riverviewlogs | monthly mingle: MEMORIA

who: everyone in Riverview!
what: monthly mingle: memoria
when: the month of may
where: anywhere around the city
warnings: please put any necessary warnings in the subject lines

memoria

In the days leading up to May 1st, residents new and old will notice preparations beginning, a flurry of activity getting the city ready for the upcoming celebration: Memoria. A more solemn celebration than Sampremi or the Flower Festival, Memoria is a week-long time of remembrance for those lost in the Great War and the epidemic that decimated Riverview Quarantine's population 10 years ago. Memoria traditions include lighting lanterns for the dead, telling stories about lost loved ones or lost homes, eating meals with loved ones, and a special gathering to send floating lanterns down the river in honor of those lost.

a solemn commemoration of those lost

While the main city-wide event associated with Memoria is the floating of lanterns down the river on each Sunday evening of the month, the holiday is generally seen as a time of reflection on and appreciation of things that have been lost - people, homes, cultures, and planets. It is also a celebration of the things that remain. Many locally-owned shops will host displays of culturally-significant food, and will hand out informational flyers sharing the unique customs of their own homeworlds and inviting others to share those customs. There is a heavy emphasis on sharing time with family, friends, and lovers, and anyone who is able to will cook meals or treats for loved ones, or at least purchase them something good to eat.

i. hanging lanterns

Throughout the entire week of Memoria, residents will be hanging lanterns around the city. Lanterns are generally placed in greater number in places of passage - streets, bridges, and all alongside the train lines are particularly well-decorated, as are any trees alongside paths, and most homes and businesses have a profusion of lanterns around their doors and windows. This tradition is twofold; some people believe that the lanterns are hung in these places in order to guide the spirits of the dead back to those who still love them, other people believe that the lanterns are to give light for living loved ones to find their doors in times of darkness...many people believe both.

No matter what your character might believe, you can be sure they will find themselves offered a lantern for free from various businesses or friendly citizens passing by, and invited to hang it before the sun sets, or they may be handed a bundle of lanterns and asked to help share them with others.

ii. sharing life

Throughout the city, characters will find groups of people gathering to share hot drinks and talk about their loved ones lost, their homes and planets, or their experiences during the Great War and the epidemic. Anyone who has lost someone, who has fought to survive, who is feeling cut off and homesick, is welcome to sit and share their story. If your character chooses to sit and to share their story, they will find that people will gather to listen, will generally be respectful of the telling, and may share their own similar experiences in return. This is an excellent time to air grief in an environment where most people understand and respect grief, and a good time to deepen the connections to others around you, to understand them better.

There is also a very large focus on cooking or purchasing meals or treats for loved ones during Memoria, with many people taking meals with everyone they care about during the week of the holiday. Some go the extra mile and will hand out baked goods (usually chocolate or cinnamon), packets of candy, or other little treats to acquaintances, especially if they would like to form a closer bond with them. This is a great time for characters to reach out to someone they would like to get to know better with a surprise treat!

iii. floating of the lanterns

On the evening of May 8th, just before sundown, many of the city's residents will head toward the banks of the river, where they will light lanterns in a wide variety of shapes, sizes, and colors, in honor of their dead loved ones. The types of lanterns vary wildly, based on personality (either of the person floating it or the person they are honoring), culture, and many other factors. Some lanterns are very simple, others are incredibly complex, but the one common feature they all have is that people write on the shades of them - they write about their feelings for their loved ones, their wishes for their relationships and friendships, a memory from childhood or home, or even just lines of poetry or lyrics from songs that express something they miss, or something that hurts them.

Once those emotions are written on the lanterns, the lanterns are set free, floating down the river in the darkening evening, in a cathartic gesture shared by most residents of the city. Waves of lantern floating will start around 7 pm and continue until the sun rises on each Sunday evening of May.

iv. down with the sickness

The epidemic that happened 10 years ago was an incredibly traumatic experience for the people living in the Quarantine, on a cultural scale as well as a personal one. While most people who live in the Quarantine are able to leave after 5 years, the trauma lingers in any number of invisible ways in the city. Besides that, there is a small population of people who have chosen to live permanently in the Quarantine, who have made it their home and embraced its melting pot of cultural diversity as their own. Many of these people are survivors of the epidemic, and have a particularly poignant connection to the Memoria celebration.

One of these long-term residents is an engineer specializing in magically-enhanced robotics who lost most of her family in the epidemic, and as each year passes she becomes more and more distraught by how the population turns over and slowly loses track of the importance of Memoria. In her eyes, it's become symbolic, commercialized, a celebration of general grief and not the very specific grief the Quarantine experienced 10 years ago. And she has decided to do something about it, something to make the specific trauma of the epidemic very real and very current to everyone in the city.

On May 1st, she will be releasing a small cloud of self-replicating magically-enhanced nanites near City Hall. The nanites are drawn to warm, living bodies, and once they enter, they find their way to the brain and central nervous system (or equivalent, depending on physiology) and start to take effect on the parts of the brain (or equivalent) that control a person's sensory experiences and psychosomatic responses. In effect, the nanites work as an artificial virus that makes residents horribly ill, and which can be passed from person to person like a contagion.

Throughout the month, reports of this mysterious illness will sweep through the Quarantine, with residents uncertain of how to cure it. Symptoms vary widely depending on the person, with each affected person facing a uniquely personal set of symptoms - but each case has the same thing in common: it ends with the victim losing consciousness and lapsing into a coma.

How It Works

● Participation is opt-in, and while the "epidemic" can't be ignored in the city, characters are not required to get ill even if they are exposed.
● The "disease" can be spread from person to person by skin-to-skin contact or exchange of fluids (kissing, coughing, spitting, etc.) There is no set symptoms for the "disease," and how much or little a character is affected or in what ways is up to player discretion. Incubation period (time between exposure and first symptoms appearing) is also up to player discretion.
● Since the nanites are based in both tech and mgaic, they are much harder to defeat than they would be otherwise. However, they can be deactivated and destroyed through a combination of electromagnetic pulses and magical nullification or spell-dispersing abilities. Players are also welcome to come up with other ways to deactivate the nanites, keeping in mind that it should not be too easy.
● Affected characters can be sick for as long or short a time as the player decides, and once they lapse into a coma it can last as long as the player decides. Once the character wakes from the coma, they will no longer be sick and the nanites will no longer be present in their system.
● Once a character has been infected, they will be immune and cannot be reinfected.
● All sick characters will be well again by May 31st and there will be no long-term effects.

● If any players wish to pursue or bring to justice the perpetrator, please send the mod a PM and we can discuss your ideas!

v. roommates or wildcard

Feel free to use this prompt to meet new roommates, for the purpose of getting to know each other, or hit up the mod-posted prompt to create a Communal Housing floor mingle. Or, if you have an idea for a prompt that isn't in this list, set during Memoria, feel free to write it up!

visual inspiration

click on thumbnails for larger view

Credit: image i: RAW Visual, image ii: by trenchmaker, image iv: Bianca Draghici; image iii: found uncredited on Pinterest - please let the mod know if you find credit!

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Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[ Stan takes the lantern without much of a second thought but he smiles slightly at Dorian's comment about holidays being jolly. There's plenty of holidays that he can think of that may not be sad but have a more sober and reflective tone in the way that this sort of does. ]

The word isn't the most accurate with how people perceive it but is there another word to denote a day that is special? There were some that weren't jolly where I'm from.

We refer to the as "Annums" on Thedas. There is typically one per month, some are jolly holidays, others somber remembrances. Your birthday is an Annum, but so is the anniversary of your first hamster's death, should you have had such an attachment. "Annum" simply signifies it is something which occurs annually on a given date.

[He nods at Stan to continue, though.]

What sorts of holidays do you celebrate on Earth, Stan?

Annums.

[ Stan repeats the word after the other had given the explanation and then nods. It seems like a good word and perhaps a better way to describe important dates regardless of what the mood of such a day would be. ]

There's all sorts of holidays and different people have different ones sometimes. Like, in my country we celebrate the 4th of July which is the Independence day of our country... with religions it's even more different, I think.

I'm Jewish and our most solemn holiday is Yom Kippur... it's about atonement and repentance and a lot of people fast for a long time and pray a lot on the day. Different people observe it differently, though but it's a day for making things right. It's not really sad but it's not really jolly either.

Yes, I suppose that's true, though I am loathe to admit my knowledge of other religions is painfully lacking. [And his expression does actually look pained at the idea.] I should do something about that, though such texts are difficult to find in my own world. The Chantry is rather...adverse to the spreading of other doctrine. [He looks thoughtful for a moment.] I wonder if I may be able to find something here...

...but I digress. [He listens to the boy's description of Yom Kippur and nods.] And this atonement is related to a god, or to some other act of contrition?

What is the Chantry?

[ Stan lifts a shoulder and then nods. ]

There's all sorts of religious stuff in the library. [ He's done his share of looking. ]

It is for God but it is also to others in our lives. Some people have their own traditions to go with it like with Christmas for Christians and everything.

Ah, yes. [He nods, motioning toward a bench nearby, because even though they were made of paper, carrying several of the folded lanterns was beginning to become a bother.] I suppose I've never mentioned religion on Thedas, have I? I often prod you about your own, though. That's unfair of me.

And yes, I suppose there are. I'll have to look into it, among many other things.

[He nods.]

Well, we don't really have a set day in the Andrastean calendar for atonement, but then again, it's something of a perpetual thing.

[He has a seat on that bench, setting his bundle to the side and motioning for Stan to join him.]

The Chantry is the name of the organization of the most prominent faith in Thedas: Andrasteanism. We believe in the Maker, that we are all His creations, and follow the teaching of his Bride and Prophet, Andraste. The majority of Thedas follow the teachings of their Chantry, lead by their elected Divine. The Imperium, my homeland, has its own Chantry and elected Divine, due to a...conflicted interpretation of doctrine.

Edited (Man, my typos are intense) 2018-05-13 03:19 (UTC)

[ Stan moves to the bench the other had indicated and joined him in sitting there. He shook his head at the mention of it being unfair because he hadn't really thought to ask, either, so he didn't think that was actually how it was but now he's a bit curious. ]

That sounds a lot like Catholicism. [ At least his limited knowledge of it after all. ]

It sounds interesting, though.

It does. I've read a bit about it. [He nods.] And it's...similar, yes. She, Andraste, lead a slave rebellion against the Tevinter Imperium, she was betrayed and burned at the stake, only to be reborn by the will of the Maker to ascend to His side.

[He rolls his shoulder slightly in a shrug.]

The Chantry as a few antiquated ideals, but it serves a purpose, but...it's rather large, being the foremost religion on Thedas. Do you...have any specific questions?

[ It sounds like a fantastical idea but then aren't most religions full of fantastical ideas that some how were given weight because people chose to believe in them but not others. ]

Does it try to make people believe in it?

Does the Chantry try to make people believe in it...? Such wonderful questions you ask, Stan.

[He smiles.]

Well, you see, most of the civilized world already knows the Chant, but the Chantry itself had a bit of a...rough patch a few years ago involving a lot of politics and certain people who weren't allowed to be who they felt they deserved to be rebelled, there was open war, something from Chantry legend turned out to be inescapably true, and, well...we're all still finding the pieces and hoping we have enough glue, really. In the past...the Chantry simply was. The Tevinter Imperium of old ruled over most of the known world, worshipped heathen gods...then there was a slave rebellion and Andraste led it. The Imperium crumbled into a shadow of its former self, for the better I assure you, and, well, that was 1400 years ago. Andraste's teachings never suggested her faithful force things on anyone, but the Chantry did have a healthy army which meant if a nation, or a people, were doing something that specifically contradicted her teachings, they might start an Exalted March to clear up the riff-raff. Did they leave the Chant behind? Usually, yes.

Edited 2018-05-31 04:47 (UTC)

monthly mingle: MEMORIA

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