乙巳 005: 小暑

Jul. 2nd, 2025 04:29 pm
singlemilletgrain: (Faint Surprise)
[personal profile] singlemilletgrain posting in [community profile] vivala
[video broadcast]

[Is it time for another Yanese festival? Shu bows to the video feed with her usual greeting.]

Hello, Corsairs. We are in the midst of difficult times, once more. I am glad that our aims have succeeded thus far, but it seems as if the fighting will become more pitched shortly.

Perhaps some levity is in order. In Yanese culture... [here we go again] the middle of the seventh month of the Lunar Year is called the Hungry Ghost Festival. The correct word would be preta or 餓鬼. It isn't the best translation, but there is a folk belief that the spirits of the ancestors return during this time and need to be honored, then escorted back to the afterlife. Normally, this is a very solemn affair, but of course, as ancestral veneration is not a part of your cultures, we can focus on the merriment.

Please join me this evening. We will make paper lanterns and paper boats and escort them down the river to the beyond.

If that is not to your liking... [there is a faint twinkle in her eyes] Perhaps we may share some ghost stories.

[action, by a River Somewhere That Is Definitely a Real River in this setting]

[The days are long in the summer. When the first rays of the sun begin to glimmer golden red as it descends below the horizon, Shu appears with quite a large number of candles, folding paper, and calligraphy pens.]

We guide the souls of the ancestors back to the beyond. The flowing water is the barrier between life and death. The river escorts them. We honor them with a few words and we write our hopes for them upon these lanterns.

The ancestors, of course, do not have to be your actual ancestors.

[action, for Turtles]
[It is high time that they keep their appointment and hear embarrassing stories about Donnie when he was a wee turtlekin share a meal together. Having some experience now with Raph's bottomless pit of an appetite and his, ah... completely undiscerning palate, Shu has thought long and hard about how best to improve his experience with food. The feast she has prepared is slightly different: instead of being set out family style, she plans to bring out one dish at a time so as to guide the direction of the meal more closely.

Of course, he is equally as likely to just inhale everything as he is to learn anything, but one can only try one's best.

She leaves the door unlocked for them. They are welcome to come in and out whenever they please, even if she has never actually said this.]

TDM#13

Jun. 30th, 2025 09:43 pm
vivalamods: Art: Merlin Ambrosuis (ArtStation) (Default)
[personal profile] vivalamods posting in [community profile] vivalaooc
TDM #13 )

Rebuilding journal search again

Jun. 30th, 2025 03:18 pm
alierak: (Default)
[personal profile] alierak posting in [site community profile] dw_maintenance
We're having to rebuild the search server again (previously, previously). It will take a few days to reindex all the content.

Meanwhile search services should be running, but probably returning no results or incomplete results for most queries.

Staying In Sight

Jun. 24th, 2025 12:29 am
supersmashbrother: (Got a scolding :()
[personal profile] supersmashbrother posting in [community profile] vivala
Who: Raph, Donnie
Where: Subterranean Farms - Donnie's Garden
When: Shortly after the Fete of Knowledge
What: How to check on your brudder while checking in on your brudder :(

= = =

You Are Not Alone )
spacetogrow: (Default)
[personal profile] spacetogrow posting in [community profile] vivalaethernet
[Post-dated to after the battle]

This is kind of a weird question, but... what do people normally dream about?

[Ilphyl ducks their head, realizing that it might be personal.]

Elves where I come from don't need to sleep. We can go into a meditation called reverie or trance, and it works the same to let us stop feeling tired. Sometimes, we might review memories, but for me... it's just like I can feel time pass, but it's not as clear as when I'm awake. I've only slept when I was sick or badly hurt, or when I was really young. Like a toddler.

[which... Ilphyl is not an old elf by their world's standard, and not even an adult by some communities' standards, but actual childhood was still decades ago]

But with the curse, I had to sleep in wild shape to get any rest, and I... well, I don't know what normal dreams are. And I was too afraid to ask while I was still cursed.

[Because they didn't want to think about how much was bleed through; unlike a normal polymorph spell, a druid kept their mind in wild shape, but one couldn't spend most of their time as a cat, or a raccoon without some changes in how one saw the world.]

So... what do people dream about?
fair_trouble: (53)
[personal profile] fair_trouble posting in [community profile] vivala
Who: Emery-Apollo, Tsuyukusa, Link, Kaitlyn, Natalia, a giant poisonous lizard, potentially some sailors.
What: Emery has hired some Corsairs to kill a monster that is poisoning the land in Hesaeth.
Where: Above an abandoned Hesaeth mine.
When: In between various missions to gather steel and powder.
OOC Info: Here.

As the Spring turns more solidly to Summer, Emery has been going about approaching various Corsairs with a job offer.

As a byproduct of ether experimentation, the Imperials have made a monster nicknamed “Python.” Python, Emery explained, is a large quadruped reptile which continually creates and secretes poison. Python not only poisons its prey, but it also contaminates water, soil, or any living thing it comes into contact with. What’s more, it’s an aggressive predator that continually seeks out food.

With their typical levels of responsibility, the Imperials decided to deal with it by dumping the monster onto Hesaeth. Python has found an abandoned mine to take shelter in, but regularly leaves to go hunting. It’s surviving on the small, hardy birds and mammals that make the desert its home, but it’s only a matter of time until it moves on. If it reaches a source of water, or any active mines, the situation could be disastrous.

Emery has magic that can purify the monster’s poison, but he’s not confident in his ability to take it out by himself. Thus he has gathered together a small assortment of skilled fighters under the promise of modest repayment.

To get to Python’s hideout requires an overnight trip by boat and then a hike of a few hours, and then it’s a battle against a wild enemy that cannot be touched with bare skin.

Godly Bonus Mission: Vs. Python

Jun. 21st, 2025 12:01 am
fair_trouble: (Default)
[personal profile] fair_trouble posting in [community profile] vivalaooc
Setup:
Emery, the Mysterious Weirdo who’s been spotted around Elysium, Flotsam, and Asphodel, is recruiting powerful fighters to help him take down a monster created by Imperial experiments that was disposed of on Hesaeth.

The monster is a giant lizard nicknamed “Python” which continually leaks toxins from its skin and orifices. These toxins poison the land around it and quickly sicken anyone who breathes them in or absorbs them through their skin. It is mindlessly aggressive and will eat just about anything living it finds.

It has not been eating well on Hesaeth. This means it’s weaker than it otherwise could be, but also far more ornery and desperate.

To take this monster down, Emery is primarily in need of combatants, but any Corsairs who can provide transportation there and back again can also take part. Also useful would be anyone with purification abilities or resistance to poisons.

Technicalities:
To (hopefully) keep the boss battle moving at a brisk pace, I’m going to try and respond at least once a day. Participants are also free to skip over one another as long as they only post once a “round.” A round will consist of at least one post from participants plus a god post detailing what Emery and the Python are doing. So it might look like Person A posts, then Person B, then Emery. Or it might be Person B, Person C, and then Emery. Or just Person A, then Emery.

I’ll assume anyone who doesn’t manage to post for their character during a round is doing okay- neither seriously inflicting damage nor receiving any serious damage- so if you’re busy and wind up missing a round you won’t have to worry about it. You’ll just miss out on some notoriety.

Rewards:
Anyone who helps out will get a modest amount of money from Emery, and the satisfaction of knowing they did a good deed.

If that isn’t enough, participants are also free to take parts from the dead Python, such as teeth, skin, organs, etc. as long as they have a way of safely storing the toxic materials.

(Or they can make themselves seriously ill trying to take materials from Python’s body that they don’t have a safe way of handling, but they might get yelled at by Emery if he catches them and they will definitely wind up in the clinic.)

Sign Ups:
Comment below if interested! I’ll take up to four participants for the battle thread, and if anyone is interested I can also do other threads playing out your character’s recruitment. Might also do a socialization-centric thread for the trip to Hesaeth.
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