The Eye of Anubis: OOC Thread

DocBeard · Post by **DocBeard** » Mon May 25, 2009 12:48 am

Keeping track of what ordeals we've seen.

Expedition(Hooray!)
Kuzan: Confrontation with the tulpa that has been tempting him the entire trip. While the tulpa verbally thrashed the rest of the party, Kuzan seemed to come to terms with the tulpa's existence, at least for now, so this was a pretty clear win as far as I could tell. Go Kuzan!

Charles: Trapped as puppets in a room filled with more, deadly puppets. How Freudian. Charles did not reveal anything about his past as per usual, but as far as I can tell he ran the hell away from the corpse of a man he regrets killing. We survived but the mystery of Charles Martel has only deepened.

Andre: Forced into his role as high priest, Andre is given an ominous ceremony to preform. The important thing here is that Andre revealed that he is ultimately still a cynic, falling back on violence as a way to appease the Goddess. I think Andre realized that, he's high priest, he could just change the ritual, after sending the shadow-man to his death, so this one ends on an ambiguous note as well.

Lia: Hoo. Fiery spiders, an enchanted door, and a giant dire beast infused with all of the pain and hate Lia's been repressing her entire life. We just finished this one, and it is of note that this was the most team intensive of our tasks. Does this speak about Lia's developing friendships among the party, or of her habit of isolating herself through her temper and tongue?

Otto: What have we learned? Well, that all depends on if that was really the ghost of Kemal or an illusion, doesn't it? Not necessarily. The important thing here was Otto's reaction; his great fear and regret was that he was not a good father, perhaps being poor at it because Kemal was adopted, or some other invisible flaw. The fact that he did not even pause to consider himself before working to save what may or may not have been his son says it all-Otto's a good dad. A secondary theme here is Otto's belief in predestination being challenged; if the world was as cold and clockwork as he believes, after all, there would be no place for errors like Kemal being trapped in the afterlife, and if those errors did exist, no way to correct them. By defying death itself, Otto has shown himself to be an interventionist.

Sascha: This one's kind of tricky. The ash and the snow are obvious references to Sascha's heritage and his brutal past. The judgment of the gods is reflective of how Sascha uses faith as a source of power; despite what some of the PCs said, Sascha put his heart in heaven's hands when he first relied on his faith to redeem himself. This was a test of self confidence, if anything; a test of the group's faith in Sascha, who has always been a mysterious sort, Sascha's faith in people being willing to back him up and, perhaps, the gods's faith in the heroes they have solving this problem. This felt the least metaphorical out of all of the tests so far, a chance to sort of interact with the Chorus.

The Conspiracy(Boo! Hiss! Snare!)
Michel: Strapped to a roulette wheel and spun around endlessly. Too sick to really notice the test, Michel was ultimately saved by Jervis being Jervis. I don't think he got the point of the test, that his addiction is dominating his life and making him less of a person, but I could be wrong.

Lily: La Belle Dame sans Merci had her secrets revealed in a much more forceful manner than Charles, apparently, though we did not see the whys or wherefores. The spider webs hint at her own machinations, and the ghoul touches on her job as a scavenger of information. Openly sadistic and more embarrassed than anything, Lily remains unrepentant.

Jervis: How do you force a sociopath to look at his life reflectively? You don't. Ghosts swarmed the man, his murderous nature come back to kill him, and out of this we've seen Jervis the happiest he's been all game. What Jervis really seems to want is a great challenge to die fighting, and he's almost sorry that Fasshad's turning undead saved him. More like Jerk-is, am i rite?

Khalil: A hard test for a hard man. I guess Anubis has been chilling with Buddah, because I found it most interesting that Khalil did not have to just give up the coins. He had to give up the amulet, which was obviously a memento of his mother's, from the man's reaction to it and his reluctance to let it go. For all the ghost talked about revenge, this trap seems to be urging Khalil to simply come to terms with his past as much as it demands he admit his greed. Ultimately Khalil managed to survive the test-this could be a turning point for the man's life, or he could miss the point and fall further into a materialistic, obsessive existence.

Samael: We can see that Neo put a little extra TLC into his favorite's test, but this is something that sort of had to happen to Samael eventually. He has always been willfully ignorant in the manner of all con men, gleefully uprooting lives and sowing pain while claiming it is all the fault of the conned. Much like Moist von Lipwig in 'Going Postal', actually seeing the consequences of his actions is something of a revelation; one that Sam may have believed in the back of his mind, but never really confronted so that he could be able to continue doing his job. The logic of the test is ultimately flawed, it is trying to teach personal responsibility by arguing that everyone is someone else's fault, but the point isn't the logic, but to force Samael to admit that his actions have consequences for people who are not him. Our only hint as to Samael's ultimate enlightenment is the price he's paid, blood and flesh to quiet the dead which is very traditional, and his refusal to act as though anything were wrong-ultimately an ambiguous message.

Guy: Brutal. Again, a really well handled use of a Darklord; the mere presence of one of Ravenloft's secret masters is enough to rip a man's life apart. The message here is fairly straightforward: If Guy doesn't find some way to at least let go a little, his hate and pain will smother him as completely as the smoke. The Conspiracy is in an oddly positive light here; maybe there's hope for those jerks after all, if they're willing to work that hard to save Guy's life. Unfortunately, I doubt Guy got the message-if anything, his pain is all the more raw for the experience.

Rock of the Fraternity · Mon May 25, 2009 12:51 am

I've been calling him Jerkis for ages now. It is interesting to see how the Conspiracy's responded to these trials ...

NeoTiamat · Post by **NeoTiamat** » Mon May 25, 2009 1:13 am

The DMs like this. Both of us.

Also, both to DocBeard and to anyone else interested in doing these sort of things, I'll put my money where my mouth is and hand out 200 XP (raw) per person, so DocBeard is getting 1400 right now. Enjoy, and hope to see more.

Kaitou Kage · Post by **Kaitou Kage** » Mon May 25, 2009 10:10 am

Will post in a little while -- Casting Ironguts on anyone that got poisoned and then using my wands to heal everybody up.

Ironguts gives a +5 bonus to all saves vs. poison. Should help some since I don't have neutralize poison readily available.

Kaitou Kage · Post by **Kaitou Kage** » Mon May 25, 2009 12:33 pm

Actually, can I use the Treat Poison action of the Heal skill? My heal is into the 20s if it's better than Ed's or Tomas's fort save. Plus I have healer's kits and alchemical healing capsules that I can use to bump it up further.

NeoTiamat · Post by **NeoTiamat** » Mon May 25, 2009 12:39 pm

Go for it. Edmund has a solid Fort Save (+15, and an extra point from Inspire Greatness if Chaz is keeping that thing up), but your Heal is better.

Kaitou Kage · Post by **Kaitou Kage** » Mon May 25, 2009 12:45 pm

Awesome. Who besides Ed got stung?

NeoTiamat · Post by **NeoTiamat** » Mon May 25, 2009 12:48 pm

I think Edmund has two scorpion doses of venom coming to him, and Tomas has a scorpion and a spider dose of venom... I may be forgetting someone.

DocBeard · Post by **DocBeard** » Mon May 25, 2009 12:55 pm

I think that was it.

If you need, Kuzan, my heal's good enough for Aid Another.

Kaitou Kage · Post by **Kaitou Kage** » Mon May 25, 2009 1:12 pm

DocBeard wrote:I think that was it.

If you need, Kuzan, my heal's good enough for Aid Another.

That'd be awesome for Ed and would give him a +28 to save vs. the poison

I don't think you can aid another on the check to heal you, but that's up to the DM.

DM, do you want me to roll Ed's Heal saves or are you guys gonna do them?

Also, Andre, do you want to aid another on these? I know you're not here but every last bit helps. If so, that'd give Ed +30 and Tomas +28 (or +30 if he can aid on himself)

EDIT: Is it possible to take 10 on this check? The SRD states that using Heal to treat poison is a standard action.

http://www.d20srd.org/srd/skills/heal.htm - under "Action" toward the bottom.

NeoTiamat · Post by **NeoTiamat** » Mon May 25, 2009 1:14 pm

I'm going to say you can Aid Another on a Heal Check for yourself.

Also, Kage, feel free to roll up four Heal Checks.

Kaitou Kage · Post by **Kaitou Kage** » Mon May 25, 2009 1:16 pm

See my edit above

EDIT: Is it possible to take 10 on this check? The SRD states that using Heal to treat poison is a standard action.

http://www.d20srd.org/srd/skills/heal.htm - under "Action" toward the bottom.

Nathan of the FoS · Post by **Nathan of the FoS** » Mon May 25, 2009 1:31 pm

Thoughts on the tests:

Much of what I have been thinking about them has already been said by DocBeard, above, so I will not repeat what he said. I do think it's interesting that we have been confronting (as best I can tell) the things we fear or do not want to acknowledge in ourselves.

I also think it's interesting that Kuzan and Lia have had similar fears--of the dark side of their own psyches--while Charles and Andre have been forced to confront the true nature of their masters and their roles as servants.

I thought representing an addiction to gambling as being chained to the roulette wheel was rather amusing; obviously de Angelis is a lightweight when it comes to evildoing. Lily, on the other hand, is apparently even worse than I thought her, which is fairly impressive.

Jervis, well, I am just sorry his victims did not get their own. Don't worry kids, we will do our best to put the boot in on your behalf!

NeoTiamat · Post by **NeoTiamat** » Mon May 25, 2009 1:34 pm

If I may inquire, why do you two think Lily is even worse than previously thought? That was likely the most light-hearted cutscene of them all.

Kaitou Kage · Post by **Kaitou Kage** » Mon May 25, 2009 1:42 pm

Wow, uh...

I think I took care of the poison. You might say I critically took care of it.

I rolled 2 20's, among others, in my little gamut of heal checks.

If Chaz has enough bardic music to sing his "I make you better at doing stuff" song, then I think we can guarantee kicking this poison in the bootie.

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The Eye of Anubis: OOC Thread