Campaign Previews/Recruitment

[Steerpike]

So I've narrowed it down to three, but being ridiculously indecisive I still haven't made up my mind.  I think no matter what I'm going to eventually do more Tempter sessions, every now and then.  In the meantime, here are three 'previews' of what the campaigns might resemble.  If you'd be interested in playing in one of these and could realistically devote a couple of hours a week to an online campaign (probably starting some time in July), let me know here!  Other comments/questions are welcome.

From everything I've heard PbP is slow campaign suicide (at least with more than one or two players), so whatever I run it'll be in IRC or some other real-time medium.

[ic=Blood and Bewitchment in the City of Bodysnatchers]It squats in the midst of the badlands, beyond the clotted murk of the swamps, between the undulating sickness of the Tallow Plains and the desiccated enormity of the Slaughter-lands: Macellaria, the City of Bodysnatchers, where grave-robbers are richer than kings and corpse-men drink blood nonchalantly beneath sallow moonlight.  Here the moneyed classes sport ornamental grafts purchased in the upscale tissue-shops of Hexwarren, augmenting their bodies in accordance with fluctuating fashions: one year the Limbruff style swept the city and the wealthy sauntered the streets with necks bristling with grasping collars, only to be supplanted a year after by the strange style called Binarism, whose followers are bisected by alternating complexions and skin-textures.  In the city's meaner sections, gangs and upstart thief-clans bicker over territory, skirmishing in the sewers and on the rooftops with sputtering pistols and gutter hexes; their petty struggles are like a microcosm of the Robber Guilds' brutal machinations, or the internecine rivalries of the Fleshmongers and the Splicing Consortiums.  The Watchdogs howl at the gates, the chimneys of the Sanguine Church smoulder with the smoke of sacrifices, the cestoids cringe in their tunnels, and the unsleeping Skin Markets seethe with grisly commerce.

Drink tea with hagmen over a game of Imbroglio in the greenstone pagoda-towers of Slimesquallor, or lunch on iced blood-jellies with lilix exiles and ghilan libertines in the red-lit common room of Porphyria.  Purge the catacombs of mad leechkin or swarms of piranha rats, or exterminate gibbergeists in the quarantined spires of Wormhive.  Haggle over the cost of symbiotic armour or the barbed limbs of oneiroi with graft-peddlers in Murrain Square; trade ensorcelled gems or ancient coins for clockwork guns or serrated runeswords in the Curio Bazaars.  Venture out into the endless wasteland to make your fortune: battle skinchanging tribesmen and nightmarish beasts and soul-hungry demons in the depths of the desert, and pick clean the ever-gleaming ruins of Scrutatos, or the festering towers of the Cultivar Technocracy.  Delve into cursed tombs, into subterranean libraries, into forgotten palaces with walls of human skulls.  Earn the favours of exotic courtesans in Velveteen Circus, and fight arcane duels with quarrelsome scholar-witches.  Watch the shows at the Pulsetown Pits where the Rotten King holds court in a hall of macabre trophies, lose yourself in the esoterica of the Vellum Citadel where spiders the size of cats spin webs between the stacks, have your fortune told in the Court-of-Bones, or put it all on black on the tables at The Ribcage.[/ic]

[ic=The Synod of Cosmogonic Discordance]It's that time of the century again, and the Synod of Cosmogonic Concordance is about to convene for the three hundred and forty second time.  Originally, the Synod was created to resolve '" once and for all '" a single, unified theory of multiversal genesis, planar formation, and cosmic geography.  However, since sorcerers are a notoriously argumentative bunch, the Synod has thus far been unable to come to any sort of consensus.  The Synod '" now known colloquially as the Synod of Cosmogonic Discordance '" has outgrown its original purpose and become a glorified pretext for the world's sorcerers to get together, eat far too much, drink even more, bicker over their theories (often with no relation whatsoever to cosmogony), form new rivalries, nurse old grudges, and generally scheme, canoodle, squabble, backstab, and mingle.  It's the social event of the sorcerous world: after the Synod ends many sorcerers will retreat to their hidden herimtages and pocket planes and secluded towers and study-dimensions for the next century, having negligible contact with the outside world save for the occasional visit with a colleague or a foray into some corner of the old and eldritch Earth to conduct some far-fetched experiment.

You and your cabal are attending the Synod.  This century, the conference is being hosted by the eccentric sorceress K'Thell in her sprawling, enormous mansion, Naa-Zeb: a strange, many-chambered citadel (said to be much bigger on the inside than even its impressive exterior would suggest) on the site of a Paradox Seam, a twisted tangle in the Weft that emanates impossibilities and contradictions.  Doors in Naa-Zeb often lead to unexpected places; the halls are full of bizarre curios and unusual specimens; there are forgotten rooms with ceilings hundreds of feet high, and chambers full of embalmed monstrosities, and hidden laboratories filled with esoteric machines and unwholesome projects mouldering in the gloom.  K'Thell's many servants are even more curious than the odd architecture and the weird décor, and some of her creations are said to have escaped her workrooms, living a precarious existence in abandoned wings and disused cellars.

The Synod lasts for one year: a glorious, debauched, nonsensical year filled with mayhem, mishap, and mischief.  Debate your crazed, illogical theories with bombastic aplomb, revel in the outrageous excess only sorcery can provide, explore the labyrinthine depths of Naa-Zeb (perhaps straying into realms beyond?!?), and conduct ridiculous experiments both social and arcane.  Solve unlikely mysteries, spread even less likely gossip, and generally indulge in a sumptuous, abundantly weird world of lunatic godlings, transplanar toursists, senile machines, materialized thought-forms, and sublimely absurd sorcerers![/ic]

[ic=How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Blood War]From the variegated depths of the Abyss to the etiolate emptiness of the Gray Waste to the iron cities of Baator and all the bloodstained, terrifying, mutilated realms between, the Blood War rages in a ceaseless tumult of pain and fear and grim courage, a perpetual, orgiastic maelstrom of hate and horror and death.  A lot of clueless and other berks tend to get depressed by all that suffering, but here's the real dark of it: the Blood War's one of those immutable constants of the multiverse.  It's unstoppable.  Might as well try and halt the turning of the gears of Mechanus, or have a conversation with the Lady of Pain, or peel a yugoloth out of some jink.  Fool's errand: you're only going to end up flayed, addle-coved, or just put in the dead-book.  Even the most powerful cutter's not going to dent the illimitable armies of tanar'ri and baatezu.

What's more, the Blood War's not just unstoppable '" it's positively necessary.  Ever pause to think what'd happen if the fiends had a truce, or if one side overcame the other?  If the tanar'ri got the better of the baatezu the planes'd be plunged into anarchy '" there'd be swarms of Chaotic-aligned monstrosities spilling out of the Lower Planes and wreaking all manner of havoc wherever they could.  If, on the other hand, the baatezu crushed the tanar'ri, you can bet your last torus they wouldn't sit around in the Nine Hells twiddling their thumbs, either.  The thought of the fiends making peace with one another's even more blood-curdling: can you imagine what the combined forces of capital E Evil would do if they stopped killing one another for a moment and starting working together?  What's more, the economies of whole cities depend on supplying the war with arms and provisions: if the Blood War ended, there'd be mass starvation and unemployment.  What's better, a bunch of monsters endlessly slaying one another and keeping their noses out of trouble, or honest folk going hungry because they can't afford bread?  No: short of the fiends actually destroying one another for good '" which is pretty damned unlikely '" any outcome to the Blood War would be a very, very bad thing.  Truth is, the Blood War's never going to end while the Great Wheel turns '" so a basher might as well make the best of it.

Ranging from the dizzy heights of the Infinite Spire itself to the blighted depths of Nessus, the Blood War is played out on many levels: political, tactical, economical, strategic, logistic, social.  Dodge hungry Night Hags in Hades, spy on enemy encampments in the fiery deserts of Gehenna, swap war-stories and rumours in Sigil, Plague-Mort, and Ribcage, arrange Astral ambushes, and battle yugoloth mercenaries through the howling caverns of Pandemonium.  Get involved in weapons-trading or some other form of dodgy cross-trade, loot old battlefields for quality treasure, pledge your sword to Law or Chaos and get mixed up in the fighting itself, and otherwise embroil yourself in the brouhaha that is the Blood War.  Play as a planar drow from the Demonweb Pits on a special mission from Lolth, an escaped convict that gave Carceri the laugh, a tiefling mercenary trying to make their fortune, a mad wizard looking for fiendish bodies to dissect, a baurier basher just itching for a fight, a fire genasi paladin keen to smite some evil with the flame of righteousness, a slaad rogue keen on stirring up mischief, one of the fiends themselves, or anything else your barmy bonce can cook up![/ic]

[TheMeanestGuest]

Hmm, originally I was going for Cadaverous Earth, and I think I'm still leaning towards that. However, the scenario for Eldritch Earth sounds quite interesting and ripe with amusingly excellent RP opportunities.

Basically I'd be comfortable with either.

I'm a definite player for either of those whenever you'd like to start them.

[Hibou]

I smiled (and simultaneously set off several nukes) when I saw the third title. Just sayin'.

[Kindling]

Argh, I wish I wish I wish I could commit to a real-time game! This is going to be awesome, you must post transcripts so I can enjoy the game vicariously :P

[Llum]

The first and the third sound interesting to me. I should have time to play in July, as long as it isn't on the same night as the SIG.

[Steerpike]

Kindling, I might give a play by post a shot at some future date just for the hell of it, and I`ll probably use one of the ideas from here I decide not to go with.

[Kindling]

That would be cool, although you (and others) are right about PbP games rarely getting anywhere as the slow pace means most people's enthusiasm drops off sooner or later. Still, it could be fun to at least try :)

[Steerpike]

I figure a PbP campaign with fewer players has a much better chance of staying alive.  Maybe a Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser style party.

[Kindling]

Sounds like a good idea - the posts-per-person would be higher that way. It's a fun dynamic, too, especially if the two characters are quite an odd couple.

[Superfluous Crow]

Joining the first game would be awesome. But I fear it will be pretty difficult to accomplish real-time for me due to differences in time zones. I'm in GMT+1.
The second game could also prove interesting, or at least you'd get to train your ability to think up arcane theories on the fly (a useful ability if there ever was one).
I could go for a PbP if the IRC game doesn't work out for me.  

[Steerpike]

Ok, I think there's enough interest in a Cadaverous Earth game to make it worthwhile to try.  We'll see about the possibility of setting up an IRC schedule, and if that falls through, we'll bite the bullet and give PbP a chance; it could be fun for awhile at least.

What times are people free, and what timezones are people in?  Unless everyone interested in a CE game would prefer to try PbP first?

EDIT: Llum, Kindling, maybe we should try a 2 person PbP Planescape game at some point...

[TheMeanestGuest]

I'm EST, I should be good for just about whenever since I am currently a worthless layabout, although if the game continues into the fall, it should probably be sometime in the evening, maybe on a tuesday? I'm not sure.

I'd really rather not do a pbp.

[Steerpike]

I'll be PST but I'll also be flexible as to times for a couple of months.

[Llum]

I'm EST. I should be free anytime after 4 EST.

[LD]

For the next 4 weeks; Free from 7:30-1:30 EST M,T,H,F; Sa/Su variable. In July and August probably not available very much due to prior commitments (It will vary widely), but if you do start in June- those are the times I am usually free.

Hard to choose- if this was tabletop I'd want CE; but since it's mIRC I'll choose Eldritch Earth- it has potential for bizarre entertainment.