[Koval]

This may be my just-crawled-out-of-bed state talking, but Fabian is not hostile.

[Koval]

My router's misbehaving. It keeps resetting itself at random, so I end up with about a five minute window of internet, then a five minute window of swearing as it bugs out.

We've spent long enough on the phone to tech support to have worked out that it's a problem with the router itself, and that it's largely unfixable without replacing the whole unit. So we are. There should be a new one coming on Wednesday, but in any case I'll let you all know on Thursday whether or not we'll be running -- at the moment I'd like to say "yes we will" but if not, I'll try very hard to post and say otherwise.

[Heroka Vendile]

I'm sure at the very least we'll give you till 8-ish to show up before deciding you're a no-show, after all we spend as much time nattering as playing sometimes anyway.

On a similar note, I was wondering about our scheduling; with RT paused for now (hope you're feeling better again Rich), what would peoples thoughts be on shifting DH to weekly instead of fortnightly? We essentially did just that this week and have all committed to a weekly schedule of skyping since RT originally kicked off anyway.
Obviously if folks feel they want a couple thursdays back to themselves for now, or if the current DH GM (Joseph in this case) requires the fortnightly schedule to give time to write up the next stage then that's fine by me.

Just thought it worth raising as it would, among other things, compress the number of weeks each investigation takes IRL. Relatively speaking resulting in faster story and character development (and less chance of forgetting NPC names and plot points one week to the next) - even if it's just up until Rich feels up to returning to RT.

[MarcoSkoll]

This may be my just-crawled-out-of-bed state talking, but Fabian is not hostile.

No, that wasn't what I thought. I was just saying it should have been more obvious that Fabian would be involved, given that it's established that he and Rhodes are allies and have actually traded agents before.

As for the router, I can't blame you for an absence. We had a very similar issue earlier this year that forced me to miss GMing a session (the fact that our previous dog had also suffered his second major fit shortly beforehand didn't help either), which eventually turned out to be down to the fact that the signal strength arriving through our broadband cable was about a hundred times higher than the modem was designed for and had basically fried the thing so it was constantly rebooting itself.

As for speeding up the schedule, I'd not mind getting to game every week again, as a fortnightly schedule can be a little sluggish (particularly if we have to miss a session due to people having other commitments). If we could kick things up to every week until the Rogue Trader is ready to run again, I'm sure I'd enjoy it.
And I'm sure you guys would end up getting saved from a lot of the monologuing that I tend to launch into when we have just the extended chat session.

~~~~~

Also, I've remembered that I sent Van Helser notes on Alyx (or as now has been revealed, Lady Leveque - although I think her true first name still evades the other characters) that I don't think made it to you Koval, so I'll be forwarding those through shortly.

I guess I probably need to think about what equipment upgrades Alyx might be looking for as well, but I'll muse over that and send it through separately. (I think she might at least be on the hunt for a more combat practical pistol than she currently has, seeing as her revolver is short on capacity, and her compact laspistol bounces off most things.)

[Koval]

I think it's stabilised itself for the moment...

I'm sure at the very least we'll give you till 8-ish to show up before deciding you're a no-show, after all we spend as much time nattering as playing sometimes anyway.

How kind.

Obviously if folks feel they want a couple thursdays back to themselves for now, or if the current DH GM (Joseph in this case) requires the fortnightly schedule to give time to write up the next stage then that's fine by me.

The campaign itself was written about two years ago, so aside from this "fourth area" (I did say Classic BioWare Formula, right?) that I didn't end up using and have to rewrite, everything's more or less in place. I've toned down a couple of encounters, though, seeing as none of us are Toughness 40 Unnatural x2 Arbitrators, carrying thunder hammers, or building anti-materiel rifles from a coat hanger and an old circuit board.

This may be my just-crawled-out-of-bed state talking, but Fabian is not hostile.

No, that wasn't what I thought. I was just saying it should have been more obvious that Fabian would be involved, given that it's established that he and Rhodes are allies and have actually traded agents before.

Fair enough.

As for speeding up the schedule, I'd not mind getting to game every week again, as a fortnightly schedule can be a little sluggish (particularly if we have to miss a session due to people having other commitments). If we could kick things up to every week until the Rogue Trader is ready to run again, I'm sure I'd enjoy it.
And I'm sure you guys would end up getting saved from a lot of the monologuing that I tend to launch into when we have just the extended chat session.

I take it that's that settled then?

Also, I've remembered that I sent Van Helser notes on Alyx (or as now has been revealed, Lady Leveque - although I think her true first name still evades the other characters) that I don't think made it to you Koval, so I'll be forwarding those through shortly.

Cheers.

I guess I probably need to think about what equipment upgrades Alyx might be looking for as well, but I'll muse over that and send it through separately. (I think she might at least be on the hunt for a more combat practical pistol than she currently has, seeing as her revolver is short on capacity, and her compact laspistol bounces off most things.)

You don't have to worry about that.

[MarcoSkoll]

I've toned down a couple of encounters, though, seeing as none of us are Toughness 40 Unnatural x2 Arbitrators, carrying thunder hammers, or building anti-materiel rifles from a coat hanger and an old circuit board.

Lucky us.

As far as weapons, I can't imagine that Alyx is likely to upgrade too dramatically damage-wise from where she is at the moment, given a bigger rifle would be too heavy for her and chain/power weapons aren't actually very subtle for an assassin.

Like I've said, she does want a more impressive pistol (or two), but melee wise, the only upgrade I can think that she'd be interested in over her mono-sword would be whatever equivalent to a Lathe weapon could be rustled up around Carthax. (I've used "Hale weapons" on a couple of my characters - there's a heap of fluff behind them, but it's actually quite lengthy, so I'll spare you it for now).

You don't have to worry about that.

Now I'm worried about why I don't have to worry about it.

[Koval]

You'll have to wait 'til tomorrow to find out, in that case, as revealing why you don't have to worry would be a bit spoilery.

[Koval]

double

Just to confirm, we are ON tonight, because my internet appears to be behaving.

[Koval]

triple

Achievement Unlocked: Down Payment (10)

I've changed the planet's name around a little bit -- the name is Aurvol. Pronounced the same, but spelled slightly differently.

The ship Fabian's given you is about 400 metres long (and still looks like a very plump bird), although the roughly-100m³ of habitable space you've got is still more or less what you get. There's the gaming table in the main room, the bridge (more like a very large cockpit, as it happens), an arms locker (in a closet) that's got about twenty lasguns and a few pistols with plenty of charge packs each, a store cupboard with enough ration packs for ten people to last two months, ten sleeping capsules, some obligatory chemical toilets, and Fabian's very kindly furnished you with a reader-slate rack so you've got something to read on the way there.

It doesn't yet have a name, though this is deliberate -- it's a stealth ship and doesn't benefit from having one.

Enginseer Ragnan Knell has brought servitors with him to keep the ship running and to do the actual piloting; seeing as servitors don't need to eat or sleep that often, it made the most sense given that the ship itself is tiny. Fabian's also loaned you two Navigators from House Vorclee -- originally it was going to be just the one, but then I remembered that even a Navigator can't manage several solid days of constant work without a break somewhere along the way.


Marco -- Fabian's mention of the Ordo Perditus was deliberate, as I doubt the party (Alyx possibly excluded) knows a great deal about the Inquisition's internal organisation, and they've met Lyra so they've at least heard the name before. Fabian, in any event, is more eager for it to stay relatively in-house than have it outsourced fully to the Malleus or Hereticus. If bringing up the Perditus causes problems, let me know.

[MarcoSkoll]

Using the Perditus shouldn't be a problem - adding in some more back history for them isn't a bad thing.

Also, if the ship has no name, you risk me calling it the "Savage Chicken", because I read far too many webcomics.

~~~~~

As far as the internal factions of the Inquisition, Alyx really knows pretty little. Her familiarity with the name Perditus, last night, was down to having fleshed out a few of the details of what had happened during the "training period" Ruaridh had allocated before our last adventure. (Novus' progression to "Grammaton Cleric" - Not the actual title, but I do think that has Grammaton in it somewhere... - was at least partly RPed, but it was left rather up to others how their version of events went.)

I decided that somewhere amongst the events, there had been at least some meeting with Gala, who being the kind of person she is, responds to reading Alyx's full title - which, at its most ridiculous, details her relationship to the family patriarch (her grandfather), naming him and her father in full (who both have four forenames and in her grandfather's case an extended honorific) for a total of 27 words - with as long winded as she could make her own name, which she does mostly by adding "Inquisitorial agent under Inquisitor Lyra Joandra Rhodes of the Ordo Perditus Carthaxian" seeing as the rest is just "Cymone Regin".
(Alyx was not hugely impressed by this joke.)

Alyx never really got any big explanation for that beyond perhaps guessing something from its High Gothic root (but she was at least paying attention), so last night added some more context for it.
She's using what chances she can to sound "in the know", because she's got a bit of gambit going to get the people they're assigned to stop omitting things because they're dumbing the details down or think it's beyond her pay-grade - which, if it works, snowballs as she can then con her next handler a little more convincingly. Her hope here is that being a little better informed might make the difference between life and death.

This kind of thing is sort of second nature to her - being a noblewoman, subtle suggestion and manipulation are something she's seen a lot of over her years.

This makes choosing which rank she'll take next really difficult - the Freeblade option plays a lot into her nobleborn side, but:
a) she's not really all that keen to play this up, seeing as the other characters mostly don't know.
b) probably not going to go great, as it's a Fellowship based upgrade tree, a stat she's not great on and can only upgrade at exorbitant expense. (And on a 4th wall level, a bit useless, given Ernst would still be better than her and thus taking the tests for us.)
c) the Death Adept choice works too - given her circumstances, martial prowess is not going to go amiss.

In any case, I should probably buy her things like Charm and Deceive, even if its through elite advances, as it does have some tie in to her identity.

~~~~~

As for Alyx's current assessments, she's a little anxious about the ship Fabian has lent them (but would be even more so if she knew her assessment of its value is short by several orders of magnitude). The implications of the sheer level of resources he's investing means he's one or more of:
- Totally insane
- Highly overconfident in, or overestimating, our ability.
- Really desperate.

None of those things are a good sign.

~~~~~

I shall also add that we're not great with our shopping trips. That was sort of "Oh yay, we get to buy things! Uh... who actually needs something?" It didn't help that what was in the package Lyra sent Alyx meant that half of what I had previously been musing over became highly redundant.

[Koval]

Using the Perditus shouldn't be a problem - adding in some more back history for them isn't a bad thing.

Fair enough.

As for Alyx's current assessments, she's a little anxious about the ship Fabian has lent them (but would be even more so if she knew her assessment of its value is short by several orders of magnitude). The implications of the sheer level of resources he's investing means he's one or more of:
- Totally insane
- Highly overconfident in, or overestimating, our ability.
- Really desperate.

None of those things are a good sign.

Not 1, a little bit of 2, and not 3.

The reasons he sent Gorgon Cell at all were A) because I'd already had the character sheets sitting there for ages B) because you weren't around to investigate when he got the message, and he's going to value trust from Lyra more than trust from Hesh. Given that Fabian had command of Hesh's cells only due to Hesh being indisposed, and given that Fabian doesn't really do "remote cells", it's highly likely that Fabian wanted little to do with what Hesh had landed him with, but neither could he just ignore an obvious threat.

The fact that Fabian's message to Dionysus amounted to "I need Team Six*" didn't help much, admittedly (not least because he didn't clarify why he needed you until after you were on your way to Port Alcis), but the point remains that he'd rather have sent you than Gorgon Cell. The reason he's dropping such a ridiculously expensive ship on you, therefore, is because it's several shades faster than anything you've yet encountered -- while I doubt the characters (aside from Alyx) will know about Gorgon, Fabian's motive is "get these guys over there before Gorgon screw something up".

(As for why Fabian hasn't gone anywhere himself, the answer has something to do with a certain blonde.)

[MarcoSkoll]

Fabian's motive is "get these guys over there before Gorgon screw something up"

Does sound like he's a teensy bit desperate then, if that's his motive!

[Koval]

Granted, but he's not desperate from the "you're the only ones that can do X" point of view, and he's certainly not desperate enough to either come with you or do it himself.

[Heroka Vendile]

Having been the one to suggest the weekly schedule it's already biting me in the bum, as previously warned most of October's Thursdays will be busy for me, but it's starting early.
Basically, I'll miss this week's (the 28th Sep); along with the 11th, possibly the 18th and definitely the 25th Oct; plus the 1st & 8th Nov.
After that it's back to regular service (apart from 20th Dec when I'm in france).

[Koval]

On the one hand it's money, but on the other it's still a shame. If I've got my numbers the right way round, though, you'll probably have Gulliman back in time for Scenario #4 and everything after that, as well (presumably) as bits of Scenario #3 and the Oh Crap moment depending on which way round everyone else wants to do the scenarios.