The Enemy of my Enemy - Out of Character Discussions
2/28
Quick question on history of the skull church. Did the Dragonslayers clear out the church of the followers of Kiputytto previously? Or how did this church become abandoned before?
Lisa Answer: We were originally tasked with investigating a necromancer at the church. We found that it was Red Cloak and he did run away from the church and we killed the goblins that were in the church itself. We also killed a variety of different creatures that we encountered in the caverns.
We did not clear out or explore the entirety of the caverns and we did not push for a meeting with some priests we found were living in the caverns that did not want to talk to us. Toybin was there and kind of pushed us out. We didn’t push back. At that time, we had about a dozen Kiputytto pilgrims in tow.
End result: We left the Kiputytto pilgrims in the now deserted church with a chest full of silver coins so they could be happy in their twisted church and we forgot all about those bizarre priests of the caverns. None of us have a clue what happened after we left.
1/5
Just thinking here. I know this is a church political adventure. Issue, but have we considered it from as standard political situation, or even economical. Is the skull church close enough to say the queen has interest. I just don't want to have no reason and just say "we want you to leave"
John
1/5
Yes this is a political, religious, economic, etc adventure. Yes it affects the Queen because it is in Drillian. It affects the Jistille Estates because it is only 17 miles away. That is far enough away that someone could use it as a Church to start to get followers.
There are wheels within wheels within wheels here.
BOB
1/7
John, that is why I wanted Marisu to join us. Tristan is still a "soldier" on a mission from his superior. I'm still trying to figure out our approach and I will be posting on the IC thread once everyone has caught up on Lisa's mission. I didn't want to pull people's posting time away from that thread. I will be asking opinions of everyone on what they feel are potential problems so we can have strategies planned (I am tactic minded). Yes Bob that means EVERYONE. I know there are political issues here but Tristan isn't too concerned with that at his current rank. "His is still not to question why...". The Father of the Church (bob did you want me to flesh out the clergy there so I can give this guy a name??) told him to remove the priests of Hades there and that is what he will do. Politics of nobles are not his concern...yet.
Eric
Oop, I already posted in EME-IC. I didn't see your comment here, or I would have waited for you to launch it. Sorry
TMO
1/8
Eric,
I think we are good with the other thread. I was more interested in your adventure but as always, Hoffman is there for one thing, and that was already role played out. As you have time. Go for it. this is your baby.
John
1/8
Eric,
Yes there is a name for him. On the Jistille Estates page there is a start of the Church's members on the Estates.
Everyone is doing great with the interactions on both of the threads. It will really help to keep everything fresh as we jump from story arc to story arc.
BOB
1/8
I'm sorry I missed the posts here and responded to TMO's IC. :( I like the jumping back and forth roleplaying between the two story arcs though. -- Lisa
1/8: Mentioned it in the IC thread, but I've ended that conversation and will wait for Tristan to launch the next topic. - TMO
1/8
I will try and post tonight. Bob I was going to start making camp and then everyone can discuss things at the fire. That way we can pick up at the encounter rolls for camping next time we play my arc? Will that work for you?
Eric
1/8
Yes work from the idea that conversations are happening after the Troll attack and continuing until you make camp closer to the Skull Church. Your plan is to camp 1-2 miles away from the church so that in the morning you can reach it with no more encounter rolls.
We can do everything on the site up to the point of the encounter rolls which we will do the next time we have everyone in for the Enemy of my Enemy story arc.
BOB
1/8: So we continue to converse from horseback, until camptime? - TMO
1/9
LOL so sorry John!!! Hoffman's been so quiet and I've been typing these up as I'm at work. I totally forgot him. No harm, no foul I hope??? I updated the IC to include Hoffman as a guard. No need for the best fighter to just attack firewood...
1/9
This is funny to me. I did not realize Branwyn was being defensive or caustic. Lisa, however, is about to get defensive. And here we go. Oh, the joys of playing with a real girl!
She is asked "Will your presence be a problem, Branwyn?" A little late to be asking that, but I am not going to polymorph myself unless asked to do so. If the answer to the quoted question is yes - then she should not be there. Her answer was - no I did not see how it would be.
The response to her no was, in essence, don't you see all the reasons why your presence will be a problem?
I (as Lisa) really had no idea how to respond - honestly I had and still have no idea where this line of conversation is supposed to go or what the "proper" way for Branwyn was to respond. If you take the line of reasoning presented to me, we should never take Branwyn anywhere as she will frighten anyone we meet. If someone she hardly knows walks up to her and says that - realistically what is she supposed to say?
Guys - please post how I should have had her respond because I don't see what I was supposed to say. 'Yes you are absolutely right. I am a complete liability, but I am coming along anyway and will try my hardest not to mess things up?' Please share the correct answer because there is not one I have in my head.
Lisa
You're doing just fine, Lisa. :D Marisu is riffing off the idea someone mentioned of scouting the church first, without scaring them into raising their defenses, so we could see what we were up against. Her thought was that maybe the presence of Branwyn in the group would scare them into raising those defenses. (Scare isn't the right word. Put them on the alert, maybe?) Some of what's going on in the conversation is me mis-communicating, and Marisu being young. (Yeah, another teenage girl - how'd I wind up with this again?)
Marisu is overreacting a trifle to Branwyn's response, but hey, she's a teenage girl in the presence of someone she's trying to impress. :) She inadvertently put her foot in her mouth and now she's trying to dig her way back out.
I'd place the rest of the blame on this being a text medium, and it's very hard to communicate the subtle emotional cues, and very easy for the reader to add ones the writer didn't intend. In this case, being a cynical/snarky/smart-ass, I probably put more cynical/snark/sarcasm into Branwyn's response than you intended there to be. But since it can't possibly be my fault, I'll shove the blame down onto Marisu's youth and semi-emotional overreaction.
Sorry if the RP caused any irritation, that's definitely not intentional. While Marisu might occasionally irritate a PC, I never try to irritate the players. Wish I could say I never do, but that'd be a lie. 0:)
- TMO
PS- adding this: it's not the whole raid she's wondering about, but specifically just this initial scouting trip that's supposed to not alert the church and cause them to raise their defenses. Does that help clarify any? It might have already been clear, but just in case.
Huge Ditto here too! I was just RPing. Tristan is a zealot, Bran shares very little love for priests. I in NO way want any change to Branwyn!! It was just meant to vent his concern from Marisu's reaction. I guess since I play a zealot priest perhaps through role play she appears short with him. But I don't take it personally so please don't take this personally!!
Ps - remember Tristan is struggling from trying to smite Jeniveve (though I love Bob's RP with her). Sorry if I caused any hurt. Totally not intended!!!!!
Eric
Thank you both! Keep going both of you as well! I just wanted to do an OCC check in. I was not upset - just surprised and unsure how you were doing with it. I wanted to make sure you weren't upset with me. Branwyn is pretty matter of fact to the point of being obtuse to any undercurrents implied sometimes, and given that, I really didn't know what to do with her responses other than what she did.
I am not trying to sabotage Tristan and what I was trying to get someone to say - if they wanted to say it - is that if they thought Branwyn would be a problem on reconnaissance, to just tell her. It would not occur to her that she would be. You do need to tell her explicitly. She doesn't see herself as this scary person. She does what she feels she has to in order to keep us alive and serve her Queen and is happy she has the ability to do so. *shrugs* what's scary about that? :) No matter what her personal feelings, Branwyn would want Tristan to succeed. She is not frightened by staying out for a day/night by herself so it really is not a problem for her.
On another note of clarification, we did not "clean out" the church in the manner you may be thinking. I wish Indigo was here. He is much more fun at telling stories than Branwyn, but later if you want to ask her what we actually did kill at the church, she will tell you. But our cleaning out the church back then is not similar to this situation. I have to double check on one thing, but I do not believe we killed any priests or living humans the whole time we were there. And I should have clarified that more. It was more of an intensive housecleaning mission than a kill the clerics mission.
Lisa
Ah, I had just figured it was a standard D&D mission: Go kill everything at this location that doesn't have a Good alignment. ;)
TMO
TMO!!!!
A standard D&D mission?!?!?!
SHOCKED I tell you I am SHOCKED!!!
BOB
Some helpful pages to look at for the discussions:
It is the morning on 4-12-343 just to keep everyone in sync.
6-14
It was a very different way through that grand encounter than I pictured it happening. Now that the Elemental is banished and the remaining Greek Priest has been sent on his way (at least from the current grouping down here in the catacombs) you still have lots of things to explore. There is the entire church up above. PLUS there are the caverns under this level that the group never actually made any headway into the first time they were here either.
I anticipate at least 2 or 3 more sessions here in this area before you are satisfied that you are done with what you want to accomplish here.
BOB
PS - Thanks for honoring the promise Marisu made and letting the priest go. - TMO
8-3-14 Last week got me thinking about the horses in this adventure as well. We weren't really planning on spending the night in the caverns but we ended up doing that. If I was going to be in on Friday, I would send Branwyn down to the farmhouse to check on them and give them some water and let them eat. Now that we are on the surface again, it is just a trip out the door of the church and down the path to the farmhouse. It shouldn't take long and might be a nice thing to do for our animals to make sure we don't come back to a bunch of dead horses. Just a thought for you for Friday. Have fun!
Lisa
