The Heron’s BalladEvent will run from December 1rst 2023 to January 31rst 2024, with catch-up until February 7th.
In the winter of 506, Padwell hosts a magnificent theatre festival in its capital, to celebrate its culture and impress several important guests invited from abroad. The country’s best performers - as well as many of its worst - have gathered upon its streets to show off their skills.
While the influx of foreign guests makes for a merry atmosphere in Maddox, darker concerns linger beneath. The Redwings fear that some visitors with less-than-pure intentions may have slipped in as well, and are working hard to make sure that no one takes advantage of the festival to strike at Padwell’s heart.
Table of Contents
Rules How to Enter & Event Points Guide Event Objectives Entry Prompts The City of Maddox (setting guide!) Event Prizes How to Submit Entries
To celebrate Padwell’s beloved tradition of theatre, the city of Maddox hosts a large festival through the last month of 506 and into the start of 507. Invitations are sent to powerful figures across the country, and to foreign leaders whom Padwell wishes to curry favour with. If all goes well, this will be a great opportunity for alliance-building and to show off their unique culture.
Queen Tuonetar Padwell, on top of her regular duties as ruler of her country and Aateli representative for Maddox, will be spending much of her spare time during the festival attending major performances and speaking with major visitors. To this end her daughter and heir, Rutinas Aava Padwell, will be assisting to help take some weight off her mother during the festivities, and to help form bonds that will outlive her mother. Aava’s husband, Prince Rhys, also attends the festival, minding their children and putting on a charm offensive for anyone interesting he meets. The most anticipated show of the festival is Xochipilli Heikkilä’s Flower Players, who will be putting on a performance inspired by events in Dutoria last winter, at Prince Ohtli Hall early in 507. Xochi is a deeply respected playwright, famous for penning a tragic retelling of the life of Prince Ohtli, as well as the popular comedy, The Joust. Major members of the Flower Players include a springsinger actor, Pasha, and a merosian actress, Fabia Van Alphen. Among the more minor troupes is an eclectic band with ties to Dutoria, made up of Glyn Froste, Aitla Greyrose, and Sun the sundrake. They are a new group, but very enthusiastic for the opportunity to perform in the same venues as such venerated troupes. While the festival attracts many visitors to Maddox, the most notable are: Empress Usva Kesatuuli of Ilma, representative of High Heart’s people; Princess Caelia Concido, a Merosian ruler; Haffligiensis Ex Nihilo, a former Perigee member and now representing the Southern League; Valdemar Greenbrier, a diplomat representing Dutoria; Marin Daskalov, a pale-eyed representative of Ironbrook; and lastly, a trio of sundrakes who were at the heart of recent unrest in the Tyr Kingdom - Jasper, Asp Daybreak, and Moonstone. All these visitors from abroad have the Redwings in Maddox deeply worried. They fear not the guests themselves, but those with ill intent who might have slipped in along with them - put plainly, agents of Xocrium. To ensure that the festival runs smoothly and that everyone involved can enjoy it in safety, a number of major Redwings agents have flocked to the city to bolster its security. These include Veera Nieminen, acting leader of the Redwings; Toivo Aalto, founder and now-retired leader of the order; Atl Mixcoatl, commander of the border patrol; and lastly, Eleuia Kangas, an experienced healer.
You can enter this event by creating an illustration, story or RP relevant to one of the event prompts (see the Entry Prompts section) provided for the event.
Your work should be clearly related to the event and its prompts. Simply drawing an image of an NPC will not be enough to count as participation. There are no minimum requirements for your entry. It should, however, be clearly relevant to the event, and you will receive EP (event points) based on a mix of effort and a random bonus score! Do not submit “EP sheets” (ie; images with multiple drawings of the same character on it with intent to grind hundreds of points in one entry) - only the first appearance of a character will be counted for EP, unless in the case of comics or animation entries.
There are two major factions involved in The Heron’s Ballad; those working to Padwell’s benefit, and those aligned with Xocrium.
The story of The Heron’s Ballad is told through two parts, each with a set of five prompts. These may be completed in any quantity and order for a span of two weeks after the part began. Completing different prompts in different manners will influence the event ending in various ways.
Part 1
Part 2
Catch-Up Period
Part 1
Part 1 [Dec 1 - Dec 31]Event part 1 is closed. See Part 2 tab for current prompts!
Part 2
Part 2 [Jan 1 - Jan 31]
Event part two runs from January 1rst to 31rst 2024.
The theatre festival continues on unabated, reaching a fever-pitch! Maddox’s guests gather at the city’s most esteemed playhouses, such as Prince Ohtli Hall, to view the most awaited performances of the entire festival.
In the background, however, a deadly game of cat-and-mouse begins; the Redwings have discovered and put a stop to a Division plot to assassinate their Queen, but are still in pursuit of the trio of would-be assassins - Aitla “Greyrose”, Glyn Froste, and “Sun” - who disguised themselves as actors to slip into the city…
Catch-Up Period
Catch-Up [Jan 31 - Feb 7]
The catch-up period will last from January 31rst to February 7th.
THB’s “grace period” is a week-long stretch of time where you can submit late entries for participation credits (event badge & the wildcard ☘ slot earned for submitting one entry for at least three part of the event).
Entries submitted during this time will not count for EP and will not influence the event ending, or count towards earning the prize “special slot”, so that admins may work on the THB event aftermath while this period is ongoing. Maddox [Setting Guide]
**Link to entry**:
**DeviantArt Username**: **Part**: **Prompt**: **Character**: (Yours/the NPC/character you borrowed) **Other Characters/NPCs featured**: (Ignore this if not applicable) **Type of entry**: (RP, art, writing) **EP breakdown**: **Total EP**: Comments are closed.
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