[OOC] The Prophecy

[Veridis Quo]

This site appears to be running on someone's toaster.

Anyways, my exams are over. I've read the "story so far" in the IC about 10 days ago. Has there been a more up to date one posted? You guys were talking about something like that when I was last here.

[The New Yorker]

^Seriously.

I'll make up a sheet at some point in the next few days and post it up when the site isn't pooping itself. I'd like a glance at that compendium if that's at all possible.

[Ashgan]

I have the compendium in the form of an ODT file, which I can send to you via e-mail of Skype if you'd like. Alternatively, I'm sure Shien or Jack can hook you up, possibly with a slightly more up to date version (?).

[Veridis Quo]

I'll wait for the most up to date version. If there isn't one then I'll add you on skype. Sounds good?

[Dark Jack]

No, the "story so far" hasn't been updated that recently, so don't worry about that. And even though Shien hasn't reacted to my question as to whether to make the Compendium public... I'm going to make a judgment-call and figure she would agree, and give you the link to the Compendium.

I'll also add it to the OP. It's still very unpolished and especially missing a number of images, but it should serve its purpose. I hope it helps.

[Shienvien]

Shien hasn't answered mainly because Shien has not been able to access the site other than when she is compulsively checking upon it from her cell phone, has to leave in less than a minute, or alternatively the site has just loaded once and then immediately gone back to not loading as soon as I switch to the OoC thread tab... I was actually halfway through just giving up and writing you an e-mail (I already have half of the e-mail written; I was distracted midway through) before I tried to reload the site again just now.
Some of the players have relatedly begun advocating moving the RP to another site, which - should the problem indeed persist - is a reasonable suggestion I'd say (provided we find a decent place - two options have been mentioned, one is almost as bad as RPG, the other I've personally not looked at yet), as the site has become, hmm, somewhat unusable in its current state. Thoughts?

As for the Compendium - no, no objections against you making it public as if (by my recollection, it was you who wanted to work on it some more before it gets linked). Some things are missing - such as far most images, introduction page, and many posts from the archives, as well as the site currently pretty much has plain HTML look, but what is there, works. World-related texts are there and the search in the upper left corner is fully functional.

Jack, should I just give you access to the site-side editing system pre-alpha? I actually wrote up enough of it to have something that can be considered the bare minimum of functional Saturday morning (which is to say - I personally am not happy with it yet, and will work on it some more just for my own sake), but didn't quite get to deliberately trying to break the test table to see whether it is sufficiently escaped, so I didn't also immediately raise the question.
(Might be able to try tonight, as well as set up a logging system as a means to restore any entries submitted after the last backup copy if need be. The ... Control Panel thingy itself has no version control, and no in-built means to do rollbacks whatsoever.)

- Eh, and sorry again about the backlog; as I mentioned in a PM earlier, I've been a bit preoccupied lately. I myself have been feeling quite content despite all the many things, though, so there's that...

Oh, and (somewhat belated) merry Chrismas to you, too! The 24th was admittedly mostly composed of driving (a bit over seven hours of purely being on the road and playing taxi/cargo truck total), but yesterday was quite nice. We had a family dinner with extended family (from my father's side this time around; suffice to say the few people I'm actually close to from my family were all present) and all. Today everyone is just resting, it seems.

(...And the other RPG tab loads no more. Let's see whether this actually gets posted.)

[Veridis Quo]

Is there a story summary in the compendium? So far I've read the magic section as a whole, and I'm going through it one by one. But I don't see anything that recaps the story.

[Ashgan]

The first post in this OOC has a "Story so far" section towards the bottom, just above the character roster. Or, if you mean a historical account concerning the creation of the world and the early ages, that will end up being in the compendium.

Also, as far as moving the RP is concerned: I have no real objections, since the site is just a medium for the RP, not an integral part. At most, it would be breaking a habit I guess. Which alternatives have you looked into, Shien? When the old RPG went down, I looked into other sites, but what I found was admittedly quite apalling. They may be stable, but a lot of them are extremely ugly, and I found the average level of quality to be wanting. Maybe I missed the good ones.

[Veridis Quo]

I read the story so far in the first post of OOC. That one was last updated in April.

[Ashgan]

Well it's pretty much up to date still; the RP runs at a very forgiving pace.

[Veridis Quo]

Whoah. So you guys are still standing outside Zerul gates, with the refugees from the Nemhim city? If you guys are still at that stage, I can hop in as a character who was passing through Nemhim city, and is now sidetracked in both destination and fate.

I still can't tell if you guys are going with the Tolkien set of races (Humans, dwarves, elves) or not. The compendium doesn't mention them, but maybe you guys gave them special names. If someone could confirm this for me that'd speed things up.

Also I like to play a character that the group is lacking from a fighting perspective. From what I can tell of the first post in the OOC, you guys don't really have a bow sharpshooter type. I see a character with dual hand-crossbows but that's about it. Am I right in this?

I'd really love to play as a ranger/hunter style character, an elf if possible. But if you guys don't have that race, I'll work with something else.

[Dark Jack]

If you just give me access to whatever you've got up and running with the Compendium, Shien, that'll be fine for the time being. And I can definitely relate to your reason for not posting here before now; the constant unavailability of the RPGuild has been keeping me away for the past... several weeks by now, I think, too. My patience is certainly starting to run out by now, and if Mahz doesn't find a solution to the problem - or finds someone that can do so for him - it won't be a matter of subjectivity anymore; the current state of the RPGuild is going to kill the RP.

@Veridis Quo: The "Story so far" is a little outdated, actually, but not nearly as much as one would expect from something that hasn't been updated for that long. There are actually three groups of characters currently active within the RP: the group that was outside the gates of Zerul City, which has actually moved inside the city by now and has been brought together a little more intricately by an encounter in there; another group is by a secluded lake in Pelgaid, currently conversing with the demon lord known as the Grand Master and planning to head out in pursuit of Hazzergash, another demon lord; and lastly, one group will leave the borderhouse they have been staying at "very soon" and head to Zerul City as well, so they should arrive there "very soon" (the quotation marks are there because things never go as I plan or envision them).
The races are actually mentioned in the Compendium, yes; they can be found in the section called "Races of Reniam". They aren't the Tolkien-races, no, though part of the inspiration behind their design undeniably came from that, but essentially they are mostly my original creations.
And see, choosing a role that the group is missing gives a bit more freedom when there are multiple groups, although the group in Zerul City is supposed to soon merge with the one heading there. The two merging groups do seem to have just about all roles covered, however, except perhaps a proper mage. The other group desperately needs just about any kind of brawny backup, though, as it consists of just two mages, neither of which has any kind of prowess in physical confrontation (or they will, as soon as they aren't accompanied by a two thousand-year-old dragon anymore). A ranger/hunter, as you call it, would fit into that massive gap in ability as well as any kind of fighter. As for elves, the RP doesn't have them, but the deigan race is probably the closest match to the popular depiction of them.

[Shienvien]

Rilon has been defeated (for the time being), a third branch has spawned (one with Iridiel, Domhnall and Claw). and some things have happened inside Zerul City with the characters who before were out it, but other than that, the "story until now" should be more or less up to date.

As for characters, we currently (including NPCs) have:
Two agile attacker-from-shadows assassin types (Ixion and Morgan) and one lithe thief (Thaler).
Two predominantly swordsmen (Aemoten and Jaelnec; Jaelnec also has throwing knives, both have some skill with other weapons).
Two crossbow-wielders (Domhnall and Iridiel; Domhnall also has a spear and Iridiel has deity-given healing powers).
Two physically formidable beasts (Etakar and Claw/Ajanok; Claw also has sound magic).
One full mage (I'on).
One pretty much non-combat character (Olan).
...In addition, there are two horses (one Aemoten's, one a deceased group member's), a donkey (a deceased group member's), a raven (a deceased would-be group member's) and a wolf (Iridiel's).

As for dwarves and elves, then those have been replaced with penin and deigan respectively for this setting. Deigan have feathers for hair, but are otherwise fairly elf-like - a ranger/hunter type would most likely be a free deigan.

[Veridis Quo]

Is it tradition for deceased group members to leave their pets to you guys?

I can make a heavy armour guy. Doesn't look like you guys have any of that.

[Shienvien]

Erh... There is no tradition of leaving one's pets to the group should one decease per se, but it has simply happened so. You don't leave a perfectly good horse or donkey out in the wild, especially when you have more people than rides. And leaving a currently-flightless bird behind would simply be a bit cruel.

And yes, amongst the characters who are currently in the RP, there are no heavily armored people.

[yoshua171]

Technically speaking I'on is a battlemage. However, his close-combat skills are more or less supplementary in nature, for while he could hold his own with just his staff and no magic, he falls far short of someone specialized/highly skilled in the same area.

So yeah he's a full mage with supplementary close combat skills haha :P

Also, posted. If there are any issues please inform me :)

[Veridis Quo]

I'll go with the heavy armored fighter then.

Does Zerul have a military force that they can lend out a small faction of? I could bring my character in with a small group (maybe 3 or 4 guys) of highly trained armored fighters. Sort of like the knight type. From what I could read, the actual army was busy with something else (some sort of royal wedding?). So a small squad could be sent to you guys as help? I'd also control the NPCs, but expect them to die one by one.

[Dark Jack]

Quite frankly I'd say that the "highly trained" and "knight type" troops would be the first ones selected to accompany the duke, and thus likely the last ones available to send on an errand to escort a group of what is essentially just another band of unaffiliated questing adventurers. With a large chunk of the elite forces of the duchy off to the wedding, another part in Etlon to guard an excavation there, and the rest being busy trying to keep the city safe even with the confusion caused by the large number of incoming refugees, I sincerely doubt the Zerulic military has any kind of manpower to devote to things like this. Besides, the duchy already stationed a representative to receive the group at the gate; I doubt they'd send an escort on top of that.
But as I mentioned earlier I expect the main group to reach Zerul City very soon (at least I hope they will), and there are even already characters waiting in the city, so rather than sending your character to meet them on the way I'd suggest having it meet them in the city.

[Veridis Quo]

I meant joining in the city too. I'll figure out something that makes sense. What are you planning on doing once you've all reached Zerul?

[Dark Jack]

Well, the actual order of events are always up to the characters, but I believe the plan is for the group traveling there to rest up and restock on supplies, and for them to receive the information they were going there for in the first place in regards to how a person recovered from the Withering. They will probably receive the information immediately upon arriving (that is one of the tasks given to the representative meant to meet them), but what happens after that is at the mercy of free will. I suspect that they will either take a day or so to recuperate right away, postponing everything until they are all at least somewhat healthy again, or they might want to seek out the survivor of the Withering themselves to ask their own questions and get their own answers. Eventually they will most likely go to investigate exactly how the recovery occurred, though, and continue their quest to end the Withering.