Shade's Retreat: Walkabout Info

[powersthatbe]

Shade’s Retreat
A supernatural murder mystery
November 14 - December 24

A large, well-appointed inn at the crossroads seems like a pleasant enough waystation for travelers and Travelers alike. But soon enough, the peace will be broken by the arrival of a hunter of the supernatural forces known to plague the countryside. This hunter is on the trail of a Shade, a malicious dark spirit that feeds on human life force, which has taken possession of someone at the inn.

Though the threat of an enemy that can't be seen may be cause for doubt, the brutal death of one of the guests not long after the hunter's arrival should convince even the most determined skeptic that something is very, very wrong - just in time to find themselves magically trapped in the confines of the inn's grounds with the spectral killer still at large.

(This Walkabout will take place entirely within the grounds of the inn, and will run on a one OOC week = 1 IC day timescale.)

World Info | Locations | ‘Casting’ Call/Part Announcements | Infiltrator/Investigator Roles | Skills | Calendar | Player Resources | Questions | Plotting

Comments

WORLD INFO

[powersthatbe]

The nation of Chiaroscuro is bordered by mountains to the east and the north, and ocean to the west and south. The inn where the walkabout takes place lies roughly halfway between the capital city of Alba, which sits in the shadow of the tallest peak of the northern mountain range, and the port city of Grayshale along the western coast, at the junction between the Queensroad and the main road leading to the merchant town of Silvermarket, which brings goods from the southeastern farmland and the mines in the eastern range. The area is well-traveled, and sees no shortage of foreign visitors.

The local technology level is roughly equivalent to the mid-Renaissance, though this world has a measure of magic to go along with its science. The main forms of magic, the ones any reasonable person will believe in, are the creation of physical wards, and the purification and binding magic used by hunters to deal with dangerous supernatural elements. There are rumours of stranger things - the folklore of Chiaroscuro is rife with necromancers calling forth the dead to trouble villagers, and everyone knows that the Queen's great-great-great-grandmother led the rebellion that threw down the last of the necromancer-emperors that ruled the nation in ages past. Merchants from the north tell of fire-mages who can call or quell great conflagrations in the grasslands far beyond the mountains, and sailors whisper of witches who control the weather and make dark pacts with strange beasts beneath the waves - but few in living memory have actually met a necromancer, or a pyromancer, or a witch. Or, at least, anyone who would admit to having such magic - even the rumour of necromancy in particular is liable to end in torches and pitchforks.

While supernatural creatures are uncommon in civilized areas, and not particularly well studied given how elusive and deadly they can be, they are a know threat, and several orders of monster hunters have sprung up to deal with them. The best of these are considered heroes by the common people, brave knights who swoop in to save defenseless villagers from marauding ghouls, and rescue children lured away by hungry phouka. The worst are little more than mercenaries and extortionists, as likely to manufacture a threat as actually dispatch one. The majority, as ever, are somewhere in between.

In Chiaroscuro, the most common supernatural threats are:
-the werewolves of the deepwoods, clans of bestial shapeshifters who are known to hunt woodsmen, and to raid isolated farmsteads and occasionally smaller villages in harsh winters, leaving few survivors.
-the shapeshifting phouka who haunt the northern mountains and western coast, blighting crops, bewitching travelers, and occasionally leading the unwary away to serve as a meal.
-the will-o-the-wisp, physically harmless but skilled at enchantment, appearing as distant lights that lead weary travelers to their deaths in sheer canyons and deep bogs.
-malicious ghosts and the walking dead, which range from nuisances to lethal, depending on the temperament of the dead and their numbers.
-and, of course, the Shades, dark spirits from the Otherworld, invisible when disembodied, nearly undetectable when possessing a victim, and always, always the cause of much misfortune and death.

LOCATIONS

[powersthatbe]

The [name redacted] Inn consists of:

Common room - a large room with high rafters, containing numerous tables for the guests, a small stage area on which live performers occasionally play, and floor space that can be cleared for dancing, if need be.

Kitchen and store room - typically off-limits to guests. Where the food is made and stored.

Cellars - where the wine is kept. Also where the body will probably be housed after the murder mingle.

Guest rooms - While the rooms are all clean and the beds are all relatively comfortable, the size and luxury of the rooms vary by what an individual guest can afford. The most basic rooms sleep two people, with little space for anything more than two small beds and a small, rickety dresser, while the best accomodations are full suites with a king-sized bed and a sitting room, and ample space to get up to trouble.

Gardens - a large, lovingly-tended garden, with abundant wildflowers in spring, summer, and early fall, and an artificial grove of trees surrounding a small reflecting pool.

'CASTING' CALL

[powersthatbe]

If you’d like to volunteer for one of these parts, please let us know which one here. Casting will be done during the day on Saturday, November 10th.

Hunter - a morally-questionable member of one of the more respectable orders of monster hunters. Obsessive, ruthless, and more concerned with the extermination of supernatural threats than the preservation of those too foolish to get out of the way, this character has a particular and deeply personal hatred of Shades, and will stop at nothing to get their prey. Optionally, this role could be shared among multiple Infiltrators.

The Shade - a body-surfing otherworldly entity that can access the memories and abilities of the host, though not always perfectly mimic them, and will switch hosts once per IC day. The Shade is alien and enigmatic, and wants very badly not to get caught by the mad human hunting it. Very, very badly. Tobi the Familiar Face will be playing the Shade in the first mingle, but after that it can (and should!) hop between player characters. This part is open to Infiltrators or Investigators.

PART ANNOUNCEMENTS

[powersthatbe]

After the parts are cast, we’ll have players let people know who they’re playing here!

INFILTRATOR/INVESTIGATOR ROLES

[powersthatbe]

Investigators will arrive as travellers at the roadside inn, with local clothing and enough funds to rent a room for a week. Given it’s an inn on a significant travel route, some degree of eccentricity will be expected.

Infiltrators could be other guests - merchants, traveling scholars, guards, etc. - inn staff, members of the hunter’s party.

SKILLS

[powersthatbe]

Second Sight (U) - A person gifted - or cursed - with the ability to see disembodied spirits. Uncommon in humans, the majority of those so gifted often become hunters of the supernatural. The hunter has this, as does anyone possessed by the Shade for the duration of the possession - whether it lasts beyond that point is a player decision.

Wardsmithing (T) - The ability to bar entrance to and egress from a specific location with concrete physical boundaries. Cannot prevent methods of transit that do not in any way interact with those physical boundaries. Typically lasts until the next sunrise before the Ward needs to be refreshed.

Advanced Wardsmithing (T) - As Wardsmithing, but the smith is skilled enough to restrict access to specific entities or classes of entity (spirits, vermin, everyone but Bob). Requires Wardsmithing.

Purification Magic (T) - The ability to expel or injure dark entities. Includes consecration of tools, exorcism, and the shaping of spiritual energy into a direct attack, which frequently takes forms such as spectral weaponry or bolts of spectral fire. Usually, but not always, restricted to hunters.

Spirit Binding (T) - The ability to, generally through ritual magic or carved or painted sigils, force a spirit to remain within a specific vessel or being. Typically lasts until sunrise, or until the sigils are destroyed. Attempting to remove the bound spirit from the vessel prematurely can have disastrous consequences.

Life Siphon (T) - The ability to, with physical contact, drain vitality from another living being in order to replenish one’s own physical health or magical ability. Anyone possessed by the Shade will have this ability for the duration of the possession. It can be learned by sufficiently motivated non-possessed humans, but is highly illegal, and used on pain of death.

Folklore/Scholarly Mysticism (T) - Rudimentary knowledge of the supernatural, differing only in its focus - folklore covers local legend and is more interested in the stories of what (may have) happened, whereas scholars of the mystic world are more interested in the hows and whys of arcane abilities and creatures. Both forms of knowledge are equally likely to contain useful nuggets of truth about supernatural events or creatures, or to have a view of that event or creature that is absolute nonsense.

Mundane skills (all teachable out-of-jaunt): Investigation, swordplay, crowd control, renaissance-era technology.

CALENDAR

[powersthatbe]

While this is a walkabout, and most movement will come from player-driven mingles, the nature of this particular walkabout calls for a couple more ‘official’ mingles than usual.

Day 1 (November 14): Travelers and the Hunter arrive at the inn and settle in for the night.
Day 2 (November 22): The first body is discovered, as is the presence of a ward trapping everyone within the inn. If news of the Shade’s presence hasn’t gotten out before, it will now, and investigation can proceed from here.
mid-jaunt: As the hunt continues, tensions rise and fingers get pointed.

PLAYER RESOURCES

[powersthatbe]

https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/DemonicPossession
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TheWitchHunter
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/WitchHunt

QUESTIONS

[powersthatbe]

PG wrote this walkabout. Bii will be serving as point mod.

Shade: Mingle 1

[powers_that_hart]

Hi. Tobias hates this a lot. The Shade, however, is perfectly happy here. In its host. Pretending to be Tobias for the first mingle.

Shade Victim 2

[reincarnatedprince]

Maxwell the innkeeper will not enjoy this.

Shade Victim 3

[reallymean]

Allura will continue the pattern of not enjoying this one bit.

[comebewe]

Does Bando Spirit Summoning also allow for seeing spirits / the dead here? Also, I'm not sure if Shades are in this same category or not - looks like they can't be detected this way while possessing someone, but what about when they're not?

[reallymean]

In the interest of not making people take redundant skills, it (and any other "can see or sense invisible things" skills) would work as Second Sight in terms of seeing the Shade, so if he's in the same room as it when it's disembodied, he can get a look. When it's possessing someone, it's not detectable by magic.

He won't be able to see the ghost of the first victim, or of anyone who gets shade-killed or nuked with purification magic in the course of the Walkabout. If someone just straight up gets stabbed or otherwise dies of mundane causes or Traveler magic, he'll be able to see them as he normally would, and draw whatever conclusions he cares to from whatever evidence is at hand at the time.

Shade Victim 4

[scarsolderthanyou]

Stone continues the trend of hating this.

[comebewe]

Good to know! And it sounds like those who are killed by Shades don't become ghosts at all? Or are they just there but not visible even with second sight / any other ghost seeing abilities?

[reallymean]

It's a safe bet one of those options is correct.

[comebewe]

Well there's a sneaky answer XD

[finalizes]

Laughs is going to be the hunter!

Re: QUESTIONS

[reincarnatedprince]

What's liminal space like? I have a Spirit Companion there.

Re: QUESTIONS

[naturaltwohands]

Is there any place to buy goods or trinkets? What sort of things would be available? Or can Ignis just like leave money for something he filches later.

Re: QUESTIONS

[reallymean]

No, there isn't a gift shop at the inn.

[keepcalmcookon]

Thank you for the quick response! Sorry, Ignis, you'll have to come up with something to do yourself.

[helborn]

If Casper looks for entropic energy is Mr. Body going to ping? And if so, how hard?

[finalizes]

Mayday mayday (no, actually just a good ol regular question)

so I went into having Saffron be a ghost with the assumption that everyone can just see her, and the one thread that she's had interactions with another infiltrator in I think reinforced that impression.

Now more than one investigator has commented that they can only see her because they have abilities to that end (or can't see her because they don't).

And I realised that actually I should have checked earlier. Would everyone native to her world be able to see ghosts? Or is it a special ability that only a few people have? (Aka, do ghosts count as disembodied spirits or not?)

[reallymean]

Nope. The Shade is almost impossible to detect through supernatural means while it's possessing someone.

[reallymean]

Only people with the Second Sight (or an equivalent skill either from their canon or another Jaunt, in the case of Investigators) are able to see ghosts or other disembodied spirits such as the Shade.

[finalizes]

Ah damn. I drew expectations from the wrong media then.

Thanks!

[grimjeaper]

I think this q was inspired by Barry commenting that he recognises the signs of physical decay and possession in Day's body due to his decades thorough study of necromancy, and further enhanced by his job/state as a grim reaper and necromancer hunter. Is that still a valid interpretation of how the Shade works, or should I go back and edit that?

[reallymean]

It's not necromantic - which is a thing in the setting but not within the scope of the Walkabout - and doesn't cause decay in the physical sense. To put in WoD terms because 5E isn't really my jam, it's a predatory Spirit/Prime entity that feeds on the quintessence inherent in a human's life pattern, not an Entropy construct. It's also, again, almost impossible to detect with magic. I cannot stress this enough.

I haven't been following his thread closely, but if he'd put together physical wasting and weird behaviour and jump to the conclusion of necromantic monster because that's what he's used to hunting/that's the most likely answer in his world, that's cool. You don't have to retcon a bunch of tags. Just keep in mind that it's factually incorrect in terms of how this setting works, and won't help him track the thing once it jumps hosts.

[grimjeaper]

Yeah, that's pretty much what Barry was doing! Making assumptions based on his own observations and jumping to conclusions, not actually using magic so i'm glad now that i never really stated it as such, just gently implied 8D. Which means he's gonna be super wrong later when it turns out that's not how it works.

This is all good to know. Thank you!

Re: QUESTIONS

[thornsofmalkav]

There is a red and white striped pole in the center of it, with a white bulb on the end. It's snowing constantly, although it's never cold, and the snow itself is not water but condensed milk. If you look out of the corner of your eye you'll see a sheet ghost wearing a witch hat but when you turn to face it head on it's gone.

Sometimes you hear the vroom of a scooter coming from above you.

[fearinahandfulof]

What would Infiltrator Knowledge impart about this world? Would it just be limited to the more mundane aspects, or would there also be some knowledge of the more supernatural aspects?

[reallymean]

It would impart the world info in this post. No specialized information on the supernatural beyond that.

[fearinahandfulof]

Thanks!

[seestheworld]

Would the Shade or other supernatural entities pick up on Minako's Personas at all? They're essentially weaponized aspects of her psyche, and I'm not quite sure how that would read in a setting like this.

[reallymean]

You mean when they're not in use? They seem sort of like something everyone in eye-or-earshot would notice if she whipped one out, unless I've misosmosed how they work.

[capital_asset]

When they're not in use, yeah. They're definitely not subtle when they're in use, especially since Minako still uses an Evoker to summon hers.

[reallymean]

With the caveat that I am not canon-familiar, it would probably read as magic, so she'd seem tasty, but no more eye-catching than any of the other magic users.

[reincarnatedprince]

Is it possible to survive a Shade possession without needing to be killed to get it out or is it strictly death?

[reallymean]

Almost all known Shade possessions end in death, either because the Shade devours the host's life energy entirely or because someone straight up kills the host.

It is, however, entirely possible to survive if the Shade doesn't stay long enough to drain the host dry. It's just almost unheard of, because people who survive a Shade's possession unnoticed generally don't want to tell anyone about that day or two they spent as prisoners in their own body while some alien thing puppeted them around, because that's a good way to get ostracized, cast out, and blamed for every bad thing that happens in your vicinity.

[finalizes]

What would cause a Shade to leave prematurely? Could Shadwell, not wanting to hurt Maxwell, employ a technique to draw the Shade out without giving it the chance to wreck Maxwell in the process, or would the Shade have to move on of its own accord?

[reallymean]

There is no known technique to remove a Shade from its host without risking damaging the host in the process, and this one knows Shadwell wants to kill it, so it's damn well going to use every trick it can to stay alive. Most exorcisms aren't as gory as Tobi's was, but they'll frequently leave a host irreparably damaged in some way, as the Shades attempt to break free. Hunters generally accept that because most known Shade possessions do end in death anyway, and one person dead is better than the possibility of ten people dead if they stay their hands.

Since the Shade is possessing people specifically because it's hiding, it's likely to jump hosts if it feels anyone is getting too close to its trail.

[seestheworld]

A couple more questions:

1) Given that the walkabout takes place over less than a week, would Minako be out of luck if she wanted to try another Sift, since that's a weekly skill?

2) Would a Traveler possessed by the Shade read as Hostile if she happened to be using Eagle Vision, or would they read as normal?

[reallymean]

1 is a mod question, so I'll leave that for them to answer.

Someone Shade-possessed would not show up as anything special.

[helborn]

I want to have Casper use an ability, but I don't know where to poke for it so I'll just ask on here.

Corpse Eyes: The Scion looks a Corpse, Ghost or Undead in the Eyes and rolls Perception + Empathy or Investigation, and spend 1 Legend. Each Success may allow the Scion to see minute around the Corpses Death, before and after. This is real time so it is often more useful on a corpse while the Scion has time to stare ideally.

What does he see?

[reallymean]

That's probably something to ask Megan, since she's the one who played Mr Body.

cw: gore, injury, character death, attempted murder

[powers_that_hart]

Chaos.

Blood is in his eyes and he's thrashing around so much that nothing will stay still. There's an impression of the room, the window above his head, a man holding him down with a hand over his mouth. His eyes roll up into his skull and for a few seconds that's all he sees is darkness.

Then suddenly the room is back, but the corpse is focused entirely on the man who has sat back. The corpse's hands latch around the man's throat and Casper can watch the flesh drain away from the hands to leave them the bony claw-like shapes that they are now. The corpse's attacker raises empty hands to pull the hands away from his throat. There's a struggle as the attacker pushes the hands down and away from himself.

There's a moment of pause... and the corpse's heart bursts from his chest in an explosion of gore. Ribs puncture and rip through the chest wall as they're forced out and up and the room is sprayed with the rich crimson of a life's blood. A black twist of smokey energy lifts from the cavity and flees out the window.

The attacker had a split second to cover his face, but he winds up covered in blood nonetheless. The corpse thumps back against the floor, but the dead eyes have enough view to see the attacker stand up, look around frantically, pick up some kind of object from beside the corpse, and head for the door. The remainder of the minute after death is a grand view of the dripping ceiling. Then the spell ends.

[seestheworld]

How do weekly-use skills like Liminal Severance or Grid faction skills work on a compressed Jaunt like this? Do they go by OOC calendar or IC calendar?