this is a thread to attract SE4 forumers to the first Dungeon Oddessy roleplay thread

[Jack Simth]

True, but not everything has to be directly related to everything else - the ring feud and the psi's manipulations of the Barony could be totally unrelated, especially seeing as how, if the psi wanted the ring from someone she could manipulate readily (John), she would have just gotten him to hand it over more directly. There could be multiple schemers running around.

[narf poit chez BOOM]

so, if we have another Psi keeping the ring fued going, why havn't they done anything by now? waiting to see if the first one would kill us off? maybe there's three players - the first one, the one we're fighting, just wants the barony, no clue about the ring. second one, wants the ring. or at least, doesn't want anybody else from having it. third one, either the same or nobler motives. and two and three have been keeping each other from doing anything overt. the only problem i see, although i'm tired and there could be more, is that it's complex.

[Jack Simth]

True, maybe three schemers would cause a bit of a problem.

All right, how's this sound:

The psi is the Baron's sister, and feels that she rightly deserves the position. However, if she just takes it, the people above the baron will bring their recources to bear against her, which she wouldn't be able to stand against (they would hire the psionics guild, if need be). However, if she proves to them that the Baron isn't fit, they may interceed in her favor. To do this, she needs to be careful not to leave too terribly much in the way of traces - no long-term direct control on major players, no hiring of mercenaries, et cetera (Same as before), and is unaware of or uninterested in the ring.

The ring feud is unrelated, and is simply caused by John being sore at Arthur about something, which has now been tempered by time and events - perhaps it is jealosy, as Arthur was always the better mage; or John has recently realized he can't do anything with the ring, and is thus willing to part with it; or, perhaps, he wants to see what happens if/when Aurther tries to probe it (having tried it himself, and not fared too well).

Ring-side motivations will probably need to wait for Krsqk's input, as they most directly involve his character.

[narf poit chez BOOM]

and she's attacking out of desperation. works.

[Jack Simth]

It's not necessarily an attack out of desparation - she saw a reasonable reason to get the baron and army away from the manor (chasing our party) and then sent mere bandits (not a regular army) to loot/capture the place. A manor falling to a better-equipped, more expensive army is one thing, and doesn't say too terribly much about the competence of it's leader. However, if a manor falls to ill-equipped bandits while the baron is out, then the baron "obviously" can't make reasonable decisions, and thus is a bad candidate for managing the recourses present in the barony. Under such circumstances, those above the baron could reasonably see fit to hand the barony over to a candidate that is qualified (with qualifications including descent from whoever the barony was awarded to): the psi. The only real kink in her plans came when we disabled her and went back to the manor to defend it.

[Krsqk]

John and Arthur's disagreement is ~1500 years old, I believe. That makes it unlikely to be originated by the psi in question, but it would be a good tool for the psi to use. The baron's Master Wizard would be the one most likely to detect her/spoil her plans, so she probed his memory for something to distract him. This feud stood out, so she influenced him to obsess about it lately. This coincided with Arthur's recent attempts to persuade John to surrender it, which could explain why the psi chose such an "old" memory to use. With the wizard safely distracted, she could proceed with her dastardly deeds against the baron.

The appearance of the party seemed at first to fall right in with her plans. The telekenesis attack in the tower could have been an attempt to kill John, or perhaps it was just done to force the party's hand. Jack responded with some fairly spectacular (by the standards of the peasantry) magic, then spirited everyone away. The baron, and especially his men, were fairly easy to persuade to chase after them, given things such as the wall floating above the tower.

The psi didn't count on 1) the link with John being broken in the process, or 2) the party being able to track her down so quickly, relying mostly on Arthur's previous hunches about her location. She wouldn't have been overly concerned, though; she had the mantis and shelves full of damping flour, not to mention guards well-equipped with it. Few mages in this plane seem to be well-acquainted with time-space bending, let alone versed in it, and no one had any knowledge of capacitors or Harnessed Uncertainty Gems (Jewels?); so it was quite reasonable to assume that a party primarily consisting of mages would be easily defeated. The mages would be nearly harmless once hit with the flour, and the lone fighter should be easily dispatched by her pet. Jack's access to the extra-planar technologies proved to be the hidden flaw in her plans. The rest, as they say, is history.

The previously given reasons for the psi to attack the baron seem solid to me; perhaps she is an older sibling, or even was originally the heir (some noble families did permit titles to devolve on the oldest heir, whether male or female) but was passed over for some reason.

Sound good so far?

[edit]

All armor has chinks - otherwise, the armored person couldn't move. I'm sure Narp's very good at placing his blows, but we might do better with a hasty retreat, as we are sorely outnumbered. Then again, castle keeps were designed with room-to-room, pay-for-every-inch defense in mind.

The armor would have chinks, but it's difficult to place a bow shot there in close quarters (thus my examples of point-blank crossbow/ballistic-fired longbow). I wasn't negating the effectiveness of Narp's sword work; I just didn't think he'd like to take on the twenty-to-one odds, especially when several of the enemy have polearms or longer two-handed swords.

You know, it might be possible to end the speed/strength enhancement by faking our deaths. Jack stated in the first mage cave that the spell runs until it stops detecting a threat, and even Arthur's Version burnt out almost as soon as the need for the spell ended. If the detection portion of the spell can be spoofed, the massive hangovers would kick in, making the fight a lot easier. Of course, that's up to you two to work out. Another means might be just as fun.

[ October 16, 2003, 21:30: Message edited by: Krsqk ]

[narf poit chez BOOM]

well, the psi could always be insane. nice, neat reason for her to be passed up. i think we have our explanation.

[Jack Simth]

Originally posted by Krsqk:
You know, it might be possible to end the speed/strength enhancement by faking our deaths. Jack stated in the first mage cave that the spell runs until it stops detecting a threat, and even Arthur's Version burnt out almost as soon as the need for the spell ended. If the detection portion of the spell can be spoofed, the massive hangovers would kick in, making the fight a lot easier. Of course, that's up to you two to work out. Another means might be just as fun.

That would be tricky, wouldn't it?

Some other possibilities:
There is still all that flour lying around in John's workroom. Jack could bring it back the same way he sent it in, which could null the magic on the bandits, leaving them near-collapsing from the weight of armor they don't wear when not using strength enhancements. He'd want to levitate the casters in the party out of the way first, however.

Also, there should still be some dust sticking to Narp's shield (Jack's been careful not to disturb it when teleporting the party around) - a shield bash could be devastating to the first bandit or two, couldn't it?

Alternately, it should be possible to teleport the bandits - they were teleported in, after all. There might be some hoops to jump through (aligning spell frequencies or some such to convince the amulets it is a friendly teleport) but it should be possible.

[narf poit chez BOOM]

unless, like your gems, the enchantment is buried. but it still wouldn't be able to function. on the other hand, the strength and speed could be a potion. we've seen a fair amount of alchemy.

harking back to previous stuff, mages can cast spells and enchant. if we let psionics store activatable energy patterns in items, then they'd have a personal power and an item power. but alchemists only have an item power, so as a proposal, how about alchemists being able to take on characteristics from there environment?

[Jack Simth]

Originally posted by narf poit chez BOOM:
unless, like your gems, the enchantment is buried. but it still wouldn't be able to function. on the other hand, the strength and speed could be a potion. we've seen a fair amount of alchemy.

Quite possible.

Originally posted by narf poit chez BOOM:

harking back to previous stuff, mages can cast spells and enchant. if we let psionics store activatable energy patterns in items, then they'd have a personal power and an item power. but alchemists only have an item power, so as a proposal, how about alchemists being able to take on characteristics from there environment?

Possibly - perhaps they could also produce adreneline activated potions that hang around as an inert substance until activated - drink one, and then next month when some drunk throws a punch at you, the potion activates, and grants a temporary strength boost, speed boost, or whatever, all under the nose of any watching mages. They could possibly be made to run on other triggers as well - massive injury (shock triggered), illness (elavated white-blood cell count), strenuous exertion (lactic acid buildup), et cetera. Then an alchemist could store potions inside the alchemist's own body, where they can't be readily removed. They'd just need to make sure it wouldn't react with anything else they ingest....

Also, don't forget about alchemically modified pets! Who wouldn't want to be the master of a 2-ton dog, trained to be totally loyal to its master, saturated with anti-magic dust and below the intelligence threshold needed for telepathic influence to operate? Or a cat, or a bug, or a bird, or a _________(fill in blank)? Sure, it might be expensive to maintain (how much would a 2-ton dog/cat/bird/bug/______ eat every day?), but it would be quite an impressive war-beast.