Got the morbs.

[polymods]

✖ VICTORIA'S SECRET

Ⅰ. ARRIVAL & THE TEMPLE
You can read all about your character's arrival in the game lore.
The ferry pulls into port in the evening, when shadows are long and gas lamps burn through a veil of mist. Dozens of other ships are docked as well, with men unloading crates and boxes from their holds. Beyond the wet wood and lapping sound of the ocean, a city looms like a charcoal smudge on a purple sky. The air is smoggy and thick, and the river that flows from the sea into the city smells foul. Walk the cobbled streets and you will find that the city is crowded and filthy, but full of merchants, pubs, and theatres. Vast wealth and extreme poverty exist side by side.

In the center of the sprawling city is a temple with towering gothic spires and huge stained glass windows depicting all manner of beings that might be gods or angels or monsters. You could look for hours and still be finding new figures plucked straight from books of myth and religion. Inside, the main chamber has a grand vaulted ceiling, and dozens of pews line the aisle up to the altar, which is oddly anticlimactic compared to the lavish surroundings: just a plain stone table with a lit oil lamp in the centre. Two hallways branch off on either side of the room: one leads to private baths and a communal kitchen, the other to monastic style chambers with thin beds. Not the most comfortable place to stay, but it’ll do in a pinch!

Alternatively you can venture into the city and find yourself some other lodging - every Traveler has been supplied with some pocket money. Just be careful that it isn’t stolen by some street urchin. Travelers can also find an era-appropriate outfit that will fit them perfectly laid in the first sleeping chamber they visit.

Notes:
1. Unless this is your character’s first island, the High Temple and anything you may have stored there is off-limits this month.

2. Please remember to mark threads appropriately with Content Warnings when necessary.

3. The city greatly resembles Victorian London, and the technology and general way of life is all of that era. Feel free to explore the city! These prompts are a jumping off point - how they affect your character and their development is up to you.

4. Most food is safe to eat, and is consumable by non-human entities. Most. Some of it’s going to be pretty gross or cooked improperly, so be careful.

5. The people in the city are normal humans unless otherwise indicated. Killing them is possible and will affect the colour grading of your Scrywatch depending on the situation.

6. Have fun!

---

Ⅱ. SEANCE
CW: grief, past trauma.
Perhaps you overhear talk of it at a pub, or maybe you’re handed a small card as you push your way through the crowded city streets. Maybe you just wander in by accident. However it happens, you find yourself being ushered into the parlour of one Miss Mary Price: Spiritualist.

You and several other people are instructed to sit at a round table in a very dark and musty room. The walls are covered in thick black curtains, and maybe you’re the type to suspect that there’s someone hiding behind them somewhere. Once everyone is seated, Mary Price herself enters the room. The lights are all extinguished save for a single candle.

Mary calls out to the spirits. They communicate through a series of knocks, or the movement of a Ouija board. Someone at the table is put in contact with a deceased aunt who reveals the location of a family heirloom. Someone else is able to say goodbye to a son.

Mary Price looks at you with eyes so dark they look black, and asks, “What haunts you?”

Maybe you answer honestly. Maybe you don’t answer at all, but that doesn’t matter because the spirit tapping around the room is more than happy to narc on you and tell the whole room what or who it is that you cannot forget.

You can deny it all you like, but the spirits don’t have a reason to lie. And if you try to mess up the seance, you will spend a month being hounded by an angry poltergeist.

Notes:
1. The spirit can communicate through knocks, the Ouija, actually vocalising through the medium, or via ectoplasm.

2. What haunts your character does not have to be the memory of a dead person. It can be an event - maybe they’ve never gotten over losing that science fair in grade three. It is the feeling of being haunted that is important.

3. If you choose to trash the seance, the spirit will follow you for the rest of the month. It can range from annoying to actually dangerous.

---

Ⅲ. THE RIPPER
CW: murder, gore, violence.
You’re lost at night. Maybe you were in the pub too late, or maybe you were searching for more illicit fun - weren’t there opium dens around this time? - or maybe you just weren’t keeping an eye on the time. However it happened, you’re on the streets in the dark.

It’s very foggy; you can barely see a foot in front of you. The streetlamps look like dimly burning ghosts and when the odd person passes you they are felt more than seen, just a darker shadow in a world of shifting shades.

Very suddenly you hear a scream - short, and swallowed up quickly by the fog. Still, it’s enough to get you to turn and hurry down a narrow alleyway.

Sprawled on the ground amid a lake of blood is a body. It’s immediately apparent that this person is probably beyond help - their throat has been slashed ear to ear. Your appearance was not expected, however, and you can see that you’ve startled the killer: they’re running down the alley in the opposite direction.

You have a few choices: you can chase the killer and attempt to catch them, you can try to help the victim, you can get the authorities, or you can just walk away.

What will you do?

Notes:
1. The inspiration for this prompt is Jack the Ripper but you do not have to use that case as a basis for your killer.

2. You can get as involved with this as you would like. You can have your character catch the killer in a chase, or form your very own detective squad and hunt them down that way.

3. Naturally, walking away from a potential serial killer might not be great for your Scrywatch grading!

---

Ⅳ. RESURRECTION MEN
CW: dead bodies, grave robbing.
You’re not entirely clear on how you agreed to this. Maybe it was a barroom bet gone wrong. Maybe you’re broke enough that you need money fast. Or maybe you want to help some wannabe medical students. However it happened, you’re in the cemetery.

And you’ve got a shovel.

Time to rob some graves! You’ve convinced yourself somehow that this isn’t morally reprehensible, and so you and your partner are just going to get down to business! What corpse should you unearth? You feel like a kid in a candy store!

The problem comes once you’ve unearthed the body because it seems terribly familiar. Which is… creepy. Creepier still when it starts talking.

Maybe it’s a family member, or an old friend. Maybe an ex partner. Whoever it is, they immediately start telling your fellow grave robber about some incident from your past that you just. Can’t. Let. Go. Of. And even if you whack it with a shovel it won’t stop. Bad corpse! BAD Corpse!

Which of course is exactly what you have to try and do if you want this chatty Cathy of a corpse to shut the hell up.

Notes:
1. If you do NOT let go of this past event, the corpse will follow you the rest of the night singing Henry the Eighth I am, I am.

Sometimes I can still hear his voice...

Network · Logs · OOC · Memes · Plurk

Comments

Sephiroth | OTA

[unkindled_madness]

I. The City

[Sephiroth is, at least, no longer carrying around the Masamune everywhere he goes. He doesn't love leaving his sword at the Temple, but there are private rooms and he feels reasonably confident that most of his fellow Travellers know better than to touch his weapon.

Then again, being out of doors is decidedly unpleasant. He doesn't change into the 'era-appropriate' garb, but he does take the extremely unusual measure of braiding his hair and tucking it into his coat. It's an incomplete solution. He's sure he can feel the soot settling into his hair, slowly turning it a darker grey.

Which is why you may, ultimately, encounter him in the vicinity of a hat shop, considering this serious conundrum. Must he hide the hair completely for the sake of protecting it?]


II. Magic Practice

[Is it sacrilegious to set up empty crates near the altar for the sake of target practice? Oh well. The temple's main chamber is the largest available space for this, and at least he isn't throwing spells at the altar itself.

His focus remains, for now, on elemental magic: fire, ice, lightning, air. Just working on achieving a familiar level of control and speed of casting. A consistency in the basics before he moves on to more advanced spells.

A shame there aren't actual monsters to practice on, though...]


III. Haunted
((CW: potential references to child abuse, human experiments))

[Sephiroth isn't familiar with seances, but given his expanding understanding of the nature of magic, contacting the dead seems far from implausible. He isn't clear on how long it takes a spirit to return to the Lifestream, nor is he ever sure the inhabitants are fully human, so... maybe. Call it a professional curiosity that takes him to Price's home.

The amount of theatre involved quickly rouses his skepticism, and when Price asks him, his answer is 'no one.' How could anyone be haunting him when he's in an entirely different dimension from the people he's killed? Apparently the 'spirits' aren't satisfied with that. Whoever or whatever is behind it, the Ouija board gets as far as spelling out H-O-J before Sephiroth abruptly stands, knocks the indicator off the table, and storms out of the house.

Maybe you're present to witness this, or maybe you encounter him afterwards, once his ghostly new friend has begun its harrassment. The first couple times random street trash is thrown his way, he attributes it to nearby children, though an outside observer can easily see they had nothing to do with it. But then the poltergeist tugs on his hair, and he knows no one was close enough for that.

Sephiroth whirls and unleashes a fireball in the direction of the offending spirit... but it fails to affect its intended target. Hopefully you didn't get singed instead.]

((As always, I'm available at yinza if you want to plot anything!)

iii

[mewnifestos]

[ Rather than visiting dodgy seances, Anders has been making himself at home in the local pubs, and thus is rather unprepared for random fireballs being lobbed his way. It's probably a minor miracle he isn't more than singed, as he steps out onto the street - just the edges of his fancy new coat, fur-lined at the lapels (the only piece of the era appropriate garb he's personally appropriated).

Anders has a bottle in his hand that he, also miraculously, hasn't dropped, as he pats down the lightly smouldering arm curled around his chest, spinning lightly on his heel. He's only prepared to take offense once he's certain he isn't on fire - but then the shock of the moment fades, anyway, and recognition is at least something of a relief. ​]

Your technique's improving, I'll give you that. Aim's a tad off, though.

[unkindled_madness]

[Sephiroth doesn't apologize. Anders is clearly fine, so Sephiroth's gaze sweeps past him, searching. There's no visible sign of the poltergeist, for the moment, and he lets out a low growl of irritation.]

Something is following me.

[He wouldn't be as worked up if that was all it was, but he's happy to latch onto that in lieu of dwelling on the real cause.]

[mewnifestos]

Something... you want to set on fire?

[ Anders looks over his own shoulder warily, turning back to regard the empty street. Sure, there are a few stragglers here and there, gathered under those flickering gas lamps - but they're far enough down it doesn't look like any one of them could have been Sephiroth's target. ]

Well, that isn't good.

[unkindled_madness]

Apparitions are weak against fire... but they're only vulnerable when they show themselves.

[The nearest lamp abruptly goes out, as if the poltergeist is trying to emphasize how little power fire has over it.]

[mewnifestos]

Apparitions? What, you mean like ghosts?

[ Which aren't weak to much, to the best of Anders' knowledge. (Which, admittedly, isn't much.)

He takes a few steps toward Sephiroth, still cradling his side and still warily watching the street. ]

That's just what this place needs, isn't it? A haunting.

[unkindled_madness]

Supposedly. It could be some other manner of magic.

[He glances at Anders.]

Don't tell me you're afraid of ghosts.

[mewnifestos]

Vengeful spirits, back from the dead to torment the living ceaselessly? Don't tell me you're not afraid of ghosts.

[ Anyone sane would have to be, as far as Anders is concerned - but, then again, this is Sephiroth. He'll probably claim to be afraid of nothing without batting an eye. ]

What makes you think you're being haunted, in the first place?

[unkindled_madness]

They're little more than shadows.

[Yep, zero fears, and not the greatest mental health here.]

...I was at a seance. [He says the word a little too clearly, having just recently learned it.] The woman claimed to be capable of speaking to the dead.

[neverwither]

( Having expected Sephiroth to be entirely skeptical, finding he wasn't proved enough to a draw to join him at the seance. A cursory claim of scientific curiosity had been made for both their comfort, of course.

All appears to be going reasonably well, until the spectacle seems to give way to something more real. She makes very hasty apologies as she's on her way out the door to chase after Sephiroth. Maybe he'll just want to be alone, but she can at least give him the option to not be.

Looks like her apologetic ways have come in handy as if she'd appeared a moment before, she probably would have gotten a fireball to the face. And Sephiroth can create fireballs now? Has he always been able to create fireballs? She would have thought he'd mention something like that, if only as a point of pride.

There's a lot to unpick here.

Instead of outright asking if he's alright, she goes with:)

Would it be time to make another effigy?

[unkindled_madness]

[She certainly might recall that when they did burn effigies, he used a match. So this is definitely new, for the islands.

He doesn't ask if she's all right either, he's sure the fire didn't reach her, but he does give her a quick glance over, still frowning.]

...that was meant for the ghost.

[neverwither]

...Ghost?

( Okay, add that to the 'there's a lot going on here' pile. Though they were at a seance so his... not exactly respectful behaviour could have angered something? )

[unkindled_madness]

I assume it followed me from that "seance."

[Yes, he's throwing scorn on it, even though he clearly believes the woman successfully summoned a ghost of some kind.]

...that, or it's some manner of curse.

[neverwither]

Either option is plausible, all things considered. ( She gestures vaguely around them as if to say 'that's magical island life for you.' )

And, well, I hate to state the obvious but... we do have some sort of idea as to how these things tend to go...

[unkindled_madness]

Yes, I'm sure it wants something from me to leave me be, but sometimes violence works just as well.

[He scans the street around them, looking for some indication of where the ghost might be, but it's quiet for now.]

[neverwither]

( Chloe looks a… little skeptical about the efficacy of violence, as Chloe is wont to do. )

Can one actually fight a ghost?

[unkindled_madness]

Yes.

If they manifest, they are weak to fire.

[This is a factual statement about ghosts.]

II

[helpdesk_hero]

[Spells. There is actual spell work going on. Sephiroth had spoken of magical orbs that he could use to harness the elements, but as David approached, he couldn't help but watch. It was captivating.

When Sephiroth paused David offered polite applause.]

Never seen anything like that.

[unkindled_madness]

[Sephiroth turns with a faint frown at the applause. He was aware of someone else's presence but he wasn't doing this for an audience.]

...what, none of your mutant friends can summon the elements?

[helpdesk_hero]

Oh, I know people that control the elements. Storm can control the weather and call lightning and rain and water. Bobby can control ice of course, and Pyro does fire. But nothing quite like you're doing right now.

So I'm intrigued.

[unkindled_madness]

[Sephiroth considers that.]

You mean to say they have specializations.

...did they choose those names?

[helpdesk_hero]

Yes, of course they do. That's how mutants work. And not always. Sometimes names are given to mutants, based on what they do.

[unkindled_madness]

That's hardly common sense. Your mutations are extremely varied.

The creativity in names, less so.

[helpdesk_hero]

Oh god yes, there's a ton of variations. So far as I know, for instance, my gift back home is wholly unique.

And that was without considering different power levels even among similar gifts.]

Listen, names can totally suck. Mine makes me sound conceited.

[unkindled_madness]

There's nothing unique about basic elemental spells.

[Even if casting them without materia is... weird. But he's not dwelling on that because it's normal for Anders so it's clearly a perfectly normal and human thing to do.]

..."David" is conceited? [It could be he's missing some Earth context here.]