SAND IN THE GLASS ※ EVENT ※ TDM※ 2

[wildestmods]

SAND IN THE GLASS

The group's journey across the sands is fortunately one that's guided. The small desert they're in has mountains off to either side to guide them. They just have to traverse the desert valley until they reach the end.

The sun is bad but not completely unbearable. The heat is intense, but not enough to make them collapse instantly. A dry wind occasionally blows and while it's hot, it at least causes any sweat to instantly evaporate off.

But dry heat is still heat. And they still have to traverse the valleys between dunes and occasionally struggle over them if there are no dips to pick their way through. The mountains to the sides are tall and seem to have very few valleys, and their enemies are far off behind them.

The only way through is forward.

The intel from the letter they found is correct. It's only a day's journey to the ruins that were spoken of. It's evening when they arrive. A large, deep, deep well is one of the first things they find, just before the city. It still has water, clean and clear.

Beyond it...

AGRABAH

The ruins of a once-flourishing kingdom lay before them. The domes of the palace are cracked and one seems to have fallen, crushing part of the city - but there is no trail of damage. It didn't roll, it was somehow thrown by something massive.

The city has furrows of destruction and debris blocking certain streets and paths. It looks as if something tried to block certain paths and carved out other straight paths that led right to the palace. Claw marks and blade marks are visible in the debris clusters, like something tried to claw through it. Half-buried in those areas are the crushed and rotting remains of armored monsters - orcs.

The open paths have the discarded objects one might expect of evacuating people - dropped belongings, discarded bags of grain, lost sandals, children's toys. It looks almost like something blocked the monsters and created straight paths for people.

Or perhaps it's not a something but rather a someone. Right near the area they walk in, there's a massive handprint in the debris and dirt, large enough to stand in. And near the beginning of the paths to the palace there are massive finger holes dug into the dirt, like that same hand clawed those paths clear.

Whatever happened here, the city is now silent. The enemies that were here are gone and so are the kingdom's people. And it looks, from some of the belongings left behind - like children's toys that clearly look like trolls - that the trolls of Trollmarket followed in the footsteps of the kingdom's residents, through their evacuation routes.

It's safe for a moment, long enough for the group to hydrate, rest, and recover. There are even some supplies to be scavenged from the wreckage. Crude weapons they can steal from the dead orc bodies, small bags of grain, even bags of spices.

The light of the moon and stars is enough to move around with, due to the lightness of the sand and buildings. It seems to light the ruins up with its own glow. Due to the cracks in the walls and roofs of the remaining buildings, there's even some light that reaches inside them.

They'll need it because of the darkness that's due to descend.

NEW PLAYERS/CHARACTERS
Test drive memes in Wilderlands are full game events that are open to new players and characters. This means that current players can also top-level in them. Current characters will be able to sense that a new person is bound by the quest magic (so they'll know they're not an enemy) and know instinctually that they're new to the group.

Since the group already knows that new people can and do show up, they can reach out to the new character during the event to help them. There are also downtime prompts so people can intro during a quieter moment.

USEFUL LINKS


Premise/Short Facts | Arrival/Welcome | Setting Background/FAQ | Major NPCs


SHADOWHUNTERS

The Shadowhunters attack first, some of them firing arrows at the group to separate and herd them. The only words the squad hears at the beginning is a deep voice saying, "You know what to do."

The Shadowhunters are disciplined warriors. Each has an enchanted weapon of some kind, empowered to have minor advantages in ways similar to the group's blessed weapons, or magical runes for these advantages are already tattooed onto their bodies. Some can run faster than normal humans, up to 40 MPH, some have increased accuracy with their arrows and seem to never miss. Some heal much faster than normal, glowing healing runes activating anytime they're hurt. They fight with any weapons other than guns - whips, bows and arrows, swords, large knives, etc.

Their teamwork, however, seems to have its limits. While the Shadowhunters are all skilled, many of them were solo hunters, or only worked in small groups. They outnumber the squad but their teamwork isn't as impeccable as their skill with their weapons.

Nets

While they're extremely willing to injure the squad they seem to be trying to capture most of them instead of killing them, occasionally tossing out nets of glowing silver. Being caught in the nets renders someone paralyzed and weak, a deep cold settling into their bones. Some may even hear the shrieks of dying loved ones, whether they've actually died in reality or not. When someone particularly large is captured, the Shadowhunters work together to drag them in the net.

The nets are difficult to destroy, but can be with great force of some kind. It has to be aimed at the part closest to the Shadowhunters' hands, because the force required to break the nets would also injure those trapped inside them. The cold and paralysis fades when the victims are free, but some of the rescued may feel weak and need help staying on their feet. Unfortunately, even when they're broken, the nets of moonlight seem to be something they can recreate within several minutes, drawing them from runes on their arms.

Flying Monkeys

Exactly what it says on the tin. Chimp-sized flying screeching monkeys in dapper little hats and vests help the Shadowhunters by grabbing and carrying people towards them or their nets, herding them, or attacking and grappling with people to make them more vulnerable.

Orders

The Shadowhunters are dogged, and seem to have very clear orders: they're trying to capture people the way the Sisters did. They seem to have different sensibilities on how they do it with different types of people. They can automatically sense what kind of person someone is.

• Mundane humans or PCs with blessed weapons get the kid gloves, with the Shadowhunters telling them, "I know you don't understand, but we need you. There's a war, innocent people are dying. We need normal humans to join our cause." They'll still go in for the capture, but only with as much force is necessary.
• Nonhumans like aliens or metahumans with superpowers (who aren't mages, fae, vampires, or werewolves) get a slightly more brutal beatdown. Though sometimes the less disciplined Shadowhunters (since some are young or new) might coo over the cuter squad members (cute furry ones, short ones, etc) in a dehumanizing way, like they should be pets.
• Classic supernatural creatures like vampires and werewolves, fae, and most mages (with the exception of Necromancers) get sneers and particularly brutal attacks before attempted capture. They're not averse to putting them in traction before carting them away.
• Those that have unholy inclinations, like wielders of Cursed Weapons, Necromancers, and demons, they try to kill these people on sight, often using their seraph blades, holy weapons that can burn with a holy fire. Just a nick from these weapons causes a serious searing wound, and a full on stab anywhere on the body is instantly fatal. Any survivable wounds will automatically get a holy infection resistant to any external forms of healing other than the body's, though this is survivable if they're small.
• Actual Biblical angels will have the Shadowhunters straight up bow down before them and refuse to lay a hand on them - because they have oaths beyond that of the Unfinished Princess.

NAZGUL

Shortly after the Shadowhunters attack, a cold dread fills the city. A darkness sweeps through its streets, even though there's no change in the moonlight. The sky seems colder and the stars seem much farther away. A knee-deep fog seems to roll in from nowhere and cover the ground.

A piercing chill fills the air and a quaking dread rolls through the streets and alleys in waves. Regardless of who an individual is or what they've faced in life, regardless of powers or telepathic blocks, the dread and terror is a magical force of nature. Even those who never feel such fear will feel it now.

The Shadowhunters feel it too. There is a thin, anxious cry of "Nazgul!"

Dark cloaked and hooded shapes now move through the city streets, and something terrible happens: they multiply. Nine shapes enter, and as they stalk through the streets, they split into even more shapes. 9 becomes 18, 18 becomes 27. Each of the Nazgul is able to prism into 3 Nazgul total, linked as one mind, able to spread through the city and attack separate enemies.

They start slaying Shadowhunters immediately, creating chaos as the Shadowhunters attack back while still trying to complete their mission of kidnapping. There is mass chaos. Flaming arrows and flaming swords start lighting canopies and stands of cloth rugs on fire - at least enough to show the Nazgul are not particularly fond of it.

"Use a scatter rune, throw them off balance!"

A rune is activated, but the person that activated it is stabbed from behind right when they do, causing the spell to misfire, and instead of throwing just the Nazgul off balance, everyone is scattered through the streets. The Nazgul are not a terrifying united front now, but the squad and Shadowhunters are scattered as well. And though the spell will eventually burn out, it keeps firing off for a time, causing people to be teleported around. The only way to stop the effect is keep trying to move out of its range, deeper into the city, towards the palace.

Not an easy feat while the looming shapes of Nazgul stalk the streets and carved out evacuation paths, moving like ink.

Nazgul Effects

• Terror. Regardless of how big and bad a member of the squad is, regardless of whether or not they can usually block psionic influence, every character will feel stomach-churning, "what the fuck is this??" fear in the presence of Nazgul, though it depends on them how they work through it. They're not just ghouls or ghosts, they have the power of basically a world's version of Satan (or at least Satan's apprentice) working through them. While they don't cause flashbacks like the Nightrenders, they give off an unblockable aura of cold, monstrous, terrifyingly pure evil
• Morgul-blades. Their normal swords just work like normal swords but the Nazgul also have long blades they stab people with that have a shard of the blade fall off into the wound. This shard slowly works its way to the heart of the victim and eventually turns them to a wraith like them, forever subsumed to the control of the Dark Lord. While healing powers will be able to help somewhat with these wounds and slow the progress of the shard, they won't cure it or push the shard out of the body. Even those with surgical skills will find it impossible to pull a shard out - it'll always slip away from things like forceps. They'll have to reach Rivendell in time and get healing from the Elves to remove the shards.
• Black breath. If they can get in close - and especially if they can touch someone, the Nazgul can inflict a serious and eventually fatal condition, an infection from their aura. If they don't knock the person out instantly, they'll gradually lose consciousness and have a coma state filled with terrible nightmares. Then they'll eventually die. Players can decide how long it takes for their character to be affected, whether they go unconscious instantly and have to be carried, or last long enough to reach the woods beyond the palace. These characters won't have to wait for Rivendell to heal, a certain plant in the woods past the palace can be used to draw them out of their comas and cure it.

PROMPTS

a) HOTTER THAN HOT
The desert is not infinite but it is unforgiving. A day's journey is still a day's journey and because the Nightrenders will become active when the sun sets, you can't wait to travel by night. You have to hope that the information the group got about the length of the crossing will make up for the fact you have to trudge across it under the ruthless light of the sun - and hope that your water supplies will hold out.

It's a journey that will be difficult to make if you don't support each other, share water and food, help the weaker members keep moving - or even carry those who wind up collapsing of exhaustion and dehydration. It'll take a group effort to get everyone to the end.

If you're new, you'll have an even worse time, thrown in to the ravages of the desert with no warning. The caravan of oddball strangers you're drawn to may be your only salvation.

b) WHEN THE WIND'S FROM THE EAST
The desert gets especially bad when that big dust storm rolls through, whoops. You'll all have to hunker down, take what shelter you can in the rocks, and hold onto each other. And help dig out the smaller members after the storm to keep them from being buried alive.

And then there's the first aid after, like helping get sand of each other's eyes and tending to scratched corneas and sandblasted skin abrasions.

c) 'NEATH ARABIAN MOONS
Rejoice! You've arrived! And the well water right before the ruins is still pure, unspoiled, and abundant. There are also some supplies that can still be scavenged from the abandoned market. Fresh fruit and vegetables are right out because they've definitely been rotting at least a few days, but there are bags of rice and bulgur wheat grain, and some of the more nonperishable foods were left covered or in tightly sealed barrels, like dried dates, nuts, pickled turnips, and olives. You have some time to collapse and drink your weight in water, rest, replenish, and scavenge from the marketplace in the fading evening sun and the light of the rising moon. The empty marketplaces also leave room for cooking fires and some of the surrounding buildings have cooking oil and the right cookware to grind grain and make things like flatbreads.

d) A FOOL OFF HIS GUARD
Of course your period of rest is interrupted by another attack. Pretty typical by now, right? The Shadowhunters at least aren't as coordinated as they could be, but they are effective in their different squads. However, while they have subtle advantages in stretch, speed, agility, and accuracy from their angelic runes, they can't quite match the raw power of some of the squad.

Especially if you stand together.

So whether it's fighting Shadowhunters, swatting at their flying monkeys, freeing each other from nets, or protecting the group's more demonically-inclined from very fatal seraph blades, your best bet at everyone getting away is by trying not to do it alone.

e) COULD FALL AND FALL HARD
The dark shapes of the Nazgul are good at clinging to the shadows but the light of the stars and moon seem to be working extra hard at causing their movement to be seen, almost as if there is something holy to them that's watching over the group. The Nazgul don't speak, their gliding movement just push them inexorably after their prey. They don't seem to be trying to capture them. Just like the Nightrenders the group has dealt with in the past, they mostly go in for the kill.

The only exception is the times they draw one of their shorter Morgul-blades. Those wounds don't have to be fatal - any wound anywhere on the body will cause someone to succumb to becoming a wraith in time, forcing them to join them in the cold clutches of the Dark Lord, trapped into obedience to him forevermore.

One advantage you have is that the Nazgul aren't particularly acrobatic as keeping a solid form is its own challenge to them. You can take to higher ground to move safely, run through broken down walls, climb up to roofs, and/or jump across to other buildings. You may have to also make quick escapes, taking advantage of holes in floors that lead to stores of soft grain, scaffolding, ladders, ropes, or soft, bouncy canopies over shops that can act as trampolines.

Sometimes the only way to get away from the danger is by staying one jump ahead of the hitmen, one trick ahead of disaster, and one skip ahead of your doom.

f) WILDCARD
Maybe you decide to do none of the above. Or want to play out something like your character getting another to safety away from the battle. Go nuts!

OOC DETAILS
❧ Quest magic: Players can handwave that the quest bond magic is tugging the group together, and towards the palace and the lands beyond.

❧ Archivist Spells: There will be little eddies of leftover genie magic that allow Archivists to bank 4 iterations of a Sandstorm spell during downtime before the attack. This spell allows for a localized mini-tornado that can sandblast 1 enemy. Alongside disorienting and distracting them, the tornado's winds are strong enough to damage corneas and cause some abrasions.

❧ Teleportation: The flawed scatter spell one of the Shadowhunters activated with an angel rune can explain why two characters that might otherwise stay together through the whole thing might get separated. They'll blink around a few times before they can make their way out of range of the spell zone.

❧ Network: The network can be used by current players. Mirrors can and do float, and can follow someone as they move, allowing people to communicate while running or fighting. Feel free to use the network in parallel with the log events. Prospective players can handwave not using the mirrors because they haven't kicked on yet and it takes some time to figure out how they work, like magical Zoom calls.

❧ NPCing: The mods won't be npcing but players are free to npc the actions of the Shadowhunters, flying monkeys, and the Nazgul. The flying monkeys won't speak. The Shadowhunters can be npced as speaking, as long as it's kept to the listed rules for how they treat each type of person. They won't reveal any information other than they're kidnapping them to take them to the Unfinished Princess to fight in some kind of war, and are less likely to share this info the more inhuman a character is. he Nazgul, on the other hand, will never speak.

❧ Enemy damage: Players can have their characters successfully kill Shadowhunters if they would do so. They're a bit tougher than normal humans, but not by much. The Nazgul, however, can't be killed, though they can be routed off by holy attacks, fire, or powers players have gotten approved as being able to hurt unholy or ethereal beings. If you have a question about whether/how something will affect either enemy, feel free to ask the mods in the first comment below.

❧ Environment: Feel free to manipulate the environment. There are lots of buildings close together with scaffoldings, ladders, ropes, piles of barrels, just about everything you would want if you were either Jackie Chan fighting bad guys while holding a baby, or trying to PARKOUR! The orc corpses provide options for necromancy if Necromancers have powers to animate the date, and also crude weapons that can be scavenged for use.

❧ Experimentation: We'd like to encourage people to experiment! Obviously ask other players if they're down first, but it could be fun to do something other than 2 person threads, like maybe 2 PCs banding to rescuing a 3rd. Players are also encouraged to set limitations if they think it'd be more interesting, like locking their final escape prompt through the palace to the other side to a single thread partner and playing out the drama of a full escape.

Comments

[outofgalway]

Well, there's no reason to not take the offered cover, at least for the moment while he digests - a Garou, in a form that breaks the Veil, just hanging out in the open... but then, of course. Wherever this is, if faerie again or some other realm or place in the Umbra, it's certainly not some regular Tellurian place with all that he's witnessed so far...

So does that mean he can just fall asleep, once they have arrived in a safer place, without having to worry about who will see his sleeping form? But that's a side thought right now as he crouches down on the leeward side of the stranger.

More important right now is: "You should take cover, too. I saw a line of rocks before all of this started."

[credit_not_blame]

"How far?" Stacia asks in Hightongue, not expecting the guy to understand so much as hoping that the interrogative nature of the noise will get her message across. She hadn't spotted any particular rocky outcropping, and there's definitely too much sand in the air for her to spot it now. But if it isn't far off, she wouldn't object to having cover beyond her own fur.

[outofgalway]

"About fifteen metres into that direction," Colin explains, indicating the direction with a hand. He might not have a lot hands on experience with deserts and sandstorms, but he has a lot of experience with navigating thick fog, and this isn't that different, all things considered. "I can lead you." He'll have to stay in homid, though; it's something about how the perception of distance depends on the body oneself is in. He's not sure if he would still lead correctly in any other form.

[credit_not_blame]

Stacia does the mental math to convert metres to the approximate distance in feet, because she's American and her country is a mess. It doesn't sound too far away, and if this guy can steer her, so much the better. She blows sand out of her nose and rises to her feet, making sure to keep the bulk of her body between the boy and the wind.

"Lead on," she says again in Hightongue, still on the assumption that the gist will get across if not the actual words.

[outofgalway]

"Sure," he responds, knowing that any gesture might be lost to the sight and the wind, pulls his T-shirt back up over his mouth and nose, and starts moving. It's as quick as he can, as much as homid isn't really the best shape for this kind of weather. At least the medieval-ish clothes that the fae gave him are of sturdy, tightly woven material that keeps off most of the battering of the sand.

He's not worried that she won't be able to keep up - really, Hispo is probably a really good idea in this kind of weather. Hunter, he's sure, would have thought of it. Jabari as well, probably. But as much as Colin himself isn't homid, he was still raised in a very homid-dominated Sept and hispo is more or less the form furthest from his thoughts.

Once they've reached the rocks, he'll take cover behind them, and since there's enough space for a bit over two humans, or a human and a wolf, but definitely not enough for something the size of Stacia's current form, he suggests in a tone that screams this is really just a suggestion, please don't take this as me trying to order you around: "I think it will be easier if you shift down."

[credit_not_blame]

Stacia does her best to keep most of the wind off of the guy, but there's only so much she can do with the bipedal-verses-quadrupedal height difference. Once they get to the rocky outcropping, her thoughts tend toward the same direction as his; and while she's trying to figure out if there's a good way to say "don't freak out", he cuts her off by already knowing. She makes a surprised noise, then laughs.

"Yes, I think you're right," she says, and then shifts to Lupus because her romper is short-sleeved and short-legged and she doesn't like the idea of exposing either to the sand and wind.

"So, you've understood me this whole time?"

[outofgalway]

"Yes." He nods, the motion dislocating some stray strands of hair from his forehead and, now that they're close up and Stacia's view is less obstructed by flying sand, revealing a blind third eye in the middle of it, that looks pretty aggravated from sand flying into it, red and leaking a thick, white-yellow liquid. He doesn't seem to notice it at all.

Instead of acknowledging it, even by wiping away some of the sticky tears, he ducks his head, avoiding her eyes. "...I'm sorry, I didn't realise you didn't realise. I just stayed in homid because I would have gotten distances wrong if I changed."

[credit_not_blame]

The third eye is a bit of a surprise, but Stacia's met Metis before. She tries not to stare, but it does look painful and she itches to at least wipe away the goo.

"No need to apologize, I'm not upset with you," she says. "I've had so little contact with other Garou for the past couple years that I forgot that someone I don't recognize might actually understand me without me making an effort."

[outofgalway]

She's not- she isn't a Ronin, is she? He doesn't actually verbalise the thought, but it flashes across his mind before he arrives at a different explanation that would be both more and less worrying.

"How long have you been here?"

Wherever here is, really. He still assumes it's some realm, that he took the wrong branch of the moonpath and ended up somewhere entirely wrong.

[credit_not_blame]

"I haven't been here very long yet," Stacia explains, "but I was held prisoner somewhere else for a year and a half before me and the others they had enslaved could teach them how much of a mistake they'd made. Unfortunately when I tried to go home, I ended up here instead."

She huffs. "Speaking of, I'm Stacia Nothing-to-See-Here, Ragabash of the Shadow Lords. I used to have good manners, before I started walking in other worlds."

[outofgalway]

"I'm Colin," no-deed-name, still, almost a year after his first rite and over two years after his first change, but he's never really questioned that - he's a metis. he'll have to work a lot harder than anyone else to ever deserve one. Obviously. "Theurge of the Fianna. Nice to meet you.

...I was meaning to go back ...well, to the Near Umbra and the Tellurian, eventually. I don't-" a pause, and then he corrects himself: "I think I know what went wrong, time must have passed differently outside so I hit a new moon and the moonpath was both more dangerous and less clear than it would be when you should normally travel." Is this a good explanation for someone who isn't a Theurge? Maybe. He's trying. "So I must have taken the wrong exit. So... a bit like what happened to you, I guess. Just that to me, I wasn't gone for very long.