faderifting: (Default)
Fade Rift Mods ([personal profile] faderifting) wrote in [community profile] faderift2020-04-12 04:29 pm

EVENT ↠ THE DRIFTING ROADS

WHO: Everyone
WHAT: A Crossroads Adventure
WHEN: Most of Cloudreach 9:46
WHERE: The Crossroads
NOTES: OOC post!



A team recently discovered a cluster of eluvians, one of which leads into the attic of an occupied home in Minrathous. This could be an extremely useful route if it can be made safely accessible, but that will require careful planning. In the meantime, Riftwatch needs to urgently explore the other eluvians in the cluster to ensure that none of them make the Minrathous route too dangerous to keep open (for instance, if another leads into the center of Val Royeaux or the royal palace in Cumberland, or anywhere else that a party of enemy combatants could quickly cause terrible trouble).

To that end, teams are assigned to explore and (as much as is possible in the Crossroads) map where the others lead and what the paths between them are like so that the danger/usefulness of each can be assessed. Because there are dozens and this needs to be done as quickly as possible, anyone with any time may be ordered to take on an exploration shift. Assignments will be given to small teams or pairs, but never to just one person alone. Some people may be assigned multiple shifts. (These assignments will be made IC, but OOC you're free to choose your own teams.)

The aim of this event is to focus on the Crossroads themselves, so the eluvians investigated will almost all lead to other eluvians and to islands of disconnected pieces of the Crossroads. It may be necessary to travel between and through several successive eluvians to different portions of the Crossroads to ensure there's no access to a vulnerable location.

The portions of the Crossroads teams will be exploring now will come with a variety of frustrating geographical hazards, any number of which your characters may encounter during their travels:
  • RECONCILIATION ROAD: One eluvian will be positioned in the distance on a narrow island of the Crossroads and reachable only by two paths that unfurl ahead of people as they walk and finally converge to reach the island. The paths will slowly angle toward one another if the people walking on each of them discuss a topic of disagreement, coming together to meet at the eluvian if the parties are reasonable and calm during the discussion and make some earnest effort to find common ground along the way. They won't have to wind up in perfect agreement to reach the end, but breaking into fighting or being stubborn or petty will result in the paths diverging instead of coming together. People who already agree about something won't be able to make it work—they'll have to find something to disagree about, even if it's just the best color of flower. A monument at the beginning will explain its purpose (using Veilfire writing that gives mental impressions, rather than requiring knowledge of ancient elven languages): the paths were designed to require people to calmly discuss their differences on their way to reach someone appointed to mediate disputes at the end, rather than allowing them to barge in shouting.
  • IMPULSE AVENUE: An area will be populated by spirits who will act out a form of people's repressed feelings/impulses on their behalf. That might mean a nonverbal wisp or a more distinct verbal spirit. So a wisp who is acting on behalf of Person A might shoot little icicles at Person B because Person A is annoyed with them, or a more substantial spirit might hit on Person B because Person A thinks they're cute, et cetera. The spirits won't volunteer to explain why they're doing this, but the verbal ones could identify Person A as the source of the desire if pressed on the subject, especially if Person A secretly wants it known.
  • INNER CHILD BOULEVARD: Teams may need to pass through a particularly twisty, shifting maze that's only passable with the guidance of spirits—specifically, spirits who, for some unknown reason connected to their original purpose when the Crossroads were a thoroughfare, present as ghostly forms of the people they're guiding as they were when they were children. They'll know that they're spirits and that their purpose is to guide people through the maze, not mistake themselves for "real" people, but they'll behave and speak in the manner of the child they're imitating while doing so. (Like all spirits, they rely on the information available to them from people, so if there's some significant difference between the way a person recalls themselves as a child vs. how they really were, the spirit will only be able to imitate what the person recalls.)
  • SUSPICION CIRCLE: A pack of fear spirits (specific breed: suspicion) has control of a dark, tunnel-y portion of the Crossroads. They're able to rearrange the paths to lead people in circles rather than allowing them to escape, all the while trying to stoke fear and drive wedges between people by whispering to them about any fears they may harbor (or that just seem reasonable) about their companions' motives, loyalty, etc. Resisting the fear will prevent the spirits from feeding and eventually make them unable to keep up with rearranging the paths, allowing people to escape. Otherwise, if people do give into fearing one another and thus feed them, they'll have to be fought or outsmarted some other way.
They may also encounter other minor hazards and irritations, such as:
  • SPIRITS OF VALOR: Bridges or paths may occasionally be occupied by these fierce spirits who will demand that any who wish to pass first best them in single combat. They can also sometimes be passed without a fight, if you manage to out-swagger them.
  • WILD GOOSE SPIRITS: Spirits that will lead anyone who follows them in pointless circles for as long as possible. They may appear offering assistance, claiming they know the way to the party's destination and can lead them to it, or claiming to have been sent by another group that needs their help urgently. On rare occasions the aid they seek will be real, just far too late--they may lead people to scenes of spirits falling to their deaths as paths crumble, crying out for help but unable to be saved.
  • MOOD WISPS: Characters may encounter clusters of small wisps that will follow them about and change color depending on the mood of the person they're hovering near. If that person's emotions are particularly extreme they may also hum a little, annoyingly, in a way that vaguely indicates the relevant feeling.
  • TRUTH PATHS: Paths that will fall away if you tell a lie. It doesn't require active truth-telling to cross, so you can be silent the whole time if you like, but if you lie about something while wandering the path will vanish ahead of you and will not reappear until you correct the lie. They aren't clearly marked.
  • PUZZLES EVERYWHERE: There are puzzles. They're everywhere, and they're frequently required to unlock an eluvian or make a pathway appear. Some of them might require people to play Ancient Elven Symbol Twister. Or Ancient Elven Symbol Hopscotch, if that's more your thing.
This project will be ongoing, in addition to characters' normal duties, until events TBA.

justashotaway: (25.)

[personal profile] justashotaway 2020-04-23 01:39 am (UTC)(link)
Laura looks at the wisp, then looks away again, crossing her arms so her hands are hidden somewhere in the vicinity of her armpits. Knowing the wisps are interested in her particularly, rather than simply floating too near her, isn't reassuring.

"You understand them," she says, her voice low and a little more urgent than she'd like. "Tell them to leave."
exequy: (178)

[personal profile] exequy 2020-05-04 09:34 pm (UTC)(link)
"Why? They are not hurting you," Kostos says, scratching a not-great drawing of a nearby formation of stone onto the pad in his hand.
justashotaway: (28.)

[personal profile] justashotaway 2020-05-04 11:17 pm (UTC)(link)
But they could. She can't say that, though--she can't admit fear of them and expect to be taken seriously, not with Kostos. One pulses a sort of greyish-blue colour at her, like it's trying to communicate, but Laura has no idea what it means. "I dislike them."
exequy: (177)

[personal profile] exequy 2020-06-04 01:58 am (UTC)(link)
"It would be nice," Kostos says, sounding almost idle and distracted, save for the way he always sounds a little bit like he's clenching his jaw, "if disliking something made it go away."

He has a list.

But when he's finished with his terribly little sketch, he holds out a hand to the wisp and beckons it closer. Its attention is still on Laura, its color still cued by her, but it does drift agreeably to hover closer to him and further from her.

"Did the mages you saw before you came here work with spirits?"
justashotaway: (36.)

[personal profile] justashotaway 2020-06-04 02:28 am (UTC)(link)
She's inclined to sulk in silence--she knows disliking things doesn't make them go away, Kostos--but the wisp isn't threatening to touch her anymore.

"No." As far as she knows, at least. Perhaps there were wisps amid his experiments, or spirits in general, but her fear of them isn't born from prior experience. "Lyrium. And..."

Laura makes a face, unsure what the word is for it. She doesn't want to ask--but she does want to know what they're called, so she can avoid them in the future. The wisp turns a purply colour, glowing from within like lightning in a storm cloud. Reluctantly, she adds, "They explode. And make you do things."
exequy: (29)

[personal profile] exequy 2020-06-17 09:59 pm (UTC)(link)
That gets slightly more of his attention.

"Make you do what things?"
justashotaway: (16.)

[personal profile] justashotaway 2020-06-17 10:04 pm (UTC)(link)
"Hurt people." This is the sort of question that feels simultaneously impossible to answer and to escape. Laura stares doggedly ahead, deciding after a moment to try to change the subject. "How do you know they are curious?"

In conversations she's observed, this is an ideal way to avoid answering more questions.
exequy: (184)

[personal profile] exequy 2020-06-26 04:04 am (UTC)(link)
Kostos continues to look at her for a long moment, considering ignoring the question to push for more information. But when he opens his mouth, eventually, it's just to say, "I'm a medium. I can feel them."

A little grudging. It's an uncommon gift, poorly understood and overly feared by people with large weapons and the right to lock him in a dungeon cell on suspicion of—anything, really.