Mutants & Masterminds Mutants & Masterminds: Struggles of Iannin - SOI Chat

[Joani]

The King is dead! Long live the King!

[Forge]

So, before we get there, we should discuss the next phase.

My initial thought was that you declare for a species, then establish up to three major cities in your area and decide where they are. If you want a more amalgam kingdom full of different races, that is fine, but keep to the basic premise most races still have predominant areas. The A'fen for example (barring Chaos intervention) aren't getting out of the water nor are the Zray likely to leave the Blasted Lands, so the chances of them establishing a major stronghold of their civilization outside of that isn't very likely.

Since the Thayim are so prevalent and now more populous, I wouldn't mind if more than one person wanted to have a Thayim-centric Kingdom. And really, considering the area size of most of the races, if two people wanted the Ssenast, that would be an interesting dynamic.

I should also mention, that we are focusing more. Barring major objection (and prepare for my wrath if you do ) we will focus on the major continent going forward, with all the islands left as GM resources for later.

Everyone will control one Kingdom. Chaos will be less a direct interference by Chaos himself, but more the 'random' events that happen to civilization, epiphanies of technology, plagues, political upheavals etc.

My thoughts for turn examples would be to build things, establish political boundaries, attempt to expand to other areas, exploration, develop resources, develop technology, push population growth, build roads etc. My vision has this set of turns much like the game, Civilization.

Comments Questions Concerns???

[Dawn OOC]

Sounds good; I'd like to see a round complete before I start mentioning concerns.

[Ira Sagebrush]

Considering the end of the Fourth Epoch, and the relatively slow response for starting the Fifth, how would everyone feel about stopping the Rebirth here and moving onto the Kingdom level?

You could try and finagle in a partial god move with the description and setup of your Kingdom?

If this is okay, my idea for a Kingdom is a Thayim/Ssenast/A'Fen/Mer'nast/New Fen...founded after a civil war between the A'fen that was stoked by the remaining Mer'nast and their hurt feelings over the lack of support from the A'fen against the Horde...this splits the A'Fen and a resulting portion breaks off and becomes more amphibious instead of just straight water dwelling. A town/dam is built in the narrow channel that dumps into the Sea of Tears...(it is suppose to be much more narrow, I think my last edit made it wider, I'm gonna fix that)

The town is ruled by a Council of Five, each representing the interests and Houses of each race. For now, the New Fen (name forthcoming) have been the primary forces politically, but that is apt to change.

[Forge]

bah, wrong acct, no matter, still applies

[Joani]

Don't know what to add here without making it sound I don't mind if yay or nay.

Maybe we can just get some feedback who wants to have a fifth Epoch. It mustn't necessarily be a "complete" turn but if someone still has a nice idea and was just searching for a way to put it, it be a pity to see that lost.

I was long thinking about adding another race but I believe I gave mine enough diversity. I would only make a Zahan-Thaya move in Epoch V, Ankassar will built the fourth Temple and thus be finished then.

So what has anyone else in mind? If there's not enough to make a reasonable fifth Epoch I'd say skip it.

[Dawn OOC]

I had solid plans for Konsea and have just been swamped at work all week. She plans to make a water predatory-species (then she'd have one on the land, one in the air and one she actually planned on having).

For Beltok, I was playing around with having him create a semi-intelligent pet-species that could be used to create a lot of diversity (think something like a small cat that could be bred in colors and 'styles' as varied as the Betta fish). However, I'm okay with not having that, as Bel's a little bit crazy and this is probably only a good idea to him.

Only the first is one that I'm really interested in doing; otherwise, I'm good with skipping. I wouldn't object to skipping Bel.

[Ouroboros]

We all agreed on 5 epochs, if you want to skip your turn feel free but I have things I still want to do.

[Dawn OOC]

I'm skipping Bel's turn - he's got nothing that I feel adds anything to the game.

[Dawn OOC]

Originally Posted By: Damon OOC

So, before we get there, we should discuss the next phase.

My initial thought was that you declare for a species, then establish up to three major cities in your area and decide where they are. [...]

Comments Questions Concerns???

Damon, I had some questions pop up.

We can have three cities, but don't have to, correct?

Could we pick different species to be the majority in each city, or are we to focus on one species?

Can there be more than three cities in an area, even if we only control three of them (or less)?

Some of these seem apparent but I wanted to make sure I understand my limitations fully before proceeding or planning. Mostly because I have a lot of ideas but am not sure if they are all viable, so getting some disallowed would help.

[jameson (ST)]

Originally Posted By: Damon OOC

Comments Questions Concerns???

So if people would like I have access to a nicely detailed system for randomly creating cities that I can use to help roughly detail their cities. Since I am off this coming week (thank god for that) I will have time and can easily do this if people like.

[Forge]

Originally Posted By: Dawn, OOC

Damon, I had some questions pop up.

We can have three cities, but don't have to, correct?

Correct. I only plan on two.

Quote:

Could we pick different species to be the majority in each city, or are we to focus on one species?

Well considering jameson's homogenizing thing, in theory I suppose a different race could be dominant in any given area, so whatever you wanna do is fine. I had thought of mine previous to the move, but had placed the city at the junction of territories so that it wasn't inconceivable that the city was shared somewhat equally by all of the races represented. The only restriction I would say is that all (up to three) cities need to be within the same defined 'kingdom' and not at random locations on the continent.

Quote:

Can there be more than three cities in an area, even if we only control three of them (or less)?

There can and will be all levels of villages and such within your Kingdom. In theory, these cities will be the epicenters of the kingdom and the ones that are the motivation behind it. Now, this doesn't mean they are big, one could easily be a small town/village at a strategically important location or resource.

Quote:

Some of these seem apparent but I wanted to make sure I understand my limitations fully before proceeding or planning. Mostly because I have a lot of ideas but am not sure if they are all viable, so getting some disallowed would help.

That help?

[Ouroboros]

Since each kingdom only gets one action I assume the number of cities really doesn't matter at all? Can I run no major cities at all? Basically an agrarian society?

What kinds of basic actions are you thinking? Is it an action to grow your city? Or to found a new one?

I'm having a bit of a hard time figuring out what exactly is going to go on in the next phase here.

[Forge]

Originally Posted By: Ouroboros

Since each kingdom only gets one action I assume the number of cities really doesn't matter at all?

It gives you more than one place to have an action from and to develop more than just one place for the history of Iannin.

Quote:

Can I run no major cities at all?

If you want to.

Quote:

Basically an agrarian society?

History has a tendency to conquer and absorb these, but sure. Imagine playing Risk, if you only put one marker on each area and don't build any fortification anywhere, you are gonna get steamrolled, just sayin'.

Quote:

What kinds of basic actions are you thinking?

Much like I described a few posts up.

Quote:

Is it an action to grow your city? Or to found a new one?

Yes. New towns would take time to grow, but yes, you could say that a previous village or trading post or large family farm was starting to become bigger.

Quote:

I'm having a bit of a hard time figuring out what exactly is going to go on in the next phase here.

The goal is to create the more immediate history of Iannin in greater detail than the vagueness of before. Just as history and knowledge becomes more vague the farther back you go, so does it on Iannin. As we move closer to 'game time' we become more detailed in our descriptions and actions so that we can speak of the world of Iannin ICly with a knowledge of someone who has grown up there and been told stories by his parents/grandparents or been taught things in school.

Or at least, that's my goal.

We are going to play kingdoms and what there role was. Did they focus only on expansion? Technological advancement? Spiritual advancement? Magical? Political machinations? Expansion of civilization through building of roads? Diplomatic relations? A combination of all is expected at some level I imagine, but I hope you get my drift.

If our empires don't end up fighting over something, then we're doing something wrong. IF we don't end up with any conflicts of our own, then I'll create the random 'barbarians' from Civ and they shall smite mightily in the name of rampaging hordes and Chaos everywhere.

I don't expect the entire continent to be controlled by just our kingdoms, I fully expect there to be unclaimed territory and areas controlled by other monarchs/empires. I'm waiting to see how and what we claim first and then I'll figure out the rest.

[Dawn OOC]

Damon, yes, that did answer my questions and then some, thank you.

I'll detail the two cities I plan to do tonight.

[Forge]

Originally Posted By: Asa

Action: Quaress steals the souls of the Chaos Practitioners and does... something with them. Leaving it open for further uses. Wasn't sure if we wanted to allow complete soul annihilation, so they might be driven contagiously insane, inflicting it on anyone trying to contact them. Or they might just be ridiculously hard to contact - considering they aren't in Siponak's domain. Or any number of things.

Complete soul annihilation could only be done by feeding them to Chaos beyond the gate that Kaer has sealed and guarded. Gods can do pretty much anything else with a soul, just not utterly destroy them.

At least, that is how I was gonna run with it.

[Forge]

Dawn, are you officially skipping Beltok's Fifth? Or should I wait to do the last Chaos post and (hopefully) start the next thread?

[Ouroboros]

I asked Dawn about this yesterday and she said Beltok was going to skip. She also said work was going to keep her offline until this evening. So she may not be able to get you a reply herself before then.

[Forge]

I will operate under this assumption and if she wants to insert an action, I'll edit it in.

[Forge]

Chaos rolls are made, being as this is the last turn and there is no reactionary and I don't wanna FUBAR plans, I kept the douche-baggery changes out and a surprisingly large amount were NA to begin with. (I don't see the Lenai or Sea Serpents becoming the dominant civilizations as examples.)

I will need to talk to everyone but Joani (he escaped Chaos' wrath) about one thing or another before I post.

[Joani]

Dodge!

[Dawn OOC]

Originally Posted By: Ouroboros

I asked Dawn about this yesterday and she said Beltok was going to skip. She also said work was going to keep her offline until this evening. So she may not be able to get you a reply herself before then.

Jim is right. I skipped. Bel probably went all mad-scientist of the epoch and was distracted by fungus or something.

Originally Posted By: Damon OOC

I will operate under this assumption and if she wants to insert an action, I'll edit it in.

OK.

Originally Posted By: Damon OOC

Chaos rolls are made, being as this is the last turn and there is no reactionary and I don't wanna FUBAR plans, I kept the douche-baggery changes out and a surprisingly large amount were NA to begin with. (I don't see the Lenai or Sea Serpents becoming the dominant civilizations as examples.)

I will need to talk to everyone but Joani (he escaped Chaos' wrath) about one thing or another before I post.

Feel free to PM me about mine, since our chat schedules seems to not be syncing up right.

[Forge]

The first machination posts will probably be more setup than anything, but mention something that you are working on in there somewhere.

We can get a bit more nitty gritty as we go along.

[jameson (ST)]

Gonna try and get at least something posted tomorrow. Even if its a flavorless stats only type post.

[Dawn OOC]

I'll have mine up today; it's half-finished and I wasn't smart enough to put up a holder post to give the basic ideas like Jim did.

[Ouroboros]

Its been a week since Damon started the new thread.

I'm going to start the first "turn" (or whatever we call it) tomorrow, any kingdoms not given at least a token outline will get skipped. I know this may seem harsh but from the outset Forge and I said we wanted to try to maintain a pace of around 2-3 posts a week minimum.

[Forge]

Jim, Plank-splinter and all that. Finish your post...random generated numbers, do not a city make.

This IS the first turn, you should state an 'action'. My kingdom is working on a paved road betwixten the two cities.

Also, what Jim said... for crying out frakking loud people, post your bloody cities. I'm not gonna hold your hand and post reminders in OOC or the shout box. I'm not going prod you in chat or PM (anymore, for those that I did). If you aren't interested enough to participate fully, then please just let me know.

If you don't lay any info out for a kingdom, then you will be forced to try and build one from scratch in some of the unclaimed territory I put out there, and I can't imagine that being an easy job with the rampaging hordes of flea-ridden Ssenast, blood-thirsty Takrok, and the Toxic Avenger Muthay (with vorpal mop +5) that I swear by Elan, will plague your every move.

[jameson (ST)]

I misunderstood that this was in fact "turn 1", so apologies about that. As for my post ... I have been working on my post, making edits as I have time, I told you up front I really wasn't very clear on what you wanted and it would take me a while.

[Forge]

I understand and respect that, and have no issue with it.

But I don't think it's all that fair to try and call out others about the posting time frame and threaten to skip them, when you yourself are not done.

[jameson (ST)]

Hold me to the same rigor then. If you don't think what I have is adequate call my turn incomplete and dock me.

[Dawn OOC]

I'll get an action up tonight; I missed that as well, Damon. Heh, I think I just thought of what it'll be, too.

As a final note... blood-thirsty Takrok? I though ZK neutered them in the 2nd god-round.

[Joani]

So when is the "deadline" actually? I would need another day probably to have things finished and even then I won't be glad with it since this is far more complicated it seems.

If I take Damon's post as example I don't really see much of an "action" aside from establishing 2 Cities and outlining their cultural background etc.

Is that the first "action"? Because in that case Jameson's post wasn't far different then yours, only lacking some details which could easily be added later.

Now I was busy outlining cities AND attacking neighbours/conquering surrounding parts and basically being aggressive with both the Balor and the Kassim. I won't create much for the Thayim except for a cultural background that will be detached from any locality/city and will rather be a general ideology which the Thayim follow (inspired by their creator ZT, of course).

Thayim who don't follow that have simply decided to adapt to the local authority or have decided against their Goddess (which is fine, they were supposed to be an 'universal' race that inhabit every corner of Iannin).

So instead of saying I'm out, because I don't like being pushed to post I try to have my stuff done till thursday evening.

[jameson (ST)]

I'm going to try and clarify, even though at this point I feel very confused as to what is being asked for.

Joani, we're each taking on only 1 kingdom consisting of up to 3 cities to start. Per my "melting pot" action during the 5th epoch every kingdom is made up of many races but there are no "pure" kingdoms/cities of notable size on the main continent.

As for a deadline, I don't know what Damon is going to enforce (if anything), but we all agreed to try and do a post every 2 days when this started and it has been a week since Damon started out this new thread.

[Dawn OOC]

I may be getting ahead here, but I'm looking forward to this part:

Originally Posted By: Damon OOC

I agree with Jim on this. I would rather not shoehorn the PC with an exact template, and let each person develop their character how they want. The only template I would prefer to have carved in stone is the Racial templates.

Hey, guys, now that god turns are done, how are we doing Racial Templates?

[Ouroboros]

I'll start a new thread tonight, we can kibbitz over it in between kingdom turns. I suggest that we just drawn up a list and then the creators of those races makes a first go (or offers that out to the group). Most of this should be quick and painless.

Edit: Also, 2 out of 3 cities done, I'll have the last one finished tonight

[Ouroboros]

ok, done

Damon, if my action is unclear let me know.

[Dawn OOC]

I've just added my action as well, at the tail end of my post in its own area.

[Ouroboros]

Dawn, I added Innate to Jreila's flight, since their wings are not some kind of manifestation that can be nullified.

Asa, I'm not sure what you feel is missing but the Jotnar seem pretty standard giants to me, which really is just a few ranks of Growth.

Edit: Skrofan are up. Added a quirk to the Anupu summon that requires they have remains on hand. This may be a full limit but I'm not sure. Thoughts?

[Ouroboros]

I just had a thought. Wanted to get people's thoughts on Magic in a couple of terms.

Firstly - I'm of the opinion that being a magic user has certain implicit themes depending on the type of magic that directly impact what sort of effects can be used. i.e. A Necromancer isn't likely to be able to cast a fireball, a Water Elementalist isn't going to be able to summon an earth elemental, nature magic using druid isn't going to have a "open locks" spell. Does this jive with what everybody else was thinking?

Secondly - Expertise Magic - Expertise in "magic" would be a wide skill granting knowledge of techniques of all schools of magic. Alternately we could require expertise to be more refined, requiring the specific school be called out as its own skill, i.e. Expertise Necromancy, Expertise Chaos Magic, Expertise Shadow Magic. How do you folks want to play this? I'm leaning toward the latter, such that a powerful wizard who uses Law magic isn't going to be super knowledgeable in all forms of magic, just in the form(s) he has studied. In this way a character may be well versed with Necromancy (like most Anupu) but unaware of the details of Fire Magic. Going with a generic "Expertise Magic" will mean a more comprehensive knowledge base, i.e. not only to Anupu know about Necromancy, but all other type of magic as well (at lest to 4 ranks worth). Thoughts?

[Joani]

I'm fine with themes as long as they are just a flavour thing/RP-thing. If we delve into the "Schools of Magic" road we open a can of worms imho.

Because we have to define every single aspect of any possible school (opening also a can of worms for douchebaggery concerning the types of Schools and what they provide in knowledge).

For example, where do we define the difference between "Necromancy", "Death Magic", "Demonology", "Dark/Black Magic". Is there a general major theme to all of the aforementioned? Are they part of the same philosophy only with different "approaches" and interpretations of minor/major details. Who'll claim to be the "true" School while the others are just mere "sidearms" which are only taught in some regional backwater hamlet.

This is just one example. The same thing can be applied to all other so called schools.

My dislike of this is the myriads of "philosophies" I've encountered in my many years as Fantasy-LARPer and the most insane discussions about said philosophies. I can provide examples that will make you lose your faith in humanity.

Anyway - I'd rather not have a discussion if an Elementalists knows every last aspect of an Element if there's a Fire-Mage around who just focusses on Fire. Is the Elementalist more powerful? Or the Fire-Mage (but only in his school). Why does a Fire-Mage exist in the first place, if you can be an Elementalist and learn more than just handling fire?

As a Tool for RP, I'm fine with it - people may waste their time with arguments about magic and how it "works" - I could care less about it. But the mechanics should stay simple and straight to the point, just like M&M 3e is. I have not the time, nor the muse to create Libraries of spells for all kinds of different Schools of magic and then also go into a discussion about justifying why an healing effect can be both Necromantic and "life" magic, or "light", or "water" or whatever...

I probably am missing your point but regarding magic in general I'd rather have one Skill "Magic" and then let the GM decide if I can roll on it depending on my PCs background or not. Maybe the DC will be higher for a Druid with expertise Magic who wants to know about "Law" magic but he should know magic in general and not only "Druid" magic.

Simplify, not diversify is my reasoning. Magic can be anything, why cut it into pieces?