Eh, I have a question, Rhaevnn, which I've been pondering over for days now whether I should simply reply to IC under the assumption that such was the case or confer with you about first: does Morgan think Gaath is deo'iel? Because it sounds like that's the case... and does he think so because he presumes that all demonspawn are deo'iel?

Yes, he does think Gaath is deo'iel, and yes, he presumes that all demonspawn are deo'iel. This being his only experience with a deo'iel is that was one who was a demonspawn.

Huh, Morgan must have had a much more sheltered life than I thought, considering the pretty much universal renown (and to a lesser extent infamy) of the deo'iel. All right, just wanted to be sure because it seemed odd.

Without checking Morgan's CS, he was to become a smith in some random small Seclyrian village, but before even hitting twenty was found out to have some magical talent and hence made into a sniffer... I'd say this kind of life would quite probably render him very sheltered?

Oh it's not impossible, and he may very well have been sheltered... the odds are just somewhat against living for thirty years in a northern country and never having learned anything about the deo'iel or demonspawn. Even in remote villages that has never seen either, and probably won't within a lifetime, both are pretty well-known thing, even among children. Deo'iel are pretty much what most adventurous children dream of being and call themselves as they play heroes (even if deo'iel are rarely that straightforward), and demonspawn are the bogeymen of the Prophecy-universe, the kind of thing parents like to scare their children into compliance with tales of. And in a major city like Seclyr, not hearing about them would be even harder; possible, but unlikely. I'm not contesting that it could be the case, I'm only explaining why I was initially so in doubt about whether that could really be true.
(If there was a Rodorian city to live in without having anything to do with deo'iel, however, it would be Seclyr City. The deo'iel almost never go there, partly because many deo'iel are mages and thus would be prosecuted (and likely executed) in that duchy, and partly because deo'iel are less needed there (Seclyrian warriors are liable to hunt monsters themselves rather than ask for outside help)... which is less of a factor in and by itself, but becomes much more relevant in that it means that Seclyr doesn't never donates any resources to the Order. As altruistic as many think the deo'iel for hunting dangerous monsters without asking for any recompense, they do tend to focus their efforts protecting those that help sustain them.)

I am quite sure he lived in a village in the duchy by the same name, rather than in Seclyr City itself *checks* ... yes, it looks to have been a random village. Unless you meant that he was probably brought to Seclyr City for the time he was a sniffer (rather than being stationed somewhere else), but I also assume a sniffer wouldn't be exactly told much, especially with the kind of general treatment Rhae's posts seem to describe.
Makes me wonder how numerous the deo'iel (with all the things that shouldn't be capitalized but are, there is this one example of the reverse - it's the order's name, after all, isn't it?) actually are, though... To be so widespread and widely known.

Well, there's obviously a lot of rotation in the list of deo'iel, as due to how popular they are and the convenient way to escape the law they represent they have a constant high recruitment-rate, but it is also fairly easy to die doing deo'iel work (the veteran deo'iel in the innermost circles tend to be the one with the highest survival-rate)... So the actual number of deo'iel tends to fluctuate a lot, but usually they'll have between one and two thousand agents distributed across their various bases. They can cover a lot of ground and a lot of monster-occurrences with that, especially with most ordinary requests or situations being assigned just one or two teams (so six or twelve individuals). And even then, a bunch of them have time to train the newbies.
(Most of those one or two thousand deo'iel are obviously of the outermost circles - first through third - and only a hundred or so of those have been recognized as competent enough to get to the fourth circle. There are maybe seventy deo'iel fifth circle across northern Kirirak, and less than ten sixth circle-members. Oh, and just three deo'iel of the innermost seventh circle, the overseers of the Order.)

I didn't realize the Deo'lei were such a large organization ._.

Regardless, Shien hit the nail on the head, at least in Morgan's case: being "the bloodhound," Morgan was more of a tool vs. an actual thinking member of his squad. Even if other sniffers are usually treated better, Morgan was not. Also, when making Morgan's CS initially, I chose to place him in Seclyr because of their hate for magic (and anything associated with it), so that he would be sheltered from certain experiences, at least in his earlier years/time with the Seclyrian army. While he probably would have heard the deo'lei, it's safe to say he believed them more of a legend/hyped up order than anything else.

That being said, Morgan's only encounter with the deo'lei was with a demonspawn was after his time in the Seclyrian army as a sniffer. I haven't fully plotted out the exact happenings of the encounter, but I'm going to assume that the brush with said demonspawn was impactful enough that 1) he assumes that the deo'lei are all demonspawn 2) they all wear the badge mentioned in the IC post. He just placed two and two together from past experiences and believes his information to be fact.

Hey Jack. Before I write a post in the IC, I want to run a possibility that Ixion has heard of various crimes that Gaath has done and having seen the result of what the demonspawn did. How much of Gaath's movements could I use for the post?

M3

Ixion could have happened upon Gaath's trail before, sure. "How much of Gaath's movements" you can use, though... that would depend on how recent Ixion's observations would be. Obviously an isolated case would just give Gaath's location at around the time Ixion found the leavings... but what do you mean? Most recently (over the past week or two) Gaath has been moving through Etlon into Pelgaid, along a course giving a wide berth to the east of Pelgaid City, and through Pelgaid into Zerul.
If Ixion is supposed to have found the scene of Gaath doing something from before that, I'll need a time so that I can trace back where he would have been then... and so I can trace back which abilities he would have had at that point. Gaath is only fifteen years old, though (but was born adult), so it can't be longer ago than that.

I was initially thinking around the 1 month mark while he was on another contract being the most recent that he has seen/heard of something Gaath had done. I was thinking about him hearing about a being capable of melting people on the various contracts that he took for the past 4 months but he dismissed them until either seeing the aftermath (seeing the puddle of a former person) or witnessing Gaath melting someone while on the contract in question, though I'm still unsure about the possibility of the person in question being the person he was targeting. In that case, a location of where Gaath was would help him recant that story to the deo'iel.

M3

Ah, Gaath doesn't actually melt people completely into puddles; that particular ability works by having its wielder being capable of exuding a very potent solvent that is mainly effective against skin, hair and flesh, but not very effective on bone. Not only would the dissolving of an entire person probably take him some thirty minutes, making it much too dangerous to stick around that long in most cases, but the skeleton (and various inorganic possessions) would remain mostly intact. Interestingly it is less frequently the melting itself that kills with this ability, but rather the noxious fumes resulting from the solvent reacting to the victim's skin and flesh that ends up choking the person to death or poisoning them... that, or an artery or air-pipe being dissolved.
I don't think Ixion should have actually seen Gaath, though... both because Gaath was pretty notable to look at even if he's not doing anything a month ago - his immortal blood being quite evident from his appearance - and since Ixion would probably have witnessed Gaath using some of his other abilities too, then. And of course the fact that Gaath didn't usually go near larger populated areas like the cities due to his aforementioned unusual appearance.

But a month ago, yeah... around that time he should have been in southwestern Gilmah, I think. Four months ago he did have his melting-ability, but if Ixion heard of him from back then, he would have been in... in northern Wenal, actually, near the Savage Woods.

@The New Yorker: Are you still out and about?

@Loud Angry Dead: Any questions, or are you still looking around in the Compendium?
(Just making sure no one feels forgotten here.)

@Yoshua171, @Mercinus3 - does anyone want to go first in particular?

@The New Yorker: Are you still out and about?

@Loud Angry Dead: Any questions, or are you still looking around in the Compendium?
(Just making sure no one feels forgotten here.)

Yeah. I won't be able to join the RP any time soon, it seems. I'm going back to school and getting my stuff together right now so I have a limited amount of time to spend on RP. Most of which is devoted to my own RP. Sorry for any confusion I might have cause, I know how frustrating that can be. Let it be known that I would like to keep the door open for a reprisal some time in the future. I still have my character and I still have a huge interest in playing him here again. Unfortunately it just can't be soon. Hopefully I'll be able to free up some time eventually to take part.

Thanks again!

@Yoshua171, @Mercinus3 - does anyone want to go first in particular?

I'll be first as Ixion still has a few things to respond to.

M3

@The New Yorker: Are you still out and about?

@Loud Angry Dead: Any questions, or are you still looking around in the Compendium?
(Just making sure no one feels forgotten here.)

Still looking around and building my character. No worries here.

Ah, Gaath doesn't actually melt people completely into puddles; that particular ability works by having its wielder being capable of exuding a very potent solvent that is mainly effective against skin, hair and flesh, but not very effective on bone. Not only would the dissolving of an entire person probably take him some thirty minutes, making it much too dangerous to stick around that long in most cases, but the skeleton (and various inorganic possessions) would remain mostly intact. Interestingly it is less frequently the melting itself that kills with this ability, but rather the noxious fumes resulting from the solvent reacting to the victim's skin and flesh that ends up choking the person to death or poisoning them... that, or an artery or air-pipe being dissolved.
I don't think Ixion should have actually seen Gaath, though... both because Gaath was pretty notable to look at even if he's not doing anything a month ago - his immortal blood being quite evident from his appearance - and since Ixion would probably have witnessed Gaath using some of his other abilities too, then. And of course the fact that Gaath didn't usually go near larger populated areas like the cities due to his aforementioned unusual appearance.

But a month ago, yeah... around that time he should have been in southwestern Gilmah, I think. Four months ago he did have his melting-ability, but if Ixion heard of him from back then, he would have been in... in northern Wenal, actually, near the Savage Woods.

Ah, so it's that kind of melting/dissolving that Gaath uses. If that is the case, the skeleton would be what was left when Ixion encounters the remains, so seeing the demonspawn himself would be less likely in that case. I can work with that.

As for the location of Gaath 4 months ago, word does travel far so the time when Ixion first hears the rumours of a being capable of melting someone could be older than 4 months via an odd traveler during his journey.

M3

(...)the dissolving of an entire person probably take him some thirty minutes, making it much too dangerous to stick around that long(...)

In case you missed that, I meant to say that Gaath usually doesn't leave only the skeleton, but mostly spot-melts people, often going for their faces or throats (in case it wasn't clear, either, the ability requires Gaath to remain in physical contact with the body for the full duration of the melting (the solvent is potent, but neutralizes quickly), so he would have to stick around the dead body for half an hour in order to leave nothing but the skeleton). So any victim Ixion found would probably not have been reduced to a skeleton, but just have its face and/or throat melted, and possibly some other unprotected spots that Gaath happened to melt during the struggle previous to the murder.

Eh, going back further than four months is possible, too, though I'll still need the time from which the rumor originated so that I can determine where Gaath was at the time. (If it goes back more than nine months chances are significantly smaller that Ixion heard anything, since Gaath was out of Rodoria for three years before then. If one goes further than five years back, he wouldn't have had the ability to melt people yet, so that's as far back as it can possibly go.)

<Snipped quote by Dark Jack>
In case you missed that, I meant to say that Gaath usually doesn't leave only the skeleton, but mostly spot-melts people, often going for their faces or throats (in case it wasn't clear, either, the ability requires Gaath to remain in physical contact with the body for the full duration of the melting (the solvent is potent, but neutralizes quickly), so he would have to stick around the dead body for half an hour in order to leave nothing but the skeleton). So any victim Ixion found would probably not have been reduced to a skeleton, but just have its face and/or throat melted, and possibly some other unprotected spots that Gaath happened to melt during the struggle previous to the murder.

Eh, going back further than four months is possible, too, though I'll still need the time from which the rumor originated so that I can determine where Gaath was at the time. (If it goes back more than nine months chances are significantly smaller that Ixion heard anything, since Gaath was out of Rodoria for three years before then. If one goes further than five years back, he wouldn't have had the ability to melt people yet, so that's as far back as it can possibly go.)

Ah, that makes a lot of sense. Thank you for the clear up.

As for the rumours, I was thinking that Ixion would have started to hear the rumours of Gaath at 4 months but the range of stories could be from 3 months ago to about 2 weeks ago, depending on the travel time for these rumours.

M3

So you're leaving it up to me, basically? Hmm... In that period Gaath committed several murders in Nemhim, so I figure that'd be as good a place for the rumor to originate from as any. As to where in Nemhim... which murder could it be... it'd probably have to be one near a populated area for a rumor to start...
You know what? It occurs to me that Gaath actually killed a woman not very far from Borstown, so let's say that the rumor shares its origins with the story itself.

Now... any chance anyone would like to post in the near future?

EDIT: In fact, it would be nice with a little lifesign in general from @Ashgan...?