[OOC] The Doors of Janus [ Malice / Vox ]

[Vox]

I think it might be a good time to timeskip us forward to the morning yeah? Unless you'd like to keep the conversation going or there's something else you've planned for them to do tonight.

[Malice]

Timeskip seems good to me. Can't have them hiding in the bedroom forever, haha.

[Vox]

Hope you didn't mind that I changed Lokkir's colors a bit, wasn't too happy with their old one

[Malice]

**gasp** How dare you. Quick, change them back. >:|

I jest. That's absolutely fine; bit easier to read, actually. I did wonder if I was going mad earlier when I read the reply though, haha.

[Vox]

I mean there's nothing saying that you still aren't going mad, just that there was a slight color change.

Also do feel free to take whatever small liberties you'd need with my character in order to have a smooth post, like having Lokkir help with the binding or having them do it themselves if you'd like. I know how annoying it can be at times when you're writing something and you're blocked from not having any control over a character. I'd also like to think that i can trust you enough not to do anything too drastic with any of my characters!

[Vox]

Also I've been thinking of a few plot points we could dive into so that we can start building some plot.

The first if you want to go full intrigue is some sort of attempted sabotage on either or both Hudvalri and Qaeltine officials all gathered in the lovebird's nest with all the details something that we can hash out a bit here before going full forward with it.

Another point if you wanted to take the roleplay on a more exploratory/action route is that I've been doing some world-building in my head and thought it'd be a neat idea to go full on with the idea of dragons being giant mobile nexi of magic thus leading to the idea of one dying prematurely being a Very Bad Thing. Considering there's been a relatively recent dragon death in the town of Etanclif, I was thinking it'd be a neat idea if that death had turned that town into essentially being covered in nuclear fallout. The current method I've thought of at the moment of how magical dragon death fallout is treated, at least on the Hudvalri side, is to find a dragon egg which will basically absorb and eat all that magical energy. I imagined the town itself being more Qaeltine, so it'd give us a neat chance to explore our world a bit more. It'd also give the neat potential of Aeris obtaining her own dragon companion.

[Malice]

I'll format the post properly when I'm not on my phone. Also, I read your IC reply when I wasn't logged in, so just dismissed the notification so didn't see the OC messages until now because I'm an eejit.

I'd be happy with either of those! Though I can imagine Aeris at least would prefer something more adventurous. She never wanted to be involved in politics, particularly and would leave it to her brother if she could (she can't. Why? Because I say so and she bows to my whims.)

I'm not sure what she would think of a dragon. Though it would be a good symbol of peace for a Qaeltine Princess to have one.

[Vox]

No worries, it happens!

I'm happy going down the adventure route. Everything has the potential to lead to political shenanigans in this RP anyway, so dealing with that is more of an inevitability than an option imo, especially if the option for Aeris to obtain a dragon (whether she wants it or not) is publicly announced IC, it will lead to certain parties being very upset anyway.

[Malice]

Yeah, I was wondering if maybe someone took the opportunity of Lokkir and Aeris being away to their advantage for political sabotage. And/or try to maneuver things while the pair are travelling so as to cause problems. For example, if one of them were to die in the company of the other, then it would shatter the peace treaty.

(I am, of course, not suggesting we actually kill our characters. That'd be odd. But people could certainly try.)

Also, I imagine most of the kickback re: dragon would be Hudvalr? I can't imagine dragons are seen as anything more than big, scaly monsters in Qaeltine, so doesn't have the same significance for them.

[Vox]

And I'm sure there's no shortage of characters that would be willing to try! But first we have to get them a'venturin' somehow.

And yeah most of the backlash would come from the Hudvalr side. Still workshopping this idea, so let me know what you think, but since dragons are natural walking magic batteries, their ambient aura also tends to make things around them go very screwy and sorta ignore the laws of reality because Magic^TM, hence in the past they were treated as something akin to mobile, everpresent natural disasters. Blizzards would rage around dragons with an ice-affinity, lava would eventually erupt and bubble around a fire dragons, torrential storms would follow water dragons, things of that like. Because of that, people from across the land were always really interested in finding out ways to get rid of dragons in any way possible, Hudvalr and probably Qaeltine included.

Until someone in Hudvalr discovered that living creatures of any type could form a pact or bond with a dragon, their natural calamitous leakage of Very Bad Stuff lessened greatly. The creatures in question had to be capable of channeling all that excess energy when bonding with a dragon or else they'd probably explode or something, but in return they'd get some neat benefits which led to fantastical stories of a white deer that can grant wishes, or mountain goats that created mountains and valleys by eating all the surrounding land. This led to an even greater interest in hunting down dragons because even if the dragons themselves were less of a threat, the creatures they bonded to were often just as worse, if not even more so, than a regular calamitous dragon.

On a side note, I had the idea that maybe dragons had to go through this bonding process as part of their maturation stage, which made me snicker thinking that all these calamities were happening because of really horny dragons bonding only because they wanted to bone other dragons. I mean, maybe mating for two fire-type dragons wouldn't be an issue, but it'd be mighty awkward if a fire-type and ice-type wanted to get together but couldn't get around the whole I-literally-melt-you-with-my-presence type deal.

Anyway, somebody eventually had the bright idea of gasp "what if humans could bond to dragons too?" And then one fantasy novel series later, we have the present day relationship of Hudvalr royalty and dragons.

Naturally bonded humans also got some neat benefits too, usually in the way of unusual features and amplification of natural magical prowess which meant that dragon bonding was typically reserved only for royalty, those of really high status, and fanciful tales consisting of the adventures of farmboys/gals and their new dragon friends. However, the last bit is generally seen as a a bit blasphemous mainly due to influences of the first two leading to certain ideas of racial purity and powerful bloodlines, and so the idea of anyone from Qaeltine bonding to a dragon would be seen by a fair few number of people as a huge No-No.

Didn't expect to write that much, but TL;DR: Qaeltines bonding with dragons is a huge cultural and militaristic taboo because a lot of Hudvalri are racist, aristocratic dicks

EDIT: Ah, and the reason it's a militaristic taboo is because even after bonding, dragons still emit ambient magical auras that can fuel spells around them, thus allowing magic to be cast in areas where normally it'd be magically void or deficient

[Vox]

Man I have a habit of just making Lokkir talk and talk and talk so I decided fuck it, it's a core character trait now, they don't know when to shut the fuck up.

[Malice]

Christ, I wasn't aware it had been nearly two weeks since you last responded. Huge apologies. I'll get working on a reply for you ASAP.

[Vox]

No worries! I'm never in any rush for replies so long as you're still interested

[Malice]

Posting here so I don't have to rummage around through a million pages to find this when I come to finish writing a post later. >.>

[Malice]

I'm going to sit here and pretend like I didn't just take nearly half a year to respond to this.

My Aeris is rusty, apologies. If you need me to change anything, do let me know.