In the middle of rewriting this; the text that bottom serves as both a writing sample and an extremely temuous opening that I do fully expect to actually make it into our RP. My only demands are that the character Sylvan go from slavery to being within the highly broad proximity of the 'Lord (or whatever)' that saved them from it.
Saw Dune 2 and X-Men '97 and felt inspired to resurrect this. Like all of my other prompts feel free to view everything you read down below as negotiable. If you like the vibes, that's enough for me. Open to keeping this strictly original or broadening it to include fandoms.
This post is looking for a GM interested in a RP that leans heavily into politics and intrigue; I like fiscal spreadsheets, and you might also want to enjoy them for this.
Credit for the inspiration of this prompt goes to Raoul Peck and his documentary EXTERMINATE ALL THE BRUTES.
Extermination is an ideology with a quota.
EVERYONE HAS A FATE.
Brother - His name was Noah.
In the waste-clogged alleys and hellish inhumanities of the great city where Sylvan was a slave, he was not totally alone. He had a brother, a slave just like him, and he did all he could to keep Sylvan safe, fed, and happy. Sometimes he even succeeded.
Then Noah disappeared. Gone, lost in the urban hell. Without Lord Orys, Sylvan would have starved or worse. Ten years and two thousand miles separate him from the terrible place that stole away his brother, turning the dim memories into vapor, but still he remembers him.
And Noah remembers Sylvan. Noah's love will be the death of him.
-=-
Host - Deep, deep below, he feels it.
Past the warmth in his gut, all sensation tapers away into nothing. Only rarely does it come out. It doesn’t seem like the demons from the stories, if it even is a demon. There is no cruelty that he's found, no vile treachery nor hunger for his soul. If he's lucky, it might even crack a joke with him.
Yet still, it remains. It saved him when he was buried into a cave by a snowstorm, giving him a warmth his body no longer had. It had him stuff goat cheese into the chef’s shoes, and the two of them both laughed at that one. It grows hungry when he see corpses, but neither of them talk about that.
It really is sorry they chose his body.
-=-
The boar is not dead, though to all the other hunters’ senses it is. It lays motionless on its side within the sled, tied down by rope with two arrows sticking discordantly out of its hide like seams of broken bone. Frozen blood pools in the cracked stomach of the sled, collecting rather than leaking now that red ice has sealed the wood. Poison leaching out of the arrowheads keeps the boar docile, and its breathing so light that only Sylvan can see. An ovate in too-thin robes shivers as she ties a garland of rosemary around the beast’s neck, murmuring prayers to the ancestors that they might find the kill worthy.
Winter has seized the land in its vise, its unending waves of cold and snow having transformed the Barony of Marlas into a crueler scape, one Sylvan doesn’t quite recognize. Tranquility abounds along the driven snow, all through the clearing, hiding the buried world and the woes of man but unable to snuff them out. Sylvan knows well what a mirage it is, the oppressive winters of his homeland no less savage than the bloodletting summers. The numbing cold does not soothe his aches, for he knows they’ll be worse come morning, come the thaw. Too soon this clearing will melt, its river gone from white to red, the whole Septima Line thrust back to war.
Baron Orys refuses to yield to midnight season, to accept its peace, and so from his great warhorse’s saddle he brazenly belts out a mixture of drunken lyrics and commands, determined to master this hunt even if he does not partake. An entourage on horseback spreads out in his orbit, ranging from eager young footmen to grizzled junkers, all in varying states of inebriation at his command. Their braying is nearly louder than the hounds’, who hungrily stalk between the sled and the hole they pulled the boar out from. Teased by the hunt but yet unrewarded, they’re too unruly to be kept in check by the kennel master.
On foot slog the unfortunates who actually have to take part in the hunt, Sylvan among them. They huddle into their hemp canvas cloaks, glancing up at the moody afternoon sky threatening to crack open with another snowstorm. Dark clouds sweep in low from the south like a riptide, a single vast current swept in from the mountains already menacing the Oldwoods. Its furthest gales reach them as tongues of vengeful cold, flecks of whipped-up snow biting into Sylvan’s exposed skin.
By the boar’s nest leans a typical Mallean, one of Sylvan’s two erstwhile comrades. Sigorn is tall, pale, broad, with the close-set, wide-boned features of a commoner, and a shock of red hair grown out to protect against the elements. Beneath his cloak he proudly bears his blood-flecked armor, each dent a Darkman put into it a point of dear pride. He’s not the only one, either, the clearing filled with dozens of youths whose first blooding ended in victory amid a blizzard. Baron Orys, deep into his cups after six days of nonstop celebration, saw a break in the storms and gladly called a hunt. When informed he could not go on account of his shattered knee - he simply grinned, and ordered himself tied to his saddle.
Sylvan remembers the moment his lord fell from the saddle, burned into his nerves. The screaming of horses, skidding hooves catching on the frozen ground. On the edges of his vision a rider smashes into a branch in the din, others don’t move at all for fear of the blizzard. His spurs dig, his borrowed steed whines, and he races for his lord - only for another to reach him first.
“What a woman.” Sigorn sighs beside Sylvan, craning his neck to look at one of their lord’s companions of honor. Susannah Oye junker unlike the others, a pretty, willowy noblewoman well into motherhood, with the lean, ruthless look of a ranger. Her two poisoned arrows are what struck the boar down, and her pride curls off her body like steam. Sigorn’s face cracks into exaggerated appreciation, and then he turns to their lord’s other honored companion. Another woman, this one as young as they are, haughtily-built and leering with none of Susannah’s refinement. Many of those looks are reserved for Sylvan, forced to slog on foot as just another hunter. “Anya too. I think she fancies you, eh?”
Saw Dune 2 and X-Men '97 and felt inspired to resurrect this. Like all of my other prompts feel free to view everything you read down below as negotiable. If you like the vibes, that's enough for me. Open to keeping this strictly original or broadening it to include fandoms.
This post is looking for a GM interested in a RP that leans heavily into politics and intrigue; I like fiscal spreadsheets, and you might also want to enjoy them for this.
Credit for the inspiration of this prompt goes to Raoul Peck and his documentary EXTERMINATE ALL THE BRUTES.
Extermination is an ideology with a quota.
EVERYONE HAS A FATE.
Brother - His name was Noah.
In the waste-clogged alleys and hellish inhumanities of the great city where Sylvan was a slave, he was not totally alone. He had a brother, a slave just like him, and he did all he could to keep Sylvan safe, fed, and happy. Sometimes he even succeeded.
Then Noah disappeared. Gone, lost in the urban hell. Without Lord Orys, Sylvan would have starved or worse. Ten years and two thousand miles separate him from the terrible place that stole away his brother, turning the dim memories into vapor, but still he remembers him.
And Noah remembers Sylvan. Noah's love will be the death of him.
-=-
Host - Deep, deep below, he feels it.
Past the warmth in his gut, all sensation tapers away into nothing. Only rarely does it come out. It doesn’t seem like the demons from the stories, if it even is a demon. There is no cruelty that he's found, no vile treachery nor hunger for his soul. If he's lucky, it might even crack a joke with him.
Yet still, it remains. It saved him when he was buried into a cave by a snowstorm, giving him a warmth his body no longer had. It had him stuff goat cheese into the chef’s shoes, and the two of them both laughed at that one. It grows hungry when he see corpses, but neither of them talk about that.
It really is sorry they chose his body.
-=-
The boar is not dead, though to all the other hunters’ senses it is. It lays motionless on its side within the sled, tied down by rope with two arrows sticking discordantly out of its hide like seams of broken bone. Frozen blood pools in the cracked stomach of the sled, collecting rather than leaking now that red ice has sealed the wood. Poison leaching out of the arrowheads keeps the boar docile, and its breathing so light that only Sylvan can see. An ovate in too-thin robes shivers as she ties a garland of rosemary around the beast’s neck, murmuring prayers to the ancestors that they might find the kill worthy.
Winter has seized the land in its vise, its unending waves of cold and snow having transformed the Barony of Marlas into a crueler scape, one Sylvan doesn’t quite recognize. Tranquility abounds along the driven snow, all through the clearing, hiding the buried world and the woes of man but unable to snuff them out. Sylvan knows well what a mirage it is, the oppressive winters of his homeland no less savage than the bloodletting summers. The numbing cold does not soothe his aches, for he knows they’ll be worse come morning, come the thaw. Too soon this clearing will melt, its river gone from white to red, the whole Septima Line thrust back to war.
Baron Orys refuses to yield to midnight season, to accept its peace, and so from his great warhorse’s saddle he brazenly belts out a mixture of drunken lyrics and commands, determined to master this hunt even if he does not partake. An entourage on horseback spreads out in his orbit, ranging from eager young footmen to grizzled junkers, all in varying states of inebriation at his command. Their braying is nearly louder than the hounds’, who hungrily stalk between the sled and the hole they pulled the boar out from. Teased by the hunt but yet unrewarded, they’re too unruly to be kept in check by the kennel master.
On foot slog the unfortunates who actually have to take part in the hunt, Sylvan among them. They huddle into their hemp canvas cloaks, glancing up at the moody afternoon sky threatening to crack open with another snowstorm. Dark clouds sweep in low from the south like a riptide, a single vast current swept in from the mountains already menacing the Oldwoods. Its furthest gales reach them as tongues of vengeful cold, flecks of whipped-up snow biting into Sylvan’s exposed skin.
By the boar’s nest leans a typical Mallean, one of Sylvan’s two erstwhile comrades. Sigorn is tall, pale, broad, with the close-set, wide-boned features of a commoner, and a shock of red hair grown out to protect against the elements. Beneath his cloak he proudly bears his blood-flecked armor, each dent a Darkman put into it a point of dear pride. He’s not the only one, either, the clearing filled with dozens of youths whose first blooding ended in victory amid a blizzard. Baron Orys, deep into his cups after six days of nonstop celebration, saw a break in the storms and gladly called a hunt. When informed he could not go on account of his shattered knee - he simply grinned, and ordered himself tied to his saddle.
Sylvan remembers the moment his lord fell from the saddle, burned into his nerves. The screaming of horses, skidding hooves catching on the frozen ground. On the edges of his vision a rider smashes into a branch in the din, others don’t move at all for fear of the blizzard. His spurs dig, his borrowed steed whines, and he races for his lord - only for another to reach him first.
“What a woman.” Sigorn sighs beside Sylvan, craning his neck to look at one of their lord’s companions of honor. Susannah Oye junker unlike the others, a pretty, willowy noblewoman well into motherhood, with the lean, ruthless look of a ranger. Her two poisoned arrows are what struck the boar down, and her pride curls off her body like steam. Sigorn’s face cracks into exaggerated appreciation, and then he turns to their lord’s other honored companion. Another woman, this one as young as they are, haughtily-built and leering with none of Susannah’s refinement. Many of those looks are reserved for Sylvan, forced to slog on foot as just another hunter. “Anya too. I think she fancies you, eh?”