I wish. Still, the present round of medical stabbing makes me far better equipped to not fall over and die, which means we can keep playing   without an oi joe board, yay!

Just a note on riding all the way to Sydney for troops - whilst Brigitte is willing to believe a(n impossibly aged) bloody floor is the work of an unknown 'whatever', the NSW Corps are going to assume it's the work of local Aborigines unless given very good evidence otherwise. Who may be captured and hanged if possible, or, if anyone flees/picks up a spear to defend their women and children, shot.

How old (ish) is Janey btw? I’m assuming younger than Henry so he won’t have a boyish crush on her, but if she turns out to be 17-19 I can imagine the lad might be bashful around her.

Her actual age isn't known. Physically she's somewhere in the 14-16 range, but mentally more like 6-8*...which is why Maggie Cleary (19, 20 in Jan) or her uncle (44) will actively murderise Henry if they suspect dishonourable intentions, since their adopted little sister/child would be easy to seduce. I suspect James - already a convicted murderer, NB - would back them up on that.



*in human terms. She shows some clever-dog/clever-parrot flashes of logic/inspiration that a human child of that age wouldn't.

I hasten to assure folks that the mess in the Ryan farmhouse is unrelated to present bystanders and not the work of evil emus.

Also that there are more updates forthcoming, but I need to get home first.

Ha, then the secret crush might be on Maggie ;)
Henry is probably 17 I think, and I had a lot of crushes at that age!

She's a pretty lass. Less likely to bite if overstimulated, too.

Right now I need sleep badly (I am sorry, I looked up scenery for descriptions and got distracted by the extreme weirdness of Australian wildlife...malleefowl come out of the ground), but I just got a lurker request - most of the game'll be public anyway, but should we split up into groups for any reason, are we all right with that?

edit: link added
This message was last edited by the GM at 00:51, Sat 08 Feb 2020.

In reply to The Keeper (msg # 36):

no objection to lurkers

Lurkers fine by me :)

What is the etiquette around dice rolling?
- do you want us to put the target skill number in the roll itself to make pass/fail easy, or keep that stat hidden?
- do you want the dice roll in a specific post, or shall we just roll and you’ll see in the dice window? Example, Henry just rolled spot hidden- I’m heading out with the kids so don’t have time to do a full IC post, but have rolled to make sure I don’t slow the game down (am also personally happy for you to roll for me of pace requires it).
10:22, Today: Henry Cotton rolled 12 using 1d100.  Spot hidden.

My preferred format for rolls is OOC brackets in-post, small, in a colour you don't speak in. Ideally, result bolded and your skill present, e.g.

[[10:22, Today: Henry Cotton rolled 12 using 1d100. Spot Hidden (75) ]]

Then you can see easily that your result is under your fifth value, which is especially good. For transparency, I give horses automatic success at smelling things close to them, since it's what they're made for, but only roll a Spot Hidden for mounts in regards to movement: a horse might pick up the general presence of something hostile, but unless it's easily visible and unfamiliar or seen moving they won't do more than keep an ear on it in passing. Of course, unlike a car or bicycle, horses can also decide to remove themselves from danger, even if the "danger" is just emus who looked scary at the time.

Reminder @ Brigitte that although the Emu War has not yet happened in this period, emus can puff up over six feet tall and potentially disembowel a human being.

Meanwhile, Henry's staring at sticks made me think of this article I found whilst distracted from looking up December-blooming NSW wildflowers for flavour.



:D

Glad I’m in the dawn thread...jack and brigitte your thread looks a whole lot bloodier!
So long as Henry dosnt meet a snake everything will be ok...

What? I've given you plenty of blood, you just didn't want to unwrap those bundles on either side of the clearing there...also note that Tom made his Spot Hidden to see things from his angle, he just hasn't had time to post yet.

Janey isn't generally given to hoarding dead wombats or whatever's in there, by the way.

Ugh, feeling pretty terrible - going to sleep presently, I think. 'night!

Ha, as a player I’m dying to unwrap the bundles, but as a character, who amongst us would find a bundle of cloth filled with rotting flesh surrounded by flies and decide to have ‘fun’ unwrapping?! If the bundles had looked harmless Henry would have ‘em open by now ;)
Here’s to hoping the others don’t come up with half sensible reason for the lad to go prodding and probing - eek!

[shifty eyes from archaeologist often to be found bagging roadkill for reference specimens] No-one...definitely no-one would do that.

I am teasing, by the way. General heads-up that I tend to do that, to myself as well: I'm not actually criticising/making fun of IC decisions for being IC. Or demanding gratitude for providing enough blood.

Incidentally, feel free to use this thread the same way folk yell advice to the participants of a horror film.

Going to separate threads off to keep up the mystery at this juncture, I think, and also go to bed within the hour even if this is a weather headache rather than baby migraine (I think it is, but this past fortnight has me worried that might be wishful thinking).

[sees new post in checking who's been about] Thomas appears to have scuttled up the boulder already...Tom, give me a SAN check and hang on a moment while I get you some description...

Oh delicious last post GM-I applaud you!

Thanks! I got the recipe from Baba Yaga.

On the theme of recipes for witchcraft and/or suffering, do we all know of the Old Gods of Appalachia podcast? I've been listening to the archive whilst trying to finish a craft project and it is Very Good.

As in, extremely real-feeling alternate-universe versions of events that don't feel exploitative or insensitive, working-class protagonists, a very, very skilled interweaving of folklore and weirder cosmic horror and...well, you know the kind of good something has to be to make zombies genuinely frightening in this day and age? That good.


Unrelatedly, I know we're not generally about at weekends and I've had evening hail/thunderstorms the past couple of days, but...Thread 1a, are you stuck or/and waiting on each other? Can I help any?

As a general note, if ever I think I've been clear and I'm not, feel free to query details.

Snow on its way here in england which is always fun, shouldn’t stop the posting from me tho :)
Have been a bit quiet the last few days as wife over in Germany for work since Saturday. She got back last night so am a little less overwhelmed in my down time-thanks for the patience.

I’ve not listened to that podcast keeper-but did enjoy the case of Charles dexter ward on bbc sounds (some drama on the commute) which was decent. I also tried ‘the good freinds of Jackson Elias’ because I (very loosely) know one of the guys on it. Enjoyed their stuff on the mountains of madness-obvious super fans!

Snow already here in Scotland, though it doesn't tend to stay long on the Northern Isles, what with the salt wind. Still, the hills look bonny.

Oh! I had not known of that adaptation, and may see if I can get to it. On the theme of England, snow and quiet creeping horror, do we know about the M.R. James readings by Michael Hordern? If ever there was a near-perfect match between story and audiobook reader...

I am out of lunchbreak, but Brigitte & Jack? Sgt. Wilkins is very bemused.

I just saw The Lighthouse and, uh. It really makes you think about...shipping. Gosh.

Going to sleep to shake off this headache and hopefully recover some SAN; responses in the morning. 'night!

Glad your enjoying your snow across the pond.  We're suffering the worst winter in recorded history here in Ca.

Surely it puts some moisture into all that burnable brush, though, no? If by 'worst' you mean 'snowiest'. Burn some of your climate change denial conspiracy theorists to stay toasty - if you eat creatures, I have it on good authority that as a bonus, they'd taste like bacon. That or take the excuse for hot chocolate, I don't know.

All well on that thread? Need any help?

Going to give James until after 8 here (lunchtime there, I think) before moving things along as per the Absence Policy. Hopefully it's a good kind of busy he's got.

Meanwhile, the other thread is actually turning out far better than I'd feared (I mentioned it to my sort-of apprentice, who predicted that between armed redcoats and an Irish suspect "there isn't going to be a lot of interrogation...") - great teamwork and RP over there.

edit: that wasn't a challenge, you guys.

I'm immediately reminded of the second-to-last panel of this Beaton comic...and no, Peel's reforms are sixteen years in the future.
This message was last edited by the GM at 00:41, Wed 04 Mar 2020.

Dreaded triple post to ask whether folk on the 1b thread are stuck, and/or whether players in general would like me to roll ambient (or even all) Spot and/or Listens for them to save time. What do we think?

For those newer to the game, the notice skills can occasionally be life or death when it comes to ambushes, monstrosities, and sitting on snakes, which is why I'm making the prospect of rolling your "notice things" and "notice impending doom" for y'all separate offers.