Game's Discussion

Partly I want to know the answer to this question, but partly I am also hoping to somehow activate Mandoric's dormant ability to have an important contact. From the Charming descriptor:
If now's not an appropriate time to forge such a contact, then let's not lose sight of it as a possibility as the game progresses...

I already took care about it. It will come eventually. Do not want to spoil stuff. :) And I'ts not a time yet. Small hint to Mandoric which i can release as answer to your request:
His seskii pet behaviour in that room with colorful exits - cant escape his mind. There is something about it. As it knew that Zinobia might run into brown direction, and it was... Cooperating with possessed T'Jekyll. It stopped Zinobia so T'Jekyll could open the purple one. Also... Going back into memories and feelings Mandoric understood.. That thing .. Which tried to possess him... May be it't not Seskii took it from him, but the thing itself decided to pick Seskii instead of him.

I'd be willing to give it a shot; I certainly find having a well-organized reference is very useful.

Cool I will arrange rights later today when will be at home

Update:
I moved all informative & pedia threads to new forum Pedias - thing where all things related to setting, Numenera and campaign will be stored by me or by willing players. I gave right to spaceseeker to moderate that forum. If you want such right too pls tell and I will provide.
I can say now that there will be ALOT of things to note and alot of info to keep organized. Keeping information stored in one place will be almost necessary. (Without spoiling, my homebrew setting tied to the Octagon campaign and adds techincally 4th character customisation layer with alot of options (to descriptor, foci and class), which is related to the Octagon itself - it will appear in Act 3, + Octagon have hugeton of factions, creatures, items, special weapons and lore). So I really think that managing Pedia forum will be a nice idea.

Sidenote : I realize that Fallout 4 is out and last post was very big and complex to digest (also sorry if i made few language mistakes, sometimes my imagination and own language storytelling capabilities exceed what i can do in English) - but please do not forget to post at some point :)

I've done a couple of tweaks to the Pedia entries already, most visibly a change to the XP rules to distinguish what we are and aren't using for tier advancement. Take a look and see whether it's OK.

Question: will you continue to use the red color-coding for material that should be entered in the Pedia?

There is also purple color. I think i will use purple color for what i intended to - Reputations and plot-mechanics-related stuff.
You can use red if you want and purple will be the color which connects to the plot itself.

Blue color will be extended. There is complete and very complex system of character customisation called Learning/Secret Studies, and it will be included into the blue color text together with experience.

So far so great. If you will keep it updated it will help alot. Because the world of The Octagon is very complex :) Not insanely complex but there is a lot of stuff in it.

And please lets advance with game, if you log in - better to do shorter post, and extend it later with edit before i do summary, than to wait and freeze the game's advance.

I'm trying to figure out what Nyom is supposed to do in this case - was hoping to leech off of someone else's response. :-) I'll have something later tonight....

Would it be possible to hear the Doorkeeper's response to each question as it is asked?

Generally he will provide one sentence of answer to each ones question. (one question)
He will not answer, probably to more questions, and his answer could be anything, even not things that asking person might expect, assuming all the "situation circumstances and enviroment". But, perhaps, question could be anything that comes to mind of the asking person.

I mean can we wait for him to answer Mandoric's question (1st) before Ronna asks the next (2nd) question? And then the answer to that before someone else asks theirs (3rd)?

So ... things are pretty railroady right now, but I'm accepting that as "the Octagon" is the name of the campaign, so I suppose we have to get in somehow :-) I'm guessing that on the other side of the Door options are going to open up again?

Edit: ooh! can we all get an XP for accepting this as a GM intrusion?! :-)

It's mot GM intrusion, it's part of the plot, and this small short piece is actualy railoadly straight, it just part of the Octagon and it introduces you to The Octagon, The Dogmat and Serenitas, to Keepers, and creating certain knowledge base about The Octagon, knowledge that will help to the party to understand what's going on further. There is big and tricky and complex plot behind, and this is just "video sequence" with few "less optimal" choices.

Do not worry for XP. You will get it in time (hint: after the door?)
And act 2 will have some important and serious choice, and once choice done also picks also pretty straight vector line if we talking about healthy common sense optimal way. Of course it is also influenced by player personalities (by great measure), story and other factors , so there could be "more optimal" way and "less optimal" way, and party will know which choice is which.
In Act 2 the party have very basic tasks - to get understanding of what the hell going on, and to survive and to move to more understandable, adequate place, which could provide some answers.

Act 3 will open HUGETON of options, alot of new mechanics, alot of homebrew stuff. It will be real explosion of information and things to do - it will become quite open-ended, sandboxy, and openworldy with some plot behind . For now for mentioned before reasons it is just the "sequence experience". As i said - there could be many options initially, but as you guess - all things now influenced by "party"s pick of going into certain gate, and things are tied to that choice.

And as for The White - i hope the characters got the hint that this place/entity is not for them - and Dogmats are just ones who hold the gate and just giving the passage, because being obligated to do so. They would act differently without such obligations.
The party entered the Gateholds - and got automatically encounter with people of The White.

Couple things I want to note.

This was a huge info dump with a large number of new concepts and names introduced in one go. Even though I've read the posts several times, I am not confident that I understand half of them well enough to do any reasonable decisions or draw conclusions from them. Especially since in PbP it might easily be 1-2 months before we come back to these things. Perhaps some OOC summary of the key things we've learned (concepts and their relationships to each other would) help moving ahead? If this stuff is going to be important, I mean.

Was this place meant to be this uncomfortable? Especially the way the treatment of women was described made this area and the people seem very creepy. Ronna is going to be very shaken after this.

Yes, thats why i told that maintaining Pedia is necessary. I with spaceseeker will maintain it - and I will dump all the info which party should have in RP but very organized in same time form there. It will be like encyclopedia, where you can remind and clarify for yourself party learned already.

Yes, this place meant to be so unconfortable. the party will later learn who the Dogmats and the Serenitas are, whom they serve, what is their "puprose" and what they are about. They are not faction that could accept the party, or party can join it. It is part of the Octagon structure and story, and things will be revealed during the campaign. Again, yes, the feeling you got from this place is right. (For Ronna, as i percieve her - exeptionally right - it should be very uncomfortable)

Added some entries to Octagon pedia. Watch that thread. I will add things there all the time. If you miss something you can ask here and i will add, if party already should have such entry.
Mainly i am trying to maintain and will maintain it with new entries.

Octagonpedia

This is also the case with OOLIN.

Mandoric is from a city where people are randomly selected for torture (often to death) for the sake of the mad whims of the million gods. So just about any other approach to things seems perfectly reasonable to him ;-)

I've had a look at the Octagonopedia, and it's really helpful - thank you Black Stork! I can see that this setting is going to take some brain work to get into, but I'm sure in the end it will be all the more rewarding for that.