12-2-13 Post Discussion

The map has been updated.

https://docs.google.com/file/d/0Bz-lEDSl7cA2aXhDc3k1Rm41ZXc/edit

I'm confused. Why is the mine no longer available?

It's not verified yet, but it was not too far off from our location, and that's been razed to the subsoil. Even if the mine had survived, who would ever want to work there now. Maybe in a year or two, if people can stomach the desolation (and being paid a fortune for it, most likely), but right now the place is far too much of an open wound. For the party as well.

Zeiss, that's a very comprehensive list of contacts. Hope you don't mind me feeding off of it a bit, at least for the ones i can talk about.

Given the Directorate's recently demonstrated inhumanity and brazenness, i'd say they're the last thing i'd call an ally.

After how the Order's very own professor Blah just flat out ignored the refugees' plight unfolding right in front of him, it naught but cements my opinion of the Order as bastards (despite their resouding success at bringing discord to the world, seeing as how i disagree with them). Sure enough they handled the relief effort for Janwall, but in light of everything else they pulled, that's just not good enough.

I'd be wary of the Olthoi. While contrarily to their group mentality, i actually trust individuals among them (well, i trust one), more and more i think their distaste for violence is pretty much made of glass. They're heavily isolationist (dangerously so, apparently), yet have no qualms trespassing into allied territory in order to secure a source of power for themselves, all the while demonstrating not an ounce of humility towards wielding it (the Noble guy flat said it to my face, no hands were good enough for that ship but theirs, then immediately got defensive once i challenged the notion).

They immediately apprehended and imprisoned us for just being there, despite having even less of a claim to that ship than us, and considered executing us in cold blood, should we prove to be a liability to THEIR secrecy, simply because they had the power to do so - and yes, that is very much a form of violence. Then they used us as lapdogs for doing a near-suicidal job they were far better equipped and prepared to handle, but had distaste for, all the while using said preparation to keep a leash on us instead.

Don't get me wrong, the food was great and they were very polite all the while, but i don't feel like they can be trusted, given their mindset. They don't seem to evolve or adapt, so much as just apply their millenia-ish old preconceptions to everything they come across, which, reinforced by the enforced unindividuality of their kind, then exarcebated by their all too apparent self-assuredness, makes for a dangerous element in a world that's changing as violently as this one.

So yeah. Wary.

Radnall, well... Well, i like Radnall. He is strong, rather than powerful (though he is that too), which is a very good thing. All the centuries of his life don't seem to have made him cold to the plight of the little people around him, which in this world seems downright miraculous, and he has no qualms about getting his own hands dirty or shedding his own blood for what he believes in. I know i'm judging him on a strictly moral basis here, but my point is, (unless he's being monstrously deceptive with us,) going by the character he demonstrates to have, i think he can be trusted. And honestly, i think trust is becoming more of a precious commodity by the day.

But hey, i could be full of crap. Thoughts?

Hm, well, I won't lie and say I understand, but I guess we can hold off on the memorial for now.

I didn't get that the mine wasn't an option either. It should still be there.

Going to make this short since I have to leave, but consider not just choosing a single organization. The Olthoi are probably the most immediate ones to buddy up with and have been the most helpful and trustworthy up to this point (knock on wood). Also, I'd add the Coordinate to that list, although we don't really know exactly who are a part of that and that question got dodged last time it was asked.

Was planning on linking up with Radnall on the trip since he should be in Janwall anyway.

Going by the map, seems the mine just barely escaped the blast radius. Still very close though, and i'm sure the working price per miner for that area has just shot up.

Nothhedge seems the likeliest place to station them from, if you're still committed to making it work.

Oh, as soon as Rory hears that the Aluvian military ordered the volley that destroyed the airship(and therefore the world), he's really gonna hate them, and he's gonna want to scour the remains of that Aluvian ship, if he can find it. He couldn't really hate the nations much before, more like hold contempt of them, but then Aluvia made an offer his family couldn't refuse, and then the Naverre started abducting refugees, and then Aluvia did this. He's not gonna take it well.

Other than that, it kind of feels like we're back at square 1.

Also, plenty of people are okay with not living where they work, so Northhedge could function as housing for the workers until a proper living quarters/thorpe is constructed near the mine. That would probably take some time though, so I'd expect tents and canvas first. Then, over time they could have construction Weavers weave a foundation, then walls, exits etc, and then a ceiling. The very first building, likely to be used as a common house. After that, it's rinse and repeat, and about 2-4 weeks later, you got yourself a thorpe. I'm sure there are people who have an interest in seeing that built, or the old the old town rebuilt.

I cannot access the map.

As for the radius of the blast, if the mine is outside of it, I am still worried about radioactivity.

And this is an interesting take on the Olthoi K. I wasn't there to interact with them so I only have your impression of them. But I must say I didn't count on the Olthoi as our sole ally and provider of aid (or any other organization). Like you said, they are isolationist in nature, for whatever lore reason. But we can't really take the Skyclaw from them and some of their recent actions are understandable in Zeiss' eyes.

As for the Coordinate, I just made of mesh out of the Dericost and them. For now at least. I got a theory on their recent LACK of reaction to the war. Going to edit my last post.

Rory, not only no one is ever gonna know the specifics of that battle, it'll be hard to determine that there ever was a battle to begin with. Every shred of evidence has been atomized. There are no witnesses, no materials, nothing. It's all gone and reduced to a 40-mile long crater.

And about the Aluvian goverment, they were protecting their territory from a hostile incursion. Now if you check the map, Marblebush was very much near Aluvia's northern border. That means the Directorate had to cross the entire Aluvian territory to get there, all the while remaining undetected. Now, i wasn't there, but i imagine the minute Holtburg Command heard about a Naverre airship THAT deep into their territory, they would've jumped.

If any notion of civility was to be maintained, that airship would have been insane to go that deep into their lands. And if it was all fair in greed and war, then no way they could have expected to lay their little claim to that piece of land, start abducting friggin' refugees like it was business as usual and then expect to ever get away with it. There was no way Aluvia wouldn't respond, and what do they do? They park their ship RIGHT ABOVE a civilian population center. That's the last place to hold position if you have even the slightest lick of care about people's lives, unless of course you mean to use them as human shields, which, considering their demonstrated utter lack of respect for the former, is a pretty likely scenario.

Now, i'm not letting Aluvia all off the hook either. Considering the range on those guns, parking themselves right alongside the enemy ship, right above their own citizens, is stupidity incarnate all on it's own. And honestly, i care little for the fact that no two airships had ever fought each other, considering there's such a thing as theory and imagination, and i have a tremendously hard time imagining ship captains would not have had at least been trained or devised themselves in at least the THEORY of naval air combat. I mean, heck, you would at least think to employ the tactics of normal naval ship-to-ship combat in an engagement if nothing else, and no way they wouldn't have trained in that, IN FRIGGING WARTIME. So, for two ships to just meet point-blank, broadside to broadside and just fire away at each other... heck if i didn't know better, i'd say the whole thing had been on purpose.

Of course, that last paragraph is all OOC knowledge our characters will never know, but still...

Regardless, there's also the matter of, barring tampering of the Naverre ship's warp core, i have a very hard time imagining no engineer or theoretical magitechnician or whatever ever considered the danger of equipping a warship with THAT kind of power source. From a practical standpoint, i have a hard time believing any airship actually needs to operate independently for THAT long. Heck, the backup systems alone can run for weeks, and they can't make their ships a little more dependent on refueling and such, that they have to install a doomsday device into each one of them?

One possibility is that, rather than just breaking apart, the magicite core actually went critical mass from the force of the impact, since it seems a more feasible engineering oversight than failing to predict or verify what happens when a high-powered magicite breaks.

Even so, once the technicians finish putting together a scenario, one might expect a lot of ships being emergency grounded for a while. At least i hope so, if they have any sense in them at all.

Dammit, i always end up writing a frigging treaty.

Zeiss, just use Arch's custom documents linked in his signature and open the map. And when you're sharing a document Arch, you need to use the url automatically selected in the "share settings" window, opens when you click the "share' button. The difference between them is at the end of the sharing url, it says "=sharing".

Y'know I was afraid of that, K, but you're probably right.

Not worries Rory, I found the other link in the thread Arch created just for it.

The map wasn't working because I updated a new copy of the map after the link I put in this thread.

So it seems the party still hasn't made a decision on what should be our long term objective, for now at least. If the rescue of the people on Vessayen Lassel comes up, we'll discuss how feasible it is then.

And I'm not talking about who we should warn right now, like Radnaald or Lady Lightmane. I'm talking about what we should do after that, when the dust has settled, to advance the campaign.

Me, I suggest we confront Bonebreaker and continue to expand the Exchange, for reasons I already explained. Maybe do the Vessayen Lassel rescue if possible.

Finding Gaerlan's whereabouts, where he's going to go to next, and apprehending him should be the long-term goal - especially given the recent info dump about the Psion's world ending machine. If we know where he's going to strike next and can prepare for him or even intercept him before he gets there, then that would be ideal. That's why I'm going to be doing some tracking, since I have a sneaking suspicion he or someone related has been around us very recently several times. Janwall is my first stop for that.

There are several long-term research projects as well: the anti-Gaerlan augments and food knowledge. The Olthoi are likely the best ones we have to assist in that. Rekkarg kind of brushed it off when he was asked, so I'm not hopeful there.

Building up the Exchange and allies are a part of that of all of this of course, I don't think anyone is disagreeing there. Going around to the towns and coordinating with them is part of expanding the Exchange as well as just being helpful so that serves long-term goals.

After the two days of the Skyclaw's journey are over, we've got the task of convincing the Olthoi to use it to help. We do have some leverage there since we've already helped them, we have someone to vouch for us, and heck, we kept it from exploding in the first place when we initially found it. A lot of the long-term stuff is going to depend on whether or not we get to use the Skyclaw. I'm not making a lot of plans past that point until we know that for sure.

I do have a question though: what exactly are you going to tell Bonebreaker and expect him to do? Not trying to be funny or anything, he just seems like the type of guy who might just murder you if you start bothering him.

I didn't know where else to post this so here it shall be posted.

I was re reading a few things and studying some things and did a few test runs on a mentality that some GMs agree with and some don't.  I almost never have followed this mindset, I'm usually more of a storyteller who is on the side of the players for the most part, but I thought I'd expand my horizons a bit.  I've already talked with a couple of you about this, but for the rest of you I pose the following GM mentality.

It's actually kind of involved but the best way to summarize it is to not hold the player's hands.  I'm not talking about the safeties being off, as has been true for some time now.  No I mean every situation that has come to be I always think of at least 2, often more like 5, ways the party can deal with, escape from, or otherwise 'win' a situation.  This mentality is such that you put the party in situations where you have not thought of a way out, kobayashi maru's, not to be mean nor even to kill the party off but to encourage them to be creative.  To essentially take it for granted that the players will think of things you don't so just fling them against impossible odds and see what happens.

Still unsure about doing this large scale.  I've already done it for a few specific instances.  Thoughts?

Disclaimer:

As far as our list of enemies go, I agree that Gaerlan comes first before the Tumeroks, the Pinnacle and the Directorate.

I was starting to forget about the Anti-Gaerlan stuff. We should get it as soon as possible. As for the farming knowledge, we need a device to read the information, which Rekkarg might provide us with.

Before meeting Bonebreaker, Zeiss is going to the Light Temple first to unlock his Aspect power and other RP reasons. Here's the kind of ability Advoc has :

Lucent beam Does 1d8*Level Holy-type damage.  Can multi-target with no penalty.

Now, usually, an aspect gain a level when his summoner gains one as a green mage. Since I am level 1 in this class, even if I unlock his power by succeeding the Light trial, Advoc would stay level 1. But Arch has made an exception for me and agreed that my aspect's level will adjusts to my own as soon as I pass the trial. Which means that Zeiss would have to his side a powerful ally of level 6. That's the equivalent of gaining a new party member, who is a warrior and a caster at the same time.

Only after this will Zeiss feel confident enough to confront Bonebreaker. And I don't really know what I will do when I do meet him since I need to investigate first. Trying to figure out his intentions, that sort of thing. If he is unfit to be in charge, Zeiss will try to kill him and replace him by someone else, while limiting the power of the First to the Holtburg chapter. Maybe Oghren, if he can be trusted. OOC, I think we will have to fight him since Arch made him a Boss.

I don't think we need to kill him, he's been helping us, if only to help himself. I think we should stick to our original reasons for visiting Bonebreaker and, as you put it, bother him. If he tries to "murder us", then we get his cooperation the old-fashioned way. He'll be more trustworthy when we get him to cooperate and be completely forthright in the future.

Getting him to be cooperative and forthright is as simple as talking him down and then making him share other things he's been keeping from us(and there are other things). Failing to talk him down just means we'll have to beat him down, and I'm not walking out of that room before at least one of those routes is successful.

I have not ruled out the diplomacy route, since I did say I would investigate the situation (Flock assassin training talking here). I just always prepare for the worst, that's all.

Archengeia wrote:Thoughts?

Why, i do believe the so far manifested silence regarding this most relevant and auspicious topic to stem from two separate, yet closely intertwined factors. The first of which being the reluctance of thine players to be the proverbial little girl who cried "¡oh, please hold my hand, GM!", and the other - it's dark twin, so to speak, being the abject dread of any player of becoming the infamous idiot who got the party TPK'd.

Why yes, i do believe you to be in a pickle as to the matter of getting us to say a word on that topic, sir.

Screw this! YOLO! *runs off, charging the world with his spear*

You know my thoughts on it already. I like doing stuff like that.

Yeah, this is my first D&D campaign ever, so I don't really know what would be the best option Arch. If there is truly a situation we cannot overcome, I'll just run away.

You would still give us the option to run away, right?

If an option was always given to run away, then it wouldn't truly be a no-win situation. You would have to actually find a way to run that hadn't already been thought of by the GM.

To answer it straight without being a prick, i'll just take it as it comes. I'm not nearly smart enough to know whether you're holding our hands or not. I've liked the adventure so far, and i'm sure i'll like whatever comes this way in the future.

I play RPGs as a release from reality and to relieve stress. While I CAN be creative (especially when I GM), when I play, (this is a horrible way of saying this, but I'm just trying to dump this from work) I prefer to disengage the brain, go with the flow, and just have fun.
Now that's not saying that I play like an idiot and don't get involved, but I prefer to let the other players come up with "the plan" and provide input whenever I can. If something brilliant occurs to me I would of course share it, but the "hand holding" and hints as to how to overcome a situation is preferable to me (currently) as a player. I've got enough stress and mental challenges during the day.

(It's entirely possible that when I'm no longer doing tech support my mindset will change, but this is how I feel right now.)

I complete understand, Gwydo. Tech support.

Based on the feedback so far, I wouldn't want to say: "yeah, do Kobayashi Marus, whoooo" if it's not really going to appeal to everyone or not a major point of interest. I personally like trying to figure my way out of situations. However, it could be useful on the GMing side of things to create some of those situations, get some fresh stuff in there, some new things you hadn't thought of, but preparation should probably be taken to deus ex machina just in case nothing comes out of it - bring in the eagles so-to-speak.

Hopefully that makes sense.