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Marroar takes the potions and stuffs them in his pack without thanking Janiven, and grumbles about how she's leaving them alone in the sewers for practically no reason, but follows the sword-point anyway.
I just remembered that Pharasma and Urgathoa are mortal enemies. Hmm. So...Stanley? Fight to the death?
Marroar removes his unholy symbol of Urgathoa, crudely carved so recently. It glows dimly, brightening as he focuses. The light, however, is not pure and white like Stanley's, but rather gray.
"Soft little man, I can do that as well." he says, turning to Stanley with a smirk.
Marroar grumbles and growls, his grip tightening on his scythe, staring at the door. Then he whirls, cutting a section of table off with his scythe before unhappily following the others down the tunnel.
Marroar's scythe is in his hand faster than he can think, and his chair once again clatters to the ground. If this is what must be, it must be. "I can't say I did not expect this to happen so soon. Let them come. They will find more than they bargain for."
Marroar grins widely, pleased to finally have found someone unafraid to speak up against the House of Thrune. He speaks up, his voice perhaps having finally found its strength. He sits back, crosses his arms, and speaks out deeply. "Finally. Someone who will help me kill the devil-worshipers."
Marroar grumbles and sits, picking his chair back up again and setting it back upright. He looks expectantly to Janiven. He's already asked his question. He isn't going to again.
Marroar raises an eyebrow. "Little missy, I dunno if you want to get your eyes checked, but it isn't nighttime yet. I want real answers. Now."
Marroar leaps up, his chair clattering to the ground behind him. "Waiting for an ambush, are you? You won't have me that easily!"
I mean to say that if I intend for my inner workings to become known, I have to mention them so that they're at least available for reading by the other players. If I don't mention them because I'm trying to keep secrets (and I might do this sometime), then the other players cannot know what I might have mentioned. In this case, I intended for Stanley to have access to the knowledge, without necessarily automatically giving it to him. I realize that narration of the iner monologue gives things away to the players, but that doesn't mean it gives things away to the characters. It does, however, mean that the characters know what they'd be getting if they have a way of getting the information. Just for example, if I post my thoughts, and then a fellow player casts detect thoughts, then he knows what he's detected already and can respond immediately.
Marroar crosses his arms at the table, leaning up from his eating pose, trying to ignore the food (oh, but how delicious and abundant it looked..). "Yer damn right you overstepped! Soft city folk never know what it's like for people like me." He glares at Stanley for a few moments before awkwardly removing one hand from his arm-cross and grabbing a potato, stuffing it into his mouth and chewing loudly.
I am aware that I could have changed Stanley's response, and that was intended. Without some way of knowing, his character wouldn't know why I'm an a-hole, but I thought it would be relevant knowledge for his player to make, because you can make decisions off of things like that. I know that it can change responses, and I did it on purpose.
Generally, I provide insight to my character's inner self for two reasons: To provide the other characters in the scene with some scaffolding on which to base their reply to mine. This is because I don't generally want them to take the wrong impression and keep that wrong impression if they want to have the right one. Not only that, but I trust my fellow players to separate their Player/Character information. See, Stanley did pretty much exactly what I thought he would - make a Sense Motive check to divine a vague version of the truth. The second reason is yes, to make it a better read. I think the writing quality of the PbP is an important part of it, and I know, certainly, that people read these. I've been reading someone else's Kingmaker PbP for eight months now.
Marroar's head snaps to track Stanley as he begins talking. Such impassive judgment! What right did this man have to say anything about Marroar's life? He knew nothing of the suffering Marroar had endured. It was doubtful that he would ever know. But then he decided he can just appraise people as if they're goods to be bartered? Pah! To Stanley, he practically spits out the words. "Judgin' from yer soft hands and talk of nursin', I'd wager you're a privileged city rat, most of whose patients are old and grey folk, just tryin'a pass on peacefully. I'd wager that the only reason you waste your life tryin'a fuss with others' is because you're too cowardly to do anything active about what's really goin' on in their lives." Adopting what he sees as a false, "snooty" accent, he turns to Da'Ka. "Based upon your silly accent and narrow viewpoint, its doubtful that you even notice the decay around you, but judging from your state of washedness, I rather think that you'd enjoy working in a corpse. It suits you." Looking judgmentally at Tarq, he switches back to his regular cadence. "You broker in information, huh? D'ya sell promises and trade in friendship, too? Bah." Turning to Janiven at last, he finally asks the question. "So, little lady. What's a girl like you doing pulling together four worthless bodies like us?"
Marroar sweeps an appraising gaze over the tavern - so empty and pristine and unused, he wonders if its truly a tavern or just a deathtrap. Hmm. He's spent a few hours practicing talking, so he's got just the right greeting down pat, and the growl in his voice is at just the right level to be grouchy and intimidating-sounding. "M'name's Marroar." he says, and then sits, inclining his chin and crossing his arms. It's clear he has nothing more to say. He unslings the scythe from his back and leans it up against the table, letting the blade dig into the wood a little so it won't fall, and glares at anyone that gives him a sideways look when he does so.
"That's very vague..." Marroar mumbles as she strides away. What if it was just a trap, set up by the House of Thrune, set up to make sure that the story of his village never reached another ear? Was he really that important to anybody? He was. Once. And he will be again, but not as he was before. He will be feared, reviled, hated. But to get there, he did need allies. Marroar knows that he isn't going to topple the House of Thrune by his lonesome.
Fine. He'll trust this...Janiven. It hardly mattered. If it was a trap, his death would hardly matter. It wasn't as if he had anything to live for anyway.
Marroar doesn't take roads. Not until he has to. He emerges from the fens shortly after day break, rats and spiders trailing in his wake and the undergrowth withering and crumbling under his feet. His thick leather boots make one of the most satisfying sounds - the dry crunch of withered plants. Emerging from the shadows of the forest, Marroar slowly becomes illuminated by the early morning light. Marroar is a large and aging man, with muscles that aren't quite popping, calloused hands, crisscrossing scars, and a deep, olive tan. Marroar's hair hasn't yet begun to bald, but it isn't exactly terribly impressive, either. It was thin and brown, with some half-hearted facial hair to complement it. Taking in his first glance of Westcrown, Marroar couldn't really see what once would have made this city great. There was no doubt that today, it was little more than a husk, but what else could it be? There was a lovely symmetry somewhere there. The diabolists were nothing but corpses to him, with a slow and painful death awaiting them. The same fate awaited Westcrown. Not because Marroar has something against the city, other than the facets of its wastefulness and crowd, but because what once was dead cannot truly be restored. It will always be...missing something. The crunch of dead plants underfoot halts for a moment. A deep and shuddering sigh sounds from the heap of a man just crossing into the road. Then he lurches forward onto the road, making sure to try and keep his distance from anyone else. Wrapped in his own thoughts and ambling slowly down the road, Marroar barely even realizes the growing susurrus of voices coming from the city proper. This is the first time he's heard or seen another human in nearly a month now, but he's so preoccupied he barely even registers this. That is to say, right up until a fresh and bright voice snaps him out of it. Someone was addressing him. Why? How? Marroar looks up to discover and attractive human woman, and immediately has to avert his eyes, casting his gaze down towards her knees. When he opens his mouth to speak the first time, he can barely squeak. He licks his lips, takes a deep breath, and tries again. This time, what emerges is rough and coarse, but comprehensible. "How...how can you know about that?"
Excellent. I'm around, and ready.
What kind of a starting date are we looking at?
Hehe. Mine is done. I actually really like witches. They're kind of really powerful and they have pretty awesome flavor :D We need a beefcake and some more skills, I think. By the way, if we need arcane more than divine (say, if Aardvark's concept works the very best with a cleric (and I like having a cleric around)) I'd be perfectly willing to port Marroar over to being a Pestilence sorcerer. It works just as well.
So, just making sure, no questions or concerns about Marroar? I'd like a Good-aligned character or two to interact with, by the way :D I should think Marroar would be an interesting person in a group of actual heroes.
He may prepare the odd cure spell here and there, especially if someone asks him to. He's lived almost his entire life as that sort of man - his home village's mystic, healer, midwife, animal husband-er, etc. etc., and so that kind of role comes easily to him. What I'm picturing for him in terms of combat role is pretty much solely a de-buffer prior to level 4, and then mixing in the odd melee rampage with wild shape after that. Pretty much the iconic spell I want for him is going to be contagion, if we ever get there. The reason I liked this idea is because Marroar isn't some scheming evil power - rather, he's just someone who wants to see the greatest pain imaginable visited on his enemies. He has no mercy and no room for their redemption. He was driven to Urgathoa by despair and desperation, because he feels that the Pallid Princess is the only entity out there that will give him the power to visit the kind of doom he wants on the diabolists. That doesn't make him suddenly not a nurturing softie on the inside, especially if there are children or fathers/mothers. He would probably give his life to protect a parent and children from danger. So, yes, most of his combat options are going to be visiting pain on diabolists/servants of the House of Thrune and just trying to kill/incapacitate everything else as quickly as possible, so he can get on to the former thing. I've been thinking about Marroar a lot today, on my long, long, 9 hour drive, clearly. And hey, I didn't even realize it was you, Aardvark! :D
I'm done! Tell me what you think. |