Round 2 - Festival of Ability!

[Elemental]

Queen Glim

5 hours ago, Featherscale said:

Glim is wheeled before the Calligraphy exhibit. She laughs and clips. It is unheard of for a Queen to be without a Worker escort, but she is.

"I, uh, wouldn't show that current work to other Glix. The dominant religion has a... thing... about writing. It sent that poor fellow on something of an attack.

 

I'm personally something of an Atheist, and I think such superstition is a little silly, but our cousin Raum is... old fashioned.

I personally think it is a great piece, even if I only can read Imperial Standard. I'd be proud to put it in my Basilica as a trophy, if you are interested in a barter?"

What an Odd Lady

Marcus looks up from his half finished image of a Glix. He has no idea what a Glix Queen is and so displays no deference towards her.

"Raum, as in the crow demon? Odd name," he reaches into his stack of parchments and pulls out a stark white sheet that bares the calligraphic image of a bird in flight surrounded by a circle of fire all in blood red ink. He rotates it a few times before he continues speaking, "Hmm... There is a slight resemblance."

He stares at it for a few moments before suddenly remembering he's not alone. "Sorry, which piece were you interested in?"

[Stygian]

On 2/21/2024 at 6:48 PM, SerakHawk said:

The Console is enraptured in the display from the neighbouring aero-stat, a hint of jealousy on her face as she considers their oral traditions to pass history down. Something the Illumined Utopian lost in the War of Eternal Bombardment. The jealousy turns to wonder as she studies the movements and mosaic written across the chitinous plates of the dancers. With the presentation complete Prisca hovers over the Artist inscribing on the Military Kanmarran.

"What does this mosaic mean? Is it for luck or is it a part of your history past - or to come?"

The answer comes not from the sailor, who seems to be devoting his every effort to not fidgeting under the needle. Instead, Taio is the one to speak as he approaches Prisca.

“Yes. The answer is yes.” A wry, gravel-like chuckle rumbled past his lips.
 

“It is tradition among our soldiers to carry a piece of our history upon their backs. Ours, theirs. Deeds they’ve accomplished. Battles they have won. Hopes for their future. Sometimes, those who leave the service choose to have the slate wiped clean. Leave the service. We induce an early molt in those cases, to honor their wishes.”

“Of course, these newer whelps are softer than we were. We didn’t use ink. We carved it into our carapace in my day. I suppose it’s prettier like this. Fewer molting problems.” Taio cracked idly, waving a claw in the air. If there is one idea that transcends culture and species, it is likely that of the old scoffing at the sensibilities of the young.

“I am about to deploy on my first tour since my training runs in Rana’s Embrace. Ghhk..!” The sailor grasps onto the back of the chair hard enough that it creaks with the exertion… which only leads to a mostly silent noise of disappointment from Taio. “I come from a minor family, married into one of the Ten. Top of my class.. It is my hope that I will return to add to my tale when it is done.”

“Not to my chair, if you don’t stop whimpering.” The artist grunts, sweeping braided hair back to stay out of her way while she works.

 

On 2/21/2024 at 11:46 PM, Lumaeus said:

The Queen is duly impressed with the careful application of the translation tech to reach so many at once. But the oral and physical transmission of history captivates her. As Arkhival Majesty, Constance of Comment is acutely aware of the limitations of conventional information transmission--at least in the ostensibly Up part of Chonkia, she reminds herself. Learning from books and from honey seems like a default only because it's the cultural norm. To see a history in such an expressive form is both a wonder and a spectacle that she works hard not to exoticize. Oral traditions are not unknown on Sansar, and dance is really a part of that lineage, she thinks. Probably. They have been much sidelined in the current age, but absence does not imply obsolescence.

She stays for the entire performance and all follow up questions, openly taking notes.

As the performance winds down, one of the stagehands can be seen tinkering with the small terminal attached to the speaker system. The translations streamline into the native tongues of the Glix, Jy’mar, and the ArkHive—as well as Low Imperial for the High Lord and zir pleasure.

“It is an honor to have such esteemed leaders in our midst. Ours is a proud, but humble acknowledgment of our beginnings. Should it be of interest, we will happily provide a recording to the ArkHive and Imperial libraries alike, in the interest of preserving our histories.

Do you have any questions? Notes, critiques?” Taio’s eyes shine with mirth at the very idea of it.

On 2/22/2024 at 6:56 AM, Featherscale said:

The Kanmarran

This formal dance is the only display of Agility the Glix can appreciate on their own terms, it resembling their own Opera, if more stylized.

They all take it in and give their appreciation to the performers after their set.


The jewelers, too, use techniques  not unknown to the Glix, and a few of the Workers order pieces for their friends left behind in Mekhala.


They consider joining the arm-wrestling contest.  Then they realize, that being unable to sit, they cannot qualify without handicapping one side or the other as to whether they dismount their legs or stay standing.

Glim, lacking hands, simply could not join in.  But they cheered on the contestants, anyway!

Noting the presence of the Blogger Queen, one of the jewelers brings over a piece that they had previously been working on. A necklace with a carved jade ornament in .. what could be presumed as a stylized approximation of a Glix. It was hung on a thin black cord that was adorned with pieces of preserved coral--ostensibly from Kanmarran waters.

 

[Silent_Interim]

On 2/19/2024 at 3:38 AM, Elemental said:

A Showcase of Artwork from the Kingdom of High Ishtahnos

Badal was a long long way away from Veehra and the prospect of travelling so long a distance in microgravity caused many of the Ishtahn's finest artists to balk at the prospect of attending in person. Interplanetary travel was still a new prospect after all and the kinks had yet to be worked out to make such a long journey comfortable. Yet the prospect was for some irresistible and despite initial difficulties, the Ministry of Arts soon had dozens of applicants to sift through. It took a few weeks but they eventually decided on an entrant to showcase Ishtahn culture.

The first is Marcus Langton Dusthide, a master of Gramarye. Very short for an Ishtahn, he stands only six foot six inches. He has long blond hair that reaches all the way down his back and he is dressed in a rather drab suit with the lower half of his face concealed by a pale blue bandana. A rather unassuming individual all things considered. His art, meanwhile, is anything but. Numerous large scrolls of deep blue, red and black parchment covered with zoomorphic calligraphy in silver and gold ink fill his display area. In pride of place is the largest, an enormous piece of red dyed parchment adorned with a calligraphic wolf seated and howling at a calligraphic sun, both in iridescent silver ink. From afar the broad strokes of the picture give the impression of simplicity and elegance, but when viewed from very close up the large characters making up the body of the wolf and the disk and rays of the sun above are in fact composed of thousands of tiny characters.

As he waits to be judged he sits at a portable writing table, scribing images on the Jy'mar in plain black ink on plain parchment.

Karim-12 inspects the Ishtahn artwork meticulously after a quick glance at the broader pieces, reading each character individually. Though ze read quickly, it still takes some time. Ze seem pleased as ze walk away.

On 2/19/2024 at 10:24 AM, farothel said:

When the displays were set-up, Earl Vikesh Bafatis made sure the judges of the contest were made aware that they were ready to be visited.

 

The showcase of ingenuity

Inside there is a large item, about two times man-size and about half as wide and deep as high.  Cables come out at various intervals, connected to some other machines which are working.  Next to the object is another smaller object also connected to it.  They look rather bland, but the diagrams next to the device explains what it does.  At first glance, it's a simple fusion reactor and while this is a small model, it's not uncommon to have them this small to build into fighters and shuttles and the like.

But a closer look on the diagrams showed that this fusion reactor uses equipment normally used to generate artificial gravity fields.  According to the schematics, Bafatis scientists had used that technology to focus the reaction and control it better, therefore creating better output and less waste.  The reaction chamber was also smaller than usual, making the overall system smaller than contemporary designs.

The machines around it are just to use the energy, but they are still a showcase of Bafatis engineering and productivity.

The Showcase of Artwork

The Bafatis psions had created something called a mind canvas.  It was a canvas sheet that would not only take oil paints, but would also make some subtle changes to the painting based upon the mind of the viewer.  While the basic painting would be the same, everybody would see subtle differences in the details.  The paintings that are presented are mostly desert landscapes or the animals that live there.  

One of the newest painters used a very minimalist style, just a few brush strokes left and right to show the landscape, letting the psion part fill in the details.  As the painter, Senarathne, was a psion herself and made her own canvasses to paint, the effect was reinforced.  Her main painting was of a desert road with mountains in the background and a setting sun between the mountains.  A fairly common theme in Bafatis because while they lived in the Northern Oasis of the planet Veehra, they still had a lot of desert around them.  Another painting of the same artist showed a desert fox, a small animal with quite large ears compared to its body.  Again a few brush strokes were made to outline the animal and the psion spells on the canvas would fill in the rest.  Some people even swore they saw the ears twitch.

The Showcase of Agility

In Bafatis there exist a number of dances, some more of a gymnastics .  They are difficult to replicate on other planets due to the higher gravity, but with the same artificial gravity generators they use on ships to lower the gravity on the stage they had been given, it was possible to perform the dance as it should be and not the abbreviated forms that they did without removing part of the gravity.

When everybody was ready, a group of ten people, five men and five women, start simple by moving in a round, women on the inside, men on the outside.  But soon the men picked up the women and threw them up in the air, the low gravity making it very easy.  The women did multiple saltos and flips, before coming down on their hands and after a bridge they stood back up.  Now the women were on the outside of the circle and they picked up the men to throw them up.  The men did the exact same moves.  They repeated this three times before suddenly both groups jumped up and did a triple salto.  As they came back down, they immediately jumped back up and did another triple salto.  Coming back down there were five couple again and they move a almost slow motion around, with big steps and slowly swaying from side to side.  Then they turn towards the spectators and take a bow.

 

The dance would be repeated as many times as was necessary, while the painters would explain things and the technicians would keep the machine running.

 

@Silent_Interim @Featherscale @Lumaeus @SerakHawk

 

The High Lord brushes through the Bafatis entries, seeming thoroughly unsurprised by everything in store.

On 2/19/2024 at 11:08 PM, Rolepgeek said:

The Coalition's displays - or to be more accurate, the displays of the various crews and Heads that had decided to come in response to the publicized invitation to the festival - were, as expected, an eclectic mix. Several were mobile, with only the bare minimum of equipment for their showcases; others were so large that setup had taken most of the previous day. At least one group appeared to have simple left a sign in their assigned space that simply said 'keep an eye out'.

And there were so many of them.

Showcase: A Feast For You And Your Eyes
Despite the provisioned food and drink, a number of Coalition-affiliated showcase runners appeared to have set up essentially half-open food carts, which their chefs used as stages to dish up Coalition street food as a form of performance art - juggling their tools and ingredients, creating intricate patterns and structures from the food while it cooks, making use of flaring open flames, only ever slowing to generate tension for the next act, and all without letting the food burn or be served unfinished. Broadly, the performers (all but one of whom sported extra cybernetic arms), though they made a variety of foods, were proficient at turning what should have otherwise been a relatively tame affair into a true spectacle. The food itself was everything one could ask for from street food, and a far cry from the prim, proper, and nutritionally balanced meals provided by the Jy'mar. No, this was delightfully greasy, mouth-wateringly spicy, and addictively salty, with deserts sweet enough and sharp enough with acids and sugar as to leave one bittersweetly nauseuous at the thought of stomaching any more. Even the notoriously protein-hungry Jy'mar were likely to get a kick out of it, between vat-shrimp & chili stir-fries, garlic cloudfish curries, and the gro-cheese noodle platters. Several carts were even set up to cater to some of the odder anticipated dietary restrictions the cooks expected to be present, just to make sure everyone had a chance to try at least some of it.

Showcase: Mixing It Up
The least surprising entry for anyone even vaguely familiar with Coalition-frequented websites on the InterPlaNet would be, of course, the musicians - though they'd hate to be referred to by the term. No, these were 'recomposers' or 'noise artists' or 'remix pioneers' or even just 'sample-jammers'. It was a common opinion in the mainstream of Coalition musical thought (if it could be called that) if the Empire had two million years of history, everything must have been done already by someone. So most Coalition musicians - sorry, 'remix pioneers' - focused more on remixing what had already been done into something new. Despite the mere fifty-ish year history of the Coalition, the layers of sampling and remixing on most popular tracks had become so densely packed that even the most dedicated PEEARITS had trouble following back the overlapping and interfeeding chains of credit and sourcing and editing and repackaging. Which was, incidentally, how many of those noise artists liked it. This approach to musical performance, of course, was hard to do live - and for that, we must turn to the noise artists who now engage in their craft aboard the Tiotanic. Some of them make use of a multitude PEEARIT controlled directional mics to find random environmental sounds, isolate them, record, and remix them into newly improv'd songs on the spot - complete with audience participation. Several take antagonistic approaches or even intentionally ruin their first few tracks until someone dares to heckle them - at which point they turn the very voice of the heckler into an entire soundscape with which to demonstrate their talent. Others take a more traditional approach, building up songs with playback equipment to loop the new additions to the song until they can begin replaying entire songs, practiced or not, from their individual parts. A very few bring their own pyrotechnics, but almost all have visualizers of some kind with them - and one artist in particular seems more concerned with showing off their ability to use frequency patterns to manipulate this visualizer into a sort of light show, and while the music itself doesn't sound bad, it's clearly a secondary concern for their synesthetic performance style.

Showcase: Visual Unreality
Of course, there are still more permanent forms of media on display - in particular, a series of surreal and psychedelic dreamscapes crafted from planes of intersecting light in virtual reality, holo-displays of seemingly infinite detail - viewers being free to navigate at their leisure, and extreme speed generation of high fidelity two-dimensional artworks by PEEARIT artists in response to audience prompts - which is not without some novelty, given the demonstration of both genuine creativity but also the vague disconnect inherent to the AIs' presence as primarily digital entities, resulting in vaguely ethereal, sometimes uncanny art works capable of being adjusted in real time. But of course, speaking of visual displays...

Showcase: Speedpainting
A high speed cyborg will occasionally skate by, separate from any stationary showcase, perfectly weaving through crowds, corridors, and walkways - carrying a small device not unlike a multi-nozzle spray gun, and chased by an equally fast cyborg with a similar but distinctive device. The first of these will attempt to rapidly graffiti showcases with as striking a display as possible - the second comes to spray a material which dissolves the paint. If the second catches the first, they switch roles. Every artwork thus created is entirely ephemeral and unique, as the product of fevered minds working overtime to try to one-up one another in high-speed competition, all the while avoiding the exasperated security personnel of their Jy'mar hosts. Black Cloud performance art at its most pure - even if every other Coalition-affiliated showcase finds it incredibly annoying to have their equipment be the ones to get sprayed.

Showcase: Speedrunning, Speedleveling, and Adversarial Improvisation
In a similar vein but with rather more decorum are the various high-fidelity PEEARIT-designed simulators and associated displays. Some are available for audience participation to engage with anything from abstract full immersion puzzle games to combat simulators realistic enough to serve as training for Coalition military personnel (and to warrant 'potentially retraumatizing content' warnings for veterans come to participate...), but others serve as a showcase for speedrunners in transparent full-body-use VR spheres to compete for the best times on levels generated nearly as fast by PEEARIT level builders, similarly live and on display for the audience. Few of the speedrunners are able to complete multiple levels in a row without breaks, as a result of the total body workout provided. Fewer still are pleased to have to take the break their bodies demand from them, lungs heaving and hearts pounding, metallic limbs creaking from the heat buildup. These are the crucible that Hǎi Píng & Dǎo-Māo were forged in, and likely to remain the source of the greatest warriors and commanders the Coalition has to offer for some time yet, with the newfound lull in raiding with the anouncement of the Elect.

Showcase: Flesh & Chrome:
Most conventional, and perhaps least impressive for that - or perhaps most acceptable - are the displays of prototype cybernetics by aspiring cyber-engineers, the demonstrations of surgical techniques for implantation, and the multitude of prosthetic design tutorials by Coalition medical professionals hoping to use the Festival as an opportunity to spread their knowledge for the better. Somewhat less conventional would be the number of relatively young Coalition volunteers opting to undergo public surgery to demonstrate all of these - attended, fortunately, by the ministrations of a team of biokineticists and TrueFaith healers.

Showcase: Starlight & Shadow:
Least expected, though, is the lightshow made entirely of...runes? While runecrafting, though often dismissed, was known to be practiced among the pirates to a greater extent than most, this was stranger. A single androgynous-looking cyborg, with at least a dozen fingers on each hand that remain distinct digits right down to the wrist, typing rapidly on a set of holo-keyboards that do indeed appear to correspond to some sort of distilled runic alphabet, actually typing out spells for their display. The trenchcoat they wear conceals much of their form, as does the swirl of glowing runes surrounding them and filtering up into what appears to be a popular, if old, Coalition action holofilm focused on questions of identity, the nature of reality and the tradeoffs between self-actualization and social comforts. And it appears to be created entirely from memory (though that says little given the existence of PEEARITs in the Coalition), and more importantly, entirely manually from the runic spells. If one looks closely, one can still make out the character forms as they're twist into the colors and shapes in some of the slower scenes, shrinking, but never quite disappearing entirely.

And, of course, the Captain of the Coalition was nowhere to be found, the Coalition's recent military maneuvers requiring her expert attentions instead.

The static displays seem to make only the scantest of impressions on the High Lord, as ze pass by. The cybernetics and runecraft get little more than a glance, while the shows of PEEARIT art seem to evoke a yawn. The music has zir head bopping for a few minutes in apparent enthusiasm before ze move on, and ze watch the culinary displays with a little interest. The gaming holds zir attention for a little while, as does the speedrunning, but ultimately ze seem ready to dismiss the pirates and move on.

And then ze see the speedpainting.

Cackling with glee, Karim-12 stalks the cyborgs and their ongoing chase, never directly intervening but occasionally pulling in obstructions of zir own to make the chase more interesting, at one point toppling a display of cabbages from one of the Coalition food carts to make a hazard zone in front of the runners. Ze consistently help both parties evade the Jy'mar authorities, and despite never seeming to move faster than a light jog, ze effortlessly keep up with the pair.

On 2/20/2024 at 6:19 AM, EmBark said:

Before the Showcase of Ingenuity

Baladisilab Tesela nervously tinkered with his contraption. It seemed to be a mess of a chair with mechanical bits and bobs sticking out of it on all sides. There couldn't possibly be more spanners in his works as at odd angles there were some still attached to the bolts they had been used to tighten. Baladisilab at one point even got asked by someone passing by if the spanners were part of the thing itself.

"They asked if the spanners were part of the thing itself!" Baladisilab said in an exasperated voice, throwing up his hands as if he were milking a giant space cow.

"Well, maybe you should remove the spanners when you no longer need them then." Another engineer remarked helpfully.

Baladisilab considered it, then dismissed it.

"That's silly, what if I need to tune things further while it is in use?"

He removed the spanners a minute later. He'd claim he thought of it himself.

 

During the Showcase of Ingenuity

Entry, CW: arachnophobia?

The chair was large and comfortable, letting the occupant lean back and put their feet up. A bunch of multi-segmented almost spider-leg-like arms emerged and would hover over the occupant, scanning their face, their hairline if they had one, their horns if they had any, their hands and fingernails if they had any, and their feet if they were bare.

Then, they would set to work. Three of the arms with their little hands would start gently brushing the occupant's hair and untangling it, then making it wet and lathering it up with an admixture of cleaning agent and moisturizer, before giving a gentle scalp massage. At the same time, four other arms would clean the hands and nails and precisely desintegrate the excess of nail sticking out beyond the fingertips, then gently filing them down to an agreeable length. Baladisilab was biting his own fingernails while the desintegration was happening, because only then did he realize how wrong that could go if his calibration had been off. He praised Science and the Emperor when everything went fine. Four of the other arms would do the same for any bare feet, but if they were shod in footwear they would instead clean them and any leather was given a shine. A number of smaller arms also gave gentle massages to the neck, while something within the chair itself moved to do the same for the shoulders and back. Lastly, and similarly suddenly distressing to the nail desintegration for Baladisilab, two arms would apply a moisturizing and hair-softening cream to the face, and those with facial hair were offered the chance for a shave--those without would simply get a clean and soft face. At the end of this small-scale spa-like treatment, the hair was rinsed and dried and gently brushed again.

The whole process took less than ten minutes and left the occupant clean, presentable and refreshed.

"Although," Baladisilab remarked to an onlooker while their partner was in the chair, "you can ask it to take longer with the massage, and there's optional massage-arms for the legs, arms and tail."

 

OOC

This is my last entry here. Thank you for hosting this! This was very fun to all think up and write out. I'll of course still be in here in case anyone wants to interact with any of the characters or someone is asking questions in-character about the showcases.

 

Though Karim-12 watches the device in action, ze refuse to take a seat in the chair, and scamper off rapidly.

On 2/20/2024 at 6:48 PM, Stygian said:

Entry

Compared to the neon discord of the Coalition, the kanmarran showcase begins as a much quieter affair. A portable screen stands nearly ten feet high--encircling much of the exhibit as workers move to push setpieces into position.

Amidst those readily visible, Taio Wakari stands with a heavy sort of scowl. The broad-shouldered male is dressed in robes made of synthetic fibers--woven with rich shades of violets, blues, and silver lining wound in intricate patterns. As he moves about, the most striking thing about the elder kanmarran is his carapace... Delicate carvings span the entirety of the back plate, carefully burnt into the exoskeleton. The male himself is a mural--save, perhaps, for some rather jagged cracks that interrupt the artistry. Battle wounds, perhaps.

But, where most of his kind would molt into a new skin with this amount of damage, metal plates are bolted key places to hold the carapace together without causing undue harm. He greets any passersby with a sort of blunt affect--neither overly friendly, nor overly cold. Roughly an hour into the display, the workers pull away the portable barriers to reveal a large stage--and with it, two dozen more kanmarra of varying ages--all of them adults. They are dressed in similar affect--many of them bearing symbols depicting their lineage within the Clans.

Speakers whir to life on either side of the stage, attached to a microprocessor that is loaded with the Arkhive's xenolinguistic database. Combined with some rudimentary processes from the Biarbu, the entire system translates the spoken, native word of the Eucrus Alliance into Low Imperial, as well as the languages of each of the judges, participants, overlaid at different pitches and staggered in such a way as to avoid becoming pure, white noise.

Taio Wakari steps to the head of the group and turns out to face the audience, claws slapping onto his knees. His voice booms, reminiscent of the roil of the Sea of Clouds in its intensity. "LISTEN! Hear. Us. Well!" The dancers follow suit in their movements, slightly delayed from the leader in this call and response.

"Prepare. Yourself!" Taio calls again. The dancers stomp in rhythm, their claws bouncing from chitinous plate to chitinous plate on their legs and thighs.

"I die. I die. I live!" The dancers reply as they posture aggressively, arms crossing their bodies as their claws collide with their opposing forearms.

"Dark above! Fire below!" Taio bellows, the assembled dancers' claws resting on their hips, while he reaches with a trembling claw down to the floor and raises it up high, as if to emulate a plume of fire.

In the background, stagehands move a massive model replica of an Alliance capital ship across the stage in what becomes more apparent as an interpretive retelling of kanmarran history--the evacuation of their homes during the War of Eternal Bombardment. As the ship moves through the stage, members of each Clan help each other to 'board', fleeing from some unseen calamity off-screen--though the implication is quite clear.

The effects are largely practical and possibly quite quaint depend on one's view of art--it is never more obvious than when the stagehands set the 'ship' down, and the weight hitting the floor reverberates near the exhibit. Holographic displays do provide knee high plumes of fire in compromise--to avoid bringing true pyrotechnics aboard a civilian gathering.

The assembled dancers whoop and continue the response, clacking, stomping. "For we are the ones who stand! So that those on our backs may climb!"

"HOLD. FAST!"

At the barked command, each kanmarran sweeps up a leg, snatching up what looks to be a ceremonial (and clearly dull) polearm and clasping it between both claws. The shafts are polished, dark wood, and the "blades" are made of some darkened steel. The stagehands, now dressed in more muted, darker colors, collide with the line of dancers and are shoved away, tumbling backward off the front of the stage and racing off behind the curtains. 

"Duty within! Life will out! The Vigil stands!"

Nearly half of the dancers hold their position with the polearms as if in a defensive line, while ten kanmarra, each bearing a different mark of Clan heraldry convene in a circle behind them. They lock claws and clash in a mock fight, before Taio breaks through the circle and shoves two of them aside as if to break the dispute. The ten lock arms, with Taio reaching up from the heavens and laying his claw in the center of the circle. Ten claws follow suit to meet his own. An agreement is struck. The beginning of the Compact.

Holographic images shine in the background as those playing the role of 'diplomats' move to the side--a highlight reel of Kanmarran society. Births, children playing.. Great artists, engineers.. Scientists, studying kanmarran patients in what looks to be some sort of medical stasis tank. Dozens of different lives are arrayed in a short vignette that exemplifies a life of service, but also beauty and culture beyond that of simply war.

"The sun shines again!"

The lights dim, the kanmarran performers set down props and leave the stage. A twenty minute break is taken while Taio fields questions from any passersby about Kanmarran history--or meanings within the performance that may have been missed. When the curtain rises again, it is a variety of artistic endeavors. One Kanmarran in military dress leans on what looks to be a modified tattooing chair, their back exposed while the artist begins to inscribe a small mosaic along the ridges of his carapace.

At a different table, a female crafter demonstrates the process behind some kanmarran jewelry--weaving bracelets with large gemstones that are common to more aquatic environments. At another, a sculptor begins to set up a table. And finally, one particularly androgynous kanmarran who stands at nearly eight feet tall seems to be hosting an arm wrestling contest.

 

 

The High Lord pauses to watch the dancing display, but seems ready to move on before the break. Ze glance the arm wrestler up and down before sniffing with disdain and moving along.

On 2/23/2024 at 4:50 AM, Rocket Relm said:

There are a few offers, a few watchers, and a few games going on of the various sorts. However, this is the one offer being made to Cascade herself. She smiles after recognizing the more direct challenge offered, bearing this wide, mirthful smile.

"Titan Singing it is. Now, I will provide us with entry level decks and rules, it would literally be unfair otherwise. The kind of thing one is and can be expected to play on setup, rather than a personally crafted pasttime. I terribly enjoy this game, it has much cultural relevance in terms of teaching young people the basics of wielding innate magics, what the elements are. The rules of the Olden Formatte are mostly modeled on accuracy to real life over a strict sense of fairness, but we're not playing that today."

(We can roll for some level of outcome if preferred to the duel itself.)

Karim-12 riffles through the rules at a blistering pace. "Very good." Ze stretch languidly. At no point do zir eyes shift from that half-lidded stare, or the grin on zir face from its predatory aspect. "Shall we?"

[FriendlyHeadcrab]

Upon arrival, the party from Burtzlund showered the Jy'mar people with complements, for their architecture and art. They also would have cheered on others in the event and made themselves useful in the event. However, the time was lacking to describe it properly.

 

They also pay their tax. May the empire provide its wisdom to aid us in avoiding the arsonals of damocles.

[SerakHawk]

As the dignitaries make their rounds and while the festival starts winding down the three Judges and Console Prisca emerge from one of the back rooms after some long conversations on the showcases.

Not wanting to waste time Prisca makes her way to the stage, and amplifies her voice like she did at the start of the event.

"Guest, dignitaries and visitors from afar. Thank you all for coming and showing the expression of your craft, the culture of your people and the true passions of your heart. It was hard to deliberate and pick the prize winners as you all are truly winners to me in your ability to showcase the best of your peoples. Honourable mentions go out to the Performers of history from the Eucrus Alliance, the Levitating Dancer Epeka Sunderland, and the Tactile painter Pol Mediki!"

A chorous of clapping from the Jy'mar and attending guests pours out as the relevant entries are cheered for their close position. Once a hush falls over the grand hall Prisca starts again.

"Well Done, Onto third! In Third Place we have the Showcase of Artwork from High Ishtahnos! A wonderful blend of meaning intermixed with artwork truly giving expression to what magick and words make up an image!."

 

"In Second place we have the Moonsoul Mountain Historic Display! What a record of history and genealogy! Knowledge and depth of cultural impart on display!"

 

"In First we have the Black Cloud Coalition! A local Badalian group, the winners this evening gave some of my personal staff the runabout - a chase a dash, not that I directed them to stop it! The Purest form of self expression and call is to do what it your passion, despite the thoughts of others, if it is truly the call of your soul. Thank you everyone for coming! Please enjoy the foods and the remaining showcases!"

[EmBark]

On 2/25/2024 at 3:32 AM, SerakHawk said:

"[...]Honourable mentions go out to the Performers of history from the Eucrus Alliance, the Levitating Dancer Epeka Sunderland, and the Tactile painter Pol Mediki!"

A chorous of clapping from the Jy'mar and attending guests pours out as the relevant entries are cheered for their close position. Once a hush falls over the grand hall Prisca starts again.

Pol Mediki bows and waves with a smile at the crowd.

In that same crowd, Leyonarad the artist, stands frozen and looking incredulous at his art patron.

"They credit him?" The llort mutters, not believing it. The honour of being so close to a podium spot for his art completely evaporates from him as he stares and his expression twists. "I put my blood, glow and spittle in that work!" He takes his poofy hat and throws it on the ground, looking about ready to jump Pol or to go seize whatever sound amplification device he can to set things right. Unfortunately for Leyonarad, the crowd is too thick, too excited, and his body too weak. If only he'd been a flight artist instead, he could exact justice. Justice for Leyonarad! He grits his teeth. Justice would have to wait.