My schedule is pretty hectic these days... I'll probably won't have time to post much. Just a heads up. ;-)

I wonder where that leaves Evans, then, since last I remember, Evans and Pierce were out vampire-hunting.

He's scarce, not gone...I'll get you a sub-thread of your own and post for William if necessary if you're around.

(and if you're around...behold ye Joker chips and attend ye mine threads)

Cool :)

I'm working on a campaign wiki similar to the one I made for my D&D game, and one of the things I like to do for wikis is make banners. This was fun to make.

Plus plus colourful!

Question for the GMs:

Is Harry Lazarus a Huckster? I feel like this was communicated to Adrian previously by Evans or Lazarus himself, but I can't remember if I'm perhaps making this up.

He is, and the Mayor has some tricks, too. Probably not a lot of time for fancy buffs, though.

Well, one minute is ten rounds of six second each. So shouldn't be time for a lot of fancy buffs, but maybe time for a few.

Are friendly NPCs up for control during the fight?

You're not in combat yet, mind. You can have Harry or Hardin, if you like. Jake, want an NPC?

O'Rourke is in a rather nasty arrangement of bone restraints because he kept fighting and Omitetlcoatl is, as his name suggests, a natural necromancer; the priest is technically out of combat.

Also, seeing the current title of this message, I keep thinking of the ladybeast at the back here...
This message was last edited by the GM at 22:18, Tue 21 Apr 2015.

In reply to Alouette (msg # 398):

I'll take Lazarus

*pokes Jake* ?

As a heads-up, I think it's probably the result of spending most of the day glued to a screen in the lab, but this headache hasn't gone away with anything I've thrown at it so far, so I am going to de-screen myself presently and vanish for the night.

*pokes Stray with bargepole meanwhile*

I'm working on something for the other game. I'll get to posting soon, I promise.

[waits] Weren't you going to give me ten thousand men?

Been a bit busy, going to try and update today with respect to what's going on in Snakeville

I had guessed as much - either that or Adrian'd just gone for popcorn. *dance dance*

You guys might be geeky enough to appreciate this...yesterday a volunteer I was set to oversee was late, so I went to dig up a reference specimen within sight of the path, since I knew that one would be ready.

I'd got it in my head that it was a puffin, then realised it couldn't be because I'd cleaned and recorded that puffin during the last lab inventory; when the volunteer promptly turned up and asked what I was doing I replied that I was digging up a reference skelly to compare to the bitty fragments we get on sites, the better to ID them with. Also that I didn't know what this one was because I'd forgotten and the thing was still in its shroud of old tights (to prevent the loss of tiny bones).

I got her settled dry sorting and went back to getting the specimen prepped for cleaning, and thought she might like to know the outcome when I came back in, since a lot of our retired volunteers are also interested in birdwatching/eco work.

me: It was a little auk!

volunteer: [looks at me like I'm completely mad]

me: The thing I was digging up, I mean.

[volunteer still looks utterly confounded]

me: Little auks...they're sort of small and dark, you'd see them off the coast but not inland...quite rare to spot them at all, really.

volunteer: ...

me: ...sort of like tiny black puffins?

volunteer: Ohhh. I watched all the Hobbit films last night on DVD; I thought you said orcs.

News from the PEG forums

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Pfft...unless the Stray says different or it's more useful than deadly to you guys I think we'll keep things as they are. Y'all are going to have enough trouble with one giant snake without him coming right back at you when he rolls over a 3...and if Adrian's super plan here doesn't work out, there may be more than one...

*pokes Adrian*

Sorry for being tardy. Saturday was the first beautiful, warm, sunny day here in quite a long time, so it was spent day in excessive revelry. Sunday was spent recovering.

But I will get a chance to post today after work.

Fair enough - since it stopped raining here I've spent the bank holiday evening thus far digging over the vegetable patch in exchange for boiled potatoes myself. Still, I'm keen to see what the super secret plan is.

Incidentally, I originally just had Lou about to give Hardin the Relic(s) he's wearing, but I realised he fits eerily well with this game's Biblical theme, specifically the apocalyptic part...also no-one's ever precisely located Biblical Armageddon, which is roughly '[town on] the plains near a lake'; it strikes me that now Lago is a ghost town, Blackthorn might be nearest...

There's really not much of a secret, other than perhaps the execution, which is at best a dicey proposition. There was a limited window for the concoction of plans, and Adrian has an even more limited window in which to slay a gigantic serpent god using its own venom and freeing a priest that's about to be eaten.

The rest is just figuring out how precisely to do that. What kind of snake does this resemble, and is it common knowledge during this time period where snakes store their venom?

He'd be best off distracting, tricking, or confusing Omitetlcoatl or - if Adrian doesn't mind risking Lazarus getting hit/falling to a terrible toasty fate now he's on human shield/hat duty - causing severe non-lethal damage to get the critter down long enough to lever his mouth open.

He most resembles a diamondback and Adrian has probably seen such snakes killed and skinned before, since there used to be a bounty on rattlers in various parts of Texas c.1870; he should have some idea of their anatomy/which bits one takes off before roasting. Getting access to Omitetlcoatl's mouth is the tricky bit (though running up and jumping in would be hilarious - he couldn't even stop you).

Jake might have a more useful weapon (or be in severe trouble) in a wee bit, but with the tight timeframe I was keen to see what Adrian would do first.

If one were truly cold-blooded, the ritual could be broken at the last second by killing the priest before he can be sacrificed, even.

Oh, and don't forget Harry's about and might disregard his own safety if he thinks the act worthwhile...he has a hobbit-like kind of genteel bravery, that one. Plus he might be the only one who'll realise in time to act if Adrian's ploy doesn't work out, since we're down to seconds now.

Note that failing here won't be terrible...very bad, yes, but not quite the end of the world. It's unlikely Omitetlcoatl's siblings will stick about and be your problem alone, for instance, and Evans still has a couple of holy hand grenades.