RP Blitz: Shadows of Redwind

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𖢻 Blitzia Lore Compendium 𖢻 Roleplay Blitz Info 𖢻

DM: @Silvern
Adventurers: @JustMeBeingMe, @FarDusk
Party Name: Shadows of Redwind
Likely RP Type: Storybook

A small, quirky city, Redwind is a popular tourist destination and its culture is built on promoting and maintaining artistic forms of expression, including magic using. Here, you'll find permanent ice statues carved by magic users and dance troupes galore. Due to its distance from Ebony and Onyx, along with its relative insignificance in the prophecy factions, Redwind is run by a small government primarily comprised of local people with the occasional representative from Ebony to represent the king.

It feels like its own little world, and may feel far away from the politics tearing the kingdom apart. With its closeness to the Northern mountains and freezing climate though, the prophecy is sure to be on the minds of most citizens here.


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PREMISE IDEAS

To prepare you for your journey, we've created three ideas that would suit your region and genre preferences. You are more than welcome to tweak them to your taste or go for something else entirely. Remember that you'll need to complete this roleplay in a month, so the scope of your story should be small.

𖢻 OTHERWORLDLY 𖢻
A spaceship has landed in the mountains north of Redwind. Your party has been selected to investigate.

𖢻 TRAVELING CIRCUS 𖢻
Your group is a traveling circus act preparing to perform for royalty, but your characters are in a huge fight in their personal lives. How do they overcome it to give the best performance--and avoid angering the people with all the power?

𖢻 MURDER MYSTERY 𖢻
A dead body has been discovered in the mountains--Redwind's resident Soundwave magic user, assigned to keep communications live between Redwind and the rest of the kingdom. Isolated from everyone and with a killer on the loose, how does your group survive and solve the mystery?

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DM CHECKLIST

A handy guide to help the DM prepare the party for July's adventure!

Spoiler
1. Coordinate introductions and set expectations with your party. What kind of roleplay will you be writing? How will the party brainstorm, plan, and collaborate - OOC only, WFP, Riseup? What does everyone's weekly availability look like? What is everyone's time zones?

2. As a team, decide on a premise that everyone is on board with. This premise can be one of the three provided, a derivitive of it, or something else entirely, as long as it takes place in your region of Blitzia and adheres to the general Blitzia lore provided here.

3. Create a character profile template and share it with your party. We suggest all characters are created before outlining the story gets too underway.

4. Decide on a name for the story. At this point, you may create the official RP thread (under Storybook Sanctuary, Roleplay Realm, etc.), but posting the actual story can't begin until July 1st! When creating the official RP thread, please add "[RP Blitz]" to the front of the topic title, so that it looks like: [RP Blitz] Dragon's Maw

5. Brainstorm the story and begin working on an outline together. As a reminder, please keep the scope of this story SMALL. The outline should hit all the main story beats but doesn't need to get into too much detail. Here's an example outline:

The Grocery Store: Your characters are preparing to make the perfect soup--but then, they realize they don't have the special ingredient! Can they make their way to the grocery store during rush hour and back home in time to eat their perfect soup before leaving for a birthday party?

  • Our characters meet together at the house and have a good talk about how their days have been! In the middle of the talk, one realizes-- OH NO! We don't have the special ingredient for our perfect soup!
  • Characters get dressed in their very fancy jetpacks to go to the grocery store, but the sky highways are SO busy at this time of day. They try to use the sky highways.
  • When they come across a huge road block, they decide they should find a different way to the grocery store. Our characters land on the ground and try to walk over the apocalyptic ground and avoid zombies.
  • Attack!! Run from the vampires!! Our characters have a huge fight and chase scene, and barely escape with their lives. Secretly, one of them has gotten bitten... DUH DUH DUHHHHH!
  • Looking a bit worse for wear, our characters finally reach the correct neighborhood of the grocery store--but now, since they don't have their jetpacks, they can't pass the security fence meant to keep dragons out! Oh gosh, whatever will we do?
  • One character goes, "Hey!! I have a brilliant idea! Let's use our earth magic to tunnel our way INTO the jetpack parking lot. That way, we avoid any vampires, we don't have to try to climb and avoid dragons, AND we get to find the secret ingredient! Also, confession time, I got bitten by the vampire :[." GASP! The other characters go, "Oh no! We will magically solve that problem later. But first, your idea sounds great. Can't wait to eat soup!"
  • After a lot of hard work, our characters are in the parking lot and enter the store. But-- GASP!! It is OUT OF THE SECRET INGREDIENT!! This is a tragedy. Sad and soupless, our characters taxi-jetpack home, using the money they would have used for the secret ingredient.
  • Our characters finally get back home, depressed and with no soup. Then, LIGHTBULB MOMENT. One character goes, "WAIT! The secret ingredient is LOVE!!! WE CAN MAKE OUR SOUP! And ALSO, that is how we cure vampirism so now we are all safe. Yippee!"
  • TRIUMPH! Our heroes victoriously sit down to bowls of perfect soup. Then, one of our characters, Charles, says, "hey wait... did we ever get a birthday present for the party tonight?"
  • Facepalm moment. Oh, Charles, you silly man!! The SOUP is the present! And the past. And the future. Everything is soup.
End of roleplay. :]


6. When you've finalized the outline, post it here in the OOC and tag @DungeonMaster. We need to receive the finalized outline from you by June 30th in order for everyone in the party to earn the Blitz Bard Badge!

7. Beginning July 1st, the roleplay may begin. Above all, have fun!

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Good luck, adventurers! First thing's first - what premise tickles your fancy, and what kind of story are you itching to tell?

𖢻 Blitzia Lore Compendium 𖢻 Roleplay Blitz Info 𖢻




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This premise looks awesome- can't wait to get started on it! @JustMeBeingMe, @FarDusk, welcome to the crew! I'm Silvern, though I also go by Silv, and I'm really looking forward to writing with you both.

I'll be absorbing the lore for tonight, but as I do, I'll kick off some starting thoughts in a WriterFeed Pad that you're both invited to hop in and contribute to! If there's a suggested premise you like the most (or you have a different idea entirely), I'd love to hear that especially. The pad can be found here!

A couple of questions for you both:
  • Is there a preferred way you'd like to communicate and coordinate outside of the WFP (such as through YWS PM, Discord, etc.)?
  • Is there a time of the week that works for meeting up to plan and write? I'm in EST, and weekends/most evenings of the week are generally good for me.

Really looking forward to this! If you hop in the pad, feel free to tag me here and I'll see if I can join you!
Democracy dies in darkness. Also at 4:30PM in Pacific Standard Time, apparently.

silver (she/her)




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Hiiii! Time zone is GMT, so whenever you're available I'm sleeping. I guess we PM each other?
Also... A little confused about what I've signed up for TBH. We doing fantasy? I don't love fantasy....
"אם אתה מאמין שיכולים לקלקל, תאמין שיכולים לתקן"
if you believe that you can break it, believe that you can fix




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@JustMeBeingMe that's alright! Would weekends be better then? I'm available all day on those generally!

Also we don't have to do fantasy! The world at large might be, but the first suggested option is a sci-fi premise that I like. We can also think of other ideas in different genres- if you can think of any that can be fitted to our location, please do drop them in the pad (or here if you prefer)!
Democracy dies in darkness. Also at 4:30PM in Pacific Standard Time, apparently.

silver (she/her)




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Sounds good! @FarDusk, where are you at?
"אם אתה מאמין שיכולים לקלקל, תאמין שיכולים לתקן"
if you believe that you can break it, believe that you can fix




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Weekends sound good! Right now I'm trying to digest some of the Blitzia lore, but not all of it.
I also love the first premise, we could go many different ways with it.

I looked up every flight
as if I could go somewhere




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Weekends it is then! If we all like the sound of the first premise, I can expand on that a bit more in the pad!
Democracy dies in darkness. Also at 4:30PM in Pacific Standard Time, apparently.

silver (she/her)




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@FarDusk @JustMeBeingMe I’ll be in the pad tomorrow afternoon (starting at around 2pm EST) to outline some ideas if either of you are able to hop in— if there is a different time this weekend that works better for you to join me there, please let me know!
Democracy dies in darkness. Also at 4:30PM in Pacific Standard Time, apparently.

silver (she/her)




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Knocked out a lot of planning today-- thanks for hopping in, Dusk! The general outline of the premise/plot is now complete in the pad-- please feel free to add and edit if you think of anything new you'd like to see! I'll also probably hop in the pad tomorrow as well.

By the end of next week, I aim to have the following things complete:
  • RP Title picked
  • Character sheet templates made
  • (Hopefully) threads designed and posted for the Storybook and OOC

After that, we can work on creating our characters, fleshing out their dynamics, and filling in the plot a little more before July starts! For the curious reader, the vague, unsettled premise (that I will somehow shorten down because holy yap) is below.

Spoiler
  • Overall context of the story: the lighthearted, relaxed culture of Redwind is becoming steadily more and more threatened by the possibility of the unending winter promised by the prophecy. The city isn't used to having to worry about these things-- after all, it's known as a getaway destination for escapists seeking fun from all over the world-- but the signs are getting harder to ignore. Snow is falling earlier and earlier in the year, the last harvest was poor, and fear is slowly but steadily taking hold of the population.
  • These tensions skyrocket (no pun intended) when an unknown object is witnessed crashlanding in the mountains. No one can agree on what it is: some say it might be a fallen meteor, full of otherworldly and rare metals and rocks. Others think it's from a different country somehow. But the rumor that's taken hold the strongest in this suddenly paranoid town is that the object is magical, possibly even divine, in nature-- and that its arrival hints at the coming of something greater, even cataclysmic.
  • Everyone in town wants to search for it, even though the journey through the mountains is sure to be dangerous, and although everyone has their story that they're sticking to, no one can actually be certain what they'll find. The rival factions in particular-- Loyalists, Kindlings, Izhali and Skeptics-- are up in arms over who has dibs on the hunt, and it's looking like the city's going to erupt into internal conflict if a consensus isn't reached.
  • Desperate to avoid faction wars, the mayor manages to strike a deal: a single search party, small but experienced, will go in search of the fallen object. To keep the peace and ensure multiple interests are represented, this search party will be comprised of a Loyalist, a Kindling, and a Skeptic. (The Izhali minority were not given a figurehead, as despite the problems the three aforementioned factions have with each other, they can all get behind the sentiment that anyone who would encourage and advance the apocalypse is dangerous.) The proposal works, and each faction scrambles to find a figurehead worthy of going on this quest.
  • The three roles requested by the mayor (though we can pick which of the three factions they belong to) are the following:
    - The Soldier: Most likely a knight, military leader, or royal guard, well trained in the ways of combat and warfare. Has the duty of defending the party from any threats they may encounter on the journey, as well as using their judgment to determine if the fallen object is a threat and to react accordingly.
    Likely presumptions: The object is unfamiliar, and what is unfamiliar is dangerous. It should be destroyed-- failing to do so could unleash untold levels of destruction if its intents are hostile.
    Likely factions: Any, but given background, a Loyalist in service of King Rhys or a Kindling in service of Queen Aveline would make sense.
    - The Academic: A person of great knowledge and wisdom, well-versed in a particular study, perhaps that of history and/or magic. Has the duty of investigating and identifying the nature of the fallen object, drawing on their expertise, in order to determine the best path of action forward and add to human knowledge.
    Likely presumptions: The object is to be conserved and studied, despite the risks that may occur. Its destruction would result in the loss of priceless, possibly irreplaceable information.
    Likely factions: Any, although a Skeptic would be fitting for a thinker figure who goes against the grain.
    - The Adventurer: A known explorer and survivalist, possibly of folk hero status due to their participation on similar grand missions and quests. Has the duty of safely guiding the party on the journey ahead, using their acquired experience and honed instincts to keep everyone alive.
    Likely presumptions: The object is worth investigating, but never to be fully trusted. The curiosity to learn something new is too strong, but survival instincts encourage precaution and suspicion.
    Likely factions: Any, as their background could work equally well for any of the three.
  • The three meet, probably develop some tensions, and set off on their quest. A good deal of our writing will concentrate on the journey there and the dangers associated with it, which we can plan out further when we get around to outlining the story. We can use these to break the ice between them and start to build up trust between them (you get to know people better when you've saved their life and they've saved yours).
  • One thing they keep noticing, night after night, is the flash of a light in the sky streaking by at the same time every dusk. They ascribe it to a comet, but what they don't know yet is that it's actually the spaceship that launched the messenger probe they're going to find.
  • When they get there, the party has never seen anything like the spaceship before, and they struggle to understand it (it is far beyond the scope of any existing technology, and drawing comparisons to things they are familiar with inevitably falls short). Over the course of their investigation, they manage to uncover the following information:
    - The object is obviously non-natural-- no earthly process could have produced this mass of sharp edges, mixed materials, and unknown instruments. The party can deduce, between this and the recognition of some features (ex. bolts holding components together, lenses like that in telescopes), that this must have been intentionally designed and built, even though no forge or foundry in Blitzia would be up to the task... which means no human could have built this either. Some other living being is responsible.
    - I see this being what breaks their brains the most, honestly, since real world people today would have a hard enough time processing this kind of first contact today and our poor characters have far less technological context than we do for it. Depending on the fervor of their religious beliefs, some of the characters might attempt to explain it away as the work of the gods at first, before more evidence compounds.
    - The object seems designed to survive the landing, as it's evidently built to be durable and any damage it's sustained appears cosmetic, not structural. The party may deduce one of its purposes, therefore, is to provide transportation. We can finally start calling this thing a spaceship ("hey, what if there were a ship that could travel through space instead of water?") and save ourselves the headache of calling it an object over and over.
    - The spaceship bears a friendly, peace-bearing message in text that, shockingly, they can understand and read. This seems impossible at first-- how would this foreign device have their language on it? Reading on, they discover why: whoever made this understood Soundwave magic, and through the spaceship in orbit (the same one they've seen pass without realizing), they've been able to listen on everyday Blitzian conversations-- not to spy, but to understand their language in order to better communicate with them.
    - The message explains the following: Blitzia is undergoing the start of an ice age, one that their planet has seen many times over and over as part of its lifecycle, but that its human residents do not recall and do not know how to deal with.
    The owners of the messenger probe are from a different planet in the same solar system and have experienced an ice age of their own. Their species survived, but at a heavy cost. Much of their population had to relocate to the tropics and subside on very little for thousands of years.
    - When the ice began to recede, they returned to their ancestral lands. Since then, they've been working slowly to rebuild their civilization, rediscovering their technology left behind in the ruins. They've managed to develop the start of space travel from what they've learned, and are noticing the tell-tale signs of an ice age in Blitzia from their astronomical observations.
    - They do not have the means to travel to Blitzia themselves on a manned mission, as they are only just starting to reach for the stars, but after sending observation probes to visit it, they realized it was also inhabited. Realizing Blitzia's population would be at risk of the same life-threatening endless winter, they scurried to organize a space mission to warn them of the danger, the end result of which was sending this messenger probe.
    - The rest of the message is instructions for survival when the ice age begins: relocate to warmer climates closer to the equator, plant cold-resistant crops, stockpile supplies, identify fire magic users, form alliances to avoid strife, and so on. It ends in a plea to be trusted, and something that appears to be a prayer for the safety of the Blitzians.
  • Naturally, this revelation is going be very disorienting to the party. Not only do they all have to grapple with the existence of worlds and life beyond Blitzia, but they will likely all have different reactions to its implications. Some sources of tension/disagreement may include:
    - Can the spaceship and its creators be trusted? What if this probe is a weapon or a spy under disguise as a helpful messenger? If they could send something through the vast emptiness of space to make it here, what else could they do to Redwind? To Blitzia?
    - If they go back and spread the news, who should hear about it first? What if they don't believe them and do nothing? Are they willing to risk becoming the target of public ridicule and losing their reputation in society?
    - Would the survival instructions even work in practice? The world is heavily divided over the prophecy already, and the party would become yet another dissenting voice in the conversation claiming to have all the answers. Not to mention, they'd all have to leave Redwind behind in the relocation, which is a painful thing to consider.
  • The party will have to decide what course of action to take together, but that's only half the battle: they'll have to act it out as well. This makes more sense to plan out once we have our characters, but I see it being juicy.
Democracy dies in darkness. Also at 4:30PM in Pacific Standard Time, apparently.

silver (she/her)




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This is so good! I think I’ll also be in the pad tomorrow. Looking forward to seeing where it goes :D

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Yay!! Sounds good-- I'm thinking anytime after 11am EST (3pm GMT for @JustMeBeingMe, if you're able) works for me, I'll message here once I hop in!
Democracy dies in darkness. Also at 4:30PM in Pacific Standard Time, apparently.

silver (she/her)




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Obsessed with the plans so far! The implications that this leaves for Blitzia as a whole!! :0
John 14:27
Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you.
I do not give to you as the world gives.
Do not let your hearts be troubled
and do not be afraid.

she/her | team monkeys | #unclassified




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Hey, so I also read your outline (insane that you developed a whole outline already, but... also I did too), and it's so cool, and I'm also obsessed with it and can't wait to READ.

This will be so cool.... you are all so cool
Pants are an illusion. And so is death.




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@Silvern PLEASE CONSIDER: If you make the academic character have ties to the Loyalists/Ebony, maybe they’re a friend of Prince Nolan and know Nolan would believe them about the spaceship and its message. Even if the group agrees it’s best left undiscovered, maybe the acadamic secretly ships off the knowledge to the Prince in hopes someone will take it seriously. (Nolan will.)

THANK FOR UR CONSIDERATION
Pants are an illusion. And so is death.




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Thanks everyone!!!! Also good to know, sound! I know I'm down for cross-connections between RPs >.>
Democracy dies in darkness. Also at 4:30PM in Pacific Standard Time, apparently.

silver (she/her)



I don't care what the miserable excuse is for showing the death of books, live, on screen. Men, I could understand; but books! -
— Edwin Morgan, From the Video Box 2