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Event #7 Crowning the Cat & The Celebration of Spring
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| 🜙 Crowning the Cat: Deception of Aegas | |
| The Celebration of Spring is being held across Idan, and normally the City of the Free Peoples is at its heart. This year due to the fearful farmers suffering losses in their families and herds to werewolves and the broken city torn between its fears and loyalties, the first sprouts of crops planted during the thaw are significantly less impressive than past years and the hunters bring their hauls back to the cities find themselves facing even more dangerous odds in the wilderness, outwitted and outmatched more often than not. Feasting, dancing, music, staged entertainers of illusion and elemental magic, and heavy drinking still overtake the cities and small outlying villages, putting a temporary halt to any work or other priorities, but there is an air of uncertainty that can't fully be shaken, and an uneasy and unspoken fear of a famine year lies just beneath the lighter festivities. Among the celebrating, people go out of their way to honor the feline constellation deity called Aegas. The youngest of the Constellation Deities, he is known for many things. Aegas' stars are fainter in the skies than most, seen just off the left from the Great Golden Dragon Atromo. In April, Aegas is not honored so much as tributed to keep the fickle feline's wiles and tricks at bay. Children and younger citizens of the cities or those with playful or devious minds play tricks on one another, some harmless pranks and others far more dangerous or deceptive. Despite this uptick of shenanigans, however, for most Aegas' day is a day spent ensuring the secretive trickster cat deity that he has not been forgotten, as well as a celebration of Spring. Openly jealous of Atromo's status and reverence, and long overlooked in favor of the other star gods, the people of Idan learned to show their reverence for Aegas in a ritual known as the Crowning of Aegas. Cat sculptures, paintings, figurines, or idols can be found all across Idan for those who can't make it to one of Aegas' shrines, and offerings of fish, sheep or goat's milk, silver or gold bells, silk, or saucers of water are left out for the many wild, stray, or tame felines of Idan to take at their leisure. Known for being a deity over secrets, pleasure, trickery, and charm, Aegas is a favored god of rogues, assassins, bards, bandits, thieves, and charmers. An enchanted spring illness common in Idan has long been attributed to Aegas not feeling that his charms have earned him the favor of the people. The illness is known as The Aegas Affliction and is actually caused by the pollen of a flower that blooms in April after particularly harsh winters (the Golden Bellflower) Aegas' Affliction causes those who have caught the illness to be easily charmed. Their complexion is often flushed and they give in to their whims with very little self-restraint. The main symptoms are: Susceptibility to personal suggestion (Their own whims, thoughts, and desires), susceptibility to charm-based magic, a tendency to be secretive or deceptive, and a heightened sense of hunger. The illness usually goes away on its own within 1-3 days and has no known cure. It's possible to get infected by Golden Bellflower pollen from April 5th to April 30th anywhere in Idan. Only exposure to a nearby flower is necessary. During the Crowning of Aegas and for the rest of April flocks of lesser winged cats can be seen migrating from their winter homes in the Wavecrest Isles back to the unclaimed lands. Occasionally these flocks of small, canary to bobcat-sized winged cats are accompanied by fiercely protective and dangerous greater winged cat guardians while other flocks travel on their own. The playful smaller felines can be seen frolicking in fields and playing over the rooftops all across Idan while the greater winged cats stay far from the highly populated areas, hunting the wild forests, cliffs, and open lands to stock up food for them and their small flocks of fur and feathered friends. | |
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| 🜙 The Bloom | |
| Among the celebrating the dangers of spring are temporarily forgotten. Not all threats come with fangs, talons, and claws. Creeping vines and sprouting plants lurk in the tall grasses of the plains and the dense forests. Some of the more dangerous varieties bloom and thrive in the earliest month of spring. Viperlily. A small free-roaming flowering vine with two thorns that protrude from the middle of its flower. The vine slithers along the ground in the grass toward sources of movement or sound and sinks its thorns into the feet or lower limbs of any living thing it encounters. The vine subsists on blood rather than water and uses the gathered blood to provide itself with the nutrients it needs to keep moving. It injects its victim with a venom that causes them to become weak, sluggish, and unable to use their magic so it can continue to drain blood. Most Viperlilys are too small to cause much permanent damage to their victim, but being left vulnerable in the wilderness does lead to many post-bite deaths, especially with the smell of blood in the air. Bloodthorn. A dying Viperlily that has gone dormant and taken root. Small Viperlily seeds grow all over its vines, each one prepared to drop off and grow into a new Viperlily. A thorn protrudes from the bloody sap-filled bulb of this vine. It points up toward the sun with a thorn as sharp and dangerous as a needle dagger. Those unfortunate enough to be stabbed by its thorn are injected with a modified Viperlily poison that causes victims to become feverish and reckless, encouraging them to remain nearby and engage anything near the Bloodthorn aggressively. The bloodshed caused by its victims or the Bloodthorn's own destruction causes the dozens of Viperlily seeds to sprout and take off to find their first meals. Creeping Dragontrap. A member of the carnivorous plant family, the Creeping Dragontrap is a fully mobile creeping vine with one to four heads that each have thorn-filled 'mouths' they snap down on the prey they find. The acidic toxins inside their mouths prevent their prey from being able to fight free on their own. An antitoxin is produced by the sap within their vines, but a victim captured by one of these plants will need help getting free and provided with the antitoxin before the vine escapes in a speedy retreat into the wilderness or ground. Rogue's Blush. The dense cover of this flowering ground vine is a network of sensitive thin vines can sense vibrations in the ground. The night-flowering vine is covered in dormant flowers that open in the darkness. They release pollen into the air when vibrations are sensed nearby. This pollen is collected and used in a common rogue tool: Flash Dust because eye contact with the pollen results in a blinding white flash that causes temporary blindness for 24 hours. Bramble Mimic can shape its vines into any form it has collected a template of. The thorny brambles rest in the form of a dense bush, usually settling itself partially into worn paths made by creatures or people. It uses the blood it collects from creatures or people that bump into it as a template to rearrange itself into their form, though its size is dependent on how large the original mimic has grown. It then uses its new form to hunt for food to sustain itself, holding a natural preference for predators, carnivores, and herbivores. The most common forms are those of predatory forest or swamp creatures such as jaguars, bears, wolves, and alligators. | |
| 🜙 A Mod Note | |
| A "Network log" will be going up the week of the 19th that will be paired with the next event log. The network log will contain courier messages from Queen Adira, King Ardis, King Sitka, Self-Crowned King Koroc, Resistance and Rebel Leader Lorna, Former Defenders Captain Lykos, and Former Defenders Lieutenant Alice. Player characters will be able to ask these leaders questions and attempt to communicate with them personally if they wish. | |
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"That might make it hard for you to tell which one is yours, with enough of these around."
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"Which is why he doesn't have it yet. I don't need to lose him when the flock migrates again," Billie says, though it's in better humor now that the many cats on the street have thinned out to one winged cat who's more interested in creeping towards Mercy than it is her.
"I know how to swap out the illusion, anyhow. It's the vial in the charm that does it. All I would need is some blood and a few plants from up in Krimnos."
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"He'd just come back home even if he strayed," Daud answers, after a moment's thought. "You'll have trouble finding disguises that'll work when he grows bigger."
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"Maybe, but then you have a tiny dragon running around in the city." As a cat, sure, but only as far as the eye can see. If it fails, an upset over someone spotting Red trying to, well, she doesn't know, raid a trash can or something isn't as funny as it sounds. "And I know. I have time to work that out, though. Upper limit might be a hippogriff. After that, you run out of tame animals people won't bat an eye at."
She shifts how she leans on the railing just enough to watch the cat and Mercy, too, though now that Mercy is eyeing the cat, the little puffball with wings freezes, staring back. Maybe it thinks if it holds still enough, Mercy will forget that it's there.
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"Strange have any useful advice on raising your own dragon?" Oh, he hadn't responded to that, and he hadn't heard Billie respond over the courier, but he'd be surprised if she didn't. Mercy keeps watching the cat back, challenging.
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As far as dragon advice goes, though... Billie has to pause and consider, even as she observes the staring contest between Mercy and the cat. She's had a lot of conversations with Strange since he first jumped on the courier about dragons, she realizes, and less about dragon care than Daud might imagine.
"Some," she admits. "They start figuring out how to fly at around two months, then develop their lung magic not long after that. Sounds like that varies based on what they've been eating and what kind of magic they've been around."
What else is there? Oh, right.
"And that Red isn't a suitable name for a dragon but he knows where he can stuff that opinion."
Yeah, Billie's not accepting that particular piece of advice from someone who names anything Alistair Fucking Tourmaline. Thinking of the other dragonet brings her to a new and unfortunate thought, though. Daud is going to figure out who also has a dragon sooner or later and if he figures it out without her saying one damn thing about it, he'll know she was keeping even more secrets from him.
Her attention turns away from the cat and bird, back to Daud, suddenly watching him much more closely. It's a snap decision, letting him know, but it makes no sense otherwise. She doesn't mind Strange and Shura or their company, depending, only they haven't spent years earning her loyalty and that's what settles it in the end.
"He has one, too. A blue wyvern, smaller than Red."
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"I thought as much when he started talking about raising dragons," he says, expression and voice flat like it's the least surprising news in the world. "If that wasn't enough to give it away, the mewling out of his courier certainly was."
In retrospect, what's actually amazing is that Strange didn't go around trumpeting his possession of a baby dragon from all the rooftops. So the man does have self-awareness, after all.
In a sudden flutter of feathers, Mercy flips her tail up at the cat before suddenly taking off the railing, the gust of her wings powerful enough to send Billie's hair whipping briefly agianst her face.
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"Yeah, that would have been an easy bet," she agrees. "My guess is that Dameron guy, the one up in Krimnos? Also has one, only I never saw it, so I can't fully confirm that."
Which is another easy bet, to be sure. It's the third one she knows about, however, that may be the real news.
"Then there's Shura's."
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In the air, while Daud thinks it over, Mercy swoops and dives in lazy patterns, baiting the chubby little flying cat to follow but staying always just out of reach. At length, the tiefling sighs.
"And I'm sure there are more." Just ones he hasn't heard about, yet. He closes his eyes, taking another steadying drag, before he continues. "I wonder how long it will take them to start eating each other."
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In any case, she's silent from letting Shura's little secret out up until Daud takes a drag off his cigar, busying herself with watching Mercy bait the cat along through the air while she waits.
"Hm. Bet you'd get a lot of offense for asking Strange that one," she has to offer that in response to dragons eating each other once he wonders as much out loud. Of course, she isn't telling him that as a warning. More like as a form of easy entertainment, only she suspects she's the only one who finds it funny.