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

threeterparker: (226)

i.

[personal profile] threeterparker 2022-01-25 07:00 pm (UTC)(link)
This is Peter's first real island, not counting the brief stay in what he is now charmingly referring to as Jurassic Park. He's adjusting okay, he thinks, having found himself an outfit that isn't too too far off of his usual style. The peacoat is familiar, anyway. He's fiddling with his tie, when he hears a familiar voice nearby and goes to check it out.

"Oh, hey, Chloe." He smiles, happy to see someone he recognizes. "For what it's worth, I think you look great in, um... a bustle and petticoat, or whatever that is."
detectivemiracle: (151)

[personal profile] detectivemiracle 2022-01-26 01:47 am (UTC)(link)
"Oh, hi, Peter," she says, offering him a small smile and glancing down at herself. The dress is a deep forest green, which is definitely a good color on her. "Thanks. I just hope I don't have to run away from any dinosaurs in this thing. Or chase down any criminals, for that matter. How are you settling in?"
threeterparker: (113)

[personal profile] threeterparker 2022-01-27 10:07 pm (UTC)(link)
Peter chuckles. "Yeah, hopefully no dinosaurs this time." Though, it would be pretty cool to see an apatosaurus just walking down the street in Victorian London. But he digresses.

"I'm doing alright. It's still pretty weird, going from one place to the next, when they're so... different. Not sure I'll get used to that easily."
detectivemiracle: (018)

[personal profile] detectivemiracle 2022-01-28 02:01 am (UTC)(link)
"Yeah," Chloe says with a faint chuckle. "Every time, I still hold out hope that we might wind up in a normal place. But none of them are normal."
threeterparker: (077)

[personal profile] threeterparker 2022-01-28 02:13 am (UTC)(link)
"Hey," he says, swiveling to gesture to a nearby window, the view of a foggy street visible outside. "This place is normal! It's... normal, if you're from the 1800's and British."
detectivemiracle: (020)

[personal profile] detectivemiracle 2022-01-28 02:28 am (UTC)(link)
"Maybe," Chloe says with a snort. "But I'm willing to bet there's something about it that's not normal, even by 1800's British standards. A monster or a magical circus or... something."

She glances up at the stained glass window, and points. "I'm pretty sure you wouldn't see, uh... is that Zeus, or Thor? Pretty sure that wouldn't be in any church in London."
threeterparker: (211)

[personal profile] threeterparker 2022-01-29 11:51 pm (UTC)(link)
He follows her gaze to the window, forehead wrinkling slightly. "I'm sure there's a perfectly normal explanation for that... It just.. depends on what your definition of 'normal' is."
detectivemiracle: (018)

[personal profile] detectivemiracle 2022-01-30 12:28 am (UTC)(link)
Chloe nods thoughtfully. "Thor actually existing in this world wouldn't be the weirdest thing I could imagine. But there's more - all the stained glass show different characters - I assume - from mythology. I don't know all of them, not by a long shot."

The next one is pretty obviously a depiction of the Devil. Horns, tail, wings - the whole bit. Chloe scoffs faintly at it. "You're right. Normal is relative."
threeterparker: (231)

[personal profile] threeterparker 2022-01-31 12:58 am (UTC)(link)
Peter looks between Chloe and the stained glass Devil. He's not sure quite what to make of her reaction.

"Are you... pretty religious?"
detectivemiracle: (106)

[personal profile] detectivemiracle 2022-01-31 01:47 am (UTC)(link)
"Oh, no," she says, glancing at Peter after a moment with a wry sort of smile. "Uh, I mean, it's... complicated."

Her shoulders go up, eloquently. "Normalcy, right? You're, like, a superhero. That's your normal. In my world, superheroes are fictional. No offense!" She holds up a hand, then points at the image of the Devil. "Maybe he's fictional, in your world. Not in mine."

Perhaps Peter recalls the memory he witnessed, in the frog-people village. The one where Chloe talked down a guy with a shotgun. Maybe he recalls the British guy, and what she called him - Lucifer. Or maybe not.
threeterparker: (251)

[personal profile] threeterparker 2022-02-04 06:36 pm (UTC)(link)
Peter smiles and shakes his head, "None taken!" He's not about to be offended just because someone's universe is different than his. He knows how different universes can be, even if they do share certain aspects.

But he does think back to the test of bravery, of watching the scene play out between Chloe and the guy with the shotgun. He hadn't paid all that much attention to the posh British guy in the suit, but now that he thinks on it, didn't she call him...?

"Wait, so you're saying that wasn't just a cool nickname? You're actually friends with the for real devil?"
detectivemiracle: (125)

[personal profile] detectivemiracle 2022-02-05 12:25 am (UTC)(link)
Chloe nods. "Friends, partners, uh, more. He's my boyfriend."

She waves her hands vaguely in front of her. "Which, yeah, I get that sounds insane. Under any other circumstances, I wouldn't expect you to even believe me."
threeterparker: (183)

[personal profile] threeterparker 2022-02-20 12:50 pm (UTC)(link)
Peter looks surprised, and if anything, a little impressed.

"No, I, ah. I'm definitely getting used to the fact that impossible stuff is actually possible. So, the devil is your boyfriend? How... How did you guys even meet?"
detectivemiracle: (108)

[personal profile] detectivemiracle 2022-02-23 02:04 am (UTC)(link)
"A murder," Chloe says, knowing how that sounds and smiling because of it. "He owns a nightclub, and someone was killed there a few years ago. Someone he knew and, I think, cared about. I caught the case, and he kept on my case about it, and before I knew it, he was a civilian consultant, and we were partners."
threeterparker: (141)

[personal profile] threeterparker 2022-02-27 07:08 pm (UTC)(link)
"'Civilian consultant?' You mean he like, helped the police solve crimes? Sort of like Sherlock Holmes?"

Peter never knew the devil was a detective.
detectivemiracle: (017)

[personal profile] detectivemiracle 2022-03-01 02:31 am (UTC)(link)
Chloe laughs. "Oh wow, now I'm imagining him with one of those - what is it called, a deer stalker? The hat." She has to shake herself a little to get rid of the mental image. "I mean, he's not anything like Sherlock Holmes, but yes, he helped me solve cases. We were partners for several years."