Beckoncall
World-Weaver and servant to the most-holy PC
CHAPTER ONE: "AS ABOVE, SO BELOW..."
All around the landscape, prostrate forms lay still sleeping, or slowly rising in the faint dancing circles of their lanterns. One by one, the lanterns rose, and the stone faces that formed an endless grey carpet below their feet gave way to the silent, but animated faces of other people... other bloods in the darkness. At first swarms of stinging insects plagued at them all, one lantern not enough to keep them at bay -- but as couples formed, and groups coalesced -- the insects kept greater distance, and with even just three or four lanterns they would scatter away altogether. Some saw this for it's obvious symbolism -- light pushed back the pain, just as it pushed back the dark.
Others saw the light as a needed curse, revealing their place in the panumbral darkness. They held their lanterns low and their crude stone knives high, distrusting the strangers in the dark as they found each other...
All around the landscape lay rising lanterns, some hopelessly isolated, some already in the company of a chorus of other streams of light.
The whispers of their ancestors seemed to urge them to find safety, and a brief respite... somehow, so that what little knowledge they had could be leveraged before some catastrophe befell one or all of them.
As if to answer, Growls and Roars sounded in the distance -- and in response to those, Screams of horror and despair. The farthest and most isolated lanterns winked out, one by one -- crashing to the stone and winking out, or vanishing entirely in the dark...
Fear gave way to defiance though, in some groups, and some individuals. The ink slid from their eyes and they looked to the other bloods, and their lanterns. In the moments to come, Leaders would distinguish themselves and followers would fall in line...
And then it came... The floating orbs, glowing orange, unlike a lantern -- their odd bio-luminescence made them appear as upside down balloons, trailing into the sky on grey-black tendrils extending into the vaulting darkness above. Two score of these bouncing corpulent lights, rising and falling as if to bounce over the landscape... in a pallid imitation of the movement of lanterns over uneven ground. Those close to the collective of lights strung into the sky could hear a low rumble of something gigantic overhead... and a windy noise akin to a "WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOH" broke the silence of the infinite dark.
in the darkness, some of the clandestine lights saw this collective of illumination as a savior or at least an alternative to the unbroken dark... and one by one those who followed the lights... some transfixed, some frenzied to keep up... suddenly, almost in unison, splashed into some inky, oily, shiny-surfaced water. The water was turbulent as evinced by those that could hold their lamps high over what rapidly dawned on all that observed was a trap by an enormous predator... in the splashing their lanterns dimmed, and in the growing dark could be seen THE HOOKS that descended from the mass of bouncing orange lights. Impaling, pulling skyward... to some unknown misbegotten fate in the dark above.
Some of the trapped elected to drown instead, filling their lungs with oily water and diving never to rise. But still on the outskirts of the spectacle more lone lanterns headed for the trap, the ground-skimming hooks searching for them and homing in on their light, or warmth... who could say.
No-one could see this better than the folk on the "black glassy knife." -- a landform like a hill, or more like a wall, stretched ever outward into the dark. What parts were not hopelessly dirty sparkled back the light of lanterns in a entrancing, darkly way... the "Glassy Knife" land-feature was six feet wide at the top at it's widest, and in places ten feet high.. The sides covered with sharp protrusions, but the top smooth, as if the rest of it had been broken away by something impossibly large. Bloods awoke astride and around this landform, the elevation giving them a little bit of range to the distance of their lanterns. All the better to witness the horror unfold on the oily lake.
Small congregations of lights began to dance, and wink out -- no lanterns coalesced in numbers to push back the darkness, only to attract predators, or reveal the snare that was the dancing lights as soon as it was too late.
You all stand somewhere in this chaos. Some alone, some in small groups... but one thing is clear, there seems no way, no where, to hide.
Can some among the chaos bring the light together?! Can some find sanctuary in the devouring darkness, and share how to hide with their kin?
Will some just lift their weapons and defy whatever comes?
As if to mock your efforts, the howling windy noise above sounds like a horn:
"WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOH!"
_____________________________________
PLAYERS: Declare what you wish to do in the darkness, and I will also handle this event on the discord. Right now the light of the lanterns is like a dinner bell, but the clever, those that will lead, can perhaps make something greater, do something greater, than die in this darkness... (post away, but over-complicated plans will fail, and some characters, especially if brave, may not live to see turn two...*)
(Though they can create new ones after their valiant predecessors)
GAME ON!
All around the landscape, prostrate forms lay still sleeping, or slowly rising in the faint dancing circles of their lanterns. One by one, the lanterns rose, and the stone faces that formed an endless grey carpet below their feet gave way to the silent, but animated faces of other people... other bloods in the darkness. At first swarms of stinging insects plagued at them all, one lantern not enough to keep them at bay -- but as couples formed, and groups coalesced -- the insects kept greater distance, and with even just three or four lanterns they would scatter away altogether. Some saw this for it's obvious symbolism -- light pushed back the pain, just as it pushed back the dark.
Others saw the light as a needed curse, revealing their place in the panumbral darkness. They held their lanterns low and their crude stone knives high, distrusting the strangers in the dark as they found each other...
All around the landscape lay rising lanterns, some hopelessly isolated, some already in the company of a chorus of other streams of light.
The whispers of their ancestors seemed to urge them to find safety, and a brief respite... somehow, so that what little knowledge they had could be leveraged before some catastrophe befell one or all of them.
As if to answer, Growls and Roars sounded in the distance -- and in response to those, Screams of horror and despair. The farthest and most isolated lanterns winked out, one by one -- crashing to the stone and winking out, or vanishing entirely in the dark...
Fear gave way to defiance though, in some groups, and some individuals. The ink slid from their eyes and they looked to the other bloods, and their lanterns. In the moments to come, Leaders would distinguish themselves and followers would fall in line...
And then it came... The floating orbs, glowing orange, unlike a lantern -- their odd bio-luminescence made them appear as upside down balloons, trailing into the sky on grey-black tendrils extending into the vaulting darkness above. Two score of these bouncing corpulent lights, rising and falling as if to bounce over the landscape... in a pallid imitation of the movement of lanterns over uneven ground. Those close to the collective of lights strung into the sky could hear a low rumble of something gigantic overhead... and a windy noise akin to a "WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOH" broke the silence of the infinite dark.
in the darkness, some of the clandestine lights saw this collective of illumination as a savior or at least an alternative to the unbroken dark... and one by one those who followed the lights... some transfixed, some frenzied to keep up... suddenly, almost in unison, splashed into some inky, oily, shiny-surfaced water. The water was turbulent as evinced by those that could hold their lamps high over what rapidly dawned on all that observed was a trap by an enormous predator... in the splashing their lanterns dimmed, and in the growing dark could be seen THE HOOKS that descended from the mass of bouncing orange lights. Impaling, pulling skyward... to some unknown misbegotten fate in the dark above.
Some of the trapped elected to drown instead, filling their lungs with oily water and diving never to rise. But still on the outskirts of the spectacle more lone lanterns headed for the trap, the ground-skimming hooks searching for them and homing in on their light, or warmth... who could say.
No-one could see this better than the folk on the "black glassy knife." -- a landform like a hill, or more like a wall, stretched ever outward into the dark. What parts were not hopelessly dirty sparkled back the light of lanterns in a entrancing, darkly way... the "Glassy Knife" land-feature was six feet wide at the top at it's widest, and in places ten feet high.. The sides covered with sharp protrusions, but the top smooth, as if the rest of it had been broken away by something impossibly large. Bloods awoke astride and around this landform, the elevation giving them a little bit of range to the distance of their lanterns. All the better to witness the horror unfold on the oily lake.
Small congregations of lights began to dance, and wink out -- no lanterns coalesced in numbers to push back the darkness, only to attract predators, or reveal the snare that was the dancing lights as soon as it was too late.
You all stand somewhere in this chaos. Some alone, some in small groups... but one thing is clear, there seems no way, no where, to hide.
Can some among the chaos bring the light together?! Can some find sanctuary in the devouring darkness, and share how to hide with their kin?
Will some just lift their weapons and defy whatever comes?
As if to mock your efforts, the howling windy noise above sounds like a horn:
"WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOH!"
_____________________________________
PLAYERS: Declare what you wish to do in the darkness, and I will also handle this event on the discord. Right now the light of the lanterns is like a dinner bell, but the clever, those that will lead, can perhaps make something greater, do something greater, than die in this darkness... (post away, but over-complicated plans will fail, and some characters, especially if brave, may not live to see turn two...*)
(Though they can create new ones after their valiant predecessors)
GAME ON!
