The long night ends with awesome.
Come Winter's Light
was an Exalted Modern shard chat game run by Anthiens, started on RPNation as a hybrid of chat and play-by-post. It was a weekly game, played over IRC.
The game started with the main crew Exalting at a street festival celebrating the launch of a mission to Mars. Over a year, much was changed...
It had an overwhelmingly female presence, though Flawless Glory, a Deathknight, provided a male presence.
It began in 2014 and stopped receiving updates near the end of 2015.
Come Winter's Light contains examples of:
- Artists Are Attractive: Professor Okonkwo/ Amalion's stated reason for her romantic attraction to Trina, her former student before they learned they were part of a Reincarnation Romance.
- Art Attacker: In her first battle, Trina discovers that a picture of a golden sword she draws works exactly like a real one when she pulls it out of the page. Later she uses a painting of a howling wolf to deliver a full-blown sonic attack.
- Art Initiates Life: Most of Trina's drawings and paintings after her Exaltation.
- Ascend to a Higher Plane of Existence: Morena, as part of a Xanatos Gambit that involves her becoming a goddess.
- The Atoner: Jiji, for having created the circumstances that led to this dystopian setting.
- Awesome Moment of Crowning: It happened on the moon!
- BFS: Kosche - any sword in her hands receives an automatic upgrade
- Big Bad: Thrice Damned Gorol
- Butt-Monkey: Roxy. Oh god Roxy. She's got problems with her past life and hid in the caves under the Heptagram for three years, alone because she feared what the government would do to her. It has not done well for her sanity. Her past life was worse.
- Cargo Ship: Trina and Shining Star Ascendant, the in-universe equivalent of the Taj Mahal. Justified in that it turns out to be a living building...and the physical structure is only one of its many bodies.
- Childhood Friend: Anne and Bran, who have been friends their whole lives.
- Defector from Decadence: Bran and all of the Scourges. Though his means of "defection" is...unique.
- Eagleland: Meruvia. Definitely a Type II.
- Enemy Mine: Two self-proclaimed Deathlords, who are against what Gorol is planning with the Underworld.
- Everyone Calls Him "Barkeep": Jiji, their mentor, which means "old man" or "gramps."
- Expy: Kosche is an expy of Cassie and Anthy Himemiya, sword and all.
- Fantastic Racism: "Greenies" or rather Haltans are discriminated against, being historically chattel slavery in the past.
- Genius Loci: Amalion, the Manse of Echoes Ascending, is the embodiment of art and architecture, particularly magical architecture. Can take the form of a living building or a woman whose veil hides a familiar face.
- Great Offscreen War: Heaven saw war long ago, but God is Malfeas, who is a demiurge - not the true creator of this world. Thus he won - for now.
- Happily Adopted: Seen with Bran and Morena's relationship. Not so much the others.
- Heroic Sacrifice: Jiji.
- Intimate Artistry: After Trina discovers Professor Okonkwo's true identity as the Genius Loci Amalion, nearly all their scenes together become this.
- Long Game: The plan of the Fates to free themselves.
- Me's a Crowd: Poor Roxy. All those voices in her head...
- Morality Chain: Anne to Bran. It's not so much that he has a high chance of going insane, but that he was ready to give up on trying to do good. Equally so, Anne holds Sophia to a higher moral standing, who in turn provides support to Roxy.
- Outside-Context Problem: Flawless Glory of Silence and Breath-Stealing Bodhisattva, though they aren't against what the heroes are doing - see Enemy Mine above.
- Reincarnation Romance: Trina is the reincarnation of Amalion's long-dead husband. The Manse of Echoes Ascending has waited centuries for him to be reborn.
- Sealed Inside a Person-Shaped Can: Mizu, who has the Book of Jupiter incorporated into her being; Kosche having Gentle Repose bonded to her. Neither is as sinister as this trope is often played.
- Put on a Bus: Four characters, three whose players left the game and one who doesn't have the time to play anymore.
- Screw This, I'm Outta Here: A few times, one with a PC that left the game, one with the entirety of Scourges.
- Starving Artist: Catriona "Trina" Hayes was this at the beginning of the story.
- Trickster God: Luna and The Ebon Dragon. The former is heroic, the other...not so much.
- Xanatos Gambit: Though they seemed to lose the war, the Gods left plans in motion for their return.
