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lostcompass2022-12-05 05:22 pm
groundrules) wrote in lostcompass2022-12-05 05:22 pm
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silent night
So long to Serthica on 5 December! Come nightfall, the sorceress Karsa abandons the party to lick the wounds of her depleted energies. Fearing a spartan winter journey might cripple Zenobius, the Merchant reluctantly agrees to a month of travel reprieve.
The party journeys six hours east by zeppelin to a forest-bound enclosure, where a minor castle has been repurposed as an inn. You are the guests of eerie noble Mistress Isakanami.
THE GROUNDS
The inn’s four wings encircle an inner court. The party shares the northern wing with Isakanami’s staff. Individual quarters include floor mattresses, oil lamps, coffers and a wall-sized wooden panel on the door, depicting a spring landscape. Salt is lined nightly on the corridors before each door.
Enjoy the kitchens, bathhouses, two training halls, meditation quarters… and the damp but generous wine cellars.
The weather is crisp, cold, perpetually given to light snowfall. Rare blizzards erupt on 10, 17 and 25 December. Stay warm!
Areas of note:
THE SPRINGS: they’re hot, but mostly they’re cold — restorative streams that slowly heal wounds. They regress but don’t completely cure deadly illnesses. Grit your chattering teeth and bear it.
THE MOUTH: a 1m-deep pit in the inner court, filled with swords and shields: some rusted, some in fine form, some dull, some sorcered. You can collect one sword.
THE WELLS: A triad of sturdy but ancient wells. Each day, you find drops of fresh blood by a different well, which is now firmly lidded.
THE LAKE: deeply frozen, its thickened ice nearly opaque. You can skate, fish, or admire the narrow shadows beneath — 2m-long creatures that occasionally ram the ice.
On 21 December, a creature breaks through, seeking to drag inn servants in. Help the staff who begins to freeze back the lake by shovelling snow in.
THE HOUSEHOLD
A gracious lot, the inn’s keepers happily coexist with several spirits. Most ghosts make minor mischief: sometimes you are locked inexplicably in your quarters, items go missing, you're joined in the springs by a polite ghost holding on to its decapitated head, and you hear the laughter of children or fireside chatter from invisible soldiers.
Attendant ghosts sometimes emerge at night to perform household duties. If you meet them, you are advised to silently nod and ignore them. Engage and you are compelled to finish their work, listen to their stories and let them sleep on your mat. You’re saved if someone sounds one of the many bells or chimes scattered on wall ropes.
Inn staff line salt nightly at your door to ward off the Salt Breaker. If you wake inexplicably or feel a blood-curdling chill after midnight, you are told to check the wooden screen on your door — if its spring landscape is now progressively changing seasons, you must silently go from room to room until you find one where the screen shows a spring painting. If you stay where the landscape shifts to winter, you drop asleep and experience a night of harrowing nightmares. Replenishing salt lines as you flee to delays the Salt Breaker.
House rules:
- ■ Earn your keep: clean the inn, replenish its magical wards, purify stream waters, attend to the other guests, cook, sew, tidy, hold tea parties, teach sports or battle skills to regular guests, heat towels, forage, keep creatures at bay — figure out a credible job or service.
■ All doors and windows magically shut at 21:00. Spend the night in the cold or the abandoned stable of the inner court, if you miss curfew.
NOTEWORTHY GUESTS
■ A small and awkward cult of twelve books the western wing yearly to spawn the world-destroying demonic boar Zulu. They’ve been faithfully laying out seeds, bulbs and nuts in creative patterns in the gardens, fasting and chanting for eight years without success. Bring them snacks… or summon Zulu.
■ A guild of seven merchants who’ve sought to ruin each other for years is ‘team building’ in the southern wing. They’ll offer you money or gifts to spy on their peers’ correspondence or cause them minor grievances — oversalt their food, deprive them of soap, cut holes in silks.
■ None friends brought a bride to party in the eastern wing before her imminent wedding. They’re loud, effusive and quick to draw you into drinking games.
THE SURROUNDINGS
Walk past the inn’s extensive grounds into dense stretches of snow-struck forests. Villagers forage for wood and timber. The inn would be grateful for the forest’s healing herbs, mushrooms and winterberries.
Careful: packs of starved direwolves swarm lone intruders, their frosted breaths briefly freezing you in place.
The night of 13 December, villagers launch a search party for a missing huntsman. A brave few wish to destroy a large direwolves’ den — look after the villagers, talk them down or help them retrieve what they fear will be the huntsman’s remains.
Some villagers trickle back on 14 December, asking shelter, warmth and medical assistance.
SISTERLY BONDS
Every few nights ( 8/19/28 December ), the ghosts of three sorcerer-sisters and their legions wage battle on the grounds. They seek their father’s dark-bladed sword, said to grant his heir glory, prosperity and power.
The sisters’ forces are reborn each battle night. They pick up weapons from the Mouth pit and drop them back, come morning. You notice they are drawn to water and reflective surfaces: they’re immobilised (and captured) if you get them to look in closely. This — or making them yield — gives you a temporary power boost that either feeds your existing abilities or that you must channel through brief bursts of elemental magic (yes, you might spit fire or your fingers might spark electricity for a few hours).
Ghost soldiers chase each other across the gardens, balconies or on the rooftops. They cannot enter uninvited and entreat you to let them in. If you broke curfew, silently hide in the deserted inner court stable to avoid getting caught in their crossfire.
The sisters offer coin, jewels or good luck blessings to those who help them defeat their rivals or find the sword.
Soldiers do not outright try to harm you and the sisters passionately plead their cause if they encounter you. Choose wisely:
- i. Saimei: the soft-spoken eldest who wants the sword to ensure world peace, but whose armies behave ruthlessly.
ii. Okutami: the cold-blooded second born, who commands assassins and thinks the sword can restore her family to glory at whatever cost.
iii. Mirasada: the chaotic youngest child whose beauty entrances her followers (and you); she only seeks the sword to vex her siblings.
This is a lighter month to tide the holidays and give characters a brief respite from their Arc duties. Those itching for action can optionally get involved with the sisters, the mystery of the wells, the Salt Breaker or the wolves — but feel free to stick to domestic tasks or bring your own fun!
■ Shout for NPC threads!
■ Check the calendar for the latest dates.
■ We’ll have a midmonth check-in, if you folks want more material. No mod-led log is planned currently, but you’re welcome to your own posts/logs!
■ QUESTIONS
We’re combining our plotting and CR meme this round, so please fill out the below and spam, baby, spam:
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