lostcompass | (no subject)

And the votes are in...!

Characters by and large voted to save the miners and not get involved, with some minor differences on whether the captives should be released into the wilderness or taken home.

The results of this beautiful endeavour:

The tides of fortune and a highly questionable array smile upon us! Characters succeed to reach the miners and set them free. The miners’ immediate instinct is to slowly, groggily scatter, attracting attention.

Unhalad’s forces will focus on recapturing the miners. Anurr’s faction will take advantage to slaughter them. Some of Anurr’s people will spot the party and half the contingent will initially set out to pursue them, before withdrawing when they encounter Lee Chang, Xiao Xingchen or Xie Lian. At this point, folks, run home fast. Anyone staying behind will likely be heavily injured or killed.

Of the eight miners, three are slain by Anurr’s men, three run into the forest and two... join characters home.

Sadly, Archeval’s suspicions prove right: the two minors who arrive at the farmhouse progress in their transition to undeath. The transformation can be slowed down by keeping them warm at all times and giving them high volumes of food and water.

The two miners will be terrorised by the nightly voices and repeatedly attempt to escape into the mountains. They will struggle to speak coherently, and will scream violently if they are left in the dark.

In the end, the transition will finalise and the two miners will become fully undead.

The miners held at the farmhouse will be particularly distressed if they are subjected to strong light, or if they see or sense Xie Lian and Xiao Xingchen nearby. Xie Lian and Xiao Xingchen will meanwhile feel an itch to kill them — the intensity of this compulsion is up to the players.

Five can have one of the forest people to teleport home. Please respond here if you’d like it to be a human forest dweller, or a semi-undead one. Also choose whether this captive is male, female, young or middle/old-aged. This will play into the type of information the captive will have available.

The forest captive will try to track down and kill the transitioning miners.

This outcome fell ~~completely~~ a tiny bit out of the mod forecast, so the May calendar has been revised accordingly. As Karsa’s post signals, there are now a bunch of in-character assignments that will need some muscling through, and sign-ups are listed below.

SIGN-UP BASICS: quests are up for grabs, but can only have one character officially signed up as lead/anchor for the assignment. Other characters can still help with the task — ideally, there should be at least two characters helping out with each assignment. Quest leads can ICly make organisation posts or logs to carry out their tasks, and should pretty-please share their findings with the class ICly.

In the spirit of fairness, let’s ask players to only have one of their characters lead a quest. Please propose how your character would try to go about completing the assignment, and you’ll get mod feedback on the price/result!

Available quests:

Interrogate the miners

Interrogate the lone forest person

Find out the farmhouse origins

Investigate the body in the lake

Snoop among Anurr’s followers to figure out anything further about his plans

Get more of that c-c-c-coin

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Last Anurr lost was the result of trickery. It is ever his downfall. He expects fairness of those around him. He wished to welcome Unhalad and his men to his tribe, and instead they brought... disaster.

As for their living masters, the kings and queens of old are inheritors of the free people, taking Anurr's mantle. The natives of Sa-Hareth are survivors, accustomed to hardship, to toil, to cold. Every day and every ounce of their fortune, they've won through strength. How are they to respect royalty that lost its crown?

The concoction tastes herbal and sulphurous, somewhat acidic — spreading coldness throughout the imbiber, typically set to render them a little listless, prone to impatience and violence and a sharpening of their senses. In Ery's particular case, given her unique relationship with death and psychology, she might be less affected by the mind-muddying aspects of the brew, while still feeling a certain itch to hunt down Unhalad's dead and rip out the hunger from within them. As there is no real way to achieve that, most who drink the brew simply dismember their targets — Ery might be uniquely more controlled and even potentially able to understand the compulsion within her enough to quiet it down. Entirely up to you!

Alright, following up, Xie Lian coming in with the questions that matter, as in..... how old is Anurr exactly, and is he dead or alive or ascended or what? because when he was told the story during the first night he got the impression this was an old legend. And he's used to centuries old people being around and some of these people being dead, so better to know what we are up against.

He would also probably try to dissuade people from drinking the thing, and he will not drink it again this time. If offered some, he'll discreetly empty it into a plant or something.
*

Anurr, Xie Lian's gracious new friends ask Well, the legends are old, so very old, grandmothers were young, flowers blossoms, the earth barely turned, the free people were still dominant in the islands — but he ruled for decades, if not centuries, before Unhalad rose. But Anurr is of the immortals, how else would he have his magnificent strength? Some say 'dead once, dead forever,' but would he walk, if this were true? Perhaps death is not what should be feared, after all.

( The acolytes are so very happy to see their friend, Xie Lian. They are prepared to toast to him, repeatedly. )

Well that answers a lot and not much at the same time, but that sure sounds more like what Xie Lian is than a zombie somehow....

(the ground is going to be well watered tonight)

ya know. fair enough on that lost crown bit. Ery still thinks it's weird there are no gods of the living that anyone prays to to help against the gods of the undead but you know. only so much can be said for this civilization.

Ery will likely find the feeling a return to being part of the Eryfel. she's better prepared to fight it off this time, but she won't be unaffected. she'll have all the urges and feelings, but be able to contain it with considerable effort. it will, however, take up the rest of her time and efforts to do so.