Messages

1

Screen Shots & Obituaries / Re: Linden Blanque - The Blanque Slate

« on: February 03, 2023, 08:19:16 PM »

Thanks for all the hours of fun!

2

Suggestions / Re: Replace Slay Living on Druids with Drown

« on: January 23, 2023, 09:17:32 PM »

Yeah its a powerful necromancy spell that does potentially facilitate some cheese, so removing it strikes me as rationale

and I agree with what I think is the implied premise here: as a powerful necromancy spell, its appropriate to attach to its use some evil necromancer stigma, which therefore makes it inappropriate for essentially all druids as they're usually imagined (and probably alot of clerics too!).

As an offset other than drown, could give baleful polymorph a minor tweak upwards. (e.g. require touch attack, but remove the DC malus? maybe add in some features for different spell foci?)

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Screen Shots & Obituaries / Re: [Pitra Schneider: The Broken Mirror]

« on: January 22, 2023, 08:39:03 AM »

Had a blast playing with Pitra on Constance! Part of me thinks things would have been way different had she had her french maid with her!

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Suggestions / Re: Remove Buyable Crafting Feats

« on: January 14, 2023, 09:51:03 PM »

There is for sure an upside for these being fairly accessible feats; there's a straight forward way to put consumables in the hands of characters so they can do the hard/fun/dangerous things all the while doesn't need to be a big hit to what feats they might take.

On the other hand to RwG's point, alot (though not all) of the transaction part of this hardly even qualifies as roleplay.

So maybe something middle of the road would work.

Imagine you can still easily access the feats, but your throughput is throttled, if you are a lone brewer, you are capped at how many things you can brew efficiently. something like you can make 5 potions efficiently, and after that it starts to becomes steeply more costly, with some decay/cool down. Simultaneously, let's say there's a small, limited number of items or workbenches (licenses?) which eliminate this cap, and allow you to more efficiently mass produce. These scarce resources than could be locked behind factions or perks, or otherwise be the objects of competition for those that want to make money large scale as merchants.

5

Screen Shots & Obituaries / Re: Heron, Songlark of the Eastern Wind

« on: December 12, 2022, 06:34:25 AM »

I really enjoyed playing with Heron; really hit the mark with this one. Thanks for all the fun.

Preparing for adventures!


Turning princes into frogs


Keeping an open mind


Picking a fight with some bonecollectors


Fateful visit from the librarian

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Screen Shots & Obituaries / Re: [Meryl Fitzgerald: Daddy's Little Stonebuilder]

« on: November 30, 2022, 05:15:19 PM »

I really enjoyed playing with Meryl. A very compelling mix of lightheartedness and tragic themes. Always elevated the roleplay.

And I appreciate the nonstandard barbarian strats well done!

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Screen Shots & Obituaries / Re: Igor Morozov, Master of Monsters

« on: November 14, 2022, 06:35:23 AM »

Well done!

8

Suggestions / Re: Make Peerage PVP free between retainers and non retainers

« on: November 09, 2022, 07:08:03 PM »

The pvp rule boundaries with regards to peerage and other areas is not ideal, but it is rational for both setting reasons and practical reasons.

This suggestion strikes me as stemming more from sour grapes than well considered improvement.

The server is big, and so much of it is pvp-free that giving some characters more latitude to initiate single-party consent pvp without some balancing change could, overall, decrease the quantity and quality of roleplay and character interactions.

As for the complaint about some characters avoiding or minimizing exposure to pvp in NPC populated areas, that could very well be explained by in character reasons, e.g. those characters were forewarned about such a plot. But, even if its not, frankly it could say just as much about you as it does them as role-players. I would rather strive to have a conflict of this type be something all involved players can see as engaging, worthwhile, consequential, and consistent with the characters  and their interactions - and barring that, at least sportingly fair. This may be one reason why retainers are incentivized to engage in formal duels with honor stakes and so forth, rather than drive by shootings in the checkout line.

I really do think if players of retainers put their minds to it, they can come up with lots of other things to try or do in the sort of situation you have described; and indeed both examples in the past, and those offered in this thread are worth considering. Besides, being quick to subdue or kill people may not cement a character's reputation as a lawful authority figure of the realm. Currently, that does seem to me to be something a character has to establish and maintain, rather than be granted by membership status alone.

9

Suggestions / Re: Remove Peerage doorkeeper or make Peerage non-PvP

« on: October 18, 2022, 07:41:26 PM »

Moving it inside the peerage might be a happy middle.

That is, the PVP rule boundary (a concept that may be necessary, though is not exactly natural) could remain where it is, since attacks by the doorkeeper's transition are not the only reason fights do occur in that area of the map. Though as you point out those occurrences because of the sendings are probably the most frequent and have a relatively high risk for generating rule violations/grievances/cheese.

And there's precedent for such an arrangement, e.g. Ticker had that, and the Drill to some extent has it, other doorkeeper in the rings have it.

Like you say, the issue isn't pvp free areas leading out to doorkeepers, or pvp not-free ones; both exist. Its a combination of it being frequently used and in an area where the distances make it prone to those sort of situations occurring where it can start but not finish because of the rules.

Doesn't address what I see as some of the less than ideal customs and practices around sendings, but that's probably a harder problem!

10

Books and Publications of the City / Metamorphosis of Crowsong, the Death of the Willow

« on: October 03, 2022, 07:28:41 PM »

  .--.      .-'.      .--.      .--.      .--.      .--.      .`-.      .--.
:::::.\::::::::.\::::::::.\::::::::.\::::::::.\::::::::.\::::::::.\::::::::.\
'      `--'      `.-'      `--'      `--'      `--'      `-.'      `--'      `

Metamorphosis of Crowsong, the Death of the Willow

To affect the metamorphosis on the appointed day, we first followed Ser Wolfson into a grove deep below the surface, tended by myconiods.

There, we came upon Geriand in conversation with the fungus folk there. The fungus folk are keepers who abhor all manner of violence, who spend countless hours communing with great living web, and have in this way become wise to the currents and causes of life in the largest spans of time and space.

This grove was to be a great resevoir of life of all manner, during the long chill, and would, at the appropriate moment aid the full blossoming of Spring once the thaw had arrived. Indeed, that animals and plants of all kinds were led there to be spared the winter, had been one of the labors of a previous Groundskeepers, Ser Cecil Sommerset.

Geriand spoke to me there in that grove; he told us that the change would cast away the curse Zarano had placed on the line of Sunpurse and would serve to warm and keep the promise of spring and provide a means for mankind to survive the apocalypse of the onset of the Nothing. Though all these blessing would necessitate a great and heavy cost. He said that the circle we had diligently tended, hid and safeguarded these years past would be unmade, and that the Great Willow's life force would be required. He did not however explain that he himself would give of his body, and see his spirit transformed, along with Mai and Phelan. It is my considered opinion he reserved that price to be paid as a matter entirely of their own accounting.

Knowing then of some of the costs, ignorant of others, Geriand left the choice to us. As first among the Druids at the time, I agreed we ought proceed and see the change done. The men and women of Hulbert's cause likewise assented.

So we ventured, resolved from that place. We entered the manse quietly, from the catacombs. Aveline Pettwoode, Sweetgrass, Isaiah ibn Hazr, Elinny Irnimane, Hubert Borwyn, the Marquess de Fungal, Rin of Oldflowers, Ser Hulbert Wolfson, Mai the Dryad, and Phelan the Crowsong were present. We were transfixed by the presence of the boy - made quiet and demure as we each privately wondered what would happen next exactly; though the feeling that the axis of the world was turning in that very room was inescapable. Those few of us who remain who can speak and listen to the Spirits felt their hopeful clamor.

As Geriand and Mai took their positions for the rite, Phelan spoke softly to us gathered. He said simply that he had but one thing left to give onto us, for our service. He pardoned us. Absolved each there of their oaths to his noble line, all promises and obligations of fealty having been satisfied. He bid us one and all to go from that place, free - that the line of Sunpurse from that moment forward, was no more. That our charge was to flourish and survive.

Reader, of all the hopes I had placed in my young Lord, I confess to ye a smallness of spirit in that moment. In some ways, this was what I had most feared. I was, and perhaps always will be, of an obedient and nurturing disposition - to my Lady Audrey Oldflowers and the woe-form children we midwifed, to the Last Lord of Sunpurse, his Reeves and Knights, to Geriand and his promise to Desmond. These men and women, I submit to thee as proof that nobility, true nobility, can be found amongst us. That they would give of themselves fully for all our sakes, abandon position, station, even body, for our benefit and ask nothing, but instead lift some of the weight of our conscience and leave to us our freedoms not only intact but enlarged; it is this very quality paradoxically which makes their departure from our lives so painful. That we should have to live without their light.

And with the dawning realization that I would no longer be able to serve, we watched on as Geriand, Mai, and Phelan began the transformation - our part in stealing the aspects of nature finished, now our only use, to witness.

Their bodies such as they were would be given, their spirits transformed. The life of the Ancient Willow would be bent and reshaped, transformed to connect them. A new root of the world sprung from that place; the first time such has occurred since the ring walls were raised. Of what the Three in One said, I have recorded above in the previous chapter. For this account of that moment, I recall the words of my comrade, that orphan raised by Ser Hulbert, Sweetgrass.

Lord Sunpurse the Unconquered, the Tenth and the Last, led the ritual. His last command was the disbanding of House Sunpurse, a gift of our freedom to walk our own path, and the end of our oaths of duty to him.

Bid by his merciful heart, he chose to save the ungrateful people of the Peerage Ward, among many others who did not realize that they needed to be saved.

A terrible cycle of darkness and suffering has been sundered.

When the End comes, when the King turns his face away from this place and leaves us to die forgotten in the shadow of his contempt.

Then will the prophecy of Crowsong be fulfilled, for in his arms we will find salvation, a hearth unbroken, a Garden of Unconquered Hope.

A chance to survive. A door of sunlight. A place that will defy the sorrow of the coming void and the hate of the coming winter.

His are the hands of Spring.

Following the transformation, a crowd gathered, gobsmacked, and in a great confusion and wonder at the incredible sight of the three towering trees and abundant life that sprang forth. Monty Owlstone in some haste to pass judgment caused a minor stir. And yet, the crowd there instead of joining in riot, lowered weapons and bid one and all be at peace with one another in that place so clearly meant for peace. And so, for the brief moment, it was so. As I escorted the excited Owlstone from the grove, a brace of Orzans attacked just outside the grove. A regrettable melee ensued. It was in this riot that tragically Ser Hulbert Wolfson, the last Knight of Sunpurse, was slain by an Orzan.
  .--.      .-'.      .--.      .--.      .--.      .--.      .`-.      .--.
:::::.\::::::::.\::::::::.\::::::::.\::::::::.\::::::::.\::::::::.\::::::::.\
'      `--'      `.-'      `--'      `--'      `--'      `-.'      `--'      `

11

Screen Shots & Obituaries / Re: Haggahwhisp, the Visitor

« on: September 30, 2022, 05:18:28 AM »

A very textured character. Terrifying, mighty, uncanny, insecure, gullible, curious - he came alive from the screen, a very human portrayal . Credit to the form. Really enjoyed all the hours we got to play.

So many screenshots, but somehow this one seems the most fitting.

12

Screen Shots & Obituaries / Re: Fernando de la Vega, a simple ghost.

« on: September 26, 2022, 04:28:48 PM »

Not many characters that can pull off such a wide range: Fernando had plenty of light-hearted moments, but also deeply moving tragic ones. A joy to play with. Bravo.

Why did the man in black have a scarf of green?



Snow pressed on new lashes, flogged by Orzans for keeping the wrong company.


He was also a teenage mutant ninja turtle

13

Correspondence / Bartley Eustacius Fulmineth II

« on: September 25, 2022, 05:10:09 AM »

A simple note stuffed in an envelope addressed to Bartley Eustacius Fulmineth II let at Minchin's Boarding House

BEF,

I am familiar with the existence, but not all the contents Grynith's Grimoire, after having witnessed the dealings of Enesto the Turncoat with Brie Cesme.

Ye are certain - Soto-eg's name appears in that work?

-Rin of Oldflowers.

14

Books and Publications of the City / The Seven Labors of Ser Hulbert Wolfson

« on: September 22, 2022, 06:17:19 PM »

-- The echos of three voices, made one, breathe into the open air of rings 99, 98, and 97 as though whispers upon the winds. They are warm, they are sudden, and they invade your thoughts with no resistance. --

Thus the curse is broken! Ten, the final time. Nine the last sacrifice.

In absolute resolve and finite determination have we sundered the final hold upon your freedoms.

A key is left with you. A path forward curved from Auld Stones.

By aspects stolen were these gifts delivered: By Unmeasured Growth, by Protection and Life, by Transformation, by Sacrifice, by breaking of Cycles; and by Purification of Blood.

We leave with you a Hearth for the long Winter.

Bereft of the Willow, the Curse, and given life by paths upon the Oldways.

Flourish and survive.

The Seven Labors of Ser Hulbert Wolfson

Ser Hulbert Wolfson was a Druid and Reeve who Desmond had entrusted with the task of instructing his son on both the manner and purpose of the change, to be completed before the curse could take effect. Ser Wolfson had witnessed the massacre of the Students. He knew that Orianna was an instrument of Zarano's by Geriand's auguries, and so had made the tent in the south eastern part of the park his dwelling after Desmond's murder, there to prepare and keep his oath. Though his hair was white, and his service to the Lords of Sunpurse had taken all his good years, and many more besides, he did not despair or sit idle. He charted the ley and the aspects of nature. He raised the orphans of the slain Students, and watched closely over those that yet remained who were loyal to Desmond, in the once but brief paradise of Willow Park.

Now that the young Phelan was returned to his ancestral home, among the ward, Zarano away on the drill, out past the whispering ways, and Orianna his mother undone as was described in the previous chapter, Ser Hulbert Wolfson knew his task was at hand. Phelan, Geriand, and Mai's part in the change was the greater, but not singular component required for the metamorphosis. He knew that seven Aspects of Nature were required, along with the Spirit of the Ancient. He gathered quietly the few who remained that had served Desmond, and would serve Phelan Crowsong. They were the following:

Sweet Grass - A young swordsman, and son of two Sunpurse gardeners who were slain in the massacre of the Students. He was raised since by Ser Wolfson.

Aveline Pettwoode - The last scion of the House Pettwoode, cousins to Sunpurse. A mystic whose parents had taught the rituals and the meaning of the Great Wheel from the vast desert.

Hubert Borwyn - A veteran footmen who had served Desmond. He sought redemption in service to Phelan for the shame he felt at having lost the father.

Myrd Duckweaver - A fowler who had remained in the Willow Park, following the death of Desmond, he had deserted from the House under Orianna.

Tiktika the Mighty - A mushroom farmer and Druid who was elevated to the rank of Wise One among the Students, a companion and teacher to Crowsong during his Guardianship by the Druids.

Rin of Oldflowers - A retainer of House Oldflowers, vassals to the House of Sunpurse who returned to renew their oaths on the event of Phelan's return in the Ward. Groundskeeper of Willowpark.

And so, Ser Wolfson and these few began the great labor of gathering the requisite Aspects of Nature. These aspects can be manifested at the conjunction of a place in nature where they are strongest. And yet such places are also known to powerful spirits who either love, or hate, covet or protect them, in accordance to the aspect. As is written above in this chapter, all who were present in the Ward the day the metamorphosis took place heard their names given sound. These names are but imperfect notions for these aspects, as nature does not conform itself always to fit man's tools to understand, yet they are instructive enough:

1. Unmeasured Growth
2. Protection
3. Life
4. Transformation
5. Sacrifice
6. Breaking of Cycles
7. Purification of Blood

We saw then in these works both wonders and horrors. We did great and good deeds to reach those places of power. We also committed crimes and outrages. I submit as personal testimony, that

I saw nightmares and altars to things terrible and dark, old as Agartha, dark offerings held by bones that once wore the colors of Flevas deep in the underwood, offerings to shadows and spiders beyond time and reason.

I bathed my hands in the blood of a spirit who was as pure as white snow, deep in the wilds of the Weald, and felt the world shake with cries.

We raged, grappled, and snapped - overpowering the baying pack of Scarvall's children in the Woe-formed wood.

We battled legions of the Old Masters before ziggurats, draped with great snakes who grew and ate their tails in a wild perfect balance.

We witnessed grotesquely beautiful mutated and overgrown gulls splashing in a great fountain as if it was a delicate bird bath.

I saw the withered bodies of retainers, staked and bled as offerings, blood ankle high, a dark tribute of loyalty before an altar surrounded by ghouls, tended as it was by the oldest liches and Rememberers in the cemetery of that still smells as that sweet flower.

These then were the labors of Ser Hulbert Wolfson we undertook. In each the old Druid manifested the aspect, in the end. Though the tasks were great and the guardians of all kinds mighty, and our pains many, our collective will did match the terrible and great things we resolved to do. The price was high. Not all of us survived. Moreover, these aspects left unguarded as they were, would in time fall under the power of the Fey, the subject of another chapter. Yet despite the prices, and their were yet more, the prize was a worthy one, and that is the subject of the next chapter; the metamorphosis of Phelan and death of the Willow.


 

15

Books and Publications of the City / Return of Phelan, Death of Orianna

« on: September 20, 2022, 06:28:07 PM »

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The Return of Phelan, Death of Orianna

The Cinquefoil Rose rebellion did bloom, as planted and planned by Reeve Jodfry a'Valar, Actress Elizabetha d'Auvergne, Adrian Velstra, and others, about a year after the Count's return and occupation of the Peerage Ward. The Grand Vizier Sardistan was defeated, and the strange memories and visions of Arrenhius, in the old Sunpurse Manse by the Pond's shore were witnessed and indeed given human form, and not so very long after, came to pass onto Sverri the Small, parts of whose biography we have detailed in the previous chapter.

With the new reality of the Cinquefoil Rose rebellion, the tenancy of once widowed, now remarried to the object of that rebellion, Orianna nee Sunspyre was a difficult political fact to reconcile. Anders Orza wanted to marry her, others wanted her dead no doubt. Many were as of yet unaware of her true nature, and perhaps regarded her, as always, a widow worthy of pity and admiration. This thorny issue however was resolved seemingly miraculously by the sudden and well-planned kidnapping of her person by the undead forces of the Pallid Prince from the Sunpurse Manse inside the Ward. The Pallid Prince who dwelled in his city of bones in the darkest crypts of Ergnyium was an ancient and powerful lich, who required for his pleasures and indeed his immortality, wives. And so this is why he seized Orianna. That is three men who have had the dubious honor of being Orianna's husband, Lord Desmond who she murdered, Zarano the Wight, and the Pallid Prince.

With now both Zarano remote on his drill, but opposed by the Cinquefoil Rose, and the murderess Oriana under the power of the Pallid Prince, Reeve Cooper Crum and many of the remaining Students saw that both the circumstances and time was upon them to return Phelan to the Ward to reclaim what remained of his inheritance there. His Guardianship thus took new form and meaning as the many nobles were stunned by his reappearance from his years spent missing and his presumed death, and now evident safekeeping by the Druids. On one hand, a return to the line of Desmond following the usurpation by Zarano could be a source of healing and unity to that ancient House in exactly the time it was needed, on the other hand, it was clear now to everyone that Desmond's Druidism though extremely unpopular, had in fact saved his House, not destroyed it.

Whatever the sentiments among the nobles of the Ward at the boy's return and his strange guardians, Phelan's plea to see his mother returned could not easily by cast aside. Widows and mothers in distress are a potent symbol, that she was remarried to someone who could have rescued her and wanted to murder her own child  was not well understood at the time and so did not diminish this power, and so a lengthy and hard fought campaign did follow to recapture the Lady Orianna and defeat the Pallid Prince. That campaign was ultimately successful in those aims, though it should be remarked that the defeat of the Pallid Prince did serve Zarano's object of advancing his drill through the 92nd. Thus it stands to some reason that Zarano may have engineered the kidnapping of his own wife so that the noble Houses, in rebellion or not, could at least once more be bent to his intent. House Orza and its Knife Manfred Japes, who in many ways took command of the enterprise, had also the aim to claim the 92nd ring, where to this day they collect revenues. Orza therefore was willing to subscribe to any cause to war, even a seemingly good one, at the hazard of helping Zarano whom all the Houses joined the Rose to oppose.

Immediately following their victory, the armsmen returned to the Ward with Orianna, who was, by all accounts, some manner of wight herself now, following the dark wedding traditions of the Pallid. A confusing scene passed inside Moonspear Castle, whereby Guisppe used some manner of divination to declare Phelan indeed, not a pretender, but the true article and Lady Oriana, now double-wife to a Vampire and Lich tried to also to double the number of murders of Lords of Sunpurse. She was struck down by Knights and adventurers alike, while trying to plunge her own dagger into Phelan. And so this insidious pawn, placed artfully as some avatar of the Lady in Waiting by Zarano, was finally undone.

And it is then in this time, where hardly had the tears of these fresh sorrows dried on the boy's face, that Ser Hulbert Wolfson, began in earnest the instruction of Phelan on the means discovered by his father and Geriand to free his line from the curse Zarano had used to cull its years and also yoke the Ward.

-- All the Count's rubies and all the Count's men couldn't put Orianna back together again. In a dark tomb turned viridian, a boy is attended by hints of horror and shadows that slither but shouldn't. His hands gingerly hold an instrument. Fiddling, while his soul burns. --

-- His magistrate attends him, offering the boy imperatives masqueraded as choices. The youth considers, soft in the face but hard in the eyes. The certain sense that something is about to transpire causes many a neck hair to tingle. And time, free again from illegality, inches on... --