You know what this is.

First off. I know the people in RJTs can read this so please hang out, you all have made some pretty unique requests so I have a TON of reading to do XD

Now is your time to ask questions in your PM thread while I read as the main ST is away.

As you're added, sheets will be unlocked after full back stories are given. I will ask you have a description, picture, and a theme song link at the bottom.

How is everyone this fine day? I am currently scratching my brain over a theme song... I have found ones that fit my other concepts but working on this one. Ah well, no rush and it's a good excuse to mooch around on youtube.

Fair, but it is 30 degrees outside. X.X

How be you?

Just managed to pick out a song myself. It is insanely hard to just pick one song, isn't it?

I've picked something for the moment, and I can always go and pick something new once I've gotten to know the character a little better...

Do we absolutely need to pick up theme songs? My knowledge of songs in english is limited, to put it lightly.

You dont have to. Just a nice thing as I am addicted to magic.

Greetings, ladies and gentleman :)

Happy to be here, and I look forward to meeting a bunch of fantastical and frightening friends!  I’ll be playing Mistral, a lady so mysterious that even her player doesn’t know very much about her yet ;P  Working on that, though!

Theme songs, oh goodness.  I’ll have to give that some thought!  Wendy, your song can be in whatever language you want, babe, including instrumental :)

In reply to Mistral (msg # 9):

Hi there Mistral! Best character synopsis ever by the way! The issue is I'm functionally deaf so songs in general are lost on me.

My concept is coming out so contradictory... like she's got the hints that she should be a social character, but she wants to be a fighter instead... it is weird trying to pin her down, which I think is sort of the point. She's rose themed, and that seems like a pretty little flower, but then there's the thorns...

Okay, I have built my first draft of my sheet and think I have a better understanding of my character, who has wound up less fighty than I thought she would, with a much bigger focus on hedge skills and ALL the merits... I shall be your guide to the hedge and the many wonders and terrors therein...

Hopefully you know how to find mandrake root in the hedge. I've got a market membership but Ive been blocked on finding the things I want.

I can't make crazy magic items without crazy things to forge them.

I think its highly probable I can find/buy/grow mandrake root, but would have to discuss it with ST's...

If you're a supplier then all the better. It's always better to deal with people you know least the price got absurd.

What coin are you most interested in? Do I need to start milking bad guys for memories or something?

I don't generally deal in ephemerals, unless you can handle the harvesting and I can line up a buyer, I'd need an extra 4 pt merit on top of the various ones I already have to be dealing in memories. Much more likely to be taking regular coin, if I have something I want to buy with it anyway... I'll figure out the price IC I guess.

My sheet done, so far as I know!  GMs, feel free to check it over and tell me how badly I messed it up and why my selections are terrible :)

Also, my profile now contains a character description and a picture.  Still very mysterious, but at least a bit less so to her player now!  BTW, the stealthiness described there is partly represented by a Stealth specialty of "Spooky-sneaky" ;P  Is that specific enough to count as a skill specialty?  I know exactly what I mean by it, at least!  LOL

Now for songs...

I need to step up my game! >_>; I should have Wendy's background ready tomorrow, hopefully!

I like Eglantine and Mistral a lot by the way!

 I found you a picture. I'm a bit OCD about profile pictures.

I like how Eglantine and Mistral are sounding pretty different in their descriptions, she can do stealth in vegetation, dealing with literal hiding, but in a crowd she STANDS OUT being drop dead gorgeous (it felt like something that fit the concept and I OC find amusing but the character would hate because changeling is all about the people having been made to fit the concept). My concept is "wild rose".

In reply to Eglantine Wilde (msg # 20):

Yeah, we're definitely quite different!  At first glance it looks like it could be like the cheerleader hanging out with the weirdo anti-social girl in high school... a dynamic which surely can't go wrong, LOL.  Who knows, though, maybe opposites can attract!

Mistral is going to be really easy to miss thanks to an ability that makes her socially-invisible: "A stranger everywhere she goes, unnoticed by all".  She'll usually have that on unless she decides she needs to talk to somebody, at which point people will suddenly notice a weird white-and-blue-haired girl was standing right there! ;P

I don't know almost anything about Changeling metaphysics or the Hedge, but Mist also deals in dimensional stuff, specifically involving spirits and the Shadow Realm.  GMs, do any of my spirit/Gauntlet doodads interact with Eglantine's dimensional stuff, or vice versa?  Perhaps we can be dimensional guardian girlfriends ;D

I believe there's some theories about the spirit world having back doors to the shadow world and hedge tucked away in hard to find places but functionally they are separate, or at least they are in canon, its possible the meteor might have fudged that in a few places...

That being said mystical power (while not being exactly the same) is somewhat similar between the different types of being, it is possible for some (not all) changeling doodads to run off vitae, gnosis, quintessence etc in place of glamour... (kinda like how you can fuel some cars on cooking oil or alcohol but it might not run as smoothly, is more likely to break down and some cars won't accept it at all).

So my guess is it would probably depend on the specifics of the doodads.

 Yeah, they can, to a degree... and, of course, there are always the contracts...

 Also, there are tokens which can be used. Non-changelings can use them but there is always a catch.

 That said, the Hedge is in Ardadia, one of the Supernal Realms, so your magic will interact with Rifts and such that form there normally.

 However, most of the rifts that have been occurring recently are Aether rifts.

Background sent! I apologize in advance for any bad english.

See according to canon Arcadia (supernal realm) and Arcadia (fae realm) are separate but very similar, because they tap into the same archetypal imagery. But it's up to you if you want to run with it that way or have them be the same place, but then you would think there'd be more magi getting kidnapped by the True Fae...

 Or they could just be different places on the same plane... or there could be some sort of "protection" that awakening mages are under... OR they might just not be there long enough to really attract the attention of the True Fae.
This message was last edited by the GM at 10:59, Sat 13 Apr 2019.

 Wendy will be joining a bit later once her character sheet is done.

*******...???  Now Mist knows Noah's true name, and thus has greater power over him, muahaha! >:D

Also, forgive my noobness, but what are these "two C's" that the local Gauntlet has? *head scratch*
This message was last edited by the GM at 14:36, Tue 16 Apr 2019.

The gauntlet is heavy in places that it needs to be in such a way as to prevent spirits from poking through but magic is otherwise unaffected.

Short on time so did just a real quick post to relay some important things Mist noticed!!  I’ll be back later to add some sort of action onto that :)  The game is afoot!

a tad busy at the moment, getting ready to go camping for the weekend... I will try and post when I can but might be away a few days.

 Appreciate the head's up

Gosh dang it you speedy guys, I revised that post 3 times as new posts came in! LOL.  Noah's last post with all the talking just came in as I finished, but I wasn't about to revise it again so I just posted it.

Now I'll read it and find out how badly I've botched the negotiations ;P

You're fine. Unfair advantage as it's my day off
XD

Well, perhaps I've undermined Noah's peace-making efforts, but hopefully it works on a good cop/bad cop way ;P

Is the throat even a vital area for a synth?  Sure hope so!
This message was last edited by the player at 04:28, Fri 19 Apr 2019.

Strictly speaking, they do have proto blood that powers the brain so yea. the major difference is every part of them has a mini brain that is slaved to the head. So far as I have been told.

 it is not, at least, not in the same way it is for a person. They'll slowly take lethal damage over time... but it's 1 per scene.

If the first cut doesn't work then Mist will just have to keep cutting until he gets the idea ;P  She's perhaps not the best human-android ambassador one could hope for.

I have the feeling that under the mask this guy has half his face missing, Terminator 1 style!

 You hit the nail on the head :P

 also, the second wits + composure was for Mistral, not Noah.

Awesome :D  Very cool scene, GM!

I'm not sure what kind of map to give, though... I imagine he's not expecting us to produce a paper travel map for him to mark with a sharpie ;P  Can we open an encrypted super-bluetooth connection between our smartwatches and his cyber-brain to let him upload coordinates, or something like that?

Also, curious: are we still looking for new players?  I notice Wendy is an NPC now :/

 Yeah, you could do either. The main difference will be what you roll to decipher the information.

 I'm still looking for new players, it's just that Wendy had RL things come up and asked to be removed.

So I come back from tapping into leylines three times in one day (very painful do not recommend) generally saving the island etc... and I'm only name dropped in a Winds of Fortune for Empire next weekend! (VERY CHUFFED)

I have absolutely no idea what any of that means, dear Eglantine, but I’m very glad you’re so chuffed about it :)  Welcome back!

We had a tense meeting with  a vigilante synth with Terminator-1-burn-face and some useful infos, and now we’re gonna go look for where this synth-murderer went!

I've had a skim through, hopefully I can have had a look around the scene while you guys ran off? I did ask about reflective surfaces and hedge gates way back but didn't get an answer on them... so perhaps I'll have found something that can show us what happened.

Being in a different time zone is really starting to suck... when everything happens before I get chance to respond... but at the same time I don't want to slow people down, I just feel like I can't get a post in edgewise.. maybe I should just leave the game.

I mean I tried to do one thing, and couldn't even get that done in that scene... I just wanted to use reflection to see what a reflective surface had seen in the last week and everyone else went on a high speed chase came back and found the place before I had chance to look in a mirror... and now I'm in a van. *sighs* not really seeing anything to contribute at this stage.
This message was last edited by the player at 08:08, Tue 23 Apr 2019.

 I spoke with AV earlier and we have a plan for that, so no worries

Very sorry Eglantine if my own posting frequency has made you feel put out :/  I don't mean to hog the spotlight or bowl over anyone!  I'm just around RPOL a lot, and when stuff happens I feel compelled to throw in my two cents...

I think it's okay to treat in-game time as fluid, though?  I'm sure the GMs would be okay with you doing rolls to investigate the scene more (I'm sure we missed things) or to give input on anything that previously happened, or try any other actions you want to.  I'd be happy to play out any of that with you, if it involves Mist.  I guess that's small consolation if you had other ideas for directions to take :(

I think maybe as a policy we should hold for a response from everybody at key beats?  Examples: spotting a figure on the roof, showdown with the figure, investigating the scene, deciding to depart.  That way nobody would get dragged along without having a chance to give input.

That sounds like a good plan moving forwards. My ability to respond is very variable due to a somewhat flexible and unpredictable schedule and mental health concerns etc... *shrugs* I don't think there's much point in bothering with what Eglantine got up to while you guys were doing things before... I mean we're on our way now so it doesn't really matter if she could show you the attackers on their way into/out of the alleyway etc.

 I'm not so sure it's hogging the spotlight in this case so much as she was on vacation and we pretty much hammered out that chase scene and the investigation itself in one night because everyone else was on. It's unusual for that much progress to be made in a single night.

 Most of the time, it's 1-2 posts a night rather than an entire scene and a half :P

Yeah, it's nobody's fault, doesn't help that I tend to take time writing responses and have been extra sensitive to pretty much everything lately, but that's not something anyone can change. I think I'm just going to have Eglantine be pissed off about being dragged around with nobody bothering to fill her in on things, then at least I'll have something to write other than "Eglantine sat in the van where she'd been put and listened to people talking French."

I'll make a better effort to include Eglantine in future posts.  Mist nor her player know exactly her skillset, but I'll be happy to collaborate or defer to Eglantine on matters in which she's the expert :)

Also, apologies for going on in French without translation!  I hadn't planned to actually converse in French in-game, but just throw in occasional words or brief phrases for linguistic flavor that should be easy to interpret from context.  But then Scar started unexpectedly speaking French, which seemed like his way to confide in Mist, so I went with it.  The exchange was basically, "Did you see any synths alive?" , "Nope, all dead." , "I hope they didn't suffer" , "..."  ;P

Uff, RPOL was down forever!  Good to be back, though :)

ST question:  What is the police presence like, exactly?  Are they on active alert with the red-and-blue lights on and crime scene tape and the whole deal, or did we just encounter more police cars than average, on patrol but not particularly alerted?  I was thinking the latter, but maybe I'm wrong!

Are the cops already on the case at the church?  Not sure if we can see the church from where we are yet :P

 They're all in "stakeout" mode

Mist is planning to go in with Scar, but I shall await Eglantine’s post to see if she might have tricks to pull or other ideas first :)

Mist, I'll split the Tass I am making with you 50 50 once this is all done.

Is this Prime firehose battery-charging thing something Mist would understand the benefits and dangers of, being an Occult-educated magical woman?  Because her player has no idea what the deal is ;P

All mages deal with pools of mana. Mana that is still and gathers over time. A fire hose to a pool is a very bad thing. It's about the same level of wrong as explosive trees. Noah only has prime, matter, and mind sight. So all he sees is a sun and hes throwing buckets of water on it.

So, in technical terms, this place is basically a super-hallow of bad juju? ;P

Mist didn’t pick up on that with her Spirit sight, so far as I understood... just that the place feels wrong to a nearly nauseating degree now that we’re here.  Would we be worried this place is a magic bomb or something?  Is Mist’s soul going to be immolated upon entry?  Is there an evil archmage behind this?!  I guess I should roll some more checks!

Tass sounds tasty, though, and would be appreciated :)

Noah is thinking Prime elementals which means all kinds of wicked juju. Thats why he said eyes up. He has a battery with angry Prime.

 Yeah, you didn't pick up on it with Spirit Sight... it requires a different type of sight to notice.

 I'm going to be very picky about what info to reveal based on what sights are active.
This message was last edited by the GM at 09:20, Mon 29 Apr 2019.

How is the emotional energy reading? Changelings can draw upon strong emotions to recharge glamour but I don't know if synth emotions count...

 Malevolence. That is the general energy reading. It's BAD juju.

Uff, this place is awful!  I’m in consultation with the GMs to see if there’s anything to be done to make it a little less awful for when you guys come in ;P

So, those 2 successes aren’t enough to close this thing, but it’s a prolonged action so I’m not sure if there are more rolls to make or if my friends can contribute or something?  Perhaps this will start our battle against the portal to hell (or some comparable place)!

 I posted the rest of your rolls. it took a total of 3 turns to drop it down to a 1 point hallow.

Gosh, I sure hope this is a spirit thing capable of being exorcised, or else that all that magical posturing will look very silly as this horrible thing kills us all ;P

Is it just me or has the site spent more time down than up during the last week...?

It went down for like a day and a half and then the servers were flaky for a couple days afterward, but it seems to have returned to stability since, thankfully!  I got a bit worried at some point that this place might have exploded :o

I think perhaps I just had bad luck on my timings with when I was online and when the servers were being flakey then? Not sure, but it seemed a lot more than a day or two. *shrugs* hopefully it's fixed now.

OH HECK!  This is going full Lovecraft now.  You never go full Lovecraft!

Was this thing unaffected by the exorcism in the sense that it’s not a type of thing that the spell covers, or that it just rolled well to resist it?  Can I roll another Occult check to figure out wtf this is and what can be done here?

 Oh, believe me, it's going to get a LOT worse :P

I’d hoped Mist could keep cool and collected for a while longer, but then you just had to bring out the bloody rain and eyeballs growing out of walls ;P

 I hope someone has the Drive Skill or some very nice rolls. Otherwise, it's going to be hard to get away from this thing.

So, who’s our getaway driver?  Mist only has two dice for that Drive roll, and she’s running low on Willpower :o

On the plus side, if we can get to someplace ‘safe’ for long enough to cast an extended action spell then I can get us really far away from this mess!  Umm, roughly how long is the extended action for Portal, GM?  That might very well be relevant if I’m casting it while incomprehensible eldritch horrors smash down the doors o_O

 Going to say one person per success per round. So, there's 3 people and 2 synths (Scar and the Driver)… so it'll take a number of rounds equal to the time it takes you to get 5 successes.

 I think that's, in general, how I'll be handling most extended actions. Going to post that in House rules for future reference :P


Edit: Also, of all of you, Eglanine has the highest dice pool for this task at 3 :P

 I guess in the age of self driving cars, no one ever bothered getting a driver's license :P
This message was last edited by the GM at 04:22, Mon 06 May 2019.

Mist doesn’t like driving, because why risk driving when you can teleport? ;P

Edit: so would Portal be an hour per round, as a ritual?  Maybe that won’t be great while on the run from monsters, unless we can find a fallout shelter to lock ourselves into, or something...
This message was last edited by the player at 05:14, Mon 06 May 2019.

 The Portal's not a ritual (unless you're drawing chalk lines and burning incense to get bonus dice).

 Also, I just actually took a look at the book and it's based on sympathetic connection rather than number of people...

 … so the duration of the extended action is equal to the number of turns it takes you to get the successes to where you're going plus 5 turns to get everyone through.

Each additional success beyond the target number lets me open the portal bigger to get one more person through per round, so there’s a possibility to get away quicker with a good roll!  If we want to do a Portal, anyway...

Who knows, maybe we’ll roll back over to Noah’s bookstore and find the sun shining and everything’s hunky-dory?  Yeeeeaaaa *cries* ;P

Things keep getting busier OC unexpectedly, I think I am going to have to drop the game I am afraid. Sorry for the inconvenience.

 That's alright. RL claims us all at some point. I'll try to keep you on as an NPC in case RL ever calms down for you.

Sorry to hear it, Eglantine, but so it goes at times :o  I wish you success with your RL endeavors, and if you’re able to return you’ll be welcomed back :)

I’m not sure if this was intentional, GM, but you just described Mist to a tee!  Here we are in her house on a mountain with neither a tv nor magazines in the front room, LOL :D  Time to learn some stuff about some tech celebrity guy, I guess!

Hi everyone!  I'm finishing up my sheet and look forward to playing with all of you..my description is up, and if anyone has any ideas for a portrait, they'd be greatly appreciated!

In reply to Ralph (msg # 83):

Welcome, Ralph!  A pleasure to finally meet a real werebunny ;D

Upon reading the description I first thought you might be stealing Mist’s shtick with the blue and colorful hair, but then I read further and realized that nope... Ralph has a style all his own!  I’m not so sure you’ll find a portrait just like that, but the Male > Modern > Rugged portraits has an assortment of unshaven long-haired guys that could maybe serve as an approximation :)

Hi Mistral, nice to meet you :)

the were is right, but not into a bunny, that was they that rule our world's idea :)

thanks for the suggestions! and I'd never think to steal Mistral's look..nope, never :)

Hi all!  Looking forward to getting to play with you.

It was really an incentive to have a picture at all =P

Welcome to Argentus, also :)

Any chance our characters might have met or know one another?  We're looking for allies at the moment, so perhaps we might give y'all a call!  Mist is kind of a freelance secret agent/exorcist/dimensional anomaly-hunter, so there's a chance she could've met somebody in that context.  She does tend toward anti-social and prefers to be invisible, so probably more likely she doesn't know anybody ;P  Anyway, I'm happy to do my part to steer toward bringing the new boys in sooner rather than later, whatever that may entail :)

Argentus runs a New Age hipster coffee shop, complete with semi-arcane books, jewelry, and symbols.  I imagine the local Guardians would have paid him a visit to make sure he had enough fake-magic mixed in with the real stuff to keep most sleepers ignorant, while he'd have pushed back to keep some real knowledge mixed in as that's the kind of thing that caused his Awakening.

He's also a professional jeweler, so if you needed a tool or component for something you might have dropped by on non-Guardian, non-caffeinated business if you want.

Coffee? did you say Coffee? I know I'll be showing up there :)

Apologies to all if I get self-indulgent in my weird descriptions, but I've been pondering Mist's secret space-cave for a while and wanted to get it out of my head :)

Argie (can I call you Argie?):  Mist would roll her eyes at the New-Agey woo-woo and so would likely avoid the shop, and her job with the Guardians isn't to do inspections ;P  She might have dropped by for some strange spell component that wasn't to be found anywhere else, buuuut otherwise perhaps we'll just meet for the first time in-game!

WE'RE DOING IT LIVE
This message had punctuation tweaked by the player at 05:34, Fri 17 May 2019.

 I welcome those sorts of things, so long as they don't clash with my own descriptions (but descriptions of your own things are rarely described by me)


 And, you know.... since Argentus and Ralph are both shop owners, I think I'd like to have you two be neighbors in a shopping center... you two can work out amongst yourselves how well you know each other. That'll make it easier to get you two involved.

there's been a bit of a misunderstanding..I wasn't going to be a shop owner..but came up with a way cool idea for one as I was responding to a message that will totally work..

of AND help me figure out where to spend points to finish off my character lol

 Apologies for the misunderstanding. From the conversation, it seemed like you were wanting do have some kind of business. If you don't that's fine, you could just be a regular at the coffee shop.

 I just need to get the details strait with the two of you before I make a thread or add you in game (whichever opportunity is better at that time)

he and I are totally coming up with something that will work AND makes sense on several levels :)

check out our pm thread :)

Hi all, ill be set up and in within a week. ^_^

In reply to Jax (msg # 96):

Welcome, Jax :D  Good to see all these new faces!

Are you by chance the tough guy in Mortal Kombat 2 with big metal cyber-arms?  That’s my only other place I’ve seen that name before ;P  The cyber-arms are probably even a possibility in this game!

 No he's not but the arms definitely are possible here :P

I see shiny power sources. Mist sees The Lords velvet dicebag.

Hey, Prime is angel-power, so if anybody is gonna see the Lord's business it'll be you, sir!

My currently-active spells are what I believe I shall henceforth refer to as "the Full Paranoia Suite" :)

 I had a large post but the server went down and ate it :(

In reply to Manofdusk (msg # 101):

Oh no, that’s the worst :(  I can usually get my post back with the back button, but I guess it depends on browser and how it got eaten... I’ve done my share of angry rewrites in my day ;P

nope, it 404ed me out

 Had to do it again. I think it lost some of its impact, but I think I captured most of it

I found the post impactful still, as will Mist also :)  Waiting until after Noah to post, tho!

Sorry, got a little caught in life.

I will be getting my shit together soon and playing almost as soon.

Sorry - totaled family car (no injuries, thankfully) and dealing with the aftermath has been taking a ton of time.  I should have a good post up tomorrow.


EDIT as I saw the clock on the way to bed: and by tomorrow I mean today after sleep.
This message was last edited by the player at 05:36, Mon 27 May 2019.

I'm just glad no one was hurt!

In reply to Argentus (msg # 106):

Glad to hear you and yours are okay after that, Argie!  *hugs*

Hugs for Ajax also, and looking forward to meeting you soon :)

 Yes, glad to hear no one was injured.

Thanks all.

I dig the Coffee Shop's name, Argentus :)
This message was last edited by the player at 19:26, Tue 28 May 2019.

How about "Caffeine++" for a pithy programmer coffee shop name? ;)

I would suggest that may or may not have a sign that admits "10 kinds of people" without an explanation (for those who understand binary and those who do not)... but Argentus wouldn't get it.

I had more to put in my post, but it's contingent on what happens up to the point where I stopped.

 Yep, gonna go with "you summoned a coffee squirrel".

a coffee squirrel? that is SOOO cool! :)

OMG, jealous!  I want a coffee squirrel or an equivalently cute friendly critter ;P

Looks like I need an excuse to use Mist’s Spirit powers to summon something...

I did not make the caffeine spirit to be a precursor to Pokemon. That being said, I can likely come up with something. But if you start trying to collect them all I will shove Cthulu up your backside.

His name is Jitters BTW.

totally perfect name :)

he's not a pokemon..but he IS going to be an inspiration for something I create for the net..*whistling innocently*

In reply to Asimov's Folly (msg # 117):

A baby Cthulhu would be an acceptable pet too, thank you very much AF for being so very kind ;D

In reply to Mistral (msg # 120):

SCP-2662 the teenaged Cthulhu
 TheVolgun had done a very good reading of it.

And in my morning loss of time the NPCs are done so far. weee

where did Ralph go?

I am so sorry, Ralph is here..just got bogged down in work and some personal stuff, but he's back and ready to hide from the monsters..I mean save the day :)

Please don't transition us yet.  If Henry is good with going down the rabbit hole, I'm going to out myself and suggest we travel by Umbra/Shadow Realm.

 And that was why I waited :P

500 POSTS!  Yay :)  Thanks Manofdusk and Asimov’s Folly and my fellow players for this splendid game!

Also, I much enjoyed RPing Mist’s scientific perplexity over the conundrum of a crying super-synth baby ;P  I hope her hypothesis proves correct, for that would amuse me muchly.

Uff, sorry guys!  I don’t think I’ll be able to keep up with this most fascinating discussion, as I’m out of town for a wedding until Sunday :/  I’ll post when I can, but in between just imagine Mist is there watching, listening and being taciturn as usual ;P
This message was last edited by the player at 05:18, Fri 21 June 2019.

You're fine, take all the time you need, real life comes first!

Between y’all and me I’d rather be Mage-ing than being involved in the whole wedding rigamarole ;P  I’m afraid that several of Mist’s antisocial traits are written from personal experience, lol

sorry, I legitimately got caught up in life and forgot i was in this game.

I see I wasnt removed though so I will go ahead and whip together my char now.

Hi all, if I never said hi before...


Although, who all is playing what?
This message was last edited by the player at 17:01, Sat 22 June 2019.

Tech mage over here.

like, straight mage?

I am not sure what you mean by that. He is a mage, he uses tech. He is hard core into enchanting and making things.

Spooky-sneaky, all-seeing, everywhere-going Mage here :D

Spirit mage caffeine dealer here.

Lightning bolt inside of a sock puppet.

so.... I'm going to be surrounded by mages? shit man.

excuse me, mages and one prometh.
This message was last edited by the player at 16:53, Mon 24 June 2019.

Ralph is a werewolf.  Jitters is a spirit... and my workplace.

Javaaaaaaaaa...

... and 98.7% caffeine.

In reply to Argentus (msg # 140):

Just a heads up, out getting a haircut, once I get back I'll be digging into what you are trying to do with the spirits.

phew, at least theres one person who wont break the world around me ;p

well, I dunno though... I went lesser template because I didnt expect such a mage heavy game. ST doesnt seem to like my reaction either XD if I end up not in the game just know I have no hard feelings and hope you all have fun.

If I do end up still playing, I still look forward to playing with ALL of you.

 Mistral and Noah are now in downtime mode so you can heal that lethal damage and spend XP

Random post to move the game from 666 posts...

 Thank You!

It’s an appropriate number for our current in-game investigations!  GM, delete a few posts to get us back to 666 ;)
This message was last edited by the player at 22:57, Wed 10 July 2019.

Demonic baddy: <Tentacles!>

Mistral: <None can defense!>

This jerk vexed me muchly by rescuing his guys from my portal to an undisclosed and unpleasant location, so here's hoping 8 successes with a monofilament-sharp blade is enough to behead at range ;P

Good luck with your meeting with the spirit of the End of All Things!  He's not so bad as the title makes it sound :)

I could have sworn you went to the Ark...

 The thread will be continued in 0.0.3c

 I added a house rule for Defense and Armor

In reply to Asimov's Folly (msg # 149):

You must be thinking of an alternate timeline where I didn't edit my post.  I remembered that (in spite of the crazy going on) I have Argentus written as an optimist and wanted to get back to that rather than continuing down paranoia lane.   Even if paranoia lane is the safest place in town.

In reply to Argentus (msg # 152):

Hey Argie:  as your taxi dropped you off at the cabin a bullet-riddled shiny white car pulled up and a couple of weirdos got out, one of whom greeted you... sort of :)  I believe the ‘hunt is on’ thread is ended and now we’ve converged at last in the Arc-Con thread!
This message was last edited by the player at 18:38, Thu 11 July 2019.

In reply to Mistral (msg # 153):

The car is currently pristine thanks to Grey working so hard. Poor Grey working her heart out to keep you all safe.

In reply to Asimov's Folly (msg # 154):

Edited!  <3 Grey :)  I need one of those to fix stuff for me IRL, heheh

Hang on... do Noah and Argentus both have one false eye?  Maybe even Talion too, as he’s been described as having two different eye colors?!  Y’all didn’t listen when told not to run with scissors, huh? ;P

Spectacular imagery in this scene, GM!  Bravo, I’m riveted :D

Noah has both his original eyes. His right one is blind but tracks perfectly. A condition I have in real life, you wouldn't know it if I didnt tell you.

The two tone is due to his prime sight only in that eye. Mistral has seen Noah with two green eyes. It's always before he puts his spells on. =)

 I think Argentus just has a lazy eye.

 Noah has two different color eyes because magic :P

 Talion, on the other hand, has dichroma.

Yea, it's a military trick. When a car comes along and they have NVGs on. They take them off and keep one eye closed so they don't lose all sight in one eye. He only has prime sight in one eye so if he sees things ... like Talion, he doesn't go blind. That and it lets him look fly as hell.

I see, Noah.  That's interesting.  Now I know the eye color is a tell >:)  That one-eye-closed trick is older than nightvision, though!  The famous pirate eyepatch was worn to keep their dark vision when going below decks by swapping the covered eye, so I hear.  Probably regular sailors did that too, not just pirates.

GM, my idea about Argentus's eye came from this quote, which reads to me as literal (correct me if I'm wrong, Argie):

I guess Mist is the weirdo here with two regular eyes :)

If the eyes are the window to the soul, then Mist is the only one who has a good connection. =)

Argentus has one glass eye - the original was clawed out by an abyssal spirit before he banished it during his first attempt to summon a supernal.
This message was last edited by the player at 18:24, Tue 16 July 2019.

Noah is totally going to want to hook Argentus up with a working eye.

so... my central heating and air has stopped working and it's currently a miserable temperature in my house. I'm going to call someone to fix it first thing... but right now I can't think of anything except how hot it is.

 I will be posting after my AC is fixed (hopefully tomorrow)

OOC: Edit. Still hot but I got cooled off enough to focus on my post :P
This message was last edited by the GM at 08:45, Thu 18 July 2019.

That was perhaps a bit more theatrical than usual for Mist, but she likes Dr. Emily and wouldn’t want to deprive her of a cool ‘welcome to wizarding’ moment!  Every new Mage ought to get one of those, right?

I just edited in an offer to portal us to the warehouse, for anybody read my post in the first 9 minutes ;P

Hi everybody! I just joined this game, and I look forward to playing with all of you!

Welcome, Sal :)  I’ll look forward to meeting the newcomer to our nascent group of weirdos!

Welcome, Sal.  What will you be running?

Also, as to the soundtrack: sorry, not sorry.

omg GMs, you have make the gun spirit be Dirty Harry!  https://youtu.be/V7Nci-GVuHE?t=53

A hard-boiled, trigger-happy maverick gun with the voice of Clint Eastwood growling one-liner encouragements for Argie to solve his problems with bullets :D  This would be the best thing.

 Whelp, I'm sold. That's what we're doing now. Dirty Harry bobble head spirit :P

You'll see ;)

I'll give you guys a current description of Sal, though. A tall Sicilian man of average build, wearing ill-fitting dirty old clothes, and covered in the grime of the street. He'd be your typical homeless veteran, except for a conspicuous lack of facial hair or wrinkles.
This message was last edited by the player at 05:46, Tue 23 July 2019.

 This is topical because of our use of Google Translate


https://www.youtube.com/watch?...dgLMYCy&index=18

This is my plan for the cross.

lol o_O  You mean MY use of Google translate, right?  I’m the only one silly enough to try to write stuff in a language I don’t know :)

The fear of writing nonsense like in the video is why I stick with word-swaps or occasional verifiable canned phrases at most!  Well, I also try to limit the French to a bit of linguistic flavor, but keeping the meaning clear from context or similarity to English.  Be sure to bug me if I get too obnoxious with it!

Argie and Sal, y’all don’t speak French, do you?  If so, then my apologies, lol

He posted it because it was funny, not that he was making a statement. =P

In reply to Asimov's Folly (msg # 175):

I know, I know, but my neuroses nonetheless compel me to worry over such things on occasion  ;)

That link cost my wife and I pretty much every minute since he sent it.  That channel is amazing.

Also, Argentus doesn't know French and I don't know French, so that makes it super easy for me, no Google needed.

I love that channel! And no, neither I nor my character speak French. Sal speaks a few other languages, conversationally, but only when necessary. He prefers keeping it to himself, though, considering his first and last names, it should be easy to guess.

Excellent!  My pretend-French RP con may carry on, then ;)

I have to say that I didn’t expect Sal’s surname based on the first name!  I sense that this apparent-hobo vampire has an interesting backstory :)

Let's just say, he's adopted.

 So I'm waiting on another post or two before I continue. Is Mistral going to take the coat and get clear? What is Argentus doing?

Didn't have a chance to post over the weekend, but there we go.  I think maybe we'd better give Argie a chance to take a look before blowing the cross sky-high, or whatever ;P

Oh.  This is a troubling development.

Don’t suppose I could try counterspelling the portals, could I?

Not as a preset trap, that was set out in such an open area. =) Good luck. I will be praying for you.

Do I need a merit to draw a katana and attack in the same turn?

Not so far as I know.

 I tend to keep rounds fluid for ease of play so not really.

 However, you'll need a skill specialization (Iaijutsu) to draw and attack in one motion.

I'll keep that in mind. I already spent all my starting xp :)

Oh my gosh, for my previous post I was thinking how to describe Mist drawing her blade, which I imagine as the classic samurai image of holding the scabbard while reaching across to draw the blade forward.  So I googled “samurai sword draw technique” and learned that that’s called Iaijutsu and read a couple of fascinating articles about it that ultimately had no bearing on the post ;P  And here y’all were talking about it OOC too!  Funny, I guess :)

There is an ingame martial school for it. But Luke Valentine from Helsing is a good example of draw style knife fighting.

Note to self, pack hand held pasta 3d printer next time.

Sorry all - illness kept me from warning you about my (then up-coming, now past) long vacation without internet.  I'll be catching up on reading and get a post in shortly.

Sorry to hear you were ill, Argie, but glad that you’ve returned :)

Soooo, update: we kinda got ourselves trapped in the barren, lifeless hell of Stygia and are on the verge of death by dehydration and general existential misery!  Welcome back ;P

 Good to hear you're getting better :P

*pokes his head into OOC chat*

I have a special delivery of Fire...anyone here order some Fire? I am looking for someone named Mother Nature who ordered Fire?

What? Humanity? Please, they have enough fire as it is.

Welcome, new friend! :)  Look forward to meeting you in-game, but if we all perish first then congrats on being the first character on a new roster, lol

Is it intentional that you spelled the name different from the traditional version?  Sorry, had to ask ;P

I ask you kindly keep the fire away from Sal. He has enough problems right now, and doesn't need to add Rottshreck to the list.

 It may have been because I didn't copy/paste (and therefore misspelled) his name :P

I find this amusing because I kept making that spelling mistake to begin with, so I used ctrl-F to find them all and correct them to Prometheus.

And then the GM did the exact same spelling mistake.

So no its not intentional. But it maybe it should stay that way anyway. :D

Edit: Nah, probably best to fix it. Otherwise now that I do spell it Prometheus, I'll keep spelling it right.



And Sal, I probably don't need to bring the Fire to the Vampire. You're closer to human then Animal.
This message was last edited by the player at 04:45, Thu 22 Aug 2019.

True. Sal can use tools, and everything ;p

Huh. I just remembered, I gave Sal the Iron Stamina merit because it fit his backstory. Completely useless to a Vampire, but it ought to come in handy now.
This message was last edited by the player at 05:50, Fri 23 Aug 2019.

I spent so much xp on the market. So happy to get to use it XD

 Sal, Argentus, waiting on you two to confirm or deny your willingness to be transported through the Hedge. It's been two days. When I get home from work, I'll be moving on.

Sorry about that. I had my mind on other things for the last few days. Completely forgot to even check.

Still need to know if anyone has an answer to Sal's question about when and where we will appear in the mortal realm before we move on, so I know if I need to make a bargain, and of what type.

 No one made any deals regarding time of day but I'm not going to drop the sun hammer on you for it. I'm going to take a leap forward now. I don't actually have any adventures in the Hedge planned so I'm going to get you guys back to New York :P

 Also, since the journey through the Hedge was uneventful, I'm going to consider it downtime for you to spend XP. HOWEVER, if you DO spend XP, you can only spend it on skills you could potentially have practiced in the Hedge.

That’s okay, GM, our ordeal through Stygia was plenty harrowing enough that we don’t need a harrowing Hedge trip too ;P

Now that we’ve survived let me say bravo GM for a riveting and terrifying chapter!  In most games I can sense the invisible rails leading the players safely out of bad situations, but not this time!  It felt like we were doomed to die in the vast, desolate wastes unless we did the work to somehow figure out a way to escape.  Well done, it was fun :)

I am actually curious to see how you got out of that mess. I will have to read it once character Generation is done.

I am getting closer to being alive I swear.

We scooby dooed it.

 I'm glad to hear you enjoyed it. I was starting to wonder if it might not be dragging on too long.

During the downtime, Sal composed haiku to work on his Expression.

I concur, even though I sadly missed playing in a lot of it: that scene was amazing.

Halfway through the hedge trip, Mistral would see by Spirit sight whenever she used it next (and Argentus would soon mention to everyone else) that he's now haunted, and please don't harm the offending spirit.  Also, everyone would notice that small objects Argentus leaves unattended have a strong tendency to fall to the ground, or get tipped over, or dump on him.  Regularly.

Ha, that's tremendous, Argie :D

just a note: You guys have barely had any sleep in 4 days now (it only ended up being roughly 4 days travel, but you've had maybe 5 hours sleep at this point). You're all exhausted.

Just checking in case I missed something: we don't have the demon's name, right?

One, but not the earthbound itself. Noah knows it is a demon who has power over water and corruption which narrows a bit down but thats like saying "They live in the state of Montana. That's still a lot of people but a far cry from a global population

We were given the name "Zeridan", which was mentioned in Argie's presence during our Talion chat in the Arc-Con chapter.  That's not the true name in supernal terms, but could be of some use nonetheless.

Sal doesn't get exhausted, he just has trouble staying conscious when the sun is up (which is why I said before, Iron Stamina is ordinarily useless to him.)

Minor ret-con edit to my last post, y’all:  I realized late that Mist’s bathrobe couldn’t possibly be white, so I have clarified that it is in fact neon green ;)

Yessss, I love the new duds, Sal :D  Grey has kinda turned this game into an anime, hasn’t she?

And now you know what Noah has been dealing with in his head.

 Alright, if everyone is ready to move on to the next day, I'll give out some XP and we can get everyone started :P

Very nice, no one would ever suspect Sal is vampire if he's dressed like Dracula!

Ah!  It's a LARPer!


I'm all set for moving on.

Updated my description to reflect the new duds.

 The word of the day when it comes to Grey is: Specificity :P


 Anyway, I'm done goofing around. We can say that, after an hour or so of Grey playing dress up with Sal, he more or less gets into whatever outfit he wants to wear.

Is he able to get a phone and a gun, or at least a collapsible baton?

Sorry, had a little more RP messing around in me!  If we’re moving on to the next day then y’all can assume Mistral will wave her hands over your rooms and say some spooky magic words of warding and nothing will appear to happen, then we can all go to bed :P
This message was last edited by the player at 06:27, Fri 30 Aug 2019.

Since Sal can't do much during the day, Manofdusk, if you don't mind, I wouldn't mind to continue RPing getting Grey to stop making his cabin look like something out of a vampire movie before he goes to bed.

In reply to Sal (msg # 230):

What, you don’t like the neon green, king-sized coffin for a bed? ;)

NO! :D

When I get home I get to make my first post. Yay!

Glad to hear it!  I look forward to seeing you in play.

Its a good plan Prometheus...pity you didn't account for the likely possiblity of a small Elfen Child wanting to play with the Dog.

Yay, glad to have you join us finally, Prommy :)  Gosh, first an adorable god-child and now a cute, definitely tame-and-friendly doggy?  This crew is getting downright sweet and cozy!  lol

Y'all decided to keep the misspelled name, huh? ;P

Can't post for a few days. Moving.

 Good luck :P

Mostly tame and mostly friendly.

I picked the Akita not just because it was the largest of the Japanese style dogs (They mostly look like the Shiba Inu but different sizes and temperaments) but also because its more inclined to be distrusting...not a true Guard dog, but more likely to doubt strangers.

Unlike the Shiba Inu which is literally, "People, I LOVE people!"

It was either going to be that or a Chow Chow, as the dog had to be from the Far East, had to be somewhat big, and had to have some ability to be a good guard dog for a lone Mage. The Chow Chow would make more sense, both as a Chinese dog rather then Japanese, and because it bonds to 2-3 people and thats its humans forever...

But honestly...Chow Chow faces bother me for some reason. They aren't flat, but my brain says they are.

...It didn't occur to me till Just now, but I really should have looked at Korean dogs as well. Oh well.

 I imagine the wording she used would be confusing even if someone wasn't in the know... but I thought it' be funny for her to deliver that message :P

Decided I didn't want to try and figure out, ooc, exactly how big all the furniture should be. I'll just read the other threads until night falls again.

Huh, italics and Orange don't really work to well. I can't even tell the difference on my phone this time.

I shall have to make an effort to make it more clear.

In reply to Promethius (msg # 242):

"Might I suggest Coral as a surpassingly-visible orange-adjacent coloration for the text of any distinguished, wire-haired gentleman?" :)

BTW, love Hawaiian-casual Atlas :D

promethius, you can post freely. when you post is when you show up

Considering Prometheus went out on a big shopping trip and we sailed for some hours, might we we perhaps be meeting Atlas around nightfall so Sal can come play again?  I play a lone vamp in another crossover game, so I’m lookin’ out for ya Sal, buddy :)

Also, here’s a couple of knowledge rolls to see what Mist knows about these two groups now being added to her to-destroy list ;P

• 23:33, Today: Mistral rolled 1 success using 6d10 with the World of Darkness nWoD system with a target of 8, rerolling 10s with rolls of 6,2,3,9,7,5.  Int + Occult (Nephandi).
• 23:32, Today: Mistral rolled 2 successes using 6d10 with the World of Darkness nWoD system with a target of 8, rerolling 10s with rolls of 3,6,3,7,10(+9),6.  Int + Occult (Gentry).

Nephandi - in a world of immorality they are so immoral their souls are inverted. A infernal sells their soul for power, Nephandi would freely corrupt their souls for the pleasure of it. They are batman's joker with no batman.

Gentry - the Fey. Changelings fear them and they dont play by any rules but their own. Immense power and flighty as all hell.

also, yes. Sal can join up too

If we're jumping to night, can Argentus be meeting up with the group as well?  (I'll keep running his day's business in Dogs of War).

Just been busy at work all day. A post will come soon.

yes

In reply to Mistral (msg # 245):
In reply to Asimov's Folly (msg # 246):

You wish to destroy the Fae?

I definitely wish you all the best in that.

I mean I doubt its even possible...

But the Gentry win the "Worst beings in the WoD universe" without question in my mind, and given the existence of the Bale Hounds, the Abyss, Slayers and Belial's Brood thats a fairly impressive achievement.

 Jitters leveled up while you guys were gone :P

Manofdusk!!!

I think you must be breaking some law of rpg physics by having multiple best-NPC-evers in a single game.  There's not supposed to be a lot of those!  You're making all the other games look bad :)

Jitters is the hero this world needs, but couldn't hope to deserve!

Kind of you to say so fair dame.

Jitters definitely cranked the awesomeness up to 10.  11 if with his theme music.

In a related note, I've got a new side project for Argentus: making trades somewhere along the line to get Jitters equipment to match his description picture.

Get me some mercury and enough tass I'll make you a little suitable can wear without spending essence. Though a perfected iron sword would be needed too. XD

That brings up an interesting question: If a being has no humanity, does Sal risk his own Humanity to kill it?

 Maybe if your humanity was super high... but the Nephandi are horror movie villain level sociopaths and beyond any hope of redemption so I won't be dinging your humanity if you kill them.

Alright guys, it's time for Ocean's Eleven Mist's Six (Jitters included, obviously) to plan our caper!  Who's going to take what role on the caper crew? :D  https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/CaperCrew

Mist could be the Burglar, the Searcher and probably the Driver (in the portaling sense).  It's not on the list here, but if any Nephandi get in her way or can be taken unawares, she'll likely also be the Assassin ;P

Prometheus obviously can be The Hacker

However he is also very good as The Fixer, The Pickpocket, The Gadget Guy (Although I suspect Noah fills that role better) and could in theory do The Bugler although Mist is almost certainly more qualified for that.

Mortal skills can't compete with Magical powers in this regard.

Edit: While not on the list, Prometheus can also function as The Medic.
This message was last edited by the player at 05:21, Sat 07 Sept 2019.

Noah is only super good at prime and super high tech things. He has has a lot of options but thats really the only things he is realllly good at.

Sal could be the Con-man, the roper, or possibly the big guy, though, as his focus since the embrace was helping build business empires, he never learned Resilience, and only has a couple of dots each in weaponry and firearms, and the same in brawling, but only to grapple. But, if the Nephandi's blood are safe to drink, he can possibly soak a lot of damage.

I feel like Argentus is the New Guy for whom all this adventure/heist stuff is *way* outside his normal wheelhouse but he's learning...  kind of like a certain Egyptologist who accidentally jumped into battling against alien threats with both feet.

Barista made bad ass

I just spent all night playing MtG, so I will have to sleep now and post Latter.

Sorry everyone for the delay.

I approve.

Seriously if I could like that post I would.

I do a bit of side work in manufacturing. Currently trying to make a custom helmet like that for a customer who has a half wolf monster dog. I can't print the kevlar vest... yet.

In reply to Promethius (msg # 267):

Saying you approve means that you do like it!  No need for a little thumbs-up button ;)

Let’s get Charlotte one of those helmets, except instead of a camera up top it’s a death ray!  Then I’ll let Jitters borrow Mist’s perfected meteoric iron knife and we can all just kick back while our animal friends save the world :D

Before long we will be playing pokemon XD

 So, is everyone ready with their planning? If so, then I'll move forward.

I think so... seems we have a general plan of attack!  If anybody has more then we can perhaps cover it as we narrate our way toward the mission.

It’s go time, boys!  *Mission: Impossible theme plays*  :)

Nah, I'm good. I was curious as to how Argent would respond but likely Prometheus will just play with hos dog till mission time to get rid of all the wild energy/thoughs his nimbus gave him.

I dunno, could ways use more flirting with Mist but I guess I'm good to go.

I'm good to move on.

You weren't about to let a perilous rescue mission or diabolical villains stop you from that, surely ;)

Do we get a mechanical armor boost from the new gear, btw?
This message was last edited by the player at 19:58, Mon 09 Sept 2019.

Dominate only works with eye contact. Do the masks cover the eyes?
This message was last edited by the player at 21:28, Mon 09 Sept 2019.

They can go transparent. Its digital oled cloth.

In reply to Mistral (msg # 276):

Count on it that it wouldn't stop him.

The Armor layers 2 extra pnts and Mistrals is made out of an aerogel fabric so its highly flame retardent. The upside is that it's almost not there so no hard interactions with other materials.
This message was last edited by the player at 01:06, Tue 10 Sept 2019.

This next story arc is dealing with just how bad people can get when they go to hell as a means of introduction into their order. If you are uncomfortable with the idea of just how bad things can get, let me know now so we can have you do other stuff.

Hrm.  We’re not talking the kind of stuff on RPOL’s restricted content list, are we?  I like my grim-dark as much as anybody, but I’d kind of rather not go to those places, and it probably wouldn’t be wise anyway just for the sake of not breaking site policies and such.

Short of that I’ll be okay as a player, but I’m fully prepared for Mist to need to make some Wisdom rolls during this chapter ;P

Talking with the st on it. Good point, it may require an upgrade.

The stuff I was advising against is the content restricted from the site at all, including for adult games.  I cant figure out how to link the list, but it’s in the FAQs.  I’m fine with bumping it to adult if needed!

 Whelp, I rMailed the moderators to see if the game requires an upgrade (or if I just plain need to change my approach). The next bit outside is still fine so it'll be a little while before you get inside.

 … and, just so you guys don't get squicky about what I'm planning and overinflate it, Imma do a little spoiler.

 

---

Spoiler text: (Highlight or hover over the text to view)
Think Saw and the Unfriended trailer.

---

 So nothing that hasn't been shown in horror movies.


 I just don't know if "Rated R" movies translate into an "M" or "A" rated game in this circumstance.
This message was last edited by the GM at 07:11, Tue 10 Sept 2019.

From the FAQ:



So, no graphic description in mature games.  I frankly prefer to stay mature but will go along with move to adult if the transition is allowed to happen to begin with.

NOTE: As Mistral has mentioned before their are some things that aren't allowed in any games.

Specifically the following section is most relevant for what comes I suspect.



Source:
RPoL's Adult Games Policy
Restricted content.

I want to make this clear, as a previous GM of mine got on the wrong side of this policy. They are not joking and if you break this rule, or you let your players break this rule, you will be banned from all Adult Games.

Note, the term 'Graphically Describe.' This is important as they also acknowledge:



Finally, under don't panic

 This might be getting overinflated. I personally have a fairly low tolerance for the graphic depiction of bad things happening to good people.

 So, when we get to it, I have a feeling that most of you will now be saying "I expected worse".


 Still, I wanted to put something up so you guys wouldn't be smacked out from left field when the tone shifts.

In reply to Manofdusk (msg # 287):

If it’s the sort of stuff like you listed in your spoiler text then I’ll be okay :)  The warning about “seeing just how bad things can get” was kinda ominously vague, which I think is why we were concerned.  I can imagine some pretty dark stuff, so I’m glad my ‘how bad can it get’ was worse than your plans ;P

I do appreciate you warning us though, ‘cos different folks have different limits.

Its one of those interesting situations when your character has low occult.

He knows the basic rules he has been taught...

Things (objects, animals, actions, emotions) create spirits.

Those spirits in turn reflect and encourage those emotions/actions/objects/animals being there.

As long as something exists, and no mage (or werewolf, not that he knows that) has interfered, spirits are everywhere, its just what kind that changes.

This is stuff any Mage who has at least 1 dot in Spirit understands. Its normal, as far as Supernatural stuff goes. Sadly we are so far from normal right now...

Ya know, I wrote Mist's assessment of the spirit-less situation off-the-cuff based on my own uninformed understanding.  Since Mist is supposed to be an expert on this sort of thing I think I'd better roll a check to see what her educated opinion is and how worried we should be about it!:

• 12:13, Today: Mistral rolled 2 successes using 7d10 with the World of Darkness nWoD system with a target of 8, rerolling 10s with rolls of 5,4,6,7,8,5,8.  Int + Occult + spirit specialty.

 The answer is very. Promethius's take on things is pretty accurate.

Out of town. Be back monday.

Well, this is just not nice all around.  Apologies for my spirit knowledge failure!

Although, Mist wasn’t arguing the assertion that this is bad news (clearly it is) so much as seeing it as a clue that the Nephandi know somebody is coming and so set this up as an ‘unwelcome mat’ for visitors.  I don’t know that we can draw that conclusion from it yet, not knowing a more specific cause or how long it’s been this way.

So, out of character, what exactly is it that we are referring to as Outsiders in character?

I'm assuming its not one of Sal's "relatives."

 You're not fully sure. You've only heard the term once before, when Tenriel called Talion one (but, in the interest of speeding things up so you don't have to ask Jitters IC, they are things from Outside Creation or things that predate the Tapestry)

When I get home,  with GM approval I will post a rough guide to the nWoD universe realms.

I love the hell out of the Summoner and Night horrors books, so while Prometheus doesn't know specifics of this stuff I know it quite well.

As always this is super rough, both because its subject to GM interpretation... and also their is quite a bit of overlap, interconnection and would require to be able to draw in 5d to view it all on one image.

 I'm fine with it. Keep in mind that I only have a few core books and rely a great deal on my Co-GM for rules

Okay, so lets start with the following statement.

While this is simplified version, their is deliberate contradiction in the source books about certain things. The most famous example of this is who made the Gauntlet (The Exarchs, or the Forsaken) Ultimately while I aim to keep this simple enough that such contradictions don't turn up, if they do I will defer to Mage understanding over the other Supernaturals.

This is not to say the Mage way is right... each faction is biased towards what their powers reveal. However the Mages is the most complete.

So lets start with the most basic map, the 4 Spheres of reality.


Supernal Realms
|
|
|
\
The Abyss
/
|
|
|
The Fallen World
|
|
|
|
|
|
The Lower Depths.

The Supernal realms is the source of all magic, (So SO many other Major Templates disagree with this, just so we are clear) and while there are 5 Famous realms with the Watch Towers, in theory their is a realm for each combination of major and minor Arcana.

The Abyss...is a hole in reality. A wound, a festering sore, unlike the other spheres, it is only one realm and most would argue its fundamental definition is the opposite of a Sphere. Its paradox incarnate, with stuff there living but not existing, plotting mindlessly, timelessly.

They do however HATE. We exist and they do not, and they DESPISE that fact.

The Fallen World is the Material World, the Twilight, The Underworld(Mostly) and the Spirit World...and maybe a few other things. (We'll get to that)

The Lower Depths is as far from the Fallen World as the Fallen is from the Supernal. Very little is known without a damn good occult roll, but I will say typically Mages view it as a bottomless hole Mana wise. Life does exist down there...one of the realms of the Lower Depths is Inferno, where Demons come from.

But that is a TINY fragment of a Sphere that largely lacks the Magic thats supposed to make everything possible, and that on the whole barely responds to Mage abilities.

Now the Fallen World

Twilight/Material world|||G|||Shadow
_______________________________
Underworld


The Material World is what we all know.

The Twilight is where ghosts that have unfinished business live, among a few other things.

The Gauntlet is actually hundreds of tiny realms that act as a wall between the Material and the Shadow. (A fact that is LARGELY useless, but a good Spirit Mage can use it to preform shenanigans if the have the Occult to find that out.)

The Spirit world is more complex. The knife you used to make dinner tonight has a tiny knife spirit. Weak, insigificant, but its there. The ancient Knife pulled out of the ground has a stronger one, and it is what compels you to clean it and use it again. The Knife that stabbed Caeser 27 times has a VERY aware Murder Spirit manifest from it, and anyone touching that knife would feel a slight chill. And these are spirits mostly rank 1-2

The Torture spirit lurking over Auschwitz is a Royal Spirit. As is the Spirit of Thunder. Rank 5+ Spirits this vast are able to destroy a cabal of Mages and can't be summoned without Spirit 5 and 10 Mana.

The are the closest thing to Gods that lurks in the Fallen World.

The Underworld is likewise complex. For most purposes its where the dead go if they have no unfinished business...but is it part of the Lie...is it part of the Supernal set up to trap souls by the Exarchs...Is their a path to Stygia in the maze of the Underworld... and why and how does it connect to the Lower Depths.

And what of the creatures that live there. The those that died but were neverborn?


?????????????????Hedge?????Arcadia*????Arcadia
Fallen World?????

The connection between the Changeling Arcadia and Mage Arcadia is super vague, deliberately. Are they the same place...is their two different ones? And what are the Gentry?

No one really knows.


_______________
Supernal      |
Abyssal       |
Fallen        |
Lower Depths  | Astral
______________|


The Astral is simultaneously overlays and is a part of every standard Sphere and could be considered a Sphere in its own right. Each human has a small personal Astral Realm, where their dreams, vices and virtues, ideas and nightmare, and their madnesses, lurk.

Digging deeper leads to the collective mindscape of Mankind And deeper still can lead to the global Mindscape. Loosing yourself to the collective will of reality is REALLY easy to do, and so going this deep is a huge risk.

(Actually, just going down deep enough to the collective human consciousness is risky. You may find the collective desire to be in balance with nature...or you could find Humanities collective Greed.)

However, uniquely, as its the dreams of everything, this collective dreamscape contains a place where the Fallen world and the Abyss touch, the only visitable one.




                                                Supernal
                                                   |
       Stranger Spheres-------------Everything elese described so far----------------------Stranger Spheres



This is the land of Outsiders. The Lower Depths is Alien because it lacks something we consider fundamental... the Stranger Spheres are Alien because they are literally that. Their form, desires, mindset, function and even what can hurt them and cannot hurt them not only resembles nothing of this world, but can be actually insane or nonsensical.

Note:
Their are many other sub realities, realms and such that can and do come up. For example, despite my claim the Abyss is a single realm or anti-realm/anti-sphere, it is actually subdivided.

Such knowledge is super rare though, so doesn't fit the purpose of this document.

I may draw this up better on Sunday when I have more free time.
This message was last edited by the player at 18:06, Fri 13 Sept 2019.

 I think I'm waiting on everyone else?

 Or is there something I need to respond to?
This message was last edited by the GM at 03:15, Sun 15 Sept 2019.

I rolled and failed to notice Mistral walking off, so I'm waiting to respond to see if anyone else interrupts her leaving before I respond later to her screaming.

I have Scar to “respond to”, but I wanted to give everyone else a chance to react to Mist’s psychotic breakdown-in-progress!  Sorry y’all, this wasn’t quite how I imagined this outing going either ;P

Oh, and super-thanks Prom for that big explanation of the universe as mages know it!  I shall use it as a helpful reference going forward when I want Mist to sound like she knows what she’s talking about :)

In reply to Argentus (msg # 301):

The events in my last post is going to happen either way, but if you succeed at the roll you could be closer when it happens and have a chance to physically intervene physically... if so inclined.  Failing the roll just means you would be a bit further away.  I think it’s safe to react as you would!

Sal was focused on moving away from the outsider, and wouldn't have reacted to Mistral trying to sneak off one way or the other. As far as Sal can tell, that is her normal behavior. The screaming, on the other hand...

 Yeah, her freak out is currently happening, regardless of rolls. She's done the solitude thing enough for it not to be suspicious, though waving her extremely sharp knife around wildly is uncharacteristic. :P

In reply to Manofdusk (msg # 305):

All the twitchy jumping from imaginary(?) stimuli and claiming to hear evil laughter might be taken as warning signs, too ;P

My internet died, sorry about the delayed post. It will happen now.

Thank you for all your patience.

Also

In reply to Mistral (msg # 302):

You are very welcome, although I reiterate that was super simplified. ESPECIALLY the Astral Realm which gets a whole book dedicated to it, with separate sections for each layer.

Turns out Brains are complex. :D

Edit: Also if you look at my description I have a picture now....kinda.

I figured my odds of finding someone that looked like Prometheus were incredibly small, so instead I contacted an artist I know who does $7 Chibi's for RP characters.
This message was last edited by the player at 07:28, Sun 15 Sept 2019.

Starting the long road back home.

Super-simplified works for me, Prom :)  If I need more specifics I can go digging further, but it’s great having that high level overview for context!  Also, love the character pic, and Charlotte is way cute ;D

Have a safe journey, Noah!  The situation has gone downhill significantly while you’ve been away for Mist in particular, but she’s about to be a problem for everyone else too ;P

Home safe, gonna decompress after 4 days of live combat before I post up. Love you peoples.

Glad to hear you made it back safe!

In reply to Noah (msg # 310):

Welcome back, Noah, and I'm glad you survived your battles and the journey home :)  <3

Welcome back Noah. I hope you had fun.

We could REALLY use a Matter Mage right now :D
This message was last edited by the player at 17:59, Mon 16 Sept 2019.

I will not be able to post for a few days. Waiting for the ISP to send a new router.

On one hand, good news... we can hear it.

On the other hand, oops... Sorry about turning Mistral into a giant Vampire Lure. My bad.

 The battle is taking place in the canopy of the trees, by the way, fairly high up.

Curses!  That was a pretty pitiful attack, so we didn't lose much there anyway ;P  I'll edit my post in a bit to lose the attack.  Hmm, how thick is the trunk of the tree the battle is happening on?  If it's thin enough then perhaps Mist can get them to the ground via lumberjacking :D  https://youtu.be/IqNeOlas57k?t=12

Who's taking up Noah's silver pistol, btw?

Yea, shooting with a drone is REALLY hard. X.X Kinda wished I thought ahead and installed some auto targeting software.

Like trying to aim in a shooter game with low FPS, bad controls and a laggy net connection? ;P

I edited my post, BTW!

I'm picturing Argentus's pistol as being a long barrel Taurus Judge.  Would Noah's silver shells work in that?  If so, Argentus will just take a shell and anyone else with any pistol ability can take the pistol itself (Sal, Mistral - either of you have pistols at all?).  That way we could get 2 shots lined up on our friend in the trees as soon as Fluffy disengages.

Noah uses a DX-12 Punisher which uses 12 gauge. the judge, my favorite gun in the real world, uses 410 shells. The shells Noah uses are shorter and wider while the 410 are thinner and longer. The shells wouldn't fit your gun.

Mist has no firearms skills to speak of :(  Perhaps if the world ever slows its descent to hell-in-a-handbasket for a minute she might find time to seek some lessons!

She does have a neat trick she used just the other day to behead a guy in the distance, but it’s mana-expensive and I think it’s best Mist keeps some reserves on hand.  It’s a long walk back to NYC from Tennessee, after all ;P

For the record, using fluffy was entirely Atlas' idea. He saved the day by fighting Kiju with Kiju.

What are the stats of your gun, Noah?

Secrets:
This message was last edited by the player at 05:24, Fri 20 Sept 2019.

In reply to Noah (msg # 323):

Further evidence that the pets are the real heroes in this story, and the PCs are the sidekicks :)

In reply to Mistral (msg # 326):

... you are far to correct.

And as soon as I hit post, I realized that Mistral could do everything I did for here in my post, not just opening the road.  Chalk it up to this being Argentus's first real fight, I guess.

I will leave my view of if FLUFFY is part of Pet Hero squad, until I find out if the Demon has killed the Hostages in response.

All other pets however, CLEARLY are the heroes.

In reply to Argentus (msg # 328):

Mist could maybe do that stuff not as well as Argie and by spending more mana than she has, so it’s not a bad idea and I appreciate the offer :)  I don’t think a solo mission into the Nephandi stronghold is a good idea, tho!  Probably going to be obstacles in the way of finding our targets and other expertise needed to get them safely out.

It’s time for the heist team to go to work :D

 The exact phrase I used was "you could always take Fluffy". :P

In reply to Atlas (msg # 331):

Yea, and then the image of FurZilla being parachuted in was undeniably adorable.

  Since you guys are going to enter the Fae Realm again at some point to rescue Emily and Fey do weird things, (like sell objects with sympathetic connections to you regardless of your ability to resist magic, use Mind Magic to get in your heads and you are literally trapped in your mindscape, and literally sell objects that are physical representations of your memories), I would like you guys to each send me a PM containing descriptions of pieces of art (or other objects) that depict physical representations of your memories, out of context (with, of course, the context of said memory in the description below it).

 There are 5 emotions I'm looking for specifically: Joy, Sadness, Fear, Anger, and Regret.

 I'd like at least 1 such object per emotion (and doing so will net you 5XP). Giving me more such objects (with descriptions of said memories and the emotional reactions to them) will yield more, up to a maximum of 15 bonus XP

Oh gosh, you’re freaking me out and I’m riveted, GM ;P

The art as representations of emotions sounds like a fun character exercise!  I’ve got the gears turning on it now, and this will be great for helping me fill some of the big and mostly-blank canvas that is Mist’s background :)  I will just try really hard not to think about all the ways these will be used to traumatize us, heheh

Mead is good
I should make more mead.
Why is the mead always gone?

 Just a note. There is a lot more in that security room to see. I just chose not to describe it yet because it would dilute the current scene.

 These guys set up a death trap maze at the entrance (think Saw) and the controls to said maze are in that room. Guess where the enemies are?

 :P

Eeeeeeek!  A few questions to make sure I understand the scene as described:

1. Are we hearing the screaming only through the security room sound system, but not at all in our actual surroundings?  Possible inference being that it's a recording, not live.
   
2. Does the surgery scene look to be taking place in the same blue barrel area we passed by?
   
3. What is it that gives away the woman on the table as a synth?
   
4. Can we see any camera views of areas we've passed through?  In other words, have we been seen by security cameras already?

I have other questions, but they're the sorts I'll need to roll dice for, probably :)

1) That is correct
2) Yes
3) These guys are using "Blanks", which are basically synthetics that have never had an experience. It takes a couple of months for a Blank to become a Synth as you know them. Right now, she looks like she's made from spare synth parts you find in repair shops.
4) Yes. If anyone had been in that office, then someone would have definitely have seen you.
This message was last edited by the GM at 19:54, Wed 25 Sept 2019.

The man operating on the Synth is the only one we see? No cultists or prisoners on other cameras?

Hopefully the mad man throwing C4 around has put a damper on that.

 Edit: read that wrong. There are lots of other people on other cameras... including the guy "operating". All are concentrated toward the entrance though.
This message was last edited by the GM at 04:16, Thu 26 Sept 2019.

Mist is returning to the control room in my forthcoming post to see the monitors, but just to be clarify what we're looking at

1. The bulk of the bad guys are inside the maze entrance, such that shutting the doors would trap them in it?
   
2. Are there bad guys in any of the labeled torture rooms?
   
3. Noah is outside the maze, but Fluffy is still killing guys inside the maze?
   
4. Assuming the bad guys can get here from the maze, are there any in-between doors that might be sealable by the controls?
   
5. Have we had sightings of any other live prisoners?

If any of these questions needs a check then I'll roll as a part of Mist's situation assessment!

1) Yes
2) No (you'd have to lead them through the death maze using the door buttons)
3) Noah is outside of the maze and currently, Fluffy is too (though he never makes an appearance on the cameras)

4) The main maze door will keep them from getting to you. It's hard to tell the exact layout of the maze without seeing someone navigate it though.

5) No

Thanks, GM!  So, bad guys are corralled into their own creepy murder-maze, no prisoners or allies in it, and we have the control room.  I reckon this makes our next course of action pretty clear, wouldn’t you say, boys?

Mist hadn’t intended to get sadistic in killing these guys, but now that the torture rooms look to be the most expedient option, I suppose we can’t look a gift horse in the mouth ;P

 Do keep in mind that these (judging by the names on the buttons) are, for all intents and purposes, horrible and slow ways to go. You'll need to roll wisdom or humanity at least once if you actually push the buttons to activate the traps (just trapping them inside, not so much).

That will be up to whoever stays on the controls...  I’m okay with leaving the bad guys in there and just setting our bug-out bomb on the place on the way out.

Speaking of, it seems we probably need to split the party, but how to do it?  Does anybody want to stay and operate the command center?  If not we could leave Scar and Jitters to hold down the fort while the rest of us go on the rescue mission, maybe?

I am about to post IC but I will pre-empt what I was going to say there, here.

A human needs to stay with Barrel girl. Probably me, given my medical knowledge, IF we can convince her not to follow Mistral.

The Alternative is to COMPLETELY knock her the hell out and leave her somewhere unconscious, to bring her with us, or to drug her to near insensibility and then do either thing.

And Prometheus, while not exactly rocking high Wisdom, isn't inclinded to drug someone and leave them randomly around a den containing a angry, demon worshiping, Space Mage.

With Prommie and Argie holding down the control room I reckon Barrel-girl will be fine until it's time to bug out :)

Murderous as Mist is feeling right now, she isn't pushing any buttons yet.  She's just gathering the crew to commence Operation: Baby Freedom!  Jitters is SO on the team, but how about Sal, Noah, Scar?

 Well, Noah's on the other side of the maze from you guys. Not trapped in, mind you, but not with you either.

 Scar will go with Mistral considering that his job since introduced has been, more or less, to carry people :P

Perhaps we can link up with Noah again since Operation: Destruction-Distraction seems pretty much done, unless he has something else to do?  How far out of the way of our baby-path is he?

Scar is such an excellent NPC hoister, tho ;P  I get the feeling he might have a chance to shoot something soon!

Sal-pal, I’m afraid we on Operation: Baby Freedom haven’t yet arrived at this snazzy spirit villa :o  As of now we’re still where the mom and baby were held, with Noah working on the mom and Mist following a surprise lead that the dad might still be alive in this place.

 I'm going to let you guys get back without incident. Other than your battle with the other space mage (and as long as you roll reasonably well), you'll be uninterrupted on the way back.

Did I misinterpret the garbled snippets of Sabrina’s speech by thinking she said Eric is still alive and she knows where he is?  Following up on that was going to be Mist’s next mission, but if it turned out to be delusional gibberish then never mind ;P

 Noah has answered that question :P

How Noah currently feels
 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yWabGQBnzKo

Hang on. Just so we are clear?

Is Noah in two places at once right now? Because we split the Party with me and Argent staying in the Control Room (And may have moved over to the Spirit Realm) and Everyone else moving to a separate building, where the Nursery is.

I mean I know he can do that, I am just trying to understand whats going on, as all his posts seem to treat it like everyone is in one place.

I'll post once I get clarification.
This message was last edited by the player at 06:29, Sun 29 Sept 2019.

In reply to Promethius (msg # 356):

We went over to the nursery building, got Alex and Sabrina and were able to bring them back to the control room without incident.  Give it a little passage of time and we’re all back together again :)

Noah-prime is still back on the S.S. Grey, I believe?  We only have one of him with us, so far as I’m aware.

 There is only one Noah present. The other is currently ferrying Fluffy back home.

I just didn't see you coming back from the Nursery building at all, thus my confusion. Sorry.


On a side note, I do need to mention something the GM told me... as it suddenly occurs to me that you all need to know it as well.

I know you possibly have been skipping over Paradox rolls for Vulgar spells, due to Scar absorbing all the Paradox, but due to my implants I do need to know if you get a success on such rolls.

Paradox physically causes me pain and can knock me out if to much occurs, just like an EMP can.
This message was last edited by the player at 08:36, Sun 29 Sept 2019.

Wait... can synths be sleepers as they are all physically running on prime batteries?  Wouldn't they basically make themselves pop if they weren't effectively at least sleep walkers?

In reply to Argentus (msg # 360):

Amy isn’t a synth, but a human who had synth skin and parts forcibly grafted onto her :(  She’s most likely a regular Sleeper under all that.

Aaaaand this scene just rose to a new level of awful.

You had been warned.

We were.

I went in expecting Hellraiser, and we kinda got Hellraiser.

Although not going to lie, if the Space Mage turns out to look like Pinhead, I am nopeing out of their with Amy so far, Mistral's teleporting will look slow by Comparison.

Someone else can deal with their suffering being Legendary, even in Hell.

So the murder-maze gives out onto the control room?  That seems like a risk for the psychos running the show ;P  Didn’t they build in some devious trickery so once a prisoner thinks they’re out it drops them back to the beginning?  Actually now that I think of it, they probably wouldn’t worry about escapes because they’d be gleefully hitting the buttons as their prisoners went...

I’m kinda thinking that we allow them to reach the end and make it to this highly-desirable control room, which they will find empty but with a little inconspicuously-concealed package ticking down the last few seconds before a BIG BOOM :D  Only thing is, we can’t leave without being very sure that space mage is dealt with.

Also, are we seeing “the surgeon” in the maze, running through labeled chambers?  I reckon that a-hole is worth a button press ;P

Given that Synth's require magic to work and while its not binding to her, it is programmed correctly, I suspect that the Space Mage previously mentioned is the Surgeon.

And if he or she strong enough to make this maze, I suspect she or he is strong enough to Teleport around it.

Although if I was an evil Space Mage, I wouldn't do that. I would track where the people who broke into my compound go, then 5-6 hours latter drop a high powered Explosive at the end result.

>.>

<.<

Not that I have thought about how I would use every Arcana if I was evil.