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Got the morbs.

✖ 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

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Temple (cw passing mention of rabbit death)

Jon is not sure whether or not this is a relief.

After the carnival and the mall, both places that were loud and crowded and not what he would wish, it's disheartening to find himself in a noisy, cramped city. The air is foul and the people are too many.

But the windows here remind him of the little sept that had been at Winterfell for Lady Stark, and the beds are simple and better than hard ground. In all, it's not familiar, but it's closer to what he knows than the last two places had been.

He had tried to keep Ghost out of the way in the mall, but now, he's well underfoot: a great white wolf, red-eyed, on or under the benches out in the main chamber, or on a bed in the sleeping quarters, or in the kitchen, eating something it would probably be best not to look at too closely if you are fond of rabbits. (Did you see Jon come in with a live one earlier?)

If you've never met, he might say, "Everywhere we go, some people seem to know what sort of place we're in. None of these places other than that first castle has been anything like what I know. Do you know what this is? It's not like Carcosa."

Or he might say, "Don't mind Ghost. He won't trouble you."

On the other hand, if you have met, he will acknowledge you, perhaps even with a slight smile. Then he is like to say the same things.

Seance

Jon has been quiet, subdued, since coming into the parlor. The single candle casts shadows on his face, and as the seance goes on, he looks more and more troubled. Occasionally, he glances at the black curtain. The dart of his dark eyes is subtle and easy to miss.

When Miss Price asks him what haunts him, he sinks down in his chair a little, crossing his arms and lowering his chin.

"That's my own business."

The truth is that he is not in the mood for a witch's tricks.

The truth is that he wouldn't know where to begin.

[OOC Note: In this prompt, you can have: Ygritte, Ned Stark, Rickon Stark. If you don't specify, I'll choose (and if I'm in the mood, I may choose Jon himself). If you hit it off, he is likely to talk about Melisandre afterwards.]

Ripper (appropriate content warnings apply here)

A strangled shriek rips through the air, and someone darts past you, hiding their face, bumping into your shoulder and cursing before dodging away. Jon runs up to you then, all frantic. He may barrel into you just as you're finding your balance again. He may even seize you by the shoulders or the lapels: this is urgent.

"Can you help the girl? Can you stanch the bleeding? Did you see which way he went?"

Rotten Row

Jon cannot let Ghost roam the city, but Ghost is still a direwolf. Ghost still requires grass and air and meat. He is well enough in the temple, it's true, but sometimes he paces, or scratches at the floor. He does not like the leather lead Jon purchased for him in the mall, he does not like to walk to it, but when they're in the street, it seems prudent to show that he's not a fully wild animal.

He takes Ghost to small fields within the city limits, when he can find them -- something complicated by all the horses in the streets and the way they shy away from wolves. They are right to do it, he thinks, but it doesn't make this any easier. He does not fear the darkness, but even so, enough thieves and killers are about at night that it seems better to go in the day. So he goes in the morning, when the air is clearer and less foul, and he can see about as far as he thinks it's possible to see in this place.

At first, he tries the grassy squares that he finds with great manses facing them on every side. It is doubtless a part of the city held by the highborn. But the greens seem to be occupied almost solely by nurses and their young charges, and he finds that he doesn't wish to make women and children shriek in fear.

Eventually he comes across a great parkland, not so far from what looks like a palace. It's not hard to tell that it's the sort of place where people walk about to be seen walking about, but at least there's space and air in it, and not so many children at this time of day. Some other people even have large dogs on leads -- sometimes the familiar sort of hound he knows from the North, and sometimes sleeker hounds, the sort southrons take on a hunt.

He can be found on the path, walking an enormous white wolf on a black leather lead, citizens of this city all around him. Or he can be found a little off the path, in an open space, tossing a stick for the wolf who is no longer on a lead.

[OOC: This prompt is really for Daenerys, but there's no reason to close it to her! Rotten Row is the "see and be seen" part of Hyde Park in the 19th century; an equivalent location is about the only place other than Hampstead Heath that I could think of to reasonably give a direwolf some exercise. There is probably also someone off in a corner yelling about socialism.]

Wildcard

[Set something up and I'll hop in. Maybe try to convince him to go grave-robbing?]

Edited 2022-01-16 10:11 (UTC)

Don't mind Chloe hovering in the main chamber, peering at the wolf from a safe, respectful distance. A few animals have joined the motley crew of Travelers since the mall and she can't quite help being drawn to them. One that's so unique, so unlike anything she's encountered before, is definitely going to have her attention.

She jumps a bit at the voice, turning to look at the man with a bashful smile. Silly to be startled like that. "Oh, no, I don't mind him at all. I think he's fabulous, actually. He's with you?"

She’s a pretty woman around his own age, and has a look a little like one of the Free Folk. He doesn’t know her. They haven’t talked before.

It’s clear that she rather likes Ghost, though, which makes Jon positively disposed to her. Some ladies might shrink in fear, and she does not. His expression brightens when he answers her.

“Aye, I raised him from a newborn pup. Found him and the rest of his litter in the Wolfswood when I was still a green boy, not quite a man yet.

“I’m sorry to have startled you. I’m Jon Snow.”

[And he is wearing approximately this suit, only grey, with this vest!]

Edited 2022-01-18 05:16 (UTC)

"Delighted to meet you, Jon. I'm Chloe. There's really no need to apologise - I probably shouldn't be staring quite so much at Ghost." It's not exactly polite, is it? Not to mention that it could have annoyed the rather large creature, or he could have perceived her gawking as a threat.

"Oh, it's very lucky you found them. Did they not have a mother?" It being in the past, and that she could be misunderstanding what he meant, doesn't stop her features becoming filled with concern. She can all too easily picture small, scared, beautiful puppies in need of rescue and loving care.

Jon runs into him before he sees the body, but once he sees it he can't look away.

"Aw, hell." Bucky says, not loudly, the kind of voice you might use in church. He can hear himself swallow, after. And something else, when he listens: footsteps, a street or two away.

It's not the first time Bucky's seen someone bleeding out. The familiarity is no comfort. He tears off part of his shirt— he's not a medic, isn't carrying bandages— and tries to staunch the bleeding. There's a lot of it. Aw, hell.

Without leaving the girl, he jerks his head in the direction he heard those footsteps. "That way, I think."

He is glad to see Barnes, and gladder still that Barnes seems to have some idea of what to do for the girl.

There is no time to waste on gladness. When he is given a direction, he follows it, running through the thick fog, trying not to stumble on the paving stones or the offal in the streets. He has his knife at the ready, low at his side. Better it was Longclaw, but he does not have Longclaw; even if he did, swords are not much carried in the streets here.

He does have Ghost. How Ghost got out of the Temple, how he followed Jon, Jon doesn’t know, but he can feel the wolf running behind him. The rest happens quickly: a man barrels into him, knocks him onto the ground, and he sees the flash of a blade. Then there is a strangled scream, the clatter of metal hitting pavement, and the man running away, holding his arm.

“Seven hells,” Jon says, searching for his own knife. The killer’s blade is on the ground nearby. And Ghost is there, the killer’s blood around his muzzle.

If he hears footsteps, he looks up.

Her heart leaps at the sight of him. Being brought here was wrenching in many ways, including a blow to her ambition, but the most galling was that she had been dragged from Jon's arms. Arms she had just recently accepted and fallen into. There was still so much she had yet to explore and enjoy, but this task had thrown up impediments to that happiness. Seeing him here, real and solid, it smoothed the rough edges of this place away. It wasn't more beautiful, but it was more tolerable.

When he looked her way, she grinned at him, hurrying over as best she could in the dress left for her. She didn't wait for him to say anything, her arms wrapped around his neck and her mouth opened for his. It was a kiss of relief, of brief sorrow that she might not have seen him again, need for his comfort and warmth. But more than anything, it was another opportunity to open her heart and let her feelings for him pour out.

A deep kiss, unafraid of who might see or how they might react. She had never cared in the first place what others would think. Why should this place make her feel uneasy about it?

He strolls down the path, Ghost at his side. It’s not crowded yet, and what people are in the park tend to make space for them.

The woman catches his eye before she approaches him: pale hair in the morning sun, and a dress that seems like winter melting into spring, all cream and blue. She looks like she sees someone she knows, someone she’s happy to see — maybe her sweetheart somewhere on the path behind him.She’s quite pretty, and as she begins to walk in his direction he means to acknowledge her with a polite nod.

He does not understand that she’s walking towards him, with specific purpose, until her arms are around him and she’s kissing him.

He has not had much experience of kisses. Only Ygritte, and so long ago now. Later, he will think that this probably would have been a good kiss, all passionate, her tongue seeking his.

But instead of returning it… when he gets past the shock that she’s kissing him at all, he puts his hand on her shoulders, pulls away gently, and fixes her with a confused, curious look.

He doesn’t know her.

“My lady?”

It's a slap in the face. The way he looks at her, it's the same expression from when they met. Blank, but friendly. He's never been the most welcoming of men, usually standoffish and brooding, but there had been a warmth there beneath the surface. Having that closed to her, it left her feeling empty and adrift.

He didn't know her.

How exactly was that possible? Was this one of her tests? One of the games of the Ancient? It was hard to say. It hurt, badly. She had thought her lover was here, but instead, they had moved back to the beginning. Only she retained the memories.

It's enough to make her step back, disappointed and hurt. This wasn't his fault, it likely was something to do with the Ancient. She didn't fully understand this place, but it was clear that nothing would come easy. Not even the person she loved the most.

"You don't remember." It was a statement, not a question. "Have you heard the name Daenerys Targaryen before?"

To the assertion that he doesn’t remember, he gives his head a vague, mystified shake. He hasn’t missed how hurt she looks.

But then she mentions Daenerys Targaryen. She’s a small woman, smaller than him, and if he saw her in Westeros, he might think her from Lys. He knows, in passing, what the Valyrians looked like - what the Targaryens looked like. Anyone with a good education might.

She has the look of a Targaryen, he thinks. He had not expected her to be so beautiful, but in other respects, she does fit the description.

“I was on my way to meet her, before I found myself on these islands. Eight moons past, it was.” He pauses. Her face is so close to his, and people are staring. Ghost is tense at his side. With another searching look, he adds, “I have the feeling the meeting went well.”

It would be better if that made her smile, but he doesn’t think it’s going to.

There was a sad smile, a small flicker before it disappeared. It was strange that he came from a different point from her. If she didn't know better, she might think he was a shadow conjured by the Ancient. But he felt real. His lips had been solid and warm and the smell of him was familiar. No, he was here, but strangely he was brought here far before they met. Before they fell in love.

"I agreed to go North with you." She murmured, leaving out that he bent the knee. It wasn't important in this moment. Nor the open oath of loyalty that he had offered her. Somehow, it felt intimate and she didn't wish to reveal it now.

She pulled back further, wrapping her arms around herself. "You have what you want." A part of her feels a bit bitter and irritated. It's not his fault he doesn't remember, but the rush emotions were overwhelming. The anger would pass, once she grew used to the fact that he didn't know her.

He looks at her more curiously.

“My la— Your Grace.” She has stepped away from him, crossing her arms as if to protect herself. He shifts his stance, offering his arm to her — the arm not holding Ghost’s leather lead. He indicates one of the benches near the path. “Come and sit. It is true that the North has great need of you, but — “

Another shake of his head. If they are kissing like this, it would not have been to get an army.

She hesitates to touch him, knowing how much it would hurt. So close to him, but unable to express her emotions the way she wanted. Still, it seemed to be the way of people here. Carter had done the same when he showed her around. It would at least be polite.

She took his arm, still keeping her stoic and aloof mask up, if only to protect herself. There were women staring at her, many of them whispering behind their hands. They were shooting her scandalized looks, some with disdain on their face. Apparently kisses weren't common in public, not like that. If she cared, she might want to shrink into herself, but there was nothing to be ashamed of.

"I know. You showed me the threat. I saw it with my own eyes and lost...lost a dragon in the process."

That gets her an even stranger look — complicated. He was coming to her for the aid of three dragons, he knows. She offers it, but now there are only two.

It isn’t hard to miss the sharp disapproving gazes being cast at her. He is already a figure of interest because he walks with a direwolf at his side. But he knows what it’s like to have all those cold eyes on himself… he remembers how it felt when he was a child, and how it felt later, in the Watch, and sometimes with the Free Folk.

“Would you rather come to the Temple?” He asks it gently. “We can talk a little more privately there. Ghost has had his time in the wilds — what passes for them in this city.”

"Here or there, it doesn't make much of a difference." And given so many others like them collected there, it wouldn't afford much privacy. She'd have looks here, but she was used to such things and could ignore it. It was who might overhear her hurt in the Temple.

They pass a small bench under a tree and she draws away so that she could sit. Here at least, she could feel like she could breathe. The disappointment was such a weight that it was cumbersome to move. She needed a moment to let it ease off of her shoulders...if it could at all. This loss was as painful as Viserion.

"So this is Ghost?"

He easily acquiesces to her decision, following her to the bench and sitting next to her, then turning to face her more than not. It is a relief to have her turn the conversation to Ghost, who settles at his side.

“Aye. I’ve spoken of him?”

He must have done, if they are on kissing terms. Betrothed… or already wedded, he thinks. But she hasn’t called him her husband. It must be a betrothal.

That will also mean something for the North.

"At length." Their pillow talk had been of intimate things. How he felt about Winterfell, how his father had found the direwolves and his connection to Ghost. She had shared her loneliness as a child, what she faced with Viserys. These were moments of vulnerability and speaking of it now demeaned it a little. She would much rather be on her bed, in his arms, opening her heart more and more to him.

"Returning from Eastwatch to King's Landing was long. There was time to speak." She won't tell him about their lovemaking. That would stay buried for now. When he remembered it, then it would be spoken of. "A pity you have know recollection of those conversations."

She's still bitter and grumpy. It's not as if he could control this, but it was deeply frustrating. She wanted him back, needed him back. Now there was a barrier between them.

He nods. “It is a pity.”

He had showed her the Dead, she said, and a dragon was killed. How that could be, he doesn’t yet understand, but it would indeed be a long journey between Eastwatch and… did she say King’s Landing?

“I hope he doesn’t disappoint.”

Fool. You’re the one who disappoints.

"He's more beautiful than I imagined."

She had pictured a majestic creature. Direwolves were unfamiliar to her until she met Jon. She had seen the Stark sigil in books and remembered what Jorah described. Seeing Ghost now was different. He was real. It made her feel as Jon must have when he saw Drogon up close.

Remembering what he had done, she offered out her hand to Ghost, letting him sniff her. If he let her, she would stroke his muzzle and ears, gentle and kind. It was no less awe inspiring to see him as it was to see a dragon. He was as majestic and magical as her own, simply a different magic. Northern magic.

Jon Snow ✥ Game of Thrones ✥ OTA ✥ will match formats

Temple (cw passing mention of rabbit death)

Seance

Ripper (appropriate content warnings apply here)

Rotten Row

Wildcard

Temple

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Ripper

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You know which

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Temple

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Temple

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