TIME'S CHAMPIONS: Finale OOC thread

[beowuuf]

2 years at the end of the month! Last room coming up though...it all comes down to this...

[ian_scho]

If you want to learn a new form of torture, then read the other thread from the start!

[beowuuf]

Hey, there's some good stuff in there, in between my bits

[Ameena]

Omg I could sooo make a dirty comment out of that...
I'd already thought, wow two years next month. Now that's a decent length for a game . So long as it doesn't end in a stupid TPK like my first game of Dark Heresy (which lasted 11 months and is the second-longest-running game I've been in, after this one).
Haven't seen Raixel around for a while, though - I suppose it may mean there is something of a delay before her game starts (though I'm not completely and utterly 100% done on my char yet anyway). It'll be good if everyone can be around for the finish of this game, though, especially those of us who were there from the start, though it's only Falkor who seems to be missing of the original four right now.
Hopefully we can get this done with the minimum of character loss (like, preferably none ), NPC or otherwise...well, I'm obviously not fussed about people like Garax and Dargat, and obviously Gholst and whatever's left of Dolo. but the "good guys", like those assisting the party, and definitely Theron, will hopefully all make it to the end. And hopefully Helm will manage not to get himself killed again...though if anyone does get themselves killed, all the rest of us need to do will be to not fuck up and to get the Grey Lord back without Theron dying this time, and I'm sure rezzs will be freely available to those who missed the big moment .

[ian_scho]

if Raixel doesn't come back in the short term (and I'd like a short break). I'll offer myself for a cameo role in another rp forum or something.

Beo is right though. There are a lot of fun and interesting bits in there!

[Lord_BoNes]

Yes.... interesting bits... that's what they ALL say

[beowuuf]

Regarding Raixel, of course she had computer troubles, which might have seen her knocked fro mthe net for a significant time. Plus we never did here what happened with her friend in hospital. And plus, sometimes, real life just gets in the way. I hope she's ok, and will be able to come back soon and tell us that - and who knows, maybe even play

Money had real life stuff come up - including just very busy work - and had been going on holiday last tiem I mentioned. So hopefully he might come back sooner rather than later, though real life business is evil! I'm surprised OB is able to keep making so many appearances given all the craziness he is dealing with work and home wise!


@Ameena: You have a perverted mind!

@Ian: Ameena not only has a perverted mind but a skpye (typing) D&D game running that she mentioned before. You can always hope in on that to fill the void, especially since Ameena and I seem to be getting worse at co-ordinating ourtselves. New doctor Who startung tomorrow certainly won't help!


@LB: If anything is unclear give me a yell and I can get you up to speed. Basically, you are outside one of four entrances to the main large hall the blackskull leaders are meeting in. A magical effect the group had to bypass left Westian with the ability to know where everythign was, and the group as a whole has some minor ability to focus and know where each other may be. The group is all together - though in real life Raixel and money are currently absent, so I'm NPCing their characters right now. Sir Farel and Ardur left, and it's just been discovered Farel was killed getting Ardur to safety. The air elementals from earlier departed a while back I'm afraid. Only the Trolin KIng and a few of the trolins - neither of the other leaders - remain with the group. Deephold is still with the group, the dwarven cleric Westian was searching for (as a reminder). The dark elf and mind manipulator Dolo grabbed control of the grak-graks from an apparently dead Soorec, but Westian just made Dolo's mind implode and so now the demon queen Dolo served is trying to take control of the grak-graks and gain entrance to this relaity. So the leadership inside may be distracted. Theron is inside, possessed by the ghost of the leader - Gholst. Gholst's second in command, the orc Dargat, has pretendeing to be Gholst and also seemed to have schismed off form Gholst over Dolo. Garax, the third in command, was firmly with Dolo. Of course, how much wacky fun those alliances are in given Dolo now broken and muttering in the corner is somethign to discover. The remnants of the guards that you and Farel originally encountered holding the other four guys are also in that room - apparently, including the guard Passin you guys tried to convert away from the blackskulls. However, for what reason he is in that room, Westian was not able to work out.

Don't think there was anything major I forgot. I know I have forgotten something important, I just don't know what it is

[Lord_BoNes]

Thanks for the update there Beo, however it was unnecessary... I've already caught myself up on all the goings on since I left. It took a bit of time, but I had login issues while I was using Firefox (it just kept going back to the login screen everytime... no error message, nothing... just more login screen again and again), so you were unaware that I was hanging around for 3 days before I came back. This gave me PLENTLY of time to catch back up on our wonderful story.

[beowuuf]

Ah, that's cool (catching up, not the horrible logging in issues, obviously)

[beowuuf]

I wonder if OB is busy or off due to the bank holiday so not netting at lunch? Either way, sorry, not finished the main map. Anyway, just to let you know I am around, just will wait for OB to post before moving us on.

So close! So very close! Currently it seems Falkor might get shoved in to harm's way to do some recon and make first contact. Nothing could possibly go wrong with that

[Lord_BoNes]

Just a thought that I was pondering... I wonder how many hours have been eaten up (in total, by all of us put together) reading/writing posts for this game. It'd have to be up in the hundreds at least

[beowuuf]

Certainly a lot. I don't know about anyone else, but I also had a crack at re-reading the passed stuff at one point to write some story notes. I didn't manage to return back to it after 44 OOC and 25 IC pages. Still, I was trying to do the illustrated inventories, etc at the time, so it made it much harder work.

Yeah, a lot of time has been invested by everyone in this game. Just like to say thank you for that effort, and for making it such a fun game to run and read! Let's make the ending epic with a [s]TPK[/s] epic happy ending

[ian_scho]

Uff. Must have taken ages to read just the 25 ICC pages.... Imagine how long it took you to write (and plan!) those pages as the GM! It'd be great to have a pdf of it all at the end but it would surely take a while to finish it off. Darn it. I wish I had the time to write a little program to parse these threads in the forum.

[oh_brother]

Sorry, busy yesterday! Aslo, I am away at a wedding (not my own) on Friday, so some advance notice.

I have been watching BSG (my brother gave me the dvds) and I realised that one character is a bit like how I had imagined Westian. Gauis Baltar has the same mix of smooth confidence and good oratory that easily be disrupted to give an edgy nervousness, when I saw some scenes in particular they really fitted with how I would have imagined Westian talking. Although of course their are huge differences - Westian would never be a traitor, he is a good person overall whereas Baltar is a bad, bad man (at least so far, only finished season 3, so no spoilers beyond that please!). And Westian is less self-obsessed.

Hey, there's some good stuff in there, in between my bits

Hehehe. Bits.

[beowuuf]

I ndeed to go back and rewatch that at some point!


And lol, Gaius Balthar... would have never drawn the comparison, but I can sorta see what you mean. Lol. so Tosca was your Crashdown, was he?


Edit: Yeah, I was involved at one point in converting a set of forum posts to readable format. There were far more participants, making it harder, but also the format of the forum made it actually amazingly easy to substitute formatting. Not sure the phpbb is as nice to take the source and strip out the non-text. Might investigate. All you then need is time and some cool distracting stuff to watch / listen to anyway. After this game is done, I might have the time to do that. We shall see!

[Lord_BoNes]

Looking at the source for THIS page... couldn't you just parse the text, remembering everything between <div class="postbody"> and </div>? You'd just have to check each block to make sure you leave out any block of text that starts with <div class="postbody"><br />_________________<br /> because that labels the start of a signature. Then you just parse through all the text that you've got, and drop all the formatting tags, leaving you with plain text. You COULD parse the formatting aswell, so that it properly works, it shouldn't be THAT hard.

[beowuuf]

I did something liek that last time, stripping everyhing out, adding a set of dividers and a picture, and removing the sig files as applicable. If the formatting of the forum is the same as the old forum, then that'as cool. I just hadn;t looked throgu hteh source of the phpbb

[beowuuf]

Hmm, weird sleep and the weirdness of the map (mostly gettign the sizing ok) means it might be tomorrow. Sorry! I'll se how it is after my food

[Ameena]

I think I'll wait to see the map before I decide what to do - need to find out what's up with Theron before I try to go for the rest of the Soulstone, something Ameena will try to give priority too if she can be sure that Theron's taking control of the situation. Finding the remaining smaller piece will be more important than the main chunk, of course, since the location of that[/]i is obvious - I've still got the weird glowy fish-ball thingy but that made a big flash of light last time I used it when finding the other piece (back in Soorec's room), and I wouldn't want to attract unnecessary attention. Getting to Theron is probably more important for now, since Garax and Dargat seem to be keeping each other busy pretty well and whichever one wins will be easier for some of the rest of us to gank due to having already taken a beating. Dolo seems pretty well out of it for the moment. Passin I'm not sure of. Gholst may be a problem if Theron hasn't let Karnadee go.

[ian_scho]

Sip. Will position Haynuus better if we have a map. No rush though!

[beowuuf]

Map's up, I've made it it's own thread above this one. Still had to fight a little with the scale, and the way it is represented. Hiopefully everything is clear! Awaiting Aurek's and Ameena's moves, plus Ian and OB you are free to add more now you see the map.

[Ameena]

Need to ask a question before I post IC...
The Soulstone - how big is it? How easy/difficult would it be for Ameena to carry it? Is it possible to detach the piece on the plinth (the largest piece), ie can it be picked up or is it actually melded with the surface or something? Alternatively, given her input from the current hivemind thingy, can Ameena work out whether it might be possible to pick up the piece in the altar instead or is that firmly attached? How much bigger will the Soulstone be under either circumstance? That is, firstly if only the altar piece were to be joined on to those Ameena already has, and secondly if the largest piece (but not the altar piece) were attached?
I recall that the size of the completed Soulstone has come up before, as well as Ameena's potential ability to lug it around, but I think it was probably fifty-odd pages back in the OOC thread or something and so I can't really be arsed to dig through masses of posts searching for it .

Edit - Oh, and having looked at the updated map, what are B1 and B2? Or does the group awareness not quite stretch that far yet to discern their actual species?

[beowuuf]

Ameena is the one with the better memory right now, so the others won't really be much help hivemind wise for recalling stuff (unless they suggest ideas, of course). She would need to spend a moment out of combat and out of distractions trying to recall how to free the piece fro mthe altar. It goes without saying this might be Bad, and also it is hopefully something you might suspect will be easier to figure out of Ameena actually goes and looks at the altar. Teehee.

As metnioend before, it will be a two handed job to hold, and bulky, but still Ameena could slowly move with it in her tow front paws. The stone is loose in the plinth (the largest fragment) but the plinth is between waist and chest height. That means that the three-in-one piece or the largest fragment alone will be an easier /lighter to carry but kinda two handed piece.

B1 and B2 are the blackskull soldiers 1 and 2. Ameena might know their names if she saw them (they are two of the four she encountered at the front door), however I haven't named them on the map as it's less important.

[Ameena]

Ahh, B for "Blackskull", right that makes sense - I was trying to work out what the letter stood for .
Okay, now can all the bad guys move away from the central area so that I can sneak in there and yoink both bits of the magic rock without them noticing .

[beowuuf]

You've got your meat shield to act as a distraction! Sorry, meant party members...

[Ameena]

Pity it's so light in there. Must be some kind of Ra magic or something, considering the shape of the altar and the stuff about it causing light and stuff (along with whatever those light sources are on the four pillars). Maybe we can nerf it or something. Anyone got a Darkness spell?
Though we still need Gholst out of the way...

[beowuuf]

You go to war in the battlefield you turn up at, not the battlefield you wish you'd turned up at. I'm sure Patton said something like that, anyway :p

[beowuuf]

Obviously with OB away until Monday most likely, it will be a slow weekend for updating. Can everyone else still around perhaps give me a list of their individual goals and plans?

Obviously, the current crop of concerns I can see would be:

- stopping Lolth from coming through
- dealing with Dargat / Garax (and Dolo?)
- speaking to Theron / getting Karnadee to speak to Theron
- checking on Gholst/distracting Gholst
- securing the soulstone parts
- dealing with the two mummies on the flank / the other blackskulls dotted around
- speaking to Passin
- waking up Falkor

Obviously Ameena seems to focused on the Theron and soulstone goals right now. And probably keeping Helm alive. And I would guess one of Westian's minor goals would be to turn Passin to their side.

Anyway, let me (and each other) know, and let's see if we can end this thing right

[Ameena]

Let me see...
~Holy people should probably focus on dealing with Lolth.
~Besides that, we need to find out how successful Falkor was at getting Theron and Karnadee sorted.
~If Theron hasn't let Karnadee go yet, this needs to be achieved ASAP, or he at least needs some way of stopping Gholst from doing her spirit any harm as he threatens to.
~Gholst needs to be stopped from possessing Theron, should he decide to try doing so - keeping Theron talking and alert and stuff should help with this, I think.
~No-one should bring up the subject of the Soulstone in case Gholst hears about it - if he thinks ol' Grey is gonna be coming back, we might just end up with a re-run of the original attempt.
~The other bad guys present need to be distracted or otherwise taken care of - maybe the trolls and Haynuus or whoever can focus on that.
~Passin is a potential convert - maybe someone can persuade him to fight on our side. I dont know who could do this in between fighting Lolth, Garax, Dargat, mummies, etc.
~If we can get Theron/Karnadee sorted out I will then give priority to getting hold of the Soulstone - I'm hesitant to do it before we know what's going on with ol' ghost-girl 'cause if she's still about then Theron will still be under the sway of Gholst.
~One option for getting the Soulstone is to try and remove the altar fragment, combine it with those I have, and then take the lot over to the plinth and combine it with the largest fragment - the problem is we don't know what's required, what will happen, or how long it will take with regard to removing the altar fragment. Alternatively, it might be possible to combine the current Soulstone fragments with the largest piece instead, whcih can be picked up, but would then be a bit trickier to move with (as it's bigger) and it may not be possible to just jam it onto the altar fragment and hope they merge together - the altar fragment, I'm guessing, will need to be removed no matter which way we do it. Either way I want to get up there and have a look.
~If we can get the Soulstone combined, hopefully this will get the Grey Lord back and he can handle everything, him being an unber godlike being, and all. The thing is, I think it highly likely that in order to get to the stage where we can actually combine the final fragments, there won't be much opposition left anyway . At the very least maybe Lolth can just be delayed a bit while we focus more heavily on the other guys and then the Grey Lord can deal with her instead .

As a character, Ameena knows what needs to be done, primarily - the Soulstone needs to be combined to get the Grey Lord back and he's uber so he can fix everything. But last time they did that (she's still confused over the whole time travel thing as her species doesn't really have much of a concept of it), Gholst killed Theron and everything went a bit arse-shaped. So Gholst needs dealing with/distracting so he can't possess Theron and kill him like last time, which caused the Grey Lord to lose control and morph into Chaos. She will want to get near to the altar, at least, so she can try to think on how to free that fragment of Soulstone, I reckon. Unfortunately, it's in the middle of the room and it's kind of well-lit, being one of the main light sources, and all. So she might need some help there - plus she doesn't want to be obvious for the aforementioend reason that she thinks that if Gholst picks up on what they're doing (wherever he is right now), he might try to stop it.

[ian_scho]

Haynuus just wants to help Westian and get out now. He still needs to work out how to farm screamers!

As for the the immediate situation his plan was to pop out from behind the column in front of an approaching bad guy - Blagghhhh!
Maybe Haynuus should try to 'tackle' Gholst and give a brief respite for Theron to act. I suspect that the half-orc would be a bit outclassed though.

The Grey Lord would indeed be a great opponent to Lolth, so Ameena's mission with the soul stones will come in handy!