hugtopia_logs | ♥ July 2019 Intro Mingle

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♥ July 2019 Intro Mingle

July Intro Log
Welcome to Havenwell! The walled city and its robotic inhabitants welcome all of the offworlders to Aellyn. New arrivals are given their tablets and showed to open housing, given tours around the city, and generally helped with settling into their new world. Some robots are more curious than others, more helpful than others, but overall the atmosphere of the city is one of hope and celebration. It is, however, a city that needs some help, and as newcomers wander, they may find that they can do a lot to aid Havenwell in its recovery.

❥ PROMPT I: Temple Jobs

The priests of each temple have a digital bulletin board in front of their temple doors that lists several tasks that each temple is asking of natives and newcomers alike. Havenwell is protected from the worst of the damage outside the walls, but it's still an ancient city and there's always something that needs to be done. Of course, the priests won't ask you to do these things for free, so anyone who wants to join up and complete a task will receive a reward of Dora sent to their bank accounts.

The sudden weather changes sometimes results in localized floods, so businesses and homes are always looking for help cleaning debris and mopping floors. The temples themselves always need a little extra help picking up after the temple animals or cleaning the altars. Some stores need help transporting goods across the city - normally a two person job, pulling carts and wagons. And lately, temples have been asking for help in cleaning up the city square for a "big *wink wink* project" coming soon. The priests won't say more than that, but they will offer payment for anyone willing to keep the square clean. Which may be a little difficult with the influx of new people, maps, and general trash and broken debris everywhere. It may be smart to team up to keep things clean!

❥ PROMPT II: Repli-fails

One thing that new residents might find that needs some help are the food replicators found in each home. They've been unused for so long that issues and trouble were inevitable. People who can fix them are few and far between, however, so until an antiques' maintenance-minded robotic denizen stops by, characters may have to suffer through some glitches. When characters ask for potatoes, they might find blue-flavored toothpaste getting dispensed instead. Or if they ask for 1 carrot, they get 20 hot pink ones instead. Or asking for a drink becomes a never-ending stream of said drink. Or they might not dispense anything that looks like food at all and instead inundate you with vaguely fish-shaped wooden blocks. Good luck, newbies. Even the natives are a little baffled by this one.

❥ PROMPT III: Virtual? Reality?

The VR simulation of the month, Petting Zoo, seems to still be pretty popular. Natives are plugging in to pet animals in record numbers and it's encouraged the proprietors of the VR parlors to keep the game a little longer than normal. New arrivals are encouraged to take the VR headsets for a spin to help proprietors gauge how to better adjust them for non-robotic clientele. That said, they'll still ask characters to pay for the experience, just not at a slightly discounted rate if they answer a survey afterwards. Characters will notice that holding hands with someone else during their VR experience significantly improves the quality of the visuals and audio input.

Unfortunately, as with most things in Havenwell, the VR experience doesn't always go as planned. On occasion in the city, glitches happen while residents are plugged in and suddenly that flock of giant pink sheep they were petting? Yeah, they're now manifested in the real world. In and around the entertainment districts, illogically colored sheep, giant house cats, miniature ponies, and - of course - the dreaded aggro rainbow chickens suddenly start appearing in packs. Their images glitch in and out, fuzzing into static in places, but they're very real and very confused about not being in their happy green pastures. Which means they panic, of course, and start running amok. Help the citizens corral these strange beasts until the glitch ends, run away from the now very real flocks of rainbow chickens that want to dogpile you, or simply stand by and watch the chaos occur. It's up to you how you want to help!

❥ PROMPT IV: The Ribbon Games

A couple weeks after everyone has arrived and had time to mostly settle into the weird weather patterns and machinery muck-ups, a notice is plastered across the network:

The citizens of Havenwell wish you well, offworlders! To show our appreciation for your assistance in saving our world, we cordially invite you to participate in an ancient tradition: The Ribbon Games! In the old days, this festival was held as a celebration of joyous events. You have a week to collect as many ribbons as you can from your temple by completing their Ribbon Task. Then, at the end of the week, we are hosting a party in your honor where you can compete to collect ribbons from the other temples to win fabulous prizes! Please visit your deity's temple to find out more and we hope you will join us for the Ribbon Games Party at the end of the week.

With all our gratitude,
The Citizens of Havenwell

Those who choose to participate and head to their deity's temple will find a priest with a sash and a box of ribbons in the colors of your chosen deity. They point to a digital board at their side that lists the task you'll need to complete in order to earn one of these ribbons, and will allow characters to complete a ribbon challenge once a day until the week is over for a total of 7 ribbons if they come each day. You may only earn the ribbon of your assigned deity, so if you are an adherent of Rawna and go to Ainea's temple, even if you complete Ainea's task, you cannot receive her ribbon. The tasks are:

Rawna: Give comfort to someone or ease someone's pain within Rawna's temple to receive a shimmering silver ribbon.
Ainea: Do an act of kindness or show compassion to someone within Ainea's temple to receive a soft pink and purple ribbon.
Diacht: Reveal an honest truth about yourself within Diacht's temple to receive a bold red and white ribbon.
Ohma: Learn something new about or from someone within Ohma's temple to receive a delicate blue and gold ribbon.

Once a task is completed, the priest will remove a ribbon from their box and affix it to your clothing. Don't let anyone steal your ribbons! Good luck keeping them safe, offworlders.

Outdoor party space with hanging lights and flowers

❥ PROMPT V: The Fanciest of Welcome Parties

At the end of the month, once the city square is clean and the ribbons have been distributed to participating citizens, the newest residents of Havenwell will wake to the sound of music floating over the city. During the night while people slept, the natives decorated the city with streamers, brightly colored lanterns, and strings of beautiful lights that glow no matter the hour of the day. The natives have decorated themselves, too, and provide the offworlders with clothing and decorations to match. Garishly colored sashes, brilliantly (artificially) plumed hats, skirts and tunics, boas and fake flower leis - just about anything you can imagine, they're wearing. In and around the city square there are long tables of oddly colored finger foods - orange-colored grapes, bright pink meats, blue cheeses and the like are provided along with golden chocolates, fuchsia frosted cupcakes with pink cake underneath, and minty green cookies. The foods might look strange, but at least they mostly taste like they're supposed to. The citizens are trying, they promise.

All around the fountain depicting the four gods in the center of the square, pre-recorded music is playing and the natives are dancing in pairs, groups, and lines. Join them for a dance and they'll happily teach you the local customs, or break out your own moves and share your world's best moves to earn some applause and awkward attempts at recreating them.

The big game of the night is shared by the natives and it's announced halfway through the party. The culmination of the Ribbon Games is a contest to try and collect a set of four ribbons - one from each different god's temple. The rules are simple:

Attach your ribbons to yourself in a clearly visible location.
Tag and hold someone else for more than 1 minute. You can bear hug them, hold their hands, link arms, anything!
After sustaining contact, you can take one of their ribbons. If you aren't the character who initiated contact, you can't take a ribbon.
Gather one of each god's ribbon in order to win a prize!

If you successfully manage to get all four ribbons, a little shower of confetti will burst from your ribbons and a nice little chunk of Dora will be transferred to your account. This can only work once unfortunately, but it's a nice little bonus for your first month in Havenwell! The party continues late into the night and the natives are happy to keep the party going as long as any of the offworlders wish to keep dancing.

As a reminder, please post your character to the Taken Character list and your own information to the Player Contact list as soon as possible. It helps us keep track of our player cap!

If you have any other questions, please ask them in the QUESTION thread below. Feel free to use the CR/Intro Meme to do OOC plotting. Otherwise, welcome to Hugtopia's first mingle log!

♥ back to navigation

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[Nope, didn't ring any bells. Oh well, it was worth a shot anyway. Maybe it'll help down the line.]

Technically there's more than three classes, but they're all kinda offshoots of the same basic two branches: arcane, and divine. And each of those splits further into eight specializations, though experienced casters can diversify and learn beyond their speciality.

[Welcome to Dungeons & Dragons 101.]

Interesting. I would gather that the "divine" are connected to the gods and the "arcane" are connected to the... 'Weave'?

[Have fun explaining the whole rule book. Though he'll likely space out things more, he just needs to establish a foundation to build off of.]

Almost, but not quite. All magic comes from the Weave, but the way it's channeled to the user varies- through the gods, or through nature, or through the caster's understanding of magic itself.

[And then, since sharing is caring-]

Are the Astrals your gods?

Yes, the two words are used interchangeably. The are also known as "the Six".

Interesting. You spoke of peasants earlier. Does that mean you live within an empire or monarchy?

Only six? That's barely a fraction of our pantheon. Sounds easier to keep track of.

[It would be a hell of a lot simpler for clerics to find their calling, with only six gods to choose from, that's for sure.]

It's kind of a quasi-monarchy? I'm not super privy to the local government these days, been kinda out of touch. But there's a lord of the Faerun region, I know that much.

I've no idea what the average amount of gods would be. However, there's nary a word of the Draconian, whereas Titan could be seen holding the meteor at the Disc of Cauthess. They were also said to have divine messengers of a sort to communicate with humans.

Not interested in politics?

There's probably over a hundred gods on my world. I've never counted, myself, but I've heard enough names floating around for it to feel like that many.

[And she knows more than the name of like... five? Or something? Yeah. Not a religious type.]

Like I said, I've been out of touch. And governments come and go all the time in a volatile world where dragons can fly by and torch an entire town overnight. Who can keep track?

That is a rather sizable amount.

[He had a hard time imagining 100 Astrals galloping around the world.]

How do the people know of them? Do they have Oracles to speak with them?

It sounds as if your world hasn't established a strong leader. While it may be difficult to imagine living at the time, millennia ago it was supposedly quite chaotic when it was still being decided who lead. Once the different nations were established around their respective leaders their respective governments became much more powerful. Certainly nothing a mere dragon would destroy.

Dunno what an Oracle is, exactly, but most people who wanna talk to their gods just do it. With clerics and some especially connected folks, sometimes the gods even talk back. I've seen it happen before.

[Istus was even nice about it, which was cool, if you liked that sort of thing.]

I guess that's nice for your world. Dragons are always a problem where I come from, at least for the people who don't get to live in castles. Along with monsters, and mercenaries, and bandits, and elemental spirits, and natural disasters... life's hard for just about everybody. That's why most days no one really cares which rich asshole is in charge. They all end up acting the same towards us, anyway.

They aren't able to drum up the necessary support to build a strong empire.

[Weak leader, weak government, easily overthrown. Based on her reaction, they certainly weren't inspiring the people. Was that how his world would like without House Aldercapt?]

How do they do it? Is there a specific location they're able to go to to commune with the gods?

[She shrugs her shoulders. It's rare that people like her even get to meet leaders, let alone get to know them. Only Sterling had been around them long enough to make an impression, and their first meeting with him had been predictably poor. She can live happily without royals or rich assholes.]

Most people go to temples or churches, I guess. The really powerful clerics don't need it, though- they can talk to their gods anywhere they want. It's still not a guarantee that the god will answer, but as far as I can tell the chance of getting a response isn't that much higher if you're by one of their shrines or whatever. It's more about the power of the cleric.

The gods speak the same language as humans, then?

[Hard to imagine. A god being summoned anywhere for answers.]

They sound surprisingly simple to contact. Is one of them the leader of the gods?

The- leader of the gods? Like a god of gods?

[Her incredulous tone probably gives away how likely that is before she offers up a proper answer.]

Never heard of anything like that. Some are more powerful than others, probably, but they're more or less all equals as far as godliness goes. Is that a thing in your world?

One that is more powerful than the rest.

[Though it sounded as if that might not exist where Lup was.]

For one of our gods there is hardly any information left save for his name. According to legend, it was the Draconian who selected the king of Lucis, which would suggest a role of leadership among the Astrals.

There is so little to go off of, though, that there is no way to be certain. Nor can we know first certain when the gods first descended upon Eos. It has also become clear that some information was purposely wiped from recorded history. There's no way to know how much has been erased versus how much faded naturally over time.

Have you seen any of your gods?

[Draconian, Lucis, kings and Astrals... lots of still-unfamiliar terms, though she can get the gist of it based on everything else he's explained. Sounds like a whole lot of predestined bullshit for rich royals. A king, chosen by the gods... isn't that convenient?

She exhales with a huff, dismissing the very notion.]

Mm... just one. We restored her temple, so the goddess Istus, who controls fate, showed up to thank us and give us a hand. She was nice, I guess. Kinda vague in that "god has a plan" way.

[And she's absolutely taking partial credit for that job, even if she wasn't... exactly there to experience it firsthand.]

How about you? Ever met an Astral?

Interesting. Direct contact with a god without a messenger. How did she appear? Approximately how tall was she?

In a sense, yes, I have. The Archaean caught a Meteor that was heading for a planet in ancient times, and he can be readily seen holding the Meteor still in the heart of the Disc of Cauthess in Duscae. However, he is still slumbering at this moment.

It was also said that Ifrit the Infernian was interred atop the Rock of Ravatogh after his defeat in the War of the Astrals. After an investigation I discovered that was true, and we were able to recover his slumbering body.

There are little more than rumors of the locations of the other gods save for the blade god Bahamut.

That's pretty bold of you, dude- to just take a god while he's napping. You weren't afraid of getting fried for the trouble?

[Well, it's not like she hasn't seen gods captured or imprisoned before... but that doesn't make it any less of a surprise.]

Since he was the god of fire, that was a consideration. However, as far as we could tell he'd been asleep since the war about 2,000 years ago. So we brought him down and I had him put on ice.

He did wake up, but we were able to subjugate him before he burned everything down. I'd say it turned out rather well for us.

[They had themselves a god now after all. Pretty neat.]

[Sounds kind of horrifying to the religious types, but eh, that isn't her thing. Most gods spend enough time screwing around with mortals, so if someone can get away with screwing back a little on a world totally unrelated to her own, who is she to judge?]

So what're you gonna do with a god, exactly?

He should be quite useful for razing Insomnia to the ground. I suppose there will be some irony in people who have subjugated others via divine intervention being torn from their throne by that very same power.

[Why revere gods when you can just use them for what you want instead?]

When you say you restored her temple, was it damaged in an attack?

[Yeah she's not a fan of the idea of city-razing, but subjugation's bad too, so she's just gonna put a pin in that for now.]

Not an attack, no. Not sure I really know what happened to it. The priest who witnessed it said that suddenly everything in the building inexplicably aged and started to fall apart, like it'd been sitting there unmaintained for centuries. Just kinda collapsed in on itself. Didn't go great for the priest himself, either.

An anomaly in time? Interesting. It sounds almost as if one space was pushed forward through the timeline somehow.

I take it the priest aged as well?

He sure did. When we met him he was a walking, talking skeleton. Pretty wacky stuff.

Did you ever find what caused it?

Afraid not. One of life's little mysteries. But it was neat to witness, anyway.

♥ July 2019 Intro Mingle

you can't learn that name, verstael, it doesn't exist lmao

"Impossible" just means "We haven't figured out how to do it yet"

or it means canon is rude and didn't give it a name 8(

I know, was just being silly

what!!! silliness! who said that was allowed

/gets banned

it was nice while it lasted

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Oh man, has he ever met a god... There's the question that leads to crazy

how else does one casually say "I stole a god"

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