faderiftooc | MOD EVENT ↠ KIRKWAIL (UPDATE)

MOD EVENT: KIRKWAIL (UPDATE)

The log for the event has been posted here, and you can look below the cut for a more specific list of things your characters can encounter around the Gallows. (CONTENT WARNING: EVERYTHING, for the list.) The heroes who will put an end to the problem with the Veil are Thranduil, Lakshmi, Sorrel, and Luana, who can go here (along with any nosy people) for more information. And the original OOC post is here, for reference, and that's also where you can put any additional questions you have!

SOUNDS & SMELLS

A man's (unsettling, hysterical) laughter slowly turning into (despairing, full body) weeping; it ends on the sound of a glass smashing, footsteps, something (or someone?) being heavily dragged across stone. A reassuring voice, too low to make out the words. Perhaps they're Orlesian.
The eerie chanting of dragon cultists echoes throughout the area, making it difficult to hear anything else.
The hum and scream of cicadas and frogs and birds.
There’s laughter here. Lively conversation, the clink of glasses, the rhythmic tamp of dancing feet in a joyous muddle urged on by a trio—violin, piano, and cello—playing a spirited gavotte that was popular in Orlais nearly a decade ago.
A whumph of something soft being thrown against the other side of a door, typically interrupting a conversation between two or more people on the other side. It will repeat once or twice, followed by a dramatic sigh — and another, louder sigh, and finally a complaint in Nevarran — "Go the fuck to sleep," or similar, directed with peevish affection at the ceiling in the room opposite.
The powerful smell of burning meat.
A group of young children exhaustively reciting the Chant in perfect unison.
An elusive, but familiar melody. Something about it seems perpetually unfinished — always missing a note.
Above your head, the tell-tale groan of old wood under too much strain, a beam shuddering for what may seem an unbearably long stretch of seconds before it buckles. From beside your ear there's a sharp intake of breath, but no scream, just a wet crunch and crumpling cut off by a deafening slam. The sound echoes as if through larger stone halls, and the silence after is palpable.
A man's voice beyond a door, “Do not speak to me as if you're some sainted fucking martyr, as if you're here by any will but your own—”
A slow, sonorous chant that reverberates and fills the space. Not a language that most will understand, but for some it may bring to mind thoughts of holy worship. If you desire a link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tS-FCt531Ts& or https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=upq-Vwhd7Hk&
The sound of something heavy, wet, and meaty being dragged (or— dragging itself) over stone, leaves, and mud. It starts at a distance, around a corner or down a hall, and approaches the listener at a steady but painfully slow pace, easily walked away from. If for some reason you choose to stay still, however, the sound will come all the way to your feet, where its half strangled breaths are a little clearer.
The squelch of mud and a drone of sound that gradually resolves into dozens of voices all at once, some near and others farther, all Orlesian. Cries of pain, pleas for help or for death, frantic prayers, angry wailing, the shriek of horses dying badly.
Outside of the closed door, you hear a little girl, crying pathetically. The doorknob will turn from side-to-side, slowly and clumsily. She wants to come in. She's bored, she's tired, this isn't fair, it isn't funny, she'll tell on you if you don't let her in. She won't answer any questions, but will repeat her statements and her threats, and will begin to cry more hysterically if you press her at all.
Harp music, accompanied by singing.
Standing on the ramparts of the gallows, will cause the sound of gunfire and canons, then the sound of first horses and soldiers running from the right, and the inhuman growl of a werewolf that stands seven feet tall comes from the left, both of them running towards you standing there. Just before they crash into your, and each other, they vanish as suddenly as they come.
A wet, wracking cough.
A hummed melody that stops and starts: half of a popular call-and-response tavern song, but turned mournful and met with silence.
In contrast to the bare midwinter plains, songbirds call to each other here, bright and beautiful over the sound of a gentle breeze through tall grasses that rustle like the sea.
It begins as a low rumbling that shakes bones and stones and resonates in the chest, rising over long minutes into a moan at the edge of human hearing. More voices braid in around that bass note, high and sweet, an eerie chorus of wordless humming that swells to a slow crescendo. There's something in it of the press of a million cicadas on a summer's night, that insistent vibration that seems part of the heat itself--and then it fades away as slowly as it came, down to the lowest voice that lingers the longest before ebbing into silence.
The voices are raised, and among the endless cacophony several voices become clearer. They have Orlesian accents and anger laces their tones.

"It was a mistake to run! It only served to make us look guilty! Those of us who knew our place would never have been harmed by the Templars."

"Then you're a blind fool! And if you hadn't run, you'd be lying dead by now."

A third voice chimes in. "Surely we can show the Templars that we are not all rebels!"

The second voice nearly growls in response. "If you're still loyal to that system that shut us away and did its best to eradicate us, then go crawl on your bellies back to them." A group of cheers follows this.

The first voice returns. "And allow you rebels to wreak havoc on the countryside, consorting with demons? We are all returning to the Circle, where the Templars—" He's cut off by a roar of dissent from the others. Voices shout "I will die free!" and "The Circles will never return!" Other voices join in, arguing the other side. "Our magic needs to be controlled!" and "Templars protected us from ignorant people!" The arguing continues until there is a roar that isn't a person's voice, but the swell of a fire. People begin screaming and there's the sound of boots stamping the ground as the run. The sounds of crackling ice or jolts of lightning follow.

PEOPLE

Sina, found in the infirmary or the herb garden, carrying her delivery basket or sitting quietly, looking pleasant but at times, perhaps, troubled.
A bearded man in his early to mid-thirties with dark brown hair and blue eyes. He carries an automatic rifle and is dressed plainly in jeans, a t-shirt, a jacket, and boots. His face is stern as he gets down on one knee, settling the rifle at an angle to reload it. He speaks matter-of-factly as he does so. "A couple shamblers out there. Nothing big. I'm not worried." After a pause to look out at something, he sighs and turns to lean back against a wall.

"What's it matter now? I could be a plumber for all you know." He rolls his head back against the wall, looking irritated as he listens to a response. "Tessa... c'mon. If you don't like it, then sure, go head out there on your own. See how long you last. Though it'd be a goddamned waste after all the time I spent keeping you alive."

There's a pause long enough for a response. He closes his eyes and heaves a deep sigh. "Like I said: it doesn't matter anymore."
A tall, rugged man with armour decorating him and an amulet (some might recognise as Sarenrae) around his neck. He has a cut across his chest as if he's been cleaved in two; he wanders, lost, like a zombie searching for something.
Spirits embodying the crews of six merchant ships, all of them either killed in battle or sporting cut throats, and all of them on fire and actively burning. Largely incoherent in their agony, they'll manage to state a few important points: they were slaughtered by the crew of the pirate ship, the Fancy, captained by the black-hearted madman, Darras Rivain, and they curse his name and the pack of bloodthirsty wretches that call him captain.
Glaurung the Baby Dragon: a large, golden, wingless dragon with eyes that are strangely hard to meet. Followed by a slime trail.
A tableau from a Circle's rebellion: Two groups of combatants, one all mages, one mages and templars. The latter's in the act of collapsing under the throes of sleep cast by a dark-haired elf in enchanter's robes, his eyes unusually large and green. He runs on past them as they fall, beckoning the rest of his group after him and out of sight.

A young human woman lingers as her allies flee, throwing horror spells from spread hands like water into the hapless sleepers. Her targets bolt upright shaking and screaming, ridden by waking nightmares so profound they bleed from nose and ears.

One unfortunate victim (a blond elf in crimson) sits paralyzed with terror by some unseen horror, eyes blown wide and staring--

Until he reaches up to claw them out with his bare hands.
A pirate by dress, maybe Antivan by looks, with the telltale mustache of a villain. He may smile charmingly, or tip his head back to laugh a dastardly laugh, or threaten with a heavy saber and the quick footwork of a deadly swordsman. Whatever he does, his image flickers from appearing hale to dead or dying--half his face crumpling in, smashed in as you watch by repeated blows from something heavy, blunt, and invisible. Or a blade appears suddenly just above his belt, and you watch as it's turned and dragged across his middle until his guts tumble out into his hands, with a terrible, wordless scream.
A chalice of dragon blood, with a helpful label listing it as such.
Tall elves, dressed in green cloaks with high hoods to hide painted faces and carrying long knives.
Young Circle mages sit at their desks while the Enchanter, easily recognized by his voice as a senior resident of Kinloch Hold, lectures the class about alchemical history. One slight, curly-haired Apprentice slips his neighbour a note; after reading it, the boy grips his belly, then vomits on the floor beside his desk. The curly-haired boy giggles until the Enchanter arrives to give them an earful for passing glyphs in class. Both Apprentices are scolded and commanded to clean up the mess.
Ghostly circus performers: acrobats swinging through rafters, jugglers briefly lifting real objects into the air, tumblers or girls standing on the backs of ponies, sword-swallowers and fire-breathers, and the like. They don't speak, just go about their routines. The show may be interrupted by sudden, violent deaths by blade or club, seemingly out of nowhere.
Guylian, Knight-Commander of the Gallows c. 9:21 Dragon, is forcibly prepared for execution by a group of mercenaries. The vision ends with Guylian hanging from the neck until dead.
Three dead mages, judging by the robes, dangling from the ceiling in the library; they're strung up by their arms, not their necks, on display post-mortem rather than executed by hanging. Up close, the bodies show clear and possibly hyperbolized signs of injury, a head bashed halfway in, burns that grow larger the longer someone stares, a rib cage blown fully open and emptied of its contents. Those familiar with the Loyalist fraternity prior to the Mage/Templar War, might notice familiarity in one or two of the faces, but it's vague at best, and the fact that the eyes still move to follow passersby is somewhat more pressing.
When sleeping, a sensation of being shaken awake, and in the middle of the room burns one ornately, decorative oil lamp that seems to suck all light from beyond it into darkness. Except for the eyes of something beast shaped that watch you, and the smell of wet dog.
A dark-haired human in mage robes; he looks fine from the front, but his back reveals a deep, lethal-looking and bloody gash.
Flickering sometimes as if they move through trees that stand between you, a grinning elf just breaching adolescence carries a younger elven child on her back at a bouncing run. The child shrieks with silent laughter, her hands tangled in the long smooth fall of the older girl's hair as she grips onto her shoulders for purchase.
While no one inside the central tower will hear or see any of this, anyone outside of it will hear the distant sounds of a woman struggling and screaming—being dragged—two unclear figures on the roof, and then, finally, what looks like Petrana flung from it—her last screams—and a sickening landing below. She's recognisable for several moments in her own wreckage before fading, only for the scenario to begin again.
A person who is completely ON FIRE runs by, screaming. There are more where that one came from, as one by one various people rush past, shouting about the fire, pleading for someone to save their village. Occasionally a mage will shoot off some magic to try and quench the fire they're so concerned about. A little girl appears, dropping to the ground and sobbing about the death of her mother. A Warden and a Templar both start to move in closer, their steps unhurried... perhaps they're responsible. The Warden can be identified as Kain.
A young mage, named as Maddox in dialogue, stands before former Knight-Commander Meredith Stannard, restrained by Templars. Under the charge of corruption of a Templar, Meredith sentences Maddox to Tranquility; only then does he begin to struggle. While begging for a different punishment he is dragged away.
A vague, shadowy horde of people equipped and shouting for battle that rushes forward, then stops abruptly to scream and be reduced to bone and ash, without any visible flames.
A handful of scrawny ginger children of varying ages. Sometimes they suddenly turn into adults, features morphing from one face to another, weirdly blank and formless in between.

OBJECTS

The desk you are working at suddenly has a spray of bloody phlegm across its surface.
https://bloodborne.wiki.fextralife.com/Great+One%27s+Wisdom
The body of a dead crow. A wisp circles it with fluctuating interest.
A number of metal levers scattered throughout the Gallows, affixed to walls or flat surfaces, with no clear purpose.
A long, heavily jewelled curved blade, that upon touching the sound of a crowd cheering erupts so loudly it hurts the ears. Just as the elation reaches it's peak, it will turn into horrific screaming and the sound of people running for their lives.
A flock of ghostly ravens. There are occasionally letters attached.
A letter, the text of which is:

Karl,

We're nearly to the finish. Just tell me when, my love, and where, and everything will be in place. I can't wait to see you again. I'd tell you to wear something dashing but I'm going to be the dashing hero this time so wear something warm. Your smile doesn't count, though it counts for so much.

I can't tell you how glad I'll be to be out of this city. It presses in on my friend even more than anywhere else has; there's something about Darktown that eats at you. I have to remember that I can't save everyone despite how he thinks we can, especially when they're constantly searching for mages. We've done some with healing but you're the priority here. We can't afford too much attention.

I don't want to stop writing. I want to tell you everything and start making plans now, but the person who can get this letter to you comes all too soon.

I love you,
I'll see you soon,
Yours,
Your Anders

I know it's redundant. I hope you've rolled your eyes and laughed, if you can still laugh in that horrid fortress. If you can't, I'll heal you until you can again.

Still yours,
Anders

He's not here yet, so I have to ask what you think of getting a fleet of cats. We can be traveling cat salesmen. Maybe if we get enough they can pull a cart. Think about it.
Oh hes here I love you soon love
LA REINE DU MALHEUR scrawled in a dripping substance that initially appears to be blood on exterior walls - until it lights itself on fire. The burned out remnants do not read the same, but instead say, I DID IT FOR YOU.
https://bloodborne.wiki.fextralife.com/Ritual+Blood
The hilt of a greatsword with the blade snapped off as if with great force.
A ledger book that tracks purchases and requisitions of the Inquisition. The math is wrong. The book's pages, all marked in red, will flip back and forth, just slowly enough that someone who is good at math will be able to identify the discrepancies in the figures.
Jewels of various cuts and colors that emit their own light.
A pile of discarded, bloody handkerchiefs.
A sketchbook rests on the table, the current page slowly filling with light traceries in charcoal. Several pages are abandoned and flipped at various states of attempting the same pose, but one finally moves from figure sketch to become a portrait of a girl in recognizably Orlesian armor with her hand resting on the hilt of the sword belted to her side, the curls of her hair braided back from her face into a cascade behind her. The artist is talented but obviously still learning: the shading is inconsistent and doesn't quite evoke the light as it should, the proportion is off in places, the lines are less than confident, but whoever is drawing is taking great pains to do the best they can by their subject.
Mutilated barbies, with the heads missing. The bodies have burn marks on them, and the heads have been removed. The heads hang from the ceiling from wires. They have been given different haircuts, have different colour hair, have been drawn on to give them different make up, but their seem to move on a breeze that can't be felt and are always looking at whoever is walking by them.
A small cherry-plum tree in flower. It sheds petals periodically.
https://bloodborne.wiki.fextralife.com/Blooming+Coldblood+Flower
A dragon and her young offspring who are just hanging out, right in your character's path. The young dragon responds and looks over expectantly when it sees a person approach. The interaction goes no further, but it's clear the dragon seems to be comfortable about the presence of people...
Barrels with strange writing on them, and the scent of wine.
A muster of peacocks
Ethereal posters bearing the words: "Loyalist traitors will burn with the Chantry!

Stand for freedom--or fall with the slavers.

The choice is yours."

They appear most often on the doors of occupied rooms in the mage tower.
https://bloodborne.wiki.fextralife.com/Bastard+of+Loran
The chalk lines of a maze, drawn in a courtyard. The paths move as you do.
A thin stream of red tumbling from the top of a wall, almost like it's being poured out of a decanter. Several decanters, in short order, as this effect spreads horizontally to cover the wall it began on, squelching onto the floor and spreading in a long puddle. Though bright enough in color to be blood, on closer inspection it's a little too viscous, and too translucent — a mix of blood and saliva.

SCENERY

The creepy medical procedure room from the Prolethean compound. When people walk into the room, they will find a sudden shift in light. Even if the sun is shining brightly outside, walking into the room will immediately shift to the limited blue-ish light of night time. It is cold, there is the quiet hum of technology and refrigerators, and the air smells pungent and sharp from bleach. Whatever lies beyond this space is obscured by translucent, heavy plastic curtains.
A second story child's bedroom. There are sci-fi fiction-based sheets on the bed and posters from a Japanese card game/anime franchise on the walls. A bookcase is crammed full of children's books and XBox games. On top of the dresser is a Steelers football helmet and two rectangular shapes of clean space surrounded by dust, where a tv and XBox used to be. The bearded man with the assault rifle is kneeling beside the bed. He looks out the window, then turns to sit on the floor leans his head back against the wall.
A sumptuous room, with rich, plush carpets, painted walls in scenes of the Lord Krishna and beautiful women dancing, floating gauze curtains with fine patterns, for a moment it will be gorgeous, and seem to entice you in with the smell of honey and jasmine. But the second you come in further the walls will splash with blood, bodies twist on the floor, and the smell of seared flesh becomes overwhelming.
A beautifully plush girl's bedroom. The bed is canopied, and the bedding is rich and sumptuous. It overflows with squashy pillows. There is a little writing-desk in the corner, appointed with fine inks and paints and parchments. A chest at the end of the bed is open, revealing a cache of finely made but well-loved toys that someone has played with, a lot. Low bookshelves occupy one corner of the room, in a cozy reading nook, appointed with more squashy pillows and a velvety pouf to sit on. The books on the shelves are very foreign fairy tales and histories and art books and romance novels. There is a little make-up table, outfitted with costume jewelry and a few real pieces, while the make-up is mostly theatrical, and there are craft supplies strewn in there too: feathers, string, pinking shears, glue. One of the walls has been painted in a fantastic mural: a furry blue dragon flying across the sky with all the freedom of a loose ribbon, with a face that almost looks like a moth's, and a little blue girl with horns clutching to its neck. The windows are huge, floor-to-ceiling affairs, curtained in heavy blue curtains, edged with blue satin ribbons and little tear-drop pearls. There is only one door, the door you enter by.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

The cause of the problem is a device that was left in storage—and in pieces—in one of the central tower's lower storage rooms. The pieces were stored in large crates, wrapped in blankets and packed with hay. However, a crate containing sealed jars and vials of dragon blood was stored in the same room, and some of those jars have cracked, with the blood pulled toward the Magrallen as if by a magnet. It's in the process of repairing itself, but not quite able to finish the job with the limited blood supply, and thus left sparking with magic and clearly malfunctioning. Smashing the device a second time to undo its self-repair progress and/or destroying the crystalline orb of blood forming in its vicinity will fix things more or less immediately.

How your characters come to this is up to you. They can find it on accident while hiding from ghosts/looking for a place to make out/whatever, or they can set out intentionally to look for possible causes. If you have any questions you're welcome to ask!

MOD EVENT ↠ KIRKWAIL (UPDATE)

SOLUTION