may ooc post

[stellafortunamods]

May OOC Post
Greetings, Travelers, and welcome to Stella Fortuna!
State of the World

The Travelers' hard work has resulted in the stone gate keys being assembled, and on October 1st, a low rumbling from the ruins will tell everyone that the way towards upper Dragonspine is now clear. Perhaps what you find there will answer some of your questions about the world.


System Updates

Applications are permanently open! Bring your friends! +1s are accepted as well! You need to be in the game for at least one month before you can +1 a friend. You can also get invited by the mod team!

Submit your AC! If you are on hiatus, you still need to check in.

We have new players and characters! Feel free to say hi to Hu Tao, Shirou, Sooga and Roxas!


Discoveries

➤ Entombed City

Trekking up from Second Camp towards the ruined gate will shelter you from the cold wind, but once you pass through the gate, you find yourself assaulted by the freezing weather once again.

The gate conceals a ruined city made from stone and partially built into caves on the mountainside. The buildings have all been severely weathered by the elements, but some still stand and can be entered. These are ancient houses, and what remains of their damaged furniture tells you that people lived here. In the buildings, you may find something long covered by a brittle cloth. Be careful with that cloth, because it quickly disintegrates if you touch it. Underneath that cloth is a frozen corpse.

The inhabitants of this city have been laid to rest with simple rites and pale flowers placed around their bodies. All of them are dead.

Some golden boxes have been placed in conspicuous places around the town. Approaching them will cause them to open, and the octahedral crystal within begins to shine with a soft blue light. If you continue to stay in their vicinity, a holographic image of a man in a tunic will appear, and he will begin to narrate a message. Even though he speaks in a language that you've never heard before, you can somehow understand him.

"I leave this message for any future visitors that may come to our city. You stand in Vindagnyr, once a land of greenery and life. The winter came to our home ten years ago, and it has never left. The cold pervades the mountain and all that is below it. We pray to the gods for salvation, but they do not answer us anymore.

The priests have decided that we are to barricade ourselves in the city. We wait until one of our scouts return with news of a land yet untouched by the snow. I leave this message for any of our lost brethren who may one day return. If you are watching this, then the end has already come for us."

The recording ends, and the box closes itself. It can be replayed by pressing a button on the outside of the box. Similar boxes can be recovered from the ruins, describing records of life in Vindagnyr during the blizzard. Relics and weapons can also be recovered from the Entombed City. It's probably not grave robbing... probably?

If your character decides to explore an area or open a recording box, please comment to the top-level below and we can give you some clues or scavenged items to thread out!

➤ The Skyfrost Nail

One building stands out amongst the ruins - the highest one, built with evident care as a temple. The ruin conceals a Domain entrance, but you'll definitely need to be well-prepared before going in. As soon as the Domain's doors open, a blustering wind blows out of its interior, and the cold is unlike anything you've ever seen.

Inside the Domain is a tree with white bark. Something has fallen through the ceiling of the Domain onto the tree, splintering its branches. The Skyfrost Nail emits vast quantities of sheer cold - perhaps, it is the source of the misfortune that has befallen this city. The very top of the Nail glows with a bright white light, a beacon that is visible even from Mondstadt.

The white tree had been grown with care on a pedestal. Below the pedestal is a sunken area. It's hard to guess at what it had been used for. However, the pit is filled with ice, and inside the ice are the clear forms of a dozen priests kneeling down in prayer. All of them wear a circlet of white branches, visible through the ice.

What will you do?

➤ Choices

Returning to Forneus will elicit some answers. The Travelers can choose to try and destroy the Skyfrost Nail, thus breaking Vindagnyr and thus all of Dragonspine from a prison of eternal ice. However, doing so would also defrost that strange object on the slopes of the mountain. They will also have to decide if they will tell the Adventurers' Guild about the entombed city of Vindagnyr.

There are many options, and Forneus will not make any decisions for you. The Travelers will need to come to a consensus themselves.

Plotting

Feel free to use this post as a plotting post for all your CR and threading needs! A quick form is provided for your use:

<span style="color: #1d5737; font-size: 1rem; font-family: Palatino Linotype, Palatino, Serif;">The Player</span> <B>Player Name:</b> Your name! <b>Timezone:</b> <b>Contact:</b> Plurk, Discord, PM, your choice. <b>Summer or winter?</b> <span style="color: #1d5737; font-size: 1rem; font-family: Palatino Linotype, Palatino, Serif;">The Character</span> <b>Character Name:</b> <b>Canon:</b> <b>Vision:</b> <b>Tl;dr:</b> Describe your character here! Be as serious or meme-y as you like. <b>The Entombed City:</b> Exploring? Finding boxes? Scavenging? Not stepping foot in this city ever again? <b>The Skyfrost Nail:</b> What will your character vote for? To defrost the Nail or not? <b>Investigation:</b> Anything else on Dragonspine that you want to check out? <b>Will your character eat clean snow?</b> ᕦ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°) ᕤ

Comments

exploration clues

[stellafortunamods]

Comment here with the location you are visiting for a clue!

[bowfaire]

Slides in here! can claude get any info from the temple/domain area?

in particular, he'll want to get as close to the tree as he can. he'll also linger around the frozen priests for a bit.

OTHERWISE I WILL ALSO JUST SETTLE FOR ANYTHING FROM THE CITY ITSELF? idk honestly not picky bc Claude will work with whatever info he gets

[stellafortunamods]

The temple area has broken furniture and stone altars/tables. Some books can be found on shelves, but they are extremely fragile and will crumble when handled. Still, they're there. The stone altars also carry carvings of a similar language as any carvings or painted words in the city proper. Of the words that he can make out, there is a mention towards the entity that the priests worship - Celestia.

The priests are of varied ages and physical genders, kneeling in prayer with relatively neutral expressions. They all wear the same white robes and a crown of white leaves. The ice around them cannot be melted, even with Pyro users' flames. The white leaves, seen through the ice, are similar to the white bark of the broken tree.

It is difficult to approach the tree, as the Skyfrost Nail exudes intense cold. The tree's bark seems closer to that of a petrified tree than an actual living tree. The bark looks and feels smooth, and its roots go through the floor to an unseen depth. Whatever magic it once held has dissipated. It is definitely easier to investigate the tree if the Nail was destroyed.

[cranelike]

no real preference here but tsurumaru will probably at least poke at one of the golden boxes in the city. hurt him. or don't.

[stellafortunamods]

Tsuru will find a box that plays a recording of a middle-aged woman. She talks about working in the fields on the lower mountain before the snow came, of the wine that used to be made from grapes grown with ample sunlight. She mentions burying the last bottles of wine somewhere near the vineyards, and that she was willing to leave Vindagnyr and find a place with summer. However, the priests forbade everyone from leaving, and she dare not disobey them.

[nefilim]

puts an ana here i should've done this before she busted in

she will be examining one of the boxes! as well as going to check the damage in homes and such, she's just poking around trying to to freak out

[stellafortunamods]

Ana will find a box that belongs to a young man. He mentions wanting to leave the mountain and seeking a place where everyone could live away from winter, but his parents forbade him from leaving, citing the priests' orders. He confides in wanting to strike out anyway, and that he will depart soon. He expresses his disdain at the priests not acting until Celestia tells them what to do - usually, Celestia talks to them directly, but they have fallen silent ever since the winter came. He tells whoever is watching this recording that they should come with him, because they should rely on themselves when the gods stop caring. He mentions trail markers that he will be leaving, but those are likely to be long buried by the snow.

[fiddlestick]

Slides in here.

Elliot will be looking around the town, examining the boxes, trying to learn more about the people that lived here! What can he find?

[stellafortunamods]

The thing he can notice about the boxes is that they're relatively common. There's a box in every 2-3 buildings, almost as if they were intentionally left in a place where they can be found again. Some boxes are frozen and too dented to open, but others respond to him easily. They open only for Vision users... not sure if he can figure that out, though?

He can find a box that was recorded by a young woman wearing a crown and a flowing dress. She talks about her father, who is the head priest of the city. Elliot may also hear someone off-screen address her as 'princess'. She feels very sick, but she still tries to continue praying for the spring and painting murals of flowers in the shelter where ill and injured townsfolk go to recover. She has faith in her father that he will get Celestia to listen to them again and drive away the winter.

Evidently, that did not work out. The princess passed away, but her mural may yet remain...?

[dispassionatedevotion]

Ledah will visit a number of the ancient houses for clues. He will be searching for any possible scrolls, structures (paintings or drawings included), and books of the like left behind that may have detailed some events. This is likely to include golden boxes because of that, or if there are still any of those around that haven't been looked at.

[stellafortunamods]

Unfortunately, most of the books that he comes across have all been weathered into illegibility. However he will find a building that is decorated with some murals, as well as a third unfinished one that cannot be identified. There are a few covered bodies in this building, and one of them has a golden box next to it. However, it is not a recording box. Inside the box is a circlet made from white branches.

[unfriendliest]

i have no idea why that comment went wild i'm sorry to eski in particular ANYWAY

would kara be able to find anything in the temple area? since pyro visions are the only ones with rights around here, he'll use his to try to get closer to the priests and the nail itself if possible. he'll be looking for any traces of books or records from the priests, too, and any indication if the white branches in those circlets match the tree the priests are gathered around.

[stellafortunamods]

Whatever books remain in the temple are all extremely fragile and quickly crumble when they are handled. He may be able to read some of the stone inscriptions on the walls, which dictate the city's name: Vindagnyr, and that it is watched over by Celestia and granted bountiful harvest. Whatever recording boxes that can be found inside the temple have all been frozen shut without exception. It's almost like this is intentional.

The ice cannot be melted by conventional means, so the closest kara can get will be next to/on top of the giant ice cube that contains all of the priests. The ice itself is very clear, so he can see through it, and touching it with his bare hands will quickly cause him a lot of pain. Contact through gloves or clothed knees will chill him rapidly, but it can be endured.

The texture of the branches seem to match the tree's bark. The tree is unusual in that the bark is smooth and shiny, as if it had been petrified. The Nail itself exudes overwhelming cold, and staying in its vicinity for too long can be lethal. There are stone debris around the tree and Nail which match the stone that the ceiling was made from.

The architectural style of the nail looks similar to the steles that house the Statues of the Seven.

[unfriendliest]

is it possible to remove any of the recording boxes from the temple, or to unfreeze them with his vision or any other source of fire?

[stellafortunamods]

It is possible to remove the boxes, but they cannot be unfrozen. The destruction that was done to them is permanent.

[joies]

walks in super late

persie will be searching around the houses and using her geo to see if anything may have been buried in the ground/under the snow besides bodies.... also she will probs poke at one of the boxes too

[stellafortunamods]

She might notice that the land itself is completely suffused with Cryo energy. While normally the earth is a consistent source of Geo presence, the Cryo mixed in has become so ingrained that it's as pervasive as Geo itself on the mountain.

There's nothing of significant note buried. It seems like the people here don't use graveyards. Maybe they were cremated or something.

As for boxes, she can come across a box on the outskirts of the ruined city. The person talking is a young girl, she's speaking with her parents offscreen, making this seem like a accidental recording. She misses the spring and wants to see the flowers again. Her parents are waiting for the gods to correct the weather. It seems like the people here don't realize that the weather was caused by the gods. Instead, they believe that any adverse events will be fixed by divine intervention, since the gods have protected them from adverse conditions before. Her parent gives her a stuffed bird doll, which she can be seen holding until the end of the recording.

[nefilim]

parks myself here

Anastasia will be, in a fit of genius, heading back down to the mountain to where the corrupted heart is. Now that she has her tained magic again, she'll attempt to eat absorb some of the corruption, def not all of it since that would probably kill her, but some of it. Mostly to get more of a gauge on what they're dealing with and any other info she can glean from it

[stellafortunamods]

Ana will be temporarily possessed by the spirit of Durin, whoops! She will grow extra skeletal wings and a pair of ethereal horns. She'll also view a few of Durin's memories, in which he's soaring through the blue sky with Dvalin and the sky is filled with birdsong. He seems to be having a nice, innocent time, which is very bad as Ana will concurrently be trying to beat up anyone in her vicinity. Luckily, the eternal winter dampens much of the damage she can do, so she'll just be physically violent instead of setting anyone on fire.

Once Ana has been beaten up a little, she'll experience Durin's final moments of violently awakening to severe injuries above Dragonspine and plummeting to the ground below. His last thoughts will be that he wished to see Dvalin and sing with him once more. It seems Durin had a very childlike mind, and did not really understand the concept of his own death.

[nefilim]

AT LEAST SHE'S GONNA LOOK COOL

Will there be any lasting side effects after, besides the inevitable pain from getting beaten up?

[stellafortunamods]

Nope! She'll be fine once she gets beaten and then healed up. Luckily.

remembers this exists several weeks later

[fortuna_tenax]

jinx has mostly been exploring the city because she is, unfortunately, kind of baby in this new world. so shes poking around the boxes and also trying to piece together what all happened?

[stellafortunamods]

Jinx might be able to get more info from the veterans! Other than that, she can explore the ruined city and take a look around the residences. It seems like there was a school here too. It's hard to find anything useful in the rubble, but there are a few boxes that can be opened to project lessons on reading, writing, and some farming tips. She can tell that the mountainside was once able to produce enough to feed the city, and the people were also able to raise mountain goats as well as make wine.

The snow changed everything, of course. She can also find a frozen, carved wooden toy made in the shape of a sheep.