Waldhaxen Channel

As we play, occasionally we'll close a thread and open a new one to keep the size of threads (and relative complexity) down to a dull roar. Here's where we store the closed posts from the history of Errant Road.
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Sareth
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Re: Waldhaxen Channel

Post by Sareth »

[OOC]I'm personally worried that if we play it out it will end up looking like a series of "random creature encounters" rolled out of the random encounters table. Been there, done that, gets old. However, you do make a very good point about sync issues, which can cause some issues because of the overlaps created by the uber-kunspeeresee involving the four cardinal direction peoplze, and would only get worse if the groups actually ended up having to interact more closely.

One option I can see is playing out some sort of chase involving the sea-folk who's boat(s) we've just tangled with, if they are fast enough to catch up and able to track us over land. That's not random, and makes sense *if* they have the capability and willingness. Handled right (ie, we don't kill them all or get defeated utterly by them on the first encounter) that can turn into a running engagement that has the potential to last days...[/OOC]
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Re: Waldhaxen Channel

Post by Graybeard »

OOC:
Sareth wrote:[OOC]I'm personally worried that if we play it out it will end up looking like a series of "random creature encounters" rolled out of the random encounters table. Been there, done that, gets old.
Yeah, that's exactly the worry.
Sareth wrote:One option I can see is playing out some sort of chase involving the sea-folk who's boat(s) we've just tangled with, if they are fast enough to catch up and able to track us over land. That's not random, and makes sense *if* they have the capability and willingness. Handled right (ie, we don't kill them all or get defeated utterly by them on the first encounter) that can turn into a running engagement that has the potential to last days...[/OOC]
That could work. Without giving anything away, one reason for that second submarine encounter was to tee-up another set of events that will unfold over the next few game days. They need not happen within the ken of the party on the north shore, however.

Thanks for the ideas. Anybody else?
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Re: Waldhaxen Channel

Post by AdamZero »

ooc: I PM'ed the idea of 'The Nine' having a hidden base in the north, which would kinda divert us away, but it would suck up more time then it would spare....

*sips root beer* I'm cool for anything. Though walking IS the most boring part of any overland adventure, as Meji remarks often and always.
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Re: Waldhaxen Channel

Post by Viking-Sensei »

OOC: What if, somewhere along the way, they manage to get horses? We could say that they ran across a large horse stable out in the wilds and made a couple of trades to get a few not-so-easily spooked horses that could travel in the company of the far faster trolls and not freak out. That'd cut our travel time down drastically... and we're actually running a little behind Veracia by my count, since they potentially leapt a couple of days ahead between the end of the last thread and the start of this.
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Re: Waldhaxen Channel

Post by Graybeard »

Viking-Sensei wrote:OOC: What if, somewhere along the way, they manage to get horses? We could say that they ran across a large horse stable out in the wilds and made a couple of trades to get a few not-so-easily spooked horses that could travel in the company of the far faster trolls and not freak out. That'd cut our travel time down drastically... and we're actually running a little behind Veracia by my count, since they potentially leapt a couple of days ahead between the end of the last thread and the start of this.
OOC: The horses sound sensible for the humans, but I don't know about the get-along-with-trolls part. That may be asking an awful lot of a horse. (Or not.)

However, you're giving me an idea for an encounter that I'd actually kinda been wanting to have anyway. Let me try to develop it. Back with some activity tonight.

As for synchronization, Nautkia actually is only half a day's ride from Lorenzel, the temple was on the way (so no backtracking to Nautkia was required), and the adventurers in Nautkia were HIGHLY motivated to get out of town. I don't see them as even needing to have overnighted on the road, which means that the two threads are in near-perfect synch. I need to update the status matrix and publish it with one of you good folks who volunteered; that too tonight, if I can do without sleep...
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Re: Waldhaxen Channel

Post by Graybeard »

[OOC: OK, there's one more thing to do here, and it's consistent with some of the other action. Permit me to take the merry crew a few hours forward, but pause for some stuff before night falls and/or we do a large-scale fast-forward...]

Walking cross-country could be boring, Grope had to admit, particularly when you were constrained to moving no faster than a Small One with a cast on her leg.

"<Are you sure we shouldn't just ditch them and move against the bird-keepers ourselves, my uncle?>" Scrobian asked. Well, he was only about 200 years old, and entitled to the impatience of youth, Grope thought. They'd been on the trail for two or three hours, after all, and if they didn't do something soon, they wouldn't have time to make it back to the Drainpipe before sundown.

"<Am I sure? No. I'm not sure of anything here,>" Grope replied. "<But Lucas has been right more than he's been wrong when it comes to how to battle some of these strange enemies.>" Not to mention that my own ideas haven't been working that well...

"<Well, can I at least try to heal the girl Small One's leg so that she can move faster?>" Harzh'biah said. She was getting bored too...

Grope shook his massive head. "<I've heard rumors, from a pretty good source, that using our people's healing magic on Small Ones isn't a good idea. It would -- hey, do you hear that?>"

It sounded like another airship was coming in from the west, but this one was different from the others they'd been hearing. It had neither the muffled thrum-thrum-thrum of the invisible one that had passed overhead earlier, nor the higher-pitched drone of the small airship that had bombed the bird-keepers' under-sea-boat. Rather, this sound was a loud growl as of a cave bear in a bad mood. Furthermore, it was approaching rapidly. Either the craft was surprisingly low, or it was moving exceptionally fast for an airship, or both.

"<I don't like this,>" Grope growled. "<Let's get out of sight, at least the three of us. They won't bother other humans, probably, but if they see us ...>" He let his voice trail off; all three trolls knew the stories of their kind being hunted from airships over on the landmass the Small Ones called Veracia. His nephew and niece didn't wait for him to finish, but joined him in melting into the forest, surprisingly effectively for such large bipeds.

And just in time. The motor sounds reached a crescendo as a very large vessel roared overhead from the west, seemingly just above treetop level, and disappeared over a ridge in front of them ... and the sound died out suddenly.

"<Interesting>," Grope said as the trolls regrouped. "<I'd almost conclude that that thing landed on the other side of that ridge ... and I think I saw a Tsuirakuan insignia on it as it went by.>"
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Re: Waldhaxen Channel

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Boris sighed as he looked at me, I nodded that he'd be taking a backpack form soon and he slumped. I laughed, but it caught in my throat as a shiver ran across my shoulders. I looked into the forest, as deeply as I could, and felt a terror in my heart. There was something dead out there, way out there. Something dead that should be down and buried, but it wasn't.

It was far off now, probably far enough that it couldn't sense us. Hopefully. I kept my spiritual 'head' down and kept with the group toward the ridge. The humans took the front this time, hopefully the group in the airship would be human friendly enough to not mind them, then be open minded enough to take a trio of trolls on board.
"Now he's gone too far. NOONE ATTACKS AMERICA'S FOOD COURTS!" -Deadpool.
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Sareth
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Re: Waldhaxen Channel

Post by Sareth »

As the airship noise grew louder, the group turned about to watch. The first thing Jasmine noticed wasn't the airship, it was still hidden amongst the trees. No, what she noticed was...

"Where're the trolls?"

"I dunno," Jamie replied. "They were just behind us..."

Just then the airship crested the ridge almost directly above the group. It was large, quite large. Jasmine craned her neck to look up at it, trying to take in the details. Two things were immediately clear to her. The first was that part of why it looked so large was because of how shockingly low it was. The second was...

"Those are Tsuirakuan markings."

"Correct," Ayiee responded, also looking up, though unlike Jasmine she wasn't shading her eyes. "Analysis indicates a 87% probability that they belong to the research division of the Tsuirakuan Weapons of Magical Destruction program."

Everyone's blood congealed at that. The Tsuirakuans continually claimed they had no WMDs, nor did they have a program to create any. No one believed them, and tails tended to be whispered about what happened to those that found out that the Tsuirakuans did, in fact, have one, the other, or both.

"What are they doing here?" Jamie asked, her voice quiet.

"I don't know, but... If your entire nation was a floating city, where would you go to set up a secret test site for WMDs?" Jasmine looked concerned.

"Some remote middle of nowhe..."

The engines stopped, and the airship began to drop down, just barely clearing the next ridge over.
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Re: Waldhaxen Channel

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Grope emerged from the trees, found Lucas. "What is this? In the homelands of my people, Small Ones hunt us from these ships-in-the-air. Do your people do so as well?" He didn't particularly try to look menacing to his old friend, but under the circumstances...
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Re: Waldhaxen Channel

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From what I could observe, those Tsukirakuians weren't looking for us in particular. They seemed intent on unloading something from their cargo bay onto the ridge. It was about as long as two people laying with ones feet at the head of the other, wide enough that three men were carrying from each narrow end with room for their shoulders to shift. It was shallow though. Solid black and perfectly dimensioned.

A monolith slab. Often used to seal dangerous individuals, objects, or spells gone wrong.

"Well... that's just great." I noted as the Airship's crew filed back in an took off. I didn't doubt we looked the part of the primitive locals, so their high and mighty attitude prolly didn't see us as a threat, or even the sort to be able to unlock whatever was in there....

Unless what was in there was going to get out and explode anyway....

"We're gonna want to get away from that." I said, already moving further north and past the ridge.
"Now he's gone too far. NOONE ATTACKS AMERICA'S FOOD COURTS!" -Deadpool.
"Don't be so naive. I've got ulterior motives. MANY. Two, maybe three. Probably Four. I am one BIG ulterior motive." The Great Teacher, Onizuka Eikichi.
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