Thank you for the lovely post in Jack's thread.

Aw, I'm glad you liked it. ^_^

Edited in your PM'd addition/determination to get covered in eldritch koala dust there. Still working in background here: your patience is appreciated.

Long post is long, and I hope it makes some sense in there - wanted to get it down rather than stuck editing and/or getting distracted until silly...well, sillier at night, in the best case where you actually got it down.

Anyway, I prodded the Ascent thread to make the thread numbers line up nicely, there's nothing going on there, and please don't read too much into the music choice: it's just a song about being happy to see someone who's had a rough time lately that was also an Australian folk song/by an Australian artist, which I've been trying to keep most of the music to.

Oh, and if it's all right with those who came in later, may I shift your Prelude threads to public? Ngarungadurung's at least may make the mechanics of witch-hunting a little clearer. I can make formerly-Secret dreams and such generally visible if anyone'd like that, too.

I invite everyone to make a tying-up post, as short/long/immediate/longterm as you like, and then I'll tie a bow on it.

---

Questions, comments and yes, criticisms all certainly welcome - I could go on with metaphysics a lot but then nothing would get posted, ahaha.


...as a little behind-the-scenes rambling I think that maybe the biggest tragedy in the scenario is that personality-wise Bowen really was a gentle, sweet-natured person with a strong nurturing/protective streak.

He's Welsh, by the way, firstly because I find the very idea of Welsh villians funny - it'd be like a wicked Canadian to Americans, I don't know how stereotypes of nice people shake out elsewhere - but partly because of this Scandinavia and the World comic based on a news story.

Triiiple post!

Near-dead-asleep silly in the morning post to add that I meant to say that if folk would like to roll a gain of d4 SAN for defeating the witch-ghosts/looking after the baby whilst others defeated the witch-ghosts and a gain of d6 for somehow making it down the mountain alive despite everything to gauge how their character is feeling (or to put on their sheet in case you're playing in this era again) you are very welcome to do so.

That was a most marvelous coda, Keeper. This whole story has been magical and mystical. You wove with sheer artistry and I am glad to have been afforded a part to play.

Glad you liked it! That said, for the game in general you can thank the other players as well - and yourself, I suppose - since honestly I could sit here plotting and doing my spookily verbose fancy best all day but without involved, dynamic and committed players this story wouldn't be even the half of what it is.

I'm immensely grateful to all of you for sticking with this endeavour, for the sensitivity and willingness to keep historical accuracy, and great and well-realised characters whom I'm sure I'll remember fondly for a very long time. Truly, thanks.


Tangentally, if anyone was concerned, the babies were absoloutely fine and genuinely appreciated/loved Bowen in their way, much like neonatal mammals appreciate any source of milk and affection. He died an adorable death.

...to be fair they'd probably have been fine with no human intervention whatsoever, but bringing more fluid up during the drought would have been a lot harder/more dangerous for the parents than letting one of the odd little upright creatures that start acting funny when you give their minds the gentlest boop gather what he thought was most nutritious once he'd proved nonthreatening.


edit: Oh, and Wadanggari's fine, too. I don't think our underground buddies even recognised her as a human or animal worth confusing...she won't even have the vaguest idea any of this happened at all.
This message was last edited by the GM at 18:45, Mon 22 Feb 2021.

^ bringing this down just in case anyone missed the former question/offer, and to say that absoloutely no-one's obliged to take up that invitation on pain of funny looks or anything, but I'd like to know if not so that I know to give notice and sweep up responsably. No rush, just clarifyin'.


Further behind-the-screen silliness: I eventually gave up rolling for not-goose influence on the sergeant's instincts, since he always came in under 21, making even Hard INT rolls to be aware he was being messed with. Apparently he's just that single-mindedly devoted to his own babies (and no-one else's).

That's a lovely post, Keeper!

I am just barely restraining myself from going and combing the typos/broken grammar out, but ah, I am sincerely pleased to hear it. There are folk out there who scorn not casting a CoC ending in a grimdark grimmy grimmy gloom-gloom light, but I feel that's kind of a cheat and shallow interaction with something that should at least feel complex - the looming shadows of the vast uncaring unknowable.

I mean, our Investigators have stumbled their way through things they still don't entirely understand save as big and weird (possibly eldritch) and reached a Best Ending that involved letting a severely mentally and physically ill man be eaten alive. Plus everyone's carrying injuries both visible and invisible, the latter of which they'll never fully be able to explain to anyone who didn't experience it, no matter how much that person cares...but the thing is - the thing is - that sometimes just surviving is a win.

Whether it's by effort or by luck, I think that deserves to be recognised. If everyone had got et, of course, the impersonality of great and terrible forces would be a mercy, such mercy as there might be...I am very overtired and rambly and will go to bed, I think.

tl;dr thank you.

Would it be all right to make your Prelude visible?

Thank all for a great game, and especially The Keeper.

You may make my Prelude visible.

I don't know that I have a prelude. If so, please share it.

And this story will stay with me for many reasons.
This message was last edited by the player at 12:43, Fri 26 Feb 2021.

Yours was Thread 1a, effectively, but you should be able to see Ngarungadurung's now.

Y'know what, I'm going to make the bedsheet ghosts on that thread generally visible, too...

edit: ...and the starting dreams of the players who buggered off from thread 1b, mostly because it explains Cotton's shirt - the poor lad's fever dreams 'shorted' with the psychic surge of the memory-wiping spell and his unconscious was desperately trying to "re"-connect him to the songline Bowen hacked/channelled not-goose energy into. Which isn't wholly physically/literally in the country, but eh, close enough.


Heh, I suspect it comes in under "CoC game with most dropbear-related injuries", for sure.

-
This message was last edited by the GM at 13:47, Fri 26 Feb 2021.

Right, so most of you have no additions - I'm just waiting to hear back from one player, not wanting to cut anyone off because of unavoidable busy.

Thought I might as well give advance notice that once that little "the end" bit goes up that'll mark your week's notice before the game's deletion. It's highly unlikely the mods'll go on a sudden final deletion spree, but you never know, so I advise making any downloads, character sheet copies etc. during that period.

Additionally, if anyone wants me to give them a heads-up should I be starting a) other CoC games or b) game-type shennanigans in general, feel free to let me know (I advise rMail so that I have your username). I've had great fun here and any of you are welcome back to my weird little virtual table.

Would it be possible for you to download all of the IC threads and email us a copy? Players can only copy-paste one post at a time, which is tedious and scrambles the text anyway.

I for one would like to re-read this story one day :)

Wait, is that a thing GMs can do? If so, tell me how, 'cause I've been downloading one thread at a time all these years like every other mug...players can get entire threads, though, you just hit 'all' at the page count on top of the thread, then go to File -> Save As and grab either everything with a bulky extra file per thread, or just the html.

Also, before anyone frets that they might miss out if they do not reveal their True Names unto me, I'd probably seek out a file-sharing site if the above is truly a Thing.

In the top right corner (on the old site) there is a "D/L". Click it and there are various options for saving, (eg. removing character bios from every post).

(You still have to do every thread.)
This message was last edited by the player at 08:28, Wed 03 Mar 2021.

Players can do that too, though...at any rate, I have never been able to make that link do anything other than open the thread in a new tab, but I am game to try, after work...will the settings I view the site with (custom theme, portraits off) make any difference to what you get?

Yes, clicking the different options allows you to save it without portraits, for example. I have to click around and experiment every time...

How can players do it? I don't seem to have that option...

I...seem to have hallucinated that really vividly. Still, the manual method of just viewing & saving entire threads from your browser works fine, just without the pretty colours. Investigations commencing presently, at any rate, though I need to go out and run about screaming a bit this lunchtime or my wee eyeballs will go square.

edit: nope, I can't get the D/L thingy to behave in any sensible fashion, but if y'all want me to assemble a file of manually downloaded game threads with or without pretty colours (let me know) I'll be doing something that anyway and might as well share. Bear in mind that you'd see each others' PMs and stuff that way, though.
This message was last edited by the GM at 13:37, Wed 03 Mar 2021.

I'm working on a Mac so it might be different on a PC, but...

After clicking D/L, select the options for "Display on screen"; "Display blank lines between posts" and "Show private lines". Then click "Download". This gives the simplest and cleanest view.

Then in the browser, "Save As..." and "Webpage, Complete". That should preserve formatting and colours in a file that can be viewed in the browser. Still have to save individual threads, of course.

Aye, but it sucks the forum boards themselves out for some reason...I suppose you would be able to see the text if I changed my background to something light, but it's still oddly arranged that way. As for showing PMs, I'd want everyone else to be happy with that.

I'm happy for my PMs (and Language:Darug posts) to be visible :)

Sorry I had intended to write a piece for a longer ending as Brigitte sells the hotel/grog shop and travels to Sydney to take a ship to Dunedin, New Zealand, But alas I am very snowed under at the moment with work, which I am very grateful for.



-

's all right, I'll work that into the last paragraph or so, with some information from others, too...I've had a tab open since getting home tonight but my brain's a bit fried from data-scrubbing years' worth of source material for Harris matricies to then archive-dive for specific material with and my badly-put-together body has been set on 'ache' the past couple of days, which is distracting (I hope my nervous system isn't working itself up to set itself on fire in the next ~2 days, but I have Suspicions). Working on it!

Please know that I really do appreciate everyone's patience.

[knocks thread to the top for aesthetics]

...and if that was too upbeat for you, here's a melancholy short film about some poor echo: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RXZy8BbMz_U

Oh, and Brass managed to survive, somehow. Always a bit lame on that leg on cold mornings, but the old horse was all right. That's it now, I'm going to bed.

---

Threads with HTML files to do the colours, if anyone else wanted them: https://drive.google.com/drive...Bi54zNbs?usp=sharing

& reminder that this game is gently shunted to 'deleted' at the end of the week.
This message was last edited by the GM at 22:46, Tue 09 Mar 2021.