MOD EVENT ↠ SATINALIA

[faderifting]

WHO: Everyone
WHAT: It's Satinalia and no one dies.*
WHEN: Forward-dated to Firstfall 1
WHERE: The Gallows and Kirkwall
NOTES: *If you kill your character or an NPC please let us know so we can adjust the log description. Fire cw, use other cws for your tags as needed please! And participate in the gift meme if you want to be cool.

Named for Satina, the smaller of Thedas' two moons, Satinalia is a celebration of freedom, marked by wild celebration, pranks, the donning of costumes and masks—not the fine, delicate masks of Orlais, but animals and caricatures and playful horrors—and the exchange of gifts both sincere and satirical.

I. THE GALLOWS

In Riftwatch's fortress home, the dining hall—not the one recently wrecked by an abomination, the other one—and an adjoining garden courtyard have been decorated (by Benedict, thanks Benedict) in green, gold, and black, with enough torchlight to keep the room glowing once the sun goes down and a fire pit in the garden.

Dinner starts early, to leave ample time for festivities afterwards. Also to make sure everyone has time to eat, because there's a lot of food. Under Colin's direction, the banquet table hosts a spread representing many of the home countries of Riftwatch's members: coq au vin and tiny Orlesian cakes; Fereldan fish-and-egg pie with saffron and some potent cheeses on toasted bread; seafood with white wine sauce on noodles and fresh oranges from Antiva; spicy (very spicy) Rivaini curry and spiced rum cakes; a sampling of Nevarran soft cheeses, fruit, and dry-cured, thinly-sliced ham; and slightly spicy shrimp soup and chocolate-filled pastries from Tevinter. The centerpiece is an enormous and completely edible depiction of the Celebrant (aka the constellation Satinalis). It’s made of various breads—the man himself made of a lightly sweet bread rolled with cinnamon and chopped dates, his lyre golden with an egg wash, his clothes of rye, the stone he sits on of buckwheat. The constellation over him is drawn into the dough, the stars represented by clear rock sugar.

Every table is decorated with a ‘bouquet’ of delicate, edible marzipan roses, and in addition to the table wine and mead from Riftwatch's stores, there's a whole case of semi-decent Nevarran wine provided by Derrica and Athessa.

There's also a table set up to the side with plain, basic masks and a collection of paints and feathers to decorate them with, courtesy of Isaac, for anyone who doesn't have a costume or just enjoys arts and crafts. Some of the masks' interiors are subtly coated with invisible ink, slow-acting glue, fine glitter, or itching powder. Hahahahahaha.

Not long after most people have filtered in and found seats, the mostly-annual tradition of choosing the organization's own Satinalia Fool—usually arranged in advance, sorry, but there is a war on—is upheld, with little warning, by an apologetic Bastien. Volunteers (or those volunteered by their tablemates who don't do a good enough job demurring) are subjected to a few rounds of voting by applause. Some people applaud for their favorites, some for their least favorites, some for their crushes and some for comedy, and in the end Byerly Rutyer and Wysteria Poppell emerge as co-victors. That makes them co-rulers for the remainder of the evening. Or possibly the remainder of the week, by Antiva Rules.

Once the wining and dining are in their dying stages, the music starts. It's informal, at first, with Riftwatch's amenable musicians filtering over to their instruments as they finish their food (or bring it along with them), but once there's a critical mass, they coalesce into a tune that can be danced to. The next hour or so passes with a mixture of peasant reels and formal court dances—the latter mostly by request.

Eventually, after a break for a white druffalo gift exchange, the party disassembles into unstructured mingling. For anyone who wants to stick around, there's more alcohol, smoking in the garden, card and conversation games at the cleared tables, and a game of musical chairs with the rules altered so anyone left seatless has to take a drink and keep playing.

II. KIRKWALL

But across the harbor, the city is rowdy and reveling and will be all night, so making a break for the ferry instead won't be considered rude. The excitement in Lowtown spills out of the taverns and into the streets, with masked celebrants on their worst (but mostly harmless) behavior while street performers of all stripes provide entertainment for tips. The alienage has its own party—not because the gates are locked, but because the elves who aren't working generally don't consider throngs of drunk humans to be a good time—with a bonfire and shadowplays, and friendly outsiders might be allowed, especially if accompanied by an elf.

Hightown is quieter, but mainly because there's enough room in the mansions there for various parties—ranging from dignified, religion-tinged feasts that absolutely require an invitation to a word-of-mouth orgy at a particular mansion that only requires looking sexy and disease-free at the door—to be tucked away inside.

III. AFTER PARTY

Late in the evening, there's an outcry at the docks after an over-excited amateur fire-juggler lights fire to a partially-wooden warehouse full of wooden crates. By the time there's an organized effort to put out the blaze, it's roaring, threatening to leap to neighboring structures—including the warehouse and stables Riftwatch maintains on the docks—and visible from the Gallows. Any assistance from Riftwatch members in containing the fire will be noticed and appreciated by the locals, and just in case, it might also be wise for people to move the various horses, harts, nuggalopes, dogs, and any particularly stupid cats further away from the fire until it's under control. Which it will be, eventually, leaving a blackened ruin of the warehouse where it started but only singing one of the walls of Riftwatch's property.

However, for better or worse, someone took pity on the ferryman and sent him home at midnight rather than making him wait around all night, so everyone who'd intended to go back to the Gallows can either draw straws for who has to play ferryman to get people back to the island and then get the boat back to the docks, or else just pile into the stables and warehouse for an impromptu slumber party.

Comments

[innerharbor]

Amos picks Sawbones up and places her on his shoulders without any apparent effort. "Where're we going, Sis?"

[okayimin]

That pulls a soft oh out of her, blinking a little at her new perch. "Stone, you're tall," is the first thing that comes out of her mouth, then after her thoughts catch up to the rest of her: "I'm headed to the docks to catch the ferry. And you don't need to carry me there, you know."

[innerharbor]

"Not really," he says, and marches out toward the crowd. "Yeah, not interested in punching out the next guy decides to play volleyball with your ass."

[okayimin]

"You might try not punching," Sawbones says, primly. She hasn't a clue what one is supposed to do when they're being carried, so mostly she tries to hold still.

[innerharbor]

"I didn't break his nose this time," Amos says, moving through the crowd. His voice is shouted above the din, but it's still rather flatly emotionless. "Knocking 'em out's just the best way to fix problems."

[okayimin]

She thinks efficient is probably a better word, but more importantly: "Just as long as you don't try fixing every problem that way. Last thing we need is some Merchant Prince getting mad because you knocked him out."

[innerharbor]

"Dunno which ones're merchant princes," Amos says in the same tone, wandering through the crowd. It's fairly rowdy, but Amos swerves from the worst of it. "If they get handsy, that's just how things go."

[okayimin]

"Those would be the merchant princes," Sawbones says with a note of sour humor. She feels a little silly being up on his shoulder still, but she has to admit, this is probably the fastest she's ever gotten through a crowd before. "Suppose you won't be joining Diplomacy then."

[innerharbor]

"No fucking way," Amos replies, edging around a group of children selling sweets. They all seem well fed. He keeps moving. "The Cap'd never join that."

[okayimin]

"Is that the man you arrived with?" Two Rifters at once seemed enough of an anomaly that she noted it when she'd heard about it.

[innerharbor]

"Yeah," Amos says. "He knows what's going on."

[okayimin]

She can't quite parse that. She knows better than anyone how strange and overwhelming it can be adapting to a whole new world. "How do you mean?"

[innerharbor]

"Got a good read on people," Amos says. "Situations. Always knows the right move."

[okayimin]

"That sounds like the kind of person you normally want in Diplomacy," she points out.

[innerharbor]

"I'm not saying it right," he says. "He couldn't sweet talk a hooker if his life depended on it."

[okayimin]

That surprises a laugh out of her. "I suppose you'll sort it out. As long as you'll still take some time to tell me more about gravity and space."

[innerharbor]

"We gotta," Amos says. The alternative is death. His faux-cheerful demeanor doesn't skip a beat, however. "I'll fucking try. That shit's a lot harder than I thought."

[okayimin]

"If you forget anything, I'll figure it out myself." Honestly, that's part of the excitement of learning a new thing to begin with.