the channeling

[groundrules]

THE CHANNELING

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WEALTH WHISPERS

Assignment: the Merchant fears that Matthias, alleged father of the undead Brotherhood, might be the ‘merchant’ who was due to receive dark water-infused grains by sea from the Hand. Chasing information, the Merchant routes party members towards the docks-side underworld district of Tibras, in the outskirts of Ephes. The Hand keeps grain warehouses nearby.

In Tibras, short and decayed houses are like parasitic growths toppling each other, plaster peels falling into rivulets of bloodshed. Tension thrives. Petrified, natives overwhelmingly number beggars, pleasure workers, crude bounty hunters and thieves, who look to cut throats or purse strings. Occasional bodies drift by the docks.

■ Just outside of Tibras is the abode of the merchants’ syndicate — a ring of warehouses, private clubs and houses of currency. Merchants here are protected via steep fees and travel freely. Inside the syndicate house, doorways are barred by inextinguishable living fire — which you can cross unharmed, if you rearrange the runes marked N, W, S, E on a nearby wall in a cardinal-point formation. You can also pretend to be a servant, a merchant or quality inspector to get to the Hand warehouses. Ask a clue.

Alternatively, the Merchant forewarns that a notable guest will join the syndicate for three nights: Captain Maximilian Hawk of the Dawn’s Reach Trade Company, which deals in magical artefacts. Hold him at knifepoint, seduce him, do your worst for knowledge!

■ By the entrance to Tibras is the shop of Apollonius, noted collector of supernatural artefacts and information broker. Crafty and sly, he will cooperate, in exchange for a pair of ‘eyes’ from the ghost Tykhe, who haunts the nearby anonymous burial grounds. Come midnight, Tykhe’s spirit — whose sight was gouged — appears and picks out and bewitches a pair of marbles, buttons or stones to act as her ‘eyes.’ With them in hand, she searches the graveyard for her dead sister, Cassandra. You can steal the orbs, or she’ll give them freely, if you escort her from tomb to tomb to reunite with the mute ghost of Cassandra. Return to Apollonius.

■ Deeper within Tibras is a gambling nest of sailors who were cursed by a scorned sea witch to assume the appearance of sea creatures. Led by the giant octopus Crassus, they charge protection fees from commercial merchant ships and even intimidate pirates, gleaning information from sailors and recovering drowned bodies. This illustrious group adores games of chance — as long as you can cover your losses.

You can decide or RNG how many tries it takes for your character to win — submit a finished thread to get a question! The higher the stakes, the better the information.

— a scantly informed junior goldfish throws dice. Lose, and you must share a highly embarrassing secret.

— a moderately informed catfish, offering Baccarat. Lose, and he steals your good luck for 24 hours.

— a composed, well-informed whale plays roulette. Lose, and you must share one of your most precious memories.

— a highly-knowledgeable shark, Aurelius Longus, plays a mean hand of poker. Lose, and he asks blood or a pledge to save his life one day.

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THE FLOORS

Senate leader Caius Justus exits his seclusion, ending weeks of prayer to convey the message of Ephes’ divine patron, the Chained God of chaos. And he says in a public speech:

Friends, Ephesians, countrymen…

”Friends, Ephesians, countrymen, lend me your ears. I come to speak for the Chained Father, not to praise him. The victory men reap lives after them; but cowardice is often buried with their bones. So let it be with Ephes. The noble Senate tells you, the Chained Father wishes only Ephes’ destruction. If it were so, it is a grievous fault, and grievously has the Father answered for it. Here, under leave of Messalina and the Senate – for Messalina is an honourable speaker; so they are all, all honourable speakers – come I to speak of the Chained Father’s wishes. He was my maker, faithful and just to us: but Messalina says, turn away from him. And Messalina is an honourable speaker. He has brought many territories under the heel of Ephes. In his name did the Hand rise: did this in the Chained Father seem unworthy? When now you weep asking empire, the Chained Father answers: tells you to be made of sterner stuff. Yet Messalina says the Father is unworthy. And Messalina is an honourable speaker. You all did see that I withdrew to his temple, where he spoke to me: Ephes, seize your path alone — was that unworthy? Yet Messalina says to turn away from him. And sure, Messalina is an honourable speak. I speak not to disprove what Messalina spoke, but here I am to speak what I do know: you are all children of Chaos, not without cause. What cause withholds you, then, to use the Hand yourselves? O, ambition! You have fled to brutish citadels. And men have lost their courage. Bear with me: my heart is in the temple, there with the Chained God, and I must pause and beg the Senate to vote against Messalina, til it comes back to me. ”

Returning to public life, Caius Justus advises the Senate to refuse Messalina’s proposal, but defers to a vote. Citing recent civil unrest, he imposes citadel-wide 10 p.m. curfews, bans congregations of more than eight people in the streets and sends the Hand to confiscate any visible weapons and to quiet or pre-empt unrest. Hand members — forced to present in large numbers — appear erratic, prone to violent outbursts and to taking out their anger on civilians. Hand leader Narula is excessively smug.

Newscasters are careful with their words, speeches decrying Messalina abound, and senators are‘escorted’ by Hand delegations, also for their protection. Caius Justus announces he will run again for Senate leadership — to begrudged murmurs among Senators, given his previous pledge to retire.

Assignment: lure Senators toward the position that the party supports. After Caius Justus’ return:

■ 51 Senators back Caius Justus to refuse Messalina’s proposal.

■ Maximus Faustus convinces 53 Senators to accept Messalina’s proposal

■ Caelius Silvanus persuades 47 Senators to vote to postpone a decision on Messalina’s proposal for another season.

Following the party’s previous interventions, Senators are open to considering Messalina’s cause. Many are skittish, fearing their careers or lives will end with disobeying Caius Justus. Optionally, party members previously assigned a political role might receive threats from Caius Justus’ supporters.

■ Persuade, bribe, threaten or blackmail a minor Senator to switch votes. Perhaps you can offer coin or rally supporters in the marketplace for their next election, or heal their donkey or get rid of that pesky boy mooning after their daughter. Or maybe prove their corruption streak, or place a polite knife at their throats. Hold the whole Senate floor hostage, if you want, of blockade Senators from entering the Senate on voting day!

■ Ask for a RNGed Senator if you want or submit threads of swaying votes. A final tally will be taken on 19 November

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INCENSE

Priests of the Chained God whisper that the god shows signs of awakening to trigger an apocalypse. Chained and warded twelve times to prevent the end of the world, the Chained God allegedly rests in the Halls of the Sleeper, in the underground belly of his main temple in Ephes. Above ground, the temple is silent, rife with milling priests, hummed prayers and cloying hallucinogenic incense that encourages lethargy. Access is unrestricted, but monitored.

To progress downstairs, you may need to convince guards that you are one of the groups of ferociously devout pilgrim worshippers, or a priest. Below, you feel overcome by creeping, paralysing dread.

■ You are haunted by sinister, saccharine voices murmuring intrusive thoughts only you hear, diminishing your worth and paranoically asking if your companion means you harm. You are more irritable and prone to violence.

■ The halls increasingly resemble narrow subterranean corridors with limited and overheated air reserves. You reach locked stone gates, covered in loose chains and crudely carved with the inscription, the Sleeper awakes. Instructions state the Chained God demands sacrifice and proof of chaos.

■ To enter the Sleeper’s Hall, instructions say, you must commit an act of betrayal, by: drawing your companion’s blood and smearing it over the inscription (lean into the corruption!), which prevents them from entering the halls with you; or chaining them to the door with the gate shackles, condemning them to watch as you enter; or pushing your companion away, verbally eviscerating or attacking them until they flee. With player approval, your character could get a sense of what theirs is emotionally or physically vulnerable to, then exploit it. Acts of betrayal cannot be faked.

■ The Sleeper’s Hall is narrow, nearly spherical and lit by thin rivers of flowing magma that cross cracked floors. Amid swelter, you hear the periodic gulps and quakes of stone trembling around you. The supernaturally sensitive feel the presence of great, if constrained power.

■ The black water previously associated with the undead also gushes from rifts in the ground. It has a cold, sinister aura.

■ Search the room for clues — and leave urgently, before corruption consumes you.

■ Towards the middle of the room is a large, nebulously shaped creature, fully fettered and covered in magical wards, chains and blood-painted runes. Anyone in the Chained God’s presence may feel overcome by emotional or physical agony, claustrophobia and bloodlust — but the divinity only speaks with the RNG winner.

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NOTES:

■ Some players have asked about potentially stabbing ousting Caius Justus and Narula in a coup — everyone can plot and participate in that, and a plotting post will go up on 16 November.

■ NPC inbox, if you need anyone!

■ QUESTIONS

Comments

QUESTIONS

[groundrules]

Divorce rate is 32.46% lower among couples who stab Caesar together.

[weifinder]

Okay but how are the resentful energies of the people killed around the city feeling about being called to the Senate Floor to make their feelings non-lethally known before the voting day? Asking for a friend. That friend is me.

I'll take the bodied dead too, I just have no idea where the ones he directed away from the arena ended up, and he'd hope to be able to you know. Send them on. But, you know. Traumatic deaths and all!

[groundrules]

Bear with me, long morning - so do you want the dead who were previously caused or appeared at the arena used, or do you want to raise dead from nearby cemeteries, orrrrr?

[weifinder]

In this case, it's the dead from the arena or the local graveyards or other such places who have resentment against the Hand or dying in relation to the dark water, but my last night thoughts were "loud forum of the related dead" if these people are so sure they want to ignore one leader of the dead to favour another

Starts the morning making little to no sense! Hear the voices they're ignoring, it's kind of like. Where do they think these dead come from

[groundrules]

Most people who died in the arena catastrophe (or were summoned to it as undead) would in theory have been buried alongside cleaning efforts, but you can have a few undead if you want to arrange a protest, sure!

[weifinder]

... Perfect, he's arranging a protest, thank you so much!

[reparo]

For fish gambles, if someone lost and needed to confess to an embarrassing secret - can it be situational? Maybe not that shameful as it is awkward for the two people present, for example?

[groundrules]

No worries, I definitely won't nickel-and-dime you, it's mostly a mechanism to get funny CR between characters — take whatever route is more fun to you!

[reparo]

The path most hilarious it is!

🤥 in memory of captain usopp

[serio]

Losing @ Roulette -- are they somehow compelled to tell the truth or can it be a lie? And if it's a lie, can they get away with a tall tale or will the well-informed whale know?

RIP usopp

[groundrules]

The whale will Sense a lie and calmly disqualify a debt as unpaid until you give it your honesty. That said, it's less adept at detecting when a memory is notable versus 'precious,' so you can get away with fibbing that a bit!

[inferus]

Last event Wrath took some of the water from the rattling (arena) where it was super powerful in a jar to study later/when it was safer/could probably ward the place where he was experimenting. Is there anything additional that can be learned from that water by studying it? Does it lose some of its potency over time now that it's away from the hand/the rest of the dark water? He would try probably putting a drop on this shard he received back in the day, etc.

[groundrules]

Heya!

So, the sample-water (let's just use that term for the jarred water!) and the shard would react positively, with the sample-water taking the shape of the shard. The dark water does tend to lose some potency away from the hand, but slowly, and not to the point where the severed hand can be believed to be the only thing that powers it. The hand can create (more like, summon out) more dark water, but once it's out, it doesn't lose completely potency.

There's nothing that comes to mind just yet in terms of experimentation — the water likes to try to copy shape, and if Wrath gives it.... a body of any kind in its proximity that it can drench ( RIP a hamster, ig! ), it will try to reanimate it and basically assume its shape from the inside. Since he only took a small sample, it probably wouldn't be enough to keep hamkenstein alive too long.

Is Wrath going to the Chained God's temple this event, by chance? I could throw more stuff your way, if he happens to have his sample-water on his person, while going there, if you want more material!

[inferus]

Thank you! That is all very useful information to know.

I think Wrath would, in general, find it unwise for them to fuck around with an apocalyptic Chained God's temple. However, Wrath thinks he is probably the being best suited to help if (when?) shit hits the fan there so YES, he will definitely go to learn information and make sure nothing has exploded. And I can imagine he'd keep the sample water on him to... prevent anyone else from stealing it.

Sooo hit me w/ more please if you can. :)

[groundrules]

Sure! If he enters the Chained God's quarters (no matter what happens with the Chained God), he'll notice there are two sets of energies: one belongs squarely to the Chained God and is chaotic, feverish/hot and fire-connected; the other type of energy is cold and emanating from the cracks in the ground, which have spawned thin rivulets of dark water. Notably, the water from the shard would send the jar rattling, threatening to explode (this can be avoided if Wrath forces the lid shut) and join the water in the rivulets.

Both energies feel chaotic, but the Chained God's feel destructive, the dark water feels constructive, (un)life-bearing.

Some things Wrath can notice here:
— while the dark water in the rivulets is the same overall type of dark water as the one in the shard, it's blended in with the energy of the Chained God

— given that the dark water is slowly but surely appearing and drowning the room, it is assimilating the Chained God's energy, not the other way around, nor is this a perfect merger/union

— yes, the dark water is eating up a gd god.

[blackscales]

If someone is, say, betrayed, and gets upset about it while locked out thus starts... acting out in the temple... smashing up statues(?)/nice floor tiles(?)/the gate ineffectually because they're locked out/I guess upsetting a guard, are they gonna get the Whole Temple on them? I cannot visualise how far away the gates/entrance is from the guards/rest of the temple, and thus how quickly a temper tantrum would draw attention and how intense it would be!

[groundrules]

So, if you do it downstairs in the underground area — all good! Temple personnel won't really venture there, and the private assumption would be it's the Chained God doing Chained God things, better let that ugly mofo sort himself out.

If it's upstairs, it'd probably be viewed as a case of, wait for it, being overcome by chaos. The reaction, funnily, would be tolerated up to a point, as it'd be considered Wrathion is merely succumbing to the Chained God's influence and effectively giving worship. They might even try to make a showcase of Wrathion, explaining to the world at large, why, look at this man, proof of the God's resurgence and his stronger powers, hail to the Chained God, so on. After a point, they'd gently intervene to calm Wrathion down.

[blackscales]

Typical Chained God Activity is a very funny reaction.

If Wrathion attacked someone would they still mostly be going for calming him down/restraining him or would there be Other Consequences (TM)?

I just think it would be funny for Anduin to come back and Wrathion is causing a fight in a temple (at least an on-theme temple??)

[groundrules]

Sure, go for it! You could go the route of temple keepers trying to subdue him (and things going south), or have them actively try to piss Wrathion off further, so he causes even more of a scene they can blame on the Chained God's magnificent return.

[blackscales]

AND HERE I WAS WORRIED HE'D NEED HELP ESCAPING

Instead, More Violence

[daughterheir]

Like Wrath, Elayne also took a sample of the dark water for experimentation purposes (she got hers from the baths with the spooky mirror). Would trying to do the magical equivalent of pushing it through a coffee filter over and over again to "purify" it have any effect?

Also, if she pulled apart her pendant, would she be able to figure out its inner workings? And would she be able to put it back together and make it work again lol

[groundrules]

Hey, TGIF!

1. Well: the trouble with the dark water is... evil is a point of view, so it depends how are your purifying. It feels sinister and deathly and ominous, but some might say it's misunderstood :'(

But in all seriousness: there is no way to purify it. You can eliminate it, but not really filter out its negative influences.

2. Karsa casts sorcery on the pendants to make them perform for the party, so a lot of what makes them Exciting isn't down to cogs and gears — that said, you're welcome to have her work it apart and back again, but don't ask me any science.

[daughterheir]

Poor dark water, maybe it just needs a hug 😔 though even Elayne won't try hugging it... probably

Given that magic works differently in Elayne's world, would she be able to figure out how Karsa's sorcery works? Would there be any way for her to try to replicate what Karsa did with a weave?

[groundrules]

Historically, the requirement has been to try to learn it, and Karsa def will share, just takes a little time for the learning process to be assumed — can I ask why, though? I'm only asking because maybe there's a way to get what you need faster. If it's just a new pendant, you're always welcome to have her thieve one or pick one of up from......... the numerous bodies...

[daughterheir]

It's purely that Elayne's curious, so no need for faster results! She'll happily take the time to learn