Tales of the Ice Harpy from Glacia

"How can I settle the territory granted to me when my men are being slaughtered before they even set up camp?" the Queen petitioner demanded. She was the eighth Queen to stand in the petitioner's circle before the Council today and there were easily twenty more waiting for her to finish. So far, their demands had been identical, save for the amount of histrionics they were willing to indulge in before they allowed themselves to be escorted out of the circle. "The Council has to do something!"

( In which the Dark Council is a bag of dicks. )

Jorval clucked. "Such language is not welcome here. And since neither you nor yours are affected by this, you have no justifiable complaint, and so neither are you. I must ask you all to leave the Council chambers."

Karla opened her mouth to protest again, but Jaenelle touched her arm. She shook her head, eyes disturbingly blank, and turned to walk away. Karla leveled a glare at Jorval, but did likewise, followed by Julian and Warren.

"Now Lady," Jorval said with a weary smile, "let's see what we can do about your rightful petition."

[NFI, NFB, OOC enjoyed! Taken and slightly adapted from Anne Bishop's Heir to the Shadows, Chapter 15, Part 5.]

"Mother Night," Karla whispered. "Mother Night."

The group had stepped out of Raven's netherverse on a flat-topped hill that was one of Sceval's official landing places, the gently rolling land spread out below them. Large meadows provided good grazing. Stands of trees provided shade on summer afternoons. Creeks veined the land with clean water.

She had stood on this hill a handful of times in the past five years, looking down on unicorns while the stallions kept careful watch over the grazing mares and the foals playing tag.

Now she looked down on a slaughter.

Turning to the north, Lucivar shook his head and swore softly. "This wasn't a few bastards who had come for a horn to take home as a hunting trophy. This was a war."

Karla blinked away tears. Of all the Blood, of all the kindred races, the unicorns had always been her favorite. They had been the stars in the Darkness, the living examples of power and strength blended with gentleness and beauty. And now that gentleness and beauty was marred by violence, torn white bodies hacked and brutalized and left to lie in the dirt. There were foals as well as pregnant mares in the carnage, protected by rings of stallions and juvenile males who'd been overrun.

"No," she said, shaking her head at the scene. "No. We can't--we can't let this happen. We can't let this stand." Her hands balled into fists and she shook with reaction and rage. "Call them," she said, slashing a glance at Raven and Emma. Surely, together, they could figure out something. "Call them. Call them all. Everyone and anyone you can think of. I want the largest cavalry in the history of Fandom riding to our aid."

She looked back over the hill and buried her face in her hands. "Call them and tell them the unicorns are being massacred. And we need their help."

( The cry for help )

[Once again, many thanks to trigons_child and icecoldfrost. Descriptive text taken from Anne Bishop, Emma and Raven's awesomeness is purely their own. FB is someone wants to report people on the island getting mental messages (fine if they don't!) and this thread for any actions and reactions of people on the receiving end. Actual interaction with Kaeleerans and plotty bits go in the next post.]

So, in completely shocking news, something terrible is about to go down in Kaeleer. Anne Bishop, you are why we can't have nice things, I am just saying. In this instance, it's Kaeleer's most beloved species, the unicorns, coming down with a horrible case of the 'getting slaughtered by greedy people'. You think kicking the dog is bad? How terrible do you have to be to murder a unicorn?

My canon is many things, but subtle ain't one.

Anyway, an advance group is going to make it to the scene and see what's going on and then they're going to send out an all-call for help. Only this time, it is literally an all-call. It doesn't matter if your character has never met any of the people involved, never been to Kaeleer, maybe even never heard of unicorns. If you are willing, your character(s) can hear the broadcast all-call summoning them for help. If not, well, the broadcast must have missed them somehow; oh well, no harm no foul. (Your characters are also free to hear it and ignore it, if they wish. All up to you.)

The post is set for Saturday, but will go up Friday evening for SP purposes. The all-call will go out Saturday morning Fandom time and transportation via dimensional portal (thanks Raven!) will be available for anyone who wants to step through and help out. While the post itself will span many, many hours, Kaeleer moves at double speed, which means your characters will be able to go help out in Kaeleer for awhile and still make it back on the island by mid- to lae-afternoon, plenty of time for any evening plans you may have for them, including 3MD.

Some questions that I have anticipated but are hardly exhaustive!

So, anyone can join this? Yup! Any current character, either on-island or off doing alumni things. Dropped characters can't come back for this, but anyone else is fair game. Get your February alumni activity early! No one's going to be checking for invitations at the door. If your character shows up to fight for the unicorns, awesome. Introductions can come later.

None of my kids are fighters! That's okay! There are also going to be a makeshift infirmary that people can hang out at instead, a need for people to make food and hand out water, even wash bandages and whatnot. There's also the possibility of baby-sitting little orphaned foals, trying to convince angry, hurt unicorns not to kill everything on two-legs, watching over captured Terreilleans, because there are going to be at least some people who prefer not to kill bad guys (the Kaeleerans are all very disappointed in you), etc etc etc. If you have an idea of what you'd like your character to do and you're not sure if it'll work, drop me a line and I'll let you know.

Do I have to sign up? Nah! That's way too formal. If there's something your characters needs to be super useful (daytime, nighttime, a full moon, whatever) and you want to mention that, leave a comment and I'll see what I can do. Otherwise, feel free to jump in when the post goes up.

This sounds like a LOT of work. How are you going to pull it all off? Oooh, not by myself, I promise!There's NO WAY I'd be able to get to everyone and stay sane. That's why I have a lovely group of NPC volunteers who are all ready for your NPC needs, whether it's a nasty Terreillean to fight or a wounded unicorn to heal or a wounded unicorn to help you fight off a nasty Terreillean. Unicorns come in both wounded and unwounded varieties, Terreilleans are all dicks, though, sorry.

Like BDEs in the past, you'll be able to request an NPC. You can also feel free to mod your fights, or team up with other PCs and talk to them. It would be great if not every thread required an NPC to function, but we'll do our best no matter what!

Wait, doesn't everyone there have magic? I don't want my kid to be creamed. Yes, every Terreillean does have Craft, but that doesn't meant insta-death for folks with non-magic. Very powerful Blood are a rarity (especially in Kaeleer), so by the time your character catches up to them, it's possible they've already exhausted what supply of Craft they have. Or maybe you've teamed up with a unicorn--the unicorns all have Craft and human-level intelligence. Or maybe you have guns and can snipe them from yards away. It may take a few bullets, but even shields can't stand up to guns for long.

Wait, we can use guns? All weapons are free and clear for use. Karla's reasons for not wanting advanced weaponry in Glacia don't stand here. So guns, lasers, magic, swords, Pokemon, leftover flamethrowers from the BDE...whatever floats your boat. Just make sure there's no friendly fire or people will be after you.

When is this taking place, exactly? So, the official real world time/date is Saturday, Feb 1st, all day. A post will go up Friday night, though, and SP can go on for awhile if folks are still willing to play. The official Fandom time is from Saturday morning to Saturday afternoon, leaving characters with several hours to themselves between getting home and 3MD if they have signed up for both (if you do choose to do both, please make sure you'll still have energy to play in 3MD!). In Kaeleer, the time is a little more...timey-wimey. In canon, the fight lasts from sunup to sundown. If there are vampires and/or werewolves who would like to participate, we can finagle it to night time with a bright enough full moon that folks can see. We'll take that as it goes.

Can I keep a unicorn. No. Not even an orphan. But you get to help save some and patch them up. That's like having one, right? Okay, no. Deal.

That's all the questions I could think of. Ask more in the comments!