Defenders of Daybreak, The Early Years.

[J'quan]

Wow, Siallia. I read some of these logs, told in your storyteller voice, and I can imagine you sitting on our couch, telling us a story about Miranda in the same voice (for those not in the know, she's graced our Delta Green game with a really fun, complex, character.)

So, when does Miranda bring up the fact she's got this younger brother named Drylath... :-D

 

[Sialia]

I'm still fishing around for Miranda's voice. I don't think I've really "got" her yet.

She's not as ebullient as Dylrath, not as loving and patient as Cadrienne, she's a lot more as I was freshman year of college: kind of lost and overwhelmed, struggling to keep up in a world that doesn't seem quite real . . . or rather a world where reality is different than she expected. She can't quite seem to get the hang of the rules, the etiquette, the strategy.

Tricky playing a character struggling to find her identity at the same time that she's trying to hide it from everyone else. Most of the time she doesn't know what name she's using today, or which version of her story she's handing out, or what the whole reality under the thing she's trying to hide is.

And trouble always seems to catch up with the party so unexpectedly, which mystifies me, because I'm usually so good at seeing trouble coming a mile off, and Mythago's machinations always seem like they should have been obvious, once we get to the hindsight stage.

She is one evil Keeper, of that there is no doubt.

Anyway, no DG Storyhour from me just yet, because I can't write a story that has me completely perplexed about which way it's about to turn.

But it's a good thing the party has been keeping such detailed notes for me.

 

[Sialia]

Cadrienne's private conversation with Peggus was just about the pinnacle of my roleplaying career, it's true. it would be tough to top that one.

There were no dice involved.

Piratecat was convinced that there was nothing she could say to Peggus to get him to change his mind about the Defenders. In addition to having a real grievance against them, Peggus had been messed with by a Mindflayer who had augmented a lot of Peggus's negative feelings of guilt and hatred.

And Piratecat didn't buy my whole theory about nonviolent gaming.

But I had a big chip on my shoulder and I was determined to prove it could be done.

I spent a week and a half cramming for the session. I read psych textbooks, I read Ghandi, I read several treatises pro and con the justification of warfare. I read the PHB with lawyerly attention to detail, and rewrote her spellist a half dozen times.

And it was every bit worth it.

(more later--child care to attend to)

 

[madriel]

D&D is overly skewed towards see it=kill it-->gain xp. It's so oriented towards beating challenges by beating on them. That makes non-militant clerics difficult to play effectively. You don't get the chance to negotiate or give spiritual counselling to an enemy.

Kudos to you, Sialia, for roleplaying a compassionate and pacifistic cleric. Kudos to Ol' Pegleg too for giving you the chance to do it.

 

[Sialia]

Right. That's the thing: Piratecat cooperated and gave me a fighting chance. As it were.

It wasn't easy, but it was possible. If Peggus had been a full fledged "bwah-hah-hah" or "chomp-slurp" evil-doer, I'd have had to do something very different.

But he was a human, with real motivations for his desire for destruction. So there was room to try something I had always wanted to do. And for the first time, the other Defenders were not in a position to force the interaction to go another direction. I had the villain all to myself. (I never did find out what his class or level was.)

Cadrienne had to retire, not just because I was bored with her, but also because once she swore off violence I could not use her as an ongoing PC without driving everyone nuts. Getting to smack things is a large part of why people show up to play. It's fun. We can't do it in real life, so it's fun to pretend about.

Resolving complex political, economic, environmental and emotional issues is too much like work to be satisfying as a hobby, I think.

I was leaning on Piratecat because I wanted there to be more of that in the world, but I didn't want that to be all there was.

And I wanted to see if it could be done.

And Cadrienne needed one last chance to redeem herself.
After her last couple of fiascos, I had put away her folder and tried to learn from the experiences and forget about the embarassments.

When Piratecat asked me to pull out her character sheet and see if there was something she could do to help the Defenders get out of their current predicament, I was astonished to see how powerful a character she was stat-wise. I'd been playing Dylrath for so long I had forgotten what it was like to actually have some useful skills and abilities.

Dylrath had taught me that it was completely unnecessary to be as powerful as everyone else to be fun to play. The joy of roleplaying is being "yourself."

But it was amazing to have a spell list again, and some high stats, and the certain knowledge that Divine assistance is close at hand. For once session it was a real hoot feeling almighty.

And then we sent the dear child home to her foster children and Town Council and fundraising for the University about as fast as we could send her, and I went back to being Dylrath, because after all, whacking into things is fun.

Piratecat has always been obliging about giving the party the kind of puzzles they ask for.
When Arcade was in the party, we got riddles.
With Dylrath around, we got puzzles.
Tao got giants to fight.

Currently, there's been a LOT of requests for some undead, I believe, and I think he's been working up something . . .

I've thought and thought about how to describe what Cadrienne and Peggus discussed behind the dunes. The trouble is, she's can be a terribly tedious storyteller--she's long winded (worse than me) and prone to analysis and pontification.

I'm working on a compromise. Either I'll use an omniscient narrator, or I'll make Dylrath go ask her about it and tell it from his point of view.

I'm starting classes this week, though, so I'll have to fit it in between some other responsibilities. It may take a bit. Stay tuned . . .

 

[Piratecat]

(I never did find out what his class or level was.)

In 2e, he was the equivalent of a 1 HD commoner. Nowadays, he's have been a 2nd or 3rd lvl aristocrat.

 

[Sialia]

Hmm. How about that.

And here I was worried he could heave lightning bolts or summon minions or stuff like that.

All he really had over the Defenders was the antidote to the poison and a willingness to die rather than give it to them.

A simple mind read could've had that out of him.

But we had no way of knowing that at the time. N'import. It felt like a big victory at the time.

 

[Corran]

The Defenders on page 2??

Say it ain't so! ;-)

 

[Sialia]

Sadly, it may be a bit before we can give you more. There's always more, but it may be a bit before we can get to it.

I've started school again this week, carrying three courses and still working and taking care of the Scampering One, and all the rest. 'Deeto's gonna have his hands full picking up my slack, I'm sure.

So I'll check in when I can, but I have no plans to begin anything else that takes a lot of storytelling for a little while.

Bandeeto will try to give you your fix from time to time as the semester progresses.

There's still some visuals for us to post that shouldn't take to long to get up--we've got scans of the abassadopple's notes, and that sort of thing. We'll add 'em in as we get to 'em to keep the thread from falling into oblivion.

And of course, you know I just can't help myself, so I'm bound to pop in with an anecdote from time to time.

Feel free to bump us with questions about stuff. It'll help me remember what other stories I promised you.

'till then,

love,

Sialia

 

[Evil Gnome]

BUMP!!!!!!!