Paul Atreides (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
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deercountry2022-12-21 06:05 pm
terriblepurpose) wrote in deercountry2022-12-21 06:05 pm
[player plot] bedtime stories for julia
Who: Sleepers of Trench, Julia Sodder's ghost, Watchers, Patron Pthumerians; Open to all
What: Bedtime Stories for Julia player plot (OOC plotting post and IC network post)
When: December into January
Where: Sleepy Town outskirts, interior
Content warnings: Unreality, child death (referenced), cosmic horror, marked by thread
Carnival
Some distance from the enormous gates of Sleepy Town, an incongruous sight blooms in the latter days of December: a winter carnival set outside of the long evening shadows of that most sacred place's heavy wood walls. The thousands of deer carved into that dark wood sometimes almost seem to be watching the carnival, but perhaps that is only a trick of the festivities' colourful lights.
The carnival itself lacks the towering fairground rides some Sleepers might associate with the idea of a carnival. The multi-coloured patch of tents that sprang up like the city's own mushrooms are devoted instead primarily to displays of performance arts, with Trenchies and Sleepers alike encouraged to show off their talents in music, theatre, martial arts, poetry, and story telling of all types. The bulk of tents are dedicated to these purposes.
Interspersed among them are tents for small carnival games and food hawkers like those that sometimes appear on the Boardwalk, warming tents for the weary to rest, and the sundry other facilities required for a staging ground for serious excursions - but many will pass those tents by, paying no heed to the work going on within them.
Despite the appearance of cheer, the carnival has a ragged, threadbare sense to it. The carnival games' prizes are not so generous as they sometimes are in the warm summe, and the food on offer tends towards the thinned and careful rationing of winter. The Trenchies who participate have a pinched, furtive look when not performing their roles, and cast anxious glances in the direction of Sleepy Town whenever the wind turns. Bitter cold haunts the gaps between the tents, and at night, the calliope music that plays has the brittle quality of ancient glass rattling in its panes.
The purpose of this carnival is not to make merry. It is to be seen to make merry. This is why even the Hunters and Disciples who attend to the protection of the carnival's borders in this dangerous place daub vivid paint on their cheeks and submit to the donning of bells, ribbons, and crowning wreaths of branches laden with deadly red berries.
As they whisper to each other from behind the upturned collars of coats and sleeves held over the mouth: once the attention this carnival seeks has been caught, who knows where it might fall? And, more terribly yet: what might it birth?
Sleepy Town
Within the walls, Sleepy Town is as it ever is. The strange shifting locale that once was the town known as Deerington, the birth place of the child called Julia, remains a ruined graveyard.
But it is within the confines of the dark walls that mark the edges of this haunted town that the stories must be told.
Contingents of Sleepers filter into Sleepy Town over the course of December, their feet breaking the thin dusting of snow that cover the slumped remnants of ancient buildings that some pilgrims might still recognize as their own. But even those who never knew the town when it was alive may find themselves struck with a mysterious sense of familiarity, from time to time - landmarks that are almost known to them glimpsed just out of the corners of their eyes.
It falls to the would-be storytellers to choose their own venue for the intended kind of story telling. A cleared intersection might serve as a flattened stage for a play's performance, while the miraculously standing front half of a church could be the platform for a song. Once Sleepers find a location that suits them, they would be well-advised to present their stories then and there before the unstable nature of the town swallows up the site never to be seen again.
Those unlucky enough to be immersed in the stories may or may not have chosen their venue. The immersion will begin according to the dream-logic of Sleepy Town as either a narrative already being performed spiralling into a 'real' analogue, or it might swallow them up even before they start, as if their intent is enough to trigger the descent into acting out their stories in reality.
Wherever they go, Sleepers might hear the faint, inconsolable sobbing of a young girl in still and lonely moments, echoing untraceably through the broken streets she still wanders.
[For more information on the plot and for questions, see OOC plotting post. For information provided to the characters within the game, see the IC network post.]
What: Bedtime Stories for Julia player plot (OOC plotting post and IC network post)
When: December into January
Where: Sleepy Town outskirts, interior
Content warnings: Unreality, child death (referenced), cosmic horror, marked by thread
Carnival
Some distance from the enormous gates of Sleepy Town, an incongruous sight blooms in the latter days of December: a winter carnival set outside of the long evening shadows of that most sacred place's heavy wood walls. The thousands of deer carved into that dark wood sometimes almost seem to be watching the carnival, but perhaps that is only a trick of the festivities' colourful lights.
The carnival itself lacks the towering fairground rides some Sleepers might associate with the idea of a carnival. The multi-coloured patch of tents that sprang up like the city's own mushrooms are devoted instead primarily to displays of performance arts, with Trenchies and Sleepers alike encouraged to show off their talents in music, theatre, martial arts, poetry, and story telling of all types. The bulk of tents are dedicated to these purposes.
Interspersed among them are tents for small carnival games and food hawkers like those that sometimes appear on the Boardwalk, warming tents for the weary to rest, and the sundry other facilities required for a staging ground for serious excursions - but many will pass those tents by, paying no heed to the work going on within them.
Despite the appearance of cheer, the carnival has a ragged, threadbare sense to it. The carnival games' prizes are not so generous as they sometimes are in the warm summe, and the food on offer tends towards the thinned and careful rationing of winter. The Trenchies who participate have a pinched, furtive look when not performing their roles, and cast anxious glances in the direction of Sleepy Town whenever the wind turns. Bitter cold haunts the gaps between the tents, and at night, the calliope music that plays has the brittle quality of ancient glass rattling in its panes.
The purpose of this carnival is not to make merry. It is to be seen to make merry. This is why even the Hunters and Disciples who attend to the protection of the carnival's borders in this dangerous place daub vivid paint on their cheeks and submit to the donning of bells, ribbons, and crowning wreaths of branches laden with deadly red berries.
As they whisper to each other from behind the upturned collars of coats and sleeves held over the mouth: once the attention this carnival seeks has been caught, who knows where it might fall? And, more terribly yet: what might it birth?
Sleepy Town
Within the walls, Sleepy Town is as it ever is. The strange shifting locale that once was the town known as Deerington, the birth place of the child called Julia, remains a ruined graveyard.
But it is within the confines of the dark walls that mark the edges of this haunted town that the stories must be told.
Contingents of Sleepers filter into Sleepy Town over the course of December, their feet breaking the thin dusting of snow that cover the slumped remnants of ancient buildings that some pilgrims might still recognize as their own. But even those who never knew the town when it was alive may find themselves struck with a mysterious sense of familiarity, from time to time - landmarks that are almost known to them glimpsed just out of the corners of their eyes.
It falls to the would-be storytellers to choose their own venue for the intended kind of story telling. A cleared intersection might serve as a flattened stage for a play's performance, while the miraculously standing front half of a church could be the platform for a song. Once Sleepers find a location that suits them, they would be well-advised to present their stories then and there before the unstable nature of the town swallows up the site never to be seen again.
Those unlucky enough to be immersed in the stories may or may not have chosen their venue. The immersion will begin according to the dream-logic of Sleepy Town as either a narrative already being performed spiralling into a 'real' analogue, or it might swallow them up even before they start, as if their intent is enough to trigger the descent into acting out their stories in reality.
Wherever they go, Sleepers might hear the faint, inconsolable sobbing of a young girl in still and lonely moments, echoing untraceably through the broken streets she still wanders.
[For more information on the plot and for questions, see OOC plotting post. For information provided to the characters within the game, see the IC network post.]