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)
westwhere2024-02-03 06:09 pm
groundrules) wrote in westwhere2024-02-03 06:09 pm
Entry tags:
- arcane: caitlyn,
- blade of the immortal: asano rin,
- 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,
- penny dreadful: vanessa ives,
- umbrella academy: ben,
- umbrella academy: five,
- warcraft: anduin wrynn,
- warcraft: wrathion,
- wheel of time: elayne trakand
bygones be bygones
Welcome to the finale log event, stretching until 22 February. You can find a summary of recent events here. The finale log is broken in four sections:
- ■ Anurr’s attempt to enter Hatthevar by corrupting party members
■ The citadel’s increasing hauntings and abductions (largely CR-building scenarios)
■ Investigating a ghost ship, for final clues
■ The fall of undead creator Matthias
Thank you for being here & enjoy!
WALLS, WAILING
The tide of war are turning: his scorpions and sand lurkers defeated by Emilia, Wrath and Benedict, the undead Brotherhood’s foremost general, Rathakku, pulls back his armies. A handful of monstrous creatures remain and will grudgingly serve the trio as their new masters.
Wind master Anurr, foe of the Brotherhood and its maker Matthias, continues assaulting the citadel with ceaseless blizzards. Those exposed to the storms may hear dark or saccharine voices that corrupt, threaten or woo them to open one of the four (north/west/south/east) gates of the citadel and allow Anurr’s forces inside.
- ■ Those prone to loneliness, despair or self-doubt are the most vulnerable to Anurr’s coercion and can easily turn aggressive, if anyone attempts to prevent them from their goal. A burning need to free the winds and a hatred of Hatthevar overwhelm you, while Matthias’ very name sets you off in a rage.
■ Those coerced are invulnerable to Anurr’s blizzards and the broader cold but highly susceptible to heat and flame. Their skin turns pale, limbs stiff and nearly gelid. They are slower but much stronger, and their touch can chill. They must be warmed — either by fire-side or trapped into heated rooms — to regain control of themselves. It may take up to 48 hours before they’re fully back to normal, waking up at night with a longing to walk into the wind.
■ The gates of Hatthevar remain guarded by enormous man-eating ghosts, but these sentinels have been worn down by war and are more easily overcome. Pass them and your companions and open the gates — and you will win Anurr a healthy advantage.
A HAUNTED PLACE
Two of Matthias’ beacons have been conquered by Vanessa, Wrathion and Five, who retain them as long as they stay along. Inevitably, they are often hunted by spirits.
Not realizing why his summons have weakened, Matthias directs more and more energy towards the three beacons under his control. The turbulence agitates the spirits of Hatthevar, who become secretive, paranoid, prickly and increasingly riotous.
■ Some scatter quickly as they see you — others gang up, mutinously targeting ghost slavers or anyone who reminds them of those who wronged them when they were alive. Hauntings multiply, while ghost slavers take advantage of the riots to conquer parts of Hatthevar.
PART & WHOLE
Combative crowds, often led by ghost slavers, are especially drawn to characters who own any of Matthias’ limbs or organs. Promised rewards, they seek to abduct such owners or anyone unlucky enough to be mistaken for them, dragging them to decrepit, barely standing and abandoned Whispering Houses while they barter payment from Matthias.
- ■ Ghosts are fiercely attentive but also superstitious watchmen: spook them, organise a rescue party or sneak out.
■ Watching the walls, you see ink brush paintings of the silhouettes of men, their beady eyes sometimes shifting to look at you. At other times, their limbs seem to shift minutely, as they begin to run towards you, until shadow men burst out of the wall to detain you. They pull back, if you also stop moving.
■ Those who possess Matthias’ parts may find ghosts are unusually submissive to them. Their tokens will likely get seized, if they are captured.
TROUBLED
Hatthevar succumbs to hauntings, friendly or foul. On any given day, you might experience:
- ■ THE BURIALS: Come morning, your shoes might be missing, buried in the nearest dirt patch — or you yourself might be entombed in the gardens, forced to dig yourself out before you suffocate. The crystalline sound of chiming bells can lead rescuers to you. Ghostly hands might try to hold onto you, if you are dragged out.
■ THE FACELESS: Lithe faceless dancers dart through the crowds of the ghostly bazaars, carrying demonic wooden masks that they place on the faces of stunned passers-by, fleeing thereafter. The victims now look like the demonic masks, while the masks have copied their likeness. If this happens to you, run after the faceless dancers, steal the mask and put it back on your face to recover your original appearance.
■ THE WATCH: Walking through the streets of Hatthevar, you find yourself visibly, unmistakably watched by an increasing number of people. First, they only steal glances; then, one or two point you out; small groups begin to whisper about you; finally, you notice whole crowds are standing eerily still, watching you covetously and seemingly struggling to keep themselves back from assaulting you.
MASTER GAO’S HUMBLE HOUSE
Least said, soonest enjoyed of Hatthevar’s new fashion of culinary delights. Amid a pick-up in crime, the street food vendors disperse, leaving behind a smattering of secluded establishments drenched in dizzying incense and patroned by… ethereal diners.
Master Gao’s family restaurant promises a once-in-a-lifetime experience, amid ghosts, ghouls and the monstrously dead. Take a seat at a private table, where you are treated to a pleasantly sweet, liquorice brew — then informed politely that you have been lethally poisoned and will die within two hours. Already, you feel your body feverish, overly stimulated, your thoughts given to wonder.
Focus, focus: the antidote, says the listless waitress, is in one of the numerous incoming dishes. A game to focus you on enjoying your meal. Even one bite will heal you.
THE MENU
Still on the fence? Reviewers say:
- ★★★★☆ Came for the bao buns, stayed for the screams of endless agony.
★★★★★ most places on lotus street went to the hell dogs, master’s gao stays lit, the demon bacon’s sizzle drizzle
★★☆☆☆ Two stars for the incredible heart of virgin sacrifice, cooked al dente. But this will be our last visit, after unprofessional staff treated us as if we were at our first cannibal rites.
★★★★☆ Hand-made blood pasta, rolled like grandma used to make.
THE HEADLESS DANCER
Five and Wen Kexing share that word on the street is Matthias has favoured two hideaways. The most widely known one, where you are headed first, is the Headless Dancer: a ghost ship that appears on nights of the full moon in the misty lagoon near Hatthevar. Half-sunken and ragged, the Headless Dancer appears like a conglomerate of titans’ bones, carved and welded together. It is a proper sea vessel, atypical to sail through a lagoon.
Your objective is to search the ship for any sign of Matthias.
- ■ As the vessel passes, you hear a staggered, loud rattling: the chattering teeth of the skull heads that shape the ship’s hull. These hungry mouths reach to crush and gnaw you, if you fall in the waters close to the ship.
■ A pirate crew is hard at work to keep the vessel afloat. At first, the men appear normal, but their skeletal, corpse-like appearance is revealed when they come under moonlight.
■ Many crew members ignore you, chained to each other and the deck and condemned to perform their tasks while singing their ol’ song. Only the captain speaks liberally: cursing, whipping his men and carrying a bundle of chains as he makes his rounds. Hide — at times helped or betrayed by crew members — or risk getting chained down by the captain, your powers entirely muted until you are released.
■ Midway through your visit, the ship sails back into the fog, beneath a strange wave of clouds shaped like enormous fish and sea life . Spears and chains that resemble fish spines plunge down to pin the ship in place: they fly across the deck, at times skewering and stabbing crew members. Take cover or jump overboard.
■ After a few moments, the spear-chains latch onto the vessel’s sides, turning it over and submerging into the lagoon. Instead of sinking, the Headless Dancer breaks water, once again upright… in strange new sides (the ‘Other Side’) in the middle of an intensely violent storm of blood. The previously skeletal crew and captain are now fully human and are struggling desperately to keep the ship from sinking, despite furious winds and the vessel taking substantial amounts of water. You understand quickly this is an illusion or memory of some kind: there is no saving the ship. Spend the last few minutes before the Headless Dancer sinks trying to stay afloat and search the captain and main passengers’ cabin for clues. Within 20 minutes, you hear the mast of the Headless Dancer give way, while the rapidly flooding of the hull causes the ship to break in half. You fall unconscious, waking up battered but alive in the real-world shores of Hatthevar, the splinters of the Headless Dancer’s deck stuck beneath your nails.
HE BLEEDS
Following our latest vote, the People have overwhelmingly chosen that undead creator Matthias will die.
Carrying out the plan is open to everyone, whether you did or didn’t get involved with the voting — jump in freely!
Matthias will be discovered in the second lair location uncovered by Five and Wen Kexing — the Whispering House of Hatthevar’s foremost wish maker, the Red Lady. He dwells on the first floor, which has been turned into an immense room decked in dark mirrors, whose windows have been entirely barricaded.
There are two types of mirrors: some show you exactly what you most wish to see, progressively captivating you while rapidly depleting your stamina and vitality, until you are reduced to dried husks and bones within the hour.
Looking into the second type of mirror, your character sees a person of tar that reaches out to touch them until their hand exits the glass. Upon contact, your character is overcome by a feeling of intense, spreading coldness, as if their insides are being infested by a rapidly propagating alien creature. They may feel its highly primitive, emotion-led thoughts: a jumble of jealousy, the wish to have a shape and manifest, hatred that your body is not malleable, fear, hunger. The creature takes your body over within the hour.
You can escape both types of mirrors if you cover them, do not look into them, or if someone breaks the thrall (by taking your attention away from the mirror or by physically removing you).
Matthias is often away from his hideaway, giving you valuable time to plot and tinker.
Killing him will involve:
- ■ Scouting the Whispering House. The Red Lady, a powerful sorceress, is unlikely to allow intruders to go where they please inside her home. But the ‘I’m just a poor wish maker, looking for the bathroom’ excuse is a time honoured classic!
■ Using Matthias’ severed limbs and organs to reduce his power: this can be done by destroying the parts. Fire will do the trick.
■ Setting down traps (tentacly or otherwise!) in Matthias’ quarters to detain him.
■ Creating an illusion or shapeshifting someone to look like Matthias’ daughter Cosette and distract him, when he returns.
■ Feeding Matthias a memory potion that will force him to remember his part in Cosette’s demise.
■ Killing him. Per RNG gods, Emilia gets the dubious honour of delivering the killing blow (most likely, with help from a special tool obtained from the Headless Dancer). Everyone else is still free to char, sting, entrap or force feed memories to Matthias!
Since several people might get involved, it’s probably logistically easier if you play out prep work or threads in groups of no more than 2-3 and assume other party members are around.
You can either NPC Matthias yourselves in your threads or ask for mod involvement.
Note: everyone who threads out any of the events of Matthias’ capture or demise can “inherit” some of his power over undeath once he is killed. Your character will then have to choose what they do with this power (keep, transfer or disperse it).
no subject
Diego will definitely come up with something good, too. Good idea. [ Definitely recruit Diego. ]
[ Ben laughs. ] I don't know, might just mean he never got stuck here. That's a good thing, right? [ Yeah, Ben sounds unsure. A family reunion would have been nice, but Ben wouldn't wish his other siblings here, all the same. ]
Then, I'm wishing the same. I hope things can be different, too.
no subject
As long as he's looked for his siblings, he's been very aware that any number of things could have happened to them here. He's seen them die too many times to be optimistic, but he tries, for Ben's sake. ]
That's a big might, but he does have a way of sticking out. Someone would be talking. [ Sure, they're dealing with the threat of the undead, but a giant ape man ripping through town has to make an impression. ]
I never was very good at keeping you all together. That's karma for you.
no subject
[ And Ben, well, he spent a long time stuck with Klaus, it's hard not to be pessimistic, and hard not to be optimistic in the same breath. That's how life with him felt - looking for the best in the worst, and accepting the fact things can get worse, while acknowledging the actual situation and highlighting for the druggie who is pretending it's not happening. ]
Giant might. [ Ben restructures for Five with a bright grin at the puns. ]
[ Ben half laughs, half huffs out to that remark. ] I don't think it should ever be on any one person to do that. It has to be something we all want to do, and all put in part for, you know? Sticking together, together. That was always the key.
no subject
That never seemed to happen until it finally got through their thick skulls that we were all going to die if they didn't. Until they had proof, they'd just look at me like I was crazy and go back to their lives like the world wasn't ending.
[ Their stellar track record of dying makes him more pessimistic about how the rest of them faired out here. It's the not knowing that drives him crazy. ]
I have to hand it to Allison. She's the first one who seems to have learned something.
no subject
[ There's a morbid laugh. ] That's just how they are. How we all kind of were, though. It's easier to keep ignoring what you don't think you can affect, or what you wish wasn't happening. Klaus just took it to a grander scale.
[ Dying is easy, apparently. It's the sticking together part that was always harder for the Hargreeves family. ]
She usually figures things out faster. [ Ben smiles softly. ] At least, I felt like she was usually more aware than the rest of us.
no subject
Probably a good reason this isn't a good place for him to be. [ As useful as Klaus would be, he'd be just as likely to relapse to deal with all the dead who aren't so incorporeal to ignore any more. ]
Allison might have had more motivation. Before, when she thought she had her daughter waiting for her. Things are different now, but she's stuck around this long, there isn't a choice otherwise.
[ Ben too. They aren't here because of their faith in him as much as a lack of options. He frowns a bit, then clenches his fist and watches as blue light sputters back to life. ]
...I think I can get us back. Maybe not to base, but if we're lucky, close enough to miss the excitement.
no subject
You're right, very right about that. [ Good thing Ben doesn't miss Klaus, not at all, not even a tiny bit. ( Okay, maybe a little. ) ]
[ Except, Ben is on a roof because of his faith in Five. He has options, and Ben would gladly show Five what those are, but...returning home, yes, Ben isn't sure he even has options there. Go back and be dead? There are so many questions and uncertainties. ]
You mean before one of the apocalypses?
no subject
Instead of transporting them, he deflates and lets his arms drop. ]
I don't know. If we survive this, there might be another one waiting on us.
no subject
[ Ben closes his eyes, sighs, opens his eyes with a frown then admits: ] I'm not surprised to hear that.
[ They attract apocalypses. He has to smile. ] We're just going to have to figure that out, too. And...it'll probably lead to another.
no subject
And yet, he can't fault Ben of much. Maybe this is his way of feeling involved, or trying to make that not seem like the worst fate imaginable. ]
What is it about our family? [ They've met more powerful people, seemingly, since arriving here. Yet how many of them have been nearly as destructive? ] You'd think seven people couldn't be capable of ending the world this many times. At this point, it feels like the universe is punishing us for daring to exist.
no subject
[ What is it about their family, indeed? All seven of them are chaotic, no argument there, but they are in different ways, and are fairly different people. However, they have one thing in common, aside from their birthdays. ]
Not that we aren't seven walking disasters.... [ Ben smirks as he says that, then laughs. ] But you know, maybe that's not on us. Maybe it all goes back to Dad?
no subject
You have to wonder if this is what he wanted.
no subject
[ Ben frowns, because Five does bring up another good point. ] Yeah, I haven't heard of any other people like us with super powers. You think we would have. But no, it's just us.
no subject
I always assumed we were the only ones Dad could buy, but apparently that's not the case. [ He shrugs, it's a strange time to be theorizing about Reginald of all things. ] There's probably a lot about him that we'll never find out.
no subject
There's a lot of things we'll probably never figure out or know. Like...why were born on the same day, the way we were? Why do we have powers? How? Wouldn't even know who to ask, or where to start asking.
[ Which might be why they never did, and sort of accepted who they were and kept going. ]
no subject
It's a shame he didn't spend more time picking his brain in the '60s. Damn impending apocalypses tend to get in the way. ]
We're special. Who else could survive a never-ending hoard of zombies and all the other shit we've faced here? We've cheated death more than anyone alive. [ Although Ben probably wins that one, for how long he was dead. ...Never mind that thinking he's special is the same thing that led Five to carry around a curse for years, thinking he was strong enough to ignore it while it drove him insane. He sniffs and rubs at his face. ] Maybe we just have to be satisfied with that.
Are you ready to go?
no subject
[ He studies Five for a moment, expression grim and serious, then he just laughs. ]
I can't argue any of that. Special. And we're just gonna have to be good with not knowing how or why. [ He nods his head. ] We did it for so long anyway. I can keep doing it.
Let's go.