Off the Beaten Track (OOC)

Out of character chatter about Off the Beaten Track can go here to avoid cluttering up the Roleplay thread.This is for longer questions and answers related to that Roleplay, general rules questions can go in Help! or in General.

Add a link back to the post in question so we can have context. After posting you can right-click on the orange header and select 'copy link address' (or whatever your browser calls it), then paste that in your OOC post.

I will put together a new thread for dealing with the 'bandit camp' soon. If there is anything you want to finish up you can still do so in the On the Road thread. We can keep that open --running simultaneously-- for finishing stuff that does not directly affect the starting position of the new thread. Let me know there when you are ready.

Cook: We will endeavour to bring you in as soon as possible.
What do you think you are doing at the bandit camp? Cooking? Maybe forced to cook for them, and doing it outside so we can encounter and co-opt you before going further? Something else?

Physically, Cook is not much of a fighter and his bad leg would only slow them down. So, yes, he's left back at the camp where he's cooking, tending any mounts, and not keeping much of a watchful eye at all.

Alycine: Maybe Xana has something to do with your acceptance of Cook? If so, what does she have to say? No need to roll.

As far as not killing Cook, I could see a justification as simple as "it's the end of the day, we're cold and tired and hungry, and he's cooking something. If we kill him, the body will fall in and ruin it". That would enough of a reason to capture instead of kill, and talk to him long enough to find out that he's there against his will.

However, given the fact that Cook isn't much of a fighter and has a bad leg that will slow us down, I think that we need to come up with a reason why the party would take him with them going forward into enemy territory. Maybe he should actually know something about the Temple? Not everything, but enough familiarity to be worth bringing him along?

For mine he doesn't seem like a threat, especially if he reacts to the party with curiosity rather than aggression, perhaps as his way out of here? And agree there'd need to be something offered for the captain to let him come along. Perhaps intel on the bandits and their plans, and/or the temple?

That is a very simple solution. Let's make that our fallback if no one comes up with something more immediate to get Cook integrated. This can supply the time for others suggestions to happen, but think about how much time you want to spend on it.

Cook can know stuff that you need. But there is still a mystery that we shouldn't have answered by 'a character that has been here throughout', so, maybe, Cook would know useful stuff about the bandit camp rather than the 'temple'? He can have rumors about the temple, and can recall more as we play and they become relevant.

Maybe there is a bigger bandit camp that you need to deal with and Cook's location is just a small bivouac being used for cooking (or something else)?

Cook has heard a lot of rumours about the temple. Some of them not meant to be known, mayhaps because they're actually true. Xana must have whispered in Alycine's ear one night about Cook's existence and insists that he be kept alive, to pry these "secrets" out of him.

Alycine will insist the party not kill this man because of her "hunch" that he's involved with the temple (perhaps she's under the mistaken impression that he's a ex-temple caretaker who the bandits has press-ganged into their service as Xana's information is a little misleading that way)

Nanoka: Can do. Unless there are objections we can go with that.

Cook: Are you not just a 'cook'? Do you have other reasons for being here, near the temple?

I don't think I have a reason. Escaped the Inquisitors, captured by the bandits. Nowhere else to go so I remained the cook and camp tender.

It is fine if you don't have any special reason. Feel free to answer --or decline to answer-- any of the below musings. They are just ideas.

How long have you been with the bandit?
How long have bandits been here? Is this 'temple' business new?
Are you a prisoner? (Or maybe just a 'prisoner of circumstance', with nowhere else to go?)
Do you feel drawn to the temple? If so: do you know that it is influencing you?
Have you met our captain before? Would she recognise you now?

Cook has been with the bandits a little less than two weeks.

The bandits have been here, in Cook's estimation, about two months now. The temple business is not new. It's the reason they are here. They've been searching for the temple the entire time (it may be the fog that is keeping them from finding it). They're growing increasingly frustrated. Caravan attacks have been to resupply the camp with food and other supplies as well as taking out their frustrations on others.

Cook is neither prisoner or bandit. He and 3 others escaped the Inquisitors' prison in the nearby city. They were attacked by the bandits as they fled. Cook surrendered immediately, two were killed trying to flee, and one joined the bandits. (Cook was the only one with magical powers. The others were prisoners of circumstance of the Inquisitors.) Having no where else to go, Cook figured that staying with the bandits was as good a plan as anything else.

Cook's mind was broken by the Inquisitors' 're-education'. He remembers very little of his past. He can sense power in the fog, a power that is very familiar to him, but he can't place if that's a good thing or bad thing. He's got some trepidation about that, but no real opinion. He knows nothing about the temple other than the bandits were looking for it and their wild musings -- but it may be something he used to know about. Seeing it may stir memories.

The Inquisitors are fond of making public examples of those in their custody. It's possible the captain may have seen Cook hanging in an anti-magic crow's cage or been present at one of Cook's many floggings. That would have been early in Cook's captivity though, a good 5 years ago. Recognizing this bent, broken old man as the imposing defiant wizard she saw years ago might be tricky.

Cook: 'Cook' is a new name (the other, maybe, lost?)? You would have been known by another name back before your incarceration?

This might sound weird, but it could be possible for Rook to know him? Rook is an ex-street kid, and if this old man was hanging out for public display on the streets of the city five years ago, Rook would have been a teenager, and he and his friends might have encountered him. They might have snuck him food and water, particularly if he was any type of storyteller or something that would keep them entertained. Maybe he's even the one that taught a few of them to read.

I have no issue with this if it adds to the story.

Correct, Cook can't remember his past. When asked his name by the bandits, I'd just stare at them blankly. The bandits starting calling him Cook and that's what he goes by at this point.

As for Rook - my first instinct is to say I was an All Powerful Wizard, more likely to scare the kids away than teach them, but I'll resist that. Since I've already established I don't know Cook's past other than he was a magic user captured by the Inquisitors, I think it would be interesting to say that Cook's backstory is fair game for all of the players.

Hey everyone

I Placed Albert inside the bandit camp with a reason to head towards Cook.
Question is, should I show up there before or after the rest of the party arrives? My current preference is after, because one of them might recognize me as a familiar face.

Paladintodd: What do you think?

Looks like the party is starting to arrive! :)

Not sure if you saw this Rezart, but I was suggesting in TheGenerator's Welcome thread that Rook would be the likeliest person to know Albert, who until very recently used to run an inn on the edge of town, what are your thoughts?

Oh sorry, I did not see that. Yeah, that makes sense to me. Rook can be familiar to Albert.