Play@YSDC

Thanks for the help

You're welcome!

Hello Overlord87, have we died a death?

No, I'm still here. I sent a pm to Cearlan about 7-10 days ago, but got no answer. I'm afraid we can consider him out, at least for the time being. Also, I'm afraid we might have lost krzspymac too. I was waiting for a post from any of them, but I'm afraid I was waiting in vain.

So, how would you like to proceed?
1) try to get some replacement players
2) each of you pick up one investigator from a missing player as a "secondary character" of sort
3) I handle them as NPCs, hoping for them to come back

Anyway, if you're still with me, I plan on finishing the adventure. It's not that far off now.

I'd favor trying to get replacement players. If you can't find them, then I'd say run them as NPCs.

It rather depends on how close we are to the end, if we really aren't that far off then I'd suggest just running as NPC's (maybe while calling for additional players) rather than waiting for replacements.

We are not far from wrapping it up. It depends on some choices you yet have to make, and considering the speed of play by forum, It might yet be another six months or so... but we're getting there. Plus, Cearlan's investigator is practically 90% insane by now.

Anyway, I'll see if someone Is interested to join, and move things on asap.

My character so far does nothing I can take amore active role (sorry for not doing it so far :/)

krzyspmac wrote:My character so far does nothing I can take amore active role (sorry for not doing it so far :/)

Hello krzspymac, I thought you had left us actually. Good to see you're still on board

Your character can be as active as you have him be. If you post more and have him take the initiative, you'll be able to participate more, and most likely also enjoy the game more. Also, you should use your investigative skills to collect as many info as you can. For example, in the last topic, you'll notice that there is information available from the dead bodies for anyone who has the Occult skill. As you have Occult, it is your job to collect that info and share it with the others. Also, it is possible for your character to make a spend and get additional info - that is a choice for you to make, as well.

Surely I encourage you to take a more active role

Hi Overlord are you waiting for us to do something?

G

ghill wrote:Hi Overlord are you waiting for us to do something?

G

No, sorry, it's been a busy week

So, guys, I've been thinking about this campaign and I don't think I'm really motivated anymore to push it forward. I think it was actually going well until we lost Cearlan and then krzspymac (who was never really active, but still). Also, Cearlan's investigator was the one that drank the Sapna tea, and some things that I had been building on that got lost as soon as we lost him. I think things are just dragging on now, partly because of me, but partly because it's just not working very well anymore.

Assuming that it is fine for you as well, I think I'd rather shut it down. I'm not particularly happy about it, but I think it's for the best. On the other hand, if you feel like you want to see it through and get an ending, I'll speed things up and try to close it as soon as possible (cutting a few things that were originally planned - along with other things that were cut when the player count went down).

I'd like to finish it, especially since we're so close to the end, or so it seems. Perhaps we can see if there are other players interested in taking over abandoned characters.

Overlord if you don't think its working then I'm happy either way, it has seemed a bit lacking which makes perfect sense if the other players were key to chunks of the scenario. So whichever result makes the most sense for you.

I have read your replies and thought about it a little more. I don't like to leave things unfinished, but I also think that everything that deserves to be done, deserves to be done in a proper way. At the moment, I don't think I could wrap this up in a proper way, partly my fault surely, partly because of reasons out of my control. So, I prefer to close things up now. I'm sorry if this campaign came out as a disappointment. I'll try to do better next time.

Do you have any question about the campaign itself? You have uncovered a large party of the backstory, but there's a few things more. The evil villain is Julien, as you might have guessed. He would have tried to recover the book once you got it back, obviously. His plan was to use the book's powers to make sure the war would continue as long as possible, to increase as much as possible the death count for the Goddess he worshiped. Originally, the book's powers were first tested by Sebastien, Madeleine and Julien together, in Verchanne. Sebastien and Madeleine wanted to help the French win the war, but got scared upon seeing what they had unleashed, and sealed the book away in the Dreamlands. Madeleine and Sebastien knew of them thanks to the Sapna tea (in fact, the experience Cearlan's investigator had while drinking the tea was a short trip of his consciousness to the Dreamlands). The cavern under Paris's catacombs are a way to physically access the Dreamlands - provided you can pay one head to the gatekeeper. Most of this part that I had been building up got lost when we lost Cearlan. The ghouls and their master were somewhat of a neutral force in the matter, although they definitely wanted the Book back in the real world - and possibly in the hands of someone who would use it.
Also, using the book's powers the first time unleashed an avatar of Mordiggian in the world, the one that went around taking the shape of dead people. You didn't go after the clues leading in this direction, so it sort of slipped in the background. The avatar had two main tasks: eliminating all the survivors of Verchanne, and taking the shape of French and British officials, signing wrong orders that would cause a large number of deaths - again, to feed the Goddess of Death, Mordiggian. i think if I want to run this again, I'll need to link this more with the main plot, as probably all players would focus their attention on the Book.

In any case, this is a general overview of what I had in mind. If you have questions or any curiosity, I'll answer them.

I'm sorry to see it end, but I understand. Things make a lot more sense with the explanation. It was because of the book that I didn't pursue the thread that led to the avatar of Mordiggian further. Was it impersonating General Gallieni when I met with him to try to get me to retrieve the book, or was that actually him?

That was really Gallieni. He did not know everything about the book, but he knew Dupont had a secret weapon, and he thought the book contained the plans for it. The test in Verchanne was agreed with the Army, that sent in troops in the breach created by the activation of the book's eldritch power.

In the end, after retrieving the book, you would have the choice of what to do with it. You could have used it to summon the avatar and try to banish/kill it. Or you could have simply destroyed the tome. Returning it to Gallieni would surely speed up the conclusion of the war, but at what price?

Also killing Madeleine was an option. Without her, nobody could retrieve the book. Provided the head is destroyed, of course. The ghouls have a way of retrieving the memories of the dead from their brains, which is why they took Dupont's head - except they needed Madeleine's head instead.

I think I can't have been paying enough attention as I wasn't even aware of the avatar thread or that there was someone out there impersonating dead people. Although to be honest if I had I think I would have just assumed it was a normal ghoul using consume likeness.

That thread was from the survivors of Verchanne seeing people they knew to be dead and then dying themselves shortly thereafter. However, once we got back from Verchanne, we had bigger things on our minds.

It would have been a tough decision for Jacques. He had been ordered by General Gallieni to retrieve the book, and duty is what drives him, but he had also seen firsthand what had happened at Verchanne and was appalled. I was hoping that someone else would take the decision out of my hands by destroying the book.