lostcompass | march plotting & plot rolls

Entry tags:

march plotting & plot rolls

PLOT & ROLL

Hey guys! Getting the plot show on the road, ahead of the 12-13 March update — some of the big-picture mission objectives available:

■ finding the babe-eating serpent woman mentioned by Taksui

■ looking into the dark well waters

■ finding out the village links to the feral Beastmaster

Beyond that...

There are three mod-assigned plot rolls/objectives available — — comment here by 23:5 GMT on 11 March to enlist your character.

You can also sign up for a RNG selected conversation with either corrupt village leader Hok-Shinn Weisi or with mysterious blind priestess Hyang-Tai, also by 23:5 GMT on 11 March. The expectation is to try to finish a thread with them by 20 March, if your character is selected — and to share findings with the group, after.

PLAYER PLOTS

If you want to carry out your own plot or exploration, fill out the below form and try to recruit other other folks into your fun. You can ask for help or a mod roll here, if you want rewards or consequences for something characters try to do (ex: two fools try to burn a volcano. What happens? Heh. )

No ideas? Join someone else's plot!

ANCESTRAL CURSES

Regarding ancestral curses — your character's atonement can be as specific or general to the curse story as you want.

Example: if your character is making amends for the wrath/indifference of a daughter-in-law who quietly suffered the nonstop criticism of her new family, until one day she snapped and took an axe to them: you could do story-specific acts of atonement, like finding the remains of the woman's family and making offerings to silence their aggrieved spirits or cleaning the last drop of blood from their decaying house, midway-specific ones like teaching new brides patience or how to cope with nagging in-laws, or more generic solutions, like promoting pacifism worldwide.

Generally, curses are just meant to prompt characters to exit their comfort zones and ice break some new CR — have fun!

QUESTIONS

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Hey!

My brain is VERY foggy currently, sorry in advanced. So I did want Wrathion to keep picking for information about the village connections with the Beastmaster but I've been slightly at a loss for which direction is best for him. This post reads like there is stuff to unravel, but I wasn't sure if it was tied to a plot roll or if there's still stuff to dig in the village as an aside. It felt before like maybe the villagers don't know as much as the leaders, who he'd avoiding a little. I'm very happy to play things out and fish, he's just very cautious and I've slightly struggled to invent indirect ways he can ask around. Assist a regular villager and flatter them a bit about how great their village is, the Beastmaster must be a kind patron, hope they give good info? Approach the witches in the woods and try for a trade for information? Scout for a way up to the top of the very safe volcano? Try to get someone to help with a distraction and poke around in someone's house? He can do trading, word games, cautious espionage (he grew up in Ravenholdt), but when he's also worried about drawing attention it... narrows choices a bit and raises stakes. I'm not looking for the answer here! I just need my options narrowed a little because I don't want to keep coming back 50 times to ask you 50 more questions.

Heya!

Information about the Beastmaster will emerge organically anyway, even if it's not pursued here, but the best way to snag it would be to try to do some exploration/investigation, I'd say.

You're correct that the villagers wouldn't know as much as ~~the gatekeeper~~ Weisi — so, perhaps try to find a way for Wrathion to catch his eye. He could offer his services to the community, find the head-lady and solve Weisi's headache as outlined by Taksui, or get involved with the Hok-Shinn.

Alternatively, the witches of the forest might also be an option, although Wrathion might have to win them over as well — and I can spoil you that they'd have witnessed the Beastmaster indirectly (that said, still good intel). They're isolated, lacking access to sophisticated goods and gossip, and haven't seen pretty, shiny things in a while...

I think he'd avoid Weisi and Taksui under the 'don't draw too much attention' banner, but if the witches are amenable to trade he could definitely offer them goods and shiny things. He is currently living next to a poppy farm, and poppy seeds are functionally useful! And he could, obviously, make them something shiny.

That said, I could have him unwittingly net attention because he is team 'leave monster lady alone, how do you know these villagers didn't torment her'. He just wouldn't do it on purpose, because they might be like 'congrats on being useful NOW WE SHALL PRESENT YOU TO THE BEASTMASTER FOR YOUR REWARD!'

Right you are — which one of the two paths would you prefer?

He did already agree to look with Kaneki into monster friend, so let's start there! Just pmd and Kaneki is still down, so team is:

Anduin
Kaneki
Wrathion

Wrathion is interested in working out if there's some connection between her and the Black Water (she's been seen in wells? The Black water happened before? How did they fix it then....). Oh and obviously who are the missing children, when were they last seen. Did they climb into a well...

But they also want to go looking for her and.... well diving for Research. Probably with rope, and with Anduin to cast levitate so they don't have to fall too fast and/or touch the water....

Linking them both incase there's anything they want to add!

Edited 2022-03-09 18:42 (UTC)

As Anduin discussed with Taksui (still can't believe they are semi in agreement on this), he is definitely wary that something else might have happened to these missing children and that the villagers are so wary of everything semi-supernatural that they are pinning it on this snake woman. He'd want to investigate around town a bit and gather more information with regards to the circumstances behind their disappearance, as stated above: who they were, when were they last seen, were there any witnesses to this supposed child-eating, are these people actually all that believable....

Also yes, investigating the well itself, Anduin will be very handy! He can help Levitate people as stated above, and also heal... If it comes to that...

Kaneki just wants to see if she really is a baby eater (pls don't do that) or maybe it's made up and she is actually nice and really just wants her kid back. If the later surfaces, his focus will be to find said kid. So That's Kaneki's deal with this whole thing.

he wants to explore the wells, since talking to the witches didn't tell him much last time, and he doesn't really trust the villagers that much but might also ask around to learn something new about the snake lady.

Sorry, bear with me on a long day — I'm a little confused: you said you wanted Wrathion to learn more about the Beastmaster, but now there's a team annnnd I admit I'm a bit lost what you guys are looking to do...

Uuuh you said one route would be to get attention via solving problems for the community, so we were doing that via looking for the monster lady! Sorry I genuinely thought that was what you meant

Yep, totally fine — just got a little lost around the way. Will come back to you in a few minutes.

Okay, so since Anduin/Wrathion/Kaneki are trying to ingratiate themselves to the villagers by hunting the serpent lady — just going to tackle everyone's queries in this response, please let me know if I missed anything!

■ Is there any connection between the lady and the dark water?
Not that the villages have been able to see, though they did appear roughly around the same time. The serpent woman preceded the dark waters by just under a year. Sadly, the villagers never quite 'fixed' the dark waters. The waters seem to largely go away and pop back up on their own, although some villagers insist that they're divine punishment whenever the village is failing to atone.

■ Who are the missing children?
Locals. Three children, two daughters and one son.

■ When were the children last seen?
They were last seen at various times over the past 10 days.

■ But they also want to go looking for her and.... well diving for Research. — where are they looking?

■ There were no witnesses to the child-eating. However:

One disappeared while the mother was laundering at the river, her two-year-old girl patiently playing by the bank.

The newborn baby boy disappeared from his crib at night, and the shawl that he was bundled in was later discovered bloodied on the main road.

The second girl, aged around three, was playing hide and seek with her siblings by the forest. They swear they saw the serpent lady and all ran off. They later realised the little girl was no longer with them, and search efforts in the woods have yet to reveal her or her remains.

■ He wants to explore the wells — funnily enough, the wells look normal. The sediment at the bottom is a little silt-y, brittle, igneous — betraying the village's proximity to the dormant volcano.

Is anyone touching the dark water or spending too much time around it? If so, who? The villagers would be warning people against that, and trying to bury the dark water in, in a superstitious effort to stop it from propagating.

Would the party/Anduin be able to contact/speak to the families of these children? He's a good soft boy living at the wise man's house and he would be wanting to offer his condolences, naturally. He'd also want to do some SLEUTHING to try and figure out:

child #1) was this a spot where people frequently go to wash their clothes? (ie. is it a busy spot or more secluded...) he'd try to get the exact location from her, to be able to investigate whether the river is deep and the current strong. did anyone search the river itself once the child went missing...?

child #2) did this infant sleep in his own room or with the parents? is there a window in that room and if so, how big is it? what does the home life seem like? how upset are the parents that the child is gone...? (he feels awful questioning this but ONE MUST)

child #3) would the children be willing to show or tell where they were playing when they saw the serpent lady? since this is the only incident where there was an actual "sighting" perhaps there is something in the area that the villagers missed???

Heya! There was a window in child #2's room, poor kid gets to breathe.

I'll be honest, the answers to the rest of those details don't really add/take anything from the plot, so I'm happy for you to take creative license with them when you play things out!

HAHAHA fair enough. Sounds about right that Anduin's heart is in the right place but all of his efforts are getting him absolutely nowhere lmfao sweats..... I take it that this means they will not find any evidence of the snake lady while investigating the childrens' disappearances then.

OH ADDED QUESTION: is there a history of children disappearing in the village in the past, perchance?

Also in terms of investigating the wells, bc that will be an investigative road they go down here also, Anduin himself is not touching dark water stuff because he's afraid that -- like with the curses -- his healing powers may not work against any other potentially cursed things here. Might that theory be... correct...? 👀 Or does someone have to commit to this happening to them before we get this answer haha

— I don't think you'd find anything useful by looking into the families, sadly. Definitely having a door or window or open-field access to the children is something required to abduct them — but beyond that, feel free to take liberties with the families, their backgrounds, their reactions, etc. If you want to send Anduin down a red herring investigation, feel free to have one of the families act super hostile or suspiciously!

— Why yes, children have disappeared in the past. Every two-three years or so, one or at most two children go missing. The disappearances occurred within days of each other, when two children were stolen. This is by far the biggest 'catch' of abducted children so far. Bodies have never been found, although similarly, the villagers have sometimes discovered bloodies rags and blood close to the forests. Some blame wolves and woodland creatures, other the serpent lady.

Typically these disappearances have occurred weeks before the arrival of the Beastmaster.

— You'll have to touch it to find out ; ) But I can confirm it doesn't kill.

The Merchant mentioned human trafficking, and the villagers did mention being forced to offer human sacrifice to the House of Ravens to abate the unyielding drought and other curses. Essentially, Wrathion is expecting this to be something akin to that. Taksui seemed very casually uninterested, he's wondering if that is because Hok-Shinn just knows about it. His suspicion is maybe these kids weren't taken by the monster lady at all, but straight up violently smuggled to the undead legions.

Connection to her child unclear as of yet, but its a working theory. Maybe her child was taken too, long ago and she's still haunting this village as a long drawn out vengeance?

Would the family let them take the shawl if they still have it? He'll suggest it may help find the child, but if they let him have it he may use it to see if he can lure out our shy friend by maybe waiting in one of the abandoned houses with it laid out. Maybe she can be invited to try and discuss this?

Wrathion might experiment with the water later if other leads (excuse the pun) dry up, or just out of interest, but I don't think he'd plunge a bare hand into it right away. Initially he probably would drop a few things into it however just to see if it's immediately dangerous.

Edited (belated typo correction) 2022-03-10 00:33 (UTC)

Sure, let me know if/when Wrathion touches the dark water! Gosh, y'all are so cautious.

Hmmmmmmmmm. Well I don't think they'd let Wrathion have the shawl, given it's the... last remnant of their child, but he's welcome to have a few moments to inspect it and pilfer or substitute it then. Do a grieving family dirty, Wrathion. You know you want to.

Sadly, the shawl won't lure out our shy friend — she comes out for children-presenting creatures of various ages and sizes.

.....you feel me?

I AM LATE FOR THE PARTY BUT

ahem

Kaneki has a child-like doll who happens to stick to him like glue so he can use her?

Edited 2022-03-10 00:45 (UTC)

Guys, you have an actual grumpy child in the party.

Like, I'm not saying 'feed Five to monsters,' but.

Kaneki is 100% against that, sadly )=
naturally people can just ignore him, push him to the side, and do as they want, but he will not accept using Five oops

He's older than you, Kaneki...!

But also, options!

Wrathion has never spoken to Five so just straight up wouldn't randomly volunteer a stranger

however

If the doll doesn't work he can try illusions of children

and if that doesn't work he is in fact a shapeshifter, he's just trying to avoid playing that card

(no subject)

groundrules - 2022-03-10 00:57 (UTC) - Expand

(no subject)

blackscales - 2022-03-10 10:09 (UTC) - Expand

(no subject)

chosenbylight - 2022-03-10 12:55 (UTC) - Expand

(no subject)

enucleation - 2022-03-10 12:59 (UTC) - Expand

(no subject)

groundrules - 2022-03-10 13:54 (UTC) - Expand

(no subject)

blackscales - 2022-03-10 16:11 (UTC) - Expand

(no subject)

groundrules - 2022-03-10 16:14 (UTC) - Expand

(no subject)

chosenbylight - 2022-03-13 15:01 (UTC) - Expand

(no subject)

groundrules - 2022-03-13 15:30 (UTC) - Expand

(no subject)

blackscales - 2022-03-16 18:13 (UTC) - Expand

(no subject)

groundrules - 2022-03-16 18:15 (UTC) - Expand

IF PERCHANCE one of them were to touch the dark water, would Anduin's power to purify (aka dispel harmful magic and/or disease) be able to get rid of the effects?

I ask bc now that I have Anduin's plot roll I have An Idea of what might happen now, but I wanted to ask before I tried to talk someone into taking The Plunge (heheh)

Will understand ofc if you say we have to touch it and see regardless haha

I'm typically a bit against tackling theoreticals, because it generates a lot of questions that get an answer that doesn't really get played out — so, I'm happy to answer! But if you actually plan to do this.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only