< atton revisited > The information page for Atton has been fully revised and updated with the new map!
< updated calendar > The Fortuna calendar has been updated in the "Other" lore section! This includes a document which displays the calendar for you to see, making it much easier to understand.
< moving map > The first functional map has been released in the News section! This map is also interactive, allowing you to drag and drop between points in order to determine distances. This is the first iteration, and there's more and better to come!
< first annual awards > The results for the First Annual Fortuna Year-End Awards have been posted! Go and take a look at who the finalists were, and who took home the big prizes!
< new default skin > Our new skin has passed the beta test, and is now the new Default for the forums! If you have any issues with this skin, send a PM or Discord to Mellie.
< human lore update > Humans have been updated with TWENTY-FIVE subraces/subcultures which add numerous options, and a little extra lore and flavour.
< magic lore update > Magical Lore has been enhanced with the addition of a post on Magical Education. From Beginner to Expert, this is how you learn the spells.
< a change to member groups > Member groups are now based on storyline! You can change your displayed storyline by editing the settings in your profile.
Welcome to the world of Fortuna, a land of fantastic proportions. This is an original fantasy roleplay that takes place in a world developed over nearly a decade of work and collaboration. We aim to encourage all participants to have a hand in the stories of the characters here, and the world around them. Your choices are key - so make them with pride. You decide who wins the wars, you decide who becomes King, the world is ours, and together we will bring it to life!
The feeling of going through a portal was not something Rill had experienced before, and he wasn't entirely sure he wanted to do it again. It felt like he was drowning and didn't know which way was up and it was only just before he couldn't take it anymore that he popped out on the other side. At first the world was so bright that he had to close his eyes against it and for a terrifying moment he was certain, absolutely certain, that he had somehow been transported back into his prison cell. He opened his eyes immediately, needing to make sure that it wasn't true. It wasn't, of course. He would have known from all the other ways it was different, such as the smell of the air or the chill breeze or the slight but present sounds of birds and other small animals, but it was hard to be rational like that in the moment. No, he wasn't back in his room.
"But where are you?"
That he didn't have an answer to.
He had to squint to look around and unfortunately even then he could barely get anything useful. He could see tall, dark blobs in the distance that he wanted to guess were trees, but all around him was blinding white, glittering harshly in the sunlight. He had never seen snow in person but he had heard about it from some of the mortals he had met in the feywild. He had perhaps had a bit of a romanticized idea of what it was because now he found it was just cold and a little wet and it towered around him in great dunes he couldn't imagine trying to scale on his own two feet. Why had the mortals never talked about just how much snow there was? What did they do, tunnel through it? It wasn't like they had wings to fly like he did. He felt both like he was being suffocated by it but also comforted by the claustrophobic kind of feeling. It was a little messed up, but he wasn't in charge of that sort of thing.
Speaking of wings though, he took to the air then and got himself out of his little snow burrow, trying to get a sense of what was around him. He felt so exposed with no walls or ceiling or anything but what seemed like miles and miles of snow. It looked like maybe he had been on some sort of long, wide trail beaten into the snow. It must be for great processions, because it could easily have dozens of him side-by-side from the look of it.
Of course, he didn't yet realize that he was a mere 6 inches tall now that he was in the mortal realm.
Suddenly a cold, harsh wind whipped him back and he tumbled through the air, trying to get a bearing on things but being carried along on the breeze like nothing more than a leaf until he thunked into something and fell to the ground. "Ouch," he muttered, shaking himself off, but then jumping back as he realized the thing he bumped into was actually a person - a person who was at least 5 times as tall as he was. "Whoa! Sorry, so sorry, very super sorry," he began, taking to the air again so he was at face height with the giant with his hands up in a 'please don't kill me' kind of way. "It was the wind." That excuse sounded lame even to himself.
[attr="class","gurkpost"] Gurk was very, very late, for a (potentially) important date. Not a date like, where she'd take a gal to a quarry to blow some shit up, but like a date on the actual legitimate "working people" calendar that had come up way too darn fast. The fifth of the Empty Lantern, She reminded herself as she walked. That was today, the day that she had hoped to be in Tasark, but the day where she hadn't quite made it to Tasark yet. And why hadn't she made it to Tasark?
"Well thanks for asking, Gurk!" She ranted aloud (when you're alone in the tundra and anxiety is churning your stomach like a an extremely, extremely thick butter you're allowed to talk to yourself, she was sure she'd heard that somewhere), and remembered how she had refused the carriage. The carriage she would usually take when she went to Tasark, which was maybe once every few months. It was too expensive for her today, though, which was the reason she was late at all. They'd either raised the darn fee, or a hole had found it's way into Gurk's pocket since she certainly didn't have the coin left to waste on a carriage. Carriages, she decided, were a want, not a need.
"Oh, oh no. I'll just walk-- thank you very much! UGH!" Evidently, it was easier to get to Tasark when you weren't the one having to follow directions.
But she still had time. Five hours. If she was in the right region she could make that happen. Or if she ran into a really good conjurer. If she wasn't, or she didn't, well... "Kiss my chance at Tanad goodbye... No! No no. No gloomy Gurk." She would succeed. She had five hours. All she needed was like, faith, trust, and a little pixie-- WHOA!
All of a sudden, her face was smacked by something strangely shaped and somewhat warm and severely unpleasant. She let out a string of gnomish words that weren't actually gnomish words and were actually just gibberish, and then grasped her infinity gear in defense, prepped to pull whatever she had ready (which may or may not have just been a ball of nails she had nailed in the wrong way (flat side out, not very threatening)).
When she actually saw the thing that hit her, however, she relaxed a bit, and found herself crawling on her knees so that she was face-to-six-inch-body with the shiny little fairy boy who had walloped her. "Wow, you're an actual fairy, aren't you? Wow. Whoa, look at that, you have real wings! They're like a bug's, but not as gross, which is pretty cool and-- Hm? What'd you say? Oh, don't worry about that, happens to me all the time. Won't believe how many times the wind has just up and knocked itself out of me and into some tallie--" Wait... He was six inches tall, she was like, twenty five whole inches taller than him. Did that make her the tallie? She was done shook.
"Hey, aren't fairies supposed to like, not be in the arctic? I mean, you have wings like a bug, and bugs don't do well in the arctic, which is partially why I do super good in the arctic, which begs the question of: Why are you here, and is it to bring me to fairy land? Cause I'm really not up for it today, but I'll one hundo percent take a raincheck."
Rill jumped back in alarm when the giant went down to her hands and knees to stare right at him. He almost bolted right then except that at this distance he could see that she looked more excited and interested than angry and smash-y.
In fact she was almost immediately talking, and seemed to be quite interested in the fact that he was a real fairy, commenting on his wings - ”Well at least she said they are less gross than a bug’s” - before assuring him it was no problem and she sometimes got blown around by the wind too and got knocked into ‘tallies’ - ”Tallies?” - or something. To be honest he was struggling to keep up. He hadn’t needed to pay attention to this much talking in a while and certainly not so fast. Did she even breathe?
There was only a brief pause before she said she thought fairies shouldn’t be in the Arctic and he would agree with that, but she was already speeding on into a new topic and eventually asked him what he was doing here and whether it was to take her to fairyland and that she would have to take a rain check because she didn’t have time right now and he was pretty sure he had a headache now. When it had been more than a second since she stopped talking he assumed she was done but he needed a moment of remembering what the question even was.
”Oh, um, no, I mean, some fairies are ok in the cold if they have the talent for it I guess but I don’t. I must have taken a wrong portal or something, but I don’t know where I was tryin’ to go anyway so it wouldn’t have mattered much. I’m looking for someone, but I don’t know where he would be. Probably not here though, wherever here is? Oh, also I’m Rill. Hi.”
[attr="class","gurkpost"] Wait, he wasn't here for her? She popped back up, sitting on her knees instead of remaining in crawling position, thinking it was a great offence before deciding that she actually had no interest in fairyland. They probably had a lot less things that went boom, and a lot more of things that went all crinkle tinkle. Lame.
He introduced himself as Pill, which was a very silly name for someone, but if fairies had 'talents' like she remembered hearing once (maybe it was something Pill had just said, she couldn't be sure), maybe his talent was convincing people to swallow their medicine. Sometimes you just got that chalky 'ass of a devil' taste in the back of your mouth, and your gag reflex wouldn't let you do the deed, so maybe fairies could like, make that stop so you could be cured. Or! Even better-- They just magicked the pill into you. Then you wouldn't have to swallow them at all. "Wow, that would be so useful," Gurk eventually said, perhaps proving she wasn't wholly listening to the fairy.
She refocused on her new-found friend and reached out a pinky finger to 'shake' with him, smiling one of her big Gurk-sized smiles as she greeted, "Nice to meet you! The name's Gurqarinnell Scallywaggy Vodergarda Pockitt Ephilrinne Tinkenblaster of the Family Toimacher, and I could certainly help you find your missing fairy friend. Like, later, though." Gurk stood up, brushing snow off of her shiny waterproof pants, and righting her burgundy housecoat, "I've gotta get to Tasark in a few hours, you can come with if you want-- You're not really dressed for the weather out here, little Pilly."
”What would be so useful?” Rill wondered the same thing. Of course he did, since the voice was really just imaginary anyway. Or illusionary? He honestly couldn’t tell anymore.
Rill shivered. The giant had been right - he definitely was not built for this cold and his patrol uniform was built much more for speed and warm temperatures than keeping him warm in the cold. He wondered if fairy wings ever got so cold they didn’t work, and then immediately wished he hadn’t wondered that because the thought was frankly horrible.
The giant held out her smallest finger and he shook it as she introduced herself with the longest name he had ever heard. He tried to repeat it to himself in his head and heard Endless dutifully follow, ”Gurkarinel, Scallywags, Vonderbarla, Pocket, Ephelrin, Tinkenblaster of the Toymaker family. That’s a mouthful.” “You’re tellin’ me,” he replied.
Speaking of telling him things, she had just said she could help him find his fairy friend. He didn’t have time to correct her as she went on to explain she didn’t have time and she had to get to somewhere called Tasark in a couple hours. She then, bless her heart, offered for him to come with her. He assumed Tasark must be a place with buildings or other such protections from the weather and so he gladly accepted. ”And it’s two hours away?” he asked curiously, wondering what that would be distance-wise in this wacky place. He hopped and flew up to show he was ready to follow her whichever way she walked, but then paused as he realized something. ”Wait would it be faster to fly?”
[attr="class","gurkpost"] The fairy agreed to tag along, and Gurk nodded haphazardly as she turned this way and that, sorting out her directions. Two hours away, the fairy said, and Gurk's nodding didn't really mean yes so much as 'your guess is as good as mine'. Two, three, four, five, heck maybe she went the opposite direction she was supposed to and had spent the day getting drastically further from Tasark, there was really no way of knowing. She thought for a moment how nice it would be if like, the sun somehow related to direction, because if it did, she could probably sort her way.
"Yes, you're right, it would be faster to ride, but--" Wait, he didn't say ride, did he? She stopped wand watching him hovering and shivering in front of her and rebuilt the sentence she had half listened to with her tongue caught between her teeth. When she realized what he had said, it was like a light came on behind her eyes and she snapped her fingers with a brief 'Aha!' "Yes, yes, Pill. It would be faster to fly, particularly with your short legs but... No offence meant to you or to the reputations of fairies as a whole, but I don't think you could carry me even before my freshman fifteen times three, and still get off the ground let alone to Tasark!"
Did she just call him Pill? Wait, she had also just called him Pill earlier but he had thought it was more of a weird nickname or something but maybe she just misheard him? Like she had misheard fly as ride. ”It’s Rill,” he interjected while she spoke, though whether she heard him was anyone’s guess.
She told him she didn’t think he could carry her and he realized she really didn’t know anything about fairies. Probably like he didn’t know anything about giants, so he supposed they were equal.
”You’re probably right but I can make you float and then I can pull you easy enough! Which way is Tasark?”
[attr="class","gurkpost"] For some reason, the fairy repeated his name, as if Gurk hadn't heard him before. How could she have not? It was a very unique name, and one that she had said many times. She didn't imagine she would forget it, since his head was just about as big as a Pill and all. She supposed fairies liked to repeat their names as much as material plane folk did, weird how that was one of the few crossovers, and weirder still that they always repeated the simplest of names, too. It wasn't like they had 8 different ones to memorize.
Pill went on to explain what he meant, and Gurk's eyes went wide. "I thought that was pixies!" She blurted, and then backtracked, "Wait, are pixies and fairies the same?" And then shook her head, "No, fairies are imaginary and pixies are real. I mean, the other way around. Pixie fake news. Fairy, deep facts. I mean-- Sorry, anyway, you were saying... Direction, right. Which way-- And that is a very good question. Let me just--" She licked her finger very deliberately, and then held it up into the sky as she had seen people do in Niseca. The wind bit at her wetted finger angrily, and she noted it was more on the knuckle side than the palm side. Now, if only she knew if Tasark was towards the knuckle or the palm, or if it was from or to the wind. How did this even work?
"It's eeeeeeeeeeast. Yeah. Somewhere in the eastern directional vicinity, which is..." She pointed one way and saw Pill narrow his eyes, so she pointed slightly differently around in a circle until that brow unfurrowed, "SO, you can really make me fly-float? That's bomb-diggity. You mean literally, right? Not like, lifting my spirits or giving me recreationables?"
Rill was trying to follow her train of thought talking and in a way she reminded him a bit of himself when he got going while he had been stuck in the room but he realized it was much easier to follow a train of thought when it was your own and not some random other person’s. Mostly, he found some of her words slipping in one ear and out the other so to speak, as in he could hear that she said things but his brain wasn’t fast enough to parse meaning from it. He couldn’t tell if that was one of the many unpleasant side effects of his time in isolation or if that was just because she was generally completely un-understandable. ”That’s not a word.”
Finally, she stopped. She licked her finger, something he would not have recommended in the cold (or at all, really) and said it was East. She then proceeded to point in the completely wrong direction, and he squinted maybe a little judgementally because she saw it and started moving her finger until she was actually pointed East, at which point he raised his brows and chuckled a bit. As long as it definitely was East and she wasn’t misremembering that, he knew where East was. Then again that was also assuming directions were the same in the mortal realm as they were in the feywild, which they might not be. Welllllll he would cross that bridge if he came to it. Or die of exposure.
”Recreationables...?” he muttered to himself, wondering what that even meant, before shaking his head and saying, louder, ”Yeah really, but it might also lift your spirits because it’s awesome. Unless you hate heights, in which case... you should shut your eyes.”
He flew above her then and the sparkle that usually surrounded his wings when he flew started floating down and around the giant. Fairy magic that would let her fly too. Well, at least let her float. And once that was handled they could get the heck out of this very exposed, very cold, very bright place and go somewhere warmer and darker and with more walls.
[attr="class","gurkpost"] If there was one thing Gurk had no fear of (but there wasn't just one thing, there were actually many things), it was heights. Really, how could she be? Almost everything would be considered a 'height' to someone of her stature. Plus, she had been required to do mason work on Madame Vodergarde's estate, which sometimes meant being on the roof. Sure, it could be scary sometimes, but if you weren't a big ol' dummy you wouldn't fall, so she had never been too scared, since she had never been a big ol' dummy.
In addition, Gurk was also a firm believer in 'what you don't know can't hurt you', and she didn't know anything about flying, and hadn't even considered flying before. Heck, she hadn't even considered going to Artavia on an air ship, despite it being a more technical sort of place, which meant she had no reason to wonder how 'flight' worked in the slightest. Not until Pill started dusting her, anyway. Then, it was something she knew, which meant it could hurt her -- like how sometimes you didn't think how bad being poor would be until you spent all of your money on fancy new tools; or you didn't think how much your stomach would hurt until you ate a whole cake by yourself. In this case, she didn't realize how horrific and terrible flying was until she was lifting off the ground and it was too late.
Flying, or floating, was like a fall that never ended. She was in the air with nothing to steady herself, no way to right herself, and the ground was there with nothing in between it and herself. Gurk felt her stomach lift up like she was on a giant swing set, but she didn't feel it go back down again, which was because she wasn't going back down again, nor was she becoming more steady.
"I think I understand why transmutes use broomsticks," Gurk gurgled, her body spinning around as she tried in vain to get a handle on the air, "Whose idea was magic flying, anyway? Like, not right now, because I know that was you, Pill, but I mean like-- overall? What God thought this was a good idea? Because it's not a good idea. I need like, a magic carpet at least."
The skin OTHERWORLD was made by JAWN of WICKED WONDERLAND.
FORTUNA-RPG was created by MELLIE. Images belong to their respective artists. All codes and scripts belong to their respective coders. Please DO NOT take anything without the owners' permission.
