Time for a new one!


link to the previous one

I think that the most important thing right now is deciding on how to finish up the fight and even more importantly, how we are going to handle Rianne's injuries.

I guess I'll ask you, Minque. What would you like to happen with Rianne?

Another thing is where are we going with Haz and Rothan? Its really up to you Jack, he's going to be suspicious at the very least but do you want him to discover any more? Or follow it up much? Or just let it go, run through some prayer and forget? I could see Rothan doing any of them.

But yes, we need to finish the fight. Wasn't there a healer at the ruin? Is Rianne dead or just very wounded? Shall we teleport to the construction site after this and introduce the sixth house there?

Hmm, I think it would be best if we keep building up the suspicion slowly. Basically just carry on the way we've been doing it, with the little setbacks and all. I mean, Haz has already entered the dangerous 'escaped slave' stage, but slipped back to 'some ignorant semi-heretical bloke from the mainland'.

So with the soldier stabilized for now, how about Rothan and Haz decide to carefully make their way back in to evacuate some more wounded? (And for Haz to steal some bandages somewhere.) It would seem more prudent at the moment than continuing our conversation on the one true faith.

Whether we skip forward or not, I'd say we can pick up where we left again with Haz trying to escape into the packs of slaves, only for Rothan to pick just that moment to repeat his invitation for prayer.

But anyway, that's just my idea.

As for the healer, I had an Armiger say that there was one outside the ruins, if I remember correctly. My argument involved broken legs and stairs I believe, never mind the fact that Rothan and Haz just carried some guy down said stairs without any real trouble. Ah well, they're strong fellas so who cares.

So we should be able to find one if we look around and shout a few times. That said though, he probably has his hands full already with the wounded escapees. Maybe there are some more inside, hiding under tables and stuff?

And Minque's words involved 'dying breath' so I'd say that Rianne is at the least mortally injured. But then again, I doubt she wants to turn Rianne into Dralas' ghostly sidekick for the rest of the rp. So someone should probably get her to a healer asap.

Ok..no way Rianne will die! And become a ghost? nono...She needs a healer yes, but what she most of all needs is dralas, one of her own who would know what to do with her...mentally!

Erna can slip away whenever, but until BBQ turns up I'm kind of unable to deal with Khallet (who will, hopefully, be dealt with in a suitably thrilling manner).

Yeah, I've been pretty damn busy this week. Maybe on Wednesday or Thursday I'll have the time.

As long as it's done at some point then I'll be happy. Thanks for letting me know though.

Well, that's BBQ and I, then.

I should have this finished on Friday - I can't do it a day sooner, I'm afraid. I've got stuff to do on every night until then. So yeah - this weekend, I promise.


Speaking of this weekend, I thought I'd relate a little factoid to you - Saturday is Apelles's birthday. How did I come up with this, you ask? Well, let's just say there's another seasoned veteran turning 40 in the tenth month of the year who is playing a prominent role in my home state's professional football team. The connection didn't occur to me until about a month ago (The Tower = Frostfall = October). And for some reason, I just couldn't let go of the idea, so I figured "Heck, why not?" Sure, it's a bit silly. Okay, it's EXTREMELY silly. But I think it's fun.

It's irrelevant at this point - the story is still taking place in mid-to-late summer, I think. But I thought I'd bring it up anyway because the notion that Apelles has the same birthday as Brett Favre amuses me.

Just wondering..is this rp totally dead now? Where's Danny f ex?

No, not yet. Tuesday. Tuesday (I hope) is when I'll make my contribution. I have too much homework right now. And try as I might, I STILL haven't gotten a work study position. I've applied to about six different places.

I think it needs something drastic. My suggestion is for bbq to finish off the fight and then either he or someone else move us all to arriving at the construction site and pushing some more storyline into it.

But it might be at the final resurection stage...

Is it this RP or is it just a change in the people here which has rendered it so much less active than THIH and particulrly the eariler ones which ran at several posts per day?

I don't know if it is the rp honestly but for me personally, it's probably a change in me as well. I mean, I used to be active at the fanfiction section as well as the rp. But now, I haven't written a damn thing in over a year (or maybe two, haven't checked) and my rp-ing activity has lowered considerably as well. I'm getting lazy.

I've got a pretty big storyline planned, which I think I'll probably need to reveal to provide the impetus to get the story in motion. But I'll wait until that fight is finished.

Yeah, that might be for the best. I can understand that you wanted to keep your plan a secret till a more appropriate time had come, but as it stands there is nothing to lose by dangling that carrot over our heads right now.

So anyway, let me see if I get the current situation.

Eno, Haz, Rothan: Outside, presumably safe so a flashforward wouldn't affect them and anything they did can be explained later on at leisure.

Dralas: I think he was about to deal with the Hunger sitting on top of Rianne. I suppose we could clean this up quickly if needed by claiming that he stabs the distracted Daedra in the back, killing it. That said, I still would prefer for Dantrag to perform the act instead of having one of us gm it for him.

Dranas: Last seen entering the melee. I'd say we can safely brush over his role in the fight and later claim that he aided some Armigers or something.

Erna: He's on the side of the Daedra actually but nobody knows, so we could just say he slipped out when the fight turned into the favour of the Armigers/ everyone retreated.

Apelles Velvus: He was looking to engage Khallet. Since he hadn't actually engaged the Dremora yet though, we can decide how it went in the planning thread and later bring it up in the form of a flashback. Maybe give Apelles an extra scar or two to show the fight happened.

Rianne: Lying on the floor and dying. Sorry, but I can see no way we can brush over this one. Well, I suppose we could but it would feel really awkward. Also, unless we actually get her some help right now, the only option for Rianne to survive would be by having a Deus Ex Machina magically revive her. And frankly, I'd rather avoid that.

Haz and Rothan could go in and pull her out to a healer but not without gming Dralas to get rid of the hunger. Either we opt to brush over the hunger (for example by just not having it or Dralas there as the fight moved away) or we need to wait for Danny to finish off.


What? Surprises in RP don't work well, people are in the wrong place, or have their own developments derailed if anything big happens without prior knowledge.

It's not so much a surprise as just me waiting for the right time to mention it. I'll tell you what it is when I get home - I don't have the time right now.

For Nirn's sake....she isn't really DYING! No way , but I agree on that she needs some help with that hunger! I was hoping Dralas would come to her rescue!

Ah, sorry about that. I just meant that without medical treatment asap to stabilize her condition, she would die. Of course we're going to get her that treatment one way or another.

Anyway, has anyone seen Dantrag on the forums lately? I rarely pay much attention to who is on at the moment so I don't know. Maybe we should send him a pm or something.

So ok, Rothan and Haz move back in to drag Rianne out. I'll need to get an excuse for Haz to go along. Probably just to further put Rothan's mind at ease. (I know I'm a bit weird, but I'm a good guy really. See? No need to distrust me! Yeah, right .)

Eno, I'll have Haz (annoyed with all the whimpering) simply tell him to look after the soldier.

So when we arrive, let's claim that there is no Hunger about to kill Rianne. Dantrag can then decide whether he killed it while it was distracted, only to be forced away from Rianne by anyone else, or that they're still struggling a few steps to the right. Of course, we can also decide that he did kill the Hunger and is now trying to do something to help Rianne, when we arrive.

Umm...we really need Dantrag here. I can't seem to make up a plan by myself and then stick with it.

He was last active on the 8th, so five days ago. I'll put a preliminary post to Rothan and Haz going in but we could try to write it sufficently openly so that it's unclear what's happening (and edit after if Danny wants us to). Or we could assume that Dralas has drawn off the other hunger and is still fighting it as we pull Rianne out. Something like that has to happen to get rid of the hunger and I assume it was going to happen anyway and we can edit if it doesn't work with what Danny planned.

sorry i havent been around much; my mind's been on getting a job and things like that.

playground post coming shortly.

Is this one dead again? Shall we fly to the construction site, and see if that kicks it off?

There's not much more to be done at the ruin, and nothing which couldn't happen at the site and it might break the deadlock we're in just now. Any thoughts?

Hope not! And yeah maybe that is a good idea...let's try to revive it again!

I don't know. I've had plans here, but I have had ZERO time to implement them. I'm not kidding. None.

MAYBE next weekend or during Thanksgiving break, but I can't make any guarantees.

And whenever I do work, I'm having trouble writing the fight. I always end up writing and saving snippits of what's coming ahead.

I've got no idea how to do the fight, so if Colonel Mustard wouldn't mind, I'd like HIM to finish that fight.

Not a problem, old chap!

*Cracks fight-writing knuckles*

Owieowieowie!

Edit: Done!

welcome back Tellie!

anyhow, we're trying to leave the ruin pretty soon, correct?

That's my assumption. We need to get on the move again, and push on towards the main plot. Need an overarching narrative to sustain us.

Why exactly will that overarching narrative be, I know there was to be a commander who was sixth house and we were to slowly discover that but how will we do that? Perhaps having a slightly clearer idea of whats coming will put some life back into this.

I concur with Olen. If we want this to get going properly again, we need a Plan.

How about this for starters? With the sudden attack of the Daedra, the ruins are no longer considered safe and the current force on site is considered insufficient to handle a second attack. So everyone who is still alive joins the caravan and we're all going to double-time it to Ghostgate.

(On second thought, let's bring along the corpses as well. More ghostly fuel for the fence. I'm sure the priests can spin a nice tale of self-sacrifice out of it.)

Now since we brought along a lot more people than was expected, we'll be facing trouble at the camp itself. I'm not talking about a food shortage here. (I'm assuming we bring along as much as we can from the half-way camp.) Rather, I'm thinking about lack of sleeping-space/beds/tents/having to take care of the wounded without proper medical supplies. Confusion in the hierarchy of command (due to new Ordinators, priests etc arriving. Who is in charge now?), loss of efficient communications/administration. Messengers now need to go all the way to Balmora and back. Wait, does ALMSIVI intervention exist at this point? That would help with travel away from Ghostgate.

We could still pull off the Sixth House commander. In fact, let's have Apelles' boss become suspicious and assign Appelles to investigate some weird events (any ideas for events appreciated). Apelles himself decides to grab the gang he worked with before when they all got separated from the caravan. This because they're new here and none of them, except for Rothan I guess, is here on orders of the temple so whatever they want to do, it is considered to be less important than the job Apelles has for them. And because they're new, the chance that they have anything to do with it is pretty low.


Along the sidelines, I guess we can pull off our personal sidequests during breaks. Like Dralas searching for his ancestors or Haz trying to sabotage stuff.

Ideas for mysterious events:
Members of the (Dunmer) work crew suddenly flying into a murderous rage, spouting weird stuff while walking around at night. (Sleepers.)
Construction materials going missing, being destroyed.
Slave revolt (Ok, I guess this one isn't very mysterious.)
Ghosts rising from the bones and attacking people/begging not to be used in the fence/generally creeping people out
(Sixth House) commander sending people off to a cave to 'recover an artefact of the Tribunal vital for the construction of the fence/to ward off evil from the camp. The cave turns out to be Sixth House instead. This one could be used as an attempt to stop Apelles and co's investigation.

Feel free to shoot this plan down and propose your own.

Having sent them to retrieve the 'artifact' they could be successful and only meet the mindless ash creatures (the inteligent ones stayed hidden) and return with said artifact which is actually a really big ash statue. Que: workers going nuts.

This could even have happened just before we arrive so there's a nice big ash statue which no one recognises for what it is (except the commander and he's not telling) and a lot of odd sories from the recovery team. The night we arrive people start going nuts which is bound to cause conflict. Most of our characters would have good reasons to investigate: any odd happening is going to interest Dranas, its why Rothan is there, Appelles is also spying/ keeping peace, Rianne might know something of the statue (or sense something), Dralas might be able to get a price for them in Cyrodiil...

Most of us have our reasons, the rest could easily be swept up in it. We could also break into two groups which will meet later, eachwith knowledge the other hasn't got which makes more of the whole picture but perhpas suspecting the other. Or something.

I'd personally go for them arriving with the statue already there, or perhaps it arriving a few days after they get there. Of course, if we did end up going for the statue, it would be interesting to have a single character in the group who takes the statue back in their backpack or whatever, gets exposed to the majority of its power and ends up corrupted by it.

Of course, corprus infected workers sounds like a lot of fun (zombies!!).

I agree with this. pretty much, i'm just getting more detailed with jack, Olen, and Colonel Mustard's ideas. but those 5 events in jack's last paragraph will be written in bold in the following summary:



i really like this. especially the last paragraph. i'm assuming you mean our group of PCs would be split with separate yet connected knowledge, am I right? How about this:

I'll call one group Apelles' Group, and one Rothan's Group, since my plan really relies on those characters.

Apelles, in his dealings with Salms, notices a lot of weirdness in the man. He sees all kinds of signs that hint at the fact that Salms may in fact be in the Sixth House. Unfortunately, Apelles doesn't know enough about the sixth house to make that kind of judgement; he just thinks the man is going nuts, but being a low-ranking outlander, he doesn't want to report it. Rothan, on the other hand, in his dealings with high-up temple officials, learns that the priests and ordinators are on the lookout for a sixth house mole in among the Armigers. because there has been some sleeper activity and missing construction materials. Obviously, Rothan isn't going to alert many people to the fact that he's investigating something like that.

So a few of us know what Apelles knows, and a few of us know what Rothan knows. Hence, the two groups. The subject matter is kind of 'hush-hush' among the PCs for awhile, and the mystery continues until someone puts the two pieces together. Then we just know who the mole is. The real sixth house commander person at ghostgate stays anonymous, yet the plot begins to unravel a bit.

At the same time, the slave revolt happens, so that our characters are all distracted with the slave problem at hand, and temporarily forget about the sixth house drama. Then once the slave revolt is over, somebody connects the dots and its back to the drama.



I like the idea of the ash statue corrupting someone, though i was thinking it should be Salms, and a few of our characters may be involved in its recovery.

Leave the 'Sixth House Commander' out of it for now. With Salms as the mole, he can have his band of armigers and escorts try to recover this ash statue without letting the temple or other officials know. He tells his band that the statue is a charm of some kind that will keep the blight at bay (or something along those lines) so they don't even question it. They finally retrieve it, and thats when the ghosts start appearing.

and all this before we get to ghostgate. i'm thinking we need a way to uncover the identity of the main Sixth House commander before we all get to ghostgate. That way all our characters are walking into ghostgate planning a way to overthrow/expose/kill the guy that all the PCs know is an agent of Dagoth Ur.

NOTE: this can only work with the following assumptions.

1. bbq is fine with Salms being used this way (though judging by the RP, he may have something already planned for the character)

2. bbq and olen are ok with their characters' involvement

3. people like the idea.

Looks good to me. How soon can we get to ghostgate?

If Salms is being used for something else then we could have whoever is the overseer and commander of the whole operation being the sixth house man. That would add another dimension to the power struggle which will begin when they realise the ruin is out of use.

My initial plan was for Salms to go mad with soul sickness between the camp and the Ghostgate and begin attacking people. You may have noticed that he's been trying to fend it off for quite some time now. Then Dranas Heleran was going to save Apelles' life, if I recall the plan correctly. Basically, here's how I generally envisioned things going down.



It's clear that this initial plan of mine is too lengthy by itself - we need to get these guys to Ghostgate ASAP. Feel free to co-opt whatever parts of it you like into it, though. Salms could be the mole (though it doesn't quite fit with the hints I gave earlier), or possibly his breakdown could be shifted to after the arrival at Ghostgate. I'd kinda prefer the latter, personally, but I'm not the only person in this RP.

I like several aspects of jackcloudy's plan, as well as Dantrag. Possibly Salms gives in and becomes a patsy to the Sixth House, working with the main mole without actually being the mole.

I think there might actually be Sixth House infiltration at multiple levels, and not just one. If the commander is a mole, he could actually be posing as the "new blood" sent in to "fix" the mess that the infiltrators created.

Are there any objections to a teleport to Ghostgate?

If not either someone write one or I can, don't really mind.

I'll make my own post sometime today, then I suppose we could, unless there are any conversations anybody wants to finish.

I like your idea.

so, the crew gets to ghostgate (ASAP), and after being attacked on the way by ash monsters, Salms goes crazy. So the leader at ghostgate (who is the true sixth house agent) kind of makes Salms the scapegoat for all of these strange dagoth ur-related happenings.

is that the line of thought you had, bbq?

on a more immediate note, what exactly is the scroll, minque? you said that dralas 'should recognize it', and I assume it's some kind of healing scroll, but just wanted to double check before i posted all willy-nilly.

Yes! it's an old ashlander scroll, something wise women use pretty regularly.I'd say it should be common knowledge among ashies, so I'm so sure Dralas woulkd recognize it...Oh and yes it's a potent healing spell or scroll

I wouldn't mind having Erna chat with James at some point in the near future, if that's alright with Tellie. Considering their personalities, they'd probably get along like a house on fire.

There may be no survivors...

That and I realised that Erna hasn't interacted much with others recently, and I'd like a good chat with somebody.

*Looks lonely and lost*

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!

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

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!!

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

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

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.

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?

*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...

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.