ARC II | VOTE HERE

[groundrules]

Yooo! We’re just shy of closing Arc I: Sa-Hareth, and I wanted to thank everyone for the amazing gung-ho involvement and willingness to go with the flow! We couldn’t have gotten here without you. All of you. Especially the ones who thought neutral options wouldn't burn down the house. To celebrate, check out our shiny new Arc badges!

We're heading into Arc II, which will be preceded by a transitional three-four- week journey Arc that will involve a self-contained quest or assignment. Arc II will have a broader, more substantive plot, so throw your vote in for our destination until 23:59 GMT on 23 June

You get one vote per character. The Merchant will ICly inform characters of their route options on 21 or 22 June. They will get less destination information precisely so you can skew your vote in the direction you prefer OOCly.

I will be abstaining from voting unless we have a tie on deadline. At that point, Rakel has been asked to cast another vote on my behalf. This avoids mod bias for our destination.

Please also cast a vote in on whether the transitional Arc should include a Test Drive Meme (do you feel we need one?) and let me know of any significant inventory additions that will come along for the journey yes, we’re talking NPCs and giant wombats here.

Check out also our Wish Well, where you can leave one broad wish per character for the next Arc, ranging from things like 'I'd like dragons' to 'I'd love for Sparky to get his pockets raided.' No guarantees that all wishes will come true, but we'll give it our all!

Without further ado, the two voyage options:

A Transitional voyage arc: follow a ghostly army in its yearly attempt to conquer a cursed passageway. Arc II: arrive in Taravast, a seat of art, scholarly magic and enlightenment, where two cousins vie for their dying ruling grandfather’s favour to be named as rightful successor. Whoever wins the title will also command an ancient eastern departure beacon — to double the party’s chances, the Merchant will split characters in two groups, each set to support one contender in the inheritance contest. Renaissance era-level technology Characters start off in better positions of power or wealth Characters may have to compete in their support of their assigned patron, while covertly looking after the party, overall Politics, backstabbing, quests, magic, spiders, harpies More information on the mirrors

B Transitional voyage arc: take the vessel Imperious on a delightful cruise down a stretch of haunted seas, and perhaps discover what cursed them. Arc II: arrive in the desert jewel of Yassair, whose splendour has been dimmed by plagues and the increasingly frequent assaults of half-men, half-vipers. A young, newly enthroned prince seeks to win the support of his distrustful, duplicitous ministers — and will grant characters access to his departure beacon, if they help him prevail to save his country. Technology level circa year 1,200 Characters start off as tolerated courtiers Characters will work together at all times, in the service of the same employer Politics, desert exploration, sand worms, scarabs, nagas More information on the life/death cycles of Akhuras

Comments

EXTRA INVENTORY

[groundrules]

Declare your wombats, NPCs, etc, here, folks.

Also:
Haltham and Karsa both would like to join the party for the next Arc, as would the free man of the woods that Five captured.

Please throw your character's vote in on which (if any) of them are welcome aboard.

[darkeststars]

Arche's vote: Yes to Karsa & No to Haltham. Tentative No on the free man.

[bearshermark]

For Eleven:

solid No on Haltham
Neutral on Karsa
Yes on woodland man

[groundrules]

Cannn you Y or N on Karsa pls? I am concerned about tie-breaking ahahhahaa.

[bearshermark]

hngh difficult. his personal feelings on her: no. understanding it would be helpful to have her: yes.

A reluctant yes I think, if the vote came down to his input.

[groundrules]

Attaboy!

[somebadnews]

Yes and Yes to Haltham and Karsa. There's leftover beef.
AND LMAO FINE YES, bring the woods guy, he's always good for a laugh. Five has no idea where he came from okay. Never met him before in his life.

ETA: Oh and Five also still has some of the loot from the bank. Probably down to about 85k at this point, he's been throwing money around lately. Also two(??) swords Eleven forged, and he still haven't thrown that stupid broken briefcase in the trash.

Re: EXTRA INVENTORY

[royal_venant]

Regulus has Patricia the Cat in his possession now, he would like her to come with him.

Regulus' vote:

Haltham: Yes
Karsa: Yes
Old Man: Yes

[groundrules]

The cat has a name????

[royal_venant]

... I was told her name was Patricia ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ - but it works because Patricia is Latin for Noblewoman and Reg's name is Latin for Little King, so they are a pair.

[groundrules]

Gilbert must know.

This is beautiful.

[binghua]

ASGEIRR he's xingchen's current quest-giver that man-cloak is absolutely coming along

As for the others I need to actually do thinky thoughts so I'll edit this comment or reply to it later or something lmao

[lancifolium]

Three (3) magic carp scales some handfuls of whatever plant she's been using to make tea out of.

Sorry, had to wait until a thread moved further along to edit inventory:
The makeup bag is not new but it has had an extension charm put on it making its holding capacity large enough to fit a person and a few incidentals.
Lily and Regulus have duplicated Lily's water-damaged notebooks, they made six, she's kept three.
There is also a duplicate version of the makeup bag floating around in there, because a gal always needs a decoy.

Oh and, Karsa is a definite yes, Haltham and the free person she doesn't know and is neutral on but if pressed will go for yes.

[jeoha]

Fox votes an emphatic yes on Karsa, a no on Haltham, yes to woods man

Lee Chang gives yes to all three

Other inventory:
Fox no longer has the mirror shards, Lee Chang still has the sword that Mingyu enchanted for him, he will also be bringing as many furs as he has stashed away ( I'm going to say an even one decent pelt per party member, not enough for a cloak but enough for like a muff or lining for their jackets).

[downswing]

A side wood plate from a half-burned trough.







And two forest chonks:

[weifinder]

Wei Wuxian votes no on everyone lmfao NO STAY, STAY HERE, PLEASE

He's voting No because it's more factors, and he'd rather deal with people who they fade out of the lives of as quickly as they come in. Haltham is too much of an Anurr goon (Ruxi this pains me to write and I'm laughing), Karsa is useful, yes, but hard to predict and also not great patience and also not primarily selling herself as a healer which is about where they really need someone right now (tell me if she would instead, this does bear on what he's thinking), and random dude that Five kept in a shack for weeks is uh. Free guy is still Anurr slated and he has no reason to want to bring him along, unless he too is an excellent healer. He's going to stand out as much as they do anywhere else they're heading, and they have no plans to come back, so that's on the Merchant's head and the Free Man's head to negotiate.

His only yes would be to the tattered possessed execution cloak, but I want to note he's probably out of it still with cold exposure and exhaustion so his votes can be ignored ICly really easily. He's also all for Vanya's chickens. What a great plan? And for nostalgia and bae and son reasons, is softe for the rabbits while unsure how the heck they're keeping them fed (so he'll be getting feed to head out with as much as he can). Oh, also a yes to Mingyu's ward because he's weak to children and teenagers, soblaughs.

Also noting that he does think his name??? Is cursed so he's going to ask people call him Qianbei for the next... month... this is terrible.