[Emperors of the Fading Suns] [Emperors of the Fading Suns] OOC Thread

[cyl]

You've had all of RPdom here at one point or another. My word.
EDIT: cyl, stop driving people away! Geez.

When people leave me, they DIE !


Zenjo is the only exception so far, but he was badass enough and had sufficient back up.

 

[Arynne]

Seriously, I can't believe anyone ever leaves this game, knowing their poor characters will pay the price.

 

[Feantari]

Would that be worth a Project Post ? I know I could use one more
Woops, right, sorry about that, sometimes I miss things when my eyes bleed at 2am, silly me.


Then let's not let the crazy celestials meet him, and leave Argis to that and do something else.


Plenty of things to do in the city... bugging the Three, buying marvelous stuff, kicking some Faes around, dodging stones thrown at you by bystanders, stealing from people, tearing slavers to shreds, getting massively stoned etc etc


You can always find a way to have fun in the city of gods.


Three words: Zenjo, priorities, mistake


Malek was the one asking Zenjo for men, and he wants to look him in the eye and tell him that we took good care of his men and that he's sorry that the courrier never arrived. Seems like the polite and respectful thing to do. I can give you guys a letter and come see him later though.


Not having seen that Argis had at least an investigation excellency, I thought Malek's presence was an absolute necessity on site to seek out the thuth, would have been a shame, but heh, sacrifices have to be made and Malek knows it, he would have made them and miss Mirunda's reconstruction because there were more important thing to do that only he could do.


Malek has some decent Survival, while Argis has Medicine so they'd make a pretty good team looking that thing up and see if it actually exists, but I guess Argis can handle the investigation without him, and give Malek a CWTWT call if he needs assistance.


I do not like the idea of leaving one person alone handle this as it can easily turn out to be a trap.


But if Fangs & Mirror stick with Argis all the way through, then I guess we can leave Malek in Cross handle the diplomacy with spirits and autobots with Rhapsody, and later indeed join Flicker in Mirunda to supervise the reconstruction and oversee security.


Which is cool because now, I can see more clearly the chain of interactions between Nathir - Mirunda - Cross and what needs to be done to consolidate their exchanges.


First I'm going to make a step deeper in Nathir to enlarge my business and influence there, and from there rebuilding Mirunda should follow more fluidly.

Totes understand if he wants to be face to face with Zenjo, but yeah, I think Argis and Fangs and Mirror could probably handle it if the others were inclined to. Lunar shifting can go a long way to make up for not having stealth should we need it.


I wish there were more investigation charms worth Argis picking up. Everytime I go back through them hoping and the exceptions just make them pretty terrible for a celestial level game. Tampering detection isn't bad and is on the maybe list. As are some of the more social investigation charms.

 

[cyl]

I wish there were more investigation charms worth Argis picking up. Everytime I go back through them hoping and the exceptions just make them pretty terrible for a celestial level game. Tampering detection isn't bad and is on the maybe list. As are some of the more social investigation charms.

Here's a thought... work with Malek & the Hoods, see what they are trying to accomplish and how they are doing it.


Now, read the charms again


Also, from an internal security or espionage point of view, DB investigation charms are extremely useful IMHO.

 

[Feantari]

Right, they are useful against mortals and such, which would make them good things for some eventual subordinates to have, but they are much less useful against DKs and Lunars and other things that we seem to need them for these days.

 

[cyl]

That is because until now our work has been solely focused on ourselves.


Picture a more stable environment as we progress and imagine how fast and hard Malek & Argis would hit criminals / malevolent agents in the Scavenger Lands.


Personal power is not everything, networks of agents with various profiles are also very important part in a dominion game IMHO.


If we get rid of the small fry working for a big bad fish, we reduce both his awareness and his reaction time, leaving plenty of room for us to make our moves.

 

[Feantari]

Sure. I haven't really seen a need for that as yet though. With Tirana's kids wandering around a few things are higher on the list though.

 

[cyl]

There is no need for that indeed.


I wasn't urging you to buy them all, now ! quick ! is it done ? what are you still waiting for ?


I'm just saying that there are DB investigation charms worth picking up, that we can find many useful applications for them and that over time, those might be tactically interesting and unique additions to your skillset.


It's ultimately your call, obviously, but I thought I'd give trying to show you that from my perspective they do not suck that bad a try.


Now obviously, between that and sorcery... we all know what's what...

 

[Feantari]

Yeah.. I mean, most of them you could pull off similar stuff with stunts and excellencies. The thing that makes them not great in my opinion is all of the caveats for when they don't work combined with how much you are paying to activate them (~5m, 1wp for scene activation).

 

[Kacie]

Are we ready to move onto other discussion points IC, such as the drama of debating what should be done with Berek's killers? Thanks to the sudden shift to focus on Lookshy, it's not the next most immediate thing going on, but it is character defining.


We could put it off until later, but Mirror has brought it up once already as being very important and something she fully intends to do.


~~~


On essence enlightening -- I'd say that you can't enlighten a mortal past Essence 2. After that it's up to them, and there are xp costs and everything for that listed somewhere.


Remember that an enlightened mortals are great for dealing with other mortals, but a DB will eat them for breakfast, pretty much no matter what. A bunch of enlightened mortals are great for managing an empire, but will get trampled if we're invaded.

 

[cyl]

Well, Argis & Malek think alike, we just need IC confirmation (just a phrase would do) from Fangs and Mirror to state that they will handle Lookshy / Great Forks and I guess we can move on to the next items (including Ankss).


Sorry you had to put that on hold for a while.


Now... dammit... I thought of a good place of interest and important stuff to do there I missed in my recap this morning but I really can't remember it right now... anyone sees something missing from our past trips or contacts ?


---


Enlightening mortals will give us a better security than with just regular mortals giving us some relief from day to day task and a tad more freedom concerning our movements.


Sure they won't be as good as 200+xp exalts, but they will manage small crisis and maintain the dominion while we are away, or facilitate our plans and actions (without Melia, Malek could never take Nathir) depending on how we train them.

 

[Feantari]

Hmm we had discussed Marukan at some point, but I think we ruled it out because horses + jungle and also kinda far away.

 

[cyl]

Hmm we had discussed Marukan at some point, but I think we ruled it out because horses + jungle and also kinda far away.

Since they stand between Thorns and Lookshy I wonder what happened to them :eek:


Worth looking into, but nowhere near as urgent as the rest.


No that was something else. Tied to another character.

 

[cyl]

AHA !!!


I got it, it Widow and her mate's connections to Ankss... something to consider before slaying them.

 

[Kacie]

What were their connections to Ankss?

 

[Arynne]

Heh. Hard as Mountains did try to warn us they were a snotty bunch, didn't she? We just thought that was their natural reaction to being confronted with someone like her.

 

[Kacie]

Arynne, do you want to do as Cyl suggests and march people to Mirunda?


Crazy Ivan, what do you want to do? Do you want to help scout Great Forks & Lookshy? I can help with that, although showing up with a Deathknight usually puts people off.


We (Flicker, Fangs, Mirror) could also do the DK/Berek thing; I have reason to believe what we find there will help us, as a Manse is always handy. Conceivably it could be done quickly, thanks to the flying chariot spell.

 

[cyl]

What were their connections to Ankss?

Hard to tell actually.


But trust me, you reeaaaaaaaaaaally do not want to get on the ugly hippo lady's and her twisted two faced abyssal mate's bad side.


Hard as Mountains fell on a bad ass beastman Dusk and crushed the life out of him right in front of us.


I still feel bad for the Lion-man.


There's no telling what she'll do if we slay her mate's allies, from what I remember, she told us the Widow (best treacherous double crossing backstabbing character ever !) has strong ties to Ankss... and I will not even dare imagine what the Widow will do to you.


Just know that to get her hands on Agatha's Notes an use it as a bargaining chip, she poisoned one of her fellow deathknight and circlemate's cigar of victory right after he'd stolen them from us.


If you go on a killing spree, aside from the dragon kings, you will probably have to deal with them too at one point.


Just sayin'

 

[Arynne]

"march people to Mirunda?"


*blinks at the mental picture* Did I miss something?

 

[Kacie]

"march people to Mirunda?"
*blinks at the mental picture* Did I miss something?

Cyl has proposed a list of things for everyone to do, in post #3531. I'll quote here the important bit:

So... my recommendation for the immediate actions for the next weeks:

• Great Forks / Lookshy -> Argis / Fangs / Malek / Mirror; Recon & Contact the Lookshyans (All 4) / Investigating the Killer Bloom (Malek + friends) / Cooling things down with Zenjo (Argis or Malek) / Setting the trap for Legion (Argis)
  
• Cross -> Rhapsody / Kalak handle the local Spirit Courts and crush them to get what we need from them; Kalak; study the Bloom
  
• Mirunda -> Flicker marches men up there to settle, possibly training her Delegate on the way

I am dubious of Mirror on a diplomatic mission - much fun as it would be to go to Lookshy, showing up with a deathknight is going to put them to Hostile immediately, and Argis would have to try to sooth their worries - a hard task given Juggernaut is outside their doorstep.


Marching men to Mirunda seems like a hard logistical task with not much pay-off, unless the people being marched are a portion of the Cross's army - which then thins out the army. I can see benefits and some serious drawbacks, due to the distance, time, and other logistical hurdles.


Plus that doesn't seem like much fun.


So I was wondering if it would work out to do the DK/Berek thing anyways. There are compelling reasons both IC and OOC to go there, and OOC I can vouch that there is a manse, possibly first age goodies, and Berek's gear (which is not as important now that there's a jade power bow Mirror can borrow).


Most of all, I want to have fun, and I want other people to have fun.

 

[WlfSamurai]

Fun does sound like fun to me, yeah. I'm down with that idea.

 

[Feantari]

I am dubious of Mirror on a diplomatic mission - much fun as it would be to go to Lookshy, showing up with a deathknight is going to put them to Hostile immediately, and Argis would have to try to sooth their worries - a hard task given Juggernaut is outside their doorstep.

It is only a diplomatic mission in part, and hopefully we would be able to clean off or something after leaving so you would be able to lose the armor(?). Not sure how hard it is for her to be normalish looking without it. I'm not sure we even want to make direct contact with authorities in Lookshy until we have a chance to assess the situation. The drive to have a group go was threefold: 1) greater security, 2) fast travel, 3)not making xarvh manage a ton of scenes at once and try to maintain a timeline.

Marching men to Mirunda seems like a hard logistical task with not much pay-off, unless the people being marched are a portion of the Cross's army - which then thins out the army. I can see benefits and some serious drawbacks, due to the distance, time, and other logistical hurdles.
Plus that doesn't seem like much fun.

The pay off is the people of Mirunda actually being able to go home that want to and providing protection and structure for the inhabitants of Mirunda and securing the site of the Bloom. Yes, this action splits the army. We knew this was coming when we decided to resettle Mirunda.


I can't speak to the fun of it, but I'm sure xarvh is up to the challenge.

 

[cyl]

I should say that obviously Malek will raise those points IC and inform Mirror.


It's just a context information to the new guy in town and the other players whose memories might have skipped that part just like mine did, or never were properly informed


On another note: do not take my recommendation and plans as obligations/orders.


I know the way I'm presenting them may read like marching orders (I have to blame the military in my blood for that), but far from me the idea of actually bossing you around.


These are just my thoughts on what I think we should do, nothing more.


As Feantari demonstrated, pointing out Argis had investigation and I missed it, my analysis is not flawless and neither are my plans.


Two minds work better than just one.


We clearly can do things better if we work together, and this is what I hope we are doing (even if I'm being very verbal and unleashing walls of text on a regular basis) and my sincere apologies to anyone who feels I am not considering their desires or opinions.

 

[cyl]

Mirror was never meant to make contact with the Lookshyans in my mind, but her knowledge of the undead and of Lookshy might make her a very good advisor in assessing the situation over there.

The pay off is the people of Mirunda actually being able to go home that want to and providing protection and structure for the inhabitants of Mirunda and securing the site of the Bloom. Yes, this action splits the army. We knew this was coming when we decided to resettle Mirunda.
I can't speak to the fun of it, but I'm sure xarvh is up to the challenge.

Flicker & Malek are trainers and they can teach drill and fighting skills on site. Plus now they both can make Delegates !


Any person in the dominion can be turned into a weapon and every group into a military unit.


That is our greatest strength as exalted trainers. We don't need to fear common threats like other smaller settlements do.


If properly trained, our guys will kick anything out of their homes but superior threats (like merc companies led by an exalt, beastmen raid led by a lunar, Legion, Wyld Hunt coming to town).


Bandits and marauders should not be a problem.


Obviously there is not much fun in doing that kind of "chores", but it's up to the ST to make them interesting anyway and trigger events.

 

[CrazyIvan]

Arynne, do you want to do as Cyl suggests and march people to Mirunda?
Crazy Ivan, what do you want to do? Do you want to help scout Great Forks & Lookshy? I can help with that, although showing up with a Deathknight usually puts people off.


We (Flicker, Fangs, Mirror) could also do the DK/Berek thing; I have reason to believe what we find there will help us, as a Manse is always handy. Conceivably it could be done quickly, thanks to the flying chariot spell.

I'm down for almost anything, but Cunning Fangs is coming along on the DK visit. She has plans involving fire and screaming and unspeakable things stalking the darkness.