Drinks sounds solid

Bombed on the storytelling, with a nearly worse roll than before:
10:04, Today: Banner rolled 28 using 1d20+26 with rolls of 2.  Perform: Sagas

Ah well, it happens. I suppose telling a story with a tree as the protagonist is really hard, so it makes some IC sense?

Aye, indeed!

Oh, it makes sense OOC-- but IC, we're in a race and are already very behind, and we KNOW that a) the gods can very likely make perma-failable challenges and b) at least one other team believes they can and is trying to burn the bridges behind them.  So IC/mechanically, it makes more sense to not lose even a single minute.  I'm fine with moving to dawn if everyone else is, though.
This message was last edited by the player at 04:30, Sun 13 Nov 2022.

In reply to September (msg # 157):

While the point of not wasting time is well taken, in character it's now already late enough that, if the sun were to set in the place you are at, it would have. Of course, with you only needing to sleep two hours per night, you would indeed have plenty of time, but I think it'd be better to get the team together and have you tackle any remaining exploration you think might be necessary together.

Also, Khepri specifically mentioned that the gods can't make the challenges impossible to go through; they can make the fortress too tough to break, sure, but the challenge need to be able to be resolved by any team, for fairness' sake. And I'm not sure what you mean when you say that some teams might be burning bridges behind themselves?

In reply to Supervisor of reality (msg # 158):

I think it's about semantics, really. You can't make a challenge that's impossible to overcome, sure, but that doesn't mean a team can get infinite attempts. If each individual on a team can only get one shot at passing (part of) a challenge before perma-locking them out of it, then that would technically fulfill the 'impossible to overcome' requirement while making the chance to actually succeed as low as possible.

I think my current plot thread is winding down as well. Did we want to set up a meeting with the Asmodeans for tomorrow, and if so, where and when? They specified "neutral territory" so I guess we could just pick a random spot outside of town.

In reply to Supervisor of reality (msg # 158):

That's better OOC, yes-- just not IC, which was my point.

RE impassable challenges: The Asmodeans were trying to destroy all of several categories of tokens.  IF those are necessary to complete the challenge, that means it's possible to "close off" a challenge to other competitors.  That's what I was talking about (granted, there's an assumption in there).

In reply to September (msg # 161):

Ah, but that's enemy action, not part of the challenge design... although ultimately, I fully agree that it rests on an assumption about the nature of the challenge that hasn't been proved.

And yeah, IC would have different considerations; however, I'm getting the sense that, if I let you all keep doing that, you'll spend a lot more time in town than you need to. Which isn't a problem for me, personally, but I got the impression that most of the team wanted to move forwards with things now.

Given that, Rannar's message will provide a justification for stopping the exploration IC - it will contain a list of what you can obtain from the town's various locations and how, so that your characters won't need to keep exploring because they'll know exactly where they need to go and what they need to do there. That should satisfy the need for having IC reasons to do what's best for the group OOC, I hope?
This message was last edited by the GM at 06:45, Mon 14 Nov 2022.

Iona is fine with moving on, the whole reason she went and did a few challenges was to keep herself occupied since most of the tokens had already been collected.

Going to bring along the Minotaur!

That works for me; he'll be very polite, and mention that the reason you scared him so much in the fight is because your fighting style reminded him of one that a fellow celestial trained a lot of dwarves into, a unit devoted to Khepri, although he personally never met the dwarves themselves, only this angel teacher, who caused him to react nervously to your fighting style.

RE: Different NPC-- September was planning to invite the golden-haired azata who helped him bake a cake.  To him, the music contest did have a prize, but the cooking is something he did for the sheer fun of it (twice).  Would that work?

Sure; any town citizen would do, so if that's your preference, go ahead.

There is the last consort's challenge, the performance based one that we didn't find yet, are we going to move on to doing that as a group?

Yeah, it seems better to me to have you handle the sectioned off part of town as a team together, as it'll make it easier to deal with everything. You also have the meeting with the Asmodeans to attend to, assuming you're interested; if you are, I'll need you to tell me which of the two you'd like to deal with first - the Asmodeans, or the search for the fifth consort.

I thought there was a consort we needed to find before we got into the sectioned-off part, my bad.

Verik will want to look for the consort first, but as a player I have no preference.

There is a total of six consorts.

Consort Number 1 is Jigroun, who is in the temple, apparently. You haven't tried to get into the temple, but if you had, you'd have been told that you need the four suit token to enter. You know that four of the other consorts have these tokens.

Consort Number 2 is Gentharul, who can be found in the greenhouse. He will give you the Heart token if you can prove you've been enjoying yourselves by having the friends you've made vouch so to him on your behalf.

Consort Number 3, Mantesal, is apparently guarding something important, somewhere in town. You know not where, or what. You know this one Consort isn't involved in the matter of the four suit tokens.

Consort Number 4 is Demalerkes, who could be fought in the arena and gave the Sword token to those capable of defeating him. This, you have done.

Consort Number 5 is  Ivernia , and you know they're hiding somewhere in the sectioned section of town, where they're spying competitions to find people who can give a good show. You need to find them and persuade them to hand over the Club token, so that you have the four you need to enter the temple.

Consort Number 6 is Kevryshka, who is acting as a messenger between the other consorts to keep them informed of what's going on in town and inform them of how the various challengers are doing. You've already met her, and she gave you the Coin token for encouraging sportsmanship in competitions.

Does that helps?

I see, thanks.  Ivernia is the one I was thinking of, I didn't realize she was in the sectioned-off part of town, I think I was conflating the temple and the sectioned-off part.

That is handy-- I also didn't realize that Ivernia was in the sectioned-off part (September was hoping his performance would draw her in, actually, which is why he doesn't want to use that as evidence of revelry).

Since I'm sure we talked to each other about the Asmodeans telepathically in the evening, what's everyone said about whether or not to meet them?  September would have been in favor of hearing them out, of course, though highly skeptical.

The Asmodeans apparently also didn't realize that!

Sorry for the long IC post, GM just dropped a bunch of information on me, so I did my best to pass the bulk of it on to you all.

In terms of the Asmodeans, Halasik also votes for meeting with them (with great skepticism).

To quickly answer Halasik's question-- September was going to go look for the consort if music was useful, but since the consort wants physical art, he'd place himself with the mirror group.  He'll hang around for a bit to see if there's a good plan in place to find the consort, though (if not, he'll offer to just ask the locals in this area about it/Gather Information).

So, if I have this right, September, Halasik and Diata are going to the hall of mirrors together, while Verik, Iona and Banner will be exploring the sectioned off part of town, taking in any interesting sights while looking for Ivernia.

I'll give everybody fifteen or so hours to confirm that this is correct, and for Verik, Iona and Banner to give me a Gather Information roll, and then I'll update.

Confirmed for me.



For the meeting, I think we want to suggest just a short bit into the woods - basically just far enough that the meeting is private and unobserved by the locals, but hopefully close enough to town that we don't run into anything.

Okay then, this is me:

23:49, Today: Iona de Orasaigh rolled 36 using 1d20+25 with rolls of 11.  Diplomacy (Gather Information).

With the added sidenote that i can see invisible and ethereal creatures, and have permanent Woodland Stride (as Druid) so i'm not impeded by the forest terrain while moving around. Unless there's magic involved, of course.