sticksandbones | EVENT & TDM 022

EVENT & TDM 022

WAKE UP

Being out in the woods is, for some people, an ordinary day. You may or may not be one of those people — you almost certainly don’t remember going camping, do you? — and yet you emerge from a tent and think to yourself, hm, that’s quite odd! Where is the nearest civilization anyhow? If you’re brave enough, perhaps you set out to seek it, walking toward where you think you hear noise in the far distance. It sounds a bit like cheering. A party? A bonfire? You can’t be certain, not at first.

As you step onto the worn trail, something nearly clocks you right in the head. A nimble dodge to the left and a quick glance at the ground tells you that it’s some kind of tree branch made of… flesh? It’s certainly flesh-textured, though the colour is a deep blue that glows white. It seems to be rapidly rotting into the ground, and as you look up… a giant, several hundred foot tree of a similar eldritch makeup is falling apart before your eyes. Your walk back to civilization will be full of dodging probably-dead flesh tree bits.

Should you make it in one piece, the source of the noise becomes obvious: the people making up this small town are cheering and yelling about something else of eldritch makeup. It seems that some of the creatures who have lived in this civilization’s river for the last year, the Seaborn, have decided to evolve to be capable of flight. Some residents of this town seem extremely enthusiastic with this. Some are wary. Some simply don’t care.

You? Well, that’s for you to decide.

Welcome to the eldritch horror fae woods, dear friend. Enjoy your stay.

A SNAKE IN THE GRASS

While the black fog returns, some paths are left clear, or at least not as impacted as other areas of the woods. Mist fades in and out, and even if you aren’t one for nature, surely exploration can sing its siren song when the size of the town is too small and all the faces look the same. Paths line themselves with daffodils and chamomile flowers, with arctic poppies and clearings of wildflowers- foxglove and lavender especially prominent. They’re lovely, all of them, and bloom far more rapidly than anything else should be this early into spring, this late into winter, but they do.

But something creeps beneath the flowers, and something large digs through the earth, leaving upturned grooves in the dirt and grass, trails of flattened mud and roots with only bushes of camelia on the outskirts left behind. It’s quiet in the forest, not even birds singing. It makes the hiss of tongues all the more noticeable.

If you’re lucky, you might see a purple and grey stone shift in the distance, gone just as quickly as it was there. If you aren’t, you don’t see its much smaller, flower-patterned counterpart strike from the shadows. Snakes are working their way into the Grove, hiding in bushes and under steps, anywhere they can lurk and strike the unsuspecting, and their bite is venomous.

One bite brings excruciating pain, bone-deep cold, an increased frailty of the body and hallucinations. A second bite brings a deep, nightmare-filled sleep. A third bite brings death. All of them scar with a black sun over the bites, a mark of divine wrath — the Fallen Sun sends his regards, and his hate.

Those who perish to the snake bite will awaken in their bed in a few days, feeling nauseous and weakened, but…

'NEATH SERPENT'S GAZE

… This simply isn’t tenable. Between the paranoia and the snake’s stealth, it’s hard to feel safe outside of your home, and maybe inside, despite the fact that once again your homes offer refuge from the forest’s attacks—they hadn’t once upon a red, hot summer, after all. How did they face this last time? It was a flower, wasn’t it? And the new flowers in the forest seem special, if only because of their strong growth compared to the rest of the forest.

But if you go into the woods, two large stone snakes wait, ready to protect the natural gardens. Breaking them does little but slow them down for a time, and their bite is both larger and their venom stronger—the true version, the one that crippled a household in seconds. The severity of the symptoms are worse, murderously so, but survivable if it’s not the third bite.

They block the way, ambush would-be travelers, coil around the flower patches, and will not be stopped. Does this confirm that the flowers could help? Or are they simply protective of their master’s property? Is it play?

Regardless, they wait and watch.

CITIES & BONES

When all the violence of the month ends, and thank goodness for that, you decide to head to bed. For once, you might sleep well — there are no threats of snakes making you wonder if you or your friends might die tomorrow, and the Grove as a whole feels much safer. It’s as if someone or something is guarding over it — different from the Guardian Deities and the Goddesses as a whole.

For the next several days after the snakes disappear, your dreams are strange, as if you’re receiving a vision from another world. A modern city, so different from Aldric’s Grove that you’re not entirely convinced it lies in this dimension, blinks in neon lights behind your eyelids. Between the cacophonous sounds of motorized vehicles rushing by, the din of people talking in a language you don’t understand, and the distant electrical humming from the street lights, perceptive dreamers might hear something else:

The soft clacking of dry bones.

Spark Notes

summary

Wake up: You were apparently camping. You don't recall this. As you head out toward the sound of civilization, bits of giant blue flesh-tree nearly hit you in the head. You'll have to dodge the remaining flesh tree bits as it crumbles while you walk back to town.

A Snake In The Grass: Flowers spring up far too early in the season, and the fog wall returns. Purple and grey-coloured stone snakes begin to attack from the bushes and flowers where they're hidden. One bite brings cold and frailty, a second bite brings nightmares, and a third bite brings death. All bites scar with a mark of the Black Sun.

'Neath Serpent's Gaze: You've heard of a flower that can cure the poison, but to get there, you have to face two far larger stone snakes who are guarding over nature here. Whether they want to play or simply kill isn't clear. You're in danger of death either way.

Cities & Bones: While you sleep after the snakes disappear, you'll have strange dreams that feel like visions and feel watched by something safe and kindly. While your dreams are absorbed in that of a cityscape that feels almost too real, you can sometimes hear the clattering of bones.

out of character

Welcome to March's TDM and Event! Spring is springing and we've got a lot of really cool events coming up in the next few months. The magic system should debut this month as well, which we're very excited about. It is a slow process but the rewards should be well worth it.

updates

Any potential updates, such as characters damaging something important or whatever else, will be put here.

submissions

❖ Questions
❖ March Plotting
❖ Past Life Plotting (Closed to Game Members)
❖ Investigations

code

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

There is a scent! It's faint, so very faint, from years and years and years of obscurity, but there is a scent.

However, it's source is very far away. More than just one day's travel. Will he continue? Or will he regroup?

Or a secret third thing-

If he didn't have so many people depending on him for their own investigations he would just go charging after it. But sadly, he is a good dog. So instead he leaves a scent mark so he can find his way to this spot again later even if the Woods decides to rearrange

...ugh. don't ask how he does that. better left unknown.

Hurray! And not asking!!! When he's ready to return, we'll be waiting.

Okay after Church Shit and Assumedly Renard, Will comes back to try and find his mark

It's there! And largely untouched, no challengers here.

The scent of Ourania's magic wafts faintly, weakly, but it is present, leading onward. The path is dark, obscure, and mostly empty, but it's going to be a long one.

... Did you leave a note, Will?

He did!!! He... didn't say exactly what he was doing, but that he was going on a few days trip to get a better lay of the land. Which isn't a lie! Technically!

He packed for over-nighting too.

Oh, good.

Well then! The forest is dark and twisted, with only the golden glasses and his cloak of the night keeping him safe. It winds, works its ways between trees and under giant roots, the fog creating a wall and sometimes- sometimes something large and dark passes against the barrier, rumbling...

But Will can continue unnoticed.

If he wasn't already so experienced with the Wall he'd be more intimidated. He is a coward by nature, after all. But it's so familiar to his jobs that if anything it's more... comfortable than living an honest life in town. The further he goes the more 'cat-mode' he slips, quiet footed as a ghost.

As he travels, he finds tiny little stars- drained star shards, fragments of something long since gone. Empty shrines and broken stone lanterns litter the path here and there, leaving the faintest feeling of longing that isn't his own in his heart.

How many days pass? It's hard to tell, but eventually he finds the shattered remain of a stone building. Whatever it was, it must have been grand, but- for now, it is simply... nothing. The ghost of a civilization so long since passed that perhaps it was even an echo during the first age of man.

The scent is stronger.

He pockets a few of the empty shards to show the mages back in the Grove, fingers dusting debris and moss from shrines and lanterns as he goes. Hints of roadside guides from back when there was a road to travel. He wonders if repairing them would lure the little gods back here- or if the Woods are too strong, now.

He's not a craftsman though, so for now he just keeps going. The building is old. Old-old. As he approaches to investigate he finds himself watching his feet for fairy rings or other such traps. Just to be safe. He doesn't need his eyes to guide him to his goal after all. Just his nose.

No fairy rings, no traps. Just the echoes of something long forgotten. ... For now.

The scent leads inside.

And in he goes, senses tuned for anything even slightly off- even with all this time investment he is not above abandoning the investigation and bolting. A living Will is better then a dead but justified one.

It smells like dirt and old, loving magic, and things that were so long ago, they no longer matter.

It looks like broken rock and dirt, like nature reclaiming something rightfully hers.

It sounds like a little colony of mice has made the cracks and burrows their home.

Something shines in the dark.

The shine makes him perk and head that way. He can't resist treasure.

The shine leads him to a partially caved-in room, one that's ceiling has been half-way replaced with roots and leaves. A stained glass portrait of the goddess Ourania somehow remains whole and unmarred, light shining through it in a way that feels like moonlight. It portrays her as holding a star in one hand before her, the hand behind her calling the sea. Several white pieces of glass represent the cosmos above.

Resting below is a half-buried chest. Smells like mom!

The chest calls, but he makes sure to pause and take in the stained glass. It really is lovely, and it surviving this long must be divine whim. He is not artist, so no way could he recreate it, but if he can memorize it maybe someone else could.

But the chest is too tempting to linger long, and he kneels down to see if it's locked, running his fingers around the edge to check for indents that would hide trip wires or trap latches.

There is a small trap- a tripwire, to be precise.

"Ah, bingo. Won' catch ol' Will that easy."

He reaches into his pack to get his tools, and thinks that he should invest in a masterwork set later. Funds are way easier to get here then back home, after all. He sets to work disarming it, ears turned to the entrance as he lets his fingers focus on the task. He'd hate to get jumped while Locked In.

No sound from outside, nor down the hall, nor in any of the shattered remains of this building. Wisps of light float in and out, now that whatever they are have accepted that Will is here, but no threat.

Probably for the best, when one remembers there's lions and tigers and bears, oh my.

It's a rather simple tripwire, like it wasn't a serious trap at all- just a deterrent from mischief.

That's the most obvious answer- which is why he kneels down and listens, tapping around the chest for the different echo of internal mechanisms. Juuust to be safe. A bait trap to make a novice think he's found everything has killed more than one adventurer, after all.

If he finds nothing he sets to work opening her up.

No more traps! ... But there's a heavy feeling in the air, suddenly. A seal on the wood appears.

This is something holy. And while it will not stop you from taking it, it wants you to know the weight of your choice.

~~If the trap doesn't whap your fingers, the religious guilt will!~~

...maybe he should have asked specifically at the statues before coming here. He pauses, considering his choices. He decides to offer a little prayer to the moon before he continues, touching his moon shard pendant. He is a thief, but his intentions are good.

...

A faint flicker of a ghost appears- a regal older woman with salt and peppered red hair in ceremonial robes that turn into the casual attire of a woman in the comfort of her own home. She seems cold, before smiling.

She says something, and at first Will can't understand... but only at first.

Someone should take this to the new churches, yes? Travel safe, little one.

... And then she is gone.

The chest opens. Inside, he'll find a moon shard, silver incense sticks, candles and candelabras all carved with moons and stars, bottles of floral oils, and silver or blue amulets.

The ghost makes him freeze... but her demeanor softens, and he sighs in relief, giving her a small bow. The fact this was a church is becoming more and more obvious, and she confirms it.

As does the items. These are ceremonial tools, even he can recognize that. He carefully takes each item out, tucking them in his pack.

"I'll keep'em safe." They have a moon priest, after all. So he knows where to take them.

Not the church, but the priestess's home! The church lies elsewhere. But sometimes the dedicated bring their work home with them.

He seems welcome, regardless, to stay, to come, or to go.

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