ph_logs | December Event - To All a Good Night

To All a Good Night

Givingstide

Winter is hard for everyone, but none more so than the residents of an island that has been isolated by the cruel hands of fate. Where the rest of the Emerald Isles is able to rely on imports from other nations in warmer places, Marrow Isle has no resources but her own. All the while, her mettle continues to be tested against the horrors brought on by the curse.

It is for this reason that among all the holidays celebrated by the Mothers' children, Givingstide is particularly beloved. A warm and cozy festival based around wishing each other prosperity and love in the new year, the lengthening of days, embracing generosity even in the lean times, and celebrating the fact that the darkest part of the year is coming to an end.

The fireplace is lit at the Oak & Iron. A wreath of pine boughs hangs over the merry blaze, paper horses and snowflakes decorate the walls, and a table in the center of the room has been done up to look like a silver sleigh. As people file in, hot food and warm drinks begin coming out of the kitchen and bar, and gifts begin piling up on the sleigh table. (Ultimately, a fair amount of them end up on the floor around it.) Everyone greets each other warmly with hearty handshakes, firm hugs, and wishes of a blessed Givingstide. Perhaps if you have a clever eye, you may even see a horned figure drinking hot cocoa in the corner harmlessly, enjoying the atmosphere of good will and keeping watch over the party to prevent any troublemakers. And for once, just once, for the first time in so long on this frightful, forsaken island, there is true peace.

[ Enter the Tavern. ]

The tavern is warm. Orange firelight flickers, as if dancing with the shadows. Decorations of shimmering silver and hunter green, the colors of Givingstide, adorn the dark wood decor of the Oak & Iron. The stucco and timber walls of the dining hall safeguard those within from the bitter wind and snow. It's no Leeds gala--- the food is simple, but it is beautifully made. Roasted chicken, potatoes, onion soup, and fresh-baked bread. Slices of pumpkin pie are passed around for dessert. Hot cider with or without alcohol, mulled wine, coffee, and spiced tea are served with the meal. It isn't glamorous, but it's made with love and tastes like coming home somehow.

As dinner carries on, music begins to be played from the tavern stage, and Mayor Poe has Yorick assist her in doling out the gifts from the table. They read the tags and summon the recipients to the table to recieve them. You can open yours right there or at your table, and decide for yourself whether you care to announce the name of the giver to the room.

Once the gifts are distributed, the partygoers are left to their own devices, allowed time to laugh with friends, dance to music, drink to their hearts' content, sneak off to while away a private moment in one of the inn's sitting rooms, or head home for an early night. Regardless of your choice, let it be with a loved one. A friend, a partner, a member of your newfound family. Blessed Givingstide, and may your lantern ever stay lit.

gifts and vouchers

Some important information regarding gift-giving and vouchers can be found below.

[ Review. ]

Gifts can be purchased using your own Brass, or via the holiday bazaar vouchers found in our December TDM. If you haven't taken the trivia quiz on the TDM, you still can! You can take it for each character or just once and give all your characters the same voucher.

For simplicity's sake for both our mods and our players, we will allow you to decide for yourselves the prices of your items so long as they are reasonable. You can use other purchase requests in the bank as a reference or simply decide on a price you believe is fair based on your experience. You do not have to list prices. We will trust you to make fair decisions! If you're still unsure how much an item ought to cost, feel free to ask us in the question thread on this post, but in the spirit of the holiday season (both real and fictional) we would rather allow your characters to get gifts for all their loved ones than worry too much about financials. Perhaps your character is simply a very good bargain hunter!

As a slight aside, we would love to thank each and every one of you for being a part of making Pumpkin Hollow amazing this year. We truly could not ask for a better group of players and are extremely grateful to have met all of you delightful, creative, talented, funny, incredible people. We hope you had a great holiday season, whatever that looks like for you, and we're so honored to greet the new year with this fantastic community!

Hand in hand, we put the darkness to our backs and step into the light. Rejoice, spring cometh.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"I could...I'm not a fan of them, but the cat seems to be out of the bag here already. Different color cat, but still..." River frowns, and thinks. "I assume you're looking for a familiar weapon for personal defense? I might have another idea - is there any paper around here..."

Into thine hands does this author place if there's spare paper and writing utensils are the Givingstide party.

"That is precisely why I want one, yes."

Watson, fortunately, is the sort of person who always keeps writing materials on him, just in case. It's an old habit, and it's been a useful one. He digs into the inside pocket of his jacket, and pulls out a small notebook and a stump of pencil. Watson rips out a few pages from the back, and these he offers to River along with the pencil.

"Here, will these do?"

"Perfect! Here, this is going to be rough but the good blueprint paper is back at the forge..."

River goes over to one of the coffee tables and squats down next to it, sketching quickly in rough lines; the first picture is definitely pistol-shaped, though rather than a cylinder there's a part labeled 'box', and something that slides back near the top...

"I don't know how that powder works," River explains while she keeps sketching. "And if it's all the same I like having hair and eyebrows a bit too much to try and learn how to produce it. But the inventor of this technology at home had a different solution anyway, can't imagine why no one here thought of it...you coat the bullet in half-finished explosive spells, like this, see?" Second piece of paper: a round bullet and some very precise spell diagrams that each have a single slash through them. "Can't reproduce the rune right on the paper or it'll explode but you get the idea. Then what you do is you etch the other half of the spell into the hammer, and when they make contact you get the explosion. Ever since seeing those Backbiters the design bothered me, it seemed really inefficient for the ammunition they were using - this uses gravity. Tilt the gun to chamber a new round, hold maybe twenty-five, thirty balls depending on how the final design shakes out?"

She looks up at Watson, torn between the joy of design and, well, the bit where she fucking hates this technology. "Big downside: it's gonna kick like a mother fucker. I can make the gun heavier, I can do a bottom-barrel design to help handle recoil, but there's an irreducible amount of arm and back strength you're gonna need for rapid fire. Small upside: kicking like a mother might chamber the new round for you."

"It's true that while I could tell you the ingredients of black powder, I could not tell you the proportions," Watson admits as he looks over her shoulder. "I am not a chemist. And certainly not the modern smokeless gunpowders. Still..."

He sighs, fidgeting a little. "Madam, I must admit I know nothing of magic. While I don't mean to doubt your skill, I'm concerned that this might be something that I, having had no experience with magic before a few months ago, should not safely carry." Watson thoughtfully taps his cane on the floor, thinking of what he's used to, and what he can put his bad shoulder through, even if he shoots with his right. A big weapon, too, is not ideal. "Compared to the Backbiters you know, how much of a recoil do you expect?"

"Hard for me to say really. You gotta understand, I encountered this technology while trying to kill its inventor, and..." She bites her lip, frowns; her ears droop. "...Well, she wasn't exactly dealing out of a full deck, is the thing. If it helps you imagine the fumbling with training here, she was equipping a pair of...I'm gonna say militias, 'armies' just isn't accurate, to fight with these in an enclosed, underground space. I still get ringing in my ears sometimes, gods be merciful to the survivors of her forces that were doing that shit for months."

"Underground? Good god. Most of them must have been stone deaf."

Watson lets out a breath he hadn't been aware he was holding. The seeming impossibility of this is frustrating. "I know what sort of damage this sort of thing can do all too well," and he taps, discreetly, on his right leg with his cane. "I don't ask for such a thing lightly. Nevertheless, I have carried a small revolver with me for most of the last decade. I would feel greatly reassured if I could do so here as well, given the circumstances. Hm."

His memory has been jogged slightly, and he taps the improvised blueprints. "I think I saw a gun that used a gravity mechanism like this, once. A wealthy client with something of a collection, I think. It never worked well with powder. There wasn't enough force behind the projectiles to be worthwhile."

"I can imagine," River murmurs. "I don't walk around with a sword for no reason, y'know. Didn't bring it here, but, well." She rolls up her sleeve, revealing the sigils carved into her arms; they glow like coals. "I'm never without a weapon to begin with. Force I can give you, and the upside of the spell trigger is accidental firing should be all but impossible unless you're playing silly buggers with the hammer while you've got a bullet chambered."

Watson frowns faintly at the marks on her arms. He doesn't understand quite what they mean, but there's something about having a weapon always at hand in that way that is somehow very appealing for him at the moment. Perhaps that's a side effect of how he hasn't been so long without a gun at his side since 1878 and he feels positively naked at all times. At the same time, he's seen men who make themselves or are made a weapon in other ways, and that always seems a tragedy. He's not sure what he thinks.

"I'm sensible enough to be cautious with such a thing," he says. "Particularly as I know absolutely nothing about magic of any sort. You do sound willing to take on this project for me, though."

"Yeah, I am. It'll see plenty of testing before I call you in to view it yourself, so uh. I dunno. Watch the newspaper for explosions at my forge?" She flashes a guilty grin. "Worst comes to worst, and I can't? No charge. That's on me."

"Thank you," Watson says, genuinely. "I appreciate your trying. If nothing else, it was pleasant to make your acquaintance," a small bow of his head. "Do enjoy the rest of your evening."

December Event - To All a Good Night

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Mmmm wrap?

sure!