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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
LORNA, WRENCH AND MARCOS
Come nightfall around 30 January, our three good friends might be independently minding their own business in the lighthouse gardens or on the lower floors, when they find themselves… enthralled by a siren’s call.
Compelled, they walk the coastline to where they see a single, beautiful mermaid singing as she lies perched on a rock. She is addressing the sea, rather than the lighthouse, making Lorna, Wrench and Marcos involuntary ‘casualties’ of her music. A keen eye might spot her flesh is littered with scars bearing the marks of an eye with the sun as a pupil. The hooligans can spot other mermaids answering their leader’s call, all looking notably exhausted after a day of violently circling the lighthouse and keeping intruders at bay.
The trio should hide behind rocks and coast fixtures to avoid detection, or face the mermaids’ wrath for snooping. As the sirens rise to the surface, largely sprawling on rocks and the coast-side, anyone in the Wrench, Lorna and Marcos group who has ventured close enough to the creatures can spot they are in an ugly state of battering, their skin littered with many healed wounds, often missing teeth, claws, scales or even chunks of their fins.
The younger mermaids seem enthralled with the lighthouse, physically fighting their elders to reach the coast before being wrenched back. The leading mermaid addresses them in a chirpy, slick tongue that communicators cannot translate. It resembles the dulcet cooing of a bat. Gradually, some exhausted sirens assemble in groups to patrol the sea stretch between Ellethia-Hamsour and Ellethia-Allayar. They are visibly less dangerous now than during daylight. The trio can see some dead mermaids among them, hollow-eyed and drifting, but working alongside their living siblings.
The younger mermaids are meanwhile directed towards the narrow entrance to a cenote cave near the lighthouse. They will sleep in this cave pool all night. The area can be infiltrated, but is under the watchful eye of the leading mermaid.
plotting!
These are my own thoughts for more visible plotting, so opinions welcome. :>
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... yeah, that's all I got.
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should the network post be a joint effort?
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But three votes for exploring the cave, we've got this.
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Marcos can make bright lights/signals or shoot off rocks and things with his laser hands, but if they are blind they wouldn't see the light probably, and exploding rocks could compromise the cave and wake the sleeping mermaids. This is what I'm working with...
I'll have more thoughts later I'm sure, just brainstorming!
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Otherwise, his distraction skills boil down to screaming "Hey, asshole, over here!" and then running / swimming away as fast as possible. ... though, hm. He might have one (or more, depending? mods, what say you?) of the water serpents in pokeballs from the coup, because he took one for himself but never used it. That might be something they could use?
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I feel like this plan might be network post dependent. We can throw that out there and see if we get any advice, and backup plan is... I want to say maybe it was for one to be a distraction and two to go in, but the one distraction caused a bigger problem and another has to go help while the third runs in?? That could be a thing that happens. Pokeballs would obvs be very helpful!
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Seriously, though, I'd be down for a network post.
follow up! Re: LORNA, WRENCH AND MARCOS
Our Phone a Friend option has come up with something for getting in the cave. Slick has offered up mirror baits for the guarding mermaid, Anduin offered to possibly dispel the siren call as needed, and Wei Wuxian/possibly Akira volunteered to help distract them while they go in. They'll keep some bait on hand as they enter the cave just in case they need it/etc. However that comes out in the wash!
Otherwise they will just... be very... quiet.
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I can size down the reveals, if you want, and give you that? Apologies, not sure how to make things work otherwise...
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If they enter the cave, Wrench/Lorna/Marcos can find large groups of the mermaids congregated for rest. Assuming they're suitably quiet, they can see that the sirens are fairly battered, showing scratches, wounds and signs of repeat battery. Some of them have fallen asleep clutching some of the glass that good Zenobius feeds them — as if it is a great treasure to them. The mermaids stir now and then, and seem to groggily feel the need to go out and gravitate around the tower — their sisters stop them.
If they spend long enough within the cave, they can also see a dying mermaid, who passes away, then nearly instantly revives wild-eyed and haunted. Her sisters woo her back to peace and something like ease, when she seems to want to burst out of the cave to do rounds around the lighthouse.