't have that groundwork already laid to start a gang with the locals.

And he doesnt think the people also brought here against their will are the sort willing to work for him either.]

But me and the gang, back home? Few months. Expanding out of Whitechapel, down across the river. You know London?

[ He’s been everywhere, so the name gets him to turn his head. Whitechapel in particular is interesting. ]

What time period?

[Jacob's still not really used to the idea that there are people in their little band from different times. Different worlds he can almost brush off, but the possibility someone is from his world, but from a different period of time? That's something he really doesn't want to deal with sober.]

It's November 1868. Or it was, when I was there last.

[ He hums to himself like that's significant in some way. Not really surprising; there's a lot of history in London, though it's quite a few years earlier than his last visit. But he's familiar enough with that century.

It's nice to be able to place someone concretely in a time and place. That's not terribly common, so he rewards him with a scrap of knowledge. ]

From what I've heard, it'll stay that way. There's been a few accounts.

[ He's heard a little about this from Wen Kexing, but there's still a lot of gaps to fill in. Wrathion said the only way to get back was via some temple or other, although as people had come and gone, it didn't exactly seem the case.

Even though he's not entirely sure he trusts Five, he does appreciate what little information he shares. But he does have a question, one that can't really be ignored. ]

And if we never go back, what happens? Any theories?

What happens back home, you mean? [ He assumes he means what happens to the timeline if they're permanently removed from it. And if that's not what he meant, it's interesting enough that it's all he's considering now. ] Theoretically, you'd create an alternate timeline that you no longer exist in, that causes an unquantifiable ripple effect that could severely alter the course of history.

[ He looks off to the side, presumably tracking some shadows and not just avoiding his gaze. ]

Of course they'd have no way of knowing, unless they had someone able to track fluctuations in time and could pinpoint the root cause.

[That is what he meant, so he nods, letting the young man continue. And then wishing he hadn't.

True, some of those words mean something to Jacob. He knows what "theoretically", "alternate timeline" and "unquantifiable" all mean, he did grow up in the same household as two incurable swots after all, but the actual sum of those parts needs a few moments of quiet contemplation to mull over.]

I fail to exist, that changes history. Not in the same way as someone dying, but in the same way they stop being there at all. Right. So do the people who know us forget us, theoretically?

No. [ He frowns. ] You weren't erased from the timeline, you were simply lifted out of it. The only way you'd be forgotten is if someone went to an earlier point and changed your trajectory. Another alternate timeline.

Who knows, there could be one where that happens. My sister is from our future, and I am there with her. Presumably that means I get back, but that's only one possible timeline. If I die here, a version of that future would change. It's hard to say if the beacons would return her to the point in time where I still exist or not.

That sounds... bad.

[ Complicated, anyway. But there's a thousand possibilities and maybe there's space in existance for all possible things to occur, to another version of him. To another version of Evie.

She'll probably assume hes dead. Thats often what you have to do.

But she won't let it stop her. Shes a very driven woman, his sister.]

Will she just get on with it? If you aren't there?

[ It's relative. If the world they left behind is about to end, it doesn't matter much if they're there. History ends, problem solved. ]

I'd assume so. She wouldn't remember her time here, apparently, so she'd have no reason to try to get back.

[ He doesn't like this train of thought. Allison leaving on a beacon without him was bad enough the first time, let alone his other siblings who vanished without a trace. ]

I've only heard secondhand accounts, but the people who return never seem to do so intentionally. It's fair to say if you're here once, you have a far greater chance of being pulled back against your will.

[ Depressing but interesting. Very interesting.]

Might not even be worth going back, then?

[ That he supposes is a matter of opinion. How much does he have to lose, opposed to someone with a life?

Best not to dwell on it. ]

You think your four-legged friend is going to find our monster? Or do you want a beer?

[ Five could argue that it entirely depends on his situation, if what he's facing back home is better or worse than the hoards of undead they see here, but then he switches gears and completely derails his train of thought.

They're nearing the senate buildings, so he has no doubt that the hound is leading them exactly to where Alir is hopefully behaving himself. Not knowing how Jacob might react if he figures it out, he considers the rare offer. On the one hand, it's not productive and should be extremely suspicious, but on the other... ]

What the hell? I could use a drink.

Good man.

[ Which accompanies a pat on the back and the a glance at the hellhound.

Theyre not far from the senate. Is the hound still following a trail? Jacob isn't sure but he doubts it's wise to bring it too much closer to the seat of government. ]

You might have to leave the dog outside.

[ Five didn't anticipate the physical contact, but he restrains himself to a brief scowl when he pats his shoulder. In no small part because Jacob referred to him as 'man' and not 'boy' or some other derogatory nickname. For as much as he doubted him on his first impression, he's smart enough to treat him as an adult.

He sighs and shakes his head, then whistles to the hound. It immediately turns to him and waits for a command. Five wasn't sure that would work, but he'll take it. ]

Go home, we'll resume this later. [ The hound snorts but otherwise doesn't make a fuss, simply passing back by them and retreating to the shadows. He trusts that he can find his way. Maybe he's banking too much on the odds that Alir is full from his earlier meal. If not, he'll be more in the mood to clean up after he's had a break. He turns back to Jacob, and gestures down the alley. ]

Did you have somewhere in mind, or did we pass a hole in the wall that appealed to you?

[ Jacob, at 21, has been called boy too many times to do that to someone else, even if they're as young as Five seems to be. But when Jacob is from, you might work from the age you can stand, you can certainly be a man without needing to shave yet. ~~Besides, Ned is most certainly a man, and he clearly doesn't need to shave either.~~ ]

You've got that thing well-trained. That your doing?

[It's conversational, a friendly distraction as he gestures down a small side road towards a tavern- there's an amphora hanging above the door, and Jacob's learnt what that means in this town.]

That looks as good as any. All my normal haunts are back in the cheap part of town.

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject