The Savant

Nocturnal Memoirs: An Urban-Fantasy Mafia Epic

docs.google.com/document/d/1HpfxtaCyd…

Beach Day doc is go!

If the intro is way too derpy let me know lol. If you speak or interact with Martin or the Beach Bastards (Martin's minions) I'll reply to those sections as I see them, they won't interfere unless you state your directly getting their attention somehow~. Your welcome to have your characters arrive however you want alone or with other characters. Feel free to use any NPC's you have as well ^_^.

Hope you all enjoy~! If there's any issues let me know and I'll fix them~.

@flux

I'll check it out!

Nocturnal Memoirs: An Urban-Fantasy Mafia Epic

<Snipped quote by The Savant>

I think its definitely a fun idea, especially for a setting like this that while we've all definitely had a lot of fun in it OOC, leans kind of dark for the characters haha. The non-canon, AUs, what-ifs, "bonus content" and etc. is something I used to see done a lot years ago in RP circles but not a ton anymore, though it would be nice and maybe cathartic too, to see some other sides of the characters that we might not normally get to see.

@Yankee

I know, I haven't see the twists/spin-offs for a long time in RP, so it could definitely be cathartic and relaxing to a point. It could be very fun. Plus, it could definitely show some of the characters in different lights and more relaxed and so on.

Nocturnal Memoirs: An Urban-Fantasy Mafia Epic

<Snipped quote by The Savant>

That honestly might be the best decision. It could also allow for further non-cannon explorations of players characters as well, that space for them to sit down and muse about life and what not as players wish haha~. It could also allow for 'deleted scenes', pieces that don't quite work out and aren't posted to the Canon line, but can live somewhere for people to read for fun (An example would be that piece of Khor talking to the chainsaw as if it was a stray dog following her I put awhile back in the OOC lol).

@flux

That could definitely be fun. I do not know how others would think about the idea or not. I am someone who enjoys what-ifs and twists, and not official stories and such.

Nocturnal Memoirs: An Urban-Fantasy Mafia Epic

<Snipped quote by The Savant>

Please.

Ruin him

Looking forward to Asterion's shenanigans haha

And again, if anyone just wants to have their own events/interactions within please do! The Melt Martin's Mind Minigame is only there to give players something to spark ideas ^_^. Absolutely welcome to deviate from or have your own moments as you wish~.

<Snipped quote by The Savant>

Absolutely fair, and I apologize if I insinuated anything with my example. It looks like players so far are leaning toward a Wealth/Personnel freeze, in that case I might formulate the Aid Crisis to lean towards more of a PvE focused arc where resources aren't necessary.

@flux

We could honestly make a separate thread called Nocturnal Memoirs: Universe and possibly have the beach day there and other weird plots so we don't fill up this one with randomness and what-nots and what-ifs. Then that keeps everything separate and could still be fun for Est return and leaves it not as messy for her either.

Nocturnal Memoirs: An Urban-Fantasy Mafia Epic

Alright, I'll break this down into sections with headings so hopefully it makes it easier to read. There will be a summary in the next post too if this is too much. Please feel free to ask me any questions or make any suggestions.

Order of contents:
- General continuation of the game (Peronsel/Wealth, The War and Esty characters).
- District conflict resolution (Supplement rules if required, otherwise as agreed by players)
- Beach Episode (Fun little piece and time to regroup ideas/direction)
- Aid Crisis round (minor story impact event)
- Me in this situation (An unexpected turn of events)

- : Peronsel/Wealth generation, The War and Estylwen character territories : -

The beach episode will not acquire anyone Wealth or Personel as it is an out of character event. The end of the Aid Crisis round will continue standard play and I'll maintain the 0'th post in terms of Wealth and Personel income. (Unless agreed otherwise by players).

Regarding the war. In my mind it does not feel right to play out Estylwen's characters (Ezra Blackheart, Antonia Franchesca, Vincenzo “Vincent” Accardo) when she has worked so hard to build them and establish their presence in the world. For this reason I think it best to hold the war and interactions with Esty's characters for that of a month (longer if we can easily manage it). After this period we will decide as a group what to do moving forward, voting on options we place on the table and failing that I'll make the call. I propose two options at this point (and welcome others to propose solutions as well):

Option 1: We classify Estylwen's area's as locked down. Writing this should be easy, @SporkoBug's monsters overrun the area, military assumes martial law and occupies it etc, the lock down cleared once Esty returns.

Option 2: After a wait period Esty's territory becomes free game. I'll write resistance but otherwise it'd be like acquiring any empty territory. Once Esty returns those territories or some territories of the strongest players would undergo a "revolution" of sorts to return Esty's characters to the game with land to fight from.

In my opinion, option 2 would be best but relies on the good will of the strongest players to accept the loss of some territories to allow @Estylwen's return when she gets back. This would ensure that the territories don't get left behind through no upgrades or lack of geopolitical activity. Option 1 is easier, but leaves swarths of area inaccessible in stasis.

I propose these options so everyone can continue playing until her return. In my experience, projects like this that go on hiatus for extended periods rarely pick up again, so I hope my options allow Nocturnia to continue while keeping the seat warm for Esty so to speak.

Regardless of what is decided, Esty's characters will be written aside so they are free to return with her and free characters currently locked in interactions with them (Example: Ezra holding Adel, will PM @Yankee and @ERode about that. Anyone else locked in Esty interactions let me know and we'll figure a route out of it if necessary).

With that being said, onto that of faction vs faction conflict.

- : Game battles and District wars : -

My experience so far with fighting for districts has been that so long as the aggressor has the manpower/wealth to invade, they can initiate the event. From there the two parties write the battle and more or less amicably agree who the victor is through the writing (Esty explained it as a gacha game, but with no notes on actual mechanics, this is my best interpretation).

If this does not work moving forward, I'll propose a ruleset to roll for district victories so they can be rolled for and settled that way. Otherwise players are more than welcome to continue writing battle conclusions as they agree outside of dice and chance.

Draft district dice roll rules in hider:

Draft district dice roll battle rule

The aggressor pays as they would normally do to acquire the district. This adds that many personel to their pool. The defender can abandon the district or dedicate personel as they choose. Players can then negotiate so many more personel to the fight (1 Wealth = 3 Personel) in turns until both pass adding troops.

Final roll values will be D20 + wagered personel if decided to be a single roll. Otherwise turn by turn rolls where the roller inflicts the D6 casualties per turn (or decided upon dice for larger fights), fight ended when a player loses all dedicated personel and characters or withdraws. Characters would roll D6 vs, the character incapacitated if rolled lower than the other party, but always inflicting those casualties they rolled.

Example scenario:
Khor the attacker(A) has invaded Adel the defender(D) in Silverside. Silverside is an aristocratic district so Khor(A) requires 20 wealth and 40 personel to invade. The 40 personel go to Khor's(A) dedicated count, Adel(D) chooses to add 30 personel. Khor(A) adds another 10 personel to reach 50 total personel. Adel(D) spend 5 wealth to add 15 personel to reach 45 personel. Khor(A) passes further reinforcement. Adel(D) passes further reinforcement. Battle begins.

Single dice roll rule:
Khor(A) rolls a D20 for 5, her D20 result(5) + 50 personel = 55, Adel(D) rolls a D20 for 18, his D20 result(18) + 45 = 63
Adel(D) has successfully defended his district, losing 45 personel. Khor(A) has been defeated and loses 50 personel.

Turn by Turn dice roll rules:
Khor(A) and Adel(D) agree to roll a D20 instead of a D6 to speed up the fight. As the attacker Khor goes first, rolling a 13. Adel(D) loses 13 personel leaving him with 45 - 13 = 32 personel left, he rolls a 20. Khor(A) now has 50 - 20 = 30 men. This continues until Khor(A) has no men and Adel(D) has 10. Khor(A) decides to join the fight in character rather than retreat. Khor(A) rolls a 13 and Adel(D) rolls a 15. Khor(A) successfully wipes out all remaining troops but cannot conquer the district as she is incapacitated. Adel(D) may decide Khor's(A) fate.

The above rules are only there for players who wish to use them or settle disputes in battles if required.

- : Beach episode : -

I propose we take two weeks minimum to develop this (9th March - 23rd March) as both a well earned fun break and time for Esty to return. If anyone has direct contact or alternative details it'd be a really nice piece if they could send it to her as a PDF for her to read in her spare time.

I've also contacted an artist friend to hopefully commission and help co-create a beach portrait of all the current major characters. Something of a "Best Wishes/Get Well Soon" postcard and little gift for everyone for putting so much into this so far. Worst case we'll have the PDF at the very least. Once it's done or close to finished we'll decide if it goes in the IC posted clearly as an INTERMISSION - ALT UNIVERSE piece, in the OOC or somewhere else entirely.

In terms of the beach piece. Here's the setting:

Martin Luthin is a lifeguard, but he's better known as a dick who kicks over sandcastles. He likes the rules, and it's time to ruin Martin's day.

You get 3 points for every rule you break. I'll decide which player gets the points if multiple people break the same rule based on creative and comedic value with runners up for 2 and 1 points. The player with the most points at the end earns the honor of having ruined martins day.
(Or you can just write your characters doing whatever they want, interacting with whoever, however. Enjoy~!)

RULES TO BE BROKEN:
1 - No open fires/flammable sources.
2 - No loud music/noises.
3 - No firearms/weapons/explosives.
4 - No hunting.
5 - No vehicles.
6 - No camping.
7 - No Animals.
8 - No drugs.
9 - No surfing.
10 - Do not feed the wildlife.

Also, PM me or post in the OOC mentioning me with what your main player character would wear to the beach and me and friend will get to starting the art piece for the beach episode to be sent along with the final piece for Esty and everyone here. We can get char refs from the portraits but further detail is always appreciated~. A character brief should include:
- Character clothing.
- Character pose.
- Character activity (optional).

For example: Khor wears a full wetsuit with a scuba rebreather and purple/magenta stripes. She's intense in a comedic sense with her pose. She's throwing Adel into the surf.

- : Aid Crisis round : -

If Esty isn't back after the 'beach episode' round, we'll continue with the Aid Crisis IC to keep things rolling. The aim is for this to be a significant event that doesn't alter Esty's overall plot but provides players the opportunity to continue their dominion of Nocturnia. The reason for this is to avoid a long Hiatus (unless it is agreed upon by all players) to avoid the RP from dying out.

At this stage I'll likely PM all players at the start of it inquiring any plotlines they had with Esty and where they'd like their characters to go/what plots they'd like to ensure the RP is tailored to peoples preferences (to the limit of staying in the lines of Nocturnia's setting).

Ultimately for me this would mean my characters would also take a background role and my territories would be up for grabs by anyone as if they were free so I can focus on maintaining the world's reactions to or supporting player's actions. Khor, Antonio and Akir will still play their roles due to their place in the story now but can assumed to be 'factionless'.

This would also begin deviating from Esty's ultimate vision for Nocturnia. I'll do everything I can to respect her work and ideas but I simply just don't know everything she had planned and my additions will inevitable change the course somewhat. My efforts will be in the best of faith, but even my style of writing compared to hers is going to make things feel different, so I apologize in advance if that becomes more noticeable over time.

Finally, my position in this!

- : Flux the accidental show runner : -

Me and Esty have discussed deep plot points, no complete reveals but I have a general idea as to the source of power and how to make that a wild good event should players go for it (it'll shine best as players pooling resources and going together to find it). As for leaving the city, that's at least fairly self explanatory and pieces writing for the military have left me well equipped to handle that one.

On this though, I have no notes, no over arching plot, no idea outside what is mostly posted in the OOC first post about what and how Nocturnia is. It'll take me some time to develop some basic framework to follow (the beach episode will hopefully be long enough) but I'll also reach out to players for plots/developments they'd like to see to weave in.

Moving forward I'll coordinate the game/story according to arcs/chapters. This arc being The War. Once it concludes I'll see what direction everyone is going in and decide the next crisis/challenge to overcome until players are satisfied to write an ultimate ending or exit for their character/s. For example the next Arc could be Finding the Source of Power, if the prerequisite is paid for.

Finally, my own situation. I've been working a bit back and forth with Esty on this and have committed a fair amount of effort, but in open honesty I'm not currently sure if I'm in the position to run this indefinitely. I can do this for a month without impacting myself in the foreseeable future but beyond I simply won't know until we get there.

At that point, I'll either confirm myself able to continue or at least hopefully hold long enough to pass the reins again should it be necessary.

- : PHEW : -

Well this was a long damn post wasn't it? Don't worry I'll have a summary below.

@flux

I feel like Asterion might break two of those rules... probably four. Maybe five. What if he wants to surf?

Also, I like the read over of everything.

However, I think it wouldn't make sense to keep giving wealth and personnel (Erode brought that up to) so I don't know if expanding the fruit gardens/patches of plants would make sense for Asterion and his men to do.

Nocturnal Memoirs: An Urban-Fantasy Mafia Epic

<Snipped quote by The Savant>

I like this idea, that way Est will have an easier time once they return ^^. Nothing to catch up to. It would be like a nice...filler episode haha.

@Qia

Every anime has those random filler episodes that don't make sense or they take way too long like Naruto. 😂 It could be a nice touch and it would help keep everyone interested hopefully along with making it easier for est to return too.

I'm excited to see what ideas Flux has up their sleeve as well. Their post got me interested.

Nocturnal Memoirs: An Urban-Fantasy Mafia Epic

Currently, my character and NPCs are in an interesting situation, because I was writing up a storm with Est in a google document.

People were asking for those "nice break scenes" we could possibly put everything on hold and have an imaginary reality sequence or something. So it's not overly serious and can be fun while Est is away.

𝔻𝕠𝕞𝕚𝕟𝕚𝕠𝕟: ℝ𝕖𝕕𝕚𝕤𝕔𝕠𝕧𝕖𝕣 𝕥𝕙𝕖 𝕊𝕦𝕣𝕗𝕒𝕔𝕖

We have three people in this now. I believe that I am going to start writing up an entrance post and post it this upcoming Monday.

𝔻𝕠𝕞𝕚𝕟𝕚𝕠𝕟: ℝ𝕖𝕕𝕚𝕤𝕔𝕠𝕧𝕖𝕣 𝕥𝕙𝕖 𝕊𝕦𝕣𝕗𝕒𝕔𝕖

Sorry for the delay.

Kit

Name - Kit Galloway

Age: 24

Reference

Physical Description:
Standing at 5' 8", Kit makes you think of a savvy alley cat. They have wide jade-green eyes. Their thick, curly, ash brown hair is worn in a casual style. Weighing in at 139 pounds, they have a graceful, wiry build and is double-jointed. Their skin is pale. They have small ears and long-fingered hands. Due to the nature of their job, Kit's wardrobe is complicated.

Enhancements:
BioMonitor II: This is a long-term medical device, with an injection port located on the upper left chest that can store various drugs that it can release over time directly into the blood stream. On his left wrist, there's a subdermal display that can be used by a doctor. The unit monitors his medical stats and can alert nearby medical systems if there's an issue, even shock his heart with internal defibulators.

SecondBrain: This rather unique bit of hardware is implanted near the base of the spine and acts as an encrypted archive that only the operator can access.

Status: Business Resolution Analyst, Galloway Industries. License to carry.

Backstory:
First-born of Oliver Reed & Naomi Christensen, there were unexpected complications with the birth. Rumor claims Naomi tried to strangle her child, reasons unknown. She left hospital the next day and filed for divorce two days later.

Part of the divorce settlement was NDAs to all parties involved, but rumors suggest Kit had some sort of mutation.

A nurse who was hired by the Christensen household reportedly misunderstood her instructions and abandoned the child near a Burrower encampment where it was rumored that they eat abandoned babies (it's not a rumor). On discovery, a recovery team was dispatched - and Kit was found in the care of a young dweller named Gator who had rescued him before he was discovered by others.

Oliver ordered the recovery team bring the dweller as well.

Within the week, the baby was officially disinherited and transfered to the Galloway cadet branch, with fees for his and Gator's care coming from the Christensen household.

Kit spent his formative years with home tutors and Gator, before being entered into a private high school for his junior years. Rumors that he was a mutant followed him, but Kit had a medical waiver that kept him out of Physcial Education, so there's no conclusion one way or the other. However, three months into the year, he wound up becoming a member of an after-school host club being run by the son of the school's principal.

College followed graduation, and he's spent the last two years at Galloway Industries where he wound up in their Business Analyst group as a Resolution specialist, a sort of internal company detective.

@Expendable

It happens. I love Kit! Add him to the character list.

Nocturnal Memoirs: An Urban-Fantasy Mafia Epic

Daily Reminder.

@LanaStorm

I didn't know our own Valencia Nocturnal made music.