Dice rolls are 1d10 + Stat + Proficiency + any applicable bonuses, such as Boons.
You may spend 3 Tension to Overdrive for a retroactive +5 to your roll (a Determination Overdrive), or +3 to an ally's roll (a Teamwork Overdrive). I will also automatically overdrive to avoid exhaustion or unconsciousness.
It is possible to critically succeed (on +5 on skill checks and +10 on combat rolls) or critically fail (by the same margins), but rolling a 1 or a 10 does not automatically crit in either case. It is possible to crit retroactively by Overdriving.
Your stat bonuses have names:
Vigor grants a Strength bonus.
Agility grants a Dexterity bonus.
Spirit grants an Aura bonus.
Mind grants an Intuition bonus.
Resolve grants a Guts bonus.
Dice are rolled on a first come, first serve bonus. You only roll for Deedee.
Least Flamma seems useful both to help our protagonist continue this streak of anomalous social performance, and to help with the underlying Unspoken Question. And the rest of the plan gets us at least half of what Reactive Healer would have gotten us.
I think that if the frontrunner wins I may need to include ways to pick up Least Boons outside of getting them from levelling. It's both thematically appropriate and I'm not sure if Deedee'd pick up more than the one, otherwise...
I think that if the frontrunner wins I may need to include ways to pick up Least Boons outside of getting them from levelling. It's both thematically appropriate and I'm not sure if Deedee'd pick up more than the one, otherwise...
Dramatically significant acts in keeping with the boon's theme? Since they represent the literal attention of the deities whose interests are represented by those themes.
Dramatically significant acts in keeping with the boon's theme? Since they represent the literal attention of the deities whose interests are represented by those themes.
Scheduled vote count started by Talia B on Jul 4, 2021 at 1:25 AM, finished with 41 posts and 12 votes.
[X] Plan Reactive Healer
- [X] Mouse-Hunting Ears (3, you cannot be surprised in combat, a Boon of Sylphan)
- [X] Quicksilver Nerves (3, you get +2 to Initiative and have faster reactions in story, a Boon of Sylphan)
- [X] Gryphon Kick -- [X] Knockback (1. Increase the knockback of Gryphon Kick. No direct extra damage.) -- [X] Power Up (1. Improve the damage of Gryphon Kick.)
- [X] Healing Breath
-- [X] Healing Zephyr (1. Improve to become an AoE heal, turning it to Healing Zephyr.)
-- [X] Power Up (1. Improve the base healing of Healing Breath.)
[X]Plan Lean In
- [X] Quicksilver Nerves (3, you get +2 to Initiative and have faster reactions in story, a Boon of Sylphan)
- [X] The Least Boon of Flamma.
- [X] Whirlwind Talon
-- [X] Power Up (1. Improve the damage of Whirlwind Talon.)
- [X] Gryphon Kick -- [X] Knockback (1. Increase the knockback of Gryphon Kick. No direct extra damage.)
- [X] Healing Breath
-- [X] Power Up (1. Improve the base healing of Healing Breath.)
- [X] Zephyr's Grace
-- [X] Improved Initiative (1. The buff also improves the target's initiative by 2.)
[X] Plan Stealth Healer
- [X] Traveller's Cloak (3, you may use Spirit to cloak your presence, making Stealth spirit-based, a Boon of Sylphan)
- [X] Any Proficiency you don't have (2, see below)
-- [X] Stealth (Hide from prying eyes.)
- [X] Healing Breath
-- [X] Healing Zephyr (1. Improve to become an AoE heal, turning it to Healing Zephyr.)
-- [X] Power Up (1. Improve the base healing of Healing Breath.)
- [X] Wind Cutter (up to 2)
-- [X] Gale Blast (1. Improve Wind Cutter to an AoE attack, turning it to Gale Blast.
- [X] Zephyr's Grace
-- [X] Improved Initiative (1. The buff also improves the target's initiative by 2.)
You are 16 and ugly in your soccer gear and your father Daeseong just told you never to speak to a girl the way you spoke to the one who turned you down and now you're curled up watching Dreamcatcher, jealous of Dami's moves and voice because it's not like you'll be able to be half of the man Daeseong is, half the father he was.
Hold up you're a geek the big paradox and you don't know more than that, you're 18 and watching Daesong lowered into the earth next to a stone marked with hangul and a Star of David and the scale and feather of Inpyu-Euthanatos, seeing into a closed casket to see his one crushed lung and his other full of virus, and you know but cannot convince your mother Rachel that you're going to flunk one semester into UC Berkeley and waste the Danegeld Sterling gave her for your loss, you know you'll be aiming with your hand and shooting with your hand and never able to bring yourself to kill with your guns, or your pills or the bridge or your meals, though you're 22 then 32 and it's clear the last came closest.
You have to kill with your heart, and your heart as broken as it is was never in it. There has to be more than this, more than you at 36 sitting in your room alternating between delivering sodas and delivering death from the cockpit of an Icarus-class exomechanical combat walker as a redheaded psychic named Ruby fighting for a more perfect and more socialist Federation against hypercorporate and Draconian forces, darting between the moaning rocks of an alien desert - finding the mechs of slavers and aiming with your eye, shooting with your eye, killing with your whole heart.
Someone taps you on the shoulder and you turn and rip your Helm off to see Sekhmet, dripping wet, naked but for a towel wrapped around her - their. THEIR! - waist, Mumbling something awkward and under their breath. You ask them to speak up, you've been having trouble hearing them -
They hug you and your cheeks burn.
"I said, uh, well, thank you for letting me stay this year," they mumble, the fur of thier muzzle and the weight of their dreadlocks on your cheek. "I don't think I can pay you back ever but I did get the job, cleaning out seedlings and slimes, should be worth some gold -"
"- pay it forward, okay?" you say, pushing away after a while, you can't do this to them, you're 16 and your father told you you can't speak to a girl the way you did, that that's not what men do. "I'll be nice to have you contributing but I never expected you to pay me back, the way the Baron threw you out after you took that arrow in -"
They hug you again, soft and warm, before letting you go; thier tail slips across your waist. "I didn't think you'd forgotten, okay?"
You shake your head and look down at your curvy gumiho body and your monastic robes and stand up and turn around and no, you haven't. You see the face of your father very well; his face is kind, careworn, with a neat trimmed mustache and the tan he got from California, and he hugs his daughter in the main square of Viacruz, under the gaze of the statue of Flamma and her cauldron.
"Speak not so, Gunslinger," he says, handing you Ruby's sidearm, one of the ten-shot capacitor fed cyclonic blasters, the one that's in bullpup like all of the OK energy weapons. "Your father sees you very well, loves you very well."
"I can't be like you," you say, your voice cracking into the alto as you take the blaster. "I've tried. It never worked."
"I never asked you to be like me," he said, leaning into his shepherd's crook, his aegis talisman glittering against his woolen robes. "I asked you to be -"
You are 16 you are 21 you are 37 and you remember the face of your father and you curl up into a ball and
You wake up, jumping up to sitting, breathing hard.
You're still in your tent on the Shores of Awakening; waking up didn't log you out of this nightmare.
You still have tits.
You're still the dumbfuck that named your avatar after them.
You groan and stretch - no popping, that's weird - then dress. There'll be time to bathe when you find a settlement. There'll be hot baths at the settlement, probably.
It's only just past dawn, and the sun seems a little too bright as you exit your tent with your bag - it strikes you, an anachronistic bag. But then, the Mundane Phantasy Historia that the subtitle of AWOo promised did always pull a few strings to get things in the hands of markets and players early.
You're not the first one up. You aren't the last, either, thankfully; you see Alesha cinching up something on Ace's armor, talking to her with what seems like fond exasperation.
(Empathy Success)
You note with a little amusement and a lot of sympathy that you're not the only one who cannot fucking weave when Alesha has your attention; Ace is trying to hide her face, but she's a lot more subtle about it than you are. You suppose she just has that effect on people. That, and her openly talking about her ex-wife encourages girls, you suppose.
Wait, she wasn't around for that. Where did that thought come from?
Never mind. You wave.
"What's shakin'?" you ask, and Ace whirls around quick enough for her tail to nearly clock Alesha, who barely raises a hand to deflect it. She laughs it off before Ace can turn, mortified, to apologize.
"Turns out that Ace wasn't wearing her arming jacket with her armor," she says, "and I was helping her fit it properly."
"Look, I don't LARP because I don't want some pasty self-proclaimed Duke of Neckbeard hitting on me," Ace groaned. "How the hell am was I supposed to know how armor works? I don't study real demolitions before doing a one-off Boomtown Deathmatch livecast."
"No one is blaming you for not knowing this," Alesha tried to assure her. "I'm just a nerd."
"It's true," you add. "Most of us who ended up playing for the long haul are. Some more than others. Speaking of," you say, pointing towards the rustling tentflaps you hear from the small tent.
Hikaru rubs his eyes as he leaves, mumbling something under his breath. He looks a little out of it, really; he seems the type who got going with coffee IRL. Alesha glances over, frowning, before glancing back at you - then nods, waving to Hikaru. He mutters something that could be either a greeting or a curse; you're not sure which, and his gesture is equally ambiguous.
"And now all we need is breakfast, and a plan," you say.
"I got both," Sekhmet says from right behind you.
You jump, turning to them at the firepit. They hold up and waggles a pair of plucked ducks, the feathers strewn in the pit. You have no idea how they snuck up on you.
"Yo Ace, you mind cooking these?" they ask. "We all had thirds of the last thing you ate -"
And she's already looking through the rest of the supplies, thinking out loud of how to do this over a campfire, bright eyed and smiling and wagging her tail. Oh no that's adorable tho?
Hikaru, meanwhile, looks up at Sekhmet with a hand over his chin and a finger stroking his (tragically absent) mustache. "Those looked like domestic ducks," he says.
"Sure are," they reply, reaching into a pouch. "Feral ones. Pretty sure there are rice paddies here along with sugarcane farms."
They produce a piece of parchment - a map. This has your, and Alesha's, immediate attention. They say, "I am pretty sure I know how to get to the Costa Dulce fort from here, and actually progress through the goddamn tutorial."
----
Ace cooks, you all eat and thank her, and then you pack up and make your way - lead through the jungle by your trailblazer in Sekhmet, long knives in hand -
(Automatic Perception Success)
- when your ears twitch and you hold up your hand for everyone to stop.
You heard something, and your brain won't let it go.
"What's the hold up?" Ace grumbles.
"I think," you say in a low voice, "I heard... I could have sworn that was a gunshot."
"In a dragons 'n castles game?" Ace sounds skeptical, but her flattening ears betray her.
Hikaru sighs. "It could have been a lightning bolt... or a flintlock. Or a distant cannon. This is a Magical Renaissance setting. We are, as of last week, on the piracy expansion."
You start walking again, deflecting slightly away from the old path. "I think maybe we should avoid the road," you say. You think you heard something again, no closer thankfully -
"- I heard it too," Sekh hisses. "I think Deeds is right."
"Can you keep us hidden?" Alesha asks, her voice suitably lowered.
"I think I oughtta try," Sekh replies, squinting at their map.
----
(Stealth Failure)
You're pretty sure you're being followed, which is Not Great. You're making decent enough time, even with a brief stop for some water, horrible hard crackers, cheese and sausage, but you can hear people following on the road alongside your trail. You have no idea how, but you can.
You are still as a group somehow faster than them, and you think this is because there are some people with them who Would Prefer Not To, which is a big yikes. It's a relief when you see the palisade walls before them.
You cut back to the roads, emerging from the forest, and then there are immediately swords and spears pointed at your group by a bunch of armored guards - most human, some otherwise. You wonder how you missed them when you heard the other fuckos, frowning as you put your hands up.
"Who are you and what are you doing on Her Majesty's isle?" the leader asks, a dark skinned man who looks a little like the art team mentally cast Idris Elba for the role.
(Rapport Failure)
"Uh..." You repeat the line you've said for at least 4 characters now. "We're but sellswords looking for work, waylaid en route to -"
He cuts you off, thankfully not literally. "- gods, more of you lot," he groans. "And half of you reciting the same dawnsdamned speech."
...Well, at least you know you aren't the only survivors. "Are there that many of us, er, milord?"
"Captain will do," he growls, not lowering the sword. "And enough. You've all attracted enough attention, crashing around on the isle."
Baffled, you say absolutely nothing, and he takes that a bit better - sighing and sheathing the sword.
"Work's cut out for you, then. There are scarce enough supplies for us until the next ship gets in and dumps you murderous lot all in the Contessa's lap, but make yourself useful and make sure that ship's safe from depredation and we'll cause you no trouble."
This isn't how this part goes. This isn't how this part goes at all. And if he's sick to death of the players coming in -
"We will try to make ourselves discreet and useful," Alesha says, stepping forward and saving your dignity.
"The latter, perhaps," he sighs, waving to open the gates. "Get to the square, spend coin if you have it, stay out of the way of our citizens."
"We'll try," you say, getting through that gate as quickly as you can without alarming them. "But, uh, there may be hostiles out there on the road - just thought I'd warn you?"
"Good thing we've set a watch then, isn't it? Godsdamned Adventurers," he mutters.
----
There are at least a dozen other adventurers. Mostly human and Vuplecian, but three cattes, three pixies, two Koboldt. One of them is an eithyr, in rippling blue and green, her horns made of coral and her psychic's robes matching that color.
(Composure Success)
You're weirdly calm about this confirmation that something has gone terribly wrong. Honestly, what else were you expecting? That it was just your own party?
One of the Ubastim - slim and tiger-striped, in the witch hat and robes of an Alchemist - is despondent, chatting with people in hushed tones about agriculture and medicine, offering potions, and occasionally praying to the small shrine to the ubastim goddess Flamma, pouring a libation into it's pot and almost conversationally praying to her. Others are pooling rations. Two are off smoking and whispering, a catte and pixie pair, getting stoned and trying to forget they're here.
"Not enough room at the inn," a gruff - bright red - Koboldt informs you. "We're doing what we can."
This whole time, you're talking, trying to figure out what to do - when your ears prick again.
You leap up to hear more, and some of the others follow.
"That was a cannon," you say. "There are ships fighting."
More than a dozen adventurers and twice that many guards shift.
"I don't know how I heard that," you say, shaking my head. "But I did and that's unmistakably a cannonball - and that just now was grapeshot!"
Most of the adventurers gathered don't have a clue either, but the water-Eithyr puts on a blindfold, takes a second - looking around, using Farsight - before nodding.
"I saw them. Three ships, two pirates and a Yberian galleon. How the hell did you hear it?"
"Mouse-Hunting Ears," says a Vulpecian in a ridiculous red getup with a tall peacock feather in his hat. "Enhanced hearing and immunity to Surprise. It's a Vulpecian trait and a Sylphanite boon."
"Yeah, except I didn't pick up MHE at character creation," you mutter, calling up your character sheet.
And blinking at it. Staring.
"...There it is," you say. "I uh, apparently levelled up last night, but I didn't - actually assign points or spend my CP or -"
Hikaru is following suit, making the gestures he needs to call up his sheet. "I appear to have levelled up without my knowledge as well," he mutters. "Presumably through practice. Just like in the real world."
"Except they don't assign numbers to what you can do, and also, I haven't exactly been flexing my ears," you protest.
The catte who had been praying to Flamma looks up, dusting off what looks like a white labcoat and adjusting a pair of glasses. "Are you Sylphanite?"
"Cleric of," you mutter, not liking where the conversation was going.
"You think that Sylphan might have given it to her?" Alesha says, frowning. "On the grounds that she might need it?"
"You must admit it has proven useful," Hikaru says.
You look again at that sheet, and the presence of that Perk, and the increase in your stats. Mandatory increases in Vigor and Spirit.
And your dumpstered Resolve inching up to 2 points, from 1.
"Remind me to ask him what the fuck," you growl. "And hope he has more to say about it than You're Welcome."
"I mean, maybe you should thank him. Did you a solid," Sekhmet says.
"Yeah?" you say.
"Cause now we know the pirates are coming," Sekh says.
----
Edited as of 10/14/2021 to reflect a retcon in the novella.
[] - Take a small party out to ambush the would-be ambush party.
[] - March out to meet them, with the guards supporting you at range.
[] - Stay behind the walls and coordinate a fight with the guard.
[] - Do rear echelon work; support and heal the Guard as they fight.
[] - Evacuate and protect the citizens.
[] - Write in (subject to veto.)
Write in any details you think would be helpful. Ask anything you need to about the defenses.
I am getting my second vaccination on Thursday and am counting on it flattening me; I'll optimistically set a vote to end then, but will let you know if I need to delay to Saturday and extend the vote, in which case there will be an interlude by Bii a little ahead of schedule.
Alesha discussing strategy and armor best practices to Ace, and unintentionally debuffing her weaving skills.
Art by Schpog (some work, not visible to non-subscribers, NSFW.)
My name is Snickerdoodle and I am responsible for some of the shitposts and other various random art you have probably been shown somewhere in this thread (i'm still catching up).
For now I will be humbly lurking, but when I feel the inspiration strike, I too shall partake!
My name is Snickerdoodle and I am responsible for some of the shitposts and other various random art you have probably been shown somewhere in this thread (i'm still catching up).
For now I will be humbly lurking, but when I feel the inspiration strike, I too shall partake!
So can we tell what forces we have right now? I know we have our Top Folks, but do we know a lot about who else is able to put up a fight? The captain mentioned a set watch.
... Honestly we should probably work with him instead of trying to take command-- he knows the terrain better than we do most like.
So can we tell what forces we have right now? I know we have our Top Folks, but do we know a lot about who else is able to put up a fight? The captain mentioned a set watch.
... Honestly we should probably work with him instead of trying to take command-- he knows the terrain better than we do most like.
