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lostcompass2022-12-05 05:22 pm
groundrules) wrote in lostcompass2022-12-05 05:22 pm
Entry tags:
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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PREFERRED CONTACT:
INTERESTS BEYOND RP: coffee, books/reading, writing the fanfics, gaming, TV, my pets, singing, dessert...
CHARACTER & CANON: Anduin Wrynn, Warcraft
THEIR ONE-LINE ELEVATOR PITCH: Soft priest boy inherits the throne and takes up his father's sword in the name of Peace.
WHY THEY’D TANK A BLIND DATE: Likely because he wouldn't realistically be allowed a blind date and his professional bodyguards would have vetted your full character and life history before you even stepped foot through the door...
THEIR JOB AT THE INN: Replenishing the wards, purifying the stream waters, he's a healer so he will offer his services to anyone in the group who needs healing! He's also do some activities like combat training or stretching or group meditation with other people, not sure if that counts as a job but it's up for consideration!
GENERAL PLANS: Anduin has (surprise, surprise) stretched himself a little thin, doing everything he could to rescue the last city (and the boat before, and the city before that...) He could use a little downtime to rest and recuperate himself, and he'll be spending some time in the springs to help himself relax and regenerate his energy.
THEREFORE general plans include:
-spending time in the hotsprings
-meditating
-catching up on some swordy training practice?
-walks around the lake/gentle investigation of the creatures within
-gently fussing over everyone's health (including Zenobius)
-staying warm, there have to be fireplaces here right???
CR YOU WANT:
-People who might fuss over Anduin for a change, be able to spot just how tired he is when he thinks no one is looking, force him to sit down and talk it out and/or just sit and relax with him
-People who would want to spend the day relaxing with him in general as he tries to pretend he is fine and maybe falls asleep in the hot springs
-People for him to fuss over because he will never be able to turn the fussy off
-People to meditate with or train with??
-People to try and convince him into the drinking games perhaps -- he'd maybe not join on his own but he's a people pleaser and would be easily dragged in
-People to enjoy some quiet time around the lake with him and/or help fill in the hole the of the creature trying to break free
-People to notice that he spends a lot of time with Wrathion, talking about Wrathion, shares a room with Wrathion just about everywhere they go, etc. Very Subtle. Make him talk about it: the relationship gossip option
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mutual fuss?? meditation! soft light boys. possible drinking game!
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also they could possibly get roped into drinking games if 1) el would suggest this or 2) someone else ropes them both in and neither of them can say no HAHAHA
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all of this.
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Here is a link to a somewhat spoiler-less video somewhat near his canon point currently. With the things going on at home plus the things he is dealing with here, he just. Needs to learn how to set things aside for a bit, for the sake of his Sanity
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El has started to develop a mind for self-care now that his destiny is off his back, so he's gotchu bro
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he welcomes your support in all things
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they only share a room here again, after sharing a room in serthica, and sharing quarters on the boat, and whatever behavior wrathion might have had watching over anduins unconscious body on the boat for that matter. the soft looks, the lingering touches (on anduin's part anyway)... NOTHING OF NOTE WHATSOEVER
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he is very good at throwing himself into trying to save everybody and very bad at remembering to take care of himself in the process. in one of the novels there is a quote where it says, "Sometimes he felt like a coin satchel, and every worry, every problem, every mistake, every crisis was another fat, heavy coin falling into that bag. It got heavier and heavier, but usually it was manageable. After a while, however, the fabric started to strain."
anduin's satchel isn't quite spilling over yet, but it's definitely feeling the strain rn. help him relax!!
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Kahl can potentially help out with this, though--he's very driven to fight and save others, but he keeps his goals... approximately reasonable? Like, he's relentless and has ambitious goals, but he focuses exclusively on the stuff that's within his power to change, and goes home in between missions to live with his brothers. He's remarkably well-adjusted, given everything that's happened to him. He might be able to share on that!
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he IS allowed to take a personal day or two, especially here where he is not technically in charge of anyone
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it's not 100% "getting anduin to relax" considering he there is a chance he may fuss over kahl but -- well kahl can figure out how to address that??
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Whether he mentions that to Anduin or just focuses on pls relax, shiny man is dependent on Anduin's behavior.
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you know you want some CR with the tired priest boy wanda. he's a very good boy! sometimes a little TOO good... he will see the good in you, even when you may not, and believe in you even when you don't, and even when all hope is lost he will try to make things right, and he has but everything happens so much and never seems to stop happening and he could just really use a break rn :c
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anduin is a good bean ;3; i will admit i have lost track of the thread of marvel where wanda is concerned BUT let us try and get something together with the pair of them, y/y??
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I think I might toss up a log tonight so I will comment back here if I do!!!
There!! I did it, DW can't stop me with errors >:[
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