TDM/September.

[fablemods]

Once upon a time, in a land far, far away... You snap awake with a sudden jolt, the sounds of nature surrounding you. The ground is warm beneath your hands, a press of fabric under your head. Sit up. Look around. This isn't where you fell asleep. Not even close to it. But with no one around you, answers as to how you got there in the first place are a little beyond your reach for now. If you decide to head off, don't forget your bag. You'll want that if you plan on making it out here. If you want to survive. And if you don't want to move, well...good luck. There's a shadow on the prowl. A rustle of leaves, a snap of twigs. Glowing eyes in the distance... -------------------- Characters find themselves waking up on the bare ground (or a bed if they're very lucky), a leather pack beneath their head, and entirely alone. It's not where they fell asleep that night. Isn't even close. The sky is the wrong shade, the ground isn't quite right. The only note of familiarity are the clothes on their back. Searching through their pack, characters will find a change of clothes, a few food rations, and something personal to them. They'll also find a pouch of wooden coins and a shard of mirror. Before they get a real chance to investigate those items though, they'll hear a rustle in the distance. The sounds of something moving around. It's their cue to get moving too. And somehow, all characters find their feet guiding them in the same direction. Off towards the Great Lake, less than ten minutes walk away, no matter where on the island they first woke up. Welcome to the island of Leutheria. Welcome to the first ever event/test drive for Fablelands. Above is an arrival prompt that players are welcome to use to introduce or test out any characters they are interested in bringing to the game. Below is an on-going event that will be taking place throughout the month of September (though the wolf will still remain a constant presence on the island for the months to come). And of course, you are free to use this post for any other prompts you wish to use, or mirrorshard conversations too. All threads are able to be used as game canon, providing both players agree to it, and can ultimately be used for bonus AC if you wish to. If you have any questions, please direct them to the FAQ. And without further adieu, let's get on with the show! premise | faq | taken/claims | locations | wishing well | bonus ac

Once upon a time, in a land not so far away... You wake to the feeling of being watched. Of a set of unfamiliar eyes, of warm breath on the back of your neck. A jolt back to the land of the living, and it's gone. No matter how quick you are, how sneaky, the source of the disruption has long since disappeared, so you have no choice but to try and ignore it. To continue on with your day and try to set that moment of strangeness aside. You eat, drink, speak with others. Perhaps you explore a little. Whatever it is you choose to do for the day, that feeling from the morning won't return. And by the time the sun sets and the moon glows brightly above, you've likely set those moments of strangeness aside. It's not like it's anything new, after all. It's the same again for the next few days. No better, no worse. Something best ignored, right? A speck of blood on the doorframe. That wasn't there before, was it? A snap of twigs in the distance. A crunch of leaves. Claw marks gouged deeply into the door. Into the wall above your bed. Scraps of red fabric, turned darker with blood. Pieces of fur. Of flesh. Do you run and hide? Do you fight? Whatever you choose, it's definitely time to make sure your body parts aren't scattered next... ...what a horribly big mouth you have. -------------------- Since first waking up on the island, characters have been stuck with that feeling of being watched. It isn't a constant. Isn't more than a few seconds at a time, dotted throughout the day. Investigation has never turned up much, and there's never been any sightings of the cause of it all. Until now. Throughout the first half of the week, characters will find themselves suffering from that feeling of being watched on a far more constant basis. Rather than it being a one-off, few seconds occurrence each day, that feeling will last for minutes at a time, and on multiple occasions. However, it isn't until the fifth day that they'll start stumbling across physical signs of their monitoring. There are claw marks on doors. Spots of blood on the paths outside. A crack of twigs in the forests, or the imprint of bloodied paws in the snow. Ten days in and those signs start finding their way indoors. Wet footprints, tinged with red. Claw marks in the walls, the floor. Torn sheets and the smell of wet...something. Whatever it is that's been watching you, its finally decided to come and say hello. Two weeks in and characters will begin to have sightings of the creature, its fur dark and its eyes a glowing yellow. At times it looks like a wolf, prowling in the distance. At other times, it's walking on its hind legs, almost human were it not for the muzzle full of gleaming sharp teeth. Get too close, and it slips away like a shadow, gone between one blink and the next. It decides when to reach out to characters, not the other way round. It's after characters finally get a good look at the creature that it starts leaving...gifts. Characters will start to find familiar items from their home worlds amidst the mess. The remains of a childhood pet, perhaps. Photographs of loved ones, faces torn almost beyond recognition. It's only once it delivers its final gift that the creature retreats to the trees again: a blood-splattered item of clothing that clearly belongs to the person the character misses the most at the time, alive or dead. [credit 1 & credit 2]

Comments

[stereotyped]

And I rather wish I hadn't.

[ He squints out across the water - it looks more like a lake than a river, with some kind of distant shore on the far side. His mind filters through the kinds of beasts he's read about in the great library in Minrathous: krakens, sea serpents, water dragons...

It's probably a dragon. It's always a dragon. Dorian can't seem to go anywhere without there being some kind of ridiculously overpowered reptile threatening to stomp them in to the ground. ]

Some kind of water dragon, maybe. [ Ugh. Dorian purses his lips, suppressing an impatient sigh, before finally turning his attention to the young man scrambling away from the water. ]

Either way, let's keep our distance, yes? I'd rather not give it any funny ideas about eating humans for breakfast.

[talents]

It is unlike any dragon I have seen before.

[not that he has much to compare it to. wyvern aside, he only knows two, and neither of them look a thing like whatever it is out there. but if it is a dragon, perhaps...

no. trying to talk to the creature right now isn't likely going to end well. especially not when there's someone else nearby. it'd be just his luck that he'd anger the creature enough for it to try to attack them both.

getting back to his feet, merlin takes a moment to dust himself off. to try and drag his attention away from the lake and over to the other man. despite popular opinion, he does have manners.]

I don't suppose you know anything about this land?

[stereotyped]

I know that it's home to a dirty rotten kidnapper and that's about the sum of it.

[ If Dorian sounds short well, that's because he's feeling pretty short on patience. There's a slight edge to his voice, one that goes beyond mere frustration; the fact that he's arrived here alone, so suddenly and without warning, without the Inquisitor and his party can only mean bad things.

And he doesn't even have his staff. That's another bad sign in and of itself. He crosses his arms over his chest, all creaking leather and the quiet tinkle of metal fastenings, and surveys the young man. ]

I assume you're just as in the dark about all this as I am? Arrived in your sleep, alone, without any explanation or so much as a by-your-leave? [ Dorian tuts. ] No accounting for manners, this kidnapper of ours.

[talents]

All I know is that there is something powerful behind all this. Something...different to what I am used to.

[it's a magic he isn't familiar with. something both old and new at the same time. and while he knows he should be upset, should be worried that they've all been brought here, he can't deny that there's a certain amount of excitement there too. warlock or not, there's still so much he still has to learn about the magic that exists out there.

and his number one focus right now? the castle in the middle of the lake. but with the ripples of the lake, even he knows better than to risk heading out there to look right now.

another glance round and--]

Oh. Right. My name is Merlin. It's good to meet you. [circumstances aside, of course.]

[stereotyped]

[ 'Different to what I'm used to.' It's an interesting choice of words and one that certainly doesn't go unnoticed. It's something that Dorian files away for later. ]

A pleasure to meet you, Merlin. Or it would be, if perhaps we were anywhere else. [ He straightens a little, all charisma and charm as he puts on his best "kidnap is no excuse for bad manners" smile and flourishes a hand. ]

Dorian Pavus, formerly of Minrathous and latterly of wherever-this-is. I don't suppose we know where 'this' is yet?

[talents]

I haven't found a name for this land yet. I only know that it shares no connection to Albion.

[and apparently minrathous. not that he's ever heard of it before. but given the kind of magic that seems to have gone in to creating these lands, he isn't surprised. there's a lot to still learn about this island, and its name is the least of it all.]

Is Minrathous similar to this? [forests. lakes. magic. though given that he's familiar with dragons, he already knows the last must be true.]