DM Brainiac's War for the Crown: Table 1 (Inactive)

Game Master Brainiac

Zhi is not making a face. That's her normal RBF.

And it's a very good RBF dear...

Let me know when you’re all satisfied with your scenes and I will wrap everything up with a final post!

I think I've done my bit. Maria?

I've got something else in mind but its likely highly self indulgent... so not entirely sure I should. :)

Well it's not like you're stealing Brainiac's attention from the rest of the story. ;)

At this point, I say self-indulge away!

Indeed, this is our great reward at the end!

Go for it, Mel.

Tomorrow then. :)

Don't worry, you'll all be in it!

I am honestly stumped about Maria. I mean all I really have in mind is fixing things up with the business in Oppara (maybe seeing if Zileska could get in contact with her dad to see if there's been a hold-up or something) and, once the family business could continue, would move to Zimar with Safina and set up a new investigative practice there.

Only thing that'd change that is if Zileska's attempts to get in touch with her father revealed something had gone wrong for him.

Maria, feel free to wrap up your father storyline however you would like. I didn’t have any plans for him.

There we go. Sorry; couldn't resist the urge to end it with a sequel hook. :P

So I thought I'd leave a note here about some of the things I really loved about our little ersatz family.

Melodie really did a bang-up job of being a mastermind - playing the person who knows how to figure out what makes you tick, and get inside your head (literally). I feel like she always had a plan for everything, and she had a great long-term vision. She really came across as a leader and a coalition-builder. In my head I could always see a slight smirk when nobody else was looking as she deploys sugar or lashings, as appropriate, to get things to go her way. Her story with her hag mother and her occasionally-noted hemophilia made her feel like a fully-realized person with a mysteriously magical background that wasn't all good things.

Zhi was our firebrand, the one going out and doing dangerous things and always pushing us forward. At the same time she was a young woman with insecurities and trauma and emotional whiplash! (Also, I never expected an arcane trickster to work as a melee build because of the terrible BAB.) I like how she had a great setup with the missing dad who might or might not have been complicit in his daughter's screwed-up childhood and her own idealization of these old memories, not knowing what to believe in but just clinging to them for comfort, even as she pulled the strings of a ninja network as the world's smallest kunoichi.
Also, you were probably the most prolific writer among the team, really just crafting lots of scenes and stories to help move things along and create interesting emotional tension!

Maria really nailed the hard-bitten inspector angle. I half-expected her backstory to reveal that she was actually a replicant and have a mysterious origami unicorn appear on her bed one day. I liked her late-blooming romance with Safina. She always seemed a bit standoffish compared to the rest of the party, perhaps partly because of her analytical mind. I'm glad that she, too, got an interesting wrap-up with her estranged father in the end!

Sara, our departed warrior, was a wild ride. Apparently the proletarian revolution really will be won with love instead of violence. She showed a great ability to put her own welfare on the line to protect other people and to fight what she believed in. I also liked the touch of her enjoying cigars - kind of a shout-out to Marxist philosophers, I guess. The resurrectionist story line was a cool way to have a character gain class consciousness and become aware of their own complicity in the system, literally using the bodies of the dead for her own survival. It made for a neat mid-story character arc to tie that up.

Thanks everyone! See you next time!

Zileska did a wonderful job of playing the cleric. She fulfilled the 'heal-bot' role, but rather than just being the provider of divine magic she was a wonderfully realised character who did a great job of embodying all the complex and contradictory facets of being a Calistrian. She slept with anyone she wanted but never came across as cheap and genuinely found something special and valuable in everyone that she came across, whether living painting, cursed spider-man or anything in between. She also did a wonderful job as 'party mom', coaxing both Zhi and Mel (those roiling balls of teenage angst) through a wide variety of situations with remarkable wisdom and good humor. Her sideline of founding a school for young women was a lovely way to give her a goal in her own right and very fitting - something her goddess would absolutely approve of, but in a kind and caring way that reflected her own personality perfectly. May every cleric be as interesting, compassionate and fun as you Zileska!

Melodie, are you still planning on writing that last scene?

Planning on it today. :)

Thoroughly self-indulgent politics posted. Thank you for letting me play in the sandbox one last time!

You're welcome! My final post will come later today.

And that's all she wrote!

Thank you again, Sir, for running such a fun game!

And thanks to all of the rest of you for making this a enjoyable time!

Thank you again, Sir, for running such a fun game!

And thanks to all of the rest of you for making this a enjoyable time!

Seconded!

Thirded!

And y'know, I thought there would be a lot more recruitments now that people are stuck at home all day.

I imagine that some percentage are still following their same routine (raises hand) and others are already over their limit on current games (raises other hand) and the rest are getting really stressed and not thinking about it.

Trying not to think too much about it to avoid panic attacks.

I'll likely be starting the Hell's Rebels game in the next week or two. I'll let you all know here when I get the board set up. In the meantime, you can start conferring about what characters you would like to play.

Zileska, if you have Discord, send me your user name and I can set up a chat channel for it as well.

I'm planning a Cavalier with the Order of the City. (S)He is going to be a real kintargo homeboy/girl. The proper charismatic leader type. Whether they'll be smart enough and/or manipulated by a more puppet-master type remains to be seen :D

I'm torn between trying a swordsage (from the Book of Nine Swords, if Brainiac will have one) or doing a seascarred (shark skinwalker) ranger.

No swordsages, sorry. The seascarred ranger would be a good fit, though. :)

Never seen one of those before. Just promise not to eat the citizens? :D

Farrina doesn't eat anyone. Well, not at least that she'd admit to.

That's going to be a minimum requirement. Just so you all know!

What Zhi, Mel, and Zhi said; this was a great campaign and thank you for running it and thank all of you for being great players in this.

That being said; I'm not interested in the Hell's Rebels game. I've said a few times that I'm getting burnt out on Pathfinder 1e overall (and of the play-by-post format) so I think this and the Return of the Runelords ones are gonna be the last PF1e campaigns I take part in.

Fare well, Maria's player, and I hope you find something else to enjoy! :D

Yes, happy gaming, whenever you land. :)

I'll be marking this game as inactive (complete!) in the next few days. :D