The Next Ten Sessions

[garrett (Bill Garrett)]

Mizzle’s goals for the next ten sessions! Stuff I’m interested in:

• Fun adventures with friends and magical companions
• Undertaking tasks to right some important wrong
• Items with Magic Check bonuses for ritual magic

Stuff I’m not as interested in:

• The Archmagus power-grid as a goal doesn’t interest me, but as an element of a larger story it’s fine. As Dave said, we aren’t the world’s electricians.

What I imagine about nearby regions:

The Merchant Princes of Tel

To the southwest of us, the Merchant Princes of Tel, and then beyond them, the Desert of Ruin. So I’m sort of picturing this vaguely Arabian Nights deal with the best parts of the Caliphate (science, coffee, and elaborate architecture) in full swing. People with lovely carpets spread out on dusty yellowed streets, covered in wares from lost lands and strange destinations. Desert adventurers bringing things back from lost tombs. Busy ports, with ships coming from across the sea on the east side.

It might be that Tel is sort of a secret battleground for would-be Archmagus replacements, and there’s folks trying to accumulate magitech and knowledge from around the world, all behind the guise of international trade. In this case, we might meet a struggling merchant caught up in all this, or the young scion of a famous trading house or guild that’s secretly led by one of these conspirators.

Rozinande

To the northwest of us, the Dancing Forest, and beyond that, Rozinande, the kingdom of elves. Not hostile, but forbidding, in the sense of “we forbid outsiders from coming here”. Forests laden with magic, that are ready to turn on intruders in weird ways. Beyond that, an ancient civilization in the middle of succession turmoil and struggles with their own traditionalism. A mixture of “tree homes” and more classical magic-type architecture, ancient spires and pools and the like.

I pitched an explicit storyline for Rozinande and I’m actually excited about that. A young princess/queen who’s only half-elf, whose existence is an affront to traditional elf society. There’s a ton of things that can be done with something like that.

for Rozinande, for example, I did a quick mental exercise. I feel like you get three very different stories just by adjusting the heir’s age. Example:

• at 7 there’s this kid, she doesn’t understand what’s at stake, and whoever’s protecting her might try to shelter her from the bigotry she’s facing
• at 14 there’s this girl, she understands some of it but is also at the cusp of making her own decisions, and the story leans more on her as a character
• at 21 it’s about whether this young adult can navigate the currents of politics and who she can trust or turn to

Our part of the story can be tied to the Druid who wrote the Demonic Diary and bound Saevus inside it, because maybe there’s more such demons in Rozinande and they’re not feeding off anger, but pride. Or it can be a bunch of other things.

[garrett (Bill Garrett)]

From Saraid on Discord:

Short note since I’m on my phone. I see this as a coming of age story for Saraid. Discovering her origins is part of that but also learning about being responsible for other at a level beyond keeping them physically safe. The archmagus power grid could tie into that.

[Dave (***Dave Hill)]

Edited from the Discord note:

Definitely looking for fun. I think the nature of the characters calls for that – big drama, potentially, as well, as we’ve seen tastes of, but “fun adventures with friends and magical companions” is a biggie.

“Undertaking tasks to right some important wrong” is also, if nebulous, on target. The TBs really want to be heroes (even if they are a bit vague on what that actually means, good and bad).

As far as their big mission (and opportunity for heroism), the TBs are still scoping out possibilities for folk from their homeland to move to. It seems like we found a place here, but they don’t quite yet feel confident to send a message clearly saying “C’mon down!” let alone taking point on coordinating the whole thing. (Also, that doesn’t necessarily sound like fun.)

(I can envision a final scene in the campaign where, having reunited with their family on some shore, and eaten a good meal with them, the TBs climb back into the clank for more adventures; I suspect, as much as they are homesick, they can’t go home again and be whatever it was they were in the old days – like Frodo, though for less tragic reasons, their road has to go forever on.)

For more specific stuff – I think the classic elephant trope in the room is something brewing about the Archmagus and their fall and either their return or someone looking to pick up the reins / tap into their long-lost magic stuff, etc. That might be our Mummy tie-in. Depending on how long we (and Mike in particular) want to be doing this, that would be a more-than-ten-session arc. Long-term clues could start pointing to something portentous and dire arising. (The QK cut scene could fit in nicely there.)

It also doesn’t have to be a straightforward “Archmagus 2: FabU Boogaloo” reboot.

Maybe we find we’ve enabled something to start happening by restoring the power grid.

• Maybe something’s been powered up by that which ran down long ago, which ought to have been left run down.
  • (“There’s this huge army of clanks that’s come out of caves in the mountain, and they seem to think we’re all in rebellion against the Archmagus …”)
• Or maybe someone now can tap into that power for their own purposes – good and/or bad.
  • (“We’ve been able to turn back on the food irrigation system, so no more starvation, and also we can feed the army we’re building!”)
  • (“With the power grid back on, I can reverse the ice cap increase that took out Thule and is taking out Trishenko – but only if you swear fealty here on the dotted line!”)
• As noted, being electrical repair folk per se doesn’t sound fun. The consequences are.

All that said, Mike, you’ve given us a number of plot elements and twists I would never have expected, so I’m not worried much about whatever you throw our way. If I had to sum up the above, I’d say:

1. Being Big Damn Heroes.
2. Dealing with unexpected consequences of who we’ve already met and what we’ve already done.

All of Mike’s ideas sound good, too (that’s just the way I pictured Tel, too). As far as other locations to visit, I’ll also bring up again Telegrod:

A city Senator Adra recommended our heroes visit in their quest to gather allies for the island of Harmony, little is known about Telegrod other than it was once an important center of power and influence in the Hundred Counties.

I don’t recall if she provided a reason for that place specifically, but dealing with a once (and future?) center of power and influence could be walking into a land mine. I seem to recall there was part of the power network up there (now back online), and a couple of the Saraid-kin.

[garrett (Bill Garrett)]

Checking in after more like 20 sessions, but that’s okay! It really has been a lot of fun, and that’s one key thing we asked for.

@garrett

I pitched an explicit storyline for Rozinande and I’m actually excited about that. A young princess/queen who’s only half-elf, whose existence is an affront to traditional elf society. There’s a ton of things that can be done with something like that.

I feel like we bounced off what I thought would be the neat parts of a story like this - instead of pushing at entrenched politics and attitudes, with a villain behind the scenes, we’re doing a rescue mission and we’ve put that off because there’s no particular urgency because MSQ has been like this for 2 in-game years now?

So on the other hand that did let us complete a bunch of side-quests and personal stories, and set up a bunch of future stuff, so I’m not saying it’s a bad thing. Just, y’know, something we didn’t get to.

@garrett

It might be that Tel is sort of a secret battleground for would-be Archmagus replacements, and there’s folks trying to accumulate magitech and knowledge from around the world, all behind the guise of international trade.

On that note! I feel like we’ve heard about some of this (Elonians! Aquarians!), we just haven’t done much with it yet. Hopefully we do get down there at some point and engage with this stuff.

@Dave

I think the classic elephant trope in the room is something brewing about the Archmagus and their fall and either their return or someone looking to pick up the reins / tap into their long-lost magic stuff, etc.

I feel like the Elonians have been filling this niche nicely. The original Archmagus abdicated but these guys didn’t get the memo and are still dedicated to empire.

[insomn14 (Mike)]

@garrett

I feel like we bounced off what I thought would be the neat parts of a story like this - instead of pushing at entrenched politics and attitudes, with a villain behind the scenes, we’re doing a rescue mission and we’ve put that off because there’s no particular urgency because MSQ has been like this for 2 in-game years now?

Yeah, feel like this was partially a failing on my part. I have some interesting stuff prepared for this, but when I added urgency to the story, it was on everyone’s backgrounds, which came at the detriment of this. Most of that material will work regardless of where you folks go next, but I feel like a bit of the drama might get lost in there.

@garrett

On that note! I feel like we’ve heard about some of this (Elonians! Aquarians!), we just haven’t done much with it yet. Hopefully we do get down there at some point and engage with this stuff.

Yeah, I feel this will probably be a much bigger part in the next 10-20 sessions.

@garrett

I feel like the Elonians have been filling this niche nicely. The original Archmagus abdicated but these guys didn’t get the memo and are still dedicated to empire.

This is not an incorrect take, but I’m hoping some of the nuance in that situation will become clear in the next 5-10 sessions.

[Dave (***Dave Hill)]

We have a lot going on and still hanging. And I don’t think that’s a problem with Mike’s framing the setting or the decisions we have made. We sort of asked for an open sandbox to explore, and the result is a lot of holes dug in the sand in different places.

• The Rozinande stuff needs some love … but that may be circling back in as we head north.
• We have a couple of groups (though the Elonians are name-called the most) trying to slot themselves as heirs (rightly or wrongly) of the Archmagus. I expect more to come on that.
• We have “boost the New Republic Harmony federation,” at least in part to counter the First Order Elonians.
• We’ve done a lot with squirrelkin around Saraid, and that’s had ties into pretty much everything else we’ve got on the list. There’s definitely still more to do there, and I remain excited about it.
• We definitely needed to drop in on the Gallimaufry for Mizzle’s storyline, which gave us some interesting new things to pursue; the main question I think we still have there for the moment is in what state do we leave them and the Near Daran setting.
• There are (seemingly) colliding storylines about the Treshenko refugees and the Phoenix of the North, which will seemingly circle back to Rozinande, too (and, for all we know, another Nazi Elonian military expedition digging in the sand snow to uncover the Lost Ark Weather Control Installation.

And probably more I’m not thinking of or that are subsets of the above.

There’s nothing particularly wrong with all that, except feeling like we’re barely keeping all the balls up in the air (and keeping Mike frantically guessing about which direction we’ll halloo off to next time).

One thing that’s struck me is that, every time I feel like a storyline is wrapping to an end, it becomes clear there’s still more going on with it, or with loose threads from it, or with a character we ran into with it who turns up in an unexpected place. And that’s all good, too. Lots of great world-building and a real-world sense of “What am I forgetting that I was going to do?” (which is a reason I try to include Bill’s Mizzle list in the game log).

Anyway, my ramblings about our ramblings.