Dwarf City field trip!

[bullhorned]

So in Gendry's last post, he invited some folk to head out to Troichean Beinn. He was invited there to study smithing with a dwarven master. Sansa will be traveling with him to establish diplomatic relationships as per her father's appointment to Cothromach (which itself is a dwarven colony of sorts). A few other folk were invited or expressed interest in the trip, so this is just to hash out details!

They'll be setting out September 2nd. Thanks to a tip from the Monarchs, they'll be going by sea instead of land. If you look at the map, you'll see the "Shipyard Ring" on the southeast side of the continent. The group will travel from Caer Glaem to the Southwood Ring (a few days on horseback). At the Shipyard Ring, they'll charter a ship to take them around the southern side of the continent. This itself shouldn't take more than a week with a fair wind. From the coast of Troichean Beinn (on the west of the map), it'll be a few more days on rougher terrain to make it to the city itself. So the trip should take to 2-3 weeks, unless we arrange for some trouble on the road or at sea!

A ship has been chartered for Gendry and two others by the monarchs, but others will have to pay their way on. (But don't worry about that, Gendry has some jewels left over, so he can cash them in for coin and pay the way.)

I don't know what will happen when they get to the city. Some information provided so far is that the dwarves are neutral to the conflict. They're pretty insular and don't like to keep guests for very long. They'll try to convince shardholders to extract their shards while present, but this is known to be a very dangerous procedure. They do this so the shards can be put in a vault or sent to the respective court monarchs. While present they'll be subject to the laws of Lord Oir, the King Under the Mountain. To my knowledge, no player characters have been here before, so who knows what could happen!

In any case, this is just a post to chime in if you're still sending your character along. If you didn't talk to Gendry before but wanna jump in, gimme a heads up and we can figure something out. That said, Unseelie characters aren't likely to get invited along. You guys will have to plan your own field trip!

If you have any ideas to spice up the trip, feel free to drop in some ideas too!

Comments

[steeledskin]

Sansa Stark is still going -- though whether she's going as Ned Stark's envoy or heir remains to be seen until other details are hashed out. Once in the city, she'll have her own business to attend to but I'm up for all kinds of plotting while on the road/sea. I love travel threads (especially when boats are involved) so I'll be looking for lots of CR building opportunities.

Now DEPENDING on the final roster of the travelling group, Sansa may or may not retain her Alayne Stone identity for at least some of the journey. Right now I'm leaning towards no, since she needs to present herself in the city as a Stark anyway. But if there are some legit suspicious characters joining them, she might be a bit more skittish.

As for spicing! Well! Trouble at sea should definitely be a thing. Storm? Pirates? Perhaps even a bit of corruption and profiteering with regards to the chartered ship's captain? Maybe we should even consider something in the way of a SEA MONSTER. My vote goes for some kind of giant crustacean. :|

[baseborne]

Jon would totally escort her around for her diplomatic business if she'll let him!

otherwise gosh he will be so pleased if she starts going as Sansa again ahhh

[steeledskin]

she would very much like an escort. and i believe once ned's gone, sansa inherits his position at cothromach so she'll probably have to have a talk with jon about helping her with that.

[baseborne]

ahhh yes please

he'd be a good castellan, honest

plus maybe he could even figure out once they've started that she's worked on managing the eyrie before based on how she knows what she's doing?? and then they can Talk about that too tbh OR WHATEVER I'm open

[bullhorned]

careful where you say that. we're taking a castellan on this trip already!

[steeledskin]

jon as castellan. :| oh goodness. this would be beautiful.

and yes. it would be nice to see her sorta surprise him with some of the things she knows and does now.

[marred]

luke said he'd come and he still will!

dwarves, armoury, swords! he's so in. he's really great at navigation since he basically has a gps built in his head (thanks, hermes!), so he might be able to help out with directions, etc. and he now has the staff of hermes (turning bitches to stone, disintegrating monsters, HELL YEAH) in his arsenal, which means he has a few knickknacks (lie/treachery detecting boon, another boon that lights the way to what it is he seeks, an overpowered sword) he can bring along the way if they walk into any trouble, and two snakes who like the macarena ...

since clarisse is on a quest, he's been left to take care of two of her dogs. i'm not sure what's going to happen to them -- whether they'll come along or not, since they're two great, fluffy beasts who follow him around, so i can't really say anything on any potential man's best friend front ... but he dislikes water due to trying to kill percy so i hope someone is prepared to hold him.

he might also steal some stuff??? i'm cool with whatever; i'll slot him in wherever he fits, but it'd be really great to get him some new cr and kick some ass and make a thousand snow white references.

[steeledskin]

sansa could absolutely help him look after those dogs, if you'd like. she no longer has a direwolf of her own but she has a lingering love for canines.

[marred]

i just got the a-okay from miyou that he can take the two dogs. i'd love for them to bond over them! luke's never really had a dog, so, it would be good if sansa makes sure he feeds them right and takes them for walks ...

[steeledskin]

fantastic!

[teenyoda]

Stiles will be going because someone needs to keep an eye on everyone. And because magic. He's mainly just tagging along because Gendry can't read and someone needs to be able to see the "Beware of (___)" signs, and because Sansa needs to not fall asleep again forever. He will spend the first part of the trip vomiting horrifically off of the side. This will be the first time he's been on a boat out at sea so... hey there, sea sickness.

[marred]

GOOD THING HE'S COMING. if they meet a fork in the road and the left says "beware of ___" and the right doesn't, luke would go left for an adventure.

be a passenger driver, stiles. take over the wheel ...

[teenyoda]

He's not Jesus, but he'll take that wheel, Luke. =|

[steeledskin]

stiles! i think she has to sleep sometimes. or are they going to have adorable sleepy night-long chats by the fire and then by the ship-rail long after everyone has gone to bed and they refuse to?

because that could be kinda cute.

and by kinda i mean quite.

[teenyoda]

>> These things are possible. And then they both pass out and Jon comes up in the morning and looks disgusted because not really cuddling but cuddling. =|

[steeledskin]

oh poor jon!!!

[gentlearcher]

Maaaaaaaaaaaan, this looks like fun. How long do you think they're going to be gone?

[bullhorned]

Gendry may be there for awhile, since he's not exactly going there for a seminar or anything. But no one is really bound to stay there longer than they like, unless a plot comes up while they're there. So basically it's however long as you like?

[gentlearcher]

Okay, so we talked about this on plurk and if it's cool I'd definitely like to send her.

[bullhorned]

Sweet. We'll make it work!

[baseborne]

ok whatever fight me, Jon Snow is totally coming, because both his sisters are coming so there.

He will be sans Ghost, though, which will be weird for everyone involved.

look he just wants to go hang out in the mountains where it's nice and cold

[steeledskin]

FAMILY ROAD TRIP.

[baseborne]

MAYBE THEY WILL ACTUALLY FIGURE OUT HOW TO HUG NOW

[steeledskin]

no. no they will just stand across from each other like awkward statues forever.

actually i cannot wait for the first hug; it'll be fantastic.

[bullhorned]

No Ghost, eh? Why's that?

[baseborne]

boop basically

LIKE JON WASN'T OBNOXIOUS ENOUGH ALREADY WITH GHOST time for a small posse of direwolves following him everywhere tbh knocking things over and shedding on the furniture

this is the sort of person you've become friends with gendry, this is your life now

[bullhorned]

/makes you a pooper scooper

/for humanity's sake

[baseborne]

omfg can u imagine the size of direwolf poop

ur welcome for not taking Ghost along on this tiny ship now, everybody only has to deal with nymeria-sized shits

still that pooper scooper better be some heavy duty finely crafted shit gendry

[bullhorned]

IT WILL BE OF THE FINEST DWARVEN CRAFTSMANSHIP EVER SEEN IN THIS WORLD

[aliased]

where is ghost D:

[baseborne]

haha they're taking a page from Nymeria's book basically, Ghost is going to collect a pack for his incompetent human who wished to be better at warging and basically got a the gift of warging with multiple wolves/hounds at once

[tensed]

GALE, Good Guy that he is, invited himself along by being kind of a dick about it. He and Clary will be meeting the rest at the Shipyard Ring. He is extremely useful in the woods, but he won't be so much at sea what with first time on a ship. He has not said he is unseelie ( he kinda hates everyone and refuses to align himself with them ) so that'll be fun if/when that comes out!

I also second giant crustacean for no other reason than one claw can provide enough crab meat for the entire trip.

[steeledskin]

melt some butter, eh!

oh man i am excited about gale going i want him and sansa to meet in person!!!

[tensed]

you know it

they will be such good friends :') by which I mean he will be endlessly frustrated. y u no say what u mean…!

[steeledskin]

meanwhile his grumpy grumpitude will be like a shining lovely balm to her. she who is strangely comforted by plain-spoken men.

[artem]

Clary's just gonna draw pretty pictures of things and stew in her emotions. She's probably not really forthcoming with which court she's from because she doesn't care.

[tensed]

pretty pictures of things or pretty pictures of gale the distinction is important

[artem]

pictures of gale are never pretty they're breathtaking

/shot

[bullhorned]

I am definitely feeling we need some sort of giant monster, for sure. Or several smaller sea monsters.

[tensed]

several smaller might prove more of a challenge they better pray it's not sirens and make it more of a constant challenge in contrast to one massive monster

of course the dread brought on by the big monster arising at any point out of the waves can also make things wonderfully tense on the ship

hi, I am unhelpful and good with anything

AND NOW WITH RIGHT ACCOUNT

[bullhorned]

ahhh you turned into arya

Man imagine the captain being like, "nobody make a sound. lower the sails. not a single breath, lads."

Then they just have to drift with this monstrously large creature just lurking in the sea around them. It will lose interest in them if it can't hear them. But just a single sound will gets its attention again...

I have no idea how to properly RP this, though.

[tensed]

gendry's cursed with a tiny pain in the ass it is known

if we go that way it might be better to have it be visible at the beginning then sink away. what's not there tends to be scarier than what is. then have their actual antagonists be smaller, faster moving creatures. best of both worlds.

[aliased]

ARYA'S GOING. duh.

[bullhorned]

REALLY?

ARYA SURE?

[aliased]

[bullhorned]

Look at the Stark contrast between sisters in that icon.

Sansa is so well behaved.

[aliased]

oh my GOD you've been waiting to use these, haven't you

[bullhorned]

Just like winter, you could say this has been coming for awhile.