Aather OOC

❄ The summary of the plot kickoff/tunnel to the Icefields exploration (explore # 1) is here!
❄ The summaries of Gerdaquest sessions # 1 (Kai and Gerda’s houses) and # 2 (the river) are here!
❄ The summaries of Gerdaquest session # 3 (the flower field) and the robbers’ castle (explore # 2) are here!

❄ In Friday’s exploration, heroes entered the Icefields once more to join Gerda in Kvitoya. Kvitoya was revealed to have once been a town, which the Snow Queen had frozen, preserved, dissected to some extent, and put on eternal display in a museum of ice.

( summary )

❄ On Sunday, Nimue urged heroes with a call to the Great Hall, asking that they help her free her lake.

( summary )

❄ Monday’s plot was the final Gerdaquest session!

( summary )

Thanks to Thorn thawing Bao's heart and returning it to her, she was even able to restore him before she left, and the warmth of their hearts and the lantern to guide their way was enough to melt the snow around them…

...at which point the snow hit the fan.

❄ Avalanche in Icefields | Avalanche in Camelot

Snow Queen finally noticed that the heroes and Gerda were interfering in her realm, and an avalanche that buried the Icefields and Camelot alike was her response. This is a temporary environmental change that will last at least for the next week! It's not going to be easy to melt or shovel the sheer volume of snow that was dumped, and characters may find themselves outright trapped inside, especially at first. Guinevere handed out extra mittens, along with offering some plot tidbits: a) the avalanche left Snow Queen's defenses down and her realm accessible, and b) the Camelot personae are aiming towards some kind of response to the attack, of a form and direction yet to be determined.

❄ Here is the rough schedule of finale stuff, as follows!

* Lancelot will have a post to raise power (fight club! or is that knight club?) running afternoon/evening EST on December 17th!
* Morgan will have a light social post to raise power early evening EST on December 18th!
* Characters will be able to access the Icefields as of later evening EST on December 18th! WARNING: This is a one-way trip! Characters who go for this will be out of normal Aather till Saturday - they'll be running in the Icefields with separate mingle posts and separate living accommodations for an overnight camping trip, basically.
* Guinevere will present options on what to do about the avalanche later evening EST on December 19th!
* ~The things that get decided on~ in the December 19th meeting will take place on December 20th, throughout the day, with events culminating in late evening EST.
* Saturday the 21st is the finale, and will take place early afternoon EST!

Again, thank you to everyone who has been playing and participating, and we hope you’ve been having fun! As always, if you wish to handwave attendance at any of the plotty events thus far, feel free to do so and give as an idea of what your character did so we can use it!

ETA: ANY QUESTIONS ABOUT STUFF THAT HAS HAPPENED/STUFF THAT WILL HAPPEN CAN ALSO GO IN THIS POST whup!

QUICK RUNDOWN OF PLOT SO FAR!

- Here is the first summary, detailing what went down in the trip under Camelot to get Gerda into the icefields, and characters' efforts to get through to the Snow Queen at the same time.

- Gerdaquest session one! Heroes helped Gerda along as she searched her house and Kai's. They got some details of Gerda and Kai's backstory; Kai's personality changing; Kai's grandmother passing away and Kai later going missing; and a passage in a book describing the Snow Queen as a queen bee, with the lesser bees being snowflakes. Gerda took a picture of her loved ones with her, retrieved a pair of good red shoes from a chest in her house, and then left town. Heroes received a rose-marked key from this session.

- Gerdaquest session two! Heroes tuned in to find Gerda thrown off by her arrival at the river; the boat she meant to use was stuck in the ice and the river itself was completely frozen. She was advised to poke around and found several objects (a fishing rod, a crystal star, and broken-off pieces of a sled, among others) in the ice; she was able to loosen some of them with fire provided to her via her connection to Aather.

With a fresh storm building up on the horizon, Gerda freed a live sparrow from inside a frozen bush on the riverbank and inadverdently set the boat on fire at the same time. The sparrow gave her a coat button; she chased it to a signpost indicating two paths -- one sign marked with a feather and the other sign marked with trees. After getting some input and reassurance from the heroes, Gerda started down the tree-marked path -- while behind her, the burning boat seemed to have started the river melting. Heroes received a vial of river water with a boat-marked cork from this session; plot objects are being kept in the library at this time.

- Gerdaquest session three will be tomorrow December 4th -- like the other sessions, it will start at roughly 6 PM PST/9 PM EST, but it's easy to jump in at any point!