Out Of Character

[Tonneau]

Highbough watches the dwarf waddle off and says to Wen, "What a grumpy little fellow! He almost reminds me of that Dorgan character who died drinking the poison, heh heh, remember him? What about you, Young Wen, do you know how to swing a mace?"

Ah, how I have missed The Highbough...

[waysoftheearth]

Another Highbough classic

[ehiker133]

Highbough watches the dwarf waddle off and says to Wen, "What a grumpy little fellow! He almost reminds me of that Dorgan character who died drinking the poison, heh heh, remember him? What about you, Young Wen, do you know how to swing a mace?"

Ah, how I have missed The Highbough...

Don't forget The Gustave!

Even his crumbs of pastries have been absent for too long...

[Eris]

We need to find out what Ways has in mind here.

1. If Highbough and Wen go back through the Portal, could they use "the orb" to find the rest of us? Or do they not have "the orb?"

2. Is the party in the desert out of play? I've noticed, no posts for us have been forthcoming. If that's the case, then should be "write them off" and make up some new PC's to join the Elves and go on some more adventures in the Hinterlands?

3. How does the other party's adventures fit in with the older group and those at the Abbey time wise? Are Zen, Freid, The Herald, et al. the "new PC's" that can find and join up with Highbrough and Wen, or are they completely separate?

[ehiker133]

I don't believe the other party is written off yet... nor is The Gustave, for that matter! At least not to Desmond. Maybe Mondes, though, I suppose...

Anyway, I think the idea was to start everything back up, just starting with the elves and dwarf before picking up the pace.

or at least I hope that's what is happening. I hate saying I have a vested interest in a character, because that's the surest way to get them killed... so I won't say it.

[mgtremaine]

We need to find out what Ways has in mind here.

1. If Highbough and Wen go back through the Portal, could they use "the orb" to find the rest of us? Or do they not have "the orb?"

2. Is the party in the desert out of play? I've noticed, no posts for us have been forthcoming. If that's the case, then should be "write them off" and make up some new PC's to join the Elves and go on some more adventures in the Hinterlands?

3. How does the other party's adventures fit in with the older group and those at the Abbey time wise? Are Zen, Freid, The Herald, et al. the "new PC's" that can find and join up with Highbrough and Wen, or are they completely separate?

1) Ulric has the Orb so it with the rescue team

2) Ways has answer that but the timeslip is creating an issue for him. The Elves spent a few hours out there and came back, months have past. The group is going to be days searching for THE Gustave so years will pass in the hinterlands.

3) I think they might be able to meet but it depends on what the old group does and how ways handles it.

At least that's how I see things

[waysoftheearth]

We need to find out what Ways has in mind here.

Whenever I've had anything "in mind", the players have always found a way to do something completely different. So I don't really have anything in mind beyond seeing what opportunities come up

1. If Highbough and Wen go back through the Portal, could they use "the orb" to find the rest of us? Or do they not have "the orb?"

Ulric has the Queerious Speculem; he is with the subterranean desert group.

2. Is the party in the desert out of play? I've noticed, no posts for us have been forthcoming. If that's the case, then should be "write them off" and make up some new PC's to join the Elves and go on some more adventures in the Hinterlands?

I don't consider them entirely "written off"; but they have gotten themselves into a tricky position. Tis a pity they didn't capture the airship, fly directly to the high Alcazar tower to bust Gustave out, and nip back all in a days work. But I guess that's what "adventuring" is all about

The time difference thing is fiddly, for sure. Initially there was a vision of an "old Gustave" imprisoned. I don't recall if I ever specified exactly what/when that vision was, but it motivated the players to attempt a rescue before it was too late which was kinda neat. Later on, when some of the party visited the desert world while others stayed behind the notion of a time difference between the worlds got awkward; I realised that if there was going to be a time difference, it would have to be flexible in order to accommodate the needs of the game. I devised a waxing/waning time difference model which "kinda works", but it makes the book keeping more complicated (not overly ambitious or anything like that. Ha!).

So yes, at this stage of play, I generally need to progress time in the Hinterlands world a lot more than time in the Desert world to keep the two realities "in synch". That's kinda why we need a hundred turns in the Hinterlands for every turn in the desert world. (100:1 isn't an actual or ratio, and it isn't fixed at N:1, just throwing that figure out there as an example).

3. How does the other party's adventures fit in with the older group and those at the Abbey time wise? Are Zen, Freid, The Herald, et al. the "new PC's" that can find and join up with Highbrough and Wen, or are they completely separate?

All the PCs in the Hinterlands are operating in the same shared world. I've gone to some trouble to (try to) keep them all in the same time frame, so there is no reason why the two "generations" of PCs couldn't meet up. I've been thinking for a while that precisely that would be kinda neat, but see point 1 above

Introducing the second group of PCs into the Hinterlands (while all original PCs bar Dorgan) were in the desert world was--in part--a mechanism to allow the Hinterlands environment to "catch up" (in time) with the Desert world in order to keep the two worlds synchronised. Also--having learned where the wolf-devils were coming from--it was a shortcut back to the main theater of the game. The only side-effect was that I had to push Dorgan forward in time "a season", so he kinda got the short stick. On the other hand, he got to establish a secure base with minimal hassle. ish.

[sully]

I think that Dorgan is in favor of one more trip through the portal to find the others, rescue Gustave, and return to our world where we can find something safer to do, like liberate Ket from the clutches of the goblins, giants, orcs, et al.

[flightcommander]

... something safer to do, like liberate Ket ...

[waysoftheearth]

Right now, I can't see how a desert rescue mission could succeed. To begin with:

1) Since Ulric is lost somewhere underground with the Speculum, how would a rescue party locate either Gustave, or the main group?
2) Transport. Assuming you knew which Alcazar Gustave was imprisoned in, how would you get there? You're going to need wings. Or some means of discovering that the underground labyrinth exists, locating it, and then tunnelling into it.
3) Water (and supplies) will be needed for any extended stay.
4) Fire power. A dwarf and two elves versus the desert world? Hmm...

I think perhaps this plotting should go over into the in game thread, since it is the preoccupation of the PCs there