Monday Chat Nights

[Dray]

Chat/RP Room!

So with school started and lives busy, it seems like the Nexus could use some pre-planning to keep our ideas of a weekly live chat RP on the fly. I was thinking of setting up a thread where we could discuss what we'd like to play, once JKat's aven bonding RP has been wrapped up!

Myself, I'm quite interested in participating in the worlds that everyone has brewed up. We've gotten bits and snatches in stories, but it would be neat to do some localized exploring!

I think it would be interesting to either be able to use characters we have already paged, or to stick with a single character like an ambassador/explorer from week to week.

More pre-bonding RP would be interesting, too!

Multi-week 'campaigns' would be awesome but not necessary... depending on the number of people turning out, things may wind up going rather slow. Maybe on nights where things aren't planned, we could have a neutral gathering place for characters to chat to one another. I've been enjoying reading various Nexus characters chatting with one another and making the Nexus feel more like a place that is literally connected!

[Xalia]

As soon as I find time to redo the Kilandaian dragon images I'll be wanting to do a pre-bonding RP, so we have that to look forward to. Who knows how long it'll take me to redo the images, though if we have a weekly 'something going on' then at least that'll give me some motivation! XD

I agree, though, paged characters only. Either hopefuls for bonding or already bonded would be best. This is supposed to be something we can do with our characters not fodder for new characters. Though, I know I like to create characters that are from whatever planet I'm playing on now and then so maybe the ability to throw up a stat-sheet with story to come on occasion might be good too...but maybe okay it with the person in charge of the world you're playing on?

I've got so many Kilandaian plots that would be fun to get a group of people in on, but I think I want to hold them until after the bonding...that way everyone can bring their dragons back to help out on their home world!

[Yakima]

Well, I've been pondering doing RP bondings for the wolves and perhaps some Treval bondings, too, if I ever get to that.

[aireona93]

I'd love to explore other people's worlds through the RP! And maybe bringing in some characters that have been adopted from those places over the years. Any of my worlds would be open for RPing too, if we end up needing even more new areas to mess around in. ^ ^

BTW, it was a great idea to start a thread like this, Dray! Thanks.

[StarFyre]

As per random late-night chatter last Monday - if people are interested, there's always the war at Akelara to play around with (possibly even dungeon-crawling through Koshi Keidai if people want a dungeon crawl =P ) or, for less nasty-oriented play, there's always the entirety of Nyracii, including a completely unmapped continent, a giant desert, etc-etc.

Also! If I am ever not on during an rp and you'd like the rp to be logged to the Nexus-RP site that I built, save the logs and email em to me and they'll go up as soon as I get a moment.

[Dray]

Though, I know I like to create characters that are from whatever planet I'm playing on now and then so maybe the ability to throw up a stat-sheet with story to come on occasion might be good too...but maybe okay it with the person in charge of the world you're playing on?

We could always have that option at the beginning! I was thinking of this, too, though I'd like to have a good sense of the place before making a character from it. It seems like it'd be fun!

As soon as I find time to redo the Kilandaian dragon images I'll be wanting to do a pre-bonding RP, so we have that to look forward to.

Yes please!

Well, I've been pondering doing RP bondings for the wolves and perhaps some Treval bondings, too, if I ever get to that.

I do really enjoy Treval's setup, and I'd love to have a chance to wander around in it! I'm not into wolves at the moment, but I'd totally hang out and RP with folks while it's happening as... I don't know, a witness to how it all works, or something?

Any of my worlds would be open for RPing too, if we end up needing even more new areas to mess around in. ^ ^

You know, I think that'd be pretty awesome. If you ever want to set something up, I'd be all over exploring your Federation worlds... there's just such an amazing amount of culture to take in! Focusing on a small bit of it would be really interesting! (I love the idea of being able to use characters who originated at other locations, too -- it kind of validates why you made 'em in the first place, save to run off to your own planet/domain to stay forever!)

As per random late-night chatter last Monday - if people are interested, there's always the war at Akelara to play around with (possibly even dungeon-crawling through Koshi Keidai if people want a dungeon crawl =P ) or, for less nasty-oriented play, there's always the entirety of Nyracii, including a completely unmapped continent, a giant desert, etc-etc.

I'd be really interested in a dungeon crawler sort of game. XD If you wanted to have a group of us aid the war in some small battle or skirmish, that might work out well for a plot.

Also! If I am ever not on during an rp and you'd like the rp to be logged to the Nexus-RP site that I built, save the logs and email em to me and they'll go up as soon as I get a moment.

I'll try to log things in any case, whenever I'm on, just so that people have 'em. Thanks for setting that up, again. So awesome!

---

A couple of other things: For nights when nobody is able (or ready XD) to GM, would you guys like to set up some kind of Healing Den-style central gathering place? Something like 'Nexus Hub Pub' or something where people can meet and get to know one another? It might help to have some character interaction on slow nights for upcoming GM'd games, so that characters can be familiar with one another!

Lastly, would you guys be interested in a more dungeon crawl style game, where baddies have to be defeated and special items can be acquired? It's not D&D, but it might be fun to have a simplified version where we can, for example, put all of our dragons' ridiculously overpowered abilities to good use -- and everyone knows that dragons love treasure... XD

[Xalia]

A couple of other things: For nights when nobody is able (or ready XD) to GM, would you guys like to set up some kind of Healing Den-style central gathering place? Something like 'Nexus Hub Pub' or something where people can meet and get to know one another? It might help to have some character interaction on slow nights for upcoming GM'd games, so that characters can be familiar with one another!

Lastly, would you guys be interested in a more dungeon crawl style game, where baddies have to be defeated and special items can be acquired? It's not D&D, but it might be fun to have a simplified version where we can, for example, put all of our dragons' ridiculously overpowered abilities to good use -- and everyone knows that dragons love treasure... XD

As per the first part...would it be a Nexus-central locale? Because it seems to me that it might be hard to come up with characters who could/would be there...in story, at least...because I would think the interactions would be more for the sake of "Hey, you're here!? I met you at the Nexus Hub! What're you doing here?" kinda interactions, not just so we can play with our characters... XD Maybe the gathering place could be more like an interplanetary tour bus? So that characters that wouldn't necessarily leave their home planet often could still show up and hang out while the 'tour bus' is in town? XD That might sound really stupid...I just know I have a /ton/ of characters I love who are really busy or just don't travel and I wouldn't feel like I could play with them in an off-world context... No one would have to be ready to GM we'd just need enough info about the place for the tour bus to land...so say it was coming to Kilandaia, it could land in one of the Goprin cities or outside The Lodge or such...all I'd have to do is provide the setting and throw whatever characters I want at those hopping off the ship to look around! XD I know I could come up with a character or two who could be on board but that'd give us all a chance to change characters now and then... *shrugs* Just a thought...

And for the other part, sounds fun! I could so see leading a dungeon crawl through the mountains on Kilandaia, killing off Sahkaeyla's minions, and in the end stumbling across a dragon hoard from which everyone manages to grab a random item before the dragon returns... XD Could be fun!

[Dray]

As per the first part...would it be a Nexus-central locale? Because it seems to me that it might be hard to come up with characters who could/would be there...in story, at least...because I would think the interactions would be more for the sake of "Hey, you're here!? I met you at the Nexus Hub! What're you doing here?" kinda interactions, not just so we can play with our characters... XD Maybe the gathering place could be more like an interplanetary tour bus? So that characters that wouldn't necessarily leave their home planet often could still show up and hang out while the 'tour bus' is in town? XD That might sound really stupid...I just know I have a /ton/ of characters I love who are really busy or just don't travel and I wouldn't feel like I could play with them in an off-world context... No one would have to be ready to GM we'd just need enough info about the place for the tour bus to land...so say it was coming to Kilandaia, it could land in one of the Goprin cities or outside The Lodge or such...all I'd have to do is provide the setting and throw whatever characters I want at those hopping off the ship to look around! XD I know I could come up with a character or two who could be on board but that'd give us all a chance to change characters now and then... *shrugs* Just a thought...

I think what we need is a shard (ahem) of the healing den, in that case! Doesn't it pick up and land in different locations at random? Maybe we can convince Shard to let us borrow a piece of it for the sake of touring the Nexus!

[Yakima]

Well, I've been pondering doing RP bondings for the wolves and perhaps some Treval bondings, too, if I ever get to that.

I do really enjoy Treval's setup, and I'd love to have a chance to wander around in it! I'm not into wolves at the moment, but I'd totally hang out and RP with folks while it's happening as... I don't know, a witness to how it all works, or something?

lol before I can RP that one I'm going to try go get better maps drawn for Treval and everything. The wolves bond similar to the Asande (just not the life-time commitment thing, just in the choosing process. ) which is why I was going to try one (plus it would be a smaller scale then a dragon one). I need to get the 'evil' part of Anar figured out, too. Just going with the classical D&D style baddies. heh. But, yeah, it's in my head. Or just RPing in Treval is available, too, though nothing is really set. Any of my sites are available, too, actually.

[Dray]

Monday, September 20th

Star City Massacre!!

"This just in from the brave field reporter Staci Shox of Star City News 5 -- o/`Staying Alive with News 5!o/` -- (Brought to you by Omnichomps, the best levo-amino and dextro-protein safe pet chow this side of the Milky Way!)

"Staci, what have you got for us?"

"Well, Tom, it's looking pretty grim up here; most of the station has been evacuated, and those who were living past the quarantine zone have been ordered to lock their homes using hard-vacuum seals, available at your local branch of the Cheyen-Tlaxa drugmart. I've managed to slip past the Security branch's warning fields and as you can see here, the resin you're seeing on the wall is indicative of xenomorphic building behavior.

"Now, as we all know, most xenodragons living in Star City have been asked to abide by local laws and as such have not posed a problem to the rest of the populace. Some are even working diligently among the crew of the Ministry of Security! From what I've managed to gather from Security Officers on the job, these builders belong to a brand new group of xenodragons, perhaps even belonging to a Queen of some sort. For those of you who aren't familiar with the xenodragon system, they work in a functionally entomological hive system, similar to the Thrak and more gentle Midorians. A queen is capable of producing dozens of drones and warriors, which are then sent out to conquer new territory and bring back 'hosts' for a gruesome reproductive cycle--

"No, I didn't hear that, Gerry, keep rolling!

"Tom, it seems like we may have to cut this short as--"

"YEAAAAAAUGHGHG!"

"Gerry! Oh stars and gods, they're horrible! Horrible!--"

ksssszzzzzsshshshshsshshshshsh

"Eh... heh, well, that was Staci Shox from News 5, reporting from beyond the quarantine zone in Star City. Meliba, if you'll kindly take us back to the weather for Driolo over the coming weekend?"[/i]

--------------------

Star City is under hostile Alien attack! Most citizens have either evacuated via ships on the docking ring, or have sealed themselves into their own homes, so all but the Ministry of Security have (mostly) been accounted for. Of course, there are those who were not so lucky and ran afoul of the aptly named 'face huggers' during the early outbreak, but now the station has come to a sort of stand off.

The news of the station's plight has traveled around the Nexus, and various mercenary bands have been contacted in hopes of turning the tide against the implacable xenodragons who are challenging their territory and building outwards even now! It seems that even outsider xenodragons are being rebuffed or destroyed by these new trouble-makers; those working for the Ministry of Security have as yet been unable to slip past the hive's outward defenses.

Each Player may bring up to three characters, but they must function as a group, and points will be divided equally amongst them. As you progress through the night, you may try to incapacitate and capture xenodragons that you come across, or you may attempt to destroy them. Destroyed xenodragons will afford you points; once all of the points have been accounted for, you may then trade them in for cyborware or other prizes. Points are affixed per character, not per player, and can't be redistributed at the end of the night.

Star City sports five decks. At the beginning of the night you may choose which deck you'd like to start upon: some are lower risk, but with lesser gain, others are higher risk but with a chance to scrounge more xenos or points.

Taking Turns
The entire night is considered one long encounter; turn order will be decided at the beginning of the night by dice rolls -- each player may roll a d20, and will post in that order. Players who want to team up may take the highest of their rolls, but then must work together throughout the night and divide points equally!

As the night goes on, I'll be rolling dice to see who you get for each encounter. These could range from xenodragon warriors, to facehuggers; you may even find beneficial treats! I will post, then you may post for your character(s), and if you have a teammate, they will post. Please include (( Dray, x )) before your post if you are replying to more than the GM!

Fighting
Setup
Each xenodragon or creature has a small pool of hit-points, but so does your character. Your character also has modifiers in resisting, evading, magic and attack which you may choose yourself!

Character Base HP: 10
Attack: 0
Magic: 0
Resist: 0
Evade: 0

Redistribute 10 points to the above based on your character's nature. (If I had a spritely, magic-strong dragoness, I would put most of her 10 extra points into 'evade' and 'magic', whereas a lumbering yautjadragoness might get points in HP, resist and attack!) Repeat this process if you are including more than one character (aka, they don't have to split points; they each get 10!)

The Danger!
When your character's HP reaches 0, he or she is incapacitated and will be whisked off by emergency medical officers for treatment -- they'll be functionally out of the game! They can keep whatever points they collected up until out of the game, but will not be able to share any more points thereafter.

How to Fight
Being creative with your attacks will gain you bonuses, as will team-work if you are working with another player. You may occasionally stumble upon stats boosters and medical kits to restore HP; please keep track of these throughout the night, including HP losses!

**NOTE** You don't have to roll any dice in order to roleplay! Fighting is a combination of your imagination and dice rolls on my part to add an element of randomness to the game. (If you'd like to roll for your character, on the other hand, include the roll of a d20 at the end of the description of your attack for each character.)

Mechanics: When attacking, characters use Magic/Attack modifiers + d20. When defending against an attack, they will use either Evade or Resist modifiers +10. Say a character has a magic bonus of 4. To hit an enemy with a Resist of 14, they would need to roll a 10 or higher.

Sweet Points and Prizes!
When an enemy reaches 0 HP, it becomes incapacitated. You may choose to take it home (At the end of the night you'll get a corresponding image) or you may deal it a coup de grace, killing it. Killing an enemy awards you points: Burstlings earn you 1 point, Facehuggers earn 2 points, Drones earn 3 points, and Warriors earn 5 points. There may be other enemies depending on how long this dungeon crawl lasts and how fast everyone motors through it! Xenodragons that are separated from their queen will eventually accede to a powerful force, such as another Hive Queen or similar personality. Lower rankers will be easier to subdue than higher rankers.

Minor Token Prizes
5 points each: Smaller tattoos, small jewelry like bracelets or necklaces, and other little changes to a template.

Moderate Token Prizes
10 points each: Larger tattoos, metallic filigree attached to the body (metallic tattoos), glowing wire attached to the body (glowing tattoos), more complicated jewelry, cosmetic changes such as horns, spikes, piercings, claws, fangs, etc. Custom cyborware or alterations to an image may be offered, including be-spelled alterations that will offer a boost to stats for future dungeon crawls.

Major Token Prizes
20 points each: Heavy tattoos in the regular fashion, glowing wire or metallic filigree; armor in silver, gold, white or black; cybornetic body additions such as tail extensions/additions, hover packs, extra limbs (all in the same colours as the armor!); Bespelled, stats-boosting armor in silver; A redrawn image by Dray of one of the participating characters (dragon or human); a dragon template image of your choice; Other heavily modified alterations (ask!)

OMG Token Prizes
35 points each: A redrawn image by Dray including a Major Token prize; a template of your choice in .psd format including shading and 2 patterns (these may be a redraw of your species, or a mated pair's offspring)

PERMISSIONS
For character template alteration, you may currently only use characters that Dray has drawn! Xenodragons drawn by Dray may not receive cyborware modifications of any kind (it interacts with their acidic blood and causes a horrible mess!) but may be redrawn or given non-invasive jewelry.

Allowed
Dray drawn dragons
Starfyre drawn dragons
Yakima drawn dragons
JKatkina drawn dragons
Xalia drawn dragons
Jess drawn dragons
Kitsuneko drawn dragons
Aireona drawn dragons
Shard drawn dragons


Allowed with some warnings
Dray drawn xenodragons (No invasive cyborware like grafts, tattoos, etc.)
Humans and characters that don't images (must have enough points for a 'character redraw' prize!)
DF's recently drawn dragons
Phoenix's Unblooded Yautjadragons will recieve Blooded & Armored images


Not Allowed
Dragon images drawn by other Nexus members not listed above


If you are willing to allow your dragons to be altered via cyborware/jewelry/tattoos please let me know, and I will add your name to the list of allowed. Similarly if you definitely don't want to have alterations done, please let me know so I can warn people specifically!

[Yakima]

Team Yakima...Kesukiath, Iarion, Aenon. Yep, yep! Might as well keep them together since they do everything together. Of course, how does having a healer work for you...

[Shard]

General reply:

Of course you can use the Healing Den. There are parts of it that seem to wander off on their own anyway - particularly the lower 'industrial' portions. That's where the Hydragons lurk anyway. >_> hmmm.


Specific reply:

yay dungeoncrawl! Do characters include 'character and bonds'? ... because I'm thinkin' Atrocity should come back to Star City, it IS where he found his beloved and dangerous group anyway...

[JKatkina]

Hurhurhur, this is gonna be AWESOME. Now, to use Trine and her bonds, or someone from Rutulus's hive? Hmmm....

And add 'templates by JKat' to the list of acceptable for modification!

[Xenoqueen]

Oh Gavin is so showing up for some PO'ed "GET OFFA MAH STATION" smackdown. Now, do I send some of his hive along for chars #2 and #3, or team him up with other security awesomes? Hmm....

[StarFyre]

Snaedis+Penopir+Hive member yet to be decided. Lulzies.

In general notes!

I, personally, like this setup that Dray's created, and will probably gank it wholesale for any crawls or adventures-with-enemies I run.

What this means for anything I run -- if you choose to equip a character with, say, stat-boosting armor after Dray's run, that will carry over to my crawls if you use the same character and declare that they're wearing it before everything starts.

There will probably also be other things of note, but that's all I can come up with currently =P I'm not entirely sure what StarFyre!Prizes would/should be, atm either. Any opinions on that, folks? I might just default to my GMing days and have treasures that people can find or redeem points for, that would then be drawn and given.

[Xalia]

You have my permission to alter my images if people request it, though I doubt there will be any of my few images coming to play! XD

And I'm still trying to decide on a character/team...

[Dray]

Some things:

3 character limit counts dragons and bonds as separate, so human + bond + 3rd wheel, not 3 pairs of dragon/rider bonds!

That said, some modifications:

The original stats are for dragons.

Humans and human-sized creatures:

HP: 5
Attack:
Resist:
Magic:
Evade:

(Add 10 points to any section, they can be split up and added to HP as well. Humans also carry one Medkit (heals 10 HP; it includes an adrenaline shot as part and parcle, which means that characters can gain over their max HP for the encounter... but use too many medkits and you may begin to suffer!) Humans may also carry one item of their choice which boosts any of their stats +3. That means that you could have your human carry a flame thrower that adds +3 to attack, a magical stone for +3 to magic, heavy armor +3 to defense, an invisibility cloak for +3 to evade, or a medi-gel layer that adds +3 to HP -- make your item to suit your character!)

Capturing Facehuggers: At the end of the night, if you have subdued and captured a Facehugger, you may present it to me with an unpaged dragon and I will return to you a burstling sporting the unpaged dragon's colours. (I won't remain strict about what happens to your unpaged dragon after this, but the IC idea is that your unpaged dragon has become a host and has died.) -- You may use a paged dragon if you want, but this is intended to give some in character horror to some of your neglected dragons! (You may alternately kill Facehuggers for points!)

Special Abilities: Fire abilities are super effective again xenos. Invisibility, etc. abilities are considered effective until the character makes an attack, then they must engage their invisibility spell again. Teleportation will end a particular encounter for a character but may drop them into an even more dangerous encounter (use it wisely!)

God-like beings and Yautie-dragons get an extra 5 points to distribute to their stats.

Phe, I'll get to your PM when I'm on my lunch break!

Will add the other permissions as well. Eek time to go back to work already!

Keep in mind for building your teams: more characters means more attacks means you'll probably get through more xenos, but the points from those will be divided easily. Typically, if you want to snag xenos, have larger teams. If you want points, stick to one or two characters!

[StarFyre]

Logs page is now updated.

Dray, do you want me to include the rules you've created on a "Rule Set" page that can then be easily linked to (even if only for the sake of records)? Up to you =P I'm sorta feeling my way through the dark with the RP Logs Pages.

[Dray]

Not at the moment! I'm going to do some more fiddling with them to make sure that they're not too complicated, and that they work relatively quickly. (It took about a half an hour for me and Yakima to bag one xeno on the current system, including setup, so I'm not sure how much we're going to accomplish with multiple characters and players!)

If folks want to choose their characters ahead of time for Monday and start setting them up now, I can help to guide you through setup so that you can leap in when the RP begins (Which should be around 5pm on Monday, like this week!)

Anyways, hope that helps thus far!

[Yakima]

Okay, so for my three it would be like:

Kesukiath
HP: 10
Attack: 2
Resist: 1
Magic: 4
Evade: 3

Iarion
HP: 10
Attack: 1
Resist: 3
Magic: 4
Evade: 2

Aenon
HP: 5
Attack: 0
Resist: 1
Magic: 2
Evade: 2

?????

And I have a future plot for Treval's though I'll wait before dumping that idea on everyone (unless I am poked too much...)

[jess d]

Ooooo, this looks like it will be quite fun! Gotta see who I can poke into venturing to Star City XD

Oh! And if anyone actually wants to use one of the critter's I've given out, I'm fine with you editing them for shiny stuff XD

[Kitsuneko]

I am sooooo tempted to join this. (I even have characters still on Star City, even.) Except I've always kind of sucked at RPing, and I doubt I'd have much time with school. -_-; ah well, we'll see.
But anyway, I wanted to let you know that you can add any of my drawn templates to the pool of permissables for altering.

[Dray]

Okay, so the part of Phe's PM that I'm willing to reveal at the moment to y'all: she's offering to have unblooded Yauties that you have adopted in the past become blooded in honor of the fighting, even if they are knocked unconscious during battle. Just in case you have some Yautjadragons that you really wanted the cool marking and gear for but didn't manage to get when they were first given away!

On the other hand, I'm expecting that if you're bringing a Yautjadragon into play, you will be killing xenos and not capturing them. Just because the latter seems to go against their natures.

Kitsuneko, in this case, I think it'd be safe to participate even if you're not keen on getting in depth with the RP aspect: since there's dice rolling and stats involved, the game doesn't have to revolve around character interaction! Depending on if this runs one week or two, you might be able to pop in for one of them?

Thanks to everyone who offered permission! I will do my best not to mangle anything!

Yakima, if you want to add some of those 10 points to their HP, you totally can. Technically you could have a character with 20 HP and no modifiers, if you wanted them to take all of the damage but not deal much of their own! Aenon should have 5 more points distributed however you like, and you can give him an item of whatever description you like that will boost one stat by 3. (I'm not sure if that overpowers humans, but I figure that they're so squishy compared to xenodragons that they ought to have some way to defend themselves!)

Did I get everything? I'm still trying to figure out how to make encounters quicker without making the xenos completely squishy.... any suggestions would be very welcome!

[Xenoqueen]

Okay, so the part of Phe's PM that I'm willing to reveal at the moment to y'all: she's offering to have unblooded Yauties that you have adopted in the past become blooded in honor of the fighting, even if they are knocked unconscious during battle. Just in case you have some Yautjadragons that you really wanted the cool marking and gear for but didn't manage to get when they were first given away!

Ayupyup. I know there's a few Unbloodeds floating around out there so on the chance that one/some of them belong to the RP crew, I'll Blood them if they participate. I'll give you the geared images and everything. :3

IC, they wouldn't know about this beforehand. Rhakarndi would reward them once the dust and gore settle and she hears about their participation.

[Xalia]

O.O I may need to find my Yautjadragon then...this changes much on my team choices... >.>

[Dray]

If you guys enjoy the first night and would like a second, I could also have it run for two weeks (this would give me more time to finish up templates, too!) There might be the possibility of switching teams, though I'd like your input about whether that seems fair or not.

[DragonFlight]

I'll offer permission to edit my images....but only the ones I've redone lately! (There will be a list later if anyone is curious.)

Gotta muse on my team now. XD

[Shard]

Anything I've done, go right ahead and work with it if needed.

and lol unpaged dragons. I have no idea if I have any, or which they might be at this point .. o.o

[Yakima]

Okay, I think I understand it now...So I have 20 points to divide out with the base HP as 10 or 5?

[Shard]

You have whatever the base is, and then each character has ten more points. Not 20 among all, just ten per character.