[???] Pick And Mix Play By Post Adventure OOC Thread

[Ignispark]

[STATIONARY_FRICTION]:
Vembrace looks good.

Alright, so the starting area is going to be a forest. I don't have every single life-form around completed, so if you're looking for something in particular and I haven't mentioned it to you, feel free to ask about it. Especially for plants you can probably even just make one up. Anyhow, first off, I'll talk about the forest and it's current situation.

The sky is overcast, but calm. It is about mid-day, though between the clouds and the dense foilage, this particular forested of Ascent is reminiscent of night. Luckily, the local wildlife helps some with this problem. From some of the fruits on an oily shrubbery to warning marks on some poisonous bugs, there are quite a few pieces of wildlife which are bio-luminescent. Hopefully though, any present haven't forgotten to bring their own source of light. You could very well stub your toe on a root or trip on a vine if you're not careful.

For Maxim...the forest has plenty of options for ingredients for anyone coming for culinary reasons. Whether someone is a returning visitor for any reason, or they're coming in for the first time by chance or by the stories of a small local village of Beacons not too far off, it will likely have many interesting specimens. The glowing bittersweet purple fruits on one type of oily shrubbery and a variety of types of beans and flowers which are edible make up some of the plant life. There are of course a variety of mushrooms to decompose the fallen, some of which are safe for most biological life to consume. Some are not. The array of small game available ranges from non-poisonous bugs. to some small reptiles that feed on nectar, to various birds. There are a few larger creatures reminiscent of deer, with glowing markings, though they can put up a decent fight. Additionally, there are a few scarce predators which can leap from tree to tree, though they avoid Beaconkind, if one cornered such a creature it could likely be dangerous.

Kara on the other hand, likely has no bearings on this situation, as it's yet another unknown exit from The Connection, left her once again in an unfamiliar part of Ascent. I'd figure it would be most likely that she would have dropped near a peculiar orange flower much larger than most Beacons, which glows incredibly brightly, in the midst of the forest. If not, then the nearby small town could have been a decently likely spot to drop-in. If you're going with the town, I'd consider talking with Maxim's player about maybe starting together?

Vembrace...it likely wouldn't be from any nearby ancient ruins. More than likely I would think it would be from an outpost in the desert or on another moon. Whether by means of a long journey, or perhaps even just a short journey through the twists of The Connection, it could have found the town or just wandered straight into the forest? Anyway, you can also feel free to talk to the others if you all want to have already met up in the town before reaching the forest. Otherwise I can somewhat corral things so that it happens that you meet up in the forest.

By the way, if you have any ideas about who/what sort of things they were protecting or fighting, feel free to let me know. I can work with that to give you some specifics. I can also offer some specific options offhand, like a facility related to and on good terms with that of Pinnacle's installation, or perhaps some lone inventor's creation that's left in the world after its creator and sole charge left long ago. There's a lot of options there. I can give more ideas or work with ideas you have of most sorts.

Anyhow, I'll give you all some time to look at this and maybe, ask additional questions or figure out why you're going into the forest or if you're starting immediately together or not. Then, I'll start up the proper game thread and leave this as the out of character thread.

[skinstealer]

[TASTY_TREAT]:

i'd like to start together, or at least have someone with maxim...she's prone to getting traveling companions quickly considering she can offer meals and can talk someone's ear off for company! up to whoever if they want to have their character meet maxim though

btw everyone's characters are super cool! i'm really excited for this

[Ignispark]

[STATIONARY_FRICTION]:
I can toss in a traveling knight, explorer, or really any other sort of NPCs as traveling companions as needed. So, even if there aren't PCs I can make sure there's something. If you have anything in mind as far as an NPC tag-along though feel free to let me know.

[King-Clod]

[ASTRAL_ABERRATION]:
I'm fine with starting together or alone - I'd think I'd like to start in the forest though.
Maybe Kara could spawn on her own and find Maxim or Vembrace after exploring around a little bit? Spawning right next to Maxim could be fun too - she really hasn't seen a beacon in many moons and would be pretty bewildered to see her.

[Ignispark]

[STATIONARY_FRICTION]:
Either of those would be interesting. I think it would be quite funny to imagine walking into the woods with someone and then another Beacon just falls out of The Connection, regardless of if it actually ends up being what happens.

[knux400]

[GENTLE_STAR]:

[STATIONARY_FRICTION] wrote:
Vembrace...it likely wouldn't be from any nearby ancient ruins. More than likely I would think it would be from an outpost in the desert or on another moon. Whether by means of a long journey, or perhaps even just a short journey through the twists of The Connection, it could have found the town or just wandered straight into the forest? Anyway, you can also feel free to talk to the others if you all want to have already met up in the town before reaching the forest. Otherwise I can somewhat corral things so that it happens that you meet up in the forest.

By the way, if you have any ideas about who/what sort of things they were protecting or fighting, feel free to let me know. I can work with that to give you some specifics. I can also offer some specific options offhand, like a facility related to and on good terms with that of Pinnacle's installation, or perhaps some lone inventor's creation that's left in the world after its creator and sole charge left long ago. There's a lot of options there. I can give more ideas or work with ideas you have of most sorts.

i think i like the idea of a lone inventors creation... im pretty open to ideas about what it fought exactly, maybe it acted as sort of a personal bodyguard? as for where it came from... uhhh idk honestly. probably another moon though

[Ignispark]

[STATIONARY_FRICTION]:
Alright, moons...hm. I have three options:
1. Pinnacle: The inventor's base is/would have been a deep subterranean facility a decent ways away from the facility with the giant cannon.
2. Brisk: A small moon that's rather barren. Other than the inventor there probably wasn't much presence. Save an odd creature of the connection
3: Carcass: The inventor's base was elsewhere originally, but was moved here near the crescendo of the apocalypse, on the corpse of the god meant to destroy the sun to find some insight in the remnants of the being.

In any case the inventor would be rather alone, free to work on odd projects and whatnot. More than likely the inventor had to leave before or during the apocalypse. If not, it would have suffered the complications of the apocalypse which made it so that the inventor's species could no longer exist in the modern world. In any case, you have the option of having a small shuttle-craft which can fly between moons and the planet and whatnot. Otherwise you likely got to Ascent via The Connection.

I'm thinking the inventor was likely the sort to try to wander the connection, delve into hostile bases like some temples and whatnot, and otherwise stir some trouble. More than likely the bodyguard work was quite tough, but you'll have a decent ability to identify quite a few remnants of ancient factions you come across.

Anyhow, there's a couple choices on what I can give you information: please pick a number and a letter. If you have any other topics of interest feel free to inquire about those too.

1. How some of the original species left to somewhere else. or 2. The effects of incompatibility with the world on the original species.

A. The nature of The Connection, beings in it, and some of the risks involved with it. B. A rough explanation of how gods work and how they still continue to function. or C. The relationship between ancient magic and modern magic, how the latter came to be after the apocalypse, and (in)compatibility between the two.

[knux400]

[GENTLE_STAR]: brisk sounds like the best option i think, it makes sense for this inventor person to be kind of a paranoid loner, hence why they built themselves a sentient bodyguard armor thing lol.

the shuttlecraft is tempting ngl but i kind of want vembrace to be sort of a lost wanderer type? and its a bit harder to pull that off if it has a spaceship. i dont know what this campaign is going to entail though so if it would be more convenient on your end to have a shuttlecraft for the party then go for it!

uhhh for information choices... id say 2A? that feels like itd work here

[sarcovyn]

[3D]:

Name: Do
Origin: The Connection
Appearance: Small orb-shaped body with a pair of wings and tiny scuttling legs. It has a single large eye that looks kinda like an abstract type TCP's but with a tiny black pupil. It has a two-by-three grid of glowing squares on each side that radiate different patterns of a single color each time it uses its flap ability
Personality: Cowardly and emotional. Thinks itself better than most beings outside the Connection but treats this like it is no big deal to them
Goals: Put up some decorations in its home land (The Connection). And maybe build a huge castle in Ascent and a village surrounding the castle where everyone in the village covets Do's wisdom
Skills:
Each time it flaps its wings, something that can toggle "Off" is toggled off; every seventh flap, most things (or everything around it, if possible) around it that can toggle "On" toggles on
Whenever it makes an educated guess about something, it is usually correct, even if it wasn't the case before it said so. Like magic
It knows a lot of things about The Connection and magic in general like others of its kind. It thinks it knows a lot about Ascent but all of it is hearsay
Can fly
Flaws:
Do sometimes assumes the worst and this applies to the magical educated guess thing
If you kick it, it usually get flung hilarious distances due to how easy it is to chuck like a sports ball
Very little dexterity due to lack of mouth and simplistic legs
It Might not be able to physically influence the world much, but you can't tell because it will just refuse to do things anyway
Other: Beeps when it uses its wing flap ability. If it does this a lot of times in a row it sounds like a song

If my character knows a lot about the world but I don't, does that give me a "make shit up" license or do I have to go out-of-character and ask meta questions

[Ignispark]

[STATIONARY_FRICTION]:
The connection was probably going to feature heavily anywhere so you'd have had the awkward challenge of trying to fly through tunnels.
2. The effects of incompatibility with the world on the original species:

Even before incompatibility, most of the precursor species had already left, due to the world, by all known accounts, being fated to end.

Incompatibility was quite odd to say the least. It was quite a slow process, which began after the sun began flickering a few years after it was supposed to be destroyed. It's uncertain if this is the direct cause, but at minimum it caused conflict between ancient factions, god-related or otherwise, to crescendo, which certainly could not have helped the situation. The most immediate consequence was subtle, where accidents became more commonplace. In a few more years, issues began with odd variants of lifeforms arising, especially dangerous ones. A decade after that, activity from the connection began to rise. In general, as time went on the danger and oddities present increased. Luckily, there was already a route out that had been prepared before the sun was supposed to be destroyed. The one your inventor knew about was the one through Pinnacle. The only methods the precursors had to leave were one-way. A few decades after the prior effects reached their peak, those who  It was many years before Beacons came to exist. Beacons have not existed for very long, with the oldest being around for fifty years.

As a note, there was a way around incompatibility which your inventor did know about. You can technically still have them as a traveling companion if you want, but I think it'd be more interesting if one way or another you still split ways. If one was no longer the species of the precursors, especially if they were no longer biological, they were clear. Biological routes were heavier the modifications were.

I don't actually have a name for the precursor species but they were likely insect-like and if anyone wants to suggest one I'll probably go along with it. I did not plan the apocalypse part out too much so uh, if anyone has a better idea for it I will swap some parts around.


A. The nature of The Connection, beings in it, and some of the risks involved with it.
The Connection is inherently about the relationship between everything. It was not originally how it is now, in fact, it used to be a wide array of aesthetic styles and was rumored to have led to other worlds if one ventured too far. Creatures of The Connection used to be more easily encountered. Someone did something major, a decade or so before the sun was supposed to be destroyed. It took on the method similar to a quite dreary white ancient lab. It's unclear what exactly happened, but it led to the connection as we know it today, except more sparse. It wasn't until the above noted uptick that things reached the modern level.

Creatures of The Connection are often the best are manipulating the relationships between things. What is true? How are things connected? However, they can be just as direct as ancient magical techniques too. In fact, the continued presence of ancient magic after the sun started flickering was suspected by your creator to be directly related to The Connection's odd current monotony. Then again, who's to say that it wouldn't have continued to be anchored into the world by remaining gods, remnants of gods, and the great number of creations that were left behind?

The largest risk to beings of the connection is raising the ire of the most fundamental beings of the connection and elsewise. There are a small number of immense beings, which are notably hard to find. Your creator only barely managed to interview some beings who worked for them. They often are in disagreement have wildly different vested interests in the world. One of those beings is in fact in a way, the opposite of the connection. It is quite vested in the well-being of people and assisted in creating a way for the precursor species to leave safely without dying horribly. It also assisted in letting the precursor species know about the alternative of making themselves into their own construct, which also worked. Unfortunately, that memo was decades late and most of the precursor species left before the sun was supposed to go out and the world was supposed to end the first time. Eventually, it was obligated to implement fading for all who had not gone for the construct option, which provided it is truthful, simply transported them elsewhere against their will where they would not die due to complicated magical consequences that you don't actually understand.




[STATIONARY_FRICTION]:
Anyhow, Do is accepted, though I would like to give you some comments to help you not run into immediate existential consequences.

I'd suggest going for being able to choose what turns on or off and maybe being able to like, intentionally avoid usage or choose a target. There are a lot of things that could go wrong turning things on and off without caution. Additionally, it might not work on devices that are people or attached to people because that sounds very bad.

Technically everyone has a make shit up learners permit and can try to make things up. Beware doing so near spooky connection creatures that will notice and that will ask you what the hell something that does not exist is doing trying to make toast monsters real. When using your character's power it will be noticeable that your character is in fact something that does exist trying to make toast monsters real.

Additionally, as a note, making something 'usually right' will work best on things that are already uncertain out-of-character. It is also much safer to make up things that are plausible or minor. Trying to work that on some major things or known things will have consequences. I won't ban you from trying though.

TLDR: Try not to modify things that are very important or bad things will probably happen.

If I invite people to modify something though or you ask politely and I go "Yes, you can do that with no problems of course, that's really cool." then you can mostly ignore that advice though.

[King-Clod]

[ASTRAL_ABERRATION]:
I have to say, I love all of the insight we got into the world in these posts. Maybe the precursor insect species can have a name specifically having to do with their relationships with the now dead gods? Like...the Votary or something? Or they may have a name given to them by those gods that holds a lot of weight. It'd be interesting if, if the precursor species knew of the Beacons, if they referred to them by another name like theirs, such as the Epigone. That's probably not applicable though, they seemed to have all vacated the moons entirely.

I do have one worry though, if that's alright. I'd like to ask that Do not make guesses about significant story bits from other people's backstories. I'd hate it if Kara is saying something about never being brought to Beacons from the Connection (only meeting them once or twice within it) and Do says something like "Well that's probably because you smell bad." and that becomes the in-universe reason why.

I do think it's a really interesting character overall though, and I like the eclectic mix we have here with Vembrace, Maxim, and Do all being different races. I really look forward to seeing how they all interact.

[Ignispark]

[STATIONARY_FRICTION]:
I'll address the second point first. To put it briefly, player characters and their pasts are implicitly important parts of the universe and thus the giant plot monsters will slap people who try to fuck with their pasts and it will not work. (Exception: If OOC permission is asked from the player that owns the character and me, and then is granted, you're good to go.)

Anyway, about species.

As mentioned, any that used to be the original species left would technically be considered 'Ancient Construct' by this point, as the only remaining ones had to change sufficiently to not get faded away years before Beacons came to exist. I figure a very small portion of the overall ancient construct population would be of this sort. It'd be quite rare to find one. Nobody is quite sure how Beacons came to be called beacons, but it is generally the most common adoption by most creatures. A few isolate ancient catalogues might have their own names, but they likely differ between a few factions who haven't even tried to talk to a beacon before let alone each other. Epigone is probably a name one of those isolate catalogues has for the species.

Votary is fun, but is a bit overly generalized. Note: origin stories among ancient archives vary heavily and some posit that gods as they know it are not responsible for their creation. Also, there are quite a few ancient factions who downright disliked divinities. One of the most prominent factions shot the god of apocalypse with a giant cannon. I think it might be a secondary name, perhaps? Or a name that some factions applied to the species but others object vehemently to.

[King-Clod]

[ASTRAL_ABERRATION]:
Oh, that's perfectly reasonable. I didn't mean to generalize the entire species down to a religion they may or may not follow.

[sarcovyn]

[3D]:

I'd like to ask that Do not make guesses about significant story bits from other people's backstories.

Oh I did not even think about that. I was imagining it to be, like, environmental effects. Like to cut down travel time or whatever because I've been in roleplays where getting from A to B was such a slog that people quit. Changing other people's backstories is just plain rude
 

I'd suggest going for being able to choose what turns on or off and maybe being able to like, intentionally avoid usage or choose a target. ... Additionally, it might not work on devices that are people or attached to people because that sounds very bad.

How about this: It tries to prioritize whatever Do is focusing on, Do has to manually flap their wings themselves (other people cannot do it for them), and by default does not affect anything within the control of another player (so people and things they are holding/attached to)?
 

There are a lot of things that could go wrong turning things on and off without caution.

Thankfully part of my intention is for Do to suffer

[Ignispark]

[STATIONARY_FRICTION]:
Alright. That sounds good. Any preference on where Do starts as far as ending up in a forest and whatnot?

[Ignispark]

[STATIONARY_FRICTION]:
Otherwise, I think I'll do things in the following way:
1. Kara, Vembrace, and Do are all starting separate in the forest having wandered in from various directions. Kara and Do probably from the Connection. Vembrace possibly also from the connection.

2. Maxim is entering with a wandering knight. Probably something a bit cliche, hasn't even been seen without their helmet. They also don't eat. They talk a lot about the interesting people they've met politely visiting ancient ruins and the connection. The knight has a neat little lizard companion. The lizard is decently friendly and does eat. (It isn't a person though, it's just a little creature. It has glowing eyes)

This look good? I have a pretty solid idea of an object of interest to guide all parties into each other. And failing that I'll probably just have the wandering meet.

[skinstealer]

[TASTY_TREAT]:

i'm totally down for that!

maxim will feed the lizard many applicable snacks...

[King-Clod]

[ASTRAL_ABERRATION]:
Sounds good, but I do have a few questions. How long will each segment be? Will we get a scene or two to introduce ourselves before meeting up, do you think?

[Ignispark]

[STATIONARY_FRICTION]:
I was just going to play it by ear, but...a scene or two to introduce yourself sounds like a pretty good metric. Let's go with that!

[knux400]

[GENTLE_STAR]: sounds good to me! lmk when we're starting