Unified Plot Thread

So, I noticed something over the course of the past two weeks, and I'm sure we we're all aware of this on some level, but I just came to realize how bad of an issue it is.

Aeria doesn't have a plot, it has plots, and these plots are all being led by different people. There's nothing wrong with that, but I've noticed that the administrators (you guys) have completely different plots from one another, and as far as I know, they hardly coincide, may conflict more often than not, and if you were to share them with each other, prior to following them, I don't think the group would sit well with it.

My own lore has been called into question lately, which may have made me realize this the most, since it's been getting more and more tied into recent events, and I find it increasingly necessary for the plot to be discussed before its execution, or we may end up, for lack of a better term, ramming one story into another and potentially ruining both.

So I'll start by presenting the plots I'm involved in creating:

- The Ara'ki plot, first and foremost. I'm working on this with all of the administration, though I've only spoken with Pat and Psyche on this, see this thread.

- The First Trial of the Way Matrix, pretty much created by a conflict between Kain, Alyssa, Shar, Vintar, the Numbers, Zero and Ao. The Way Matrix faces it's first real test of managing the internals of the Crystal Sphere. This plot is largely undefined thus far, and I'll need to work with both Pat and Munroe to figure out where it's going.

- The Shadowmancer, a sub-plot involving my evil character, Sythrivum, who intends to give up his connection to the Shadow Weave and become a Shadow Lord with his own dark haven. This involves harnessing the power of elemental shadow, storing it somewhere (and somehow), along with harnessing the darkness in people's hearts(souls) and storing it in a similar manner. The first step to this was to become a sort of kingpin for the underground world of Surna, (by underground, I mean criminal) and use it as his primary source of "darkness." It's a slow plot, and no major progress has been made. If it goes successfully, Syth would essentially create his own dark cult, devoted to himself(lol narcissim). I have put this plot aside because it's not very important, nor relevant right now, and I may have to abandon it in light of other plots.

- Revival of Royalty, this is a plot in which Cole is attempting to found his own country, fueled by a heightened level of technology to make up for his lack of manpower and resources. The current idea is that it will occur mostly in Kerodil. Cole owns an estate their, one he is still in the process of constructing into home, factory, and fort. From here, Cole will attempt to gather supporters and make a push into the Wilds of Kerodil, where he will attempt to colonize an area with sufficient resources, and of course, attempt to sway any local inhabitants to join him under his rule. The primary resource behind Cole is the Vitamantia, whom his family first worked with in the past, and has returned to working with for the sake of his future. Cole is largely disconnected from the Vitamantia's research and efforts(meaning he's not a part of the Omega deal), and mainly provides a legal shelter for them should they ever encounter problems with Talibar. This plot may further expand if successful enough- however, with Occitan going to war with Talibar, this plot may be geared to fueling one side with tools of war in exchange for resources.

- The Second Call, a sort of background plot I've been thinking of, but have not acted upon, revolves around a group that doesn't see much light often. By my unwritten and unofficial lore, the Demon Hunters of the world were once united under one clan, but parted into four (or five, not sure yet) ways, in which all but one specialized into hunting a certain type of monster, which created the basis for the various different monster hunters of Aeria. Again, this lore does not exist anywhere but in my head, and is not the least bit official. Anyway, the plot itself revolves around calling the hunters back again, mainly the demon hunters, due to the heightened level of activity among dark and demonic forces in the world. At the moment, the only real difference this would make is that it would give Demon Hunters an actual (and unified) presence in the world, and they would have a stance instead of just going from job to job. I also see this group working alongside the Concordic Dominion, and that may be a plot element to pursue, should it ever go anywhere.


As for anything else, Kain's current situation may evolve into a plot, but right now, it's little more than my character doing what he gets motivated to do, or forced into doing.


You may not be willing to share your plots, but I would recommend it, because smooth roleplay is more important than a perfect plot or perfect lore. Either way, feel free to critique mine.

Cool.

-The Archfiend of Aeria, most of you will know by now that Ossus is the only Archfiend present in Aeria that is independent from Baator. The twist is that he is monstrously powerful, intelligent and old, even for an Archfiend. He`s already endangered the inhabitants of Surna for fun in three different methods; provoking the townsfolk into attacking Bryan, unleashing an Arcane Tempest that spread panic and hysteria, and summoning a minor demon to attack some of the Surnans.

Ossus has not yet set a primary goal, except eliminate the entire Shire family and access Surge. The former provoking some long-term problems, the latter resulting in immediate horrors.

This could work well alongside The Shadowmancer plot because if Ossus has all his power back he would have killed everyone by now, and he wants allies. A fellow that aims to cut himself off from his diety and create his own power source is just the kind of ally Ossus would really appreciate. Bear in mind Ossus is a master smith and enchanter, so his cooperation is a powerful tool.

Also two thoughts; the Omega thing is what started the snowball effect against Ruta which got his admin removed, so that probably won`t follow through. And secondly, Cole`s colonization in Kerodil further supports the in-character stereotype that Kerodil is home to some of the greatest craftsmanship in all the mortal planes.

Psyche, yes, I could see our plots coinciding there, but the how and why would need to be talked over more.

Mun, the effects of The First Trial might hinder or assist Shar's Revenge, so let's talk about that and see if I can avoid causing a problem there.

Edit: Talked it over, seems it won't cause a conflict after all.

Update to Revival of Royalty: Cole's business has had a good start in Kerodil, according to a roll session with Munroe to decide income, costs and profits.

Code:

+20000 from previously stored funds
-9000  for all the month's costs
+10000 from surna sales prior to leaving
+2000  from investments
--------------
[+23000] leftover


+450 from extra tubes (5*foot*average inch) maximum of 6 inch, min of 1.
+7200(16) from drills (400 per drill, + 50 for starting can)
+500(10) from extra canisters (50 per can)
+4000(4) from industrial grade compressors (1000 per industrial comp)
+200(1) from regular compressor (200 per comp)
--------------
[+12350] profits from mining and air tools biz


+549  549*1g      - 549 bundles of needles
+220  11*20g      - 11 pistol canisters
+550 (1100/2)*1g  - 1100 pellets
+1000 2*500g      - rifles
+4000 20*200g    - pistols
+2400 8*300g      - breathing/hazard suits
+450  3*150g      - armor
--------------
[+8169]


+2400 (48)*50g flat rate of maintenance costs
--------------
[+2400]

-------------- Calculating Total.
[+12350]
[+ 8169]
[+ 2400]
-------------- Subtotal
[+22919]
[-  3438]      taxes
--------------
[+19481]
[+23000]      add to current cash
--------------
[=42481]      balance

Money and resources are high enough to start the first expedition into the Wilds. Cole is requesting an audience with the officials (and ruler, if there is one) of Aurelus to clear up any details and uncertainties so that he can proceed. I'll need Munroe for both these things.

Overall Impact to Aeria: Low, for now. You may start to see exports from The Simmons Company with a "Made in Kerodil" label or engraving on each product. For now, I'll only be introducing utility products and some lower-tier engineered armor. Air guns have gotten really popular in Kerodil, so we're focusing the gun market there (for IC and OOC reasons).

I also plan on having Cole buying off some of Thorn's Motile and introducing some other electrical gizmos, perhaps war machines, to aid with/profit from the war effort. Nothing solid yet, but I'll run my ideas through here before deciding to pump them out.

If you have any questions, concerns, or complaints, feel free to mention them, that's what this thread is for.

All this talk about Cole's new company and all the new metals makes me wonder if we should include a time-warp of some sort and begin an industrial revolution in Aeria, the size of this revolution varying depending on what's agreed upon, of course. With less guns, of course. It may just be me but any mention of any sort of gun in the rp pisses me off to no end.

Ossus has slain Bryan Shire and as a result ended the Shire bloodline. Suggestions on what next would be greatly appreciated.

Ah, I think Mun mentioned Kerodil would be seeing a sort of Renaissance sparked by Cole's company. I don't think a time warp will be necessary, Psyche. If we want to try an industrial age in Aeria, we can just slowly go through the transition.

As for the air guns, there've been some interesting developments if we go by the bias of our rolls. Pistols were a lot more popular than rifles. These pistols don't use bullets/pellets, but rather, thin needles with hollow butts, and need both a clip of needles and an air canister to function (like Cole's needler shot, but individual needles). They don't have a pump feature. They're semi-automatic, but with a low rpm. Their effective range is limited to 20-30 ft. They can still be shot beyond that, but not accurately. Up close, they can pierce through some light armor, but fair better at piercing through the cracks in armor, especially helmets. Clip sizes range from 10 to 50 needles, and pistol-sized canisters can only support up to 50 shots (these start to look more like primitive smg's, but they aren't.). All the weapons are modular and can be customized with different parts for different purposes, but that's a future application. At the moment, all sales are just the standard item.

So, interestingly, the air guns in Kerodil have evolved into close range weapons instead of long range weapons. Rifles aren't quite as popular, and 2.5x more expensive if you only settle for a standard one.

These are still the simplest designs. I don't know if they will evolve further. If something interesting can be added, perhaps. Whether or not these will be introduced to Talibar some time in the future is a decision I'll leave up to the administration. Thus far, it's Kerodil-only and restricted to NPC's, and of course, Cole.

I talked to Munroe about the idea of the Industrial Revolution, and I'll be working on a news post to signify it soon. Here's some basic IC/OOC points I have to in clear for it. Let me know if I have to change anything

-Industrial Revolution slowly begins in Kerodil

-Several companies start to spring up, following in Cole Industries' footsteps of mass production and invention

-All over Kerodil, old technology and new compounds are discovered, further provoking this age of mass production, not just Cole Simmons' work.

-Minor products and inventions start to become more common in most areas that have strong trade with Kerodil. Lightbulbs of Radium, Tempest Maces for law enforcement, Scroll Pistols, Merlin Bows, Wire Fists, Steam Grenades and extending Shivs are all slowly beginning to be mass produced, and will be the first of some products to meet the other nations.

-The great deal of compound metals provide many different ingenious uses, so this age of industry is barely revolved around the use of steam at all.

-Gunpowder still doesn't exist.

Question:

Are we going to venture toward explosives at all? Ever since Ruta's explosives were questioned, I did a lot of thinking on it and thought up some reasonable ways to make explosives that weren't incredibly powerful, but filled the role.

Most of it involves speeding up known physical reactions and combining several substances together to systematically set one-another off. And then, of course, there are pressure-based explosions which are more toward the weaker side.

As for anything of high magnitude, thus far, the only way to make bombs like that has been limited to use of high concentrations of Navium, Motile under certain conditions, or certain substances among our compound metals, Navium/Magite being just one of them, albeit a very notable one.

So, let's figure out if we want to pursue this at all, or leave it untouched, because it may become an issue in the future.

Edit: Theoretically, Cordonium could also be used to cause explosions if you could somehow release all the stored energy through physical means.

Frankly, I personally don't want to pursue ways to make explosions, they mostly end in powerplay or asspulling. Sure, some people will find ways to get the edge on others, which is good to encourage clever, creative thought, but it rarely ends well when applied to stuff like this.

Hell, just last week I saw that B3S3RK's character John Udgrad somehow now has a spell that knows magic knives through the air, which after contact, suddenly implode violently and spread necrosis through the body in seconds flat. Remember when he said he doesn't powerplay? I never believed him.

So, no, for the time being, I think we should steer clear of new ways to make explosives. We have traditional magic that makes balls of fire, blasts of force and deadly-violent gusts of winds, this shouldn't be an arms race.

The reason I kept giving Marius nerfs was of course partly so some people wouldn't cry foul at the horrible and scary notion of a character being an expert at several things, but also because the more powers he had, the more methods he had to trump a wider variety of other characters, while his base skills were enough as is, making it really unnecessary.

I'm going to post the news post later tonight if no one else has anything more to add.

Question: Should we start putting down news posts of natural distasters around Aeria to build up to the eventual event that sends part of Surna to Ara'ki?

If yes, how soon should we start making said news posts?