January Plotting: Bitter Winds Howling

[sticksandbonesmods]

OOC UPDATES

• Regular AC will be resuming in January!
• January is also a TDM month, so it’s the best time to think about who you may want to bring in or to enable the people you love who aren’t us.
• New characters of preexisting players are welcome on this post, for the record!
• A new past life plotting meme will be going up January 1st to ring in the new year as well, and hopefully the new format will make it more engaging.
• We are going to set 2024 on fire and I am personally holding 2025 at gunpoint on all our behalf. Otherwise, we have a lot of really fun things planned for the year and we are greatly looking forward to playing things out with everyone together this year!
• Also there is an end of year love meme for the game. This winter’s been hard. This year’s been hard. Let’s end it with a bit of love and joy.

SETTING UPDATES

• Mayoi has built a shrine to Ourania, which doubles as a new home. It is placed in the formerly burnt town!
• The weather is going to reach sub-zero temperatures, with raging snowstorms threatening one’s health if they stray too far from the indoors… though with how bitter cold it is, that may not help as much as you might want it to.
• The river and lake are both completely frozen over, and not even Terho’s cabin has any light or presence to it. State of the seaborne and fish and Sinann? Frozen.
• By nature of their magic, the fruit trees and blackberry bushes are still perfectly fine. It’s just a matter of getting to them at this point.
• As the winter progresses, the cold encroaches further and further into where it should not be. Cups from the cabinets are frigid as ice, and any fires you try to keep burning flicker even as you stoke them and feel as if they could go out at any moment- Irene’s fireplace in the inn seems to be the only one that isn’t affected.

PLOT UPDATES

• Characters will experience strange dreams of water and something trying to reach out. What could it mean? Great question!
• New arrivals will find themselves struggling to get through the storm to safety, and will find themselves drawn to various buildings within the settlement. Hanging from their necks will be a pendant with a heavy snowflake amulet. While they wear these, the wraiths may use their voice to call for their sacrifice, and the new characters will feel incredibly cold even within the hottest places in town until they melt the amulet in a fire.
• On top of the awful cold, the Grove and surrounding forest are once again under siege- though this time it doesn’t actually seem to be the Fallen Sun’s fault. The winter comes beckoned by the call of wraiths of frost and ice, and their presence only makes things worse.
• They can be fought off with a partner or more- they’re much too strong to face alone- and for a time their defeat will abate the winds, but the howling blizzards return not long after. Working alone may cause a curse similar to last January to befall characters as well, where they slowly turn to ice unless saved by an act of true love (platonic or otherwise). The buddy system is the way to go!
• (Mods will not be handling these fights, NPC the wraiths in battle as desired.)
• All the while the wraiths call for a sacrifice. They do not elaborate on what they could possibly want, but “to stop this awful winter, sacrifices must be made”. Player characters must decide on their sacrifices and how they make them. The results will impact the end of the month with a small mini-event.

Please use the following form for plotting.

Character:
Canon:
CR:
Plans:
Not Seeking:
Anything Else:
Recent Posts or Toplevels:
Past Life Plotting Toplevel:
Meme:

<strong>Character:</strong><br /><strong>Canon:</strong><br /><strong>CR:</strong><br /><strong>Plans:</strong><br /><strong>Not Seeking:</strong> <br /><strong>Anything Else:</strong><br /><strong>Recent Posts or Toplevels:</strong><br /><strong>Past Life Plotting Toplevel:</strong><br /><strong>Meme:</strong>

Comments

(frozen comment) SACRIFICES

[sticksandbonesmods]

Please list your sacrifices here, with a link to the thread.

(frozen comment) Re: SACRIFICES

[submittome]

Affogato's Callan Organ wish

If it works, hey! If it doesn't, well then. Guess he's the sacrifice.

(frozen comment)

[goldenambition]

Here we go

(frozen comment)

[alphacraft]

(Threadless, with permission)

Odile decided to make kagami mochi, just on the off chance that the spirits appreciate the thought. She made 10, one for each decade, since she has no idea how many spirits there are and making 100 seemed a little unhinged. Since she doesn't know of any specific temple or devotees to bring the offering to, she ventures out until she finds a suitable stone to leave the plate on and says a prayer before going back inside.

(frozen comment) Re: SACRIFICES

[eidxiety]

threadless, also with permission, also with two characters:

Ain: A plate of cookies that he sets out into the snow and loudly announces, "I baked these, so you're getting a sacrifice of homemade cookies and my time & effort."
Flamebringer: The photos of Lisa, Podenco, Popukar, & Lena from his wallet, that he willingly hands to a wraith if it'll let him close enough without hexing him.

(frozen comment) Re: SACRIFICES

[forwander]

Passenger will directly hand the wraiths some of his specific strain of coffee seed he's propagated, and tell them: "I grew these myself in Sargon, and now here. I do not know if you enjoy coffee, or if you will want to plant these, or simply eat them as they are — but they were grown with love regardless."

(frozen comment) Re: SACRIFICES

[lilyberation]

Tingyun: a memory of her first ride in the sky as a child, the moment she fell in love with the world above
Chung: what do you mean sacrifice he's homeless and itemless and aaaaaaaaaaaaaaa (he will offer another deer later)
Lily: whoops she forgot somehow
Mafuyu: She will do something terribly unwise and give blood cut from her hand. Don't... don't worry about it...

(frozen comment)

[ghostharasser]

Originally put here

But TL;DR Dipper sacrifices a significant article of clothing from every "life".

(frozen comment)

[start_again]

Siffrin has no idea how sacrifices are supposed to be done here, so he just goes with what feels right. He takes one of the items he arrived with – a photo of himself alone in an otherwise empty room – and folds it in half, quietly whispering please stop, please stop, please stop into the fold of it, and then opens a window and lets the winter winds snatch it away.

Dys does not make any kind of sacrifice.

(frozen comment)

[magicalsplashflare]

Mizuki: The photo album his mother put together
Mamika: Several encouraging notes that are all telling the spirits how great they are - and when that doesn't work, she'll give up her phone and all of the Hello Kitty-esque charms attached to it.
Ezell: To much reluctance, Federico's gun.
Enciodes: A climbing hook gifted to him by Cliffheart

(frozen comment) Re: SACRIFICES

[succiduous]

After being bullied by his husband to make a sacrifice :/ Gnosis will mumblemumble give them a written note of his favourite tea recipe that he makes all the time. Then he will go on a tangent about how he's the best at making tea so this is a good blend dammit.

(frozen comment)

[alphacraft]

Odile is also sacrificing a small pile of the spice from her father's home that she got on arrival with some happy childhood memories attached, along with a sprig of winterberries and the prayer Beiwe taught her.

(frozen comment)

[lupusxylem]

Threadless (With Permission):

Wolfwood: Wolfwood offers the wraiths some of his cigarettes, simply stating: "I can't live without them"
Sesa: Sesa will be offering some of his finer metalcraft that he's been practicing making over the cold winter. He informs them proudly it's "one of a kind", even though some of them look like little more than metal lumps. It's still obvious he's proud of them.