polylogs | 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

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[Roxy giggles and touches down fully on the ledge he's perched on.]

Woah careful there, handsome. Don't wanna have you fall off and go ker-splat, I saw you climb up here so I thought I'd come say hi.

Uh... Hi? Do you always greet people by lowering down from the sky ominously?

[She laughs again because there really isn't anyone on the island who couldn't be any less ominous, not only is Roxy a petite woman (just barely 5'3") but her energy is bubbly and bright.]

Omg that was so not ominous, it was just casual. You're the one who is lookin' out at the fog all moody like.

"Moody?" I am— [ He laughs, trying to shift his posture to look more casual. ] I'm not moody.

[She grins when he tries to look more casual and offers him her hand.]

I'm Roxy, hi. You must be new because I don't think I've seen you around the islands before now.

[ He shakes her hand, his grip firm but careful not to be too strong. ]

Peter. And yeah, this is my first. Have you been here a while, Roxy?

Not as long as some people here but long enough to kind of get used to how weird it all is.

[She says and has a seat on the ledge, swinging her legs out in front of her.]

So since I saw you crawling up the side of the building I'm gonna guess yer a super, so what's your power? Are you just really sticky?

[ Peter makes himself more comfortable in his crouch, still all knees and elbows. ]

Uh, yeah... Among other things. I'm Spider-Man.

[Roxy looks at him for a second.]

You are?? Wait...for real? I met Spider-Man once where I'm from!

[ He looks back, somewhat surprised. Though perhaps he supposes he shouldn't be. After all, he's already met two other versions of himself. It seems like every world has a Spider-Man at this point. ]

Uh, yeah, I am. I'd, ah... I'd prove it to you, but I don't have my suit or any of my tech.

[She smiles and waves a hand at him.]

Don't worry about it, if you say you are then you are. I don't need proof, there's not really a lot of reasons for you to lie about it here anyways.

True, true enough.

[ He was going to try to keep it a secret, but considering the fact that there are enough people who already know... He may as well just come out and say it. ]

How'd you meet your Spider-Man? Are you a vigilante, too?

The same way I usually meet other fellow superheroes, we both got into a fight with the same bad guy, he got hurt so I took him home with me to patch up his wounds.

Sounds nice. —I mean, not the getting hurt part. But the fighting together part.

[ He's beginning to wonder if his and Peter Two's worlds are in the minority, just having them and no other superheroes. ]

It was okay, I preferred hanging out with him more afterwards.

[She says with a smile and nudges him playfully.]

Guess it's a habit I have now, hanging out with Spideys.

[ He laughs, feeling more relaxed now than he was when she first showed up. ]

Yeah, you and me both.

So! Forget the Spidey I met, tell me about you. How old are you? Where do you come from? Are you enjoying yourself so far on these weird-ass islands?

[ He laughs again, shifting so he's sitting sideways on the ledge, facing her fully instead of looking out into the fog. ]

Why do I feel like you're interviewing me for a magazine? What are my likes and dislikes? What's in my bag?

[ But fine, he'll go along with it. ]

I'm 28, from Queens, New York. And yeah, so far the weird island purgatory vacation is going pretty well.

[She giggles and turns so she can face him as well.]

Omg I'd be SO good at interviewing people for magazines. Twenty eight huhn? You look younger but that's cool. I'm glad the island is treating you pretty well so far, I didn't have any issues when I first landed either but my friend Kyle and Carter tell me that when they first arrived they had to fight zombies and some weird spider baby thing?

[ He waves a hand. ] Oh, yeah. Something something enhanced healing makes you age slower. I don't know.

[ He's working on a small sample size, so his apparently good genes are really just a theory. ]

Well, the first island I showed up on, I did have to fight a T-Rex. Not sure whether that's better or worse than zombies...

Oh you have enhanced healing? My boyfriend has that too! [She says excitedly.] Does that mean if you get your arm cut off you can just grow it back or re-attach it?

[She raises an eyebrow at the mention of the T-Rex, suddenly very happy that she didn't go over to the smaller island this month.]

Did you win?

Uh, I don't think my healing is that powerful. [ And he would really rather not put it to the test. ]

I at least stalled it long enough to make sure everyone could make a clean getaway.

Oh well that's okay, still useful though!

[She smiles and nods.] Hey that's a win in my books, plus you didn't get chomped.

It's definitely saved my ass more than once.

[ The number of times he's dragged himself home, bruised and bloody... He's lost count at this point. ]

Not getting chomped is a good way to end the day, sure.

For sure.

[She says with a smile and then motions towards the city.]

So I guess you haven't had much time to go wandering through the city huhn? Have you been sticking pretty close to the Temple?

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