Isabel Tenorio Admin
Posts : 1696 Join date : 2013-01-20 Location : The Sea Viper
| Subject: The Plot Revealed 05.05.14 11:30 | |
| Since this particular plot isn't being used now, regardless of the future, it seems time to reveal the general outline of what we had put in motion and were planning for the future. Sadly it doesn't quite convey all the fun in coming up with this, debating minor details, brainstorming, and all of that. Hopefully you'll enjoy it anyway. - Spoiler:
The plot revolved around the machinations of the First Minister of Barclay, Alfredo Ole, and his scheme to fulfill a prophecy regarding the cycle of combat between two forgotten twin gods of war. These gods, one of Martial Glory and the other of Strategy, amused themselves with encouraging champions to battle each other, ultimately two of them being empowered by the gods for a final duel. The winner would receive a boon, in this case the secret to using Qualis Gems to create a potion to prolong their lives and restore their strength.
Alfredo Ole, being the now elder statesman guiding the unified Kingdom of Barclay, is concerned about the future of his life's work being left in the hands of a very young king. He maintained control of the nobles by encouraging a dueling culture, and being a master duelist himself was rumored to be unbeatable. However, he knows he's getting old and knows his fall will be sudden due to the web he created.
He is also a rival to the Prince of Pendor, currently ruling in Barclay. This Prince is rumored to be a godly political beast much like Alfredo, but is in fact not yet up to the standards of Alfredo... most just think he is. How does this interact with that prophecy?
Obviously Alfredo wants this reward, but he doesn't know everything about it. The Order of the Sky, a primarily Barclayan rival to the Order of the Raven Spear, knows parts of it, and believes in it. They also know that the other fragments are in Pendor, one being protected by the Duke of Windholm without knowing its significance. This leads into the first event, rather indirectly. Greysword didn't have the prophecy, or even know anything about it. It was taken as a personal treasure to the D'shar Steppe by the Duke who lost the Pendor army there. Greysword was rather paranoid, and sparked a revolt against her by trying to prepare for what she believed was an invasion by Alfredo Ole. She raised taxes far too high to prepare for an invasion she only coincidentally knew would occur.
The second event involves the Warlord having a segment of the prophecy, but believing only that she is the champion of these gods. She sets in motion events to fulfill as much of it as she knows, being a champion of her people. The PCs were to learn the real significance at the end of this event.
The next step was likely to be a fairly quick mini-event, with limited time for the PCs to act so as to keep it very short. The Prince was to arrive in Pendor, prepared to restore order against Alfredo's machinations. Unfortunately he was also to be assassinated by his archrival, thus sending Pendor into chaos just as the PCs realized what was coming. We never planned anything concrete beyond this next step. Barclay would invade at some point, but we didn't know how quickly we wanted that. The god of strategy, being bored with watching two champions fight, would instead empower the group of PCs to fight as his collective champion.
Part II, or rather some thoughts! - Spoiler:
Sadly we didn't get as far as we'd hoped in a year+. We tried to mingle a political scheme with a magical prophecy, while keeping the events somewhat distinct. The overarching plot was to be a common thread weaved through each event, which may have ended up leaving it more disjointed than we had hoped.
This material was created in part by everyone involved behind the scenes, some of us focusing more on certain areas than others. It never perfectly satisfied any of us, and was true collaboration in that regard. Hopefully this gets your imagination going!
Feel free to comment. | |
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Ferdinand XIV
Posts : 100 Join date : 2014-03-29 Location : Barclay
| Subject: Re: The Plot Revealed 09.05.14 21:50 | |
| Although my opinion was already known to the mods, let me at least clarify to the players why I decided not to continue with this plot. Those that I have rp'ed the last couple of years know that I'm a sucker for Barclay and invasions, but it felt too ambitious this time around and honestly, I didn't feel the Rivalry of the new Gods as much as the original lorewriters and admins. Despite that, I think you guys have done a great job creating this additional fancanon and the characters which feel real (if not also prickly and paranoid ). What I've always felt is that you can't really keep going in an active role as GM/writer if you don't fully enjoy the story you're about to write, I, for instance, would start postponing once the prophesy became the leading theme and knowing that of myself I created poprenewed and an environment that I knew would tickle my imagination anew with every visit. | |
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Methodius Marci
Posts : 222 Join date : 2013-09-13
| Subject: Re: The Plot Revealed 12.05.14 12:13 | |
| Ya, it looks pretty ambitious, it's a shame we only got halfway through.
Also just a question, why did everyone dealing with the Barclay scholar stop playing or changed avenues and joined the rest of us to deal with the horde? (i.e. Rivatha/Psychozoa)
did the scholar die? were they bored and stopped playing? | |
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Isabel Tenorio Admin
Posts : 1696 Join date : 2013-01-20 Location : The Sea Viper
| Subject: Re: The Plot Revealed 13.05.14 4:18 | |
| The prophecy angle was geared towards PCs rather than the Orders. To put it most bluntly, the prophecy and the Order politics were different visions of the RP, squished together through the events. In a lot of ways it was doomed since pulling it off would have been tricky, but we hoped that those with no interest in the prophecy side would be content with the more overt political objectives.
So to answer your question, they may have dealt most directly with the Scholar but they still had to face realities. The Grandmasters, as of now, haven't figured out anything about the prophecy. Even if they do, they'll likely think it's nonsense. Plus who said that the Scholar didn't tell them where he thought the rest of the text could be found? >.> | |
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