let's set d o w n some (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
groundrules) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
westwhere2023-09-15 07:10 pm
groundrules) wrote in westwhere2023-09-15 07:10 pm
Entry tags:
- arc vii,
- asoiaf: daenerys targaryen,
- assassin's creed: jacob frye,
- ephes,
- game of thrones: jon snow,
- kingdom of the wicked: emilia,
- last case of benedict fox: benedict fox,
- legend of fei: xie yun,
- lockwood & co: anthony lockwood,
- mcu: america chavez,
- mcu: kamala khan,
- oh! my emperor: beitang moran,
- penny dreadful: vanessa ives,
- star wars: cal kestis,
- star wars: merrin,
- tian guan ci fu: xie lian,
- umbrella academy: five,
- untamed: lan sizhui,
- untamed: wen ning,
- warcraft: anduin wrynn,
- warcraft: wrathion,
- warframe: kahl 175,
- wheel of time: lan mandragoran,
- word of honor: wen kexing
the chainings
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
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
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
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
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
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
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.
no subject
What threat? They're smart enough to find out on their own.
[ Five's smile fades as he takes a sip from his glass. It's noticeably strong, even for him. His tolerance isn't the same as it was when he was fully grown, but he never learned to adjust his limits. Not like he'll take it back now that he's insisted. ]
It's what brought us here, isn't it? Spreading peace wherever we go.
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It takes him a moment to compose, shaking his head, and he digs into the pouch at his hip for coins of his own- passing them to the barman by way of an apology.]
I think we're spreading bullshit at the moment.
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A few patrons are already eying them, and he welcomes them to chime in when he glances behind him. ]
That's where you're wrong. You obviously haven't seen enough of what's out there. Sometimes you have to make compromises to survive.
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[ He feels the words on his tongue: people being eaten in alleyways, for instance but he rmemebered Five's need for that to be kept quiet, that he was going to go as far as kill a child to keep it so, and he stops himself. He will not put these people in danger. He will not think so little of their lives.]
We aren't from here. What do we know? We can tell them what we've seen, it's up to them to decide what their city does about it.
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That's not good enough any more. [ Then he turns more in his seat to regard him directly. ] Do you want to die here, knowing you could have done something about it?
[ Whatever people usually talk about in bars, Five has his own way of breaking the ice. ]
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We're all going to die somewhere. Why not here? But you're putting words I my mouth again. I didn't say I wasn't going to help.
My methods of doing something about it aren't your methods of doing something about it.
[ I didn't side with the walking, talking corpses is what he wants to say. But that might out Five, and himself by extension, into danger.]
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Is it any wonder why he always feels like doing everything himself? No one understands what’s at stake like he does. Everything.
Maybe some of that’s on him. He’s too used to arguments, so he turns every conversation into one before they get the chance. It’s not like he can expect anyone to respect their elders when he looks like this. ]
Your methods. You want to help, you’re just limited on what you’re willing to do to get there. [ He can’t expect more than that, all things considered. ] Give it a few years, and your perspective might change. Sometimes you have to compromise.
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Five has his purpose, Jacob has his. They've got goals to achieve and they've been taught, or developed, different ways to achieve them.
But he sees what Five means, and he hates it. So he knocks back a good mouthful of cognac before he replies.]
I made a promise. There are lines in the sand and we don't cross those. I don't cross those. I didn't come up with them, they've existed longer than anyone knows.
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He's positive he's crossed the lines that Jacob is referring to, and he most likely assumed so when he wouldn't let him chase after that girl. ]
What happens if you do? They kick you out?
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But he doesn't think he can change that much. Ethan must be laughing in his grave.]
Normally they kill you. So you don't pose a risk to the rest. Assuming that you didn't get the rest killed already.
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He sniffs after he takes a drink, already feeling it hit him. What Jacob says is at least excusable. Learned behavior. The Commission didn’t have a code. It couldn’t, when it would make them hesitate and have their mistakes ripple though the timeline. His family is another story. Most of them are only mildly aware at what he did to get back to them. ]
If you got them killed, you probably deserved it. [ He eyes him curiously. ] Is there anyone else from your time here?
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Probably. [They can agree on that easily enough. Especially as truthfully, there are so few assassins in England now that Jacob knows almost all of them. Some of them are literally blood relations. ]
No. But there's another member of the Brotherhood. Not from my time, or England. But some things are still the same. [The Creed, namely.]
What about you? People you knew before here as well?
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He nods at his question, having already brought it up once before. ]
My sister. [ He swirls his drink around some, though he doesn't elaborate before turning back to him. ] Another time, but you could tell that. Did you run into him playing vigilante?
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No, we were at that labyrinth, the one with all the- [He doesn't like to admit it, but maybe he has to here] -ghosts.
[More importantly.] We're not vigilantes.
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From the way he says it, those were the first ghosts he'd seen. Five sympathizes, and ignores the rest. He can say that all he wants, but there's too much about him that reminds him of his idiot family. ]
I have a brother who can see ghosts. There was a time I thought he was overdramatic about them, but I don't blame him for how he dealt with it. [ These have generally been less gruesome than the ones Klaus would describe, but still far too loud. ]
At least that place was removed from the timeline. If anyone here knew how often they've come to the end of the world, they might be more open to consider their options.
no subject
He can see ghosts? Like a medium?
[He's heard of them, obviously. Séances are ridiculously popular in London, he's surprised he and Evie haven't been invited to any. But considering the number of people they kill, it's probably best they don't go.
Not that he understands what Five continues to say, or that final remark. But he takes a drink and decides to take the bait, asking the question that comes to mind, and wondering if Five is pulling his leg.]
And how many times is that?
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It came the closest twice, recently. Once when the gate to Hell nearly broke, and another when someone put an entire village into a time loop. Paradoxes can spin out easily, and there’s no reset button if you break time.
We fixed it.
[ He would have liked to have claimed more credit in that, but he’d been half-insane through most of those. The curse he’s finally been cured of festered too long. If anyone wonders why he drinks so much now. ]
As for my brother, you could call him that. Dad always pushed him too hard to live up to his potential, so he did what he could to quiet them. [ And Five would be right there with Jacob, being glad he usually can’t see ghosts. He always wondered if he had an entourage following him around, but he never asked Klaus. ]
He was here, briefly. I’m told. [ His memory was tampered with, so he has to trust Allison on that one. ] He would have hated it.
no subject
Glad to hear that. Can't have been easy.
[What else do you say? He doesn't really know. But whatever shite is going on in Five's world, Jacob is glad that he only has to deal with Templars.
Still, there's something in Five's words he can readily agree with.]
Fathers are like that everywhere. Push you too hard, make you into something you don't want to be, or never tell you the other options.
[He takes a long swallow of the cognac, letting the burn of the alcohol replace the raging anger in his chest. It passes, becoming only embers, as it always does. ]
I'm sorry. That he's been, that he's gone. But we get it right here, you'll go back to him. With your sister?
no subject
That's why his relationship with his father is different from the others. Perspectives change and he's had the benefit of a few decades of distance to think about the old man's motives. He was without question a terrible father, but Five can admit that he wasn't the most obedient son.
Jacob on the other hand, is still young. With that admission, he could make the leap that he has some experience with a father who possibly doesn't always want what's best for him.
Maybe it's the sympathy, or maybe it's the alcohol, that gets him to say any more. His future has only become murkier since his sister jumped from the beacon and came back with news about what's in store. ]
The world ends there too. Allison has seen it, but I'm not... from the same point. [ He takes another drink and leans over the counter. He's been carrying that around for months, but he still hasn't come to terms with it. How he gives up and lets it happen. ] She wants to see what's on the other side.
no subject
Especially if the conversation involves fathers. Thankfully, that particular subject seems to have been dropped, and Jacob's thoughts do not have to linger on Ethan, or trying to understand that the man might have been doing the best he could. Jacob's not going to ever believe that, but one day, when he had his own children (if he lives that long) he might understand.
In the meantime, he'll drink and listen to Five's problems. They're bigger, but because they aren't his, there's something of a buffer there. And as Five speaks and leans over the counter, Jacob puts a hand on his shoulder again, a gentle gesture.]
On the other side of the end of the world?
no subject
There's been a lot on his mind, besides the shapeshifting demon and undead politics, so maybe he just needed the excuse. Jacob might be surprised how quickly he circles back to the subject; apparently the future all revolves around dear old dad. ]
She seems to think it'll be reset. For some reason she believes our father, who seemed more than ready to sacrifice his children to reboot the world.
[ Five wasn't there, but he can't imagine him siding with Reginald. He wouldn't trade his siblings to a man who was clearly manipulating Allison with the promise of returning her daughter to her. ]
That's really the question. Is it better to die here, or die back home as a family?
no subject
But they don't know each other. Comfort isn't comforting if it comes from an untrustworthy source. So that hand goes back around his cup with a sharp but private reminder that not everyone wants what he does. ]
My sister is like that too. Everything he ever said was gospel. But they were always alike, peas in the pod. That's why she [ He stops himself before he says things that he probably shouldn't about Pieces of Eden.]
That's why she wanted to continue what he believed in so much. I guess your sister thinks she knows better?
[But that last bit, it hurts. Jacob has said almost the exact same thing to someone else here, since they arrived in Ephes. He downs another good swig of the cognac.]
Can't answer that for you. Wish I could.
no subject
He appreciates that he seems to sense that, and even more that he doesn't ask how the world ends. Usually that's what people focus on when he's casually brought it up, although usually not in this much detail. Nobody needs to know that his family is personally responsible for most of the apocalypses that he's seen.
Allison had a complicated relationship with their father, like they all did, but he does wonder why she took such a big gamble. None of them listen to him, so he doubts that she did in the future. The way Jacob talks about his sister sounds more like another brother of his, making excuses for the man.
It seems like a better topic, so he hums and turns his attention back to him, mulling that over for a moment before he asks an innocent question like they've been making small talk all along. ]
Is she your only sibling?
no subject
Besides, he doesn't want to know how the world ends. It's not his world he thinks, he hopes. But if he knows, then he can't ever unknow it. He already knows too much about how his own world works, and he wishes he did not. He can't unknow it, can't unlearn what Ethan taught them, and he's had enough of ruining his own life.
He would rather not talk about home, about Evie, about Ethan, but he supposes it is his turn. Five has talked about his experience, after all.]
Yes. Twin. [He pauses and then tries to relax the knot in his shoulders.] Our mother died back then, and he never remarried. Probably because he was hell-bent on training children to be soldiers.
no subject
Funny how you like to think that's a more exclusive club. [ Probably extends beyond them, but Five wasn't raised to be an assassin. That came later, though they'd all killed way back when they were kids playing at superheroes. ] At least you knew what you were worth to him. Nothing else matters when you're a means to an end.
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