Fade Rift Mods (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
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faderift2018-03-10 04:17 pm
faderifting) wrote in faderift2018-03-10 04:17 pm
DRAKONIS RIFTER ARRIVAL
WHO: New rifters
WHAT: People fall out of a rift, get attacked, and discover that they are trapped and alone.
WHEN: Drakonis 10
WHERE: A snowy pit.
NOTES: This month, the arrival log is CLOSED to new rifters only. Don't worry, there will be chances for everyone else to meet (and help!) them soon.
WHAT: People fall out of a rift, get attacked, and discover that they are trapped and alone.
WHEN: Drakonis 10
WHERE: A snowy pit.
NOTES: This month, the arrival log is CLOSED to new rifters only. Don't worry, there will be chances for everyone else to meet (and help!) them soon.
I. ARRIVAL
You were asleep—deeply or fitfully, for the last time or just resting your eyes for a moment–and then you were not. And wherever you were was not, anymore, replaced by nothing but the sensation of falling, tumbling into endless, bottomless nothing. If this were still a dream, you would wake before you hit the ground. You can't die in a dream, they say. At least in some worlds.
In this world, you wake with a jolt when you hit the ground, soft for an instant and then bone-jarringly hard. You've landed in a pile of loose snow, beneath which is more snow, frozen solid, and all around you are walls of more snow, tinted by the shifting green gash in the air. There are other people finding their feet after a similarly sprawling arrival, and then emerging from the rift in your wake are a number of hunched, greyish creatures in tattered robes that shuffle about, keeping their distance as they send sharp spikes of ice flying toward you.
They're accompanied by floating beings with too many insect-like arms, and creatures that seem to emerge from the ground like plumes of magma, their fire causing the walls to drip and turning the ground beneath your feet treacherously slick. There is also one giant scarecrow, nearly twenty feet tall, and with giant scalpel blades for arms. It is dressed in a tuxedo, a fine bolo tie, and a cowboy hat, and accompanied by five normal-sized scarecrows in matching suits and hats. Needless to say, they are not friendly either. There are many of you, but even more enemies.
If that all weren't enough there's also a narrow splinter of light in the same sickly green as whatever brought you here, now glowing out of the palm of your left hand. It aches, a bone-deep pain that gnaws even through all the distractions, and seems to call your attention back to the rift.
II. TRAPPED
After the first few waves of demons are defeated (there will be no more scarecrows), there will be a lull long enough to regroup and take stock of surroundings. You appear to be at the bottom of a deep crevasse, the walls stretching high above your heads. The space is only about 20 feet wide at its center, but nearly fifty yards long, tapering narrower at the ends, with the rift located near the southern end. There is no exit, no cracks or tunnels leading away, and no hand or footholds in the sheer walls. There are some animal bones scattered about, but no evidence of other living creatures. There is also no evidence of other people, here or above you.
Luckily, the rift has spilled out a great deal of crap along with you and all the demons. There is a gigantic cake several feet tall half-smushed into one wall, its ten tiers delicately decorated all in white fondant, with whorling patterns and flowers made of frosting. Each layer is a different flavor, ranging from the mundane (chocolate, vanilla, carrot) to the bizarre (strawberry & pickle, spicy lemon olive, red velvet mackerel). There are also some actual mackerel, a heap of live fish having spilled through the rift and scattered about the crevasse during the battle, along with bundles of dried (but now soggy) cornstalks.
You can see a narrow patch of sky above and sunlight does filter down to you, for the few hours of the day that there is any sunlight at all. Given the reflection off all the snow and ice, during those daylight hours it is pleasantly bright, though tinted a bit blue (and green by the rift). Unfortunately, daylight only lasts about eight hours, and it is frequently cloudy, which leaves the crevasse dimly lit, as if in a perpetual dusk. At night it will be utterly pitch black except for the rift's eerie glow. It's also very cold, with temperatures remaining below freezing during the day and well below at night.
III. LOST
Whether with magic or creative ice-pick improvisation, scaling the walls of the crevasse is not impossible—but there is minimal reward for the effort. Fully exposed to the wind, it's colder on the surface than in the crevasse, and on the third day there's a whiteout blizzard that reduces visibility to twenty feet for hours. Even when the weather is clear, though, there's not much to see. The land above is a wasteland of ice, snow, and wind, without visible vegetation or landmarks other than monotonous gentle hills. The only disruption to the landscape in any direction is about a hundred yards north of the rift, where spots of color and piles of snow mark what is, on closer inspection, an abandoned camp.
Whoever was there before built low walls out of packed snow to block some of the wind and dug enough snow caves to sleep a dozen people, though a few have since caved in. There's no food—there was food, before, but overturned crates and animal tracks suggest the area is not as devoid of life as it looks—but there are thick fur blankets and sets of boots or outerwear. More than a dozen, in a variety of different sizes. Almost like they were expecting poorly-clothed company.
Maybe someone was coming for you. Maybe they'll be back. Or maybe not.
[ ooc | The rift will continue to spit out demons at semi-regular intervals. After the rifters defeat the first couple waves of demons, the pace of these reinforcements will slow—instead of a few minutes, it may be a few hours until the next batch comes. It is possible for your characters to close the rift themselves, but because they have no idea what they're doing it will require trial and error to figure out how, and all (or near enough) of them working together to succeed. This should take at least two days to manage.
Other than the stuff described in the post and the inventories everyone arrived with (as approved in your apps; please don't suddenly remember some other useful things in your characters' pockets) there is nothing in the crevasse except snow, ice, rock, and animal bones. But don't worry, we promise we're not leaving your characters all to die. Your characters have arrived in the Sunless Lands, and the Inquisition is on its way. When the mod plot post goes up this coming week, it will include a prompt to rescue all of you. Until that time, please refrain from RPing elsewhere in the game and enjoy this exclusive opportunity to bond with your rift-mates.
Your characters will be alone for approximately five days IC. Please keep them from wandering off too far, since that will make it implausible for the Inquisition to find and rescue them and then you won't get to play in the game. If they would insist on trying, you're welcome to use adverse weather, ice collapsing into other caves beneath them, or whatever other natural obstacles necessary to stall their progress. ]
no subject
Kylo does as requested, lifting several of the metal arms with a small gesture of his hand. One floats higher, towards Iorveth and rests in the air within reach. Kylo, in the mean time, was relishing in the familiar feeling of life - the Force - wrapped around his fingertips, around the metal pieces floating at his will. He takes a breath, letting that feeling move through his senses. It was like breathing, how naturally it came to him.
no subject
Grabbing at the arm, he uses it to give a small salute of thanks, then repeats the pattern - stabs it into the ice, wiggles it some to make sure it's solidly in there, then jump the next step up. The process repeats on the next. Hopefully they'll have enough in the way of scalpel arms to get up there. Otherwise, they'll have to start finding other things to improvise with.
"You don't seem to cast as the other mages do here." He comments, watching the next scalpel float to him. No muttering of words or odd symbols or wands. A very un-mage-like mage.
no subject
"That would be because I am not a mage." Whatever that was. "My power exceeds the limitations of 'casting' anything."
He didn't know a thing about mages, but he's fairly sure he was more powerful, even if the technique he is using comes from the life around him just as much as it does from within. This was far less taxing than his fight with the fire monster and the giant knife-handed monsters. It was also a far less showy representation of his abilities.
Kylo watches Iorveth, continuing to pass him the bladed metal. He was curious how high they could get with the pieces. If they could get him to the top, perhaps he could find a solution to get the rest of them up there.
no subject
But yeah, sure dude. If you say so. "In what manner, would you say?"
Specifics, bro. Let's hear them. Since we're chatting while we work and all, Iorveth going back to what he was doing, after that moment of staring down at the black crusader here. Meanwhile, he's trying to imagine how they might help the others up, if they can get to the top. Any who have a skill for climbing as he does might be able to follow the same route, but he doubts most do. Humans are horribly clumsy creatures without a great excess of training. Maybe put a rope together of some kind.
"And what does that make you, if not a mage?"
no subject
He detested the pain that came back at him when he did such things. Feeling other's pain was a bit of a detriment when trying to flip through their mind without their permission. Being able to float objects was all fine and good, but that was a parlor trick in comparison.
"How many of your mages do you know that can incite pain, sift through another's thoughts, or change the direction of them all together? I do more than just lift things out of thin air." He hated explaining to him. It felt like he was laying his cards on the table, and yet he wanted to impress upon him what true power was.
no subject
Which is kind of funny, coming from the man currently missing an entire eye. It's a popular punishment in his world, apparently. Not that they empty socket is showing now, covered up by the bandanna, but Phillipa Eilhart can suck it.
"I don't tend to keep close company with mages, so I couldn't give you an accurate answer. I'm sure you'll eventually find some to compare with yourself." If you need to measure up with your magic-peen contest. Because yeah, the Force sounds pretty much the same as magic.
Also, he is absolutely laying his cards on the table, because this is what Iorveth does. He learns things about people, whether he likes said people or not. He makes a habit of knowing as much as he can about any given situation, at any given moment. Woops.
no subject
He was gauging him, trying to find out more. He could force it out of him if he really felt inclined, but was choosing a more amenable approach instead. Iorveth didn't come across as someone easily intimidated either. It didn't hurt that Kylo was willing to help him climb up an ice wall, perhaps hoping he might fall on his head.
LMFAO OOPS KYLE
“None at all.” Iorveth tells him, and it’s an honest answer, one he may as well give, seeing as that isn’t a bluff he could very well uphold. He has other skills that have put him where he is in the world, despite fighting mages and monsters and worse, but those are more ordinary things one will just have to find out on their own.
“I just have an obnoxious habit of living while others would prefer I don’t.” Also, of murdering kings and setting people on fire and torturing other people and taking over valleys.
framing that typo on my wall tbh
"I can respect that. That's all any of us wants in the end - to survive." He was no different. He had done what he could as Snoke's apprentice to survive after years of struggling internally with his nature. He no longer wanted to struggle, even though it still roared on inside of him. He knew his place now, as much as anyone could know their place. It was just unfortunate that things had become something else entirely beyond his control.
They didn't know where they were or how to return. He was fine being as good as he possibly can if it will get him answers. That meant helping Iorveth getting up the ice wall and being - well, not quite friendly - with these people who found themselves forced into the same situation as him.
excellent, mail it to me and i will autograph it
"For the most part. In one form or another." Physical survival, the survival of your memory, of posterity, of yourself in your people. While he certainly has no death wish, Iorveth would gladly through himself on the pyre if he knew the single act would assure his people an undeniable, flourishing and prosperous future. He, however, isn't stupid, and realizes a single act could never accomplish that. "In a situation like this, you can be sure it's all that will be on everyone's mind."
Their survival. Not yours, not the others around them. Altruistic as people seem, you see the truth of them when it comes down to moments like this. When it's starve or feed the person next to you. Or it occurs that you could live a little longer if you just took something. Make one less mouth to feed. "There's nothing like mortality to bring out the honesty in a soul."
no subject
"What do you make of the rest of them? Do you think, even if we find a way to civilization, that they'll make it?" He didn't know hardly any of them and wasn't taken to observing the way Iorveth was. He had watched some, but not quite the same degree. It had only been long enough to deem them not an enemy.
no subject
Hopefully they aren't out here long enough for 'desperate' to happen, or for these people to start seeing advantage in shooting down each other. Should it come to that, Iorveth's more likely to slink off into the winter and take to it on his own, rather than stay among a dangerous crowd. For Kylo's question, he pauses, to glance back to the others. The most of them seem fairly resourceful. Not really many completely losing it. A few standing to the side looking anxious. But none in an all out panic.
"Perhaps. If there's no more fighting, as we had with the portal. It likely depends on how long we're stranded, and what shelter we can find from the elements." Surviving nature is an entirely different game from surviving battle.
no subject
"You sound like you know enough about survival and bending a desperate mob to a certain conclusion. Speaking from experience?" He was gauging his character, trying to figure out the type of person Iorveth was, who he was helping.
no subject
"Where I'm from, humans vastly outnumber nonhumans. They've spread across the lands like infection." He calmly begins to explain, like going over an interesting chapter found in a history book. "Every now and again, a group of humans will get their smallclothes in a twist, decide they need to hurt something, and for that, they need to hate something. One fool with a loud voice, a lot of friends, and a half formed suspicion can lay blame on the local dwarven smithy, or the thieving elven whores at the brothel. Then, something we call a pogrom occurs."
Were he more upset at the moment, if he'd taken it more personally or if he weren't more intent on keeping himself relatively distanced, this would be a much more bitter, venomous rant. Instead, it's just a well detailed report.
"The riot moves from street to street, house to house, stealing, burning, murdering, raping. Nonhumans hung from rafters, dragged through the streets, tied to a stake and set alight." He nods, sighing out an exhale, before he shrugs. "I know something of it, yes."