OOC- Shadow's Dawn: Diving into the past Options

[Ol' Scratch]

^ On that note, I did include a similar roll in my first IC post (I just failed to declare it properly). The results of the roll and which skill I used are in the "revelation" link in said post.

[Seth]

Yes I like Earthdawn. We played Earthdawn for a couple of years, mostly from the point at which the Kaers opened and early expansion of the cities. We used variant rules but the setting is nice. Mostly I like that its about hope: the bad times are over and its time to create a whole new world.

I'll need your help to keep me canon (when I pnp GM I never worry about canon as none of the players ever read the books)

Back to the horror mark. IIRC to spot one you use your astral sense vs the spell defence of the horror. I'm not sure of Ol'scratche's diagnostics were the correct route, but the result of his and his helpers assensing is that you decide that the mark over Ol'scratch's liver is indeed a horror mark. The mark is a snake curled around the liver with its fangs deep inside the large bloodvessels.

All of you remember this stuff. Roughly put

• The main way to get horror marked is to use raw magic (like you do with the spellcasting skill) in astral space tainted by the horror
• The horror mark allows the horror to use its powers, and communicate with the target. The closer you are the more unpleasant the effects that it can use
• After a year and a day, the horror can choose (at no cost) to renew the power
• It is possible to break the link with enough range...maybe.
• The Horror can probably use your edge, or give you edge.

Its easy to get rid of the Mark: Kill the horror, or persuade it to remove the mark.

It is of course possible to use the Mark to astrally track back to the horror. This is a astrally powerful group, so you could go and visit it if you want.

I should say that while I am being very cavelier with you all and giving many of you unpleasant experiences, I am just doing this to set the scene, and I may do it at the start of memory sequences as well. When we move to the game, if I want to (say) capture you alive, the bad guys will have to roll die, and do it properly!

[Ol' Scratch]

Don't feel bad about it at all! I, personally, enjoy being a GM's chew toy. Makes things interesting. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

(And did it really have to be his liver? I guess that makes sense giving his drinking problem though.)

[sabs]

The horror can also.. cast spells through the horror marked person. Not just /at/ the Horror Marked person, but using the Horror Marked Person's senses to obtain LOS. Freaking Horrors. Most Horrors that are worthy of the name have the following powers:
Increase Karma Die - this would probably look like increasing your 'edge score' for the purpose of rolling. SO lets say you decide to use Edge, and your Edge Score is a 4. You might get 5 dice or 6 dice extra instead of 4. Doing this though, increases the hold the Horror has on you.
Karma Drain - Horror can just eat up your Edge dice
Karma Block - Horror stops you from being able to use edge
Twist Fate - They can force a reroll of your dice, especially edge dice.
Horror Mark
Skin Shift.. actually I'm /positive/ that Marduk has burned that memory from his mind.

Just to name a few fun ones.

[Seth]

OK answering questions:

@Pbangarth: roll me some charisma + ettiquette (10 will do ), and I'll tell you what happens with Aina.

@sabs: Its ok to do the die rolling like that. If I need a really important one, I'll ask for a hosted service, but I don't think thats going to be very often (if ever). 7 successes is good. You have heard of Ysrthgrathe being spoken about. Its fairly common knowledge that it and Aina Dupree had a child called Thais. You can look up any thing you want on Google, and its likely close to the truth. You yourself (as far as you know) have never met Ysrthgrathe (for which you are grateful). You vaguely remember seeing a box like that, and it being important, but you are sure it was back in the 4th age, and you have a vague vision of the box sprouting thorns and bleeding... But then again with Queen Alachia around, its hard to avoid that imagery.

@Ol'scratch. I missed the 9 successes on recognising/percepting Thais. You recognised him from his description, seeing straight through his (quite seriously powerful) illusion. With that many successes you saw that he was tired and worried: emotions that you don't normally associated with the horrors.

[sabs]

You say I've never met Ysgarthe, but Bjorn was created by Ysgarthe. So, did we run into him in a Kaer abandoned by Ysgarthe?
Okay Knowledge of Ysgarthe scrubbed from memory (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

[Seth]

As far as you know Bjorn has created by some horror that you defeated shortly after the kaers opened. You vaguely remember a skyship, a ravaged windling kaer, and a horror that was doing some hideous ritual that you interrupted. The ritual imploded and the horror was either banished or defeated. I'll ask Bjorn to correct his character sheet.

[pbangarth]

Contacting Aina: CHA 8 + Etiquette 1 = 9 dice

10 rolls:

Hmph ==> 24 HITS

[Aria]

Ryl will do her hacker thing while we are in the air and check the commlink security of the team...making sure everyone is running upgraded Firewalls and Encryption (can I copy my programs onto their comms - including tacnet?). Is there a benefit in slaving their comms to mine?

I assume that when I'm in drake form my comm still works, just that I can't access it...?!?

I will also download some Spannish linguasofts for anyone who needs them

[Seth]

I assume that when I'm in drake form my comm still works, just that I can't access it...?!?

If you want you can have the commlink on an elastic bracelet, so its still there when you you are in drake form. I'm not too sure how drakes can interact with AR/VR..does anyone know

[Aria]

They can't! They can't even use trodes! I went for the implant because it seemed reasonable at the time but I won't if it means it stops working when I shift...can't have the tacnet go down for everyone else even if I can't use it at the time...

...although there is stuff in Big D's will for companies working on the matrix problem for drakes and I know Transys is working on it...

[sabs]

Well, the tacnet can also switch to running on one of our commlinks, if necessary.

[Seth]

Just a note for the tacnet (I am all for the tacnet if you can pull it off): You all need to have lots of sensors to make it work. IIRC its 2 sensors per level of the tacnet.

Assuming you are going for a tacnet 4 (which you have enough numbers to support), you will need to have 8 sensors.

[pbangarth]

I have yet to buy gear for Mandala. If he needs tacnet software/hardware, let me know. I should warn you though, he goes astral a lot. He also has the Mindnet spell, for linking the team under conditions that may disallow commlinks.

[Seth]

@Pbangarth. Sadly you cannot benefit from tacnet as you are a spirit and cannot use AR/VR. Plus it will be really hard for you to have a commlink (or in fact any physical object) as you will be constantly moving between the astral world and the mundane world.

I think the friends pact is awesome for things like this. Gives you communications at a range of 10*magic metres (admittedly they can only talk to you) but my free spirit has found it awesome in infiltration scenarios. The downside of loosing force if some one dies is unlikely to be much of a problem in this game: immortals by their nature don't die very often. Bad things can happen to them, and they might want to die, but they are really hard to kill.

[Aria]

Just a note for the tacnet (I am all for the tacnet if you can pull it off): You all need to have lots of sensors to make it work. IIRC its 2 sensors per level of the tacnet.

Assuming you are going for a tacnet 4 (which you have enough numbers to support), you will need to have 8 sensors.

Was going to go for a lvl 1 for just a minor boost but means more of the team will be able to use it because of the sensors issue...

[sabs]

well, we should put together a quick list of 'sensors' that most of us could be carrying.
Seth, can we talk quickly about Group Pattern and the kind of threads we might have had a long time ago that would be resurfacing as the magic level goes up?

[Seth]

You think that the mana levels are now strong enough to reaffirm,your group pattern. Your group pattern required an annual ritual to empower it, and you haven't done that for a few thousand years. In fact you cannot really remember how to perform it: but that's ok all you need to do is go back and reenact creating it the first time.

I suspect that with the time constraints I have given, you won't have the option to re-empower the pattern before breaking into the reactor. (Mostly I have the scenario for the pyramid sorted out, and am keen to play it).

I am hoping that we conclude "Shadow's Dawn" in a reasonable amount of time (a few months) and can continue into the next scenario. If we do that, I suggest that we spend some time in Earthdawn remembering how to re-empower your group pattern.

[pbangarth]

@Pbangarth. Sadly you cannot benefit from tacnet as you are a spirit and cannot use AR/VR. Plus it will be really hard for you to have a commlink (or in fact any physical object) as you will be constantly moving between the astral world and the mundane world.

I think the friends pact is awesome for things like this. Gives you communications at a range of 10*magic metres (admittedly they can only talk to you) but my free spirit has found it awesome in infiltration scenarios. The downside of loosing force if some one dies is unlikely to be much of a problem in this game: immortals by their nature don't die very often. Bad things can happen to them, and they might want to die, but they are really hard to kill.

Yes, I foresaw the communication/gear issue when I chose the Mindnet spell. It being Extended, the range can be amazing.

My other Free Spirit has the Friendship Pact, but her situation puts her in much more danger of losing Force. It has made me a little gun shy of that Pact. Again, Mindnet makes up for it to some degree, and Power Pact has its own fun aspects. Given that you are allowing us to gain Karma normally anyway, I would rather not use Friendship Pact.

[Ol' Scratch]

They can't! They can't even use trodes!

I'm pretty sure that they can use 'trodes in their metahuman form, just like dragons. It's the drake form that cannot benefit from them.

I went for the implant because it seemed reasonable at the time but I won't if it means it stops working when I shift...can't have the tacnet go down for everyone else even if I can't use it at the time...

It won't necessarily go down for everyone else, it'll just become less effective since it'll lose access to your data.

...although there is stuff in Big D's will for companies working on the matrix problem for drakes and I know Transys is working on it...

<coughs>

Anyway, regarding connectivity, my character (Ambrose) is somewhat paranoid. He has a secure commlink dedicated to his PAN, but he keeps it completely wireless and never uses it for communication, which also means he won't be able (or more correctly, won't be willing) to share the data from the few sensors he has in his monocle and the like. Instead, he has a cheap CMT Clip that's probably full of adware, trojans, and virii that he basically just uses as a cellphone. So you probably don't want that connected to a network. I do have enough cash to buy a Micro-Transciever, and I can probably throw a couple sensors into that as a dedicated system, but he'll be operating it manually and only when absolutely necessary.

Think that'll work? (And hey, this gives me an idea for a new alchemical potion... will have to work on it once we get some down time...)

[Seth]

OK Guys its the 3rd today, and we kick off the game proper on the 7th.

Are there anymore things people want to do? As examples:

• There are quite a few missing pieces in the security briefings that you might want to find about
• There is the encrypted stuff and a node address you might want to go to
• You all have other contacts and relationships that you can chase for information.

[sabs]

Marduk would have liked to speak with Hestaby before leaving. If that was.. possible. Though he might have been seriously worried about The Thornies, and distracted by that.

[Seth]

Marduk would have liked to speak with Hestaby before leaving. If that was.. possible. Though he might have been seriously worried about The Thornies, and distracted by that.

I'm a little slow..."The Thornies"?


Can you give me around 10 charisma + etiquette rolls, what sort of questions are you asking?

[sabs]

Alachia and her children :)
Really, it's what he calls all the Blood Wood Elves, in the modern age. He's kinda hoping that the magic level will get high enough that the Ritual of Thorns will reactivate and make their lives a living hell for a couple thousand years again. :-)


Going to be asking, What wasn't in this lovely briefing. Why would Jenna have a Box made from Ysgarthe. Basically just trying to get more information out of Hestaby (hoping our Relationship of 5 will make him open up a bit more)

10 Rolls Charisma 4 + Etiquette 2
1) 1 3 1 6 1 6 (glitch)
2) 4 3 4 2 2 1 (0)
3) 3 6 1 2 6 3 (2)
4) 3 1 3 4 4 4 (0)
5) 3 5 3 1 3 3 (1)
6) 4 1 3 3 5 5 (2)
7) 4 5 2 6 5 3 (3)
8) 6 3 4 6 5 3 (3)
9) 1 3 1 4 2 3 (0)
10) 2 3 5 1 1 4 (1)

I am the mighty mighty roller of etiquette. I should have taken a specialty in Dragons :)

[Ol' Scratch]

Don't you get to add any Loyalty rating as bonus dice to get your contacts to reveal the information they know? Then again I don't know how that'll work with the Relationships bit.

Anyway, I didn't realize we had quite this much time before things went down. I thought it was much more of a rushed scenario. If possible, I think Ambrose may request a video conference with Celedyr, politely asking for his assistance in learning more about what is going on (particularly with the Matrix stuff) as well as asking for his counsel on the matter as a whole. After a moment, he will also hesitantly tell him about his encounter with Trais, praying that 10,000 years of friendship doesn't get wiped away by an 'accidental' Thor Shot.