UNICORN HUNTING

[goneawaymod]

unicorn hunting

PLOT DESCRIPTION
Wanting to strike up a good relationship with a town with many magical resources the group is dispatched to help the town with a magical plague harming its children. The only thing that can cure them is the unicorns in the nearby magical woods. However, due to past attempts at capture, the unicorns no longer trust any of the townspeople and can reocgnize them on site. The town wants the New Hires to try their hand at luring them in.

The only catch: the unicorns aren't attracted to virgins, they're attracted to emotional vulnerability, and they'll only come if the whole group displays it. Loudly. Which means the New Hires will have to shout their insecurities into the forest and submit to the mortifying ordeal of being known.

After the unicorns are caught they'll also have to navigate a difficult moral choice.

SCENARIO

Meanwhile, one of the locations Jorgmund is building connections with is a small village in an wooded area that one could easily distinguish as “enchanted”, on account of the overgrown mushrooms and general sparkliness of the air. Sunbeams lance down, rainbows seem to sprout out regardless of lighting. Lush berries hang from the bushes and shiny red apples dangle from the trees.

Unfortunately, the idyllic aura of the town is besmirched by the sad fact that the children in the town have all been struck by a mysterious disease - a pox that puts children into an endless sleep and has been debilitating this town for weeks. The locals know that the only cure is fresh emotional wounds for the unicorns that inhabit the woods, but their own fear and sorrow over their children isn’t sufficient to get the wily beasts to cooperate. In exchange for their allyship, they require assistance luring in the healing unicorns, which will require public displays of emotional vulnerability from the hires. Beat poetry readings, a cappella ballads, merely shouting into the woods - so long as the hires bare their wounds and weaknesses to the forest, the unicorns will approach.

There’s still a little struggle involved, though - just because a unicorn gets close doesn’t mean it’s willing to give its forces over to the sick children of the town, or to humankind in general. Unicorns must be lured and lassoed and forced into the role of caretaker, which the Jorgmund insists is both for the best and a task that will be well-compensated.

This is, naturally, even more difficult when other forest denizens decide to interfere; in addition to the mortification of shouting your deepest fears into the forest, a hire might find themself accosted with tricky imps trying to steal their belongings, or pixies trying to pluck out their eyes. The local fae are particularly sneaky, trying to play pranks or draw the hires into loser’s contracts to prevent them from ever going home. One might find that the mortifying ordeal of being known is small potatoes compared to the trials the magical beings in the woods are setting up.

For now.

OOC DETAILS
➤ Characters have been given enchanted golden lariats to catch the unicorns with. Once they get them around their necks, they'll be far more docile.

➤ This is a multi-part plot. A later part will involve some moral choices about what to do with the unicorns after the children are cured.

➤ The vulnerable thoughts they shout have to shout have to be fairly extreme, though characters who have very few insecurities can get away with less serious ones. They have to shout them at a fairly high volume.

➤ Other signs of vulnerability like crooning a love song dedicated to someone they have a crush on are also valid.

➤ Players can make up mystical annoyances or minor threats in the forest, and have the freedom to make them anything that might be reasonably found in your average generic enchanted forest.

➤ Feel free to ask questions in the question top-level below.

Comments

[thewholeofthemoon]

Believe it or not, I'm not much better at this woods stuff.

[Remus manages to give the young man a half smile.]

And no, I doubt there's a way that this keeps from being weird. I'm almost positive that our corporate overlords are depending on that.

[No, he doesn't think that Jorgmund is behind this. But he absolutely thinks that they'd take advantage of it.]

[likeits1999]

Of fuckin' course they are.

[ Kevin's shoulders slump a little as he says it. He would completely believe it. ]

Hey, you know magic stuff, right? Do you like, know anything about unicorns before we all go yelling at 'em?

I have kind of maybe two things I know about a spirit called Unicorn but that's kinda... they are not two big things.

[thewholeofthemoon]

[Remus laughs softly at the 'you know magic stuff'. Since that's certainly one way to describe it.]

I'm afraid Care of Magical Creatures wasn't my best subject. And I'm pretty certain that the ones back home don't come up to you because you're shouting about things that are embarrassing.

[Still, he does look toward the woods, considering.]

I know that they prefer women, though not necessarily virgins. Younger unicorns aren't as fussy and will tolerate men as well. They're terribly fast.

[He...might have tried chasing one, once. Back when he was at Hogwarts. Didn't catch it, obviously.]

Unicorn horn is a common potion ingredient. After all, parts of the horn do shed and you don't have to harm the unicorn to get them. Unicorn hair is very strong and can be used to bind bandages, though mostly it's used in wand cores.

[He goes to pat the wand at his side. Since they gave it back to him for this mission. And it does have a unicorn hair core.]

That said. While some potions that use unicorn horn are healing potions? You'd generally need something stronger for maladies such as this town is seeing. And, of course, as I said. That's all true of the unicorns back home, not necessarily these ones.

[likeits1999]

[ Kevin listens. He probably won't remember all of it, but it's always interesting talking to somebody who knows things he doesn't. ]

Did you learn all that at like, uh, wizard college? Is wizard college a thing wizards have?

[ Aaaaand he's been sidetracked from the mission. At least a little. He doesn't have to be too focused to trailblaze, at least. ]

[thewholeofthemoon]

Wizards don't go to university. [That was what Kevin meant, right? He thought he remembered that bit of trivia.] Well. Not universities run by wizards. There are a few who have gone through Muggle --erm. Non-magicl university, but most of them come from non-magical families to begin with.

[It's easier to talk about this than think about laying himself bare, making himself vulnerable. There aren't many things he could say that would make him feel that wide open and he doesn't like the idea of saying them in front of somebody else.]

But no. I learned them at the boarding school we go to in the UK. And a fair amount from my father. He's a magical creatures specialist. I ended up leaning more toward Defense Against the Dark Arts, personally, but there was a war going on.