Songbirds - Awaken
The introduction to the Songbirds game that I'm running in a play-by-post style over in the FIST discord. In this entry we'll meet our characters and get an overview of The City where they will begin play in the midst of tracking down a spirit which has been plaguing a local district.
The Songbirds
Scarlett (She/Her) Red Mage - Played by Hevybot
Prior to her death Scarlett worked as a record clerk in the employ of The Empire, a cog in the wheel that kept The City turning. The circumstances of her awakening and subsequent emergence from her mundane grave are starkly different to the rest of the songbirds. She is the gang's red mage, risen with the ability to absorb abilities from slain enemies among other tricks.
Trinkets: Unholy Mars Necktie, Bottle of Invisible Ink
Squirrel (She/Her) Berserker - Played by Brandoff
Worked in an auto fix shop as a not particularly successful mechanic on account of her blind rages which ended in the clients vehicle wrecked and shoved to the ravine out back. She awoke in the same ravine after a particular client delivered the same treatment to her as she regularly did the cars she worked on. Handy with a chainsaw, she serves as the gang's berserker, where her furious rage is more appreciated.
Trinkets: Book of Pre-War Songs, Dad's Ornate Switchblade
777 Lavender Star (She/They/He) Moon Child - Played by Eat Grass Fool
Born into such luck that he now manipulates it to do their bidding. Re-formed from their scattered ashes across the sea, she returned to The City to find their childhood district abandoned and flooded by a cascading waterfall from above. The major arcana yearns to be in his deck once again, having been scattered long before her demise.
Trinkets: Petrified Scarab, White Queen (itches when hear imperials)
Luelene (She/Her) Blue Mage - Played by Nectar
Born in the week of the Blue Moon which occurs each year and gifted with magical gifts written in the Oolithian language. A servant of the great fox Inari and the de facto spiritual core of the gang. Luelene hailed from the upper echelon's of The City's society - she has since realised the gilded cage that imprisoned her and now see's the sacrifices made to construct it.
Trinkets: Phosphorescent Chalk, Hallucinogenic Herbs
The City
Piercing through the blighted ground are seven white marbled pillars - each holding several districts atop them. the tallest pillar rises in the center while the rest descend in elevation in a spiral pattern surrounding it. A sight which announces it's own presence on the horizon for miles around. The City has stood for centuries, that is certain, but some rumors state at least a millenium.
These pillars are linked by a road which punctures through each pillar as it ascends, vehicles travel from district to district and from plinth to plinth at a near constant pace. Pedestrians make use of trams and cable cars to ferry their way through this series of megastructures.
Achallader
Our songbirds begin on the lowest pillar of The City, where the least respected members of this society live by performing the back-breaking manual labor which keeps everything above functioning as it should. Following rumors of a spirit which plagues the locals - our birds arrive in the district of Achallader just as the patchwork abodes empty their blue-collar inhabitants on to the winding streets.
Radio static drifts from an open window and finds the gang of songbirds' ears, in a soft, sultry voice which feels familiar but the name of which only reaches the tip of their tongues. Unable to be spoken aloud.
"A good day to you my little birdies, as always I'm here live with the daily statement from Nowhere Radio, K(n)owhere. A journey's beginning may be met with a stumbling step, a trip and a fall, a stuttered sentence, but rest assured it gets easier the more times you try. So pick yourself right back up, even if it takes a helping hand, or a helping wing from a friend."
Propped up on four large cinderblocks and without any wheels, a busted up old van with an open window carved out of the side garners a crowd of hungry folk lining up to order breakfast. Aida and Esmé's breakfast van services the district of Achallader each morning with a variety of fried foods to fuel the workers for a morning of gruelling labor. Our songbirds order food for themselves and take the time to ask the couple some questions about their elusive spirit.
The pair inform the gang that a teenager had died recently after going exploring inside an old abandoned church at night. Old stories state that the building has been left to rot and that locals have been telling tales of it being strange and eerie for a long time and that it used to be a church devoted to the dead god 'Love' - who nobody has openly worshipped in centuries.
Rounding the corner of the patchwork streets of Achallader our songbirds stop at a community noticeboard - a place for communal services to be offered and accepted by the residents. While this place sits on the lowest rung of the monetary ladder in The City, it climbs high in the building of an interconnected community. A poster clearly placed here by The Queensguard asking citizens to report any songbirds or suspicious individuals has been defaced. Lavender Star checks their White Queen idol, which itches, indicating nearby imperial forces. They quicken their pace towards the abandoned Church of Love.