polymods: (Default)
polymods ([personal profile] polymods) wrote in [community profile] polylogs2022-01-02 12:44 pm

Got the morbs.

POLYMYTHOS: VICTORIA'S SECRET

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

speed_of_snark: (a smile)

[personal profile] speed_of_snark 2022-01-11 06:53 pm (UTC)(link)
In the 90s!

Jean-Paul's lips quirk. "I knew there was a reason I liked you."

He snorts. "Chrisse, you're more sour than I am. That's the other reason I like you. Come on, let's absorb some local culture." Clearly he does not intend to take no for an answer, steering Sephiroth down the street with him.

"You know, I don't know much about where you're from. Is it some blasted hellscape with no entertainment districts?"
unkindled_madness: (confused)

[personal profile] unkindled_madness 2022-01-11 07:11 pm (UTC)(link)
Look, he will come along for now, but don't touch him.

Also he is really beginning to notice a trend with people saying they don't know things about him. It's so weird how they want to change that.

"...no. I live in the largest city in my world." He just doesn't know how to have fun.
speed_of_snark: (a smile)

[personal profile] speed_of_snark 2022-01-11 08:07 pm (UTC)(link)
A man of mystery will always attract the nosy.

"So it has, oh I don't know, the theatre? Music? Good food?" He's a little amused; apparently Sephiroth is just VERY dedicated to being boring.

"Are you some sort of monk?"
unkindled_madness: (arms folded)

[personal profile] unkindled_madness 2022-01-11 08:13 pm (UTC)(link)
It's possible he's at least been to a few concerts.

"I am not a monk. I simply prefer to spend my off-duty time alone."
speed_of_snark: (aaaaand no)

[personal profile] speed_of_snark 2022-01-11 10:21 pm (UTC)(link)
"Don't you get lonely?" Asked very casually, but he's genuinely curious. Jean-Paul himself has spent a lot of time alone, so he wonders.
unkindled_madness: (eyeroll)

[personal profile] unkindled_madness 2022-01-11 10:50 pm (UTC)(link)
"No." The response is automatic, because he's been asked before and being lonely just seems pathetic. He was alone by choice.

But maybe not because he wanted to be. He's barely admitting that to himself, though, he's not going to say it aloud.

"I doubt anyone would take me for a social butterfly."
speed_of_snark: (praise me)

[personal profile] speed_of_snark 2022-01-13 06:28 pm (UTC)(link)
"I see." Well, if he's not going to admit, Jean-Paul certainly isn't going to, either.

"I suppose not, no. I can be, although it's not out of friendliness. More of a work thing. I'm expected to be seen places."
unkindled_madness: (skeptical)

[personal profile] unkindled_madness 2022-01-13 06:48 pm (UTC)(link)
Good, they can both continue to live in outward denial.

"I suppose it's one benefit that my position has never required much socializing. I am not expected to be friendly."
speed_of_snark: (look up)

[personal profile] speed_of_snark 2022-01-15 08:19 pm (UTC)(link)
"'Friendly' is a different thing than social, thank goodness. I'd be screwed if I had to be nice most of the time."

He looks over, brow raised. "What position would that be? I seem to recall you told me once you were a soldier or something."
unkindled_madness: (talking)

[personal profile] unkindled_madness 2022-01-15 08:28 pm (UTC)(link)
That first remark earns him a short laugh, but the amusement quickly subsides.

"...I served as a general, during the war."
speed_of_snark: (look up)

[personal profile] speed_of_snark 2022-01-18 03:31 am (UTC)(link)
"Ah. The war in which your sense of humour was shot off, ouais." He sighs. "Which, to be fair, happens to many. How many years?"
unkindled_madness: (talking)

[personal profile] unkindled_madness 2022-01-18 03:18 pm (UTC)(link)
"Nine," he answers simply. "And my sense of humor was not a casualty of war. A birth defect, perhaps."

He has a sense of humor, it's just underutilized.
speed_of_snark: (Smug)

[personal profile] speed_of_snark 2022-01-19 05:08 am (UTC)(link)
Jean-Paul smirks.

"...THAT was funny," he says. Then he sobers and shakes his head. "Nine years. Chrisse."
unkindled_madness: (eyeroll)

[personal profile] unkindled_madness 2022-01-19 02:54 pm (UTC)(link)
Sephiroth rolls his eyes at the shift in tone.

"Don't be one of those people who wants to tell me it was something I suffered through. It was hardly glamorous, but I was in my element."
speed_of_snark: (homo superior)

[personal profile] speed_of_snark 2022-01-22 03:31 am (UTC)(link)
"I would never dare presume to tell someone ELSE how to feel," he assures him. "Some people prefer fighting.

"I'm a professional fucking superhero, I'm not about to get on your ass about that."
unkindled_madness: (surprised nerd)

[personal profile] unkindled_madness 2022-01-22 02:36 pm (UTC)(link)
Sephiroth is pleasantly surprised by that. Too many people here seem to want to console him for things that don't bother him and then tell him he's in denial.

But he is going to seize the opportunity to move the conversation away from himself.

"...I thought you were a detective."
speed_of_snark: (speed of light)

[personal profile] speed_of_snark 2022-01-23 09:55 pm (UTC)(link)
"That too," Jean-Paul says, waving a hand lazily in the air. "It's a very unusual sort of detecting. We investigate murders - David works with me - but it's of mutants like ourselves. So that frequently leads to things like punching giant robots and death gods and the like. You know how it goes."
unkindled_madness: (are you sure about this?)

[personal profile] unkindled_madness 2022-01-23 10:26 pm (UTC)(link)
"...I don't," Sephiroth says, regarding him skeptically. "My Planet has no mutated humans and so, I suppose, no need for giant robots or death gods to attempt their murder."

There are just regular-sized robots and a supposed death god whom he's never personally witnessed.