Adensborough OOC - Dio and Kalon

[Dio the Awesome]

Here is a lovely One on One thread for us to plan and things. What are you favourite story genres and such?


Edit by Kalon:
Edited the title of the OOC, since there's a name for it now. ^^

[Kalon Ordona II]

My favorite setting genre is medieval fantasy, but I'm good with pretty much anything besides highschool or horror.

Story genre? I guess I'm good with anything. Mystery, adventure.... I guess setting is the biggest thing for me. *shrug*

Actually, I think I have one of those lists. Let me see... here.

[Dio the Awesome]

I have several futuristic roleplays going at the moment, so a medieval one would be a good change of pace.

Right now I envision a once grand kingdom crumbling (literally or figuratively) from age / rulers neglect / missing a magical (power source / entity / mineral). If you have ever played something like Shadow of the Colossus or watched Castle in the Sky you get a good idea of what sort or architecture and setting is in my mind.

We play soldiers / peasants / royalty / relatives / lovers leaving (or exploring internally) the kingdom to save it from destruction / find out the kingdom should fall / start a new life.


It's like a choose your own adventure! Just let me know which combinations seem appealing, or throw your own ideas out there.

[Kalon Ordona II]

I've seen Shadow of the Colossus, and I LOVE Castle in the Sky, so I'm there! xD

Concept sounds great. We might not even need much planning for this one; we could probably dive right in. We could do peasant/relatives/people of significance exploring internally and/or questing... (probably 'and')... and maybe save part of it from destruction and find out -part- of the kingdom should fall. xD

Or something. ^^

Missing magic sounds fun. And literally crumbling as well as figuratively also sounds fun. xD

[Dio the Awesome]

Okay. Some more possible plot points.

The entire kingdom was built into the side of a mountain using a magical device. Now that the device is missing, the kingdom is literally falling apart, where every day cobble stones or entire buildings are slipping off of the mountain.

This has gotten the noblemen of the kingdom in an uproar. There are some now challenging the king to abdicate. One nobleman in particular has already ordered masons and craftsmen from other kingdoms to reverse the destruction, and is using this to make a play for the throne.

Not sure where our characters fit in yet though.

[Kalon Ordona II]

The characters could fit in thus:
The repairs seem to be working--which because the noble is doing it is causing the king all sorts of trouble. Not that there's a lack of support for the work or a danger of the work stopping; after all, the people live there. But many are pushing for evacuation.

Trouble is, they can't evacuate; the reason they built the city into the mountain in the first place is to be safe from Whatever Is Out There (huge hostile kingdoms, monsters, wild magic, maybe all at once).

The protagonists can be of the few who see through what's going on. The king thinks repairs are impossible, but he feels cowardly telling people to evacuate because people are admiring the noble. The smooth-talking noble is winning people to his cause to Save Everyone And Their Homes And The Whole Kingdom. But the repairs are doomed to failure--though this isn't common knowledge.

We can have a dreaming-dragons type of plot, where repairs won't work because of something about the mountain. There could be creatures (like dragons) below the city, whose stirring because the magic is gone could be part of the cause of the trouble, and also part of the need for the magic in the first place.

This leads me to think the protagonists could be some of the few who still know their history. Or those who can piece it together.

So they figure out there's a problem, and the know if they're discovered the noble will just silence them (probably because he's done that sort of thing before, and the protagonists are also some of the few who know THAT).

They'll probably eventually need to confront those dragons and either slay them or put them to sleep. And hopefully they can also take down the noble at the same time. But to do all this they might have to leave the mountain at great peril. If the kingdom is self sufficient and isolationist, it'll be even more frightening to go Outside. We also only have 100 posts, though, so I'm not sure how grand a scope we want to give this thing. We might want to keep it close to the mountain.

Any thoughts so far?

[Dio the Awesome]

Sorry Kalon, I've had a rough couple of days. But that all looks good to me. I like the idea of dragon inhabiting the area below us.

We could probably get some character designs going.

[Kalon Ordona II]

You're good at coming up with original stuff and I'm good at expanding on ideas, so I'll follow your lead for the characters.

We seem to be humans, but I'm fine with anything.
I'm thinking they should technically be commoners, but there should be something significant about them. Maybe one or both are scholars, or something like that.
Relatives would make sense, even distant ones, and even if our ages and occupations differ greatly. Maybe nobody else will listen.

We could do reputable and non-reputable, or both one way or another.
I have trouble coming up with the specifics sometimes. I need a seed to cultivate. xD

[Dio the Awesome]

Perhaps one of our characters is one of the grunt workers called in to do the repairs. He could be either an outsider, but more likely he is an inhabitant of the city who is doing volunteer work. During the course of the work, he discovers that the repairs have come to a stalemate. For every area they reinforce, another begins to fall apart.\

Seeing this, he finds a reputable scholar of sorts. This scholar could be a professor of ancient history, and would be knowledgeable about the artifact that kept the city alive, as well as the world below.

The link between us could be relatives. As for genders, I tend to play females more than males, which is may seem weird. It's not that I really have a preference, it just tends to go that way.

[Kalon Ordona II]

The girl could be the scholar, maybe. Maybe she's a little eccentric, so people sooner go to other scholars, but family ties make this choice different. He probably also knows she's the type to keep things discreet anyway, and being family will help even more. He's probably having suspicions.

Maybe I can play him. He can be thirties-ish, maybe. Old enough to do hard work and be self sufficient; young enough not to be too tied down or set in his ways. Maybe he's discreetly seeing a noble's daughter or something. There probably isn't a strict caste system or status ladder, but there'd probably still be a little bit of that element.

Maybe the scholar is 16-18, still studying but already competent and knowledgeable, though eccentric. Or maybe she's older or has a family of her own, giving her added incentive to find the truth but also making it harder for her to act or leave. Or if you really want to do a little romance, she could be about the same age. *shrug* I'm indifferent. Whatever you're up for. It's fun playing slightly out of the box characters. Or I guess, in other words, normal characters with interesting idiosyncrasies, or characters the average role-player hasn't done a hundred times.

Thoughts?
We should hammer out just a few details about the setting, I think, and we'll be ready to start.

[Dio the Awesome]

I'm excited.

Somehow you pinned down the archetype I like playing. The secluded hero. Someone who may be likeable, but lacks the social skills, or has other quirks that keep them from people. If you like the worker, then I would gladly play this type of scholar.

As for romance, I could take it or leave it. It really depends on how related they are. :/


And as for setting; what exactly do you think needs more fleshing out? Time period or geography?

[Kalon Ordona II]

We can make them cousins or something, then.

For the setting I was thinking mostly time period. Seems like a high-end medieval with some magic thrown in. There needs to be enough knowledge about architecture for them to have built the city/kingdom/place to start out with, and to repair it now. But that doesn't mean we need technology, since they made some pretty sweet stuff back then. ^^ I guess just finalizing the limits of the period, and that "upper medieval + magic" pretty much sums up my current concept. Gunpowderless heaven. ^^ Well, gunpowderless vacation spot, anyway. Life's still probably hard-ish.

Oh! About the geography, that was the other thing: just how big is this city/kingdom/place in the mountain/mountains/ubermount? My current concept is town-size, but I'm open.

[Dio the Awesome]

Okay. That works for me. Though I would say that magic is somewhat limited.Perhaps known to a select few, or not at all. All that remains of magic is old tomes and relics left over from the previous generations. Maybe magic of the 'city floating variety' is a lost art from long ago (say perhaps like the pyramid building skill, or katana making skills that we can not yet replicate today), and magic is just a shadow of what it used to be.

I was kind of thinking something like Helms Deep suspended onto of a mountain, rather that at the base of one. Helms Deep was large enough for the entire population of the Rohan kingdom. I think that's a good size.

[Kalon Ordona II]

Alright, sounds like a plan!!
Should I start, or would you like to?

[Dio the Awesome]

I don't have a preference. I haven't much of an idea on how to start, but if you do, roll with it.

[Kalon Ordona II]

Alrighty, I'll start now. Go us!

[Kalon Ordona II]

Started!

That's post #1 out of 100!
Or we could do 101 posts, so that it says exactly 100 Replies at the end. ^^

Took me a bit to come up with the title. xD
I really like the name of the city--Adensborough. We could change it if you want, but it's grown on me already. ^^ (can't believe we didn't think of it before...)

Anyway, HUZZAH! Our story is BEGUN!


By the way, Nyna isn't your character. And Pelleas isn't the noble we're afraid of. Just so you know. ^^
Also, I edited the title of this OOC here. I was going to wait and let you do it, but I didn't want some random person thinking they could just post in the RP since there wasn't a matching OOC, or something. *shrug* Never know.

[Dio the Awesome]

My current thinking is that the necklace could be an old relic. Perhaps a forgotten thing from our past, or from a different civilization. There are other magical relics, each one designed to do a different task. This particular necklace is associated with water, creating water and so forth.

The one I have is not active of course. You either need an activation word, or it has simply lost its power. I'm not sure which route to go.

[Kalon Ordona II]

Nice. ^^

I had work today and I work tomorrow (well, today, now), but I should be able to get a post in afterward.

[Kalon Ordona II]

Sorry to take so long. I built the post in three stages over a few days--kept getting interrupted by one thing after another. Not usually that busy. :>

3/100!

[Dio the Awesome]

Awesome. I was wondering why I had no roleplays to respond to. >.<

EDIT: I have a few questions before I post.

1) Is this the same day as our other posts?

2) Is Harmon the evil noble?

3) What is House of Gedian?

4) My line of thinking was, the king has postponed the usual meeting of the royal council in order to see what the search for magical items has drummed up. Was that your thinking as well?

[Kalon Ordona II]

1) Yes. It's the night immediately following the first post, which took place late in the morning. I was unable to discern what time of day your post was in, but you could probably put it whenever you want. If it was in the morning, then you could post about her in audience with the Royal Council at the sameish time of night as my last post. The noble's meeting that Harmon just called will take place probably around midnight or even after.

2) Yes, Harmon is the evil noble.

3) Gedain (geh-DAYN). It's nothing special, really, just a clever way to mention Harmon's surname while at the same time giving the impression that the name is a little more significant than others.

4) I wasn't sure why the king had postponed it. I think because things were taking a turn for the worse. He might know something we don't, or suspect Harmon might do something. Your reason is as good as any, and in fact it works quite well, so I'd be happy to go with that. Thanks for delineating! I admit it was a little hazy for me, too. ^^ I'll make it a habit to keep us updated and on the same page.

Edit:
Addendum to (4), I think maybe the council meeting would have included the nobles as well as the council, which is probably the real reason why the king postponed it.

[Dio the Awesome]

Okay, I was kinda working under the assumption that the nobles made up the council. We need to decided how the political system is organized now.

Obviously King is number one. I think it should be passed on through bloodlines, as that is the most common way of doing monarchy's.

Then we have the nobles. Nobles could be branches off of the kings bloodlines from both sides. Like, the current kings aunts and uncles family would be noble households. (We could make Harmon the Kings cousin, which also gives him ample right to succession).

As for the council. They should be elected by either the nobles themselves, or by the people. Any resident of the third, second or first tier can be elected to a council seat. Nobles can also hold council seats.

There are ten council seats. Any ruling needs a simple majority, unless it is deemed to be of national security (such as war, or the state of the crumble) there needs to be 2/3rds majority. The king holds the last seat, and is therefore the swing vote. (alternatively, the king can count for 3 votes, giving his position more importance).

[Kalon Ordona II]

Let's make the king have 1 vote, and assume that in the past the position had 3, which could account for Pelleas's comment that the king should have more say.

Good system! I like it. ^^

Edit:
Oh look, the system is supported by the posts!

the King had postponed the regular meeting of the nobles and the council

Maybe the meetings take place every month? Or twice per month? Every two moons?
Maybe the moon is almost full, indicated by the brightness of the cave opening. (One could also go out and see, of course. And the moon also sets, so eventually it would be visible even inside the south-facing cave.)

Yeah, either every other full moon or every fourth full moon sounds good to me.
Thoughts? I'm open.

[Dio the Awesome]

I just wanted to let you know, I am still thinking about this. I am just not fully sure how to proceed, but expect a post up tomorrow.

[Kalon Ordona II]

OK, cool. Hopefully there's plenty of room for creative minds like ours--probably especially yours--to roam free.

[Dio the Awesome]

Sorry for the long delay. I didn't know what to write and I wanted to make sure it developed more of the world. Just a few things I touched on, and I wanted to know your thoughts.

1) The world below. I want to know what you think of my brief history and anything you want to add or subtract.

2) Water. Kind of a basic idea.

3) Religion. I just thought referring to God as The Maker was appropriate. Are there multiple religions or one unifying one? Is religion tied into royalty?

[Kalon Ordona II]

There's no plan, really, so pretty much anything we come up with is grand. We're basically relying on our writing skills, our extra-creative imaginations, and our common sense to allow us to successfully wing it. ^_^

3) The Maker sounds fine. Let's stick to the one religion in the city. Life is probably difficult enough without religious debates. And these are probably simpler folk as a whole, too, less apt to question the evident natural order of the world around them. It wouldn't be tied to the royalty, though, I'm guessing. Churches aren't really needed, I would guess. Everybody basically believes the same thing--that the Maker's out there and is generally watching over things--so there's not much use for proselytizing.

2) Water idea sounds good. Problem is that cisterns generally catch rain. These would probably instead have some sort of piping. Maybe little carved tunnels coming down from the top of the mountain? They'd empty into the cisterns on the top few tiers. We can justify not having the same thing for lower tiers because of the expansion. The magic would have been lost--destroying possibilities for additional water-tunnel-pipe-things--long before the population began to multiply enough to where expansion started to become increasingly regular. So now these new cisterns have to be supplied by borrowing from the upper cisterns. Fancier folk probably have carved runnels from the bigger cisterns so that, once those higher ones fill to a certain level, they spill some into the lower tier. But that would only work for the first non-magically-supplied-tunnel cisterns. By fifth tier, it'd be the communal cisterns you mentioned, which probably have to be filled by bucket. A nice thing for the younger girls and elderly folk to be at, probably.

1) It sounds like the first settlers of Adensborough--probably possessing powerful magic--came here to escape the rest of the world. They probably only survived because of their magic, keeping the monsters at bay where no one else would be able to follow. The civilizations to the south were probably dangerous or meddlesome or both. Any record or memory of those civilizations will have been long forgotten by now, in Adensborough. Whether we go out into those other places or settle it all locally is up to the story. xD

So basically the King is postponing the council (a) because he's worried about what the nobles might be plotting, and (b) before he can make any solid plans, he needs all the information he can get, which is why Alicia was sent for. That's my current thinking. Accurate? It's up to you, whatever you think.

Would you like to edit the post and add the actual council meeting? Since it takes place before the noble's secret meeting (right?), you might as well post that first. D'you want any help? Like stuff for people to say? I don't have any ideas, but I could come up with some.

[Dio the Awesome]

Sure. That sounds good to me. If you want to go ahead and make a fluff post that's fine too. One clarification, is the nobles meeting at that one guys house happening tonight, or several days from now? Alicia's presentation is being held on the original council meeting date. I suppose this is where collaboration gets confusing.

Here is a timeline as I understand it.

Day 1: Our first posts. Our second posts also happen on this day, but at night.

Day 2: The secret meeting involving just the nobles.

Day 3: The day the Council meeting was supposed to take place, but the king postponed it in order to arrange the meeting with the scholars.

[Kalon Ordona II]

The nobles meeting is Day 1--or technically Day 2, but only if it's around midnight following Day 1.

I figured the council meeting where Alicia is summoned would take place as soon as possible. If the King went to the trouble of postponing it now instead of two days from now when the meeting would have taken place, I suppose he wouldn't want to waste time. Unless there are other things he needs to do that we don't know about.

It's up to you. The posts don't say exactly when Alicia is supposed to be there, right? Just 'not long.' Could be any time. What do you think would work? If you want to do it later, I'll do the noble's meeting. If you want to do it now, you can just edit your post and THEN I'll do the noble's meeting. ^_^ We do only have 100 posts.

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