Blood of the Earth - Session 5 Synopsis + Notes

Session 5 Synopsis -
(Note: Session was short due to Insane Snow)

The group decided to follow the light path offered by the dagger. After some discussion, they rented a boat under the corp that Silver had established, and headed toward Float Town, an anarchist refuge 20 miles from the target site in the middle of the Bermuda triangle. Along the way, the group pinged a rigger by the name of Banjo to do some work for them to take them to the site. They were attacked by some pirates, who they initially evaded. However the pirates got aboard Banjo's squid like sub and attempted to attack the party that way. It was an utter blood bath in which the party easily triumphed, and got a nice squid shaped sub in the interum (Details to be posted in the News as to the stats on the vehicle). It was capable of 100 mph and had an atomic engine allowing it to operate almost indefinitely without fuel. The group went early and discovered a strange chamber with a mountain that had four doors. The group was unsure of which way to go, but entered the door towards the mountain itself. There was a visible wind and they remembered the questions that they had been asked about directions. Inside of this chamber, they found a huge chamber that was filled with seven statues; an elf with a symbol that looked a bit like the royal seal of Tir'naog and Tir tain'gair but not quite, a dragon that looked like Dunklezahn with the symbol of a jewel, a human with the symbol of the Atlantean society, a differently dressed human with the symbol on the US dollar, a statue with a bunch of wheels with no visible symbol, a formless blob with a circle of stones as a symbol, and a black pillar with a black void of some kind as a symbol.

After playing around for a bit, the group temporarily empowered the human with the Atlantean symbol, until a human with five heavy hitters came in and demanded that they change it to the symbol with the all seeing eye. The group said, 'Screw that' (essentially) and changed it so that it favored no particular statue instead making a white light go toward the heavens. They instinctively knew that it empowered their faction; such as they actually had a faction. There was a brief firefight between the intruder and someone behind them, but the group has no idea who that was. There was a bright light and they all found themselves back on the Submarine with the knowledge that the chamber was still there, and with the Dagger of Ararchne, they could still change it.

Of course, theoretically, so could someone else, which suddenly makes the thing incredibly powerful and valuable. World altering valuable and powerful.

Notes:

A player can now earn up to 20 Down Time Points per session. You may have up to 30 saved up per session.

1 DTP - With things increasing in sophistication, I want to only have to do one of these per month, which means I'm having YOU GUYS write the synopsis. For writing a summary of the last session from your character's perspective and sending it to me within one week of the last session. This also requires you sending me an updated copy of your character sheet, complete with original written background. I don't want to always have to go and look things up.

3 DTP - Free. You get these regardless of what you do.

5 DTP - Quasi Free. As a result of this session, you now get these Down Time points just flat out free. This lasts until the setting in the chamber is changed.

1 DTP - Corporate Choice. You may earn a Down Time Point by 'puppeting' your corporate faction chosen in your chargen question.

10 DTP - Earned. You can do neat extra things to earn them.

Form: All DTP must be submitted using this form. If you change things, if you take another action or ask questions or such, I need you to resend the ENTIRE form. No more missing an email. No more slogging through the archives trying to find things.

Player Name:
Character Name(s):
Previous DTP:
Earned DTP:
Spent DTP:
Remaining DTP:

Earned: List how you earned. Include any attached files in one file. If you don't attach it with the master file, it isn't counted. This is only per particular month.

Spent: Outline how you're spending your DTP. You can also ask questions here but when I answer them you need to resend the WHOLE form.

Regular Time: How you are spending your 4-5 weeks of regular time.


***********************

Reposted for your reference:

Special actions come from abilities chosen by you.

Your characters have potent dreams, in which they are offered three choices. (You as player will choose only one. Your characters choose the same if you have two)

They are in a deep and long tunnel wherein they are offered a choice of a door. They may choose one door. There are ten doors, with the following symbols upon them:

A roman helmet.

A jade jaguar.

An icy claw.

A rising sun.

A blue diamond.

A sun at zenith.

A splatter of blood.

A ruby dragon.

An emerald set in agate.

A ruby lotus.

The second dream involves them being in a deep chamber. Within the chamber they are able to choose an object from a table. They may only choose one object.

A bear tooth.
A cat collar.
An onyx crown.
A dog leash.
A sword.
An eagle talon.
A lighter.
A moon rock.
Mountain climbing gear.
A rat tail.
A raven feather.
A glass of water.
A tube of lipstick
A shark tooth.
A baby rattle.
A car key.
A pair of dice.
A book titled "Sun Tsu, The Art of War."
A wolf skin coat.
A frowny face button.
A hammer
A stock market portfolio.
A pair of crocodile skin boots.
A dagger
A gold coin.
A baby bottle
A severed bird beak.
A deer horn
A saddle
A lion's tooth.
An acorn.
A stuffed owl.
A book marked, "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix"
A bible
A piece of paper marked, "I.O.U."
And a box of Raisin Bran Cereal.

In the third dream they find themselves on a tall mountain, and the wind is howling. Which way do they go to climb down?

Downtime Points (Updated)
------------------

Getting them: You automatically get three for free each month. Period.

You can also get them by doing the following:

A) Puppet Factions. Keeping track of ALL the factions in a game this hard is difficult.

I will allow you to puppet one country, one corporation and one miscleneous minor group like policlubs. Basically this can be detailed in terms of what they are planning that month or it can be as little as a paragraph. You can earn two DP's this way. One very detailed plan or three high level ones will earn two. A single paragraph can earn 1.

B) Flesh out NPCs. Up to 2. At least one must be one I can use in an encounter against the party. You can earn up to 2 this way.

C) Rumors. Plot seeds and rumors sent to me to make the game more interesting, and that I might use to speed things up. You can earn up to 3 this way.

D) Increase Darkness. I have will have a hidden timeline. Certain events will happen around the world including the ultimate destruction of the world as the 'darkness meter' increases. You can earn up to 2 this way.

E) Increase Regional Chaos. Every major region (North America, South America, Central America, East Europe, West Europe, North Africa, South Africa, Pacific Islands, China, South East Asia, Middle East, Other (Space/Antartica/Deep Sea Islands) has a chaos rating. As it increases, worse and worse things happen. You can earn up to three this way.

I am potentially open to suggestions of other ways to earn DP, but they should be along this vein.

Ways you can spend them.

Individually

1)Acquire Contact: Contacts are extremely useful because within their sphere of influence, they can achieve any of the other things that a DP can do for you at no cost to yourself. The downside of this, of course, is that if you use a contact, there is an increasing chance they will ask you to do something for them in return.

2)Upgrade Contact: You can increase either the loyalty or connection rating of an existing contact for each DP spent.

3)Research: Pretty flexible. You can spend a DP to research anything from a new spell, combat technique, item, technology etc. Vastly increased if you have the resources of your own lab or a university at your disposal. Each DP spent represents a month of your or someone else's time spent. You can thus accomplish several months of research at a much faster pace than normal.

4) Gather Information: You can gain a great deal of information on a wide range of topics. Naturally, if you have skills that are more suited for a particular topic, you will be more successful in this regard.

5) Craft Item: This involves making something, either commissioning it or having someone else do it, or making it yourself. This can be anything from your own journal to a play to a magic item. Unique items (besides magic items) will almost always have a beneficial result. Each DP spent represents a month of in character crafting time on your or someone else's part. You can thus accomplish several months of crafting at a much faster pace than normal.

6) Personal Mission: You can undertake your own micro quest. Establish a plan, and I will make rolls for you to determine the result. This can be quite flexible, but this also involves risk to your person; almost never death, but you could, for example, theoretically start the game with damage or loss of an item. Then again, the gains can potentially be quite exceptional as well. You can earn up to 20000 NY and 3 karma per mission MAX, and the more risky it is, the more wounds you start with at the beginning of the next session. You may only do 3 Personal Missions per session. If you all take part in a mission, the odds of success go up dramatically. I may also award information, 0 level contacts or other things depending on the role playing involved and the cleverness of the plan of the mission.

7) Acquire a Knowledge Skill. 1 point for each DP spent. You should never have to waste Karma on knowledge skills.

8) Misc: There are things you can try with DTP that have not yet been discovered.

Group

Everyone can contribute DP towards these.

1) Increase the stakes. For 5 DP's, everyone earns an additional 1 Karma per session. Then it goes to 10, 15, 20 etc etc. It increases the speed at which everyone earns Karma but also the toughness of the bad guys you face.

2) Vehicles. Each DP spent represents up to 10,000NY towards group modification, customization or acquisition of specific vehicles.

3) Bases and Resources. Each DP spent represents up to 10,000NY towards group modification, customization or acquisition of specific bases and group resources.

4) Group Edge Pool. For 5 DP spent, you get one group Edge pool which can be used to solve problems by majority vote at the table during the session. The cost of this goes up 5 for each one acquired 10, 15 etc).

5) Increase the group public rep. Also at a 5 DP increase cost for each spent. 5/10/15 etc.

6) Patron. You can establish a corporate, organizational, conspiracy or group patron. You spend DTP in two ways. The frame work cost is fibinaci - 1 DTP for 1, 2 DTP for level 2, 3 for 3, 5 for 5 etc. Each increase represents more that the patron is willing to do and the efficiency and TIES that the patron has. Shadowrun is all about this which is why this is a more efficient method of acquiring STUFF than using DTP on your own but the flip side is that you are tying the group to these outside factions. The second is spending DTP to actually get stuff. This will vary highly depending on what you want but the higher the 'Patron Level' the more return for DTP invested that you get.

7) Group Corp. This is somewhat new. So I'll list some specific costs.
National to Multinational (A): 7 DTP
A to AA: 15 DTP
AA to AAA: 50 DTP
Disassociation (Rating 1 through 10): 5 for 1, 10 for 2, etc.
Matrix Assets (Rating 1 through 10): 5 for 1, 10 for 2, etc.
Financial Assets (Rating 1 through 10): 5 for 1, 10 for 2, etc.
Shadow Assets (Rating 1 through 10): 5 for 1, 10 for 2, etc.
Magical Assets (Rating 1 through 10): 5 for 1, 10 for 2, etc.
Physical Security (Per installation) (Rating 1 through 10): 1 for 1.
Political Power (Per region) (1 through 10): 1 for 1.

Other special assets might include, Research and Development, Building and Craft Facilities etc.

The corp is HIGHLY visible and subject to attack by other corporations along a wide variety of fronts. The bigger you are, the bigger you can be hit. The group ownership of the corp can remaining largely hidden by the dagger as long as it remains only an A corp. After that, it depends on the Dissociation factor.

A: Max Rating 3
AA: Max Rating 6
AAA: Max Rating 10

The Dissociation Factor must be 1 higher than all the other ratings to retain the cloaking abilities of the dagger. Otherwise, the ownership of the group will become known and all that is associated with it. INDIVIDUAL GEAR bought from the corp (as compared to a Patron, Direct DTP or Nuyen) temporarily lowers the Dissociation factor and the shielding effect of the corp. GROUP GEAR depends on the mission specifics. A vehicle to get you to a mission probably won't. Things that you buy everyone ON the mission probably will.

Metaplot

1)Advocate Organization: All organizations are starting out with an effective 'matrix' in political strength of a certain strength. I will publish that in the first news post. I will track Corps, the 5-6 strongest nations, and other organizations I deem relevant for you to now about. For the first month you won't know what these faction ratings are.

2) Weaken Organization. The reverse of the first.

3) Lower the darkness rating .5. Thus it costs 2 DP's to lower it 1, wherein you can gain 1 DP by raising it one. This is currently defined but hidden.

4) Lower regional chaos. 1 for 1. I will not have the regional chaos score of an area visible.

5) Advance the Tech track. I will also be creating a hidden tech timeline with technological innovation occurring. This is currently undefined.

6) Advance the Magic track. Defined but hidden.

7) Advance the Reckoning track. There are a lot of scores to be settled and issues that need to be resolved. This will be a hidden track.

Bottom line: Send me your responses privately. You can discuss how to spend it amongst each other as much as you want, but when you actually decide how to spend it, I want "Official" somewhere in your subject line.