World of Warcraft - Interbellum (OOC Thread)

[Plaids]

I think Isaera just met Bwonsamdi the Loa of the grave due to having the blessing of the loa shared with her. I like that additional piece of narrative and it makes me curious. Which afterlife do you think your character is currently trending towards given how they are at the moment?
I'm thinking Jakk'ari is trending to Bwonsamdi's realm or another one related to it.

Spoiler: Shadowlands Spoilers

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I think Ardenweald given how some Loa are currently resting there after being killed on Azeroth. Also Jakk'ari gets to avoid going to the Maw if he dies due to Bwonsamdi looking out for him. But I don't what is going to happen with the rest of the party.
I could see Marion scheming against Denathrius, Mor'Lag marching in Maldraxus, and Isaera going to Bastion if she gets a little more traumatized.

[MrAbdiel]

I was thinking it was unreasonable for any of us who have not lived in Kalimdor before to know much if anything about the centaurs. But in case we have heard things or read up on anything lately...

history: [roll0]

Also, there would be multiple different tribes of them, yes?

Spoiler: Isaera's History Knowledge About Centaurs

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Having left Kalimdor and not maintained much contact with it a very long time ago - some seven thousand years, in fact. Once the ancient highborne departed for new lands that would become Qual'Thalas, the Night Elves enacted a magical defence to shroud the continent in confusing mist to deter and mislead sailors, making it very difficult for anyone less than absolutely determined to make their way to the ancient elven homelands. This means that any information you might have learned in reading elven history about the centaur might be quite outdated.

Except, it's not. More specifically, there is no high elven history that mentions the centaurs, even though elves are very good at recording history. And some living elves are only four or five generations away from the great Exile! The place that the centaur apparently dwell, which the Tauren and Night Elves call Desolace was once Mashan'she, "the sunlit land"; an appellation that seems to you to speak more of pleasant, sunny loveliness than blasted sunscorchedness. The centaur seem simply not to have existed, six thousand years ago - though knowing where they came from, and when, would require some dedicated research, and perhaps questions to knowledgeable Kalimdor natives.

I would've imagined the 'stay away from the centaurs' would've been a relatively common theme during our 3-week acclimatization to the area, particularly as one of the missions involved them?

There's a deal of common knowledge that you can reasonably expect all your characters would know, by dint of being adventurous types, and making some preparation to live in Ratchet.

- The centaur have five major tribes, who have historically dwelled in Desolace but have in recent years become more territorial and bloodthirsty, pushing the Kolkar out into the barrens, and other tribes elsewhere.
- The plains Tauren tribes recently drove the centaur out of Mulgore, and established Thunder Bluff upon the great mesas there, over the fertile valleys. The Tauren claim they were expelled from that land by centaur incursions hundreds of years ago; and the assistance of the Darkspear Trolls and the Orcs in retaking what they claim to be their ancestral homeland is the foundation of the mostly peaceful race's unswerving dedication to the warrior-heart horde.
- The Horde - especially Orcs and Tauren - have absolutely nothing positive to say about centaurs. As far as they are concerned, these are unreasoning, brutal ruffians who respect only threat of force.
- Night elves do not have much contact with the centaur historically, although after the Third War, as they have become reactivating their presense in outposts throughout the continent, clashes are becoming more common.
- Night elves consider the repetition of the rumor that the centaur are the unloved bastard children of their demigod Cenarius to be an offense bordering on blasphemy. Since Cenarius was killed by Grom Hellscream, he is unable to plead his own defence to the charge.
- Centaur females appear to have a monopoly on their elemental magics; but pursuit of these magics is considered weak and secondary to strength in arms.
- The Alliance - especially its humans - are conflicted by the existence of Kalimdor natives, especially centaur and quillboar. While it is hard to deny the manifest savagery of those species at present, there is no firm agreement on whether it is possible, or desirable, to attempt some diplomatic effort continuously when the centaur themselves seem uninterested in anything but territorialism.

I think Isaera just met Bwonsamdi the Loa of the grave due to having the blessing of the loa shared with her. I like that additional piece of narrative and it makes me curious. Which afterlife do you think your character is currently trending towards given how they are at the moment?
I'm thinking Jakk'ari is trending to Bwonsamdi's realm or another one related to it.

Spoiler: Shadowlands Spoilers

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I think Ardenweald given how some Loa are currently resting there after being killed on Azeroth. Also Jakk'ari gets to avoid going to the Maw if he dies due to Bwonsamdi looking out for him. But I don't what is going to happen with the rest of the party.
I could see Marion scheming against Denathrius, Mor'Lag marching in Maldraxus, and Isaera going to Bastion if she gets a little more traumatized.

Spoiler: Shadowlands Spoilers Redux

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Without conceding that 'my' Shadowlands will unfold just as it has in the official lore, Mor'Lag definately Maldraxxus, Marion definately Revendreth, and I agree, Ardenweald for Jakk'ari to hang out with the wild gods. But on the other hand, I wonder if a Farraki will really be happy in a land of such unrelentingly cool, green shade? Emilia... Possibly Maldraxxus as well, though I'm sure she might prefer Bastion. Isaera I can see in Bastion, though likely she'd end up as part of the Forsworn, refusing to forget!

Alright, all caught up. I'm going to assume the debreif after the fight has reached an uneasy impasse, and everyone is going to agree to get-on-with-it without conceding anything, because no one wants to draw this out! :)

As per the recovery rules, outside of combat, you can take reasonable measures and Isaera can be recovered in a couple of minutes. However, she did use Extra Effort to get out of the firing line. That being the case, she's fatigued, and would require about an hour of rest to stop being fatigued. Did your party want to go a little further into the cave just to be covered from the outside potential threat and try to rest a bit, or push on, trusting to stop and rest further along the track, deeper in the cave?

[BananaPhone]

- The Horde - especially Orcs and Tauren - have absolutely nothing positive to say about centaurs. As far as they are concerned, these are unreasoning, brutal ruffians who respect only threat of force.

Even the Orcs think the centaur are mindless savages...

[MrAbdiel]

Even the Orcs think the centaur are mindless savages...

Indeed; an amusing shortsightedness for a species so recently liberated from the internment camps they were put in for being mindless savages. But there’s only so much empathy you can dare to extend to someone who is chucking a spear at your head. So y’know. There’s levels of abstraction which people and powers necessarily engage in.

[Feathersnow]

I will point out, to Mor'Lag, the idea that they were impossible to negotiate with, or even that they were actually attacking, is largely academic.
Marion is the leader and she won. Isaera disagreed with her decision but no one actively backed her. These are the relevant points

[WindStruck]

Who elected Marion the leader? Also it did seem that Emilia was at least trying to have a peaceful resolution to the conflict.

[Feathersnow]

You don't elect leaders. As a warlock, she automatically is higher rank than anyone but Isaera, a Mage. But Marion is a noble, so that breaks the tie. More practically, Marion acts the way Mor'Lag thinks a leader should, even if she is soft and humble by Ogre standards.

[MrAbdiel]

That is to say, Marion fits Mor'Lag's criteria for leader; and Marion has felt no strong compunction to disabuse the ogress of the notion. On the reverse, Jakk'ari has loosely identified Emilia as someone whose lead he is willing to follow at least here and now.

Officially, there are no leaders of your guild. Emilia is the only member with an asterisk next to her name, and that's because she's the liason back to the Argent Dawn; a role that explicitly makes no presumptions about leadership.

It's possible you guys might want to have a formal leadership discussion at some point; but maybe not. It may be more fun to scoot along thusly and see what interesting situations result from assumptions, or from the decision not to challenge them.

Barefoot teller of tales, etc etc. Seraphis can put the matter on the agenda for the next meeting, if she's told to!

Edit: Also I'm in no rush to punt the scene along if you'd like to keep going, re: Emilia peacemaker efforts!

[WindStruck]

Oh right. That entire post was Mor'Lag's thought process...

[Feathersnow]

Oh right. That entire post was Mor'Lag's thought process...

I'm sorry. I sometimes fail to clearly communicate or differentiate between IC and OoC, and being on the internet makes subtlety and tone difficult to convey.

[BananaPhone]

I don't consider Marion or anyone to be "the leader" (though such a role would need to be filled IRL, luckily we have the luxury of PBP decision-making!). She's had enough spot-light on her due to both her assertive and unconventional personality and her money-making scheme, and I don't want to take the spot-light away from other characters or make it feel like the game is just the Marion and Co. Show.

She'll appreciate Mor'laghs support during group disagreements, and she'll offer solutions if the group wants to try it, but she won't be strutting around like the cock of the roost.

Right now her disagreement with Isaera is, from an OOC perspective, entertaining . I think it's funny anyway. You've got an aristocratically born but school-of-hard-knocks and ambitious warlock (played by an opinionated blowhard), an Argent Dawn comissioned Paladin, an idealistic elven mage, an older troll shaman in tune with natures elements and a might-makes-right Ogre outcast.

Such an eclectic group is going to have some sparks flying occasionally, so I don't take WS or JWL's IC or OOC disagreements personally, it's all just part of the entertainment and fun!

[MrAbdiel]

It's particularly funny to me because a lot of the diverse approaches come from similar sources.

Mor'Lag, Isaera, Emilia, and Marion ALL have been ousted from their devastated homelands and the massacre and are trying, in some fashion, to figure out how life goes on after all that. And Jakk'ari's people had their homeland devastated many many generations ago, and they never really got up off the mat; just slowly managed their dwindling influence and power. In a sense, he's older than the rest of the group in a civilizational sense because everyone else is adjusting in to a new reality where their tribe, nation, or what have you has been smashed to atoms, denuding the survivors of any sense of inherited power or safety. Jakk'ari is Old-Man-Troll-Empire, wringing his hands and saying "Aw buddies, I wish I could say it gets easier; but you can at least get tougher."

Specifically with Marion and Isaera, Alterac is probably viewed with more hostility than Qual'Thalas by most alliance folks, but neither are exactly popular in the Alliance; and both ended up devestated by the scourge (though Alterac was pre-devestated by an Ottoman-style carve-up of interests, and enough of its people probably fled to start new lives that their destruction at the hands of the scourge could be called less catastrophic than Qual'Thalas.)

But Marion comes out the other side of this, having grown up forever with a sense that her family had the trappings of power and safety but never really had it; and her conclusion, in my observation, is something like "I will never allow myself to be put in such a position of vulnerability, no matter what." Which manifests as frontloaded, almost hostile expectation towards people and groups who have an established history of threat.

Isaera, whose ancient capital has been devastated and whose people lost something like nine out of ten living members, seems to me to have come away with a conclusion like "I cannot expose the people I love to this kind of harm again." Which manifests, at least in this situation, as a first instinct towards trying to do as little as possible to provoke a conflict with an enemy who can theoretically be reasoned with.

That's how I read it all, anyway.

[Plaids]

Now that I think about it Jakk'ari's civilization is probably the second best in wellbeing since a substantial portion of its people are still alive, they still control some territory, there is still cultural continuity amongst the people, and the the political organizations still standing and somewhat effective.
Emelia's hometown of StormWind is definitely the most well off.

[MrAbdiel]

Oh yeah, I forgot for a moment that Emilia is technically Stormwind nobility, and just spent a bunch of her formative years in Lordaeron. Stormwind's different in that it was destroyed when Emilia was like.. 1, or 2. She might be the child carried by Lothar in the classic image!

Spoiler: Lothar-Moses

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I guess in a sense she's been surrounded by ruin all her life - either Stormwind pulling itself out of ruin, or Lordaeron falling to it irrecoverably. A different flavor of orphan for the hero mill, for sure.

[MrAbdiel]

I have progressed the scene! Welcome to Wailing Caverns! As per usual, I have delivered a series of investigation and procession prompts, but you are entitled to suggest alternatives.

[WindStruck]

Is there any chance that Isaera can comprehend any bit of the Darnassian, considering I think it had some relation to Thelassian?

[MrAbdiel]

...Yes. I will permit you to make an investigation check, because of the mutual roots of the languages. It won't be east - call it DC 19. If you succeed, I'll decode some additional data for you!

[WindStruck]

Investigation you say? For Isaera? Well that's generous. I was thinking a pure intelligence check...

investigation: (1d20+14)[19]

[MrAbdiel]

Hey! You maintained your theme of rolling bad, and also passed!

I figured investigation seemed appropriate since this is very much a quick deduction process; and also I tend to take skills that are even a little bit appropriate over raw abilities when I can. I'll make a Isaera's deduction addendum tomorrow when I get up!

[WindStruck]

Very interesting. And oh boy, another roll?! Please no 5s this time. I need at least a six!

(1d20+14)[33]

[JoyWonderLove]

Sorry, really slow, trying to make a post to pull together all the detective details and then throw my suggestion at the group!

[MrAbdiel]

It's too late, Joy. I saw that double post. Shame! Shame! Shame!

[JoyWonderLove]

It's too late, Joy. I saw that double post. Shame! Shame! Shame!

Clearly, I did it intentionally to make up for my slow posting rate.

You're welcome.

[Plaids]

Resting and eating rations sounds like a good idea. Going West to the disturbance of abundant life magic will probably entail some trouble like mutated animals while I think the East would more likely have friendly figures who are opposing the disrupting force.

[BananaPhone]

I'll be posting tomorrow.

[BananaPhone]

Making an Investigation roll for Ms M:

Investigation: (1D20+2)[16]

[BananaPhone]

Mr GM, what would be the mutants and masterminds version of an Eye of Kilrogg? One that is not channelled, but feeds information back to you after you send it off to explore?

[MrAbdiel]

An interesting notion! The Eye of Killrogg in WOW is channelled; but the way it was used in old Warcraft II was just summon and off it goes, so that's enough for me to accept there's a variation. INFACT it's enough for me to make a WHOLE LORE ASSUMPTION about! :D

Mechanically, you're looking at Remote Senses (Sight). With the Extras Simultaneous (So you don't go blind while it's up, and can operate normally with just a free action each round to sustain it), No Conduit (So it's a filtered use of your vision, enemies not able to harm you through visual effects nor you able to use perception ranged abilities through it [Which I would O_O at anyway].
Normally that's a +1 ability, but because of the linked power below making it not quite so busted to zoom around mapping out all the threats, I'll call it a +0 tradeoff for no perception attacks, or sense-dependant damage.). 3 Pts per rank. We'll extend its range (technically you're not permitted to extend the range of a Rank-ranged power, but we're rollin') for an extra 1 point. For flavour, we'll add a quirk that means one of your own eyes creepily rolls back in your head while you are experiencing two feeds of vision at once. That's a flat +1 and a -1. 4 ranks will bring it to 12.

Then we start ramping off the cliff, because we still need it to be punchable, and we need it to be mobile n'fast. We'll call that Limited (Ceases when the eyeball takes any kind of damage) and...Well, that's annoying. There's no "move your remove senses around" thing.

So we'll make it a tiny little zoomy summon, and link it to the Remove Senses. That'll be good 'nuff for me. Let's make this summon as sleek as possible.

1 Rank of Summon. 1 Point for Mental Link (once you give it the command "go forth and be my little quad drone GoPro" it'll do so, though if it sees something, like a fork in the road or an enemy you're worried will have a go at it, you can use a move action to mentally direct it to do one thing or another.) We'll call it a Limited summon, because it can't really take actions other than moving around and looking at things. Possibly intimidating them if you're really clever. So that's all of a 2 pt summon, for a 15 pt creature.

Six ranks in fly (12). Three points into dodge. And, because it's so destructible, I'll say it has -3 Toughness and -3 Parry, for another 6 points of dodge. That's normally more dodge than you're allowed, but it's a special occasion. So it's very hard to chuck rocks at, but if someone manages to get next to it (somehow) they'll pop it like a balloon. Fits the source.

So that comes out to a 14pt compound power; a rank 1 summon and a rank 4 remote sensing. It produces a bowling ball sized neon green flaming demon eye that flies around at 200 mph. While it is active, you have a simultaneous 'overlay' of what it sees, and one of your own eyes is creepilly rolled back (and shut, if you like.). The Eye can take no actions that are not simply exploratory, and has a certain amount of autonomy to execute commands you give it like "Explore the western tunnel, at slow enough pace that I can comprehend it". You'll need to take move actions to mentally command it to overcome impasses when relevent, but it has 0 int, which is human average, so it'll navigate well in most situations. You can use your own perception skill through its vision, and investigation skill where relevant to visual clues. Because of the rank of the power and the extended range, the Eye can go up to one mile from you before hitting its range limit and desummoning.

If you wanted to cast such a power as a Ritual, under normal circumstances, it would cost you days to research and 140 minutes to execute the casting. But presumably, you asked because you considered jury-rigging a ritual!

That'd cost you 1 Victory point. It'd take 14 rounds to cast and.. Woof. A DC 29 Expertise: Magic (Fel) check. I guess we have to try to bust it down with some flaws...

Let's add Feedback, so if the eye gets slapped out of existence instead of fading out normally, Marion gets a nosebleed. -1 Per Rank, down to 10 rounds to cast and a DC 25 casting check. That's still asking you to roll an 11+ or lose a VP for no gain, so I'm scrounging for another -1Ranker. And I'm struggling. Most of the other flaws are either inappropriate for the power, or don't really offer a meaningful detraction, so they don't qualify as a flaw.

Here's the options as I see them for you.

Rank 4 Remote Sensing (1 Mile tether) with Mental Link. DC 25, so your summoning success is 50%.

Rank 3 Remote Sensing (1/2 Mile tether) with Mental link. DC 23, so you succeed 60 % of the time.

Rank 4 Remote Sensing (1 Mile tether), ditch mental link. DC 21, so you succeed 70% of the time but you're relying on the eye's decision making prowess without your input.

Rank 3 Remote Sensing (1/2 Mile tether), ditch mental link. DC 19, so you succeed 80% of the time, but you're relying on the eye's decision making prowess without your input.

That's the spread! Any of those tickle your fancy?

[BananaPhone]

Hmm, given her current status as a 'journeyman' warlock, I think:

Rank 3 Remote Sensing (1/2 Mile tether), ditch mental link. DC 19, so you succeed 80% of the time, but you're relying on the eye's decision making prowess without your input.


Is what she's try and summon on short notice like this.

[BananaPhone]

Sorry for not rolling last night. I got drunk and raided with the guild.

Marion will Take 10 if she can for:

Rank 4 Remote Sensing (1 Mile tether), ditch mental link. DC 21, so you succeed 70% of the time but you're relying on the eye's decision making prowess without your input.





If Taking 10 is not allowed, she will use the final DC 19 option.


Expertise - Fel Magic: (1D20+11)[18]


*Sighs* I really hate this forum roller some times.

Spending a VP to pass the roll, or just becoming Fatigued instead.