Birthday Party

[peripheries]

Who: Paul Atreides and all his CR
What: Throwing everyone’s favorite Duke a surprise birthday party
When: Forwarded dated to April 1st
Where: Bone House in Gaze

Content Warnings: Drinking, underage drinking, drugs (both fictional and not), drawings of space worms, skeletons, will add further warnings if necessary



When you arrive at the house in Gaze, (affectionately known as Bone House), a skeleton will open the door and offer to take your coat if you have one. No need to take your shoes off or anything!

The large house has been decorated with black streamers and confetti. In the entryway and hung on the railing to the second floor that overlooks the entrance to the great room are large banners that say “HAPPY BIRTHDAY PAUL” (though one looks like it used to say “Jaune” but was just painted over? Whatever).

In the Living Room, there is a large board and various colored markers for people to write messages to the birthday boy. There is also a table full of bottled water and various couches, chairs, and beanbags to collapse into if the party gets to be too much and one needs a quiet place to rest or a place to chill if you’ve imbibed too much… well, whatever you had.

It is also where all the food and drinks are.

There’s an extremely large charcuterie board with the usual meats, cheeses, and olives as well as an extremely eccentric collection of snacks ranging from individual sized Cheez-it bags, to humungous bags of Doritos and salty chips, as well as nearly every kind of Oreo one can imagine.

There are also various cakes, all angel food. Some are misshapen, some have an attempt at being frosted with whipped cream and fruit, one even says “Happy Birthday Ka-” before that was hastily covered with a bunch of strawberries jammed really close together.

At the island, a skeleton is playing bartender. Surprisingly, it can seem to take and understand individual orders, but there’s always a constant flow of tequila shots being made and sent out to the great hall to be served by another skeleton.

And, no, of course it’s not going to check your age to see if you’re legal. It’s a skeleton. Why would it care?

The Great Hall is the center of activity and where everyone is encouraged to mingle and have fun. There is a skeleton on the grand piano in the corner gleefully playing piano covers of the hits from the Shrek Soundtrack with the occasional cover of “DaRude’s Sandstorm” when it has another one to help out.

In another corner, on huge piece of paper that spans nearly 6ft wide and 8ft tall is drawing of an Arrakis sandworm and it’s giant maw. The game is Pin the Tooth on the Sandworm and it’s… very easy… because the worm maw is most of the board. Even if the skeleton spins you as you’re blindfolded, it’s pretty hard to lose. If you manage to do it, which is likely, the skeleton running the game will award you a tequila shot! If you lose, the skeletons will award you a tequila shot (but it’s rail).

(It’s a drinking game, isn’t the point to drink?)

There’s also a table that has many candelabras on it, numbering up to seventeen. They’re still lit and burning even though there is a sign that says “make a wish!” even though it almost looks like a shrine for the dead.

…It’s maybe clear that the concept of “birthday candles” was greatly misunderstood.

There is also a skeleton dealing out small doses of “Spice”, a psychoactive drug straight outta the Duneverse. However, you must check in with this Skeleton to get a dose. There will be no “permanently melting your brain with ancestral memories” at this party!

Teacher’s/God’s/Jod’s/The Emperor Undying’s study, adjacent to the main hall, is closed and locked. Though, the lock is fairly easy to break if someone really wanted to get in. There’s not even skeletons guarding.

That said, many things are warded with eerie runes of blood and bone.

So, fuck around and find out.

The upstairs is generally off limits. Party goers can climb up the stairs, and it’s encouraged if they want to look over the Great Room from above, but all of the bedrooms are carefully guarded by more skeletons who will SCREAM VERY LOUDLY if you try to enter and will become hostile if done by force.

Of course, this won’t happen if you are with someone who lives in the house.

Enjoy the party! Mingle away!

((ooc: if you have any questions or anything, please hit me up at worldtype)) or via PM.))

Birthday Board | At the Party | The Morning After | IC Party Games | Spice Dealer

Comments

[hearthebell]

Oh?

[It surprises him, and interests him.]

How does your planet orbit and rotate? I'm trying to think how that could possibly work, assuming a heliocentric model.

[dohaeris]

I don't know, I can't see it.

[she pauses thoughtfully.]

We do have a sun, though. And a moon! And seven wanderers.

[hearthebell]

What are the wanderers? Other orbiting bodies?

[He's very fascinated; it shows, and the alcohol absolutely helps it show.]

[dohaeris]

I think they are planets. I looked up planet, and the wikipedia said it comes from a word for 'wanderer.' Because they wander through the stars, like the wanderers do. Except the stars are further away. I learned that, too.

[she raises her glass of wine, as if she means to take a sip, but she remembers the game, and does not.]

Is there a trick to seeing your planet, when you're living on it? Like how Maesters can tell the world is round, by the shadows.

[hearthebell]

[His brows raise.]

You like learning. People who are like that always find their way in any world.

[Like recognizes like, as it were.]

You can see a planet while you're living on it, in indirect ways. Do you know about eclipses?

[dohaeris]

[arya liked learning. sansa is simply afraid of not knowing. she tries very hard to learn very quickly, but she always fears it is not enough.

she did hear about eclipses, but perhaps not in the way he might have expected.]

House Pebble. House Pryor of Pebble. Their sigil is the black moon on a yellow sun.

[at least it's in the vale, and to anyone listening who might know of such things, it would be perfectly reasonable for a girl named stone to know. in fact she learned it while she was preparing for the falcon knight's tourney. she's not sure if she knew about eclipses before that.]

That's the only eclipse that I've seen, though.

[hearthebell]

[Fear and love, in the end, aren't so very different, so long as one is being motivated and urged forward.

One is far less fun, of course, but how many are lucky enough to actually and truly love or even like something?]

Interesting sigil. It's a representation of something you actually can observe, which is the shadow of one object falling on another object. When your planet is between the Sun and the moon, the shadow your planet casts on the moon is a lunar eclipse. When the moon comes between your planet and the Sun, the shadow it casts on your planet's surface is a solar eclipse.

Nothing casts a shadow that is not real, so... I'd say that witnessing the motion of the planet and its effects on nearby bodies is an excellent way of observing it while on it.

[dohaeris]

[sansa nods. this sounds vaguely familiar. she hopes it came from a lesson from maester luwin, and not littlefinger explaining the sigil to her.]

The maesters say a blood moon is just a shadow. I've never seen one, though.

[she pauses.]

I did see a comet that was red.

[could that have been a shadow, too? this was the sort of thing arya liked to learn about, and it makes sansa miss her.]

[hearthebell]

A blood moon? It's just a trick of the light... there's no astronomical significance to it, it just means that a total lunar eclipse has occurred.

[He know something about astronomy, might even feel affection for the field as one who has pursued a different path but has still sown a childhood dream that has failed to sprout. His brows raise under his shaggy bangs at the mention of the comet.]

I can't say that I've seen a red comet. A trick of the light, or... what were you told?

[dohaeris]

[sansa laughs. she was actually told it was lannister red, and meant that joffrey would triumph over his enemies. of course it was only ser arys who told her that. maester pycelle never said anything useful.]

That it was a comet.

[she tries to remember if anyone had said anything less stupid in her earshot, but she can't.]

[hearthebell]

Is that truly all you were told?

[He seems skeptical. He can't help it, after seeing so many truth-tellers and liars in his life.]

What is a comet to you?

[dohaeris]

[sansa frowns in concentration. she puts the claims of ser arys out of her mind in an effort to prove to this man that she knows what a comet is and is therefore not a stupid girl from a stupid world who had to look up the word 'planet' on wikipedia when she got here.]

It's not truly a star.

[she digs deep, trying to recall everything maester luwin or her father or anyone, really, ever said about them, or the stars.]

They come and go, like the wanderers.

[she may have actually read that on the wikipedia page for planet. she isn't sure.]