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Looks like I'm not back. Terribly sorry about that. Tornadoes in the Midwest are terrible for your internet connection. I'm sorry to see I've held the game up for so long. As crazy as things have been this last month, I think it best if I also bow out. It's clear that I'm not going to be able to keep up with the posting rate like I'd hoped. I'm terribly sorry, and I apologize profusely to all involved. I wish the second round of Knives better luck than the first!
I'm back. Exams + sick + moving = two weeks I'm glad are over. Bye, Kedrick :(
Sorry I've been inactive. Finals week starts tomorrow. I'll be back after that.
Rupert grins at hearing Shula's rough, but workable, plan. "Personally, I think it would be more fun to just steal the ship. But I've always been fond of intentional failure," he says, jangling his chain to emphasize the point. " But I wonder: how hard to we get to fight protecting the chest?" He grins, sweeping his gaze across the other recruits.
Rupert jumps to his feet. "A wedding and a funeral! Both yours! And two feasts to the victor!" Rupert grabs what remains of the pheasant off Martil's plate, takes a bite, and brandishes it.
Rupert laughs at the drow. "Us? You may have a knife, but you still have yet to prove yourself, new blood." Rupert looks to Lady Natalia, suddenly curious. "So, what happened to you back in Nidal? The others wouldn't say..."
Rupert pulls up a chair from a different table, shooting Kedrick a dirty look. Gods know we don't need any more 'bedroom specialists'. She must have some useful hidden talents, he thinks, eying the knife and its new owner. Hungrily, he turns his gaze toward her dinner. That is, besides what appears to be a deceptively complex palette.
Rupert looks down at the manacles and sighs exasperatedly. "It would appear that the church of Abadar made their donation to the city guard a bit early this year." The grins returns, accompanied by a short laugh. "It seems they squandered most of it with an elaborate banquet and sturdier cuffs, but their cells are as easy to slip as ever!" He reaches to take Whirrun's hand, but stops short at 'cracknut'. He looks down at the hand suspiciously before lowering his own. Addressing the table at large, he inquires, "So, what's for dinner?"
Rupert raises an eyebrow as he takes the hand and the dangling manacle jangles. "At my service, eh?" He gives Ragar a lopsided grin. "I forgot how much I love new recruits." Looking back at the drow, he says, "Now what's this about being famous? Have they been telling stories? Don't believe a word of it!" He pauses a moment to think, before amending his statement. "Well, the good ones, anyway. You should probably believe the bad ones."
The door swings open yet again, and a young man with a blond ponytail enters. His shirt is dirty and faintly rumpled and a pair of manacles dangles off one wrist. He stands in the doorway for a moment, blinking as his eyes adjust and he shivers involuntarily. Spotting the throng of people gathered around the usual table, his face breaks into a grin and he saunters over. "My favorite bunch of cut-throats and blackhearts! Looks like I'm late to the party." Glancing around the group, his gaze stops on Kedrick and his grin turns into a frown. "You're in my seat."
Still need to re-do the crunch, but there shouldn't be a whole lot that's actually changing. I may actually stick with my cleric levels, just change the deity to Norgorber.
I'll stay with Rupert, focus on the breaking-entering-exiting thief.
Heh. Now's a good time to mention: Rupert's secretly ex-Red Mantis. That said, I'm probably re-building, and may be abandoning the character in favor of something different.Cool. I am still weighing options. What are you thinking? Not sure. Possibly some "white-collar" crime. Alchemist specializing in poisons, perhaps? As a mechanical option, poisons are terribly weak though. Ragar's going for the assassin; Rupert could be re-hashed as a thief. I could simply excise the assassination aspect and keep everything else the same.
Heh. Now's a good time to mention: Rupert's secretly ex-Red Mantis. That said, I'm probably re-building, and may be abandoning the character in favor of something different.
I was thinking of doing the same thing. I would like to get together and discuss roles and work toward those? Sounds good to me. Plan on staying with Kedrick or going with a new character? There seem to be many different possible angles with the scope of crime the Blood Knives are interested in, but in practice it seems to come down to infiltration/assassination for the most part. If we want to focus on those aspects, I suspect that the only likely roles are skill-monkey thief types and various types of killing-machines. So far, the GM seems to be comfortable with running multiple separate scenarios, so perhaps it's less of a problem than I'm envisioning. GM, your thoughts?
Anyway, I've been less active since spring break; I had to drop the fast-moving game I was in. The pressure will be off after finals in a little over a month, and I'd guess it would take a couple weeks at least for this to pick up again, so I should be okay. I'm probably going to rebuild, at least a teeny bit. Looking back on it, the backstory I had written was...frankly, quite stupid. I have no problems with the way I've been playing the character, but I need to do some reconsideration concerning certain things.
Shit! Sorry! Thought I had answered :/
"I suppose it's possible. Maybe I'm underestimating our organization's need for laundry smugglers." At this, Rupert shifts his gaze pointedly back to Preston.
Rupert gives Ragar a questioning side-glance. "He already told us he wasn't. You're not going soft-headed on us after your vacation, are you, Ragar?"
You may have missed my last one, which was directed at you.
If we re-open recruitment, I would suggest that it be treated as an actual recruitment rather than a player-drive. In my experience, taking the first players who are interested has not been a reliable method. I understand what happened with this one (in fact it's partially my fault), but I thought I'd speak up just in case.
Bump.
Rupert, startled back to the present, looks up at Preston with morbid curiosity. "You're a smuggler?" He looks away, thinking through the possibilities. "That's a new one." Turning back to the conversation, he says, "What do they want you to smuggle? Drugs? Weapons? Dirty laundry? I don't think I've seen anybody around here ever actually do laundry. It's got to go somewhere, doesn't it?"
Rupert's eyes narrow in suspicion. "Her... cousin." There's something very wrong with this family. "Perhaps you could be of some use to Veldrin. He hasn't looked like he was among the living in a very long time. Maybe a hair-piece to start with, or some... skin?" Rupert's eyes shift left and right before deflecting downward. He tutters nervously at his joke, and he leans back, crossing his legs and arms in a subconscious attempt to distance himself from the unsettling newcomer. He lips press together and his tongue pushes out briefly, wetting his lips.
It's been awhile since we've heard anything out of those recruits.
"Oh really? What happened to tall, dark and frosty? She left with you, didn't she?"
Rupert averts his gaze, looking down into his cup as he swirls the water idly. "There isn't all that much to tell. Some unpleasant business with an orphanage. Child slavery, prostitution, drug smuggling, the usual. We got some help from a character, called himself Matthius; he got us in to the place." He looks up, brow furrowed. "Tabby never turned up afterward." With a casual shrug, he leans back in his chair. "I expect she took up with Matthius, she seemed keen on him. Her pet dwarf will be so upset!" He grins at the thought, but it falls from his face as soon as it appears. "That reminds me: aside from myself, you're the only two that ever returned. There seems to have been quite a lot of 'culling'."
Rupert quirks an eyebrow over his goblet of water. "Sweet? I thought she wasn't chosen. What're you on about Ragar? A bit soft-headed from your long months away? Where in the Nine Hells were you at, anyway?"
I have a certain concept in mind that I'm building for, keeping cleric and rogue roughly equal. I just meant re-do the crunch in the sense that the program I used last time spit out a total mess; my stat block in the profile is...well, it repeats skills for one, and I'm not sure if it shows all of them. That's just one example. At this point, I'd say play what you want, party roles be damned.
'Not far' can mean so many different things when there are magical portals in the next room over. "Off with us, then. Come on, you two, let's have a drink and a story. Maybe Ragar can explain who the new face is and maybe what happened to the others, eh? 'Culled' only whets my appetite for the full story!" Rupert turns and heads for the usual table below, expecting the others to follow.
Hargran is not participating. Voice, I'd suggest making a formal announcement in the recruitment thread that recruitment is closed and that any further discussion of submitted characters should take place in the discussion. Otherwise, you're going to get a continual barrage of interest; there's basically a vicious cycle of thread activity occurring.
Rupert quirks an eyebrow, his look of curiosity morphing into one of pleased approval as he tests the dagger again. Its perfect balance hasn't changed, its blade hasn't become any sharper, but his manipulations have still improved. "Nice trick," he says.
I still need to re-do the crunch for Rupert :/ I guess this is a good opportunity for it. Sorry my friend didn't work out. Hopefully these other recruits can handle it, though. They game seems to have slowed, but that's at least as much on the players as on the GM. Considering the way the game started, anybody want to get back to RPing for the heck of it, until the game gets going again?
I'm surprised he hasn't made contact by now. I'll try to hurry him along; he may just be trying to think of a character concept.
I've got a candidate. He should be making contact shortly.
I admit that I'm not really sure what's been going on. In any event, I'm still here, still willing to continue, and will start trying to recruit amongst some friends.
I'm already multi-classed; the gestalt option for me is pretty obvious. Rogue/Cleric. Kedrick, that's a mighty impressive Perception score ;)
Rupert looks up from his drink as Ragar and Kedrick appear from the portal room. He quirks his eyebrow in wry amusement. "Have a nice trip? You must be quite relaxed after that extensive vacation you must have been on."
I would guess that the holiday season has managed to squelch any immediate revival, but I'm hopeful that we will continue come January.
I'm fine with anything. I may also have a friend or two if needed. What spots need filling? Personally, gestalt might smooth out some build issues for my concept, but I'm not all that concerned about it one way or the other.
We dead in the water here?
Just holding, but still here. Not a whole lot for Rupert to do at this point, thought I'd check in.
Rupert slides his chair back, standing. "Lead the way," he says, gesturing toward the door. He performs one more quick sweep to make sure they aren't being watched.
"I've already started keeping eyes on the place; I can aid with the surveillance." Turning eyes back toward Tabby, Rupert smirks. "You've been dying for some undercover work, haven't you Tabby? Looks like it's finally your chance. Just try to remember the mission while you're rolling in the hay, won't you?"
I really, really don't like this situation. But, if anything goes wrong at this stage, at least we can pull out with minimal trouble for our part. Sighing, Rupert agrees. "If we must, we must. We must get in, and to get in we must rely on you. We are hostage to your methods, and I don't care for it in the least, but there it is. What do you need from us while we wait?"
"It could be a front for all manner of unpleasant dealings. Or perhaps it's a misdirection for something going on somewhere else. Or maybe they just like their privacy. Since you insist that you're our only way in, I suppose we have no choice. Though I'm curious about these methods of yours that are so much more effective than every other trick. What is it that you can do to get in that no one else can? You said yourself that you don't have anyone on the inside."
Rupert frowns, tsking. "That's a very generous offer, but I feel that my sense of professionalism simply wouldn't allow for that; I wasn't recruited to outsource all of my labor." As he talks, he leans back, drawing out his Blood Knife, and begins to dig some dirt out from under his fingernails with the tip. His eyes flit up to Kyrani's and then back to their liaison. "That said, er, Matthius is it? That said, you sound like you have quite a bit to offer in this plot, and since you're already offering to do practically all the work for us, perhaps you'd be interested in coming in on this as a partner? I'm sure our organization would be most pleased to welcome a man of your apparent means to join us in attaining our ends."
Rupert smiles coldly. "Good; that should give us some legwork to do. I was beginning to fear this job would be over before we had any fun." Leaning forward and lowering his voice a notch, he asks, "Though I wonder how deep your own knife is buried into this matter. Do you have maps or other documents, or any contacts within the orphanage? Information on schedules, lists of notable patrons, names of anyone in the chain-of-command or any other idea how their organization is set up? Even any stray tidbit of gossip or miniscule detail would be helpful at this stage."
As the stranger speaks, Rupert maintains a careful, intent gaze as the cogs in his mind turn. Based on what he'd seen earlier, he tries to mentally place possible entrances for the dock. The brothel explains the extra activity. The docks may be a useful escape route. "Who's in charge of this operation? Are they affiliated with any of the other local organizations, or are they a self-contained entity? It's apparent that they're not associated with the Calistrians, if what you say is true."
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