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

Here are some questions of interest for forest friend:
- What does he know about them, specifically?
- Were you taken, or did you mean to join them like the rest of his followers?
- To start after taking a cue from Karsa (don't tell her), why are you with them? He's heard they came back after being gone, so why now?
- Does Anurr control the wolves and the voices calling to them, and if so, are they trying to separate out the strongest? Or are they just trying to get more bodies to counteract Unhalad?

And after some prompting by his good buddy Wuxian:
- Are you afraid of the farm? What happened here? (Several of them are probably asking this at this point, but let's hear it from a human bro and see what the rumors are.)
- What do you know about the body in the lake?

Alina u can jump in with anything or ask if he has a family or whatever, get him some water... he won't be annoyed at all... these are my thoughts for this perfectly nice talk.

Alina will make sure the man is taken care of. That even if he's tied up he has a comfortable chair. Anything to eat or drink that he wants.

She'd ask him more innocuous questions early and in between to help even things out. Where do you come from? How long have you lived with the forest people? How has life been for them? How has it changed since Anurr's return? Are they okay with the changing?

Smaller questions she hopes to try to take the sting off when Five asks bigger ones.

She'll also offer some sunlight to help warm him up if he's cold as well. At the end, She'll absolutely want to ensure he's returned back to his people!

Five and Alina have captured a human old man, part of the forest denizens — a disempowered, but knowledgeable elder, who struggles, at first, to understand them. The pair may notice that the quartz piece still serves to liaise communication with the elder, but its interpretative skills are reduced, and some words appear to be missing. Later study, if they choose to make it, will show that it's simply a matter of dialect — the forest people speak a version of the local language that's too niche for Karsa's language enchantments.

He is resistant, at first, to speak to them and threatens the vengeance of his people, then suicide, then a hunger strike. Now and then, in the first few hours, he will pledge loudly that Anurr will avenge him, if he is not released, and if not him, the wind, and if not the wind, the forests. The land looks after its own, he insists.

But Alina's kindness thaws him, and he yields most of his answers to her, whispered, in return for feeding and drink:

He comes of the forest, where they are free to choose their fates, their fealties, their people. No man is stolen, no man taken. They were never gone, who is so blind to claim otherwise? They stayed deeper in the woods, and now they come forward, because the lord Anurr requires them. Is it so difficult a thing to grasp, loyalty? He gives them strength and courage and asks so little in return. Once he ruled them all fairly and (word, missing in translation), and he has come for them now, as he was then, just as young, as powerful, as honest. They take what he gives, willingly. Those who are too young or not yet swayed are not (word), do they think them savages?

And the newcomers, taking over Anurr's old keep? Look what they have made of it, their disgusting, (word)(word)(word) finnicky instruments. They shame the land, and they shame Anurr. They do not belong even on their knees here, kissing the footsteps of the once and forever chieftain. This was his home, where he took his wife, where he met his fellow kings and the lord merchants, where he breathed his last. To house beggars here now is blasphemy.

As for what Anurr control, the wolves and the voices — no, pretty children, those are only the wind — he only largely smiles, but does not say.

Hey-ho!