Welcome GameMaster

I like both of those suggestions. I can keep the two rituals with the understanding that cost in terms of materials, items, and sacrifice will vary depending on the strength of the intended effect. I this that resonates with me, and I would love to role okay sneaking out every night to complete the next part of my week long ritual. I also agree that the HP loss or other sacrifice should be made when the ritual is performed, and but when the item is triggered. Maybe for a longer ritual, the cost can be paid over the time of the ritual?

Maybe I am at 1 HP right now because I just completed the last night of a ritual, so I have something lined up to use now to get started. I'll go back and read the updates on the plot so I can see what I might be trying to deal with, but the mist could be that problem. Do I need to be a hero, or could I join the party for personal gain? Maybe the mist was in my way so I was trying to clear it for selfish benefit and I just happened to also benefit the party with my actions.

To answer the question about the potential for a more subtle and quick ritual, that would totally be an option, but I prefer the occult style. I'm a Satanist IRL, so I'm not stranger to ritual-styke practices, and I think I would enjoy the fantasy of having immediate sweeping changes brought on by the rituals of my character. I'm short, I just like the flavor.

Well it is Magic, so it follows the rules as set forth by Harper.
That would have to be a rather small 'magical' effect. But we can introduce such rituals —they exists everywhere, and have meaning— and maybe have them have some tangible in-game effect, but they would not be on the scale of PC Abilities.

Sounds like fun.

Unless we play out the other characters' action day by day we will amalgamate some of these into one roll and any followup. The fact that we will be travelling for the next while makes this both easier and harder, and then we will be in a foreign country, so who knows how that will affect things. :)
Something like that, yes. We will work out the details as needed.
Cool. That is a simple an immediate way forward.
That makes the most sense, since that is what we are facing now and it gets you involved with the party who are also dealing with it.

Seems like you have been in the area for a while to do what you needed to do. Maybe you were living at Olmsford (a few hours away) and learned about the trouble and recognised it as something you needed to deal with?
No, but then why are you helping deal with the mist issue? Is it your fault?
The two issues with that are: Why would they accept you (fiction first), and that there is no real gain to be had here.

You can have your own reasons for joining, but need to provide them with a reason to take you along. It does not need to be a true reason, though.

I can provide you with three good reasons for wanting to join the party... (can anyone guess why that number?:). But, ultimately, you need to be on their side, so any trickery with them will need to diminish as we play.

What if I heard about the ritual that the party stopped, and how they cracked the ritual alter so no one else could use it, and I was interested. Maybe I hoped that one of them secretly took a momento that might still have some power, a small something I could use to amp up my rituals. Or, maybe, given their productivity in finding strong ritual magic in the world, I want to hang with them for when they stumble upon the next potential magic, so I can get a slice. This way, I am personally motivated to be there for the quest and to get the party to dive into danger, and I am also motivated in keeping them alive and helping them succeed. As long as I get my trinket at the end, it's a win-win.

In this scenario, I just finished preparing a ritual to clear the mist as a way to help the party move forward. Maybe the ritual doesn't clear the whole mist, but just a path through it, and I can show them that path?

We can talk to the other players about it, but it was a bit of a joke, really. Some yokel women playing at emancipation and mysticism. The very existence of the altar was a bit interesting, and no one seemed to recall it being there before.

I am not sure most of the locals even realise there was something going on out there —the reason for celebration was the PCs pouring money into the stagnated economy and not what they stopped or that they got the mayor's daughter back— so who would have told you about it? It was out there in the sticks.
Possible. Albert seems to be a nexus of mystical convergence, but that is godly power, and might be something you want to avoid. :)
A bit incongruous with the fiction. The mist was not preventing them from going on, you had no way of knowing they were going to be here —not on this route (though they did spend a day of so arranging it, so that is possible), and not at this inn since no one knew until right before they got there that they were not going straight onto Olmsford.

We are adding a character, possibly out of the blue, so we can add the fiction we need, but we should still keep these decisions congruent with the fiction of the situation else it becomes very hard to keep cause and effect straight.
They are heroes, though, so they might not want to just clear a path and move on. I was going to leave it up to the players how much they wanted to look into this, though, so after making sure everyone survives the night they might be happy to move on.

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Maybe we don't want to lean too heavily into the angle of your manipulating things to get with the party. It is a bit creepy. We can do it if you really want, but such a character might not last.

It might be easier if you are just coincidentally also trying to deal with the local problem and then you can decide to go with the party for whatever reason you like?

Sure, that sounds good. I see that I misread a lot of what happened 😭. I'm happy to go with whatever you think would best fit in the world that already exists.

The easiest way to get into the group would be if you already know one of us. Either Roald or Albert I'd say. That establishes a base level of trust to start with. It's much more difficult to trust a stranger (especially if/when you find out they perform magical rituals).

There are also some second rank options:
- Someone we would have heard of before (in a good way)
- A friend/relative of a friend/relative.

It's not necessary, but can speed up the process.

That sounds good, I can be a friend of Roald. I'm guessing they have some ideas for how we met/ why I might be joining them now. Maybe they asked for help?

Being known (or known of) and having them ask for help can also tackle the magic issue in a more positive way. Given the reputation of the place they are going to, they may have sought you out because of your magic ability.

We can still do something like that without being known. You helping out with the mist issue might reveal your magic to them, but because you used it for good they choose to trust you... and then ask you to come along because of the reputation of the place they going to.

Your reasons for joining could still be less-than-noble if you want. There is magic in Necusle, but few know how to get there, so this is your chance.

That's a cool idea!

Okay, the party could seek me out for help and ask me to come along, and I could choose to go to learn more about the magic in Necusle for my own gain. So I start out as a rumor that the party hears, and they come to seek me out after one of my shows?

If you like that, that works. That leaves your intro to the party till after they deal with the current events and get to Olmsford. Albert may well have heard of you from travellers to his roadside inn. You may still have met Roald before, and this could bolster their reason for seeking you out. "I heard about a performer who... I think I know them... Hey, they are rumoured to be in Olmsford! Should we go find them?" type deal?

But, we can keep this vague-prior-knowledge and still have you come in now, dealing with the mist —which seems right up your alley, if you can think why you would be trying to stop it (or capture it?)— and they recognise you and have the same "we can use your help" moment. That way you are right in the action right now.

It is completely up to you how you want to bring your character in. We can work out the details once you decide.

Feel free to Submit a character on the Game Details page. We can work on the content of the sheet once they are in.

I would love to try to bottle the mist, maybe to release a bit of it later as something I could use? I'll get started on that character submission... Do I need to create a character sheet? If so, how do I do it?

Go to your Characters page. At the bottom is the New Character section.

Give the character a Label, this is what it shows up as in your Character list, and you can name it what you like. Many like to include notes about the system and the game name or whatever keeps it clear for them (if you have three characters named 'Bob' in three DnD games, the label might need more than just 'Bob' or 'Bob (5e)', what you label it is completely up to you).

We use the Custom character sheet (it is becoming the default for everything, since it can do more than most of the specialised sheets), so leave the dropdown on that, the hit Create.

The name you enter in the Character Name box in the sheet is what we see in the game. It is what appears beside your posts if you post as a character (that part will make sense once you have a character). It is also what appears on the Characters menu at the bottom of his page, and what we can easily 'paste' into our posts using he quill icon next to the name (helps when players make hard to type names). I prefer to use the name I want to called here, and keep things like full name for inside the body of the sheet. So far this world does not seem to have much use for surnames or such, so most people have but one name.

The rest should make sense, but ask all the questions you need to. We can fix anything that goes 'wrong'.

Once you have an available Custom Character, it will appear in the dropdown under Submit a Character and you can send it to us.

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In order for the other players to be able to see the contents of the sheet it needs to Added to the Library.

To do that, mark the grey 'note' icon that says Add to Library on your character list.

Red means others can see the sheet.

That does mean everyone can see it, as there is no way at this time to only allow people in the game to view it.
The GM of a game can always see it (which makes it hard for them to know if others can) and can edit the sheets in their game. I only edit players sheets when the ask me to.

We can try do that. Is that your primary goal? Or is that secondary to stopping the mist problem? You may still want to stop it, even if just in order to survive long enough to try bottle some.

I think my primary goal would be "stopping" (or moving) the mist to gain the favor of the party, in the hopes that I can get access to stronger occult magics through their adventures. Bottling the mist, even just a sample for further study, is a secondary objective, but one that I also think is important and probably doable. Also, I made I character sheet and submitted it and added it to the library as you said. I do appreciate the explicit instructions, or I would not have known how to do that.

Cool. That can be your goal now...

'Hoping to gain their favour and get magics' implies you know a lot more about them than is likely. We can work something out, but it is getting a bit convoluted (and possibly manipulative?).

So: Why are you here? Or do we need to go find you? If we need to come to you and introduce the characters, we can make that be the next logical step for the other characters, no worries.

My suggestion is still that you were already trying to resolve the mist issue and would have been doing that even if the other characters had not shown up. It is a 'weather effect' which is something you know about... Why do you care, though, if not for heroic reasons, then out of guilt? Just to study it?
Why does your character think that is an option? Maybe that can come later, after you meet them?
Then we can deal with that as and when opportunities arise.

'Approved'. It looks like about right.

Once we know a bit more, you should add some background/biographical information telling us who they are (or were, or appear to be).

You can add a character portrait using the Change Avatar button.

I should have checked this first and talked about this ability (but I never use it, so I forget:), there is a template system for Custom sheets that people have made, you could have created the character from the WoDu one if you like that. You can still copy/paste that sheet into yours, you just need to Quote the post and then copy/paste the contents of the `[charsheet=` block.

Let me know if you want me to help with any of that.
Hehe. It is almost like I have done this before. :)

Note to self: upgrade that template to use fillable fields