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westwhere2024-01-13 06:35 pm
groundrules) wrote in westwhere2024-01-13 06:35 pm
Entry tags:
- arcane: caitlyn,
- assassin's creed: ratonhnhake:ton,
- baldur's gate 3: the dark urge,
- blade of the immortal: asano rin,
- doctor who: river song,
- harry potter: hermione granger,
- kingdom of the wicked: emilia,
- kingdom of the wicked: wrath,
- last case of benedict fox: benedict fox,
- mcu: america chavez,
- mcu: carol danvers,
- mcu: kamala khan,
- mcu: natasha romanova,
- oh! my emperor: beitang moran,
- original: red,
- owl house: eda clawthorne,
- penny dreadful: vanessa ives,
- star wars: merrin,
- tian guan ci fu: xie lian,
- umbrella academy: ben,
- umbrella academy: five,
- untamed: lan sizhui,
- warcraft: wrathion,
- wheel of time: elayne trakand
hatthevar | blood rains
Drawn to undead creator Matthias, the party heads into Hatthevar — former wasteland of myth and superstitions, now city of ghosts.
The first log of Hatthevar spans until 31 January.
A small part of the event is open to players both in and out of the game, who can bring dead characters in the bazaar!
The party enters blood-rained Hatthevar during a daily one-hour truce between the citadel and the undead forces that assail it. At the gates is undead Lord Rathakku of the Brotherhood, keen to usurp his distracted maker Matthias; in the skies dart the forces of dead wind lord Anurr, who has no love for the Brotherhood.
Hatthevar’s ghostly champions — including enormous ghosts that consume men and floating spirits that strangle with chains — defend the grounds. Matthias neglects the war, persistently summoning spirits from various worlds and points in time to revive them.
KNOCK, KNOCK
Wispy, shadowy silhouettes closely watch the lone gate of Hatthevar. The party infiltrates at sunrise.
Characters who have died, practise necromancy or are death-touched enter freely. The living must consume Karsa’s foul potions that absorb their shadows and partly mute their powers to pass for dead. Holders of Matthias’ severed limbs or organs, or of dark mirror shards or dark water, are closely watched by the dead and perhaps pursued.
Everyone must create new names and stories covering their identity and circumstances of death. Crafty ghost sellers will try to learn your true name to capture you in slavery.
Spend a few days acquainting Hatthevar, its constant rains, vicious gambling dens, bazaars, oracle halls, wish shops and nests of memory thieves.
Show kindness to the newly revived spirits who struggle to remember themselves and roam in the citadel’s bazaars of curiosities.
Optionally, some characters are struck by misfortune. Capture a crafty, palm-sized spirit rabbit to improve your luck… or stumble upon a larger, dark hopper to ruin it.
Most sleeping quarters are available at downtrodden inns or in lavish gambling dens, for exorbitant prices. You can’t shake the feeling of someone watching through holes in your walls.
MATTHIAS
Three days after arriving, the party receives a note from Matthias that reveals the origins of his pact with the dark water to propagate the dead in Akhuras. Matthias says he has been working to bring the spirit of his dead daughter Cosette through the beacon for revival. She materializes briefly in Hatthevar but disappears before he can find her. Retrieve Cosette, and he will surrender the party his power over the undead.
Full note
| ” Well, hello! Is it nippy beyond the walls? Not cold here, just… the rain. Tried wishing it away, but… waste of money, those wish shops. Not like, what is it you call it? The dark water? It’s ancient. Back in Ellethia, we thought it came from the sea. All began with a mirror shard. That, and constant pressure to race against decades of Taravast research into curing death. We got there first! That’s… my claim to fame: I wished death gone. It was work. Work ate me. Then, the dead woke up, killed everyone, and there wasn’t much of a profession left. Or of Ellethia. The dark water wants flesh, so… I’ve made it death lords and armies, and I’ve left parts of me to anchor it. In return… it gives me revival. But, look. I had a… daughter. Cosette? Blonde and eyes green and blue and like her mother’s, and only five summers old, but she thought she was so clever, kept telling her doll so. That’s all you’re left with. Memories. She died, of course. I’ve been working to resurrect her, and her spirit shows up every few days in Hatthevar. She disappears before I can find her. I’m not… good at bargaining. I’m a magical engineer, really. Tinkerer! But my time’s running short, isn’t it? Just look outside. And all I want is Cosette. You want the beacons? Have them. You can have my power whole. I’ll give it. Some of you will need to help hold the walls up, and others might want to look into the funny business in the lagoon, if it’s linked at all to Cosette, though I doubt it. But, truly. Bring me Cosette, and the deed’s done. You can have everything.” |
The Merchant distrusts Matthias’ proposal, but sees potential leverage and urges the party to investigate the girl and the lagoon. From here onward, everyone heads to their assignment:
COMBAT
Assigned: Bucky Barnes, Carol Danvers, Deimos, Emilia, Jiang Cheng, Luffy, Natasha Romanoff, Nynaeve, Stephen Strange, Wrath, Wrathion, Zoro
The first line of defence against the swarming undead, you must hold off swathes of enemies across three territories:
THE WALLS
Despairingly tall and uncomfortably narrow, overseen by Matthias’ ghostly cannibal titans, who neglect to discern between friend or foe in their broad, relentless strikes. Blood rains pour down thick and nearly blinding. From the skies, you face the frost-breathing 10-15 meter-tall wyrms of undead blizzard lord Anurr, unaffiliated with the Brotherhood. Stick together: when alone, Anurr’s winds speak to you of your deepest doubts and fears, compelling you to surrender — or to let go of restraint, briefly berserk, and attack your own.
■ Serthica survivors may call their dragons to assist. Through Jon Snow, the party can also summon the giant, but slow and poor-sighted frost dragon Irenia to help on three occasions.
THE COLD PLAINS
Just outside of Hatthevar sprawls a desert-like cold plateau, where treacherous dunes shift to swallow you whole and the bestial forces of the Brotherhood’s most capable undead general, Rathakku, hide in wait. Hard-shelled, slippery and sleek his creatures lie buried and thrust up their arm-rows of hundreds of blades that cut into the legs of passers-by, drawing them into sand.
THE UNDERPASS
A series of subterranean tunnels connects Hatthevar with the cold sand outposts. Scour the myriad of dusty, tunnels and purge it of large scorpion-human hybrids that carry multiple weapons and whose sting leave men hallucinating. Oversized serpents abound, their venom prone to paralyzing their prey. You can make or procure antidote potions from Hathevar. Matthias’ ghostly titans are closing off all tunnel entrances to Hatthevar — don’t end up sealed in on the wrong side.
! Collectively, the party must kill at least one frost wyrm, one scorpion/serpent and one sand lurker to keep all three levels safe. Turn in your threads before 28 January… or let the citadel suffer in part II.
EXECUTION
Assigned: Five, Lockwood, Mo Ran, Vanessa, Yelena, Wen Kexing, Zhou Zishu
Your objective is to locate Matthias and secure the beacons that are currently in heavy use. Securing one or more beacons will help you get home.
- ■ Your best bet for intelligence are the treacherous networks of underground memory thieves and slavers, who attempt to steal your freedom or your recollections.
■ Your next option is the gang of Erkul, who ruled over local oracles and Hatthevar whole before Matthias’ arrival. Coarse, slippery but cunning, Erkul sullenly nurses his weight in wine at the gilded Sanctuary, Hatthevar’s foremost gambling den. Street sources say the establishment’s passcode each day this month is a fruit name. Erkul’s crew sell highly potent opiates.
■ Ransack some Whispering houses for information, equipment, poison or arsenal. Small, dusty, cluttered and often creaking, Whispering houses hold a wealth of dangerous artefacts, from haunting poltergeists you might accidentally release by reading out their names from tomes to flying rope that throttles you. Large dread hounds instil blood-curdling fear in anyone who looks into their eyes.
■ The five beacons of Hatthevar are only briefly active each day as Matthias makes his summons. They are guarded by swarms of colossal leonine-shadow creatures that only attack if they feel any fear in your soul (of it, or anything else), pouncing to claw and shred you apart. To claim a beacon, Karsa may provide a cold, coal-like token that must be placed in the middle of the transport dais, within inevitable sight of the shadow lions. You must wait 15 minutes in place for the token to take root. Report your conquest before 28 January!
■ Every six hours, Matthias sends ravens to check on the shadow-lions. You must either trick them, leave the lions alive or capture the ravens.
CARE
Assigned: Allison, Eda, Hermione, Kamala, Lan Sizhui, Sanji, Winnie
Carer’s have the lion’s share of all duties — and the party’s few lingering resources. You must look after the group and the ghosts of Hatthevar: meandering, disoriented and fragile, the spirits who were freshly wrenched from death’s snare become easy prey for the Undead Brotherhood, the elements and the ghost slavers. Rescuing or attending vulnerable spirits can gain you allies.
- ■ comfort ghosts who recover from revival or struggle with their memories. Many are stranded in the Whispering houses or chained into servitude in the gambling dens.
■ rescue spirits from the immense slaver clan of Ras’Kalur, which tricks newly summoned, dazed spirits in the bazaars to sign away their freedom, promising someone to look after them. Ras’Kalur’s people often raid streets and shelters, forcibly dragging spirits back into their camps at the outskirts of Hatthevar.
■ barter to rent or buy abandoned taverns to give the party a resting space during their stay in Hatthevar. You may need to pay locals in favours, from helping them carry out petty acts of revenge to making up with a grudge-bearing wife or paying penance to their ancestors.
■ heal, cook and provide for combatants on the walls, taking care not to fall in the crossfire or frost wyrms or of allied but negligent 12-feet ghostly titans.
■ as the least suspicious party members, negotiate for information or supplies on behalf of the group: make friends with gambling den owners and the two-bit shady crooks who know their daily passcodes to enter, or with the regulars of the Whispering houses.
INVESTIGATION
Assigned: Ben Hargreeves, Benedict, Caitlyn, Cal Kestis, Jon Snow, Merrin, Nami, Rin, River Song, Wei Wuxian, Wen Qing
- ■ You know from Matthias that, as a result of his beacon summons, the spirit of his daughter Cosette appears every fifth day in Hatthevar for a few hours at midday. Despite this, a young girl matching Matthias’ description (5-6 years of age, green-blue eyes, blonde, prone to laughter) is never seen. Matthias alerts you whenever Cosette appears.
■ Day of first appearance: Matthias feels her presence in the bazaar, where the day’s main attraction is a puppet show that draws a heavy crowd. At midday, a chime sounds, and the puppet show performs the sad story of a daughter quarrelling with her father over his absences. The daughter-puppet flees into the woods, while the puppet-father refuses to reconcile and follow her. The girl is killed by animals, and the puppet-father grieves, heartbroken. All the women or girls in the crowd, including you, find they burst into tears.
■ Day of the second appearance: Matthias senses Cosette is in the alley of Whispering Houses. You notice the typical bustle of the alley and shady movements, as discreet, embarrassed, or desperate patrons scuttle. You see no small girls but hear of three trades that took place at the Whispering Houses, carried out by different women: one bought a memory, one sold one, one had a memory replaced. Pay for a memory trade to learn more.
■ Day of the third appearance: Matthias feels Cosette near the Oracle Hall. The hour passes by the time you climb the stairs and are received. The Oracle confirms only one person has visited — a blonde woman — and says to “tell your master that an hourglass keeps track of new time, but can’t give the old one back.”
You get three clue questions/character and should communicate with fellow investigators. Please share key findings by network before 25 January!
EXPLORATION
Assigned: America Chavez, Buggy, Connor, Elayne Trakand, Lan Wangji, Licyn, Red, Wen Ning
The river Liu neatly divides Hatthevar, its clean waters progressively darkening towards the edges of the citadel, where they pour into a vast, serene and heavily misted lagoon. Veterans sense an eerie chill from the familiar dark waters that so often accompany the undead.
Like Matthias, Karsa says a strange power sleeps at the heart of the lagoon.
- ■ travel by raft with a companion through the lethargy-inducing fog, as tar-like people peer up from the waters or swim below, never quite attacking you unless you fall into water. They (and the currents) try to upturn your boat.
■ Scattered lit candles drift on water as you advance. Pick one up, and you find one of the floating creatures of Hatthevar has joined your raft, carrying a rope-chain. It says it and its kind are former oracles and truth-speakers of the citadel — and urges you to speak, pledging to kill the first person who lies before you leave water.
■ Farther out, you discover four half-sunken ships that have crashed into each other over time, their decks now forming a rocky square-like structure. You can carefully navigate your raft to reach this construct, or make your way by hopping onto floating deck parts and the debris of other rafts.
■ Once aboard the square structure, you find all the decks are heavily rotten, creaking and prone to collapse. You hear a maddening, shrill scream that steals control of your now convulsing body, until you find yourself driven closer and closer to the end of a plank or a deck hole against your wishes — unless you are physically detained until the shrieking ends.Sharp-toothed mermaids swim below.
■ Reach and explore the curious ships’ graveyard, to peer into the black well in the middle of the square infrastructure.
NPC INBOX
exploration ► the rafts, the currents
( Was it a living hand that chose the candle, or the violent fist of a wave’s current that slipped it on their raft?
No matter. The deed is done, the candle lights their path. And two travellers, curled into their oars, become three.
The wood of the raft strains, rot-washed skins of each log peeling away. They tolerated two passengers like a stepmother survives the impertinent existence of her husband’s first children. Three travellers test the raft’s strength and patience.
The next wave yanks and jolts them, tar hands peering up over the logs. Their floating… guest strikes first, swinging its rope like a whip. The tar assailant slips back into the depths.
Then, the flying creature makes its expectations known. Speak the truth, only the truth, until land lies within reach. Lan Wangji, who has not broken with sincerity since the precepts were plain enough for an infant’s mind to grasp, sees the danger, instantly — not to himself, but to his companion. The suffocating, primitive fear that compels other men to lie.
He pivots on his feet, blade pointed as if he might And hesitantly: ) If I attempt against it, the raft may overturn.
( But he will do it, if his companion prefers it over the wretchedness of the game. )
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( Glare in place at the tar creature, America punches her fist into her other hand, and doesn't even look at Lan Wangji. )
I can take care of it, then. If you take the other side so we don't tip over.
If it leaves us alone, though. ( America shrugs as her eyes finally venture to Lan Wangji. ) Maybe it's safer if we don't. I don't want to end up in the water.
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( The waters, dark, beasts roiling beneath. Perhaps not as physically contorted as the prince of Netvor, but alien to the natural gentleness of most living men, all the same.
He does not question America's pronouncement — only nods faintly, one hand staying resolute on the hilt of his sword as the other plunges in the waters. The sooner they advance, the better. )
We cannot opt for silence. ( He sounds out, only for the creature's nods to come, a foregone conclusion. He had anticipated the cure of such a curse would not come, simple.
But then, there are many ways to skin a cat, for all Lan Wangji does not encourage animal cruelty. )
We have not been urged not to dally. ( ...in other words, speak the truth, at length. ) Understood?
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[ She opens her mouth to say she understands, but it's not that simple, is it. ]
I understand we can't lie, can't sit here in silence, and we probably want to get across as carefully, but as quickly as possible. That's what I understand.
[ Her eyes drift to water as she speaks. She can hear things move around from time to time, some uncomfortable splashing. They really don't want to fall in, especially. ]
Should we...I don't know, play a question game?
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( Never simple. Never plain. He watches the girl transact the costs and benefits of playing the game as it must be done to survive their travel, and he does not encourage her, nor does he intercede.
The floating creature believes they will fail. So openly, so clearly, that it does not even trouble itself with assault — only watches and waits and tinkers with water, even sparing them the violence of the men beneath the seas by assaulting them first. )
I do not know the rules. ( But it seems straightforward enough, he imagines. ) Name them.
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( America gives Lan Wangji wide eyes and shakes her head a little. ) I don't really know the names of those games. I've never really played them.
But you ask each other questions, like, where are you from? ( America points to herself. ) I keep saying I'm from where Kamala is, but that's not my original home. I'm originally from a dimension called the Utopia Parallel.
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( He listens, lets the instructions hang clear and taut between them. This, he understands: a game of indiscretions, of misplaced, unwanted confessions. Something the precepts would no doubt reject.
Yet, what option? The raft carries drifting on, the floating creature deceptively still. They both know better. )
Parallel... to what? ( No. Softer: ) The world of Kamala?
( If the girl is her anchor, her reference point. Does she... stalk Kamala, then? Pursue her, as a savage, beastly hunter or an immodest suitor? )
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And yeah. I ended up getting chased into that world. Ran into Doctor Strange there. Apparently Kamala lives there, too. We're gonna try to meet up when we get back. ( She seems to burst with renewed glee as she talks about this. It's one of the things she's looking forward to. )
( In theory, Lan Wangji could just ask America those concerns, and she can't lie, right now. )
What about you? Where are you from?
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Gusu Lan. Cloud Recesses.
( There. A snapped, plain, uncouth answer, lacking in subtlety or nuance. He suspects the girl will not begrudge him as much as does the creature that studies them with impatient, toothy hunger.
It is true, he wishes said with a peering brow, but does not speak the words. All that the floating beast had mandated, after all, was honesty — but it appears to take some degree of issue with silence, also.
He plunges the oar deeper into the waters, navigating the distance. )
Chased. Why?
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That's a place I've never heard of. I need to start traveling with my powers more.
( Lan Wangji asks that question and America squirms. Well, lying is a bad idea right now, and she's never lied about the situation before, she just doesn't talk about it, much. )
I was being chased for my powers.
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Your abilities. ( A minute frown, inconsequential. Then, weighted: ) Which equal those of Five.
( Marginally, to an extent. At least from what Lan Wangji has been questionably fortunate enough to both witness and experience.
There is a moment when the creature pins him with a long gaze, and Lan Wangji first looks back as if to question why the beastly thing takes any manner of issue with truth — only to understand, placidly, that it judges him. The incredulity of his questions.
...ah. To be so petty and straightforwardly disbelieving that even a supernatural entity wishes you tame. )
To what end? Theft or termination?
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( America's eyes widen and rolls her hand as she starts to explain. )
Taking my powers would have killed me. ( She looks down then, quickly looks back Lan Wangji, quickly and manages a strained smile. )
But we took care of the person chasing me, and she shouldn't be an issue anymore. I should be safe, now. ( She looks at the creature and amends herself, quickly. ) As far as I know.
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( Powers. He possesses strength and qi, neither of which are explicitly gifted or external to him, in the way in which Hermione and America seem to materialize their sorcery. Will it be a falsehood, to claim he has no power? To say that he does?
For a moment, the floating creature and he seem to consider one another, daringly. Lan Wangji concedes first, but thrusts the oar in harder, to give the raft a more definitive push. )
My body possesses ability unlike your own. ( There. Most helpful. But then, she speaks of a pursuer — ) Who hunted you?
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That's fair. ( Her jaw clenches at the question, though. It feels a bit like tattling, since Wanda was here at some point, but alas. It is what it is. )
The Scarlet Witch. ( Not a lie, but not giving away Wanda as she was known here, someone who wanted only to protect her brother. )
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( ...the Scarlet Witch. Some part of him, distant and fraught, remembers the name. Once upon a time, whispered beyond him, unintended for his ears —
He recalls something. What was it, now? Who...?
And he murmurs, eyes bright-white and feverish: ) What... was her name?
( He has known, somehow, this witch. It was not the one of Netvor, not they of Yancai or Taravast, but... ? )
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Wanda. Did you know her, then?
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A woman who needed a gentle hand. Blinking long and bright and slowed, he feels like every moth that's come so close to the flame, his wings will catch fire.
Shudders. )
She was kind.
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His mouth hangs wide, stiff, open. Unbecomingly so. He chances a glance away. )
Apologies.
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Everything ended okay. I'm alive. And she just wanted peace with me when I met her here. I thought that was good.