outofsticks | January Plotting: Bitter Winds Howling

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:

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Character: Pure Vanilla Cookie
Canon: Cookie Run: Kingdom

CR: PV is a former Cookie turned Human turned Minotaur, whose blind as fuck and can only see via the connection he shares with his Seeing Eye Staff. That Kinda Has a Personality of It's Own Which May or May Not Be an Actual Evil Beast From The Past. It's a whole thing. He is kind, sweet, and ridiculously self-sacrificial. He also refuses to believe in his own abilities despite being shockingly powerful, preferring to stay a humble healer.

That being said he will use this abilities to kick ass in defense of his loved ones if need be.

He recently died and had his healing magic ripped from him, so he's sort of spiraling but also determinedly switching his focus to medicine he can make. He used to be Immortal but he broke apart his soul jam and gifted it to Beiwe, Ourania and used the rest to resurrect Aurora. Now he's very much Mortal and slowly dying of Oripathy that he gave himself to study it. Please read above to the self-sacrificial thing. He spends most of his time in the Clinic, teaching others how to heal, researching Oripathy, crocheting gifts, helping Livio with the School, gardening- no he doesn't sleep.

Plans: He will not be giving of himself via sacrifice for the Wraiths! I know! Weird! But you see, he promised Cacao and Lily that he wouldn't anymore. He gave this world the Truth, he infected himself with Oripathy, he's corrupted (which is slowly sinking in further, those Daffodils sure look beautiful and healthy and so thick clustered around his neck! No he doesn't hear Suri cause of protection but-) and he's very tired. Mortality does that to a 2000+ year old man. BUT he will AID OTHERS in fighting off the Wraiths! As well as healing any frostbite that might occur. Also be trying to get everyone to cluster into the Inn around the undying flame there. Body warmth helps keep everyone warm too.

Not Seeking: Oh, please. I'm seeking everything. Please come at me.

Past Life Plotting Toplevel: Like Affo Im not gonna post this as the new one is coming up soon nods