jaistlyn

'Nuff said.

And with that... Fidelitas leaves the White Hand. I think that is a proper conclusion for him, having lost his faith (due to rng chance when he died in one of the nightmare realms, if anyone still remembers that was a mechanic!) A really really big thank you for everyone who had participated in this massive thread, and doubly so for those who had led your nightmare realms! It was an ambitious endeavor, if you recall at the start we had 20 players! People dropped off along the way, understandably, and I myself dropped the ball real hard at the end.. again, I apologize for that. Despite that, I hope the thread had brought you some joy to write. I know I have been swept up by many of the great action and emotional posts written here! I will look upon this thread with fond memories in the future. ❤️

~Epilogue (Fidelitas)~ He placed the sword on the table that was between himself and Chastity. The rending in his heart far outweighed the pain of using his bandaged hands to move the weapon. Beneath the bandages, there was ruined flesh still oozing with pus. His hands had been burned badly by Vlad’s flamethrower, then by the combining of his ability with Ilene’s incompatible power. There had been no time to properly treat the burns while they found their way out of the caves, and no proper supplies when they finally made it out. Whether he would ever be capable of holding a sword again, that was still unknown. Even when the other paladins tried healing his hands, it did not work. It a further sign to Fidelitas that Gaia had abandoned him, for one reason or another. With each failure of him calling upon Gaia’s powers, his heart grew colder. Dressed in travellers’ clothes, Fidelitas looked a shade of the formidable paladin he once was. He had left his armor back in the Xer cave, too injured to carry its weight back out. “Are you sure?” Chastity asked, his sightless eyes gazing at Fidelitas’ own, as if piercing into his soul. “There’s still a place for you here. Even not as a fighter for the moment, we could use someone with first hand knowledge of Yh’mi’s creatures. Your achievement in securing the Furthest Point is acknowledged.” “To be honest, I’m not sure of anything anymore,” Fidelitas answered. “Faithless. Never thought that would ever happen to me.” He scoffed. “That’s why I think this is for the best. I need to find my purpose. Find myself again. Otherwise.. otherwise all I’ve lived for up till now would have been for nothing. Perhaps I will be back at some point. Maybe a year from now, maybe five years from now. I still believe in our cause, but perhaps I need a different.. approach. Maybe it’s a sign given to me. Who knows the workings of the divine?” “I pray you return to us sooner rather than later, and with good health,” Chastity said, holding up Fidelitas’ sword in a salute. Fidelitas bowed deeply. “I thank you, brother, and all the brothers and sisters of the White Hand from the bottom of my heart. This place has been a home to me, despite its dangers. I am not good with fanfare and farewells, pray tell the rest my thanks, and that... I’m sorry.” Fidelitas turned and walked alone, away from the shrine of Gaia, out the gates of Inns’th, and away from his sacred oath.

Hi everyone! It was a strange circumstance when I heard that Valucre was closing - I was incidentally tagged by an @everyone post on a related Discord server about it, on my birthday, no less, AND just days after I told some people that I will be making my way back into writing after the end of April! I thought that @supernal would at least tell me something this big, even though I haven't been active in a while (sobs). Imagine my relief when I realized that we are more or less rebooting into a new site! For me, like many, Valucre had been like a second home. It actually kept me excited through work days, it was a daily routine for me to type out posts as I travelled to and from work, and even during lunch break sometimes. When I first started as an unknown person on Val, I was like a small child staring up at adults and marvelling at what they could do. I was both intimidated and fascinated. I was addicted to the lore, I checked many, many lore pages. I had ambitions. I wanted to fight Alexander at one point, I made a character who basically deemed herself Gaia before the Gaian religion was a thing. @King, @Aleksei, @The Hummingbird, @Off Topic, @Roen, @CasualCrisis, @Refrigerator, @supernal himself and probably others who I have not listed, were many of the people I felt in awe of, due to the depth of your lore and the flourish of your writing. (There are many many other awesome writers as well of course, but these are the early ones I paid attention to.) If I had tried to match that level of writing from the start, I might not have stayed for long. However, I also met many others who wrote for the funsies, and I had a looooot of fun with them. Eventually I yeeted myself into @King's thread by kinda sorta an accident, but from there it expanded my social circle on Val. I wrote more and with different people. At the peak, I probably had 4-5 active threads on the list, and another 6-7 slow threads. And then when @bfc had to take a hiatus.. I volunteered to take over the management of Yh'mi. I am especially thankful to all those of you who came with me on adventures in Yh'mi. Roleplay does not take place alone, and I may be one of the few here who do not enjoy solo writing. It was really awesome to have you by my side building up the story, and satisfying to reference past threads, and have people understand what I was talking about. I love the additions that you all made to the lore, and I also felt proud of what we had built when people complimented the setting! It was never mine alone, and I had always wanted to keep it that way (only about maybe 20% of the things in the lore are actually added by myself?) I like to think that we had some camaraderie there. Abbadon was also definitely one of my highlights here! I had a lot of fun with our group of misfits. Lunara's probably the most mischief I've done around Valucre, and it was greatttt. The Silver Spoons as well, the Dead, the Terrenus military.... I was involved in a lot. 😛 Off-site, friends were made and fun was had. Shoutout to @Off Topic for being a great creative partner! He started playing around with animation at some point, and my itchy hands joined him in the creation of random illustrations, soundscapes, animations. Though it is a hobby, I have to say that it definitely gave me a boost up. Because of him, I learned Illustrator way before I actually had to use it. He taught me After Effects, and it came into use in actual work. To @supernal, who randomly wanted to know what I had for lunch one day in detail, and never fails to make me laugh. We almost met up but my visit was foiled due to covid. One day, it will happen. To @amenities, who really cares about the people around him, and checks in on me from time to time <3. To @Fierach, who runs great storygames, and has basically been my link to Val in these recent months. This is not goodbye of course, but an opportunity to thank you! I know there are some friends here who are not intending to transit to the new site. I cherish our memories and our stories, and wish you all the best. For the rest, see you on the other side in a little while, and our stories will continue! Signing off, jaistlyn.

I am sorry for my absence, and here to tie up loose ends before we port over! After speaking to a few people who have really enjoyed the setting, I will be bringing Yh'mi over to PGRP in some sense. However, as you know as well, the current Yh'mi board is an amalgamation of ideas from different board leaders. I will retain the idea behind Yh'mi, with things that I had planned to reveal as time goes on, but it will most likely have a name change and other cosmetic changes. Yh'mi Reboot, if you would. I will retain the characters in the White Hand, with their names, but I think none of the names are from the time when you were board leader (Chastity, Fidelitas, Videntia, Volentia, Diligence). They will still be paladins, but I doubt they will still be called the White Hand. What this means is that because the name and nature of Yh'mi really should belong to you, and that the current story of Yh'mi has already been taken in a separate direction, moving to PGRP is actually a good point for us to split it into two similar but canonically different settings. What do you think about that? As for a timeline, as I have told a few people off-site, I will be easing back into writing at the end of Apr, start of May. Gotta figure out the new site first at the time, and then plan out the specifics of the reboot, what parts of the lore I will be keeping, if I want to change the map etc, and whether it's still going to be quest-based moving forward. So it won't be immediately available, but I will be working on it for a few months! I am someone who is personally not big on lore writing though, I prefer things to play out through RP, so don't be surprised if I start any threads before the lore is fully detailed, heh.

As for what will happen to Yh'mi, I will answer it in the Yh'mi AMA thread shortly -

Heya everyone! Big apologies for disappearing.. motivation for writing went away for a bit. I am well, and have no excuse to give other than "was not feeling it", a poor reason, I know. I would have been alright if someone else brought the thread to its end.. Thank you very much for your patience everyone, and I'm sorry. But the final post is up, and I hope @Akiris will see it at some point in the future! Feel free to post an epilogue for your characters in this thread if you wish.. I will be doing so for Fidelitas tonight.

(Epicness continues here)

Fidelitas thought that it was a trick of the eye at first when Ed shimmered into view. He believed that nothing had survived Ilene’s cleansing black flames, and he had not even expected there to be a body to retrieve. Ed’s ability was an enigma, but Fidelitas took what he could get. He couldn’t say the same for Ed’s clothes, but modesty was a non-issue when you were facing your own mortality. More importantly, he could tell that Ed was doing some weaving of his own, which seemed to have an effect of bringing their target closer into focus. Fidelitas nodded to Ilene as she added her own power onto his. He held the energy steady, shaping hers around his. Sensing Vlad’s uncertainty, he turned to the engineer. “Your will is what we need,” he reassured. The power of the mind, to deal with a foe who manipulated the mental realm. The orb grew in size and power, sizzling with energy. On the other side, the larvae were kept at bay by Charlie, Gormaric’s blade, and the archers. The rest lended their own strength to Frederick. Fidelitas met Frederick’s gaze, and together they released the blast of immense proportions towards the Queen. At the same moment, a surge of dark energy rose from Dan upwards in a column, ensuring that she had nowhere to retreat. An unearthly shriek of rage and pain rose above the sound of the explosion. Then, one by one, due to Ed’s weaving across the dimensions, the larvae shrieked in response and burst open, leaking with remnant energy of light and darkness. In the cave, the dopplegangers were torn apart from within, spattering gore everywhere. The cacophony became almost too much to bear, then suddenly the whole realm collapsed upon itself. Ilene, Vlad, Ed and Fidelitas were knocked backwards off their feet, as if from recoil. For a moment, Fidelitas could not tell up from down and left from right, the world was spinning around so much. He coughed, and tasted blood in his mouth. He had never longed for a moment’s rest as much as he did right now, but he was not done, not yet. He felt around blindly in the darkness. Finally, his hand found purchase on a cavern wall. He pulled himself into a sitting position against it. “Everyone okay?” he asked. He gathered enough strength to stand, then moved out of the Queen’s chamber. The ground was slick with gore, and there was just enough light flickering from the chamber beyond to make out that the eggs had all been destroyed, along with the abominations that wore their faces. He picked carefully across the ground, and to the rooms which held the rest who had been stuck in the illusion. The eggs that held them had broke, and many of them were just waking up from the nightmare. Similar to the others who had woken up earlier, they would find themselves severely weakened, and stripped of weapon and armor. Luckily, a short search revealed that their equipment were piled up in a nearby chamber. Getting out of the caves was of paramount importance, and their reduced strength meant they had to leave certain items behind, but what mattered was that they were still alive. Alive, and that the Furthest Point was theirs.

Twistling are great to make everyone suspect each other in a story, lol. Totally have DMed players and asked them to play twistlings for a bit. It was awesome.

The twistlings can and will attempt to copy abilities, but it will be a weaker form of the abilities. Someone could use their abilities to differentiate themselves if they are side by side with the twistling, yes, but usually Twistlings don't just appear at the same time as the person they are copying. They incapacitate or capture the originals first (at least, that's how I've seen them used, and do so myself too). As such, it will be hard to tell unless you know the original person really well.

Also @Delicious Steak since you're newer to Val, if I were to give a bit of a tip of how things work, the original poster usually (but there are always exceptions) takes on the task of organizing players, making the decision of when to skip people, and sometimes to push the plot forward a little if it's starting to stagnate. It can be something as simple as being the first to step out of the gate, etc. You're doing a great job so far though!

I'll just point out that you don't necessarily need a storyteller for this quest, everyone can contribute to move the thread along. For threads in Yh'mi specifically, when a Storyteller is required, it means I have specific checkpoints in mind for the quest that I don't want to reveal to all participants, that's why I ask for a storyteller for me to pass these secrets to 😄 This quest is fairly straightforward, so a storyteller is not necessary!

@Delicious Steak Yh'mi's soil is really poor for plant growth, multiple people have failed to transmutate arable soil in Inns'th. I wouldn't say the nearest green would be very fertile, but it can support hardy plants, and it would be located here at Dycaslarin Harbor (map by Csl). This harbor connects to Ursa Madeum for supplies because they entered a treaty with the Yh'mi paladins. It's about a day and a half's (horse) ride from Inns'th.

You write it in a summary post at the end of a thread, I review it, yes, and edit the lore to include the new bits, linking back to your summary as necessary so anyone looking for more info can find your thread, that's how it works. Take this entry on Lun'silth as an example of how it's integrated.