OoC [Mage the Awakening] "After the 2003 Hoax"

[Cire]

Ooops. Sorry, I'll edit to use the shadow name. I also admit that there are a lot of moving parts in this story, but I think that is part of the charm.

[egreham]

Changed my Virtue/Vice to Charity/Sloth

[Cire]

Noted, Egreham. I also suppose I should write up Silencer. Here he is:

Shadow Name: Silencer
Name: Craig Alphonse Gray
Location: Little Rock, Arkansas
Path: Thyrsus
Order: Guardian of the Veil
Virtue and Vice: Fortitude and Lust
Arcana: Forces: 2, Life: 3, Prime: 2, Spirit: 3
Wisdom: 7
Gnosis: 2

Backstory: On the one hand, Silencer is a Guardian of the Veil totally devoted to protecting humanity from magic. On the other hand, he is a terrible womanizer. In Little Rock, he has both a wife and a mistress. He also has the flaw of letting his temper get the better of him.

[Esuna]

Doolittle is scary powerful. She's awesome!

[Cire]

I like every character in this game, and Doolittle is certainly no exception

Here is my draft of how I intend to open "chapter two" in a few days.

Saturday April 12th, 2003
Napier, New Zealand

"It is true that I have the white knight," Portumnus told the Tuesday and the others assembled in his study of his lavish sanctum. "I might even consider giving it to you. As an Arrow, I am more in need of a weapon than a game piece. So I am a mood to offer a trade."

At this point, Portumnus held up a hand and looked at Doolittle. "Do not fear, dear lady. It is not your blade I seek, fine though it is. I seek one of the swords once yielded by the famous Zodakin - the sword Zodakin used to slay the lovely but evil Jarnsaxa. Find this sword, and the knight I will freely give up. I have information that weapon that I seek is somewhere in Auckland."

*****
I should point out that Zodakin is a legendary New Zealand mage invented by MysticJackal. I hope he does not mind me using her name to give the desired sword a history. I also would welcome any comment or suggestions.

[egreham]

@Cire

Should I post stat about Miss Watson? What would be the stat for Retainer 5?

Also, just on another note, I'm a bit lost on how to connect the main plot to the Auckland plot. I honestly don't know if I can prepare a place where my characters can find their way into the main plot. A little help please?

@Esuna

Okay I ended up writing 2000 words in effort to try to fit this particular information in:

Hoplite's wooden chair creaked as he leaned back in it and waited for an interesting message. Raw spikes of jagged fear. Disbelieving wonder. The tingle of someone with a Nimbus.

But I'm not going to post it. Instead, I'll summarize it:

Miss Watson developed a hidden radio system in which she can freely talk to Hei and listen to her conversations. Her plan was to have Hei distract Hoplite while Miss Watson cast a complicated rote in order to get through whatever shield he could have put up and detect his psychological responses. This way, Miss Watson would anonymously watch from a distance and record ANY activity, magical or not, and have Hei ask personal questions and basically lie-detect him. She hopes to use the report as a ticket for Hoplite to gain trust where there is none. She however worries that this plan had the Xanatos Speed Chess problem of being unreliable if anything happened out of expectation. If she couldn't come to a full conclusion, then Hoplite would be most likely be turned away.

Hei on the other hand finds free money (Hoplite's by super coincidence) and attempts to buy drink with it. But Morvri, a Mage who is very distrustful of Hoplite's credential as Obediah's friend of a friend, comes by and interrogate Hei about where Miss Watson is in order to stop her operation, not knowing about the hidden radio and that Miss Watson can hear everything. Morvri then tries to convince Hei that this is a stupid idea and explains why he is trying to stop them.

Miss Watson, who is listening in, calls Lily and interrupts her oggling at (seemingly) asleep Hoplite's pretty face and tells her to change location. Then Miss Watson tells Hei to shake off Morvri, but he knows what's up. Before Hei can walk away, two people teleports in out of nowhere and blocks her path (source of disbelief and Nimbus). Morvri then whips out a magical Fate warrant permitting him to strip away Hei's Prime protection in order to interrogate her and recites the Mage Miranda Rights. Hei decides it's worth it to not kick their asses and let Miss Watson have a second chance at finishing the job. Hei surrenders and gets involuntarily scared (source of jagged fear) when the shield goes away.

Now at this point, I was tempted to have the Magic Money read Hei's mind as soon as her Prime shield goes off, which would reveal to Hoplite about the plan, reason why Hei wanted to help him along with her past, and part of Miss Watson's true name. It would have hilariously ridiculous, but I noticed how long it was already and decided not to.

Miss Watson, missing half the equipment and Hei, decides Lily is the only option and calls her for the job.

After seeing your recent post however, I realized I had a problem: this took too long for me to write, and I needed to scrap half of it. It is my fault for trying to write such a big plot, but I mainly did it because I thought I needed to incorporate that little end information, but didn't know what you expected out of it. I thought you wanted a conflict that Hoplite would get into, but then that would have delayed the Miss Watson's interrogation, which would in turn delay getting into the main plot. So I tried to tie those two together. But now it's become irrelevant, and I back to scratch.

So before Hei or Miss Watson can act, may I ask you what you expect to happen?

[Cire]

Egreham, in essence, my plan was for the other to come to Auckland looking for the sword to trade for the white knight only to discover the Seer plot taking place, thus linking up with your characters. However, I might be able to do better and will prepare a new draft of a possible start of "chapter two."

I want to stress chapters wait for the players. They are also to create down time that stuff can happen. Otherwise, I fear you get the problem of time dragging so slowly plot cannot develop. I think your ideas are good and I know will add richly to the game. I should also point out that Tuesday's goal is just an organizing conceit. The main "point" of this game is the players characters and their adventures. As such, you (and everyone else) is already in the "main" story.

As to Miss Watson, feel free to stat her if you wish. As she is at level 5, she can be powerful indeed. How powerful, I will leave to you, within reason. By this, I would rather Miss Watson not be an archmage in the imperial mysteries sense.

[Esuna]

After seeing your recent post however, I realized I had a problem: this took too long for me to write, and I needed to scrap half of it. It is my fault for trying to write such a big plot, but I mainly did it because I thought I needed to incorporate that little end information, but didn't know what you expected out of it. I thought you wanted a conflict that Hoplite would get into, but then that would have delayed the Miss Watson's interrogation, which would in turn delay getting into the main plot. So I tried to tie those two together. But now it's become irrelevant, and I back to scratch.

So before Hei or Miss Watson can act, may I ask you what you expect to happen?

Hehe, sorry, perhaps I posted a bit too quickly before waiting, my own fault. Really Hoplite put that money out there to have a little forwarning on anything weird or scary. He's really sensing for any of those emotional states (not all of them at once). Anything you throw at me Hoplite can react to, even if he's a bit graceless about it. Even though he's not in the mental warehouse, he's still sensing the money. He checks back in periodically.

Btw, what you had written sounds awesome...

[Cire]

Here is my second draft of how I intend to open "chapter two" in a few days.

Saturday April 12th, 2003
Napier, New Zealand

"It is true that I have the white knight," Portumnus told the Tuesday and the others assembled in his study of his lavish sanctum. "I might even consider giving it to you. As an Arrow, I am more interested in a weapon than a game piece. So I am a mood to offer a trade."

At this point, Portumnus held up a hand and looked at Doolittle. "Do not fear, dear lady. It is not your blade I seek, fine though it is. I seek one of the swords once yielded by the famous Zodakin - the sword Zodakin used to slay the lovely but evil Jarnsaxa. Find this sword, and the knight I will freely give up. I have information that weapon that I seek is somewhere in Auckland."

"So you are saying you want this sword in exchange for white knight?" asked Tuesday.

"Actually I want you to give the sword to my mentor, the Adamant Sage of Auckland," replied Portumnus. "If you find the sword and give it to him, I will give you the chess piece."

[egreham]

Hehe, sorry, perhaps I posted a bit too quickly before waiting, my own fault. Really Hoplite put that money out there to have a little forwarning on anything weird or scary. He's really sensing for any of those emotional states (not all of them at once). Anything you throw at me Hoplite can react to, even if he's a bit graceless about it. Even though he's not in the mental warehouse, he's still sensing the money. He checks back in periodically.

Btw, what you had written sounds awesome...

It's ok. The length made it a problem regardless of my effort. I was just disappointed when I saw your latest post because I overly invested based on the assumption that a part was immediately consequential, which turned out to be not. Oh well. I am however glad that this taught me that I should keep length in consideration because seriously, 2000 is way too much. I did enjoy writing the Mage Miranda Rights part:

Morvri took out a piece of paper written in High Speech. Fate began to weave itself with Morvri.“I didn’t want to do this because I thought you would be more sincere and reasonable, but you are now officially under interrogation by permit. As a fellow member of Pentacle society, you have the right not to be harmed in any way. You have the right to be free of any coercive or suggestive spells. All methods, including Awakened arts, that will be used will avoid any unnecessary intrusion to privacy and only serve to answer the following inquiry: Where’s Miss Watson.”

Despite Hei’s lack of vocabulary, she understood enough. The plan was fucked.

I hoped to have Morvri the symbol of justified paranoia brooding in Auckland, but this story arc is forever banned from canon and protected only by the law of alternate realities. Oh well. I'll just go with the original idea. Stay tuned.

PS. If I remember correctly, magic spells aren't indefinite; in fact, they're very temporary. A permanent Imbue Magic spell is, I think, a ritual with at least 6 successes. Just as a side note that it might have been very noticeable and that it will stay on at most 48 hours.

[egreham]

As to Miss Watson, feel free to stat her if you wish. As she is at level 5, she can be powerful indeed. How powerful, I will leave to you, within reason. By this, I would rather Miss Watson not be an archmage in the imperial mysteries sense.

Well, I don't know much about the Master level of Arcana other than the list of spells they can use, and this is the first time I heard about "imperial mysteries". I based Miss Watson's around the idea of an counter balance of a calm mage to Hei's physical brute side. I just want to let you know that Miss Watson also has dots in Mind (2 or 3) while have significantly less on Forces (probably 1). Please let me know if she can have more powers than that. I would like to know if that's allowed so that she doesn't just develop a power out of nowhere, or suddenly lose some.

[Cire]

Egreham, she can have more powers than that, for sure. By the way, good job on your piece.

[Esuna]

PS. If I remember correctly, magic spells aren't indefinite; in fact, they're very temporary. A permanent Imbue Magic spell is, I think, a ritual with at least 6 successes. Just as a side note that it might have been very noticeable and that it will stay on at most 48 hours.

Eep, didn't know that! I'll adjust.

So how does a conversation between two characters normally happen in play-by-post like this? Are you going to send me a list of questions, Egreham?

[Cire]

I must confess that conversations are tricky in pbps. The list of questions back and forth are a good idea, or you can do short back and forth.

[Cire]

When I post the start of "chapter two" I want to be very clear that I am NOT saying nothing of importance happened from April 5th to 12th in our story. Indeed, I expect much will have / will happen. For example, Lar might try to fight the Crow in the Shadow for the rook. No doubt Hei and Hoplit will have a busy week. These are just guesses and not meant to be limiting. Any number of things that I cannot even imagine might happen. As I wrote before, chapter breaks are just a way that I am hoping players who are not in position to post as often can get "caught up" and players who can or wish to post more to relate more of their character's saga.

Also I am always open to suggestions as to how we can do this together. I hope you all are having as much fun as I am.