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lostcompass2022-01-18 07:42 pm
groundrules) wrote in lostcompass2022-01-18 07:42 pm
Entry tags:
the lighthouse & plot rolls
Did someone say to… turn off the lights? Brace to explore Ellethia’s ghostly lighthouse — and help with a freshly baked plot roll. The below should tide us until 6 February.
If you’ve received a plot roll and want to rally the troops for assistance, feel free to top level for your search here, or do your own lostcompass post, hunt down a carrier pigeon… Note: Ellethia is surprisingly fertile ground for plot opportunities, and there is "spare plot" for about four more character. If you missed the 'deadline' to ask for a roll but still want one, drop a line in one of the subsections! But don't feel pressured: the people who have received a plot roll will need a lot of support, and there're plenty of ways to get involved with their roll. Allocated, thank you!
Crawling, clandestine or crumbling, you’ve made your way to the mist-drenched lighthouse of Ellethia-Hamsour — a gargantuan, converted tower that regularly flashes an eerie green light signal. Those who know MORSE code can recognise a strange mix of BEWARE, STAY AWAY, DANGER — and COME THIS WAY.
The compulsion to possess the lighthouse disappears when characters come in a 3km radius of it. In the tower surroundings, they can find sweet water wells, vegetable gardens, chicken coops and sheep, all seemingly well looked after and self-replenishing overnight. These plants and creatures are not subject to Ellethia’s life-death-rebirth cycles. Characters who stay within the aforementioned 3km range of the lighthouse can now safely remove their haute couture red gear, Enam reveals. He urges the party to reside at the lighthouse for the next three weeks, at the end of which one of the Merchant’s ships will collect them to travel east.
Characters can journey back and forth to Ellethia-Allayar over this period.
The tower spreads over 12 floors, featuring exceptionally high and vast rooms with emptied bookcases, sturdy tables, and scatterings of technological tools on the ground. On the walls, mindful visitors can spot discreet engravings of an eye with a sun instead of a pupil. A room on the ground and first floor each have cracked signs, spelling out IN TI T OF TE N LO and IBRAR O AR S, respectively. The 8th and 9th floor house well-used sleeping quarters, with bathing rooms located on the 6th floor. The 10th floor is all one large room, barren except for the wealth of very thin, crushed shards of various mirror types. The 5th floor hosts several long, ornate discussion tables — at night, those who travel it can hear ghostly whispers of vitriolic conversation, with speakers insulting each other and their impudence.
Those who spend time in the 1st to 4th floor past midnight will sometimes hear screams urging everyone to retreat, as “they come from above.” Sometimes, the long staircases will grow wet overnight with blood and decay, which disappear come morning. Across the various floors, the nightly ‘soundtrack’ includes panicked shouts, glass smashing, feral screams similar to those of the undead and running steps.
The lighthouse keeper Zenobius takes little notice of his visitors, allowing them to make their quarters where they please and partake of his resources. Enam’s helpers supply Kaneki some lugged-around stale dead meat, or he can fish undead mermaids. Using a fluffy sheep as bait is always recommended.
Zenobius is often found on the 12th level, absentmindedly using mirrors, lantern lights and glass panes to flash MORSE indications. He is often rushed, distracted and unwilling to converse. Sometimes, he appears to forget the people he has already encountered; on other occasions, his own name eludes him.
Swarms of mermaids encircle the coastal area close to the lighthouse, furious, feral and trashing to crawl onto shore. Every few days, Zenobius brings broken glass pieces from the 12th floor and throws them in the water, briefly appeasing the creatures before their fury stokes once more.
Every day, Zenobius spends several hours on the 11th floor, whose main entrance is sternly locked and enchanted. Characters can still climb to the 12th floor — where Zenobius sleeps — without entering the 11th floor hallways. To the right of the 11th floor main hallway door is a mechanical device that requires a palm print, which Zenobius seems uses for entry. On the door, a sign asks, WHAT DO YOU WISH FOR? Scratched beneath it, possibly by human nails, TURN BACK. For each time they want to enter the 11th floor halls, characters must speak a different wish and face the consequences.
Inside the room sleep 10 men and women of various ages, seemingly comatose on stone slates. Some show signs of scratches or healed bite injury. Depending on the hour of entry, you might find Zenobius sponge washing their bodies, combing their hair, mending their clothes or massaging their limbs.
The Sleepers live.
PLOT ROLLS
- ■ Lily, Joker and Anduin
■ Five and Daenerys
■ Yennefer, Eleven and Moiraine
■ Lorna, Wrench and Marcos
■ Zuko and Slick
■ John Connor and Kaneki
■ Hermione and Jon Snow
LILY, JOKER AND ANDUIN
One fine morning around 20 January, dear Zenobius enthusiastically — for a man so rickety, his joints squeaking — rushes up the lighthouse to the 12th floor. Perhaps Lily, Joker and Anduin are already there, enjoying the view, or they’re lured in by the bustle, or called over by Zenobius.
Regardless of how they join, they see Zenobius abuzz, neglecting his audience to flash the lighthouse signals. Using the lighthouse telescopes, the trio can see a large commercial ship at distance, caught in a storm. It is turning towards the lighthouse, after being summoned over, but remains at about an hour’s distance.
The damaged vessel has released smaller rowing boats into the water. These ships have set out for the lighthouse shore.
All is well, until the trio realise that Ellethia’s shoreline is highly mist-enshrouded, preventing visibility in a way that will endanger incomers — and that Zenobius’ light flashes have also attracted the legions of mermaids. The creatures stir, circling the lighthouse coast. Some even depart the region, attentively preparing to receive their prey.
Given the number of mermaids, the state of the incoming ship and the frailty of the small boats, it appears unlikely any arriving refugee will survive.
The previously exhilarated Zenobius suddenly awakens from his manic glee. He is confused at first, then struck, then weeping — unable to speak, and only shaking his head, before quietly retreating down in the lower lighthouse levels.
Never mind him. ‘Luckily,’ small row boats take longer to cross a distance than their XXL-sized ship counterpart, so you have two hours to stop their arrival.
Please pitch a way to make this happen — feel free to recruit others to help! — and you’ll get an outcome for your fine efforts, once you’ve threaded the successful rescue.
...and another outcome if that’s not possible!
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I was THINKING that maybe he could use this to hop across the mermaids/mist to be able to see closer who might be on the boats/how many there are?
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Can you tell me again?
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ALSO possibly this might be better to do with birds than mermaids, considering how MISTY it is, or crossing from mermaids TO birds then maybe to the boats themselves? tl;dr a very complicated way of getting a closer look and get some idea of who these people are/what the state of their boat is, I am presuming the telescopes don't give them this information already.
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The mermaids probably wouldn't get close enough to a large vessel to see all the small boats (they'd wait for the prey to come to them, why bother?), but Anduin's spell target could possibly see at least four row vessels. The passengers look both living and human, some six-eight per boat. There are more boats at a larger distance, but the mermaid wouldn't get close enough for Anduin to receive a reliable tally.
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In this case, he'd be wanting to wrangle a few out of the mist to be very feral looking nuisances to drive the boats back, likewise using them as the forward guard to try and keep the other undead mermaids from having a festive meal right there off the coast. Would this be feasible?
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All that said, I can give you a few. Call it 10 for two hours?
Given you're dealing with a heavy-duty number of mermaids ready to swarm, I'd say your idea to have them going ahead and spooking the incoming boats is probably more cost-effective. If you pit them against their sisters, they'll probably get killed quicker.
You can keep replenishing them up to 10 if they die off during the two-hour interval? But I would say no more than 20 dead mermaids used for this endeavour.
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Now, to ask after other bs that we see once in series: would any fog-clearing talisman(s) have any effect in this situation? I'm talking about the level of what he used before they found the false xuanwu's cave, when he sends the silly thing out floating and suddenly it breaks through the fog/mist and oh, look, there's a cave over there, let's investigate! Reasoning being: to try and again reveal more of what's waiting, to take away surprise elements from the mermaids living or outside of his control, and further spur the people into leaving if they can.
Question further: are they under a similar compulsion where they are out on the water to Get To Lighthouse as what the PCs were feeling in trekking this way?
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— yes, outside of the 3km radius
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And compulsion wise, it'll be hard to dissuade because they're outside of the radius? For having any of the small boat folks experience symptoms similar to what the PCs did outside that radius. Mostly how unwilling will those boats be to turn back even when faced with obvious, aggressive, undead mermaids?
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As with PCs — you feel a compulsion, but it's nothing you absolutely can't resist. Certainly mortal peril would qualify as enough of an incentive to get out of the lighthouse
dodgepremise, once they see the furious mermaids.The reality is, though, that the mermaids are fast, furious and decently intelligent — they'll try to mimic sound and otherwise lure the boat travellers close.
I'd say if they get near enough to the mermaid ranks (and said ranks haven't been thinned by the deadmaids), the boats won't be in for a good time. It's probably easier to try to dispel them at easy. But if your only option is getting to them when they've gotten relatively close to the mermaids — they won't fight you for the privilege of becoming mermaid fodder.
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EDIT: let me rephrase lmao... The lighthouse has a 3km safe zone on all sides it sounds like but is there any point these people would cross on the way in before that where they would hit the decay/rebirth cycle?
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Purple dot = lighthouse
Purple circle = lighthouse 3km radius (safe zone)
Red circle = Ellethia area where life/death cycle continues (this should technically be around the entire coast line, not just the lighthouse area, but it's harder to draw on this laptop pad)
The distance between the purple and red circles should not be that small, this is just indicative.
Green dots = mermaids
Grey line = mist
Brown dots = boats
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THANK YOU though haha, this does answer my question!!!
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If yes: do they REPEL them enough that, say, someone could use them to VERY CAREFULLY traverse a path through the water to get closer to the ship to try and get a warning to it, and potentially some supplies to keep them going depending on bravery levels?
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Another plot roll spells out the full details, but to sum up: basically the mermaids are quieter at night (making it relatively safer to travel then) because they're exhausted after an entire day of guarding the coast, and they're divided between those who sleep and those who don't.
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THE PLAN:
Wei Wuxian and Moiraine will use a fog clearing talisman and weaving to try and clear some of the fog from the shoreline. Then Wei Wuxian will control the mermaids he can from the shore near the lighthouse and use that to steer a boat that contains whatever supplies they could gather (food, drink, repairs for their ship), Lily, Akira, and Allison. The boat will be warded by Lily and Moiraine will use weaving to control the air and water to propel the boat faster through the water.
Moiraine and Anduin will use weaving and Light magic from the shoreline to start blasting mermaids/the water and generally create a distraction to draw the mermaids attention away from the boat.
Akira and Lily will defend the boat from the mermaids while it’s in the water, then once they are close enough that the Amplifying Charm will ensure Allison is heard by the people on the lifeboats, Lily will amplify Allison's voice so that she can rumor them ("I heard a rumor you went back to fix your ship, then sailed back the way you came to look for another place to come to shore"). Akira defends the boat while they do this.
After that’s accomplished Lily will apparate herself, Akira, and Allison back to the lighthouse while Moiraine and Wei Wuxian get the boat of supplies to the people in the lifeboats, and they all hope for the best...
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AFTERMATH
If you don't mind flagging the below to your fellow solution-plot participants:
Distracted, a substantial contingent of the sirens recede from their positions waiting for their takeaway meal, while the lighthouse delegation at sea carries out its work. Most of the supplies make their way to the grateful refugees, who begin repairs at Allison's 'encouragement.' Checks through the lighthouse telescopes can reveal the large vessel soon drifts in the opposite direction — slowly, suggesting whatever damage it sustained has not been sufficiently repaired to allow it to journey on at full speed.
As the large vessel is difficult to entrap and capture, the mermaid do not give chase. Denied their pray, they give out an intolerable, short-lasting, shrill shriek of grief — and try to catch up with those who were at sea (Lily, Akira and Allison). The teleporting spell Lily uses will trump this. However, all three will be especially targeted by mermaids whenever they are in the vicinity of sea water, moving forward. Moiraine and Wei Wuxian will also suffer this, if they were close enough to the shoreline to be visible to the sirens (players' choice on this, as you can argue either way). Sorry, folks. You took their lunch.
At first, master Zenobius appears unable to grasp what has happened, before it strikes him that the danger has been averted, and the vessel has been saved. He attempts to (poorly) explain his reaction, but between his recent fit of anguish and his ongoing state of otherliness and confusion, he finds it easier to illustrate.
Asking the rescue group (or as many of them as will follow him) to the 12th floor, he intensifies the light of the lighthouse and briefly directs it not outwards, but, insufferably, down in the sea. From this height and angle, helped by the light, those who are present can see that, past the shoreline, once the waters deepen > 4m, they are filled with the remains of boat debris and the salt-preserved, tattered bodies of former sailor crews. If you're dubiously lucky and taking advantage of a telescope, you might even recognise one of the handsome dead gentlemen who crawled on your boat, on the way to Ellethia-Hamsour.
All Zenobius says, before redirecting the light outwards again, is, "Couldn't bury them here. Not even a candle to rest them easy."
Please consider sharing this with the class!