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lostcompass2022-05-12 07:35 pm
groundrules) wrote in lostcompass2022-05-12 07:35 pm
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THE TITHE | ARC III FINALE
Hello, good people! It’s all about to go down with a Boom on 18 May during the log finale of Arc III.
- ■ After wrapping up Arc III, the party will enjoy a plot-light(er) ‘journey’ segment totalling four-six weeks, then head into Arc IV.
■ An out-of-character vote will go up over the next few days, so you can choose between two destination options for Arc IV.
■ Our next test drive meme takes place in early June.
For now, a brief idea of what to expect in the Arc III finale log below, so you can plot & plan your moves ahead.
Catch-up: desperate villagers are revisiting human sacrifices in hopes of swaying the Ke-Sanwon volcano’s eruption. The rites were stalled for a few years, during which a traveller’s cure for droughts was purchased with tributes collected by the undead Beastmaster. The witches of the Fetters gained their power and animal hybrids began to roam around this time. Wrath and Emilia discovered the volcano contains magical energy and tormented spirits that have been capped by a fracturing dark mirror. The group stole keys to enter the House of Ravens sacrificial temple — which now opens for the eruption.
In family drama, it emerges the Beastmaster was once married to the Huntress (formerly Anui), who offered their son to Ke-Sanwon without his father’s say. The child disappeared. Both parents hope to find him in the House. Wrathion, Daenerys and Viktor have all will be sharing juicy details by 18 May, once NPC threads wrap up.
Upcoming:
THIS HOUSE IS YOUR HOUSE
The party must infiltrate the House of Ravens overnight and wait until dawns, when the temple dais slowly opens to reveal the mouth of the volcano.
- ■ Those who enter the House are fully or partially depowered and have their ancestral curse immediately lifted.
■ In the midnight to dawns period, characters are supernaturally tempted to act on their greatest individual sin.
■ They are chased by the temple’s… unusually large defenders, if they succumb to these instincts. Good luck til dawns, folks.
LET THERE BE BLOOD
The cultists of Ke-Waicai greet dawns by exposing their first chosen sacrifice to Ke-Sanwon, showcasing exactly what happens to their ‘Chosen.’ Roughly two hundred villagers attend the rites, along with eight powerful priests who use elemental magic.
In good (?) news: seeking his missing son, the Beastmaster bring his xenomorphic creatures to attack the House of Ravens.
Characters should:
- ■ Dress up, join the crowd and free the remaining tributes during the beastly skirmish.
■ Take control of the House’s dais by defeating or killing the priests.
! Characters can remain partially or fully depowered throughout, if you prefer.
FIRE AND BRIMSTONE?
The dais remains under the party’s control as long as a character (literally) shoulders the head priest’s ancient white raven and holds its leash.
- ■ Whoever carries the raven becomes the target of the village mob and of the Beastmaster’s creatures.
■ The raven should be passed around. Defend the bird’s current holder and throw off their pursuers.
■ If the bird dies, the dais closes, and the volcano erupts. No pressure.
For those looking to stop the eruption, options include but are not limited to:
- ■ Throwing more dark water into the volcano to fix the mirror crack.
■ Using ice / cold magic and scientific processes to cool down the volcano’s warmth and help the mirror regenerate itself.
■ Exorcising some of the spirits within the volcano.
■ Absorbing some of the magical power contained by the volcano. IMPORTANTLY, this can lead to substantial or permanent effects for your character, detailed here.
■ Persuading and guiding sane villagers to bring sea water. Helpful tips: remember those cool phoenix rides and the very fast Ke-Waiar werewolves.
■ PLOT HOW TO TACKLE THE VOLCANO. You can come up with your own solution. Calming Ke-Sanwon is a huge enterprise, so the more help, the better.
THE BEASTMASTER
Group up and pitch a plan, if you want to slay the Beastmaster.
He will drive his animal to raid the House of Ravens and devolve into a fury when he does not locate his son. Grief renders him vulnerable and unpredictably violent. He is also significantly less powerful in the House of Ravens.
WILL SOMEONE THINK OF THE CIVILIANS?
Beyond the House of Ravens, villagers need help safeguarding their possessions or preparing to evacuate aboard incoming ships. The gradual spread of Ke-Sanwon’s seeping magic will infect some villagers, leading to animal hybridization in the farmers’ ranks — stay safe.
Whoever stays in the villages can also coordinate water and supply deliveries with those at the House of Ravens.
The Arc III beacon will briefly open, allowing characters to head home before sadly faltering. All characters dropped or AC swept in May will be said to have safely gone home through the beacon.
COMMENT HERE if you want a canon update for your character. They will briefly go to their home world, then return when the beacon fails. Characters do not retain memories, items or powers gained in game while they are in their home worlds, but they recover them on return.
It’s an Arc finale: go BIG, and you might go home. Respond with your very own shiny plotting comment, featuring:
MAGICAL ABSORPTION - THE VOLCANO EDITION
Respond here by 16 May if you want your character to absorb some of the magical power that’s been
festeringbrewing withing the Ke-Sanwon volcano for the past few years. This will help relieve the (literal) pressure on the dark mirror, but comes at a not insubstantial cost for your character.A couple of things to bear in mind, if you want your character to take this route:
■ Consuming this magic will give your character one of two side-effects: highly volatile magical abilities over fire (summoning or manipulating flames) that can be grown over time, or awareness of the dead and the ability to sometimes hear the dead in places where a great deal of death occurred or where hauntings took place. You can only choose one side-effect ability.
■ Characters with pre-existing death or fire magic can only choose to have these abilities boosted.
■ The abilities will be accompanied by a rare feeling of high itching and burning (that does not manifest physically) and by occasional nightmares of the pains of the past sacrificial tributes. The tempers of those who absorb the magic will sometimes sour inexplicably, and they will feel violently angry if human sacrifice is ever brought up to them.
■ Gaining these abilities will highly (but not completely ) disrupt any other magical abilities your character already possesses, unless your character already utilises fire sorcery or necromancy. In that case, these powers will act as a very volatile booster for the character’s existing magic (but only if you have a fire user develop a fire talent, and a necromancer a death-linked ability).
■ These abilities will recede over a three-month period, dwindling down to nothing as the person who absorbed the magic effectively “metabolizes” it.
■ Your characters will read as 'unclean' and 'death-touched' to all magic users (including NPCs and other magicians) for the three-month duration. They are effectively dark sorcerers in that period. You magically reek.
Let’s limit sign-ups to five signs-ups. We will conduct a RNG draw, if there are more people interested in this.
Zhou Zishu | Word of Honor
He knows a lot of them, so it'll be like a reunion!Besides he would nominate himself
as tributefor volcano diving. He's cool like that.no subject
tributevolunteer! What can go wrong?no subject
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I'm sure this will be fine.
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Also switching it up for some fire abilities sounds neat.
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(Listen, on the bright side I won't ask for more fire power? Just smelly dark sorcery magic.)
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