Right, these are the details I am interested in acquiring with regard to how much Ameena may remember about what she's about to get to. I realise that some of this may rely on a Will save and some of it she may have no clue about anyway, but I'm hoping that experiencing something she's already dealt with before (ie an encounter involving Seeroc and grak-graks) might cause her to remember some stuff "for free", as it were, like the way she remembered about the existence of the Giant Rats, which I think she managed without having to make any particular saves or effort to recall.
Right, so...a list...so you know what kind of things I'm hoping Ameena will have some memory of when she reaches the lab. I realise she's also probably unlikely to remember much of this in very clear detail, but even an emotive reponse is better than none (eg "grak-grak smell = fear-fear-bad" even if she can't remember exactly why).
Oh yeah, and I know before starting that this post is gonna be somewhat long
. I'll go through each aspect of the encounter Ameena is soon to be joining. Like I say, I'm hardly expecting to get
all this information, or even half of it. These are just the things I've been thinking about so I'll mention all of them in case you miss something vital when you're updating me on Ameena's memories when she gets there and...well...presumably remembers some stuff
.
Seeroc
-What happened the last time they met him? For example, did he put on the "Brighteyes" act?
-If he wasn't "Brighteyes", did he ever at least act friendly? Or did he try to nuke them on sight?
-Was he encountered in his lab before, or somewhere entirely different - encountering him out of context now if they
didn't meet him in hs lab before (or even visit his lab, which of course would have smelt of him) might cause a little confusion on Ameena's part - otherwise she might enter the lab, see the gnome, and remember more stuff since he's in the same place they met him last.
-An important one - what was the state of Seeroc the last time Ameena saw him? Like, you know, was he dead or something? What would be the last thing she remembers of the group's last encounter with him? If he died, how? If not, what happened?
Grak-Graks
-Can they mimic smells or just appearance? Because, you know, this will give Ameena an easy way to distinguish them from her friends, provided she dares get close enough for a whiff (or somehow manages to be downwind in this underground dungeon
). Or do they have some kind of visual difference anyway?
-What does she remember of the last encounter(s) with them? I gather that she remembers they are undead creatures who can change their appearance to match someone else's, and if injured while in that person's guise, the person takes the damage rather than the grak-grak...or does the grak-grak take damage too, as seems to be under debate in the other threads of the RPG?
-Does she remember anything about them with regard to what can injure or scare them (assuming they can be scared...they
are undead, after all)...or maybe banish them, or whatever? You know, weaknesses, generally ways to beat them
.
-As with Seeroc, anything relevant regarding context? Wil she recognise a grak-grak as soon as she sees one? She's picked up the scent but would she twig if she enters the lab and sees one across the other side of the room where she can't get an instant smell of it?
Screamers (Since there's one in the room, might as well, if it's not dead by then.)
-Presumably an obvious memory, for Ameena, at least, regarding these guys is "loud high-pitched noise + sensitive rattish hearing = OOOWWWWW
". Alright so that would be more of an RP than a mechanic thing, but I figure that these guys would affect Ameena more than the rest of the group, so she may have more of an over-riding memory of them.
-Will she remember that they're edible? If so, what will she recall about the nommy slices?
-Anything else. Alright, so Screamers are hardly a major source of vast amounts of plot detail right now. But Ameena will probably want to give the thing more attention than anyone else would, because of the "pain in the ears" thing.
Scorpions
-I suppose even without any memories, the mere sight of this bugger will cause Ameena to take note. I think she would probably be about as freaked out by the snarly noise as I am
.
-Likewise as with the others - anything relevant regarding weaknesses, etc?
Seeroc's lab
-Did the group come here the last time around? If so, what happened? Will Ameena remember anything of the layout, the forcefields, exits, the surrounding area, etc?
Aurek
-The group didn't meet him last time around, did they? So Ameena is okay to react to him as a complete stranger? Would his apeparance/scent trigger a Will save regarding conflicting memories of the "second run" (ie, this one), where she
did meet him?
-I've completely forgotten what he's wearing. Actually, I can't remember what
anyone's wearing. Maybe I should check their sheets - do you know if they're all up-to-date (apart from mine, obviously, because I know it's not, nor will it be till I've rejoined the group for sure
)? Anyway, if he's wearing any of the blackskull armour, am I okay to have Ameena react to him with confusion/suspicion (depending on whether he appears to be helping or hindering the group when she arrives)?
Farel
-If I recall what you said, the group met him, albeit briefly, on their first run - what will she recall of this? Was he searching for Ardur then, too? The current time is "two-weeks-ago-from-the-time-they-entered-the-dungeon-and-Chaos-threw-them-back", yes? So presumably that means, by that time, Farel had spent two weeks in the dungeon...for some reason. Looking for Ardur all that time? Or maybe he (Ardur) was dead and Farel was out for revenge?
-How did they meet Farel, how long was he with them, and under what circumstances did they part ways? And did anything significant occur during that time which Ameena might remember?
-Appearance/personality - what will Ameena remember and will this conflict with the way he is now? You mentioned that she would recall that his sword is blunt. Anything else? Is he wearing blackskull stuff too?
The dead(?) bloke in the corner
-Would Ameena remember anything about this guy, provided the group survives long enough to examine him? Well, I suppose this is something I'd find out when we get to it - it will hardly be an urgent need-to-know when Ameena arrives on the scene, I'm sure
. At a glance, I'm guessing that that wouldn't be enough to establish any sense of familiarity if he's someone she's encountered before.
The rest of the group
-Obviously, they're wearing different (crappier) gear to what they had the last time she remembers seeing them (ie two weeks in the future). I presume it would be okay to just have Ameena look at them and think "Hmm, that's weird, they look somehow...wrong...", rather than trying to remember exactly what gear they had. Just that whatever they had
then, they haven't got it
now (except Farel's sword).
-Regarding what Ameena can tell them, ie what she remembers about Lord Chaos and all that...as far as she's concerned, the last time the group was together, they were all in a big room, something weird happened (she remembers nothing of Gholst/Theron, I'm guessing?), and there was a mage in either a grey robe or a black one, who had blue eyes or maybe red ones, who cast some kind of spell or something, which threw everyone backwards...and then Ameena woke up under the scary ceiling with an ache in her right foreleg and some kind of weird bite mark in the back of her neck. Is it okay to have her tell the group all that or can she be more/less specific about the Gholst/Theron/Grey/Chaos encounter?
-I presume she remembers nothing of Helm, or indeed of the entirety of the "second run", so will just be confused (or have to make a Will save?) if anyone brings it up. Mass confusion - wheee
.
Hmm, is that everything? Heh, probably not, but it's all I can think of for now...
With regard to the way
Ameena remembers things, as opposed to anyone else, being a murafu, I expect she'd remember personality-related things more than, say, visual things. And scent would have a high priority too. Emotive scenting, I suppose you could call it - you know, when you smell something and it puts you mind of a certain place or feeling. So, like, the small of grak-graks incites nervousness/fear, because she has only bad memories of them. What would she get from the other scents (besides her friends, of course, because in their case, friends = good
)?
Right then...that may or may not be it. If I think of anything else, I'll add it. Like I said, I'm hardly expecting to acquire most of this information (and whatever I
do get I'm hardly expecting to get all at once) - this is just all the stuff I'd be bugging you about when Ameena arrives on the scene
. It'll be nice to have it in a list.
Ooooh one last thing, actually...no, wait, I can check that myself...remind me in case I forget that I need to copy and paste a list of Ameena's "symptoms" from the first page of our private IC thread regarding the aftereffects of her encounter with Chaos. I remember that she has the aching foreleg and will see scary red eyes in her sleep and has a fear of shadowy shapes (or something along those lines), but before I fully reintegrate with the others and therefore this area of the forum is closed off again, I'll need to grab it for future reference
.
Ummm there was one more thing...ooh yeah...with regard to the "Ameena-reintroduced-in-GM-posts-to-prevent-untentional-metagaming-on-the-part-of-everyone-else" thing...shall we switch to PMs for that or continue it in here? I was thinking that I make my posts as a kind of double-post-in-one. The first part would be a normal IC post in the same way I usually write (containing Ameena's private thoughts and feelings and all that, so I know for myself what she's up to as well - it helps me remember what's going on with her and stuff), and the second part would be more of a generic kind of narrative version which describes Ameena's actions as viewed by someone else - so you can integrate that part of the post into your own update (you know, add in a few typos and stuff
). That way you know exactly what I'm up to, and I still get to write my own posts as viewed by everyone else (but if you wanted to change the wording slightly to make it sound more in "your" style, go ahead, though I can't say I've ever stopped to check as to whether our writing styles are different...but we're different people so I imagine they are
).
Right, yes, now I will send this and let you spend all night typing a nice long reply for me
.
Back to work tomorrow after a two-week break, oh joyfulness
.
