Wohooo! Welcome back Mahb! ヽ(´▽`)/
<Waves at Mahb> I can't wait to meet you in game! Welcome back!!
And as this is my first PbP, I'm not great at always posting as my alias yet. :P
LOL, no problem. I hope you're enjoying your first story.
By the same token, I hope people aren't *too* disturbed by the story as it's unfolding. I'm kind of old school. Evil comes in many flavors, but things worth stories generally involve Evil (Capital E) not evil (little e).
It's giving me chills, but I like it. I think a PbP is actually really great for this, because I'm finding the horror and heroics more legitimate than I usually do with a face to face game. My meatspace PFS games are great, but it's hard to get emotionally invested when people make Monty Python references roughly every ten minutes. :P
I've never played PFS. I've always played home games, so there is likely a difference since I played with friends (since I moved away, we still play via Skype when we can). Some games homebrew, some premade. I even playtested a race for the gm in one game. That was fun, since I got to play with very mild psionics. Though I'm currently fleshing out my own homebrew world when I get the time ^^
And I'm enjoying it mdt. It's not too dark or Evil for me. I'm just waiting for my plans in the other group to... unfold.
By the same token, I hope people aren't *too* disturbed by the story as it's unfolding. I'm kind of old school. Evil comes in many flavors, but things worth stories generally involve Evil (Capital E) not evil (little e).
I'm not as old as Mahb... but I'm old school. I love dark and disturbing adventures, both creating and playing them. So go as dark as you like.
My own personal meatspace GM is one who's had to add disclaimers to the beginnings of his games due to ruining friendships over the content of his games, and giving his players full-blooded nightmares. So far, I'm well within the range I'm used to. :)
I've run Dread. And Dread, can get pretty dark. Wonderful horror system. Wonderful. I ran a game just last friday of it. That was fun. Have any of you played it? It's a system I stumbled across about a year ago.
Also, I'll get the next monster post up as soon as I can here at work.
Haven't heard of Dread before. I've never found a system that really gives a good horror vibe for me. I just don't get in the right mindset for it. I love zombie movies, but beyond those, pretty much everything is 'meh'. Saw, Chainsaw Massacre, Hills have Eyes, etc don't do a thing for me.
In dread, you can play all sorts of different types of horror. It all centers around The Tower. The Tower is the center of it all. It's played using Jenga (the block tower game, though you can make your own for it) and every time the tower falls, a PC dies. It's more about story telling, and then when they want to accomplish things that would be beyond them, they must make pulls from the tower. It's very much fun. Most of the other horror games I play are in our fate-based system (not FATE).
I've never heard of Dread, either. From a 'gameplay' perspective, I can see the need for a mechanic that accounts for the effects of Horror on a character, but they also kind of ring false to me - particularly when the effect doesn't resonate with the player. When I do horror (which is more about achieving the creepy/disturbing/hair-raising-on-the-back-of-your-neck vibe), I try to do it in such a way that it creeps out the players as well as the characters.
Effective horror is very difficult to do, I think.
The best I've seen someone do it was to play by candle light (everyone had a small desk lamp that only illuminated their character sheets), and the GM put 'spooky music' on in the background at a very very low level (basically in the next room). Then he had his wife dressed in a black body suit, and every once in awhile, when something in game jumped out at the PCs, the wife (who was nearly invisible in the dark room) would grab someone by the shoulders and scare them.
I debated breaking that up, but I decided against it. Just wanted to get the rest out there.
Before anyone asks, since I'm sure you're all wondering...
No, I didn't single out anyone for death. Well, the only person I specifically decided the fate of was Abecrombie. The church seemed like a specific target that would be hit.
Beyond that, I rolled percentiles for everyone in town. It was kind of surprising how the numbers landed, the fact that the Carevin's both got tagged, along with Margaret and Eli Sanders was kind of surprising in just how well it was from a story perspective. But I didn't want anyone to think I was specifically targeting dependent NPCs. I did give Eli Elsington a pass given he was a PC's backup character (would have done the saeme for all PC backups) by adding 15 to his percentage roll to indicate he wasn't dead. But he could have been seriously wounded and scarred. It would have just added to his background.
Ok, after the scene at the Inn is over, we're probably going to need to do some fast-forward type RP. What I mean by that is, the PCs (and NPCs) making plans, doing some fix up around the village, etc. I'm thinking once the village begins to recover, it will take at least a month before the adventure party can start back on the trail, the church will need to be razed (and Father Abercrombie's remains searched for), likely the Carevin house will need to be razed as well. The Ebonlocke home will have to be repaired, and likely Elena's father will attempt to step down as Mayor after what happened. Exactly what happens we will decide as a group, with some bits of RP thrown in to see how it goes.
If that's acceptable, then great, if not, we can RP out everything in detail, but I really think changes as big as what are coming to Perdition's Point should be worked out at a high level by the PCs instead of bieng RP'd out day by day.
Plus it gives Eva some time to catch her plot up with ours. :)
lol. What does it say about me that I wasn't concerned about your methods?
Since I'll be looking at the villager list for a possible back-up, I can go through and mark which NPCs are dead or injured.
Yeah, they are still in the cave... With all sorts of fun things! So many fun things
Yeah, they are still in the cave... With all sorts of fun things! So many fun things
Yeah, they are still in the cave... With all sorts of fun things! So many fun things
Good Kitty, sleepy kitty.
Well dang that was a punch in the gut. I have to say, knowing that it was done at the whim of the dice rather than for edgy drama actually makes the edgy drama more dramatic. Knowing that out of character helps me think of it as a real tragedy in character rather than just reacting to plot and trying to ignore the story teller.
Great telling of things Eva/Kana/Eli, great scenario mdt, this is going to be interesting.
And yeah, getting the village in order is definitely going to take enough time that I think outside of a few moments here and there, that going to fast-forward mode is a good idea.
Well dang that was a punch in the gut. I have to say, knowing that it was done at the whim of the dice rather than for edgy drama actually makes the edgy drama more dramatic. Knowing that out of character helps me think of it as a real tragedy in character rather than just reacting to plot and trying to ignore the story teller.
Great telling of things Eva/Kana/Eli, great scenario mdt, this is going to be interesting.
And yeah, getting the village in order is definitely going to take enough time that I think outside of a few moments here and there, that going to fast-forward mode is a good idea.
I couldn't have stated this better. I agree 100%.
It did give the perfect 'out' for Elijah. If you're curious, there's a post that has a spoiler that reads 'GM STUFF DO NOT READ' where all the die rolls were done.
I started looking everything over, and I just didn't feel comfortable 'picking and choosing' who died. By the same token, someone needed to die (or at least have the potential). So I assigned a 15% chance of death, another 5% chance of serious injury, and then 5% of just regular injury.
I almost deleted the post when I saw Margaret got hit, but then I thought it over, and left it be. If I was going to ignore the rolls, I might as well pick people who never got interacted with in the first place. And that didn't feel right.
I'm glad it's worked out to where people felt it, rather than throwing up their hands and quitting or laughing it off.
Afraid Lineera will need to find a new place to live for awhile, what with the church gone.
I think it's a safe bet that all funerals will be pyres followed by putting the ashes in urns or something for the foreseeable future.
Poor Elijah. It's tough to see him so upset, although I've never encountered someone who crushed a tavern mug with grief before. It'll be even tougher to see how Elena responds to this.
Also, in case anyone is thinking about a backup character, I was hoping to use Tobias Stanton (the kid with the infected eye-gash) as mine, so, you know, don't pick him. Also, along those lines, how would people feel about having a young character in the party (that would eventually become a normal adult character)?
Wonder if Elena's leaving us on pins and needles on purpose. :)
I expect a post that is as long and flowing as Elena's tear-stream.
I suspect that either Elena will break down completely, or she'll find her inner strength and come out of the fires forged. I don't think there's much that can go on between the two.
Ok, it seems Elena has vanished at the height of tension. I'm sure she's doing it to drive us insane. :)
What we are going to do is this, we will begin, here in the OOC Discussion thread, working out the repair situation with the village, etc. That way after Elena returns and posts , and we finish the emotion charged scene, I can do the 'flash forward' for the village.
So... have at it, what you think the village needs to do, hash it out, etc. You already know what Elijah is going to do. I'll start it off by reminding you of that, and telling you he wants to raze the Carevin house, and rebuild. As he doesn't want to have Lia reliving what she saw of her parent's deaths as she grows up. Raze it and rebuild and he'll move into the new house.
Well, with the Carevin parents dead, it looks like Perdition's Point is in need of a trapper, which is what Cathran was planning to do there anyway. So, things Cathran would probably want to do:
-Act as the town's trapper
-Look for anything that points to Father Abercrombie in the surrounding wood (unless they find him or his remains in the church)
-See if her magical knowledge can reveal anything about the freaky comas that the two kidnapped children are in, once they recover the coffins
-Fortify the town against attack, perhaps help Elijah train the militia or other townsfolk to fight against the undead
-Get to know the people in town, meeting the new ones and learning more about those she knew before. I dunno how detailed we want to get on that front/how much RP we want to devote to it, but she should at least get to know the rest of the party a little bit better.
Lineera's main goal will probably be leading funeral services for the fallen, then see about getting the town a bit more undead proofed. If she can get the resources to do so, she'll probably help rebuild the church, but move to have the graveyard turned into a crypt. So that even if the dead do rise again to attack the town, they at least have to cause a glorious racket breaking out of the locked (and intentionally very sturdy) door to the crypt, and give the citizens time to prepare themselves to resist the assault. This of course assuming that the town actually wants to return to proper burials eventually as opposed to just sticking with pyres from here on out.
Otherwise Lineera's plan is to see about providing longer term medical care for those who need it, and possibly (seeing as the town has likely lost its only religious figure) seek permission to build a small shrine to Pharasma in addition to the Erastil chapel. The last goal being a dream more than an actual plan.
Some thoughts in no particular order:
1. I don't recall reading if any of the undead left or if they were all destroyed. If any of them survived to flee, we should try to pick up their trail - at least to figure out where they are headed.
2. We should investigate the graveyard and look for Tommas' trail. We may find his real body (since his attack-version may be a doppleganger similar to the ones we saw in the cave). Basically, we need more information on the attack or we are playing a reactive game which is rarely a winning policy.
3. We should figure out where the 'holes' are in the town's structure... i.e. are we down too many guards and we need to recruit more? Have we lost too many, say, farmers and that will endanger the crops we need to store for winter. I'm not sure how close we are to a 'subsistence' economy so maybe that isn't a big worry - but I'd like to know.
4. We need to bust out a lot of Knowledge rolls to hopefully analyze what we and the town faced and fought. This is both good from a 'detective' perspective but also future threat assessment.
5. If all the info we gather suggests the town could get attacked again, we'll need to put some thought into building a palisade or other defenses to control the angles of attack.
Ok, so, after what you've all said, here's what I need from all :
Kn(Local), Kn(Religion), Kn(Planes), Kn(Arcana), Heal, Spellcraft, Diplomacy, Profession rolls (for those that have them and want to use them in town), etc..
Make these about what you feel they should be made for (in the game thread). For example, if you want to examine the kids, make as many kn(Whatever) rolls as you want for that. THen another for Tommas's corpse.
Yet more for examining the cemetary.
You will find a skeleton in the remains of the church, it would appear Father Abercrombie died in the fire.
Eva will find that her shop's entire inventory of Alchemist's fire was stolen, as well as the entire store of lamp oil from Luthor's store. Which may explain how the church went up so fast.
The town is down to 2 full time guards, and 3 militia guards (people who do other things, but fill in as extra guards).
At least for the duration, the town would like to go to pyres, even digging up the rest of the graves and burning the remains.
They aren't sure if any undead got away.
OK, given the thefts of Eva's inventory, Mahb is going into conspiracy mode. When she speaks with poeple she will be using Sense Motive, looking for baddies still in town. She is not going to assume that the skeleton in the church is Abercrombe unless we can definitively ID him - from an old broken leg or something similar. I'll be throwing in some blanket SM rolls which you can apply to whomever.
That sounds fine. Eli (Eva's brother) can confirm that the last time he was in the shop, the stuff was there. That would have been the morning you guys left, as Eva was also there and will confirm as well.
The teeth in the skull match Fther Abercrombie's (he was missing two teeth, one on either side of his front two top incisors). He was called 'Buck' for a reason, and it wasn't his deer hunting skills.
lol Winner!
I know Eva was going to go find Lia and tell her she did find her brother, and until she knows Elijah's plans in character, she was going to ask Lia if she wanted to stay at the shop. She likes Lia, wanted to teach her fun alchemy things (if Lia wanted that is) to cheer her up. She was going to ask the Carevins for permission but didn't have the chance.
If Oliver steps down... we need to find a new mayor... And would the town send out letters or word asking for more supplies? With all the damage, we might not have everything we need at hand.
Also, Eva plans to have Eli translate the notes, since if anyone has a chance of reading it, she feels it's him. Him and his hoard of languages. (Gotta love gnomes and their obsessions XD)
Also, expect some gnome rage over her shop being raided... When she finds who did it. They will feel her wrath. Plus, they hurt her friends and no one hurts her friends. Especially not with HER things.
But first, because she is reaching the point of not being able to just sit there, she'll likely go check on the injured, since their conditions could have changed since Cathran saw them.
I'll make the checks in the gameplay thread, but it'll likely be tomorrow. I need to sleep, though I wanted to get this up first.
A heads-up: I'm going to be spending most of tomorrow going to, spending time in, and coming back from Seattle. I'll check in if I can in the morning. I forgot to add something to my big list of rolls that used my Knowledge (Nobility) rank, so I'll post that if I can.
I'll give the results of the checks after everyone has posted.
Note - You are allowed to take 20's, but, each take 20 is a whole day you are doing nothing but that check. So the more times you take 20, the longer it takes before your group can do other things, like go to another town to take message for assistance, or begin razing a house, or whatever.
I'm not saying you're under a time limit, but I'm not saying you aren't either. :) Your characters would not know if there's something that may attack the town again, so time considerations should be on your mind when you do all this.
Elena,
If you're still reading this, can you post and let us know if you're still playing or not? I'd appreciate it. If you just need more time, that's fine, but I'd like to know that's the reason you're not posting.
Thank you,
MDT
I'm sorry I vanished into thin air, It wasn't my intention to hold up the game or anything. It's a very hard and stressful period for me, and the fact that I just attended a funeral is not helping things...
It may seem foolish, but in these days I've enjoyed playing pathfinder here on the boards as it has helped take my mind off of bad stuff for a while... All the games I'm in, except this one.
Please understand, I'm glad everyone is satisfied about the situation and the turn the events are taking in-game, and I get why. Sure, even if the destruction around the village hit everyone in some way, they are basically no worse from wear, and now is even more motivated to get to the bottom of the mystery.
Of course, for my character is quite different. As was clearly stated in her profile, she thinks it's her duty to defend the village, so of course she takes the attack with an additional layer of guilt. She spent half her life being trained as a cleric by father Abercrombie, and she considers him almost like a second father, and he was burned alive. The church, her home-away-from-home, was razed to the ground. Her OWN home is probably half-destroyed too... And icing on the cake, her mother was brutally murdered and torn limb from limb in front of her father, who's implied being driven half-mad from having seen that.
So, Elena is completely and utterly broken, and there is no real way around it.
To be completely honest, I liked Elena just the way she was. A simple character, without complications or a shady past or unfinished businesses or anything else. But with things as they are, I can't play her like that anymore.
The way I see it, I basically have 4 choices:
I more or less handwave the whole thing ("Sure, she was sad for a few days, but now she's as good as new!") and go on playing a character with zero credibility.
I roleplay her mental and spiritual breakdown, which will be a long and depressing affair, and it's NOT something I'd be looking forward too. Another time, maybe, but as things are for me right now, not so much.
I retire her, and make her an npc, then I roll a new character (the church needs a new priest, and possibly the town a new mayor, so it'd even make sense).
I retire her, make her an npc, wish you good luck, and leave.
I'd given it some thought, and decided that out of respect for the other players, and because I really like you all (and your characters too!), I'll stay and give it a shot.
Right now I'm really exhausted, but I promise I'll post something in the game thread tomorrow.
Again, sorry if I held everything up! Hope I didn't piss you off too much. :)
Not at all, I'm sorry we added to your stress. Almost every game I'm in lately seems to have had someone with a lost loved one over the holidays, and my own wife lost her grandfather at new years. So my sincere condolences over that.
I'm also sorry about Elena, it was not my intention to break the character for you. I intentionally chose to randomly determine what happened so that I could possibly avoid such a thing, but I understand.
I am glad you are wanting to continue with us, as I'd hate to lose you as a player, and I'm very sorry again that this has added to your stress.
If I might suggest, do roll up another character. Everyone seems to be leaning toward having a backup character in place. I would suggest that Elena take some time to nurse her father back to health, and to stabilize her own emotions. While that occurs, play your backup character. When it feels right, you can bring Elena back having fought her way through her issues, and ready to take on the things responsible for her pain?
I understand Elena, and I'm not mad. I did wonder how Elena would take it, and tried really hard to have Eli tell her properly, and as best he could. I felt bad just typing it out (and it took me a while to do so). I fault you none for your choice, and I'm happy you are going to try to continue on.
*hugs* I hope and pray things get better for you in real life soon. And, I've used it as an escape myself, particularly the whole month of November when I was dealing with a loss myself. So don't feel bad for doing so. *hugs*
Also, I second mdt's idea, as maybe that's a way you can play Elena, but not have to play her stabilizing her own emotions, you could play someone else while she sorts through herself. Would that be less stressful for you?
And I apologize again if I'm getting too dark, please warn me here. I just.. I guess I feel like it's too corny to have something kidnapping children be not... well Evil. If it's doing that, it feels like it should be Evil, not just 'evil' or 'bad'. So things that do that should be played as Evil.
But I may be pushing it too hard, and I apologize.
Sorry to hear that Elena. I was worried with how distraught Elena was when we heard the news, but having real life compounding things on top of it is just terrible. Anyway, glad to hear that you're sticking with us despite it, I really love the crew of players we have, and I'd hate to lose anyone.
Alright, let's give Elena some time to come up with a new character, and to post for Elena.
Elena, if you'd like your new character to be from outside Perdition's Point, there will be, after the letters and requests for aid go out, a dozen or so new people coming to the town. So if you'd like your new character to be one of them, that's fine. Alternately, if you want them to be someone from town, that's also fine, and everyone in town has a major vendetta against whoever did this, so they are all motivated.
Alternately, if you want, you could also play someone seeking these specific people due to something they did somewhere else (we've already established they have people hunting them). So if you'd rather go that route, there are several options for you from a plot standpoint.
If I might suggest, you seem to like characters who have a positive outlook on life even in the bleakest of storms. Gnomes tend to have such an outlook, and might be a good choice. Halflings as well. Alternately, you could consider something like a dhampir, who's grown up in such evil's presence and can shrug off it's effects and simply enjoy life for what it is one day to another, knowing that evil can't always win.
Just a few suggestions.
I'm sorry to hear that it's a rough time for you right now. :c
You definitely shouldn't feel bad about not posting. We don't want to push you when things are so heavy. I definitely don't want you to hand-wave this issue for Elena, nor do I want you to have to play through something painful. I'm really glad that you've decided to stay with us, and I think a new character might just be the best option.
I also want to say that I think I got really lucky with this group. Like I said before, this is my first PbP game. I've been poking around the Recruitment forum to potentially join more, but I'm definitely not finding the same spark that I get with you all. It could be that it just takes a party a little bit of posting before they really start to come together, but Elena and all the rest of you have been a pleasure to play with (although it's not been long for me yet), and I've really enjoyed reading the back-logs of the Gameplay thread. Whatever happens with Elena, I'm glad you want to stay with us! <3