Her Mantle Is Love

[Evenstar]

Rough D/S, questionable consent practices, light painplay, Spike being a bad role model, mildly degrading dirty talk, use of stress positions. Don't try this at home, kids: Eli has 40+ years of experience at this, and even for her this kind of thing is reckless.

Spoiler: More details of recklessness.

Looking at that first position change here, particularly the knee pin. It seems basic, but it's surprisingly dangerous: if Elisandra slipped, her whole body weight could have fallen onto Spike's calf. With all that force concentrated through Eli's knee, she could well have broken Spike's leg. Seriously: don't try this at home.

 

[Evenstar]

Light bloodplay, hypnosis, lost time, loving descriptions of vulpine dick, BDSM, cock worship, breeding fantasies, edging, tail bondage, fellatio, lots and lots of fluffy tails. The hypnosis in this is intended for Elisandra, not for you. If you think you're experiencing a hypnotic effect, PM me so we can sort things out.

 

[Evenstar]

Lust aura, abuse of authority, manipulation, sadism, dominance games, screwed-up relationships, general bitchiness, general scarcity of WAFF or fluff.

The above content warnings can be assumed to apply whenever Liath interacts with another sister for any significant period of time, and will be summarized in future as simply "Liath talks."

These warnings continue until the completion of the chapter entitled "Judgement."

You may use this link to skip directly to the aftermath of this encounter with Liath.

 

[Evenstar]

Liath Talks, see warnings for Seventh-Circle.
Fucked up relationships even by Liath's standards, hurting your loved ones, being hurt by your loved ones, doing things you'll later regret, being the monster, trauma and/or aftermath thereof, serious & calculated threats, sexual harassment/assault, extremely dubious consent, minor hostile mind control, misapplied sadism.

 

[Evenstar]

Pt. 1:
Xenophilia, exotic anatomy, multiple genitalia, bondage, suspension play of dubious safety, lack of prearranged safewords. Please don't try and emulate a giant spider with a leftover coil of climbing rope, you will have a very bad time and possibly do yourself permanent damage.

Pt. 2:
BDSM mishaps, amateur mistakes with bondage/suspension, not being able to safeword effectively, fainting, general lack of sexiness.

Spoiler: Extended Safety Blogging

Please, please, please. Don't even attempt to suspend people until you have the guidance of an experienced rigger. Portia thought she was being careful by making sure Elisandra couldn't fall on her head, but she didn't have an escape plan or even safety scissors, didn't arrange a safe-sign for a scene where someone might not be able to make noises, wasn't careful enough about circulation, and didn't consider the inherent risks involved in standing somebody on their head. Even if you avoid all these risks yourself, you will quite possibly fall victim to other dangers not here covered. Were you aware of the existence of Suspension Trauma? Neither was I until I did some research for this scene.

Seriously. There's a reason why pro riggers don't share a lot of info: suspension's level of risk is comparable to breathplay. Do Not Try This At Home.

 

[Evenstar]

Here are the essentials of this quest's mechanics:
People have fundamental Drives. These are very basic desires, such as Sex, Companionship, Belonging, Power, and Freedom.
Different people are motivated more by different Drives.
Different people associate different Drives more closely: Sex and Belonging might be essentially one drive for some people, and very separate for others.
It takes Will to wake up a Drive and use it to power your actions, or to suppress a Drive that's opposing your current actions.
Will regenerates from sleep.
If you have no Will to spend, you can instead take Stress.
Having Stress makes you worse at everything.
If you at any point have five or more Stress, you suffer a Trauma and clear all your Stress.
Having suffered Trauma makes your Drives less controllable.

 

[Evenstar]

Mechanics, pt 0: How People Work

Her Mantle is Love uses a freeform system tempered by dice rolls. Many updates have this dice system somewhat elided, to a greater or lesser degree: it should be treated as descriptive, not prescriptive, as it is used more often to concretely describe a potential consequence or a character's current state than to directly determine outcomes.

As such, it's more important to understand how I model people in this quest than how I mechanically represent that model.

The following is Mantle's model of human behavior, before any numbers or dice get involved:

Human Nature:
1: Everyone has the same basic emotional drives.
2: However, individuals attach different value and meaning to these same emotional drives.
3: Emotional drives aren't constantly active: something has to make that drive relevant to the current situation.
4: Once a drive "wakes up", it won't go back to sleep until it's either satisfied or deliberately suppressed.
5: Sometimes this means persistent drives get in the way of useful work.
6: Suppressing inconvenient drives takes willpower.
7: You can also use willpower to deliberately wake a useful drive, also known as "motivating yourself."
8: People have a limited reserve of willpower to spend from.
9: Willpower primarily regenerates during sleep.
10: Obeying your drives takes no willpower at all.

Human Conflict:
1: When people get into a conflict, it's because there's some goal at stake.
2: Goals are more commonly emotional than practical.
3: You win a conflict when your opponent allows you to complete your goal.
4: This may be accomplished in the following ways:

I. Make them want you to achieve your goal. (Persuade them.)
II. Form a mutual compromise with them. (Barter with them.)
III. Deal with whatever obstacles they produce. (Ignore them.)
IV. Escalate the conflict until they give in. (Bully them.)
V. Render them unable to object. (Destroy them.)​

5: The following techniques are commonly used towards this purpose:

I. Convince them that your goal is good. (Teach them.)
II. Convince them to make an exception for you. (Appeal to them.)
III. Offer them something else they value in exchange. (Tempt them.)
IV. Give them something more interesting to do. (Distract them.)
V. Wear them down through persistence. (Exhaust them.)
VI. Make them worry for something they care about. (Threaten them.)
VII. Hurt them until they can no longer resist you. (Attack them.)​

6: Options higher up these lists are generally preferred.
7: The more someone cares about a goal, the further down each of these lists they will go in order to achieve it.

Human Suffering:
1: People become stressed when their goals can't be achieved through willpower.
2: As people become more stressed, everything else seems less important.
3: When people are highly stressed, their will becomes unable to control their drives.
4: Chronic or intense stress produces coping mechanisms.
5: These coping mechanisms often take the form of dangerously untrue beliefs.
6: Once learned, these untrue beliefs are as hard to unlearn as any honestly held value.

Details:
These are the fifteen common human drives, organized into groups of three simply because my brain likes organizing things into groups. (It helps me remember them on the spot.)

Primal Drives	Satiation Drives	Self-Image Drives	Resource Drives	Empathic Drives
Survival	Sex	Companionship	Wealth	Retribution
Safety	Fun	Belonging	Power	Duty
Freedom	Relaxation	Respect	Knowledge	Compassion