[Hourglass of Zihaja D&D 4e] Heroes on a Sea of Swords OOC

[Shadow_Elf]

Okay, here is the OOC thread! First... a song! some business. This is an exercise from the DMG2, and I would like to give it a shot. I would like each player to pick one "tie" and one "contrast" among the other characters. We're just going to begin with one of each, you guys can hash out more later. Please don't double up on one character just yet, so its first come first serve. When I say tie and contrast, I mean basically positive memory/relationship/experience with that person and negative/sketchy/uncertain memory or whatever, respectively.

Example: Alim is a wizard who is often mistrusted by others, but the dashing Korran seems to have taken her under his protective wing, and despite the reputation of her trade, he is willing to trust her (tie). However, Korran is not fond of the quartermaster, One-Eyed Pete, because he thinks he's hiding some duplicitous nature beneath his eyepatch (contrast).

You guys don't have to make these up in your first posts, you can discuss it before making your choices. Also, text speech colours are first-come-first-serve, so get em' while they're hot. I will add a table with everyone's sheets and some other details soon.

As promised, here is the Anatomy of an IC combat post bit:

Spoiler

CHARACTER NAME
flufftext flufftext flufftext

Minor Action: Load Crossbow
Move Action: Move to A9
Standard Action: 1A - Piercing Strike @ TARGET

Spoiler

Attack: [roll]dicerolls[/roll] vs. DEFENSE
Hit: [roll]dicerolls[/roll] damage + hit effects
Effect: The effects

Skill checks etc.

Now, enjoy! I should have the IC thread up within a week, gives the players plenty of time to come in, sort out the party connection web and claim speech colours, mete out reagents, etc.

Treasure Thus Far:

Spoiler

+4 Spiritswing Shamshir - level 19

Spoiler

Possible Weapons: Heavy Blades
Enhancement: +4 attack rolls and damage rolls
Critical: +4d8 psychic damage
Property: When you hit a creature with this weapon, it loses the insubstantial quality (if it has it) and cannot phase, both until the end of your next turn.
Power (At-Will • Psychic): Free Action. All damage dealt by this weapon is psychic damage. Another free action returns the damage to normal.

+4 Wyvernsong Shamshir - level 17

Spoiler

Possible Weapons: Heavy Blade, Light Blade, Spear
Enhancement: +4 attack rolls and damage rolls
Critical: Ongoing 10 poison and acid damage (save ends)
Property: When you hit a target with this weapon that is taking ongoing damage, it takes a -4 penalty to saving throws against ongoing damage (save ends).
Power (At-Will • Acid, Poison): Free Action. All damage dealt by this weapon is acid damage and poison damage. Another free action returns the damage to normal.

2000 gp worth of Alchemical Subsidy

Quests and Experience:

Spoiler

Experience Total: 3818 XP Each
Next Level-Up: 12000 XP

Heart of the Conquerors
Major Quest
Objective: Slay or capture High Priest of Martuakh Hasnarash and The Salamander, both of the she-da-zhong invading army.
Rewards: Quest XP, Bounty

Guild Contract: The Snake
Minor Quest
Objective: Capture Vertasi the Snake, notorious pirate.
Update: Vertasi has claimed the Midnight Mirage. Oust him and reclaim the ship. Additionally, he has a lizardfolk in his crew who has a beef with Kihtsah. Perhaps he will explain later.
Update: Vertasi is in fact a woman, not a man, using a bound oni as her fall guy. She claims to be the Pirate Queen of Liars, but has been subdued by the Hunters. She claims to work for a "Lord Raven", but has not elaborated.
Rewards: Quest XP, Bounty

Guild Contract: In Viking
Minor Quest
Objective: Capture Hagar Hrolfsson, dangerous dvernin viking
Rewards: Quest XP, Bounty

Unearth Arcana
Major Quest
Objective: Decipher the Admajai war ritual
Update: The War Ritual requires a cipher to cast. Where might the crew be able to find such a thing? Perhaps Medinah can remember something from her past... or maybe Rahman's mysterious Voice has something to say?
Rewards: Quest XP, new ritual

Characters:

Spoiler

Character	Player
Kihtsah Darimil	Reverent-One
Amirah	Grey Wolf
Rahman Shamis	ninja_penguin
Medinah	Scylfing

Retired Characters:

Spoiler

Character	Player
Hakhpur gar Mubrak	Belthasar
Teshiq	A'den

[ninja_penguin]

I think I'm gonna jump in and claim Blue, as it's one of my go-tos for easy recognition.

I'll have to read up a little bit more before I make a total decision on everything else.

[Shadow_Elf]

Oh, and I nearly forgot. We have to name the ship! Feel free to suggest names, its up to you guys what it ends up. Some suggestions:

The Cerulean Crusader
The Blood Diamond
The Sapphire Slayer
The Working Name ()

[ninja_penguin]

Originally Posted by Shadow_Elf

The Working Name ()

I was secretly wondering if it'd end up canonically being called this due to lack of ideas/consensus.

[Grey_Wolf_c]

PC	Alchemical Reagents	Mystic Salves	Rare Herbs	Sanctified Incense	Residuum	Alchemical Subsidy
Kihtsah*	200	200	66	200	0
Amirah*	1000	3500	3866	1000	0
Rahman	1400	600	467	0	0
Hakhpur	500	1700	367	500	0
Teshiq	510	6090	267	3715	0
Medinah	400	300	267	300	0
Total	4010	12390	5300	5715		2000

Notes:

• Alchemical Subsidy materials can only be used to craft the following:
  • Alchemist's Fire
  • Alchemist's Acid
  • Blastpatch
  • Acidic Fire
  • Inferno Oil

Original Post:

Spoiler

Amirah will talk in unpleasant Murky Green (olive) in those few occasions when they speaks out loud, and in a much more pleasant Sea Green when engaging in mental communication.

As a first brainstorm idea for the ship name: The Flying Nereid.

Edit: while I will need to think about the contrast, I think that, unless there is objections, I will call my tie for Medinah. Both Amirah and her are very uncomfortable when going into human cities, too aware that a wrong word or even a wrong move can reveal them to be non-human. They are both particularly conscious of their lack of vocal skills - and so, when they have had to go into cities, they tend to stick together, and in those cases speech is need, Amirah will instead step in with her mental communication, creating a way for Medinah to "talk" to others through her. This, as well as the fact they self-identify as female, even though they don't really fit the whole definition of the term, has brought them quite close over the months of working together in the Working Name/Flying Nereid.

Edit 2: By the way, Shadow Elf, it goes without saying, but if you want to use the table I created in recruitment, feel free.

Grey Wolf

[Scylfing]

Cool, I'm glad you went with 6. That looks like a neat way of doing the shared backstory, the "tie/contrast" idea. I'd like to call Rahman as my tie (Amirah's tie to me sounds great), will have to read up on the others to figure out the contrast.

Oh and Medinah shall be Red. I'll give some thought to the ship name.

[Belthasar]

I'll pick a gnollish Dark Red.

I'll read about the ties and contrasts in the DMG2.

[Reverent-One]

Kihtsah will take dark orange.

I feel like there should some sort of connection between Rahman and Kihtsah (good or bad), as one's a kobold arcanist and the other is a half-kobold with a bit of the arcane literally running in his blood. Gotta say, I notice there's a rather high amount of magic users for a setting that hates them.

Though as Rahman seems to already be called as a tie, Hakhpur and Kihtsah might get along well, able to commiserate (quietly anyway) about freakish natures they were born with. As for contrast, a religious conflict between the proactive Adimas worshipper and balanced Daq-ite cleric sounds reasonable.

[Grey_Wolf_c]

Originally Posted by Reverent-One

That said, I notice there's a rather high amount of magic users for a setting that hates them.

Thus why they are hiding in a pirate hunting vessel rather than leading productive lives in a city. In the high seas, they need not answer to any short-sighted laws.

Thinking about contrasts, my first idea is Teshiq, since the very idea of worshipping a male god would baffle Amirah. But I'm not completely sold on the idea quite just yet.

Edit: heh. Ninja'ed by an edit. I suppose religious disagreements are the easiest to come up with.

Edit 2: As a second idea, I could have a contrast with Rahman, possibly through mental communication: once, Amirah picked up not Rahman himself but his sword-voice. Amirah would not know what happened, but gave her pause and thus is slightly mistrustful of the "kobold with two minds". That said, I would want ninja_penguin's OK, since I'm not sure how secret he intends to keep the voice.

Grey Wolf

[Belthasar]

Hmmm... Hakhpur would probably have tie with Testiq, since they both share their devotion to Daq. As for contrast, I still have to think about it.

As for the "Working Name," how about Duskbreaker(s)?

[Grey_Wolf_c]

As I was walking home today, I started thinking about the math behind the "pick a tie and a contrast" idea. The more I think about it, the more sense it makes in my mind - props have to be given to whomever thought about it (in TSR, or where they took it from).

In a standard 5-adventurer party, each character will be connected to every other, with two ties and two contrasts, two of which he chose and two of which were created by someone else. That is a great way of tying the party together from the start.

Now, in our 6-member party, each of us will be connected to four others, just as above, but there will also be three pairs of characters unconnected to each other. I would suggest that we expand the exercise one last step, connecting those pairs with a detail that is neither positive nor negative: a neutral connection. To continue the example of Shadow Elf in OP, Korran's turn to stand midnight watch always coincides with that of Tanis, but they are always too tired to do anything other than make sure they both stay awake.

This would give us the link with the final party member, without breaking the equilibrium of positive and negative.

Grey Wolf

[ninja_penguin]

Stealing Grey_Wolf_c's table for reference for all.

Character	Player
Kihtsah Darimil	Reverent-One
Amirah	Grey Wolf
Rahman Shamis	ninja_penguin
Hakhpur gar Mubrak	Belthasar
Teshiq	A'den
Medinah	Scylfing

Originally Posted by Grey_Wolf_c

As I was walking home today, I started thinking about the math behind the "pick a tie and a contrast" idea. The more I think about it, the more sense it makes in my mind - props have to be given to whomever thought about it (in TSR, or where they took it from).

I agree as well. The Dresden Files RPG does something very similar, and it's part of character creation. You guest star in somebody else's background, and you make one of your characters aspects something that's involved with it. It irritates me to no end that a lot of people waive it as optional, and just stick in whatever aspects they want.

[Shadow_Elf]

I like it. The issue arises in that you'll get an extra pair of connections if everyone picks their neutral relations independently. Those who feel like thinking about math (the which I do not) feel like thinking up a solution? The issue I am seeing is that a) this has to be a reciprocal relation, unlike the others and therefore b) people won't end up in neat "pairs" who've not got relations to each other at the end of the basic exercise without advance planning.

Did that make sense? I have a headache and am worried I may be incoherent.

[ninja_penguin]

Originally Posted by Reverent-One

Kihtsah will take dark orange.

I feel like there should some sort of connection between Rahman and Kihtsah (good or bad), as one's a kobold arcanist and the other is a half-kobold with a bit of the arcane literally running in his blood. Gotta say, I notice there's a rather high amount of magic users for a setting that hates them.

I was thinking the same. I'm still up in the air about what, exactly, I want to do with it yet.

Originally Posted by Grey_Wolf_c

Edit 2: As a second idea, I could have a contrast with Rahman, possibly through mental communication: once, Amirah picked up not Rahman himself but his sword-voice. Amirah would not know what happened, but gave her pause and thus is slightly mistrustful of the "kobold with two minds". That said, I would want ninja_penguin's OK, since I'm not sure how secret he intends to keep the voice.

I think I'm okay with this. Rahman is pretty secretive about Voice, as he doesn't want to lose it as he uses it as a reserve of knowledge sometimes.

Originally Posted by Scylfing

Cool, I'm glad you went with 6. That looks like a neat way of doing the shared backstory, the "tie/contrast" idea. I'd like to call Rahman as my tie (Amirah's tie to me sounds great), will have to read up on the others to figure out the contrast.

Oh and Medinah shall be Red. I'll give some thought to the ship name.

I did have one question: do people on board know that Medinah is a warforged, or does she stay in disguise most of the time?

[Grey_Wolf_c]

Originally Posted by Shadow_Elf

I like it. The issue arises in that you'll get an extra pair of connections if everyone picks their neutral relations independently.

That's the beauty of it: the neutral connections cannot be picked independently. When all the ties and contrasts are picked, there will be three pairs of characters that have not connected in any way - it is a mathematical certainty (group theory, to be precise. Which, since I'm a geek, I try to be ). Then it is just a matter of those pairs deciding how they are neutrally connected.

Say, as an example:

Character A has tied to B, and contrasted C
Character D has tied to A
Character E has contrasted A
The only character that can be left is F, who must have linked with everyone but A as well - or else, someone has been linked more than once in the same category.

By the way, since this has the potential to get messy, I think I'll try to build a table to show what is available to link. A colourful table, I think, to make it easier to see in one quick look. I'll mess around with the idea, see what comes out.

Edit: Table v1.0.

Active \ Passive	Kihtsah	Amirah	Rahman	Hakhpur	Teshiq	Medinah
Kihtsah	X	Neutral	(Passive)	Tie	Contrast	Passive
Amirah	Neutral	X	Contrast	Passive	Passive	Tie
Rahman	(Tie)	Passive	X	(Contrast)	Neutral	Passive
Hakhpur	Passive	Contrast	(Passive)	X	Tie	Neutral
Teshiq	Passive	Tie	Neutral	Passive	X	Contrast
Medinah	Contrast	Passive	Tie	Neutral	Passive	X

Notes:

• Populated with ideas so far; subject to revisions, changes, criticism, etc.
• "Passive" indicates that the connection has been established in the opposite direction, colour indicates type (blue: tie; red: contrast)
• For the table to be complete, there can only be one space left in each row and column. That space is the neutral connection.
• Parenthesis indicate connections that have not been detailed yet.

Hope that helps,

Grey Wolf

[Scylfing]

I'm glad to know I wasn't the only person puzzling over how the maths will work for a six-person party. Looks like you have a good solution worked out though.

Originally Posted by ninja_penguin

I did have one question: do people on board know that Medinah is a warforged, or does she stay in disguise most of the time?

I would say yes to both; she stays disguised most of the time, but it's reasonable that the crew would know Medinah's a warforged.

So clearly the biggest tie between our characters is that one is a Warforged and the other is a Self-Forged. Medinah would be amazed at a creature of flesh and blood becoming partly mechanical/alchemical and want to know more about both the process of it and what it's like for him (I imagine this holding true in reverse as well). Being both a kobold and an artificer, Rahman would remind Medinah of her "second father" Ibn Sina, so she'd probably be rather protective of him even though they're also both swordmages, which could be a point of contrast since they're of differing styles although I actually think it'd work out to be more complimentary that way.

For ship names, I'm starting to lean toward "The Sapphire Slayer."

[Shadow_Elf]

I actually think that two swordmages is an excellent defender set up. Swordmagi like to mark something and then run away, forcing that target to be crippled by constant attacks, poor positioning or poor damage. With two swordmages, they can mark enemies and then switch targets, allowing them to effectively tank twice as well each. That's my thinking, at least.

[Scylfing]

Yep, I think you're right. Swordmages definitely do better when their mark is forced to attack allies, so having a second defender in the party is a boon for them. Having one Swordmage built to negate damage and another to deal damage (and both making it harder for enemies to hit) should make for faster encounters. Also will make it a lot easier for us to shuffle our marks around since we're both hybrids.

[Shadow_Elf]

Actually, Rahman is a Swordmage MC Artificer, not a Swordmage|Artificer.

[Scylfing]

Ah I didn't notice that. Actually that's probably even better since that means Rahman's Aegis is at-will.

[ninja_penguin]

also, we can both mark two enemies each turn, so that makes for some rather decent crowd control.

Thank the gods the warding doesn't go away on unconsciousness anymore.


I'm also amused that both defenders have a +2 saving throw against ongoing damage and, in a level, will be incapable of bleeding out.

[A'den]

I'll claim Dark Slate Gray a color in tune for Daq.

I think the tie/contrast idea is great.

I agree with the contrast with Kihtsah, though perhaps it'll be more of a theological discourse than a fractious contest for Teshiq, he'd view Kihtsah as a sheperd herding sheep in a field ill-suited for grazing. At most a relationship of annoyance, and view his chaotic powers as divine turbulence in his meditations to Daq. Also I'd probably throw Medinah in this group since Teshiq is Mamlaqai and his people have bad memories of metal Soldiers from the wars after the Pact Spell and oral tradition dictates they are not truly in control of themselves but serve arcane masters.

As for a neutral aquirtance, I'd go back to my original idea of being the healer on the The Working Name that healed Rahman but in secret did not fully restore his arm on purpose because it would interrupt Daq's Balance as it would stop him from realizing his full potentional. If that's cool.

A Tie would be with Hakhpur whom he would view as a sheep in his flock whether Hakhpur acknowledges it or not since they both share The Third Path, Teshiq would act as a mentor and sounding board for the Gnoll, and would welcome him to join in meditation.


Just some ideas kicking around, hopefully that works with everyone?


Ship Name Ideas:
The Serene Falcon
Mirage
Scoundrel's Bane


Also I'm traveling abroad right now so if I drop off for a day or two don't fret I'll be back.

[Grey_Wolf_c]

Originally Posted by A'den

As for a neutral aquirtance, I'd go back to my original idea of being the healer on the The Working Name that healed Rahman but in secret did not fully restore his arm on purpose because it would interrupt Daq's Balance as it would stop him from realizing his full potentional. If that's cool.

A Tie would be with Hakhpur whom he would view as a sheep in his flock whether Hakhpur acknowledges it or not since they both share The Third Path, Teshiq would act as a mentor and sounding board for the Gnoll, and would welcome him to join in meditation.

Neutral links can only be decided upon once we know who is left unpaired, so that's a little early. Also, Hakhpur was already called as a tie by Kitsah. I've put it up on the table for the time being, but one of you will need to change.

Grey Wolf

[A'den]

Okay rgr, must of read the table wrong, so "Tie"s are taken and "Passive"s are open?

[Shadow_Elf]

Also, you do not contrast someone who is contrasting you, if that makes sense. If Kihtsah's contrast is Teshiq, then Teshiq's contrast cannot be Kihtsah, as they are already being contrasted. In the end, each character should end up contrasting two characters (once by their own choice) and tying into two characters (once by their own choice) and having a neutral relation with the last (decided once everything else is done by the way math works).

Also, anyone have any more ideas for the name of the ship? I think I will hold off on the IC thread until the whole tie/contrast exercise is done, as well as the naming of the ship.

[Reverent-One]

Originally Posted by A'den

Okay rgr, must of read the table wrong, so "Tie"s are taken and "Passive"s are open?

Passive means there's a connection going from the person named in the column to the person named in the row. For example, Kihtsah is tying to Hakhpur, so the intersection of the Kihtsah column and Hakhpur row has a blue "Passive" there. The only two character's not tied to yet are Amirah and Kihtsah.

There does seem to be an error in the table. Since Hakhpur called Teshiq as a Tie, the intersection of the Teshiq column and Hakhpur row should say Tie, not passive.

[Grey_Wolf_c]

Originally Posted by Reverent-One

There does seem to be an error in the table. Since Hakhpur called Teshiq as a Tie, the intersection of the Teshiq column and Hakhpur row should say Tie, not passive.

Indeed; corrected. I think I either missed Balthasar's tie, or thought it wasn't detailed enough to count as one. My bad in either case (particularly the second).

A'den, Reverent-One is pretty much spot on the money about the table. Each row details the connections of each character. Yours, for example, has been contrasted by Kihtsah and tied by Hakhpur. Furthermore, you have contrasted Medinah. You now would have to choose to tie either Amirah or Rahman, but Rahman is already tied passively by Medinah, so you are pretty much stuck with Amirah, unless someone else changes their minds about their own ties.

A row will be correctly filled when it has a tie, a contrast, a blue passive and a red passive. It cannot have more than one of any of them, though.

Grey Wolf

(Multiple edits: cleaned up the text for increased clarity, and a few corrections)

[A'den]

Alright makes sense enough:

Tie Amirah:
Teshiq though far from a homebody found Amirah's childish nature endearing and naturally sometimes acts in a fatherly or protective fashion around here, not that she needs it much but more out of a lost desire for children of his own.

[Grey_Wolf_c]

Originally Posted by A'den

Alright makes sense enough:

Tie Amirah:
Teshiq though far from a homebody found Amirah's childish nature endearing and naturally sometimes acts in a fatherly or protective fashion around here, not that she needs it much but more out of a lost desire for children of his own.

Table updated

Enough choices have been made that the rest of the connections now sort themselves out. I believe the following is the only correct combination left:

• Kihtsah has yet to be tied or contrasted to
• Amirah has yet to be contrasted to
• Rahman must tie Kitsah and contrast Hakhpur
• Hakhpur must contrast Amirah and needs to be contrasted himself
• Teshiq is complete
• Medinah must contrast Kitsah

Neutral connections:

• Kitsah-Amirah
• Rahman-Teshiq
• Hakhpur-Medinah

I have to say, squaring the connections was harder than it seemed it would be when we started out...

Hope that helps,

Grey Wolf

[Belthasar]

Sure, Hakhpur will contrast Amirah. He'll find her weird, or just plain strange.