riverviewlogs | introductory mingle: RIVER FESTIVAL

who: everyone in Riverview!
what: Introductory Log and River Festival
when: The month of August; the bulk of celebration will be in week 1, but there is a party and fireworks display on August 14th.
where: Anywhere around the city.
warnings: please put any necessary warnings in the subject lines

river festival

In the days leading up to August 1st, residents new and old will notice preparations beginning, a flurry of activity getting the city ready for the upcoming celebration: The River Festival. This holiday is in celebration of the river and the life that it gives to the city, as well as the heat of summer and forming bonds with friends, family, and romantic partners. The celebrations are marked by a community-wide cleanup of the docks and beaches along the river - particularly important considering the recent acid rain - as well as beachfront cookouts and parties (both private and city sponsored) and beach sports tournaments happening on either open stretches of beach or in special clothing-optional beaches, all capped off with fireworks displays on the evenings of August 7th and 14th.

a celebration of the river and togetherness

Following the hedonism of Carnivale, it's time for something a little more low-key and relaxing. The River Festival happens every year in August, and is geared toward community building through cleaning up the beaches and docks along the river and then using all that freshly cleaned beach to gather on. During the first week of August, there are various lightly-themed government-sponsored beach cookouts and parties geared toward family, romantic dates, or casual all-ages get-togethers for meeting new friends; there are also a few more racy parties at clothing-optional beaches around the city. Many private residents also take this time to gather together friends and family, and have cookouts on the beach with all the typical trappings of the beach barbecue. There are also various casual sports tournaments sponsored by community centers, gyms, and sports teams in the city, featuring prizes ranging from notoriety to sports equipment to big bucks. Finally, there are two fireworks displays, one on August 7th and one on August 14th, with free food, and various live performers beforehand.

i. cleaning up

The holiday starts off on a note that is just a bit more sombre than the rest of the season, with the cleanup efforts following late July's strange fog and acid rain blending into the usual tradition of cleaning up beaches and docks along the river. The cleanup is a group effort, with every citizen who is physically able pitching in to comb the beaches, where they pick up fallen tree limbs, garbage, and anything else that's accumulated during the winter and spring, and then raking the beaches to make them clean and ready to use. The cleanup of the docks is similar, with residents sweeping and hosing them down where necessary. This year, there are a lot of repairs to be made to beachfront structures that might've been damaged by the acid rain, so if anyone has some carpentry or building skills, those would definitely come in handy.

This is meant to be a community building effort, so many businesses in the area, more well-to-do private citizens, and the government have pitched in funding to provide lunches, cold drinks, coffee or tea, and snacks to anyone who's helping out with the cleanup efforts. All in all, the cleanup has a very friendly, welcoming vibe.

ii. cookouts and parties

The main traditions of the River Festival involve cookouts and beach parties. On August 7th and August 14th, the government as well as various corporations and businesses in the city, will be providing funds for large beach gatherings. On these days, there will be booths set up offering wares and freebies from various businesses around the city that have helped fund the party, large swaths of cleared beach where residents can don a swimsuit and catch some rays or swim in the river, massive barbecue setups to provide partygoers with all the standard barbecue fare, beach sports tournaments, dancing and musical performances, and fireworks displays (see prompts below).

The holiday isn't just about these big parties, though - many residents arrange their own barbecues, cookouts, beach camping trips, beach bonfires, and other riverside gatherings and outings. Many riverfront businesses offer discounts on services such as canoe or kayak rentals to go out paddling on the river, jetski or motorboat rentals for tubing, wakeboarding, or waterskiing, or mounts to take romantic rides in the surf. Additionally, there is an adults-only section of the beach where any of these activities can be done in the nude in a clothing-optional setting, including the big city-sponsored parties.

iii. sportsball tournaments

Is your character good at playing a particular sport that could, conceivably, be played on a beach? Chances are that during the month of August, a tournament will be set up for them to participate in. The tournaments are pretty standard, generally sponsored by community centers, sports clubs and teams, gyms, and other organizations and businesses in the city, with various levels of specialization, and levels of skill or competitiveness. The prizes also vary, with everything from plain old bragging rights to sports equipment or passes to gyms and community centers, to large lump sums of cash money. Definitely worth it, for characters with a love for sport.

Oh, and a lot of these tournaments are happening on the adults-only clothing-optional beaches, for those grown-up sports fans who like a bit of an extra challenge.

iv. performances and fireworks

On August 7th and August 14th at the end of the large city-sponsored beach parties, there will be evening performances all along the beach. Not as extensive as the musical performances during Carnivale, there are two large-name performers per night, with various lesser-known groups performing at random off and on throughout the day and night. Areas of the beach are cleared for residents to watch and dance to the music, both on the regular and adults-only clothing-optional beaches (acts will switch off between the two areas so both areas get both performances).

Player-characters who are musical artists, DJs, or otherwise perform are free to set up shop around this party and panhandle or put on free performances for publicity.

After the sun goes down, boats will head out into the water carrying a variety of fireworks, and there will be a beautiful display of exploding color in the sky for residents to watch and enjoy. The fireworks are highly advanced, incorporating old-fashioned gunpowder as well as modern technology that result in really beautiful displays that can take the breath away!

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 one of the mod-posted prompts for each Communal Floor. Or if you have an idea for a prompt that isn't in this list, set during the River Festival, feel free to write it up!

visual inspiration

click on thumbnails for larger view

Credit: image i: credit unknown; image ii: Albert Ramon Puig; image iii: Claudio Pilia; image iv: Alan Philips

navigation

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"Oh, a witch kissed me and cursed me," He says it without missing a beat, but quickly winks to show that he's just messing around, which is like, his default state, "Do you have other races as well?"

There's a few places that seem to have some but not all the races, so he's curious.

He chuckles at Taako's response, shaking his head. "Very clever. A witch, indeed."

But he nods, his head bobbing with interest. Dorian is, first and foremost, an academic, so learning things about a new world gets him excited.

"We have the elves, obviously, but then there are also Dwarves and Qunari. The elves have elongated ears, little to no curvature of the nasal bridge," which he indicates by placing the edge of his hand with fingers outstretched against the bridge of his own nose momentarily, "larger eyes than other species, and lithe form. They also typically are of shorter stature than humans, but nothing near the height of dwarves."

"Do you have dwarves or Qunari?"

"Huh," Those are more physical differences than what he's used to, and he sort of idly touches his nose at Dorian's comment about them, wondering if that meant the elf he ran into here was from Dorian's world. She fits the description, but he'd originally chalked it up to just her face, rather than a species thing. "We've got like, a lot. No Qunari, but dwarves, halflings, orcs, tieflings, gnomes... Not to mention shit like centaurs and giants. And our elves - well, I'm a lot longer lived than humans, plus I can see in the dark and I don't sleep."

There's a couple other minor things - resistance to charm spells, better affinity for magic, but that's not worth mentioning.

"Ah, truly? You see, history tells us the elves were once longer lived than humans. Some even claimed they were immortal, but over the centuries they have what they refer to as 'quickened'. They are born, the age, they die, just as we humans do."

He frowns slightly at the explanation. "They also blame that on us. You see, historically, my people conquered their homelands and enslaved them. They maintain this caused their decline. How true that is is anyone's guess, really."

And there are so many topics to address he doesn't want to spend time on just the one. "What are orcs? Tieflings? Gnomes?"

"Always with the fucking slavery, god," It's a rare thing in the Fearun he knows, but between this and Rin's fun little infodump on what drow usually do with high elves, he's pretty much over it.

Still, he figures from the way Dorian says historically that he personally hasn't had anything to do with it, so Taako shrugs it off for now, "Okay, uh, tieflings are what happens when a human gets down and dirty with a demon, they've got tails and horns, usually. Orcs are big ones, like ninety percent muscle, green or grey skinned, tend to be a little rough and tumble. Gnomes are...." He gestures to a little above his waist, typical gnome height, "About that high, shorter than dwarves and a lot less stocky, our captain's a gnome, but he's not here right now."

Was Dorian a slaver? No, and he wouldn't want to be involved in such a nasty business, either. In his homeland, did his family own slaves? Yes. They'd been in his family for generations...or more specifically, their families had belonged to his family for generations...it was all very complicated. That being said, Dorian didn't feel it was right to kidnap people and enslave them. Now, a man could sell himself into servitude to save his family...

...but that was a musing for a different day. He nodded at Taako's remark, as though that were all that needed to be said on the topic of slavery before moving on to the much more interesting topic of half-demons, something that is, to his knowledge, impossible. "Hold a moment." He raised a hand. "In your world, humans and demons are able for fornicate? But...why, demons have no physical form unless they've quite a mind, and sex is nothing if not infinitely distracting. Also, I move that demons have no reproductive organs. They...are you suggesting they aren't spirits in your world?"

Edited 2017-09-22 00:14 (UTC)

"I mean, I skipped demon fucking 101 so I'm not an expert here, but I'm pretty sure they've got corporeal forms?" Apparently he also skipped all the lessons about what demons are and how they work, or maybe his arcana roll just wasn't all that good, "Demons come from one of the other planes of existence, so they're not just chilling with humans twenty four-sev and usually they're pretty into just murder, you know? I'm gonna assume they're different than what you're talking about, since we got spirits too. They're mostly just dead thugs."

Like his future boyfriend, who's just a dumb ghost.

He chuckled at Taako's explanation, because it was comical, and because it was so alien, and yet not at the same time. "Why yes, it does seem to have a similar result, regardless of their motivations. You see, demons are very thoroughly confused by the material world when they cross over, so to speak, into it. They were apparently, once upon a time, spirits, but were corrupted. They feed on our desires, our rage, our lust, our envy, so on." He shakes his head. "They can manifest a form, certainly but...this is not what you know as a demon, I assume. Spirits...aren't souls. Spirits are...denizens of the Fade, different from but closely related to demons."

introductory mingle: RIVER FESTIVAL

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject