Descending the Temple Depths (OOC)

Out of character chatter about Descending the Temple Depths can go here to avoid cluttering up the Roleplay thread.This is for longer questions and answers related to that Roleplay, general rules questions not answered in the Help! thread can go 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.

Didn't see this new thread. So I repost what I asked in the off the beaten track ooc. Feel free to delete it if it makes things too confusing.

If I understand correctly the stairs above me close like a diaphragm. They are not breaking and crumbling down into the hole.
Something like a slow camera shutter closing?

That happens. It is seldom a problem. I did not see this repost and answered in the other thread. We get by. :)

Do we all notice the bell has stopped swinging? Or is there no change?

Uh, yeah. Meant to say that. Whoops. Added it.

No problem :) thanks for adding

Does Dirk notice anything from his machete after what happened with Albert "cutting" the ethereal rope?

Hmm... Ultimately it is up to you how what it is doing.

Was Dirk constantly aware of it since then, or did it seem like it briefly reacted to the bell being struck? If it was not constant, then there probably was no change when then bell stopped and it may react again later when bad things rear their heads. If it was constant, then... you tell us if it stopped, or if it is reacting to any thing or direction.

Falur said to we careful of the 'moss'. Was this deliberate, or did you mean 'Fungus'?

The moss is everywhere, and will be hard to avoid. If the moss is actually a danger, then we need to come up with a plan to deal with it, or look carefully for bare patches of floor or something.

Is it possible to open the door from the ''mossy'' side once it it closes.
Roald is thinking of going last through the door and closing it behind him.

Just in case there's something in the water that would like to follow the party.

The locks look simple enough that they should be openable from 'inside'... unless the dice say otherwise when the time comes.

Rather than editing to add an unfinished post, just add another post. That way we get notified about that things have changed.

Not a problem here, as that edit does not change the response that was being written while it happened. :)

I'm a bit confused with ''the dream'' and the Temple's influence. Is it the same thing?

Did everybody have a dream?

You asked us what our goal/destination is. Is it for some in our party to cleanse the Temple of it's ability to lure People in?

Maybe I misunderstood completely 🫤

This comes from here
So we each had a dream giving us a reason to delve deeper.
If you mean the influence of the bell, no. That's something different.
Hope that helps :)

That helps.
I was referring to this part of the summary.

With Cook's death the influence of the temple receded. It is doubtful the party members understand that something about him had suppressed a protective barrier placed upon the temple to keep the influence in.
• Something permanent needs to be done about the temple lest others fall prey to its foul influences.

In the fiction of the story there might be a connection, and your characters are welcome to be suspicious. But there might also be more forces at play (something has been suppressing the 'influence' for a few decades), so the dream may be from something else, or it may just be a dream.

Out of Character, the dream was a way for the GM to gauge what the players were interested in doing or finding down there. And helps to provide an excuse for the characters to be go down there at all. Knowing what interests the players will influence the sorts of rewards that might be found at the 'end'.

Timing-wise, we then had a flock of new players, and a dream worked to explain Dirk's coincidental arrival at a location that had had no human traffic in a long time. Falur came with Dirk, so we don't need to explain their presence, but the reward benefit still helps.

Since we are saying Roald was with the party the whole time, we don't need to explain his arrival, but everyone else in the party had dreams last night, and it might be noteworthy if he was the only party member who did not. Knowing what you might like for him helps us tailor what you might find.
"Destination", as in "where are you going?". Maybe exploring this level? Maybe looking for deeper levels? Maybe looking for another way out or up? Left or right means nothing to us yet, but knowing what you are hoping to find allows us to deal with that exploration in the fiction with needing to map more than we have to.

This is also a player-level question. Do you want to explore every room, or dive straight down for the BBEG (or equivalent), or what?

Yeah. Lots of levels of magic going on. And we have no one in our party who understands magic (a lot of this was generated by the 'magic players':). The characters definitely don't understand all the layers, so the players don't need to try make sense of it.

That influence mentioned there was something almost-mind-controlling, and a lot more than the bell that seems to just call people to come to commune. But the bell and the influence are tied together, the bell acts to send the influence further out. (or something like that)

Ahaaaah. That makes things clearer.

Roald is actually having an opposite experience. He has had dreams (nightmares) all his life of his father condescending and terrorizing him. And since he left town and started this adventure, the dreams are becoming less frequent.

He's also not in it for a reward, this party is the closest thing to a friend he's had in a long time. (Not counting the numerous bottles)


Is that OK for you?

Perfectly OK.

But very sad. ;-(

I'm not sure who was holding the torch. Was it the captain?