CALCUTTA • JULY 2025 EVENT

[uruz]

EVENT: CALCUTTA

Watch on YouTube

ᛗ

I am caught, tangled in

( content warnings: body horror, surreal horror, post-apocalyptic themes )

You wake with soil under your nails, something sharp in your mouth, and the scent of damp rust in the back of your throat. The sky is not night, but it is no longer day. Around you, a city's skeleton lies tangled in ruin and overgrowth in the crisp, tail end nips of autumn— skyscrapers strangled by vine and mycelium tower around you, streets are cracked open like wounds. No sound of civilization. Only wind, soft and low like breath.

You are not where you should be, and you are not entirely who you were. Do you remember the dream you had? Perhaps barely, perhaps almost too vividly. You will likely find a mask nearby— one you find familiar. While you may not have the same urgency to wear it as you did within the dreamscape, you at the very least feel the need to carry it with you now.

Some wake in subway tunnels pulsing with bioluminescence, others in penthouse ruins swallowed by moss and red ivy. Rooftop gardens filled with brittle blossoms. Empty galleries hung with paintings that seem to shift when you’re not looking. Vessels are absolutely scattered. You can wake up anywhere that's possible within the bones of this city. Life endures here, but it is changed. In the streets, rats with slick, glowing underskin scurry between collapsed signs. Pigeons wheel overhead, blind-eyed and silent. Dogs and cats roam in feral bands, some marked by fungal growths, others with bodies too long, too many limbs, or split maws bursting with tendrils. Deer can also be found roaming the enclosure of what used to be Central Park, and will open their strange mouths when they seem to stare at you. Seem, because they no longer have eyes to do that with. From deeper shadows and thicker canopies come the zoo escapees: a moose that climb walls and have a petrifying gaze, herds of zebra stand frozen like littered statues until they hear noises, to which they will scatter like roaches. Sewer grates rattle beneath your feet, and something wet and ancient stirs in the depths— Hippos that release toxic gases when threatened lay in the waters and gnaw on anything they could get their teeth on. The most gentle of them all are the giraffes; they still attempt to nibble on the falling sunset leaves where still gathered, and will even come up to humans who offer anything green for them to eat. There's so much more left unsaid, if you're unlucky enough to come across them.

The flora is no safer. Familiar trees such as maple, ginkgo and oak still grow in parks and fracture ciment with their powerful roots. Plenty of the bark is etched with a strange set of sigils that hum when approached. Ivy pulses with low light and throbs when touched. Entire buildings are choked with fungus: spires of mushroom growths that sway despite the absence of wind, spores spilling like ash when disturbed. Moss spreads across broken windows in fractal shapes, responding to movement, to emotion with colors beyond what you could imagine. Wildflowers bloom in moonlight— roses with petal-thorns and daffodils exhale perfume that clouds your thoughts.

And still, the city seems to watch you soundlessly. Beneath your feet, the soil responds. Something old sleeps in the brickwork, the concrete, the iron bones of this place— and your presence has stirred it.

You'd better get moving. Survive.

NOTES:

• You must find shelter, water, and food. Anything that can be found in city stores is plausible, but much of the food will be expired or ransacked by the lives before yours, or animals. The Host-fauna are edible if you can stomach it, and some may talk in tongues before they die. The flora is a mixed bag, from harmless to not.
• The environment is reactive: Touch a wall and it pulses. Step into an abandoned deli and the shelves might whisper for a second.

OPTIONAL TOKEN EFFECTS

• Tokens will feel a strange resonance when near remnants of human structure, especially things tied to strong emotion (graffiti, photos, childhood toys, street art, music).
• Tokens will feel warm when close to sites where others have suffered or are remembered deeply. These sensations are disorienting but emotionally vivid, almost like deja vu.
• Tokens could experience nosebleeds or migraines near intense emotional hotspots. This is their magic wanting an outlet, but too newly formed to pour itself out.

OPTIONAL OFFERING EFFECTS

• Offerings will feel the thrum of the Murmur, like a second heartbeat in the earth, when near fungal flora or decayed nature.
• Offerings will feel oddly familiar with the world around them, as if it recognizes them and vice verse. Scents linger longer and skin responds to temperature or emotion in exaggerated ways.
• The act of hunting and consuming host fauna is euphoric, but only for a moment— followed by a haunting awareness of their own anatomy shifting from the inside in ways they should fear.

ᛗ

And I wake, say your name

( content warnings: sensory distortion )

One night— it doesn't matter which, time has loosened— your mask beckons. Something is encouraging you to put it on. It sears cold when you do. A pressure behind your eyes grows sharp, then splits. Suddenly, the silence inside your skull isn't yours anymore.

The Murmur is stirring.

A psychic thread pulls taut through your mind like a bow ready to shoot. Language might fail. Images are the easiest to come first— flickers of hands, blood, feathers, fire. Then voices, soft and reverent, speaking your name in words you don't know but understand. Some speak back. Some yell. Some sing. You sense others, Tokens humming with potential, Offerings heavy with heat and pain.

You are not alone. You never were.



NOTES:

• Your gamewide "network" is live! Try to reach someone through the Murmur. Perhaps a thought, a memory, or just a name. Players are welcomed to create prompts within this log or post to the network community proper.
• Communication may come in fragments. Images repeat, words loop, emotion surges without cause or by accident. One name in particular echoes:

Espera.
You may try to reach for her, even if your chances are slim. You might end up contacting someone or something else entirely.

OPTIONAL TOKEN EFFECTS:

• Tokens may begin having their first access to inner magic. Not enough to use consciously, but enough to glitch with use, accidental or not. A friendly reminder that characters should not be able to use their magic with ease, yet. Keep in mind they should all have a realistic adjustment period.
• Tokens may have sensory overlaps: seeing sounds, hearing memories, tasting colors.
• Tokens may be energy sensitive. Areas with high ambient emotion (graveyards, burnt apartments, memorable objects) seem to strengthen their clarity but exaggerate their magic in startling bursts.

OPTIONAL OFFERING EFFECTS:

• Offerings may have their transformation accelerate when using the Murmur's network, albeit in a way that glitches in and out. A friendly reminder that characters should not be able to use their transformations with ease, yet. Keep in mind they should all have a realistic adjustment period.
• Offerings may hear less words, more songs, breathing, scent— nonverbal communication that may be overwhelming.
• Offerings may experience intense somatic reactions while using the network: twitching limbs, sudden pain, the sense of being stroked or watched.

ᛗ

Wrapped and quartered

( content warnings: body horror )

As the days bleed together, the city begins to still. Where once the overgrowth pulsed with strange life, now it withers back into itself. The streets grow colder. The air bites. The mutated fauna, once noisy, prowling, goes silent. Ivy wilts, retreating from the moonlight. The mushroom towers collapse in on themselves with wet sighs. Even the buildings seem to hold their breath. Your own exhales frost in the air, hanging like ghosts. Above, the sky splits at the seams— crimson bleeding in from the edges, as if the moon itself were being peeled open at the arrival of winter.

And then: the masks begin to thrum.

It is subtle at first, a hum at the base of the spine. A low vibration felt rather than heard. But it grows, constant, inescapable— as if something is ticking down inside you. The masks react even when untouched, glowing faintly, twitching. You feel it in your chest. A second heartbeat. You're urged to put it on.

A voice, familiar and female, threads through the Murmur like static on a broken radio. Espera says:

"If you have not Tethered . . . do so. Before she bleeds in full."

Your body responds before your mind does. Magic stirs in your bloodstream— volatile and half-born. For some, flame dances along their fingertips, mirrors twitch in response to their gaze, or their pulse sings in electric rhythm. For others, bones shift beneath skin, teeth ache with growth, limbs feel wrong. Something is changing about you. Slowly. Irreversibly.

NOTES:

• Animal hosts may react reverently to tethered pairs. Lone vessels are ignored, followed, or violently met.
• Winter is here in full, but it doesn't seem natural— it is a forced shift. The city feels colder, quieter, and more hostile. Even the corrupted ecosystem seems to brace for something larger.
• Magic is awakening further. All vessels, Token and Offering alike, begin to experience supernatural phenomena more intensely. These changes are often involuntary, especially under emotional or physical duress. Powers may flicker, trigger, or distort, reflecting the vessel's inner state. They should not have control of it yet.
• The call to Tether is no longer subtle— it is urgent. Even characters who resist connection may optionally feel the biological/spiritual pressure to Tether. Those who remain untethered may begin to feel destabilized, sensitive to The Murmur, and/or experience the subtle beginnings of Succumbence.

OPTIONAL TOKEN EFFECTS

• Tokens may have unintentional magic surges in times of distress OR the awakening of "comfort zones". Small, warped spaces where reality thins into dreamscape, resembling meaningful memories (a childhood room, a stage, a battlefield). These zones offer eerie familiarity, but not safety from the weather.
• They may feel watched by something divine, but dispassionate— like being studied under a microscope.
• They may feel a need for proximity so great that the body physically aches. In worst case scenarios, you may even fall ill the longer you ignore your body's cry to dissipate your building magic. Tethering will immediately resolve this.

OPTIONAL OFFERING EFFECTS:

• An Offering's new instincts and transformations may begin to surface. Fear of fire. Yearning for music. It will all depend on what you're becoming. One thing that may be shared is a fierce protectiveness toward nearby Tokens.
• They may sense that something is weighing their souls against an invisible scale— not to punish you, but to categorize you. You have the inexplicable feeling that it is also the same thing that is shaping you.
• They may feel compelled to nest or anchor themselves near a Token's comfort zone or with a Token— circling the space like a sentinel or beast returning home. Tethering will make you whole, calm and seen.

ᛗ

Missing pieces find me

( content warnings: uncanny doppelgängers, possible visions of murder, violence, self harm. )

Winter has settled into everything with soft snowfall. Into your joints. Into the breath you share with others in the dark, or by an impromptu fire with scraps. Into the way your name sounds now when someone says it soft like a secret, or a warning. You've learned to ration warmth like a dwindling supply.

You've grown used to the rhythm of this place: the creak of half-dead buildings, the hollow crunch beneath your feet, the subtle hum that coils through the threads between you and the ones you've chosen to keep close throughout the month. The ones who understand that survival isn't just about staying alive.

But lately, something else has begun to settle in. It's not loud, and certainly not obvious. A shift, like a door left open too long. And that, Dear Vessels, starts in your reflections.

You see it in the fractured edge of glass, or in water that should have frozen weeks ago. In any surface slick enough to cast back your image, you may look, and it looks back. You move, and sometimes it moves too— but not quite right. A second too late. A second too early. Sometimes not at all.

And then it smiles, or frowns, or spits.

It is just enough to be wrong. Unnerving. Just enough to slip under your skin like splinters. You tilt your head— your reflection doesn't. You blink— it watches. And then you turn away. You tell yourself it's the frost. The tension. The light. But when you glance back, it’s still watching you.

Other vessels are seeing it, too, even if they don't say it out loud. They pause at windows. They look into still water a beat too long. They touch their own faces like they're checking for something missing. Or added. Something extra.

At least your reflection isn’t hurting you. Well. Not yet.

NOTES:

• A shimmering surface of any kind could reflect two vessels at once but their reflections are fighting. There's blood between them . . .
• At night, the moon above is bright, ice blue and full, with its edges tainted by a splowly spreading crimson. Characters may notice that in reflections, it is completely red and the tendrils from within spew out. A double take will have this reflection of the moon disappearing.
• Characters (especially those who may not be able to see the reflections) may notice and hear their comrade's reflections laughing or speaking to them— they may even respond and try to carry conversation. Note that it's the reflection that's doing this sporadically, and not the real person.

OPTIONAL TOKEN EFFECTS:

• Tokens may notice their hands glowing in thier reflection, but not outside it. After a few moments, the same magic curls up their arms. Their mirrorselves are trying to access their magic for them, so best redirect anything if you want to avoid possible friendly fire.
• They may realize their reflection is always watching their Tether, even as they sleep. It tilts its head, comes crawling with a knife raised, drives it down— then it's gone.
• They may see their mirrorselves practicing violence on nearby objects, anything they could get their hands on.

OPTIONAL OFFERING EFFECTS

• Offerings may wake to burning, superficial claw marks on their sides. Their reflections will be found licking their fingers.
• They may notice their reflection becoming violent with their nearby Tethers; pulling them by the hair, biting into them, prying at their eyes, etc.
• They may see their reflections pushing into existing wounds and feeding, wherever they are.

network ᛗ logs ᛗ ooc ᛗ memes ᛗ navigation

code

Comments

( ii. wrapped and quartered — memory of an offseer )

[shatteredlenses]

[For Ignis, his mask--which takes the shape of a blindfold--is a refuge. He doesn't want others to have to see his scars or blind eyes. Who would want to see that? He's certainly not the type to force discomfort on others either unless, perhaps, that person is a certain prince who needs to eat more vegetables.

That's the reason he wears it on the surface. Below the surface, Ignis is desperately trying to hide how vulnerable his lost vision makes him feel. There is no more clarity, no more perfection for him to find. How can he even survive in this place without it?

So, when the strange voices, emotions, and memories start trickling in, Ignis doesn't blame the blindfold, but this strange place itself, then he lets himself be distracted for just a little while.

A sad curiosity and confusion twine around his words as he responds.]

I don't understand a duty that penalizes those who care for others.

[That is what his duty has been his whole life. Caring, guiding, and protecting Noctis.]

One can feel for an enemy just as they feel for a friend. It keeps you from becoming your enemy.

[offseers]

[ if only. if only it was that simple. if only the feeling alone could offset this world. this relentless brutality they all had to suffer. noah was lucky and he had been able to share some of that.

but in ten years, it'll be gone. he'll be gone in less than that. ]

Being an offseer was my duty. No one would ever reprimand me for it. To be an offseer . . . is the greatest need a colony could ask for. Peace, at the end of it all.

But the killing will never stop.

[shatteredlenses]

[But the killing will never stop.

Those words echo in Ignis' head. Lucis has been at war since before he was born, but he gets the feeling that the war this person is talking about has gone on even longer. Has it always been there? If so, why? Why is there no hope for peace and an end to the killing?

While Ignis debates asking such seeming intrusive questions, his very internal debate broadcasts them across the connection tangled in thoughts and memories of his own.

King Regis was murdered for daring to hope peace could be found. How are four of us suppose to defeat a whole nation to reclaim Noct's birthright? How do we defeat a man we can't understand?

With that last thought an image of a redheaded man whose expression of mirth would almost be cheerful if it wasn't actually a twisted mockery of what mirth should really be.]

[offseers]

[ what a strange looking person. it reminds him a little of gray, except gray could never be so jovial. if you could call it that.

to be understood. oh, how noah wishes. wishes for a world that allows for that. ]

Do you want to understand him?

[shatteredlenses]

[Ignis shakes his head, conflicted feelings echoing in his words.]

If it means understanding how one gets joy from hurting others? No, I don't want to understand. If it will stop the war and get back what belongs to my king? Yes, I want to understand desperately.

[Would he have found answers if he'd accepted the Chancellor's offer? Ignis doesn't know and will never know. It could be he would have ended up just another death for the man to wave in Noctis' face.]

[offseers]

[ a man's distorted cry. or a monster's distorted cry. noah remembers the little mote of life, the last vestiges of moebius as he cried out, "nooo, I don't want to die!" ]

I think it's worth it. Even if you disagree. You have to understand where people come from.

Or you just end up repeating the same tragedies.

[shatteredlenses]

You are not wrong. I don't know if humanity can ever truly learn the folly of desiring the power of others when they have no right to it, though.

[Noctis' father died because of that desire. Gladiolus' father died because of that desire. His uncle died because of that desire and so had countess others who only wanted to defend what the Astrals had given them to protect so long ago.]

You said your duty was being an offseer. If you don't mind me asking, what does that mean? What was the purpose of the music you were playing on that battlefield?

[Those motes of light. Were they souls or something else entirely?]

[offseers]

Fighting for power? People do that?

[ ah. it's strange, having to explain this. what used to exist as the purpose of the world is just . . . unknown to others. ]

An offseer's melody sends off the departed. The lingering voices. Their hopes. Their dreams. It's the only way we know how to . . . send them on.

[ and it's what they believed. did noah believe in it? that remains opaque, even in his own mind. ]

[shatteredlenses]

[There is a return to that confused and curious feeling that had been a part of Ignis' first response.]

Correct. It's unfortunately common both in Eos' ancient and modern history. Do people not fight for that reason on your world?

[What else could have been the cause of that large battlefield he saw? A perceived slight? A theft?]

Seeing the lost to the afterlife. A very important duty indeed and a difficult one.

[His mind drifts to Lady Lunafreya then, the young woman dressed in her white gown, blonde hair blowing in the breeze. How many had those blue eyes seen pass on when she could no longer heal them of the Scourge? Ignis doesn't know and slams down on the memory before it can morph into how he had last seen her when her still form had been drenched with water and blood on the alter in Altissia.]

Forgive all my questions. My name is Ignis and it is a shame we were not able to meet under better circumstances.

[offseers]

[ noah's expression falls ever so slightly. ]

No. We fight to live. Every life stolen is life added to the Flame Clock. If you don't kill you can be starved . . . of life itself.

[ noah has never seen it but. it must be horrendous. finally he shakes his head, moving on. ]

It's just . . . what I've chosen to do.

I'm Noah.

[shatteredlenses]

A pleasure, Noah.

[Ignis pauses then, his connection becoming a jumbled mess of half-formed ideas that begin and then are discarded again as he tries to understand what he's just heard. Finally, the jumble clears only because Ignis has pushed it away in frustration.]

I feel as if I am about to sound like a fool, but I am honestly trying to understand. Your world's people have to kill or else they will be starved of life? How is that sustainable? Is that where the Flame Clock comes in?

[offseers]

[ a pleasure, huh? what an interesting way to put it. he smiles faintly. ]

Everyone is a soldier. We're born that way. We train, we fight. Every person that dies on the battlefield feeds our clock. A Flame Clock that keeps our lives going. If you don't kill, you die.

That's all life is. Live to fight. Fight to live. An endless cycle.

[shatteredlenses]

[Even in an unpleasant situation, there can be pleasant people hence a pleasure. That is how Ignis sees it anyway.]

That seems like such a bleak way to live. Do you know when this all started or how?

[Even though Ignis has just met Noah, and Noah himself seems accepting of his role, Ignis can't help but want something more for him. Isn't that what he wants for Noctis as well? Something more than the vision Pryna showed him as she lay dying?]

[offseers]

[ noah gives a quiet inhale. his expression doesn't shift, doesn't allow his own feelings to bleed through. ]

That's the part we were . . . still trying to figure out. We're not part of human nature. We're not born. We only have ten years.

But the world wasn't meant to be that way. I know that now.

[shatteredlenses]

Only ten years? Even with the killing?

[The questions, as horrible as they are to consider, distract Ignis from lingering on the first thought that entered his mind when Noah said his world wasn't suppose to be the way it was. Eos wasn't suppose to be suffering under the choking cloud of the Scourge either, but Ifrit's madness had changed that. Now a whole family has lived and died for generations trying to fix it.]

[offseers]

[ steady, gentle, which does nothing to limit the horror of noah's own words. implacable as the world he hails from. ]

The stealing of life doesn't guarantee you a life past ten years. It only helps to get that far.

[shatteredlenses]

[The statement is as horrible as Ignis had feared it would be, and it's not just because it's now been laid out succinctly in words. It just seems so pointless. So much death, so much pain and only a fraction of the life a normal human would have.

It's even less then the number of years the Kings and Queens of Lucis get with the Crystal draining their very life force in exchange for using its magic.

There is something inside of Ignis that twinges painfully and he finds himself asking another question before he really realizes it.]

Do you have anything that makes you happy outside of your duty?

[offseers]

[ noah blinks before giving a little shake of his ponytail. not to say no, but he finds that question absurd. ]

As long as you're alive, you can find happiness anywhere.

[ eunie collecting fourtune clovers. lanz and his drive for recognition. and noah . . . noah just sees the world. ]

[shatteredlenses]

Will you tell me about some of the happiness on your world?

[It is easy from what Ignis has been told to judge Noah's world as bleak and so he had before, but there must be more. A balance, if the young man truly believes what he's just said, and Ignis would dearly like to know what could balance out so much pain and heartbreak.]

[offseers]

[ noah needs a moment. the grief surges in his throat for a moment but . . . it stops in the face of such an innocuous question. it comes from the heart, from a hope.

who was he to stop that? ]

The people. Even though our time together is short . . . meeting all those people. Seeing human nature. Children. Lives. Loves.

Knowing these things exist . . . that gives me happiness.

[shatteredlenses]

[Ignis is thrilled with Noah's answer. There's genuine happiness that comes across with it, but also a hope so strong it almost eclipses everything else. It's a beautiful emotion made strong by all the trials it's faced.

Wait, though, hadn't Noah said they weren't born?]

Children? There are children despite how short your time is?

[Is he prying too much? Hopefully, Noah will let him know if he is.]

[offseers]

[ that prompts a soft look. ]

Not with us. But there's a group of people that escape those shackles. In a place call the City. There, people grow. Have . . . spouses? And have families.

[shatteredlenses]

[Suddenly, it's like the last piece of a puzzle clicks into place in Ignis' mind. The hope. The wonder. Knowing that how the world was, wasn't how it was suppose to be.]

The City must have seemed like some kind of dream to you when you first found it.

[offseers]

[ he nods. ]

It took our breaths away. Knowing life could be this way.

[shatteredlenses]

I can't even imagine. Somehow, even thinking of Eos without the Scourge doesn't seem like it would come close.

[And Ignis has imagined it a time or two, mostly when he was younger. Wouldn't it be nice if the war with Niflheim was over and the Scourge gone so Noctis could rule in peace? It would be Ignis' dream, but Noah's dream for his world manages to eclipse it.]

You said the world wasn't suppose to be the way it is. Do you think now that you've found the City there may be hope to change it back to how it's suppose to be?