SEABOUND! A LOCKED TOMB UNIVERSE SURVIVAL ADVENTURE AND HOUSE IDENTIFICATION TOOL
You and a couple of your friends, if you have any, are on a boat
in the ocean. Why are you here? Is this even relevant in the universe? Who cares. This ocean’s purpose is to help you pick… your true House identity.
Luckily, on this magical survival journey you have the opportunity to pick items to help you. You may salvage five items of the fifteen I am about to list under the cut.
These items will be the key to who you are, secretly, on the inside. You’re
probably going to die, but at least you will know who you are, which has to be
some kind of comfort, right
These items will score you points with one or more Houses. Once
you have made your selection, read the guide, tally your points, and discover…
Yourself!!!!
PICK YOUR TOP FIVE OUT OF…
A sack
of mandibles
A sack
of fresh human hands
A
rolled-up flag of the Cohort, soldiers of the blessed Necrolord Prime
Pen and
flimsy
A bottle
of 160 proof rum
A
waterproof portrait of the Emperor, here portrayed as the Merciful Resurrector
An empty
bottle with a lid to seal it
An ancient flare gun of curious make
A book of antiquated Ninth House prayers
A 25 litre container of BLOOD
A single sharp rapier
A shaving mirror
A case of absolutely disgusting army rations, hard and bad
A case of extremely glamorous luxe rations, but poisoned
A tinier, leakier fold-out raft, with a dubious motor
What’s that, you want it in image format???
WRITE YOUR TOP FIVE DOWN………..
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
It may be helpful to organise a tally sheet, like so…..
Don’t scroll down until you have made your choices…
No peeking past this point….
I mean it…………..
DO NOT LOOK BELOW UNTIL YOU HAVE SETTLED YOUR CHOICES, UNLESS YOU ARE A HUGE CHEATER,
IN WHICH CASE GIVE YOURSELF AN EXTRA +10 THIRD HOUSE POINTS
*****************
ITEM GUIDE
*****************
A SACK OF OLD OSSICLES
+15 Ninth House points
Only a Ninth House necromancer would
want this. Not even a bone necromancer would look in joy on a sack of ossicles.
If it was a more useful bone or even a fresher bone, sure, or let’s say a whole
skeleton, that would be arguably useful, but in the hands of most bone adepts
the ossicle is simply an ossicle. You’re from the Ninth House if you ranked
this highly, which means odds are good that you are 90+ and have kidney and
bladder problems.
A SACK OF FRESH HUMAN HANDS
+10 Third House points
+7 Seventh House points
+6 Second House points
+5 Third House points
+5 Fourth House points
+5 Fifth House points
+5 Sixth House points
+5 Ninth House points
Fresh human hands are generally
useful. Fresh flesh (say that five times fast) will carry a goodly amount of
thanergy (death energy) and thalergy (life energy), which in the hands
of a necromancer might be put to good purpose. Extra points to the Third and
Seventh houses, places where you’re likely to find very talented flesh
magicians; five points to the other houses as flesh magic is quite generally
used, and if not, there’s a whole articulating hand in there for the bone
magicians. The Ninth House don’t rate this quite as highly as the sack of
ossicles because you have to get the flesh off first. The Eighth House does not
want your sack of fresh human hands.
The Second House gets an extra point
because we could always eat those hands. We’ve eaten worse.
A ROLLED-UP FLAG OF THE COHORT,
SOLDIERS OF THE BLESSED NECROLORD PRIME
+15 Second House points
+5 Seventh House points
+1 point for every other House
Only a Second House denizen would
think this was a must-have. It doesn’t even have a pole. You can’t fly it. You
can just look at it and think patriotic thoughts about the Cohort. The only
reason you get +1 from any other House is because you could maybe use it as
shade. The Seventh House scores a cool five points off this one because it
would be a very Seventh House thought to be found dead and draped in the Cohort
flag. Symbolic… aesthetic…. Raw
PEN AND FLIMSY
+15 Sixth House points
+10 Fifth House points
+10 Seventh House points
+10 Eighth House points
Reaching for the pen and flimsy first
is a very Sixth House thing to do, because you’re going to immediately try to form a
committee, have a huge argument, split off on your own and do some kind of brainstorm of ideas, then maybe you’re going to
write down a bunch of bullshit equations and jot notes on the back about ways
in which this might contribute to your research. The Fifth House also may well
reach for this, but it’s to write down everyone on the boat’s memoirs, and
perhaps a group letter expressing regret at what a bish they’ve made of it and
perhaps a small measure of buttoned-up, restrained feeling for their lovers
back home.
The Seventh House have written a
single, very beautiful and oblique sentence about the water. The Eighth House
have written down a list of any moral crimes committed on the boat.
A BOTTLE OF 160 PROOF RUM
+15 Third House points
+5 Fourth House points
+1 Second House points
CUP OF ACE, CUP OF GOOSE, CUP OF CRIS
The good Third House citizen has
resigned themselves to death, but to not go gentle into that good night. The
Fourth House thinks they could light this on fire, or something? Who knows
The Second House citizen will surprise
you by doing a generous shot of this before everyone starts playing Mercy
Stab The Weakest Members Of The Boat So They Won’t Have To Suffer.
A WATERPROOF PORTRAIT OF THE EMPEROR
+15 Eighth House points
+5 Seventh House points
+5 Ninth House points
The Eighth House citizen will pray at
this grimly until they die. The Ninth House citizen will also do a certain amount
of praying at this grimly until they die, but get less points because they’ll
also be praying to other things.
The Seventh House citizen may hope to
drape the Cohort flag over one of their dead bodies, and this to be held by
another, and then they’ve got a tableau so symbolic that their rescuers will
set it up as an art installation.
AN EMPTY BOTTLE WITH A LID TO SEAL IT
+9 Sixth House points
+9 Fifth House points
+9 Eighth House points
There’s no water around, so what are
you going to do with this EXCEPT use it to put your rolled-up memoirs, thought
crimes, or the useful rebuttal to that one article you just thought up and hope
someone will rescue and publish?
AN ANTIQUE FLARE GUN OF CURIOUS MAKE
+15 Fourth House points
+5 Fifth House points
+5 Sixth House points
This thing will blow your head off.
It’s a gun. Don’t – don’t fucking fire it here (NOISE OF BODY PARTS HITTING WATER)
It is intensely Fourth House to take
an unbelievably dangerous piece of kit you barely understand and bravely fire
it in the hope of getting rescued. It is also intensely Fifth and Sixth house
just to keep a museum piece around so you can look at it and admire it. How
interesting our antecedents were, to be sure
A BOOK OF ANTIQUATED NINTH HOUSE
PRAYERS
+15 Ninth House points
+5 Sixth House points
+5 Seventh House points
+1 Fifth House points
‘Nuff said.
The other points reflects different
desperations in the Sixth and Fifth houses are for reading material, and the
Seventh House might add this to the tableau as an Enigma.
A TWENTY-FIVE LITRE CONTAINER OF
BLOOD!!!!
+9 Fifth House points
Nobody wants this and very few people
are talented enough to separate the toxic iron stew from some drinkable plasma,
or something. The Fifth House in its boundless optimism may take this thinking
they might call a ghost, but otherwise, yuk
A SINGLE SHARP RAPIER
+10 Second House points
+9 Fourth House points
+9 Seventh House points
+2 Third House points
The Second House knows that the death
of a colleague neatly stabbing you is better than a death by drowning. The
Fourth House is going to fuck up an octopus. The Seventh House is going to have
it present, centrally, on the boat, and cast down glances through their
eyelashes at it but otherwise never mention its presence, tortured. The Third
House just wants a sword for the delicious drama. Delicious, delicious drama
A SHAVING MIRROR
+6 Fourth House points
+2 Third House points
A mirror can reflect the sun,
generating up to seven million candlepower in light. A mirror would be a very
Fourth House idea: something that sounds unrealistic and stupid on first blush,
but turns out to be a one in a million incredible idea that may even save your
life.
The Third House just want to check
their mascara, and also see over their shoulder before one of their boat
colleagues sticks the single sharp rapier inside them. Drama
A CASE OF ABSOLUTELY DISGUSTING ARMY
RATIONS, HARD AND BAD
+9 Second House points
+1 to every other House
We can’t fault you for practicality.
A CASE OF EXTREMELY GLAMOROUS LUXE RATIONS,
BUT POISONED
+8 Third House points
+5 Eighth House points
Fuck this noise and pass me the
caviar, darling
The Eighth House are also ready to
receive the poison, but they will try their damndest not to enjoy it.
A TINIER, LEAKIER FOLD-OUT RAFT, WITH
A DUBIOUS MOTOR
+5 Fourth House points
This is not going to get you five
yards on a free ticket, which is why hopping into it and getting that dusty,
wheezy motor going, then sailing for help as the rest of the boat watches you
sink into the ocean and get snapped up by a giant undead squid is the most
Fourth House thing you could’ve done.
**************
FAQ
**************
WHAT DO I DO IN CASE OF A TIE?
Pick the House descriptor most like
yourself, or most like the person you secretly wish you were, or with the
colours you like best.
WHAT DO I DO IF I DON’T LIKE THE
ANSWER?
We all have to live with pain. I have
gotten sorted into Slytherin House every Sorting test I have ever taken. This
is not correct. I am a muggle, and demand to be treated as such.
BUT I REALLY HATE MY ANSWER.
Then you’re a Firebender. Everyone loves being a Firebender.
CAN I BE IN THE FIRST HOUSE?
No, you cursed grandpa.
ARE YOUR HOUSES REALLY MADE UP OF
NARROW STEREOTYPES?
No. You are just as likely to find a
party-loving Second House member as you are to find a Fourth House deep thinker
who always looks before they leap. These are simply the crude crystallizations,
such as those used for soap operas and toothpaste advertisements.
SOMETHING ELSE?
Whatever your problem, you can always
make up your own House, with the rider that you would have
to make it up as though you were ten years old and were basing it heavily
around whatever you were into at the time, which would mean that my House would
be inspired entirely by the Warcraft II: Tides of Darkness manual
**************
COUNT UP YOUR POINTS, DIVINE YOUR HOUSE, AND
THEN…
Congratulations, dullard/poser/fool/stodge/nerd/drip/zealot/weirdo! You’re in the Second/Third/Fourth/Fifth/Sixth/Seventh/Eighth/Ninth House!!!
Thank you everyone who’s left interesting, lovely notes in my inbox, and I really hope I can respond to them all; I am currently only allowed short bursts of goofing off in a day and I am ashamed to say that I mainly spend them losing my life to the sea ice challenge in Rimworld. Here’s a wonderful question from @sensenoiabout the book that I will put under a read-more due to spoilers –
What a lovely thing to say; thank you, everyone in my inbox is so great.
Let’s say everything had gone according to the Emperor’s plan and Cytherea hadn’t interfered
I will try not to be aggravating and expound loads on “WELL THIS IS WHAT I THINK” because death of the author etc etc who’s to say what’s canon, but this is very funny because I accidentally had this conversation with my editor just the other day. Fragment:
what follows instead is a years-long detailed refurbishment of Canaan House found families etc quiet slice-of-life slow burn romance between various people, only to end in tragedy when they all get botulism from a bad clam, and die
(I don’t think you can even get botulism from fresh clams, so this is even more tragic)
(my editor immediately speculated on what kind of new murders would take place; wow, I was only trying to give some gentle slice-of-life botulism)
In that particular exact scenario (lack of Cytherea, all else the same), which I cannot actually expound fully upon because there are facts from Harrow the Ninth which may prove useful here, I will give this answer on the understanding that I am not saying everything –
Hi! You’ve mentioned several times in interviews that you have a fanfic-writing background. Are you happy to tell your fans where we can find you on AO3, or do you prefer to keep your Real Life Writing and fandom pseud separate, never the twain shall meet?
Not at all, I’ve admitted this to crowds of nonplussed people! I’m pretty open about the fact that I wrote in Homestuck fandom as urbanAnchorite, and I am not ashamed of anything I did there except for the time I tried to convince Monster of Elendhavenauthor Jennifer Giesbrecht to do a story with me where Jade was having Nepeta and Equius’ baby.
I have written elsewhere on the Internet and my very old stuff is still out there on fanfiction.net, but it was all just me doing unbelievably earnest Final Fantasy epics. I’m not precisely ashamed, but my brother still calls me up and quotes choice lines from it to me.
I’m a fandom knucklehead from old times and I am very glad we currently live in the age where you can be open about it. I remember in the early 2000s it was absolutely fucking verboten to mention you’d ever written any of it in case you got sued within an inch of your life, or if people didn’t take you seriously as an artist. I realised the other day that I’d actually read and adored some of N.K. Jemisin’s fanfiction when I was younger, and I welled up with all manner of emotions.
