Hmmm.... that much activity may make things interesting. Hope it quiets down some at night.

We could consider hitting them during one of Morningstars sermons...

Good idea to have Bubba attend some of these services.

@Bastard
Only thing I have to add was that Ludi was planning on getting a UCAS safehouse from Daze.
Other than that, I'm good.

I have a comment about Morningstar to make in character, but I'm waiting for Kliko to get back to the office.

Galen

I got Corsair's recon ready for IC evening.

Jamie finished her search, which ntwi can give in his IC post.

Jaime/ntwi:

Photos from Kliko and Corsair's recon: Joshua Morningstar

Like the other Children of the Dragon, he dresses in business casual - slacks or dockers, button up or polo shirt of neutral earth tones - and monk like robes/overcoats in all brown to black shades.

@Bastard
That post had be laughing so bad, my roomate came to see what the fuss was all about.

Bubba? He isn't too bright.

I'll get my IC posted later tonight then.

No problem... waiting on the team to regather... or make a conference call at least, seeing as two are in Ute and four are in UCAS.
(IMG:style_emoticons/default/grinbig.gif)

I will be posting a recon update tonight in the OoC to answer the first day and nights search, then you guys can put it into IC.

I am assuming that Felix will wait a while after nightfall. Jamie will be complete after hours are up, and Corsair I think is being NPC'ed at this point. His recon is always ongoing, and will post his findings when he and Jamie meet up with Kliko, Ludi, Bubba and Felix.

RECON combined scouting that will only be available in the IC after the team regroups.

Remember the above before you post. The team will not regroup until after nightfall as Felix wants to watch the watchers at this point, and I believe Kliko and Corsair would like to spend as much time observing as possible. Correct me if I am wrong and feel free to push the time as far as you want. As long as you are not getting too close, there shouldn't be any problems. However, check the bottom of this post for individual directions.

Note: Sunset is 1926 hours, Sunrise is at 0640 ~ each are moving daily towards midnight, as the days are getting longer. Handy-dandy link

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The Children of the Dragon Temple is composed of red brick (similar to this building). It's age shows, but the cleanliness of the lot, new windows and doors show some life still left.

There are flared red brick and concrete stairs leading to the front doors on the west side, about 3' above grade. There is also a simple set of concrete stairs out of the cafeteria/canteen on the north side, which are barely wider than the door itself. They are about 3'6" and also lead about 3' above grade. On the east side are the truck docks, which is enclosed by a cyclone fence with white plastic slats, mostly still in place, and mostly dingy yellow or brown over time. There are stairs at the north end of the dock, along with a ramp. The docking area ramps down for tucks to back in, leaving the docking ramp about 5' from the driveway, and 3' off grade.

The front doors are large solid wood (probably oak) 3 feet wide each, and 9 feet tall. The door leaving the cafeteria/canteen is a standard hollow (probably) plastisteel 3x7 (3x6'8). The roll up doors on the east side are plastisteel (possibly aluminum) 6x12s.

The first floor looks to have a ceiling of 25 feet, while the second and third floors are 10 feet (Note to Sneaky/Bubba, you are going to have to duck on these floors!!!).

The windows on to the foyer and worship hall are stained glass divided in three equal sections (of 4 feet tall) running the entire length of 1'4" x 12' and are raised about 8 feet from the ground (5 feet on the inside). The windows on the bottom floor through the rest of the building are divided the same, though the bottom window has hinges that would allow them to open, though not 100%. The bottom two sections (outside of the worship hall and foyer) are 50% opaque, while the uppermost section is clear.

The windows on the second and third floors are 1'4" x 6' divided into two sections. They are approximately two feet off the interior floor. They are about 25% opaque on the bottom, while the upper window is clear. There are blinds in each window which are drawn on the sunny side of the building and the majority of the time on all others.


The first floor looks open to the public 24-7. More information will be given on the operations as more recon is done. So far it has only been one night and one day, so you really don't know of any routines, or the business inside.


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Felix - The watchers change in perfect sync with the change of day and night.

Kliko - Stealth (x5), Etiquette (x1), and Perception (x5) Tests. If you already have these rolled please repost... it gets confusing for me sometimes. How long are you scoping out the place, how close are you getting?

Jaime - Add your IC post when ready, after your research time is complete.

Ludi - Do what you do.

Bubba - You back? Take over your dumbass (even though I like NPCing him).

Corsair - You around?


ALL - Are there questions I left unanswered?


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REMEMBER - The RECON information posted above is not available until you all have regrouped, as it is a combination of Felix, Kliko, Bubba and Corsair's searches. Jamie has her results to add also from my previous IC.





EDIT

Corrected error to window sizes. Thanks for catching that ntwi!

This post has been edited by Bastard: Feb 19 2011, 09:26 AM

1. Is the inside of the temple aspected as a Hearth Domain or would the City Domain extend through the building?

2. Watchers don't normally last sunrise -> sunset the way spirits do. (pg 100 MitS: To summon a watcher, the magician makes a conjuring test with a target number equal to the watcher's Force. Every success gives the watcher one hour of lifespan. [this means that for Felix if every die was a success, the watcher would have a maximum lifespan of six hours]) Are you simply ruling that Watchers have the same duration as spirirts?

3. Are the windows on the second and third floor 1'4" (16 inches) x (six inches or six feet)? 6" is six inches, 6' is six feet. Your description of the downstairs windows would imply that the upstairs ones are six feet, but I want to double check.

Inside is Hearth

You said you were watching for them to change at that time, and they did. There is no hole in their security there. One appears, the previous leaves.

You are correct. I will go back and correct that error.

EDIT

Reading your IC post, I missed giving you information. Denver seems to be 10-20% more active with free spirits and the like since you started your visit. Magic seems more difficult to control and you feel more tired after any magical task. At the temple, there seemed to be a lot of spiritual energy, say twice as much or more than you would find at an average place where you would expect spirits to linger, though they all seemed friendly enough, or at least not hostile.

The church members themselves, or at least the ones you spotted are not all magical. The people actually working for the church however, mostly seem to have at least some magical ability, though some may only be gifted adepts.

This post has been edited by Bastard: Feb 19 2011, 09:33 AM

I was thinking of only doing a physical surveillance while waiting for Bubba (we got drones for that after all).

Once we have the cars in the UCAS sector Kliko will park his SUV down the road half a block away monitoring radio frequencies to check for radio traffic. If there is any he'll try and determine from a) is this temple security? and if so b) monitor frequencies and habits/procedures. Ludi is welcome to join in.

Rolls:

If you are only going to be there a short while then I don't need all those rolls.

Go ahead and post IC.

Does the temple feel like a general (positive emotion generated) background count, or is it aspected towards/against either conjuration or sorcery (MiTS pg 85)? Is this something that his examinations of the astral will tell him, or is it difficult to discern until I begin casting spells or summoning inside the temple?


EDITED my IC to bring it more inline with what I think Bastard ment magically

OOC for the team: The Background Count will make Felix prefer a defensive magical plan, using physical weapons rather than spells to deal with enemies inside the Temple.

<EDIT>

Wow, I was underestimating the magical energy by a big chunk then. I was expecting it to be close to a Revival Meeting (2), and probably less than a Cathedral used for 300+ years (3), and much less than Stonehenge or Arlington National Cemetery (4). I can see how the "significant background count was generated and the conditions that created it still exist" led you to a background count of 4. It's just a tad more than I expected. That will make any magical use extremely challenging for Felix with the +4 TN and +2 Drain in addition to the normal modifiers.

Your descriptions about all the spirits had prompted the question regarding the aspecting towards or against conjuration. (their example has the spirits in the Mojave aspecting it against Conjuration but not Sorcery)

Time to go re-edit my IC for the background count of 4

I would say the background count is around level 4, where an average place of worship is a level 3. You can sense this just by looking at the temple on the astral plane, and visiting it in your astral body gives you even more connection. No need to conjure, summon or cast.

See the bottom of page 83 in MitS, as well as the top left of page 84.

Though there are a mix of emotions, the overall feeling is welcoming and loving. An example of mixed emotions would include the suffering from the homeless in the area, and also their thankfulness for the charity from the church.

To Felix, Denver seems to have a larger background count of suffering (city destruction and tensions between sectors), and something else is off. Almost, but not quite, like a manaline or wild magic. Nowhere near as powerful or unpredictable as either of those.

My Message box is full... I need to clean it out! So I moved your inquiry here. Sorry for the convenience.



I do not believe you can target people, however, you can target the area.

There is no visibility modifier to firearms tests as either they will spot you or they won't while under concealment, however this does sound more applicable then the actual rules. I will have to get back to you on this one.



I am not up on my spirits, elementals, and associated powers, but I have always used this as a mass effect, like Concealment. The defense is making decisions Willpower roll, target number being the force of the spirit.

Again, I will have to double check these.



I am not familiar with the metaplanar shortcut rules. I do not see why they could not, but I will have to go over the rules. Do you have some quick book and page references that I can double check these?

I am working graveyards this week, so while I can spend hours (if things go well!) on dumpshock through my phone, I do not have my books and notes with me, so my response to these may be delayed.

My PM box is full, so for now post questions here.

@ntwi: on confusion you have two variants, confusion and mass confusion (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

Its resisted by Willpower tn force of the spell. (Listed at the start of the Directed Illusions spell grimoire), though personally I'd say Intelligence is the right attribute to resist with.

The relevant part for the Metaplanar shortcut is pg 96/98 in MiTS. However I answered my own question shortly after I wrote it. It would not work for me, because Felix would be leaving the Hearth Domain and entering the City domain before returning to the Hearth Domain. Because of this, as soon as the conjuror leaves the domain, he loses all remaining services, except for the one currently in progress. (the spirit would indeed make the journey, but show up and go "Heya boss, I'm outta here.")

Mass Blindness [Type: P, Target: I, Duration: S, Drain: +1(S)] These spells impose a modifier to all visual perception tests made by the targets at +1 for every net success, up to a maximum equal to the force of the spell. The target has to take a simple action and make a perception test to see anything. Cameras and other visual sensors are also affected. (I wasn't sure if this modifier to all "visual perception tests" would also modify ranged firearm tests or not)

Concealment: This power refers to a being’s ability to hide within its own terrain. The concealment power is often associated with nature spirits. A being can use concealment to hide itself or others from danger, or alternatively, can use the power to hide something that people are looking for. Concealment adds the being’s Essence to the target number of any Perception Tests to locate the concealed subject. Concealment can be used on more than one target simultaneously; concealed subjects can see each other.

It was the potential combination of these two, the spell and the spirit power that I was curious about. If they're blind and we're concealed it's pretty hard to do anything. If Confusion was added to the mix it could get real strange. (Imagines a crowd of blind confused people looking for... wait what were they looking for again?) (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wobble.gif)


@Kliko: I was referring to the Spirit Power of Confusion... much more powerful

CONFUSION
Type: M • Action: Complex • Range: LOS • Duration: Sustained
Confusion allows a being to make its victims lose their sense of direction and wander aimlessly through the terrain it
controls. The consequences may vary widely. A hearth spirit causing confusion in a house might lead to nothing worse than someone bumping into walls or mistaking a closet door for an exit. Confusion in the domain of a mountain spirit could easily lead someone to stumble off the nearest cliff. Characters who attempt any form of Success Test while
under the effects of this power are subject to a target modifier equal to the Essence of the being. In addition, whenever the victim must make any decision, he must make a Willpower Test with a target number equal to the critter’s Essence. If he fails, he is unable to make up his mind. Something or someone must remind him of the need for a decision. An attack, or a verbal reminder from a companion, provides an opportunity for another test. If left alone in this state, a character will eventually wander off.

Who is still with us?

Kliko/Kliko - here
Mr. Juan/Ludi - here
ntwi/Felix - here
Sneakyjoe/Bubba - 50/50
galen/Jamie - ?
klinktastic/Corsair - MIA

Yup yup!
Sorry... I felt like posting something from work so I'd feel all mischevious.

Don't feel guilty, post some more (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

I'm still here.

Galen

Errrr...

Jamie isn't at the El Ray in UCAS. She as at the coffin motel in Ute.

Please edit IC post to reflect this.

@Kliko, and any other PC who might speak russian