Once a year, at the first Full Moon of Autumn, the local village of Rowanfel celebrates Reaper's Night with The Festival of the Damned. A tradition that goes back for a thousand years as a way to appease still-roaming spirits and prevent them from harming the living. Very few remember the origins of everyone's favorite traditions. Why endless sweet baked goods are shared. Why a stag is sacrificed and it's antlers burned in the bonfire with dried bushels of sage. Why you are only allowed to light orange candles. The festival is a fun day of spooky things and celebration! People are contented to be merry, celebrate with their friends and family, and enjoy this traditional heralding of the fall.
But on this Reaper's Night, a group of troublemakers have decided to wander out to the cemetery and have their own party. And this may be the greatest terror of their lives! Someone will make a grave mistake and learn why superstitions and traditions are no laughing matter.
EVENT INFO
WHO: Everyone is invited! Character Bios/Pics are not required, but totally encouraged! Post 'em if you got 'em.
WHAT: This is a HIGH FANTASY SETTING. You're in the village of Rowenfel for one reason or another. You can be one of the troublemaking teenagers hanging out in the graveyard, or somebody else!
WHERE: Join us in the Chatbox in the FESTIVAL OF THE DAMNED room!
HOW: This is a ACTION SETTING WITH IMPROVISATIONAL GAME MASTERING. That means the object of this roleplay is to interact with other characters, and from those interactions I will create a plot and story around you. There will be action moments, where strange events will happen and your characters will have to work together to resolve it. With this ChaRP "lol random" behaviors are discouraged -- what your character says and does will have in game consequences, so choose wisely!
My roleplays are alwaysNEWBIE FRIENDLY so even if you are terrible at roleplay or have never participated in a ChaRP before, this will be easy for you to get involved in. :D Ask questions, let me know when you need help. I often give tips and direction out of character in the main chat room when people need a little direction. You can also reference our MINI CHARP GUIDE!
FESTIVAL OF THE DAMNED IWAKU CHATBOX 2023-10-26T14:00:00-5 Once a year, at the first Full Moon of Autumn, the local village of Rowanfel celebrates Reaper's Night with The Festival of the Damned. A tradition that goes back for a thousand years as a way to appease still-roaming spirits and...
Diana:
This is a FANTASY SETTING where the village of Rowanfel is celebrating Reaper's Night. You're playing a teen or young adult that's snuck off to the village cemetary to have a lil fun or get into some trouble.
Today at 12:29 PM
Diana: TYPE SHORT TYPE FAST! If you write too much or take too long, you will miss the action and people may not be able to read your posts fast enough. Keep it to 10 sentences and under.
Today at 12:29 PM
Diana:
Put you character name in the first sentence of your post so we know who is playing who. You can also use bbcode color to differentiate your posts from others!
Today at 12:29 PM
Diana:
Game Master posts are in this bright bold yellow. Pay attention to those because they are guiding the story!
Today at 12:29 PM
Diana:
My roleplays are always NEWBIE FRIENDLY, so don't worry about typos and mistakes. If you get confused or need a little direction, I am in the main chat to help!
Diana: It is midnight in the village of Rowanfel, and all of the proper villagers are in town celebrating this Reaper's Night around the town's giant bonfire where the ritual stag is being roasted with it's antlers and bundles of dried sage. Yet there seems to be a group of young people who have decided to sneak off to the cemetery this evening, against tradition. Be it for time alone, time to party, or just snubbing old customs. At least for the moment the area is dark, quiet, and there is nothing but the sound of the wind in the trees and a few croaks of a toad in the bushes.
Today at 12:54 PM
Zarko Straadi:
Sharandula Molchaniye Zoloto stumbled out of a thick mist into a strangely familiar scene. Reaper's Night in Rowanfel! "What the--? How?" She struggled to clear the fog in her own mind. What was the last thing... The bone insects, the poor crying lizard lady...the wizard's tower... The wizard, upon receiving the bone insects, balefully reciting a prophecy: "When living bone borne of fire awakens, a hero will arise!"
Shara remembered rolling her eyes. "Pfft! Not another ridiculous Chosen One! That's dumb even in stories!"
All she remembered after that was strange echoes, and mist. Lots, and lots, of mist. Did the wizard send her here? Or was it whoever/whatever was responsible for choosing Chosen Ones, offended by her criticism? Well I hope he's alright, she thought, recalling the young male sorcerer she'd met in the tavern. If there was some prophesied Chosen One, it pretty much had to be him. He definitely looked the part, and his magic was rather impressive, even if it took him a few tries to deal effectively with the bone-insect creatures.
But as Shara looked around, she was definitely alone, so hopefully his Very Special Chosen One Quest was going well, especially since the fate of the world always hung in the balance in those stories. Unless he got sent back to some other first square...
But am I there now, or did I get sent back to that night? she thought, repressing a groan of fatigue and frustration. She started to head toward the graveyard. That was where the trouble had started. The town seemed...darker, spookier this time.
Today at 1:20 PM
Diana: It was unclear if Shara had stepped back into Rowanfel in the present, the past, or the future. But it indeed have a much darker feel to it here in the now. The graveyard so empty that even the crickets barely chirped for fear of displacing the silence. Something was NOT right.
Today at 1:27 PM
Zarko Straadi:
Shara felt the hairs on the back of her neck stand up. She started walking silently, going from tree to tree, using moon-cast shadows of bare tree branches to break up her outline as she moved toward the graveyard.
Today at 1:35 PM
Diana: Fog began rolling out from the forest, covering the cemetery in a thick sea of the mist. White and curling amongst the rows of headstones and worn monuments to past loved ones. Somehow there must have also been heavy cloud cover in the sky, as all of the stars and the moon itself were blotted out. Leaving nothing but a milky greyish black up above. Did it grow even more silent as she moved amongst the graves? ...was that the faint scent of sage on the wind? or was that a warm toasty cinnamon so familiar of a faraway other place...?
Today at 1:46 PM
Zarko Straadi:
Shara pressed herself up against a scraggly tree as she tried to place the scent. That hint of cinnamon...a brief, pleasant memory of last winter's "Frozen Frolic" in Snowdrop village... She shook her head to clear it, then froze, listening for any sounds.
Today at 1:52 PM
Diana: A soft tune of music floated in the air. So distant that it almost seemed as if it came from the village, but it didn't come from any one direction. Gentle strings and the chime of a harpsicord playing a haunting but joyful melody. A warm glow of light appeared in the distance, obscured too much but the mist, though the way it flickered it must've been some sort of candlelight.
Today at 1:59 PM
Zarko Straadi:
Shara was debating whether to head for the mausoleum to look for signs of trouble, or make the wiser decision to go to the regular festival in search of food and pockets in need of picking, when she heard the music and spotted the light. Now sneaking away and hurrying to the village festival was definitely the wiser idea. But...Shara's curiosity got the better of her. Crouching low and moving with careful silence, she tried to get a better look undetected.
Today at 2:05 PM
Diana: The closer Shara crept the more a shape came clearer into view. Long silken robes of black that almost seemed made of darkness themselves by which the way the moved. A swinging lantern with an orange candle held by a pale hand with long black nails. Up to the head of a woman so hauntingly beautiful that she could not possibly be human in any shape or form. Her hair as dark as a midnight sky and even seemed to sparkle with stars. Her eyes a deep fathomless blue -- that stared directly at Shara when the woman paused. A crow on her shoulder gave a warning CAW and then clacked it's beak. More shocking, the crow itself began to speak! "Hark! An interloper on this night of nights, dear Lady!"
Today at 2:10 PM
Zarko Straadi:
Shara felt chills at the sight of the Lady. Whatever she was, she was no brightly-colored, silk-pantied popinjay of a "noblewoman." Goddess? Fae? Enchantress? Definitely far above Shara's pay grade. Shara was about to sneak away when the Lady's eyes fixated on her, and her crow talked. Uncle Stillicho had a talking raven that spoke in an eerily accurate mimicry of his voice, and would drop samples from his vast collection of curse-words and foul jokes at the most inopportune time. But the Lady's crow seemed a little too eloquent, a little too aware to be an ordinary crow, smart as ordinary crows were.
So Shara was found out. She hated it when that happened! A moment's temptation to flee. She resisted it, and stood to her full height. If this Lady was some kind of guardian spirit of the graveyard or the village itself, Shara could offer a snide comment about her timing--like, maybe show up last year, and prevent a bunch of idiot teenagers from getting themselves killed. But: pissing off powerful spirits (or sorceresses, or whatever) was always
a bad idea.
"Apologies, milady," Shara said, fumbling a curtsy. "I mean no harm. Last time I was here, something terrible happened, and now I'm back without...knowing exactly how I got
here, so I was trying to find out if...something bad was happening again."
Today at 2:30 PM
Diana: "I see," answered the elegant woman. Even her voice sounded otherworldly. Soft, eerie, but musical and gentle. "You are not meant to be in this place, little one. At least not for many, many years yet." Curious about this, the woman's stunning gaze peered about at the flowing mist and the strange surroundings. Though there were still the headstones and monuments all around them, the forest was no where to be seen. Only blackness out in the beyond. Her crow flapped off her shoulder, coming to land on Shara's head. Stomping a foot on her as if he were trying to knock out some answers. "Planeswalker, rift sailor, disconnected from time. What a mess! What a mess, great lady!"
Today at 2:38 PM
Zarko Straadi:
Shara flinched out of reflex when the bird came toward her, but once it was apparent his intention was to land and not to attack, she willed herself to stay still. "I...don't know how to do any of those things. Is this the future then," she said, looking around. "What happened to the trees?"
Today at 2:42 PM
Diana: "There is no time here," explained the woman. "No past, no future, no present... this is a place of waiting. For a beginning, for an end." She gestured with her glowing lantern to the side where a rather unimpressive headstone lay. There was no name upon it, though there were beautiful, complicated etchings into the stone. Something ancient and unknowable. As the lantern's glow came upon it, the etchings themselves pooled out a golden glittering liquid. As if gold itself had been leeched out of the stone. Until it pulled away into the air with a pop and became a glowing orb. With her other hand, she swept the golden orb into her palm and held it aloft. "This one is ready to be born."
Curiously again she tilted her head at Shara. "...you are here in this precious moment, that must mean something spectacular indeed. Tell me, little one, where should I send this soul? Think of a place that needs a spark of light."
Today at 2:51 PM
Zarko Straadi: Wh-a-a-a-aaa? Shara thought as the Lady gave her explanation. Sending her to a place beyond time, a dimension not only of sight and sound, but of mind, just didn't seem like the sort of thing a manky old small-town wizard could do. Then the Lady posed her conundrum. Shara stared for several long seconds. "Uh..." she said, looking back and forth between the soul and the Lady. "I...don't think it should be up to me to decide another soul's destiny, milady. Can't the soul decide where they want to go?"
59 minutes ago
Diana: "Some choose, some refuse. Some we may not wish to let free at all..." to this strange statement she turned, and in the direction she peered the mist folded aside to revealed a frightening, intimidatingly large mausoleum made of nothing but black onyx. "You need not worry of these things. If Destiny has brought you here to this place, to this moment, to this single soul... then Destiny must need you to make a choice. Choose, Sharandula Molchaniye Zoloto, the Golden Fox that walks between time and space. Choose with wisdom."
54 minutes ago
Zarko Straadi: Wisdom?! Shara thought. She'd never thought of herself as the wisdom type. Cunning? Yes! Dashing derring-do? Of course! But wisdom? That was for monks, old people, and people with the time and opportunity to read a lot of books. Nonetheless, it did not seem like she would be able to fast-talk her (or the soul's) way out of this. Needs a spark of light... The darkest place Shara could think of was the workhouses at Iskandahr. But then she envisioned the soul getting born there as a helpless baby with just about the worst possible life ahead of them. A bright spark could get snuffed all too easily.
Then she thought of Snowdrop Hollow; a bright, happy place that would warmly embrace the new soul. But...Snowdrop Hollow didn't really need a bright spark, as it was already full of them. "Um...milady, could you clarify a bit more what you mean by 'needs a spark of light?'
41 minutes ago
Diana: THUMP THUMP THUMP THUMP THUMP went the crow, beating his foot on top of Shara's head. "Do you question the great Lady of the Night? Do you dare defy Death Herself?!"
The lady herself merely gave a soft understanding smile.
"I cannot answer the questions you give. Only know that you were called by this very soul to make a choice. And make it you must."
35 minutes ago
Zarko Straadi:
As ominous as the Crow's warning was, Shara's mind still protested. Who am I to decide someone else's life? Thinking back on her own life, Shara could always remember being a free spirit. Her parents and elder siblings had stories about how she would break out of her playpen by picking at the bolts that held it together until she got one of the panels to fall, taking any opportunity to toddle off by herself in search of adventure, to all of the creative rule-breaking she'd gotten into in her own memories. Bossy people, bullies, people who thought they were better than everyone else could all count on having the Golden Fox as an enemy. And now, here she was about to...
Wait...didn't she say... Shara thought, as inspiration came. A cheeky smile slowly spread across her face. "You said this place is beyond time, beyond past and present. So I'm not just choosing a place for the soul to be born, but also a time. So I've decided," she said, and shifted her eyes to the soul. "You're going to be my soul. The only soul whose destiny I get to choose. I'll...try to be a spark of light wherever I go."
Did I just say that?! Shara never thought of herself as a 'spark of light.' A shadow that moves among the shadows, seen by none, fat purses snatched and shared with the poor, haha! Sure, she had been known to comfort the occasional widow, help out an old man, or fight a murderous shape-shifting monster here and there. But...certainly not some kind of bright light in the world.
10 minutes ago
Diana: With a mighty laughing CAW CAW, the crow took to the sky, swooping down as fast as lightning to grasp the glowing golden soul. Away he flew into the blackness, leaving the midnight lady and Shara all alone.
By now all of the gravestones had faded away. Even the mist was starting to pull in, closer and closer to them, until their entire world was nothing but the two of them bathed in the light of the lantern and it's orange glowing candle. The lady shrouded in black cast down a gentle, ethereal smile.
"You will not remember me when you wake, little one. You will not remember this. Yet in your soul you will know you have purpose. You will be the light that guides the ones who shall save your world."
With that ominous phrase Shara felt something sway, as if the very ground beneath her began to shift. The lantern light grew dimmer, dimmer, dimmer... until there was nothing left but the darkness and a whisper.
A soul of gold to be the light, to walk a path to fight the night.
