OOC - From the Outside

[Binder Fred]

Should we open up recruiting for a third again, Doghead? I'll ask around a bit to people I know and you guys could do the same too and we'll see if anything falls out?

 

[doghead]

Thanks for understanding. And for leaving the door unlocked for me.

You are welcome.

Its not entirely selfless. I like the idea of a "free radical" (ie the cleric) hooked into the game. It seems to me a cool unknown quality to have in the back pocket. It gives you a way back in (albeit with complications) and me, well a potential vector for coming at the characters with.

thotd

 

[Isida Kep'Tukari]

*waves*

Okiday, I have my preliminary priest up the RG. So... we're troll agents? Do we get very cool stone badges?

 

[Binder Fred]

Welcome aboard Isida. *waves back*

Re badges and such: Ah, I knew I forgot something in that second PM! Here's the whole thing, pasted (with modifs) from the last background discussion we had (correct me if I missed anything in there guys):

Doghead: The characters are in the service of, or owe a debt to a reasonably powerful member of the 'monster kingdom' (the Fae world). Who is this person: the Winter or the Summer Princes, Witching Troll, the Grandmaster of Flowers, or some other entirely?
- GlassEye: The Witching Troll
- Binder Fred: Who is a hulking, hill-sized mass of animated granite

Doghead: How did you come to owe this bond or service?
Everybody:

1. Brier, Slice and Trickle were a bunch of lawless, hardened rogues.
2. They were hired as muscle for a punitive raid on Earl Tahnurson's holdings. Another in their large raiding party was Artur, a Norse cleric in service to the raid's sponsor, Earl Eogan.
3. The raid turned bad and they ran, fellow raiders falling around them like flies. (It's been suggested that exact memories of the rest of the night could start to diverge from here, this being a Fae situation, although this hasn't been established IC yet.)
4. They would have been wiped out just then if not for the help of a Witching Troll agent named Khirynnax who called them out from under an avalanche of blades and torches and into a secret, magical place where they hid for the night.
5. The Witching Troll was waiting there for them. He WAS the hill.
6. Not only do they now owe the Troll for their lives, for which they swore loyalty to him for a year and a day, but he also secretly whispered fantastical promises in the ears of each of them in turn, promises which would surely come true if a few, trivial events happened to fall his way... He promised Slice power enough to take his bloody revenge ten times over, Brier introduction to the court of his kin, Trickle the endless formulas of masterful Fae poisons and Artur (?).
7. Not satisfied with just that, the Troll also set one of his pets (the very Khirynnax who rescued them) in the group with them -- to watch them and report no doubt. Seeing as he's the one who rescued them, it's difficult to argue too loudly about it too...
8. Finally, he gave each of them a seemingly ordinary white stone as a symbol of their bond, telling them to keep it on their person, always.

So, basically at the beginning of all this Hawthorne could be part of Slice et al's little group of scruffy rogues ((would be?) Girlfriend/fiance to one of them? Relative? Something else?) or she can have been in service to the Witching Troll from before, like Khirynnax, or she can have been on Earl Eogan's raiding party for some other reason (service to the house of Eogan, like Artur?), something else entirely?

Hope that clears things up a bit.

 

[Isida Kep'Tukari]

All righty then, that clears up a thing or two. I believe I like the idea of having already been an agent, though it would be interesting if Hawthorne was also a relative of one of the group.

"What are you doing here?"

"What are you doing here?!"

 

[Binder Fred]

Well, you don't want to be a relative of Brier's, trust me on this one. If you want, you could possibly have known him in the outcast slums where he grew up though, being raised by an informal family of other outcasts before Trickle and Slice fished him out of there 2 years ago? He would have looked significantly younger than you at the time though (less than 10 years old. It's part of his alien biology).

As for Slice, his entire noble House was shattered, slaughtered and burned to the ground by the church+government when he was young. He thinks he's the only survivor, but he could very well be wrong about that: depending on her background/age, Hawthorne might very well be his (younger?) sister?! Or a girl he used to love? Either options could make for some really cool roleplay. Feel free to read Slice's background on the RG if you want more details, see if the pieces can fit together in a way you like.

 

[GlassEye]

Welcome, Isida! Glad to have another player join in. The backgrounds on my characters are pretty basic but if you want to make connections there I'm fine with it.

BF, that IC bit you questioned me about OOC? It really didn't make sense so I deleted it.

 

[Isida Kep'Tukari]

Well, you don't want to be a relative of Brier's, trust me on this one. If you want, you could possibly have known him in the outcast slums where he grew up though, being raised by an informal family of other outcasts before Trickle and Slice fished him out of there 2 years ago? He would have looked significantly younger than you at the time though (less than 10 years old. It's part of his alien biology).

As for Slice, his entire noble House was shattered, slaughtered and burned to the ground by the church+government when he was young. He thinks he's the only survivor, but he could very well be wrong about that: depending on her background/age, Hawthorne might very well be his (younger?) sister?! Or a girl he used to love? Either options could make for some really cool roleplay. Feel free to read Slice's background on the RG if you want more details, see if the pieces can fit together in a way you like.

Perhaps Hawthorne knew Slice from before - she might have been an acolyte at a ceremony his family attended, and maybe (kids being kids) they snuck off together once the adults were busy. So they might have been playmates as children, and here they are, twenty+ years later...

 

[Binder Fred]

BF, that IC bit you questioned me about OOC? It really didn't make sense so I deleted it.

I was thinking maybe it refered to something in their shared background I wasn't aware of yet, but OK.

Perhaps Hawthorne knew Slice from before - she might have been an acolyte at a ceremony his family attended, and maybe (kids being kids) they snuck off together once the adults were busy. So they might have been playmates as children, and here they are, twenty+ years later...

Could she have been the daughter of the family's official chaplain? Maybe he (she if it was her mother?) was assigned there when rumours of the corruption started leaking out (in which case his/her reports could have been instrumental in bringing the downfall of Slice's family)? OR her mother/father could have been with them from the start, still family chaplain but au contraire a focal point of the ancestral corruption-madness that overtook his House (Hawthorne would probably then have gone towards Ushane as an extreme (unconscious/suppressed?) rebellion against those events)?

EDIT= I'm sort of going for a darker, grittier mood for my PCs this time around.

 

[Isida Kep'Tukari]

*Nods* That'd work if dear Mum had been with your family from the start, as the au contraire. Then we'd be the last two standing against the tide of the dark, eh?