![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
4.1 Event
4.1 Event Plotting
OOC announcements
Welcome to cycle 4! Wellstone got a facelift, trading in the hot and dry for the cool and damp. While a nice reprieve from the desert, the lush forest comes with its own trials...
There will be no event post on the main comm. Instead, make your own logs to include these prompts, and any other prompts you want to add. There will be a mini-event log mid-month.
Use the happenings form to report on what your character’s been up to! Did you break something? Did you get into a screaming match in the middle of town? Spill the tea! Everyone’s thirsty for gossip.
Post any bulletins to the bulletin board.
Fill out as much or as little of this form as you like:
New this month
At the Staywell
Breakfast is laid out every morning in the dining room, with a spread of breads and cheeses and pastries. All taste perfectly fresh, and are warm to the touch no matter what time you come down to breakfast.Dinner is served more formally, the dining table made with plates and cutlery already laid out. This month, the diners alternate between a feast with a roast vegetables and a ham served with hearty bread; and pies stuffed with meats or vegetables served with a salad.
The General Store
The General Store is full of novelty items themed around the medieval: pens shaped like quills, notebooks shaped like dragons and castles, tiny letter openers shaped like swords, keychains shaped like shields, and more! If you could find it at a renaissance fair, it's fair game (as long as it's useless! No real swords or armor here).Around town
The tavern’s special for the month: A cheesecake covered in chocolate on a stick.The pub is now serving mead, and has its own casks of it behind the bar.
The baths are gleaming and beautiful, at odds with the vibe of town.
When you visit the few other locations in town, you’ll find the employees friendly and welcoming, although they may say some strange things, in addition to the handful of phrases they usually say:
The receptionist: “Welcome, welcome, I hope the rooms are to your liking. Let me know if you need me to build up the fire." Which he won't do, if asked.
Owner of the General Store: "All's well in love and war, ain't it?" And he winks at you.
The bartender: "The sword, eh? Wouldn't go after that if it were me. The forest isn't your friend."
The waiter: “Oh, good! Best to stay inside. It's so chilly out there!” He serves you a slice of cheesecake in your favorite flavor.
The gravedigger: She watches you ominously, if you can find her.
The sheriff: Is drooping in the heat of the baths.
From the stone
Content warnings: potential for impalement & light stabbing
It comes to you first in a dream.
A voice, soundless, booms through your skull. You're floating in formless darkness, staring straight ahead.
You're awake, it says, except you know that isn't true. You know what you must do, it says, but you don't think that you do, actually. You open your mouth to ask, but you can't speak and there's an awful pressure in your head, pressing down on your ears and through your sinuses, expanding and contracting all at once. Your tongue is too thick to speak. Go, says the voice. The darkness around you bursts into green: you're in a forested glade, dappled with sunlight thick and bright enough to taste. A single beam falls through a crack in the trees, lighting up a shining sword thrust deep into a moss-covered stone. You reach for it; your hand is armor-covered and bright.
The voice comes back like a thunderclap, booming through the clearing, just as your fingers curl around the hilt: Find the sword.
You wake up with the smell of ivy in your nose.
From the moment you have this dream, no matter how you may personally feel about Swords and Quests and Tales of Heroes, you'll be struck every now and again with the urge to fling yourself into the dark woods around Wellstone to find the sword. You can go, of course, at any time. If you don't, the urge will get stronger. The dream will repeat more and more often until you find yourself over and wall and in the woods without even really meaning to do that, desperate to find that clearing and that sword. You're sure that if you do, everything will be fixed.
Is there, in fact, a sword?
Of course there is.
It won't be easy to find the glade—the woods are twisting and dark and full of terrors—but it is possible to do. You may come across those same nasty vines from the maze, or brambles that catch your feet. Eyes follow you from the darkness, red-bright, making you feel intensely paranoid the deeper you go. They itch on your skin and under your clothes. Growls and grunts and wild groans echo from the trees around you.
You might get caught in the forest’s own mechanics and get thrown into the maze or back to the start. You might get attacked. Those snarling, growling sounds get louder the deeper you go, and they might just erupt into a pack of—well, wolves, but if you're tuned into the differences you might notice that they're sort of a mish-mash of a bunch of different red-eyed canids: coyotes with wolfish snouts, wolves with brushy red-fox tails, foxes the size of lions with coyote-sharp teeth and painted dog ears wide and swiveling. They'll surround you quickly and attack fiercely, bent on tearing you apart.
But as you get closer to the sword, following a small, easily ignored path that branches off deep in the woods, a chorus of ethereal voices grows louder around you. If you're being chased, the creatures chasing you will fall away, their own voices fading. The chorus crescendos when you step into a bright, dewy clearing. There it is: the sword from your dream, embedded in a stone, shining in a beam of sunlight no matter what time of day you set out or what the weather was like before.
If you’re there with a companion, or several, you will need to decide if who will try to take the sword first. Or, you might try together.
Comment below to see how your sword finding adventure ends! You may try multiple times if you fail at first. You may only succeed once. Let us know if you'd like a mundane failure or if you're open to a horrifying one.
tl;dr:
It comes to you first in a dream.
A voice, soundless, booms through your skull. You're floating in formless darkness, staring straight ahead.
You're awake, it says, except you know that isn't true. You know what you must do, it says, but you don't think that you do, actually. You open your mouth to ask, but you can't speak and there's an awful pressure in your head, pressing down on your ears and through your sinuses, expanding and contracting all at once. Your tongue is too thick to speak. Go, says the voice. The darkness around you bursts into green: you're in a forested glade, dappled with sunlight thick and bright enough to taste. A single beam falls through a crack in the trees, lighting up a shining sword thrust deep into a moss-covered stone. You reach for it; your hand is armor-covered and bright.
The voice comes back like a thunderclap, booming through the clearing, just as your fingers curl around the hilt: Find the sword.
You wake up with the smell of ivy in your nose.
From the moment you have this dream, no matter how you may personally feel about Swords and Quests and Tales of Heroes, you'll be struck every now and again with the urge to fling yourself into the dark woods around Wellstone to find the sword. You can go, of course, at any time. If you don't, the urge will get stronger. The dream will repeat more and more often until you find yourself over and wall and in the woods without even really meaning to do that, desperate to find that clearing and that sword. You're sure that if you do, everything will be fixed.
Is there, in fact, a sword?
Of course there is.
It won't be easy to find the glade—the woods are twisting and dark and full of terrors—but it is possible to do. You may come across those same nasty vines from the maze, or brambles that catch your feet. Eyes follow you from the darkness, red-bright, making you feel intensely paranoid the deeper you go. They itch on your skin and under your clothes. Growls and grunts and wild groans echo from the trees around you.
You might get caught in the forest’s own mechanics and get thrown into the maze or back to the start. You might get attacked. Those snarling, growling sounds get louder the deeper you go, and they might just erupt into a pack of—well, wolves, but if you're tuned into the differences you might notice that they're sort of a mish-mash of a bunch of different red-eyed canids: coyotes with wolfish snouts, wolves with brushy red-fox tails, foxes the size of lions with coyote-sharp teeth and painted dog ears wide and swiveling. They'll surround you quickly and attack fiercely, bent on tearing you apart.
But as you get closer to the sword, following a small, easily ignored path that branches off deep in the woods, a chorus of ethereal voices grows louder around you. If you're being chased, the creatures chasing you will fall away, their own voices fading. The chorus crescendos when you step into a bright, dewy clearing. There it is: the sword from your dream, embedded in a stone, shining in a beam of sunlight no matter what time of day you set out or what the weather was like before.
If you’re there with a companion, or several, you will need to decide if who will try to take the sword first. Or, you might try together.
Comment below to see how your sword finding adventure ends! You may try multiple times if you fail at first. You may only succeed once. Let us know if you'd like a mundane failure or if you're open to a horrifying one.
tl;dr:
- You have a strange dream calling on you to make a quest to find a sword in a stone. If you ignore this call, the dreams get more insistent.
- If you embark on this quest, you must venture into the woods and find a small, unobtrusive path that will lead you to a clearing where you find the sword from your dream.
- Comment below and the mods will roll for your result! It could be great, just okay, or truly terrible.
Drawn to you
Content warnings: encouraged intimacy, emotional vulnerability, altered mental states
The bathhouse is a new addition to town: a gleaming interior at odds with the rest of the run-down buildings, it’s oddly inviting with its moist coyote attendant and plush towels and three dressing rooms. Every night, even in the thick fog, golden light spills through the high barred windows, making it easier to find than anything else.
After three months of very little water, the baths are a real luxury. In sharp contrast to the chill outside, it's warm and cozy, and it smells wonderful: the most wonderful scent you can imagine emanates from the water, enticing you in. It seems to smell different for everyone, too. One person might smell a relaxing cedar while another smells sweet, soft vanilla. Soak your tired muscles and sink into the scent around you.
While you're in the water, it's hard to feel anything but relaxed. Sitting in the water makes you feel vulnerable and open. Suddenly, you're craving company: it would be a shame to just sit here alone, wouldn't it? You're drawn to the people around you, wanting to get closer, to share this experience and maybe a little bit of yourself. The sense of warmth and openness smooths over your pricklier feelings. You feel more open and willing to be close to people: emotionally, physically. Share a hug, a kiss, a secret. It all feels good, even if usually it might feel scary to show the soft, vulnerable parts of yourself.
You can handle the repercussions of that kiss or confession out in the cold fog of morning.
tl;dr:
The bathhouse is a new addition to town: a gleaming interior at odds with the rest of the run-down buildings, it’s oddly inviting with its moist coyote attendant and plush towels and three dressing rooms. Every night, even in the thick fog, golden light spills through the high barred windows, making it easier to find than anything else.
After three months of very little water, the baths are a real luxury. In sharp contrast to the chill outside, it's warm and cozy, and it smells wonderful: the most wonderful scent you can imagine emanates from the water, enticing you in. It seems to smell different for everyone, too. One person might smell a relaxing cedar while another smells sweet, soft vanilla. Soak your tired muscles and sink into the scent around you.
While you're in the water, it's hard to feel anything but relaxed. Sitting in the water makes you feel vulnerable and open. Suddenly, you're craving company: it would be a shame to just sit here alone, wouldn't it? You're drawn to the people around you, wanting to get closer, to share this experience and maybe a little bit of yourself. The sense of warmth and openness smooths over your pricklier feelings. You feel more open and willing to be close to people: emotionally, physically. Share a hug, a kiss, a secret. It all feels good, even if usually it might feel scary to show the soft, vulnerable parts of yourself.
You can handle the repercussions of that kiss or confession out in the cold fog of morning.
tl;dr:
- The bathhouse is open and the water is warm. It smells like your favorite scent in the world, comforting and enticing.
- The baths lull you into relaxation and make you feel vulnerable and desperate for closeness, physical or emotional. You’re drawn to share yourself, body or soul, with the people around you.
memento mori
Content warnings: ghosties
Every night in Wellstone, after the sun sets and the chill that the sun staved off bites at your toes, thick fog settles heavy over the town. It laps at the windows of Staywell Manor, curling in strange patterns against the glass The trees circling the town look like dark soldiers emerging from the mist.
Braving the fog means you'll want to bulk up on warm clothes and a solid mental map of the town, if you've formed one yet, because it'll be very easy to lose your way and end up down some dark alley, and this month, that's not a good thing.
You can certainly hear them: muffled voices echoing down damp cobbled streets; a cut-off scream or a voice raised in helpless anger; sobbing so heartbroken it chills your bones. You can see them, too. A silvery gown flashes, a hand reaches out from the fog, a strange light glints off thick armor and the blade of a sword: ghosts. Lots of them.
Some of those ghostly forms seem familiar. They’re people you know, or think you might know. They might even be you, silvery and translucent. They’re playing out moments in your life, memories that you don’t have: moments of pain, of heartbreak, of joy, of love. Every memory played out by the ghosts has some emotion at its core.
Stay to watch, and the ghosts may stir a memory in you. Or, you may watch a memory that you can’t remember and try to piece it together. Or, you may watch someone else’s, and learn something about their lives.
Or, sometimes, the ghosts you see look just a little odd. They just look like people with sheets draped over them. And they seem to see you, and they wail "ooooOOOOOooooO!" and disappear into the fog.
After the memory plays out, the ghosts disappear into the fog.
tl;dr:
Every night in Wellstone, after the sun sets and the chill that the sun staved off bites at your toes, thick fog settles heavy over the town. It laps at the windows of Staywell Manor, curling in strange patterns against the glass The trees circling the town look like dark soldiers emerging from the mist.
Braving the fog means you'll want to bulk up on warm clothes and a solid mental map of the town, if you've formed one yet, because it'll be very easy to lose your way and end up down some dark alley, and this month, that's not a good thing.
You can certainly hear them: muffled voices echoing down damp cobbled streets; a cut-off scream or a voice raised in helpless anger; sobbing so heartbroken it chills your bones. You can see them, too. A silvery gown flashes, a hand reaches out from the fog, a strange light glints off thick armor and the blade of a sword: ghosts. Lots of them.
Some of those ghostly forms seem familiar. They’re people you know, or think you might know. They might even be you, silvery and translucent. They’re playing out moments in your life, memories that you don’t have: moments of pain, of heartbreak, of joy, of love. Every memory played out by the ghosts has some emotion at its core.
Stay to watch, and the ghosts may stir a memory in you. Or, you may watch a memory that you can’t remember and try to piece it together. Or, you may watch someone else’s, and learn something about their lives.
Or, sometimes, the ghosts you see look just a little odd. They just look like people with sheets draped over them. And they seem to see you, and they wail "ooooOOOOOooooO!" and disappear into the fog.
After the memory plays out, the ghosts disappear into the fog.
tl;dr:
- The fog is thick and dense after dark, making it difficult to find your way around.
- However, in the fog you find shapes, some familiar, and some not, playing out memories that you've lost. The memories are focused on times of great emotions: both good and bad.
- Once the memory plays out in the ghostly forms, the ghosts vanish.
- You can regain up to 3 memory points with this prompt, one per time you interact with the prompt (both if it's your character's memory, and if it's someone else's).
no subject
And no problem on the ramble! So things to note about Diluc in passing before she runs into him in the bath.
Seeing him around town, he walks with that smooth fluidity of a swordsman. He wastes none of his movement even in a safe space. He sits and positions himself to keep an eye on exists. His dark coat hides it but he is fairly strong. The red hair of course. He was wearing gloves for a bit. But there is always a red broach like device on his belt. It has a steady glow to it that sometimes pulses a lot like a heartbeat.
He speaks politely and voice is in that smoky range. He is also hard to read. In the baths he’ll still do that but he won’t hide how he is feeling. Physically he is covered in scars. There is some pretty lethal looking scars across his back. He has scars on his arms and hands. A spidery set of scars on the side of his neck (the new ones that wouldn’t have been there before but look old).
I think them exiting the changing room works. He’ll have a towel around his waist but his biggest scars are across his upper back. He is not a splasher. He will deny especially when vulnerable but he can come off like the knight he used to be.
omg this turned into a novel, i'm so sorry
This description is fantastic, first off. Thank you so much! Icons are sometimes hard to get the full story from, especially with animated canons but even without - you can't get movement or even necessarily build.
Oh, that's a good follow up: I assume from his coat hiding it, and the way you describe his movement (and also just poking around visuals/your journal) that he's fairly lean-muscle type, more swimmer-dancer type build than ...bodybuilder/football player/Darin. Is he tall? Short? Neither really?
Cam will have absolutely picked up that he moves like someone who's trained in some kind of martial art, and is aware of his body. If she didn't at first connect it with swordsmanship, she will have by 3.3 when she got all her physical/sword-handling skills back (although I think you've mentioned him carrying his sword, so she might just kind of be aware anyway). She would probably also pick up that he's also situationally aware, especially if he does place himself strategically (less obvious in the baths, probably). She'll definitely have been intrigued by the broach-thing which she probably wouldn't ask about before now but might, if conversation wanders in this thread.
I'm amused by how similar they are in certain ways :D
(For my curiosity: what's the side of the neck scar from? I missed that.)
A Cam general description: She also moves extremely ...gracefully doesn't feel like quite the right word, honestly fluidly, like you said, might be more correct. She does tend to be efficient with her choice of how and where to move, but not necessarily abrupt -- she's taking into consideration the strain she's putting on her joints, which I get the feeling Diluc does too. Cam does tend to be in motion, especially when she thinks; she rocks up onto her toes and back, she stretches or rolls joints, she tosses things from hand to hand. She's been more still (and a little more quiet, as well) since getting back from being abducted, but it's slowly starting to move back towards normal.
She tends to (and again, might not work into this thread) prefer sitting on things the wrong way: perching, sitting or crouching on tables, sitting on the arm of a chair or backwards on it with her arms on the back.
She's tall-ish, not super tall but a little bit above average for a woman (maybe about 5'9, 5'10); I imagine her being fairly lean but having larger thighs, strong shoulders and back -- a slightly more acrobatic/gymnastic than you'd think of someone who's only a swordfighter. She has a few little scars, but nothing too telling -- most things up till recently either weren't scarring injuries or Pal would have reduced the scar tissue growth when he encouraged healing -- she does have a noticable scar on her left shoulder front and back (he'll probably be able to tell something stabbed or impaled her straight through) and if he's in a place to see it, a patch of pretty severe burn scar on her ankle in a rectangle (she won't remember how she got that one).
Oh, interestingly: she also has a fairly low voice - that's actually canon. I'd probably say "husky" for her, not "smoky", but that's such a great description. I'm like. Flustered over Diluc, haha. (Cam will not be, but that's not an insult, she just doesn't really...fluster? Not without knowing someone extraordinarily well.)
She'd have her towel tucked around her torso from bust to butt at first, but she's very unselfconscious and pragmatic about her body after years of changing rooms in front of other physical-track (potential cavaliers or military) kids and is from a fairly gender-ambivalent society, so she probably won't be awkward; she'll probably just slip into the water strategically so she can get fairly covered up without being like HERE ARE MY TITS at Diluc, lol, or I'll handwave that she has a bandeau on or something. She's not shy or body-conscious but she's not interested in making anyone uncomfortable and CERTAINLY not interested in appearing to be flirtatious when she just wants a bath.
I noticed his catchall doesn't have a baths start - do you want to throw a top level in the comments or do you want to wait until mine is up? I'm probably heading to bed soon but I can do it tomorrow.
You’re good, don’t worry about novels.
And Diluc won’t be flustered either. He isn’t body shy, but like Cam he makes sure not to make anyone uncomfortable. Unless someone is super close to him he doesn’t register flirting or anything like that. But they do seem to have a lot alike, yeah.
And I’ll set up the top level in the comments. For bath starters I wanted to plot for those before I set anything up.
no subject
no subject
Just checking one tiny logistical thing so I don't assume weirdly*: is Diluc just pausing in the doorway, holding the door open as he does, or is he holding the door FOR Cam and noticing Cam behind him in the changing room?
*I don't mind either way or just making it up! I just know I personally get a little thrown when someone writes someone in a position or place or whatever that wasn't how I had been imagining it, so I try to avoid doing it to anyone else on the off chance it's not just my brain being ridiculous.
no subject
no subject
Awesome, just wanted to make sure where Cam is supposed to be! Got caught up in stuff but I’ll tag tomorrow.