DM themed play-by-post D&D game : OOC thread

[Ameena]

You know, it is possible for me to control another NPC myself but just be given an outline of what to write by the GM . But I won't say anything. Draw your own conclusions - I'm not gonna metagame it, so if you want to find out for sure, it will have to happen IC .

[beowuuf]

Exactly. I'm pretty soon going to reveal any hidden dealings. I think the seeroc 'gotcha' and the hidden stuff going on around it was sufficiently evil that I want a clean trustworthy slate for a while so you guys don't have to be paranoid again for a while!

But this is probably the last little fun thng - is Ameena Ameena?

And @ian, yeah, you went away for a weekend and everything!

Since we also seem to have LB returned but with his schedule flipped (ie, it's the right way round again) I might just declare today a no update (or minor update) day, so that LB has a chance to get everything straight and be on the right side of my update schedule again, and everyone has a chance to assimilate stuff, ask questions, etc

How's that sound?

[oh_brother]

You know, it is possible for me to control another NPC myself but just be given an outline of what to write by the GM .

Yes, that is possible! But my gut feeling is that that is too elaborate, and that Ameena is the same Ameena, at least physically. Maybe she has been brain-washed or something, but I still feel that it is the same actual lump of ra..I mean, lump of murafu, that we had before.

Then again, I don't have any proof and I have been wrong numerous times before.

[Ameena]

Hehe, exactly - you'll have to get Westian to do the asking if you want to find out - you won't get any info from me OOC until you've discovered for sure, either way, whether this Ameena is real or a fake. My posts have been made in a slightly different style and at no point have I referred to this murafu-looking creature as "Ameena", but that doesn't necessarily mean she's some kind of imposter. Like I said, you'll have to figure this thing out IC. I'm not meta-gaming it .

Edit - One other thing, which I might as well mention in this post rather than making a new one - I've had a quick glance through the profiles that have been posted up. I just wanted to check something - in Aurek's profile, I think it specifies that he's wearing a full set of the blackskull armour (but not the one with the screaming faces on it, if I remember rightly). For Westian and Haynuus, however, the details given don't say much more than "armour" (or in Westian's case, "breastplate"). Are they wearing blackskull armour too, or just some other kind of armour? I recall that one of them looted a crappy rusted breastplate from a sarcophagus in the Mummy Room, but I can't remember whether they kept it and whether it's still being worn yet, nor whom it was who ended up wearing it.

[beowuuf]

Although your DM will spoil it either way sometime soon even if your characters don't get it. Clean slate and all that.

All those sitting waiting for Farel to resurrect....good things might be happening there, if you want to post any secondary focus shifted stuff

Also, feel free to roll sense motive if you want on Ameena's latest oddness

[oh_brother]

Okay, after reading the IC thread I have changed my mind. Something is very different. Is there such a thing as re-incarnation in this version of DM?

As for the armour, yes there was some confusion, we got full armour of some soldiers. I must change my sheet.

[beowuuf]

There could be....

[Lord_BoNes]

(sense motive for "Ameena's" speech 1d20 = 10)

[beowuuf]

Indeed, Westian and Aurek have the 'plain' black armour, which has the occasional skull motiff at joints and skull for a face (I'm assuming the faceplate flips up, or that people take on and off their helms alot!)

The weird armour is the ones that also have faces embossed in various areas - screaming faces. Haynuus had the greaves of these, then got rid of them when they went weird. Aurek detected those were evil, unlike the plain armour.

Haynuus has plain clothes but does still wear the old rusty breastplate. Early on the rusty stuff was going to fall off/break, but all of the times to do it would have been total gotchas, so haven't done it. But fair warning... you might wanna upgrade at some point :p

[beowuuf]

Right, update up, sorry, weird night and I need to get to bed soon as I have an important meeting-y audit-y thing tomorrow.

Anyway, so it seems you no sooner had Theron come in interested, than he ran away. I would also highlight (since it might not be obvious) that you guys seemed to throw curveballs that caused him to leave again pretty quickly. Can you guys figure out exactly what they were, and why they might have driven him to leave? Here's another question to whet your appetitde (I hope). Why was it necessry for two of you (Falkor and then Westian) to be attacked instantly?

Anyway, so currently you now have everyone up, though almost all of you seem on half health (Falkor has full health I believe, but Ameena - if it's Ameena - looks beaten up too). Also, while I might let the spellcasters have some of their spells back as this is an extended encounter, they won't be fresh! I think Aurek is the only one with full spells, and a paladin is automatically at half spellcasting ability compared to a cleric anyway!

You have a few items (potions and wands and now a wacky cloak you might be able to use, finally) but you've also used up some of the most powerfulmagic in the room.

So, what to do? Obviously, you guys managed to bring a pause to the conflict once before... this time, you might actually want to take the chance to run out of one of the doros and lock it behind you! Do you think you can do again? As players, do you want another 10 - 15 round fight?

Otherwise, it looks like the only other alternative is to speak to Soorec, right? After all, if you kill him things go insane (unless you can run while they do, after all maybe soldiers being killed is a good thing). Surely that means you can't do anything to stop him. Surely.... (answer: I have every confidence in you guys finding a better third way than just fight or capitulate)

Anyway, you guys have a passive Soorec, four grak-graks, potentially more on the way, but a lack of archmaster unpredicatable mage. That's probably better than the last round, but still not good if you make the wrong move.

My brian is starting to be fried, so I'll perhaps leave it there for tonight. Time to get your thinking caps on. As you may have spotted from several encounters, people seem to know half-truths or contradictory information. Does your party have enough awareness of what's going on - or enough bluffing skill and perception - to leverage that and turn the situation to your favour, and get some definitive answers?

We'll see tomorrow, where hopefully I might be able to focus better and you guys might get some cool answers/payback/screamer slices/etc

Night!

[beowuuf]

Just incase you guys might think you're back to square one, a few things to consider:

- you have a much better idea of the workings of the grak-graks. They are a major enemy you'll need to slowly wittle down, so knowing alot of their tricks and limitations is a good thing. And figuring out one or two more sneakily while they aren't trying ot kill you, even better.
- you pulled Theron out into the open - he knows you now, especially Ameena, Westian and Falkor as people whom have drawn his attention.
- you have some confusing but useful data points in the 'what does Gholst want with us' mystery. Given this mystery can lead you to figure out how to beat him, that's probably a cool thing.
- you guys aren't dead and aren't captured. Since that was how it looked like it was going to go (you guys ressurected with less constitution scores behind blue hazes at Soorec's pleasure) your previous victory isn't shabby.

If you want to carry onwards (and I hope you do) you need to neutralise Soorec somehow - either by talking and barginning with the gnome, sneak attacking him dead again and figuring out how to safely run form the carnage, or some third open that avoids the carnage/running bit. THis isn't a puzzle to solve I have the answer to, I've just set up a situation. You guys are the clever ones that come up with the wacky get rich quick schemes that seem to work.

Good luck!

[ian_scho]

That Theron dude was really a wham-bam-thankyou-maam fella wasn't he!

[beowuuf]

Well you guys did deluge him with alot of stuff. Why so much of the whamming is actually an interesting, plotty type of question...

[oh_brother]

Well talking about a message from his sister really spoked him out. It was a bad call, Ripley. A bad call. Unless it was better to get rid of Theron quickly. And considering that he was freezing Falkor and didn't hold back on the lightning bolts, maybe it was best to get rid of him.

And as soon as Fex was mentioned he disappeared. But I don't really know who Fex is...Falkor or Helm might know more. Or Ameena.

So mentioning a message from his sister got him angry, maybe he did not want to hear it? Or maybe he did not want someone else to hear it?

[oh_brother]

As far as our next moves are concerned, I would say that we don't attack anyone to start with. Maybe we talk with Seeroc? You never know, he might fancy a chat. Westian wants to find out the location of Deephold, so he could ask Seeroc. But I don't know if I would trust whatever he says.

[beowuuf]

I feel I must point out that, while I can fully justify the use of petrification against Falkor yet lightning bolts on everyone else narratively, I will confess the petrification was pure DM fiat. My initial instincts, if there was some fun co-incidence with money needing time off, etc, would have been to blow Falkor clear across the room. However, petrification was a good mechanical thread that was building for you guys to need to deal with, left money able to have Falkor act of course threw the petrification feeling at Falkor so he might be able to figure the wand out better.

Taht aside, everythign else flows purely from the narrative not me trying to force anything on you. So yeah, don't beat yourselves up about what you revealed or not to Theron... (like you might have noticed, you were actually in pretty serious danger for not spotting what Soorec was doing with the grak-graks, and Ameena did mention already the danger of Soorec being dead and the grak-graks out of control). Anyway, so. don't miss his passage - better to figure out why he reacted how he did.

And it's not really too spoilery, I hope, to ask the question who do you think was reactign to each bit? You guys should know exactly who/what you just faced right now. And therefore, an interesting question might be - who didn't want the sister's message heard?

And remember, Fex wasn't explicitly mentioned - Soorec assumed, perhaps because Ameena keeps mentioning mages, that Fex was the mage spoken of as dead, and now the mage spoken of as being 'angry'. Doens't mean it is Fex. And yeah, Falkor and Helm know who Fex is. Sure, you can ask Ameena too if you like :p

Soorec does seem like he's happy to chat... and poor sociopath,what's the gnome ever done to you lot?

[Ameena]

One idea I had quite some time ago is that attempting to petrify Soorec with his own wand may be a possible course of action. But I have no idea as to whether someone who's petrified is actually "dead" - we don't want to risk setting the grak-graks off again but maybe it's something to bear in mind.

[beowuuf]

Petrified = dead I'm afraid. And not able to be brought back to life. So yeah, there was absolutely no pressure in saving Falkor...none at all. Nor Haynuus previously

Noting says you can't kill him...just remember not to have half your group in grapples, and remember to use a doorway you can seal behind you!

[Ameena]

Well yeah, but there's grak-graks all over the bloody dungeon. I don't fancy having them all freak out when we don't know where most of them are . And we also don't know how many there are. There could be about ten. There could be over fifty. Personally I'd rather just fully avoid them all and never go near one again .
Maybe we could just build a really strong gnome-proof (and grak-grak-proof) cage and stick him in it or something. Or umm...find some kind of magical gizmo lying around. Or umm...well...I dunno. There is plenty of weird shit going on around here and for the most part it seems that some people know more/less than others, and certainly not all is necessarily quite how it seems. Not with these bloody grak-graks running around and impersonating people anyway .

[beowuuf]

Yup, that will definitely happen. No more grak-graks. Nope.

And yup, there could be anything around!

[beowuuf]

LB seems to be down again, and while you've all posted in the forum, only two of you have done it in the IC thread

Will update tomorrow lunchtime, and oh my it's the weekend again already!

[ian_scho]

@Oh_Beee Examine the corpse in the corner! Maybe that is/was Deephold

[beowuuf]

OB already did, don't worry - just some random human. A random human with a KICKASS HOLY SYMBOL THOUGH! Deephold is a dwarf, though I have the feeling only Westian actually knows this, and hasn't explicitly mentioned it to anyone yet.

Next down time where the character can confer, I think it's probably a good idea if you assuem a hivemind sharing of info so you guys can move on with a clear mind


Hmm, I might be tempted to do an update based on the two posts just to move the story along a little.... will see...

[beowuuf]

Actually, running out of time, probably just update for the weekend after all!

[beowuuf]

Damn, hoped to type out the update over lunch, but not enough time to tweak and get it right. I'll send the update to myself and work on it at home tonight. Sorry!

[money]

ok, perhaps i missed the update - do i now know how to use the cloak???and please correct it - the White wand.

[beowuuf]

No further update yet - I was hanging back yesterday, then the update was too big/too little time before work/ at lunch to get out. I've typed it out twice now and still not happy with it. Plus it alters for more people posting, of course!

And yes, you do knwo how to use the cloak - that was part of the update was to highlight Falkor now knew everything. He doens't know much more abotu the wand, he has no knowledge of the inate spell, so he'll need to take a chance and use the wand to learn it.

[Ameena]

Well, my opinion of Soorec as a Nasty, Sneaky Little Bastard certainly hasn't changed much, that's for sure .

[Ameena]

Out of curiosity, does everyone think Ameena is really Ameena now or is there anyone who is still undecided and thinks she might be a fake of some kind? Obviously player opinion wil be different from character opinion - I'm mainly asking for player opinion here, since characters might want to keep some things to themselves.

[ian_scho]

As you changed your style of writing right at the (re)start, I had assumed it was a Beo-hideous-twist type idea. Now it doesn't matter so much as she seems to be throwing herself around a bit more now, for the sake of others