No, nature is harsh and unforgiving, albeit happily arbitrary in this circumstance.
Inside town in the centre square is a cairn of stone.
Each year we place another stone on the cornerstone, as if we want anything in this world, nature will not help us; we must all lift together.
NipsHe/HimLuxuriating in existential crisis.Registered Userregular
"Worship requires obeisance of us and a complimentary grace bestowed from the target of veneration. What here has proven worthy of our devotion, has bestowed upon us any good fortune? Nothing that we haven't wrought with our own hands, as far as I see."
Grand Master Lau is the legendary founder of the Salt Fist school of Kung Fu. Stories say that when he passed, his body dissolved into a pile of the sandy salt that surrounds our home and was blown away by a sudden wind. A similar apotheosis is the not-so-secret goal of many who follow the Way of the Salt Fist. Some elements of society worry that mixing Salt Fist with Closing Wing is disrespecting the legacy of Grand Master Lau and putting their goal beyond reach.
@Nips, you draw the King of Hearts! Your choice is as follows:
A young boy starts digging in the ground, and discovers something unexpected.
What is it?
OR
An old man confesses to past crimes and atrocities.
What has he done?
Pick a choice, explain it, and take an Action.
Project: Outpost Expedition has completed this week! Tell us what happens.
Steam: TheBrayster
PSN: TheBrayster_92
+1
NipsHe/HimLuxuriating in existential crisis.Registered Userregular
edited June 2022
A young boy starts diggin in the ground, and discovers something unexpected. What is it?
One of our youngsters wandered off, exploring the limestone-step pit when the Overseers are too busy to count every head. He spent most of his days finding nothing of note, climbing up and down the pit, but today was different. Today, he found in the lowest levels of the steps a doorway concealed in the limestone wall. It remains closed, as the child had neither the strength or the means to force it. But the tale traveled fast among the chatty youths, and now the community has another mystery to investigate.
Discover Something New
The recent violent twister all too-easily destroyed the malign location to the east. A few curious villagers have wandered out to survey the destruction, and have found in its place a pit. The surface of the pit is metal-clad, smooth almost to a fault. Even stranger is that at its full depth, in its center, is a hole roughly ten feet across. Peering in, we see nothing but darkness that descends farther than we can perceive.
NipsHe/HimLuxuriating in existential crisis.Registered Userregular
Nope. Barring card-draw shenanigans, the initiator of a project determines its outcome on completion.
"If a project reaches 0, the die gets
removed and the project is completed. Whoever
started the project gets to tell everyone how it turns
out, and update the map to reflect its completion."
So you've come across one of my wilful omissions @Nips .
At the the table, following the rules 100%, you are correct, that would be the way to do things. However, to run the game in this play-by-post format I have taken some 'artistic liberties' with some rules to, in my hopes, run this game slightly more smoothly given that we aren't at the table together, if that is alright with everyone. In this instance, I have elected to give the active player 100% control of what occurs during their active week, including anything that resolves during that week, regardless of origin. There's only one card in the deck that runs counter to this, but I will make it clear what's-what if/when that card comes up to the players concerned.
Reason: In this case, if we were sitting around the table, taking an aside for the Project 'owner' to discuss the results would take all of 2 seconds away from the active player. In a PbP, it adds an extra step to (potentially) most turns that might lead to some confusion or hesitation as to when other players could post and produce slowdown. The game, as it is currently being run, feels a bit more neat as it's following a more streamlined system of A-B-(A) (where A is the active player, B is everyone else). It's an easy flow to follow and, as a bonus, I can reasonably predict when a turn will end, and what content will need updating, ahead of time to have the next turn ready to go.
As such, I urge everyone to treat Projects in this game the same way you would treat anything else that is introduced as we go - it is yours to define as you wish when you initially introduce it, but after that, it's public domain. If you don't like the way your project has gone - Contempt.
To hopefully summarize, @Nips , the project result is yours to define. By all means, go by what the intial intent of the project says for your inspiration, but the choice, in this specific game, is yours. Think of it this way - not every project goes 100% as originally planned.
The Brayster on
Steam: TheBrayster
PSN: TheBrayster_92
+1
NipsHe/HimLuxuriating in existential crisis.Registered Userregular
edited June 2022
Alright then.
The Outpost Expedition
Over a month after the expedition party had left with Driscoll the community awakes to the sound of a low rumble early in the morning. A fast panic sets in before the people living on the outskirts of the settlement see it: off in the distance, some large vehicle, boxy and white, is traveling toward the town. The citizens arm themselves and the half-trained disciples of the dojo steel themselves for whatever threat is approaching.
As it turns out, there is no threat at all. A massive eighteen-wheeled vehicle, larger that all but the most expansive homes in our settlement, rolls to a slow stop just outside of town. Driscoll dismounts the vehicle alongside the expedition party, and cheers are shared throughout the community at the sight of them safely home.
A meeting with the Overseers is quickly arranged, and the expedition explains that Driscoll's claims were true! With the help of the expedition party, Driscoll was able to pack his outpost and deliver here what he calls a Mobile Science Base. At his direction and using the tools contained within, our community can now measure environmental conditions in a way that will only bolster our growth and knowledge going forward. Even better the machines within also contain databases of a litany of lost knowledge, giving us access to ways of thinking we had previously lost.
Improve our current Historical Knowledge resource from Scarce to Stable, and the option now exists to have Driscoll teach the community more and improve either Historical Knowledge or Technology further in the future.
( @The Brayster just looking at the map, and I'm not sure that Salt lake is sufficiently big. Was thinking it extended from the factory to the top of the map, but I'm not really sure if the scale here)
( @The Brayster just looking at the map, and I'm not sure that Salt lake is sufficiently big. Was thinking it extended from the factory to the top of the map, but I'm not really sure if the scale here)
I can absolutely extend that for next time, just didn't want to go overboard on case I misinterpreted your intent.
Where does everyone sleep?
Who is unhappy with this arrangement, and why?
Children are raised by the community as a whole, and where promise is shown they’re snapped up to begin their apprenticeship in farming, crafts or junk scavengers—wherever they’d fit best. There’s a little leeway, but mostly the kids grow up to be whatever they were initially pushed into.
Infant children live with their parents, but as they grow older they transition to the community creche, where they live with their peers until their apprenticeship; during that time, they usually live with their master (though a particularly successful master might have dedicated houses for their collection of apprentices). A person is judged a full adult member of the community when they have achieved sufficient status - friends who owe favors, power, a partner, wealth, etc. - to build their own residence. Lately some have been skirting the rules by building residences that are more like extensions of their master's or their parents' houses or, scandalously, a group of apprentices building a sort of common area with attached private rooms. The grouped-up apprentices are responding, they say, to being pushed alone to the (more dangerous?) edges of the settlement while the Overseers and their families have the best locations.
Project: Radio Tower has completed this week! Tell us what happens.
An established movement within the community agree that Dust should host a radio show that broadcasts on all available channels. It’ll take time to convert his shed by the western river into a tall radio tower, but it must be done if the settlement is ever going to get fresh blood. Plus a bit of music wouldn’t go a miss.
When the moment comes, Dust stands dramatically in front of the assembled throng - it being a rest day and almost everyone was available in-town to watch the proceedings - and flips an overly dramatic lever, providing a meager stream of power to the radio tower. A few strategically doctored power connections spark for a moment as the tower comes to life. Dust steps in front of a microphone stand and intones in his perfect voice, "Hello, Salt Lands - this is WKBH with the latest news ... But first ..."
Start a Discussion
What type of music will the radio tower play, when Dust is not speaking?
For large parts of the day (and night) I have had Dust pre-record this melodic 'rap' that basically boils down to 'We are here. You are not alone. News on the hour'.
It loops every couple of minutes.
The community sets up a rotation of music to be played in-between announcements, "news," and calls for the people of the Saltsands to work together, but the ultimate authority in what gets played next is Dust himself and his handful of new apprentices.
A small-bribe-based economy starts to spring up, where people offer minor gifts to Dust and his crew to make sure their preferred music gets featured more often in the rotation.
ED: Also, something like this gets worked in somehow ...
Looks like the only thing that's not being actively attended at the moment are the rodents, so..
Introduce a mystery at the edge of the map.
Early one morning, the town awakes to a sharp shadow stretching and shifting across the town.
On the normally featureless horizon, to the east, a towering spire has grown seemingly overnight.
Tall enough that the dawning sun throws it in sharp relief across the town.
It appears to be constructed of a similar material to the death spires that used to surround the pit nearby.
Which does little to abate the disquiet that quickly spreads from its presence.
Meanwhile, the newest batch of initiates have finished perfecting the basic forms of the combined Salt Fist and Closing Wing discipline.
In honour of the occasion, the combined style is renamed the Desert Devil form ("Dust Devil" having been dismissed to prevent Dust getting too big for his radio shack).
It focuses on the creation and maintenance of the flow of momentum, before hammering it through the opponents defenses for devastating effect.
The completion of the training marks the first time the town has had enough followers of Kung Fu to reasonably field any sort of standing militia against external threats.
There are still questions in the community surrounding how teenagers and random travelers have been able to move through the NuMaize fields undetected, and whether things such as 'fences' and 'walls' might also be necessary.
But for now the community feels more secure.
(Move Kung Fu resource to 'Stable')
So now that we've trained some capable fighters, I think it's time we: Send a raiding party to investigate the newly de-spiked ominous metal hole.
We cannot see the bottom, and there are no handholds as far as we can see.
We will need to construct some type of scaffold to get down the hole, and I suspect this will take at least 5 weeks @Nips@Endless_Serpents@Elvenshae
Huh! This didn’t alert me. Sorry for the days of absence.
—
Diplomatic Mission
Overall, things went well. There was common ground to be had in the basics, though they still maintain a small elite of martial artists rather than a broader approach, in contrast their settlement is much more tech savvy.
They have become allies in trade. Our NuMaize for their AcceloGel—some kinda goop that makes things go fast.
—
Predators and bad omens are afoot.
You are careless, and someone goes missing under ominous circumstances.
Who?
Mud (Dust’s sister) has vanished during the hole investigation. It was during the night. No one has an answer just yet…
NipsHe/HimLuxuriating in existential crisis.Registered Userregular
"I think it's vital that we know what lies beneath the sands of our land. The expedition to the pit must carry forward until we uncover the secrets lying beneath it."
"Mud has always been adventuresome! She probably wandered off on her own, to explore further when no one else was around. And now she may be in trouble, so we should redouble our efforts and keep a careful eye out for any traces of her!"
"We're going to have to look for her, if only because Dust is going to cause trouble for us by complaining non-stop if we do not.
She probably just wanted to get away from the sound of his voice though.
Can't imagine why we thought giving the biggest mouth a microphone was a good idea."
A statment in the context of this game is literally a 1-2 of 'Here's what we're talking about. Here's my opinion' with no actual question necessarily attached to it, which is how I read the post.
I'm happy to be wrong though, if @Endless_Serpents wants to correct me at any point
Posts
Inside town in the centre square is a cairn of stone.
Each year we place another stone on the cornerstone, as if we want anything in this world, nature will not help us; we must all lift together.
Steam: Elvenshae // PSN: Elvenshae // WotC: Elvenshae
Wilds of Aladrion: [https://forums.penny-arcade.com/discussion/comment/43159014/#Comment_43159014]Ellandryn[/url]
Resources:
Projects:
Outpost Expedition: Complete!
Radio Tower: 1
Kung Fu Training: 2
Diplomatic Mission: 3
Contempt:
None
@Nips , you draw the King of Hearts! Your choice is as follows:
A young boy starts digging in the ground, and discovers something unexpected.
What is it?
OR
An old man confesses to past crimes and atrocities.
What has he done?
PSN: TheBrayster_92
One of our youngsters wandered off, exploring the limestone-step pit when the Overseers are too busy to count every head. He spent most of his days finding nothing of note, climbing up and down the pit, but today was different. Today, he found in the lowest levels of the steps a doorway concealed in the limestone wall. It remains closed, as the child had neither the strength or the means to force it. But the tale traveled fast among the chatty youths, and now the community has another mystery to investigate.
Discover Something New
The recent violent twister all too-easily destroyed the malign location to the east. A few curious villagers have wandered out to survey the destruction, and have found in its place a pit. The surface of the pit is metal-clad, smooth almost to a fault. Even stranger is that at its full depth, in its center, is a hole roughly ten feet across. Peering in, we see nothing but darkness that descends farther than we can perceive.
@discrider How does the Outpost Expedition fare?
"If a project reaches 0, the die gets
removed and the project is completed. Whoever
started the project gets to tell everyone how it turns
out, and update the map to reflect its completion."
At the the table, following the rules 100%, you are correct, that would be the way to do things. However, to run the game in this play-by-post format I have taken some 'artistic liberties' with some rules to, in my hopes, run this game slightly more smoothly given that we aren't at the table together, if that is alright with everyone. In this instance, I have elected to give the active player 100% control of what occurs during their active week, including anything that resolves during that week, regardless of origin. There's only one card in the deck that runs counter to this, but I will make it clear what's-what if/when that card comes up to the players concerned.
Reason: In this case, if we were sitting around the table, taking an aside for the Project 'owner' to discuss the results would take all of 2 seconds away from the active player. In a PbP, it adds an extra step to (potentially) most turns that might lead to some confusion or hesitation as to when other players could post and produce slowdown. The game, as it is currently being run, feels a bit more neat as it's following a more streamlined system of A-B-(A) (where A is the active player, B is everyone else). It's an easy flow to follow and, as a bonus, I can reasonably predict when a turn will end, and what content will need updating, ahead of time to have the next turn ready to go.
As such, I urge everyone to treat Projects in this game the same way you would treat anything else that is introduced as we go - it is yours to define as you wish when you initially introduce it, but after that, it's public domain. If you don't like the way your project has gone - Contempt.
To hopefully summarize, @Nips , the project result is yours to define. By all means, go by what the intial intent of the project says for your inspiration, but the choice, in this specific game, is yours. Think of it this way - not every project goes 100% as originally planned.
PSN: TheBrayster_92
The Outpost Expedition
Over a month after the expedition party had left with Driscoll the community awakes to the sound of a low rumble early in the morning. A fast panic sets in before the people living on the outskirts of the settlement see it: off in the distance, some large vehicle, boxy and white, is traveling toward the town. The citizens arm themselves and the half-trained disciples of the dojo steel themselves for whatever threat is approaching.
As it turns out, there is no threat at all. A massive eighteen-wheeled vehicle, larger that all but the most expansive homes in our settlement, rolls to a slow stop just outside of town. Driscoll dismounts the vehicle alongside the expedition party, and cheers are shared throughout the community at the sight of them safely home.
A meeting with the Overseers is quickly arranged, and the expedition explains that Driscoll's claims were true! With the help of the expedition party, Driscoll was able to pack his outpost and deliver here what he calls a Mobile Science Base. At his direction and using the tools contained within, our community can now measure environmental conditions in a way that will only bolster our growth and knowledge going forward. Even better the machines within also contain databases of a litany of lost knowledge, giving us access to ways of thinking we had previously lost.
Improve our current Historical Knowledge resource from Scarce to Stable, and the option now exists to have Driscoll teach the community more and improve either Historical Knowledge or Technology further in the future.
Added 'Doorway' to 'Limestone pit'
Added generic marker for 'Metal-clad pit' (I will adjust this one later)
Resources:
Projects:
Radio Tower: Complete!
Kung Fu Training: 1
Diplomatic Mission: 2
Contempt:
None
@Elvenshae , you draw the Seven of Hearts! Your choice is as follows:
Where does everyone sleep?
Who is unhappy with this arrangement, and why?
OR
What natural predators roam this area?
Are you safe?
PSN: TheBrayster_92
I can absolutely extend that for next time, just didn't want to go overboard on case I misinterpreted your intent.
PSN: TheBrayster_92
Infant children live with their parents, but as they grow older they transition to the community creche, where they live with their peers until their apprenticeship; during that time, they usually live with their master (though a particularly successful master might have dedicated houses for their collection of apprentices). A person is judged a full adult member of the community when they have achieved sufficient status - friends who owe favors, power, a partner, wealth, etc. - to build their own residence. Lately some have been skirting the rules by building residences that are more like extensions of their master's or their parents' houses or, scandalously, a group of apprentices building a sort of common area with attached private rooms. The grouped-up apprentices are responding, they say, to being pushed alone to the (more dangerous?) edges of the settlement while the Overseers and their families have the best locations.
When the moment comes, Dust stands dramatically in front of the assembled throng - it being a rest day and almost everyone was available in-town to watch the proceedings - and flips an overly dramatic lever, providing a meager stream of power to the radio tower. A few strategically doctored power connections spark for a moment as the tower comes to life. Dust steps in front of a microphone stand and intones in his perfect voice, "Hello, Salt Lands - this is WKBH with the latest news ... But first ..."
Start a Discussion
What type of music will the radio tower play, when Dust is not speaking?
@Nips @discrider @Endless_Serpents
Steam: Elvenshae // PSN: Elvenshae // WotC: Elvenshae
Wilds of Aladrion: [https://forums.penny-arcade.com/discussion/comment/43159014/#Comment_43159014]Ellandryn[/url]
It loops every couple of minutes.
PSN: TheBrayster_92
A small-bribe-based economy starts to spring up, where people offer minor gifts to Dust and his crew to make sure their preferred music gets featured more often in the rotation.
ED: Also, something like this gets worked in somehow ...
Steam: Elvenshae // PSN: Elvenshae // WotC: Elvenshae
Wilds of Aladrion: [https://forums.penny-arcade.com/discussion/comment/43159014/#Comment_43159014]Ellandryn[/url]
Resources:
Projects:
Kung Fu Training: Complete!
Diplomatic Mission: 1
Contempt:
None
@discrider , you draw the Seven of Diamonds! Your choice is as follows:
Introduce a mystery at the edge of the map.
OR
An unattended situation becomes problematic and scary.
What is it? How does it go awry?
PSN: TheBrayster_92
Introduce a mystery at the edge of the map.
Early one morning, the town awakes to a sharp shadow stretching and shifting across the town.
On the normally featureless horizon, to the east, a towering spire has grown seemingly overnight.
Tall enough that the dawning sun throws it in sharp relief across the town.
It appears to be constructed of a similar material to the death spires that used to surround the pit nearby.
Which does little to abate the disquiet that quickly spreads from its presence.
Meanwhile, the newest batch of initiates have finished perfecting the basic forms of the combined Salt Fist and Closing Wing discipline.
In honour of the occasion, the combined style is renamed the Desert Devil form ("Dust Devil" having been dismissed to prevent Dust getting too big for his radio shack).
It focuses on the creation and maintenance of the flow of momentum, before hammering it through the opponents defenses for devastating effect.
The completion of the training marks the first time the town has had enough followers of Kung Fu to reasonably field any sort of standing militia against external threats.
There are still questions in the community surrounding how teenagers and random travelers have been able to move through the NuMaize fields undetected, and whether things such as 'fences' and 'walls' might also be necessary.
But for now the community feels more secure.
(Move Kung Fu resource to 'Stable')
So now that we've trained some capable fighters, I think it's time we:
Send a raiding party to investigate the newly de-spiked ominous metal hole.
We cannot see the bottom, and there are no handholds as far as we can see.
We will need to construct some type of scaffold to get down the hole, and I suspect this will take at least 5 weeks
@Nips @Endless_Serpents @Elvenshae
5 weeks, for safety reasons.
Steam: Elvenshae // PSN: Elvenshae // WotC: Elvenshae
Wilds of Aladrion: [https://forums.penny-arcade.com/discussion/comment/43159014/#Comment_43159014]Ellandryn[/url]
(I highly assume 5 weeks, but hey, you could pull a blinder).
PSN: TheBrayster_92
Resources:
Projects:
Diplomatic Mission: Complete!
'Metal Hole' Investigation 5
Contempt:
None
@Endless_Serpents , you draw the Jack of Diamonds! Your choice is as follows:
Predators and bad omens are afoot.
You are careless, and someone goes missing under ominous circumstances.
Who?
OR
Predators and bad omens are afoot.
What measures do you take to keep everyone safe and under surveillance?
Project timers will not reduce this week.
PSN: TheBrayster_92
—
Diplomatic Mission
Overall, things went well. There was common ground to be had in the basics, though they still maintain a small elite of martial artists rather than a broader approach, in contrast their settlement is much more tech savvy.
They have become allies in trade. Our NuMaize for their AcceloGel—some kinda goop that makes things go fast.
—
Predators and bad omens are afoot.
You are careless, and someone goes missing under ominous circumstances.
Who?
Mud (Dust’s sister) has vanished during the hole investigation. It was during the night. No one has an answer just yet…
—
@'The Brayster'
@discrider @Elvenshae @Nips
Steam: Elvenshae // PSN: Elvenshae // WotC: Elvenshae
Wilds of Aladrion: [https://forums.penny-arcade.com/discussion/comment/43159014/#Comment_43159014]Ellandryn[/url]
—
Let’s call the hole thing off!
Steam: Elvenshae // PSN: Elvenshae // WotC: Elvenshae
Wilds of Aladrion: [https://forums.penny-arcade.com/discussion/comment/43159014/#Comment_43159014]Ellandryn[/url]
She probably just wanted to get away from the sound of his voice though.
Can't imagine why we thought giving the biggest mouth a microphone was a good idea."
Resources:
Projects:
'Metal Hole' Investigation 4
Contempt:
None
@Nips , you draw the Ace of Diamonds! Your choice is as follows:
A contingent within the community demand to be heard.
Who are they? What are they asking for?
OR
A contingent within the community have acted on their frustrations.
What have they damaged, and why did they damage it?
Is it permanent?
PSN: TheBrayster_92
PSN: TheBrayster_92
I thought that was just being flippant with 'let's call the hole thing off'.
Otherwise I don't see the statement
I'm happy to be wrong though, if @Endless_Serpents wants to correct me at any point
PSN: TheBrayster_92