♥ 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]

Not sure anybody ever stops learning that one. Taako's no shining example of courtesy towards his fellow mortals on most days, he's still re-learning how to live with other people himself.

[shroudedsecrets]

[ Good to know there isn't a particular end point for that one, really. Especially for someone who had emerged out of a thousands-of-years bad trip. They've gotten a bit far away from the wedding as a topic, somehow. ]

Did he ever tell you that he looked after me when I was a child once? During that... strange time here, when we were all changing at some time or other. My recollection of the experience is... vague, most of that time is. But I do recall him seeming so uncertain about it. Not that he would ever admit that.

[necromanswers]

Hah, yeah, that sounds about right. Taako's not usually great with kids. Back home he started teaching little Angus magic, but he's an absolute monster about it. Threats with doom and death for a good goof, that sort of thing. He's terrible. Used to dread what kind of uncle he'd be if that was in the cards.

[shroudedsecrets]

I imagine he would have much more balance around him by then, so you would have a lot less to worry about. It was strange, but I do not think he did too poorly. He gave me a lizard to look after, for some reason, while being peppered with questions.

[necromanswers]

Sounds appropriately weird. Though our idea of appropriate might not necessarily mesh with the rest of reality.

[shroudedsecrets]

Perhaps one could even consider it to be refreshing, to a fault.

[ Their blunt tendencies, good for cutting through to where it was necessary. A far cry from the formalities they were still untangling from her in some form. ]

[necromanswers]

I suppose that's true. Kids are honest and blunt by nature- they lack the same sort of social graces as we do more often than not. Might be why Angus latched onto him despite his whole... everything.

[Admittedly Taako was much nicer about Angus' cookies than he probably deserved- certainly nicer than anyone else would normally get. Between that and the magic lessons, there must be something there.]

[shroudedsecrets]

[ She has to chuckle softly at that. ]

Perhaps he felt that similarity and wanted to bond with him because of that. Taako rarely seems to have the need for social grace, unless he's purposefully trying to charm or impress someone, but he's... real, when it matters. His concern for animals, for example.

[necromanswers]

It's because animals never did a damn thing to hurt us.

[Which is a mean rib at the rest of the mortal realm, but an honest one, and something she says without shame or apology. People are cruel. Animals just want to live their own damn lives, just like she and Taako always did.]

[shroudedsecrets]

... I know. What I meant by that was... because of that, he dropped all pretense to get me to... realize I was being an asshole to Kova. He... didn't have to do it that way.

[ Instead, it happened the way it did, and... they were all better for it, weren't they? Even if it is difficult for her to not be so hard on her past self despite it being all too clear that it had been impossible for her to have known any better. Perhaps she was being too hard on herself for that, but was that what this reminder was for now? ]

[necromanswers]

He's a dick, but you have to give him props for his effectiveness. It got you somewhere, eh?

[shroudedsecrets]

I do. I always have, the more aware of it I become.

[ Funny though, how it feels so long ago. A changed mindset could be like a lifetime. ]

I think of it sometimes... getting drawn to the Fleet the way I had, and how much changed because of it. You and Taako most of all of course, but the others... Prompto was sweet from the start. Did you know, as a gift, he gave me hug coupons once? It was the strangest thing at the time, but now I know how truly kind that was. When Loki became Captain I suppose I began looking to him in some way as well. I think deep down, he wanted to be understood, too. You never met Katie, she was... well, teaching me things in her own way. She could only speak in riddles and lies but then the challenge was seeing beyond that. And Thor, of course. What a looker, huh?

[necromanswers]

Oh my goooooood, Thor.

[Lup groans tragically and leans forward, bumping her forehead against Honerva's back.]

If there's one regret I'll carry for the rest of my life, it's not climbing that man like a tree when I had the chance.

[shroudedsecrets]

[ Her shoulders slip forward, and she gives a soft amused sigh at Lup's action. ]

Alas, it seems that we all had a bit more of our minds than making the most of his proximity at the time.

[necromanswers]

Shame on us, really.

[Ah, well. They got more out of it than the temporary gratification, great as that was in the moment.]

[shroudedsecrets]

Shame on us, for not having our shit together.

[ As much as it couldn't really be helped, all things considered. She hadn't even fully processed that she had been attracted to him until well after they'd arrived here. ]

It sounds like the opportunity was closer for you to take.

[necromanswers]

[Lup laughs briefly; Honerva cursing usually gets a laugh out of her.]

Ah, not really. We bonded over explosive elements a few times, and he was hot. It's not like we had a secret torch for one another or anything.

[shroudedsecrets]

Fair enough. I had only thought it was starting to get... cozy toward the end, when you both moved in at last to our ship. It is... interesting, to reminisce upon such things.

[ Interesting, probably not the right word. Not quite bittersweet either, though the taste of it is there, with all those who had fallen away from their lives. But... they were here, and those were their shared memories. ]

[necromanswers]

Pretty sure neither of us were focusing on either sex or romance at the time.

[Priorities had been... elsewhere, for sure.]

[shroudedsecrets]

Just your very distracting brothers, I'm certain.

[ Bittersweet it is, as though those two hadn't given their share of scares. And to feel concerned for them, even, in more than just capacity of the role assigned her, that had been something too. ]

[necromanswers]

It's true, they are very distracting.

[The shift is pointed; are, not were. She'll see them again, but fuck if it doesn't hurt to go without.]

[shroudedsecrets]

Indeed they are. Much like now, don't you think?

[ There was something to be said for that. Lup's connections were the present; she was always careful to refer to them in that way as well; and yet here they had gone and distracted away from the point that had brought them here at all. ]

[necromanswers]

A little less like now.

[She can pretend, but it'll never be the truth. Taako isn't here, Magnus isn't here. It's a reality she has to accept, even if they're present in her heart.]

[shroudedsecrets]

... Fair enough.

[ It was healthy to mention them, right? Without feeling as though she had mistepped again? ]

I am certain your baby powder did not take this long to... turn to what was intended. What else must they want from us, you think?

[necromanswers]

[Healthy, yes, but Lup is happier not to linger on it too long unless something changes.]

Beats the hell out of me. I just waited it out, didn't have to do anything special. It didn't seem like any sort of contact made a difference.

[She bound up the braid, winding it around at the top of Honerva's head.]

Dude, I can only braid your hair so many times. You want a million plaits instead?