The Chat Thread

[+Sorana]

So regarding the "what changed in our history" question. I noticed, that we have several different head canons around regarding that topic, leading to an unruly canon and probably many discussions in E5.

Voidus and me thought it best to decide that on mod level, as the era will start in two days and we don't have the time to make a poll regarding the larger events that happened every era and allow enough time for everybody to weigh in.

Here is what we felt like should work with the E5 changes, without eliminating too much, so that rped character development of older characters can be (mostly) kept.

If you are unsure about a specific situation that is important for your character, please don't hesitate to ask!

 

E1: Guild War did happen, massive destruction of the city (also because of the demons of the Chaos Space Marines), Alleycity wasn't nuked

E2: happened as it did, minus the Phoenix attack on Oasis City

E3: happened as it did, minus the Phoenix attack on Alleycity; the combined forces of the guilds were able to defeat Plasma Core

E4: the exploration happened as it did, the atium was distributed evenly between the participating guilds

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As the guilds will be less powerful, several smaller groups exist to fill the vacuum left behind. They don't need to be named, but in general more guilds exist, and the ones with PCs are simply a part of them all.

============

The slum is located in the north of Alleycity, a part that was heavily destroyed during E1 and E3. People there don't have a 24/7 access to electricity and running water, and they live in the ruins of the houses that used to be there. (So far it used to be in the krater left by the nuking of Alleycity in E1)

Edited May 13, 2020 by Sorana

[AonEne]

3 hours ago, Sorana said:

As the guilds will be less powerful, several smaller groups exist to fill the vacuum left behind. They don't need to be named, but in general more guilds exist, and the ones with PCs are simply a part of them all. 

Honestly we wouldn’t even need to name new ones, we could just say that in this timeline ones like the Liebrary and Canton of Combat and Diagramists et cetera (I’m not saying them all cause there are a bunch) from the earlier eras never went inactive or partially inactive and just stayed strong. The worldbuilding is already in place for it. 

Thanks for the recap  

[kenod]

How about the actual government? Given the lower power of the guilds, does the city itself have a goverment and law enforcement (and maybe an army)? It would help explain how the guilds beat certain things with reduced power, and it makes sense that with the reduced guild influence an actually effective goverment can form.

As an aside, if we do have a proper government, I suggest not having players participate in it, given the mess the Era 3 government was.

[+Sorana]

I agree. An actual government, might be beneficial, given the changed power structure, and yes, if we agree on that, and them having military ressources of some kind, then it definitely should be out of every players hands. It really didn't work last time and I also would prefer to avoid giving some characters more ic "power" than others solely because of their profession. I fear that it would lead more to conflicts, than to actual interesting rp.

What does everybody else thinks?

[Fatebreaker]

I concur, I think a PC free government would be good.

[Emi]

I also think it’s ok, though I’m not a long time in alleyverse

[+ZincAboutIt]

Quite keen on the idea of a nice background NPC government!

[18th Shard]

We could have it be adapted from the Roman republic government - in Rome, there was a pair of elected consuls, and some legislative/judicial bodies like tribunals and appointed magistrates. However, there was also a Senate, which had very little official power, but could give "recommendations", and usually came from powerful groups/families in Rome. Spoiler has the Wikipedia on the Senate, which I think would match how guilds would act if they couldn't officially be in charge.

Spoiler

The senate's ultimate authority derived from the esteem and prestige of the senators.^[175] This esteem and prestige was based on both precedent and custom, as well as the caliber and reputation of the senators. The senate passed decrees, which were called senatus consulta. These were officially "advice" from the senate to a magistrate. In practice, however, they were usually followed by the magistrates.^[176] The focus of the Roman senate was usually directed towards foreign policy. Though it technically had no official role in the management of military conflict, the senate ultimately was the force that oversaw such affairs. This was due to the senate's explicit power over the state's budget and in military affairs.

That way, the real government could be NPCs, but still have PCs and guilds trying to influence them.

[+Sorana]

6 minutes ago, 18th Shard said:

That way, the real government could be NPCs, but still have PCs and guilds trying to influence them.

Honestly, I like the idea. It goes in the direction of the government we established in E2, and our idea back then was exactly that: to give PCs and guilds a chance to influence them. Additionally our government back then consisted of NPCs or PCs but they were controlled by players in the rp.

In the end though, it led to some rp, but the government itself was never really accepted. (although I loved the idea to pay 3% taxes on your income). It's a little hard to describe, but while some had fun to write pages and pages of discussion, in the end the acceptance to have a real organ that is able to put your character into jail and establish laws was very, very low. Especially since it were other players who had an impact on your character and there basically wasn't anything you could do. It resulted in godmodding, fights that weren't written well and people fearing for their characters. There were also players trying to form a police force and therefore set their characters "by law" above others. And it simply didn't work. The concept alone always grated others.

I personally, would prefer that, if we have a government, then it exists solely in the background (just like we have schools or supermarkets). If someone needs a police force of some kind, then they can write them themselves, but I would strong advise, that we don't go the road again where we give a part of our writers characters that are able to officially judge other characters.

Edited May 14, 2020 by Sorana

[mathiau]

19 hours ago, Sorana said:

E4: the exploration happened as it did, the atium was distributed evenly between the participating guilds

So do we still have an exploited atium generator, except it goes to every guilds or did it get destroyed? The first could cause... interesting issues

[+ZincAboutIt]

Maybe the secret DA organized a cavern collapse or something to keep the rest of it for itself?

[mathiau]

6 minutes ago, ZincAboutIt said:

Maybe the secret DA organized a cavern collapse or something to keep the rest of it for itself?

Or maybe some allomancers decided it was too dangerous and destroyed the crystals?

If neither I might try to organize an operation to destroy it next era

[+ZincAboutIt]

7 minutes ago, mathiau said:

Or maybe some allomancers decided it was too dangerous and destroyed the crystals?

If neither I might try to organize an operation to destroy it next era

FWIW I designed it as a one-time event of Atium production, it doesn’t continuously grow geodes. The supply in there is what is there.

[mathiau]

7 minutes ago, ZincAboutIt said:

FWIW I designed it as a one-time event of Atium production, it doesn’t continuously grow geodes. The supply in there is what is there.

Well that solve a lot of problems

[+Sorana]

@Ashbringer

If you don't want to introduce Tyrian in the masquarade thread you can always use another one, like a bar or one of the others. I know at the moment we don't have too many active ones, just wanted to point out that the possibility exists.

[Ashbringer]

Gotcha. He might show up in one of the taverns, but I'm mainly waiting for some form of conflict to arise. I might have Tyrian just attack a random NPC Skybreaker, but any major interaction at this point will likely end in him randomly attacking a character and then getting ganged up on by the entire list of partygoers.

[I think I am here.]

4 hours ago, Ashbringer said:

Gotcha. He might show up in one of the taverns, but I'm mainly waiting for some form of conflict to arise. I might have Tyrian just attack a random NPC Skybreaker, but any major interaction at this point will likely end in him randomly attacking a character and then getting ganged up on by the entire list of partygoers.

I’ve got a character that doesn’t like large events. I could have him meet Tyrian in a tavern. Beware, he might have a demon spiked into his soul, though.

[+Sorana]

12 hours ago, Ashbringer said:

Gotcha. He might show up in one of the taverns, but I'm mainly waiting for some form of conflict to arise. I might have Tyrian just attack a random NPC Skybreaker, but any major interaction at this point will likely end in him randomly attacking a character and then getting ganged up on by the entire list of partygoers.

I've got a character, too that will end up in a tavern sooner or later. Mostly because they definitely won't go to the party.

Edit: thinking about it, having Althea face another Radiant could be interesting. She's not his main 'target group' so nobody needs to end up dying, and I haven't written a good fight in a while. Lot's of potential there, but then she has a tendency to talk things through and aim for a peaceful solution, so I'm not entirely sure if it can work, especially not with everybody else around. Most likely she'll just stand back.

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Would you be up for having Mike meet Aylitha? Her erasing his memories again and all that? @kenod

Edited May 19, 2020 by Sorana

[kenod]

10 hours ago, Sorana said:

I've got a character, too that will end up in a tavern sooner or later. Mostly because they definitely won't go to the party.

Edit: thinking about it, having Althea face another Radiant could be interesting. She's not his main 'target group' so nobody needs to end up dying, and I haven't written a good fight in a while. Lot's of potential there, but then she has a tendency to talk things through and aim for a peaceful solution, so I'm not entirely sure if it can work, especially not with everybody else around. Most likely she'll just stand back.

==================

Would you be up for having Mike meet Aylitha? Her erasing his memories again and all that? @kenod

Sure! He's remembering stuff already? I think we'll need to sue the Stranger for shoddy craftsmanship. 

[mathiau]

How do we handle people that was not in the Alleyverse at the moment of the the respiking? Does Aylitha wipe the memory of every trader who come?

[+Sorana]

15 minutes ago, kenod said:

Sure! He's remembering stuff already? I think we'll need to sue the Stranger for shoddy craftsmanship. 

Not really remembering, not yet

[kenod]

14 minutes ago, mathiau said:

How do we handle people that was not in the Alleyverse at the moment of the the respiking? Does Aylitha wipe the memory of every trader who come?

If they frequent the Alleyverse a lot I suspect the necessary Connection already exists, so they'd have been altered too, but yeah, if they somehow still remember the old world Aylitha will deal with them.

[Ashbringer]

On a similar vein, how does the memory shift (and probable back-shift) affect characters new to the Alleyverse? My three haven’t had any prior contact with the Alleyverse, so they have no past life to shift back to. 
 

Although... Byron’s mother may have been an Alleyverse worldhopper, which could let me do something I’ve been thinking about. Letting him have a second, latent power suppressed by the timeshift and Byron’s own temporal shenanigans.

[+ZincAboutIt]

Just now, Ashbringer said:

On a similar vein, how does the memory shift (and probable back-shift) affect characters new to the Alleyverse? My three haven’t had any prior contact with the Alleyverse, so they have no past life to shift back to. 

It would simply be like going to any other world for the first time. You enter, and the world you see and experience is the one that is happening. Since all the inhabitants and the universe itself is bending under the shift, your new character will only know what they know, so to speak.

[+Sorana]

Hello!

During one of our discussions we somehow came up with a side plot set in the TUBA archives. Our goal is, to find a report that has gone missing and it is our quest to find out what happened to it, secure it and transport it safely back to the surface.

The thread will work like that: The TUBA archives are like a maze, full of documents, reports, contracts and everything else you can think about that has something to do with bureaucracy. Our idea was, that as our characters advance deeper into them, everybody participating comes up with an idea or two what is happening in the next one room. A short writeup to describe the setting for everybody and then we all deal with the situation and afterwards go on. That really can be everything you can come up with. From strange creatures, to biting books, to blood rituals - feel free to through in anything you can think of (or any reference). When we run out of ideas, we will find the report (or not).

If you'd like to participate but don't have a TUBA character, feel free to claim, that your character was hired by TUBA. They will be asked to sign an NDA about everything they see down there, a document detailing, that TUBA won't come up for any damage taken by them or their personal belongings, and of course a general working contract.

Just putting this here, so that if there are any questions from those who aren't in the pm, you can ask them before the thread goes up. There are enough interested, that we will definitly start it, but wanted to give everybody a chance to participate and maybe think about their character upfront.