General/OOC

[greyarea]

Romer is ready!

[Marullus]

Welcome! Looks like a good generalist.

[Liaozhai]

Hi there! It looks like we are going to tear down some unjust institutions.

Sorry it's taken me so long to get everything together, work has been really crazy this week and I was having trouble committing to backstory stuff.

[Marullus]

Nice! I look forward to interplay between Wei and Damian. How does Wei conceptualize his abilities?

Damian believes magic is science that normal minds can't concieve of. His powers come from advanced understanding of multidimensional folding and metadimensional theory. It looks like Wei is working with some legal/spiritual paradigm? Both jive with a "people don't believe in magic" norm and are likely confused by the masses with the "we are afraid of psychics" theme in the story so far.

I like that Wei belongs to some greater order and brings understanding. I look forward to his influence on Damian and encourage you to interact. Damian comes from a tradition that has devolved to rote ritual and where his functioning level of actual practice marks him as a progedy. He is arrogant and thinks he is special, and is acting unilaterally/selfishly without any concept of the harmony Wei bases himself in. He disguises himself as a normal, generic mechanic out of self-preserving fear of being persecuted like a psychic.

[Liaozhai]

Wei conceptualizes his abilities as an expression of deep understanding of a philosophical principle: The universe is fundamentally without form. Language, laws, our physical forms, all "being" is illusory, produced and sustained by this 'void,' which is unlimited, unnameable, unmoving, and unchanging. So he speaks all languages because all languages are just expressions of this void. Later class abilities, like knowing all laws and changing form down to the DNA structure, also operate on this understanding.

To give the game away a little more, this all comes from traditional Chinese beliefs about 'nothingness' that underpinned certain interpretations of Daoism and heavily influenced Buddhist thought when it came to ancient China from India. I think this lines up with the heavy Buddhist flavor of the class in the Codex book and what Crawford explains in more explicit terms here. I didn't want to step on Faanku's toes with the Exchange of Light, so I made this other organization (which could easily be funded by the Exchange through a series of shell companies and silent partners.)

I couldn't really tell you how any of it "actually works;" if I were to try, I'd have to trade out ancient philosophy for pseudoscience phrases like 'morphic resonance.' His abilities are pretty subtle, but in this setting, it could easily be confused with an unusual form of telepathy if someone were both observant and paranoid.

It should be interesting how the party interacts! Hopefully Wei can help Damian on a path of spiritual enlightenment, but as it is written in the Book of Green Rain: I can only show you the door...

[ybn1197]

My posting for at least the next 2 weeks is going to be slower than normal. I provide IT for one of the major hospitals here in Baltimore and thanks to the Corona virus we are working double time trying to support those users who are working from home and the physicians who are trying to provide care through telemedicine in addition to the normal IT requirements we all have and support. I will post as I can but please don't wait on me. RP my character if necessary. I will hope in when and where I can.

[Faanku]

No worries, man. Stay safe.

[Faanku]

Just to clarify the state of play on Kakimides; access to the planet is under heavy scrutiny from both sides of the war, but IS still possible. Humanitarian aid workers, smugglers, mercenaries and more are all still flocking to the planet to help alleviate and/or capitalise on the conflict.
The Navy Loyalists have dominant control of the planet's orbitals, but they're spread ever thinner trying to combat the growing opportunistic pirate threat to the system's asteroid mines and other stations. Humanity First is generally in charge planetside and control most all the key infrastructure. On the whole, neither side is particularly keen to destroy their own home, as they both view themselves as the "defenders."

[Enoch]

So "humanitarian relief mission" is a viable cover, especially given the ship.

[Faanku]

[Marullus]

#Lifegoals


(I meant to imply he's less likeable and more of an intellectual prick, but this is more awesome. )

...I also accept it is also established that he totally misuses his magical powers for sex (off camera).

[Faanku]

The real question is which crew member embraced him.

[Faanku]

I'm sorry for the lack of posting, some serious things have happened at work that I need to sort out.

[Marullus]

Really sorry for such horrible news.

Don't worry about us. We can pick back up when you're ready.

[Faanku]

To keep you guys updated; we got a lot of stuff back through a combination of luck and money, but the next few weeks will involve a whole load of tedious manual data entry to try and get things fully back up and running. Updates will be a little less frequent than usual for a while, but I didn't want to leave the game dead any longer.

[greyarea]

I appreciate that you are putting in the effort to keep the game alive. Thank you.

I do not envy your workload. Best luck.

[Marullus]

A horrific circumstance in a time of horrible circumstances. We appreciate you. Stay sane.

[Faanku]

As they come out of jump

Oh god don't jinx the first spike drive. Never mind, I forgot Silas can trim for free with his Starfarer talent.

[Faanku]

OK, so if we're going to ship combat it might be best to go over things in here instead of having 2 pages of OOC in the main thread.
The first thing to do is choose who is heading each of the five Departments listed on page 117. Then Silas will need to make an initiative check (1d8+INT) to see if you beat the pirate's score of 8.

[Marullus]

Oh, this is exciting! I have never tried the ship combat rules!

It looks like we have natural roles for the Departments. Going with our specializations, I suggest:

Bridge: Silas
Captain: Vyrner Odo
Comms: Benedict 'Pilfer'
Engineering: Damian Stavros
Gunner: Romer Kwik

Aghnar and Wei Xi'an are both AWOL... Will they be NPC'd?

Otherwise everyone has narrative freedom as they generate command points with the general moves below.

Most actions have a cost in Command Points.
Usually, some PCs choose to Do Your Duty or go Above
and Beyond to generate Command Points, while others
then spend them on actions for their department. All
unspent Command Points are lost at the round’s end.

Above and Beyond (0 CP): Push yourself to help the ship
or its crew. Pick an attribute and skill check and
explain how you’re using it to help the ship. If the
GM agrees, roll it against difficulty 9. On a success,
gain your skill level in Command Points plus one.
On a failure, take -1 Command Point.
Deal With a Crisis (0 CP): Explain what you are doing
to solve a Crisis and roll the relevant skill check.
The difficulty is usually 10, plus or minus 2 de-
pending on the situation and the effectiveness of
your action. On a success, the Crisis is resolved.
You may also use this action to aid another PC in
resolving a Crisis, or to take one scene’s worth of
other actions around the ship.
Do Your Duty (0 CP): The ship gains 1 Command Point.
PCs who head more than one department can act
only in one of them; the rest automatically take
this action. If invoked by a PC, they must name
some plausible act the PC is doing to be useful, and
can’t do the same act two rounds in a row.