♥ December (Ranir) Event Log

[hugtopiamods]

December (Ranir) Event Log
The end of the year is here and winter has arrived. The chilly fall weather quickly gives way to cold days and colder nights, perfect for snuggling and watching the first dusting of snow fall. It doesn't seem to stick for long, but it's certainly a beautiful sight to watch out of your windows. Ranir is the beginning of Rawna's time to shine, but the god of apathy breeds apathetic followers and priests - or he usually does. Maybe it's due to the influence of all the offworlders for the past year, but this year? Ranir is strangely familiar in its festivities...

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❥ PROMPT I: Bring Out Your Pens

No one is quite sure how, but over the past year, the natives have come to learn about a very particular figure in many of the offworlders' legends. He appears one time a year, shrouded in mystery, visiting in the dead of night, only to vanish until the next year. This godlike figure has piqued their interest to say the least and once Ranir is in full swing, offworlders who are aware of the legend of Santa Claus will start seeing some robots, especially Rawna's temple priests, wearing that familiar red and white outfit around town. They're carrying sacks on their backs and going door to door, electronics buzzing with excitement as they find anyone they can to shove an actual pen and paper into their hands.

"All hail the Santa of Clause!" they exclaim with glee. "Hail to your winter god! Nail your socks to the wall!"

Anyone who receives a letter set in person will then be told to write a letter to the Santa of Clause (and the robots ARE checking spelling. Who's ever heard of Santa Claus? Clearly you're mistaken and need a spelling software update) asking for a present, to a friend in town, or to someone back home. They won't leave until you write your letter, either. Whether it means they have to follow you all day, all week, or straight into your homes, they will complete their duty to the Santa of Clause and appease his great and terrible appetite for grammatically correct letters. For those who are lucky enough to avoid the robots in person, they may find a letter set in their mailbox one more with similar instructions about to whom they should be writing and a cheery announcement that someone will be by later to pick the letter up.

The sheer volume of letters being passed around town, however, is more than the robots alone can deliver. Soon enough, they start reaching out to the offworlders to help deliver the letters to their intended recipients, whether it's other offworlders, natives, or to temples to be placed upon the gods' altars. Anyone who is willing to help out will be given a small token of appreciation in the form of Dora, but more importantly, a larger gift of the Santa of Clause approved uniform. That's right: a Santa costume. If you're delivering letters, you must be wearing a Santa costume or you'll anger the Winter God, Santa of Clause! Or so the natives believe. So get into the holiday spirit and dress on up!

Those who wish to write letters to someone who is no longer among the city population or those who have never been here are more than encouraged to do so. In fact, Rawna's temple priests seem particularly interested in having people come by to read those letters directly at their temples to tie this offworld holiday into Rawna's typical purview. Read your letters to your loved ones or just read a letter detailing what you want for the holidays at Rawna's temple to unburden your soul as the year ends. Maybe you'll walk away feeling lighter than before.

❥ PROMPT II: This Isn't What I Ordered

At the end of the month, characters will wake up to light scratching at their doors. The sound is enough to get anyone's attention, especially if the scratching is at their bedroom doors, rather than their front doors. When people go to investigate, they'll find a little rainbow dragonling at their feet looking up at them expectantly. By the dragonling's side is a box of varying sizes, decorated and topped with a holographic bow. Once the dragonling has determined that you recognize the package is yours, it slithers off back to where it came from, escaping your house with surprising ease.

Opening the package will reveal one item from your character's life. That's right, it's a regain event! The item inside the box is familiar to your character and it might bring a smile to their face - or it would if it wasn't just....slightly? Wrong? For whatever reason, it seems this year the gift giving went a bit awry and all the items delivered by the dragonlings are off in some manner or another. For example, you might have gotten a box set of your favorite books from home! But they're all in a language you can't read. Or you may have gotten your favorite sweater back! But it's fourteen sizes too big and looks like it was sized for a T-Rex instead. Or your favorite gun from home is now bright neon bubblegum pink instead of that sleek and cool gunmetal gray. Oh and the bullets shoot flowers instead of, y'know, bullets. Whoops.

Whatever the problem, every gift received seems to have something wrong with it. As the complaints start rolling in, the temple priests will try their best to fix it by having all willing characters come with their malfunctioning gifts. A few trials and errors reveal that the best way to get things right again is? You guessed it: positive contact. Any temple will do for this, but Rawna's temple is naturally the busiest seeing as it's sort of his holiday and thus, sort of(?) his fault. Come with a friend or a frenemy or just a straight enemy if that's your flavour, place both of your gifts on the temple's altar, and just hold on tight. Once contact is initiated, the gifts will start to glow with a soft light; and the longer the contact is held, the brighter the light gets. It can take up to an hour depending on the level of wrongness your gift went to in order for the light to grow bright enough to flash and set the gifts back to their original forms. But there are rumours that talking about the gift you received and why it is significant to you makes the process far faster, resulting in a light that might flash as soon as you finish your story. Just be sure to hurry to correct this mistake. Some of the temple priests hypothesize that the corrections can only be made so long as Rawna's power holds sway.

OOC: These items from home must be approved by a mod. They cannot exceed the Medium Item regain limit. It cannot be a power or other ability. It cannot be something your character did not own or have knowledge of in their canon or their CRAU. Please post your regain request in the Regain Request thread before threading out the receipt or restoration of the item.

❥ PROMPT III: Ghostly Consequences

Toward the end of the month, people begin having dreams of Havenwell. That's nothing truly unusual, certainly, as it's quite normal for dreams to mimic one's daily life. What is unusual is that these dreams feel...real. Too real. And the people in the dreams are ones that may or may not be familiar to you. The faces of the dream people resemble those of the ghosts that took over Havenwell a month or two prior, and they seem to be going about their business as if they lived in Havenwell. In fact, they seem to be living your lives instead of you, living in your house, sleeping in your beds, working your jobs, talking with your friends. No one in the dream seems to notice the switcheroo and try as you might to interact with people in the dream, it looks like you've taken on the role of ghost. Thankfully, these dreams are innocuous and short, snapshots of your life rather than full length dreams and are over quickly.

However, before each dream ends, the ghost living your life turns to you and puts their hands together in a pleading gesture. What do they say? That differs for each person.

For most offworlders, the message is the same. The ghost puts their hands together and says:

"Balance must always be kept. Nothing shall die here that He does not allow. Your sacrifice is balance, and balance must always be kept. Some must die or all shall perish. These were their promises and their demise."

But, if your character touched a ghost in the previous event, you will receive a PM from the mod account soon with your specific message. Keep an eye out for your message.

The dream ends once the message is delivered and you'll find yourselves not where you remember - your bed, your sofa, wherever you went to sleep - but someplace new. Apparently the dreams have caused some minor sleepwalking and you may just find yourself waking up in someone else's bed or up a tree or about to buy that super expensive plastic model of Havenwell's latest holomovie starlet. Whoops.

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This event will run from 15 December to 31 December. Click on each prompt's title to see the text. If you have any questions, feel free to direct them to the FAQ or to the Mod Question thread. You can also use the Havenwell Status page or the General Plotting Comment to give you other ideas for original prompts!

Comments

[necromanswers]

What, you don't get your daily fill of cats already?

[Lup laughs but gets up, hand reaching to pull Honerva with her. Onwards, to the realm of holy felines!]

Care to make bets on what they want this time? Just handholding, or shall we brush each others' hair? Oooh, or I could drape myself dramatically around your shoulders.

[shroudedsecrets]

Would you have chosen another?

[ Ah, levity. She recognizes that for what it is, a soft chuckle as she follows the tug of Lup's hand. ]

... Well, to think on it, considering the potential deities involved, it might be similar to what they have wanted before. Decline to make a request in writing, and... something like this turns up. I imagine they may want a story for it as well as whatever contact we provide. Such are their exchanges.

[necromanswers]

You didn't write a letter, then? [Lup laughs again, not surprised, but still amused.] It's a wonder the bots gave you a moment of peace.

[shroudedsecrets]

I wrote... something, eventually. When they saw where I "delivered" it, they seemed to get the hint to let me be.

[ Not so much a request but a plea, what would she need to keep her family safe, and whole, and then placed into a fire instead of the waiting hands of a bizarre delivery service routine. ]

[necromanswers]

Maybe one had nothing to do with the other.

[Lup shrugs. She doesn't place much stock in what the robots get up to, most days. The gods are the ones to worry about, and she's yet to be put upon enough to really set their temples on fire, so for now it's whatever.]

[shroudedsecrets]

Also a possibility.

[ The robots certainly lived here, though they seemed more and more stirred to such activities which had all but been obsolete to them before, for centuries.

Uncomfortable, how familiar that consideration was. ]

Though they are getting their cues from some source.

[necromanswers]

Of course they are- who doesn't? But I'm gonna be honest, I think I'm getting kinda tired of feeling suspicious.

[Lup lifts her free arm in a wide shrug.]

Maybe the leftover Candlenights spirit has still captured me. Must be the dragons...

[shroudedsecrets]

[ Most likely, if she had been taking Honerva's suggestions to continue to trance instead of sleeping or napping.

Not that it doesn't take much for Honerva to go to conspiracy town, but even so, perhaps it was clear she was a little more on edge than she might have been otherwise. ]

That is fair. The dragons at least, were only the messengers.

[necromanswers]

Next time one of their little animal friends shows up to start some shit I might have to send 'em back in plaid to see how they feel about people messing with things they love.

[A harmless illusion but very unfashionable. It's the perfect subtle revenge.]

[shroudedsecrets]

Would serve them right, all those stripes. Certainly not a punishable offence.

[ They'd gotten arrested for less, it was fair for them to be salty. ]

[necromanswers]

The cats better watch their step, or they'll be next.

[Speaking of which, she turns the corner, approaching the temple and waving off any overly-helpful priests hanging around.]

[shroudedsecrets]

[ The priests don't have a reason just yet to serve them with any wariness, keeping their distance when it's clear they seem to know where they're going or what they're after. ]

Then, you shall have to add the birds and the mice in as well, so they don't feel left out.

[necromanswers]

Believe me, they're all on the hit list.

[She has no qualms about gently bullying small rodents. The ravens... well, they might get away with more, mostly because she appreciates that ravens are assholes by default, and she's meant to one day work for the Raven Queen, so they get a bit of leeway. Respect from one associated god to another, maybe.]

[shroudedsecrets]

That would give them a nice balance. Unless you went for spots instead of plaid.

[ Ah, finally, there's an empty altar room. ]

How did you resolve the baby powder?

[necromanswers]

A kind soul braided my hair in the eyes of god and everyone, and suddenly, the world was magical again.

[Or, you know. The usual.]

[shroudedsecrets]

... Of course.

[ With an exhale, she sets the box down on the altar, removing the so clearly cursed object from it. The holographic image flickers on again, far more defined and yet still so clearly not representing the original forms it was intended to. ]

[necromanswers]

There we go. Park it, I'll do something magical.

[Lup sits down in front of the altar, waggling her fingers. She doesn't have a hairbrush on hand, but that's what fingernails are for, and she had a spectacular manicure lately.

She doesn't like looking at oldschool Honerva, and she knows Honerva has no fondness for it either, so she respectfully keeps her gaze away from the image. She does commit Zarkon to memory, though... just in case.]

[shroudedsecrets]

[ Lup settles her, as she joins her in sitting so that she can work whatever magic she needs to. ]

It is all yours.

[ Her hair has gotten so much fuller and livelier and longer, with care, one of the ways she can feel different from the images taunting her on display. ]

[necromanswers]

Score.

[Lup immediately gets to work weaving her fingers through Honerva's hair, carefully smoothing out the strands, easing out any tangles as she goes. she'll just mindlessly brush for a little while before she decides on a style.]

Do you remember much of the wedding?

[shroudedsecrets]

[ She's quiet for a moment, while Lup begins her handiwork, hoping some of the soft brushing helps put her more at ease given the reason they're here.

Let alone the question. ]

... No. Just... flickers of it, though they are not mine.

[ She'd still had some difficulties with that, knowing the memories were of her but yet something she could not wholly access on her own. ]

It took place on Daibazaal -- Zarkon's planet, of course. A royal wedding, at least on his side, so it had to have been some kind of grand... proceeding. Even if he was defying precedent by choosing me.

[necromanswers]

One of those culture clash weddings?

[She doesn't know a huge amount about the world he hailed from, but based on what Honerva had gotten into when she was Haggar, it wasn't exactly a glowing paradise. Marrying the nice science lady from another world seemed a little off-brand.]

[shroudedsecrets]

[ She's quiet for a moment. She can't remember the wedding but she can at least try to arrange what she knows about it. ]

... Yes, something like that. Galra and Altean cultures were very different. Galra were always more structured and rigid, their history built upon conquering and advancement. Intermingling with others was not uncommon, but certainly not expected of royalty. Alteans... had their own measures of strictness in some ways, but always were a more flexible people. Mediators, explorers, wanting to spread peace and cultivation.

[ Though it's other memories she has to turn to, for the bits and pieces of this, as her words soften. She'd come away a bit from the wedding, but difficult not to. ]

... After he had changed, he said that I was his only weakness. And that I was gone, but... of course, when I had heard those words I could not even comprehend he meant me.

[necromanswers]

You could say he didn't mean you. You weren't yourself anymore, not like you are now. So whatever he thought of that version of you shouldn't really matter.

[She knows it isn't that easy; if she had to separate parts of herself, or Barry from some altered, evil version of himself (the Red Robe didn't count, he was absolutely putting on a show and not fooling her at all)... she would struggle with it. It's hard to split apart what you love when they become something different. And even moreso when it's a part of you that split with them.

Still, it's the truth, and it needs to be said.]

[shroudedsecrets]

... And he wasn't exactly himself either. Not the man I had married. Just... one whom I felt compelled to serve in that state. I -- She never questioned that.

[ It's a soft exhale. Honerva is further from that mindset every day but she still lived it, still affected and shaped by it even as Lup chased those whispers away, to give her a chance at becoming... herself, again, even if she still felt that disconnect, but securing the present was more important. ]

Perhaps he still had his memory, but... could not feel them. Not even the existence of our son could cut through that darkness.

[necromanswers]

Mm... we both know I've got a lot of experience with memory issues. [It kind of goes without saying.] Losing that much of one's identity can change a huge part of the person and make it easier to accept whatever story one's given. When Taako's memory was taken, there were a lot of holes left behind, and somehow he didn't question the origin story he had handed to him until the cracks really started to surface. Might explain why Haggar didn't take issue with what she was made to become.