TDM #5 - Paradesium

[pumpkinhollow]

Pumpkin Hollow Gazette March Issue

[Find our plain text version here!]

Pumpkin Hollow Gazette

3/8/24 | TDM #5 - Paradesium
Content Warnings: individual CWs found per prompt in "Further Details"
Forecast: Partly cloudy with a chance of rain

WELCOME TO PUMPKIN HOLLOW!

By Yorick Aberdeen

Apparently the ferryman needed a bigger boat!

ACROSS TOWN - Since June of 16:53, a steady stream of new arrivals to our sleepy little town has flowed in by ferry, emerging from the fog. And it seems this trend is due to continue, as this March is due to be on record the highest number of new residents in a single month!

We are incredibly grateful for all of you coming to our home and filling it with life once more, even though the dangers of our local curse have significantly increased since all of you began arriving. This reporter isn’t complaining--- additional harm to my own person notwithstanding!

If you are a new arrival, please report to Town Hall at your leisure so that we can help you find work and permanent lodging. Or don’t! The Oak & Iron is happy to rent you a room for as long as you need. Best of luck to all of you, and as we say in Pumpkin Hollow, may your lanterns always be lit!

CHARITY DRIVE ENCOURAGES CULTURAL EXCHANGE

By Cecil Gershwin Palmer

One of the charming toys created during last year's Doll Picnic.

FESTIVAL GREEN - Preparations are underway for the upcoming annual Doll Picnic. A charity event sponsored by the Artisan’s Guild, this picnic is an Anwyllic tradition that was brought to the island and continued with love. The first Doll Picnic was organized by Dame Meredith Idlewild of the town of Glyn Rhuthun on Kora’s Haven, with the toys being donated to the local children’s hospital after a massive landslide engulfed a local school.

The Artisan’s Guild has baskets of material available for making dolls, including fabric, yarn, stuffing, buttons, and the like. However, tradition states that sourcing materials from the natural world (for example, acorn husks to use as buttons or deadwood to carve for doll arms and legs) results in the toys being blessed by Serrenai, who will watch over the children who play with them. The toys will be donated to local children after the picnic, including those who are ill or whose families can only afford necessities.

Newcomers are explicitly invited to join in the making of toys, and the resulting picnic. As a personal note: the locals have never heard of a teddy bear before. This reporter expects to see several, as we introduce our traditions to their traditions.

PLANTING SEASON BEGINS!

By Yorick Aberdeen

After a difficult winter, the appearance of spring's sprouts lifts our spirits.

NORTHWEST HOLLOW - The spring thaw is in full swing! That means it’s time for our local farmers to begin planting. Town Hall is offering a small reward to any of our newest arrivals who would be interested in assisting with planting season for farms less than a year old.

Anyone fresh off the boat interested in making 100 Brass should seek out Eddie and Angel Kasbrak, Arthur Morgan, Cèsar Salazar, Mairi Miann, Ylva Wolfsdottir, or Muriel and offer assistance with tilling and planting. We look forward to rewarding you for your contributions!

HOT SPRINGS OPEN FOR RELAXATION

By Yorick Aberdeen

Photograph provided by the Safety Board!

CRANE'S RIDGE - After a recent earthquake opened up a hot spring on the lower portion of Crane’s Ridge, a small portion of the Pumpkin Hollow Damage Claims Assessment Corps has been working to get the area cleaned up and safe for use by the general public.

Following its recent approval for compliance by the Safety Board, we are pleased to announce that Porter’s Spring is now available for public enjoyment! It can be accessed by taking the train to the North Station or by following the central trail out of Northwest Hollow, though the Safety Board does not recommend making this journey on foot due to its proximity to Lake Sal-Co-Penn. Enjoy!

STRANGE CAVERNS DISCOVERED BENEATH CRANE’S RIDGE

By Yorick Aberdeen

A small glimpse into this world beneath our own.

CRANE RIDGE - In addition to the hot springs, the earthquake can also be credited for a major cave-in in our Crane’s Ridge mines. A large tunnel was completely buried in rubble by the inexplicable natural occurrence. For the past several months, our mining team has been chipping away at the cave-in to try and regain access to the blocked tunnels in the lower area of the mountain.

In one of these tunnels, however, the team discovered a shocking surprise as the rubble was removed! Apparently, just beyond the mine walls, there has been an entrance to Hepogaia--- a subterranean nation running below our own fair country and many others. It seems that this particular portion of Hepogaian territory is also trapped within the barrier. Brief attempts at scouting by the Safety Board have noted a plethora of subterranean wildlife, both familiar and unfamiliar. This incredible new environment, hiding just out of sight beneath our island, is so full of wonder and splendor that it has earned a fitting name--- “Paradesium.”

A recent ecology study and expedition run by Pumpkin Hollow’s own Dr. Elias Coldwood has redirected their efforts to this new location, but those interested in exploring and scouting out this fantastical new discovery independently are encouraged to pack thoughtfully and travel in groups of two or more! Any information obtained during excursions into Paradesium would be appreciated by the Pumpkin Hollow Board of Safety.

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Further Details...

Charity Drive

The Doll Picnic Charity Drive will run throughout the next two months during our TDM, and there will be an event later on involving posing the dolls for a picnic. Once a photo is taken, the children will be allowed to come picnic with their new toys and take them home after!

There is absolutely no way this could possibly go wrong. Absolutely no dollmakers will be jumpscared or attacked by possessed dolls. None at all. (Okay, maybe some of them. But it’s fine. It’s for a good cause.)

[Mod Note: you can just make a doll without it coming to life and trying to kick your ass, that part is optional. Also the dolls will be blessed at the picnic and rendered unable to attack children.]

Planting Season

Any brand-new characters will get 100B extra on their stipend if they submit an AC-length thread with one of the existing farmers on their first Activity Check! This will be available regardless of whether the character qualifies for normal bonuses, but can only be redeemed by those who app in.

For reference for new players, threads are considered AC-length if they are ten tags in length (meaning 5 of your own tags and 5 from your partner.)

Hot Springs

Porter’s Spring is a perfectly normal and safe hot spring! However, you can encounter any number of perils on your way there if you decide to travel on foot, allowing new players to revisit some of our earlier events.

Check out our bestiary (pending update to new format) for more information on creatures such as Brutoks, the River Walker, and the Pine Devil, or stumble on Lake Sal-Co-Penn for a nasty surprise! Brutoks may also steal personal items from spring-goers on occasion. Don’t chase after them alone unless you want to be turned into a tree!

The Tristitia

In addition to the creatures in the wild, in town after dark characters may also encounter the Tristitia, Pumpkin Hollow’s newest cryptid.

She is a wraith-like spirit which haunts the island. Wearing tattered black clothes and colored all in shades of gray, she appears as a woman who walks around weeping with a caved-in chest, covering her face with her hands. Harmless if given a wide berth, but if she is set off, she will take out her desire for empathy for her grief on her target. She does this by embracing them and drawing out their own grief and trauma, leaving the target catatonic before she fades away, temporarily assuaged.

Into Paradesium

Crystals, golden with light and raw magical energy, cast what looks like sunlight down into the cascading cave. For every foot lower that the ground curls down from the entrance, the trees stretch ever-higher, carrying the raucous cries of animals unlike the surface of Marrow Isle had ever heard.

A jungle, so lush with life, sprawls ahead of any brave enough to venture into it. But what is there to see?

For Paradesium specifically, the bestiary has received a significant update. Creatures featured in prompts have their links to the accounts by Dr. Coldwood and his team marked with stars for easy location.

Below are multiple prompts for some encounters to be had in the jungle, but feel free to create any of your own encounters with any of the creatures listed! If the descriptions are short, feel free to write the creatures' behaviors however makes sense.

Welcome to the Jungle

Swallowed by dense canopies and noise, the jungle is quick to swallow any who travel within it whole.

Eyes are quick to find you, however. Perching in the treetops are a variety of small wyverns in vibrant colors, heads tilting as they try to comprehend what you could be. They squawk, chatter, and some of the bolder ones draw closer - if you sit anything aside and leave it unattended for too long, some even bolder than that will pilfer it, taking the object into the trees to admire with its companions.

Reptilian hunters with bright, keen eyes, the Plommon, consider you with much of the same interest. This interest increases tenfold if you happen to feed them.

If the prying eyes are no bother, then the forest's bounty is ripe for tending and taking. Bananas hang off trees, colorful citrus fruits catch light on their waxy peels, and bulky cocoa beans are jostled by movement in the branches above them. Even the broad leaves of the plants prove extraordinarily useful, whether you're looking to come in and quickly leave, or intend to push further within.

Wherever you go, those curious eyes follow you. Perhaps even out of the cave, should your attempts to shoo an adventurous creature away. What an odd way to gain a new team member.

Down a Few Notches on the Food Chain

(CWs: Potential for death, gore, or animal death)

Unfortunately, not all can be pure bounty and new friends in a place like this.

With the cavern sprawling widely and massively, there are many significantly larger creatures in this space, and some seem to be keen to take up opportunity for new prey. As you explore, there's a new feeling of eyes upon you, and the silence that overtakes the surrounding trees spells nothing good to come.

Any one of the massive predators in the wood has you in it's sights.

Escape is difficult, but manageable, as is fighting back. Creatures can be challenged, and hides, bones, and other spoils can be claimed from them, should there be success! If not, this is a good opportunity for familiarization with the Death page.

The silkhide chimera specializes in persistence. The longer and further you go, the more exhausted you'll get. A break is an opportunity that it will be keen to take.

The greenstalker excels at ambushing and high-speed pursuit. At top speeds of 30MPH, your party will need strategy and skill on their side to keep this beast at bay. (Or, alternatively, a source of fire.)

The elephant raptor does neither of these - the beast's sheer length of reach does all it needs to. Water and mud soften the sounds of the gargantuan creature's approach. Stay alert, and be sure that you hear it before it's upon you.

Safe travels become more difficult to manage, the further in you go. Deep, rumbling snores tell you that there's a chance you're just getting to the greater threats this paradise has to offer...

Fragments of the Past

Through great distances traveled, this "uninhabited" cavern begins to show signs that may speak to that not having always been the case.

Ruins of homes, crumbled bricks and tiles, can be found at the deepest reaches of the cavern. These dilapidated buildings, though worn with time, tell a story: the people who left his place, one that could be identified as a stenholm to any familiar with dwarvish culture, did not leave it on good terms.

Essentials were clearly taken with them, as the ruins of this place lack tools or clothing. Valuables are still scattered throughout, however. Large objects with too much history to have been left behind by indifference dot the collapsing homes. Ritual circles still waft radiant energy from them.

In the remains of a temple, an altar stands, cracking with age and covered in plants as the cavern reclaims it. Old candle-stands have rusted with age, but still stand, undisturbed.

Just before the altar, folded onto its side (as best as one can be, when only pieces remain), lies a skeleton. The clothes are tattered remains of stained whites and dulled blues, and the wildlife have cleaned flesh from bones, but it's remained undisturbed by time.

There's a quiet sadness to this place that lingers, even with the people who inhabited it so long since lost.

Should you linger too long, however, there comes the distinct feeling of not being alone.

Clair de Lune

(CWs: Long-term isolation, extinction)

Golden eyes of a human face follow your every moment, and the moment you lock your gaze onto them, the face emerges from the darkness, partially covered by spilling dark hair.

What follows this face, however, is not a human face - but, rather, a feline body with sprawling, grey-flecked wings.

There's a long, tense silence, as it emerges fully. Standing easily at eight feet tall while on all fours, the size of this creature becomes more and more apparent as it emerges from the dark of the collapsed wind.

Unlike the other animals of the cavern, though, there seems to be an anxiousness to its look. The lion's chest rises and falls with short, nervous breaths.

And then, in a hushed, woman's voice, hoarse from disuse, it speaks.

"Who are you? Why have you come here?"

-------------------

The Sphinx is a new NPC available for characters to interact with, should they delve deep enough into the caverns to find the stenholm. She's wary of all the new faces, and tends to be somewhat flighty, but seems cautiously interested in what new humans being in Hepogaia have to offer. For the sort looking to understand this place, it's people, or intend to trade, she can be communed with.

To interact with her, comment on the TL provided from beastsofthehollow with her icon, and if the initial introduction isn't your speed, feel free to encounter her however you like!

Comments

[hate_gettin_older]

"Look," and he's working to keep his temper -- this is diplomacy from him, really it is -- "let me have two fuckin seconds to get my head around this, all right? Friend of mine got fucked up bad by vampires, and they weren't the wild animal kind. Maybe that's got nothing to do with you, so just -- just fuckin wait a moment after you drop something like that, christ."

[lordoftheozarks]

"I'm sorry that your friend was hurt, truly, but it's hardly fair to blame me."

(The author would like to pause here for ironic laughter.)

"Do you give every person you meet a moment after informing them you are human? You are, I'm assuming, human?"

[hate_gettin_older]

"I fuckin just said --" Edgar throws his hands in the air, but doesn't finish the sentence.

"Yeah, human. Don't come off like you think that's the same thing." A pause. "Unless you come from someplace where humans are monsters out of stories and most people don't think they're real?"

[lordoftheozarks]

Erik crosses his arms over his chest. "In fact, before the accords for peace were signed, humans did hunt and kill my kind indiscriminately. They called us monsters and we called them the same. I am not some creature from storybooks. Just because vampires were considered fictitious in your world does not mean we ever were in mine."

A huff and he continues. "More to the point. If I had any intention of attacking you, I've had plenty of opportunity already, haven't I?"

[hate_gettin_older]

"Well. That's different then, innit." He looks away; his scowl has grown deeper, with a sullen edge to it, but his momentum's clearly ground to a halt.

"Fine," he adds after a moment, much lower. "Sorry. If it's not about you then it's not about you."

[lordoftheozarks]

"Thank you. Apology accepted."

Erik sighs.

"Up until now, I thought we were getting along quite well. Is it too late to try again?"

[hate_gettin_older]

And that ... honestly, he wasn't expecting that. It's oddly heartening that the man seems to want to try again.

"Dunno." He offers a smile. "Worth the try, you think?"

Outside, the moving landscape begins to slow, and Edgar unconsciously braces against the deceleration underfoot.

[lordoftheozarks]

"I do," Erik answers.

He can sense the train slowing and adjusts his stance accordingly. From the outside, it barely looks like more than a subtle shift of his weight on one foot. "Let's get to know each other better while we soak in the warm water. What do you say?"

[hate_gettin_older]

Edgar's smile deepens a little, as the train pulls to a halt at the station.

"I say sounds like a nice way to spend an afternoon."

time skip ahead to them in the water?

[lordoftheozarks]

"I couldn't agree more."

He considers offering an arm out to escort Edgar out of the train, but he thinks better of it. Give him more time to warm up, he thinks. So, he gestures instead as the doors open. "After you."

yep!

[hate_gettin_older]

If one wants time to warm up, a hot spring is probably one of the best places to do just that, both literally and figuratively.

Edgar doesn't strip down to bare skin; he's gathered that most places don't generally encourage the casual nudity expected at the public baths back in the fairy castle where he spent some time. Instead he's brought a spare pair of boxers, enough to qualify as a swimsuit most places he's been or heard of, for lounging in the steaming water. And lounging he is, head tipped back and luxuriating in the warmth.

"Worth the ride, you think?"

Re: yep!

[lordoftheozarks]

Erik disrobes to reveal he is already wearing his full-body striped bathing suit beneath the rest of his clothes. The sleeves of his suit come down to his elbows and the pants reach to his knees. It isn't that he's shy of showing skin, it's that he tends to charge for the privilege of seeing more of it these days. (Or, this is what he will say to anyone to deflect from the fact that anything less covering might reveal those scars on his back.)

"Oh, very much so," Erik murmurs from where he sits across from Edgar. "Now that I know this is here, I really may be content to live the rest of my years on this island or, at least, a great many of them."

[hate_gettin_older]

(Edgar's got some scars of his own, as Erik will be able to observe; nothing so dramatic as a lash, but creases and dents suggesting old cuts, old punctures, long since healed.)

"Enough hot water to lie down in," he says dreamily, "bout as good as anything ever gets."

A pause.

"That and decent food."

[lordoftheozarks]

Erik admires all of Edgar's battle scars of life openly, feeling a pang of something like envy. Aside from the scars on his back that shame him, he has no such marks to show how time has touched him. His thousand years of existence has left no trace. None that can be seen, that is.

"I don't know if it's the best that things can get," Erik says with a playful smile. They could be fooling around in the hot water, after all.

He snorts when Edgar continues with his addendum. "Well, I can't argue that the food here is decent, but in my case that's a bit more of a loaded statement. For me, good food and good company can be one in the same."

[hate_gettin_older]

Edgar snorts with laughter at what he assumes is a smoother sort of dirty joke -- innuendo is what he would think if he were more familiar with that word.

(It'll be some time before he remembers this and realizes what kind of joke Erik was actually making, and he will be furious with himself for not getting it sooner.)

"Company's been a bit of all right too," he says. "Fuckin weird, some of em, but all right."

[lordoftheozarks]

(R.I.P. to Edgar sitting up in the middle of the night like WAIT!?)

"Weird?" He cocks his head, his tone and posture both making it clear he's asking in amusement. "In what way?"

[hate_gettin_older]

The amusement makes Edgar bristle a little, inwardly -- but laughter bubbles up in him at the same time.

"Well, if you can believe it, heard there's this one kid so dumb he don't know a fuckin vampire when he sees one."

[lordoftheozarks]

Was that... flirting? That's fucking adorable.

Erik chuckles and paddles a little closer. "Oh, I wouldn't be too hard on him. Most vampires you hear about are far less polite than I am. How was he to know?"

He settles in right beside Edgar, voice dipping low and sultry, "The cure for that is getting to know your friendly town vampire better, of course."

[hate_gettin_older]

And that's ... yeah, that's a good sort of look, the kind he's answered any number of times before with full enthusiasm. And he's tempted to do the same here, maybe. If.

(There's. There's something, nagging at the back of his mind, some memory he can't quite bring into focus. A dream he had, years ago, something to do with Max.)

"Not saying no to that," he says slowly, "just ..."

[lordoftheozarks]

"Just... what?" Erik prompts, as he finger-walks his pale hand up Edgar's shoulder playfully.

"Go on. You can tell me."

[hate_gettin_older]

Something about that tone gets to him, irritating and enticing in almost equal measure. It's a heady combination, and makes him want to both irritate and entice right back.

"Is it gonna piss you off again if I say no biting?"

[lordoftheozarks]

"Of course not," Erik purrs. He's enjoying watching Edgar's hackles rise.

"I always ask before I sink my teeth in. If you say no biting then there will be no biting. It's your loss."

[hate_gettin_older]

"Right," he snorts, "I'm saying it, then. Think that much of your teeth, do you? Get a lot of compliments on how long and hard they are?"

[lordoftheozarks]

"The compliments generally refer to my skill in using them, but as you can see, they are quite large." Erik smiles in a way that purposefully lets them show. All point-five-inches of them.

"But I will respect your wish. I am skilled with more than just my teeth of course."

[hate_gettin_older]

"Hearing a lot of big talk from that pretty mouth." Edgar smirks at him, and moves a hand to trap the smoother, paler hand against his shoulder. "Want to show me what else you're good at?"