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lostcompass2023-01-23 06:59 pm
groundrules) wrote in lostcompass2023-01-23 06:59 pm
arc v: alem | cr & plotting meme
Sound the drums, head on to war — seized citadel Alem has already been there for the lion's share of a year.
Under the Scavengers' guidance, the four sand worms the party captured gently graze underground corridors allowing the group to reach halfway up Mount Attevar. From there, they quickly infiltrate Alem through a bustling trade route.
Young King Deimar strikes a simple bargain: serve Alem in its bitter last days until inevitable downfall, and the citadel will grant access to its Beacon before the final evacuation is completed.
Sounds simple enough. Now, survive it.
Characters arrive today, with our first proper taste of event chaos due on 27-28 January. Get your character settled in, check out the setting and their assignment, and strike some CR:
- ■ Arc setting & locations
■ Character assignments
■ New NPC inbox — more this round,because most won't make itso every level has a patron. As usual, reach out to NPCs at will and please share findings with the class!
■ Questions
Jimmy McGill
PREFERRED CONTACT: PM or
CHARACTER & CANON: Jimmy McGill (Saul of Better Call Saul)
THEIR ONE-LINE ELEVATOR PITCH: WHY DO I ALWAYS LEAVE THIS FOR LAST...uh lawyer! Con artist! Cubs fan! Desert-hater!
THEIR ASSIGNED LEVEL & ROLE IN ALEM He'll be wheeling and dealing in the crossing, trying to secure supplies and maps while easing tensions (we hope) between Alem and the merchants.
WHY THEY'RE GOING TO MESS EVERYTHING UP, REALLY: It's just what he does.
THEY'VE SECRETLY GOT A THING FOR RATHAKKU, DON'T THEY? What a face! Striking! But he already has three bodyguards. And also a wife.
PLOTS AND PLANS:
BODYGUARD CORNER
- BODYGUARDS (Lorna, Kanesada, the Doctor) come to me!!! Jimmy will be easy to guard in that he has no illusions about his abilities as a combatant (none) and will more or less take orders (he may offer some “helpful” suggestions okay!!) from anyone with experience. He will be tough to guard in that he has no concept of “toning things down” or “subtlety” or “shutting the fuck up” and is a big ol coward. Also he might try to get you to run unrelated errands or protect him from
Nacho Vargapeople he's trying to avoid.- He'll suggest that SINCE THERE ARE THREE OF YOU, one bodyguard be the public-facing bodyguard (makes him look important!) and the other two lurk in the shadows.
- He will be genuinely grateful to all bodyguards, might try to throw an ill-advised bodyguard party (or at least get them a nice bottle of something)! If that's something your char would be into/disapprove of.
ACTUALLY DOING HIS JOB CORNER
- As far as merchant stuff goes, he'll throw himself into it because he does NOT want to think too hard about where they are or the dragon overhead or why there's blood dripping down a mountain...
- He'll probably start out by getting a feel for the personalities involved—might go drinking with Batthour or something along those lines to kick things off.
- BUT ONCE EVERYONE HAS MORE INFO he will not hesitate to dupe these guys...esp if we never have to see them again...
- His wife's gonna be meddling in the political side of things, so it'd be pretty easy to rope him into that as well.
MURDER CORNER
- While Jimmy's a terrible choice for leading an investigation, I love murder
...plots and would be overjoyed if he could be roped into helping with it—if there's a small, morally suspect task that might help (forging a document? pumping someone for info? searching someone's stuff?) please consider him at your disposal!
- OTOH you could run up against one of his, like, three remaining scruples if you tried to frame someone or harass the wrong person and he got wind of it.
ANGST???/GETTING SCREWED OVER??? CORNER
– I do want to play with the setting's effects/his potential for selfishness more, but I'll likely wait till things are underway to figure out what form it'll take!
WHAT THEY CAN OFFER:
- Street smarts! Granted the streets are in another dimension, but he's generally good at getting a read on people/persuading them. Might be able to talk your character out of a tight spot!
- Do you need a cover story for the role you're playing here? Jimmy is here to
make it way, way, way too elaboratehelp!- He still has some
drugsbliss-and-comfort-inducing mistletoe from the inn—he'll most likely try to leverage it with the merchants, but if your char is gonna be in severe psychological distress/can think of another use for it, hit me up!- He is a normal human man who will (most of the time) have normal human responses to terrifying and/or violent situations, if your char needs someone to guide/protect or a reality check.
- Questionable taste in clothes.
CR YOU WANT:
Merchant stuff: people to egg him on, people for HIM to egg on, people he might try to rein in (maybe)(looking at you, would-be stabbers). I really love the precarious morality of what they're getting up to and would love to dig into that! Also love when things blow up in his face.
In general: people who will boss him around and drag him into things! he's easily bossed. Bonus points if it includes magic. Extra bonus points if you're mean to him.
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He would try to insist that Jimmy stay put somewhere for his safety and his own good, but they'd actually probably be a good team up because the Doctor is all about being clever/scheming/manipulating for the greater good and trying to help everyone. They can investigate and whatnot maybe? At least if they're stuck together, he'll be better able to keep an eye on him so it all works out.
Also please do throw a bodyguard party with some cake (or stale crackers, whatever they've got)! He'd probably try to insist on being the public-facing bodyguard because he's a social butterfly, but he can also do weird shadow lurking, too.
/phew that was a lot, thanks for coming to my TED Talk!
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tbh I'm not sure what the vibe will be with Jimmy and the Doctor...I can see them really hitting it off because they have similar energies, but I can also see Jimmy rolling his eyes and assuming he's being played for a sucker the moment he hears the phrase "Time Lord" (also he's very much not a fan of people who think they know what's best for everyone)...but I'm happy with whatever direction things go! would LOVE for the doctor to drag him into shit--Jimmy's used to being kept in the dark, so like, feel free to tell him nothing!
also: he will be DEEPLY uncomfortable with having a (non-)human shield.
AND YEAH re: public-facing guard, I'm cool with whatever you bodyguards want as far as divvying up guarding duties! (it's also totally cool if chars would be like "Jimmy's idea is dumb and we're doing something else" ahahahahahaha HE'S ALSO USED TO THAT)
HAVING REREAD THE SETTING INFO this is probably going to be the most pathetic party ever (tho he will try to get SOMETHING nice out of the merchants), and I wouldn't have it any other way
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Nacho VargaW O W how extremely rude
anyway nacho might not have magic but he can still push jimmy around just fine tyvm!!!
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PLEASE THO I'm still sorting through all my dumb ideas about what Jimmy will offer the merchants/how he'll approach them, but Nacho's welcome anytime...I KNOW THIS IS UNHELPFUL but I'm down for almost anything...them being forced to team up, or avoiding each other and one of them ruining the other's plans because of it, Nacho is welcome to discover the mistletoe...
ALSO as far as the tdm thread goes: what all do you want to handwave happening?
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SO one of the ideas i had, personally, bc nacho can tell some of the merchants are not being honest and are overcharging people, putting sand in w/ grain etc, i am thinking his plan might be to try to blackmail some of the merchants with this knowledge, either into cutting them a deal in supplies (giving them extra, giving them a lot for not much payment, etc) and / or possibly blackmailing somebody about it for info about why the merchants have soured on alem... OR OR how about this: deliberately trying to use jimmy's fear of him to convince the merchants he's Super Scary and they should give him info/supplies or Bad Things Will Happen. maybe coming up to him while he's trying to schmooze to get him all freaked out so the merchant can get freaked out too. (he doesn't actually want to hurt anyone, not really, but he's not above using the appearance that he might to get his way.) OR the other way around, jimmy making someone who was previously friendly suddenly distrustful of nacho bc he's acting like nacho wants to personally murder him and nacho is just like [see icon for reference]
and i loooove forced team ups too. :D i'm trying to think of things for that to happen.
LMAO i'm also going to be unhelpful now. did you have any specific plans or ideas for the tdm? it's okay if not, but i'm curious!
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lol already said this on plurk but I'm into the setup we have going--where they'll have to share info about the different merchants to get anywhere...will they actually do that, remains to be seen (though we can always toss them in jail together or something if necessary). FURTHER MACHINATIONS WILL HAVE TO WAIT TILL AFTER THAT PROBABLY but I also like the idea of jimmy bribing apprentices to get in a fight/facilitate a con and nacho maybe taking issue with it???
ALSO LMAO if nacho wins the envoy lottery jimmy's gonna be like WHAT'S HIS ANGLE????
As far as the tdm, no real plans...ahahahahaah I mostly want to get a feel for how scared jimmy is of him rn. jimmy was only semi-functional during that arc because of...the desert...so if you wanna keep things short we could say he just bumped into nacho and freaked, but if you want nacho to have questioned him (either about him or setting-related stuff), I could give you a quick run-down of what he would've said! or whatever you're feeling, if nacho would've been like YOU'RE GONNA HELP ME DO X or smth I'm down with that too
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Yes! I like the set-up we have going too! I think it's kind of perfect. I think I wrote the comment you're responding to b4 we fully hashed stuff out on plurk so some of it might no longer apply tbh. And jail together sounds kind of amazing, honestly. I'm down for that, too!
but I also like the idea of jimmy bribing apprentices to get in a fight/facilitate a con and nacho maybe taking issue with it???
Oooh, YES. I kind of love this! We could get a lot of mileage out of it, I think. Tbh if anything, Nacho really would prefer to stop brawls/fights rather than encourage them because he doesn't actually want any innocent people to get hurt and he'd be worried about it getting out of hand. Esp because not all of the people here have 3 bodyguards to keep them safe LIKE YOU DO, JIMMY.
ALSO LMAO if nacho wins the envoy lottery jimmy's gonna be like WHAT'S HIS ANGLE????
LMAO idk man what's your angle?? >8| <==i don't know what this face is supposed to be, honestly.
As for the TDM, maybe a combination of YOU'RE GONNA HELP ME DO X combined with questions about the setting, what exactly everyone's deal is, WHAT IS EVEN HAPPENING HERE, etc? What would he have said? (Also, poor, poor Jimmy, what with the desert and all. It's always a desert, ain't it? :C)
If nothing else, I feel like Jimmy is a known quantity for Nacho somewhat so he might try to coerce him into doing things over strangers because he at least some idea of what Jimmy is and is not capable of, etc, so we can always work with that too, either now or in future shenanigans!
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OK TDM STUFF:
- his number one priority would be not mentioning Kim 🙃 or giving any hint she exists (so if asked he'd straight-up lie and say nobody else from their world is here)
- basics: everyone here got zapped out of their worlds and is trying to get back by searching for these beacons--some people have successfully gone home but as far as Jimmy can tell it's random
- the leaders of the group are the Merchant and a witch called Karsa, everyone's basically running errands for them
- he'd talk about magic, but mainly focus on how POWERFUL some people in the group are/the crazy shit they can do, while implying some of these people are close friends of his (I'm sorry...he's like this...)
- he'd probably allude to ghosts (since a lot of chars have powersets involving them/necromancy and they've encountered ghosts everywhere) but he hates talking about them. and also thinking about them!
- lol if asked about the last place they were, he'd give a pretty truthful account but it would probably sound nonsensical--talking about robot spies and a tower and a city split in half full of DEAD PEOPLE and a plague...he'd be able to provide vivid detail if pressed but he was on the fringes of everything plot-related, probably the best plotty bit of info he'd be able to give is "we're following a man in white and he's bad news"
FEEL FREE TO HIT ME WITH MORE Qs/ASK FOR ELABORATION
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The Jimmy McGill Mentorship Program doesn't sound like a legit institution, here... maybe if you're mentorship program wasn't as legitimate as DeVry and twice as dangerous...
Also, eeeexcellent. - Re: Kim, that's so cute of Jimmy to protect her! Kim and Nacho have sort of met, I think, if we're keeping that aspect of the TDM (I'll need to ask!), but I don't think he would know she's from their world. So then he'd kind of know her but not know they're from the same world... so that's interesting! And I don't feel like he'd think Jimmy would lie about that specific thing (why would he?) so he wouldn't really question it unless/until he and Kim get to talking more. - He's dead, although I don't think he'd share that with Jimmy yet since they don't know each other well enough but he'd be super fixated on ghosts/necromancers/dead people and ask A LOT of questions about them. And specifically would ask if there are any dead people who "seem normal" (like him, but he'd leave out the "like me" part). Even though he won't say why he's so interested and won't seem outwardly emotional, the amount and type of questions he'd be asking about this specific topic would prob be unusual for someone who just wants info and has no personal investment in the answers. Jimmy's welcome to pick up on that or not, as you prefer! - LMAO @ the powerful friends. That's hilarious. I think the response to that might be "cool so can I meet one of them? :) If they're really your friend, they won't mind." Either that or just an eye roll and saying nothing at all bc he kinda takes most of what Jimmy says with a grain of salt. Sorry, Jimmy. He might be more intimidated by that kind of thing if it came from someone else, but you can't be trusted to tell the truth when you're scared. - at some point during the nonsensical explanation of where they were last, he gets frustrated and annoyed because he can't understand what Jimmy is getting at and he probably cuts him off and is just like OKAY THANKS BYE FOR NOW and leaves.
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- OOOH THIS DEATH STUFF IS GREAT, I think in the moment Jimmy would be too frazzled to connect any dots, but later he might get to thinking about it--he'd probs be like "oh he's worried about ghost Lalo" (aren't we all) or maaaaaybe "oh someone he cares about(???) died," but it wouldn't occur to him just yet that Nacho himself could be dead.
- Re: Nacho's questions about normal-seeming dead people, he'd be incredulous and probably go on a rant about ghosts being freaks with weird fixations (he had to serve them tea once and he is NOT over it!!) BUT if you want a CR/plot in, he might mention Wangji as someone who is WAY TOO COMFORTABLE WITH GHOSTS (lol he's an exorcist)
- LAUGHING ABOUT HIM GETTING ANNOYED AND LEAVING...Jimmy breathes a sigh of relief
- AND I'M STILL MULLING OVER THE KIM STUFF HAHAHA (lmk if you need me to decide so you can...play stuff...), I just need to decide if he'd want to encourage Nacho interacting with her 🤔
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-yay i'm glad you also enjoy... DEATH STUFF rofl. speaking of which! i like a lot of the stuff we've already talked about, so this miiiight be a bit too much? it depends on what direction you want to go with things. but!! there's always the possibility of nacho coming up to jimmy after this and being like, "HEY i can't/won't explain why but you said you have friends with superpowers, right? then i need you to help me find somebody you trust to TAKE ME OUT if i start acting weird". OR NOT. like i said, i like a lot of what we've already come up with and that might be too much. so. just lemme know. c:
-haha ohhh noooo, poor jimmy!!! i am v. v. sorry for his traumatic ghost experience. :C but YES to mentioning wangji!! he'll def seek wangji out then, eventually. probably after things calm down but yeah!
-lol IT AMUSES ME TOO HONESTLY. but also, once again, poor jimmy. i am sorry that nacho is scary to you, jimbo! :c
-i can go either way with the kim stuff! i mean i think it's funny as hell, but it's really whatever you guys want/like. C: he'll def want to approach somebody in thyvault's entourage about some stuff he knows about thyvault, just in case it's of any use to them? if he thinks she has superpowers he'll be extremely cautious and deferential about approaching her lol, if he thinks she's a normal person he'll be more normal about it. but either way is good for me! :D
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And I think if we do the clawing stuff we can just leave it at him not mentioning Kim to Nacho, since otherwise that'd be a lot to juggle!
(AND LMAO I LOVE HOW SCARED HE IS OF NACHO...ONE OF THE MOST SYMPATHETIC CHARS ON THE SHOW...)
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Do you want me to do a starter thingy or you??
And not mentioning Kim works for me!
(IKR!!! oh jimmy, it's okay, nacho isn't going to hurt you i promise...even if he did kinda threaten your life that one time!)
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Okay, um. Wow. I'm sorry that comment got so messed up, formatting-wise! I did it from my email and, uh, yikes.
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Anyway, Kanesada is a sword. Like, literally, just also with a pretty human body now, so he has no qualms about doing a stabbing if someone tries to go after Jimmy. But also please have at least half a brain cell rattling around in that head so he doesn't have to actually run around after you or anything. Don't make him tie you up and throw you in an empty corner for your own good.
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- lol out of curiosity, how open is he about being a sword? Jimmy will have like 6000 questions
- JIMMY WOULD REACT SO POORLY TO WITNESSING A STABBING so clearly that must happen (plus the comedy of...whatever they do with the stabbed person)
- HONESTLY I WOULD LOVE FOR JIMMY TO BE TIED UP AHAHAHAHA (tho that sounds almost as dangerous as being allowed to freely roam, given...the siege all around them), if he ends up doing something incredibly stupid I may enlist you
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- so far he's only told one person but he's also been here long enough to not be so uptight about it probably so it could slip here or there
- oh Jimmy you sweet summer child this is war
- anyway I'm sure this will go well
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I'm not planning to do a proper toplevel, but I could hit up yours/do a closed starter/hit your inbox for a little stabbing action if you're down!
(AND I WILL PROBABLY GO WITH JIMMY NOT KNOWING ABOUT THE SWORD THING but lmao feel free to make weird comments dude...)
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In general: people who will boss him around and drag him into things! he's easily bossed. Bonus points if it includes magic. Extra bonus points if you're mean to him
I feel like you're just talking about Five now. He can 100% fill this void for him. Give me any excuse for them to run into each other and I'm all over it.