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ephes | arrival
Sep. 12th, 2023 04:12 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
groundrules
When in Ephes... welcome to Arc VII, officially debuting on 15 September through an event log. Check out:
As the Merchant revealed, the party enters Ephes — opulent home to a formidable new army and dreams of empire. Undead lady Messalina had requested the citadel’s forces to liberate the unliving from the undead Brotherhood that enslaves them. In exchange, she offers any territories she frees.
The party’s chief objective is to survive until the temple that hosts the beacon of Ephes reopens, once the Senate leader is prepared to vote on Messalina’s proposal. In the interim, the party can optionally sway public and senatorial opinion either for or against Messalina.
Below is a loose summary of what to expect in the first log event of Friday, which will last til 3 October. You’ll get more descriptive and cosmetic details (that don’t require pre-planning) at the time.
POLITICS | non-politicians can support
Several characters are assigned as political advisors and can conspire to
Guidelines:
- ■ Characters can group up to meet these requirements, using the human and coin resources at their disposal. You can ask for support from anyone else in the party!
■ You should submit a completed thread of fulfilling some or all of thebribedpolitician’s needs by 23:59 GMT on 27 September to gain the politician’s vote.
Political crises only you can fix:
- ■ War veteran-turned-politician Sextus Longinus wants to leave his mark permanently on Ephes.
■ Senator Publia Secunda has been struck with court summons on charges of tax evasion. The court claims it has proof she has been passing the precious wares coming on her ships as geese.
■ Senator Ovidius Petronius’s wife fled home, ruining his image as a family man, after he was caught in compromising circumstances with another woman.
■ Severus Silvanus has been overcome by sickness and wishes to throw a final party worth remembering as he lives out his final year.
■ Once a formidable soldier, Senator Cassia Floriana has been for years denied an audience by the priests of the temple of the Chained God, who refuse to see her because of the blood on her hands.
■ Maximilianus Tacitus wishes to eliminate his reputation for stinginess — while spending not a single piece of his own coin.
A post with a ‘digital’ Senate meeting where politicians can make rhetorical arguments will go up by the end of the month.
GLADIATORS | non-gladiators may spectate or patron
Gladiators are received by arena leader Laetio and housed in single or shared cells. They are paired up and taught how to throw fights, exaggerate their reactions and come up with slogans and outrageous personas for the public’s enjoyment.
They notice some veteran gladiators are frequently inspected and measured by healers and their performances are often monitored by Laetio.
They experience their first day in the arena on the celebration of the Chained God’s first Chaining (OOCly around 18 September), honoured with games.
- ■ Characters can pair up to fight a demonic large beast, NPCs or each other. Decide the winner through RNG and don’t forget to pepper the interaction with over-the-top fake injuries and defeats.
■ Submit a finished fight thread by 23:59 GMT on 27 September for the winner/s to address the stadium and win support.
■ Under the guise of meeting champions, other party members can pay or coax the arena leadership to receive their ‘favourite’ gladiator(s) at their villas. Swap information or reunite with the party for a few hours of peace and quiet — but return to the arena by dawns.
White Night
One night (OOCly around 24 September), you wake up in a bleary haze to distant screams and heavy footsteps. In pitch dark, you glimpse the silhouettes of men wearing coarsely carved wooden masks, checking each cell. If you see their masks, you are overcome with a sudden, insurmountable terror to flee your (luckily, open) cell that won’t abate until you’re once more in living company. You know instinctively, those masked creatures are not human and they should not find you. Hide well.
The next day, a veteran gladiator, the Beast of Brenne, is no longer present for the morning call. Laetio insists he did not survive the previous day’s games and claims to know nothing of any late-night visitors.
THE HAND
Characters reach the barracks as part of a set of 100 new recruits. They are subjected to three days of intense training, ranging from running and parkour basics to weights and strength building, basic dagger combat and progressing in hard (magically induced) weather conditions. The recruit batch is overseen by Hand leader Narula and members depend on each other for food or care.
Honeyed
Recruits receive their assignments after the initial introduction and are posted in the barracks. Within days, you join a small team of recruits that must shadow a group of Hand veterans as they guard a Hive — an agricultural cluster outside of Ephes — against foul play during a grains transfer.
- ■ New recruits follow veteran soldiers into the eerily silent farmland dominated by high rows of wheat of corn. You feel watched and something touches your legs and thighs as you advance. Soldiers tell you: rabbits, snakes.
■ The transfer proceeds peacefully — until midday, when alarms blare, and a brawl starts near a watering well. It’s not merchants looking to steal, but a dozen of veteran Hand soldiers who went berserk and started killing indiscriminately.
■ Immobilise the attackers, or run to take civilians to safety in warehouses.
■ The berserk soldiers are removed. At the barracks, Narula addresses the incident, calling it the result of heatstroke.
MESSALINA’S INFILTRATORS
Assigned party members join Messalina’s group as paid aides of her cause. Stationed in the Senate’s summer villas outside of Ephes, the lady’s eclectic group comprises volatile magic users and necromancers, the undead and demonic creatures — all coexisting in tenuous peace. It’s every wo/man to themselves after dark.
Mid-summer
It becomes rapidly clear that Messalina does not trust the good will of Ephes and wants to cut a deal quickly by bribing, blackmailing, or interceding with Senate leader Caius.
She assigns party members to bolster the campaign of Maximus Faustus — a young, promising and popular politician with hopes of becoming Senate leader… who has been replaced by the demonic shapeshifter Alir.
- ■ Infiltrate noble functions and learn what would steer patricians towards Faustus’ cause.
■ The demon Alir is fiercely intelligent and capable of learning, but possesses little familiarity with human mores and lusts to consume human hearts — watch him while out in public. Handle or exterminate witnesses to Alir’s outbursts.
■ Patricians widely feel that Caius has been too sympathetic towards plebeians and neglectful of his own people. They want to see more grand gestures celebrating Ephes’ noblest class. See to it.
■ A derisive Alir suggests, if you want to know why the otherwise impatient Messalina is willing to wait out Caius’ ruminations, go to his private home on the night of the full moon (OOCly around 20 September). You may take along other party members.
■ The night of the full moon finds Caius’ closed-off villa well lit and bursting with song. Scale the walls and enter: it is empty of human life, but is instead hosting a banquet of the shadows of Caius’ ancestors. At first they ignore you, but then seem to increasingly recognise there is something wrong about you, and, daggers in hand, c Get as much information as you can until then!
CIVILIANS
Characters assigned civilian roles may assume their respective posts in Ephes, safe and sound — for a handful of days, before the citadel stirs for the religious celebrations of the Chained God’s twelve Chainings. The all-Father of the universe, the Chained God is by his nature prone to birthing, consuming and rebirthing the world and humanity with it, and was chained twelve times by humans to fetter his great destructive power.
- ■ The numerous priests of the Chained God wander the roads and mark the foreheads of civilians with sacred salted ash — which briefly brings out your foremost tendencies of anger, greed or selfishness.
■ Priests say you are merely bleeding out the frustration of the bound Chained God — and some of those ash-touched experience visions of a heavily fettered creature, struggling in agony in a cavernous room.
■ Those who ‘see’ the Chained God are brought and tested for holiness by Priestess Valeria, for it is known the Chained God chooses brief emissaries during the days of Chaining.
Off with his —
On the sixth day of Chaining (OOCly around 23 September), the great market of Ephes is awash with clamour, as the news shouter of the day receives a pouch containing the decapitated head of Tavernus, brother of Narula, who leads the army Ephes. The shocked newscaster stammers but drops the head and reads out the message that comes with it, Animals die for men to live. Men die for gods to prosper. — a saying attributed to the Chained God.
You can group up to investigate — and throw your hat in for a RNG pick to hang on to the head.
NIGHT OF KNIVES | EVERYONE INVITED
Ephes erupts alive on the twelfth day of Chaining (OOCly around 29 September) — the end of a yearly 12-day religious festival for the Chained God — with multiple roadside celebrations and private dinners.
Popular political upstart Maximus Faustus, backed by Messalina, holds his own night-long banquet, inviting representatives of the political tribes, the Hand, Messalina’s people, civilians — and gladiators to entertain them. All characters may attend.
The affair sprawls over multiple floors of Faustus’ enormous villa, with entertainment ranging from poetry, theatre, artistic and magical recitals on the lower floors to a gladiator performance and heavy opioids upstairs.
- ■ No better time to publicise your feats or generosity. Why not have your character (including gladiators) perform or bring an offering?
■ You can sign up for a RNG draw for a conversation with Faustus by 23:59 GMT on 18 September.
■ Towards the middle of the night, head priestess Valeria, who attends, asks to conduct a religious rite not unlike a séance, whereby one person may channel the Chained God and speak on the future of Ephes. Sign up if you’re interested in possession.
■ After 2 a.m., torch lights dim down, as some twenty masked pantomimes enter the main banquet halls, shushing the rooms silent. They lightly mock some of the high-profile Senators in attendance with gentle jokes and miming —
■ …before slashing their throats or stabbing them, sparking a chaotic stampede as banquet attendants attempt to exit the villa. They find the main hall doors closed from the outside, while fire seems to have broken out inside.
■ Try to rescue some of the Senators, and help the crowds and yourself escape from Faustus’ burning villa. Unhelpfully, the assassins fluctuate between being men of flesh and merging with shadows.
■ Come morning, a list is found on the main hall floor of Faustus’ villa with an assassination contract that declares forfeit the lives of the killed Senators (and of those you saved). All had intended to support Messalina.
QUESTIONS
PLOTTING
To start on the path of stabbing Caesar, fill out the form below and tag aroud mightily:
