Eberron: Wounded Prophecy: 2011

Waking up naked
The Elf woke up on the bed. The crystalline warforged woke up on the floor. It wasn't obvious who woke up first, so it was essentially at the same time. The Elf, who was very much naked and very much covered in a large dragonmark, jumped out of the bed at the sound of the warforged's movemenet. He grabbed the first weapon available, a sword hung on the wall, and backed toward the window in a defensive stance. The warforged also stood, more languidly. Both looked confused and bewildered by their surroundings, a well appointed ships cabin, probably for a captain considering the navigational maps pinned to the wall. They started yelling at each other,trying to determine who and what the other were. The Elf gave away that he doesn't know who he is. Both quieted when they heard voices and steps outside the door.

Eventually, Lord Capt. Marcil returned to the ship. He was informed that there was someone yelling in his cabin. He gathered 3 marines and opened the door to the brandished sword of the Elf. His marines wen t on point and started to advance while the Lord Captain and the captain of the marines attempted to talk the Elf down. The warforged managed to stay quiet and hidden in a corner while the tensions were high. Eventually, it came out that the Elf, who looked different now since when he was found his dragonmark wasn't present, was rescued in his current naked state from the distressed Wave Galleon. The Elf however, was suffering from amnesia. The warforged also found out about how he was found, and explained how he also knew too little about himself. He left the cabin, presumable to help clear the air and his thoughts.

Then the new first mate, Nil, arrived on the scene. She took an immediate and combative dislike of the Elf. Not unsual, the captain dismissed her and the marines, and tried to continue figuring out what the Elf's connection to his end-run or the ships destruction might be. After he and the Elf determined that he would stay would ship until questions of identity and danger were more answerable, the captain vindictively sent the Elf to report to the first mate for duty

Setting out
Lord Captain Marcil was in a quandary. He needed to get rid of his dragonshards before he delivered the shorted batch. The warforged and the Elf were no help in recovering a connection with his original contact. But his distress call through House Sivis to his sponsor did yield a letter before he returned to the ship this morning. It entreated him to seek out Elaydren d'Cannith, who should be in Sharn. So he gathered Nil and his 2 new crew to keep them out of trouble setting out to find Elaydren. Best guess was either the political enclave for House Cannith on Skyway or the more industrial enclave in the Cogs. They decided the Skyway enclave was their best bet for information, so they taxi'd there. The Cannith enclave was nestled among the other House Enclaves, national embassies, and manors. Outside was a guard detachment of 6 large warforged. The group seemed to expect trouble as they entered by, one of the warforged greeted them and opened the door for them. Inside the large hall and lobby, the Capt and crew approached a staffed desk and asked to see Elaydren d'Cannith. First the woman at the desk seemed to not know who Elaydren was, but when they became more aggressive she excused herself to find more info. When she returned, she said should could arrange an appointment with Elaydren tomorrow at 11am. Upon leaving, the crystalline warforged noted to the Capt that she seemed to not be entirely truthful. Something was up.

The warforged then noticed they were being followed after the skytaxi dropped them at one of the deeper Sharn landings. They argued a bit about how to engage the shadower, but the Elf took matters into his own hands by dropping into a dark shadow himself to ambush the follower as the group continued down the rampway. The Elf's grapple was very successful and intimidated the man that was shadowing him enough to wet his trousers. They found that the man was following from the House Cannith enclave in Skyway to see if they led him back to Elaydren. He also let out that the meeting setup for tomorrow morning with Elaydren was a trap. They let him go and chased him away to prepare their next move.

Splitting up
It was decided that Nil and the Elf would go back to the Skyway enclave to see what more info they could scare up using darker methods. Lord Capt. Marcil and the warforged continued down to the Cogs to check out the possible sources there. They planned to meet back at the ship in a couple hours.

Nil and the Elf made their way again to Skyway. Based on the time, they expected the receptionist to be leaving the enclave sometime soon. The Elf planned to waylay her while Nil went into the enclave on unspecified business. The Elf's part of the plan started well, and to further hide the struggling woman, he attempted to use magic that his dragonmark in a way that felt right, but that his amnesia was preventing him from knowing about. And it worked better than expected. He and the grappled woman seemed to drop completely out of sight according to her wary warforged escorts. He learned from her that she was told to make up the appointment for the group, and that it had something to do with a certain Merrix. She fell unconcious from fright and he let her loose in an alleyway before making his way back to the ship.

While that was happening, Nil changed form and entered the enclave looking like the receptionist. Unfortunately, the guards noticed something suspicious about her before she approached and saw her change form. She still barrelled in, nearly ran to the reception desk, saying she forgot something and rifled the appointment book she saw the receptionist write in. The guards then surrounded her and demanded she surrender while they called the watch. She was taken into custody. She stayed silent even when proved conclusively that she wasn't the receptionist. After a while, a well dressed elf man arrived and dismissed the guards. He observed her for several minutes, then introduced himself as Lucan. He said he wanted to ask her some questions. He wanted to know who she worked for and offered to free her if she answered. He also asked about her connection to Elaydren. She refused to answer. Before he left he gave her a coin with a lighthouse like castle figure on it. After several hours she was freed.

Capt. Marcil and the crystalline warforged first stopped in the bar Nil mentioned to ask for directions and get a better sense of the area. The Red Hammer was again full of warforged, many more than the somewhat empty streets would have indicated. It wasn't hopping, but it was fully seated. They talked to the bartender, Ash, who told that the empty streets and full bar were evidence of fear of gruesome warforged murders that had been happening in the district over the last month. As they gossiped, he mentioned that the bodies were in the hands of House Cannith and the local enclave. Since that's where they were going anyway, they asked where that was and were directed further into the Cogs.

At the enclave they met Slogar, who was apparently in charge of the enclave. He was blustery and abrasive, but they eventually got that he had seen Elaydren somewhat regularly at a bar restaurant called the … Getting what they needed finally, they returned to the ship as planned. Finding only the Elf, they headed to the restaurant to talk to Elaydren.

Elaydren d'Cannith
...
Acting on a hunch, the three tried the doors on the second level expecting them to be private rooms. The second one yielded, Elaydren. She was willing to take the shards off them, if they would get them to Sterngate. She also said she would need a favor in the future, a paid favor, but a favor none-the-less. The warforged stayed behind to ask some questions because she looked familiar. She answered some, connecting him with Merrix d'Cannith, but in reality, he left with more questions.

I've often been at odds with Morality as mechanical function of gaming systems, at least as the way Dungeons & Dragons seems to have done it. I like what it can do as a descriptive framework to help give a character that spark of life. I also like how it can provide a outcome basis for reward. The article "On Alignment & Bullshit" on Delta's D&D Hotspot got me to think about this some more. In particular, I wanted to take his breakdown of Lawful/Neutral/Chaotic (LNC) and merge it with my relativistic sense of Good/Neutral/Evil (GNE). The most interesting part to me was that internally most villians will come up as either Good or Neutral

Delta's LNC went as follows:

Lawful = Rules apply to everyone, including me.
Neutral = Rules apply to everyone, excluding me.
Chaotic = Rules apply to no one, including me.

I liked that quite a lot. Probably mostly because it's succinct. The only weakness I see may be that people are more wishy-washy than that, and that as a descriptive frame work the system may work better as some combination of poles. Then again this does that, as do the D&D descriptions, so it probably works.

My relativistic interpretation of GNE generally goes:

Good = Altruism
Neutral = Wishy-Washy
Evil = Egoism

I'm not saying that Altruism is Good, or that Egoism/Selfishness is Evil, just that's those are the spectrum poles that I think are more important in the long run for characterization.

The type of game I tend to run fits the Gothic Horror genre pretty well. I consider Lovecraft and the whole White Wolf product line to be major influences. I don't mind when it gets a little campy, but I generally feel that many or even most villians/antagonists are acting for generally altruistic reasons. That's certainly not always true. Motivations may also be for personal survival or empowerment, but even they will consider that the actions they are taking are appropriate.

I very much like how the Storyteller system builds in morality as a reward mechanic, and especially how it provides the refresh for the flexible Willpower juice stat. I think, instead of the 7 deadly sins/7 heavenly virtues dichotomy I instate a ideal self/subverted self dichotomy. I do like the idea of taint as well, and especially for certain powerful templates, and I think that subverting yourself to add to your Willpower stat should have significant negative impacts over time. It should be dangerous. The idea being, that by choosing to reinforce your shadow self you are changing yourself and making it easier for the bad things to find and influence you. It may also be a path to power, and it certainly can make for some interesting redemption stories.

Eberron: Wounded Prophecy

Friday, May 13, 2011

Log for May 13th, 2011

Monday, March 7, 2011

Dragonmarks

Eberron Wiki

Sunday, March 6, 2011

Thoughts on Morality