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ph_memes2024-04-02 06:46 pm
TDM #5 - Paradesium [REPRINT]
[Find our plain text version here!] MOD NOTE: April's event for members will take place between April 12-25 and will impact the whole island. As such, any tags taking place here over that time will need to be back- or future-dated unless an alternative is discussed with a mod. Don't worry over the details of this too much--- time is soup, after all. Just something to be aware of. Thanks!
Pumpkin Hollow Gazette
4/2/24 | TDM #5 - Paradesium [REPRINT]
Content Warnings: individual CWs found per prompt in "Further Details"
Forecast: Very rainy! Chance of severe storms.
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 past March is 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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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!
no subject
He sighs heavily. "As for the other thing...this curse worries me, I don't mind saying so out loud. I'm something of a scholar of such things -- purely academically, of course, although I have resolved a demonic infestation once or twice when nobody else was available -- but this is entirely unlike anything I've ever seen or heard of before. The power required to cast a spell of this size would be...astronomical. Certainly no mortal caster could manage it. And even then, where is it anchored? How is it being maintained?" He shakes his head, puffing pensively away at the cigarette so it won't rudely go to waste. "I'm not even sure where to start looking..."
fun fact: "obsessed" used to mean the same thing as "possessed"
Anzu cocks his head, trying hard to control his expression, but for once, someone's stumbled on a combination of speaker and subject that renders it somewhat harder for him to mask, in any of the senses he's had to mask. The surprise is briefly but clearly evident on his face. He only just manages not to duck his head, but he can feel his face flushing.
"'Tis a necessary and useful occupation, yes," he says, and bites his lip. "Ahh, forgive me, darling. It's been my life's work for decades now, nu? It's easy for one to start viewing one's own calling as trivial or at least merely ... ah, humdrum." But he's flattered. He's proud of his profession, but it's the pride of one who fundamentally views it as a difficult vocation without glamour.
He drums his fingers on the bench, thinking. Shen Qingqiu's manner of talking is not fooling him—he's clearly talking to a knowledgeable and skilled exorcist, if not outright a fellow Koschey, one of the few who opt to skip most of the parts involving warm bodies and bodily fluids not yet dried or congealed, and focus on the more difficult parts, the parts what require sitting up with the obsessed, with the hag-ridden, with those whose families don't know if they should be saying MiSheberakh or sitting shivah. And with demons.
Anzu is not a fan of having to deal with demons. Demons are exactly like people, but both people and demons refuse to admit it, making everything twice as hard as it needs to be.
"Shin-daleten, ghosts, the dead and those what don't die when they're killed, they're all my jurisdiction, nu?" he eventually says. "In theory, at least. I've never dealt with anyone what could hold an entire town under a curse. I have dealt with those what could ensnare the population of a town or a town's genius loci, but ah," he sighs, heavily. "If this place has an indwelling spirit, I have not met them. Troubling, nu? This place may not work in a way I can understand."
I love this kind of fun fact XD
It's both comforting and embarrassing to hear his own thoughts echoed by Anzu's mouth. Comforting because ah, here is clearly a real expert, someone whose thighs he can cling to in an emergency! Embarrassing because oh shit, here's somebody with the know-how to see right through him!! He'll have to be very careful not to overreach himself around Anzu; it would be terrible if somebody like this realized just how much of a faker Shen Qingqiu really is!
"That's the problem exactly," he calmly agrees. "How much of our knowledge still applies? If I start issuing demon-warding talismans, will they keep people and their homes safe? Or would it amount to nothing more than a waste of paper?" He frowns. "I've read of situations where the ancient scholars would deliberately summon a demon in order to test their techniques upon it, but such a move is always risky. One must take care not to call up that which they cannot put down."
[And a fun fact in return: in Chinese lit, "hugging the thighs" isn't a sexual move, but closer to the English idiom of "riding the coattails." It means to rely on someone stronger for protection or profit XD Of course, in Scum Villain it winds up taking on some innuendo anyway, since both of the "thigh-hugging" characters end up married to the man with the thighs!]
i love the chance to show off archaic/niche/calqued slang ngl
Martial brother, nu? thinks Anzu, but says nothing on that subject, merely smiles and inclines his head—flattered that Shen Qingqiu’s thoughts jumped to comparing him to someone he—as in, Shen Qingqiu—clearly respects.
And if Shen Qingqiu’s silently struggling with impostor syndrome, Anzu’s too old to care about saving face in these matters, so at the mention of talismans, he perks up.
“Thou know’st demon-warding?” he says, and he can’t help but smile in relief. “Ah, such things, not nothing! If it works not, that ought to be informative, nu?”
He sits back, and takes a drag on his cigarette; he’s looking away from Shen Qingqiu, gathering his thoughts … which includes no small amount of batting away the unprofessional ones, such as well, he’s certainly pretty, and rather wonder if he knows he looks like he’s stepped out of a wuxia romance.
After some moments, he says, carefully, “our Sages of blessed memory speak of no small number of shin-daleten living side-by-side with b’ney Adam …” here, he pauses and glances sideways at Shen Qingqiu, and adds, “nu, those of flesh what look like thee and me, and not those what have feathers.”
“And the Sages do speak of those what curry favour with the demons, though, feh. It goes badly for them, if not fatally. I’m sure thou’rt well aware of such things thyself, darling. There are those who have more luck, too, but—” he shrugs. He’s not going to tell Shen Qingqiu about his ancestor of smokeless fire, not right away. Though maybe he’d pick up on it in any case.
“By us here on this isle, however, ah,” he bites his lip, ruefully. “The demons here are less like the ones I know and more like something out of a mustard-plaster novel.” He smirks, as if something funny has occurred to him, “but not no penny-dreadful sorts, borukh HaShem. We’ve got the sophisticated morality play sorts.”
He leans forward, and quicks an eyebrow at Shen Qingqiu, smiling. He’s posing, just a little.
“The kinds what make deals, too.”
no subject
"How frightful," he agrees. "I shudder to think what sort of havoc such beings have been wreaking on this poor town." And then, unable to resist, he asks, "Do you happen to know what sorts of deals people have been making?"
Look, it's important info! It can tell them something about the demons! He's definitely not at all fishing for that hot tea, no matter what the memes foretold!
no subject
"Unfortunately, darling, I have no bloody idea what kind of deals have been made," Anzu says, and he looks more annoyed than worried. It's the kind of look he wears when trying to explain to some recalcitrant gentlemen doctor back home that a gentleman's hands do not have an antiseptic aura, and in any case, there's dirt under the fellow's fingernails, he can see it, it's a health hazard—he has gone through alarm, concern and the instinct to set things right, and has entered the zone of how can I help if nobody's got their head screwed on right around here.
He sighs, and swears.
"Well, nu. I know at least two have made a deal somehow pertaining to knowledge," he says, drumming his fingers on his collarbone. "And that the terms of at least one of those deals were ... misleading. Feh, really, very ah. Classic nonsense for demons to pull. Unfortunately, folk classifications of demons are most useless outside of the place of origin, nu? The difference between a leshy and one of the mazikeen is not necessarily of place or appearance. It is of culture, expectations and the local environment. A mazik studying by a bays midrash is far more like a leshy who's attached himself to a clowder of conservationist natural philosophers than he is like, ah, his own brother who's making his livelihood as a merchant upon the Silk Road."
It's an oddly specific example. Almost as if it's from personal experience, or at least from family experience.
He turns to look at Shen Qing-qiu, smiling sadly.
"See'st thou my dilemma? I know so little about this place, and if there are others here with the necessary skills, I have not met them yet. Except—"
He's been weighing up the pros and cons of coming on too strong, and has finally decided to show his hand. Except it's not those distracting observations about Shen Qingqiu's attractiveness he's acting on. It's the chance of obtaining back-up who knows something about both the dead and those who have never been alive in the traditional sense, and those who live like mortals do, but yet are something else.
(That is, demons.)
He grins, and says, triumphantly, "it does rather sound like thou has the skills. What say'st thou? I'll not take thee to the graveyard, nu? But there's an abandoned estate here, such a place merits checking out. If we find nothing, at least we know we need worry not."
He's had an eye on the burned-out Larkin estate for some time now. But he's not so reckless as to venture there alone.
no subject
But then! Oh happy day, Anzu suggests they visit an abandoned and possibly haunted house. This is wonderful! Something practical he can do, to show off his expertise? Perfect!
"I think that's a wonderful idea," he says immediately. "I lack several of the tools I'd normally take on such an expedition, but even meditating on the property might tell me someone about the prior inhabitants or any spectral entities that have passed through. And should danger arise, my martial arts should be enough to see us both to safety."
no subject
Anzu is nearly fifty, and has worked very hard on learning to maintain poise, professionalism and dignity in all sorts of situations and that is the only reason he doesn't literally swoon at the mention of martial arts or the assurance of being rescued. But he does blush, just a touch, and bites his lip — much in the way his husband does when he's suddenly overcome in a certain way.
"It's good to know I'll be in safe hands, darling," he says, trying to sound breezy. "Unfortunately, I'm rather older than I look, and my back's no good."
He still wears an orthopaedic corset to stabilise his lower back; but he doesn't mention that to Shen Qingqiu outright — if he ever has need to know, he'll find out about it himself.
He gets to his feet and, half out of habit and half out of a sudden desire to come off gallant, holds out his hand to help Shen Qingqiu get up.
"Shall we be off, then?"
no subject
The Larkin estate has been abandoned for many years, and as a consequence fallen somewhat into decay. Not even looters have dared to brave those eerie halls, despite how great the demand for manufactured goods must be in this poor community, cut off as it's been from all outside trade. Shen Qingqiu is alert as they walk up the front path to the mansion's door, and he steps forward to open it for Anzu.
"I've heard that there was a seance gone wrong last autumn," he comments in a quiet voice. "A group of people were trapped inside overnight, but nobody was injured."
no subject
Anzu looks up at the decaying mansion, trying to gauge whether there's anything immediately, blatantly wrong with it. But there seems to be nothing that flagrantly violates the usual moods of the island. It's gloomy and a little foreboding, but peaceful enough.
Much like any given well-kept burial ground.
"Seance, nu?" he says, following Shen Qingqiu to the front door. "I suppose we ought to hope whatever answered the call was as trapped on this island as we are, and was not no stray abyssal hitchhiker passing through."
He pulls a face. It's clearly something he's dealt with before, and often enough to assume it's one of the common outcomes.
"Hast thou much experience with seances, darling? Or, feh, with cleaning up the mess left by such antics?"
no subject
Of course, that rather begs the question of what's become of them. Shen Qingqiu ignores the implications ably and instead says to Anzu, "But as for abyssal beasts, there my knowledge is lacking. What are the signs of such a creature, so I can help you look for them?"
no subject
"I have not no bloody clue, darling," Anzu says, a little too breezily for the nonchalance of his tone to be genuine. "I never met one what wasn't mired in the ... ah. We call it the Bones. The material world one walks through outside of dreams, nu?"
Here, Anzu pauses and shrugs.
"Those what come from outside to the world where I was born, on arrival they become mired. Shaped by the stories told about them, and the stories they tell themselves. Never mind that such is the lot of ones what don't come from outside, that bears not no relevance to our situation. And we shall deal with the minute chance of something familiar to me turning up the way we ought to deal with anything we might encounter. Keep thy wits about thee, and pay attention to things what may seem ... off, nu?"
no subject
"Well," he says in exasperation, hands forming the symbols for a barrier spell. "I guess that answers the question of whether this estate is really haunted." A golden barrier forms around them, like a layer of transparent golden foil stamped with a pattern of floating leaves and molded into the shape of a sphere. Shen Qingqiu gives Anzu an apologetic look. "I fear it may be more difficult for us to gather information that I'd thought."