tdm 04

[thestewards]

And I know when it cuts deep down
through your chest into your soul
that's how you know that's how
I know I feel it in my bones

► All TDM threads may be considered canon provided both parties agree and are accepted into the game.

► Canon threads may be redeemed for influence and reputation depending on how you solve the issue at hand or how you engage with the prompt. They also count toward AC.

► Feel free to switch up your character's Jewel from thread to thread. Get a feel for how a Birthright Jewel may limit or enhance your character's abilities.

WICKED WEAVES
The Blood of Draega have finally had enough with the amphitheater behind the Ebon Council’s buildings. It’s a wonderful place to perform outdoor plays in the summer, but its psychic reek of fear and death makes the Blood uncomfortable. The Queen and Lady Abigail have tenuously agreed to join forces for the benefit of the city.

One cool but comfortable April afternoon, Lady Abigail invites young Black Widows in training and any Strangers with an interest in the Craft to join her in front of the amphitheater. She sets up all interested parties with a simple wooden frame and the spider silk that the Black Widows use to weave their tangled webs.

“The natural-born Black Widows will find this easier than the rest of you,” she explains, glancing toward a group of teenage witches who have the sharp, distinct psychic scent of Black Widows born. “But the process is simple. Attach your thread to the frame of the web and pour your intent into your Jewel and from the Jewel into the thread. Focus on a web that draws negative psychic energy into it. The weave for this doesn’t matter. Do what feels right.”

Though she makes it sound simple, it is anything but. The mind must stay focused in order for the magic to work. A wandering mind can’t build a stable web—and your wandering mind will be more easily snared by the incomplete webs around you. There’s also that horrible psychic reek of death. Probing with the mind reveals a ghastly truth: though there are no ghosts and the feelings are easily hundreds of years old, people were publicly tortured and executed here.

For those who are truly helpless, Lady Abigail sets you to weeding the gardens around the amphitheater. She warns you to ignore the bright red flowers she identifies as witchblood. “Even if you pull them up, they’ll just come back,” she grumbles.

Should you be weeding the gardens when Lady Fayura comes by, she will briefly work with you and anyone you may be working with. She won’t join you in conversation, but before she moves on to another small group, she tells you one, simple truth: “If you sing to the plants the right way, each plant will tell you the name of the one whose blood nourishes its roots.”


ACID BATH
Dangerous rains sweep down from the distant peaks of Ebon Askavi. This poison rain destroys already rotting wood roofs, kills plants, burns animals, and scars skin. With the arrival of spring, these rains come more and more frequently, and everyone in the city suffers.

The farmers have come to Fayura’s Court, asking her to send the Strangers to help them. Locals need roofs replaced, and there aren’t enough hands.

So the Lady asks you if you would be so kind as to address any one of these issues. Repair homes so they are safe for their inhabitants. Assist the farmers in wrapping their livestock in thick, protective blankets or brave the fields to lay tarps or shields over the fragile, growing plants.

Storms come at night, bringing deluging rains. The farmers ask Strangers to stay out at night in pairs to fuel shields over the fields. But with the night come the hungry wildmen, slinking across the dusty plains and blasted forests in search of food. The night is not safe.


BETTING ON TROUBLE
Also with the spring comes trade. Draega is the safest city in all of Hayll in a general sense, but if you’re willing to follow the mercenary bands and commit unspeakable acts in return for protection then Draega isn’t your only option. Rough traders come into the ports as the weather warms and the Heartsblood River swells.

Allairavar doubles the guard around the docks, and enlists any willing body to help him. The sailors are mercenary males and keen-eyed witches, looking to make a coin however they can. Around the docks, they frequent taverns where moonshine runs freely, filling their veins with alcohol. They gamble—and when they lose, they get in fights that damage the docks and the buildings around them.

Some use this opportunity to steal goods stored in the nearby warehouses, and everyone in Draega would prefer they don’t. Whether you’re here at Allairavar’s request or just wanted some rough fun, perhaps you could lend a hand.

A few of the traders with an aristo air and finer manners venture deeper into the city, into the Bazaar. They case shops from which they’ll later steal precious food and supplies. A string of burglaries plagues the city, and it might be nice if you could catch those thieves, too.


AIR TIME
Whether you catch the news on a Far-caster in the city or you're spinning the dial on your own device, you'll hear…

etiquette with evandra and aren
[Evandra's voice is a little bit rough and a little bit husky, the kind of voice that gives bad ideas to young men and headaches to fathers.] Lord Aren, this is very off-script, but I must ask: why is it that Blood males spend so much time insisting their ladies put their feet up and rest?

[Aren is silent for a long, awkward moment, because he knows that any answer he gives is going to end with him on the receiving end of feminine irritation.] Well. Er. That is…

[Evandra sounds exasperated.] My feet didn’t even hurt! I hadn’t been standing that long at all.

[Aren, with great hesitation:] It’s a male’s pleasure to serve? [He sounds like he’s been caught in a trap. He has been.]

[Evandra:] Well, how do you stop such behavior?

[In Aren’s silence is the very obvious answer: you don’t. Finally, he says:] Have you considered giving your lover tickets that entitle him to thirty minutes of fussing at a time?

the weather
[A soft-spoken man’s voice rumbles out of the Far-caster. He’s pleasant to listen to, with a soothing cadence to his voice.] …rains coming out of Askavi over the next week. Farmers are advised to cover their plants. When outside in the rain, Blood should shield and landens should wear heavy cloaks to protect their skin. Worried about lesions from the rains? The Medicos have a new salve that…

the news
[The man speaks at a brisk pace, hurried and harried as though he has too much to say and not enough time to say it.] The Tribunal convened by the Queen to assess whether or not a young landen man killed Councilwoman Vera in cold blood continues to meet today.

[Another man, nasally in tone. He doesn’t sound rushed so much as put upon.] That’s right, Garret. Three of the Blood and three landens meet every day in the Queen’s Residence to discuss this unique case. Many hope they’ll reach a conclusion before either the Guilds or the Council decide this is a delaying tactic and act out.

[Garret:] Well, Wilt, let’s hope that doesn’t happen. In other news, the Heartsblood River…