Notes from Brainstorming
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(09:21:05) Saruna: alright, time for brainstorming! so we have scarab people, ruins, and a small team
(09:21:22) Saruna: I was thinking like they started with 5-7 people?
(09:22:16) Sertor Potens: That makes sense, plus whatever civilians they were escorting
(09:22:32) Saruna: lets say six of them then
(09:22:51) Saruna: annnd are we saying they were going from point a to point b with the ruins as point c in the middle?
(09:23:15) Saruna: sort of a standoff hole up with the scarab people, or was it a dig or something in the ruins that then awakened the scarab horde?
(09:23:26) Sertor Potens: The latter
(09:24:11) Saruna: digging up a magical artifact from the times of the changer's war for profit and power, sound good?
(09:24:13) Sertor Potens: Old ruins, ancient artifact of a lost people, and oh woops those are fucking large bugs, oh dear gods they are eating us
(09:24:21) Saruna: hahaha
(09:25:03) Sertor Potens: Mind you, at least the scarabs keep the sandworm population down
(09:25:04) Saruna: can they be scarab shifters
(09:25:12) Saruna: where they go from little scarabs to monster scarabs ?
(09:25:18) Sertor Potens: I was thinking not shifters, no
(09:26:24) Sertor Potens: I'm kind of fond of the idea of the world having all these weird remnant species of the Changers' War living in their own little niches
(09:26:27) Saruna: drag out survival situation or shit hitting the fan in the matter of a day?
(09:27:51) Sertor Potens: The latter would make the most sense. Maybe a single day where they think they're on top of it, except it's just the hive drones that they killed, and when the warrior beetles come out on mass with their chitin blade arms, shit gets real
(09:28:46) Saruna: mmk, so maybe like two civs directing shit and another what, 5, 10 workers?
(09:29:18) Three: can't hear the word chitin
(09:29:20) Three: without
(09:29:21) Three:
http://alera.wikia.com/wiki/Vord
(09:29:26) Three: all up in my brains
(09:29:40) Saruna: nyehhhh
(09:29:56) Saruna: it makes me think of seventh grade biology
(09:29:58) Sertor Potens: Yeah, that seems about right
(09:31:17) Saruna: okay so when we start the thread do we want everyone else confirmed as dead, or just have them separated? Should they still be trying to finish the mission or 'screw everyone, get out alive' mentality?
(09:31:47) Sertor Potens: See some of the illustrations here:
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/13 ... lien-host
(09:32:07) Sertor Potens: Such as
https://s3.amazonaws.com/ksr/assets/00 ... 352168126
(09:32:39) Sertor Potens: Hmm. Good question
(09:33:00) Sertor Potens: I think, whichever way we go, they should always have a reputation for 'finishing the job'
(09:33:33) Saruna: so a high octane both of them are crazy confidence boosted 'we got this' flair to the situation?
(09:33:57) Saruna: ahhh okay so a bipedal scarab group, I was thinking more buggy -- works for me
(09:34:27) Sertor Potens: Or even a 'This is so fucking stupid why did we even take this job what were we even thinking godsdammit well fuckit we are getting this done bugs or no bugs but there'd better be a damn bonus'
(09:34:36) Saruna: I like that
(09:35:16) Sertor Potens: Or, as Sertor might put it: "Thingf have gotten rather complicated, but we muft complete our tafk with honour and diligenf"
(09:35:28) Saruna: okay so at thread start they should have a rather good feel for the capabilities of the buggers, we can always keep a few things back for surprises later
(09:35:49) Saruna: tagi's thoughts : "dammit there's good eating here and I want it!"
(09:35:55) Sertor Potens: We could start with MOST of the people dead
(09:36:07) Three: Those illustrations look like they belong in Tzal.
(09:36:21) Saruna: I kinda like the thought of them knowing there's a couple others alive to give them a good reason to stick around, yeah
(09:36:34) Sertor Potens: But enough left that Tagi has to hold off on the corpse munching, and enough for a couple of posts featuring horrible dismemberment
(09:36:50) Saruna: like maybe one of the civvie leaders, a few workers, one of the other mercs?
(09:36:56) Saruna: like they're all cut off from each other?
(09:37:48) Sertor Potens: Anyone who gets cut off from the mercs is dead. I was thinking they holed up in one of the more intact buildings to work out a plan for the survivors to keep on surviving
(09:38:14) Sertor Potens: The ones who didn't think fast got ganked
(09:38:28) Sertor Potens: The ones who stuck with the mercs made it into the old building
(09:38:44) Sertor Potens: And THEN SOMEONE FINDS A BASEMENT TUNNEL =D
(09:39:00) Saruna: in that case, four npcs at the most
(09:39:51) Sertor Potens: Big building. I'm thinking 3 Mercs, four Civvies, with the expectation of losing 2 more mercs and 3 civvies within a few posts?
(09:40:02) Saruna: okay, that's good
(09:40:06) Sertor Potens: I'm thinking they hole up in an old temple, as it was built to last
(09:40:58) Saruna: to make sure we're on the same page, we're talking like tomb type ruins? or aboveground city ruins?
(09:41:25) Sertor Potens: Both
(09:41:40) Saruna: so pretty much a very old city with the works?
(09:42:14) Sertor Potens: Yep! A city with a strong tradition of catacombs and stone buildings
(09:42:57) Sertor Potens: Built into a sandstone mesa
(09:43:18) Saruna: should they have hold of their artifact or a miss so we can come back some years later to get it?
(09:43:23) Sertor Potens: So the aboveground city is just the tip of the iceberg, as it were
(09:43:56) Sertor Potens: Hmmm. Sertor isn't the type to retreat. He'd stay until the job was done
(09:44:02) Sertor Potens: It's in his weaknesses, even
(09:44:16) Saruna: at that point though it would be the decision of the civvie leader
(09:44:46) Sertor Potens: Depended on how the contract was worded =D
(09:45:06) Saruna: heheh
(09:45:26) Sertor Potens: If Sertor's contract specified 'retrieval of X artifact' then by the Ancient Triarii he'd retrieve X artifact
(09:45:52) Sertor Potens: Wouldn't matter if he then had to bury it with the body of the bastard who'd hired him then managed to get themselves killed
(09:46:43) Saruna: let's do that then for some conflict between him and one of the civvie leaders? leader wants to gtfo and sertor is like 'nope!'
(09:46:44) Sertor Potens: (Which is we he has learned to demand at least half payment in advance, via his Brokerage account in Qadis)
(09:46:50) Sertor Potens: YES
(09:47:34) Saruna: Imma look up scarabs real quick
(09:47:37) Sertor Potens: "Fir, I will not be party to breach of contract. I waf hired to retrieve faid artifact, and retrieve faid artifact I will!"
(09:49:18) Sertor Potens: Honestly, they are just dung beetles. I was going to use them for visual inspiration only
(09:49:53) Saruna: sometimes it's neat to tie in interesting biology bits here and there, though
(09:50:14) Sertor Potens:
http://www.examiner.com/article/scient ... ng-beetles
(09:50:18) Sertor Potens: Agreed
(09:50:49) Saruna: brb stirrin soup
(09:51:00) Sertor Potens: ^My inspiration for the Scarab Warriors to be aggressive carnivores =D
(09:51:30) Sertor Potens: And why I want them to, when not dining on silly humans, feed on sandworms which lurk in the deserts surrounding their mesa
(09:52:43) Sertor Potens: "But there are some clues pointing towards what may have caused the leap. Forsyth continues with, "We knew plenty of dung beetles which are attracted to dead insects - drawn by their potent cyanide-rich odours. And now we find a species which just couldn't wait. This is a beetle which says: 'It doesn't matter if it's dead or alive, I'm going to eat it'.”
(09:53:35) Sertor Potens: "This is a beetle which says: 'It doesn't matter if it's dead or alive, I'm going to eat it'."
(09:53:57) Sertor Potens: Nature inspires so much of my RP =D
(09:56:05) Sertor Potens: And, counter to the Dune 'Walk without rhythm, and you won't attract the worm' notion, I'm going to have this thing where the beetles get together and drum the sand to attract the attention of the sandworms before setting upon them as a swarm. There's good eating in one of them.
(10:01:03) Saruna: I like it -- reading article now
(10:03:33) Saruna: mm, so the rhino people were made by which changer?
(10:04:48) Sertor Potens: Whichever one was in charge of the Roman Empire
(10:05:23) Sertor Potens: Shame we don't have a HANDY LIST OF CHANGERS, huh =D
(10:05:49) Saruna: kk, what if more normative scarab things were made as part of farahu's army, and in the backlash of the war this subgroup was a mutation? And over thousands of years they were hunted out and thought to have finally been made extinct (or close enough) ?
(10:06:00) Sertor Potens: Who was Farahu?
(10:06:18) Saruna: that was me trying to remember the name of the african changer
(10:06:25) Saruna: and hoping I got the name right
(10:06:33) Sertor Potens: African Changer is fine by me
(10:07:01) Sertor Potens: Maybe one day someone will compile a LIST of the CHANGERS for easy reference *HINT HINT* >:-D
(10:07:12) Saruna: oki, so good with saying these scarab thingies have a great sense of smell?
(10:08:02) Sertor Potens: Yeah. Beetle sensory organs. Communication is a combination of fricative sounds and chemical indicators
(10:08:59) Sertor Potens: I imagine back in the day the African changer would just mark entire enemy armies with the chemical smell for 'eat me please' so as not to confuse the scarab warriors.
(10:09:17) Sertor Potens: Who I am naming the Nehkhepera
(10:09:52) Saruna: love it
(10:10:00) Sertor Potens: Riffing off the Khepri mythological tie-in of ancient egypt
(10:10:15) Sertor Potens: I'll probably do a full World Dev writeup of the beetles too
(10:10:31) Saruna: ahaha
(10:10:35) Sertor Potens: Give them a thread of their very own
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(11:42:41) Sertor Potens: I guess we should probably decide what the artifact they are looking for is, and why the employer wants it
(11:48:07) Sertor Potens: Maybe it's just a collectable, an old symbol of authority for the ruler of that city enclosed in his tomb
(11:49:05) Sertor Potens: Something with little sorcerous value, but a lot of 'obsessive' value for a rich antiquarian
(11:49:20) Saruna: maybe something like a rosetta stone?
(11:49:38) Navarre: Though I'm not certain how long it will last. ><; By no means a permanent fix.
(11:49:43) Sertor Potens: Or a sceptre, or a seal
(11:49:48) Saruna: so maybe the job got subcontracted out -- so the civvie leader hired the mercs but was himself hired by some other rich eccentric dude?
(11:49:58) Sertor Potens: Aye
(11:52:05) Sertor Potens: Scepters were the most popular symbol of authority in egyptian-influenced cultures
(11:52:09) Gia Rilan: oh la dee dah, I'm James and I know shit about crowns
(11:52:24) Saruna: scepter it is then
(11:55:28) Sertor Potens: I guess all that's left is getting the thread started!
(11:55:51) Saruna: hmm, do you want to start? If you don't I've got five or six more posts to get done before I can >>
(11:56:00) Sertor Potens: I can
(11:56:58) Sertor Potens: In Media Res? Start it off with a bang? End my post with Tagi presently perched on Sertor's backpack using him as an archery platform? Or did you want to save the latter for a later post?
(11:58:00) Saruna: in media res.
(11:58:30) Saruna: we can always reuse the archery platform, it's a pretty handy stunt -- but kick it off heavy
(11:59:52) Sertor Potens: Very true. Alright. First post will be a set battle piece with heavy casualties already, and a desperate 'GET TO THE TEMPLE' kind of scenario. I can do that. I'll auto a few of Tagi's arrows if you are okay with that?
(12:05:02) Saruna: eah, go for it
(12:13:19) Sertor Potens: Cool. After I post, if anything needs tweaking/fixing, just tell me
