Don’t forget we moved!
https://brandmu.day/
The Arx Secrets Thread
-
@Arik said in The Arx Secrets Thread:
Arik Halfshav
Sekrit #1 - He was a White Warden?
White Steward
My question is… was Alarion like essentially a future evil mindcontrolling big bad? Because from the story stuff we got prior to me stopping playing there were some scenes I was thinking… Arik suggests executing the kid before he ends up being some super evil reincarnated as a kid with dream mind control powers.
Apostate answered some questions about Alarion in the recent AMA you can read the event log for and: no. He was just a kid with dreamwalking powers, which is something that some people just have, nothing evil. (I think some PCs might have had it as a secret?) That and being part of the prophecy about Cardia that could be fulfilled any number of ways, or not fulfilled at all.
-
@Arik said in The Arx Secrets Thread:
How he died basically shunted him out of the wheel / queen of death. So if he died prior to fixing his soul he would just end no reincarnation no shining lands no nothing just void.
You’re welcome for making you into a bard!
-
So, Thesarin had two Secrets, one as a direct result of the other.
The one I started knowing about was that he had some ability to detect Abyssal taint, and seeing it on the elders of his tribe (even not knowing what it was) is what drove him to break away as much as he could and leave, which of course is what brought him to the Compact in the first place.
Later I learned that it was because he’d been the Sword of House Redire in a previous life, and he’d inherited the ability to detect the influence of Legion, which is generally cool!
-
One of my first characters was Rowynna Blackshore. Loved playing her but I stopped before I got to the bottom of her secret, and if anyone can throw light on it, I’d love to know now.
Rowynna was actually Lady Elisabe Blackshore, sister to Oswald, Cornelius and Aedric. Elisabe went missing in the Darkwater twenty six years previously. Rowynna has no memory of what happened to her or where she spent those twenty six years, she only remembers waking up on a raft, the only survivor from the missing ship. I managed to get a vision on her that a figure in black platemail and chains rose up out of the waters and dragged the ship and crew under but I can’t now remember if the figure spoke to or communicated with her. I chased every clue I could but got no further than wondering if he was connected to the Queen of Stasis? Zircon? Had she been in stasis for 26 years? Eirene had a theory that the Darkwater transported people/things directly to the abyss. SO! I’d love to know who the figure was and where she was for the missing twenty six years.
She woke up and was still 19, when she made her way back to Arx, Oswald was dead, Cornelius 50ish and Aedric 40 something. She pretended to be a distant relative but eventually told Cornelius and in a very emotional scene, Aedric as well.
Big regret that I rostered her.
-
@Rowan the darkwater was real fucky in terms of time and space, it was abyssal, but she wasn’t necessarily IN the abyss. There were a few characters who had time slippage as a result of the darkwater. No idea who the figure was. Looks like she was an OC, though, so would have been just inactive/idle.
-
I think I was the third player of Lady Lilia Grimhall.
As best I can recall, she and her uncle had discovered something magical that would most likely have them killed if she told the wrong people. I could be misremembering, because it never came up during my time playing her.
Also, this little pupper, named Good Ansel:
Good Ansel was a demon that was bound to Lilia and spent his days telling Lilia things only she could hear.
Playing Lilia and Ansel was basically like being Bea and Luci from Disenchantment.
Game-runner of Silent Heaven, a small-town horror MU.
https://silentheaven.org -
Bliss had four secrets, but they were built around two things that were incredibly public knowledge by the end:
-
Her duel with Everard Telmar, the fact that she won the Telmar House Sword from him, and the fact that it was stolen from her by him dishonorably after, leaving her shoulder maimed.
-
Her fame with the Nox’alfar after finishing a folly.
Those were definitely enough fuel to drive a character forward, and while I was actively playing the game, I did a lot of scheming, putting together a quiet alliance of nobles to pressure and press on Telmar, working with the Nox now and then, and just doing fun things. There was more I could have done, ways I should have been less averse, but playing a character who on the one hand was ready to burn it all down for the drama who on the other hand took Whisper House and made some major moves that set the scene for future Radiants is enough for me. She had her moment in the spotlight, and then when real life flared up, I got out of it and did my best to let others shine.
-
-
After asking about Bhandn’s secret, I am so glad I did not give in to @Narson trying to get me to swear Vows.
Vows are trouble, everyone. You heard it from this guy, the previous-life vowbreaker. (No relation to that piece of the Will of Baalphrigor.)
-
@Jumpscare said in The Arx Secrets Thread:
I think I was the third player of Lady Lilia Grimhall.
Good Ansel was a demon that was bound to Lilia and spent his days telling Lilia things only she could hear.
Playing Lilia and Ansel was basically like being Bea and Luci from Disenchantment.
Kinda delighted someone got that vibe from the secret. I don’t think most of the other Lilia’s cared for it tbh, which I found a bummer since of the couple dozen Secret Buddy secrets I wrote, this was one I particularly liked. Secret text:
"Lilia was alone in her room in the Granite Suite at the Grimhall Longhouse, waking up in the middle of the night from the sound of the door opening (which was unusual, as it was locked), and then the sound of Good Ansel the Pocket-Sized Dog scampering down the hall. In the middle of the night, with a surprising absence of guards, she remembers following down after the dog and the little thing had bolted all the way towards the Thrax estate, stopping at a park bench on the way and hopping up on it, barely visible in the overcast, moonless night sky. And then, as she approached, the little dog began to glow.
Not just glow, but burst into light, with a rainbow prism of colors streaming out and sparkles and glitter (glitter?), with little stars bursting around, as the dog floated in the air. Good Ansel spoke in a high pitched, child like voice suddenly yelling, “GREETINGS PRINCESS, YOU ARE VERY LUCKY AND HAVE BEEN CHOSEN TO BECOME A MAGICAL GIRL, BLESSED BY THE GODS TO…” And then suddenly the light all stopped and the dog dropped to the bench, staring at her in shock. “Lilia? Shit! I was expecting one of the children of Thrax royal family to wander along. Damn it! UGH! Fuck, you saw all of that?” The tiny dog groaned and flopped over on its side in disgust, letting out a big sigh, “Well, cat’s out of the bag now I guess, this is awful. Wait, you’re with Aetheris right? I remember that! You’ve been getting notes from the Rex! This could still work, okay. We can do this!” The little dog paced back and forth, its brow furrowing in thought before it stopped and seemed to come to a decision.
“All right, so I don’t actually go by ‘Good Ansel’. What a stupid name. Arn wasn’t very creative. I’m Norm’argal’valthryx. Technically, I’m not a dog, but I’m an imp. A major imp! I run imp operations for Aetheris in Arx. You know, the whole convincing people talking animals are the best thing ever and becoming their familiars to guide them? That kind of shit.” The little dog shrugged its tiny shoulders, “Truth is, things are not great. Sure, the imps are still doing operations, like we have a cat thing going on throughout the city to gather primum, but Azazel just fled the city, and I think things are going to get bad. -Real- bad, and I have zero interest in being screwed over as everything comes crashing down.” The tiny dog looked up at her, “How about you and I make a deal? I keep the Aetheris imp actions on the down low, and we start making plans to not get killed when the Despite finally collapses? Which it absolutely will. The imps are all scared about it, but they are just going through the motions now. Only a matter of time before someone starts trying to hunt down talking animals and all.” The little dog looked at her speculatively, “You need a familiar? Yeah. You need a familiar. You can trust to old Norm with that. I’ll keep up this ruse, and as things get messy, we’ll figure out how to get through this together. And don’t worry, there’s no ‘I’ in ‘team’.”
There is, however, an ‘I’ in ‘imp’."
-
@Apos said in The Arx Secrets Thread:
@Jumpscare said in The Arx Secrets Thread:
Playing Lilia and Ansel was basically like being Bea and Luci from Disenchantment.
Kinda delighted someone got that vibe from the secret. I don’t think most of the other Lilia’s cared for it tbh, which I found a bummer since of the couple dozen Secret Buddy secrets I wrote, this was one I particularly liked.
I particularly loved it! It was like I had lucked into the perfect roster for me, haha.
-
Leta was the Horned God’s great-granddaughter? Something like that? I might have the exact generation wrong, I stopped poking at it because everyone told her not to and she suffered from a surfeit of respect for authority figures.
-
WHO WOULD BE UNINTERESTED IN A SECRET BUDDY?
I always had a personal happy little backdrop to all my RP with Norwood. Either Pimsley Happy he was doing things right, or being ticked off and giving him an EARFUL that only he could hear.
-
@peasoup There has been a lot of that unfortunately. People being warned not to look into their secret.
-
suddenly want to have a tournament bracket with a bunch of secret buddies…
-
I was JUST informed Arx ended. A round of applause. Truly. It was an immense effort, and it looks like it paid off wonderfully.
Rinel’s FIRST secret was that she could access a secret room in the Labyrinth that contained a book that was being constantly updated–possibly by Vellichor? I don’t know. But I was too scared to do anything with it, and so I never did any actions, and that ended up spiralling into Rinel getting removed from the Scholars and banned from the Labyrinth. Staff was kind enough to give her a second secret, which was:
…I don’t remember. I think it was magic. She did the cleansing ritual and got told to fuck off by the Gods for her various and sundry heresies, which had a pretty profound impact on her mental health, and she ended up going down the path of the druids, for a bit, while still worshipping the Gods in her own heretical ways.
I loved that character; I loved Arx. I’m glad it concluded instead of winding down into inactivity. Stories are always better when they have an end, no matter how sad.
There will always be a little bit of Rinel Tern in me, and I’m genuinely grateful for it.
bird's still the word
-
@Rinel said in The Arx Secrets Thread:
There will always be a little bit of Rinel Tern in me, and I’m genuinely grateful for it.
The rest of the world may have different opinions on this particular fact
-
@peasoup said in The Arx Secrets Thread:
I stopped poking at it because everyone told her not to
Maybe this was already a thing and I just missed it but I feel like secrets needed a big disclaimer telling you to ignore other players when they told you this.
-
@Babs said in The Arx Secrets Thread:
@peasoup said in The Arx Secrets Thread:
I stopped poking at it because everyone told her not to
Maybe this was already a thing and I just missed it but I feel like secrets needed a big disclaimer telling you to ignore other players when they told you this.
I think it got better later on, but there was definitely a group of us who unfortunately misunderstood that extremely reasonable IC advice as OOC advice.
-
I made a random necklace out of weep crystal when I was just a player and as an NPC had it do some spooky things in a scene (and got accused of being edgy for that. Which yeah it’s Despair magic. It will be edgy). But I gave it to a wonderful player and it made me so happy a couple of years later when they asked me questions about the necklace.
ETA: As an addendum a focus of my NPC ended up switching hands to a PC I have never interacted with and I love that.
-
@Rinel said in The Arx Secrets Thread:
@Babs said in The Arx Secrets Thread:
@peasoup said in The Arx Secrets Thread:
I stopped poking at it because everyone told her not to
Maybe this was already a thing and I just missed it but I feel like secrets needed a big disclaimer telling you to ignore other players when they told you this.
I think it got better later on, but there was definitely a group of us who unfortunately misunderstood that extremely reasonable IC advice as OOC advice.
I mean, it was often a ton of OOC pressure as well as IC pressure from some corners unfortunately. some people would absolutely insist that you not only not poke at a thing but also never ever get anyone else involved, and they’d say it was all about your character’s safety but like…a lot of the time it pretty honestly felt like they just didn’t want anyone else to have something cool or share the cool thing they themselves had access to, frankly.
but whattaya gonna do, there are toxic players in every game really.
