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...


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howlett: (eh?)

[personal profile] howlett 2022-01-15 10:30 pm (UTC)(link)
Logan's posture can relax when he gets the sense that, despite the handbill he carries, this kid doesn't actually take him for a worthwhile suspect.

He frowns thoughtfully at those theories like he can think of a good reason for either to be true.

"What makes you think it ain't me?" he asks. Later he'll realize that question could sound threatening, but if this strange has information that would clear him it seems wise to find out what it is.
nanban: (58)

[personal profile] nanban 2022-01-16 12:25 am (UTC)(link)
Hawks still doesn't come any closer, but he relaxes just a little when Logan does.

"Pretty sure the dude I was chasing before was taller than you," he says with a shrug. "Dressed different, though obviously you could change clothes. But I saw his face before he ran off. You can't tell looking at me, but I can see pretty well." That's an understatement; he's got some of the sharpest eyes of anyone he's ever met. He downplays that on purpose, even back home. "You definitely don't look like him."

He gestures at the crude poster.

"You guys both like knives, though, apparently."
howlett: (howlett-grim)

[personal profile] howlett 2022-01-16 01:25 am (UTC)(link)
"Pretty sure?" he chuckles. "Well. If they bring me in about it, I hope you're at the trial, bub." Nice as it is to have someone sound so certain of his innocence, hearsay and conjecture doesn't promise much. He balls up that handbill in his fist and pitches it in a rain barrel.

"It's hereditary," he mumbles, just bitter that it's probably not the only thing people are apt to find he has in common with the monster the whole city is hunting.

"You're a traveller, eh? I don't recognize you. Those wings attached or just a fun outfit?"
Edited 2022-01-16 01:26 (UTC)
nanban: (42)

[personal profile] nanban 2022-01-21 07:40 am (UTC)(link)
"He also had tentacles," Hawks adds as an aside. He has half a grin pasted on his face, so it might be hard to tell if he's joking. (He isn't.) This whole place has been a lot of weird bullshit on this island, though, and he's not really a fan. He'd been hoping for something higher tech than this place. Weird tentacle murderers haven't endeared the place to him, to say the least.

He watches Logan ball up the poster and decides to let it go for now, but he files all of this away in his head for later. Is Logan dangerous? Probably. A lot of the people sucked in here from other worlds are dangerous. Sephiroth has been nothing but chill when Hawks has met him but that dude is absolutely dangerous. He's sure of it. David is awkward and sweet but Hawks doesn't wanna throw down with him if he doesn't have to. Anders has some crazy magic that Hawks is pretty sure he couldn't counter at all, etc.

"Yeah, I been here since...uh...well, it's hard to keep track of the time I guess but we started on that one with, like, the zombies on the beach? Were you here then? Awhile back." He grins and flaps his wings once. "These are all mine, my man. Had 'em all my life and everything. I'm Hawks. And you're...?"
howlett: (penisve)

[personal profile] howlett 2022-02-01 12:37 am (UTC)(link)
That makes him raise a curious eyebrow. Maybe this isn't so true to the original tales of the Ripper he remembers.

"Tentacles?" he asks as if to suss out whether or not the guy's being sarcastic. "Not to sound too dark, but I'd rather there's a weird fuckin' tentacle killer on the lamb than someone they're liable to take me for."

"Yeeaah, beach zombies. I remember them," he nods. If there was a place here before that he doesn't know it. It's tempting not to give a stranger his real name. Especially when some part of the city has apparently clocked him for their presently most wanted. But he's been trying to keep in mind the other people here are liable to be just as lost as he is.

He dusts his hand on his slacks and offers it out for a shake.

"Logan," he says. "Not Jack. Promise."