synodiporia_ooc | Shade's Retreat: Walkabout Info

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Shade's Retreat: Walkabout Info

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

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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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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WORLD INFO

LOCATIONS

'CASTING' CALL

INFILTRATOR/INVESTIGATOR ROLES

SKILLS

CALENDAR

PLAYER RESOURCES

QUESTIONS