The Ghostfence rp: Discussion and Planning #2 Options

[minque]

I'm going away tonight, to Germany and i won't be able to come online until very late monday eve....probably!

But Danny, you drag Rianne along, you can play her, so things doesn't get stuck because I'm away!

[bbqplatypus]

Don't count on me being around this week. It's finals week. So don't move on just yet.

[Dantrag]

should we just make a 'skip ahead' post and say we arrived at ghostgate?

[minque]

should we just make a 'skip ahead' post and say we arrived at ghostgate?

Sounds good to me! Then we can concentrate on the intrigues that will occur at GG!!

[Olen]

Yes a vote for, barring any votes against I'll do it tomorrow, unless anyone wants to do it before.

[jack cloudy]

Here's a vote for. I really should have gotten back here sooner. Sorry about being late.

[Olen]

We should probably have a better idea of where things are in the construction site. To that end I've made the beginings of a map.

Here's a link to the area: http://www.uesp.net/maps/mwmap/mwmap.shtml...656&zoom=16

And this is how I propose it is roughly laid out. Please note i've written it as fact but don't mean it so, its just easier that way.
Blue is generally military and personnel things with the Eastern Barracks at the south (double square) being geared more towards the workforce and the High Barracks (someone come up with better names) being entirely military and situated at the north. The circles are guard posts to protect the camp with the one on the side valley being undermanned as they don't expect an attack from there (though it's dangerous to travel hense why the group didn't use it).
The orange area is general sleeping quarters, again any threat from the next foyada hasn't been been left out of sight out of mind.
Pink is administration, it seems likely that it would develop centrally, probably...
Purple is temple, the northern building is an actual temple (with associated offices space etc.) nice and close to the shrine with stunning views of ash and the dwelling of Ur, the antithesis of their gods (where else would you want to live). The southern one is where the ordinators are and where the more valuable stuff is stored, with general supplies being where it says 'storage'.
The red line marks the eventual path of the ghostfence (I could have left it there but I decided to have a map as it would be not as it will be).

Click for larger version.

Any thoughts? Things I've missed, or that need moving?
Ask me if you want the original xcf (format the gimp uses) to tweak anything.

This post has been edited by Olen: Feb 2 2010, 05:56 PM

[Olen]

Double post but it's unrelated and a while has passed.

What are we doing next? My last reply could break the ice somewhat and catalyse things. Are we still dividing into two groups? If so we should allocate them and work out where they're going, if not we need another plan of some kind.

Who's still active?

[Colonel Mustard]

*Emerges from cave groggily, clutching cup of tea*

Gah.

Sorry I haven't been on at all lately, I've had exams and the like taking up most of my time. Still, they're over now, so I'll try and get back on board and start RPing again. Hell, I'll go and update Erna's status now. I haven't jumped inside his head for wee while now.

That said, I'm not sure I want to. It's a scary place...

This post has been edited by Colonel Mustard: Jan 25 2010, 08:56 PM

[canis216]

Sorry I haven't been responding--should've forced Dranas to do some interacting, but I've been recovering from a back injury and didn't feel like doing much of anything for a good while. But I'm good to go.

[Olen]

Currently active we have Minque, Danny, canis, Mustard, jack and myself. Unless anyone else reemerges from hibernation soonish that's probably too few to go with the whole splitting the group totally thing but equally I think something had better happen soonish to keep things moving. Anyone got any thoughts? We could send whoever off to the worksite to discover something and have those remaining find something in the camp (or be sent to get something). So they'd only be apart for a day to keep momentum together...

Anyway I think I'm done for the arrival day so would vote for moving it along...

[jack cloudy]

Well, I don't really mind what we do but I do have a problem. I mean, I know that Haz is going to try some sabotaging. (probably on the line of ripping up administrative documents, or spoiling food. He doesn't want the slaves to suffer too much from his actions. It's not worth it....yet.)

But what about Eno? Quite honestly, other than signing in his supplies tomorrow, he doesn't have a thing to do but hang around waiting for a caravan back to Balmora. I guess I could say that he lost some of his supplies at the ruins. As a penalty he would have to...I dunno. Eno doesn't come across as a laborer. Although now that I think of it, he does know how to make and maintain tools so he could be put to work helping out there, providing nails and fixing hammers and stuff. Heh, maybe I'll be able to get some interplay between Haz and Eno going on. Haz starts displacing nails and breaking hammers, Eno makes new nails and fixes the hammers while complaining about boneheaded workers not looking after their stuff properly.



Anyway, I suggest we figure out what there is to find and where first before we think about splitting up. Maybe it is best that we set up the find for the day after tomorrow and spend one day having everyone go about their bussiness. While doing their job, they see and hear things. Then later during the night, someone else might note that what they saw was a bit odd.

For example, let's say there something odd in the behavior of a few of the people. How about improper handling of the bones that would mess up the ritual? Then it's best to have Dralas observe it since he's looking for his ancestor's bones and might go out of his way to watch the ritual. Then during the night, he might talk about it. Rothan notices that the ritual was not quite the Ghostfencing ritual. Though I'm not sure he would be that knowledgable on this. Or maybe Rianne figures something is odd, I don't know how much she knows about Ghostfences either, but she might know a few bits about using bones in magic rituals.

[Olen]

I think Rothan would be more likely to notice certain people or documents were off (he has good reason to do some spying) than anything about obscure rituals, I suppose he might notice if it was invoked to the wrong god or something big though.

How much do you want him to go looking for Haz, at the moment I've got it in the back of his mind but he could easily forget until a more conveniant time when things get interesting.

I like the idea of rounding off tonight (if no one has anything left to do) then having a day settling in and doing their stuff before being sent off or finding anything too interesting. If we go with the being sent to retrieve an artifact which is actually an ash statue type thing then we could hear reports of that - say Rothan hears that it exists, and maybe plays into their hands by suggesting its retrieval, and one of the labourers hears something nasty about it being haunted or whatnot.

We could all end up going to get the artifact, Rothan would want to and they'd need people with better knowledge of the ashlands (Rianne and Dralas), Dranas might tag along to see if there's anything worth stealing... Eno is a bit trickier but there might be a reason, or another character could be introduced to interact with him in the camp...

[jack cloudy]

Yeah, I also thought his specialty lies elsewhere but he was the most likely person I could think of. And I seriously doubt they're going to invoke the wrong god. That would be way too obvious. It should be something subtle that is just enough to break it. Or hell, how about this. Have the ghostfence be activated in sections as it gets built. Then we can see that something went wrong if a newly finished part of the ghostfence is weak/flickers or something. It doesn't need to be completely broken, just not functioning the way it should be. Could be a mere accident, could be sabotage. Either way, it sounds worth investigating to me.

Have Rothan ask Dralas if he can identify the ones who did the ritual since Dralas mentioned earlier that he was there the day before or something.

Or maybe do that after visiting the cave if we're going to do that. Ya know, give the guys time to finish the section instead of having everything happen within hours of each other.

As for Eno, I can think of two reasons for him to go. Well, not reasons, just ways for him to be useful.
1: Pull some previously unmentioned skill or knowledge out of his behind and probably link it to his Redoran past.
2 (more sensible): Make use of his habit of making his own tools and have him come along as a sort of item repair guy. Much easier than taking a whole forge with you and a big toolbox or a billion spares. Same thing with locked doors. If it isn't magic, he could probably whip up a key out of twigs and bone fragments. But then again, we could just have someone pick the damn lock and be on our way in ten minutes.


For Haz, Rothan probably won't find him and even if they do come across each other, odds are that Rothan won't recognize him. Although, a tailless Argonian stands out a bit. Yeah, it's a double-edged sword but I needed the disguise ability. Anyway, you can have Rothan just casually look around as he goes about his bussiness and perhaps become slightly worried after having been all over the camp.


Ok then, back to the ash-statue idea and then I'll shut up. I agree it would be best to use tomorrow to gather rumours and we can put them all together at a campfire and then decide: could be worth investigating. Or maybe they just put them all together, shrug about it, have Apelles then pass over the word to a superior (Sleeper?) who then basically gives him the order to go out and find it.

Next morning, Apelles rounds up the rest of our dudes (minus Haz obviously) and invites them to come along since they know as much about it as he does and he already knows that they're not useless in a fight...well most of them. Also, he should probably mention that he's cleared things already with the administration so that if they go along, they won't be reported as slacking off on the worksite and later find that they have to pay a fine/doing extra work when they come back.

[Olen]

I moved us on a day, if anyone's got objections I'll edit. The above ideas sound good to me. I shan't have Rothan officially register yet, I think some snooping around may be better for moving things on. I was thinking of him finding some ledger/whatever with figures which don't work and suggest very poor organisation or sabotage (probably have one work team moving stone to a site only to have the next clear it or something of that ilk). I might have him hear about whatever artifact too?

Depends on what other people are planning though...

[Dantrag]

i say go for it, olen. sounds like the best way to make it work with the remaining active players.

[minque]

seconded! I'll try to post soon...

[Olen]

I'm not sure what anyone plans for the next RP day but if anyone's at a loss and fancies RPing snooping around some official buildings it would be better than me just having Rothan wander around on his own.

[jack cloudy]

Well, I was just thinking. I could make it that someone wandered off with Eno's supplies during the night. (yup, one of those administrative errors in action) Now Eno being Eno, he doesn't want to register and end up paying for the 'lost' supplies when he's damn well sure he had them all with him last night.

His first step would be asking any familiar faces, such as Rothan, whether they've seen his bags.

[Olen]

Go for it. It gives him a good excuse to go raking through some log books.