QuestBoard - September 2021

[avalonmods]

QuestBoard is an app you can download onto your smartphones. Each month, people around town will posts jobs asking for help with various tasks like building furniture, running errands, pet sitting, and more. Characters can make a living off of this if they choose to and assume normal day-to-day tasks you would normally find on an app IRL like TaskRabbit. Handwaved tasks do not earn credit toward gaining a title, but the special tasks labeled as this month's "Top Tasks" in the app will gain clout for your character.

QuestBoard Top Tasks are the ones that are posted at the start of each month. Any character may complete them, even if they seem like a unique task, because time being frozen and magic mayhem are a recipe for weird time pockets resulting in multiple occurrences in the same space. (Tl;dr there are no dibs, just have fun.) There are three kinds of tasks, each labeled with a symbol for its type:

= COMBAT QUEST (counts toward Knighthood OR Unseelie)
= ASSISTANCE QUEST (counts toward Nobility OR Arcane Mage)
= SPECIAL (see quest details)

Combat and assistance quests are the most common and will appear every month. Specials are tasks that either fit both categories, neither category, or has some kind of exceptional reward. Special tasks are uncommon, so do not expect to see them all the time.

Each quest is worth 1 Rewards point unless your character has achieved Knighthood or Nobility status (See FAQ for more information), which both double rewards points.

Do not reply to this post to do a quest. Just thread out the quest and turn it in as instructed on the Rewards Points (Elphame Traders) page when you are ready to redeem. Threads must be started in the month that the quest was announced, though it may start at any day during the month and you may backtag as necessary. Feel free to reply to this post with questions about Top Tasks.

☀️ September Top Tasks 🥵

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Task Name	Details
Shear Determination	Camelot has a very particular breed of rather anxious sheep that have the most wonderful wool that grows thick from spring through summer. These sheep are small-- about a foot tall, with about 3/4 of that foot being wool. The challenge isn't just in their size, however, but the very reason that they must be sheared before the weather cools: they breathe fire when they're startled or cold, and thus tend to catch themselves on fire if they are not properly sheared before the weather changes. Do not harm the sheep in the process. 2500G for every sheep you manage to sheer, so do as many as you can!
Hot Knights (CW: Nudity and sexual content. Characters under 16 will not be able to complete this task due to underaged spells at adult establishments.)	A squad of Celliwig knights went out for drinks together to take a break from all the stress lately, but ended up in a pansexual strip club owned by a buxom monster-woman who wants to make them stay forever as new employees because they're all gorgeous muscular hero types. Make your way into the strip club and find a way to sneak these hot knights out of the club without being caught by the queen and her employees (her monster children disguised as sexy bartenders and waiters) or you'll need to fight your way out. (Can be done stealth mode or combat mode, up to you, but counts as a combat quest.)
Cult Classic	Some idiot has been going around dressed up costumes and re-enacting his favorite movie battles with random citizens, to the often bloody conclusions. It's clear he's thinking things through as he only goes out under the cover of night and always keeps his face hidden with masks, helmets, makeup, whatever he can hide his identity with without going too far out of character. Find him, kick his ass, and bring him in.

🍄 Dark Web Tasks 💻

Not the goody two-shoes type? Every realm that has the internet also has a dark web-- a place where illegal opportunities are rife for the taking. Characters may hear about how to access the dark web if they are going around trying to get involved in criminal activity. This is an alternate option for characters who would not seek out nobility or knighthood and wish to take a darker path toward the titles of Unseelie or Arcane Mage.

Note that while characters may complete tasks from either the QuestBoard or the Dark Web, they can only choose either Nobility/Knighthood titles OR Unseelie/Arcane Mage titles.

Task Name	Details
Jailbreak	Just found out that my bff Princess Yanira got locked up for drinking and breaking into some rando's home to throw a rager that maybe a few people got knocked off the census at. Totally unfair. She's like a butch and the best person I've ever met. If Arthur wasn't like, dying or whatever, I would totally put one of those pet shaming signs on him for it. It's time for a jailbreak. Whoever brings Big PY to me is getting like, a treasure chest I got from these zombie pirates so forever ago. (OOC: Kymbyr woke up back in Celliwig and found out their best friend got arrested for throwing a huge drunken party. Break her out of jail and Kymbyr will send you a small chest filled with pure gold and precious gem jewelry that was once stolen by pirates they turned into zombies a long time ago. You will also definitely be invited to the next rager that Princess Yanira throws.)
Anthropology 101 (CW: Cannibalism, cursed and very creepy fairy type.)	I am a member of an ancient race of Anthropophagi, a relative of humans. I have been told by many that they will not find familiars to bring my brethren to Avalon's protective embrace, so I desire an alternate means of sacrifice. Make a blood sacrifice with the attached ritual and summon other Anthropophagi to Avalon. We'll make sure you never go hungry. (OOC: Anthropophagi are headless humans that have their face on their chest. They are vicious cannibals and will try to eat your character upon being summoned. There's also some implantation/chestburster stuff we will not be dealing with in the game, but in case you look it up, be warned. They're hella cursed. There's no information publicly available about them, as they were banned from Avalon; the poster sneaked in before the calamity began and laid low until now. The blood sacrifice ritual is a very specific means to summon Anthropophagi, not something that can be replicated to summon other people/creatures.)
Unicornhole (CW: Non-lethal poaching)	In need of some unicorn horns, but killing them will get ye cursed. Gotta do it ye olden way, mate. To draw 'em out there are two easy ways. The one you know: They love them some virgins hanging out alone in the forest-- come right to you to take a nap in your lap if you're chill about it. If you've been getting booty, there are other ways to lure them out. May just take a little longer: Plant pink cap mushrooms in a fairy circle and make them up a lovely looking dish of flowers and fruit. Spruce it up a little, unicorns love a good acai bowl decorated with edible flowers, but they'll only be able to smell it from afar with the pink cap fairy circle. Once they're in your grasp, piss 'em right off in front of a tree. They charge at ye right into the trunk and get their horn stuck in that so you can hack it off. They're strong enough to penetrate the wood, don't ye worry. Just make sure you aren't stuck between 'em, ha!

Comments

[luciing]

Hello mods! Gotta question involving the Anthropology 101 quest, since it came up in conversation recently (albeit backdated).

Somnus and Hijikata were interested in investigating, and perhaps pursuing, the origins of this dark web quest. The quest suggests that an anthropophagi gives the summoning ritual for its brethren for the question, but there's still the question of who summoned that anthropophagi in the first place. 

The two are planning to do some research on the subject, but is it possible to perform a type of magical forensics or deconstruction of the ritual to see if the sorcerer who made it left some sort of magical signature (metaphorical or literal) attached to it? Or from where on the island, or which realm, the anthropophagi come from? If so, Hijikata and Somnus would like to pursue. 

[avalonmods]

Per the quest's OOC note: "the poster sneaked in before the calamity began and laid low until now."

It's an anthropophagi that got in on his own pre-calamity. He wasn't summoned. There are many ways to get to Avalon, from the Bermuda Triangle to dimension slips to mermaids with the ability to cross world boundaries, being swept up by fairy circles, and much more. During the time freeze, the only way to get in is via familiar bond, but before that it was much more possible. As cannibalistic creatures of dark magic, Anthropophagi are sometimes summoned (much more safely) in the homes of enemies by those wishing to do them harm, which is where the origin of this summoning method came to be created. Because it does not require action from the creature in frozen time, but action from those within Avalon, it is able to pull in Anthropophagi despite the time freeze.

If they're doing any research in the Archivist's, they'll find that Anthropophagi originate near Scythia (formerly Central Eurasia starting in around 7th century BC through 2nd century AD, though the anthropophagi themselves were said to have survived beyond that as nomads) but were never a part of the Scythian Empire itself. Sightings were written about by Herodotus, Pliny the Elder, Ammianus Marcellinus, are mentioned in Shakespeare's Othello and Merry Wives of Windsor. They were also written about in The Sword in the Stone by T.H. White as enemies of Robin Hood. This particular Anthropophagi originated from the same realm as Avalon's OG Camelot in Europe.

A cognitive mage could find one of the summoning circles and use post-cognition to see the past of the circle and determine who did the summoning, but as the first Anthropophagi did not perform a summons to arrive, it will not lead back to him. Sorry!