Very Small Fortune: What remains of the monetary gift from your friend. It's slowly growing larger once more thanks to your investments, but for now, perhaps you had best save up. Will upgrade to Small Fortune by the Fifth
University Connections: You happen to be well acquainted with the staff of your former alma mater, and have perpetual access to its libraries and archives. Besides which, your words will no doubt have slightly more sway when dealing with fellow alumni.
Undertakers Business: You more or less own this particular venture, and the accompanying graveyard they use to house their clients, which brings you a small amount of wealth. At present, thats all it functions to do, but you may find some use for it later.
The associations and favors of Stanley Vermis
Sgt. Mallow: A member of the constabulary who owes you a handful of small favors. You knew that he was modestly corrupt, not enough to cover up a major crime if prompted, but willing to ignore smaller indiscretions in return for financial recompense, or, barring that, aid in his investigations.
--[X] Perhaps he left a journal of his own investigations and daily life. It may be useful or contain clues if anything suspicious was indeed the cause of his demise.
--[X] If you are meeting with Sgt Mallow anyways you may as well see if you can get your hands on his coroner's report. Just for your peace of mind understand, you never heard about him being sick.
--[X] Money sitting still is money losing value. So lets invest some money around town in some of the businesses any town needs. Perhaps even something like a local undertaker's business? That could be useful for days to come.
[X] Investigate the book, but reading only. No reason to follow in the professors footsteps when the wisdom gained from such actions is on a page before us rather than a grave.
Adhoc vote count started by The Bird on May 10, 2018 at 3:07 PM, finished with 25 posts and 12 votes.
[X] Plan: Find the plot before the plot finds us?
-[X] Invest: Expend your money upon a number of smaller ventures. If all goes well, you can expand your funds somewhat.
--[X] Money sitting still is money losing value. So lets invest some money around town in some of the businesses any town needs. Perhaps even something like a local undertaker's business? That could be useful for days to come.
-[X] Decode Tome
--[X] Work on your own deciphering and translating the tome.
--[X] Visit the university library for any references mentioned in the text or any problems you encounter in translation.
-[X] Meet with Sgt Mallow to see if there's anything new that we can help with
--[X] Maybe he needs some research done?
-[X] Investigate the circumstances surrounding August's death. Confirm that it was sickness and not some other cause that led to his death.
--[X] If you are meeting with Sgt Mallow anyways you may as well see if you can get your hands on his coroner's report. Just for your peace of mind understand, you never heard about him being sick.
--[X] Perhaps he left a journal of his own investigations and daily life. It may be useful or contain clues if anything suspicious was indeed the cause of his demise.
--[X] Visit his grave, paying your respects to him is the least you could do for what he has given you.
[X] Investigate the book, but reading only. No reason to follow in the professors footsteps when the wisdom gained from such actions is on a page before us rather than a grave.
"I find it hard to recount my latest findings, but I must try. My serum...it worked. Partially, it worked. For five minutes, I was able to partially resuscitate a villager whose corpse I had dug up. They still retained their memories of life, a fact I discovered upon interrogation.
However...The sight of the creature I had brought forth was...unnerving. As its inhuman lips moved, imparting knowledge upon who my subject had been in life, I was filled with a strange sense of wrongness, of creeping dread. Its voice was superficially human, but beneath the surface, the corpses tone carried an element of...something. Something foul.
Regardless, my research must continue. I cannot stop now, and what has been done cannot be undone."
-Grave of Black Flowers
Investing!
Your method brings you aberant success.
You put money into a number of smaller businesses, giving out simple loans here and there. A barbershop gets a new set of tools, a small law firm gets a down payment on their building, etcetera etcetera.
Your biggest investment, however, is the funding of a proper undertakers business. Paying for the tools, the facilities, etc. It costs quite a pretty penny, and you wind up indebting the business to the point where you essentially own it, but already its turning a small profit. You burn quite a bit to get it that way, but almost immediately you begin to turn a profit.
Good. Good. Money is always good.
Small Fortune reduced to Very Small Fortune!
Very Small Fortune: What remains of the monetary gift from your friend. It's slowly growing larger once more thanks to your investments, but for now, perhaps you had best save up. Will upgrade to Small Fortune by the Fifth
You have gained the Asset: Undertakers Business!
Undertakers Business: You more or less own this particular venture, and the accompanying graveyard they use to house their clients, which brings you a small amount of wealth. At present, thats all it functions to do, but you may find some use for it later.
In Occultist Quest, you will never have a die rolled. Instead, success or failure is determined wholly by your methodology. More clever means to accomplish your goals means more likely success, and more simple means are easier to thwart. Occasionally, instead of a normal Success or Failure, you get an Aberrant result, an unexpected outcome. In this case, by investing in someone who deals in funerary rites, you spent most of your fortune, but in the process earned a semi-stable revenue stream and a asset. Aberrant Outcomes are based on hidden criteria causing odd outcomes on your actions.
Decoding!
Your method brings you substantial success!
You spend your free time perusing the book, using the library facilities to aid in your research. In the process, you find hints towards a sort of formulae, its purpose unknown. To use it, one injects the stuff right into a corpse to cause some sort of effect; Your research isn't quite clear on WHAT the effect is.
The ingredients are a mix of various chemicals derived from a number of mind altering plants and, most curiously, brain matter. It doesn't specify the brain matter of what, but the fact it calls for it at all is incredibly odd, and, if you had to say so, most intriguing.
Of course, to test this, you would need a cadaver of some form. You could always purchase one, you had enough funds to do that. But, if you wished to keep your activities a secret, or to save your money, you could always go about your activities another way...
Progress on deciphering Curiosity: Black Flowers Grave
Gained Curiosity: Gray Matter Cadaver Formulae.
Meeting with Mallow
Your method brings you minor failure.
Unfortunately, Mallow doesn't have any specific thing that he needs assistance with. Most of the crimes he happens to be investigating at the moment are of a wholly mundane nature, having nothing especially odd about them that would require higher expertise. You do learn that there has been a rash of burglaries recently, with one of the victims heads being bashed in, but otherwise, you find your actions to be mostly a waste of time.
Or it would be, if you didn't get ahold of your friends coroners report. You learn that the exact cause of your friends demise seemed to be a severe fungal infection of unknown origin. He died within two months of acquiring it.
Of course, you weren't entirely surprised. Your friend had never been in the best of health, frequently having to suffer minor diseases when you knew him, and once having been hospitalized for an entire month due to a particularly nasty bout of pneumonia.
Investigate Augusts Death
Your methods bring you failure.
You attempt to find if your friend had a journal or some other ledger of his activity. Unfortunately, if you did, you fail to find it. You briefly consider asking his family for it straight out, but reconsider based on the fact that you were fairly sure they still hated you for getting Augusts money willed to you.
If your friend hid anything, you would need to figure out how to work around his family for the time being, or else find a way to bring them into compliance via either black mail or coercion.
At any rate, towards the end of the month, you visit your friends grave and pay your respects. It is a rather sobering event. You still remember the last time you two met. The yelling, the accusations, the recriminations. You felt a bitterness rising up in you, a mixture of anger, anger at your associate for being so hardheaded, and regret, for not attempting to mend your friendship yourself.
You leave the graveyard feeling far worse than before.
For the past is the past, and what has been done cannot be undone.
You have five actions
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Did you think, perhaps, that investing would give you an immediate influx of money? No no no, one does not cultivate a fortune in a day, or even a month. Investments take time to mature, after all. At any rate, apologies for the delay, its been a hectic week for a variety of reasons that I don't intend to go into.
Detailed isn't the same thing as clever. A plan with too many steps is liable to run aground when the first doesn't pan out, and a plan with too many contingencies is likely to take too much time.
Of course, to test this, you would need a cadaver of some form. You could always purchase one, you had enough funds to do that. But, if you wished to keep your activities a secret, or to save your money, you could always go about your activities another way...
We do more or less own a funeral home, right? Is cremation a common enough practice in this place and time?
Further study of the book may be needed. Also, we need a secret garden to grow those mind altering plants and a private locked room to start a lab so we can Breaking Bad those chemicals we need.
[X] Investigations and A Relationship
-[X] Investigate: the fungus
--[X] It caused our friend to die, see if we can't find out about what it is.
--[X] Try to get your hands on his health records, there should be two months of them.
--[X] we have university connections, the biologists should at least be able to help us narrow our field of research.
-[X] Investigate: the tome
--[X] Continue reading the tome, it wouldn't do to try anything from it until we have at least read the whole thing once or twice.
--[X] The university literature seems to be of good help, continue using it.
-[X] Investigate: Grey Matter Cadaver Formulae.
--[X] The university chemists should at least have some research papers on what the individual chemicals do to brains, animal brains perhaps, but brains none the less.
--[X] Find out where the plants like to grow and wee if there are any restrictions on growing them.
--[X] See if there is a pattern that develops in the properties of the chemicals.
-[X] Investigate: Shigeaki Hinohara
--[X] Try to find out about his life and history, and what motivated him.
--[X] See if there are any strange stories associated with him, or maybe the area he lived in.
-[X] Spend some time talking to the undertaker of the business you own, find out about his life, hobbies, interests, etc.
--[X] Keep a discreet ear out for any favours they might need
--[X] At the very least it should cultivate a good employer-employee relationship
--[X] It caused our friend to die, see if we can't find out about what it is.
--[X] Try to get your hands on his health records, there should be two months of them.
--[X] we have university connections, the biologists should at least be able to help us narrow our field of research.
--[X] The university chemists should at least have some research papers on what the individual chemicals do to brains, animal brains perhaps, but brains none the less.
--[X] Find out where the plants like to grow and wee if there are any restrictions on growing them.
--[X] See if there is a pattern that develops in the properties of the chemicals.
[X] Investigations and A Relationship
-[X] Investigate: the fungus
--[X] It caused our friend to die, see if we can't find out about what it is.
--[X] Try to get your hands on his health records, there should be two months of them.
-[X] Investigate: the tome
--[X] Continue reading the tome, it wouldn't do to try anything from it until we have at least read the whole thing once or twice.
--[X] The university literature seems to be of good help, continue using it.
-[X] Investigate: Grey Matter Cadaver Formulae.
--[X] The university chemists should at least have some research papers on what the individual chemicals do to brains, animal brains perhaps, but brains none the less.
--[X] See if there is a pattern that develops in the properties of the chemicals.
-[X] Investigate: Shigeaki Hinohara
--[X] Try to find out about his life and history, and what motivated him.
--[X] See if there are any strange stories associated with him, or maybe the area he lived in.
-[X] Spend some time talking to the undertaker of the business you own, find out about his life, hobbies, interests, etc.
--[X] Keep a discreet ear out for any favours they might need
--[X] At the very least it should cultivate a good employer-employee relationship
[X] Dearly Departed
-[X] Investigate: The fungus
--[X] It caused our friend to die, see if we can't find out about what it is.
--[X] Start, by having a look at what fungus does in general, and compare notes on what is freely available, in case you can find another lead. And if it's not within university indexes, it's either unheard of, or something else.
--[X] Try to get your hands on his health records, there should be two months of them.
-[X] Reconnect with your acquaintances at the university. Not just to deepen your connection with the university but to also enjoy time with old friends to raise your spirits after the loss of August.
-[X] If need be, talk about things, from cultural interests (eg. Japan, or history.) While keeping an open mind on how your associates are faring in general. Especially, on the medical department.
-[X] Investigate: The tome
--[X] Continue reading the tome, it wouldn't be good to try anything from it until we have at least read the whole thing once or twice.
--[X] The university literature seems to be of good help, continue using it.
---[X] See if looking up on other references that are in Japanese, may offer additional insight on the nature of the tome's contents.
-[X] Investigate: Shigeaki Hinohara
--[X] Look at the Japanese section, in case there's any doctors from that location. If nothing else, it'd be a great place to start, in case he's of note within universities.
---[X] Try to find out about his life and history, and what motivated him.
---[X] See if there are any strange stories associated with him, or maybe the area he lived in.
-[X] Spend some time talking to the undertaker of the business you own, find out about his life, hobbies, interests, etc.
--[X] Keep a discreet ear out for any favors they might need
--[X] At the very least it should cultivate a good employer-employee relationship
Partly repurposed from ConfusedPotato's vote since he had a good idea but fixed up so hopefully it the fungus doesn't take two actions. Also I think we should get into brain matter just yet.
Also, you guys have any ideas on how to improve this vote?
[X] Dearly Departed
-[X] Investigate: The fungus
--[X] It caused our friend to die, see if we can't find out about what it is.
--[X] Try to get your hands on his health records, there should be two months of them.
-[X] Reconnect with your acquaintances at the university. Not just to deepen your connection with the university but to also enjoy time with old friends to raise your spirts after the lose of August.
-[X] Investigate: The tome
--[X] Continue reading the tome, it wouldn't be good to try anything from it until we have at least read the whole thing once or twice.
--[X] The university literature seems to be of good help, continue using it.
-[X] Investigate: Shigeaki Hinohara
--[X] Try to find out about his life and history, and what motivated him.
--[X] See if there are any strange stories associated with him, or maybe the area he lived in.
-[X] Spend some time talking to the undertaker of the business you own, find out about his life, hobbies, interests, etc.
--[X] Keep a discreet ear out for any favors they might need
--[X] At the very least it should cultivate a good employer-employee relationship
