Homebrew system thread II, part 2

[Simon_Jester]

OOC:

Yeah. Well, Larric is on board with this- the idea of trying to convince deVerett to act sensibly and responsibly, if not strictly speaking in a "good guy" way, is pretty much what he was trying to convey to Kaelan. Shake him until he turns into a good chief.

IC:

OK, so that cycles back to Larric starting to run for the docks- not because he's sure the party would lose the fight, but because there's no point in fighting. He's pushing his own pace- not unfit by medieval standards, but not particularly fit, either. Most of the party has more raw physicality than him, so he probably won't be talking very clearly except to say "the docks!" or something like that.

If Lisanna tries to override that and say "no, the Guild," he won't split off and run in a different direction, but by default he thinks the docks are the place to go, to speak with the Ikhrani priests.

[Fiji_Fury]

Dale is with Larric and keeping an eye out for further torch-and-pitchfork type activity in our path. He's not the most fit and conditioned of the group, but won't have trouble matching Larric's pace and speaking, at least at first.

"That thing signaled the Valdemironi somehow. This will come to a fight, but better it be at the doorstep of those we hope to rally against this coup."

[Eleventh Century Remnant]

None of you are massively unfit, but it's been a horribly active few days; some little time to rest, but not much, not enough to let the lactic acid drain away, not enough to let the muscles stop throbbing. The eight of them are better rested and more up for this, close the distance- get close enough for a good look, but then appear to have second thoughts about it, once they see what they're up against.

Just when they start thinking, um...something moves from a sort of iridiscent blue- black shimmer in front of you; the watching daemon has decided to stop watching and take a part. It does so by getting in front of you and resolving itself into a tentacled horror, a formless chaos about half the width of the cobbled street; it hisses and snarls. About thirty feet clearance to it, the eight Valdemironi about a hundred feet behind you.

The trickster does do chimaerae, scarecrows. It's possibly illusory. He also has a nasty line in belief seeds that gain in power if someone believes they're real. Actions?

[Simon_Jester]

OOC:

Ah, yes, a minion of the god of funny, in support of the ultimate squares...

IC:

Larric grits his teeth at the supernatural timewasting-moron in front of him, directing aggressive denial and mockery.

<Frightening illusions? Hah! I've seen much more frightening illusions. Try impersonating a baalrukh next time. And really, this whole thing is ridiculous and sad, you're letting your own foolishness turn around and bite you in the tail. Why are you even here? Did you come here to laugh, to be laughed with, or to be laughed at?>

Assembled into a contemptuous lance of will, Larric's integrated forces of icy, irate, irreverent Insight drive into the probably-not-real-chimera's form, hopefully dispersing it or at least giving it a case of self-doubt, sufficient to give somebody time to do something else.

OOC Mk II:

One wonders if the Valdemironi minions will think twice about running toward an illusory abomination too. If they haven't been fully briefed, and knowing the Valdemironi's predilections for "you there do that, never mind why," they might not have been... well, I wouldn't go chasing into the teeth of that thing.

Also, I don't know where the alliterative bits came from. Just felt like it. I think the trickster-daemon is ticking me off, along with Larric.

[Eleventh Century Remnant]

Shame that you're not saying that aloud; it's worth thinking about why they are doing this- and how the Valdemironi are likely to react. Do they even know about this? (the chances are the tricksters have covered themselves both ways, as usual, but...) They are in fact very good at annoying people; so why have they picked the most easily annoyed side to help?


The Valdemironi react interestingly inappropriately. Three of them do, indeed, panic and flee. The other five (critically fail and...) suffer a sudden surge of do or die. 'Death to the tentacle beast' and try to charge past you, at the daemon- which is now looking very confused.

Larric's attempt to get it to go away is, hm, what does he have that could actually put that into effect? Nothing's actually coming to mind as appropriate. Resist is about the best there is and- the thing backs away a little, scuttles aside, to where the charging idiots can get at it.

Right, looking at it from above that would have made no sense at all. Where is everybody, and what are your characters doing?

[Simon_Jester]

OOC:

Let me get this straight, we're in a street, there are eight Valdemironi men chasing us, one probably-imaginary horror in front of us, we're caught in the middle. Five of the Valdemironi perceive the horror as a threat and rush it, three run away. Larric tries to bludgeon the horror with a dash of perspective*, apparently succeeds in shocking the horror enough that it reels to one side, allowing the five men to get at it without having to go through us.

*There's a deranged story out there, somewhere in the Library of Babel, about Larric Smith becoming involved with the Total Perspective Vortex, or its construction, in some capacity...

IC:

Anyhow, it all reasonable to me, unless this street is a good deal narrower than I'd expected. Larric jumps out of the way of the shouting Valdemironi men as best he can and cries out to his comrades, "let's find a way around!"

OOC MK II:

Also, can I clear up something regarding Insight? Clearly it is primarily a sensory skill, "look deep into this and figure out what it really is" and all that. On the other hand, especially given the name, it would also sound like the talent most suited to breaking up illusions, which is more or less what Larric was trying to do:

Stop the entity from taking on a chimerical, illusionary, menacing form by aggressively denying the illusion itself, and pointing out the fundamental stupidity of it all to introduce some self-doubt- that in the frame of reference of the trickster-entity's reality, what it's doing makes no sense. Not because it is farcical or humorous, that would be fine, but because it's idiotic.

In short, stop it from making up a dangerous fiction by aggressively braining it over the head with facts. After all, illusion is at its heart based on the power of obfuscation, trickery, and woo- and Insight is the opposite of all those things.

As an act of magic it seems... very consistent with Larric's personality that he'd try, perhaps not consistent with all sets of magic rules, but consistent with my limited knowledge of the game rules here.

It also seemed like an obvious analogy to what happened down in the First Age fortress where Larric had to take point in dispersing Hilarion's illusory baalrukh. Though that turned into a high-scoring tie because Hilarion was very, very good and even one sixth of his skill at memetic manipulation is a match for Larric's full effort.

The problem is that while I have a pretty good idea of what Larric could do with Air (electromagnetism, pressure, sound, wind), Substance (chemical manipulation, accelerating or decelerating a chemical reaction, in principle transmutation), and Water (control of liquids, cooling-magic)

...I don't think I have such a clear idea of what can and cannot be done with Insight.

[Eleventh Century Remnant]

Explanation time, then. Analysis of the situation- spot on.

Insight you are pushing slightly beyond its' limits, there. Against an illusion or projection, it would reveal it, certainly, but it wouldn't necessarily dispel it unless it was very tenuous to begin with, or the caster realises he's been made and gives up. Everyone else could still see it- Larric could still see it, for that matter, just be aware that it was an illusion.

The reason Insight would have hit and bounced against the chimera is that it's more than an illusion or a projection, it has an ego of its' own and an animating purpose emanating downwards from the divine- which it did successfully resist an earlier attempt to discover- in light of which, there are no significant contradictions.
(Within the limits of it's own grasp of the situation, which is an interesting wrinkle. The priest who summoned it probably did know more about what's really going on, and it's his sense of certainty, and reality, the thing's working off.)

You can't really affect it by knowing it any more than you could dispel a human being, (more likely to work the other way round actually)- and apart from the general category problem, it has already rejected your reality and substituted it's own, and half the reason people follow Efrodrion is to partake of that charming/infuriating immunity to facts.

Trying to harm it by revealing it's true nature would have been like trying to drown a duck by thowing a bucket of water at it; Entity, daemonology to be exact, would be appropriate- as would the religious magics that created it, and interestingly some of Ikhran's gifts are supposed to relate to raw materials but could do a fair job of turning it inside out. Resistnce to it and it's effects could be based on or boosted by Insight, that I'll grant.

Blatting the thing directly to weaken it, or combining two magics- inventing sonar by hiting it with a pressure wave that reflected Insight back- might work; would in principle, dice permitting. More on the more general problem alter.



Oh, and where's the rest of the group? Post, guys- what are you up to?

[Fiji_Fury]

Dale looks at the flailing horror... and understands that it should not be. Normally this is something he would attack directly, but the sight of Larric's behavior and the Valdemironi charging down the street to assault it gives him pause for thought.

"It wanted to corner us but instead is under attack by what might be its allies? Let's go around. We can kill it later if need be."

If on the other hand it's doing us a favor by acting as a distraction... well... this entire week has been nothing but weird piled up on weird. Probably better not to delve too deep into thought or we'll drink in the madness of the moment.

"Around. Keep your eyes open for any other parties."

[Kaelan]

OOC
Been having my house torn down around me and rebuilt in slow time....

IC
After seeing the gribbly tentacle thing followed by our foes charging it, Dirt has to refrain from shouting "Go team tentacle". Anyhow, if able he'll grab one the last Valdemironi men to run past for interrogation purposes. Some external insight for what they are intending from the outside may be helpful, if not well its more food for the pot.....

[Eleventh Century Remnant]

Yes, sorry about that; I ask for updates and then neglect the thread for a couple of days...mea culpa. A writing project got in the way.

The flailing horror obviously has it's own ideas on whether it should be or not- as a general rule, all the gods work through layered webs of minions, summoned and directed (usually) by their living followers; Dnor's tend to be more subtle, less obviously ravening- monster, but they certainly do exist.

Dirt tackles the last of the valdemironi to pass you, and then the party ducks down a side street, wriggling and grunting captive in tow, as the sound of eldritch mayhem exlodes behind you. A couple of turns later- the street was cobbled but a lot of the cobbles have been scavenged for building material, you're on a crunchy gravel and slippery mud roadbed with s reasonable blast radius and a few solid walls between.

So what are you doing to this poor guy you've snagged?

[Simon_Jester]

If we have a moment to park, Larric stops to ask the man a question while Sir Alfred gathers his wits; our usual interrogation tactics boil down to "good alchemist, bad knight, worse ogre." The man is presumably being grabbed by an ogre, so Larric makes a sympathetic face. He's trying to be disarming, trying to convince him with body language that while the large menacing creature really is as dangerous as he looks, he has at least one friend here- potentially. Meanwhile, he's watching the Valdemironi minion closely, to see what the best angle for further approach is.

[Given the objective of getting information out of him, Larric is attempting to line it up with Charm-Persuasion and Human Perception as best as possible under the circumstances. The hope is that over the course of a few exchanges of words, Larric can get across to the minion that yes, he's been hung out to dry by his own side, they sent him to deal with things he shouldn't have to handle,

The alchemist twitches his head in a nod to indicate Dirt, who is presumably holding the minion rather still, then looks said minion in the eye.

"Don't worry, you seem like a nice fellow, I won't let him eat you. Now, what did they tell you you were getting into? Why tell you to follow us?"

[Kaelan]

Dirt keeps quiet and drools on the minion's head....

[Eleventh Century Remnant]

Your prisoner- a man at arms by the look of him, and from the fact that he was willing to charge an eldritch horror with too many tentacles (>0=too many, unless it's an elvish riding squid)- starts out with 'Who are you people? That thing wasn't yours, was it?'

Now, you have limited time for subtlety- apart from the situation, the chances are there'll be another maniac along in a minute. Between Larric's perceptions and a hilariously botched attempt from Dirt not to be intimidating, he gabbles, almost.

Much of it is things you already know or can deduce. The valdemironi were slowly working their way in behind the scenes here- a lot of the politics that was happening just before you went to get the baron were theirs. The assassination wasn't; that was intended to derail their plan, someone else trying to stop them.

A lot of people don't trust the baron; he ran off and left them. The priests are only a little better, but only a little might be enough.

Help from the trickster is always offered with ulterior purpose. Sometimes it doesn't make sense, sometimes the purpose is so screwed up and convoluted- they practise on each other, that's how they train- that they just wing it and intend that whatever happens, they'll pretend that they meant it.

They were sent to stop you. Not necessarily kill; stall and blather would have done. Tentacle thing was probably there for the same reason. No, they're not supposed to be working together.

[Simon_Jester]

Larric grunts. "Let him go, let's keep going. Fast."

[Eleventh Century Remnant]

'Well, we've got one side of the story.' Lisanna says. 'Dirt, with me.' starts heading back the way you came. 'See if we can'lt get tentacle thing to give up his version. Larric, meet you at the docks.'

[Fiji_Fury]

"Be careful my friend," Dale says to Dirt as he goes with Lisanna.

"Larric, you set the pace. Sir Alfred and I can match it and keep a careful eye out for more interference."

Dale now draws his sword. The mundane one, not the magic-murder blade.

[Eleventh Century Remnant]

Close to where things are happening, there are a lot or people hiding in cellars or running away; further away, they are starting to come out and see what's happening, trying to decide if they need to run and hide or not. There's a rubble zone that you'll have to cross, and it looks pointy- anyone who expects bad things to happen has decided this is a good place to stand and fight from.

About a dozen, half of them with proper weapons- that you can see. Leadership, they look like locals, small craftsmen, there's a carpenter with a two handed axe who looks as if the others would listen to him, and he looks at you. 'What the hells is going on up there?'

You can see the lake from here, there's a bonfire- not running wild, properly organised with people standing around it, looks as if they're trying to figure out what's going on too. How are you dealing with this lot?



The tentacle thing is evidently trying to escape; or at least pretending to. There are two of the valdemironi agents down, one looking a bit...squished. The other three who ran for it, two of them ahve come back. Action?



Oh yes, I ahve an actual excuse for spotty attendance and bad logic, it's market time.

[Simon_Jester]

OOC:

Is Alfred still with us? Come to think of it, is Panzersharkcat still with us? I'll act IC in a while, right now I've no time and am wondering about his status.

[Eleventh Century Remnant]

Well, that was a glorious resounding 'meh' of a response. Panzer hasn't been on since october 26, Fiji since october 31.

I don't know what to do. This is depressing me, I want stuff to happen, movement, action, and the pace of the game has dropped almost to nothing; waiting doesn't help, new stuff to act on doesn't help, leaving clues and leads doesn't help- I'm typing mostly into, apart from Simon and thank you for that, into a void.

I don't want to stop but it's not as if we're going anywhere at the moment, is it?

[Simon_Jester]

Let's put PMs out to Fiji and Panzer; my impression is that you have your own channels with Kaelan. See what happens, and maybe just consider this temporarily on hold?

I will see if I know anyone who'd be interested in joining up and able to participate with reasonable frequency; we've dropped back down toward the minimum viable party size of 3-4 with varying degrees of participation.

[Fiji_Fury]

I apologize for the absence. I was leading a student trip to Montreal and thought I'd be able to log in and check up on events and post. Turns out that was an utter pipe dream.

I'll gather some ideas and post actions/suggestions to the thread tomorrow.

[Kaelan]

Currently having my house still torn down around me (onto the 3rd structural wall now...), and in dispute with some of the builders over quality control. Expected completion time was last week, now its in 2 weeks time. Honest gov. Maybe....

I will get a post up in the morning prior to work.

P.S. DW has also said that she wants to repaint the rooms when the works completed as well. I feel my wallet haemorrhaging and its not even Christmas yet...

[Fiji_Fury]

IC:
Dale nods toward the carpenter.

"The temple of Valdemiron intends to make pawns of the entire city. They are besieging the castle to replace the Baron and his people with their own puppets. We have need to speak with the temple and priests of Ikrahn (spelling?). We need to foil the Valdemironi plot before they needlessly get more people killed."

OOC:
This seems like a good time to take on new folks who want to play. The opportunity to step into the thick of the action as either a heretofore quiet insider or an outsider looking at the situation for the first time is certainly viable.

[Simon_Jester]

Larric smiles a bit.

"So, we'll just be heading over there, yes?" He indicates the bonfire.

[Kaelan]

Well if two of our friends have had a change of heart, Dirt's willing to let them run past to find a quiet corner to go wibble in. Given the fact that one of the valdemirons has been squished by the unknown horror either its a very good illusion, or carrying a big hammer. The fact that its running away bodes well at the moment.

Striding beside Lisanna has they head after it Dirt wonders if the tentacle would take well to life as a potted plant....