< 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!
After waiting until Arzuul had removed the ajatar woman known as Violet Macar, and after Elias had sent in another Black Cloak to clean up the room, Liese had finally removed herself from the wall and performed her search. As Wekesa had surmised, there was little there, and what was there was within locked drawers. Liese pulled free a set of picks she had merged to the stone of her fingers and began working at them, releasing the locks with a soft click after a few patient moments. Within was nothing much. Some parchments -- mostly the identities of those who had already been in and out of the room, the dead and buried. Liese flipped through these swiftly, committing to memory the names of as many as she could. She could send letters to their families, the closure could be worth a couple coppers, anyway.
The other pages were people that Liese recognized - Wekesa, and some of the other well-known Eurydians - whom she knew had not been in this room. People Elias wished to invite in. She memorized all she could of these, as well, trying to note everything that Elias knew, and thought he knew. This was, unfortunately, more important. She would do all she could to remember the notes about sightings of Wekesa, and allies of the Eurydians, because it meant more than life... It meant the revolution.
Once she was done with the room, it was into the walls once more to commence her search. Liese didn't know what she would find in the prisons of the 'Divine' palace as she went looking for Violet Macar. There were numerous places she could be, and Liese only had so much time before the sun would rise and she would be trapped in here another day. Beyond that, she knew she would meet other prisoners awaiting their deaths on the way that would only delay her target.
By the time she had reached the room that the Black Cloak had shackled Violet in, she'd committed so many things to memory. She repeated them silently to herself as she pressed through sandstone, remembering the pleas that she couldn't answer, and the messages asked to return to loved ones. Things not done, not said. Children abandoned. Lives shattered. It hurt her soul to hear them, to know she could do so little to help them. It was only the thought that the information she could find was important that pressed her on her course and kept her from staging a prison break, and martyring herself for the cause.
Yet there was still more to remember. Violet Macar had things she had come here for. Perhaps... Perhaps there could be worth in speaking with her.
The room Violet had been contained in was the worst one that Liese could imagine. It was a hole, essentially, a tower carved into the depths of the prisons and up, up, up to the surface of the sand. During the day, the sun would beat down in here through the caged top. It would burn and scald a human, and what it would do to an ajatar... Liese did not desire imagining it. It didn't help that the sand above was blown down into the hole, slowly filling it and covering the old corpses that had been left to rot. It didn't help that scorpions preferred the hole and the easy prey within it. It didn't help that Violet Macar was chained to the wall, hands above her head, the manacles charmed with a Light spell to prevent her shadow-walking. Liese imagined it was hardly necessary. Violet Macar had been beaten.
Liese watched the woman for a moment, quiet within the wall. She didn't want to scare Violet, nor did she want to give her undue hope. She needed a gentle approach. "Violet-" She faltered as the woman's head moved in response. It wasn't the craning shock she sometimes saw. It was an exhausted roll -- fatigued acknowledgement. Liese was still within the wall in an attempt to create the necessary distance between them, and fought the urge to give Violet's shoulder a comforting squeeze. She settled instead for gravel words, "I am so... Sorry that life has brought you to this point."
Post by Violet Macar on Jul 18, 2018 14:39:19 GMT -7
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When Violet had woken up, it had been from a wonderful dream. She was in Artavia, sitting in her apartment with Green, rifling through old files and concocting theories until one stuck to the wall like perfect spaghetti. It had been her life, and while occasionally simple it was exciting; and while occasionally dangerous, it was safe. In the dream, she had managed to forget the terrible, no good, very bad situation she had landed herself in. It didn't take long to remember, once she had woken up.
Her body was sore, her burns still stinging, and her head ached with a drilling throb from Arzuul's generous concussion. It was dark, a small favour, though a cast of light above her had her realizing she wouldn't be able to slip into the shadows without leaving her hands behind. She was in some kind of... Hole, filled with sand, which was pleasantly cold in the desert night. She saw the glow of the moons, and stretched as if she could catch a glance of it if she could just be two inches taller, but had no luck.
She was about to open her mouth to chastise herself when she heard a woman calling her name. It had a slight rasp to it, and seemed to come from the wall across from her. Violet's head lolled towards it in surprise, her body lacking the energy for anything else, and then the voice continued. It wasn't... Familiar to Violet. There was no one she could think of with a voice quite like it, and so she perhaps thought it entirely imagined. That, or this was another of Elias' little tortures.
"Fee-fie-fo-fum, my brain's already mush you cannibal scum," She sing-songed out, her voice cutting at its edges with the dryness of the sand had inflicted upon her.
[attr="class","liesegang"]Liese felt a frown tugging at the edges of her mind as the woman responded, clearly mad already. She must have been delicate, or the tortures must have been severe up to now. Liese was sympathetic, but also disappointed. Was it worth exposing herself to get the woman's last words? Was the information she could provide going to be worthwhile, or were they going to be ravings?
She thought of Mother Njeri then, and something she had shown Liese long ago. There was an old woman in the afazahn village she grew up in, a woman whom nobody listened to. The woman would ramble various utterances that did not often seem to make sense, and only spoke in riddles and rhymes. No one paid her much mind, other than to pity her, or curse her.
Njeri had a soft heart, however, and always helped the woman, bringing her food and water, bathing her, keeping her alive and healthy. Njeri had told Liese that the woman was sick, but that the words she spoke still had meaning... That everyone needed a voice. The old woman, apparently, had been a slave of the yuan-ti when they ruled. A servant who knew each day that they could be chosen for sacrifice, should the yuan-ti determine their gods had demanded it. When Liese learned this, she realized that the things the woman uttered were memories. Chants of the yuan-ti as they made their pleas to their gods, and sacrificed the other mortals. Coded language that her and the other servants had spoken in for safety.
Even the mad could be keepers of secrets.
"I am not of them," Liese reassured as gently as she could, "I can show myself, but you must not frighten. Their attentions must not fall to us. Can you--"
"Yes," Violet replied desperately, still weak, but filling too quickly with hope.
Liese felt guilty suddenly, knowing that the hope Violet showed her would be lost soon. She had tried to avoid tricking Violet, but had failed. Now, she supposed, it would make no difference.
"Alright," Liese assured briefly, before stepping out of the stone and forming back into herself -- one part brass, one part sandstone, one part charcoal. She appeared in front of Violet, but on the opposite wall, wishing to put her at ease. As she appeared, it was as in a natural state as the stone itself, and so she slid a hand over herself to transmute the cotton coverings that she had melded to her form back into clothes, which draped themselves over her covetously. "Is it alright that I should approach?" She asked cautiously, raising her hands to show that she was no threat.
Post by Violet Macar on Jul 25, 2018 14:37:22 GMT -7
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When the disembodied voice became much more ...embodied, Violet couldn't help but stare. It was a woman, a strikingly beautiful one, with patches of flesh that seemed not at all like flesh. Some were dark, like an abyss you couldn't help but be forever lost in... Some were shimmering, shined metal catching the glow of light above her head... It was as fascinating as it was strange. As a completely unexpected bonus, she was straight-up in the nude, catching Violet by complete surprise and shutting her brain down for a few moments as she tried to balance the horrific situation she was in with the otherworldly sight before her.
As her brain whirred back to thinking, the woman - or goddess, as seemed more appropriate - had covered herself, and stood before Violet in a gentle, non-threatening stance, an angelic glow around her. This had to be a god, right? She didn't know which one (she was terrible at theology, and had never felt bad about it until this moment) but she didn't look mortal.
The woman asked Violet for permission to approach, to which Violet had no words, just an open jaw and a nodding of the head, which was soon replaced with a shaking of the head the moment the beautiful vision took a step forward. "Wait wait wait," Violet hurried, feet scurrying beneath her to push against the wall for some assurance of safety, "You're not here to like... You're not... I'm not ready to go yet. You know?"
"You want to stay? ...Here?" The woman asked incredulously, earning a nod from Violet.
"I don't want to die," Violet pleaded gently, "I can still get out of this."
[attr="class","liesegang"]Liese was pleased to be wrong: The woman wasn't gone -- not yet. Freedom remained a concept familiar, an idea to be desired.
"Maybe you can," Liese agreed, edging closer to Violet with raised hands before dropping to one knee. She knelt in the sand and looked up at Violet's features in the moonlight. It was an effort not to grimace at the sight of the burns and the distention of what may have once been beautiful features, but she hardened herself against the sight. The disgust was replaced with righteous anger, the fuel she, and all of Muerte, needed to face off against their villainous leader. Liese placed a reassuring hand on the other woman's raised arm. "I hope you do. But if you don't-- I think you may know something important."
Post by Violet Macar on Apr 30, 2019 8:04:00 GMT -7
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Violet shook her head, refusing to accept the words this strange woman was offering to her.
"You don't know, what you don't know, what I don't know, is what I know," She muttered in a sing song voice before chuckling. "I've made it through worse before. Kind of. Maybe this is bad. Yeah, it's bad but--"
"Violet..." Liese pleaded, looking unaffected by her begging. Violet laughed in response: laughed and cried. A tear rolled over her cheek and stung worse than a tear ever had before, but still she laughed.
"You're with him, aren't you?" She finally accused, feeling a steady resolve take hold of her mind. The woman wanted her secrets, did she? Was this Elias' other interrogation tactic? First the woman who sucked the very life out of her, then the men who burned her, then Elias who bartered with her, and now an angelic figure to siphon away the very last of Violet's hidden knowledge. "Well you can tell Elias that he's not getting anything else out of me, not unless he gives me something first. That was our deal...
"You hear that Elias?! That! Was! Our! Deal!" Each word was punctuated by Violet pulling roughly against her restraints, which bore into the skin of her wrists and left bleeding chafe marks in their wake. She then went slack again, laughing to herself about her clear victory.
[attr="class","liesegang"]Liese had not realized how defensive such an accusation could make her feel. You're with him, aren't you? A pit in her stomach bubbled and enflamed, rising to her tongue where it burned with an encouragement to speak in defense of herself. She took a deep breath through her nose and swallowed it, pride, and let the woman have her outburst. Liese couldn't overreact here. The woman had a death sentence, she could say whatever foul lies she wanted. Liese only needed to get in through a crack.
"He doesn't care, Violet," She tried to lean into the lie the ajatar had placed upon her, "He fulfilled his word. It doesn't matter that you feel duped. His word was true, and that is all it needed to be."
She adjusted herself slightly closer in the sand, leaning in and grasping the scarred face of Violet with a firm hand. She forced the woman's eyes to her's and seethed, "But you can't tell me that you sat there, spilling your secrets to him just to have the answers they revealed erased by your inevitable death."
The words were cruel, but it was the game Violet had demanded she play.
Post by Violet Macar on May 19, 2019 18:12:04 GMT -7
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Violet groaned as Liese moved her, as the woman forced her to look at the unmistakable truths hanging over her future. A place she didn't want to look.
Violet believed that there was still a path out, because a good story would have one. A good story would send a hero, an old ally, a random happenstance, or even an opportunity for escape. Wouldn't it? She had the information she needed, and was supposed to go back to Nikolai and share it. She was supposed to let people know the kind of person Thomas Dunn was. She was supposed to put quill to paper and tell the story she had been hunting all this time.
The truth was that it was no story, and so it didn't need to be good, nor satisfying-- Only true.
"And what are you going to do to change all that?"" She whispered without flair, her eyes looking past the woman, and not at her. She couldn't bear the reality her stone gaze implied.
[attr="class","liesegang"]Though she knew she could not change it all, Liese bit her tongue. She hoped that Violet already recognized that her time was over, and that the only thing that could survive was information -- she wasn't sure that Violet did.
"I can get that information where it needs to be, that's what I'm here to do," Liese's training told her to leave it there, but her heart encouraged her to continue pleading, "I came here to find something we can use, and Violet-- the information you have might help a lot of people. You realize how cruel Elias has been to you, but do you realize how that cruelty has infected this nation?
"What you have could be a key. It could get us the foreign aid we need. It could give us an in. It could be something. And even if it isn't... If it can still do the good you were planning for it, isn't that enough? Wouldn't you rather die having accomplished something of worth, than to take it to the grave and have your life mean nothing?
"Legacy, Violet. That's what I can do, that's what you can do -- that's what we can change."
Post by Violet Macar on May 21, 2019 12:25:59 GMT -7
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Violet fell to silence as Liesegang pontificated. Her lips held a firm line (a relief to her cracked and seeping face), and her eyes barely moved from their stiff gaze over the false messiah's shoulder. It didn't last long, however. A quiet lingered there only until a desert wind blew a sprinkle of sand down onto the both of them, dusting Liesegang's hair in comic fashion and causing Violet's facade of gravitas to break into peals of laughter.
"I would clap, really I would," She finally managed, her breath shortened by both pain and amusement. Violet pulled herself up by her arms, trying to move her wrists in their clamps together, all the while grimacing at the stretching of burned skin and the additional pain of the sunlight cast upon the iron. She continued, "I just can't... Seem to muster the strength. Could you help with that? No? Right."
Her belly continued to contract with chuckles, her wits sharp and yet evading precise control. Her giggles eventually formed taunting words, the only thing she had left: "I have to hand it to you Mots-- You live up to the stories. Very creative with your torture. Oh, sorry, I mean 'interrogation techniques'. No offense intended. It's impressive, really impressive. You've got the whole damned gamut here! Modern savagery at its best!"
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.
