So what do folks want to do next? Are people itching to get back into action, or are we looking to ease back into gameplay?
I could use at least 3 weeks downtime for spell research; I believe I could do RP-based stuff during this time but not actual adventuring/combat (Giant Halfling Arbiter of the Tower?) I plan to create a spell which detects Seeker/Tower Seals and allows me to determine their attunements. I plan to use it to gather more info on our fellow residents, and to provide a basis for more advanced research into how The Tower works.
However, if anyone has a plan of action for something they really want to pursue, I’m also down for jumping back into the thick of it!
Also, does anyone have any notes on treasure? I figured it out some time ago (to buy my ivory statuette) but failed to update my profile with the info, and now of course have no idea where my scratch sheet with the details has gotten off to.
Gaius had a plan a while ago (which I shared with the Arbiter) to test temporal relations by visiting a remote location, going back to the same location in the past and making a small but noticeable (and long-lasting change), and then visiting the same point again at the original point. So between that and checking out the map-room where his father spent a lot of time, that could probably keep him decently busy.
I don't have any notes on treasure, but I could start sorting through posts to figure out what has been picked up and doled out. It would help to have a formal tracking mechanism like a Google Sheet.
Here is a simple loot sheet that everyone should be able to edit: link to loot sheet. I'll link it in the campaign info that goes on the top of every page too.
I'm not sure how soon I'd be able to get to work on filling it in, but feel free to start working on it yourselves as you have time/energy. I'm not sure where exactly you want to begin from (chronologically), but if you go all the way back to the beginning remember that Gaius and Maximus had their own pre-Tower thread.
At long last…
Level 13 Changes Breakdown
New ABP Totals: +2 Wisdom, +2 Constitution, resistance +4, toughening +2
New HP Total: 110 [(6+2)*13 base + 3*2 mythic]
Skills: +14 ranks more or less evenly distributed
Wizard Spells: +1 5th, +1 7th spell/day; learned scrying, greater and statue (both 7th)
Archetype: Gain comprehend languages as permanent SLA (W defaults to turning it off, same as identify)
Attunement (Resonance / Liberation): refuge domain spell SLA 1/day
Attunement (Mind / Entropy): +1 3rd, +2 5th lvl spells per day AND known: speak with dead (3rd); commune with plane, telepathic bond (5th).
Feat: Fast Study (Arcane Discovery)
And…
Level 13 Changes Breakdown
New HP Total: 55
+1 Intelligence
+1 rank in Knowledges (geography, nature)
Scry on Familiar ability unlocked
Okay, I had some time to figure out Gaius' original plan!
The exact nature of space and time seems more The Witness' domain, but he enjoys pontificating with the others.
++Of course I don't seek to upset the course of history! Whether there is a fixed determinism, limited mutability, or freewheeling chaos at root in the flow, I intend to take care. It is just a curiosity.++Gaius gets a slightly mischievous idea that he is uncertain exactly how to implement given the variability in the regionality and duration of different portals. What if he were to visit one era, then return to the same region in a previous era and make a minor but persistent change, and then travel back to the original era to observe whether the change had stuck? Something otherwise unnoticeable like carving something into a isolated stone wall. It would take some planning, but it could be informative.
And then a follow up almost a year later.
He still had an idea that he wanted to check but was uncertain whether this would be an appropriate time and place to begin his plot. Would he be able to find another sufficiently long-lasting portal within the Tower that also led to Cardriss at a different time period? Earlier, if he could manage it.
There’s only like 12 floors above the one you exited from (before the gate), and one of those is the weird teal elves, so your chances of finding a suitable portal before now are fairly slim. Your best bet would be to find a portal lower in the Tower that you can reach a suitable cave from and then use this portal to mess with it in the past.
Perfect. Then perhaps the cavern that we were in the previous day will serve as a reasonable place. He'll return there once finding a lower floor that meets the criteria.
So (Gaius), that's fine but since you don't have easy/reliable access to a second suitable portal at this point, that isn't really a downtime activity.
My thought was that I would post downtime in 1 week increments and among the things that you might be able to accomplish (depending on your choices, and possibly on your roles) would be learning about new portals. If in the 2nd or 3rd week you have access to 2 appropriate portals I could see maybe allowing that experiment as a downtime thing, but success would very likely depend on a successful teleport check.
@Everyone- are you all onboard for doing a week at a time for downtime? That keeps the Witness' math easy for his spell research and you could decide after any given week to go do something active for however long before the next week, if you wanted to. I was thinking I would post a list of options for the week and everyone who's not crafting or doing spell research could pick one activity per day for 7 days. Some of them would require rolls, and others wouldn't; some would have clear/specific rewards and others wouldn't (but could still have some kind of surprise or intangible benefit); and some (like doing menial work for the elves) could be repeated while others might be once per character or only once period (and I'd mark those on the list). I'm pretty sure we talked about most or all of that before but I thought I'd go over it once more (and invite feedback one last time) before actually implementing it. Any thoughts or questions?
I'm happy to investigate and learn about new portals and crossing my fingers for successful teleport checks!
@Gaius- I just read your gameplay post. Submitting an exploration plan and/or conducting research for an Institute sanctioned exploration will definitely be available as a downtime option (although, so might simply researching temporal causality ).
This is why we need professional academic journals of null results easily accessible and indexed with keyword tags so that we can find all of the things that people have tried and design better experiments.
In the real world, I mean.
Hurray!
Just popping in to say I’m still alive. I’ve been busy with a variety of RL concerns, but plan/hope to finish my treasure accounting and get a post up this weekend.
Thanks. I've been crazy busy at work but should have a post up tomorrow (finally), I hope.
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I haven't been busy, but as it turns out, I am super lazy.
I got that blasted tinkering rat yesterday. I'll get a post up today.
It took me a moment, wondering if tinkering rat was some new plague, then sense kicked in and I went Ah.
It has occurred to me that you all might have some difficulty remembering what NPCs are available in the Residential level of Redwatch and/or the Research Institute (to know who you could influence), so I thought I would remind you that there is an NPC list linked in my banner (which is a spreadsheet that you should all be able to edit if/when you want to add new people you've met, or new information gained about people already on it), and there are also a lot of names listed in the campaign journal, linked in the campaign info at the top of every page.
Crashed last night, upset stomach, didn't get through everything so hopefully tonight
I could be mistaken, but I think the Witness added those at some point? If I ever knew what they represented, I don't remember now. Those documents are there to help you all, so if you want to add a color coding system, feel free (though adding a key with it might be a good idea). Also, I'll grab a die and randomize the order of your influence checks.
I think we're still waiting on a research roll from the Witness, and 6 more selections from Gaius and then I'll post the week-end summary (and then we can all decide to: do something at regular pace, do another week of downtime, or give up on the downtime system completely).
Edit: It looks like the colors were separating the people into the groups they were traveling with (though I'm not sure if the specific colors are supposed to represent anything beyond distinguishing the different groups).
Re-edit: I should have some extra time on Friday, so if we're ready for the end of week update tomorrow I should be able to update the NPC list some based on the week's results.
Alright, I just finished overhauling the NPC list (which is still linked in my banner as well). It now includes the information you learned from your activities this past week, along with a bunch of stuff that I remember you learning which hadn't ever been added before. I also took the liberty of adding some stuff that the Witness and/or Gaius should have figured out with observation (like clarifying some races/ethnicities), and some things you all would have likely pieced together over the course of conversation (like that the 2 dwarves Gavin met in the residential area were 2 of the dwarves that Gaius knew were servants of Angradd).
I did reorganize some things too. Most notably, I created separate sheets for NPCs based on whether they're inside the Tower, in Cardriss, or on some other plane. (There's three tabs down at the bottom labeled 'Tower', 'Cardriss', and 'Other' that take you to the 3 separate pages). As always, you all should be authorized to edit it if/when you want to add anything.
Thank you much!
I should be checking back in about 12 hours and will post in gameplay. I want to give everyone a chance to chime in on conversation.
I'm traveling this Friday through next Thursday, though, and will have spotty internet access, so I'm going to try and post twice a day until then to hopefully wrap up the convo before I leave.
*fingers crossed*
Okay, for dessert I just drank about 2 cups of coffee (poured over ice cream) so I'm probably going to post again at like 2 AM ET.
lol! That... yes, no words... lol!
Strangely being wired on caffeine and sugar half the night wasn’t conducive to writing a lengthy, detailed, or coherent post! Surely I’ve learned my lesson.
I'm assuming there will be reactions to the Witness' most recent post, and I definitely don't want to rush this RP (which I suspect might inform some of your future choices about time-hopping adventures), but I did want to let you know that I won't move us along until either people decide that they're ready for another week of downtime or someone posts some kind of real-time action(s).
Oooooo! Awesome!
I went it drama as a response. Hope you don't mind sir.
Not at all! Allowing himself to feel mild exasperation (or any other emotion) is W’s version of drama :)
Also, see this exchange between Mordigran and W in a pretentious dead language. I believe Lyra has just learned…
Also, I hope this is assumed by everyone, but in case it’s not, please know that I never mean or take any insult from in-character gameplay stuff. Occasional good-natured teasing, maybe, but never insult.
Completely agree!
You are encouraged to give the Witness as hard a time as you like. :)
I respect the power of coffee. I once single-handedly drank an entire French press pot of coffee by myself in a single afternoon and induced a panic attack visible the next day by the wear pattern that appeared in my apartment's carpet. You'd think that would have gotten me to swear it off, but I just detoxed for a month or two before slowly reintroducing it into my habits.
---
And in the Tower, I absolutely want Gaius to give as much of a hard time! Learning his reaction to all of this is interesting to me as well.
In case I don’t have internet/cell service for the next couple days, W will use the next week of downtime to continue his spell research. In a period of non-research free time he’ll read the treatise Gaius has given him, and check whether the minotaur equipment has sold yet at the market. He’ll also inquire about possible semi-mundane work opportunities at the markets.
Magey needs money!
Also, in reviewing treasure to rebuild how much $$$ W should have, I discovered I apparently took a belt of superior maneuvers +2 back in 2021 and never wrote it down. We also acquired a fire elemental gem which I can’t account for.
The belt is so niche for me it’s effectively a waste. Would anyone like either of these items, or shall we sell them? Assuming standard sale prices, the belt would net us each 800gp and the gem 225gp, for a total of 1025gp each.
Selling is fine, I have no use for either.
I think, Witness, that you took the belt because it let you use your flesh attunement 1 extra time/day, and you could use the +2 CMB when grappling enemies with telekinesis. I don't think you've ever run out of uses of your attunement though, and I'm not sure if you've wrestled anything telekinetically yet.
While she could use it for Trip, she already has a +24 for the maneuver. So selling it makes sense.
I think, Witness, that you took the belt because it let you use your flesh attunement 1 extra time/day, and you could use the +2 CMB when grappling enemies with telekinesis. I don't think you've ever run out of uses of your attunement though, and I'm not sure if you've wrestled anything telekinetically yet.
Yep. Pretty niche.
Speaking of being on vacation and having limited internet access (which I mentioned recently in gameplay), I will be camping Aug 6th through 12th. I'll be in a cabin with a bed, but no electricity. I'll do my best to make short posts whenever I go in to town for supplies, but I won't have any reliable means of charging my phone so it may be kind of hit or miss.
Hey all, I’m back, should be posting up this afternoon/evening.
Also I did NOT expect to win that vote!
So, there’s two options for visiting Gaius’ portal. Today was already a downtime day, so it’s pretty much bed time right now as you’re discussing things. I believe (or, perhaps, decree) that the Witness can take a break from research in between weeks (where we are right now), so we could make tomorrow a real-time/adventuring day and play out a visit before doing the next week of research/downtime. The other option is that I could make such a visit a downtime option for those who wish to go. The upside to this option is that it’s obviously faster and gets us to/through the downtime period faster; the downside is that there’s no specific exploration or experimentation that way- I’ll give you some kind of nugget of information or insight with your summary posts but you don’t get to ask specific questions or pursue your own methods of inquiry.
What’s your preferences?
I think that is a Gaius question really? This is his side quest specifically so I don't want to decide something important to him (and also am fine with either of the options anyway :) )
The two aren’t mutually exclusive either. You could go there as an adventuring day now and still be able to go visit as a downtime activity too (once it’s reset); or, you could go in downtime for now and then study it more thoroughly on a future adventuring day.
I'd like to go first as an adventuring day and then potentially follow up as a downtime activity post reset.
I was hoping to hear from some of the others on the active/downtime question, but I don’t wait to wait any longer. This afternoon I’ll do a quick post to move us on to the next morning and people will have a chance to argue for more downtime IC or to start with their daily buffs to go out exploring.
Sounds good.
I’m fine with popping to/through the portal and recommencing downtime upon our return.
I'm all good with whatever.
I should never give a specific timeframe for when I'll post something. Sorry. I'd like to say there was a good reason why I didn't get it up on Tuesday but the truth is that I got sucked into binge watching Parks and Rec with my wife (although, in fairness, yesterday was actually a really busy day).
I'm going to gameplay right now to actually post.
I suppose Parks and Rec bingeing makes for a good excuse. I mean, you just have to take a page out of Ron's book and hand us a permit that says "I can do what I want."