The Lorax

IC (Tara): "It's OK" the Dashi assured her. "I wasn't looking where I was going either, and I landed on my pack." "Actually, I was just leaving, to take a bit of a holiday from Sado. I'll head for Odaiba and the forests around Koshiki. If I get the chance and a good day for it, I'd like to take a shot at climbing to the peak, but I can only do that if I get a climbing partner, for safety. Would you know anyone who might be up for that?"

Never. It never happened. But if you really want to know, search the Ga-Wahi topic from last arc.

Nope, I don't remember that ever happenign at all.

Horowhenua

Like BZTime, we try not to think too hard about that. When it is convenient to think of characters as largely metal-coated beings, we play them as such. When we need to have scars, we play them more towards the bio end of the bio-meachanical spectrum.

IC (Tara): It seemed that Tara wasn't the only one lost in her thoughts and not paying attention to the world around her. She was jolted out of her ponderings by a rather long pair of legs bumping into her mask and knocking her down onto the floor. Looking up, she saw the being attached to those legs was a Dasaka she recognised. She had often encountered the musician playing on the streets of Sado. She seemed like a decent person, in spite fo her clan's reputation. "Amaki" she greeted the Fursic. "How are you?

Well done. Anyway, have any PCs actually met the Kentoku Abettor yet, and, if not, would anyone like to?

IC (Vilda Tara): It was all too much. Sado was poised to snap like a thin branch where too many piwai had built their nests. When it finally cracked, she knew, the birds' eggs would be scattered on the ground and the streets would be bathed in blood. Her own clan was already in the thick of the fighting, though war had not officially been declared, and she needed to get off the island and get away from it all. The Dashi was no warrior, and war was looking more and more likely by the day. When it came, she wanted to be far away. It wasn't that she was a coward. No, the wildlife ranger was familiar with risk. She confronted the dangers of the wild every time she left civilisation behind for the wild places, and often went on her own. War, on the other hand, was a different matter entirely. In the bush, she could trust in her instincts and years of experience to keep her safe from wild animals and treacherous terrain. She weighted the risks and accepted them, or else found a way around. She could control the risks she took, but not in war. That was entirely beyond her control. War was chaotic and indiscriminate, killing even the most prepared warrior along with green recruits and non-combatants alike. That unpredictability made it terrifying. It was a dragon that killed not for food or to defend its territory but simply because that was what it did. War was killing and destruction where no clans won, but some lost more desperately than others. She needed to leave Sado before she too was caught in its jaws. She pulled the top of her pack tight, callused hands working quickly with the familiar strings as she tied it up and slung it over her shoulders. That was it; she was packed. With a last look back around her room in the imperial gardens, she turned and walked out the door, leaving it to close itself behind her. It was time to go. She had plenty of leave time stored up for the past few years. She didn't take a lot of holidays because in truth a lot of her trips out to Oki and Odaiba were like holidays in themselves. Now, she was able to take several months off and just disappear. She would return when either all of the political tensions had blown over or when full war was declared and she could return to Oki to help them how she could. Until that happened, she would try to find herself some peace out among the trees, birds and lizards, under the stars and the open sky. There was only the matter of where she would go first. Odaiba, she decided. There were a few places there she would like to visit, and she knew that the huts around the lower slopes of Koshiki had recently been stocked with provisions. From there, she could always move on to somewhere else, but if she was going to be on the mountain then... why not have a crack at the peak? The area around the crater wasn't very hospitable, but the summit had been achieved many times by various groups and individuals throughout history. There wouldn't be too much snow on the peak at this time of year, and she could certainly use a bit of challenge and adventure. The more she thought about it, the more she like the idea. There was just one snag. She knew most of the bush in the archipelago like the back of her mask, and was confident in her ability to navigate it successfully, even gathering from it everything she needed to survive if necessary. But to attempt the mountain, she would be reckless and stupid to go alone. She would need a partner, someone to watch her back while she watched theirs, and to hep each pother in a crisis. Mountains were treacherous places where conditions could change with frightening speed. She knew this, weighed the risk and decided against going alone. Maybe she could do it alone. Probably even. But she wasn't willing to find out. The question was, who was she going to take? It froze her half in and half out of the doorway onto the streets of the imperial palace. OOC: Tara open for interaction! Does anyone want to come along and climb Koshiki? You never know what we might find up there, or at least, our characters don't.

OOC: Great post, Zakaro! Anyway, you guys can continue as you were and don't mind me. I'm just moving things along. GM IC: Spiriah returned to the lab, carrying a large number of bottles and jars, and began meticulously measuring out their contents into the empty vat. So focussed was he on his task that he completely ignored the prisoners, and the loud bubbling of the vat that soon sprung up along with the clinking of instruments and the clanking of Spirah's movements meant that they could continue to talk to each other without risking him eavesdropping. This continued for about an hour, by which time the contents of the vat was glowing the same sickly green as it had been when they arrived. Very gently, Spiriah dripped in his last ingredient and leapt back, apparently expecting another explosion. It never came. Instead, the mixture turned blood red and began to bubble all the more. Apparently satisfied, Spiriah locked down the vat's metal lid and left the lab with a nasty smile etched all over his mask. He went back out into the other rooms beyond, presumably to where he slept, and did not emerge again. GM IC: Back in Katipo, the team had still not returned by the time the lightstones went out and night fell over the City in the Dark. Only a few dim splashes of colour remained to light the main streets, the lanterns glowing like the embers of a dying fire. The scouting group had promised to be back before now, and that if they did not, something had gone badly wrong.

I'm not house, but having read it, this is how I think it goes. He didn't abandon that plan, he just never thought of it. The goal of his machinations during the Metru Nui arc was to awaken the memory-wiped Matoran as their leader so that they would all worship him and Mata Nui would be out of the picture. He only came up with the greater, body-possessing plan after that failed. In the universe of this game, he instead decided for a war to dominate the universe, presumably while he came up with some other way to get what he really wanted.

That much, I expected. It's how to do that that I'm still not clear on.

Probably, but I would guess that if/when anyone managed to open the main door, it would also disable that security mechanism. Whoever wrote the riddle and locked the door probably didn't want to kill the person/people who were to open it.

The bit of the floor that heats up enough to melt a rahkshi of fire resistance to slag when you step on it.

IC (Karemo): Karemo rose over the first two pillars as they erupted from the ground, but the third caught him a glancing blow to his left shoulder, and he tumbled from the air, plunging into a deep drift of snow. He surfaced, spluttering as he spat ice from his mouth and feeling the deep cold that had settled over the area. When he had been flying high over the two armies, he had been beyond the influence of the Ko-toas' manipulations, only entering it for short periods and moving through and out the other side. Now that he had been forced to slow down, he began shivvering uncontrolably, even after a few short seconds. He had to admit, this she-toa in the guard was proving a worthy opponent, displaying incredible power and fortitude. She had taken a massive blow to the chest, and he was pretty sure that he had felt ribs crack under his hammer, but she was still throwing up walls of ice, huge pillars and spheres with every pass he made, even performing multiple uses of elemental power simultaneously. If things had been different, she could have been a powerful servant of Makuta, but as things were, there was no chance to convert her. She just had to die. She would be running low on elemental power after all of that, not to mention her participation in creating the huge ice bridge over the gate and dropping the area's temperature along with the other ko-toa in the group. Karemo, meanwhile, had used very little of his own elemental power so far, mostly relying on his mask and antidermis. Maybe it was time to change that. Standing firm on the icy ground, he created a large sheet of metal in front of himself, a bio square but thin with razor-sharp edges. Lifting it into the air with elemental power, he sent it flying towards at the toa, spinning thouhg the air like a giant, lethal frisbee. IC (Kitano): Seeing his brother fall out of the air, Kitano abandoned control of Icha's former mount and instead focused on the bull carrying the toa who was fighting Karemo. He commanded the bull to freeze in place, buying the other Legacy member a bit more time and the opportunity to aim at a stationary target.

Well I don't know about inside the village, but outside the (now broken?) gates there is a large group of Makutak followers and necromantic cultists fighting against Ko-Koro's Kane-Ra cavalry. There's about a dozen toa of ice there so the temperatures are getting crazy low, but it could be a good place to start.

The "go get the artifacts" thing happened in City of Legends in late 2013-early 2014 with the Geat Disks / Nui Stone fragments. It is not too common, but certainly not forgotten. As for the canonicity of games, here is a brief summary of the entries in the last four contests. The ones in red were winners. Parallel - Toa Levacius Zehvor - A not very canon story of Brotherhood servants who had traveled back in time to make sure that the Plan would succeed.Outbreak - Canis Lycaon - A possible near-future of Spherus Magna, so canon issues are addressed but not crucial. Non-canon location.Midnight City - Gravity - A Spherus Magna so far into the future that just about everything canon has been forgotten.City in the Dark - The Lorax - Set in a non-canon location filling a gap in the Nui Stone's history, between its making and its coming to Tuyet. Either canon or alternate universe, depending on how things finish up.Ultimate City of Ultimate Destiny - Fabulous Sunshine - Very set apart from canon. Set in its own world as an amalgamation of several others.A Journey of Sand, Stars, and Spirit - JustZakaro - A possible medium-future of Spherus Magna, importance of canon not yet known as it is still being played. Spirits of the Ice - The Otter - A non-canon story in a non-canon location. No canon characters were involved.Sanctuary - Toatapio Nuva - A far-future of Spherus Magna. Canon is unimportant.The Bubble - Ehks - A non-canon story in a non-canon location. No canon characters were involved.Gangs of Metru Nui - .saorsa - A game set in an alternate future of Metru Nui. Some ties to canon.Outbreak - Canis Lycaon - A possible near-future of Spherus Magna, so canon issues are addressed but not crucial. Non-canon location.Sky/Fall - MjolnirInTheFridge - A far-future of Spherus Magna. Canon is unimportant.Condemned - Shadowhawk - A far-future of Spherus Magna. Canon is unimportant.Fallen from the Light - ZakarOh! - Possibly far-future of Spherus Magna? Canon is unimportant.The Web - The Lorax - A game following the untold but canon story of the creation of the Visorak horde and its invasion of Tobduk's homeland.The Legend of the Thirteenth Island - More Fierce Than Fire - A semi-canon history of the Southern Islands.City of the Lost - Oryx - Difficult to say. Possibly an alternate Mahri Nui?Maelstrom - Rhaegar Targaryen - An alternate future of the MU, set in Metru Nui. The Bubble - The X - Non-canon location, story and characters.Predicaments - Commander Obvious - Alternate future set on Metru Nui.City of Legends - The Lorax - An alternate history of the Toa/Dark Hunter War on Metru Nui. Setup is almost entirely like canon, tough the outcome is not.Disruption - Canis Lycaon - An alternate history of the Matoran Civil War on Metru Nui. Mostly like canon.Marathon - Wazdakka - Far future of Spherus Magna. Not much canon involved.The Legend of the Thirteenth Island - Lord of Adders Black - A semi-canon history of the Southern Islands.Spirits of the Mist - Zakar0 - Possible future of Spherus Magna in a non-canon city.Petty Little Conflicts - Mr. House - Alternate future of the MU. Creates its own canon.The Arsenal of the Ancients - The Fourteenth - Set in a custom location on Pre-MU Spherus Magna. Canon largely irrelevant.Era - Gravity - Far history of Spherus Magna. Canon largely irrelevant.Masquerade - Parugi - Everything is custom. City in the Dark - The Lorax - Set in a non-canon location filling a gap in the Nui Stone's history, between its making and its coming to Tuyet. Either canon or alternate universe, depending on how things finish up.The Voyage of the Requiem IV - Toa Levacius Zehvor - Medium-future of Spherus Magna. Very little canon involved.Tides - Legolover-361 - Possible future of Spherus Magna. Little canon involved.City of the Dead - Grantaire - Alternate history of the Makuta/Dark Hunter war. Set on Metru Nui. Reasonably canon, with a few plot-enabling differences.Disruption - Canis Lupus - An alternate history of the Matoran Civil War on Metru Nui. Mostly like canon.Trapped in a Map - Toa Kovolta - Custom location, story and characters, set not long before the Great Cataclysm. Not much canon involved.The Legend of the Thirteenth Island - Lord of Adders Black - A semi-canon history of the Southern Islands.Reborn in Red - ZakarOMEGA'D! - Set on the Red Star, incorporating everything in canon known about that place, which isn't much, so mostly its own thing.SKY/FALL - MjolnirInTheFridge - A far-future of Spherus Magna. Canon is unimportant.The Trial of Nations - Shuhei Hisagi - Post-canon Spherus Magna, canon not relevant.Sunken Cities - The Fourteenth Doctor - Alternate history of the MU. Canon ignored. OK, so now after doing that and seeing Levacius's post, the trend seems to be for post-canon stories where canon can be used or not, depending on the writer's preference, or altered re-runs of canon events. The third major category would be BIONICLE-style settings, like islands with Toa and Matoran or Metru Nui-like cities. Done and done, at least as far as all of my games have been concerned. True, there is a lots of flexibility in there and multiple paths that the ending could take, but they have all been thought out. Moving aimlessly through a story without any idea where it might be going seems like a great way to go nowhere, but neither would anyone want to railroad players through a plot that they couldn't influence at all. The middle ground, in my opinion, is a multi-ending scenario where the GM knows the different paths a story could take, but lets players' actions decide which one actually sees the light of day. I don't wish to seem prideful, but perhaps this is one reason why I have a 100% record for my games not dying?

Well, there is the Valkyr. That link is to the wiki article and EW is currently going by EmpressYumiwa

I'm sorry, I can't let that pass. Punching time was great, but... Anyone up for ripping holes in it? And then just to make this post still on topic, the arrival of more characters may mean that Joske is slightly less screwed than he was before. I'll be watching Kini Nui with interest.

Silvan hits the nail on the head. Just because many different dimensions exist, doesn't mean there will be PCs in all of them at once. Since olmaks will not be immediately available (see Silvan's first response), dimensional travel will only take place as part of interaction with plot stuff. A group that forms in Vezonland might escape into Karda Nui, go from there into the Kingdom, get sucked through a Fall into the Battle of Bara Magna and then dragged back to Vezonoand by a bunch of Shadows, but they would do all of it as a group. This means I only need to be looking after one group of characters and one set of NPCs at a time. I think that doing this for 2-3 groups is within my abilities as a GM. The Shadows are not murderous. They only want to bring the Lost back to Vezonland, which, from my perspective, is completely possible within the game in a way that killing them would not be. This is why they are playable: they are not prevented from achieving their goal by plot. That and I thought they would make fun characters to play. This is true, but in very broad terms, I can make some reasonable predictions. I don't think it would be too much to ask to get a group of beings who want to escape Vezonland, a group of Shadows, and a group who doesn't want to escape. Whatever the dynamics happen to be within those groups, I can work with whatever comes up. Incorrect. Here is the relevant bit: Everyone who went through the archway got their wish, and then everybody was pulled back to Vezonland. Everybody get screwed over, no matter how early or late they used the archway. If I were to remove from the game everything that the characters won't know or be sure of from the start, I would not have much of a game left, and that game wouldn not be representative of what would be RPed. It would be like if, in Trapped in a Map, our characters had escaped the map after two weeks and then spent the rest of the three months playing a massive alkilini tournament. It would be lying to the people who signed up to play the game about what they would be playing. To keep with the TiaM analogy (since that is a recent game that both of us played and liked) I'm not greatly worried about people using the information presented here when making their characters. In that game, we knew from the beginning of the game, though our characters didn't, that there really was a way out of the Map, and it would be discovered soon. So we made characters to take advantage of those facts, giving them means and motivation to take advantage. Your faction of Inquisitors was a response to the OOC knowledge that there would be conflict between the Worshippers and the Disruptors. These were not bad things to do. We weren't giving characters extra knowledge or having them act out of character. We were just making characters who were suited to the world of the game and would be able to interact strongly with the story. There is nothing wrong with this, in my view. If people want to make characters who would be equipped (in terms of personality and backstory) to deal with interdimensional journeying and play them, that's fine. It's the same as wanting to play a detective character in a mystery RPG - playing characters appropriate to the setting. If things cross in actual metagaming where characters know things they shouldn't, I can deal with that as it comes up. I'm going to trust players not to do that, and since the characters will be finding out a lot fairly quickly, hope that they won't feel the need to.

Don't give up on this yet. If the Rahkshi could read its master's mind and see commands there, it would act on them. There is your telepathic link right there, created not by the master but by the rahkshi.

There is no "just" or "little" about this. People went to it because a spirit's wish is a person's deepest desire, the thing which, by definition, they would give up anything else to have. Also remember that the wishes need not always be selfish, and that the destination dimensions would probably also contain a wisher's loved ones. They would be the same people that they care about, just with a few different experiences. Finally on the selfishness point - is it not worse to ask your friends to stay along with you, and deny them a shot at their deepest desires? Anyway, this is all in the backstory, not int the actual play of the game itself. That bit is where the important stuff happens. The whole wish granting thing gives an interesting insight into characters, but its main function is to get the characters all to a point where the gameplay can begin. So on to that. (But first, a quick stop-off on the war/control point - there is no point in any group controlling the archway. The characters who might get control of the archway would, by definition, want whatever was on the other side of it more than they would want to stay and control the wish, so they walk though. Then they are gone, and no longer controlling who has access to the archway.) You're quite right, I haven't put much effort into making things mysterious here. This was on purpose. It was not meant to be mysterious. I am now coming to the end of RPing four months of mystery in CitD, so I've had my fill of that, and there will always be other places I can get mystery when I want it and can handle it better. This game is not about exploring mysteries, it is about travelling through the BIONICLE multiverse, constantly running from reality-destroying calamities while trying to find a way to combat them along the journey. And dealing with whatever gets thrown at them in the dimensions that they travel through. Adventure and action and the key words here. This is exactly the reason why I had to put those three sentences in. The end was messy, and saying it never was the quickest, cleanest way to deal with that and move on. Stating very briefly and generically that all that stuff in the serials never happened frees us from having to wonder how all those unresolved things might affect our characters and opens up the characters involved in those for PC-ification and involvement in the game plot. As stated above, this stuff is not the point of the RPG. It is just background to the backstory, so I don't feel the need to go into huge depth on exactly how it all happened. Who cares what repercussions it had on Spherus Magna when those are now all irrelevant. Everyone left that world and the only repurcussions that matter now, for the game, are that everyone ended up in Vezonland and the multiverse is deeply broken. Those, I explained in some depth. And what? The characters have all been massively screwed over! They got a short amount of time getting exactly what they wanted (or thought they wanted), only to have it all torn away from them by something they had no idea was coming and couldn't control. I'm not sure what you mean by them being "too late". The multiverse bit is outside of what any character knows about for the moment, but I think it needs to be there all the same. It is, after all, where most of the game will take place, so players need to know about what they would be getting into, and judges need it to be able to evaluate the game. Not having that section included would be like writing up a game set on Mata Nui and then having the action move to Voya Nui a week into the game with no prior hints at that. As I said to Silvan above, I think a game can handle 2-3 groups if they are managed properly. One group of Lost that leaves, one group of Shadows to chase them, and another group of whoever is left in Vezonland, to try and kill Vezon or whatever. Who ends up in what group can be determined by, as you say, differences in the characters' priorities and ideals, clashing personalities and all that good stuff. That doesn't preclude conflict within the groups either. In fact, I expect it. Since it will be almost impossible for PCs to reunite in Vezonland with the people they knew and associated with on Spherus Magna, they may be forced into teaming up with people they don't totally like or agree with. And that will be fun. Thanks for the feedback. I'll work on clarifying the backstory and how and why everyone got to where they are for the beginning of the game.

Oh no, we're still behind you. Our memories not so short that we would underestimate Friar Tuck. Meteors, the Hungry Hungry Games, punching time and whatever else happened before I joined... But Joske, on the other hand... yeah, he's in a tough spot. He'll probably live through it, but it won't be pleasant.

I can see where the confusion comes from here, but the Spirit's Wish does not create a new dimension for each person that walks through it. That would be beyond the power of an olmak. The way this works is that there have been an awful lot of beings all making decisions for an awfully long time and influencing each others' decisions, so by now the number of possible alternate timelines and pocket dimensions is so large as to be effectively infinite. Rather than creating a dimension designed to meet a person's desires, the archway just selects the place that is already like that and sends the person there. This means that the people in the destination dimension are not robots deigned specifically to bring one person pleasure (that truly would be creepy and repulsive), but those real people that the person knows, living in a place where they had all had happier lives (or sadder, depending on what the wisher desires). If the wish is that they be truly the same, then they will be. They're still the same people that the wisher knows and loves. (I know this makes it a little difficult to explain Vezonland already existing, but here goes: Sometime, in some universe, somebody created a pocket dimension that would be a reflection of the mind of the first person to arrive there, but then it was never used. This is where Vezon got sent, and so we got Vezonland). They could congregate, true, but a person who would turn down their deepest desire only because it hurt their pride would be one in a million. There truly wouldn't be that many, and then they would have to find each other over the entire planet When faced with that and all of the other people they know leaving them, I think most would reconsider. I suppose it is possible that the few who stayed and survived in the ruins of a departed civilisation, but just for completeness I'm going to say that they didn't. It doesn't affect the story of the game anyway, and just makes for an awkward loose end. It's much cleaner to say that the only beings left behind were rahi. If they wanted to rule two planets, they wouldn't have to come back and conquer the original dimension. They would end up in a place where that was already the case just by walking through the arch the first time. If, even after that, they decided that two weren't enough and they wanted to go conquer some more, that would be possible. Maybe it even happened, but they went back to timelines other than the main one of this game. Again, it doesn't really matter, unless someone is playing a character who did this. The point is that a bunch of people were able to leave Spherus Magna and ended up in Vezonland.

Second thing: Good point, I'll work on putting something together. First things: Yeah, it's a weakness. I couldn't spend a lot of timing going into depth about all of that stuff, because it isn't really important to the playing of the game. The exact method of how all this stuff happened isn't that important, only that did. Still, here are my best explantions. They aren't as rock solid as I'd like, but they're at least plausible. They knew either by some kind soul coming back to tell them, or by somebody discovering the arch, recognising it as GB-magitek and waving their magic staff of what-do-it-do? over the thing or employing some other analytical method. Again, the how isn't really important for the story, but there are several ways that it might have occurred. As for wanting to go through, having good things in their present life shouldn't be a barrier. If those things are really important to the person, they will almost certainly exist in the dimension where they would end up after going through the Spirit's Wish as well, except better. Those who thought that using the arch was "cheating" would probably have come around pretty quickly once most people started moving. The alternative would have been having most to all of their friends leave and being left alone in a ghost town. When that is the alternative, the Spirit's Wish looks even better. Maybe a few loonies really would have stayed I don't see a war developing over the archway because staying around to prevent others from using it would also mean not going through yourself. Also, once you had gone through to get your army, you would probably stay where you ended up and enjoy it, rather than coming back just to deny other people.

Artahka