So, I be back, and this be it: the finale of the little quintilogy (or whatever you call a series of five) that so far has included TWE, TSB, NOW and TDW.

For those that aren’t already aware, what I’m looking for in this RP is to bring together the survivors of all the previous adventures to discover the Truth Behind It All¹

For the record, these are the surviving characters:

Dante Spada (Rogue-Gladiator)
Matthias Stromheim (Goblit)
Aerandir (Xarhain)
Richter Valgeir (Goblit)
Jochen (Vriishnak)
Gregor Wechsler (Kael Anduar)
Bartholomaus Blutighammern (Benedictus)
Oswin Korvich (Luc Arkhame)
Lothar Haldriksson (LONC)

Now, as you can see, it’s nine PCs and eight players, which is a bit tricky, but NOW ran with eight, so I reckon it’s manageable.

What I’d like is for everyone who has a character on this list to reply to this thread (or if they prefer for any reason to PM me, to do that), to say whether or not they’d like to play, and if so to discuss how we’re going to get the characters into the story (I also need to have a chat with Goblit about the two-characters thing, but I’ll try to do that via PM). Some are very easy, others not so much – the basic universal premise is that you have been tracking the baddie who escaped the scene of the crime in the last adventure (T, Dhenra or Kruger, depending on who y’are), and have managed to follow them to a small village in the shadow of the Middle Mountains. More details to come. If anyone decides that they don’t want to play this time and gives permission for their character to be used, I might look at getting other people who haven’t managed to cultivate a survivor of their own to play that character. I might even have a couple of NPCs that could be PCed, although I’m still considering how much that might slow things down. We’ll see about that one.

Any input people have about how they would like to arrive at the start of the adventure is very welcome. You won’t necessarily be arriving all at once, so to remind people: Dante, Matthias, Gregor and Emilie are travelling together, and could or could not have been joined by Oswin along the way; Aerandir and Richter were also together when we last saw them. Apart from that, everyone else is pretty much on their own. I particularly need to have a chat with Benedictus and Vriishnak (if you’re in, Vriish, that is) about where to take their characters from where they were left.

Here’s to no deadline, and get posting!


¹: Or not. Depending on how successful the baddies are with their killing skills.

If someone decides not to play this time, although I doubt that, I'm very, very interested in joining this.

Well, you can count Oswin in, a mix of curiousity and rage will have put him on Dhenra's trail.

While those four may be traveling the same road as him though, Oswin doesn't want to spend any extra time around Matthias just yet (he's still ticked off about a certain fireball). Besides that, once Oswin reaches a city he'll have some transactions to make that the others need not know about.

Me too, though I don't seriously expect to enter. But then again, you never know: Goblit and Xarhain don't seem to come around anymore...

I better not hope. Hope is sometimes bitter.


Welcome back, Chili! The Palace was such a lonely place without you. :)

Edit: When you get enough time, you should write a summary of the previous RPG's, for those like Thragka and me who wish to read this one. I must admit I know almost nothing about your first two RPG's, and all I know about NOW is the general plot (but nothing about the characters, the development of the story and the ending).

Hell, this ought to be a good read even for people not participating! I'm still making my way through the older three (and very annoyed at the abrupt end to NOW) and I seriously want to figure out how this turns out.

Count Spada in- he has a little debt to repay.

Bartholomaus is in. I realise he was in a good place at the end of the last campaign, but what can I say? He's ambitious...and curious. Maybe even a little patriotic.

Nah.

The only problem is that I can't remember where the umlaut is supposed to go. I should look that up.

Yeah. Hell yeah. Gregor is back, trying to resist the temptation to stab Emilie every time he see's her. If I remember correctly he had some problems with that in the past.

Jochen is so in. Now to figure out how losing his mind (and the use of his fingers!) resulted in his arriving with the rest of you!

Bartholomäus Blutighämmern

What a crazy name...

Yes, I am so in. Great to have your RPs back, Chili.

@Rogue: Dante Spada? That's a shameless homage if I ever heard one. Just for that, I think next arena I'll post a pirate freak named Kratos.

Thought it was very 17th-century German, me.

Thanks, Luc. Much appreciated.

Okay, so everyone bar Goblit and Xarhain has turned up... and they haven't been seen for a long time. I've got the time, and it hasn't been that long, so I'll give them a while more - but, regarding the new-players-taking-on-old-characters thing, if anyone's interested in that, now would be a good time to start reading up on Aerandir, Richter and Matthias - they'll be doing their AS-levels at the moment, so even if they do post, there's a decent chance they'll say 'no'.

I recall Goblit said he'd be in, before you left for NZ. I don't know if that's holding, though.

Aye, I read that, but the only means I have of contacting him is the email address that he said he had stopped checking. I'm hoping that he'll have remembered the date, but who knows.

Hey hey.

Argh this is really tough. I loved the last three I was in, but I really don't think I have time. :unsure: My first A.S. is on Monday, plus I have an evening job and a girlfriend to deal with as well... I don't think I can do this one. I did really appreciate the time you put into the last ones though mate, and I hope this is a success too.

Gah I dunno actually. Can I tell ya tomorrow? I'll talk to James about it. If I can do it I'm definitely only gonna be able to manage one character, so that opens up a spot if anyone wants to play Richter. As much as I enjoyed playing the guy (no homo :P ) I was really getting into Matthias, and I don't think I can give him up after two RPGs.

Cheers people,
Ali

Oh and happy birthday to Chili & Benedictus, I missed your birthday topics and I remember the insane fury against necromancy on here.

Edit: Whoops, James is Xarhain. I haven't called him that for a while lol, gonna take me a while to get into the habit.

Edit again: Vriish told me about this on MSN, so to him.

Oh, now that's interesting...

In the following days, it is possible that an unfortunate incident happens to LordKjarl. But I swear I will have absolutely nothing to do with it.


Edit: Welcome back, Goblit.

We will see about that ^_^ .

Great to see you back, Goblit. I'd love to see you back as Matthias, but real life of course needs to come first. Although if it's any help, there's no pressure regarding a start date: if starting it now would mean that you & James wouldn't be able to participate, I'd happily push it back to after the ASes. I'm meant to be looking for work, anyhow, so if I stop filling up my time with imaginary people for a few weeks I might actually get something done in that line.

I'd appreciate it if we held off until after the 29th of May as well, actually. I have two exams that day, but should be more-or-less clear from then on. [One Latin exam remains after that, but there is plenty of time to study for that.]

Hey all,

Well, me and Goblit mentioned it today, but forgot to actually talk about it. I'm still kinda undecided. I'm in the same boat as Ali as far as a job (gooooo waitrose!), gf and AS's to deal with, but the mention of starting after the AS exams has peaked my interest.

I would definitely love to play Aerandir again if we could start after the AS exams; my only problem is that I'm away the entirety of august on a flying scholarship then pilots license completion, and I don't think I'd be able to reliably get access to the net even once every few days.

Meantime I'll try and have a discussion with Goblit over the next few days.

All of August? Hm.

I did autopilot someone for a month once (Aesgareth in TSB), but that didn't work so well - 'specially as he never came back. Assuming we were to start somewhere around the second week of June (am I getting my exam-finishing times right?), that would be most of the beginning and a good deal of the middle. I'm expecting this one to be shorter than NOW and TSB, although that can all change depending on what goes on once it gets started.

Anyhow, you make your own decision, and if you do want to give it a shot, I'll do my best to accommodate you. I'd be sorry not to have you on board.

Hmm. It should be noted that I'm moving interstate in July...but I intend to spend some money at an internet cafe to make sure I keep up with it. But I suppose it doesn't hurt to mention these things before we start.

I've had a think and a little chat with Goblit, and I don't think I'm going to do it. I've basically lost a lot of interest with the whole scene at the moment, which has contributed to my lack of attendance at the board as of late.

There's a really decent chance that playing in the rpg will bring back the old enthusiasm, but equally there's a chance it won't, and I don't think it's fair to the rest of the players if it doesn't, especially to those without a character. And thats on top of the whole missing august and other factors.

So as a result, I won't be entering AGE, but I would be over the moon if Aerandir still did under someone else's wing. I'll check the RP thread often enough to see how he's doing, and whoever gets him can feel free to PM me (I check email regularly and it shows up there, even if i'm not on the board) if they want to know anything about Aerandir, or aren't sure of a certain decision he has to make in game. I've still got his whole essence of being tucked away in my head :P

So sorry to Chili, and good luck to whoever gets the wonderful elf to play with.


PS. Oh, last thing. I notice the end of NOW is missing? I'm presuming because of that crash/loss of data thing? That's horrible!! Are there any backup copies? Maybe Chill you have it on hard disk somewhere? Or a google cache or something? I want to read the rest of it again!

Well, I guess LordKjarl and I won't need to joust for a place in this RPG. We just have to choose which character we take between Aerandir and Richter Valgeir. Do you have a preference, Kjarl? I really don't mind which one I get, as long as I'm in.

Indeed it is. The beginning of TDW is also missing. Pretty sad...

I have the GM updates for NOW. Not all the PC stuff, though, so it's an incomplete record, I'm afraid. Don't know what a google cache is...

Assuming I read your implication correctly - that Goblit's of the same mind - that leaves Richter, Aerandir and Matthias (shame to have the longest-running character change hands, but them's the breaks). Like I said, people interested in playing a character should read those characters' previous outings - for Aerandir and Richter, that's TSB, for Matthias, that's TWE and NOW (or what's left of it). If you email me at piphamilton@googlemail.com I'll send you any stuff that was done on PM or lost in the crash that you want to read, as far as I have records of it.

It'd probably be a good idea to talk with Xarhain and Goblit too, if they're willing, to try and get a feel for the characters. They put a lot of work into creating the characters, after all, so it's only fair that they shouldn't see that image they've built up compromised if they come back and read AGE at any point. I'll certainly be asking them about who to pick if there's competition for any of the characters, so it can't hurt your chances, either.

If there is a spare slot, I would also not mind stepping into one. I'm just putting that out in the open.

You know what? Fu¢k real life, I'm in. :P

A-ha! Marvellous! Maaaaaarvellous!

So that means we're auditioning for Richter and Aerandir, I presume?

Yar, I guess that's what it means.

Will the auditions be based on how well we play our borrowed character's role? Or the quality and originality of our writing?

I don't want the veteran-ship to have anything to do with the selection, because it'd be unfair. Thragka is one of the newest users, but he writes at least as well as I do.

It'd be different from normal: basically, how well you can roleplay, and how well you understand the character whose part you want to take.

What are LordKjarl, Thragka and I going to do? I say we should each pick a character (either Richter or Aerandir) and write a short story that takes place between this character's last RPG and the next one. Then Chili chooses which one of us plays his character best. But this wouldn't necessarily be our character for the RPG.

It would be useful to have a 200-words summary of all previous RPG's: unlike Thragka, I don't feel like reading them all.

That sounds about right. The most important thing is to decide which character you'd like to play.

As for a summary - I'll do what I can, but it'll be longer than 200 words, I'm afraid. Three entire RPs don't compress that much.

Nope, I meant 200 each. Sorry, it was unclear. I should have said each, not all.

You can make it longer, but I don't want to give you too much trouble.

.

I'd like a say in who plays my character too, if that's not too much hassle for you @ztech. <_<

Right, no problem. Sounds fair. ;)

I was going to want to ask for a spot, but I think I will sit this one out. I'm in Brass Orb, and I wouldn't feel right taking someone else character just to get to play in one of Chili's RPG.

I can wait untill the next series (if there is one).

Burro Boskov

All righty, here be some summaries. Brief as I could make them... although brevity isn't my strong point. These summaries will be no good from the point of view of character: all I can do is list events.

The World’s Edge

>Seven mercenaries are hired by a dwarf thane during the SOC to investigate the loss of communication with their hold – most of the dwarfs are away fighting Vardek Crom in the Kadrin Vale.

>The thane secretly has misgivings, and fears something might have happened: he tasks them with retrieving the hold’s most sacred artefact, the Hammer of Valaya, should they find the worst has happened, as the dwarf army will take too long to get back from the front even if they do withdraw.

>Setting out through the foothills of the World’s Edge mountains, they find that the greenskins have been stirred up by some great force to the west: the remnants of several shattered tribes are uniting under a warboss known as Ghurzat, who now poses a threat to the Empire waystations along the road. They escape the fortified inn of Felsenhausen just before the greenskins attack.

>They arrive in the valley of Karak Azal to find that the hold seems to be under siege by a Kurgan army flying the banners of Tzeentch. Smoke is rising from the battlements, and the gates have been broken open, but the army is strangely encamped outside.

>They meet some human survivors of the chaos army’s attack, who explain that a dragon awoke and attacked the hold shortly before the Kurgan arrived. Using a group of Winged Lancers who have followed the Chaos warlord south to engineer a distraction, the mercenaries manage to slip through the Kurgan camp and gain entry to the hold via a secret doorway that the survivors tell them about, planning to retrieve the hammer and get out.

>Inside, they find that the hold has completely laid waste: a runesmith and his two guards, possibly the only survivors, take them to the great hall, where the hammer lies upon the Altar of Valaya. Unfortunately, it is also where the dragon Caradroc has amassed its hoard.

>The dragon appears: it has had a huge shard of warpstone chained to its neck, and is clearly insane. Amazingly, they manage to destroy it, although the dwarfs and roughly half the party lose their lives: taking the hammer, they try to make their escape.

>On the way out, they find themselves confronted by the warlord Aqur and his chosen bodyguard – Aqur watched them enter, and has followed them in. He manages to turn one of the mercenaries on the other, but underestimates them, and is defeated, although the battle nearly cripples the party: when the dust settles, the elf Mirroseth is the only one still on his feet.

>Influenced by perhaps the same sorcery that corrupted their friend and woke the dragon, as well as a chaotic item he had been carrying around, Mirroseth decided to try and take the hammer for himself, imagining it could be ransomed back in exchange for the return of the Phoenix Crown. Once the survivors back in the hold managed to effect some impromptu healing, they gave chase, following him out into the valley: when they got out there, they found that Ghurzat’s army had arrived, and was squaring off to the now-leaderless Kurgan horde, out for revenge.

>Advised by his shaman, Gitstomp, Ghurzat attacked Mirroseth and tried to take the hammer: he would have succeeded, but the mercenaries caught up with him, killing both the warboss and the elf with the aid of the Winged Lancers, who had managed to survive their diversionary manoeuvres. Taking the hammer, they made their retreat as the orcs charged, soon overwhelming the divided Kurgan. In the midst of the battle, Aqur’s sorcerous adviser and the mastermind behind the scheme of using the dragon to break Azal’s defences, Dhenra, abandoned the army to its fate, his plans in shreds.

>Arriving back at the inn where they had been hired, the mercenaries were told that the thane had sent a man to pay them: going to see this stranger, they quickly became suspicious – suspicions that were justified when the other people in the inn collapsed around them, puppets that the hooded man had been animating to create an illusion of safety. Revealing himself as Dhenra, he paralysed the mercenaries with his magic, attempting to take the hammer – at the last moment, the thane and his warriors burst into the room, burying a runic axe in the sorcerer’s chest. Dhenra’s body evaporated into a silvery-blue mist as he died, vanishing into thin air: thinking him defeated, the warriors accepted their payment and handed over the hammer to the dwarfs.

>After they had left, one of the corpses in the inn rose and walked out the back door – clearly Dhenra had a few more tricks up his sleeve yet.

The Shadows Beneath

>Friedrich Moerck, a scholar in Carroburg, hired a group of adventurers to protect him against the attentions of Wilhelm von Averheim, the recently-appointed witch-hunter-general type in the city. Averheim’s men had recently broken into Moerck’s home and stolen some items of his: Moerck wanted them back, and he also wanted guards against any physical attack which might come.

>Investigating the matter, the PCs found that Averheim’s highly effective reign of terror over the city’s cults and criminal underworld had been made possible by an unholy alliance with the skaven, who were supplying him with information, but had made him their pawn, silencing anyone who sighted them or supported theories of their existence. Moerck, as an academic investigating the reign of Mandred Skavenslayer, was next on their list. In a fight in the basement of Aver House, Averheim’s home and base of operations, Averheim was killed and the PCs sprung from a secure cell, while the skaven leader, Grey Seer Quekrit, made a hasty escape, leaving his bodyguards to die.

>Wanted men, the PCs tried to investigate the Skaven further, despite a Clan Eshin attempt on their lives: partially foiling a Clan Pestilens attempt to spread a plague through poisoning the well in the Temple of Shallya, the temple was still abandoned after the Duchess Bildhofen, wife of the city’s ruler, was murdered by a mysterious stranger in the inner chapel of the building. Blame was pinned on the PCs and Moerck, who were also accused of the murder of Averheim, after it became apparent that they had been in the building at the time: returning to the inn they had been living in, they found Moerck in the hands of the Witch Hunters, and narrowly escaped arrest themselves.

>Moerck was put on trial for heresy, murder and treason: it became apparent that he was being expertly framed by the mysterious figure of one Baron Turich, who was also most likely the murderer of the Duchess and the skaven’s top-ranking agent in Carroburg. With time running out, the PCs discovered that Turich had organised a banquet to be held in the Duchess’ commemoration, which all the city’s nobility were to attend: he had also organised for men in his organisation to be manning the city’s dwarf-made pump-houses, which controlled the flow of the Reik (tidal this close to its estuary) in and out of the city’s elaborate sewer system. Clearly something was planned.

>The Skaven plan went into operation as the day progressed: an exceptional spring tide would lower the river to record levels, emptying the sewers: the floodgates would then be shut, sealing them off so that the Skaven army that had been amassing beneath Carroburg could move into position through the emptied tunnels: thus the importance of secrecy, waiting for the day they could strike. At the head of the assault, Quekrit would lead a troop of Stormvermin up through the cellars of the Rathaus where the banquet was being held, and hold the city’s leaders to ransom, demanding immediate surrender: if the humans refused, the skaven army would blast its way up onto the streets of Carroburg and slaughter their leaderless opponents. Carroburg would become a new Skavenblight.

>Caught up in events, the PCs found themselves face to face with Quekrit’s surgical strike as they sneaked their way into the Rathaus to try and find Turich – disrupting the Grey Seer’s plan by killing him and routing his Stormvermin, albeit with the aid of the nobles and the watch, and at the cost of the lives of the Duke, the majority of Carroburg’s nobility and three of their own. Meanwhile, Richter Valgeir, who had gone to investigate the goings-on at the pump-house, managed to sabotage the steam-powered machinery that operated the floodgates, allowing them to open once more: as the Skaven lost patience waiting for the Seer’s signal and began to blast their way to the surface, the waters of the Reik surged back through the sewers, drowning the greater part of their all-conquering invasion force. The remainder fought running battles through the streets of Carroburg, but they were outnumbered, confused and divided, and thus in the end defeated, although they laid waste to large sections of the city.

>Still wanted by the Watch, the PCs who survived the battle fled the city, on the trail of Turich: from their fleeting encounters before the carnage, it now seemed that the skaven had been unwitting pawns in some unseen plan of his own, rather than he being in their pay. What that plan was, none of them yet knew.

Nightfall Over Waldenhof

>The Graf of Waldenhof hired a group of mercenaries (including Matthias, from TWE) to investigate the disappearance of his daughter Emilie on a forest road, his own Watch being too corrupt, soft and superstitious to venture outside the city walls at night.

>Tracking her from where they discovered her ambushed coach, the PCs were confronted in the woods by Wights on horseback, who gave them an ultimatum: give up their search and turn back to Waldenhof, or die. Defeating them in a bloody battle, they continued tracking Emilie until they finally managed to run her kidnappers to ground on Bleak Moor, where they discovered her abandoned and barely alive. Nearby was the body of an old man in shabby black robes, who seemed to have been torn apart by wolves: under a twisted, dead tree, there was what looked like a dug-up grave.

>Making their return to Waldenhof, they found themselves dogged by undead forces: as the chase became more desperate, they observed large numbers of the walking dead making their way in military fashion towards the town. Soon after Emilie regained consciousness, they managed to extract from her what fragmented memories she had of her kidnapping – combining them with the desultory words exchanged between one of them and the hooded rider who seemed to be controlling their undead pursuers, they realised that Emilie’s blood had been used to return Konrad von Carstein – the most vicious and depraved of that line – from his grave on Grim Moor, where he had fallen in his final battle during the time of the Four Emperors. Emilie’s blood was that of Helmar of Marienburg, who had taken the throne of Waldenhof after slaying Konrad, and whose family had been reinstated after Mannfred’s defeat at Hel Fenn some centuries later: the vampire had been woken by the blood of his killer, administered by his sorcerous allies – one of whom he had subsequently set his wolves upon, leaving his body on the moor.

>Discovering that Emilie had no pulse, the group realised that Konrad had further plans for her, and that she was the reason for the constant attacks: the priest Reutlingen was on the brink of staking her when the zombies on their trail caught up with them, killing him and swarming the mercenaries. In the battle that ensued, Matthias and Ruprecht caught sight of the mysterious rider in the trees – heading off to confront him, they discovered he was none other than Dhenra. The lich offered them an ultimatum: give up Emilie, and be allowed to flee South, away from what would shortly be happening in Waldenhof, or fight, and die. Matthias and Ruprecht fought: Ruprecht died there, Matthias making his escape after managing to destroy Dhenra’s physical body due to Ruprecht’s sacrifice.

>Divided over whether to take Emilie back to the city or burn her there and then, the party fled back to Waldenhof as fast as they could, dodging Dhenra’s growing forces and discovering along the way that the villages they had passed on the way out were now ghost towns, their inhabitants poisoned and re-animated to join the sorcerer’s undead army.

>Regaining the shelter of Waldenhof, they arrived in time to see Konrad and the living dead emerging out of the trees, drawing up in battle-lines outside the crumbling walls of the capital. The army did not seem of overwhelming strength, even considering Waldenhof’s cowardly defenders and derelict defences: suspecting that Dhenra had something more planned, their suspicions were confirmed when the guards told them that Ruprecht had ridden through the gates a couple of hours before them, in a great hurry.

>The attack broke: initially, the defenders held fast, but their resolve broke as giant bats descended from the clouds and the dead within the city began to rise, more undead soldiers marching under the frozen surface of the river Stir and breaking their way out to assault the defenders from behind. Torching the gates, Konrad and his bodyguard of Wights broke through and rode for the Temple of Morr, where the Graf and his nobles were holding their council of war: arriving there shortly after the mercenaries did, he flew into a mad rage as his sadistic plan of using Emilie’s blood-bond to force her to kill her father failed, killing the Graf and many others – Emilie’s defiance and the efforts of the surviving mercenaries, however, miraculously managed to stop the vampire, setting him alight and driving a stake through his heart.

>Following Dhenra’s trail, the survivors ran into one of their own who they had left for dead in the woods – driven insane by the nightmare experience of being savaged by undead wolves and subsequently hacking his way through the undead running wild in the streets, he turned on them, and had to be killed. Reaching the keep, where Dhenra had been raising the city’s dead from within, they cornered him on top of the tower – mocking them with Ruprecht’s face, he escaped by stepping off the parapet, presumably finding some other corpse to possess after Ruprecht’s was smashed by the fall. Claiming that he had achieved what he wanted by laying waste to Waldenhof, he alluded to a grander plan which Matthias had yet to understand, and challenged him to meet him in a month’s time in the Middle Mountains, where they would supposedly make an end to things. His disappearance, however, triggered the collapse of the undead army, something the surviving nobles hailed as a victory – as normal Sylvanian life set in again, they smoothly took over where the line of von Marienburg had left off, Emilie disappearing one night with the mercenaries as they set off in pursuit of Dhenra.




I assume you don't want one of TDW, having taken part :P. If anyone else does, they only need to ask.

Thanks a lot, Chili, I enjoyed the reading. ;) Especially The Shadows Beneath.

I'll start studying Richter as soon as I get some time.

I always had a soft spot for elves so I'll auditions for Aerandir.