ZEITGEIST The Flint Irregulars, whose portraits you may have seen

Oh, I guess I should mention that Murdok's player isn't my wife, Viveen's player is. So that was funny. But we're all great friends, so we had a good time with it.

I thought there might be some interest in how I've been doing clocks in Act 3. Here's what the players see (except the hidden Ob Unity one, until after the Forward Symposium where they'll get intel). Clocks update whenever, as they say, "new naughty word comes to light."



Ber gained stability after Ursalina was saved. Risur started very stable, and is ticking up only slowly due to the lack of a fishery (because the players left She-Who-Writhes alone for now, to block Ob fleets from sailing the seas). But Beshela has been keeping them in the loop about Asrabey's scheming (she doesn't know details, but he asked for her help), so they know something's up there -- hence the Asrabey clock.

Crisillyr updates whenever they get intel about gods being executed. Komanov they just got the letter from Heid, so that's their first info about it. And the Dreaming, they've been putting messages in the Absurdist Web, and just heard back from Copperhat that their world is close to the Gyre (one segment filled) and has cracked in half (second segment filled) and it turns out the Bleak Gate is inside it (no segments, but a hint about how to get there faster... which so far I don't think they've really picked up on, even though I told them the full "moon" is approaching and they've heard naughty word's getting weird on Cauldron Hill).

That's neat.

Are you still playing once a year for like a week? Was the most recent session in October?

The once a year thing is in addition to playing online semi-regularly. We have a weekly call where because of time zones we only really have about 90 minutes, so some weeks we make a bit of progress, and other weeks something gets in the way and we just catch up. Then we do irregular longer online sessions on the weekend where we get a good 4-6 hour block of time.

Which we did last weekend! After recapping the clocks / state of the world, the group decided to work with Beshela to misdirect Asrabey so that they could try to negotiate with She-Who-Writhes without his interference. As with clocks, I'm trying to move as much as I can toward player-facing mechanics, so I had one of them roll Beshela's bluff vs Asrabey's insight, which was a success. They had two candidate zones for trying to engage the fey titan, one north of Flint in the Ayres, and another in the tidal lee of a point a few dozen miles away. They chose the latter to avoid having a city nearby, and sent Asrabey to the former. Then they obtained duplicants from Pemberton Industries and had idle Risuri navy sailors work as duplicant crews on a small number of steamships, while they flew to the target area on their airship. They also made sure to wear earplugs.

Beshela conjured a hurricane with all of them in the eye of it, to create a shallow area to limit the underwater mobility of the titan, and Vesta gave her a ring that would allow her to teleport into the mouth / interior of She-Who-Writhes to be able to commune with her mistress in relative safety (the ring eliminates the need to have line of sight / line of effect to the destination). Knowing that the communion would take a full minute, they orchestrated their duplicant-crewed steamships to kite the titan around the zone in the eye of the hurricane, basically making them a sacrificial offering since they knew from Beshela and from past experience with Duchess Ethelyn (who was killed by Asrabey early in the campaign) that She-Who-Writhes hated steamships and would greatly enjoy hauling them to their doom.

Once Beshela's communion was complete and the titan was sated and calmed enough to be amenable to negotiation, they negotiated a total ban on the use of steamships by Risur and Ber, and that any conventional sailing ship from either nation would make an offering of treasure to the seas upon departure from port. Even if sailors from other countries pick up on the need to make an offering, any technological seafaring vessel is fair game to be dinner for the fey titan. (This does, unfortunately, mean the end of Murdok's offscreen career as a submarine captain that began when her player left the game. But I'm sure the character will find something else to do, I wouldn't be surprised if the player makes a cameo before the game ends.)

Then they teleported back to Flint and headed to the Ayres location where they'd sent a now very irate Asrabey. So they're still getting their climactic showdown with him. They usually try to avoid having to fight or kill their enemies (especially now that Viveen has the Humble Hook), but Asrabey has been a thorn in their side for so long that they seem to be relishing the chance to finally take him down. Vesta especially, as when they finally cross swords, they will both be wielding flaming blades of Srasama. (I think I previously mentioned I made the blade at the eladrin monastery in Adventure 8 into an artifact, the First Blade of Srasama, with which Vesta has developed high concordance.) So it's as much about personal enmity as it is about who is actually embodying the spirit and precepts of the goddess.

I think Ashima-Shimtu will appear during the fight as well, but since the party already knows about all of the things in the portents she provides in the written text, I'll have to decide what she should tell them. Maybe about the Lost Riders and the lava dragon. Maybe something about the undead dragon tyrant Venkio, who got away during the palace battle.