event 04 plotting

[thestewards]

This month, we're going to roll the plotting and intro post into one spot. There is a top-level just for new players here.

The morning that comes with the new Strangers’ arrival is an ominous one. Somber mood becomes stark, horrifying reality soon enough. In the night, a coven of Black Widows sneaked into Draega and broke a young witch who had the potential to be a good, strong Queen. The Blood are reeling, shocked and stunned by this egregious attack on a child.

While the Guilds and the Ebon Council use this as an opportunity to attack Fayura for her inability to defend the city, Fayura reaches out to the Strangers and requests they help her find the coven who attacked the young girl. To do this, she sends them out into the city, where tangled webs the coven wove in the night ensnare their minds and cause them to live through dark memories and terrible visions. Characters can be trapped in the web and acting out the memories, break into the web to free someone else, or try to change the course of the memory. As always, if you would like to take a prompt in another direction, you are welcome to do so.

PLEASE BE AWARE: The prompts featuring tangled webs are laden with triggering content. Each prompt has a trigger warning beside the header so that you are aware of the content inside the prompt. Most of the triggering content is not described in detail, and in many cases is only alluded to or described in passing.

You can read the full event here. The post is currently locked for responses and will open at 8PM EST on the 18th. Take this time to talk to each other about what you’re interested in doing and accomplishing in this event.

Questions should be asked here. For this event, Queen Fayura will be available to answer questions. Some of the NPCs may utilize the Farcasters, so keep an eye on the network as well. As always, you may drive the cityfolk as you please.

Some additional information…

► Fayura and the little girl’s father will be available for questions with the first prompt. The little girl who was broken is in the residence and under Allairavar’s guard with her mother. No one will be allowed to speak with her. For your OOC understanding: being broken is deeply traumatic, often results in insanity, and is a despicable mental violation considered worse than any other by the Blood. Everyone in the residence wants to give the young witch the time she needs to heal and a safe space in which to do it.

► Fayura has asked the Strangers to discover the witches who attacked the young girl and the city at large. If you would like to bring a suspect before Fayura, Grejor, or Niall, you may volunteer to do so here within the next 48 hours. Anyone may volunteer to bring in a suspect. The mod team will randomly assign suspects to characters who chose to bring a suspect forward. For example, if CharA, CharB, and CharC want to bring suspects forward, the mods will take Suspect1, Suspect2, and Suspect3 and randomly assign them to each character.

► After 48 hours, the mods will post a suspect list in the OOC community. Each suspect will be accompanied by a short dossier. Using this information and hints in the IC event post, characters may accuse up to three suspects of being part of the coven.

► We understand that many of the prompts for this event containing triggering material. As such, players are encouraged to share information OOCly as handwaved character conversations. Please also feel free to have these discussions in-character in the network community.

► For each correct accusation, the player who brought that suspect before the faction leaders will be able to assign 5 points of influence to any faction of their choice. For example, if Tony Stark brought SuspectA before Niall and SuspectA is correctly identified as a part of the Black Widow coven, Tony will be allowed to award 5 points of influence to the faction of his choice. Characters can and should pressure each other to support one faction over another. Tony will also gain 1 point of reputation with each member of the faction he awards influence to.

► As a whole, the Strangers will be able to determine which faction should deal with the accused Black Widows. This will result in that faction gaining a significant amount of influence within the city—the exact amount will be determined when we update influence, but will be no more than 10 points.

After this event…

► New players can assume that characters know all the information given in the info pages. Whether you handwave a conversation with random NPCs or assume that Loren answered your characters' questions, as of the end of the event all PCs have been informed of the landen Guilds, the Ebon Council, and the state of the world.

► Characters may move out of the Queen's Residence and establish their homes elsewhere. Many buildings in the city are empty and in need of repairs, but no one will stop Strangers from moving in.

► Any one who remains at the Queen's Residence will receive a modest stipend, enough to cover food and drink. Loren will make clear that Strangers who do not live at the residence will not be afforded this money but also that Strangers who do stay are considered part of the Queen's court in as much as actions they take will reflect back on the court.

► Allairavar reminds everyone who chooses to stay at the residence that if you live with the court, you practice with the court. He expects all the Strangers who stay to be on the practice fields with everyone else at dawn. To those who are reticent, he explains that no one needs to learn how to fight only how to defend long enough for help (he seems to imply himself) to arrive.

Comments

QUESTIONS

[thestewards]

[illequipped]

it isn't really an ic question, so like, can emil give the little girl's dad something for her... like a get well teddy bear..... is that allowed??

[thestewards]

Yes, Emil can absolutely do that, and for doing so will gain +1 influence with Fayura's Court and +1 reputation with each member of the Court.

[illequipped]

aw HECK yeah!! i'll tag the npc thread even if it's brief, to make it super official

[thestewards]

👍

When you do cool stuff, you get cool stuff.

Re: QUESTIONS

[theladyofwinterfell]

The second web is obviously rife with things that actually happened to Sansa. Is it possible that it will interfere with her own memories such that she'll get confused and think she's reliving her own experience or will she just be firmly trapped in the experience the Black Widow wove/thinking she's that person?

Re: QUESTIONS

[thestewards]

You're welcome to play it either way, especially as Sansa's experiences have a lot of overlap with web two. Widow webs are weird, and the mod team is comfortable with both options you've presented.

[sunborne]

Wrong character but - Zita would like to offer her services in creating a ward in the wing where the young girl is staying, to add another layer of protection for the young girl and her mother. Will that be accepted or simply sending a charm to help ease sleep and dreams a better option?

And for the right character - Daylight would be very interested in helping out with the webs and finding suspects! Who should he ICly approach to ask questions about Black Widows and the Top X Things You Need to Know About Black Widows, so he doesn't go into this ICly blind? Let's... have Daylight causing international incidents to a minimum...

[thestewards]

Allairavar doesn't trust anyone close to the child, so Fayura will suggest the charm instead. She will be absolutely up front in letting Zita know that Warlord Princes have hair-trigger tempers, and that Allairavar won't let anyone except for her and the young witch's parents anywhere near her. Fay also explains that a charm will be easy for him to test for traps, not that Fay suspects Zita would do anything of the sort, but the testing will ease his temper.

Daylight should speak with either Fayura or Verim about Black Widows. He could also have a quick chat with Lady Abigail from the Ebon Council if he should decide to bring his suspect to Grejor.

[thricefold]

Zita completely understands and respects the decision and judgement, given what's happened. She'll be opting to go with the simple charm and will willingly hand it over for inspection of traps. (And it definitely won't have any traps! Zita has a soft spot for kids.)

And thank you for the answer for concerning who Daylight can go to. He'll probably be going to Fayura since he interacted with her before and likes her! Will it be alright to place a simple interaction request in the NPC thread for him?

[thestewards]

A simple interaction request over on the NPC thread is perfect!

[sunborne]

Excellent! Will do it within the day so expect more of Zita and the Big Boi in the inbox soon! (I'm sorry for being all over this in advance... The event is just very 👀 for both characters.)

[thestewards]

we love it

[strikingtwice]

So related to the food shortages, are there any places were wild game might be hunted if Meallan wants to maybe take some people and be super elfy?

[thestewards]

Meallan is welcome to be super elfy outside of the city. There's a blasted forest within walking distance where Meallan might find some questionably edible game. Much of the healthy forest animal (and plains animal) populations have been hunted down, and what remains of those species is dangerous for consumption. The animals are mangy and diseased when they aren't outright twisted from Craft. He might be able to find healthy animals, but whether or not he wants to kill them, eat them, and take them out of the ecosystem is up to him.

The forest near the city is relatively safe. Meallan may find some wild men living in it, eating acorns and mushrooms, but they are generally harmless unless provoked. These are the people who either can't live in the city or don't feel as though they're worthy of the city's protection, so they hide on its fringes and hope that will be enough.

[strikingtwice]

Time for hobo stew

He'll be a bit disappointed and concerned about the lack of game in the area and consider maybe hunting insects or keeping an eye on the remaining animals so they don't die out completely :c

[thestewards]

Someone looking after the local fauna would not go amiss.

[garmr]

With regards to bringing in suspects - is it safe to assume that this will involve some kind of struggle or will it depend on the dossier assigned to each character?

I made some plans for Guts to get some help through a traumatic memory, since he has plenty that a Black Widow could take advantage of. I'm thinking it would make the most sense as part of capturing a suspect rather than the ambient webs of the city, but wanted to be sure if this fits with what you had in mind!

[thestewards]

First off: apologies for missing this question. Thank you for pinging us to bring it to our attention.

By all means, feel free to play off the dossier for Guts' suspect. Your idea of working through a traumatic memory that Little Blue drags out of Guts (probably in an attempt to distract and waylay him) is perfect for this situation.

[garmr]

Awesome! Thank you :D

[championbittersweet]

Hey mods, in regards to suspect tracking... did all three Black Widows chase the little girl in her mind (the wording is a little.. interesting. "One peels off" and "the other doesn’t slow" so I'm trying to parse if there were only two or three there) and how would that work if one of the Black Widows was broken? They don't have a Jewel of rank any more so do they have a limit on how far they can chase?

[thestewards]

Regarding whether or not all three Black Widows chased the girl into her mind: From an IC perspective, Fayura's web is a recreation of what the young witch experience, and the details are fuzzy. From an OOC perspective, that vagueness is intended.

Regarding broken Black Widows: weaving a tangled web doesn't actually take Jeweled power. Webs can be woven even by broken witches. In that way, it's a bit like basic Craft, but it still requires training to do well.

Jon is also welcome to ask the Black Widows clarifying questions.

[kesi]

related to the suspects but would the ones who are broken disclose what Jewels they wore before they were? or is there a way to detect that otherwise?

[thestewards]

Would the broken Black Widows disclose the Jewels they wore? Quite possibly. Feel free to have Takame ask in the question thread. Any context you'd like to provide around how he asks (if he's brusque and upfront or if he dances around the topic with polite small talk at first, etc) is welcome.

Is there a way to detect Jeweled strength before someone was broken? Yes. As far as the Blood are concerned, the mind is a literal web that stretches in the abyss at the level of one's Jewel. When someone wears Birthright Summer-sky, that mind-web (for lack of a better term) exists within the range of a Summer-sky Jewel within the abyss. When you make your Offering, that web shifts deeper into the abyss. Again, this is quite literal. People can dip into someone's mind and reach that web, provided they wear a darker Jewel. You can do this politely with permission (which Fayura has mentioned in passing to Haein and/or Jon, if we recall correctly), or you can do this violently without permission (this latter is one of the ways the Blood can be broken).