Ameena's hidden OOC thread

[beowuuf]

Hmm, the way I see it the group would probably not eat rat with Ameena around, and I imagine the rats would have just frantically attacked. Also ,I imagine pain rats don't usually retreat (as per the DM game)

I don't want to deny Ameena the chance to interract one on one with alternate fuzzles. They will certainly be scary and different, and aggressive to the point of deadly on mass....but I don't think thwey should be non-sentient. I think it's more a case of the party attacking or dying, them not listeing to ammena (so she can suppose they aren't snetient) and the party being respectful and not eatign the rats - maybe Westian would even say a few embarrassed words over them before mnoving on

[beowuuf]

Plus remember the party don't know they are eating fuzzles, and you know what...perhaps they aren't eating fuzzles. It's just meat with fur on, in the traditional rat room area. But you know what - you never used to meet Oitus in level 2, so maybe things have changed. And maybe the reason the meat tastes so disgusting is it's ruster freak critter

[Ameena]

Lol well maybe . As for the non-sentience thing, yeah...I don't think I had Ameena remember them as definitely non-sentient, just that that was how they seemed because all they seemed to do was attack and nothing else. Enough that Ameena would be very wary of encountering them in the future - normally she figures a species out by lurking around and hiding nearby and watching them until she gets an idea of how they'll react to her, but in the dungeon she can't really do that so she's been largely forced into encounters that would normally go a very different way for her, if they happened at all .

[beowuuf]

Lol, in terms of railroading, that might still happen, but despite appearances, in terms of railroading how you can react to this situation, you aren't fully reduced in your options.... just gotta be creative, of get your thinking cap on

[Ameena]

Well, crack is scary so south is out. Door is locked and even if she had a key, the lock is out of reach. Carving on the wall registers as unintelligible symbols (so telling me what it says just shows me what the weird unintelligible symbols look like but give Ameena herself no further info ). I suppose Ameena could just leg it in the one remaining direction and hope that she reaches a turning with no rats down it, before the approaching one(s) get(s) here. Or maybe there's an illusionary wall somewhere - this is, apparently, Level 9. Or what used to be Level 9. Unless the big-fuzzles are just roaming in random levels now and she's in fact somewhere else in the dungeon. Could be anywhere .
Incidentally, if she does manage to make it to wherever the rest of the group is right now, if they're with anyone she would remember (like Seeroc/Brighteyes, assuming he is actually a gnome and looks like that all the time), at that point can you PM me with whatever Ameena would remember (I can do a Will Save if necessary, though since Ameena has largely accepted the future memories now, hopefully that wouldn't be needed), so that I know what reaction to post straight away . Of course, this is whenever Ameena does reunite with the others, if they're with anyone else at that point. I'll know to have her not recognise Farel and Aurek, of course. She can also stare confusedly at the crap gear everyone now has - even if she can't remember exactly what they had before, I'm sure she'd know, at least, that what they're carrying now just looks...wrong, somehow .

[beowuuf]

Lol, two of the facts mentioned above could be very true - the IC thread probably shows one of those being true

And yup, as normal I will PM anything you need to know that shouldn't be instantly seen by people in the open


And actually, she might recognise Farel - she probably would have encountered him much deepr in the dungeon, and hopefully would have gotten to talk to him longer. He's actually as much the pacifist as Ameena is usually, although recently he's been driven to be a little more aggressive - partially his reaction to losing the squiare and being so worried, and partially a DM cruelly using him in a mechnanical way :p

Somethign Ameena missed seeing when he was close to her, but she'll remember from the first tiem around, is that his sword - although imaculately kept, actually possesses a blunted blade


But yeah, Aurek would never have been mentioned by the group, and the group would never have encoutnered him. Make of that what you will!


And yeah, there might be a few will saves to do with some thigns on reuniting. Of course, Ameena is free to conjecture that some formof reality twisting has happened, or that she was knocked out for a long time, hence why she's hungrier and the rest of them have made friends.

It will be wierd and interestign to sync you guys up - afetr all, if Ameena says too much,the group will have their own will saves to start making again, just when their midns had settled down

[Ameena]

Well, just because they run into some people that Ameena doesn't know doesn't mean that something weird has necessarily happened - she doesn't know what's happened. Her theory right now is that the four of them have been flung to different places - she presumes they are all probably each in a separate location, based on the fact that she herself is clearly alone right now with no sign of the others nearby. If they take a while to meet up, it won't be completely unreasonable that other members of the group may run into, and join up with, other people while they're wherever they are. If everyone's all still together when Ameena finds them, she'll probably just assume that they all happen to have found each other first (ie, she's the last one to rejoin them).
Regarding Farel, you might want to remind me of those points about him when they meet up. And also stuff like was he looking for his squire back then too, and if not, what was he doing in the dungeon? Since I gather he wasn't with the group when they got thrown back (and therefore didn't wake up with them in the "starting" room), that implies he was in the dungeon two weeks ago and remained there for the duration of that time in order for the group to meet up with him two weeks later when they made their original foray into the dungeon. Rather, he's in the dungeon now, since "now" is two weeks ago, and stayed there for the whole time, presumably looking for his squire or maybe was a prisoner or something, before the group encountered him on their first run-through of the dungeon. How they met him and how they parted company are things I suppose Ameena would remember, as well as whether his appearance looks different (fine if, as with the others, she can't remember exactly what he was carrying).
Regarding the nasty little magic gnome fellow, if the group haven't got round to getting blown up by him yet( ) when Ameena reunites with them, I'll be wanting to know stuff like roughly what happened when they met him before, because I imagine Ameena will remember if he was killed or whatever, and what kind of stuff he did like whether he tried to trick members of the group, or blow them up, trap or torture them, just send in his grak-grak thingys, whatever .
But anyway, this is all for whenever they do actually reunite - it's not really relevant now . I was just mentioning it as something I'll be wanting to know whenever the time comes .

[beowuuf]

Indeed!

Farel is slightly easier to map, because I already knew how you guys were supposed to meet him, which would have been closer to the first time around. Aurek's appareance has significantly changed how his history has gone...

Anyway, like you said, will bring you up to speed as an when you need to know

[Ameena]

Okay, groovy . I just want to be sure that I get a update right before I need to post, rather than coming face-to-face with the rest of the group but not being able to respond to it IC because I don't know what Ameena will remember .
I can sort of imagine it though, hehe...like, the rest of the group are walking down a corridor, with Seeroc/Brighteyes somewhere in the middle or at the back of the group, so she doesn't see him straight away and is all kind of "Ooh, hey, you guys all met up already! Cool! And who's that...ohh, Farel, yes of course, I remember you! And...ooh, someone I don't know! Hello! And..." then looking down and suddenly changing from happy to nervous and being more kind of "Ummmm...what the hell....?", then the rest of the group (players and characters) will be all kind of "Umm, wtf?" and think Ameena has had a new brain put in or something . And they'll probably start asking about Helm, which could be somewhat...awkward.
I rather hope the ol' wimpy thief's okay though...

[beowuuf]

Remmeber that ameena shouldn't have a perfect crystal clear memory of everythign top to bottom right away. To put it another way, think about how I was steerign the group, and how the choices you guys made played out. That was a good approximation of how the brain tries to protect itself from the weird split realities. So while Ameena has now rejected the 'second time around' of the game, some of it might bleed into her memories with will saves.

And also, her recllection might not be perfect. She doens't necessarily have to pull a 'who are you? You weren't here before!' on Aurek, or a 'Helm? I know no Helm!' on that question. She can still be hazy on the edges, and perhaps apologise for forgetting Aurk, and perhaps be a little hazier on recalling knowing Farel.

We can play it by ear... if nothing else, I hope it will be fun.

It might be cool if the party start suspecting she's had some shock and think she's started to recall their previous lives (which she is) but think that means she's forgotten recent memories and has recalled past memories. They might suspect she's died and been reborn, hence the oddness

Ooooooooor theymight suspect you are a shapeshifter and I've asked you to play your old character and then have your new character rush in to slay false you. Hoepfully, you guys believe I will do anything by now. If not, I might just kill off Ameena just to enact that very shapeshifter/new character rescue plan


Speaking of killing Ameena, some rolls worked out interestingly, time to go to the IC thread!

[Ameena]

Lol...I shall head there momentarily .
As for the whoel memories and reuniting-with-the-group thing...muahahaha, this could be fun . I suppose she might be likely to get a bit confused about Farel and Aurek since I imagine she won't have got to know Farel as well as the others since he would have joined later (and presumably split from the group somehow before they confronted Gholst...or maybe he even died...otherwise surely he'd have been there and got thrown back with the rest of them). And in teh case of both of them she'd probably get some hazy memories from the second-time-through and maybe get confused about that. As for Seeroc, if she meets him, hopefully she'll at least remember some vague things about what he was like, the grak-graks, and hopefully what happened the last time she saw him (ie whether he was killed or ran away or accidentally blew himself up or got eaten by his own critters or whatever ). At least she'll only have one set of memories as far as he's concerned .
It'll also be somehwat amusing, I think, to see how confused all the other players get, never mind the characters, when Ameena turns up and starts talking what appears to be nonsense...and probably triggers a shitload of Will saves and causes everyone's brains to melt in the process .
Anyway, this is if Ameena isn't about to get nommed by Giant Rats...let me go and see what happened with her run at that (hopefully) illusionary wall...

[beowuuf]

Lol, an unusual action in diplomacy, which deserved an unusual response!

Oh, and I laughed quite hard when money had Falkor say 'so, Seeroc' to start a conversation with Brighteyes. Hopefully I made it clear it threw the gnome a little to start with, and also pointed that out again in a PM to money on his snese motive rolls.

Ah, wacky, wacky fun.

Plus, Haynuus stealing things seems to be a fun new part of his psyche. Perhaps he'll start building up rogue levels and be best friends with Ameena

[Ameena]

Hehehe...I wonder if anyone will actually figure out Seeroc's identity before he actually reveals it to them (which presumably he will do once he's got them all where he wants them, in his room or whatever it is, and feels confident he can control them).
And yeah, Haynuus seems to like yoinking stuff, doesn't he? And while I dunno about him being Ameena's best friend, I think he was probably the one she got on best with out of the original group . Ohh, if they all survive long enough, the reunion is gonna be one fantastically fun mess of confusion, I bet .

[beowuuf]

I'm not planning on being a dick about it, I will try to give hints. I dunno if you spotted, but Seeroc/Brighteyes was thrown enough that he started talking about Gholst's preferences a little bit too much - certainly, more than a gnome who insinuated he was Theron's assistance not Seeroc/Gholst's anyway

And I hate to say this, but Seeroc's room is not the reason Seeroc feels so confident....

And funnily, Falkor and Westian both were also friendly to the murafu...

Oh, looking over the old posts, I see I even hinted at Seeroc at like the very first post, sneakily. The moment the first four soldiers encounter the group, and Westian made it seem like the group should be there, Thinpas sayis 'that blasted gnome' and then talks about taking the group to Gholsts's associate Soorec (cause I somehow mixed up his name later and it's stuck). Anyne looking back now might assume a mis-communication between Seeroc and Brighteyes and the soldiers, which woudl at least alaert everyone that Brighteyes would ahve known exactly who the party are.

Anyway, funny little thing to find.

Still, Westian never spotted that when he read the date on th journal entry on the scroll, he felt it should be a month agio and two weeks ago, and I don't think you ever spotted - when Ameena and Helm spoke - that Helm always seemed confused when you were asking questions about remembering her, etc, sicne to him he'd seen you the day before!

Still, I know it's hard to keep track of anything, so I try to make these thigns more fun little hints and finds for those who search, instead of necessary for the game 's success

[Ameena]

I suppose that what with the whole weird-memories thing, plus all the horrible stuff that had been happening, Ameena didn't really get time to analyse the particulars of what Helm was saying. Plus murafu don't tend to divide their time up into weeks and stuff - they'd have days and seasons, but probably not much else. I don't know what the cycles of our game world are like. Mostly Terran? That is, one moon that takes about thirty days to go through a cycle of phases of visibility, four seasons which themselves cycle over about 365 days, etc. Murafu would take their cues from stuff like the climate, weather, stellar movements, etc. Ooh, astronomy...that's a thought, hehe - murafu making star charts by gazing at the night sky and learning to map the constellations (no telescopes, obviously )...that might be something they'd do.
Oh, with regards to the group being friendly with Ameena, yeah, I know that Westy and Falk were friendly too, just I think that Ameena had more sort of..."casual" conversations with Haynuus - they had that chat about their beliefs on death and spirits and stuff, I seem to remember. Westian spent a lot of time talking to Falkor due to their shared interest in (and knowledge of) magic, while Falkor slightly messed things up with the whole "Ooh, I'm gonna nuke someone while his back is turned and he hasn't even drawn his weapon or suspects an attack" thing . Though Ameena has comforted both of them - Westian got scared by some kind of memory thing (I think it was the freaky shadow-person-thingy that appeared the other side of the door after it closed when they entered the corridor after the Troll encounter near the beginning) and she rubbed against his leg, then later Falkor had that dream/vision thingy about Gholst and she put her cloak over them and curled up to sleep next to him. Though I don't think he actually ever noticed that because I think they were all then interrupted/woken up by the arrival of Drommal and his friends.
But aaaaanyway...technically it's sort of starting again when (if? ) they all get back together with Ameena, 'cause she won't remember that stuff and then she can fook up their heads by innocently trying to remind them of the stuff she can probably only half-remember herself. And confuse them even moreo by having no clue who this "Helm" is. I already had an idea as to what she can respond if someone asks the inevitable question along the lines of "Where's/What happened to Helm?" .

[beowuuf]

I assumed a 28 day month (by the moons) and I'm tempted to assume 13 months (which would make it kinda like our year).

And glad you have a plan for the Helm question, I don't want the game to go completely insane right off the bat if there is a chance that we can have some fun confusion for a while first

[Ameena]

Heh, do you want to know what Ameena's response would be, or shall I leave you in the dark on it as well until it comes up?

[beowuuf]

Go on, what would it be?

[Ameena]

Heh, something along the lines of "What do you mean? What helm?", said in a rather confused tone. If references are made to "human", "thief", or "friend", depending on how such words are put into a sentence Ameena would probably get even more confused, and query it with something like "I'm sorry, what do you mean? I know a human thief who stole a helm from someone?".
Eventually of course, she'd work her way round to "Ohh, Helm is a person! Why did someone name themselves after armour that you wear on your head? And umm...why do you think I would know him?".

[beowuuf]

Sounds like confusing fun without kicking off will saves to me

[Ameena]

Yeah, although I suppose if the group tries to tell/remind her more of what happenened when Helm was with them, it mighjt jog her memory. After all, he was her only friend in a dark and scary place, and she was very firm when she told him she'd find him if they ever got split up.
But I sort of hope she doesn't quite remember that, because then she'll get all upset about it and want to go back and find him while at the same time also wanting to sort out this whole Grey Lord mess and try to help save the universe or whatever .

[beowuuf]

Indeed, but let's just say if Ameena wants to save the universe, then recalling past and future perfectly and forcing everyone else to recall it perfectly too is really, really not the way to achieve that :p

[Ameena]

Lol well no...so I suppose, then, that to remember something like her time with Helm she'd have to ditch the future-memories that she's currently decided to stick with, right? Heh, this could indeed be very interesting when she reunites with the group. Well, if. She's got to at least survive this fight first, lol.

[beowuuf]

Not a problem...

[Ameena]

Heh, what, her keeping her future-memories or surviving this rat-fight?

[beowuuf]

The latter, as you can see. It squeaked a good fight, but the d8 roll turned out poorly for your opponent Works out well for you!

I would start beefing up these opponents and fudging a few die rolls, but it will feel much more satisfying getting the rolls naturally. Plus, you know, it makes for fun situations like this.

[Ameena]

Ooh, it looks like Westy and Falk may have figured out (or be about to/in the process of) the whole thing regarding the exact nature of Brighteyes. Umm, I mean "Brighteyes" .

[beowuuf]

Lol, nah. not yet. Though OB spotted that the soldier was threatening the gnome's 'surprise' of the party, instead of the party's surprise of Seeroc.

And of course money made the mistake of 'going along' with Brighteyes and directing him, so if accusations fly the gnome can happily throw lots of claims that he was actually looking to trap Falkor, and that he's actually loyal to Theron or some such nonsense

Anywya, should still make for some interesting fun. Don'#t think they will fall for the gnome trapping them, but they don't think they have yet thought of the possibility of the gnome actually being Seeroc yet. Which is a shame, becuase Ameena (if she were there) could happily point out Seeroc mind controls the grak-graks at all times, and hence the party is likely to be surrounded by a couple at all times - four by the time the group reaches the room.

[Ameena]

Heh, then again, I don't know how close Ameena actually is to the rest of the group right now - the presence of Giant Rats may imply that she's on the former Level 9 and therefore relatively really close to the group, but considering the way the dungeon's been restructured or whatever's happened to it, she could be on any level and I'd have no way of knowing unless she comes across somewhere/something she recognises.

[beowuuf]

Brighteyes made a comment that was a metagame wink directly at you