Homebrew system thread II, part 2

[Eleventh Century Remnant]

I could easily interpret that to be Dirt throwing Dale at the acolyte, you know...

Trying to cut through the shield that may or may not actually be there, is going to be Dirt's first action; and it almost works as the acolyte jumps back out of the way of it, onto a table.

Larric's attempt at persuasion would have worked if the circumstances were less desperate, or the stakes less high- or the man already wading so deep in blood. Demoralisation, loss of leadership, (taking a few points off skills for things like that)- but not enough to change his mind, just make him angrier in a miserable way about it.

Dale's attack is met with a defence of power; specifically Discipline- one of the valdemironi tricks. The acolyte tries to force Dale to obey, to accept overlordship, to submit to the chief of the gods who sees all and balances all, who rules and marshals the whole- to be a part of the system of humanity under the shield of the divine-

and it isn;t enough to break through Dale's anger, the knives are thrown;

the acolyte dodges one, the other hits, but not luckily- hits and skims off the coner of his forehead, leaving a scar but not much more than that. He leaps off the table, to behind it from where you are, and four of the constable's men come towards you.

Round 2?

[Simon_Jester]

Larric's going to try not to kill anyone- he wraps a globe of Air magic around the head of one of the constable's troopers and thumps inward, boxing his ears like he did to one of Captain de Berrey's underlings during the battle earlier today.

[Kaelan]

With the Acolyte standing nicely behind the table, Dirt places on of his feet on the edge and kicks the entire table into him, whilst preparing to engage any of the constable's men who approach him. Aiming not to kill these men, but to incapacitate them in the short term.

[Fiji_Fury]

Dale sees Dirt move to kick the table and takes in the constables men approaching with swords drawn. This takes place in the blink of an eye. His momentum is already moving toward the Acolyte, trailing the knives he's already thrown. Dale lets this motion carry on, propelling himself at the Acolyte, leaping at him and drawing two more knives. If close enough, he will stab at the Acolyte, if at some range, he'll throw these knives as well. The Acolyte must die.

[Eleventh Century Remnant]

Larric's attack is more effective than he was expecting- there's a louder pop than anticipated, and the armsman goes straight down, howling with blood coming out of his ears and his tear ducts. Not dead or going to be, but probably burst eardrums at least, and out of it.

Dirt kicks the table, it flips rather than slides, the acolyte jumps out of the way, then turns in time to catch two attacks aimed at Larric- blocking one cold, but the other Larric has to get out of the way of. The third of them does lunge for Dirt, and manages to actually make contact- with a table knife. Doesn't get through the skin, no damage.

Dale's target is obscured behind the table, it's not a straightforward scream and leap- tries to react in time, but Dale gets there first, stabs with both knives, both in the chest. The acolyte stumbles back, both hilts sticking out of him, looking surprised. He's probably going to die, but he may get a last action off if nobody stops him. Actions?

[Simon_Jester]

Larric dives out of the way of... what, a man with a sword? A thrown weapon? You didn't exactly make that clear. What kind of death am I trying to avoid here?

So there were three remaining armsmen attacking, Dirt intercepted one and a second went for him on purpose (again with the picking them up and banging their silly heads together...), leaving one. If Larric were cold-blooded and/or wearing a bunch of armor, he'd probably think about whether he needs to stop the acolyte's last action or defend himself directly. He's not that kind of tactician, so he concentrates on self-defense. He whips his hand up, visualizes a closed-circuit path stretching forward ahead of him, and hits the armsman attacking him with a jolt of stunning, muscle-paralyzing electricity- high voltage, low amperage.

[Fiji_Fury]

Still seeing life in the Acolyte, and watching as the villain's brain begins to tick forward into an action, Dale will deny him any measure of concentration or opportunity to act.

Dale twists the daggers embedded in the Acolyte with his hands, rendering the wounds even more severe and dealing (I have no experience but am led to believe) incredible pain. Not satisfied with this alone, Dale also uses Motion to drive the daggers deeper into the flesh of the Acolyte with steady pressure, so that the schemer is in intense pain and cannot escape. Since Motion is being used on the daggers, I don't gather the Acolyte has any opportunity to magically resist.

On the downside, this concentration means that he's trusting Larric and Dirt to cover his back because it is quite exposed until the Acolyte passes. Then I suppose we'll see whether his domination of minds in the room persists or fades.

[Simon_Jester]

OOC:

Larric's action is undeclared. Dale apparently is that cold-blooded, or hot-blooded... ouch.

I always figured that magical resistance in this setting works pretty much the same way everything else does: opposed skill checks, and there's a lot of deliberate vagueness about what skills can be used to oppose what.

For example, if all you have is a broadsword, you can use your Broadsword skill to defend against an enemy attacking you with an axe- by parrying, you have a good chance of blocking or at least reducing the damage he causes. But you could also use your Shield skill, or your Dodge skill, or your skill at creating magical barriers of stone or fire or even pure force, if any of those are available.

But my impression is that you can also use active magical interference on attempts to target a third party; that's exactly what Larric just did to the constable by trying to break the Valdemironi's mind control.

[Eleventh Century Remnant]

I am this close to taking a sledgehammer to my computer and my kindle, I hate them and all their like and kin for their utter unfluency, uncooperativeness and inability to do anything at all that I want, I am in a perfect mood to commit murder, arson or both- I could type out a long string of swearwords here but I already did that in the fault report. Damn all trendy designers who should be forcefed with their own creations until their intestines are ripped open by shards of broken silicon and they die slowly and painfully of peritonitis. (I lost a chapter.)

That vent off my chest, back to the game.


First admin note, it wasn't earlier the same day; de Berrey's mob were done in yesterday from the characters' point of view, there was a relatively peaceful night then a day spent selling things off for money, during which you noticed the men lurking in the alley and all this came to a head. It's well after sunset now.

That take on magical resistance is more or less true, plus or minus appropriateness penalties. Something that really ought not to work, like trying to defend yourself against a fireball with, say, interpretative dance, is going to get bonuses or penalties depensing. Something brilliantly off the wall, that is likely to get a moment of stunned incomprehension from the chaacter, may get a bonus; the above example would get a fairly severe penalty. There has to be some kind of balance between rewarding deviant brilliance and supporting common sense- so the right tool for the job usually works better, but long shots do sometimes come off.

I'm not convinced Dale's action is actually going to be much help against someone who knows they're dying and is already in severe pain, and whose final act is going to be some variant of embracing martyrdom; driving the blades in may actually be pretty counterproductive. In fact his own pain is going to be a fairly major ingredient of it- he's going to use the pain of his own personal death as a moral lever, flashed through one or two of the powers, Discipline, Delegate- this is why, for peace, for order, for not death. The peace of the chief of the gods, to prevent things like people's lungsd being carved out in polite company. That could be bad for you.

Larric (and Dirt) still have actions withheld, that might be in time?

[Simon_Jester]

OOC:

I actually did give an action for Larric in direct self-defense. If he gets a chance to react to what is now taking place, and feels that moral-memetic force building:

IC:

Insight again- Larric pumps his own magic with his fundamental honesty and the powerful head of indignation he feels at the turn events have taken, to alter the narrative. Passion rises in him on this matter, and he feels the energy of his mind pouring into the spell that says all he wants to say, and probably more eloquently than he could ever properly express himself in words.

Trying to at least accommodate the more violent outrage of Dale. To make that outrage comprehensible, the act of a man who has seen servants of one god poisoned and destroyed by the plots of another.

The desire for peace- peace among men, peace among the gods- he does not seek to contradict, but to redirect- the desire for an end to tricks, an end to the plots and the scramble for control. Anything would be better than this endless feuding and scheming and fighting, this horrible war of all against all, like a fight between two men with daggers trapped in a barrel. It kills the innocent. It kills the plotters, even when the world would be better off with them in it.

It takes men who should be wise, should be decent, should be guiding lights of the community, and puffs them up with arrogance and power-lust until they talk themselves into a tragic death.

So please, Larric wills, let us talk, let us think, let us negotiate, but for the love of sanity and the gods and the people all together, let it be in the open! Let the puppet-strings drop, let the plots end with some semblance of justice, let there be clarity and honesty, let there be anything at all, but let there be no more of this folly and bloodshed!

[Eleventh Century Remnant]

I was waiting for the rest of the group to stick their oar in, but as I'm away being a pirate over the weekend- time travelling forwards to the 17th century, yay- just execute that now.

(I'm also feeling particularly gloomy and grumpy, not being built for heatwaves, so this really ought to end with those people in the great hall, who tend to the arrogant, cynical, power hungry and backstabby, laughing at Larric and pelting him with vegtables for his hopeless idealism; but let's see what the dice say...)

Well, all right. Maybe a sprout or two. As something to convince them, it falls on, let's face it, very stony ground; if they were the sort of people to listen and believe, they wouldn't have fought, in many cases literally, their way to the top of the local social pyramid anyway.

There are some, the younger and whose knightly vows are freshest in their mind, and those who feel responsibility and who have been thinking hard about what happened and why, who may listen; but not the plotters, not those who have chosen that path and are too far down it to let mere sense and rationality have much of an effect. Larric will be painfully aware of empty echoes and people looking at him strangely.

On the other hand, as a counteraction to the Valdemironi's flash of power it actually works really well; the winds of magic (it was a 2, against 15) approve.

there are swirls of foggy red and blue light, clouds of idea clashing and tangling, more smelt than seen; the red does not settle, weakened as it is most are resistant, it fades; that still leaves several people with swords drawn and expecting bloodshed (couple do put theirs down, but not all)nad a fight going on. Two against you, now.

[Simon_Jester]

OOC:

Larric didn't really expect most of these people to get the point, he's not actually that stupid, he's just frustrated with the blatant corruption and uselessness of a political order that can't get its act together to save its own lives, or that of anyone around it.

A fanatic believes what he is saying, and feels betrayed when others don't. Larric just feels disappointed and gets on with his life. It stings, but he's been burned out by people who get this idea even less than he does, and that was only a week and a half ago or so.

So he got what he wanted, which was to create enough cross-currents to stop the Valdemironi's death-curse from working and turning half the knights in the room into meat puppets for the damned scheme. His voice may not have been heard, but at least the other guy's wasn't either.

[Fiji_Fury]

Dale feels the ebb and flow of the Acolyte's and Larric's mystical persuasions and realizes he's played into the Valdemiron servant's hands. Too late... unless...

It is not a great skill of his, but he does have Life. If the Acolyte's life still hangs by even a thread (hopefully his consciousness is out/disrupted at this point) Dale will attempt to roughly pump the Acolyte full of healing. If he'd been of calmer mind he might have tried this earlier... it could spare the Acoylte's life but still take him out of the fight (blunt healing has been described as leaving a mental fatigue on the level of a severe hangover or even inducing unconsciousness). Dale will make the attempt at any rate.

Following that, he needs to do a better threat assessment of the room. The "ground" so to speak of this current fight has been shifting and probably rests in a different configuration than when this melee started moments ago.

[Simon_Jester]

OOC:

Why, oh why, couldn't you have tried that instead?

Dale's original job was to kill things that shouldn't be alive in the first place, as I recall; maybe this incident will teach him to be a little more careful about killing things that 'belong' alive, like people and kitties.

[Fiji_Fury]

OOC:

There's definitely potential for character growth here. His rage at the decimation of his own order in Qulan got in the way of better sense and he allowed himself to be ruled by it for a period of time. Maybe he'll overcome this impulse in the future... or maybe it's stronger than he wants to acknowledge.

[Kaelan]

Dale's original job was to kill things that shouldn't be alive in the first place

Yup, it's Dirt's Job to make that are alive dead. Speaking of which, there are two such living things approaching towards Larric. Dirt moves to intercept in case they decide to press the idea. If they back off he will hold back.

Indicating at the wan-a-be martyr Dirts advices "Take his skull and then appease his spirit". (Well it works for ogres do....)

[Eleventh Century Remnant]

Just back from a very long weekend, in the far north of Scotland- opposite the upper end of Skye, and then up on the Moray Firth. Seriously disjointed as a result, I'm too young to be too old for this, so what's my excuse?


Hold back? Would they do something so sensible?

In the rest of the room, the constable has just tried to murder the baron, but been stoped- impaled, actually- by the court sorceress, who is rather nifty with that enchanted blade of hers; enchanted with healing magic, it repairs and seals the wound behind itself as she withdraws it- leaving him writhing on the ground, deep in shock, screaming and babbling. [In terms of rule effects, the action penalty for a wound? For healing magic, add the general and the location specific bit together, double them, wears off at a point an hour. A terminal wound, if it can be healed at all, which this one was, leaves you at -96. Completely out of it for three days, marginally capable on the fourth trending back to normal, with fairly severe mental trauma.]

There are several more blades drawn, a couple put away, a scream as a woman is stabbed, a grunt as a man is- the two facing you, Dirt will have to intercept them.

Fortunately neither of them quite know how to stab an Ogre. Dirt manages to step inside the guard of one and headbutt him into unconsciousness, the other is still up, but easily parried.

Somebody got murdered under cover of chaos; probably two people. The acolyte is now dead and gone, that's it; life expired, soul gone to it's reward- from Dale's point of view, the god looks after his own, takes the spirit quickly and smoothly away.

Next, for everyone?

[Simon_Jester]

OOC:

The god probably also has a stereotypical government agency's willingness to erase and remove anything with sensitive information- such as the acolyte's brain and soul.

And I imagine the constable's mental trauma will only be made worse by the combination of mind-hammer and mind-slip-on-banana-peel magics being thrown around as he passed out. I wonder what he'll emerge from the healing trance as...

IC:

Larric is a bit dazed by the crosswinds of his own magic- he has of course permanently revealed himself as an insufferable idealist, but needs must when the devil drives. Not actually surprised that it didn't stop the fight; he's quite aware that normal people don't think like he does.

It would be appropriate for Larric's reactions to events to be a bit delayed. He's now very much in the "Observe, Orient" phase of the decision loop.

He sees Dirt locked in combat with two... [thump] no, one hostile armsman. Dirt versus pretty much any one normal man is a foregone conclusion, so he looks further afield. Who can he identify, who is visibly associated with the plot and acting aggressively accordingly? His first instinct is to spot whoever just stabbed that woman and bludgeon him.

[Fiji_Fury]

Dale gets up from the Acolyte and grimaces, then turns to take stock of the situation in the room. Who is alive that is important/recognizable? Who has fallen?

He keeps in mind that this will be but one prong of tangled plot by the Valdemiron temple, but since this is where they are, sizing up the local situation is a first step. He sees the Baron alive, which is at least a good start (following Dirt and Larric of course). Who else is standing, injured, alive and dead?

[Eleventh Century Remnant]

Sorry about the delay, we have shows back to back from now until mid September, I'm a bit off balance. Between that and the story thread going kaboom, well-

The woman who shrieked was one of the baron's mistresses, the pregnant one; unfortunately the being who stabbed her is the other mistress, who is standing there with a bloody dagger in her hand and looking smug. Their respective families are about to start laying into each other.

Most people are still recognisable, they haven't been bludgeoned that badly...oh, right, see what you mean. The baron, the court sorceress, the treasurer and most of his lot, the constable and several of his men, the senior undersheriff; no chamberlain, no verderer, no guildsmen.

There is, incidentally, a lot of shouting, screaming and chanting outside.


PS; Congratulations, Simon, and good luck.

[Simon_Jester]

OOC:

Thankee.

Also, consider this my tribute to the shade of a good actor, and a very respectable captain...

IC:

Larric isn't worried about directly defending himself, Dirt seems to have that under control.

From the sound of it, no one is actively lunging for the baron right this moment, and hopefully he's got a few loyalists forming a knot around him. Larric starts edging toward that knot, trying to focus his attention on the rest of the room. Clearly, the families of the two mistresses are about to square off and start murderizing each other.

Unfortunately, Larric doesn't really have the magical means to separate two groups of hostile people without hurting them, not well. He'll try though. I presume the two families are clustering together before fighting one another; Larric attempts to throw between them a plane-shaped barrier sort of like the airwall he used up at the Black Tower bunker, but bidirectional- such a wall can be penetrated, but takes a deliberate effort.

Then he shouts: "There's a mob outside howling for our blood! Take revenge an hour from now if you need it, but only a fool fights in a burning house!"

[Eleventh Century Remnant]

Kaelan? Fiji? Waiting for your contributions...

the court sorceress glances out of the arrow slit just after Larric makes his impasioned plea, days 'Funny that you should say that- there's quite a lot of men with torches coming this way. They smell of sorcery, too.

While-' she's trying not to look at the pierced and bleeding acolyte- 'that was a long shot, might have succeeded but mainly to hold our attention. While the rest of the temple went and gathered and persuaded a mob. If it isn't a burning house now, might be fairly soon.'

The people about to aly into each other are mostly beyond reason, some are indeed prepared to make such an effort. Others try to grab them and pull them apart. It is a brawl, with daggers. There may be some blood, but at least for most people, reason seems to be in the ascendant.

What now?

[Panzersharkcat]

(OOC: I'm not sure if I should rejoin. No more military stuff due to bad shoulders that dislocate easily, particularly the left one. I did get a regular paying job in a warehouse, though. 7 am to 3 pm. So, I should be online more often. Depends on how much I missed.)

[Simon_Jester]

OOC:

I am sincerely sorry to hear that, Panzer, both the problems with a career in the military and, presumably, the dislocated shoulders. Things have moved rather slowly in your absence, so you should be able to get caught up if you like.

The short form is, remember the two guys who attacked us? After Lisanna got the details of what they'd done out of them, and found out the Valdemironi were behind it, we took them to the baron for trial. Publicly. That tipped off a Valdemironi acolyte in the room, who used his mind-affecting magic and the fact that other nobles were implicated in the plot to start a fight, which (is? is not?) still going on.

Meanwhile, the rest of the Valdemironi have used more mind-affecting leadership-magic to muster up a big mob of angry guys with pitchforks and torches, who are headed right for the building we and the baron are in.

[Kaelan]

OOC
1: - good to see you back Panzer, even if its under less than ideal circumstances. I'm sure ECR won't object to you re-joining the ensuing chaos....

1: -

only a fool fights in a burning house!

Memories of magi towers with strange potions come to mind....

Back IC

Dirt tries to incapacitate his last attacker before turning to face the three growing mobs (two inside, one outside). It would be easier if all these humans didn't look the same. "Mob's are braver when they think they can't be hurt. Larric, should show them that this may not be the case. Probably not need to do more than bluff with show of magic. Get rid of problem outside and then deal with problem inside."

Just out of curiosity, dirt will try to gauge how many people are baying outside the doors.