countryclub | Sirens Mini-Plot

Entry tags:

player plotting

Sirens Mini-Plot

(cw: discussion of drowning, beasthood, potential violence and character death)

EDIT: Post is up!! Of course feel free to keep plotting and coordinating in here, though.

So!! As some of you may already know: Eurydice is leaving Trench, and Orpheus is not. As most people familiar with the myth can probably surmise: He is not going to take this super well, and unfortunately for him the nature of Trench being what it is means that his mental breakdown is going to cause some fun and exciting splash damage. To sum up - Orpheus is going to become a messed up Siren (very mild body horror/drawn portrayal of an animal skull at the link), complete with the urge to fly off to a rock in the middle of the ocean and sing songs to lure people to a watery demise. He'll be roosting just too far for a normal person to swim off the shore by the Rocks, to the south of the Farther Shores.

Okay, but how do I fit in?
There's a couple of main ways to engage with this, and not all of them involve Orpheus (or me, by extension)!! Here's a couple of things people could do:

One person should probably alert the network that there's a weird bird singing songs that make you walk into the sea out by the beach.
Any number of people can get caught up in the song and walk into the ocean and need to be rescued. Or just, drown, if that's what you want. But feel free to coordinate who gets to be on lifeguard duty in here!! I heavily encourage you all to thread with each other while Orpheus sings in the background.
Any number of people can also make it to the little rocky island Orpheus is nesting on and try to confront him. As a fair warning he will either try to fight them or fly off after being talked at for too long, per your preference, but if you want to try to kill him I'm down! He's not a fighter even as a beast, so it'd be an easy notch in any hunter's belt.
If you want to try to talk him down, though that works too!! If we go this route I'd like to keep things a bit time-wobbly so no one person is responsible for getting him to come to his senses - it'll be a group effort.

If any of these roles are of interest to you, please let me know! Or you can just pop in when I get the post up, which should be soonish.

What if I don't want to be involved?
Don't worry! If you don't hear the song, there'll be no urge to walk into the sea. You can either chalk your character missing it up to the wind blowing the wrong way and carrying the sound off, or Orpheus flying around looking for the squid his wife turned into instead of singing at the time when they're at the shore. It's a big beach, and totally viable that someone would just happen to miss out on the hypnosis bullshit.

My character has mental powers/a strong will! Can they resist the song?
Absolutely! Orpheus is not by any means a real siren. His beast song has a pull - a sense of heartbreak that makes you want to go to his side, even if that means wading in over your head through rough, cold waters - but it's hard to resist, not impossible. Characters simply saying "nope, not doing this" and walking off is a totally possible thing. For people trying to help, it's also very possible to resist long enough to remember that boats can be used to cross water, or whatever, and go do that instead of trying to swim.

I have a different question!
Sure! Ask it below, or DM me at

questionableveracity or at quodVide#2951 on Discord (and feel free to add me too!), or PM Orpheus's journal.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Ask any questions you have for me here!!

Michael would certainly try to go out and talk to Orpheus - the pull will help, sure, but he's going out there! He can just turn into a squid and yell at him from the ocean or something.

That's probably one of the smarter options here honestly, take advantage of that squiddiness in order to Not Drown. Orpheus will appreciate hearing from him when he's back in his right mind, definitely.

Fern will be there to try and talk Orpheus down! Given Varian was able to be talked down as a beast he'll be inclined to try that instead of immediately jumping to murder. He'll be available to try and save anyone from getting killed too, since he's a bit hardier when it comes to possibly drowning than regular people.

Now that's character development, not immediately jumping into fight mode, good job Fern. Orpheus will be immensely grateful for his help once he's less befuckened by the sadness of it all.

Varian will absolutely try to return the favour of Orpheus trying to save him, but much like Orpheus failed, so too will this sad little nugget. Because I like narratives. That said if someone wants to save him from drowning that would be awesome.

Hell yeah we love to see those parallels. We also hope to see someone on lifeguard duty here because Orpheus would feel terrible if Varian managed to get seriously hurt or dead because of him.

They're GOOD parallels. And at least he has one (1) lil' fish boy to save his stupid ass.

Would Varian like to be saved by Luca again?

HECK YES, come save him 'lil bro! The idiot nearly drowned again.

i would totally be up for ange trying to talk him down! i'm totally ok with it either being succesful or not succesful, whichever you would prefer. though if it's unsuccesful it's better if he just flies off, since ange is not the most resilient in physical combat all by herself.

Yeah!! For the sake of continuity and not making any one person the star of the show I'm gonna contrive so that no one snaps Orpheus out of beasthood fully on their own, but everyone who talks to him will definitely contribute. So no one's going to see him transform back all the way, but Ange can probably get him to at least get more coherent and less filled with grief and fury, and possibly get a little more human-shaped before he flies off. Does that sound good to you?

that sounds absolutely perfect to me! i know how much of a pain it can be to coordinate stuff like this that involves a lot of people, so this sounds like a great solution, haha c:

I'd like to volunteer Tinya for trying to talk him down? It's up to you whether or not she succeeds or he tries to fight her. If he goes with fighting, she'd try to dodge at first, but she has access to full Coldblood abilities at this point (though, no weapon. boo!) and if seriously pressed, she will defend herself.

I'd be absolutely down for that! Basically no one is going to fully succeed in snapping Orpheus out of his beasthood by themselves - it's the compounding force of everyone who tries to talk him down that'll get him to turn back later in the month, assuming no one kills him - but depending on what Tinya says she may get him to calm down a little or start to turn back before panicking and either flying off or trying to fight. He spooks easily, so if he tries to attack her and she retaliates he'll probably fly away rather than press the issue. Does that sound like a plan to you?

Yeah, she's usually good at talking to people? Emphasis on "usually," oh Lord. She wouldn't retaliate at first, though, trying to dodge unless it becomes bad enough for a "me or them" situation. Then she'd use ice, the least dangerous of her powers. But yeah, definitely trying the talking down approach first.

Yeah! And there's no guarantee Orpheus will attack either - I've structured the post (which'll go up tonight or tomorrow probably) so people can find him when he's feeling hostile or melancholy according to preference! And from that starting point we can see how it goes.

Sounds good to me, especially having the two options available. Thanks!

I'd like to offer this fish for lifeguard duty. He's not the strongest guy, but he has gills and fins. He'll probably initially get caught by the song, but since he's never met Orpheus he'll have no idea how to try to talk him down. When he sees people are drowning trying to get to him he'll offer to help them get there safely.

He might initially try bringing people back to the beach, but if he realizes people will keep trying to get to him he'll just bring them to Orpheus and hope they have a plan.

Excellent!! Orpheus will really appreciate knowing that someone was looking out for his victims or near-victims once he's back to being himself! Assuming you're interested in followup it could lead to the start of some good CR later!

I'd love that! I could definitely see Luca talking to him later when he realizes it's the same person!

Hey! I've been healthed these past couple months, but I haven't forgotten that we wanted these two to meet. Are you interested in having Luca pull her out of the water as a way to make that happen?

That works for me! He'd definitely help anyone he encountered that was struggling, and then she gets to see his sea monster form!

Awesome! I'm hashing out just how involved she'll be here, but once I've got it sorted I'll definitely hit up your top level. Looking forward to it!

We chatted about this a little on plurk, but I'd be down for Vyng trying (and failing) to talk Orpheus off his emotional ledge before going full beast. He may try to follow after him, but the warmblood pain affects would kick in and impede him from going any further.

He could also potentially let the network know that beast!Orpheus is out there somewhere.

What are your thoughts? :>

All sounds perfect to me!! I've got the log up now - just gotta edit it into the post but it's here for you with a special prompt for Vyng!! Let me know if it looks okay and yeah I figure if Vyng's the one to watch him turn it makes sense for him to let the network know what's up!!

How does this work for a network post? Wanted to run it by you before actually posting it.

Perfect!! Thank you very much, go ahead and post it whenever!!

Orpheus... 🥺

We've only had one (long) thread so far, and this is not the best check-in one could hope for, but Ciel would very much be concerned if she could recognize him as she actually hasn't heard him do anything music related... I'd also offer warmblood transfusion as it's her blood type and is supposed to be able to treat beasthood, but I don't want to hog anything either so maybe as a post-talk down follow up after someone else calms him down first?

An an aside she CAN fight, quite well at that, but definitely won't if she knows it's him, maybe try restraining him at most. She's more than sturdy enough to take a few blows too, if it comes to that?

A post-beasthood followup is very doable! I'm planning on having another log up at the end of this month or start of next month for Orpheus once he's turned back and is recovering, so if that appeals to you more then we can do that!

Otherwise, it looks like Vyng will be letting people know that the bird monster haunting the beach is Orpheus on the network, so if you want Ciel to find out that way and try to talk to him or intervene that's also doable! It's totally up to you. Orpheus won't take super kindly to people trying to do blood transfusions on him, but she's more than welcome to try!

Edit: There's now a open prompt up for bothering Orpheus now that he's back to being human-shaped and not a bird anymore! Which I'm letting you know here because I don't have you on plurk and don't know how often you check the discord. If you're still interested, I'll see you there!!

Edited 2022-03-17 02:07 (UTC)

Thanks a lot for the heads-up, I appreciate it! My newly built PC from last month started going funky on me start of this month and became unusable soon after, so I've been ultra slow ;; Would you be okay with handwaving the end of our old ongoing thread so that it'll be easier to jump fresh into this one? Maybe if Eurydice got back to him off-screen and he'll be fine once he's dropped off by a central lamp location or something?

Apologies again, I need to haul the thing off to a store next week latest...

I'm happy to wrap things up there, yes! We can assume Eurydice got back to him and they met up by one of the lamp locations like you said. And don't worry about being slow, I'm happy to backtag into forever if need be!

finally comments... whooof.

I'm down to have Cass be drawn out into the water... magic rock armor is about as heavy as normal rock armor would be, so she'll have to figure out something fast, or get help, lest she sink to the bottom.

If you're down for someone to fight, because Cass knows that there's way more people going for diplomacy, I'm down for that, too.

Yeah!!! It's up to you what you think is most fun/makes the most sense for her!! It looks like Luca and Michael are helping people to Not Drown, and if Cass would return or insist on being taken to the island to try to confront Orpheus whether it be diplomatically or not I'm SUPER down!!

Hell yeaaah

my main idea anyway is, regardless of whether she tries to go it diplomatically or jumps into action, Cass ends up in the water somehow

That's doable!! How's this sound - Cassandra makes it to the island by whatever means she would come up with and talks to or fights Orpheus depending on how things go, and after a while Orpheus gets sick of it and picks her up and dumps her back in the ocean.

gfhsfghfh just calmly deposit her into the ocean

I'm game for it. lemme tag into the log

Is there any way to Help Orpheus or is he going to turn back into a person on his own eventually? Glitch has his magic guitar and may try and replicate that song Orpheus played him once

My plan was to leave this open-ended so that other sleepers determined how it resolved but since it looks like no one's biting at the bit to kill Orpheus, he will be turning back eventually. Not on his own, though! Basically everyone that talks to him will contribute a little until he finally turns back.

For the sake of continuity and not making any one person the star of the show contriving so that no one person snaps Orpheus out of beasthood fully on their own - no one's going to see him transform back all the way, but Glitch can definitely help by trying to get through to him through music! It'll at least bring him back to his senses well enough that he'll refrain from attacking, and a gesture like that'll probably be a big factor in him turning back eventually.

Oh yeah no worries! I figured that was the case just figured I'd ask if there was a way to help with either him calming down and help him be able to gradually help him back to his senses as a collective than someone being a hero of the story!

I gotcha!

I haven't managed to tag Orpheus at all yet, but Fern namedropped him as a musician to her ages and ages ago, so Mabel is vaguely aware of him; conveniently she spends a lot of time down by the water and a story like this is one that would really touch her. Given all that, are you up for having her try to interact with him even though she's a stranger to him? If not I'm content to keep her on the beach! She had a bad experience with her brother going beastie a couple months ago, and if she were warned away she'd actually listen.

I'd be absolutely cool with Mabel showing up to try to talk to him!! If she could and would figure out how to get to the island she's more than welcome to give it a shot, this is by no means locked to existing CR and I was actually hoping to meet a few new people this way. Depending on how the conversation goes Orpheus may pick her up and dump her back in the ocean but we can definitely get in some interaction before then!!

Well,

you see

Mabel's omen is her pet pig from home, Waddles, except he has wings and can grow in size so that she can use him as her noble steed. So she would be getting to the island by way of flying in on a giant magic pig.

As one does. #justmabelthings

Oh god yeah I forgot I think I've seen you mention that before, that's beautiful. How did it ever slip my mind

Anyway yes absolutely ride in to the rescue on your noble steed, Mabel. Orpheus will appreciate your contributions to the cause when he's less bird shaped.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Sirens Mini-Plot

Questions

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

/comes in late with Starbucks

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject