OOC Chat II

[JadedDM]

It was a good run. Nearly four years, which is a personal record for me. Usually my old chat-games ran for only a year, at best. Although we could usually get from 1st level to 7th in one year, whereas here it took four years to get from 3rd level to 6th. That's pbps for you. So very, very slow.

I enjoyed NPCing Ulster, Thuskar and Malika, though. Fun facts about them: Let's see...Ulster and Thuskar both suffered deep psychological scars from their experiences in the Pod Caverns. It really messed them up. Thuskar basically had PTSD and would lose it whenever exposed to magical experiments on living things (like that dwarf mage who was mutating those rats). Ulster's trauma manifested in more subtle ways.

You might remember awhile back I talked about writing a short story about Ulster's and Thuskar's origins. Sadly, I never got very far with it. But the story would have detailed what happened that led to them getting captured in the first place. The basic story was, Ulster was infatuated with one of the other mercenaries who protected Merithina. She was the party's scout; I think her name was Aela, or something like that. Anyway, Thuskar managed to pressure Ulster to finally go and talk to her. Summoning up his courage, he approached her and tried to make some small talk, but it was mostly awkward. That was when the Podmen got the jump on them and captured them.

So, right off the bat, Ulster blamed himself for the whole thing. Had he not distracted the scout with his awkward attempts at flirtation, maybe she would have heard or seen the podmen coming, and they wouldn't have been caught unawares. But it got worse. While Thuskar was dragged off to be experimented on by the Shroom and partially transformed into a podman hybrid, Ulster, Merithina and the other mercenaries were put into the fungus cages. And one by one, Ulster got to listen to them (including his crush) be fed into that grinder (he couldn't see anything, as it was dark; but he could hear their screams).

So, yeah. Pretty dark stuff. So when Ulster met Imani, he saw her as unattainable, as she was married already. That made her 'safe' so he became infatuated with her. When Imani joined the party and went as far as to kiss him, it scared him off. She was no longer unattainable, and he was terrified of forming romantic attachments to anyone again, for fear that he would somehow get them killed, as well.

As for Malika, she was lying about pretty much everything from the start. She told that sob story when the party first met her, and it turned out to be false. Then she told another sob story instead--that was also a lie. Basically, Malika was always a thief and a liar and was just using the party in hopes of getting rich off of them. She basically planned to bleed Jerrard dry of all of his cash in Palanthas then dump him when he was of no use to her anymore.

Jerrard had hoped to reform her. And it was possible. But awkwardly hitting on her all of the time wasn't the way to do it. Jerrard often talked about how he respected her and cared about her, and all that, but it was clear to Malika he just was saying those things to get into her pants, so she saw no problem with using him. (Whether Jerrard was sincere or not is irrelevant, the way he spoke and acted toward her certainly gave her the impression he was only interested in her body and nothing else.)

And then there was Lucas, and I don't really have anything to say about him, as he was too new.

Tomorrow, I'll talk some about what I was planning to do for the game's finale, had we made it that far.

[JadedDM]

Originally, the plan was that the airship was going to crash into the Bay of Branchala, which is where the city of Palanthas is located (on its coast). So basically, they only just make it there. The ship was going to start falling apart when they got close. It would have been something of a gag, where Sunni would keep assuring the party everything was fine despite the fact that pieces of the ship were falling off. At one point, they would have lost the flywheel, which Ulster would have pointed out (if nobody else did) was what caused them to crash the first time, but Sunni would have continued to claim that there was nothing to worry about, right up to the point that they crash into the sea.

Luckily there are plenty of fishing boats in the area, and the party and crew are rescued before the airship sinks to the bottom. The gnomes take this completely in stride, and in fact immediately start working on plans for a giant crane to fish out the ship so they can begin repairs.

Now in Palanthas, what the party did next was up to them. I was assuming that Jerrard and Locky would take the reins here, as they are both from there. Perhaps they would visit the temple where Locky trained or meet Jerrard's mother, or something like that. I was really going to leave it up to them. Fikod would have left the party, departing to return to Thorbardin. Lucas would have brought the former slaves to the temple to make sure they were well cared for.

Presumably, at some point, when everything else was resolved, the subject of what to do about Imani's son would be brought up. Based on past experiences, I assumed that nobody would have any kind of reasonable plan or strategy, so Ulster would have supplied one. The party should contact all of the people they have helped in their adventures, and pool them together to form their own army. This would have included the people of Buho (Elvenoff was still there, training new paladins, and he could have supplied some), the Hungry Shadows (now led by Syriana who could supply some assassins), Shrentak (Merithina and Shay could have supplied some mercenaries), the Dimernesti (who could attack Ak-Tubal from the sea, as it was a port), the kirath (who naturally would not have responded, as the party abandoned them in their time of need), the gnomes (who could supply them with siege machines), and Fikod (who could supply some dwarven warriors).

Finally, Jerrard could attempt to recruit some mages from the Tower of Palanthas and Locky could do likewise to recruit clerics from her temple.

Once everything was in place, the party's army would march to Khur and invade Ak-Tubal. Naturally, Khan Mehmet would be ready for them with his own army of dervishes, draconians and of course, a big blue dragon. It would have been a massive battle, with the party leading the way on the vanguard and also issuing orders to the different squads of their army. Assuming that the party could fight their way into the city and breach the walls of the Khan's palace and fight their way to the throne room and defeated the last of his bodyguards, Mehmet would be helpless and surrender. Whether the party killed him or captured him was up to them, of course.

At that point, a choice would need to be made. Would Imani ascend to the throne, becoming the new Khanum and ruling until her son came of age? Or would she instead allow Syriana to take over, and move somewhere else to raise her son with as 'normal' of a life as she could?

Either way, with her son safe, there is no longer any reason for the party to stick together. Presumably they would have split up shortly after this, and gone their own way. I probably would have written an epilogue for each character. Locky would have returned to Palanthas and been ordained a true Revered Daughter of Paladine by Lady Crysania, Jerrard would have gone to continue his studies in magic under his master, Babushka would have returned to the solitude of the forests of Sanction, and so on and so forth. Of course, those were subject to change depending on what happened before the game ended.

Not a grand, saving the world type ending, but then again, it wasn't that kind of game.

[Breila]

You're probably right that nobody would have come up with a plan. I'm an absolutely lousy strategist myself, and I don't know how good Horizon is at planning.

My wish is that in the end, Babushka could settle down in the caverns the Sinister Shroom had previously occupied, it's a nice underground dwelling place in the middle of nature. She would have made a small shrine to Habbakuk there. Perhaps, with some luck, a few adventoutrous young gnomes would join her to found a colony. Occasionally, she would go out and join in efforts to right a wrong, and either die in battle or live to a venerable old age...

[JadedDM]

Ah, yes. I had forgotten she had considered that idea long ago. I suppose those caverns would be quite livable, once they were cleared of monsters.

[HorizonsDream]

I suck at planning. I don't have the ability to see everything from all angles and then make a plan off of it.

As for what Imani would have done, she would have let her sister wife take the throne, and she would leave Khur with her son. She would have found a small town perhaps outside of Palanthas to try and live a more peaceful life.