Noted, Zoe now has the Syringe.

Two questions:

1. Any chance you could let us know how many total successes I'm trying to hit to get the parasite out and close the driver back up? Or how many just to get the parasite out if Great Balm will cover the "close him back up" part?

2. Is trying this in the first place reckless enough to give Zelda a point of Willpower? I'm pretty darn sure it is but I want to make sure.

In reply to Zelda (msg # 372):

1. five to avoid killing him. One to simply get the thing out.

2. yes.

Just remembered an idea I had a while ago that I was originally waiting to suggest until knowing whether the region demographics would make sense for it:

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Court of Francis: A private deep web forum run by Allison "Witch of the Web" Li, meant as a place for the Nobility of the Bay Area to communicate openly with each other. Verifying one's account (a requirement to post on or even read the forum) requires meeting with Allison or another of her nakama in the Dreamlands to confirm one's fealty to a Radiant Queen.

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Allison Li/The Witch of the Web: Grace of Diamonds and admin of the Court of Francis.

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that looks fun. since there are only about slightly less than two dozen people eligible for that site, you can toss em ideas for them as well.

Actually, the numbers we decided on were:


The forum's meant for the whole Bay Area so that's 70-85 potential users, though most of them are an hour or two's travel away.

In reply to Zelda (msg # 376):

let's assume half of them want to expose themselves, and a proportion of those are interested in keeping up this line of communication open...

Forgot to mention here yesterday but I'm out of town for a wedding and probably won't have time to put a real reply in until late tomorrow.

Also, it'd be nice to know whether shooting the Darkspawn up with a Wisp or two's actually calmed it down like it was supposed to before I make the first roll to start giving it a way out.
This message was last edited by the player at 02:57, Mon 31 Oct 2016.

Just a note, Bunnycat is the nickname SFDebris gave to Kyubey from Madoka. Inari would probably be very offended at being called that.

In reply to Shira Rosenberg (msg # 380):

you're free to RP the little guy.

So first off, Zoe pretty specifically inserted the needle, so even if we still possibly just attracted the attention of a bajillion Darkspawn it at least wasn't by letting an extracted Wisp dramatically fall a foot through the air.

Secondly, performing surgery is explicitly Dex+Medicine and an extended action, the latter being why I asked about target successes in the first place (since it's extended actions that work like that). That said, chances are slightly better than even that I can reach 5 successes on the first interval anyways given the buffs in play, so without further ado:

*opens dice roller in new tab*

16:09, Today: Zelda rolled 8 successes using 15d10 with the World of Darkness nWoD system with a target of 8, rerolling on 9 or more with rolls of 8,8,8,2,10(+9,10,5),2,9(+4),8,2,5,5,3,1,1,3.  Dexterity + Medicine + Fuoco + Willpower (w/ Practical Magic) + buffs.

...That awkward moment when in retrospect you could have saved two Wisps and a Willpower point and gotten the same result. Anyways, since that was an exceptional success (nearly three times over, in fact) and I can't think of anything better or more fitting to do I'll take the Steadfast Condition as my extra benefit.

*thinks of something better and more fitting to do*

Does the driver have any aggravated damage and if so can I downgrade it (by physically putting any especially torn, broken, and/or mangled bits back how they're supposed to go before closing him up and having Zoe start Balming him, in case you need a justification for how)?

*starts on IC post*
This message was last edited by the player at 21:30, Tue 01 Nov 2016.

(Other miscellaneous commentary:)

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Not sure what you mean by "expose themselves," but this is how I imagine the forum working:

1. Make an account, which requires no information other than a username and password (you can set up a recovery email, with the registration page itself recommending that you create a new address for that exclusive purpose and not use it for anything else).

2. Wait to receive a private message from Allison Li or another of her nakama (at this stage, receiving and replying to this message is the only forum functionality available to you) asking when and at which Queen's palace they can meet with you. If desired you can give them a codephrase for them to tell you during step three to confirm their identity.

3. Meet Allison or friend on the arranged night in whichever form you prefer, and confirm with them via whoever in the palace keeps track of that sort of thing that you're a follower in good standing of that Queen (which I assume can be done without revealing your name to Allison or friend if you so desire).

4. Tell Allison or friend your username, after which they'll approve your account at their first available opportunity.

5. You can now read and post on the forum.

So overall if you really want to stay anonymous the only compromise to that you necessarily have to make is that a single other Noble knows what you look like transformed and which Queen you serve. The forum itself is of course a Tor hidden service (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tor_(anonymity_network); the address is passed around purely through word of mouth) and all traffic is encrypted, so being directly tracked through your activity is a non-concern (it is supposed to be a place for a bunch of magical girls/boys to talk openly about relevant issues, after all).

That said, it's still fair to say that 50% usership is probably about the most you could reasonably expect for this no matter what...

Though, on that note, I actually need to revise my population estimates/suggestion anyways in light of the following tidbit I found in chapter one:


Even supposing conservatively that the bolded and underlined part means "roughly 300 in New York City," that still scales down to around 30 in San Francisco (counting our own characters). Though taking the Twilight Courts and Courtless into account I guess that still comes out to the 20-25 Radiant I proposed initially.

The number for the rest of the Bay Area, on the other hand, needs some upwards revision. Just for spitballing purposes I'm going to suppose that Nobles are twice as common in metropolitan areas as elsewhere, which comes out to... *does math* ...about 170 in the Bay Area aside from San Francisco itself (and ~30 of those are all in San Jose).

Once again pulling numbers out of my rear here, but the following very rough global average Court distribution feels about right to me:

Courtless: 5%
Court of Mirrors: 4%
All Other Courts: 13% each

That would mean roughly around 130-ish Nobles in the Bay Area (including SF itself and including the three Radiant PCs) eligible to use the forum, and I'd rather like to think that at least 60-something of them actually do use it at least occasionally; if nothing else it's a great method to find and share information on Darkness and Twilight activity.

DISCLAIMER: As the ST you are technically of course free to accept or reject the proposed ~50-60 extra Radiant over my previous suggestion; that said, (a) I do think that these higher numbers better support the idea of a Noble culture existing in such a way as described by the book, and (b) these extra would all be outside of San Francisco itself and so would mostly only come into play in Internet-related ways anyways (at least before bringing potential social merits into play).

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Keeping in mind of course that the current swearing-one-second-acting-like-a-spoiled-puppy-the-next version of Inari is the best so far. :P

In reply to Zelda (msg # 382):

well, how are you going to stab a metal thing with a syringe? It just doesn't penetrate. so she squeezed some on it.

it's int+medicine because it's finding a way to do something new, instead of dex+medicine which is doing something that you practiced a thousand times, or wits+medicine which is coping with something totally unexpected. At least that's my interpretation.

yes, 8 successes (wow! hear the audience applaud) means you drag the thing out of the driver without tearing anything important. The driver is left with one health level, and being unconscious, with a huge gaping wound in his left chest. Balm can heal him normally.

I kind of pictured Inari as having wild mood swings, being perpetually unhappy that he can't get enjoy alcohol and drugs, and being playfully puppy-like. All the worst and best.

As for the number of Nobles, I toned the number down (significantly) for my own selfish and sadistic reasons. So feel free to reduce the number you calculated by 50-90%. Your characters are far from alone, but will have to be rather self-reliant.

Obviously with the "absurdly long needle" you described it as having in the OP is how. A player never forgets. :P


A perfectly valid line of reasoning, just not the one the designers already used is all, and I kind of already rolled with Dexterity so (not that lopping two dice off would affect the result in this case)...


Did that involve any damage downgrading like I asked about or should I go ahead and take Steadfast as was my first idea (or both)?

Also I specifically mentioned closing him up at the end, just not sewing him shut which is the part that Balm will substitute for.


Okay... The "pining for booze and blow" part seems a little gratuitous and excessive but that's between you and MReav.

In reply to Phlegyas (msg # 384):

Aren't servants of the Light supposed to be not Vice-addled? I can imagine him having issues with not being able to eat since he's a stuffed doll (assuming that magic won't let him eat/taste things), but being full on into hookers-and-blow seems out of place for PtH.

Swearing like a sailor is fine. I just imagine him liking video games and the Internet, since a tablet would be a convenient way for him to get more information on the world at large.

So, i never got an answer to this n the dreamlands thread.  Are wisp expenditures in the dreamlands meant to be kept track of separately than Main Thread spending?  If not I am seriously low.

Inari is not addicted to anything. He's just sarcastic and sometimes bitter (you get to grow up but he doesn't, where's the justice in that?), and often just a kids' toy.

wisp expenditures or gains  in the dreamlands thread are not carried over to the main thread.

Hm, actually, considering there's an Aria Charm specifically for negating the social penalties from being drunk off your ass or high as a kite, I think the standard adage of "All things in moderation" is supposed to apply. Though no one tell Zoe that in-character, that can only end badly. :P


Considering Shikigami are more or less the Dreamlander equivalent of Claimed* he could very well be an adult in his natural form, actually. If not, though, then he could in fact be stuck like that given it's completely unspecified in the book (probably on purpose) whether a typical Dreamlander ages.

* Barring Amanojaku who've learned the actual Claim Manifestation.

I thought he probably would have been an adult to begin with, though I would understand if he misses certain benefits of being a Dreamlands entity.

Can a magic doll get drunk?

an interesting question. what do you guys think?

Definitely, for the lulz. The real question is whether he gets drunk on actual alcohol or something else. I'm thinking chocolate, as a twist on how it's toxic to actual canines.

"Gimme anosher one!"

"That's your fifth one already. I think you've had enough."

"I'll tell you when I'vshe had enough! Now gimme another one of those lil helloween candy barsh!"
This message was last edited by the player at 16:04, Thu 03 Nov 2016.

@Zoe/andreamus, any time you want to roll a Balm or two that'd be great. After which I think we should wake him up in case he knows how to get out of here.

@Shirley/Rd, your character description is having the same mysterious-blankness problem that Zoe's was.

You definitely did that dice pool wrong. Balm is Dexterity + Medicine which is 7 for you, and you can probably still tack Fuoco on since this is a crucial part of the operation (i.e.- it's how we're sealing the incisions instead of sutures), which makes 8 dice without spending Willpower. So either refund the point or roll three more dice.