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)
westwhere2023-11-01 05:35 pm
groundrules) wrote in westwhere2023-11-01 05:35 pm
Entry tags:
- arcane: caitlyn,
- assassin's creed: ratonhnhake:ton,
- ephes,
- event,
- kingdom of the wicked: emilia,
- lockwood & co: anthony lockwood,
- mcu: america chavez,
- mcu: bucky barnes,
- mcu: natasha romanova,
- mcu: yelena,
- oh! my emperor: beitang moran,
- one piece: luffy,
- one piece: nami,
- one piece: sanji,
- one piece: zoro,
- tian guan ci fu: xie lian,
- umbrella academy: ben,
- umbrella academy: five,
- warcraft: wrathion,
- wheel of time: elayne trakand
the channeling
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.
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
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.
NOTES:
■ Some players have asked about potentially
■ NPC inbox, if you need anyone!
■ QUESTIONS
no subject
Monks do not — ( ...but then, what use innocence and indignation, when men of the upmost political caliber spit in the face of justice, when purveyors of truth lie with each breath, and those most righteous beneath the Heavens turn to crafty tricks to spread goodness upon this world?
No footsteps behind them, blinks and guttering of candles' flame and the tremors of light bloomed dim in the temple's spread. He feels distance only in his bones. Anticipation claws at his skin from within, beastly.
Wei Ying would say he allows Mo Ran to rile him. That he is as his uncle, consumed by rigidity, rooted in precepts. That the boy taunts and teases, because it is his nature to show his teeth: broad and wide in laughter, or blooded between bites. )
It hurts your spirit.
( The incense chokes him; he coughs. Knocks his knuckles against the wall in passing, as if the brief pulses of friction and bruising might eclipse the discomfort of his lungs. )
Mo Ran. ( See, friends once more. ) None but you will safeguard your integrity.
no subject
[ Mo Ran is a simple man: the earthly delights are his to partake, now that he can. Food and wine and the comfort of touch.
It has been too long since he's been hugged or touched freely, without scorn. Cared for in a way that shows. He doesn't need it&dmash; doesn't deserve it— and yet he craves. ]
What spirit, Senior? My immortal spirit has already been damaged. [ And Lan Wangji should know, better than any here. ]
Are we not supplicants who come to entreat the Chained God? Pilgrims, of a sort? Not all subterfuge is an actual lie.
no subject
Is my marriage the burden of the waking world? ( Truly. Jiang Cheng, Xichen. A sect whole. Wen Qing, desirous of transparency. Emilia, Hermione, Mo Ran. What is it that compels third parties to speculation that the private intimacies of his wedded life belong to strangers? And would he yet startle, if he had not failed, body and soul, in providing for his husband in the manner expected?
He says nothing, allows their steps to drift, their shadows to stitch together like a mantle behind them. The incense thickens still, burdens his lids. He feels — overcome by it, alive only in the seconds when breath is no longer a strained, nebulous calculation.
At last, their path starts to descend. Down into the nethers, unbidden, unguarded. Down and down, below. )
If you think it so noble, why seek it justification?
no subject
[ His uncle and aunt were happy. Couples he encountered over the years traveling. There must have been other happy marriages he knew of, but most of them have faded from his mind.
His marriages were not. No love lost for Song Qiutong, but he feels guilty for it, and for Chu Wanning—
Who he isn't even fit to think of in such terms. And what right does he have to judge the marriage of another?
He coughs, the incense overwhelming, and hunts through his pockets to find a handkerchief to tie around his face, although his pockets turn up nothing. ]
Justification for what? My lie? I seek justification for nothing. [ How easily lies pour from his mouth. ] My eternal soul is damned, so why should I care about a little lie that gets us past the guards? You're the one harping on it, stuck.
no subject
It is the duty of example. ( His eternal soul, damned. Fool, we do not walk hell's mouth, fire does not breathe upon us. For all heat emanates like claws and lashing, as they traverse the long, greedy stretch of the corridors.
And under, when the underworld's maws open. And under, still.
Flicked extension of his body is the silent call to move, the animal quality of the chase. He hears no steps, yet feels pursued. At his side, Mo Ran, more thorn than man, is at once a rope of safe travel and a noose. )
How may we free your soul, young master? ( This commodity, so readily exchanged, perhaps at a fraction of its going rate. )
no subject
At least his aunt and uncle had a lively marriage, respectful and loving. Mo Ran cannot claim he presented a good example— he didn't— but at least he did have something he could look at, once before. ]
Free my soul? I murdered my uncle, my aunt, and my sect. Do you think that allows for freeing my soul? [ It is not his eternal soul that matters, for Mo Ran has nothing. Nothing to offer, nothing to beg for. He'll walk this world, attempting to make up for what he did, cherishing and respecting his shizun and his sect.
Not that anything can make up for those atrocities. The best he can do is make sure he never turns into Taxian-jun, and that if he does, there is someone poised to kill him, a honed blade against his throat.
They descend, a growing sense of dread burdening his shoulders, bleakness on his tongue. Can he ever escape the chill, the sense of foreboding that has lingered in him since Chu Wanning's first death?
The Lan beside is no help. ] Does it matter, Senior?
no subject
( Not an example of his marriage, but —
No matter. Mo Ran speaks and hisses like a rattling snake, fast and vicious like a viper, seeking not to wound, but kill. He attempts, purposefully, to rile Lan Wangji.
Better men have attempted. Jin Guangyao nearly prevailed. On occasion, Jiang Wanyin strikes the compulsory discordant notes —
But no this fool, this child. Not while they wander grounds black and bleak, and the corridors narrow, and the beast, this Chained God, threatens to distantly consume them. There is anger, fetid and febrile, at the edges of Lan Wangji's thoughts. He senses it, a lone menace.
— does not give in. )
For all those with care or duty to spare for you. ( If not Mo Weiyu, then his betters. ) Your family, sect, master.
no subject
Long, heavy strides don't do much in the sloped, rocky tunnels, and it weighs so heavily. Anger burns, and it doesn't need much fanning for Mo Ran. He's learned, over the years, to temper it, to use it for a purpose, but what's the point here, with this prissy man in white. ]
What do you care for my immortal soul? Do you have a number of good deeds you need to do daily to stay in your sect or something?
[ It wouldn't surprise him; people don't care about him out anything but duty. It's what he deserves, he knows, but still. ]
no subject
I have a son. ( It strikes him like cleaving, like an open, festering wound. The likeness between this handsome young man, more the fool for his finery, and his Sizhui, also a child of disaster. One escaped the callings of vice. One has been thoroughly, inexplicable ensnared.
And Lan Wangji's heart is too full and fat a thing not to bleed sympathy, not to wish Mo Ran, too, saved. Forgive him, then, great Heavens, his hubris: he feels, trailing after Mo Ran, that salvation sleeps within reach, and it may well prove their own to deliver.
This world they cross is petty, paltry, brittle, black. Why should Mo Ran's soul not be bright light within it? ) It is fatherhood to look after his generation.
no subject
But it stings still, somewhere deep inside him. He's not worth this concern. Even from someone like Lan Wangji, who has the patience and sympathy to think of others. ]
Do you adopt every orphan who wanders into your path, Senior?
[ He wouldn't be surprised. ]
no subject
( And if he does, what of it? Children are sweet, docile, hopeful things, fertile ground for growth and opportunity. A new chance for an improved generation. Why is it so many find fault in wishing to protect the future?
He does not trouble himself to contradict Mo Ran, does not put him in place. Searches him with eyes cold and molten and lightly feverish, heat catching and alighting his flesh, as they sink underneath and finally, finally stumble before the quarters of the sleeper. Chains, rattling. Inscriptions. A storm of ashes and the stench of burning. )
If they allow it. Should I not? ( Head held high, chin arrogantly pointed. What little majesty the clan names his birthright, exhibited in increments. ) Would you not?
( Even a young man so... arrogant requires an heir. )
no subject
No. There is no birthright I would pass along to children. [ He would not damn a child like that, raised by a man who fears his shadow will turn him into a mad emperor. ] But it is so kind that we have noble men like you, ready to adopt children.
[ Is it mocking? Is it genuine? Mo Ran isn't sure he can tell. ]
no subject
( No. Soft, scratching, restless. He looks away first, and in matters of dominance, this would name him inferior. He finds, not for the first time, Mo Ran is a young man who would navigate his path to one's jugular even in the face of the sternest, frankest opposition. )
It is kind there are children who would entrust their care to the likes of me. ( Rigid, insipid, pale, uninspiring. He knows his reputation: a balm in the records of elders and a killing strike in the humour of any congregation he has ever attended. Hanguang-Jun does not invite prospects of welfare, of laughter.
Children would know nothing of such things, as first, but they would learn: when the parents of their friends come smiling and jest-bearing, their manner soft and easy. When they read in books of beautiful mothers and charismatic fathers. When they encounter men who bloom in them a sense of strength and interest.
Lan Wangji is — dour. Insignificant. Reduced. Even now, a mere accessory or distraction. The assistant in another hero's journey. )
Flattery is unnecessary, when disdain is apparent. Do not exert yourself.
no subject
Does the intent matter?
[ It does, sometimes. Most of the time, Mo Ran thinks intent is important, especially when it comes to family. And it would have been insincere, mere flattery in face of the disdain Lan Wangji wears so easily. But this time, he can't even tell his own intent, so it doesn't matter.
He shrugs and turns away from him to read the inscription and rattle the doors. Sacrifice, the god demands, and Mo Ran is intimately familiar with that. What he wants is behind that door, a question this god might be able to answer.
Not for the first time, Mo Ran wishes he could still call his old sword. He settles, instead, for pulling out a knife he keeps on hand, just in case. He turns, light on his feet, to slash at Lan Wangji, aiming for his arm; it's a sudden action, but he's prepared if Lan Wangji moves away. ]