OCTOBER PLOT DISCUSSION

[faderifting]

OCTOBER PLOT DISCUSSION

Because we have a lot of assignments and player plots about to start rolling, this post is here for any miscellaneous plot discussion that needs to take place on the OOC comm. You're still welcome to corral everyone to discuss things on Plurk, Discord, or whatever else! But since not all of our players are available on all of those services, and some conversations are better held in a more organized way, you can also post your own-top level comment for a given assignment/plot here and use that for organization and discussion.

If you post a top-level comment, make sure you indicate in the subject line whether the discussion is CLOSED (e.g., for an assignment with a chosen team) or OPEN (e.g., brainstorming for something new that anyone is welcome to jump in on).

Comments

OPEN | necromancy interest check / brainstorming??

[libratus]

Hey folks, I'm thinking of proposing a little player plot and would like some feedback! I'd like to have Ilias organize the necromancers in game to support the upcoming mod plot battle in Ghislain, and vis-a-vis touch on some of the moral issues surrounding necromancy. But before I propose anything, I wanted to toss out some ideas to see which approach sounds the most fun to you guys to actually RP. I'd love to get some feedback and/or brainstorm with any players who are interested in the subject, whether you play a necromancer or just someone who'd have an opinion about it.

WHAT SOUNDS MORE FUN TO RP:

1. Planning Ahead: If our in-game necromancers are the sort to ask permission first, we could brainstorm ways they could try to prepare to raise an undead army — i.e. does Ghislain already have any dead bodies they could refrain from burning and/or place strategically? Could the Inquisition convince anyone to let them use the bodies of first-fallen soldiers (or would it be interesting to try? if so how?)? Could PC necromancers poll the crystal network first to test out their arguments on other PCs and give us an excuse to RP about it? Could they take volunteers ("if I die please throw my corpse at my enemies etc.")? Should we have an IC brainstorming session to consider issues of consent ahead of time? Maybe some training montages? Do you have other ideas about fun ways to RP this?
   
   
2. By the Seat of Our Necropants: We could wait until the bodies hit the floor (or grass) during the battle, and propose that some of the necromancers in game just decide to make use of that opportunity in the moment. (In which case I'll need a headcount, so please tell me if you have a necromancer who is down for this.) Given necromancy flies directly in the face of non-Nevarran Andrastian beliefs about respect for the dead (and also: it's creepy), the families of those dead soldiers may very well not appreciate their loved ones' remains being used as weapons without their consent! RP-wise, this would mean threading primarily during and after the battle, and focusing more on that moral shitstorm, perhaps touching on the issue of war crimes, etc. I don't have specific ideas yet for what RPing that would look like — action threads during the battle?? concerned network post afterward??

To be clear, this is just brainstorming about what to propose, and nothing is certain until the mods sign off on it. I'm guessing that raising a bunch of soldiers from the dead is going to be controversial regardless of whether you ask first, and also it's completely possible any attempts to elicit cooperation or permission would 100% fail, and our necromancers would then have to decide whether to go ahead anyway. (Fun!) Those things would all be at the mods' discretion. Option #1 seems unlikely to prevent the moral complications of Option #2, it might just create some different moral complications.

So my question is more, does it sound fun to RP about asking permission first, or about making other preparations, or would you rather focus on the aftermath? Do you have any ideas or concerns about either approach? Or feel free to drop any other thoughts here!

[galvanising]

[circleprodigy]

Inessa would not be the type to do any of that without permission, so either she'll strongly argue in favor of getting it or balk at the decisions of her fellow necromancers. Either way sounds fun, but she'll definitely be happier with the first option.

[libratus]

a compelling point, wolfpupy

[galvanising]

[libratus]

Noted! That sounds like a fun IC argument to have, whether it's in the moment or beforehand. Logistically speaking, I wonder if we might get more mileage out of a network discussion beforehand though, vs. everyone yelling while trying not to die in the middle of battle.

Really I guess the only downside to discussing this ICly first is, if they ask permission and don't get it and some of them do it anyway, it looks Worse. But. I'm ok with that.

[libratus]

some poor elf cleanup crew is going to have a bad day

[exequy]

STEEPLES FINGERS.

Thematically (and with the foreknowledge that the battle is going to be dire enough that some hard choices might need to be made on the spot for the sake of saving lives) I think I like #2 better, if only because I do really want there to be an undead army and sometimes the result of asking for permission rather than forgiveness is that you're told not to do it and then are in extra trouble if you go ahead and do it anyway.

On the other hand, that's potentially a lot of blowback for people who don't love blowback as much as I do to deal with IC afterwards.

So, I'm down for anything! And combining them might be possible—they could float the possibility and try to get a feel for how it would go over with everyone or make some plans that they hope they won't actually have to use, and potentially be told they aren't allowed to do it, but then raise the issue again when the fight is in progress and it looks necessary, and maybe in that case get permission. Or get told no but adjust their plans to use the enemy instead of allies and hope that that goes over better.

—and to add my character's actual input/usefulness, he's absolutely down, he will think anyone who is not down is being foolish. He did some similar stuff (on a much smaller scale) during the Mage/Templar War and he's not sorry. fight him. etc.

[libratus]

Thanks for being a bro, Kostos.

ANYWAY THESE ARE GOOD POINTS. especially re: the amount of blowback. I too love IC consequences but yeah not everyone loves them equally and we want to make sure nobody's stuck with more IC consequences than they want! Making this an in-battle decision actually seems like it might create the most options for people on that front, i.e. it's fairly easy to say "my character would do something other than summon an undead army in that moment," and the only unavoidable consequences would be to necromancy's reputation, instead of everyone's characters being directly involved in having planned this thing that went awry.

Personally, I'm not actually very interested in anyone succeeding in getting permission to raise an undead army, so much as RPing about the fact that issues of consent exist — and maybe that doesn't actually require asking permission.

That said, I am kiiind of still leaning toward doing some sort of IC network discussion, if only because 1) it creates an opportunity for characters who wouldn't do this thing to be more involved, 2) it adds another layer to the eventual difficult decision, and 3) it's easier to RP out.

SO yes maybe combine these things. Maybe one solution is to have a more general IC discussion beforehand, but not actually pull the trigger on anything in #1 unless that is someone's heart's desire? Ilias isn't eager to ask permission if he doesn't think he can get it, but he's also not intimately familiar with non-Nevarrans' weird hang-ups about necromancy, so he could reach out to the other necromancers beforehand just to test the waters and ask about everyone's capabilities etc.

And then we could save the hard questions for after the hard decisions have been made.

Y/N/counterpoints.

[libratus]

p.s. gathers you this direction

OPEN | Lowkey fieldwork

[youwonscience]

Cosima's off to visit some of the former rifter arrival sites to Take Measurements and Make Notes, etc. I'm looking for 1-2 other people who'd enjoy this kind of thing. (I am willing to scale up or down how eventful it is to a degree, based on who is coming and what your ooc jam is!)

She would probably ask 1) people she knows have an interest in science/research or 2) members of the Rifts & the Veil team, but if you don't fit either of those briefs and we can reasonably handwave that your character got assigned to Cosima for this trip somehow, I'm game.

I plan to post this around the 12th/13th, so lmk before then.

[villieldr]

Wrong journal and I’m just crashing to sleep so this isn’t going to be detailed or articulate BUT Alex would be very down for this, ayyy.

[somethingwild]

Newt would definitely be interested in this!

[levered]

Pls take Clarke.

[heirring]

Wysteria would be very down, though technically fulfills neither of those briefs. Could probably say she's been annoying enough at people for someone to point her in Cosima's direction though? /SQUINTS

[Open] A Map of Where We've Been

[thorndergod]

The full writeup is here, but the gist is Thor would like to take 2-3 people to find a woman and convince her to let them get the second half of a map copied from the tattoo on her back.

For once he'll actually really want a non-mage along, but the other one or two people can be mages or not, however it works out.

When signing up, let me know what part(s) of the hunt/convincing you'd most be interested in playing!

[misdirection_hex]

Van has a lot of practice arguing/debating from an Andrastian standpoint and countering it when other people do it, so he'd be down for trying to convince her!

CLOSED | Red Lyrium Team

[aceso]

This is like, 85% me spitballing here, so feel free to throw stuff at me if I'm forgetting something. But since Helena and Sarah are in the process of bringing back a red lyrium infected darkspawn, I figured we should talk shop about it.

Off the top of my head, I think Cosima would want to examine samples from it under her microscope, and Merrill has asked for samples to do "something" with that something secretly being blood magic to try and cleanse it, but are there any other tests we want to do on it? Maybe something with body parts and cleansing runes? Also, how long do we want to keep it alive? I figured they keep it alive long enough to get all the fresh blood and tissue samples they need, then kill it because who wants that thing around? Also also, IDEK where they'll be keeping it because it's so contagious. I'm fine with handwaving that completely, or coming up with a location.

So once all the tests are done and we confirm that red lyrium has the Blight, how do we want to disseminate this information? My first thought was sending a formal letter to the Head of Forces (who is also on the team, but just to be all official) and let the Division Heads handle it from there. Thoughts? Things I've missed? Things I've gotten wrong?

[youwonscience]

Cosima is for sure interested in (VERY CAREFULLY) comparing it to her other samples, and would be happy to walk Christine or other Red Lyrium project members through what she's seeing. (Probably easiest to handwave the actual process so I don't get enmeshed in trying to science Thedas' magic too hard, though if people want to thread related to the aftermath, I'm game.) She is definitely pro heavy quarantine for as long as the darkspawn is alive.

I think alerting the Division Heads is a logical next step, though I'm open to hearing other points of view on it. Cosima's generally pro making sure the information gets to people who need it ASAP.

Re: CLOSED | Red Lyrium Team

[circleprodigy]

Yeah, Inessa would be all for dispatching the darkspawn right after they get what they need from it. The risk is too great for anything else.

A formal letter to the division heads sounds good to me, and the subject certainly merits it. We might as well keep everyone on the same page, and officially at that.

[chainlightning]

innocent whistles

Merrill may tell some people individually that she thinks should know (namely Grey Warden friends, which I think is... uh, Anders, right now) but otherwise an official letter to the Division Heads sounds fine to me!

[aceso]

Definiely signing up for that handwaved walking through of the sample study! Christine wants to be on hand for this stuff.

[aceso]

Yeah, I'm thinking we could handwave all the precautions and disposal of it, because IDK what magic/runes/whatever we should BS to say it's under containment, but there's also no way the team would take this lightly since they've been carefully handling red lyrium for how long now? So a little bit of jazz hands to explain away the darkspawn and then killing it and burning the body ASAP seems the best thing to do.

[aceso]

LOL, anyone else, Christine would be disappointed in if they spilled the beans. Merrill, though, it's like "I'm so disa— Oh, I can't be. Look at that face."

[chainlightning]

/INNOCENTFACE

She's helping Anders try and cure Nathaniel, so he might have some insight on what to do. Or at least that's part of her reasoning beyond "friend + has an amount of the Taint himself"