player plot: the warden of the wind 🌪️

[garudas]

Hello fellow riftfarers! I come bearing... a player plot!

In the late morning of the 4th of May, storm clouds and dark skies will loom over Nogard, Eltrut, and other nearby islands, and the winds will be stronger than what can be considered even remotely normal. Strong enough that it can tear the land off the leviathan's backs, rip apart ships and carry them away, and create dangerous riptides. This is all because Benedikta Harman has primed into the full might of her Eikon, the winged harpy, Garuda. Her only goal is to wreak havoc, strike fear in anyone who might encounter her, and destroy everything in her path.

Nogard, Eltrut, and surrounding areas will be affected the most, though it is possible for her magic to spread further. As for what people can look forward to on the day of:

🍃 Storms and wind damage. Tornadoes and wind tunnels that are strong enough to pick up people and small boats will need to be avoided, and those on the open seas must weather the tremendously violent storms. If any crews or ships are out there, they will run the risk of their ships being destroyed in the chaos if they do not know what they are doing. High tides will also cause damage to the leviathans and the surrounding wildlife in the water, so they will need the help of riftfarers in keeping safe and repairing their homes in the aftermath.

🍃 Birds and Birdfolk. The birds residing on these islands will be especially aggressive, attacking people for seemingly no reason at all. Even the Birdfolk are unusually hostile, willing to fight just about anyone they make eye contact with. Larger birds will swoop in to snatch people and take them back to the forests on Eltrut where others will need to rescue them, fighting through large, tangle nests and terrifying eldritch-like terrors to get there. The birds will be especially aggressive to those who are more attuned to lightning.

🍃 Gryphons. For those who are part of Cid's crew, The Hideaway, the gryphons on the crew's island will be in an uproar. With the Matriarch leading the cause, the females will be fighting the males in an attempt to kick them out of their nests and will also cause chaos down on the ground and on the ship, and will need to be subdued. The males, however, will fly off to help anyone who is attempting to take down Garuda by allowing people to ride them.

🍃 Wind Egis/Elementals. Garuda will be summoning winged avatars that resemble her sisters, Chirada and Suparna, that will spawn across the affected locations. They will be attacking anyone they come across, but the more extreme ones will try to lure men out to sea to drown them, while kidnapping women to take them to safety. People will have to fight them off to escape them. As with the birds, they will be especially hostile towards lightning users, but they will also be weak to lightning.

These effects will last from the late morning for several hours into the afternoon before she is stopped, and even then, some of the magic may still linger, and the local wildlife and people will need help repairing in the days after.

Last but not least, there will be a chance for Garuda encounters. Some people may not be so lucky to avoid encountering the Eikon herself. While she will swoop in to scare people just for fun before flying off, she might not be feeling so benevolent for others. While it may be difficult to get in a hit, and her aether allows her to rapidly regenerate, it is not impossible, and managing to weaken her will, in turn, weaken her magic.

🍃 How to fight her. She can be attacked from the ground/ships with cannons and anti-magic devices, or in the air on the back of a gryphon. There will also be devices that can capture her magic and be used to gain temporary flight. While Garuda may be big, being small still has its perks. NPCs may also be utilized to assist in the encounters to provide support or serve as a distraction. People can try to reason with her and talk her down, but because Benedikta has lost control over Garuda, it will only anger her further. She will be more prone to lightning attacks.

🍃 Landing a hit. The attacks from her Egis and the birds will be weakened, and some may even vanish. The birdfolk will be snapped out of their spell, leaving them disoriented and confused. The storms and winds will weaken as well. Those with wind or animal powers will be given an opening to better control them.

🍃 Memories and Thoughts. Anyone who has a relationship with Benedikta may hear her current thoughts or see flashes of memories from her past, and present, with the possibility of some more memorable ones pertaining to the character she is encountering being shown. This option will only be available to those who have CR with Benedikta.

🍃 Note: Garuda cannot be killed or severely injured, and will escape any encounter before she can be, as it will take the strength of another Eikon to take her down.....

Please use the sign-up form below if you would like your character to encounter Garuda, and what sort of encounter you would like (a fight in the air, at sea versus a ship/crew, kidnapping, etc.) and if your character will be sustaining any injuries (please note what kind), and we can plot out the thread properly. Let me know what Garuda can do for YOU. For my own sanity, I will be limiting it to seven (7) threads, and I am willing to do one (1) three-way thread with two characters. If I end up with more than that, I'll RNG. I will also be keeping the threads fairly brief (I will get them to minimum AC length at the very least, but probably won't be more than 20 comments, if that), and I ask that we skip lead up/filler and get right to the main focus of the thread.

Another note: players do not need to sign up to interact with the egis/Benedikta's sisters, they will be free rein for anyone to do what they like with them on the log!

Signups closed.

The log will be set up as an open log where players can make their own top levels/threads, plus a top level for starters for the Garuda confrontations, and there will also be some residual things on May's open log. New characters will be free to tag into the log as well, as it takes place after they have arrived in April.

Questions can be asked here.

Comments

[garudas]

Yes! I would like to hear more about his abilities because I am intrigued. 👀

There probably won't be any steering her to the water or anything because she's just kind of doing whatever the heck she wants to break things, BUT I can definitely work it in and get them out to the water somehow. Maybe an attempt to drown him? Probably with the help of her sisters. And he can definitely try to fight on her back if he can manage to hold on LOL.

But yes, do tell me more about what Darin can do and I can see how to work them all in. It'll probably be easier that way for me to work out how they might be able to clash.

[forgeabettertomorrow]

So, Darin's got part of the soul of a demonic god in him which gives him super-human strength and resilience. He can take a lot of punishment and dish out just as much but he's spent his life avoiding the use of his power so his body has plenty of limitations. If he punches too hard he could destroy his arms from the recoil, etc. Honestly, the closest comparison I could make in FF16 terms is that he's basically always semi-primed, he just hides it.

So if Garuda and her sisters start ganging up on him, he'll hit fight-for-his-life mentality and abandon the idea of hiding his power (and he'll hate it) so Benedikta can absolutely needle him about it later. Aside from super-human strength and resilience, he's a brawler with a dao. He'd scramble to get on top of her and just start slamming with fists to try and ground her or her sisters.

Attempting to drown him would honestly be badass. Forcing him to actually use his power and get close to losing control would be some great foreshadowing for later things I can do with him.

[garudas]

ALRIGHT rolling back in here!!

We can definitely do a fight-for-his-life sort of thing, and he can get a decent hit on her (like breaking off one of her talons or maybe even cutting a wing since she'll be able to generate those faster). The only thing I request that we avoid is doing any damage where she won't be able to regenerate fast enough to escape, since she will need to before things get TOO bad.

But I have this image in my head for a really cool above the water fight with them if you want to go that route. Basically, her flying him right over it to try and shake him off with barrel rolls and whatnot, and coming back around to taunt/fight him before fleeing.

[forgeabettertomorrow]

You won't have to worry about that, Darin's not adept enough with his abilities to pour on the damage like that. A few solid shots, definitely but he's far and away from being able to take down an Eikon solo.

I actually have the same image in my head! As for how the whole thing kicks off, I was thinking it over. Darin would probably try and bail at first because his first inclination would be to not get involved. But if Garuda went after an innocent bystander, he'd leap in to fight her off without thinking. How does that sound to you?

[garudas]

That sounds perfect to me!! I'll be putting up headers for each person that you can leave a starter under, if that's okay! Just to set up the scene where Darin might be and what he'd be doing beforehand, and we can work from there.

And then use this thread here to keep up if we need to figure anything out! :D

[forgeabettertomorrow]

Sounds perfect to me, I'm super stoked for this!

[garudas]

Here is where you can set it up! :D Just need some basic setting stuff like where you want him to be/what he's doing, and Garuda will come!

[forgeabettertomorrow]

All set up! Let me know if that works for you!

[garudas]

Hey Ant!

Just figured I should probably let you know that by the time all of this happens with Garuda, Eltrut's docks will be completely destroyed so he probably wouldn't wanna be down there LOL, or if he even could!

[forgeabettertomorrow]

No problem! I edited the tag to have him heading in the direction of the docks but in the martkeplace for now! Does that work better?

[garudas]

I'm sorry!! I'm still a little confused since the storms would have already hit and the tsunami's passed, and all the elementals/birds are attacking, so Darin's behaviour seems a bit at odds with the situation. Is this supposed to be before everything has started? Because if so, I think it would probably work best if we go right before Garuda is supposed to appear and attack someone.

But could you maybe edit the tag to better match the timing of the log? At this point, it's safe to say that Darin would have probably experienced the first onslaught of Garuda's attack, including Eltrut being knocked around and the waves and storms already underway since that's the first thing that happens, just to help keep things cohesive!

[forgeabettertomorrow]

sakdjfhadsf I'm so sorry, I completely misunderstood, I thought that those signing up to fight Garuda would be doing so before the storm started wrecking everything! That's totally my fault, I totally misread the timing! I edited it again so hopefully that works! Again, I am so sorry! This is totally on me!