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lostcompass2023-02-16 07:17 pm
groundrules) wrote in lostcompass2023-02-16 07:17 pm
alem | stage ii
Onwards to Stage II of the Siege of Alem, lasting until 4 March. There is no mod-led log this round, but you can plot, plan and make your own! A final Arc event will follow next month.
Characters can get involved in any scenario, no matter their formal assignments. Click the headers for details!
Siege-struck Alem suffers ongoing losses at Rathakku’s far-reaching claws. Several watch towers succumb, as the dragon Irenia grows more brazen. King Deimar has successfully covered up the explosion authored by the Clawed Stephen Strange, but war fatigue and isolationism fuel Alem’s distrust against foreigners. Expect fewer answers, counsel, supplies or resting quarters. A refugee caravan prepares to depart through the mines, stewarded by Prince Haiva — who needs help to heal. Hell froths, while paladins speak of sacrifice to contain it.
The Reaper strikes again.
- ■ SLEEPING ARRANGEMENTS: increasingly restricted to decaying corners of the Keep barracks or the Watch towers.
■ ARSENAL: serviceable weapons or clothes ‘passed on’ from war casualties. You may produce your own weapons in the underground Forges, where Jinx and Stephaniviem are stationed.
■ FOOD: scarcer, with locals less prone to share meals. Collect gems from the creature-infiltrated mines to purchase supplies from traders. Forage or hunt, but beware Rathakku’s forest demons. Jimmy McGill and Nacho have made strong inroads with merchants Batthour and Eles.
■ Rathakku Claws once more between 25-28 February — necromancers, the dead and those sensitive to life and death may optionally become his conscripts. Clawing so soon leaves Rathakku exposed over 1-2 March, when necromancers and those with life/death sorcery can Claw back some of his demonic army. Check in for Clawing (back)!!
THE WATCH TOWERS
The battered Northern Watch Tower collapses after a concerted catapult offensive on 20 February — rescue civilians from the grounds. The Western Tower catches fire on 22 February, burning the main defence posts down. Extinguish the blaze before it spreads to the granaries, imperilling Alem’s scant resources.
- ■ Kamala Khan, Wanda Maximoff, Merrin and Jiang Cheng are moved from the fallen Northern Tower to help Jinx, Vi, Hermione and Chu Wanning on the Eastern Tower. Their medics are Anduin and Leonard ‘Bones’ McCoy.
■ Eleven, Xie Yun, Kahl and Eda are re-assigned from the Western Tower to join Jon Snow, Stephen Strange and Red on the Southern Tower. Their medics are Sarah Bishop and Wen Qing.
■ Both towers face the same threats from carnivorous harpies and the repositioned catapults. Characters are forced to rest in the Keep after six-eight hours of battle.
■ The humanoid harpies frequently fly off with soldiers — including NPC Kerrastone (do grab him!). The creatures now dip their razor-sharp claws into a poison that stalls blood coagulation, leading to persistent blood loss if you are wounded.
■ Catapults shoot hard stone and projectiles enveloped in wildfire, which can be put out with great difficulty.
■ Appeal to former regent Thyvault for help and reinforcement.
’FROST SCOURGE’ IRENIA
Emboldened, the dragon Irenia seeks to make her mark.
- ■ The gargantuan, ancient and undead dragon slowly but regularly descends on Tower remnants and the Keep’s rooftop, breathing her withering frost onto fortress grounds.
■ Her cold breath can freeze, paralyze or induce gangrene. Warm yourself immediately.
■ Several merchants withdraw, for fear of Irenia — raising the odds of Alem’s imminent starvation.
■ Irenia’s thickened hide and strong scales defend her greatly. It is unclear if her age has lessened her sight and hearing. You could try to take over catapults or manipulate harpies to attack her.
■ Alternatively, Wei Wuxian learned Irenia once belonged to undead lord Anurr, and physical distance from Rathakku can remove her from his thrall.
■ Plan and vote a solution to rein in Irenia, until 20 February.
PRINCE HAIVA
Bones, Sarah Bishop, Anduin and Wen Qing find Prince Haiva is convalescing in all ways except his walk. He stumbles, as if his bones are broken. No defect is present.
Haiva complains that every other step feels as if he walks on blades. On inspection, the soles of his feet show thin scars from numerous fast-healing cuts. Something sharp-edged occasionally glistens golden on his ankles or calves, like a brief protrusion.
If questioned, locals share that Alem residents suffered similar hurts in the fortress’ distant past. They soothed their symptoms with tea of maiden’s veil — a rare, fragile winter flower native to the mountain forests.
- ■ Look for maiden’s veil in the Kamalka river — deep in the frozen forests that border Alem.
■ Take care: the forests brim with Rathakku’s creatures, from eye-gauging possessed vultures and ferocious wolves, to undead huntsmen and four-armed ‘patchworks’ — who steal your reflection, memories or abilities if you touch their magical seals, buried beneath snow. They collect these items in baubles that they offer to trade… if you agree to betray or kill your companions for them. Steal back and break the baubles to reclaim what was lost.
■ Maiden’s veil flowers can be found at the bottom of the partly iced Kamalka river. Look into the waters, and you may glimpse a beautiful dark-haired woman with golden eyes. Or perhaps you plunge in to get the flowers, only to spot her silhouette briefly beside you. Seen, she mouths, No and gestures for you not to collect the flowers, seeming distressed or angered. She disappears thereafter.
■ Link your threads if you rescue flowers for Haiva.
THE CARAVAN
Alem expedites evacuation efforts, amid disaster. A caravan of small supply carts and 1,500 of the fortress’ most vulnerable will exit the mountain through mine routes on 24 February. They comprise children, women, elders and the sick, alongside hastily trained militia.
- ■ Help with transport, defence and scouting, as the convoy traverses the stifling mine corridors and overground mountain paths. Don’t let blood paths that mysteriously appear on the mountain derail you during snow storms…
■ The underground outskirts have been invaded by Cold-Hearts — large ice creatures that frequently hide among the icicles of the glacier lake caves. They plunge to crush you or run off with children (or passably small adults), whom they wish to raise as their own.
■ As the convoy journeys through the mountain’s frozen forests, you may encounter undead huntsmen and night weepers — beautiful wo/men of silvered eyes and cold touch, who say they are lost members of previous caravans.
■ Alem residents urge you not to speak to the night weepers. If you engage them, they slowly thrall you to leave the caravan and join their cold bonfire in the forest. Every watcher sees the faces of their loved ones in the flames, speaking to them.
■ The longer you sit by this fire, the more hopelessness overwhelms you. You are saved if someone discreetly persuades you to leave without alerting the equally captivated night weepers.
■ Abandon the convoy when it reaches the foot of the mountain to meet Deimar’s waiting soldiers.
HELLSCAPE
Paladins and sorcerers have been working arduously to bolster wards in the underground Room of Seals that lids the entryway to hell. You overhear their growing frustrations: the war’s death and carnage have fed the hell’s mouth, which gapes wider.
- ■ Some paladins murmur about the first sealing of hell, when hundreds of their Order committed ritual sacrifice. Thyvault favours the practice. Lady Galatea objects.
■ Inevitably, paladin forces dwindle, and the Room of Seals is increasingly less guarded. Enter it discreetly — and find a vast quarter, dimly lit by thin wall-hanged torches and dying braziers. It resembles a cross between a demonic jailhouse, a lost world and a desecrated corridor.
■ Runes have been scrawled in cinnabar on walls and floors. Paper talismans and chains litter the surroundings.
■ There are numerous cracks and deep fissures in the Room, exuding thick, liquid smoke. Here, the invasive voices that haunt the Gut’s Bind deepen and multiply, screaming out in agony — some begging ‘sanctuary’. Agree to give it, and the spirit of one of the previously sacrificed Paladins — now feral, animalistic, afraid — joins you in your body for a day, pushing you to seek out whatever once gave the Paladin comfort: prayer, drink, their dead lover, war. You are likeliest to be possessed by a Paladin whose life story somewhat resembles yours, if only you had taken a turn for the worse/better. Link threads of appeasing paladin ghosts by 28 February for one... hell... of a clue.
■ To accelerate the slow restitching of the Room’s cracks, paper talismans instruct you to redraw a specific rune in cinnabar, donating it energy. Hell is greedy: the unmagical find their physical strength depleted, bodies thinned and their hair temporarily white. Those with supernatural powers feel them briefly consumed. Effects progressively disappear over 1-5 days.
■ A deeper, ravine-like rift sunders the Room. Kneel down to peer in, and you might see there are steps beneath the floor, which cannot yet be accessed, but are stained by familiar, deathly black water. Now and then, entirely black eyes stare back, before fading.
■ If you are caught in the Room, Galatea casts temporary magical brands shaped like fleur de lis on your wrists, which ease your temper and keep you docile. For their protection, they also compel others to avoid you: the more they care for you, the farther they flee. The brands do not affect their feelings, and the flight compulsion lasts up to three days.
■ On exiting the Room, your powers and energy levels fluctuate for 1-3 days, while your energy feels corrupted to those sensitive to life and death.
KILLER, KILLER, AND NO MIRROR
Another young man is found dead in the Wards on the night of 26 February, his cooling body holding open a doorway to a previously camouflaged stairwell corridor.
- ■ The victim is Vataz, son to Thyvault and cousin to Deimar. Like previous victims, he shows no signs of wounding or sickness. A white string binds his right wrist.
■ A distraught Thyvault storms in to collect the body. He takes his anger out on Prince Haiva, patron of the Wards and the first royal on premise — cursing him and his family for “what they have allowed to happen” and threatening to abandon Alem.
■ Deimar later speaks privately with his uncle — by all accounts, a heated exchange. Deimar walks away with deep bruises. Thyvault stays in Alem.
■ Vataz’s body is placed in the ancient royal crypt — pretend to be an embalmer, or slip by the guards after they’ve drunk heavily in Vataz’s honour. Those sensitive to life forces can sense the sheer nothingness in Vataz’s body — as if his life force has been entirely consumed, or never existed.
■ Alem courtiers can share that Vataz served honourably as a Paladin of Alem. He took no lover, abided no distractions and reportedly assisted his father Thyvault in repeatedly cleansing the forests of demons and Alem of vicious sirens. He survived encountering Rathakku in battle.
■ The stairwell leads to the glacier lake caves in the Gut’s Bind. Reaching the fourth lake, you find the beached corpse of the monstrous creature that previously guarded the waters. Like Vataz, it lacks any signs of life. Magic can be sensed in the lake — the shoreline is tainted with droplets of dark water.
PLOTTING & PLANNING
Get your CR ball rolling and plans in place by filling out the below and tagging around hellishly:
QUESTIONS
The 'world domination' phase is so last season, new generation of death lords says.
Re: QUESTIONS
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So. Licyn slipping in to visit Vataz's body. Is there any scent he'd pick up on that was different from a. normal ones for Vataz or b. anything related to body preservation should anything be used?
Look if you gave him Vataz to sleep with it's only fair he also has the worst reasons to know exactly how someone should smell when he's coming to give a sort of farewell and "... admittedly, not better you than me, but I'm sure glad to still be living."
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Let's go with:
Unusual scent: yes! I am just going to invent you the scent of a supernatural, magical being (feel free to make him deduce that!) and say it reeks of... something oily, astringent. Like very strong gasoline? Clearly unhuman. (Note: no actual gasoline on site, just trying to give you a mental idea, the kind of smell that is very much Not Human!)
Embalming scents: yes, they'll have started embalming him... apologies, I don't know that much about old timey embalming, beyond ancient Egypt, but general "embalming scents"?
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This works perfectly, thank you! I'll have him grab a buddy to sneak in for a scenting because that's how you do a send off for a lover, right? (Probably. Somehow.) Then get that up on network dated appropriately, since it seems like it could be fun to toss at the investigations/might lead to someone asking him to come sniff the dead thing by the lake, too. Who knows!
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Is there any way he could experiment with this for Irenia? Try to make something that slows Rathakku's influence, so if (if, plan still tbd, and obviously depends on Irenia not being a Murder Babe who wants to kill them all regardless) they move her away it takes more effort to re-claw her? Just buys her time to move off out of range, and to blast the undead lord in the face I guess on the way out. I imagine he'd have to experiment on fellow characters first, since Irenia is harder to wrangle, but we can easily also say it's a one-shot thing so he has no time to make spares for fellow characters. On a deadline! Big dragon is the WMD they need to mitigate first!
He has less example of Anurr's influence, so I am not sure he can manage that. But he has one undead lord in front of him, so one problem at a time?
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But like you said, one undead lord at a time.
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After towers start to fall on the 20th, Vanessa will be consistently trying to cast alternating compulsion and death hexes on Rathakku himself. She'll amp it up more when she gains some blood from the local gods/magic creatures in the group for a catalyst (going to thread some of that out), and the hair Jon Snow got her will be used for a fetish/voodoo doll to theoretically strengthen her 'control' for her Super Heavy spellcasting on the 2nd.
Obviously he is the Big Bad so I expect her to fail and I'm fine with that, but I feel like I should still put this somewhere so you know she is giving it the old college try.
Would he even notice? Or would there be any psychic backlash?
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I guess they could recognise it, deductively - stone stairwells and corridors tend to look pretty alike. But I guess based on identifying the point in the cave it leads to, or something like that.
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But Wrathion would have seen them exclusively taking orders for Deimar and Haiva.
In theory, they can also take instruction from Cle-Florens, but fair to dismiss her, as she never really has autonomy.
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There's no real way to extract them without cutting into his flesh — which you might need to pitch a way to do, but I'm open to hearing it, since there are three medics around and you can unite, haha — but if you look very closely when they're closer to surface, they are not dissimilar to the golden scales that Bucky got (and Caitlyn and Emilia will have now, also).
Just to confirm, they aren't always visible or present, they appear grotesquely now and then at the surface of his legs, as if they're floating on the inside of his body, trying but failing to carve their way out, then disappearing.
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Our mysterious lady in the water--
It looks like Wrathion is climbing into this cold river in search of flowers, despite his lack of interest in cold rivers. Can he spot... is she fully human, other than spooky eyes? Does she have... scales? Legs or a tail? That manner of thing!
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