Yordan Patar's page

For me, I think part of it was the general slowdown -- it fed on itself. When there are no new posts, and you are waiting a week for any response to what you said, it sort of kills the momentum all by itself. I realize that real life takes precedence, but inaction begets inaction. Once the cycle starts, it's hard to summon up the initiative to break it,and if only one person tries and there's no response, it just discourages them more... and apathy begets apathy. I tend to have more energy when responding to someone else.

Part of it, also, is that gaming is not just a DM interacting individually with the players/PCs; it's also the players interacting with each other. With nobody having much of a past to remember, it's a bit harder to have interactions with other. "You're an amnesiac? Well, so am I?" -- and there's not much more to say. The players have to be able to generate energy and reactions off each other, and it's a bit hard to do that here.

I don't think it was the horror genre per se. I think some of it is adventure design issues -- Paizo has some NPC groups that PCs are supposed to interact with but lots of parties find it difficult to care even if they are heroes who are supposed to care. Nobody's friendly in Ravengro, the elves in Second Darkness are actively off-putting (though hatred is a great motivator; my character in that path was determined, by the middle of the fourth book or so, to make sure that the asteroid did get dropped right on target in Kyonin!), and while Sandpoint and Korvosa are easier to be involved with, they also have public knowledge (the starting Guides, the AP player's guides, etc.) that give people some feel for the place and some way to build characters that work well with the initial setting. After that it's up to everybody to keep it going. The opening scene or three were great horror, but ... I'm not sure it went anywhere.

The initial mood was certainly well-done and well-sustained for a while, but I think it started falling apart somewhere after the PCs reached shelter, particularly when there didn't seem to be any clues or any sense of belonging. Sure, it's reasonable that they're all suspicious of a bunch of strangers in the madhouse, but it makes interaction a bit difficult. (The most memorable character was Gweiliam the Unknown, whose shtick was "looking silently down at you" -- nice brief piece, memorable, but not much to build on.) I never really got a feel for Winter or Yorke or any of the others.

Now, in my particular case it didn't help that Yordan is not the most outgoing of characters (low CHA and enough WIS to know that he's not a social type makes for a strong silent person-- someone more outgoing might have been a better choice to do things here.)

As a minor style point, it got a little frustrating when I would try to do something, and just get nowhere, or ask/do two things in a post and only get one of them answered while the other was apparently forgotten. But that was only a minor point next to the posting speed slowdown -- if everyone is posting frequently, it's more reasonable to bring stuff up again, ask for clarification, etc.

That said, I would certainly be very interested in any other game you ran, and would hope to be considered for it (though I think I'd try to make a somewhat more socially-adept character for it, since PBP does interaction/conversation better than all-combat or all-dungeon-crawl stuff.)

What Ghelik said. It might be time for a summary post... I can't really think of anything else to do here, but nobody has proceeded with my two suggestions (having Fritz smite it, and having Kyleen go ahead and ask her phantom about it)

I wish to proceed

That might work...

As far as informational resources go, we've asked Winter and Yorke what they know about the thing, we've apparently flubbed our Knowledge rolls, and -- hmmm, can we try detect magic on it? Fritz reports it's evil, but is anything else going on? Kyleen, Mrakala, any informational spells you two might have available?

"Well, unless we can find a way to keep the thing quiet while we find a way to kill it, I don't think there's anything else we can do here. Do we want to rest a while before trying to talk to whatever that thing is? Or is there anything else we can do here? Any spells we can cast to find out something more about this?"

There's a thread or four in the website feedback forums, but basically a code upgrade caused unexpected problems and they have spent the past week frantically working on it.

The last week of website chaos has not been helpful...

Yah. Maybe we just have to call it a day, and move on to discussion of decadent art with the soulsucking whatever-it-is. I got nuthin' here.

The only thing I can think of for the weird doorway creature is that maybe its regeneration would be stopped by holy weapons... does a paladin's smite count as that?

Anyone out there?

"Did it grow back from being scraped, too?" Yordan glances at his glaive. "Maybe if we could scrape it away from beyond its bite range, and we stuffed our ears with wax to block its screams? Still ... we'd have to find some way to keep the patients from all being driven mad. Can we block everyone's ears? With mud if there's not enough wax?"

Yordan looks over at Winter. "I should have asked this earlier. Did you folks try anything with this ... thing ... earlier? I'd hate to try hacking it apart and discover that that didn't work either. Maybe we could try and smother it - at least it might be quiet under a blanket."

I got nothing, at this point, except either ignoring it or trying steel. But can we afford a riot among the inmates?

DM, did the thing show any sign of responding to my questions?

Yordan waits for a bit to let the thing answer. If there's no response,
he looks over at Kylee and Mrakala. "If fire doesn't burn it, how do we kill it?"

"What, indeed? Who are you? Who were you? What shape? What form?"

Yordan peers intently at the fungal mass. "For a moment there ... I thought I saw something." Briefly, he describes his vision above.

Y'all can look under the spoiler with my name two posts up.

DM: Do either of those figures look like anyone we've met? Specifically, like that guy that kept talking about the Yellow Sign?

"I'm already sick..."

Will save: 1d20 + 2 - 2 ⇒ (20) + 2 - 2 = 20

Yordan holds his breath...

Throw the fire.

Yordan throws the vial hard against the creature.

Ranged touch attack 1d20 + 5 - 2 ⇒ (8) + 5 - 2 = 11

I'm hoping immobile creatures have a low touch AC.

”Promptly, unless you can think of something to prepare for right away.”. Yordan pulls a vial of alchemists’ fire out of his pack, bracing his glaive with his left hand.

And muttering sundry curses on the thing called ‘auto-correct’...

”Promptly, unless you can think of something to prepare for right away.”. Yordan pulls a vial of alchemists fire out of his back, bracing his glacier with his left hand.

Yordan is just waiting to see if anyone else has anything to say before he breaks out the alchemist's fire and tosses it at the thing. Plus he doesn't want to destroy what might be a useful door. But he's ready to attack.

He probably would attack instantly if Fritz shared the information from his detect evil but he doesn't want to act outside player knowledge...

"Well, we can poke it and see what happens, we can try and burn it out, or we can lower the blanket and walk away. Doesn't look like it wants to talk. I'm rather in favor of just burning it out from a distance."

Did Fritz ever tell us it was evil?

Is the door it's on wooden?

"Yorke, what's on the other side of that door -- or maybe I should say, what should be on the other side of that door."

Or Yordan's 22 ;)

Is there any kind of smell? Did the fruit just bounce off it? Was there a wet thump? Anything else to notice as Yordan studies it closely?

I'm thinking we may have to attack this thing, but I'm reluctant to stir up something that isn't (so far) a threat. Opinions?

Yordan goes to the kitchen, grabs a couple of pieces of dried fruit, and tosses them gently at the eggs from about a 5' distance. "Let's see what happens."

Yordan silently holds out his glaive.

"This is weird," Yordan says slowly. "I have no idea what it is." He moves closer, keeping a firm grip on his weapon and (still) nervously checking the ceiling as he steps up past Fritz.

"What are you, anyway, and why are you crying?"

Yordan looks at the eggs, wondering what they might be:

Knowledge (dungeoneering) 1d20 + 6 ⇒ (16) + 6 = 22

Curtain, curtain, curtain...

Yordan stops by a sitting figure in the middle of the floor, bending down and whispering in a low voice, "Hey, All-Knowing Gwion -- what do you know about what's behind the curtain over there?" He points toward it.

"Because, unlike Gwion the All-Knowing, you actually give answers."

"We should try, at any rate."

Yordan waits to see if anyone else has something to say, then asks "Who will dare the curtain with me?"

Glad you seem to be doing OK. As for the game...

Push forward! I want to discover how we got in here ;)

I'm guessing that since the whatzis didn't chase us down and kill us all it probably does want to talk to us, but Yordan is really scared of talking to it. Right now we've just reported to Winter -- maybe she has an idea or two.

"It's still early in the day," Yordan says, "if there still are days and nights here in all this unnatural weather. Maybe we could check behind that curtain -- Winter, what's wrong with it, that you covered it up and nobody goes there?"

Stay safe, Doug. We want you back alive (and incidentally continuing to GM, but that's far less important than 'back alive').

How go things?

"I don't think it wants to kill us," Yordan adds from the rear. "It didn't chase us. Maybe it wants to keep us in here. Though I suppose maybe it's guarding something it doesn't wish to leave."

His mouth twists in a wry smile. "Don't panic."

And here I was thinking that we were all too embarassed to say anything to Winter...

Yordan hangs around the back, keeping a wary eye on the ceiling (and the rear) and letting the others do the talking.

High Wis, low Cha = self-aware enough to know he's not much good at talking. He's willing to trade in Trust points if he sees a good enough reason, but today is not that day.

"I suppose we must. I still don't like it. What happens if they panic?"

I knew I should have slept in there and done some looking around, but Yordan is somewhat self-sacrificing.

Have to search once I get back in there... does anyone else see any problems with this?

"Not me," Yordan says hastily. "And not likely Fritz. Perhaps Kyleen. But dare we speak to it at all?"

Just wondering -- for those sleeping in the chapel, did they see holy water or anything like that there? Or a font for making it?

I think retreat and regroup, though maybe we should look in that hidden corridor before resting... it seems like the only other place we haven't looked. Unless there's a secret compartment somewhere...

"Do we tell Winter about this?" Yordan says. "OK, Fritz got his soul half sucked out -- how do people recover from such wounds? But is there anything she or any of the others could do about that? If we tell them they'll just panic, even though it probably could have walked in and killed all of them. Apparently it doesn't want to do that. I think maybe we should keep this to ourselves for now -- it's not like they don't know it's dangerous out there anyway."

"I think it's our jailer," Yordan says. "It isn't chasing us, so it doesn't want to kill us. I think it just wants us to stay in here and suffer for ... whatever it was we did."

"Talk to it, or keep running away...."