>>104376
Mm, I was assuming it didn't delay them long enough that they'd still be here after our 2 month wait + the subsequent round trip trip back; I hope I'm not being a dick here with the stuff I'm saying that Riv will/might do. Talking in person vs talking online is a different sort of beast, and I'm realizing my laid back demeanor and friendly attitude might be getting lost on the way from my computer to everyone else's. If I am being less than considerate please let me know and I will redouble my efforts not to steam roll and ruin everyone's fun

I'll be using GURPS Mass Combat rules to resolve any ship-to-ship action, and it occurred to me that I should work out relevant stats for the giant octopus. First of all, based on CR, number of attacks, hit dice and so on it seems to be equivalent to a squad of amphibious warriors. Camouflage and coral reef adaptation gives it Recon. Extended reach with the tentacles and multiple AoOs per turn gives it Neutralize (Cavalry). Telepathic bond and ink cloud gives it Neutralize (C3I). Equipment quality is poor, since it has literally no equipment, but troop quality might be Good or even Elite.

>>104499
How large is the giant octopus, on a scale from human to leviathan? The size difference between the octopus and the opposing ship will hugely affect its effectiveness. An aggressive octopus driven to fight instead of flee should be able to take down a wooden ship up to one-and-a-third times its own size with relative ease, even before counting backup from our crew. Up to a certain size of ship, initiative would equal victory for our side. That said, a ship that is much larger than the octopus would be more or less invulnerable to anything it could do, and the octopus would be effectively rendered a nonfactor in the battle, short of perhaps killing people who fall overboard.

Ships are slow, unwieldy things, with poor control and lots of important parts that keep them functional. Cephalopods are fast in the water, dextrous, and increasingly powerful as they increase in size. (Giant squids irl can produce suction forces of over 116 pounds per square inch [800 kPa] with their tentacles.) Us being in control of a giant octopus basically makes us the scariest pirates ever. If it is big enough to have a meaningful impact on ship combat, then it's highly likely it could very well sink ships on its own, without needing our help. Frankly, if I had to choose between fighting a giant octopus or an actual squad of amphibious warriors, I'd pick the warriors any day.

You could just ignore the common-sense aspect in favor of hard numbers, but it could easily lead to the classic Civilization spearmen-destroying-tanks situation.

>>104553
The octopus in question masses about as much as a draft horse, and has tentacles with seven yard (21') reach. It most likely won't capsize any blue-water ships by raw force, but it could reach out of the water to yank sailors over a railing, or rend planks and beams below the waterline with it's beak. Distinct disadvantage compared to an actual squad is that it's only got one mind, and thus can't focus on multiple tasks at once, outflank somebody all by itself, or compartmentalize damage and survive a head shot by having the second-in-command step up.

>spearmen destroying tanks
I don't see that kind of thing as a violation of versimilitude. In an environment where industrialization has advanced unevenly, a 'spearman' with a crude satchel charge and no regard for his own life might plausibly disable an armored vehicle, if it was first isolated by previous attrition or strategic negligence. Unarmored mobs have been known to overrun machine gun nests. Bad odds, but it does happen.

>>104602
The specific problem in Civ was the "bad odds" worked out to something like 1 in 5. So storming a nation of spear chucking primitives with mechanical cavalry could result in... rather appreciable and frustrating losses for a 1st world would-be conqueror.

Personally if I had that much of a tech advantage I preferred brainwashing the opposition into submission with a culture victory, or nuking cities and claiming the glowing rubble. (Where again, tanks weren't very useful, when the roads they needed for travel had been atomized).

>>104606
Well, in GURPS Mass Combat, battle ultimately comes down to a series of opposed Strategy skill checks by the commanders of the two forces involved, with numerical, technological, etc. superiority providing modifiers on the checks.

A sailing ship like the one you've got has Troop Strength 4, representing the crew's ability to initiate or resist boarding actions equivalent to a squad of heavy infantry, but with no actual anti-ship weapons (cannons, reinforced ramming prow, etc.) it doesn't actually have the Naval class.

If you got in a fight with someone else who was similarly equipped, but didn't have an octopus, you'd effectively outnumber them at least 1.5x but less than 2x, (+2 to strategy), have total recon superiority (no effect on strategy but improves odds of seizing strategic initiative or even arranging an outright ambush), and probably C3I superiority thanks to Rixxil (up to +3 to strategy). If you had a mounted siege engine and they didn't, that's artillery superiority (another +3) and it might push the overall troop strength ratio past 2:1 (which would be +4 instead of the +2 for 1.5:1)

In a battle with less than 10 elements involved, each round is 15 minutes. If the check is a tie, both sides take 10% casualties (various strategies can modify this). Every 5% casualties is -1 on strategy checks for the rest of the battle. If one side wins by 1-3 points, the loser takes 15% casualties; 4-6 points, 20%; but the winner still takes 10% casualties unless they win by at least 7 points, when it drops to 5% (and the loser is taking 25% casualties). The only way to win with zero friendly casualties is to either beat the opposing commander's strategy check by 15 points on every roll, or by 14 or more with a Skirmish or 7 or more while using Mobile Defense strategies to reduce your own losses by 5% (skirmishing also reduces margin of victory by half), or by 8 points on an initial Indirect Attack and 10 points on subsequent Indirect Attacks since those multiply your effective margin of victory by 2x and 1.5x respectively. If the opponent retreats and you decide to regroup and tend your wounded rather than pursuing, your losses are reduced by 5%, and if you win at all they're halved, rounded down, so it's possible to take up to 10% casualties before driving the enemy off, or 5% before crushing them utterly, without any real permanent losses.

There's also positional bonus, which represents things like capturing defensible hills or walls, progression of maneuvers like flanking, etc. Long story short, early advantages tend to snowball, especially when you're willing to go on the offensive and seize opportunities.

Important characters other than the overall commander can provide a bonus to strategy with heroic actions, or a penalty with blunders. Taking more risks makes you more likely to help, but also more likely to get hurt. Every round in which the force overall takes any casualties, every important character has to check for 'misfortunes of war,' rolling at base skill 5 for 5% casualties. "Success" means an injury, and "critical success" means a choice between either being captured, or horribly maimed and maybe killed.

I love the GURPS combat system- at least what I've seen of it. Until you explained all of that I really had no familiarity or idea of how it worked, but it's a really intriguing system and gets me excited to play

I've been thinking about Riv's tinkering-on-the-fly ability we talked about while creating her character- I haven't been in combat with her much and haven't gotten a chance to try it out, I was wondering if you'd be able to expound on how exactly you imagine that working and what it's sort of limitations are and such

>>104957
Mainly based on the Quick Gadgeteer advantage, which (as demonstrated by bushbots in Ultra-Tech) is actually two advantages: one which reduces penalties to engineering rolls for inventing, and also makes it possible to invent things more than one tech level ahead of their time, and a second advantage which makes it possible to build things faster than would normally be possible, particularly with substandard or improvised tools and materials.

Girl Genius has many examples, but two of the most relevant are here http://www.girlgeniusonline.com/comic.php?date=20040512 and here http://www.girlgeniusonline.com/comic.php?date=20121114 (and the following pages).

Notable constraints:
1) It's fast like improvisational poetry, not like sprinting or sword-fighting. In the first example, Gil needs to buy Agatha some time, she can't just work in the middle of a melee.
2) You still need SOME relevant tools. http://www.girlgeniusonline.com/comic.php?date=20061215 "I don't have any instruments, I...I can't..."
3) Materials. You want to build something big and expensive, you're gonna need big, expensive parts, and even then it's going to be slower. If you want to do it in a hurry, that'll be a lot easier if somebody else already did most of the work. http://www.girlgeniusonline.com/comic.php?date=20150406 "Even she couldn't build something like this in less than a day!"
4) Last but not least, you still very much need the relevant skills. Agatha is a stronger spark overall, and better than Gil when it comes to clanks and death rays, but Gil is better than Agatha at flying machines and medical stuff because he's had chance to study those fields at length. Riv's definitely specialized in organic chemistry as relevant to her immortality project, and she's got that clockwork familiar, and was a vital contributor to rewiring a skyship, and managed to refit a small spring-based siege engine... but how much practical experience does she have with higher-energy inorganic chemistry? Or, say, optics? Making glass with just the right impurities to correct for spherical and chromatic aberration is surprisingly tricky, and vitally important to avoid a blurry, eyestrain-inducing mess. She'd know where to start, since professional alchemists are expected to be able to make their own lab equipment, including glass clear enough to distinguish the color of what's inside, and she might be able to get lenses cooled off and ready for installation within a thermodynamically-implausible time constraint, but that's not the same as the mastery of craft needed to do it right.

Tools and materials both mostly come down to money. If you want big money starting from nothing, your best option is to plunder ancient ruins at risk to life and limb. Lots of interesting stuff down there, even apart from the obviously salable treasure. Classic Exalted adventure "the invisible fortress" talks about the value of adamant blades which can be extracted from various trap mechanisms: they're actually too brittle to be good general-purpose swords, but make superb cutting, scraping, and grinding instruments for various commercial and industrial applications.

If you already have at least nine trustworthy friends, a small army, and a few thousand gold to spare, the way to get real money in this setting is to capture at least a hundred square miles of territory and then collect taxes. Want me to summarize the rules for that, too?

Overall, though, gadgeteering shouldn't really be something you're doing IN combat, so much as something that happens just outside an actual fight, changing the context and objectives thereof. Hold 'em off for a few minutes so I can finish this thing to seal the entrance, fetch the gem off that huge statue the cultists are guarding, let's go back down that hallway with all the traps so I can dig another antediluvian 9/16" sprocket out of the trigger mechanisms, that kind of thing.

>You know. we could just chuck it all and turn to piracy
You sir have quite the knack for picking particularly apt references from long-form comics.

One hex is 95 square miles. On open land or water, this usually means one cell on a hexagonal grid that's 12 miles across the flats (13.4 miles corner to corner). In caverns, nevermind exotic non-Euclidean territories, it gets more complicated.

One credit is economically-significant goods and services worth, in GURPS terms, a bit over $10^6. If you're setting up out on the frontier, without draconic sponsorship, you can play fast and loose with the paperwork, and make a lot of grandiose but technically non-binding promises to attract the long-term ambitions of hard-working heroic idealists, and thereby acquire such resources for as little as 1000 gold in actual cash up front. Once things are more established, with bureaucratic inertia and corruption and seasoned professionals being paid what they're really worth, the price goes up to 4000 gold per credit... but generating those credits through farms and trade routes and so on is no more difficult than before, and if you're inclined to plunder the treasury and vanish in the night, or squander it on an awe-inspiring personal panoply, or otherwise convert it to dense portable wealth, one credit can at that point be converted to two thousand gold.

That's why dragons are so willing, even eager, to provide sponsorship. They spend, say, fifty thousand gold setting you up, and then when you're all established ask for those fifty credits back, and they've doubled their money without even charging interest!

Anyway, prices.
1 credit: claim a hex. Has to already be explored and major monsters chased off, but that could potentially be accomplished in a day or two, depending on terrain type. This represents setting up all the things like more detailed maps, road signs, regular patrols, and tax assessments, which collectively make the difference between wilderness and territory someone can actually control.

up to 12 credits: clear and level a single square mile of land for a town or city. Cost varies by terrain type. Just one for plains, two for hills, four for sandy desert or forest, eight for cavern, rocky wasteland, or swamp, twelve for jungle or mountains.

12 credits: Build, supply, and staff a watchtower. Core function is to let a single guard keep an eye out for fires, invading armies, and suchlike, by providing a clear vantage point above obstacles. Since sight lines go both ways, might as well put a flag up there so everyone has a reminder of who's in charge poking out of the horizon. It's also a safe place for patrols to spend the night and resupply, and reasonably defensible against bandits or rioters or wild animals. Not much point setting up more than one per hex, except as part of a city.

24 credits, or 12 to upgrade a watchtower: build, supply, and staff a permanent fortified encampment, big enough to house a hundred-man cavalry troop and support staff. Smallest artificial structure that could pose a credible challenge to siege engineers, rather than being immediately smashed to flinders or burned down as a watchtower would be. If you want more defenses than this in a single hex, camp followers are going to expand and diversify into secondary and tertiary businesses, so you might as well lay out a walled town properly.

Each hex of territory, each square mile of urban development within that territory, and each isolated fort, costs another credit per month. This upkeep cost is mostly food, so it can be offset by farming and fishing, but farms and fisheries have to be built first, for 4 credits per hex. Fishing reduces upkeep by 1 per hex, and can be set up in any hex with a significant amount of water. Farming is 2 per hex, or 3 if within one hex of a city with a particular infrastructure upgrade, but can only be set up on hills, plains (half price), and sandy deserts (double price, and requires a water supply).

Ah, but how do you make cave, mountain, and forest hexes pay for themselves? Mines, quarries, and sawmills of course. They cost 6 credits per hex (half in woodlands) and don't merely offset upkeep, but produce a credit per hex per month (and provide other bonuses) which is added directly to the treasury. Surplus food just goes to waste... unless you've built a granary in one of your cities to store it, or established a trade route to sell it elsewhere.

The really fun part of the system, though, is cities. Each of those square miles is divided up into thirty-six 750' square blocks, which can then be filled with buildings, from humble tenements (1 credit per lot), through various commercial, cultural, industrial, governmental and/or military structures, up to majestic castles (54 credits), cathedrals (58 credits), palaces (108 credits), and universities (78 credits) which occupy 4 blocks each and can have very far-reaching effects.

Where an individual character has fortitude, reflex, and will saves, a kingdom has Economy, Loyalty, and Stability. Just about everything modifies at least one of those stats. Where a character had hit points, a kingdom has Unrest, which goes from 0 to 100 in increments of five. Every increment of unrest penalizes all three kingdom stats by one. At 55 Unrest or higher, hexes start getting de-claimed. At Unrest 100, you're not running a kingdom anymore, just standing on a balcony watching the riots escalate.

Every month, the ruler and senior advisors have to spend at least seven days performing administrative work and otherwise doing their jobs. During this time. somebody rolls a Stability check. If it succeeds, Unrest decreases by 5%, or if already zero, you add an extra Credit to the treasury thanks to pure civic-mindedness and popular gratitude for a nation well run. If it fails, unrest increases by 5%, or by up to 20% on a critical failure.
Then you pay upkeep. If this leaves the treasury below 0 credits, somebody somewhere is going hungry, so unrest increases by 5%.
Then you check whether the penalty from Unrest has pushed any of the three stats into the negatives. For each one it has, add another 5%.
The Enforcer, or Minister of Hospitality, or whatever you want to call the job of formally dishing out punishment, can decide to reduce unrest by 5% by applying harsh measures which risk permanently damaging Loyalty, especially if it's already low.
After all that, and some other stuff. roll 3d6+Economy and divide by three, rounded down. That's how many credit you gain from collecting taxes.

Cheapest way to reduce unrest is to build a sturdy wall (2 credit per linear mile, -10% unrest per square mile of town adequately enclosed) or houses (3 credit and -5% per lot, or 2 credit per tenement lot upgraded... but building those tenements in the first place adds 10% unrest per lot). Mostly, though, houses are just there as prerequisites to support other businesses. Guard barracks, monuments, an orphanage, public park, or small shrine all cost 4, 6, or 8 credit and occupy a single lot, reducing unrest by 5% when built and providing some other persistent bonus. Adding a watchtower or upgrading it to a fort reduces unrest by 5% and provides greater benefits, and some more expensive buildings reduce unrest by 10% when built, or even 20% for a Castle or Cathedral, but generally you want to be careful about accumulating it in the first place.

So, if you, say, wanted to recolonize Rook's Vineyard, first you'd need to somehow neutralize (not necessarily slay, but at the very least come to an accord with) the Thing Under The Lake which previously depopulated it, and explore the immediate vicinity of the lake, which counts as a forest hex with a river. If you were working on the cheap, you could claim that territory for just 1 credit, and then, assuming competent but unexceptional leadership and a bit of luck, bring in 3 or 4 credits in taxes and 1 in goodwill the first month. Spend 3 for a sawmill and 4 for a fishery as soon as possible, they'll pay for themselves before you even get started on the actual town. Of course, until you get some real infrastructure built, your legitimacy as a government is riding a razor's edge, where even a small and transient penalty could set off a death spiral of unrest.

>>105002
Honestly that sounds like a game and a half in it if itself, and it's one I would love to play if we get the opportunity this game. I do have a couple questions though

So, like PC stats I'm assuming city stats rest somewhere between 3-18 normally, would that be right? Are there negative and positive modifiers for having them be lower or higher, aside from collecting extra money?

Also with unrest it seems as though there must be a base line minimum that it can't go below based on your buildings, would that be correct? So if you have a few tenements and a couple squares of wall then maybe your natural unrest is 15% and other things can raise or lower it but not below that point. Or does the standing building balance add to unrest each turn? So the sum of all you factors that increase and decrease unrest actively contributes to unrest every month. That would be cool but with the amount of things that increase unrest vs the amount of things that decrease it seems to me to suggests that that particular method would be very difficult to manage and go down the drain quickly

Or is it like a one time penalty or + that simply serves to limit expansion? In that case you would only want to build so much a month because too much pushes unrest through the roof in order to get the necessary infrastructure and housing to get a population worth taxing. That method seems interesting but as a whole much easier to balance and more of a slowing mechanic than an ongoing game one if there aren't long term penalties for growth

Another question is obviously in real life more citizens means more resources. More people are available to act as soldiers, laborers, traders, more people to bring in business and conduct it within your property, and importantly more people to tax. Does expanding your citizen base add to your economy score either directly or indirectly? Does it affect your other scores in difeeent ways?

All this being said and done though, if Riv the Anarchist recognizes that she can gain steady income via laying claim to a property, she might be inclined to take a loan from her draconic overseers and stake her claim somewhere in the world so that she can passively afford her more expensive hobby. Nothing cramps research like having to sell anti-wrinkle elixirs and hair growth serum for vain shortsighted people with money to burn

>>105016
>So, like PC stats I'm assuming city stats rest somewhere between 3-18 normally, would that be right?

No. They start from zero and can go arbitrarily high or low based on leadership, infrastructure, and other modifiers, but a functional kingdom will generally keep all three somewhere above the sum of it's total controlled hexes + square miles of urban development.

>Are there negative and positive modifiers for having them be lower or higher, aside from collecting extra money?

Yes, lots. Economy is the big one for collecting money, while Loyalty and Stability are mainly rolled for avoiding or recovering from various problems.

>Also with unrest it seems as though there must be a base line minimum that it can't go below based on your buildings, would that be correct?

No. Unrest from buildings is a one-time thing, like hit point damage, You can build a block of tenements, gain 10% unrest, and then dissipate it over the next couple months as people get used to living in squalid conditions, bringing you back to 0. Then, later, when some other problem comes up, you can upgrade the tenements to proper houses and reap gratitude. Apart from the monthly stability roll, though, unrest reductions below 0 go to waste; fortifications and prisons don't help so much when the people already feel secure.

>Does expanding your citizen base add to your economy score either directly or indirectly?

Every block of developments in a settlement is about 250 people, and many of those buildings add to economy. On the other hand, if you're focusing on, say, military or religious stuff, that's not going to rake in the cash, at least not directly.

>>105002
Hello spreadsheet civilization game.

Interesting looking, but yeah, that's a whole nother game.

>>105049
Gottcha, so it's less about managing unhappiness and more of a way to slow growth would that be correct? Or am I not really understanding the system? Because with a one time penalty it just seems to me that if you build a tenement block, wait a few months and build another one, it's very hard to lose control unless you are highly unfortunate with your unrest rolls. In pathfinder I'm used to bonuses being awarded incrementally past ten, and detriments applied as points go below ten. If city saves start at 0 and gradually get higher and higher without a real cap as to what can be achieved, what's the difference between say a 0, a 5, a 10 and a 20? Is city management primarily a method for gathering cash or can you do other more world altering things with large settlements? Could one make a particularly powerful trade city and begin to change the economy of other ares for a larger scale plan? Can you create a territory and more easily foster an underground market? Or even create policies so that very few things are illegal and what would normally be a black market is just normal trade? Or is that level of micro-management not really possible?

I'm wonder things in terms of say, creating a bustling city and then just getting rid of all the government in order to create a large scale influx of immigration into other settlements? Or take a strong enough hold on the economy of other areas by trading vital goods like lumber and stone and metal and grain that you can essentially turn the flow on and off like tap water, forcing interconnected areas to grow in unrest and possibly even collapse on themselves?

It's interesting to think of creating a settlement or area that has a global effect on our world in the same way our characters can grow powerful enough to have a significant impact on a local system like a dungeon

>>105059
It is a different game, but considering we're playing online and such they're both within the same world and affect eachother- playing civilization doesn't mean one has to stop dungeon delving yanno? I understand the technical aspects are not as fun for everyone else though so it makes sense if you all are not particularly interested in the county developing sim I for one am highly interested in both parts of the game though and if Riv gets an opportunity she may very well seek a loan to get the capital needed to create such a space.

>>105063
It's more that the scale is different. Interpersonal relationships and social dynamics and politics on the scale like we're playing with now become kind of irrelevant when you're operating on the physical and time scale of the function of societies and civilizations.

I'm not really interested in retiring from character development to play that game right now.

Also Marijke doesn't have the right ambition to run a city state or whatever scale we'd be on. She wants to get rich enough to live in the lap of luxury- sitting pretty inside a system, not trying to take charge of one. She's not actually motivated by power or authority.

Riv can certainly pursue that as a long term goal, although I dunno if Marijke would really want to stick around in territory the unstable little mummy was running.

>>105077
Of course- and I imagine whether she wants to or not, it's probably best not to be in the area Riv controls. I'm guessing it's about the scale of a county, with multiple cities in it and it's own taxes and municipal government, which is part of a State loosely overseen by the Dragons although that's complete speculation on my part. The assumption being that you can't run a country that takes more than a few weeks to travers very effectively, so the size of a regular state would be my guess for the dragons realm, with territories being like counties within the state. And I was thinking we as adventurers just birth a month building a ship- there's plenty of times where we change the pacing from weeks to seconds depending on what's going on right now. My assumption was that even if one of us was running a settlement that we could still play the rest as normal, and the settlement only comes into play when relevant, rather than changing the focus to the settlement and adapting the rest of the game to suit it. I'm fairly certain I'm in the majority though when it comes to looking forward to and being interested in that aspect, so I don't intend to pursue anything that would ruin everyone else's fun. I'd just say it's something I'm keeping in mind right now. Even if Marjike doesn't wanna govern anything, getting paid royalties for something as simple as a tavern without having to do work is a pretty sweet gig. You don't have to want power to recognize that owning the property means lavish lifestyle and hassle free money essentially once it's set up and self governing. Just seems to me like a merchant would be much more interested in gaining her wealth by trading rather than risking her life in a dungeon but I may be misunderstand the motivators that drive Marjike. I would imagine though that this system lends itself towards easy monthly income with low risk and low hassle costs to maintain, meaning you can more than pay for a fleet of ships with your monthly taxes and keep all your treasure for yourself. This little mummy is gonna run around your boat for a little while first though before she gets any big ideas about running a settlement

>>105002
>>105077
Garaile's long-term dream is to found a nation, but having seen this wall of text, I can say with confidence that Garaile will never survive long enough to realize that dream. Not if I have anything to say about it.

I lifted the kingdom-building system straight from Pathfinder. I'd be doing all the math on my end, just presenting relevant options as they come up.

>>105077
>not interested
>>105090
>would rather die

Then either go back to the dungeon, or get in your ship and gimme a roll to navigate around the reefs toward the coven's probable location, or do SOMETHING. You're back in town, and rich as shit, but don't really have any sustainable income stream. One way or another, it's time to seize the initiative on a more strategic scale. If you can't remember what your options are, I ask that you re-read the IC threads with an eye toward potential plot hooks.

Quest towards the bottom of page 3 currently. When I mentioned Riv trying to get info from Gary, it was made under the assumption that this is sort of our last chance to do anything on land before we head out to sea. Does Marjorie need to make the order to sail away, or do we wait for other factors before leaving? If I remember correctly the last hook said we were 3 days from completion of the boat so there's still time to do some stuff in town if one wants

>>105102
Sorry, I thought we were discussing future hypotheticals, not right now. You're discussing mechanics that have a basic functional unit of $10^6, which is more than I understood us having, and require setting up to control territory, when we just spent a bunch of wealth and effort on almost the opposite (the ability to travel freely).

>so go do something
Wait it was waiting our input? I thought.... *checks thread* oh right I had no idea where to go with that conversation after the questionable connection between spacial weirdness and Garaile's ability was raised, and I guess no one else did either. I suppose we can try and just move on. I'll go write something.

Just getting clarification- did we leave and arrive or are you just warning us what kind of questions to ask in the future? I didn't see us roll for travel events or anything so I wasn't sure exactly where we are right now

Wait, I'm a bit confused- did we already set sail and arrive? Or was just just advice as to what kinda questions we should ask once we're there?

Also Marjike, I know it was a little while ago irl but there was still that incident with your amulet and the arrow and some amount of time travel and weird nightmares. I know we got the arrow head out, but it still might be worth ascertaining what happened

>Also Marjike, I know it was a little while ago irl but there was still that incident with your amulet and the arrow and some amount of time travel and weird nightmares. I know we got the arrow head out, but it still might be worth ascertaining what happened
Already tried investigating the weird arrow-amulet link, didn't really get anywhere with it. It was my expectation that understanding currently lies outside our grasp, until we find additional resources or unless we're willing to sink a large amount of research into it. (Which is kind of boring for the rest of the party and we just spent a bunch of time of the ritual to fix my pet psychic bug-monster).

The literally bloody nightmare I'm mostly willing to write off as a traumatic level up event- as far as magic seems concerned this seems to be a strait up cosmic horror setting. Risking your safety and/or sanity for power seems to be how it goes. (Whether or not the implications that the arrow is still coming, just time displaced, is true, literal, metaphorical, psychological, or representative of some kind of spiritual damage, I don't know).

Might be worth having Stone take a look at it, now that he's here? If it trapped the spirit or soul of the bear Than killed, and the bow is tied to her soul, he might be able to glean something useful from that as the spiritualist / necromancer.

>Wait, I'm a bit confused- did we already set sail and arrive? Or was just just advice as to what kinda questions we should ask once we're there?
I thought we hadn't left yet either, although I am being warned about exact wording now.

>>105151
Yeah I was just saying because it's beyond us right now the coven might be that edge we need. Stone will be happy to look, I'll roll for it tomorrow

Also, just wanted to put it up for discussion, because of Rivs unnatural physiology, I would think it makes sense for things like humidity and to a greater degree salty ocean air to have an affect on Riv. How pronounced do you think it should be everyone/are you going to say it will be as the DM (question addressing both Jamesleng and the rest of the party) also did Riv sparring for an hour every day these past few months have a noticeable effect on her, Garaile or the kobolds? Did her alchemy stand in the market square have a net affect on finances? I was assuming it would allow her to break even and cover the cost of her daily experimenting, but wasn't sure what your ruling would be.

I was under the impression we would start a new thread upon the completion of the ship but it seems we've moved past that a bit. Do we all want to ask our questions and then decide on a plan of action and open up the new thread there?

>>105171
>Do we all want to ask our questions and then decide on a plan of action and open up the new thread there?

That's my thinking at this point, yes. New thread should be a new scene, new sense of momentum, and it needs a new piece of art to start it off.

Um. Wait. Are we still doing one by one wishes / questions, or one for the group? In the latter case, I guess what Garaile asked is a quest hook to keep us all in the money (even if that leaves several people without answers to burning questions). In the former case... Garaile used his question for Marijke?

>Yeah I was just saying because it's beyond us right now the coven might be that edge we need. Stone will be happy to look, I'll roll for it tomorrow
My response was going to be "I didn't think a potentially once in a lifetime oracular favor was worth spending answering that" but asking for wealth has apperently already been covered, so maybe.

>>105192
A very good point- one does have to prioritize, I just wanted to bring it up in case it wasn't on your radar. There was mention of further favors however; we might be able to trade tit for tat with the coven again later on which I think is good news.
I'm under the impression it's one favor per crew member. Perhaps not though- we'll see what the GM says. Keep in mind favors don't have to be questions. You could ask the coven for help unblocking a trade route, or to train you in something, but I think their forte is scrying or something of that nature so their disposed to information based services. A favor could be as simple as scratching your back or lending you a 20 though.

Also just for clarity I know I asked a discussion based question in the main thread- this was purposeful because it's being asked out loud IC where Marty could hear and possibly weigh in, and can also hear any musings or answers. Riv is outwardly and openly skeptical that the coven and their lackies are not harboring any malice; basically she's not hiding the fact that she's assuming the coven may try to kill them if they can gain from it. So in line with that I figured it should be in the main thread and that Marty should have a chance to correct or confirm should he so choose

>gunpowder
Don't call up the director of the CIA and ask about "how to build nuclear weapons without the feds finding out." Sure, there's a good chance she'd know, but she's not gonna tell you, and she IS gonna tell somebody else that you asked.

>>105192
One question each. Of the acolytes, only one of them participated in the raid, and they agreed to spend the question on either confirming the lack of pursuit, or outflanking that pursuit.

>potentially once in a lifetime oracular favor
Nah, they've got loads of errands and quests queued up to earn further favors, especially now that you have some resources invested in traveling long distances with heavy loads of cargo.

>he was found naked, covered in slime and appalling lacerations, inside his apartment, far from the front lines
I, out of character, loved whatever that description of Uncle Petros. Whatever was going on in life, that was a wonderful little bit of flavor. As for the amulet arrow situation. that's an interesting situation. Witches said not to worry though, so i think we can probably trust them. Unless the cauldrons tendency to lead towards tragedy is misleading us, but hey, what can you do. It doesn't seem that Marjike is that worried

After I get the roll result for Riv's mage sight I'll respond with her question

>It doesn't seem that Marjike is that worried
Yeah, not really. Too bad I didn't get anything more concrete out of the oracular examination of the object (like what it might be useful for now), but I'm hoping looking up the material they identified it as will yield something.

Having an arrow in temporal orbit around myself does make me wonder about ways that might be weaponized.

>>105292
>>105280
Sorry this wasn't more clear. As far as Riv and the coven can tell, Marijke's yasal amulet is just exotic scrap at this point. The material is ideally suited to containing spirits, but a round-edged disk engraved with that particular geometrically intriguing spiral groove doesn't have the flat facets and sharp angles needed to let such spirits in and out. It's like a vault or jail cell with the key missing and the lock rusted shut. Most obvious application would be to take it to a gemcutter and break it up into appropriately-shaped pieces, but then they'd probably be too small to be good for much.

That's just a direct examination, though, not a comprehensive survey of associations, sympathies, and contagions. It's almost certainly linked to Than's bow somehow, but I figure she'd be reluctant to cooperate with the extent of soul-groping needed to fully confirm.

>>105391
Sorry I think there was a misunderstanding, she was examining Marty's water walking spell; she's still going to get her question but I nervous about being in open water, something I hope is understandable

>>105397
*is nervous

The current continuity of "Please do not [T]ake these Organs" will not be updating further until I get my head back on straight, and Tunic stops complaining. It had a good run, I'd be willing to pick it up again someday or try a reboot, but lately it's been drifting toward "joyless chore" and that just doesn't work.

I've got another quest in the works. Would be started already, but it needs art that I can't do at all, and Mitsukara can't seem to get around to. Mostly just 8-bit sprites, sort of a FF1 thing, although honestly I'm not going to be picky about style if somebody manages at least a panel per week. Starting to understand how Rob Liefeld's ability to deliver on time let him get away with so much. Any volunteers?

>>105531
Sorry, not a capable artist. Sad to hear that running the quest is becoming a chore, but I understand. I wish you luck in your future endeavors

>>105531
Sorry you felt I singlehandedly killed your quest. Even though I had complaints, I still enjoyed being a participant. I feel like we could have talked and worked it out if it were any other medium.

Hope your next quest goes better for you.

>>105531
Rip.

Oh well, thanks for running, I had fun, and the dice managed to throw an entertaining combination of great successes and failures. Personally, I'll count it as mission success, since my character made it out of the dungeon alive, got rich, and provided nothing goes wrong, is in a position to get richer. All she really misses out on this way is getting to claim to spell ranks and see what goodies this system has to offer.

For what it's worth, I think the setting / lore was fantastic. A lot of fun, even if the communal player model slows things down.

>Any volunteers?
I'd consider it, if I didn't have half a dozen projects I'm badly behind in right now. FF1 tier sprite imitating is pretty much as high as my digital art skills go.

What's the premise? You might have better luck attracting someone if they know it's subject matter they're interested in.

>>105537
>What's the premise?
>>/draw/31628

>FF1 tier sprite imitating is pretty much as high as my digital art skills go.

Good enough for me!

>half a dozen projects

Basically everyone I know is some flavor or other of miserable, impoverished wreck, so my current plan is to have several different people working on various parts of the art, then do the final assembly myself. Minimizes bottlenecks by way of redundancy, and you don't need to worry about committing to see the whole project through, because when something more important comes up, or you just lose interest, others can pick up the slack. Big list of 'contributing artist' credits once it's all ready to go.

Next item on my checklist is... lessee... some sort of insane evil ghost, with spell-casting capabilities. Preferably less amorphous than the ghost wizards from "Adventures of Dr. McNinja," and standing on the ground rather than hovering. Bizarre mutations and/or mutilations optional, whatever you feel can be adequately represented in the sprite medium. Contact me through strange7person (at) gmail if you'd like to discuss further.

I'm planning to start running either Neomah Quest: Race to the West Pole, or another instance of Pdn[T]tO (with a new batch of entry-level characters), or possibly both, before the end of the month. When I do, please give me money.

https://patreon.com/user?u=4587981

Or even before then, I'm not picky.

If you haven't got money, or don't think I deserve any of it, just show up and suggest things. That's fine too. I'll probably survive somehow, I guess.

Sorry, no money to give, currently going massively in debt to get a degree in a low paying field in hopes of getting a job I don't hate, and the student budget is pretty damn tight right now. If you run another game like Please Don't Take These Organs, a name I still don't quite understand, I'd be interested in participating. I understand though if you're only looking for people who can contribute financially to your survival though, shit takes a lot of time to plan and run

>>106335
>if you're only looking for people who can contribute financially
Absolutely not. Quests I run will still be free to play, patron bonuses are more like "cheat codes."

>name I still don't quite understand
It's a combined reference to the catchphrase of https://1d4chan.org/wiki/Noh and some old adventure game where valid verbs would be indicated by a single letter, with the (often counter-intuitive) abbreviations explained by listing the full word in brackets. On a deeper level, It refers to the idea that life is cheap and readily objectified in dog-eat-dog dungeon environments. Paired with the picture from Song of Saya, it's a cute girl (or a construct? Or an eldritch abomination in disguise? No way to be sure until far too late) pleading, in a stiff mechanical/autistic sort of way, that her chest not be kicked open and plundered.

>another instance of Pdn[T]tO

Neato! I'll probably join in this time, if I may.

Also if you're still looking for artists I'm willing to help.

>>106350
You may, and I am. Shoot me an e-mail to discuss the art stuff.

Oh boy, new Organs thread.

If it takes a little while for a reply to come through, I'm at least trying to be a little more creative with character creation than last time. I had fun with Marijke, but I feel like p much everyone else put more effort into coming up with mutations / flaws / special abilities.

>>106432
Honestly I loved marjike- it felt like she was driving the story and sort of keeping everything together. I definitely think the game would have been much less fun without her sort of piloting things, and I think her character really brought a lot to the table

If my character is too gonzo I'll tone it down.

>>106434
I'm amused that a greedy merchant with a minor in mind control somehow ended up the "heart" of the party, but thank you.

>>106437
Nah, it's fine.

Hey this has 600 posts and a lot of stuff that isn't pertinent, and a title that isn't conducive to new readers finding it. I'm gonna make a new one, and pending the JamesLeng stamp of approval I think it'd be best to move our discussions over there.

I'm probably not permitted to make a new character and join the reboot, but I'm sure it'll still be interesting to watch everyone else's adventure. I updated the wiki page for the reboot.

I'm not the executive speaker, >>106443 but I don't think you're banned, I think JamesLeng was just feeling frustrated with the way you expressed yourself because it felt as though you were constantly unhappy; I'm sure for you it felt as though things were stacked against you and that the GM was out to get you. I think it's just a case of misunderstandings going unaired and being difficult to resolve via text on a screen because of the lack of personal interaction and difficulties conveying emotions.

Again though, outside interpretation of what happened, I can't speak for either of you. Thanks for updating the wiki- I'm gonna find a cover image and make a new discussion thread so after this whole discussion is resolved hopefully we can talk about the quest in a shiny new thread