North of the Wind (Inactive)

Game Master dien

Obligatory 'happy holidays' post!

Obligatory rider about how I more or less expect posting to slow to a crawl for a few days (and I can't promise I'll be on the ball myself), but post if-and-when-you-can, etc.

Indeed a Merry turkey/ham/trifle/fruitcake to you all :)

I will post later today and get us back on the wagon of ork-huntin'. It is a fine wagon. It has spiked wheels.

Christmas period is being brutal to me - flying back to KL tomorrow, then should be back on board with everything on December 31.

Noted, Thrymr! Have safe travels.

Eysteinn, check in when you can. :)

In London for New Year's... Will post Jan 2nd.

Happy new year folks!

London! Jealous. I have been twice, but would love to get to go again. Have safe travels!

I will probably wait to 'send out' the tracking party until Eysteinn is officially back with us, so I can know if he'll be with them or not.

I can't make a proper post right now, but Eysteinn will need a few moments to prepare. If only Thrymr and Knute are going, he'll wait and join the second party. If the whole group of PCs is going, he'll go to.

At the moment, I think only Knute and Thrymr are going, but I'll take those intentions into account! Thanks.

I am conflicted about Halla's decision. She's at about half-resources, unlike Rikka and Eysteinn who are nearly spent, but she is also unskilled in both Stealth and Survival.

FWIW I boiled Thrymr's down to the single thread of whether he'd be comfortable leaving the kids to whatever fate they would suffer. He wouldn't... so he's going.

I'm kind of hoping that the orcs travel at least a day or more, as Thrymr's down to a single 1st level spell as well.

Well, there are plenty of injured in the village-- so it makes lots of sense for Halla to stay there as a healer, using her mundane healing skills; but in the end it is still your call. :)

I'm crashing right now-- I'll post sometime after I've waken up to start things off next, so you have until then to decide if Halla wants to go with. I'll assume she's staying behind otherwise.

I'd also preferably like to hear from Rikka too, before continuing, but due to the player's uncharacteristic slowness in another game I'm in with them, I'm guessing Rikka may be busy or traveling or something. Still, I'm fairly sure she's staying behind, so I don't necessarily need a post from her before moving us forward.

Night for now! *ignores clock that says 6:30 am*

I think has Rikka has 2 hp, and her familiar is well into the negatives: Pretty sure they're in no shape to travel. :P

Halla is more personally motivated to go after the children than to heal up a bunch of Ulfen who aren't very nice to her in the first place ... but she doesn't seem to have a skill set amenable to a stealthy scouting mission, and she'd presumably have to get permission from Old Palli to go anyway. She'll stay behind with the intention of going with the larger group of warriors when the bird arrives with directions.

I think has Rikka has 2 hp, and her familiar is well into the negatives: Pretty sure they're in no shape to travel. :P

In my other game Rikka's player decided to deal with an enemy undead wizard by having his ranger jump 20 feet down a tunnel and go for a midair, death-from above, non-Improved grapple. The ranger is currently still wedged into a vertical shaft, grappling a mummy, while an air elemental punches him in the head.

....suffice to say I don't always have a lot of faith in Rikka's player's decision to go the 'safe' route. :P :P Exciting, yes, but not always safe...

But yeah, pretty sure Rikka's campin' out.

*nods re: Halla's motivations* And yeah, if you had really wanted Halla to be part of the pursuit right now, I can certainly find ways to work that story-wise, but it's more likely that Palli would have told her to stay in town.

Sorry Knute - just realised I stuffed up your name in thread... feel free to call Thrymr any manner of nasty made up names :)

Pros of Thrymr carrying Gifr: warms Gifr up, keeps pace of group, no need to stop and break, feasible, demonstrates close bond and loyalty between hunter and hound

Cons of Thrymr carrying Gifr: your GM posts things like this

Sleeping now, posting later =zzznkkk=

No worries, Thrymr. I knew you were talking to me, so no harm done. It wasn't even in dialogue, haha.

Eysteinn, answer your father when you can. :)

Regarding Rikka: I've played with the player for over a year and it's really not like him to just vanish, so I'm hoping he's okay. :( At this point in time, not having Rikka in story isn't slowing anything up, but if we reach the point where we need Rikka to move forward and the player has not made contact, I will, probably, unfortunately need to drop the player, and probably ask someone from the reserves, since I hate for you guys to have no arcane casting at all in the group. I suppose we will see.

If stormraven is gone, it will be a real shame. Sadly not unique, however. I was in a couple of PbPs with a player who never missed a daily post without giving advance notice for two years, and then he suddenly just vanished.

Hope Rikka will pop back up, though.

Yes. Unfortunate hazard in PBP. :(

Will post for chase group later today.

Hey guys, this is a drive-by post. I apologize for vanishing. Work has increased exponentially in the last month and it looks like I'm going to be almost completely offline until the end of January. That might possibly slip into the first week in February as well.

Feel free to bot my character if that works best. If you'd rather replace my character given the projected length of my absence, that is fine too. I completely understand. Thanks!

Glad you could check in, Rikka, and that you're okay, just busy.

You know I enjoy having you as a player a lot, so I'm willing to hold the spot for you/GM you through the first week of February. But I hope you can get back with us soon.

Update coming later today, sorry!

Soooooo I will probably be slow the next few days. (Well, uh, slower than normal.)

Congratulations! Just saw the Superstar list! :)

Thank you very much! I'm only flipping out a little bit.

Congrats dien :)

Got a map draft done! And now to sleep. If I have time I'll post later today. Thanks for bearing with me, guys.

I'll leave Halla asleep for a while and give Eysteinn some time to get to get to Grinmer's, unless someone wakes her up before then.

That's fine, Joana. Let the healer get some restin'. :)

Aaand I will probably continue to be slow the next few days. New job with a three-day out-of-town job orientation starting Monday. Sorry guys.

Hey guys, sorry to leave everyone twiddling their thumbs right now in-game. It's been ten-hour training days and my boss is.... intense, so I've been pretty tired each night. I have one more day, and head home tomorrow evening; I'm guessing that Friday I'll be able to jump back into the swing of things. Thanks for bearing with me.

No worries dien - I spent the day (and will be spending the next week or two) TapRoot'ing... which is an exercise in competitive post-it note filling out. 4-1/2 windows wide and counting!

I spent the day (and will be spending the next week or two) TapRoot'ing

I Googled this and still don't know what the heck it is.

Feast your eyes and despair

To give the TapRooT some understandable flavor - we just finished the sequence of events we're investigating... and it is 149 post-it notes wide... took us three days to generate... and now we have to actually dig into the detail behind it.

Home and had a day to catch up on things. Tomorrow, er, later today, I will throw up posts to move things forward once more.

In the meantime, enjoy those Post-It notes...

Wow. How many post-it notes do you guys go through in a year? o.o Also, it sounds like it might be interesting, if you're investigating stuff like the oil spills, plane crashes, etc...

Not that interesting - this is my first one of these exercises for a few years.

We're looking into a roughly $9+ million dollar incident and the fallout thereof... so just a bit of pressure ;)

As bizarre as it may sound... it was a fish in a well...

Congrats again, DM!

Thank you! I'm really excited, but there's about 5% of me that's like "nooooo I'm never gonna be able to devote full attention to my games agaaaiiin", haha.

It doesn't help that that new job I started is also eating a big chunk of time. *faceplant*

Sorry Halla's twiddling her thumbs in sleepspace right now. I'd like to promise I'll throw her a hook soon, but, uh, frankly, that's not likely to happen until after Friday, at least.

Aye indeed congrats and a huzzah... now for the tough rounds ;)

Wow, congrats, Dien! This is exciting!

Hey guys, just sticking my head in to apologize again for the lack of posts. RPGSS aside, the other job I just started has been one of those "every day it seems my boss wants something different than what she said yesterday" situations, and, while it's not so consuming in a time-sense that I couldn't throw up a post, it has been sort of stressy and brain-eating. I find myself going "no, no brain for GM post" despite daily resolutions that TODAY I'LL POST.

I am NOT abandoning this game, we WILL pick up again, and I still will start each day with full intention to post, haha. I'm just trying to find the right balance between trying to get things done for my boss and trying to have enough brain leftover for brainstorming RPGSS stuff and doing the GM thing as well.

Thanks for continuing to bear with me and for all the well-wishes regarding the contest. :)

No worries at all dien - both the new jobski and RPGSS would be a more important focus at the moment anyhow ;)

Don't worry dien. At least until RPGSS is over I think it's right for you to put aside PbPs.
Also when the game starts again, you'll have an awesome sticker by your name. Good luck with your monster!

Well, my RPGSS run has come to an end. While I'd be lying if I said I wasn't somewhat disappointed with my final round performance, it DOES mean I can probably refocus my gaming brain on, y'know, GMing. ;)

That said, I haven't heard back from Rikka despite being well past the date her player originally said would the back-by date. I've sent a message to the player, but if I don't hear back in short order, I will.... probably be looking for another replacement, I suppose. Losing players always saps game momentum, which is a bad combo when coming off a hiatus to boot, but I'll see what I can do. I do have several players who have expressed interest in the game.

Posts should be back in gear in a day or two. Thanks for your patience, guys.

Bugger - was a good run for you anyway dien, and if there's anything that I could suggest it's to keep on the horse and keep creating. Next year's not far away ;)

Looking forward to the thread getting rolling again... and also Gong Xi Fa Cai... to everyone who understands what that's all about.