sa-hareth | i

[groundrules]

Bright and early, wakey-wakey.

Wherever, whatever, however, whenever, whoever you were doing — is officially on PAUSE.

It’s a rush job, but don’t blame the getaway drivers — the intrepid rescue teams that are liberating you from hard chain and wall strappings still have dozens like you to release, one at a time. Poppy-drugged and haze-minded, some running wound fevers, you only earn bare-bone instructions after rose quartz necklace is thrust in your hand. This slip of nothing will allow you to grasp foreign speech for two days while you wear it:

"You are in west-northern province city Sa-Hareth. You were brought to serve warlord Unhalad. He will kill you for your strength. He has killed — see the many bones beside you — countless of your kind before. Be at the House of Dew within the fortnight, in the Merchant Arena. That way. Go east."

Characters are rescued from one of two locations. They have all been warded, stripping them of access to their native magic or spiritual and physical weapons. Characters with superior strength or physical prowess have been sedated. These effects will wear off gradually in 72 hours. Pick your path & poison:



A. SALT MINES

• Characters were summoned unconscious from their homelands within the past 3-5 days and have been chained and detained in the tundra plateau atop the salt mines. • Now and then, waking from narcotic spells, characters have been able to glimpse the undead legions of Unhalad: largely humanoid and decaying, but preserved by the unyielding cold. They have little awareness past accepting orders from their humanoid, slack, pale-skinned and long-limbed lieutenants. The base undead have occasionally stolen captives and covered themselves in their blood or their limbs, seeking warmth. • Captives have been culled every two-three days, given as rewards to the undead. • Characters are rescued at night, by a team of six, who light fires to dispel pursuers. The flame circle also cuts off exits beyond the salt mines. • The mines can be entered through a lattice of suffocating tunnels, or a very rickety cart ride down, if characters collectively restart some stuck levers. • Once inside, the salt mines are a steep, labyrinthine construction, possessed of pointy edges. • Centuries ago, hare salt, dense and pure, was Sa-Hareth’s core & cruelly exploited currency. Some infrastructure persists: the rare lit torch, abandoned tools. Miners still attended mere weeks ago — torn blankets, twice-cooked biscuits, salted (why, yes) fish are still strewn about. Bundle up from the chills, replenish, keep walking. • If luck prevails, characters might stumble on a makeshift encampment, where miners who fled Unhalad stashed barrels of oil and fresh water, lamps, clothes and resilient foods. • The undead above might have had some discipline, but the undead risen of the salt mines are completely devoid of human awareness, ravenous and impatient for warmth. They stir at the smallest sound, fast and savage, prone to hunting in packs. Happily, their sight’s dulled, and many died surrounded and fearful of salt, so they struggle to discern shades of white. • The undead can be deterred easier than killed. Simply stabbed, they’ll keep walking. Lacking limbs, they might carry on. Best to dismember them, or severe their heads. Better still: avoid them. Run (silently). • Keep east. There’s a slippery slope up somewhere, to the outskirts of Sa-Hareth.

B. OLD JAILHOUSE

• Characters were recently summoned from their home worlds into Sa-Harent’s defunct jailhouse, within the 24 hours that precede the rescue. Lightly battered, they've been immediately put to work, with Unhalad’s lieutenants miming assigning instructions to cleanse the jail cells and feed the undead forces of Anurr — the warlord who lost Sa-Hareth to Unhalad. • The rusting and decrepit jailhouse is stuck by the cliff-side and grazed by water. Some cells barely hold together, their chains set to break. • Unhalad has left few undead to patrol the area, but they look significantly more strapping than Anurr’s larger (if captive) undead forces. Unhalad's resurrected here behave similarly to those of the salt mines. • Past midnight, characters hear alarm bells because of a jail uprising They are freed from their individual, sturdier cells, and directed east — deeper in the jail, before they can (hopefully) reach the kitchens and travel through the supply tunnels to an uneasy exit. • Some characters might still be loosely bound together with rope or chain. • The inevitable problem: not only are Unhalad’s forces on the run, so are Anurr’s freed and starving factions. • Topping everything, there are the lingering ghosts and spirits of previous captives that are looking to compromise or possess passers-by. • On exiting the old jailhouse, characters must infiltrate or beg passage to the mainland on the ferry boat that delivers morning supplies. Alternatively, they can tackle the long, chilly and undead-patrolled bridge walk. Good luck with that!

SA-HARETH

Citadel of... someone else’s dreams, the grudging seat of Unhalad’s power for the past 18 months, conquered from his predecessor Anurr and isolated from the west by frozen waters and teeth-rattling chills. A large segment of the population fled during recent hostilities, but the city receives enough naval commerce that the merchant fleets have stayed. Sa-Hareth's activity has shifted from the salt mining of previous decades to commerce and the Merchants’ Arena — frequent markets, with cloth, spice, food and work wares trading hands through open auction. Despite the milling undead, the air isn’t fraught with tensions or terror, as if the population’s gotten used to war and compromise. Characters cruising Sa-Hareth might want to try the occasional disguise to escape the scrutiny of native undead. Notable locations: La Rea: a renown and swarming bank, managing local and foreign interests. The ports: several, typically focused on the type of ware received. The lifeblood of Sa-Hareth’s economy. Main market: the centre of administration, justice and taverns, alongside auction houses. The House of Dew: a declining luxury brothel. The forges: crude and somewhat cold, but working. Find your flame or your weapon of choice. The customs: highly regulated exits that characters will need to breach shortly...

HOUSE OF DEW

Welcome to the Dew House! Good of you to make it. You’ve arrived at a bustling, clean and strangely sophisticated brothel enjoying a wealth of high-end clientele. The brothel keeper, old woman Tamaiu has been paid off handsomely to tolerate your stench and ushers you into the servant quarters, where you’ll be offered the rags du jour and fresh, steamy... millet. Some medical supplies are available, but scarce and largely there to attend the sort of wounding received by the House of Dew’s workers in their line of service. Characters who stay inside until the rendez-vous will be assigned basic cleaning and mending duties, but always whisked away from the discerning eyes of clients. Days before the rendez-vous, familiar faces from the rescue parties, disguised as suppliers, will bring in some trinkets over two deliveries — characters’ clothing and weapons. They confirm that the mastermind of their escape, an anonymous Merchant, is attempting to broker their passage out of Sa-Hareth — the trouble, so far, is coin. A HELPFUL HAND: ASSIGNMENT The more coin for bribes and travel fees, the better. Characters are encouraged to help the fundraising effort and expedite their own exit: explore the city, beg, play the auctions, rob a bank, go back to raid the salt mines, start a cult. Sa-Hareth is your freezing oyster.

COMMUNICATION
• Regrettably, no more fancy translation rose quartz pieces are freely available for characters’ use. They can always be stolen or purchased from other city dwellers. Merchants should have a-plenty.
• The House of Dew operates translation spells in most areas, typically to ensure courtesans can liaise with their customers.
• Good news! If they nick procure a rose quartz piece again, characters can access and visualise a makeshift magical ‘network’ communication platform, calling the House of Dew!
• ...bad news! While Tamaiu allows refugees one private network channel, she’s not ponying up the money for a premium connection. There will be frequent peripheral noise and characters will be able to hear courtesans discussing at length with their customers. They will also inherit the creative usernames of existing courtesans.
• Channel communication can take place in writing (translating whatever characters jot down in whatever way, from parchment to a stick in the sand) or verbally. Visual communication is not advisable, as basic rose quartz communicators aren't sophisticated enough to pull clear mental footage, and will instead stitch together a series of blinks, mental impressions of place, and hazy afterthoughts.
• Nothing quite like a character inbox system yet!

THE OOC LAUNDRY LIST

Intro post for all newcomers!

Sa-Hareth arrival log

Event questions for the mod

Salt mines route sign-ups | Old jailhouse route sign-ups

Comments

QUESTIONS + MOD-NEEDIN' PLANS

[groundrules]

Questions/comments, go forth in a response to this comment! I'll be reading plotting comments and dropping lines as well.

Since 'what if...' questions don't make it 100% clear what characters will be doing: if you can do me a favour, please let me know what you definitely want them to proceed with that might require mod involvement, and I'll input with feedback here!

[bearshermark]

1. When/if characters acquire a new rose quartz necklace, will it also only last two days? In essence, will this be an on-going expense and issue for characters?

2. Just to clarify: the wards on the characters will gradually fade and they'll have all their abilities back by the start of the fourth day? Or is that just the physical sedation?

2a? Related follow-up: What counts as superior strength or physical prowess?

[groundrules]

Heya:

1. Up to you!

2. Both, though you're welcome to have the effect last longer for either/both, if you want.

3. That's hard to quantify, but generally anything superhuman would count.

more questions

[bearshermark]

1. Do the rose quartz translate outside texts (i.e. books) or is it limited to the network?

2. Without anything to sell until their gear arrives, El is going to be looking for a blacksmith to work for to earn a bit of coin. Y/N? Anything he should expect?

3. Also, how prevalent are the undead around the city? The forging area is presumably guarded in some way?

[groundrules]

1. You'd have to go very steeply out of pocket for a translation device that handles both! But the default House of Dew network communication channel allows both option.

2/3. Getting formal work in the actual forges might be a bit of a task. Unhalad recognises that the forges are a vehicle for weapon and critical in retaining control of the citadel, which he's only seized fairly recently. The forges are guarded, and their workers will be heavily vetted. Going in to work there regularly could effectively expose Eleven to the folks he's trying to escape.

slides in with my slutty, slutty son

[descendency]

hey so the courtesans are understandably territorial about their clientele, but could mingyu volunteer to team up with the girls for threesomes and moresomes for a small cut? i just want to live my sluttiest life. he can also just go into petty thievery but you know.

[groundrules]

...when in Rome? Sure.

If he starts doing exceedingly well, Tamaiu might even set him up in finer quarters and offer him better clients. Notably, she will only allow him to interact with foreign patrons or with old Sa-Hareth aristocracy that's firmly entrenched in anti-Unhalad positions — in other words, no one locally linked with or likely to tattle to the warlord. Mingyu's needn't all be sexual, by the way: some visitors seek poetry, music or company.

Just be careful that prominence in a declining brothel might lead to some internal jealousies, and, if you want, one or more of the courtesans could start giving Mingyu trouble or pettily sabotaging his work.

[jeoha]

ALRIGHT SO

Being the dramatic loser that he is, during the jailbreak lee chang is gonna want to organize as many of the npcs as possible into escaping with them, because of course he does. He'll even walk in slow mo into the kitchen and flip some knives up into his sleeves as he does it. So, for Anurr's people specifically, would he be able to convince them to band together and follow him once he has his talking crystal? He would end up telling them to scatter into safe hiding once they were out anyway, so he's not keeping an army around, but I figured it may mean his face is a little more recognizable to them in particular later.

[groundrules]

So, this has now been edited to clarify in the write-up, but just to state here too: Anurr's forces are also (largely) undead.

However, they're a different breed from Unhalad's, both naturally and circumstantially more intelligent — they've been nearly starved out since the takeover, and they've had to become crafty in their approach. They mime awareness and human behaviour much better than Unhalad's factions, and the distance of the jails and the very dim lighting of the jailhouse might satisfactorily hide their resurrected features until they lure their victim close.

Lee Chang wouldn't have to pit them against Unhalad's people. He'd have to let them out, or even throw a key their way or somehow facilitate their getting that key, then stand aside somehow out of range, while they dash out — they'd go straight for Unhalad's undead, and some of them would remember who let them loose. They might or might not repay that debt in the future, when the party runs into Anurr's factions again.

However, some would argue that doing this would also morally make Lee Chang partly responsible for the raiding Anurr's factions do, once they're released. And they're very hungry.

Tell me here if you want Lee Chang to go ahead with this.

Just as a note: there is an uprising of Anurr's forces irrespective of what Lee Chang proceeds with, but his involvement in the way you suggested could affect future interaction with Anurr's forces and how they behave.

[beitangmoran]

Something that just occurred to me to ask :

What are the stars like? If someone like Moran or Xunxian who are attuned to them and have a whole way of life based around constellations look up, would they be able to recognize anything, or are they completely different from what we know?

[groundrules]

Completely different!

If Moran and Xunxian are super attuned / enamoured with stars, we could combine our intellects and make some fixtures for them. Is this likely to come up often (aka really matter) for them, do you reckon?

I'll ask Kiki to input as well.

[pinkxeno]

To get some coin flowing, Mina will offer her acid to the living people of the citadel - not as a specific job, but as a "use it for whatever". It can be used to melt things, to get rid of garbage, to even clean stuff at a low acidity. Would this be easy for Mina to do (given that she hides her skin, etc etc), or would people be a bit too weirded out by some chick with acid?

[groundrules]

I mean.



It's probably going to be used for especially shady purposes, and she'll have to not... mention it's coming out of her body, and maybe also... mime what it does, before she gets some translator coin, but.



Go with God?


How much is she planning to produce/sell?

[weifinder]

All riiight since this is more applicable to once he has anything accessible for tinkering with the undead, but generally speaking, if he's watching/observing/trying to get intel oh how the undead are made around these parts, or generally trying to suss out how similar to resentful energies he's more used to this place is, what would he be looking at?

I had other questions that promptly flew out the harbour so, waves them onward and lowers face into hands.

[somebadnews]

Here's a question that is maybe only relevant to me: when they get delivered 'characters’ clothing and weapons' does that include anything else in their inventory that might have been taken? Five wants his useless heavy briefcase. And his nice clean uniform, but you know, priorities.

I almost posted this with Huaisang wtf

[beitangmoran]

ANYWAY, in light of the new calendar and to keep with the theme of Moran having visions that look completely mundane and then turn out to be significant except there was no way to know until it happens, may he have a few visions of snow/blizzard/storming totally out of context. With or without spatial clues that might tell him where they might be happening (and of course no idea of when because that's not how his power works haha)?

[plentystrong]

so are there like. any gangs catra could take over

Character Lodgings

[plentystrong]

Gonna put this in a separate thread; do characters get their own rooms at the House of Dew or are they communal quarters?

Re: QUESTIONS + MOD-NEEDIN' PLANS

[soulsrob]

raises hand.

what does the local fashion look like for men and women?

are we talking flowing robes, bustles and hoopskirts for ladies, tight-fitted suits for gentlemen? Lots of furs and bulk coats?? i just wanted a general idea of the style

[weifinder]

Comes back here with all the sordid things I've mentioned offhand, but:

Wei Wuxian is gonna follow up on things post talking to our not so literate NPC friend, but that's where I'm rolling up here for more auction related shenanigans (and also thralling, but hey).

1. Once he's got enough coins racked up to investigate thralling, he'll be seeing what kind of coin each of the three most common he got word of will cost him, in various combinations: but basically the translation, the heating, and the light thralls.

1.a. Will thralling be done in front of him? He'd mostly be interested in seeing if he can feel any of the energies used, specifically related to the translation stuff, because boy do you not think he's definitely going to try and see if there's any way of working on something to aid them with that. Heat and light he'd be interested in how those are different (to what degree they are) from what cultivators can do.

2. Auction time! If he's talking to merchants, will he be able to find information on how to get wares accepted into the auction house? Will he need some kind of connection or merchant acting as his front for it? He's fine sharing profits, as long as he's not getting scalped out of most of them, but also definitely would want to lean into sell high okay these are rare, one of a kind things.

3. Related to that, I'd be game for him asking around the 'rescued' for possible auction things they can pony up, be it from their skills or extraneous/unimportant goods of theirs which can have inventive or rare histories attached. If we ended up with a list of those kinds of things, could we have a general concept of how well received they may or may not be?

[jeoha]

So how DO they bury/intern/cremate/deal with their dead?

Re: QUESTIONS + MOD-NEEDIN' PLANS

[bearshermark]

hello it me again. the time has surprisingly come already:

is there a drinking age here/does anyone care if a possibly underaged teenager orders whatever kind of alcohol that's available from the local tavern? he is of age by his own world's standards, so it's not something he'd think about

[weifinder]

Okay so in the time before they get out of town, how expensive would it be to get the equivalent of a "private network" of some movable kind to keep them connected (for as long as they remember to keep getting someone to thrall their crystals/other thralled creations)? Not expecting anything robust so that then people are free to have failed connections or dropped or whatnot, so it can't circumvent whatever they end up facing, but a way to have some version of a network while they're traveling that is slightly less prone to background porn noises!

[descendency]

For my personal records, can I get a full menu of the brothel's current going rates?

[jeoha]

okay real money making questions now

How viable is hunting for money? What kind of game can be found out on the tundra? how much is a carcass worth? is it worth more if they butcher it themselves?