Some of the ingredients for the white obsidian formula can only be acquired from dead elens, right?
Dead iron, for sure (oreads). It also calls for Grief (undines) and true lava (which Osric correctly surmised requires ifrit sacrifices)
There is a black market for such supplies, just like there is for illegal drugs (Gasp). There may be other ways of harvesting these materials - like if you somehow made it up to Volcano and harvested true lava from there.
[sarcasm] I'm sure that's how the Temple gets its supply. Ritualistic sacrifice is way out of bounds, even for these people. [/sarcasm]
Happy one and a half years! This is an awesome game!
Loose Ends
--What is Capo Grosso up to these days?
--Who killed Eldon's mentor?
--Who killed Eldon and destroyed Byron's lab?
--What is the nature of the staff Odebie found?
--Why were so many elens rioting in the Slums during the Corazon trouble?
--What is Ky La up to? Why is he researching darkspawn?
--How successful was Byron's white obsidian? It that one piece still active?
--What is LN? What was the rune upon the altar?
--What happened between Ky La and Dove?
--What are the mephits doing? Are more things coming?
Player Goals
--Fi: restore the Incarna name; find friends and romance.
--Byron: make a significant contribution to the War via alchemy; have Byron get into conflict with NPCs based on alchemy vs religion; explore inventing.
--Odebie: Continue his work in the Watch, while trying to improve it the best he can (like getting rid of Gad). Improve life in Stone Town, especially as one of the only guards who can speak Sedime.
--Osric: End Gasp trafficking; work through trauma in a healthy way. Seems like you are also working toward exposing Temple corruption to the public.
---
As always, let me know if I missed any loose ends or player goals.
I thought we had already ended the gasp trade in Hearth, at least for the time being.
I would say Osric is more motivated by trying to neutralize existential threats against Hearth. At first it was the gasp dealers, then it was V'Manco, and at the moment, it's both the temple trying to cover up their shenanigans and the planar leakage.
That's a good point - Gasp is pretty much done is this town for now.
Does Osric have much of a personal life?
Odebie has his fellow oreads in Stone Town, especially the ones in the big tenement he shares with several other families.
Fi has her brother, and a handful of closer friends.
Byron...well, had Eldon, although I guess the same question now goes for Byron - do either of you have or cherish anything outside of your work/obsessions?
Not a good or a bad thing either way, just curious. There are plenty of people in the world who have very little outside of their work (like my advisor back in my grad school days)
I really like the description 'entrepreneurial belligerency'. :D
Osric has clients, contacts, and colleagues, but not friends, as such.
People have either warm or prickly feelings about him based on how his service has been rendered, but nobody is in a big hurry to invite him over for dinner. I guess Pilgar would be the closest thing to a non-work related contact, but their relationship doesn't go much beyond eating breakfast together.
That's what I figured, just wanted to confirm.
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Byron is the sort of person who would rather be alone in a lab than with other elens. It's other people's jobs to handle social things. His job is SCIENCE.
Gave the District Map of Hearth a much-needed update, now with more landmarks!
Fi, did we ever discuss Elfie's last name? If not, how about Melodia?
No, I don't think so, I was searching back trying to work out if we did or not before last post. Couldn't find anything.
Sounds good.
Got another District Map done. Also added to "Maps" under Campaign Info. At this rate, Hearth will be done in another 2 years or so!
Between March 4th and 10th I will be in rural Appalachia with naught but a phone and poor-at-best cell service. Please do bot me if I'm slowing things down.
Anyone else have anything to say? I want the conversation to continue, but I also don't want to leave anyone in the dust.
Something I just realized: "Bane" and "Favored Enemy" are far too good in a world where all PCs are the same subtype. Normally, you're choosing humans or dwarves or elves if you want to choose a PC race...now you can choose them all. A Ranger with a Bane bow would be utterly ridiculous.
With that in mind, when it comes to Bane and Favored Enemy and the like, the four races are considered to be Outsider (native)(element).
Such as:
(Native)(air)
(Native) (earth)
(Native) (fire)
(Native) (water)
Has everyone been busy lately, or is this not an interesting scene? I'm just curious, because posting rates have seemed a little off in the past week or so.
Had a bit of a poor year in general (in real life) to be honest. It seems like one problem gets resolved and we get hit by something else. I do feel like I'm tagging along in this scene, but that's probably at least partly my fault for being a bit of a passive player lately.
I have been enjoying the game in general, the world building is fantastic with a good ratio of alien to familiar (reminiscent of planescape or Dark Sun in some ways).
Very sorry to hear about the real life stuff. Just let me know if you need to be botted if you need a break for a bit.
I really appreciate the compliment, truly - I'm also open to criticisms (I'm always trying to improve exactly how to juggle this motley party's differing interests and abilities)
Ah, I also forgot about Odebie's absence until the 10th. That would explain that...
I'll plan on botting him for the next few days.
Correction: It should be "Ardere" Watch, not Ardare. It's correctly listed under "Hearth Info" at any rate.
I'm going to let the scene sit for now. To recap what is going on right now:
--There is chaos in the streets
--The Watches are in disarray
--The Temple is all but declaring martial law
--There is an unknown threat level from the rift and the tree
--Osric had the idea of recruiting the Makers as allies
--However, Instra is far more interested in whisking the 'cloudmaker' to Light
--The Temple Watch is apparently on the way to attack the Makers
Odebie is coming back this weekend, so I'm interested to see his reaction to all this. I'm also interested as to Byron's thoughts. Fi and Osric have so far declared in favor of defending the city, but have given Instra little reason to risk her people for a city that was recently lynching sylphs in the wake of the Brightfield explosion.
You and Osric do need to slow down sometimes. XD Creativity hasn't been flowing as naturally for me of late.
I am back, but need to sleep. I'll read and update in the morning.
Updating tomorrow. In the meantime, Fi, how about a perform check to inspire the more timid soul among the Makers?
Hey everyone, it's only been a week since my last "how is the campaign" question, but I feel like I need to address it again (hopefully a little more clearly this time)
To be clear, this is not coming from a place of anger or "you aren't posting enough!!" kind of mentality. I think I have an okay grasp on when the game is humming, and when the game is struggling. Life is too short - we should be doing things we enjoy. I personally am still enjoying the game, but I need to know if I can do something better - something that will help revive interest.
With that in mind, here are the three possible options I could think of:
1) Everything is fine, life has just been too busy, or I haven't had the energy to post.
2) It's okay, but something has to change. Examples: character motivations don't work anymore, there's too much going on, there isn't enough going on, none of this relates to my character.
3) I'm just not feeling it anymore. I think I'm going to call it quits. (or) I don't know when life will get less busy - I have other games I'm going to focus on instead.
If you're not comfortable doing this in "public", feel free to PM me instead. Again, there are no hard feelings about this - I want us all to enjoy what we are doing.
I lean toward option 1, myself.
I'm having a lot of fun right now. Like Byron said, if I need to slow down or write more succinct posts, I can try to do that if it'll help.
Life is just busy for me now and likely will be for a while. I've also just be on a low ebb in RP energy in general for some reason. I think I may have spread myself too thin, but natural attrition in games is helping with that already.
Sorry, I'm undoubtedly part of the problem.
It's mostly 1), in that there is a lot going on my life at the moment and I don't cope with change well. I don't know whether it's my ASD or just general anxiety but there's a part of me that wants to hide in a cave somewhere and let life even itself out for a month or two.
I'm also a bit turned off with Pathfinder, which shouldn't matter as I've always had the philosophy that the setting and story matters more than the system, but to say it has no impact on a game is folly. I'm not demanding we change system or anything, but if my degree of system mastery appears to be in decline, that'll be why.
Thank you for the responses. This is absolutely not a blame thing - life is life. With 2 responses leaning strongly toward "too busy, or difficulty posting", here are my thoughts:
--With 2 (or possibly three) of our foursome in the "difficulty for the foreseeable future" category, I do not believe this is sustainable. I don't want to bring in 2 or more new players - too disruptive.
--So, unless I hear very strong disagreement from three of you, then we will be ending the campaign.
Ideally, I'd like to end it in a narratively satisfying way, which I believe is possible. So please let me know if you can all stick around for a week or so to get to an "End of Book 1" kind of situation.
I'm fine with bringing it to a close, and I can stick around. The problem isn't period but frequency--I can post once an evening or so most days, but not really more than that.
Sadness. Please just don't TPK us to the temple guards! At least let it be "rocks fall, everyone dies."
One other thing: if any of you wanted to switch over to the New Beginnings table with your current character, that could potentially work too - just a thought.
1 for me as well. I'm having a ton of fun, but research and computer problems keep slowing me down. I'm sad to hear that this is ending.
Osric - correct me if I'm wrong (you might have more special Aid feats etc) but it looks like the AC bonus lasts for "the next attack (singular) made by a single oppnent", so the first AoO I roll will be against AC 19, and the rest will be vs AC 15.
Yep, that's correct.
Osric, I haven't played the investigator before, so let me know if you have feats or whatever that are changing this:
You used studied combat against the same guard twice. After the first time, that requires an inspiration point. I don't know if you used one or not. If you did, please put it in ooc tags so I know.
Ah. Whoops. I've not used it much myself and missed that clause. I guess that's why you don't always spend the move action for the bonus. I'll deduct the inspiration.
Yeah, I had no idea until I was reading exactly what it did.
Byron,
You can have your actions this round. I've been playing a little loose with initiative this battle to improve the flow of things, so we'll say that you are lying on the ground but conscious. I'll bot you if I don't see an update by later tonight.
Okay, interesting.
Just to let everyone know: my intent is to close the campaign by the end of the weekend.
It has been a pleasure creating this story with all of you. Thank you for your time and effort in making a great story for all of us to enjoy.
Two small pieces of 'business':
1) If you have any suggestions on how I can make PbP better in the future, please let me know. I know all of you have participated in more PbP than just mine, and I'm sure others do things like combat, description, pushing the story forward, etc better than I do. I simply don't have the time to read other PbPs.
For example, I now know not to include a dead-end interrogation scene with a belligerent sylph that lasts for two weeks :)
2) I'd like to ask all of your permissions to use your characters in future iterations of the campaign. This is not a given - if you say no, I will not use them. These are your characters, not mine.
Permission granted of course.
No real suggestions, this has probably been the most successful & long-running pbp I've been a part of, thank you.
Yeah, you can use Osric for whatever troublemaking you'd like to see done.
Feel free to use Byron.
Go forth and conquer with Odebie. It was great playing with you all.
Thanks for the fun guys! Turning off the lights and deactivating. See you around the boards!