deercountry | I'd go back in time and change it, but I can't

I'd go back in time and change it, but I can't

DECEMBER 2021 EVENT

Hello! We are trying a new style of event this December with archival-like entries that characters can ICly find in the Archives. This should allow characters to be able to plan against certain events that occur in-game and do research ahead of time, during the event, or after the fact.

The idea is that these prompts will provide you with all the possibilities characters could theoretically face from the prompt. We hope this leaves more open-ended opportunities for people to engage with. Anything mentioned in the excerpts could be an experience characters encounter. You can always ask for clarification on any prompt on the plotting page.

This is a way to keep all event prompts relevant since new characters would be able to "read up" on these events/excerpts by visiting the Archives or other such resources for information about past events and what they can anticipate from the setting.

We hope this new style makes sense and is fun for players to work with! They will rely on players creating more of the atmosphere than the prompts, but we think that the prompts will provide the perfect guidance as to what the atmosphere should feel like. Enjoy!

IMAGE DESCRIPTORS IN ORDER OF APPEARANCE
Prompt One
[Image One: Holiday themed antler decoration.]
[Image Two: White stag with perfect, circular antlers with bits of ice attached.]

Prompt Two
[Image One: Sculpture of white rabbit with neck caught in a snare. Non-graphic.]
[Image Two: Person in red cloak and wolf mask turning around.]

Prompt Three
[Image One: Puppet making bloody snow angel in snow.]
[Image Two: Bloodied hands wrapped in bandages clenching.]

[NAVIGATION]

Prompt 1 • Prompt 2 • Prompt 3 • Plotting • Newsletter

[JUMP TO COMMENTS]

WINTER MOURNING

WHEN: Begins in December and can last until the end of Feb.
WHERE: Everywhere
CONTENT WARNINGS: Spoilers for various canons, survival situations, forced memory share

[A passage from Rituals of Trench: Remembering Our Pasts reads the following:]

"A long-standing tradition to celebrate Bone Season is for Deerians to collect antlers and bones salvaged from natural resources and create decorative home accents. These antler-bone decors are known formally as Winter Mournings and can be found in almost every residential home throughout Deer Country. Winter Mournings can be made to look like wreaths, candle holders, or simply an antler with a bow hung up on a wall.

Winter Mournings is seen as a way to honor one's past tribulations and how one has managed to survive and overcome hardships during their life. Winter Mournings serves as a testament to survival and a willingness to keep surviving even when things look bleak and dismal.

Creating Winter Mournings is considered a blessing to the Pthumerians Dorothea, Remina, and Argonaut. You will know if the blessing was accepted once your Winter Mourning begins to glow like the moon. Touch your Winter Mourning and you will be pulled back in time to a memory of a specific time when you or someone else had to survive something physically or mentally challenging. For some, it is merely a memory that cannot hurt, but for others, you may want to proceed with caution as it has been known to pull people physically back to times of war.

One cannot choose which memory they wind up in if it is their own, a friend's, or a complete stranger's. Winter Mournings was designed to create a sense of union and empathy among residents and is meant to open your mind and heart to those who have suffered around you. It is time you explore your past, or someone else's past, with an open mind and see how the other side has lived through hard times. These memories are known to be from adolescence, adulthood, or sometimes even futures that have not yet happened or timelines you have never known. After all, Remina sees all past and all history. That means they see all of your past and history too.

No memory lasts forever though. Once the memory has been concluded, you shall be brought back to the present by the Winter Mourning Stag: a great white beast with a circle of frozen antlers. It will come to you when the time is ready, and you will return to the present like waking from a dazzling dream.

Experiencing Winter Mournings can stabilize one's mood and provide restful sleep after, even if the memories may be difficult to swallow. It truly is a tribute to honor past horrors and traumas. Some memories are painful to remember, but forgetting them will never do anyone any good either. So hang your Winter Mournings and remember what matters.

Survive another day. You are worth it."

FAQ

1. Winter Mournings can produce new memories every time you touch them or the same memory.

2. Characters cannot choose what the memory is.

3. Characters can arrive in each other's memories regardless of if they already know each other. Multiple people can experience the same memory.

4. You can either experience the memory as a memory you can't touch or experience - or you can physically be in the memory and have to survive the situation as well. If you die in memory, your body will die wherever you had been touching the Winter Mourning.

5. Palebloods are capable of altering memories or how they or others experience memories.

6. Characters can be pulled into memories at random - as long as one of the characters in the memory share is touching a Winter Mourning at first.

RUN, RABBIT, RUN

WHEN: Month of December
WHERE: Everywhere/the woods
CONTENT WARNINGS: Themes of hunting, ghosts, curses, attempts at animal violence, hunting people based on blood types.

[An excerpt from Legends of Trench: Curses and Causations reads the following:]

"One of the most notorious legends of Trench is without a doubt the tale of The Huntress and the Hare. Most Trenchies have been told this tale since they were children, but for those unfamiliar, settle in.

This story begins with a mischievous god and an ambitious huntress. The Pthumerian Dorothea loved to play tricks on hunters trying to survive the Bone Season, setting animals free from traps and remaking the traps to catch the hunters instead. One day, a darkblood Huntress was fed up with Dorothea preventing her from catching food for her family and decided to settle the score. The Huntress began to hunt for Dorothea specifically, but it is no small feat hunting the god of trickery and survival.

The Huntress started to rely on her darkblood powers to alter reality to make the perfect traps. Innocuous trees turned into glue traps that anyone would stick to until they were freed by a darkblood or death took their pain from them. Walking through bushes would snag legs and necks, effectively trapping whatever creatures were unfortunate enough to wander for food. Magical snares and beartraps lock around victims with unrelenting force, leaving people and animals to try for help until they cry no more. While this took many innocent lives in the woods, animals, and people alike, it never seemed to work on Dorothea.

Dorothea continued to outwit the Huntress until she eventually drove the Huntress insane. The Huntress died without ever catching Dorothea, but they say her vengeful spirit awakens in winter and begins to set her traps yet again. The Huntress sends her traps and her dead animals after vilebloods and warmbloods to spite Dorothea and hope to maybe catch the god's attention. But Dorothea is no passive god. Dorothea spurs vilebloods and warmbloods to defend themselves against darkbloods and coldbloods.

Infamously, this has created enormous tension between the blood types during December some years, and it is said that the blood lust has caused the types to begin hunting one another regardless of old friendships and alliances. Beware the Huntress's curse. Some believe darkbloods and coldbloods can still hear her haunting commands and cries from the Trenchwood.

They say there is no ease for the tension between the bloodtypes until December has passed, but some believe palebloods may provide relief if they are willing."

FAQ

1. Characters will increasingly feel the urge to actively hunt one another using traps/etc.

2. The Huntress's curse includes undead animals/beasts chasing after warmbloods and vilebloods and magical traps. Players can invent unique traps for their characters.

3. There will be an innate urge to chase/hide from one another.

4. The curse can be broken by paleblood intervention, character death, or a gradual wearing off by the end of the month.

LOCKJOINT

WHEN: All of Bone Season
WHERE: On Sleeper bodies
CONTENT WARNINGS: Mild body horror, blood magic curses, physical curses, cures through blood ministration/blood letting, possible skin removal, injuries, possible death via starvation/exposure.

[An passage from The Sleeper Condition; Chapter 13: Bodily Aches and More. Found exclusively at the Lumenarium:]

"Generally speaking, Sleeper blood allows Sleepers to navigate this world without the fear of illness and disease. However, no organic body is perfect, and Sleeper blood has its own set of ailments to fret over. Blood Ministers have studied the phenomena of Lockjoint for years now and believe that it is linked to the crystalization found in Sleeper death, though the exact connection remains unknown.

Lockjoint tends to begin and last throughout Bone Season. Some Sleepers may never experience it, but for many, it becomes a reoccurring issue to dread each season. This condition forces blood magic to gather at the joints and effectively lock up. Sleepers find it difficult to move their bodies at the bends, fingers, knees, shoulders, etc without some form of discomfort. Minimal lockjoint can be painful and annoyance, but critical lockjoint can be fatal.

The most severe cases of lockjoint documented have shown Sleepers to have crystalization form over their joints, rendering parts of their bodies completely immobile. Some Sleepers have been found dead in this condition, all their joints crystallized, and it is believed most died from natural causes thereafter.

One can determine they are experiencing lockjoint when the coloration around the joints begins to darken in color, typically looking like a bruise. Calcification may occur rapidly the more magic a Sleeper uses or the more they expose themselves to outside elements. It is imperative that Sleepers remain properly clothed during Bone Season, even if they are coldbloods, and to invest in enchanted clothes that can lock in heat.

A known cure for lockjoint is the art of bloodletting. Puncturing the joints with small incisions seems to allow a release of the built-up magic and can provide immediate relief to the Sleeper. Catching lockjoint early is imperative. Alternative methods are soaking in hot springs and salted water.

Those who are in a more severe state will have to carefully have the crystals removed. This will likely remove the skin as well. Local anesthesia is highly recommended for the procedure. This process is known to leave scarring. The crystals can be saved and used as bloodstones from whoever they were harvested from. If you find a Sleeper dead from lockjoint, make sure to harvest the crystals as they are incredibly valuable.

This curse is believed to stem from Sleeper blood magic congealing within the body in contrast with the atmospheric magic of Bone Season. There is no known prevention for lockjoint. Lockjoint can impact all Sleepers regardless of bloodtype or the material their bodies are made from."

FAQ

1. This impacts characters regardless of blood type or their body - meaning it can impact characters with metal/plastic/plant/wood/etc bodies.

2. Players can choose how rapid or severe this gets and how quickly they can be healed.

CODING

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

I haven't slept soundly in quite some time.

[She partially turns her head, and if she is surprised to see Break standing so closely, her expression betrays no sign of it. There is a thin, weak smile on her face - but a streak of pained resolution in her eyes. The jest she offers, clearly an attempt to distract from the severity of the situation, hangs in the air uncomfortably for a moment or two longer before her hand falls on the handle.

She would not mind if they opened it together.]

Don't look at me differently after this.

[The door opens.

It appears to be a jail.

Three children in separate cages, screaming each others' names and reaching through the bars. One, the oldest, a girl with dark hair and a torn violet frock, has a voice that rises above the others.]

Percy! Percy, be quiet! Where is Lyssie? Lyssie, are you here?

[And from the far end, a tearful, tremulous sound from a child whose features are not visible in the darkness.]

'Mhere...

[The conversation continues in this vein for a few moments more as Lysithea stands wordlessly in the doorway, looking down into the face of a person she used to know well. She can't help taking a step forward...]

They're here! They're back!

[This shriek comes from a boy who immediately throws himself into the far end of his cell.]

[Then, she may be pleasantly surprised when the magic of these nasty things grants her that rest, just the once. Break is also a restless sleeper and it's only worse since he arrived, to the point that going through these things with people is almost worth it for the opportunity to drift off gently into a sleep deep enough that he doesn't jolt awake at the slightest creak of wind against the house or the snap of a log in the fireplace.

This memory, however, is already too intense to sit well. For all that he opens the door alongside her, Break stops short in the doorway, struck by the fear in the boy's voice.]

-- he doesn't mean us, surely?

[Break glances around for the real captors. The memory isn't going to force them to act it out in their place, is it? The idea of that is appalling. If that's true, for all that he has a deep respect for letting the past be what it is, Break has a feeling he won't have the guts to let the memory run its course.]

[Lysithea glances briefly at Break with a faint shake of the head.]

I -- don't know...

[This situation didn't map exactly to any memory she was aware of. Then again, she could scarcely remember any of this at all. Dim recollection was slowly resurfacing, but still...]

Percy... and Melia...

[She approaches the cell holding the oldest girl slowly, tentatively -- though she still speaks, her words sound so vague that it seems she is speaking aloud to herself more than she is making conversation.]

And they just took... Clytie and Theo. They said... they were going to do some tests, and they would be right back. But we're not going to see them again, are we...?

[She kneels now, and she looks searchingly into the face of this girl, who gazes back with a quiet, defiant manner.]

Oh -- Melly... I forgot. Can you forgive me? I forgot your face. Let me see... Can you let me see now?

[The child does not respond - she seems suddenly frozen as Lysithea reaches through the bars towards her.]

...No. It's off-script. Of course, this part didn't actually happen. Haah... Of course, we can't actually save anyone.

Xerxes... do you see? This is my sister. And cousin Percy.

[Break watches carefully, thoughts churning, listening for others approaching and to Lysithea's murmuring simultaneously. As the memory goes still, his tense, stiff shoulders finally fall. Then, rather than forcing Lysithea to watch as a helpless bystander all over again, the winter mourning is giving her a chance to explore this memory at her own pace...?

If so, that's almost kind, in a weird, warped, disgusting sort of way. After all, the damn thing could have spared her from seeing all this again at all. But at least for the moment, she can take her time opening doors, and look at these faces undisturbed. That's how Break would want to experience it, he thinks, if he had to see the Sinclair mansion again, after...]

I'm here. [It's less a reassurance and more a status update. Reporting for duty. Slowly, he moves to her side, squatting down on his heels to see things from Lysithea's perspective.] ...will you tell me about them?

...I can't.

[Lysithea smiles, and -- for the first time since she has been thrust into this wretched world - this tortured child's dream - this blood-corrupted refuge, there are tears streaming down her face. ...But she smiles.]

I can't remember.

We never spoke of it again. The pictures were put away. The rooms were walled off. We did not speak their names.

I forgot... That was the only way we could move on. Melly, you shouldn't forgive us. We had to -- survive. We had to forget, or we couldn't live.

[Her hand stops reaching for the girl through the bars and falls to her side.]

But the Ordelians died a long time ago, in this... pit. Those of us who remain - we're just... waiting.

[Break's first impulse is to be appalled. But it's not a matter of disgust, he realizes only moments later -- it's recognition. He remembers, after the corpses were removed and the blood was cleaned up, how hollow and wrong the Sinclair mansion felt. The relief and release he'd experienced when he'd left had been due in part to hope, to feeling as though he could do something to fix the situation after all. But it had also been how fresh the very air itself felt as he left those losses behind, and moved into a new stage of his life where he didn't have to completely believe they'd happened at all.]

...the weight of absence is far worse a ghost than any actual presence. Silence where there ought to be voices, and -- things that should be precious going untouched. It's something like that for you, too, right...?

[He watches Lysithea rather than the memory, though he eyes her from beneath the fall of his hair rather than staring at her outright.]

The only way to escape such a haunting is...to turn one's back on it entirely.

My parents couldn't face it. They have never recovered.

[She steadfastly looks forward, into the upturned face of the child.]

I was lucky. I could forget. But if I didn't know these things intimately, their mark was etched upon me indelibly.

Here. [A hand to her heart.] And here. [Oddly... she brushes at her hair.]

As you say... we became a house of ghosts. And when I left, I swore I would do everything in my power to create a better future for my parents. That is why I sought magic - power - prestige. But here I am. My sole regret... is that I cannot fulfill my promise.

If there is another Lysithea, I pray she will do what I cannot.

[...And finally, in a quick, impulsive movement, the tips of her fingers brush the face of the girl. Only for a single, scant moment before she draws her hand back once more.]

I won't forget again. Don't let me.

[There are a lot of things Break could say here. Bits about having to live with the shards of promises you've broken, good intentions that went wrong, never getting back to something you wanted to fix and the struggle of making that mean something in a brand new life that treats you better. But he already feels a little presumptuous for what he's already said, for being here at all, and, well.

Lysithea is half his age, but she's much less bratty than his other brats. Slowly, one piece at a time, he's been learning just why that is. He knows there was an "ailment" that led her to relate somewhat to that Edelgard woman, and now he knows she's a survivor of something awful on top of that. Something that had to do with kids in cages, apparently. Don't look at me differently after this, she'd said to him before, and as he puts two and two together he can't really help that. But the main shift in his perception isn't actually a huge one. It's simply that Lysithea is much less like his Sharon, so innocently eager to grow up and be taken seriously, than he initially believed.

As it turns out, there's a great deal of the youngest daughter of the fallen Sinclair family in her, too, with a childhood not necessarily fled from so much as stolen outright, ripped away by a massacre.

That little girl had been left with only a single remaining knight for comfort, and that knight -- too young and naive himself to understand just what he was getting wrong -- had turned his back on her to try and fix things in his own way. And just as Lysithea can't reach back through dimensions to soothe the aftermath of what was left, Break can't do a single thing about the child he left behind except to deal with it when she begs him not to leave in his nightmares and make the choice yet again to be better than he was in the morning.

In this moment, Lysithea doesn't need him to keep muttering poetry and philosophy at her. She just needs him to do what he usually does, and dutifully follow her around. Comfort can come later.]

...then, if that's the case, you'd better take this opportunity to see as much as you can. [He stands, ensuring that the latch on his canesword is open.] Do what you need to do. If this memory begins to move again, and "they" show up...I'll have your back.

I couldn't say... if that would please me or not.

[She lingers a moment longer as she bows her head - Break might astutely notice that she is drying her tears so that she will not have to face him with bloodshot eyes and a tear-streaked face, but eventually, she stands. Her eyes flicker quickly towards the far corner towards the cell where 'Lyssie' is imprisoned.

...But she turns away. She cannot see a purpose in investigating her three year old self.]

Let's go.

[Break may linger if he wishes. Cousin Percy is cowering almost too far back to be seen very clearly, but the younger Lysithea is standing at the bars gazing out with the bewildered eyes of a very young child. Her features are rosy and her hair is a light violet - there is little resemblance to the pale and vaguely sickly-appearing girl that Break knows apart from the eyes.

When he rejoins Lysithea, she is gazing towards a door at the end of the hall.]

I must warn you.

Things do not progress well from here. I... have no wish to cause you unnecessary distress. If you wish to wait here, I can face it myself.

[He does linger, somewhat, more in deference to Lysithea's "don't let me" comment about forgetting again than anything else. He will tuck away what facts he can and save them for her, just in case, even though he doesn't have the full context. But once Lysithea is truly on the move, Break keeps pace with her, almost obediently even as she pauses to give him an out.]

Please don't concern yourself on my account. If there are things you do not wish me to witness, I'll remain. Outside of that, I'll go with you.

[Break is prone to nightmares regardless. If it isn't this in the end it'll be something else, and he's already just discovered that his boss was a toddler when she went through this experience. He doesn't believe for a second he won't be further affected by whatever comes next, but what he's already seen is bad enough that he may as well commit to the rest. He'll deal with his own aftermath on his own, in whatever way he needs to.]

[Break receives a slow nod. ...Her speech had, perhaps, been perfunctory. She understood Break well enough now to expect that he would not leave her for the sake of his own sensibilities.

She meets his eyes, and there is a flash of something like defiance in her own expression before she places her hand on the door and pushes.

The scene changes.

Before them is a room very much like the first room they had been in before. A sickly scent of iron and chemicals - stone slabs laid out across the floor - strange machines and chains lining the walls. The difference is that this room is occupied. Occupied by people in dark robes and hoods, bustling about back and murmuring in sibilant whispers. Occupied by sheets laid over child-sized protrusions upon the stone slabs, discreetly obscuring whatever is underneath. Occupied by one remaining child strapped to the stone, screaming in muffled tones as she is gagged.

It is the sound they had heard earlier, traversing the halls.

As before, things seem to momentarily slow to a stop as they enter, and Lysithea gazes upon the scene intently, taking it all in. Words fall haltingly from her mouth.]

Their goal... was to create something impossible.

A human being with the power of multiple divine crests. A power too great for anyone to bear. They tried in children, because their blood was fresh and their bodies vigorous.

They would succeed with only one specimen. The rest were eaten from within by the magic that tried to bind the crests to their blood.

I wonder... if there is any point in trying to change this. It would only serve to live out some sort of... bizarre revenge fantasy.

[Experimentation on children. That's how the Will of the Abyss came to be, in a roundabout way. More recently it's how a pile of orphans wound up the unknowing and unwilling Contractors to a murderous beheading Chain, their shared bond with it slowing the progress of the Contract but damning them all to be pulled into the Abyss in the end regardless. The same cold and nasty part of Break that once targeted society's unwanted for his primary victims, knowing they wouldn't be missed quickly, can see the practicality in such a thing. The rest of him finds it disgusting.

Then, if Break is reading the implication here correctly, that must be another burden Lysithea carries -- being, for some reason, the only one who survived.]

For you to phrase it as a question, it must not be something you've put much thought into.

[That's not entirely a surprise, if so. Lysithea seems entirely too clinical to dwell on something so emotional as a bout of vengeance that would serve no practical purpose. Her day to day pettinesses are tiny, like his own.]

((Was a bit hard to get myself back into the frame of mind for this thread so perhaps we can draw it to a conclusion soon.))

[She shakes her head slowly in response to his words.]

I thought of it frequently when I was younger. I think I believed that if somebody destroyed them... they would come back.

[The pronoun usage is confusing. But Lysithea's gaze has settled on the slabs of stone with the small forms covered by white sheets.]

But now...

My concern is simply that they cannot be allowed to ever hurt anyone again. It won't make me feel better to see this memory changed.

[The scene is beginning to slowly progress once again. In the corner, somebody is preparing a solution. Two hooded figures stand at an odd machine, fiddling with some controls as it flares to life. The screaming child is gagged.]

((Between that and my own circumstances this month, I think it might be better to just handwave the end of this one. Apologies again!))

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

I'd go back in time and change it, but I can't

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Apologies, this notif got eaten. BC

No worries!

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