DreamLyrics™ Play-by-Post Forums Hall of Fame - Latest Top 10 completed games HWD: The Heartwood HWD: OOC Chatter

iaaaaahhhg! I now have to name him.

Why couldn't this be Maoyu Mao Yusha!

Which translates to Demon King and Hero ... or Archenemy and Hero. Then he'd just be ........ Blacksmith.

For those of you who don't know Maoyu Mao Yusha is a High fantasy light novel that became an Anime. it has a very interesting premise:

There has been a war between the Humans and Demons for hundreds of years. The Hero decides, as all Good Heroes do, to end the war by Slaying the Demon King. So he leaves behind his companions, infiltrates the Demon King's castle, gets right up to throne room (he did question where the guards had gone, ran up to the throne, sword out to slay the vicious Demon King.

Only for her to turn around. You see the Demon King happened to be a cute girl.

"It's a traditional title"

He then raised his sword, proclaiming he would end the War by her Death. Even if she was a ... hey! quit waving those things in front of me.

And she basically said, "No."

"Why not?"

And then the Demon King quite properly explains that if she were slain, it wouldn't matter. Both Humans and Demons have so much invested in the war effort that killing one person won't solve a thing. In fact, as it stands now ... if one side won the war things would even get worse.

She does this through a magic lantern illusion ... yes, that's right ... a powerpoint presentation.

By the end of it, the Hero, dejected, realizes she is right.

So they join forces to end the war using weapons most foul to change the nature of the world so peace can actually be brought about ... terrifying secret weapons like ... four field farming, the potato, corn and ... uhm ... education.

It's an excellent treatise on medieval economics and politics disguised as a fantasy anime.

What Spice and Wolf did for the merchant class, Maoyu Mao Yusha does for wartime politics. I watch it and go, you know they should show this in a history class - because, in general, they really did the work.

Call him Blacksmith, I can live with it. Seemed like a reasonable question though When you write this all in a book, you can search and replace with his real name

Sheesh.

I was being silly.

Its time to bring out the pink alligators again.

Your "silly" is... what even I would call weird. And that's saying a lot, because I'm really, really weird.

Yeah. I own it.

AND NOW I HAVE EVEN MORE COMPETITION!!! Stop it, Wolf. Just stop. Don't I already have enough weird competition at work? Yes. Yes, I do. <sniff>

(See? And this isn't even weird. It's just silly. The entire universe is askew. I'm not sure what's going on. THANKS OBAMA.)

Sirius Black.. its close to Smith Black.. or Blacksmith

Been swamped with work and munchkin school stuff and migraine stuff. Will try to catch up this w/e.

*** nodnodnods! okay dokay - thats very understandable. thanks for the note! ***

OK, leaving tomorrow for Barcelona. Won't be returning to regular posting until a week from Monday, September 22nd. I am taking my reference materials with me so if I have time to get in a few posts during the week I will, but I expect to be much slower.

Enjoy your trip, Z!

Am leaving on Monday for another business trip. Won't be back until Friday. Posting will be very light during that time.

... fixed a continuity error!

Other than this recent convo with Daxia that gave Darian information that affects her near future goals, I haven't read any of the other posts so as far as I'm concerned they didn't happen or will have no affect on me. Yes, it was a passive aggressive way to deal with the fact that I got completely run over while work was keeping me so busy I could barely form a coherent sentence at the end of the day.

Also, as a player I didn't have that information as I didn't read any of the previous posts. It is information which directly affects my character and influences her decisions. If time is just going to move forward and things happen regardless, there isn't any point in continuing since whatever my character says or does isn't going to make a difference anyway.

The only reason I have time to do this right now, as in today, is that I took a couple of days off from work just to recoup. The insanity of my job is continuing even if I'm not looking at my email, and I will be buried again come Monday until the next holiday.

At the moment we are caught in an impasse ...

There are two possible ways to continue; which should have been passed on by now:

a) Move on West to Talesan's Village. Things happening there should be right up Mikal and Dean's line of work, Bekkah will be in her second "home" and Romana will be as far away from the East as possible.

b) use the "Interesting Court Proclamation" to hunt down Jakal Montague. This would suit Mikal and Dean and since peeling him away from his men at arms would be the major challenge this is one of the few things where Darian and Kadri could work together to pull off, as it would be helpful to have BOTH their talents in this.

Romana and Kay would stay in the first ring of Trundle, Dazi with the Horde and then come February the whole group could go down to Talesan's Village. bekkah would be need for healing because this will require a modicum of martial machinations.


The only things I have on the plate at the moment is: Kadri wants to speak with Rikart and Darian wants to find the Talental Hunter. If you decide to go after Jakal, a post outlining your preparations would be good, so the rest of you have something for me to respond to while Kadri and darian have their discussions.

My next major post WAS going to be the montage to Talesan's Village. However with this second option, I need to know which way you folks want to go.

Thanks!

A clarification:

Stop saying February like that's a magical time (there's nothing magical about February... it's winter, and winter is hell). I never said that. You did. I did say it could be as early as February, but could stretch through the next concert cycle. That would make it something like May. Ish. Also, it depends a lot on the status of that *#^#%@&*# project at work, because it's going to kill me if it doesn't stop soon. Or I'll go postal, which is frowned upon in most work environments but even more so in a Catholic institution of higher education.

Also, Option B may need revising to Options B-1 and B-2. The Hive Mind is still buzzing.

Wolf,

First of all, just no.

Darian has no reason to participate in either option, and I, as a player, am having less and less reason to participate since I am being posted over though I have made perfectly clear that my time has been extremely limited. If what I say & do in character is not going to have any affect on what happens to said character, there is NO point in continuing.

That said, her conversation with the local Hunter will affect her near future goals. ATM, I cannot see how that would lead to either option. Hunting down Montague is a Revenge thing, and even if I hadn't already figured that out, it was made perfectly clear to me by you that Hunters don't do revenge.

So there is more than just the impasse in game.

If that is how you feel, it was certainly not intended on my part ... and for that misunderstanding I certainly apologize.

I admit I am very flexible and adaptable and always try to look at matters in a manner that allow conflicting posts to reconcile each other - trying to build from rather than tear down. No one, the least of which me, was trying to run you down and I had absolutely no problem at all letting your and Dazi's conversation run its course at its own pace, especially since it was taken away from the other players.

You don't need Tray (who legitimately doesn't know) to find the Hunter. Between Longtooth, Cook, the Korie heir and Cesare there are definitely ways to find him.

The whole intent of my previous post was to open up a dialogue that would help scenario be developed that would allow you to find the Hunter and follow your desires and while also accommodating Mikal, Dean and the other players, to get them to a place where they could accomplish their desires in a manner of play I was informed they would prefer.

It is very true that hunting down Jakal is probably been a revenge thing for Mikal and potentially one for Darian. The Hunter from Talantal probably has a very different take on the situation, which could open up possibilities.

If the conversation with the Hunter changes things ... they change. That's the way its always been, figure out what they might be and let them adapt what happens as folks move forward.

As I said, if you were overrun, I apologize.

The reason I made my previous post was to start figuring out how to move forward to satisfy a whole party's worth of concerns.

Aw, come on. We had this conversation yesterday. You were standing in the kitchen. I was in the hallway.

If we were overrun? No, sir. We absolutely were overrun. At least admit that much.

That said, I will repeat what I said yesterday... there's a lot of Not Reading All The Posts that happens here. Based on things I've seen posted in this game, everyone except Super OCD Woman has done it at least once. And the only reason I haven't is because of that OCD.

When you ask, "Are you going to post for Heartwood?" and I say, "I'm waiting on Pam," this is what's called a "clue." Ok, yeah, I know. Fine. You don't get subtle, and I should have been clearer. My bad.



I think discussions need to happen here. Not just clarifications on game mechanics, but character development, too. At this point, I'd say our characters know one another well enough that we can talk about what she or he wouldn't do... what she or he would do... and even the reasons for those decisions. I'm sure we're all good enough at this RP thing to know that we shouldn't reveal cult secrets in OOC.

Unless we're plotting behind the GM's back (yeah, we did that... nyah), there's no reason not to discuss character interactions here.

Or maybe there is. You guys tell me.

No.

Tell Wolf. Playing Monkey-in-the-Middle is part of what's killing me.


[The usual disclaimers apply: This is a G-rated forum. Be nice to one another. Speak from your experience.]

Kadri, honestly, I think I can make work with any of the options. So in that manner, I can just go along to get along in this case.

Wolf, just so you are aware, Ividia and I are discussing where our characters may or may not be going. We still have things to discuss but one proposal is for the two of us to have a breakaway thread for a while. This would allow us to sort out Hunter/Rhoni/personal relationship direction and allow Ividia to have a more flexible posting rate. We could rejoin the others later - not beyond a Rhoni & Hunter to track them down fairly easily I would have thought.

We don't know yet if we definitely want to go down this route but probably should ask you if this is possible early on in our discussion stage? Thanks!

OK, I felt I had to post this.

The biggest problem I have with the whole "Kill Jakal" concept, Wolf, is that according to what you told me during pc creation time a New Jvrillian does absolutely nothing without a contract and being paid. In fact an example you gave me during pc creation was that if we were in a bar, and one of the party got into a bar fight, unless Mikal was under contract to protect that pc he would just sit there and not get involved, unless he was offered payment to do so.

That was why I made such a big deal of getting Daxia to sign a contract with him to join the group originally. I was actually a little surprised you did not push me to get payment from Kadri to agree to be her bodyguard in Talantal as the contract with Daxia had expired by then.

And also according to what you told me it can't be a token payment just to satisfy the requirement. It actually has to be appropriate payment for services rendered.

So, that means as much as he might like to do it, somebody would have to pay Mikal to go kill Jakal. And the payment has to equal the job. Killing a noble, and the attendant risks that creates of Mikal becoming an outlaw, or losing his life, or being hunted by the Montague in retribution, means a VERY LARGE payment as well as a letter from some other High Noble sanctioning it so Mikal doesn't get hung out to dry afterwards.

I can role-play that, but it almost sounds like it'd be easier for that Noble to hire a follower of Jagnar to assassinate him.

And for the record, said Noble who might want to hire Mikal to kill Jakal absolutely CAN NOT be the Allaine Heir. And not just because she's already spent all her allowance on the Horde, either. In doing so, she would revoke her status as a Dayalan, and jeopardizes her relationship with Daxia.

It's not that Daxia has a specific problem with Jakal becoming a dead person. But as a Dayalan, she can't have any part of it. She can't even know about it. While warriors, they may not kill without legitimate reason, nor will a Dayalan stand for torture or for allowing a death or harm to occur by inaction. It's almost the opposite of Mikal's issue. A Jvrillian will sit in the bar and ignore the fight unless he has a Contract; a Dayalan will be in the middle of it trying to break it up and keep anyone from getting hurt.

Yes, it's true that the Wild Dayalans are less apt to follow the letter of the law and tend toward the spirit of the law. But even in a matter of vengeance against the scum of the Heartwood Jakal, Daxia would be exceptionally uncomfortable knowing beforehand that someone, especially a friend, was off to kill him.

Just laying the roleplaying obstacles from my end... which are still obstacles even if I'm on hiatus.

Meanwhile, Kadri is massively moe about the spirit than the letter, although she will edit herself and her actions to try to avoid hurting the sensibilities of friends and those she respects.

Kadri plays by entirely different rules than Daxia does. Kadri isn't Dalayan, so none of Dazi's morality and ethics need apply to her.

Kadri's cult has a different set of rules. And the way I understand them, there isn't actually any letter of the law at all... only the spirit.

It was a thought. At the time it seemed an interesting one. There are ways to handle Jakal that doesn't involve the player group and normally I'd rather PCs do things than NPCs. That this one becomes problematic, that happens. its why it gets discussed .

Any answer on my suggestion for Darian & Cesare?