No 'biza' comment. You're buying Taj a horse. Even Gita had to notice that! Check out the edit...
EDITED to ADD:
Daen, can you put spells from other people into wands? Because it just occurred to me that the Spirit Council has a lot of valuable spells that might be wand worthy...
Things Gaurm picked up in Vigil, spices and cooking kit, more rations, more feed for horses.
A man who cooks! Always welcome. :)
EDITED to ADD:
Terrific post, Grimold.
Daen, can you put spells from other people into wands? Because it just occurred to me that the Spirit Council has a lot of valuable spells that might be wand worthy...
Absolutely. It just requires that someone cast it.
I'm guessing we can push forward. Is there anything anyone else needs to buy before we head out?
Gaurm cooks rather well. He got tired of eating trail bread or other people's terrible cooking, and missed the flavors of home.
I just need to pick up my own horse and buy one for Rataji, but I can spoiler tag that conversation with Grimold.
I think we should probably wait for Kassie, and then we'll move on out.
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NO one asked you.
Hey, I'm actually in this game!
Alright let's spoiler tag Rataji's shopping trip with the girls. They're busy and this can be carried off in spoilers. What's most important is that Taj grabs her flag. Yes let's move forward.
Daen I'll try to get you a list of spirit spells you could potentially be wanding. There are some yummy spells.
NO one asked you.
(Zohruk snaps to attention.)
I know that guy...
NO one asked you.(Zohruk snaps to attention.)
I know that guy...
In the biblical sense? Just asking, not judging....
The aliases! They've run amok!
Tasty tasty spirit spells:
Unseen Servant
Tongues (early access)
False life
Summon Swarm
Identify
Charm Animal
Barkskin
Charm Person
Burning Hands
Summon Swarm
Stone Call
The list gets even better next level when Heroism and Locate object come in.
___________
@Gaurm: a Mwangi who cooks. Taj will be delighted to meet you my friend when the time comes!
In the biblical sense? Just asking, not judging....
Gee, Blue, you think my life hasn't quite gotten complicated enough...?
Is anyone else having a hard time engaging with their old characters? I'm struggling to figure out exactly what Eilidh needs to do in any given situation, and it's frustrating.
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My Daens are subtly different, and only stand to increase in that regard. It's tough for me to keep them perfectly straight. I'm generally second guessing what I should post and how, but it's getting better with practice.
One thing you can do is see if you can put together a list of her motivations and refer to them if you don't know what to do. I've found that to be pretty useful when I'm playing characters that are fairly removed from myself. For instance, I had a gnome monk who was terribly picky about his food, wanted to wrestle most anything, and was willing to try anything once. Once I'd figured all that out, I could be quite quick in deciding what he would like to do, even though I'm none of those things.
Allie --
Is part of your problem having been rescued?
I had a little trouble finding Taj's voice because she had just taken a triple hit to her self-esteem:
That's a lot of loss and disorientation. She still has the spirit council, but the experience made my strong willed girl a little more clingy when it came to Zohruk than I wanted her to be. She's getting somewhat better, but It's hard because this vulnerability was not part of my core concept for her. Fortunately, she's had two weeks to adapt a bit to all the strangeness.
In your case, you've had a lot of heavy stuff happen:
If you're hesitating, it's because there is some dark stuff that you have to process. Allie is a strong person with lots of agency, but she's suffered a shock. Maybe we can work through it together in gameplay, since our characters have both been rocked a bit at the start of their careers in this game.
You know, you're an inquisitor. You could inquire a bit into your newest teammate. Maybe that would give you a chance to find Allie's voice again.
__________
EDITED to ADD: Daen, I'm really grateful that you switched avatars for Sir Daen. It's helping me distinguish between them, and keep them as separate people in my head!
I don't think it's the being rescued thing. Eilidh never had much in the way of confidence to begin with (see The Lost Vigil). I mean, it's possible, of course.
I probably won't have a post tonight. Tomorrow afternoon I'll have a different perspective on things, and maybe it'll work then. I'm just having a hard time forcing anything right now.
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I've read Lost Vigil, and I disagree with you about the lack of confidence. Allie was not the extrovert her sister was, but she had enough self-confidence to explore a whole bunch of NPCs, to rescue Grimold, go toe-to-toe with Zohruk, and to branch and grow. I see Allie as being strong despite being shy.
Don't force it; we'll catch you again tomorrow. This will come for you and you will find her voice again!
Hugs
Taj
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Allie, I may not be having the same struggles as you, but I can identify with feeling that it's a little difficult getting back into the swing of things. I wish that I could go back and edit that last post; I like the content, just not the structure or the voice. It's weird figuring out this new character, since he doesn't do things like talk to the voices in his head as much.
One thing that's helped me is thinking of Sir Grimold as a new character. What with the timeskip and all, the last thing I'd want to do is pick Grimold up exactly where he left off. Aside from being a bit too angsty, it simply wouldn't make sense for the character; he would have had to fail to develop at all as a person during one of the most transformative experiences of his life. Instead, this gives me a chance to fill out his personality in a healthier direction. In a way, it's like meeting a new Grimold.
In the back of my head, I've had a rough idea of how the interpersonal dynamics might have developed over the two or three years since The Long Vigil that I've been working from to inform the new personality. Maybe it would help if we talked about some of that stuff more openly?
One small thing, I imagine that once he opened up to the others a bit more, he invited the others over to dinner at his Mama's house. Whether or not they took him up on it is their call (except for Zohruk; I'm forcing him into that one :P). Also, by now everybody knows that his name is Rolando, but Grimold is the name he goes by outside of his family.
Something that I appreciated about Eilidh in The Long Vigil is that, despite being soft-spoken and nervous, she was one of the most powerful personalities in the game. She did things that opened the game up and changed the way we played. Two highlights I can think of off the top of my head:
Regardless of how meek she is, her actions have a way of shaking things up, and she has a lot of narrative potency for it. In a way, a lot of the roleplaying content of this new iteration revolves around Eilidh. Before you (thankfully) jumped back in, Eilidh's fate was a specter that hung over all our heads. Grimold found himself looking at Eilidh while remembering the past because she's a powerful symbol for him. Daen was the first of the group that Grimold met at the Bonewatch and was maybe something of a rival, he has/had a bit of a crush on Kassie, and Zoh is his best friend, but Eilidh is the one that makes him thankful to be alive. Besides what she means to Grimold, she's a strong anchor for at least two other characters (Kassie and Zohruk).
I don't intend for any of that to put pressure on you, so I apoligize if it does. I have full faith that you'll find Eilidh again, and we'll all be better off for it.
Seriously, what they said. (nods above him in the thread)
Also, re: Zohruk coming to dinner. An actual family? Hell, you run the real risk that Zohruk becomes your family's Kramer. :)
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Daen would always come when invited, although he would refrain from taking notes in their presence. He's immensely curious and would like to see a family that works, but he's got a good enough memory to write it down later that night. I think it might be funny if you caught him once or twice. If you kept inviting him, he'd eventually stop, but it would take at least half a dozen times.
Concerning Allie, Daen would have been quite cold initially. He was helpful, but suspicious due to his prejudice against the gods. I figure he got over it eventually and grew to respect her at least. We never got to deal with the fact that he saved her life with devil's blood, I was kinda hoping to hash that one out.
There have been a few times where I've lost a character in the middle of playing one. There are a lot of questions I tend to ask in order to get past that kind of thing:
What is it about my character that I like?
What is it about my character that I don't like?
What about my character could they be persuaded to change, and by whom?
What about my character should never change?
How does my character deal with stress?
When my character has nothing to do, what do they want to do?
When my character has nothing to think about, what do they think about?
What parts of my character's backstory determine who they are?
What things are true about my character that they don't realize?
What kind of goals does my character possess?
What situation would they feel most comfortable in?
Yeah, things like that.
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I'm also a very big fan of the Stephen King form of writing, which is letting the character surprise you.
Even if you have no inspiration, the best thing to do is have your character take action, because they may end up being someone different than who you had intended, and they can develop a voice of their own.
Also, I posted on table 2 yesterday introing the wall and Precentor, but paizo swallowed it and I threw my hands up in disgust. I will attempt it again today.
Also who is Malina, she is not on the sheet.
Milena is Grimold's sister, younger than him IIRC (I'll let him confirm).
Yeah...I haven't done a very good job of putting Grimold-related characters on the sheet. I'll try to have those up by the weekend. Milena is Grimold's younger sister. She lives in an Oathless tenement in Vigil with Grimold's mother (Mama). His father is deceased.
You guys have made things very challenging for the official note-taker. How many NPCs did you mention in the last 5 posts? I've got a lot to add to the Last Light folder. If anyone wants to help add some of the names, that would be great.
You guys have made things very challenging for the official note-taker. How many NPCs did you mention in the last 5 posts?
Um, all of them, I think. :-D
I'll see if I can put together a more-than-two-word description on the folks just named. If I can, I'll get them in ASAP.
Should I also put in Zohruk's family from the Burning Suns?
Yes, please! Thanks, Zoh!
Zoh, there's some descriptions of them in the Campaign Info tab in The Long Vigil. That should save you some work.
Freaking brilliant. Thanks, man!
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I'm also a very big fan of the Stephen King form of writing, which is letting the character surprise you.
Even if you have no inspiration, the best thing to do is have your character take action, because they may end up being someone different than who you had intended, and they can develop a voice of their own.
Also, I posted on table 2 yesterday introing the wall and Precentor, but paizo swallowed it and I threw my hands up in disgust. I will attempt it again today.
Good advice, all around. GM, I'm going to offer some of my own. Compose in Google Drive, then post. You'll never lose an hour's work again!
Elo, I was hoping you'd get to lug your two mooks around with you. Do you have plans for them?
GM, the Stephen King method is all well and good, up until your killer clown becomes a space spider in a Tim Curry suit. Some surprises are better left undiscovered.
That book still scared the everloving crap out of me when I read it back in high school, to the tune of "Turn on all the lights in the house to go to the kitchen for a glass of water, and bring a bat with you."
Yeah, I'll need to spend some time figuring Eilidh out more.
@Whoever suggested that list. You're welcome. I remember making that. Good times.
Grimold, does your mom have a name?
Elo, do your men have names? I'm trying to keep track of all people mentioned in both gameplays. It's easier for me to do it if there are names attached.
Rataji, she does not. I never came up with a surname or names for Mama and Papa that I liked.
What did they do for a living? We can pick a language for Varisian (italian, maybe) and translate their profession into that language to come up with a surname.
Corporals Petrovitch and Constantovitchikin.
Okay, I'll add them to the document. Anything special we should know about your corporals, Elo?
D-Squad: I've updated the Cohort One individuals mentioned by Zohruk and Grimold in gameplay, using Allie's NPC codex from Last Vigil.
Although Taj's comments have been addressed to Daen, anyone can feel free to ask Taj questions or tell her about themselves. I'm really doing my best to try to get her a bit more integrated.
Those names sound german or something :/
Midiotos full name is Midiotoziggeroto, (and no second name, although its not like anyone else would have a name like that :P)
Hmmm. Trying to create meaning from his name, here is the best I could figure out :)
Medio= Half, or Middle
To= A motion in a direction
Zinger= a striking or ammusing remark, an outstanding person
O= circular or complete
to= a motion in a direction
So his name would mean, roughly; "From the middle, He who moves into becoming an Outstanding Person yet continues the circle to move in another direction."
Not Tooo bad, but I like my own meaning for him;
Midioto= Freedom of Movement, or Freedom in Movement
Ziggeroto= Grounded in Faith
"Midiotoziggeroto is The Freedom in Movement yet Grounded in his Faith."
I like it :)
As for his profession, he is a fledgling trader and explorer :)
Rataji, she does not. I never came up with a surname or names for Mama and Papa that I liked.
Looking at Romanian (which I hoped might be close enough to Romany for Varisians) I came up with the following words for fiddlers:
Lautar
Scripcer
Would either carry the feeling you were seeking, Grimold?
Nothing in particular at the moment, if the GM would like to give them a bigger role in the campaign I'll come up with a few things.
Your enthusiasm is moderately concerning.
Ha! I just wanted to have something for NPCs for the Fish. I was feeling guilty that the notes document was almost entirely D-Squad NPCs from the backstory...
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Taj, a funny thing occurred to me:
Your grandmother spirit, the one that smooshed our minds together, if she's literally your grandmother, she has to be Akbar's mother (she can't be your mother's mother, and you only have one human grandmother). Which means that Akbar is such a d-bag, that his own mother is reaching out from beyond the grave to thwart his plans.
Amused,
Zoh
Yeah, I think that Akbar and Grandmother Juju are very much estranged. It's part of the reason he started pushing Taj away... because she carries his very judgmental and creepy mother with her.
Taj's family is almost as dysfunctional as Daen's. Almost.
Taj
My families dead :[
Let me know if you see a lich running around tho.
Oh! We should record the name of that lich, shouldn't we? Especially since Malleus said that he wanted to form a plot around it!
My families dead :[
Let me know if you see a lich running around tho.
So's most of Taj's; it's not really stopping most of them...
Those names sound german or something :/
Slavic, I think.
What did they do for a living? We can pick a language for Varisian (italian, maybe) and translate their profession into that language to come up with a surname.
If it's all the same, I'd prefer to leave them unnamed.