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If we are trying to breakdown the in character dynamics of this situation, right now I'd say the honeymoon period is over. Yes there was an immediate bond that formed due to a common set of adversities, and overcoming those adversities formed a comradery. There were divergences in our methods that were sanded over due to a common need to overcome more obstacles and ensure our survival. This is metaphorically like basic training, we don't all think the same, and don't share the same values, but we form a kinship based on common suffering and need. Then we emerged to the surface.
We had diverging opinions on how to handle things, but the goals were still clear. Our success was ensured by our continued need for one another and our clear goals. Facing those random encounters, and delivering the NPCs to their goals was a set of clear achievable tasks. This was a sort of AIT to our group, a learning experience, but one that still required a unit of effort, a fed goal, a learning experience.
The excursions from defenders heart and the assault on the garrison was our first deployment together. We argued, there were fights, there were clear conflicts, but we were on point, we had to work together.
Now we are on our own, no one to give us orders, no one to tell us where to go. We were quite literally the generals in charge. No damsel in distress, no exhaust port to hit, just a general goal, and the Army to do it. The first battle went okay, some losses, but overall a success, we marched on. Then another, but this led to ruin, a victory at such a high price. At this point emotions all around were coursing high, all those small differences, and argument, all the slights and insults, all the things that made us different, they come to the front. Comments were made, one that nearly ended in blows. Then, the argument, all those feelings and mistrusts, all the differences, the question, the doubts all erupting at once. This not only seems appropriate, but obviously very likely.
From an out of character view of things, I think we each are starting to really feel out our characters, so yes, we may be reacting from a "fresh" perspective, but we have been sitting at the table for many months now, our characters have been together a bit over a month, the only long period of non-combat was spend mostly apart, not bonding and learning about one another, but reflecting on ourselves and engaged in our own work.
Yes maybe we should assume our characters know more about each other than we are acting like, but we as players know very little about our characters. The point of this forum use was to remedy that, to explore the RP side of our characters in a controlled and less hasty environment. When you compose a response to something you have time to think on it and respond. My posts here a much more Ansiris and much less AL than when we are sitting at the table. Just thinking about the first few posts made me really sit and critically think about Ansiris which in turn has made me really flesh out his attitude, not just his backstory, but what made that backstory happen, and what was the effect it had on him as a person, not just as a character. I know now how paranoid he is, almost to the point of delusion, that in his zeal and quest for good, he has become mistrustful, never sure if the seed of corruption is present. I know why he is NEUTRAL good and not lawful good. It is that mistrust. He believes in absolute evil, we have fought it, evil as a physical entity. However he does not believe in absolute good, only that since absolute evil exists, and evil can corrupt absolutely, therefore any good is susceptible to succumbing to it. And in an total evil force cave moment, by taking up his vigil against corruption, he is risking becoming the very thing he hates.
Now that I know these things about him, yes, that may color some of his actions now in ways that weren't there before, but this is who he is. Now we must reconcile that knowledge with our current situation. Again I truly feel that Ansiris is not the catalyst for this to end well, so others will need to step in to help this take shape.
We all have background traits in this campaign, some are harsh, some are less, some are traumatic some are subtle, but we have to make them mesh somehow. [/latenightrambling]