sphererpmod: (Default)
Sphere Mods ([personal profile] sphererpmod) wrote in [community profile] thespherelogs2018-12-01 12:00 am

(no subject)

Who: Everyone!
What: December's welcome log.
When: Dec 1st-7th
Where: The Merchant Dome/The Pools
Warnings:
Notes: This is your December welcome log. Come in, go nuts.


It’s the most wonderful (welcome) time of the year.

The Council knows that being a newb and not knowing anyone (especially when one might be living in close quarters to them in the very near future) can be a real pain in the ass. So, every month they throw a welcome party, the theme and location tend to vary. The theme for December is Holiday Cheer and this month’s party takes place in the Merchant dome. But it’s not the everyday appearance of the merchant dome. No, for the next five days the Merchant dome’s appearance has been altered to look like a sort of Bavarian Christmas Market. There are small clusters of tables every so often, so people can just sit and chat and eat and drunk.

Some enterprising person has even managed to make it snow through some unknown means. It’s not cold, but the snow is soft and steady and slowly building up.

The entire dome, all of the streets and all of the merchant stalls are practically glowing with white fairy lights that are strung everywhere. Vendors in their stalls gleefully cry out to paterons passing by, offering them free food or drinks. The food consists of the sort of things that one might expect to find in a place like this: sausages on buns and on sticks, pretzels, pizza, loads of cookies of every variety that one could think of, including elaborately decorated gingerbread, chocolates, fruits, french fries. Think winter fair food, and be as absurd and as complicated and extra as you want. It is a fair, after all. Go nuts. Drinks are also along the same line: hot cider, mulled wine, hot buttered rum, hot chocolate both with booze and without, as well as all the normal things: water, coffee, tea, milk, soda, and a variety of fruit juices that you’ve both heard of and not.

But food isn’t the only free thing that people are giving away! They’re also offering characters hats and gloves and scarves, small toys, books, delicate ornaments, perfumes, wine… it’s a giant welcome party after all, and these people are cheerful and happy. Even offering to pay just gets met with laughter and being told not to worry about it.

There are even some carnival rides set up! A medium sized ferris wheel, a carousel, a giant slide and ice skating ring are all along the outside of the stalls.

At the far end of the dome, the snow has fallen deeper and held to several inches. Wouldn’t you know it just happens to be perfect snowball snow! So, there of course needs to be a snowball fight! What did you think those free mittens and gloves and scarves are for after all? The snowball fight can be organized into teams, or one on one depending on the player’s choice. This is a friendly fight, of course, so no rocks or slush balls or anything. Well, probably not. No one in the Sphere is your mother.

However, the meeting isn’t just about socializing! the opposite end from the snowball fight, there are smaller tables set up with people sitting behind them. In front of the tables are homemade brightly colored signs that advertise things like jobs and clubs. The people and interests here in The Sphere are hugely varied and people are just so earnest to tell newcomers about them. They’re earnest to the point where they may just actually reach out and grab a person in order to force them to stop and to listen to whatever spiel they happen to be working on. Booths that are in attendance for jobs include: Agriculture: “help grow the food that feeds us all! Farming is life!”, The library: “No skill needed! We’ll teach you what you need to know!” The school system: “Teachers wanted! Education is the right of everyone!” Maintenance: “Help keep the domes clean!” As well as various restaurant booths looking for help for both servers and chefs.

For the hobbies involved they are even more varied. Book club: “we live in a multiverse, let’s read the books from it! With wine!” Garden club: “we want to grow stuff on our terms!” Sprinkled among are various skill learning clubs, among them: woodworking club, smithing, robotics, technology, first aid. It seems that despite the fact that no one is required to work in the City, people are still offering skills as needed.

If discrete enough inquiries are made, a passcode to the Black Market hidden behind some of the stalls is offered. The entrance is hidden enough that someone needs to be looking for it, and there is a rather large bouncer guarding the door and asking for the proper passcode. The passcode of the day happens to be gumdrops.

Inside the black market is large, but much more dimly lit than the regular market dome that the welcome party was held inside of. There are various pockets of people clustered under bright neon lights. The lights, someone confides to you, are code for what they’re offering. And nearly everything is on offer if a person has the ability to make a trade. Things from home, character skills and even favors tend to be the currency here, but watch out: the hawkers within are shrewd and sharp. If they make a deal with someone, it’s nearly always going to favor them. Eventually.

There’s also a large and loud party happening inside. Think of a rave with a large amount of people who happened to be a bit out of their minds. Drugs aren’t given freely here, they’re too valuable, but should someone want to figure out what they’re rolling on, eventually someone will ask or offer. The drug that they are currently using is called ‘self’ and it’s something that affects your character in an intensely personal way. For some, it’s an experience like your favorite cocktail mixed with a vicodin, and for others it’s just like being drunk. For still more people, it’s like ecstasy without the side effects.

The drug has no physically addicting properties.

But seriously though who cares about Christmas?


While the welcome party rages on in the merchant dome, people have made a smaller party in one of the recreation domes. Around the pools, as a matter of fact. There’s almost like a small barbecue clustered around the largest of the three pools, and the light is constant and sunny here. The large pool is olympic sized, and is a sparkling blue. It’s fresh water, and probably clean enough to drink. I still wouldn’t drink it. The second pool is slightly smaller and more kidney shaped with a gradual sand mound at one end of it. This pool is salt water and looks a bit more like a beach than a pool. The third pool is a kiddie pool, complete with a splash pad, that’s running. Buckets drop, it’s got one of those mushroom things, and sprinkler jets. There aren’t any kids though, so people are welcome to go nuts.

Bathing suits and towels are provided in the changing rooms. There’s frozen and fruity drinks flowing freely, along with finger food and snacks. Loud music is playing from a local band that’s just generally of a pop sort. There’s people dancing rather in a rather haphazard fashion, but the dance floor is there and present!

Wildcard

Go nuts, choose your own adventure!

Inspiration images

ubbe: (Nh8Foid)

[personal profile] ubbe 2019-01-22 03:38 am (UTC)(link)
Gyda was long before Ubbe's time but he'd heard Bjorn speak of his little sister now and then, it was rare. Bjorn was not one to talk sentimentally after all and Ubbe had a feeling that Gyda's death had been a painful experience for him -- for his father too. Ragnar hadn't ever breathed a word of his only daughter to Ubbe.

"Was it Ivar?" Ubbe questioned, it would be interesting to have thought of Gyda in such a place as Ivar had described -- after all, that would have meant somehow she hadn't died.
gristle: (XrymrcR)

[personal profile] gristle 2019-01-22 07:08 am (UTC)(link)
"Yeah! Ivar was there. He was kinda a little famous I think! Gyda told me about him. But I didn't actually know him well at all, really." She just looks at him for a moment, tilting her head to one side as she put two and two together and came up with four. "Is that your brother too? Was Gyda your sister?"

Bev said 'was' because she knew what happened to her friend back home, and she also knew that Gyda wasn't here; she'd known if she was honestly.
ubbe: (DuMmSn8)

[personal profile] ubbe 2019-01-22 09:29 am (UTC)(link)
Ubbe snorts slightly. To be honest, all of the sons of Ragnar were a bit famous, if only because they were the sons of Ragnar. Though, Ivar had made a name for himself by starting a civil war against two of his brothers and the great shieldmaiden Lagertha.

"Ivar is my brother," Ubbe confirmed but he was slower to answer about Gyda. Talking about her reminds him somewhat of Siggy -- his niece who'd died when she was very young as well, he barely remembers her.

"Gyda would have been my half-sister. But she died long before I was born."
gristle: (wTONWaN)

[personal profile] gristle 2019-01-22 11:28 pm (UTC)(link)
"Yeah, I know she died back home, but she was definitely alive in Riverview. I saw her just before I showed up here, actually. She was dressed like a fairy because it was Halloween. I think I may have pictures of her on my phone, but I can't remember." Bev didn't actually look at her phone too much honestly, because well... It was painful and it hurt and it reminded her of how much more she trusted the people back there than she trusted the people here.

Which was weird because some of them were the same. The same but very, very different. She hated it.
ubbe: (tumblr_inline_okfurvfJdW1urmzrx_100)

[personal profile] ubbe 2019-01-28 02:36 am (UTC)(link)
"Such strange things," Ubbe said quietly. That is even beyond what he would have really thought possible. His brow furrows slightly as he thinks about what possible implications there could be for that.

"Pictures? Like ... paintings?"
gristle: (9KEAjcR)

[personal profile] gristle 2019-01-30 10:39 pm (UTC)(link)
"Sort of. Only without the paint, I guess? They just kind of look like how we look right now, only are still. Unless it's a video. I don't think that I have any videos. But yeah, she was my friend and I know her. Maybe she'll show up here, eventually."
ubbe: (YTJsEJ8)

[personal profile] ubbe 2019-02-01 01:57 am (UTC)(link)
Ubbe wants to understand how that would work but more so he thinks that he wants see.

"You have one of these pictures of her, you say? May I see?"
gristle: (Default)

[personal profile] gristle 2019-02-04 06:02 pm (UTC)(link)
"Okay. But I don't have my phone with me. I can bring it to dinner or whatever, if you want though." She didn't like to bring it along with her because she wasn't sure if she was going to end up doing something like getting wet or whatever.
ubbe: (Default)

[personal profile] ubbe 2019-02-07 12:19 am (UTC)(link)
“I would like that very much if you would,” Ubbe smiles at her. He could be patient but he was curious all the same.
gristle: (Default)

[personal profile] gristle 2019-02-07 07:08 am (UTC)(link)

“Okay. I mean she’d definitely be wanting you to see it right. Cause you’re her brother and stuff.” It made sense to Bev, after all Gyda had never spoken against him. Or any of her family really.

ubbe: (Default)

[personal profile] ubbe 2019-02-10 07:57 am (UTC)(link)
"Perhaps," Ubbe said, tilting his head. "Although, she had a different mother. Our father left Lagertha for Aslaug when Aslaug became pregnant with me."