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westwhere2023-10-06 07:00 pm
groundrules) wrote in westwhere2023-10-06 07:00 pm
Entry tags:
- arcane: caitlyn,
- assassin's creed: jacob frye,
- assassin's creed: ratonhnhake:ton,
- doctor who: clara oswald,
- kingdom of the wicked: emilia,
- kingdom of the wicked: wrath,
- last case of benedict fox: benedict fox,
- mcu: america chavez,
- mcu: kamala khan,
- mcu: natasha romanova,
- one piece: luffy,
- one piece: zoro,
- original: red,
- penny dreadful: vanessa ives,
- umbrella academy: allison,
- umbrella academy: five,
- warcraft: wrathion
blood & sand
Hi folks! Welcome to Eastbound’s last test drive meme and the second event of the Ephes Arc, stretching until 25 October. Applications next open over 20-25 October, with invitations required for new players (but not returning ones). Individual cast and game caps are off.
Test driving characters can use this space for both network and log prompts, as well as play both the newcomer and shared prompts. Enjoy!
NEWCOMERS-ONLY PROMPTS
You wake to the creaky swaying of a large wooden cage, in the back of a cart. Balmy sun pinches your cracked, dried skin. Haziness and nausea assail you, your legs weak. Your supernatural powers are muted, due to recover within 48 hours. Several other carts trot by. You share your cage with a dozen others — largely farmers — and sacks of freshly harvested wheat, their bottoms stained dark.
The farmers point you towards a heap of rusted pendants that allow you to speak and glean local tongues, and access a network. They say you were recovered following an earthquake at a Hive — one of the agricultural clusters feeding the extravagant Senate-led city of Ephes. The Ephes army, the elite Hand, was patrolling nearby and is taking you to the citadel for healing.
- ■ Gather your bearings and distribute the scant water that Hand soldiers dole out — the earthquake, you hear, has dried the Hive wells.
■ You quickly learn why the Hand encaged all of you, as one of the Hive farmers starts to jerk, growl and shake, weeping black water as he strikes at anyone around him. Fend for yourself, before the Hand soldiers come to remove him!
You arrive at the main gate of Ephes, where crowds vie for passage. Your carts are inspected, and an irritable woman enters each cage, checking each passenger — before taking you and a handful of others for ‘further customs investigations.’
In the back of an alley, she introduces herself as the sorceress Karsa — and says you are otherworlders brought into the realm of Akhuras by undead lieges of the Brotherhood, who seek to weaponise you in their wars. Her patron, the Merchant, leads otherworlders to ancient transport beacons that can deliver you home.
One beacon sleeps in Ephes, where the rest of Karsa’s party is scattered. The citadel has mysteriously accrued an elite, nearly supernaturally strong army that the undead lady Messalina seeks to borrow from the Senate, in her quest to free her undead companions from the Brotherhood. The Senate is yet to vote on her request.
The black water that has touched you, Karsa says, has previously been found where the undead rally. For now, Karsa gives you a little coin, passport papers identifying you under various civilian roles (player’s choice, but keep it Ancient Rome-themed) and an iron pin of an eye with a sun for a pupil to identify other party members.
SHARED PROMPTS
Decadent Ephes is overrun by rumours, after several Senators who intended to support undead lady Messalina were mysteriously assassinated at the banquet of prominent Senator Maximus Faustus — who, Karsa informs, is one of Messalina’s shapeshifting creatures. Messalina offers her protegees demonic hound escorts.
Hand army recruits protect official buildings, while the rich hire gladiators to watch their homes. Both move freely.
The Senate fears further retaliation against those who champion the dead. Senate leader Caius Justus distantly mourns the Senatorial murders from seclusion at the temple of the Chained God.
Civilians face increased tensions and whispers of curfews in the market. Crowds frequently quarrel over undead allegiances
Following an exercise in divination, priests of the city’s patron, the Chained God, spread word that the deity holds strong despite his Chaining, and he still wishes to destroy and rebirth the world.
Karsa informs the existing party that more otherworlders joined Ephes and wear iron pins depicting an eye with a sun for a pupil. She gives the party similar pins for identification purposes. Newcomers and old timers can recognise each other by their pins or engage over the network!
THE PROSCRIPTIONS
OBJECTIVE: procure proscription lists.
You hear from the city crowds that partial target lists are circulating with the names of politicians targeted for bounties. Karsa tasks the team to recover the lists, which can be used as political currency. Find them by either:
- ■ Infiltrating a tavern run by the ruthless city gang of Livius Decimus and packed with unscrupulous bounty hunters, thugs and professional assassins.
A local ‘delicacy’ drink of wine and pickle juice is often inflicted on strangers. Brawls erupt randomly. Coax shady patrons to share target lists.
■ Visit the empty marketplaces just before dawns and raid the chained wooden submission boxes of news shouters, who receive anonymous tip-offs about fresh bounty lists. The boxes are pinned to the ground and tightly locked, but rusty from the cold seasons — allowing you to break them or pick their locks, while someone keeps watch. Tampering with a news shouter’s box is a jailable offence.
■ Turn in a finished thread to receive a clue!
AT SEA
OBJECTIVE: investigate abandoned ships and rescue sailors.
One early morning (OOCly: Oct. 13), as you entertain sailors for gossip on the docks or fish breakfast, you witness the port authorities screaming for help as several small merchant ships appear abandoned at nearby sea for reasons unknown.
Lookouts spot no activity on board, while sailors organise rescues.
- ■ Row a small boat some 15-20 minutes to one of the merchant vessels. All merchant ships have roughly three hours afloat, as they slowly sink from numerous small erosion holes in their sides.
■ You find no crew on deck, and doorways to the cabins below are locked from within. Below deck, you find numerous sacks of wheat from the Ephes agricultural clusters, the Hives. A black liquid, thick and tar-like, is seeping out of the sacks — corroding the ship’s wood and creating leaking holes.
■ You find a handful of dazed sailors who claim a dark, slithering creature knocked them out. They were selected by Narula, leader of the elite Ephes army of the Hand, to transfer grain onto the vessels of the ‘merchant’ Matthias, much farther at sea. If you mention Matthias to Karsa later, she reveals he is a man (?) who potentially created the undead Brotherhood.
■ Seven sailors who did not know each other were chosen to man the ship. Eight men are in the room, meaning one ‘man’ is the assailing creature. You must decide who to release upstairs for evacuation.
■ Tips: the creature, disguised as a human sailor, has no pain receptors and isn’t afraid of typical dangers (fire, drowning). It does not bleed if hurt. It sometimes forgets to blink and increasingly, unwillingly, slowly morphs its features into yours, the longer it speaks with you. Lastly, the creature has a tattoo on its forearm identifying it as a soldier of the Hand.
■ Once found, the creature turns violent, dissolving into wisps of shadow and materialising once more to strike from behind you. The shadow creature cannot be outright killed — but you can lock it inside the ship.
■ Leave by small boat before the vessel sinks & claim a question if you saved sailors. Merchant vessels can be patched up, if successfully returned to port.
THE RATTLING
OBJECTIVE: survive & explore the arena.
To stoke her popularity in Ephes, undead mistress Messalina organises a sumptuous gladiator game at the Colosseum (OOCly around Oct. 20), inviting plebes, patricians, politicians, soldiers — and you.
Gladiators may be hired (or coerced) to perform, while servants supply copious amounts of wines, oysters and honey pastries. A tiny mechanical golden mouse, passing by each seat, drops folded pieces of parchment with fortunes and riddles, ranging from teasing to morbid to philosophical or sweet. Pick up yours and make sense of it with your neighbour!
Politicians often interrupt the games to announce donations or make elaborate speeches. Toss peanuts to signal your discontent — or join in with your own speech.
- ■ The games start with matches between humans, but are building up to face-offs with reptilian demons, mounted rhinoceros and flying gargolyes whose voices thrall you frozen put.
■ During the games, you feel slight vibrations, and — if supernaturally sensitive — an undefined magical tension. By 15:00, this ramps up into earth tremors that worsen over 12 minutes — as columns and seats topple over, and the ground breaks in deep rifts, releasing black, chilled, tar-like water.
■ Crazed mobs rush for the exit, stampeding carelessly, while columns and decorations tumble down.
■ Dozens of the monsters brought to gladiate free themselves and hunt down spectators. Soldiers of the army of the Hand — disturbingly fast, strong and disciplined — intervene but it’s best you look after yourselves. Some spectators shout these Hand recruits practise some of the techniques performed by a recently missing gladiator — the Beast of Brenne.
■ Passing by the earthquake rifts, you see wisps of the tar-like liquid that gushes from them is gradually assuming the shadowy shape of humans. Stalking after you, they do not speak or bring you harm, but slowly steal your likeness and drain you of vigour and stamina. You get the sense that all they want is a shape. Encountering shadow creatures leaves you with a sense of bitter loneliness that only living company can soothe.
■ If you study the arena, you see the same black liquid is gathering around freshly downed corpses, slowly reanimating them. These newly-crafted undead struggle to walk and speak naturally and remember their lives, often unaware they died. Anguished, they beg help to escape, before inevitably succumbing to the instinct to harm you. Remind or convince them they are dead, and they withdraw.
■ The largest earthquake rift in the arena is overrun by the black liquid and by nearby undead. Within it, you notice a bloodless hand that seems to never sink — Enter a RNG draw to collect it and its clue.
■ As you gather your wits outside, you see followers of the Chained God rallying in the streets, comforting the traumatised crowd that all will be well now — for the Chained God’s destruction will be mercifully swift.
THE QUIET HOUSE
OBJECTIVE: Explore the abandoned gladiator barracks.
NOTE: a Halloween special, this area is entirely opt-in and features several frights. Mind the warnings!
As chaos consumes the Colosseum, you notice the earthquake has destroyed a previously locked arena gate, revealing a decayed tunnel. The corridor leads inside a closed-off barrack whose doors and windows have been barred from the outside with wood planks and chains. Touch these restraints, and your unhurt hand leaves behind a fading blood print.
The barracks building is withered and clearly abandoned, with scarce furniture and a few weapons in a training room.
Several discarded torches stay alight on wall fixtures. Pre-prepared braziers have been filled with spirit-fending incense of sandalwood and sage. Explore for clues.
- ■ THE HALLWAYS ( cw: guilt haunting ): corridors flow into each other, often leading back where you started. You run into shifting wall engravings, some listing the name and ranks of Hand soldiers, or precepts such as GODS OF THE ARENA and BECOME AS STRONG / AS FAST, AS NIMBLE / AS GLADIATORS. A large portrait of Hand leader Narula is increasingly more scratched, every time you encounter it, while the painted man looks healthier, younger and stronger. Inevitably, you hear heavy steps — a deep-shadowed spectre, the Drillmaster, who starts to stalk you with slow persistence. Visible to you and your companions, the Drillmaster fluctuates between assuming the appearance of Narula and the distorted, monstrous figure of someone from your past, who heavily criticised or intimidated you. The corridor lighting changes depending on your proximity to the Drillmaster: green for safe passage, white to tread lightly, red to stop. You can make the Drillmaster disappear out of your way by facing or acknowledging whatever weakness (true or self-perceived) you have that has caused extensive criticism or self-doubt.
■ THE BATHS ( cw: doppelgangers): a long marble hall featuring a large swimming pool, now drained and filled with mould and debris. Steam overwhelms the room, except for a wall-length black mirror at the end of the hall. The more you look into the mirror, the more the black substance that covers it slips down, flooding the floors and also dripping from walls and the ceiling. As the mirror clears, you see your black-eyed reflection that suddenly screams out verbal abuse or plunges at you. Once you subdue the doppelganger (claim a clue), it dissolves into more black water, while the mirror shows scratched inscriptions of A RIGHTEOUS HAND SHAPES EACH OF ITS FINGERS.
■ THE DORMITORIES ( cw: membranous cocoons): hollow, empty, quiet, the dormitories sport strange membranous cocoons in the walls, from which shadowy hands reach out. You hear young wo/men, whimpering and murmuring that they aren’t afraid and want to change to make Brother Narula proud, before erupting into screams or laughter. Break the cocoons without getting trapped into their webs — only to find nothing inside, except stone dog tags, engraved with the names of Hand soldiers. On the floor, you find primitive tattoo needles and ink.
Luck strikes at sunset, when a previously barred door opens to release you from the house — back into Ephes.
NOTES:
- ■ QUESTIONS
■ NPC inbox (for test drivers)
■ Event title shamelessly pilfered from a gory gladiator show!
no subject
They all suit the part. ( Blithely, arms crossing in the perfect visage of a man inconvenienced by the latest going rate of market produce. One of the sailors, visited by every pox that's come into being and a few awaiting their mutant debut, bears a distinct resemblance to an over-ripe potato. Yes, Hector nods: you.
But then, open disdain won't achieve where natural selection failed. The villain of this story won't politely succumb because Hector can't be troubled to find personal value in any of these men. Time to change tack, slipping his companion a sharp-cut gaze, while the room's temperature rises with the sickly, balmy quality of trapped stale spaces. )
We could leave them all behind. ( A bluff is no better than the poker face that delivers it. Hector's is undeniably unshaking. ) I'm not in the spirit of knives in my back.
no subject
Hm. No family then? ( zoro tilts his head at the quiet one. ) Guess I can relate.
( another one of the sailors tosses a coin purse aimed at hector's feet. it's a bad aim though and it hits the white-haired man's knee instead. nevertheless, the bid for release has been made. )
no subject
( 'lo, behold! He is hit, he is targeted, man down — or, at the very least, crouching, as Hector dips in and recovers the fat and handsome bribe, opening it quizzically to reveal a modest sea of coins, a pair of buttons, far too many golden teeth and... prayer beads, for the heavens-lent among them.
Nodding helpfully, Hector shares the deep-dive view of his lucky winnings with his companions, because one man's trash may well prove to be their treasure. And he's never been bribed before, besides. It's always threats and torture with most people. )
Is... is this a large sum? ( Are they... flattered? Pleased? Should they be? He releases the purse in Zoro's hand with deliberate, theatrical negligence. And he murmurs: )
Gentlemen. ( This, to the flock of men who seem increasingly incensed as they wait out Hector's approval. Tick, tock, tick, tock. ) May I interest all of you in dropping down to your undergarments? Thank you.
( And a cutting side whisper, because if he is about to consign his good name to hell and take up the coat of a pervert, someone might as well know why: ) If this is a case of a shape-learning thing, it won't know to replicate what it hasn't seen.
( In other words, what to recreate under a sailor's clothes, the limbs and body parts that come with human anatomy.
Sadly, immune to this excellence of academic thinking, the line-up of sailors look utterly unconvinced, even as some grudgingly start to peel away their shirts. 'Ain't no weird sort, is he?' )
no subject
zoro continues to stand in place, not at all judging hector for getting the men to strip down to their undergarments, mostly just curious, and when he gets the explanation, he's thinking, good thing someone here's got a plan because he sure wasn't gonna be contributing shit in that department. not because he won't -- it's just not his thing. )
Might wanna hurry it up. ( judging by how wet the wooden floorboard is, it's likely the ship's taking in more water. well, that, or the toilet's leaking. noticing that has some of the men stripping down a little quicker. keeping his voice low, zoro asks: )
What're we gonna do when we find it? ( all he knows about this thing they're dealing with is that it's some kind of a creature. but can it even be taken down by normal means? behind him one of the sailor is raising his arm up high, attempting to get hector's attention. apparently, his friend's not looking too good. the guy's face is all weird. like he's experiencing some kind of a facial paralysis. )
no subject
( ...that.
That part sparks less joy, more wonder, and a considerably accruing sense of dread and despair that dampens his spirits nearly as badly as the flooding wets his feet.
He looks down, then at the spectacle of scars and flesh that begins to unfold, as every single sailor seems to discover new and interesting obstacles in the exacting intellectual puzzle of undressing. Buttons. Ties. Combinations thereof. Fingers fumble, curses are exchanged, one man snags his beard in the brass buckles of his collar, kindling the fire of a hundred feuds with the fool, imbecile, son of a bitch who tries, but fails to release him and only scratches his own fingers in the process.
Throughout this, a part of Hector, who neatly folds his arms behind his back, cannot help but wonder if they wouldn't be better served if all these fine specimens of naval excellence walked the plank in an orderly line. )
You have a sword. ( A beat, then, in the way one might prompt a child to surrender an imperfect, thinly stretched recitation of an uninspiring poem: ) You can't tell me you use it as a walking stick.
( ...please. Please don't use it as a walking stick. )
no subject
I guess we'll see. ( more of a response to the thoughts running through his own head, rather than hector's dry wit.
zoro turns back around when he senses the men are done getting undressed. only it turns out they're all just staring at one fella whose face now resembles that of another one of the men. chaos and panic ensues, with three of the sailors deciding to make a run for the door. zoro steps forward with his sword in time to halt their movements. one of the men rushes towards hector, reaching out with his hands, looking to grab at his collar in a desperate attempt to convince him that he's not the impostor. )
no subject
Barring the part where Hector, embracing victory, must now deal with its consequences. Oh no. Oh, no, no. There is no weapon to claim here, no convenient getaway. No body to reanimate, no shield to take up.
Only the man beside him — who Hector, taking as step back, makes sure to allow first position — and a creaking, rotten wooden beam that might hold up the deck above, for all Hector knows. It hardly matters. He kicks it loose, pulling out a peel of wood, and all but waves it around as a clumsy, unforgivably unwieldy baton. )
This isn't fair. I handled my end of things.
( And then the creature leaps. )
no subject
Get to the door! ( he swings his sword when the thing comes at him, but it's a pointless attack when his blade simply dissolves it for a moment. the creature rematerializes within seconds and grabs hold of a sailor tossing the man towards them like a rag doll as they're attempting to leave the room. that causes the floor beneath them to give way and they fall to the deck below. bright side? the area's flooded. the empty crates and waist-deep water helps to cushion his fall at least. )
no subject
Wholly, entirely and irredeemably not the weapon of choice in any conflict, past, present or future. Do not engage, do not collect again. It serves, at the last moment, as a passing brake, allowing him to anchor himself in place when most of the tussling takes place —
Before they crash through the deck, rot of wood and sunken plaster astringent in his nostrils, limbs flailing, as he struggles to breathe, fortunate for the water that breaks his fall. He should have the grace to lie low and leave the better part of this ensuing bloodbath to professionals.
Instead, he does what every dog will and throws himself bodily at the creature, when he realises he's fallen within short distance of it, pointedly wrapping both arms around its legs. And holding. It. Down. )
Hit — it —