This cycle's modplot requires little explanation (for once): in the middle of the night Riftwatch receives alerts by raven of an attack on Hercinia from the sea, and though the details are uncertain and confusing, something or someone is making its way westward up the Waking Sea. Riftwatch's ships, the Fancy and the Walrus, captained by Admiral Darras Rivain and Commander Flint, respectively, are hastily readied for action as are the griffons and anyone good with a sword or a bow or combat magic is rousted out of bed to race up the coast and intercept the threat.

Everyone in Forces and Scouting will be ordered to assist; those in other Divisions can expect to receive similar orders only if they are combatants or griffon-riders comfortable ferrying combatants through a battle. If your character falls into this group but you do not want them to be present, you should assume that they were on assignment outside the Gallows when this happened. IC participation will not be optional (except in the sense that all things are optional if you're prepared to deal with their negative consequences). This is an emergency situation and people will be given very little time to prepare, but several scouts on griffons will be sent out ahead, so by the time the ships reach Ostwick people will have the basic outline of what they're heading into. Seeing it live of course is a very different experience.

At Ostwick, the two Riftwatch ships will remain back from the fray, launching attacks from distance (please remember there are no cannons, but there may be ballistae) and serving as a base for griffon-riders to make aerial attacks and carry people to shore. Some may choose to take the launches into the harbor to try to get to shore or to assist Ostwick's ships as they fend off attacks; this will be very dangerous but not impossible.

Fighting the monsters will mostly be a free-for-all! You can assume there are additional smaller sea snakes and squid and swordnoses to be killed, plenty of ships in all sorts of conditions to be assisted, and that everything is chaotic enough not to OOCly worry about threads conflicting. The exception is the biggest beasts: taking out the giant scorpion crab will be the job of those in this thread, which anyone can opt into by tagging it. The largest sea serpent (the one that tries to crush the Walrus) and giant octopus can each be killed by one or more specific PCs. If you're interested in your character being the one to get the killing blows on one of these creatures, please sign up here by June 1 with a link to a thread you've written of at least 5 tags each attacking the monster you want to kill. If we get multiple eligible threads for the same monster, we'll RNG to see which group gets the final kill and which just got in a good but not fatal shot earlier in the battle.

Folks not best suited to a combat environment will be left at home, where they will—surprise!—find themselves dealing with a smaller but no less deadly combat environment anyway. This can be easily opted out of by just not being near the Gallows when it happens. Taking down the sea monster here will be a group effort and similarly chaotic enough to allow for multiple threads without worries about conflicts. Even those in the ferry (see the log) may easily find themselves spread out enough to not need to stay in one thread. But there's also a pair of human villains responsible for directing it. If you do a thread of at least five tags where your character is involved in the situation in the harbor, you can sign up here by June 1 if you'd like your characters to be the ones to spot the Venatori and take them out. Same as above, if we have multiple eligible folks requesting it, we'll RNG.

After the sea monsters have been defeated, Riftwatch will manage to track one surviving creature back to its "home," a floating Venatori base in the Amaranthine. There will be time for those at Ostwick and those at the Gallows to regroup and meet up at this base, where a brief battle will take place to capture it from its Venatori occupants. Then there will be time for exploring the facility and trying to figure out what the enemy was up to there.


OOCly, this will be our first attempt at implementing the new mod-plot-participation-based reward system. This will be pretty similar to the old system: to receive credit you'll be turning in threads in this plot log with at least 5 tags from your character to exchange for rewards. As with our previous reward system, more threads will allow you to get more stuff, but you can't turn in multiple threads between the same characters. Aside from a couple specific rewards that will require you to get thread credit from two separate mod plots, these credits won't carry over and you won't need to keep track of them long term to save up for anything.

Most of the rewards will be plot-specific items ranging from silly to valuable, but you'll also still be able to put points toward things like custom enchanted objects, canon legendary weapons/armor/objects, or specifications.

We'll post the list of available rewards and their price in threads this week, as well as a list of suggested follow-up measures to this plot—including clean-up and outreach, research topics, etc.—that people could take on as player plots or projects in the aftermath. So if you immediately have an idea for something you want your character to spearhead and want to be sure it's known that it's your idea, not something you pulled off a list we provided, drop us a plot or info request ASAP!