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

[Seth]

I'm still waiting on finding out what my investigation on the skull is.

You examine it carefully. The rules are amplifying its link to anyone that possessed it. "Once together always together" type of magic. Effectively someone has used their skills with Sympathetic Magic, to make this into a magical link^TM with a creature that possessed the skull in the past. This is fairly cutting edge magic: the kind you would expect to see in a thaumaturgical R&D facility.

Instead of sympathetic magic being a minus on a ritual spell casting roll, this would be around +3 die. It could be used for things other than ritual magic: anything that needs a magical link.

As an example its such a strong link that astral tracking would only take 1 min per roll, instead of 1 hour.

[Seth]

Would the Light Form last a shorter period of time than the stated 24 hours?

I think the heavy form is to ensure that the mark recipient is truly grateful, and pays lots for it.

Our employers are much better suited to deal with the Horror than we are, but they can't get at him till we bring down the outer ward. We can't bring down the outer ward till we, probably, deal with the Horror right where he is strongest. Do I have this about right?

Umm...well...Its a fair cop...you found me out.

To be fair to your employers, you were fully capable of doing the task that they set you on. If the outer ward had collapsed when you defeated Warder, it would be all over now. However from a point of personal survival, if you don't deal with the outer ward I think your choices are now "join the horrors" or "go down fighting". Now if you look at the map a little more carefully (and a fine piece of art it is too), the ward is around the whole lair (did I say lair...oops). You have tunneling capabilities and don't need to go up through the front entrance. The blood pump is in one of the four outer areas. The one with the Dn in it is the stairs to the level below.

The timing was quite clear: you have 15 minutes or its very bad. However you still have quite a lot of time left, and the bottom of the pyramid is now free of the Horror's minions.

[pbangarth]

I think the heavy form is to ensure that the mark recipient is truly grateful, and pays lots for it.

(IMG:style_emoticons/default/grinbig.gif) Gotcha.

Umm...well...Its a fair cop...you found me out.

To be fair to your employers, you were fully capable of doing the task that they set you on. If the outer ward had collapsed when you defeated Warder, it would be all over now. However from a point of personal survival, if you don't deal with the outer ward I think your choices are now "join the horrors" or "go down fighting". Now if you look at the map a little more carefully (and a fine piece of art it is too), the ward is around the whole lair (did I say lair...oops). You have tunneling capabilities and don't need to go up through the front entrance. The blood pump is in one of the four outer areas (I forget which one I said, so we'll say the SE once). The one with the Dn in it is the stairs to the level below.

The timing was quite clear: you have 15 minutes or its very bad. However you still have quite a lot of time left, and the bottom of the pyramid is now free of the Horror's minions.

Yup. How many times have I heard the words "unforseen circumstances" cross Mr. Johnson's lips?

The map pyramidstartround17 shows the pump room being where the stairs down are. Should we ignore that and go with the SE room, which I believe is opposite to that room?

Wherever it is, Mandala can move with Angel, once she is ambulatory, to wherever we need to be. The tunneling ring will probably drill to the ward and then halt. Mandala can Shatter the ward there and the ring can continue drilling again. With a little luck, we could remove the floor right under the pump, and gravity will do the work for us after that.

[Seth]

Thank you for spotting that. We will go with the map. I'll edit the old post.

Ol'scratch has the ring...he is in room 27a
Bjeorn is a ring...he is in the barracks.

[Alyena]

Ol'scratch has the ring...he is in room 27a
Bjeorn is a ring...he is in the barracks.

A thought occurs given Seth's last post. As we have 2 means of tunneling...... why not use both. Create some sort of diversion in another part of the temple, while feeding the pump a cocktail of chemicals. My understanding of the ward is that it will come down a lot quicker if the blood is 'tainted' in some way rather than waiting for it to drain out of the systam.
If we want to do that, should we try to regroup and co-ordinate efforts.
We could tunnel then sleaze/mask through the ward leaving it intact to keep rampaging rage spirits at bay while we work? We can then cause an even bigger diversion letting them in while we head up to the next floor and the last pump (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

@Marduk
As you have been studying the dagger etc can you tell why the rage spirits aren't attacking each other? Could we mask to look like them in order to move around more safely?

[sabs]

@Marduk
As you have been studying the dagger etc can you tell why the rage spirits aren't attacking each other? Could we mask to look like them in order to move around more safely?

Seth? Can I?

[Seth]

You look at the spirits and realize that they all have a very similar aura: the same aura as the dagger, you can try masking if you want.

[pbangarth]

Ooooohhhh... someone has Aura Masking with a shitload of dice! I'll get on this later today.

[pbangarth]

Well, it was someone else's idea, so I'll wait till Mandala is clued in by someone before he tries. Should that happen, his roll would be:

Aura Masking: INT 8 + Magic 6 + Edge 6 (Hmmph ... probably would be worse outside of Angel's aura, though) = 20 dice

==> 8 HITS

[Aria]

@Seth:

Seem to have made a bit of a booboo (not sure if it's a copy paste error or I simply forgot/ran out of points at the time)... Ryl doesn't seem to have an unarmed skill so unless she's going to rely on defaulting is going to be bugger all use against non manifest spirits (IMG:style_emoticons/default/frown.gif) I don't suppose we've earnt 4 karma by now so I can at least get a skill of 1?!?

I assume that her fire breath only works on the meat world not in the astral?!?

[sabs]

I forget what's the rolll for aura masking?

[Seth]

Masking is: Intuition + Magic + initiate grade.

[sabs]

Masking

Well then 16d6: 4 1 6 5 2 4 6 4 3 2 2 2 1 6 6 2 (5) hits

[Aria]

Masking is: Intuition + Magic + initiate grade.

18D nets Ryl a pitiful 3 successes (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nyahnyah.gif) I guess I could edge that if it looks like not enough...damn sight easier than fighting them all!

[Seth]

I just realised I missed an earlier question about unarmed.

There is a general question, then the specific.
General: I don't think elemental breath works on astral spirits.
Specific: All the spirits have manifest or possessed something, so fire breath will work just fine.

I do think unarmed is a good skill for you to have, so feel free to shuffle some skill points around.

I'm not going to distribute karma until the end of this scenario (Its pretty much on track for 2..3 months finishing I think). Its only been a couple of minutes of "real time", although fairly seriously intense real time. If there are enough people telling me "no no we want karma now", I'll give in..

[Aria]

Oooo...quick everyone (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)

[sabs]

It's been 5 minutes (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)
I'm more than okay to wait on karma.

[Seth]

We are at awkward phase in Shadow's Dawn: you are scattered around the Pyramid, the spirit Apocalypse_TM has been unleashed and everythings chaotic. With the cunning masking plan, you should be mostly unaffected by the horde of spirits There are two people that want to join, and now is an excellent time to do so: the horde of spirits will be freeing all the prisoners below the temple area...admittedly freeing them to kill them...but hey.

I'm going to move out of combat rounds as a control mechanism, and ask all of you "roughly what are you doing". If you could answer OOC I will sort out some IC posts, and at the end of it you should be roughly where you want to be. At least one of the prisoners that you come across will have some valuable data (shall we call it a plot-hook) that will be encouraging you to go back in time to a few years before the end of the 4th age.

If you are Earthdawn fans, can you tell me what type of character you were back then. If not, ask the others.

Based on the last experiment (The trip to see the Bird of Hope), I have made some adjustments

Over the next couple of weeks I will get some equipment, and a few extra cool powers based on the answers. The ritual requires at least some people to have ritual spell casting. Great Ritual helps (a lot) as well. Everyone will make a ritual spellcasting (default of -1 if you have no skill is fine) roll. Anyone with great ritual will give everyone extra die to roll equal to their successes (including themselves). The successes will count as edge during the flashback (and these will be the only edge you can spend). You can also use them to slightly influence how things go on an adhoc basic. The ritual only takes a few combat rounds to cast.

To summarize:

• Please remind me what type of adept you were, and if you can tell me how many points you spent on resources that will help me
• Please let me know "roughly what you are doing" in the OOC post, so that I can do some IC shuffling you all around, and meeting up with new players

[sabs]

Marduk: Wizard, I spent 50BP on resources.
I have Great Ritual, cause I'm that kind of jerk.

Since we are out of combat time.
Marduk is doing the following:
1) Trying to figure out if he can activate the dagger to call the spirits back in.
2) He has a link to Ysgarth, he has a dagger of I hate Ysgarth.. there should be some synergy.
3) where is the Box what's her bucket gave me?
4) Making sure Ambrose keeps the damn door shut.
5) Oh Hey, I'm invisible to obnoxious Horror (or so I think I might be) Use the TacNet to go exploring the temple area.
6) Speaking of TacNets, I want to link us to it, so we're getting the benefits. Mark us as friendlies, see what else the damn thing does.

[e-do]

Hi All (again)!

Seth--regarding my BP allocation for resources, I had to re-vamp the character sheet to reflect the fact that Boris was once a drek-hot adept (as opposed to the 2071 drek-hot quasi-burnout version). When I'm done, should I also post it to the recruitment thread? Either way, his resources would probably not exceed 40-ish. Regarding his Earthdawn-day discipline, I'd say Swordmaster, with a few circles of Scout and Warrior thrown in for good measure.

"Roughly what you are doing wise"--I'm waiting for the IC post to see what exactly you've got in store.

[Aria]

To summarize:

• Please remind me what type of adept you were, and if you can tell me how many points you spent on resources that will help me
• Please let me know "roughly what you are doing" in the OOC post, so that I can do some IC shuffling you all around, and meeting up with new players

I am currently an artisan adept (or an aproximation of one as the Way hadn't been released when I made Ryl)...but the thinking was that I was probably an invisible adept in the past (can't remember what that translates to in ED terms...scout perhaps?). I spent 50BPs on resources!

Roughly I will follow the plan regarding the floating spirits and regroup...I don't think I have an agenda other than the mission parameters now that Angel is safe (ish)...so I guess we need to face a horror and nuke a blood ward (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nyahnyah.gif)

[Seth]

@Aria
How about if you were a Thief? Lots of fun: everyone trusts a thief.
Scout is doable also: finding things out is important
Air Sailor: Cutting edge of tech, lots of freedom

@E-do

Seth--regarding my BP allocation for resources, I had to re-vamp the character sheet to reflect the fact that Boris was once a drek-hot adept (as opposed to the 2071 drek-hot quasi-burnout version). When I'm done, should I also post it to the recruitment thread? Either way, his resources would probably not exceed 40-ish. Regarding his Earthdawn-day discipline, I'd say Swordmaster, with a few circles of Scout and Warrior thrown in for good measure.

Just post in the recruitment thread.

[Aria]

Actually Air Sailor sounds lots of fun! Given that my master's lair was in Wales any actions in Barsaive would take a bloody long time to get to and the chances are that Ryl would have picked up some skills on that line...

Frail little girly along with huge trolls - just as well she can turn into a mini dragon (IMG:style_emoticons/default/ork.gif)

Although there are other sailor groups than trolls aren't there? Seems unlikely that she'd hang with crystal raiders all that much?!?

[sabs]

Trolls are Sky Raiders.
There are Human/Elf/Etc Air Sailors.

[Seth]

The lizard folk air sail quite a lot. Whole fleets of galleons and cogs. Merchants are pirates

The dwarfs have their flying stone castles. Looks a lot like this, but made of stone (In real life this could have been 15 meters in height and 66 meters long... truth is stranger than fiction sometimes).

But you are right the Crystal Skyraiders are famous for being trolls