Volcano's Land - Unknown Depths (Inactive)

Game Master Miner Cotren

Glad to hear it.

And to answer your question about glasses - they are common enough in the cities, who have access to forges for melting glass, sylphan lens grinders and such. Slightly less common in the farms and sylphan villages surrounding the great cities.

Having glasses in a small southern undine village like this would be an rarity to say the least, maybe an heirloom passed down in a short-sighted family, but essentially safe to assume none of the locals have glasses. In fact, I would say the seamstress is using the word "glasses" in Common, as there is no such word for spectacles in Undine.

(there are also magical glasses, lenses etc, but that is a different topic)

I have updated "Campaign Info" so that the top spoiler (Campaign Diary, etc) has working links for the Campaign Diary, NPCs, and Places You've Been.

The summary for Page 1 has also been typed up. I try to do the summary page a few days after we finish a given page of posts in Gameplay. I honestly don't know how much my players have used the summaries over the years, but I find it a useful resource for myself (instead of slogging through pages and pages of forum posts)

Thanks!

I am curious about materials used for the Swem (among other races). Pretty much any silks, cotton, or any other fabrics in water become moldy and are destroyed in real life. Are the materials used for those who transition in and out of the water made of something different in this world that can handle such environments? Are they just called silk or cotton, but in your world are something unique, or is there some care that needs to be taken with these garments? In the same way, the clothing of the Ifrits, are they more tailored for hot environments to not bear burn marks or to catch on fire?

Interesting question!

For simplicity's sake (I already have enough terms like "elen" floating around) they are still called silk, cotton, leather, etc, but just like the "humans" (elens) of this setting are infused with the touch of the gods (fire resistance, superb swimming, burrowing, etc) likewise there are certain animals and plants that are enhanced by the elements.

So for instance, the silkworms cultivated by undines over the centuries produce what might be called "watersilk" (although I think that's a realworld thing too) which is naturally resistant to decay from water.

Likewise, the steer raised near the ifrit cities have a natural fire resistance to their leather.

Since sylphs don't do much farming or breeding, I'd imagine this manifests itself in the materials/clothing they make in labs (so rubber gloves for instance being resistant to electricity)

Freya, let me know if this is accurate -

Your father's family name is Argento,
Your mother's family name is Mau,

So you took both names?

I'm thinking your sister just uses your mother's name, and your brother uses your father's family name to fit in to Hearth. Perhaps Freya was too proud to care what other elens thought?

Let me know if my assumptions are accurate.

So for instance, the silkworms cultivated by undines over the centuries produce what might be called "watersilk" (although I think that's a realworld thing too) which is naturally resistant to decay from water.

That makes sense. Thanks.

One other note about families - I'm constructing the NPC document right now, which includes a fair amount of family names up front. I'm fine with coming up with names for all these parents, siblings, etc, but please let me know if you have your own ideas.

(don't worry, if it's in your profile already rest assured I will use it)

Also, don't feel railroaded to "sleep" - if Freya and Novalie want to meet up so Novalie can vent about family, feel free to do so (although you will have to roleplay leaving your mother's house, Novalie)

We did promise to go drinking! Though I don't want to hold everyone else up.

I think the best way to handle it is spoiler tags so it doesn't "clutter" the shared part of the story. Even if you are a little hungover in the morning, nothing is going to radically change between now and the morning, so I have no problem with doing both kind of side-by-side.

We did promise to go drinking! Though I don't want to hold everyone else up.

No you’re good, go for it. It’s cool, at least on my side

ended up getting roped into subbing for an online class tonight, so expect an update tomorrow morning :)

Happy 100 posts and happy first combat!

1) In the lower right corner of the map is the "key" of your characters. Please choose a color for yourself (you are all circles) then copy yourself into the hut.

2) When I run combats, I ask you all just declare your actions as soon as you can post (waiting for everyone to post in order takes way too long). I am very generous about cleaning up actions and doing things like "Oh, that guy got killed, so you would have attacked the guy next to him instead" etc. I will allow redo of actions if things have changed radically, but that is rare.

3) I'll give everyone 24 hours to post in combat, then I will bot and move onto the next round. I try to take smart actions for PCs, but I don't know your characters as well as you do.

4) Finally, I added a permanent link to the battle map at the Campaign Header, so you don't need to go fishing for it in the posts.

I seem to only have viewing privileges with the battle map, but I think Freya should be orange!

Can't move anything, too. I'll be green

Editing rights have been fixed, and url updated - let me know if it works now!

Editing rights have been fixed, and url updated - let me know if it works now!

Somehow nothing changed for me. Usually Google Drawing works much better than Presentation

I had one player a while back who said they could only access Slides on their phone, never drawings.

Makes no difference to me, so I will post a Drawing in a moment.

alrighty, let me know if this works

battle map

Iryani, I placed you (green) on the map and made what I think is a 15 ft cone down below (length of cone and the final width of the cone are both 15 ft by scale)

You can hit the front two worms, and you act before everyone else so you won't hit anyone but the worms.

Botted Novalie for the round. My interpretation of the character is that she is more apt to fight when an enemy is right in front of her :) But let me know if I made an error - I always try to do right on the rare occasions that I bot.

The dice roller must know a paladin is rolling against darkspawn! That is crazy stuff!

Iryani, could you also put your total HP in your tagline (like 9/9)? Helps me know everyone is keeping track of their HP. Thanks!

Novalie - it's crazy that your posts keep disappearing! No idea what's happening.

Nempura sent me a kind note in my pms explaining the copy, refresh method.

Here's what I sent her in return;
Thank you for trying to help, I do appreciate it. I did do the refresh.

There is a situation with the backend architecture of the site (I knew one of the people who helped write it.) The problem is the post is asynchronously saved but doesn't commit to the backend possibly for a while. Thats why sometimes you post but it doesn't show up until you've refreshed it a few times and why sometimes something shows up but disappears a bit later. It's a known limitation of certain types of system architectures.

This website was written quickly back in the day and they never thought it would get this big. They have worked within the limits of the basic architecture and fixed and improved many things. They have worked very hard to fix this exact issue.

The problem is math. There is literally no way to mathematically guarantee this works every time no matter what your architecture is. I know because I design big systems (like Amazon's third party merchant system.)

I'm annoyed because in all of the many posts I've ever had on here I've had a message disappear exactly once. Now there have been two in this campaign. I find it both amusing and annoying at the same time. :D

Thank you for your suggestions. They are indeed the only things we can do to avoid the losses and we should teach them to everyone.

I'm annoyed because it makes me look like a liar/excuse for everything type and it puts you all in the bind of botting me.

The first time was annoying enough, but twice? It's like being hit by a car twice on the same day :D

Well, I can verify that your latest post is up at least! Hopefully it's fixed now.

As can I! I see it.

Your communication and the quality of your posts tells me you aren't making up the situation :) I would be frustrated too!

Nempura, I don't think I ever ruled about hero points at character creation one way or another - but what the heck, it won't break the game, so let's say everyone starts with 1 hero point, and--as Nempura showed with her use--it allows a d20 to be rerolled.

I don't know if I'll be awarding additional hero points, so for now this is a one-time thing.

Lol, I think you meant the other n name, Novalie.

Gah! I mixed up the Ns, I can't believe it.

I do sometimes too, but I've been lucky enough to catch it so far.

oh wait, sorry I am playing in a 2ed game and messed up the two, I am very sorry. Wow, am I blonde somedays.

No worries, there's always a way to make it fun.

We seem to be humming nicely along now - I'm having fun, hope you all are too!

We're coming up on a little over a month of posting and almost to our 5th page of posts, so I thought it would be good to take a quick poll. I'm a big fan of open communication in PbP where we never see faces or hear tone.

If you are more comfortable with PMing, that is cool too.

Options are 1 or 2:

1) All good

or

2) Anything you think could improve the campaign?

(and I hope this doesn't come off as fishing for compliments, I do like hearing all suggestions :)

1) All good.

1) It's all good so far, though I do worry I'm pushing Freya/Nempura's enmity a little too much.

I'd say adding some of the everyday facts into a quick ref sheet might be good.

I assumed this was a world without a sun, but had to do a little digging to find out how that worked (Volcano provides light from its peak making it akin to a god of the sun as well.) I think that's an eternal light though right? No real 'day' system where it waxes and wanes.

Is there a strong fungal/mold presence? Such life does form more easily in dark, damp places like where we are.

Out of character, I am loving the enmity between them. As long as it doesn't turn into drama beyond rhyme or reason I am cool. I can't say the same for Nempura in character. She is feeling like she normally feels when people consider her evil just because she's a noble or a rich person. In fact, that brings to mind a fun show on getting out of poverty that I saw once. You can check it out if you're bored.

Thanks for bringing up Nempura/Freya. I like the tension there as well as a starting point, and I'm guessing that we'll find a way to naturally relax it and find a connection the more you see each other in different situations (combat, social, etc) and see IC that everyone has something to contribute. I'm not saying that's exactly how it has to go down, but I'm glad you are both aware of it and thinking about it.

Freya, good idea! I'll make a list of some of the common assumptions of the setting, and please let me know if there are other everyday facts that you'd like me to include.

As for Volcano, there is a day/night of sorts, where Volcano is brighter for about half the day (which begins with "bright", the word for dawn) and darker for half the day (which begins with "dim", the word for dusk)

So there is light throughout the day, but it is noticeably darker during the night, which is when elens typically sleep. Volcano provides enough light, even to the far north and south, so that elens with darkvision can see "normally". I imagine "day" would be like a cloudy day to humans on earth, where (looking at my window right now) I can see perfectly well but there are no shadows. "Night" would be like the time right after the sun sets where, again, you can see fine but the colors are muted and there are no shadows.

Let me know if that helps!

As for fungus/mold - yes, that is certainly a consideration, but even mid-sized villges like this will have a handful of low-level "adepts" (the class name; they would not be referred to as adepts IC) that can cast useful cantrips for cleaning, washing, etc. Failing that, the superstitious folks who eschew magic (or live in the middle of nowhere) either live with the smell or clean with vinegar. :)

COMMON ASSUMPTIONS

Daylight, night, seasons

As for Volcano, there is a day/night of sorts, where Volcano is brighter for about half the day (which begins with "bright", the word for dawn) and darker for half the day (which begins with "dim", the word for dusk)

So there is light throughout the day, but it is noticeably darker during the night, which is when elens typically sleep. Volcano provides enough light, even to the far north and south, so that elens with darkvision can see "normally". I imagine "day" would be like a cloudy day to humans on earth, where (looking at my window right now) I can see perfectly well but there are no shadows. "Night" would be like the time right after the sun sets where, again, you can see fine but the colors are muted and there are no shadows.

Volcano also seems to follow a longer pattern throughout the year, which roughly corresponds with our own cycle of summer, fall, winter, spring, etc.

Weather

Climate is colder and wetter away from Volcano; warmer and drier going toward Volcano.

Rainfall, wind, etc is typically milder than earth since Sky died. Strong wind storms like tornadoes and hurricanes are once-in-a-generation events.

The one exception to this is Sky's Tears, a massive, permanent storm that roams the land (and sometimes seems to disappear for months or years) and strikes with lightning, wind, and hail.

Terms

Elen - generic term for "people" of all four races
Ele - woman
El - man

The Dark, and darkspawn

Very little hope remains about ever defeating or piercing through the Dark. Most elens simply want to survive.

Although darkspawn have been known to appear in various locations throughout the land, most die from Volcano's light before causing much damage. There are four locations in the land where the vast majority of darkspawn come from - north (guarded by the oreads), south (guarded by the undine), and roughly east and west (guarded by the ifrits and sylphs)

The Gods

The gods are overwhelmingly seen as real; their physical presences in the Land, as well as the power of their worshipers, is beyond question. However, not everyone venerates the gods - many elens from all the races doubt the goodness or "divinity" of the gods, but never their power.

After the Fall of Sky, the gods spent several centuries combating the Dark and aiding their followers more directly; in the past 1000 years, however, the gods have been Slumbering, and show little of themselves except the power they grant to their priests.

Magic

Low-level magic is fairly common -you will find an adept or two in every town that can cast cantrips for minor cleaning, healing, water, messages, mending, purification, etc. Some spells are far more common in certain races (many, many undines know how to cast 'create water', for example). The ability of elens to use magic is seen as one of the things that separates them from common animals. (the other major thing being "touched by the gods", like undine's ability to breathe water, oreads ability to burrow, etc)

Mid-level magic is quite uncommon, and high level magic (anything above 3rd or 4th level spells) is rare.

"Science"

Arcane magic and Alchemy are relatively new disciplines, only having come to fruition in the last ~500 years. Light (one of the ifrit cities, though the common joke names it "Sylph City) is one of the few places in the land that seriously studies these disciplines. There is also a large library in Forest owned by the monks of the Branch, and it is rumored that IceFall studies the relationship between alchemy and water deeply.

(let me know if I missed anything)

I'm enjoying it so far, I do have to go to the campaign info tab occasionally, but its good because I am progressively learning the world.

Apologies, just started as a full time high school math teacher job (through Zoom, lol!) , and I'm busier than normal. Planning on updating tonight.

Congrats! Hopefully your experience wrangling players helps with your students.

Congrats on the new job! Good luck!

I know that feeling. Crazy times ahead. If you need to slow things down again, just let us know!