steps of sighs

[groundrules]

JOURNEY TO TARAVAST

And ‘lo, the people have spoken! To ancient magical city Taravast we go. Come 26 June, at dawns, the party will be gently herded under the care of Mazyar, a former smuggler respectable merchant who collaborates with our very own Merchant.

The party will have one day’s notice and will receive fresh quartz translation and communication pieces that Karsa — who will join the group alongside Five’s woodland friend — will thrall to now also allow personal character inboxes. You can grab a quick OOC code, if you need one. Haltham-Anurr remains in Sa-Hareth, which is open for characters to return to, given their... inadvertent support in deposing Unhalad.

Yennefer, Five and the Harry Potter crew can blitz back to Sa-Hareth easily; more travel challenged characters may have to procure some of Taravast’s renown teleportation trinkets.

ADMININ’ WE GO

The journey arc is intended as a make-your-own-adventure month-long endeavour to give characters the chance to know each other or take things at their own pace.

The mystery of the ghost army is entirely optional to resolve, though world lore and some opportunities become available, if characters run their own investigation. A second plot/event write-up will be up mid-July.

A Test Drive Meme might be injected in mid/second-half July — drop your thoughts here on whether you’d like one!

The NPC inbox now reflects the new characters available for outreach. The Locations page will be updated once characters reach Taravast.

Plot & plan to your black hearts' content!

If your character struggle to participate in the mystery investigation and you cruelly really want them to, drop a line here, and we can maverick a plot nugget their way.

STAIRS OF SIGHS

Characters join Mazyar’s caravan on 26 June, come dawns — a well-equipped convoy featuring horses, carts, oxen, silks, agricultural goods, jewellery and furniture. Mazyar’s group includes another thirty-so people, half of whom escape east because their previous involvement with Unhalad disqualifies them from staying in Sa-Hareth under Anurr. The party will have access to food & water provisions, two carts for their wares and players’ pick of a horse, large elk or sullen donkey for a ride. Mazyar leads the caravan through the elusive Cat’s Gate — steering away from the longer main road, down the typically barred but currently accessible Stairs of Sighs passage. Mazyar gives fair warning: stay with the caravan at all times and sign up for night watches. Keep fire beside you, speak as little as you can, and trust no one — least of all your eyes. Ominously, he adds the caravan will likely be escorted shortly, as the Stairs of Sighs only open once a year for their visitors. The caravan is merely taking advantage.

The Stairs of Sighs are a steep and perpetually mist-drenched pathway, traversing barren mountain stone roads or stretches of eerily silent, lifeless forests. Characters should beware treacherous cliff slopes, fragile bridges and trees whose roots reach to entangle with their legs and immobilise them. The caravan alights each night of travel in more secure plains or mountain territory, setting up camp beneath an unyielding full Hunter’s moon. As they progress, characters can sometimes hear the indistinguishable, haunting whispers or song of a woman in the night. One of the caravan refugees notes these are the chants of Taravast witches. Karsa seems ill impressed. As of 3 July, the caravan goes up on a canyon road, bracketed by high mountain walls that are sometimes decorated with panels featuring sculptures of warriors and gods. Now and then, these panels move, with some sculptures attempting to pull caravan members into stone. Drop a line here if you want your character drawn in! ETA, 26 June: because of higher-than-expected interest in this option, let's aim for only two more sign-ups for this, please! For the rest of the journey, droves of harpies will sometimes fly by, sinking down to steal animals, or sometimes throwing down stones or time-yellowed bone.

After the first night of travel, the caravan camp is joined by an army of nearly 150-200 horsemen, primarily armed with swords and bows, barring the rare elemental sorcerer. They are led by the young Lord Arha, who offers escort on the road to Taravast. He travels there with his men to rescue his lover, the oracle Hatisse, who has been imprisoned and weaponised in the disputes of regional sorcery clans. Over the next few days, characters may notice Arha and his men are sometimes listless, never taking food or drink, and struggling to retain memories of the present. They (dis)appear often, and sometimes manifest in different states of clean or bloodied dress, never recalling the reason. Arha and his men are fierce and generous warriors, able to lend a hand against the harpies and to assist in case of emergencies. Characters sensitive to spirits may realise instantly that this is an army of ghosts, while others are welcome to deduce it over time. Despite their revelation, characters will find they cannot speak, write or otherwise directly inform Arha or his men that they are dead. Those who attempt this repeatedly will find themselves mute for the entirety of the next day. As the journey advances (after 10 July), Arha will become increasingly more fixated with reaching Taravast and freeing his lover. At night, for long hours, the roads will be washed by rains of blood. The blood disappears, come morning.

Ever in the distance, one of Anurr’s arctic bears starts to gallop after the caravan.

Comments

[rumorate]

Hi, yes, I was going to come back and ask you about this. Allison and Wei were talking about possibly using Allison's friendship with the harpies to find their way back into the temple that she woke up in? Is there a way that they might be able to manage that?

(Five will probably come too.)

Also open to building more of a crew around this, Allison just doesn't know people yet.

[groundrules]

Interesting — not how I assumed you guys would go about it, but... I'm game, I like it, manipulate some harpies.

But, how would you want to go about it?

[rumorate]

Speaking solely for Allison, she wouldn't want to burn any bridges with the creatures that clearly are looking out for her, but she might want to try and follow them to wherever they go in and out. Or, alternatively, if there's a way of her persuading them that they want to get in there because they want to help?

She's somewhat connected that the cave drawings she saw are related to the ghost army they're traveling with, maybe the key to helping them rest is within the temple.

I'm just spitballing, but I also think she would try and dissuade people from attempting to capture them if that would win her any bonus points.

[groundrules]

The harpies would tolerate Alison's presence without harming her — but she might need back-up or some device or magical contraption perhaps Fox or one of the HP folks can help? to lift her up the cliffs enough to pursue the harpies.

I'd say, if she's willing to give the harpies chase, if she tries to get support from some of the party people (maybe go on Facebook marketplace the network one of these days? ) that could work!

...now, be careful, though, because once she finds the way in, she shouldn't enter alone.

[rumorate]

Five probably wouldn't let her go alone even if she wanted to.

But duly noted! I will try and throw something together. /rubs hands eagerly

[groundrules]

Just keep Vanya from violining in that place, there's an entire unbalanced stone structure you don't want falling on your heads.

Sure, let me know what you guys get going and I'll tailor a scenario with findings!

[groundrules]

Hello, bonjour! Just wanted to ask if you folks've had a chance to talk about how you might want to orchestrate entering the temples aerially, and who might be involved, if that's still something you're keen on doing — no problem if not! But if it is, I'd like to incorporate that into the mid-week event update and test drive meme, if that's okay, so I was hoping to go over basics! No problem about not having played it out yet, you can do it during the event.

[rumorate]

OKAY.

So they have a three-pronged plan which will work as follows:

1) They will see if they can talk to some of the ghosts and find out what they know about the harpies. Lily's player mentioned her having a relationship with one of them, but Allison and Wei Wuxian would also ask around and see what happens.

2) Wei Wuxian would implement a tracking talisman on one of the harpies, and he, Allison, Lily, Five and Lan Wangji would use Lily's levitation and Five's teleportation to follow them.

3) If neither of those options bear fruit, Allison would attempt to rumor one of the harpies into standing still, while Wei Wuxian tried to use his empathy abilities to access their memories. This would be a last resort option.

Let me know if you need anymore information from me!

[groundrules]

I think #2 should work — re: #3, this is an interesting concept, as do we know if Alison's powers work on non-humans or non-living humans? I believe it hasn't been illustrated, but forget if we've ever observed her influence animals.

Empathy would not quite work, as these are not cohesive spirits with individual personality and associated memories.

But you folks seem to have a team ready to rumble, and tracking the harpies is A+.

If you're (all) agreeable to it, I'd like to piggyback a part of the upcoming event/TDM off your fine work and build on it for a plot development — this would mean the incursion in the harpy nest can't take place until 14/07 (or 15/07 at the latest). Would that be okay?

If you guys want to play this out sooner, I can figure out a way around you!

[rumorate]

o7 All of this works for me! And by 7/14-15 works just fine on my end, but I will have the rest of the group come in to confirm.

[weifinder]

I'm very happy to have this come to fruition to dovetail with the planned TDM!

If anything he can have an ill advised Empathy session before then to learn absolutely nothing except these are not individual cohesive spirits lmf Wei Wuxian out here making those decisions

[groundrules]

Yes, sure. He can learn:

That they are indeed not individual, cohesive spirits

That they care multiple strains of memory, typically short-term and confused

That these memories typically reveal glimpses that precede death, in fire and tar poured down off walls


If Allison (or others) can hold the creature still long enough, he can also figure out that the core of the harpy's power is... the piece(s) of bone within it.

[rumorate]

There hasn't been any solid evidence on Allison rumoring animals, so I'm willing to say that it doesn't work until canon josses me, but maybe she can find other ways to hold it still to make this work.

Follow up question on those bones though: would it be similar to the bones that Allison saw in the tombs/Lan Wangji mentioned being thrown at the caravan members?

[groundrules]

Why, yes indeed. I wonder whose they are!

[rumorate]

Well, how interesting is that.

[weifinder]

Wait wait wait are you telling me we've all popped...




...the bones, er?

[groundrules]

All in the name of plot.

[weifinder]

It sure is one way to get it up, solemn nod

But yes, all this sounds great and can be the shenanigans they're getting up to prior to having TDM antics kick in with the disaster crew on ground level for it all. Or harpy level.

[groundrules]

And for a further check to write up consequences properly: how much anguish has Five absorbed as a result of ingesting the cursed lake mirror's ability? Does he still have 'capacity'?

...if so, well.

[somebadnews]

Man, he's got to be close to capacity after the siege happened. Unsure if he's there yet, but it's fair to say a lot. Many units of anguish are in stock for anyone who wishes to purchase.

[groundrules]

Wonderful.

We'll have to burst his bubble soon in Taravast. But for now, lap up some of that excess harpy distress. It'll feel great, and it's good for the body — they will feel like memories of burning and betrayal. One of your five a day.

[somebadnews]

That's excellent. Getting to test it on other non-humans. He definitely wanted to top that off with some harpy angst.

A great decision on his part to come along, he knows everyone will appreciate his contributions.

[lancifolium]

I'm great to wait for the TDM this sounds like it's gonna be a fun time!