let's set d o w n some (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
groundrules) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
lostcompass2024-01-30 06:25 pm
groundrules) wrote in lostcompass2024-01-30 06:25 pm
hatthevar: part ii
Hello, everyone! Heading into Part II of Hatthevar, a summary of events:
The party is entrenched in Hatthevar — former seat of mysticism, wish houses and Oracles, now transformed into a citadel of ghosts.
Matthias, creator of the undead, has been working local beacons to summon dead spirits from various places in time and space and revive them, in hopes of resurrecting his daughter Cosette. He has offered the party his entire power over the undead, if they recover Cosette, whom he senses appearing intermittently within Hatthevar.
Taking advantage of Matthias’ distraction, his creation, the dead lord Rathakku and old foe Anurr of the winds have been assailing the walls of Hatthevar with their forces, hoping to breach in.
FOLLOWING PART I:
- ■ Benedict, Emilia and Wrath defeated some of Anurr’s frost wyrms and Rathakku’s demonic scorpions and sand lurkers, preventing them from entering Hatthevar. Rathakku withdraws his forces, with any remnants (up to a handful) prepared to obey the trio in battle. Anurr remains, and his blizzards continue their attacks.
■ Vanessa controls one of the beacons. The party is guaranteed an exit point unless the beacon is lost.
■ Red recovered a substance from a cauldron typically used to eliminate memories. Along with supplying access to some of Matthias’ recollections, the liquid also enables the party to retain their memories of Akhuras upon departure.
■ Five and Wen Kexing learned two possible locations suspected as Matthias’ hideouts.
The case of Matthias’ daughter, Cosette…
FINDINGS SO FAR
- ■ Matthias describes his daughter as a young blonde child. No such girl is ever seen wherever he sends the party, claiming he senses his daughter’s presence in Hatthevar.
■ Matthias does not seem to remember or wish to share how Cosette died.
■ A puppet master, who worked at the bazaar when Matthias sensed Cosette was present there, says he was possessed to put on a play of a father-daughter quarrel, at the end of which the daughter ran off and was killed.
■ Matthias, formerly a technological and magical scientist of Ellethia, extracted two presumably shameful or painful memories: one was of him giving permission for his team to create a fierce magical storm and recover a power source, endangering nearby ships. The second memory was of running into a young blonde woman who disdainfully said she had not admired him since she was a child.
■ At one point, a woman seen where Matthias felt his daughter present traded a memory in which she was on a ship in the middle of a large storm, arguing with Matthias. River suspects Cosette may not have been a child at the time of her death.
■ If the woman is Cosette, she does not wish to return to her father.
Plenty of action to go in Part II of the event, due up over the weekend. Here are a few things to consider/sign up for:
- ■ Betrayal: Undead wind master Anurr no longer attacks Hatthevar’s walls with frost wyrms, but batters them with blizzards. More deviously, those exposed to his storms might hear… dark or saccharine voices corrupting, threatening or wooing them to open one of the gates of Hatthevar and allow Anurr’s forces in. Those prone to loneliness, despair or self-doubt are the most vulnerable and can turn aggressive, if anyone attempts to prevent them from their goal. They will have to be immobilized and warmed to return to normal.
■ Part and whole: Characters who own any of Matthias’ limbs or organs find these parts are attracting delirious, vicious and combative crowds led by ghost slavers who have received word (and promises of rewards) to recover these tokens. They may seek to abduct the actual owners of these parts or anyone unlucky enough to be mistaken for them. Get your character abducted or organize a rescue party! Note: if characters who do have Matthias' limbs/organs are captured, these tokens will be claimed by the abductors.
■ The streets: As the beacon held by Vanessa no longer answers him, Matthias assumes it’s depowering naturally and directs his energy to the remaining four gateways. The excess energy and turbulence agitate the ghosts and spirits of Hatthevar, many of which riot, mutinously, and take their anger out on ghost slavers or on anyone who reminds them of their plights while alive. Take care as hauntings multiply, and the citadel turns bloody. Yes, you can try to assemble and lead your own gang of hooligan ghosts.
■ Five and Wen Kexing have learned Matthias has two possible lairs: one is the Whispering House of the Red Lady, in Hatthevar’s wish district; the other is the half-sunken ghost ship, the Headless Dancer, which appears infrequently in Hatthevar’s lagoon. Both must be explored for any signs of Matthias, starting with the Headless Dancer. OOCly, please note that Matthias won’t be on the ship, but you can sign up for a RNG draw to either discover a critical token or encounter Cosette.
The final event write-up will include a lot of haunting options for ghost city :') The NPC inbox remains open throughout, particularly for any deals with the wish houses.
Fill out the form below and comment around mightily to plot!
no subject
I guess.
i) If he asks her, does she... actually want that? If she's like nah dude I wanna die in peace at this point he'd let her.
ii) Are there any leads in Hatthevar? I know there's a bunch of undead bits of Matthias and mirror and dark water the party possess, but Wrathion doesn't have any of those personally (beyond... the bit of the Huntress he ate I guess, inside himself, unhelpfully). He suspects one of those might help (mirrors especially seem potent power sources) but I figure I'd shake down other sources before he tries to meddle with the more dangerous things while they're... busily already meddling in dangerous things.
no subject
1. ....................in a shocking twist to Wrathion, I think he'll find Irenia isn't as. Well. Not intelligent, perhaps, but not as philosophical? As he is. 'Undead' is still 'alive,' she wouldn't differentiate as long as she isn't controlled. She will need a new tether if Jon Snow departs, though! She'd agree she'd prefer to stay alive, thanks. But she might........... not be as thrilled to let Jon go/ you might not wish to tell her Jon is leaving (cough).
2. Bear with me, it's too early - what do you mean by leads? Stuff to help keep Irenia alive, basically? There aren't, because I didn't think of it, but I can absolutely make you something, if that's something you'd like to play with! Shout.
no subject
no subject
no subject
no subject
Unfortunately, the enormous lion-shadow creatures are there.
So your best bet would be to drag Irenia to a working beacon while summons happen and either distract the shadow lion-titan long enough for Irenia to
tanbask in the beacon's brilliance, or kill the titan and take the beacon over, and let Ireniatanbask. The beacons operate for something like 15-20 min every 4-6 hours.On the one hand, Irenia's... stature... means that if Wrathion lures her to a beacon, she'll have no problem winning it over. On the other hand, good luck parking a giant dragon and keeping her in place for 15-20 minutes.
no subject
no subject
So just try to lure a giant dragon into the area(s) of one of the four beacons under Matthias' control.
By the way, she will be less sedate once revived, so you may need to lure her out of Hatthevar after, too.
no subject
Beacon related aside: I did have a thread started with Five trying to take control of a beacon. If we still finish, should we hand in late? Or just assume failure? I don't mind either way!
no subject
no subject
Essentially, Wrathion was going to try distracting the titan guard while Five snuck up and put the little item in and waited out the attune, then slip away and ..... leave the titan guard there to be like 'what was that about? nvm, he's gone I guess' in the hope that the ravens patrolling and the titan just carry on unaware he stole it from under them.
if they'd know they will just find out Live this is a bad plan and adapt, I just wanted to see if they'd get away with sneaky cheating! They are both... sneaky cheaters.
no subject
It IS a bit like cheating........... but if you stick it out for the time it takes the artefact to activate (aka Wrathion sweats blood distracting the creature), I'll allow it!
no subject
He has at least one charge on his whistle left actually, would the fox spirits respond to it? For flavour mostly mid illusion spam.
no subject
They'd have to literally barge into Hatthevar, so you may notice a short lag between whistling and the cavalry's arrival (couple of minutes), but use it for dramatic effect!
no subject
no subject
I'd need Wrathion & companions exhausted after, but hey. Pay the piper.
no subject
no subject