You don't know that Luigi's ever been there, so it's entirely possible that, like Delroy, you won't know until it's too late either. ;)
But if you REALLY want me to change it I'll edit my post...
Edited to remove any direct questions!
Alright folks, I'm ready. I'll be posting the setting this evening, so if there's stuff you're not done with in Interludes, navigate it over to the Sideboard so we can plow ahead.
The adventure proper will be somewhat forked and a little less linear than the last one. I'm trying to keep some of that sandboxy flavor that seemed to rocket our collective imaginations and posting rates up while still getting things done. We'll see how it goes, eh?
I'm ready to go on. Let's see how it goes!
Whups, for some reason I wasn't seeing the 'moving on' post when I posted.
The one thing I think needs to be straightened before the party (though it could easily be coterminious with the party) is what to tell Iliare about the letter...as sooner or later Cedric is bound to mention it.
Also, I tried really hard not to make any comments about our smitten bat dreaming of tartish pursuits but there it is...
At least I don't have a lumpish spud sharing my bed...
But yes, currently Natalia is just hanging around.
Not a problem Ms. de Vieuxpont. The link to the Sideboard's over in the "Campaign Info" tab, hopefully it works for you too. I'll put a little bit over there for you and Ms. Ivanova to mull over before I hit the main drag as it were.
EDIT: PLEASE continue all Interlude scenes that you want to finish in the Sideboard! I can only keep track of so much at once, and interleaving scenes where time differentials matter is not easy. Help me help you!
Hopefully everyone that's not done with their scenes that hasn't already checked in will actually see this...>.>
Are we done with the shopping adventure? I was planning on glossing over the fitting and whatnot since you've pretty much done most of the "work," and it's really not hard to get a dagger engraved and all that. Also I'm running out of over-the-top ideas for a possibly insane dressmaker pony. Gotta recharge.
Second reminder: continue Interludes in the Sideboard, or in PM with me if you're obsessed with surprises and secrecy.
Gonna go work on the arrival to the Three Spears!
I'm ready to go for it whenever everyone else is.
F7!
er....F7? What? The heck?
So since I've already wrapped up half the party in multifarious romantic sub-plots in completely different styles, anyone else needing a shot to the heart? Of love. Not bullets. I'm not Jon Bon Jovi.
I'm not sure if Paladins can fall in love. I imagine their oaths tend to look away from that sort of thing.
F7! is a City of Heroes reference. It was the function key for the Ready Emote. :)
ooooooooooh
See, I haven't played that since it was relatively new....like...since 2006. I played a LOT of Champions Online when it first came out, but there were a lot of bugs and leveling dead spots so I quit that too.
Actually, I haven't really played an MMO regularly in years until GW2 came out, and even that's intermittent. Now that you mention it though I might go look at what's happened with Champions since they went F2P.
@Paladins: The book is entirely silent on that matter. It's not all that difficult to imagine what the various oaths of Paladin-hood are though, given that the Avoirdupois are fiercely attached to Penitence, though the multifarious monasteries dotting their lands also practice Athanasia, Hyperduliance, and Haimorrous.
It might also depend on which of the Capitular Orders you belong to. The three largest ones are certainly devoted to Penitence, but there could be others certainly, and not everyone will adhere to their Order's rules and oaths perfectly.
Gwen for example is an Orchomene, yet is undergoing her final bits of formal education and training here with the same resident Ardentines that you did to become Ardent du Sang, essentially the internal affairs of S'Allumer.
Hmm. Do you have the Book of Mysteries? It has a lot of information about the church that was missing from the corebook because of page-cuts due to printing costs. You might have noticed that every printed resource for the game from Sanguine is sequentially numbered as though it was part of one giant book. ;}
I do have it IIRC, I'll just have to track it down. :)
It also has delicious Sacerdotal spells, some of which I think you can actually use, but don't quote me on that.
I have to put this out there...
Some of the greatest stories of all time involve those who are not, due to their station, blood, or duties, even permitted to fall in love...
But somehow all of those social niceties, legalisms, and obligations are lost on the heart.
Hmmm...station, blood, and duties...sounds like someone we know.
Seriously though, Lissemanteau are sworn to the Doloreaux, pretty sure the women inherit under their laws...though with the Avoirdupois history maybe they just do it differently.
Yet another thing for Rosza to be avoiding I suppose.
Rosza's issue, really, is more that she HAS a pack of semi-suitors/would-be 'close friends' who are covertly/overtly interested in 'marrying up' to such an extent that she's become standoffish with almost all of them once past initial flirtations. Horrible of her, yes.
But hey, complications, complications are always good.
Foolish me, I finally found the sideboard. <_<
I don't know how I missed the link, it WAS talked about.
Anyway, re: Ceallach ALMOST letting a manly tear fall...I couldn't help it.
Edit to earlier posts:
I was more referencing the paladin's discouragement in matters of luuuuuuuv.
We had talked earlier about the Lissemanteau inheritance primarily going through the female line, which is why Rosza gets such a surfeit of male weasely attention of the young, dumb and full of (redacted) variety. She's safer to cozy up to than her older sister (which is saying something) and it's just possible that if she's good, she might (by what passes for virtue in the House) get her sister disinherited...Or might simply outlive her (being a swashbuckling dilettante in Triskellian is still less risky than buccaneering on the high seas), or, who knows? Rosza might even accumulate the necessary resources somewhere down the road to defeat her.
Augh, I had been doing some Rosza sketches, and now I have a sudden urge to do a somewhat disturbing family portrait...
EDIT ONE HOUR LATER: Oh no. This is probably going to happen.
@Rosza: Natalia is waiting your lead in the sideboard, since it is you that seeks out the paper. And she has other things to discuss with her ermine companion.
Arg. Lost a big pose because I went looking for pants to describe.
It'll take me some time.
Ctrl+A, Ctrl+C. Lifesaver.
Important distinction: The Fénechas probably has just as many rules as Calabrian society, but only the Brehona are tasked with remembering all of them. The rest of you only have to know the big ones, and the Fiann live apart from the civilians so you need to know even less of the laws. :)
But yes, Calabrian society has a lot of rules that everyone has to follow, and a lot of those are actually enshrined in law in Triskellian. Those "blue laws" I talked about in some spoilers are a complicated set of laws that govern public interactions for people of pretty much all statuses, with a number of extras for differing status people of course.
The book doesn't tell us what they ARE of course, which means I'm free to make things up! YEY!
The way I understood it, the fenechas has laws for literally EVERYTHING the phelan could think of, but yes only brehon are required to learn it all. Ceallaxh never was very good at this stuff.
Quinn...we need you...Ima give you a few more hours, then the masques go on.
Alright, hitting the next bit. First twist: Masquerade! Not the palace ballroom, but I hear it's covered in dry bloodstains these days, and the Three Spears is frankly classier and more fashionable.
Okay I lied, I wrote it out, and it just looked...wrong. Blech.
Gimme a bit longer, I'll put out something that will make Rosza's advice actually useful.
Eh. Still not happy with it, but it works. And really it's partly a chance for you guys to do silly party things and be petty and schemy before the bath-party and the actual serious stuff begins.
Ah, you jumped forward. Rosza had a little plan for the initial business with bouncer and cats...No worries, I believe I can back-walk it slightly as part of the entrance.
But I have a bunch of stuff to do tonight and probably won't be able to write a large post until tomorrow. :(
Just spoiler it or otherwise separate it from...well, whatever else you post that's "in step" with time. Or not. :)
As long as it doesn't dramatically alter what comes after we'll be copacetic.
Oh, and uh, I hope you noticed that there were only six of you. I have a silly plan for your Ally. I hope it will meet with your approval. I swear it's not entirely dastardly. ;)
If you're going to blunder, do it with style.
RJ would applaud Delroy, but she's far too busy being noble.
And he missed someone. ;)
And now I'm going to try to go to sleep again. Avaunt, insomnia!
Later, of course, will have to begin plotting how the party may assist in recovering poor Guillaume from Penelopé's clutches.
Ooooooh, very close...but not quite! ;)
Note to self: Buy Ninja as a second Career :D
There isn't really a "ninja" career lol, the closest is the Zhongguo version of the Assassin. The Calabrese Assassin and the Spy are the other closest equivalents.
But you probably weren't serious.
Not really. Our host seemed to say things to most of the crew :)
I mean, if I went into another career, I think I meet the requirements for a lot of the fighty ones.
Could even become a priest, IIRC :) However, there are other things I need to be buying.
You're the Good Ardent of the Light. "Good" is the official address for unordained clergy, the Holy Order of the Ardentines is the order of paladins and inquisitors that live and train at the Abbey of Ardent in Avoirdupois lands, and you serve the Light. :)
You may have thought he was addressing Delroy, but Del's authority comes entirely from secular sources, as the practice of Thaumaturgy isn't taught by the Church.
And you would have to become a Pacifist as per the Gift to become a Priest actually, it's one of their Gifts, and S'Allumer in general abhors violence. The Paladins and Inquisitors are only granted leave to use violence to defend the weak against "evil," which officially only means actual things antithetical to life and Light...but generally encompasses meanies, jerks, and all sorts of right bastards in practice.
So you can't actually be a Paladin and a Priestess. Pretty sure they did that on purpose.
That's also why you're not Ordained either, because much like the samurai and those shinobi forced into battle and their Zen Buddhism, you've agreed to sacrifice some of your ascendant light to protect others so they can ascend, the idea being that you'll be non-violent and ascend in your next go around.
Well, Del did ask everyone in the coach to give him their titles once again so he wouldn't screw up. (Mostly because I didn't know how close Natalia was to the Repense.)
As for forgetting to introduce himself, no one told Delroy when he should. And Rosza was exacting!
Now it just looks like he didn't need one. Not a bad slip.
Also, it looks like Del might pick up Ettiquite if he survives this party.
I tend to pick up gifts that I needed in the past.
My 'organically grown' characters tend to be a lot different that if I just had a pile of XP all at once.
That makes them more fun.
Del's position is kind of mystic/combat/social anyway. All are equally important.
I took care of some of the mystic recently. Now it's time for social!
My apologies, folks, I DID say that I didn't expect to post much in the middle of this week until this afternoon...Last night's long post was because I couldn't sleep. If anyone has felt I was ignoring or delaying them, I'm sorry.
Eh, dun worry.
As long as we don't drop to where we were at the end of summer I think I'll live.
I mean, I'd love for everyone to post super-often (schedule permitting) but when the plot requires us to be together it does slow down a bit as we wait for everyone's input.
I suppose I could always split people off by whatever room they end up in. There's more people to chat with than just Rouchardon Ilaire after all. Well, that and lots of 'hyuk, hyuk, hyuk' low-brow gags. ;D
Aw, of course Rosza would ignore Guillaume's blatant attempts at being saucy. It's her mode.
He'll just have to try harder, or maybe subtler.
I'm trying to answer Delroy and Natalia's requests for interesting things to see/hear/smell/touch/taste but my brain isn't cooperating right now. I'll try again in a minute or two, listen to some period music.
EDIT: There, not terribly helpful I think, and...sorry, really couldn't think of anyone to push at Natalia at the moment. I'd planned out the conversations people would be having in relative private later in the baths, but totally forgot to create hooks for the pre-meal party, lol. Bad Host, hyuk hyuk hyuk.
I'll figure out something for other people that have moved on to do tomorrow. It will probably be silly and facilitate me narrating some things barring any hiccups.
Though I should share something that I should have made clear earlier: the party here isn't a monolithic "everyone stick together" scene like we had before. It's a party. Mingle and find things to see and gab about and do! If we need spoilers to track things, I'll spoiler them when I can no longer keep track of everyone's stuff. Maybe alternate who gets it when.
Secondly, Ironclaw Bestiary
This is an artbook Chris Goodwin put together with his species illustrations and the full, uncut versions of his notes that became the edited Species descriptions. You can preview the whole book without buying it (woo!), though you'll need it in fullscreen to even have a chance of reading the notes. But they're worth it, very illuminating, much clearer picture of his ideas about the world, though they draw on some older ideas about certain world bits, like bats being majorly gypsies and a "buffer culture" with Zhongguo.
Hrm. Might need Ceallach to teach me fisticuffs at some point. :)
Also, sorry I've been Away, big project at work, days off this week =0
Before I start writing anything more, how long do you guys want to draw this out? A little bit? A lot? Less? More? How many plots need to hatch now, and how many can hatch later?
I plan on introducing at least one more sub-plot thread...or at least the near-unraveled strands of such during the party at some point, haven't decided yet, in addition to one half of the next main step during the bath when paranoid people can feel safer. At least, that's Mr. Ilaire's excuse. ;)
Long enough foe me to make everybody uncomfortable.
I like Ceallach's plan!
OKAY! :D
I'll figure something out. Watching Vikings on History channel will probably help.
Let's see...I need something for Natalia to see/overhear/talk about, Javiera needs to meet Mother Agnella the unofficial church socialite and her trailing guest that shouldn't really be here AKA Gwennaelle Cobb, Quinn...hm. An idea has crossed my brainspace for Quinn.
...Oh. It is a good one. >:D
Still no response from Rosza to Rouchardon so I'll wait for that to occur before thrusting anything out her way...Delroy has engaged in his bit...Ceallach...
Hm. Working on things now!
^A snapshot of my brain in action, when it is actually somewhat orderly. Usually it's more of
"Wait but that idea couldn't no they can't but he is omgwtfbbq why didn't I think of that oh crap somebody's figuring it out I need to twist more so it seems like it's more convoluted than it is but then I'll lose track of my own plotlines much less the player generated ones fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu-"
Sorry folks, just on for a minute. Major familial drama this weekend. Will probably be able to post something monday evening.