faderift | { OPEN } catchall for the month

Entry tags:

{ OPEN } catchall for the month

WHO: Christine, Ellana, Minka, Julian + OPEN!
WHAT: A catchall for the month.
WHEN: whenever in Wintermarch
WHERE: various locations in Kirkwall

I'm putting starters in comments so I have a header for each character and get comments only sent to them instead of getting double comment notifs.

Also, if you'd like to work out a wildcard option, PM me or send a private plurk to

megoom and we can play around with ideas.

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At the table he's procured, Julian starts to shuffle the deck, giving Elros an easy smile when he brings the ale.

"Julian suits me well enough. De Abbrixio is the family name. I take it you aren't from around here?"

"Not I." Elros grins and pushes Julian's mug over to his side of the table.

"I'm one of the... Rifters, I think you locals term us. In my own world I'd be 'Elros Earendillion, Tar-Minyatur', but it's surprisingly freeing to be just plain Elros again here."

"Indeed? Well this is a surprise! You are the first I've met since my arrival into the city." Julian looks well and truly excited by this news. Clearly he doesn't hold the views of others who immediately think "demons." Or he does and he enjoys flirting with danger.

After shuffling the cards, Julian sets them before Elros. The back of his hand rests atop the deck, and there are thin, white scars adorning his skin there. Not many, but two cross each other. Scars may be of little interest to most, but his fine clothes suggest a rich upbringing. His attitude towards rifters and marred skin might suggest a life outside the insular nobility.

"Would you care to cut the deck? And then we may begin the lesson."

"Even have the painful glowy hand to prove it." He says cheerfully. "Though I hope you'll forgive me not brandishing it around! Most folk here are used to me now but I'd rather not upset them unduly."

Elros grins and takes the cards, flicking a quick look at the scars, midly curious but not inclined to pry.

"That I can do."

He's not bad at shuffling, either.

"As you like! I'm never one to start riots if I can help it." He throws Elros a wink before letting him cut the cards for them, then takes them up again and begins dealing.

"Five cards each. The goal is to get as many of a matching suit as possibly before the Angel of Death card appears. On your turn, you discard a card you don't want and pick another up from the deck. Two pairs or even a pair are better than no matching suit at all. However, if you have a good hand early on, you still must discard cards until we reach the Angel of Death. All clear?"

"Nor I." He grins back and nods, watching his hands.

"Aye! So it's a matter of both luck and cunning, eh? Do the suits have value as compared to each other, or even within a suit?"

"Indeed! Cheating is rampant in this game, but as you can see--" He pauses to push up both sleeves to his elbows. "I am above such tactics. The cunning comes from trying to read your opponent to see how they are doing with their hand, and to see if you should try for better yourself. But when it comes down to it, it is mostly luck, yes."

Picking up his cards, he fans them out in his hand. "Not the suits, but within a suit, if your numbers go up sequentially, that is better that just having a mix of numbers." He pauses to wave a hand at his cards. "Say I have a two, four, nine, and ten of serpents, but you have a five, six, seven, and eight of knights, then that would beat me."

Elros chortles. "I'll believe that when I'm good enough to know if you are, or not! Any decent card game needs a way to cheat, after all!"

He nods. "Makes sense, yeah. So the highest card is the ten?"

"You wound me, ser," he says dramatically, but it's all in jest. He begins moving his cards around.

"Ah, no, forgive me. There are face cards too. A knight, queen, and king that go up in that order after ten. So do keep them in mind!" And with that, he gestures to Elros. "You go first."

Elros grins back at him.

"My most sincere apologies!"

He nods. "Knight, queen, king. Alright." He draws, humming thoughtfully over his hand.

Julian smirks at him a moment before reordering his cards yet again.

"Remember: the Angel of Death can appear at any moment, so take care to always have the best hand you can. You can discard first."

"There is only one Angel, I assume?"

Elros hums at his hand thoughtfully and discards two cards.

"Yes, just the one." Julian discards one card and picks up another. "So tell me more about yourself. I am curious to know as I have not spoken to one of your kind yet." He looks towards Elros's hand, but draws no other attention to it out loud.

"What, us Rifters?" Elros grins at him, discarding one card and eyeing his hand thoughtfully.

"We're a varied bunch, I dare say. Is there anything in particular you're interested in knowing?"

"Well, what's home called? What is the world like there? A kingdom, an oligarchy, something else?" He pauses to rub at his chin before discarding a card and picking up another. His facial expression doesn't change as he sets the card at the end of the line instead of tucking it between others. He clearly doesn't like to give anything away around his hand.

"Well, let's see. The world I'm from - we call it Arda, and me, specifically, I was born in Avernien, in the Havens of Sirion, on the Western coast of Beleriand, where the river Sirion flows into the Sea at the Bay of Balar. Beleriand itself is a wide land that stretches north into the highlands and mountains of Hithlum and Dorthornion, and south to where the line of the Blue Mountains comes down to meet the coast. I haven't really explored east of the Blue Mountains, as those lands were held by the Enemy for most of my youth, as was... well. Most of Beleriand, in honesty. My eyes are turned Westwards in any case - I've established a kingdom for Men on the island of Elenna, we're going to call it Numenor."

Just casually mentions that as he swaps a card out again.

"Before I was born though, Beleriand... well, it's never truly been at peace, but it was the stronghold for a long time of the kingdoms of both the Grey Elves under Elu Thingol, and later the princes of the Noldor-in-Exile, holding the long line of the Andram Hills against our Enemy until he broke them, and then fighting a slow withdrawal to the coast. Us Men have been mostly tribal chiefs sworn to the service of varied and sundry, so Numenor is a bit of an experiment! We've never not been sworn to anyone but ourselves, before. Well, except for the Haladin. They were never beholden to anyone but themselves, but that stance almost got them wiped out. But ... the line of Kings is broken, the strength of the Elves exhausted in their long fight. Time for us to stand on our own feet now, and prove that all that we have learnt over the years has stuck!"

Julian listens, but very soon his eyes start to glaze over. It's entirely possible Elros is naming all these places on purpose as a joke, and if so, it's rather clever. However, if he seriously thinks Julian can absorb all these names and keep them separate, he's greatly underestimated the man's capacity to care about details.

"I do hope you won't take offense if I tell you I stopped paying attention to the names of those places less than halfway through." He glances up with a smile before attending to his hand. Then he adds, "I noticed you said 'us men.' Do men in your land have pointed ears?"

It's a distraction technique!

......Is it working?

Elros laughs. "I wouldn't expect you to know them, so no. Men don't but, I've only been one recently. I suppose the points haven't evened out yet, if they ever will."

More than a little, yes!

"You speak as though you can easy change your race. Is it so?" If that were an option here in Thedas, he wonders how many elves would jump at the opportunity to become human, or at least pass as such.

Excellent~ He always knew those boring lessons in speechifying would come in handy one day.

"Hardly! But my twin brother and I are... something of an odd exception, you see. Various factors came together to finally come down to the Powers of the World offering us the choice of whose fate we would be bound to, for we were ... are, I suppose, Peredhil, Halfelven, trapped between and neither one or the other. We were quite happy that way! But then they said to us, Choose, and we discovered that we were, in the end, not as alike as we had thought we were."

Elros, clearly, chose mortality. Which leaves his brother taking the other road.

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{ OPEN } catchall for the month

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the wiki article on this is so vague, i'm starting to invent rules

lol XD

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