Armorer: 6d6t5 2 starting the bow
spending edge because why not Armorer edge reroll misses: 4d6t5 1
Tracking: 10d6t5 2 pathetic but they left an arrow and aren't covering their tracks I'll assume 2 is enough.

Lindsey has the spirit cast movement on itself and then come in and separate the burning stuff from the non-burning stuff.

Thank you. I have a clearer idea of where my companions are. I am trying to rally the other people to help me save the food. I have no real skill at putting out fires so will just do the best I can. Would you be able to summon a spirit of water to help or perhaps you or Dana could throw a wall of earth over the flames? We could dig the supplies out later. One of the things I would have tried if the event had not gone so fast was to ask Dana to create a wall of earth around the food to keep the thugs from stealing it. Spilt soymilk now, though.

The fire should be fairly dealt with at this point. I'm not going to drive Rick's reaction though.

One of the only things I like better about Shadowgrid than here is it give a handy warning if someone else has posted while you were typing.

So does Dana rush to Maya's side and save her, or does the spirit whisk her away first?

gilga's post was up first, but whichever...

I spoilered mine out. Priority goes to person who posted first, plus I'd had the most recent 'say' anyway.

I'd say both happens - but it seems that the spirit is closer, so I am editing to say that they were met half way.

Timeline is healed!

Let's leave it at Rick saying something like "I will deal with the orcs!" and I will try to resolve that soon!

I have a question about the fire damage that Maya has. Would Dana's healing magic prevent the scars?

Given that it was done mere seconds after the damage, probably yeah. Unless you want to keep them of course, it could somehow have been worse than it appeared at first.

Nah, I am not sure that she needs them as she is pretty badly scarred already. I was just wondering if I had done something really bad to my character. I could live with it, but it is not necessary. Thanks for your opinion.

Is anyone going to follow Rick or can I handle it 'off camera'?!?

At least Lindsey and Cailin.

Lindsey is just planning to watch the action.

Cailin certainly hopes she won't have anything to do (and she will probably be too slow to change anything anyway)

Just a quick clarification, since I was writing pretty quickly on Friday and may have left a wrong impression. My having Addie run off was not meant as a 'I don't like this, so I'm taking my toys and going home' type of thing, but rather it was accelerating a bunch of stuff that I'd thought would happen anyway.

Given the nature of this game, I always figured that the camp woulf eventually fracture. I deliberately had Addie doing what she (thought she) could to hold things together, with me knowing that most likely this was a lost cause (yes, I can be cruel to my characters sometimes). I had figured it for more of an interactive scene and not something that would happen so early (in-game time), but in the end we got exactly where I thought we'd get.

I always knew that at some point she was likely to crack or break down. Major insecurities combined with a perfectionist streak combined with her code of honor meant that there was no way she was going to meet her own expectations in this environment in the long run. What happened could have gone down in a few ways, but between having set up the rape and failing yet again to get (what she views as) the strongest characters to work together*, running away from it all seemed reasonable -- and it nicely dealt with why she hadn't intervened in camp.

'No more plans' was because this was about as far as I figured her likely story arc out. I'd thought that it wouldn't reach this point for her until things hit a Hunger Games type survival stage where 'what happens next' would be quite constrained by circumstances, so I hadn't thought through what would happen with her after she cracked.

And a final reason for having her run off: I'm going to continue to be quite limited in posting time for the rest of September (and am way behind on TC posts for Preston, so need to put some posting time there), so having her off in the wilderness for a bit kind of works out for me not holding things up. I'll just try to make time to enjoy reading what the rest of you get up to, without worrying as much that I'm three days behind again

* I mentioned that she was never likely to achieve all of her goals, right?

ETA: She was ‘chasing her shadow’ in the latter part of the day, so will be somewhere to the east of the camp. If anyone is wandering/exploring out that way and it works for you to encounter her, go for it (but please fire me a PM to draw attention to it, to improve the odds of a quick response). And things really should get better for my responsiveness by early October.

I'll have Dana go after her when this scene is over. Dana is so chaotic that she cannot even be disappointed when things break apart - it feels like the way the world work - we move from order into chaos. Perhaps they can have a nice chat about expectations (both also share the same code of honor with very different interpretation).

Dana feels that she need to protect people from external dangers, but she accepts that she cannot protect them from themselves. Addie feels that she is in control of things because she manages things - but that control is nothing but an illusion as there are so many forces out of hand.

Ooh and I can meet some elves maybe.

Addie hasn't felt in control this whole time -- but you are right in that she was trying to project otherwise, and in that she was trying to gain a sense of control (by a mixture of doing and managing), but there was far too much for her to manage. As I said above, I can be cruel to my characters -- she was built to eventually fail in this environment. What that failure-under-stress leads to is something I hope will be interesting (at least to me). But I'm happy to put off figuring that out for a bit, so happy if nobody goes to find her right away. (As justification for that: We were late in the day, so in all the chaos it is possible that nobody noticed her missing until dusk, which would make tracking challenging I'd think? And optional whether anyone noticed her leaving, so may not be immediately obvious if she ran off, got eaten, stolen by the toxic mage .... )

Recall that Addie has a comlink - she is not very difficult to find. In fact, Addie can summon us when she decide not to die.

Good point, editing the post for that, and just changed it to have her run west, not east -- I had the map turned around in my head. When I went to actually look at it, up-hill was not the direction I'd been thinking. I dropped a marker on the map for what seems like a likely place where she ends up.

Now THAT sent a shiver down my spine! Also: poor blighters did even worse than we did?

Just checking: Blank is down in the river valley (one way or the other from the camps)? I'd been wondering about the odds of him stumbling upon Addie, but for now she is up on the higher ground. A several hundred metre elevation difference (part of which is a cliff) would probably make casual path crossing unlikely. I'd just thought that it might give you something to react to (whether or not he made his presence known to her).

I'm pretty sure he went the opposite way.

@Gilga: if you check the map the toxic lake is due south whereas the orcs headed south west... but Dana may not know exactly where the lake is?!?

I haven't looked just guessed as you said that the vegitation looks worse than where we previously were. Where can I looked at the map? in OP the map is of some oxford office building from another game. (circles of power I think).

Gilga, whatever color you are using in your spoiler posts is almost completely invisible against the white background. Can you please pick a different color?

It's not a colour Gilga used, it's a link to Orokos. And you can't change the colour of the links (well, unless you tweak the CSS a bit, but that's for admins to do, not users ^^)

4 hits on sneaking text (figured Aria might have us sneaking). I have no control on the color but I'll post in OOC thread next time.

OK. I did not realize you could not change it. I will make do.

You need the Google map...which I've recently tweaked to my understanding of locations... <<here>>

The corruption is more obvious because you are actually in amongst the trees...it will have been fairly obvious to the hunters in the party already but we'll gloss over that...it may or may not have anything to do with the supposed toxic!

Quick rules check: to reflect Addie’s crisis of confidence and failure to live up to her own expectations, I was looking at getting rid of her “code of honour: protect those weaker than her” (15 points) and taking “loss of confidence: leadership” (10 points). Buying off negative qualities in play is 2x cost, and normally there is no karma for taking negative qualities in play. Would the cost of this be:
a) (15 – 10) x 2 = 10 karma (pay 2x the difference)
b) (15 x 2) -10 = 20 karma (pay 2x the whole quality being bought off)
c) 15 x 2 = 30 (pay 2x the whole quality, no credit for loss of confidence)

Thanks for any guidance on that.

===========================

Also, in case Blank should cross paths with Addie (and I'm good either way), Addie will be at the top of Bridal Veil Falls by mid-morning (have the scene worked out, just waiting for the IC to get to the next day). She should be visible for some distance from parts of the valley where Blank is, I think.

@beta: You should only pay 10 karma (for the delta). The books are filled with examples that negative qualities replace each others (pregnant) becomes dependent and so on.

@Aria - it is highly unlikely for the orcs to go where you suggested as that means going directly toward the council and stopping in a shout range from there, also they should manage to get further away than two kilometers. (they are really lame if 2km is all they managed to go).

thanks! Had never come up in my game, so I'd never looked at it much before.



Remember that Aria's original post on the orcs running off was:

QUOTE

The marauding orcs make a beeline for the cover of the trees keen to put as much distance between themselves and the chaos they wrought as quickly as possible. Rick followed, moving surprisingly quickly and assuredly for a city dweller…it would seem the Puyallup Barrens have equipped him for the wilderness rather better than the average street rat. Rather than pursuing directly behind he swung wide clearly intending to get ahead of them, and indeed that seems like it might be possible as the orcs slowed considerably when they got to the unfamiliar territory of the woods. Although the pines were relatively open and from a distance fairly normal looking, on closer inspection the corruption of this place is more evident and despite the show of bravado they were clearly spooked by what they had done and the implications of running off in to the wilds behind a dubious leader…

Which did kind of imply that they were not moving all that far or fast once they made it to the trees. (direction is a different issue)

====================================

Put up an Addie post happening at sundown. I know the others aren't that far along yet, but I don't think anyone else will cross her path before then. Next planned post is in the small hours of the morning, assuming nothing else of note happens, but I'll wait on that for a bit.

Agreed on the karma cost!

If you look at the terrain map they had to go significantly up hill to cross the ridge, south of the tribunal area...and then fairly sharply down the other side. Not easy ground for city dwellers!

This is why I think it is wired they basically went through the tirbunal and took such a hard path instead of going down stream like Blank for example. Being hunters they should have had some understanding of the surrounding.

I do not feel very strongly about it though, Dana's comment can also be plain wrong, she does not have a compass and has only studied the basics of navigation the day before.

Not sure on how long Rick is going to take dealing with Muhammad and co with Dana in tow. Lindsey's goal is to present them with a fait accompli of the camp (what the girls can carry at least) packed up and ready to move/moving by the time they get back (or, even better, be gone). She's going to lead them south to the man made (sorta) place the spirit found if permitted. If Muhammad/Rick went south as well, then maybe they can meet in route? Or he can return just as they start moving that way? Whatever works for the story. Maybe can even run across Addie!

I'm not sure if the small campers are out of eyesight of this or not.

Probably relevant to know where Sim is in all this.

Rick will be gone for at least a couple of hours apparently, so you probably will have been away for a while.
Normally, we're on the east, not south, of the camp, so we shouldn't be able to see much.

There's Sim, and Simon too. Klarissa will probably wait by one the tents, guarding it. Dot...? Assembling some kids to bring them over to the "small" camp?

Oh, Aria, can you add the location of the man made something or other the spirit found to the south to the Google map? Is it where the toxic shaman is? ;P

I saw it as them seeking cover first rather than how difficult the terrain was...I've tweaked the map again to move the tribunal a bit away from their route and the confrontation further south... manmade 'thing' on the map - not the toxic, yet...

I've also tweaked the girl's route a little to follow the valley a little more...although going south you are heading upstream! But at least you don't need to negotiate the cliffs! I think Blank went north around the original drop off point...but I'm a little hazy on that point!

Oh, and the map is linked at the beginning of post 1 of this thread in case you need to find it again!

Nice! I really like it - it seems like Muhammad had a reasonable plan (ditch the tents and go live in the man made building) and that they are moving directly toward that building. It makes a lot of sense now.

Hmm. Looks like Lindsey is leading the girls right to the Toxic Shaman. How sad.

Yup! She has no clue where he's supposed to be (and really, doesn't even think he exists).

Aria: Do you want to make a ruling on if any of the boys glom on to Lindsey's parade? Determines if there's contention for the 2nd unburned tent. If it's just the girls, they're only trying to take the one tent, and Maya's group is interested in the other. I don't want to unilaterally decide that since it effects the other PCs.

@Adam/Raf: the bell tent is big and heavy when wrapped up... I can't remember off hand what your Str is but I'd assume you'll be dragging it behind you rather than merrily hefting it on your shoulder!

Example: http://www.newforestbelltents.co.uk/7m-bell-tent

No worries, will edit that point in!

Addie is still running ahead a bit (by time of day in posts), but wanted to get that one up and out of my system. In other news my crazy September is almost done This weekend is still going to be a bit frazzly but then 'things' should stop eating so much of my time and attention, and I'll embrace regular posting again.

Does anyone want to lay claim to any of the previously named non-orc/troll females before I flesh out Lindsey's group and include them?

Well, if I recall correctly I think about third of the original camp was female, of around 40 kids? (If I remember that wrongly, I apologize)

So far, of that we have named:

PC
Dana
Maya
Lindsey
Addie
I forget her name – Digital Heroin's other character, the observer girl who watched Blank’s assault on the hunters
(not counting the two elf girl PC, as they were not in sight early on)

NPC (working from what we have listed on the OP site, here: https://stormy-waters-2075.obsidianportal.com/wikis/runers apologies if someone has come up in the narrative that I've forgotten about)
Nora
Niyaf
Gem
Klarissa
Dot
Aria
Summer

Which is twelve.
Even allowing for some non-exact numbers, but maybe leaving a bit of space for future PC characters, I’d think that would leave only four or so more to name? (Also I think we’d suggested that ten girls were to sleep in the tent, and six named characters would have been in that number, so that would also suggest four more). This shortage of un-named girls is something I've been watching for a while; I've been trying to re-use one's we'd already named so that you (or others) would have the opportunity to populate part of the female portion of camp.

Where Niyaf goes is an interesting question. Presumably Summer sticks with Maya’s group. Aria is kind of Aria’s NPC, so not sure where she goes. I’m not sure if Klarissa went with the other orcs or not? You were not looking at Dot based on what you said. So I’m assuming that Nora and Gem are with Lindsey, possibly Aria, along with four or five more (unless Nora was back with Maya’s group? I don’t remember what she said about the kids gathered at her camp). Does that sound about right, or were you thinking that there was more?

I think there are around 60 kids but it's late and I'm tired...

Klarissa is staying in the main camp for now, waiting for Rick 's return.