OOC: Candlenights, call to arms

[balancemod]

O holy fucking night. NAVIGATION 1. THE HISTORY OF ASPEN You've come to the city of New Aspen, a town that's flourished by the efforts of its stalwart mayor, Henrik Hollyweather. The great Candlenights tree has become the cradle of civilization for the townspeople located here, and after initial ingress, many of you took to investigative trails, helped out the citizens of town, and discovered what life this oversize tree has to offer. The city of Aspen was once a quiet, and peaceful village surrounded by three fronts of water. As some of you may have discovered, the people of this place had once been lilliputian in stature; the food that they spent days of backbreaking labor to collect and harvest was enough to feed entire scores of families. Some decades ago an unknown force happened upon the village, only to be known as the Cult of Shadows. These wizards lacked a corporeal form, and instead, could manipulate the shadows of the people to become puppets for their bidding. They turned brother against sister, husband against wife; the city had been nearly on the brink of destruction. They didn't have much, the people of Aspen, but they did cling to their traditions and hopes that a champion would come forward and save them from what was plaguing them. And for what they lacked in size, they made up in heart. Henrik Hollyweather stepped forward to defend his home. Not an adventurer, but a farmer and someone who would've been destined for a quiet life of taking care of the land and his family, he found the source of the Cult of Shadows and brokered a deal with them. It would require the sacrifice of a body, something for the cult to grab hold onto to enter this realm and provide an avatar for their voices and dark manipulations. When told about this, Laurel Hollyweather immediately offered. If it meant saving the town, then nothing was too small, or too great to give up. After weeks of arguing, Henrik finally caved and accepted the offer, but on the condition that they trick the Cult of the Shadow. Henrik had devised a plan to save both the town and Laurel at the same time, believing that if he could keep Laurel basked in light, that the shadows would be forced into hiding long enough to be captured. He thought he had figured out exactly how to do that, and on the eve of Candlenights, approached the whispering madness in the very first place he had found them: hiding in the shadow of a tree outside the farm lands. But the cult was smarter than he was; they could come and go into the reflections of the people Henrik loved, and all it took was a little eavesdropping to figure out what he was plotting to do. Using Laurel as bait, Henrik offered her up to the cult. It was easy enough to manipulate the shadow of the tree into life, and as he approached, he was soon restrained and forced to watch what happened next. Indeed, they had gotten the body that they wanted, and Laurel had become the sacrifice they needed. She rose, again, to Henrik's surprise, and took for the skies. The cult, however, had kept their word and left the town of Aspen alone from there out. Henrik, with a heavy heart, returned to a chorus of celebration as they accepted their first mayor to a hero's welcome. Laurel, however, never returned. And worse, for whatever reason, no one in town could remember her either. At first, Henrik had tried to explain that he was no hero, that he had done something horrible, but it had only made the town love him even more. Harvests became safe. The town itself became safe. Everything had returned to normal, and try as he might, Laurel's name was simply erased from history. Candlenights became the town's greatest holiday, having their wish granted. The fated tree that Henrik had visited became the center of Aspen as houses began to build around it. And every year, he'd make sure to leave an ornament there in his sister's memory. What the town never knew, though, was that the Star King of legend did descend down upon Faerun that night. And since he's made of star stuff, he could see the lonely, lost soul that fluttered around the tree, refusing to enter the underworld by her own will alone. The Star King had taken pity on her, knowing the fate that had befallen the town and bound her essence to the only creature that was resilient enough to brave the cold and snow. A spider. 2. THE HISTORY OF NEW ASPEN Today, Candlenights, and the entire month surrounding it, are a sort of high holy days for the town of Aspen, and this tradition had continued in New Aspen. Henrik Hollyweather had seen a vision of Aspen becoming completely decimated by an apocalyptic storm that would eat them all alive, and endeavored on a quest to find a way to stop that from happening. How he came across the ornate box that contained a red pair of mittens that could control the fabric of space itself, no one really knows. But when he returned, he promised the town that he had figured out how to keep all of them safe. The pull of the Space Mittens is a thrall unlike any other. A Grand Relic's existence insists on its own usage, and as the Director would point out, there is no good that can come from its utilization. Henrik started out small; making the houses around Aspen grow overnight as the villagers themselves had begun gaining height as well. The cats that had once taken care of town were now normal sized to all of them, and that wouldn't do either, so he increased their size as well. Everything had gone according to plan, and he believed that he could really pull this off. He turned to the tree in the center of town, and had an idea. If a tree had grown so large that a storm could never reach it, the town would be spared from the oncoming calamity of what he had seen. He entrusted his son, Matthew Hollyweather to build an ornament that would house New Aspen as he continued to work and make the tree taller, and taller. It was a madness that had consumed him in his effort- and soon, his son had built the town in which everyone in Aspen would be sheltered within. His son, jaded and bitter from his growing up in the Hollyweather house, had become distant after the death of his aunt. He knew, deep down, that Henrik had done something wrong, but how could he rise up against a town he loved, and a town that loved his father, even when the two were incongruous with his own hunches? He obliged, of course, and built a replica of his own cabin, placing it on the tree not far from where New Aspen's landscape would eventually land. And Henrik did what anyone with a Grand Relic would do: he used it. As the tree became bigger and bigger, he got the thought that it wasn't just enough to protect the town in his warped wishes to save them, but to try and reach the Star King himself, so that he could ask for his blessing in person. That is, until the Reclaimers arrived. 3. WHAT THE BUREAU OF BALANCE DID In the weeks leading up to the 14th, the Bureau had infiltrated the tree and learned varying bits of information about the above. Matthew's heart had been won over by Qrow, Akechi and eventually Kaede, who had seen a long awaited return to town where the healing process might begin for him to start to repair the relationship with his father. He implored that they do something to snap him out of this mad man's craze, since the town had loved him too much to see him for what he was really doing. He spends some nights at the tavern, now, and has begun reconciling with Woodwork Willy's shop, even offering to help around the shop. Make no mistake about it though, Woodwork Willy would really just be helping Matthew. He's the best artisan in the town by far, and not by a little, but rather leaps and bounds. Maybe it's sometimes difficult to tell where exactly a cat's loyalties lie, especially with how the Leader of the Watch, Bread, has been fast and loose with what information he does have on hand, for the Reclaimers who happened to have a banana on hand. He's shown Reclaimers how the cats easily travel around the town and branches surrounding it. The leads he's offered have been simplistic, but leads nonetheless. That does, of course, go both ways. And Bread does, as he put it, have his person. And toward the end of these past two weeks, it was discovered that this oversized and fluffy friend's title does have merit to it: He's been feeding information on the Reclaimers to Henrik. Their interactions with him. The things he's seen them do. Just how much of Dr. Gnome's medical supplies they've been burning through. The information he's offered has been simplistic, but information nonetheless. Henrik, though, has remained relatively tight lipped about the entire thing. Wary of the adventurers and invaders to New Aspen, he's taken to wearing the gloves 24/7, refusing to let them out of his sight or part with them at all. He offers the lore behind Candlenights to everyone who asks, and those Reclaimers that are particularly inclined to not leaving it at just that, discover a few things out of sorts about Henrik. He keeps an ornamental box with many locks stored away in his house. He's used the town hall as a decoy to watch anyone who tries to enter it and determine who are his biggest threats. Henrik awaits the day that he'll have to take action and turn the Reclaimers into ants, only to squash them if he has to. And it's getting too close for comfort. In secret, he mentally prepares himself for that- all while the mittens whisper down to the deepest reaches of his soul: "Do it, Henrik. Use me. Destroy them, they would come after us only to see us destroyed. How can we save New Aspen if those rats have me?" But most important of all, Castille had figured out that the Space Mittens are the Grand Relic. It's a victory that doesn't get to be celebrated by much fanfare, however, as she's blinded by the radiance of her detect magic spell. And on the 14th, a cascade of events leads to the apocalypse that Henrik had seen in a vision. 4. WHAT LAUREL HAS DONE Beat had taken two villagers from town; one for him to devour in sustenance, and one to offer to the Motherly Matron. She sits, on her throne, biding the time away as she stews in her vengeance. She's come to hate Henrik, everything that he stands for, every lie he's ever told, and most of all, the position he holds in town. No one can remember her, but maybe she can't remember herself either, so consumed by her rage against the man who had stolen everything from her. She births children in the thousands, and bides her time, waiting to strike when the iron is just the right temperature. And it starts to warm up when Leonardo Da Vinci offers herself up for consumption in an effort to save Akechi from an ill-fated encounter. Drinking in Da Vinci's mana gives her an unprecedented font of magic, and when combined with Beat's offering of the second villager, she sets forth a plan to end Henrik's dirty reign. A woman whose waited decades for this moment, she plans her attack carefully. See, she knows of a special plant that she's cultivated by mixing her brood's venom into the soil that creates a special type of mistletoe. She, too, was once an avid botanist and farmer back in her day, and it takes generations of violet fungus and genetic engineering to perfect a venom that can put an entire town to sleep just from the colorless gas it releases into the air. Her children are, of course, protected by their mother's blood coursing through their carapaces. Using Da Vinci's magic, she turns the sacrificed human into a member of her brood, giving him new life to return to the village with the mistletoe in hand. It's a perfect storm of events. Gundam's birthday party invites 90% of the town's elite defenses, including Bread, to celebrate the passing of another nameday for him. Many of the Bureau are out raiding against a vicious beast known for its nonchalance towards the living. The combination of both allows her new son to pass through the outer limit of town, planting the sleeping herb into the heart of the town. Kaede is around to see it, but not for long. She's slept, too, and is soon dragged off to the Queen's lair as the rest of town falls into a deep slumber. 5. GRAND RELIC, STOLEN All of this is just too easy for Laurel, who now walks into New Aspen in the dead of night. The gates were left open, the city's guard left to sleep, and the best warriors the Bureau has to offer are licking their wounds or are, unfortunately, otherwise dead. The Space Mittens are hers. There's no resistance. No war. No pleading or compromises. She slips them right off of Henrik's hands, and looks down at his defenseless body. She ought to kill him right here, but- no, she's wiser than that. Killing him like this would only martyr him in the eyes of New Aspen. The Motherly Matron has a far, far worse idea, and as she slides the gloves onto her hands, they conform and fit to her appendages. "Do it, Laurel. Kill the town." Queens don't take orders, however, and she resists the thrall of the relic outright. This is her mission, what she's been waiting years to accomplish, and as she exits town, she holds out her hands in two opposing L-shapes toward each other, and calls forth a snow globe. Henrik was right as rain, or, well- snow- about a great storm approaching and destroying Aspen. He's the one who invited it, after all. Laurel expands the globe and centers it towards town as everything is sucked right into it. 6. CALL TO ARMS (STR, DEX AND CHA): RECOVERING THE GRAND RELIC THE STATE OF NEW ASPEN PLEASE NOTE: Because the story up to this point that you've helped us write has been provided, we will be closing new NPC interactions/RNG requests on the first log. We will be continuing any current unfinished ones, however! What does all this mean for our adventurers? We need to know who is where on the night of the 14th. Please utilize the comments below with the appropriate header to tell us if you were in town or were outside of town when Laurel struck. If you were on the inside, you're now stuck in a rather perilous predicament. The entire place has been swallowed up by a magic snow globe that's host to a dangerous snowstorm within it. If you're on the outside, you're probably going to need to help free the town. These missions are required to have a sign up, a small team assembled and plans submitted prior to threading these out on the 15th. We will roll for success on this post, so that you have more time to thread out the result. Each group can contain a max of 4 players, but please refrain from signing up for more than one to be fair to all interested PC's. Also, feel free to plot your ideas out in your own top level! Good luck. Note, we've made these call to arms especially vague in scope and with little to no additional direction other than the bare minimum that needs to be performed. You have all the resources you need in order to make a plan happen. Be creative and let us know what you have in mind. We'll do our job and let you know the difficulty of executing that plan, but after that, you're going to have to make the plot happen! A. ESCAPE FROM A WINTER WONDERLAND (STRONG - MAX 2 GROUPS) If you're on the outside, you're going to need to work to burst the bubble. Let us know your plans in the comment below. B. RAISING TOWN SPIRITS (CHARISMATIC - MAX 2 GROUPS) The town of New Aspen is probably reaching an all-time low as survival begins to become less and less of a reality. The odds for making it out alive from the snow globe, if nothing abates, is roughly 1 day. The inside of the globe is bitter cold, but signing up to take this call to arms is more or less to increase their will to go on. Successfully bolstering their resolve will add an indeterminable number of days to their lifespan within the globe. C. A DARING RESCUE (DEXTROUS - MAX OF 1 GROUP) Kaede is currently locked away within the Motherly Matron's lair. She'll need some help getting out, or else she's probably doomed to play the tarantella for Laurel ad infinum. Be careful, you definitely don't want to be caught. D. STOP THE QUEEN (CHARISMATIC - MAX OF 1 GROUP) This is it, this is the moment of truth. Can you persuade the Motherly Matron not to use the relic to exact her revenge upon the town of Aspen? She doesn't seem too keen on needing the Grand Relic; it's more of a means to an ends. Good luck. The Director is waiting. blurb code by photosynthesis

Comments

QUESTIONS

[balancemod]

[gotyourbach]

I still can't believe this I love it.

Is there anything Kaede can do on her end to either help/accidentally hinder the group on the outside? I assume Spider Queen Laurel will be keeping a close eye on her to prevent her from using any magic/using her bracer to call for help, but will Kaede have the chance to talk to her or anyone else while imprisoned? Or is she just hangin out in a cell somewhere.

[stonecoldcat]

For the call to arms, does everyone involved need to be the provided type (strong, charismatic, etc.), or just 1? Asking since Castille would sign up to talk to the Queen if possible, and I know some other people were curious as well.

If you're in town at the time of the storm, does that make you ineligible for all call to arms besides raising town spirits? I believe Castille will be with Maya when the storm happens, but still wanted to check.

[ribticklers]

1) Do the bracers work through the snow globe? Can reclaimers inside communicate with those outside?

2) The secret cat path is cut off via snow globe, correct?

2a) How fast is this weird sleeping thing taking effect? Could Sans outrun it with teleportation and get to the cat path and out of town or is it faster than that? (Please show your work and include the appropriate equation for speed of teleportation compared to speed of sleep magic.)

3) Will there be prompts on the post for people who aren't in groups?

[feytality]

Is severing the shadow cult's hold on Laurel on the table?

Re: QUESTIONS

[mylawn]

Is the snowglobe physical, made of magic, or some kind of combination of both (i.e. enchanted glass)?

[soundsurfing]

How upset on a scale of 1 to you traitor would Mom be if Beat tried to help Kaede out from the inside, I mean, he's pretty much been living in the den as an honorary spider and all.

[no_breeches]

Are the people who went on the kipine-hunting field trip a far-ish distance away from the town when it becomes encapsulated? Or was there enough time between the battle and the storm that some members could have theoretically gone back to town to get healing supplies & gotten trapped inside the globe as a result?

[bluechampion]

Got a few here.

1.) Would another player and myself be able to roll to see if Link's paraglider could support more than Link himself for a short period of time if need be? I don't know if it'll even come up, but I thought I'd try to be flexible.

2.) Are Link's remote bombs considered magical and what kind of effect would they have on the magic glass if they have any at all?

3.) Since Link got beat up by the spiders, would he be able to fully recover from his wounds by the time this went down, and if not, what kind of penalties would he have because regardless he's going to want to help.

[dialetheism]

Is the town hall still magically sealed? For, uh. Reasons.

"Sheltering a whole town from a snowstorm in one, relatively large building" reasons.

(Failing that: is there another large-ish building readily accessible in New Aspen? Something with an oven or some form of warmth/fire would be preferable, but anything big is the priority.)

[ribticklers]

Is it possible to use shape water to remove water from something like firewood so the firewood can burn?

ALSO: Can snow be directly manipulated by shape water, or does it have to be water first?

[feytality]

How much of Laurel's backstory going to be known icly to the Reclaimers?

Re: QUESTIONS

[no_breeches]

EDITED NVM I AM A DUMB AND THIS QUESTION WAS ANSWERED ALREADY

[stonecoldcat]

Is Laurel fully aware of the Star King's part in her spiderdom?

A. ESCAPE FROM A WINTER WONDERLAND (STRONG - MAX 2 GROUPS)

[balancemod]

Sign up here! You can also reply to this comment with your team's final plan, and we'll roll for you.

[seasaltkeys]

Roxas managed to avoid death in the previous log, but it's not hard to imagine he went outside of the town to get more candy cane or fight monsters, and find himself on the wrong side of the snowglobe.

His keyblade doesn't have it's unlocking ability, which is a bit of a blow for Roxas, but he's eager to help. He can still whack stuff though, and pepper the globe with what spells he has.

B. RAISING TOWN SPIRITS (CHARISMATIC - MAX 2 GROUPS)

[balancemod]

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[toremainbehind]

Izumo is gonna be stuck in the snowglobe, but he'll try his damn hardest raising morale. Even if he's not feeling that cheery himself; HE'S STILL GONNA TRY.

C. A DARING RESCUE (DEXTROUS - MAX OF 1 GROUP)

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Re: C. A DARING RESCUE (DEXTROUS - MAX OF 1 GROUP)

[lullabytes]

i'd like to be involved! nanami's a monk so.

D. STOP THE QUEEN (CHARISMATIC - MAX OF 1 GROUP)

[balancemod]

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[bu773rfly]

Guess that's one way to get to talk to the spider queen.

Erika's gonna get her hands in this.

[monkeyblue]

So. Fushimi was on the moon because his boyfriend got murdered by fucking spiders thanks Laurel, but this means he's out of the town when things go bad. Probably for the best, no one wants him on cheerleader duty.

That being said, he is a Warlock, which is a CHA archetype. He just. Also happens to be about as sociable as the Spider Queen. All he has right now is a feline familiar and Hideous Laughter, but if someone wants him either to help with saving Kaede or smashing shit or as a Charismatic for stopping the Queen I am all for either! (Like I said, he wasn't in the town when everything hit so he can't do much in the cheerleading portion.)

ALSO his patron is a star. That may help?

[feytality]

So a bunch of squishy warlocks go to talk to the spider queen,,,

[mylawn]

*~*~*LFG*~*~*

76 can probably slot in to a few of these--he's a STR archetype so anything super talky is not necessarily his strong suit, but he's GREAT MUSCLE, especially if you're looking for some tanky backup + heals + yells at you to remind you of your purpose in case things go south. It is always good to have a contingency plan that involves someone who can play bodyguard.

He's been shifty and lurking the past two weeks so it's very reasonable for him to get caught either inside or outside the globe for all your bodyguard needs.

[mccreehaw]

/McCree has entered the chat

We didn't get the chance to have their paths cross so far in the event, so he'll have your back, Jack! He was outside the town fighting the kipine on the 14th, but wherever this group prefers to be when the snow globe is activated, I can make McCree be there!

[kahunanu]

OK so since the spider lair is 1/4th the way from the top of the tree that's probably some distance and time to travel and Nanu was maybe on the way back from attempting to splelunk said spider lair. Probably stopped for a sleep somewhere on one of the branches. tldr my justification that Nanu was probably outside when the town gets blue balled.

I'm gonna throw his lot generally in with the "stop the queen" group since he has some CR with them so priority might be to help and escort them. Since he'll be outside he can also kind of just bob around and help whoever looks like they need help? Nanu is a druid and uses wiz WIS but he's sneaky in character and will utilize that kind of style if it comes to fighting and what not. He can shapeshift but has to pick one shape for the day so that'll depend a lot on what he ends up doing to help.

He also knows Shillelagh and Detect Poison and Disease, not sure how useful those might be but he can do that.

[feytality]

Nanu: be careful around the spiders :/
Maya: ok





Maya: well time to go talk down homicidal spider lady!!!!!!!!!
Nanu: [stares into the middle distance]

[bluechampion]

Link is in the STR archtype and he'll be stuck on the inside of the magical snow-globe-ornament thing after getting his ass handed to him by a bunch of spiders for trying to steal web for the Gnome. He was beat up pretty bad, so he probably won't be fully recovered by the time this goes down.

Link does have a little bit of sneaking ability, but he's not going to be as good as those with the DEX. He's got remote bombs on his Sheikah Slate and a paraglider, so that might offer some flexibility. I don't think it would be able to hold more than Link himself, but it's something that can probably be rolled for if anyone is willing to risk it? (Idk let me ask the mods)

[feytality]

he should just drop a banana, then he can stealth

[no_breeches]

Before I say anything I wanna note-- I am not particularly picky with where Sera ends up right now, so if there are 3 more people who really wanna do RAISING TOWN SPIRITS but haven't signed up yet, I am more than happy to chuck my girl off in a different direction!

that saidddddd

if Sera were to wind up with a RAISING TOWN SPIRITS group--

Sera likes cheering up people the old-fashioned way, but... she normally does that by playing pranks, and pranks seem like they might not be a great source of cheer for people freezing to death. R.I.P. (I mean. If one of the charismatic group leaders asks her to throw a pie in someone's face, she'll do it. She'll be skeptical, mind you, but she will definitely still do it)

However! There's a thing she can possibly do to help people maybe not die as fast, to buy a tiny extra bit of time in which the charismatic people can do their morale-boosting stuff?

She's been experimenting with her 'concoct' ability, trying to recreate alchemical mixtures that she used back home-- and one of those mixtures was a lil thing called "flask of fire". Sera hasn't cracked the code on her flask yet, but due to the experimenting she's been up to, I imagine she's been trying to collect reagents that affect fire in some way? So... Maaaaaybe she could try to whip up something that might make fires burn hotter or longer, to help keep people warm ?!

If her attempt ended in failure, though, uh... Well, messing with fire can have bad results >__> Like explosions. Or she could accidentally put a fire out instead of improving it. Who knows?

((((she'd explain IC that this is a somewhat risky idea before actually trying anything, and would not mess with the fire if others in the group asked her not to))))