January Intro: I Know the Winter's Getting Colder

[lifeaftr_mods]

INTRO LOG: JANUARY

Who: Everyone!
What: New souls arrive to the archipelago of LifeAftr
When: January 5th and onward
Where: Chol and surrounding waters
Warnings: Mark as needed!

The Overview: New Lands
New arrivals will not be waking in the typical hub of activity; instead, they will find themselves coming to on the small island of Chol. While the island's fringes are little more than an unforgiving spread of craggy, canyon-like rock and coastal cliffs, the island dips down to form a fertile divot of edenic woodland in its center. The people living there will even be helpful and polite to you, should you inquire after them.

All new arrivals will additionally awake with knapsacks, their names stitched to the front. The contents of said knapsacks can all be found in your acceptance notices!

Icebreaker: This is the Winter of Our Youth
Unless you're someone with a fondness for the cold, you'll undoubtedly be waking with more than a slight chill in your bones. The appearance of the island of Chol has signaled a coming event of great import in LifeAftr, and unfortunately, the signs of that event's approach have already been set in motion. The temperature has begun to drop as the sun's rays begin to die, faster and faster, leading to an impressive cold snap in the ocean waters - particularly those surrounding Chol.

It is for that reason that you won't be waking on Chol, per se. Instead, you'll be waking on a thick crust of ice that's mantled itself over the ocean waters, freezing solid enough to bear your weight...for the most part. The ice won't hold forever; it isn't meant to. If you happen to be particularly vivacious in your waking, or especially active in general, thick cracks will start to spiderweb out from underneath those impacts with low, warning chunks and wrenches of fracturing ice. Better hurry to land soon, unless you care to take a little dip into those freezing cold ocean waters.

Mainland: When We Pick Over the Past
Should you make it to the land of Chol, braving the iced-over waters surrounding its craggy shores, you'll encounter something at least as startling - the people who have elected to set up a rudimentary encampment upon its lands. While a bit on the scalier side, the Jormun are nonetheless allied to you land-dwellers, and will welcome you to the island. Most will be preoccupied with preparations for an approaching siege, but many will comment idly that the cold is a sign of the coming battle. Some may point you to their leader, known to most as Munin, but others will venture hospitality based on the actions of those land-dwellers that came before you, who were successful in allying themselves to this sea-dwelling people.

Those who might have braved the cold a little too fiercely will quickly be offered some rather rough blankets - perhaps more on par with burlap sacks in terms of texture - as well as a hot brew that the Jormun call brrkshavak. Heated to a boil just prior to being served, the drink will be more than adequate in warming your weary bones, though it bodes mentioning that it is both scalding hot and made with a fleshy kind of undersea herb that is akin to crushed chili pepper in taste.

It'll warm you up, all right.

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As a final note to those who participated in the Test Drive Meme, bear in mind that those threads, if all parties involved would like, can be game canon in the form of dream-like memories involving a place very much like this one, though the layout is considerably different.

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Feeling a tad adrift? Make sure to check the Locations Page, which has details regarding the starting areas and a handy map for those who feel better with a bird's eye view!

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LOGS ● OOC ● STORIES ● MAIN NAVIGATION

( CODED BY BOOTYCALL )

Comments

[dedamastai]

"What does that have to do with me making sure you're comfortable?"

He sounds genuinely confused, because there's no real correlation in his mind. Fun fact: Damianos of Akielos once saved the life of someone who tried to kill him. Multiple times, because he's physically incapable of not being nice to people even if those people are ten snakes in a trenchcoat.

"The sun won't die for a few weeks yet. I have time to do you a favor and finish preparations."

[quietknight]

"I'm...I'm sorry, could you say that last bit again."

It SOUNDED like he said the sun was dying. Which is of course impossible. The sun is a divine entity in and of itself, eternal and all powerful.

[dedamastai]

"I have time to do you a favor and finish preparations?" In all honesty, Laurent is absolutely militant about preparations so everything is basically set on their part. It leaves him a lot of time to hang out at the Jormun camp and make friends. "Like I said, the sun won't die for a few weeks yet."

The whole process has been explained to him by several of the Jormun, so he's come to think of it as a particularly terrible quirk of this new world he lives in rather than shocking information. War is never fun, exactly, but it's something he understands so he tends to speak of it without fanfare.

[quietknight]

"No no. Before that. Something about the sun."

[dedamastai]

"Did you not hear when you arrived? Do you want me to call a Jormun over to explain?"

He would do it himself, but he figures it'll have more authority coming from someone who knows what they're talking about. Not so long ago, Damen would have felt uncomfortable handing things over to someone else, but if his time in Vere taught him anything it was the art of deferring to others.

[quietknight]

"Please?"

She had somehow missed this, and was feeling very distressed about it.

[dedamastai]

Damen waves over a Jormun he's familiar with and explains that Sonje's new and wanted to know more about the sun dying. The explanation the Jormun gives is relatively short: the sun will die in a few weeks, although it will also be reborn on this island. There will be a week without the sun, during which the Jormun and (hopefully) some of the others who have been brought here will fight to protect it so it can be reborn.

"Sorry," the Jormun says once they've finished, "I have to attend to something. If you have a specific question and Damianos can't answer it, you should probably ask Muninshhashvark."

The Jormun leaves, and Damianos offers her a cup of wassail. "Here. An apology for shocking you."

[quietknight]

Sonje peered at the cup and sniffed it. Smelled vaguely alcoholic.

She downed the whole thing. Because fuck it. Nothing makes sense here even when she's sober.

"I'll live. Probably."