Tales of the Path

(A RP based on the works of Andrzej Sapkowski, as well as those awesome people at CD Projekt RED!)

So, here's the OOC! @The Darklight Project

I've taken the liberty of summarising the state of the region below:

Current events
1140 BR, Late spring.

King Radovid III of Redania has long dreamed of regaining the prestige accorded to his illustrious ancestor, Radovid the Great. Over the years he has scuffled with his neighbours, most notably Aedirn and Temeria. After long negotiations, a compromise was reached between Temeria and Redania, resulting in the deceleration of Novigrad as a free city. With his southern border secure, Radovid III now turns south-east, toward Aedirn and the bountiful Pontar Valley.

In an attempt to gather resources for his war, he heavily taxes the Appanage of Kovir. Kovir’s ruler, Gedovius Trojdenida, refuses and declares his kingdom independent, in which he is joined by several of Redania’s outlying northern provinces. Moving swiftly, Radovid III musters his forces and along with his allies from Kaedwen marches on his unruly vassals. With the coming of spring, their combined forces cross the Braa river and engage the rebels in a number of skirmishes, driving them into the highlands.

Meanwhile, on the borders of the Pontar valley ambitious barons are already plotting to lay the foundations for Radovid’s conquest, believing that the insurgency in the north will quickly be crushed. Joined by Kaedweni lords, still bitter over the loss of the Lormark, they have begun testing the defenses of the local Aedernian nobility, who in turn are planning to use the chaos in Redania to further their own agenda.

In such troubled times, work for a Witcher is plentiful and a growing number of communities are putting out the call for monster-hunters. Inkeeps and gossips will be all too eager to point a Witcher looking for a contract toward Redania...

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There's just one last thing we need to figure out: Where do we actually start? Somewhere in Kovir or around the Pontar Valley? Could be in a different part of the region as well, up to you!

That map is so large that I can't read it at all.

Anyway, I'm thinking more around the Pontar Valley? That way we can have an escalation of things rather than be right in the middle of a two warring factions in the get go. While there are those little border skirmishes in the Pontar, that's actually nothing unusual for this world, so it won't be that big of a deal for our characters.

Ugh, the map appeared pretty large when I previewed the post, but it seems the hider tag resizes it or something. If you right-click on it and view in a separate tab it should appear in all its glory.

Pontar Valley sounds good to me. Obviously, I'm more familiar with it as a locale than Kovir, so that's great. The story can eventually take us further north if needed, but as a starting point Pontar's cool.

I'll try to get something posted by the end of the week, but if RL pushes me too hard I might leave it for Saturday. Feel free to go ahead if you've got the time.

Small update: I'm like 80% done with the post, but I won't be home tonight so I'll finish it tomorrow. Sorry for the delay!

Take your time mate, I don't mind at all! I haven't had time to start on mine at all, so there's literally no rush.

Finally got that post out. It's bit rough around the edges TBH, but I feel like I'm getting an idea of what I want to do.

The plan is to reach the drowners' lair in the next post, taking out whatever is there and heading back to the village. Feel free to work your character in at any time, doesn't have to be in your first post.

Love the first post, will get you one of my own as soon as I can.

I'm glad you like it. Take your time, I'm in no hurry, so don't feel pressured :)

Been working on my post, so you know! About halfway through. Got my character on the hunt, him getting hints that yours is around, all that good stuff.

Finally got a post I've been waiting for like a literal month for in my group roleplay, so I'm going to redirect efforts onto that for awhile. I just wanted to let you know that the post most certainly is coming, no matter what.

Glad to hear from you man, as I said I'm in absolutely no rush - I don't mind waiting for however long.

Checked on your group RP by the by, you guys are doing some great writing there, much respect!

Thank you so much! It's something I've worked on hard for a long while, even before creating it, and I'm very happy with the group I've found. There are a lot of good people and good ideas to go around.

Indeed, that kind of longevity is a testament to the quality of a RP, I'd say. Plus, I'm a sucker for long posts, which is definitely not something you see every day. In fact, I kept the opening post for this RP relatively short by my standards, because I've found that I have a tendency to scare people away with walls of text :P

Anyhow, if we manage to reach even 50% of the quality that "The Origin" has, I'll be one happy camper!

Don't ever worry about long posts with me, I always do my best to match. I don't like padding, so my post length will always be what I think it should be, but if I notice my partner making longer posts I do my very best to do the same so long as they don't turn into inner monologues during the middle of conversations.

And thank you so much, that honestly means a lot to me as a compliment. XD

Spent some time researching Higher Vampires in the world today and boy, I cannot wait to get to the DLC to see some of this stuff in action.

Finally got a post! Not as much action in this one, but hinting to some of the character's past, dropping some hints here and there. I hope you enjoy reading it, and it makes you interested in learning more.

Awesome post, love it! It seems like your guy is pursuing an...interesting foe, should be fun to see what that is all about.

I must admit that I only briefly read up on Higher Vampires. I was afraid I'd spoil too much of Blood & Wine and, as one of the few good stories in games these days, I didn't want to take that chance! :P So, I've got some general info, but not all the details, which I guess works perfectly from an in-story perspective, seeing as my character would never have gone up against such a fearsome creature before.

I've got some scribbles written down for my next post, will begin working on it and hopefully I'll have it up sometime before the end of the week or during the weekend at the latest.

Finally posted, sorry for the wait. Thursday to Sunday were a sort of national holiday here, so instead of staying home and writing (as I initially anticipated) I was out and about, drinking a lil' too much. That's a shit excuse I know, but there it is.

Hope you enjoy the read and I promise I won't take 8 fucking days to post next time around.

Don't ever apologize for a delay in posting, I always understand. Hell, you're going to get a little bit of a delay from me once again; I have three papers due, one today, tomorrow, and the day after, and not only that but I'm working on an extremely crucial post for the Origin, so if you'd like to take a glance at that when it's up you'll know what I've been sweating over for awhile.

As a fun fact, when you mentioned meteorite steel in your post I got so confused. I thought your character was using a steel sword against monsters, so I went and looked it up, and learned that in the original Witcher meteorite swords were considered steel swords, but in Witcher 2 they were considered silver swords. Talk about an inconsistency that flew under the radar, huh?

Yeah, my bad - I should have clarified that. I also noticed this discrepancy when reading through the wiki, but thought I'd go with the first Witcher's version. Just seemed more fitting; in TW3 for example you can use any manner of steel sword, which kinda cheapens the idea that witchers have these cool swords etc. So, it's a meteorite steel sword, not just any ol' plain chunk of metal

Initially I had written that my character uses a silver sword to fight, but then I read on reddit that in the books Geralt doesn't use the silver blade against every monster he encounters, saving it for the truly fabled ones. The reason for this is that silver is rather soft, making it easy to damage; they also say that the sword itself isn't entirely made out of silver, but instead it's a steel core plated in silver. That sounded familiar at least, I think someone explained that in one of the games too. Anyway, it makes sense to me. After all, why wouldn't a steel blade cut through a drowner as easily as a silver one? Now, a werewolf or something of the sort, I can see why you'd need a more special weapon. Up to you though, we can have them use silver swords against all monsters to make it more iconic.

Also, I've based most of the stuff I use/plan to use from the first game's lore. A lot of the information in the wiki comes from there, plus I feel like the first Witcher had the richest setting, in terms of explaining how stuff works. The biggest example I have is the alchemy system, it's really detailed and I plan to draw inspiration from that when describing potions/brewing. Naturally, if you feel like we should do something different, I'm all ears.

Finally, I should mention that I plan on doing a small time-skip in my next post. I'll have my character arrive back in the village sometime in the early morning, after an unpleasant night spent in the caves.

Looking forward to the next post, whenever it's ready!

I think I'll do a timeskip as well then! Have him prepared to leave the next day, all that good stuff. I don't have much more to do in the village that night, so I think the sooner we get them on the road, the better.

Okay, that post is done. I killed a benevolent Queen in a horrific manner. I'll get to working on the post for you now!