august activity + taravast, quests, game chat, admin... and BADGES

[groundrules]

AUGUST AC & UPDATES

ACTIVITY CHECK | ARHA | TARAVAST, QUESTS & EVENTS | GAME CHAT? | BADGES


AUGUST ACTIVITY

Hi guys! The activity check (AC) is handled by Ye Olde Modde, and you do not need to do anything unless I couldn’t find activity proof for your character and they’re on the below list. Please don’t forget to use character tags for posts and logs you tag into — it helps fish out your activity.

Regular activity requirements are one of the following during the AC month:

a network post

OR 10 text/network-style comments across at most two threads

OR five log comments across at most two threads

Activity counts whether conducted on either the game communities or character inboxes.

In July, I couldn’t find sufficient activity for...

Lee Chang | jeoha | RECLAIMED for regular August activity
Yennefer | conjurechaos
Alina Starkov | sankta | RECLAIMED for two network posts or 15 text/network comments across 2-4 threads or 7 log comments across 2-3 threads in August
Gilbert Nightray | corvis | RECLAIMED for regular August activity

Comment below or PM @ groundrules until 5 August if you’d like to reclaim your character, or if they have July activity I missed!

ARHA

Quite a lot has been unearthed on the past of Lady Hatisse, Lord Arha and his ghostly battalion — leaving their fate uncertain.

What we learned in recent days:

Arha’s stone tomb is among those revealed for exploration following the Allison-led incursion into the harpies’ nest. It remains unopened and can be accessed by everyone.

Opening the temples released ghostly figures of a previous merchant caravan, slaughtered by Arha.

Attempts to reveal his demise have driven Arha unhinged, pushing him to float the prospect of carnage. As one does.

At the core of the harpies are bone pieces collected from the tombs of the buried ghost army.

Lady Hatisse attempted to dissuade Arha’s rescue efforts, then led her lover into the murderous hands of her sisters and their former enemies, when he continued his military advance.

Folks who want to get involved, please comment here to brainstorm any potential character actions, or if you’d like to leave Arha and his folks alone. An outcome can be rolled for you tomorrow, ideally leaving until 5 August to finish out playing with Arha and the aftermath. We can, but ideally won't need to adjust the timeline!

Arha plot wrap...!

OTHER ADMIN

Most of the August calendar remains subject to update once Arc II has been set up, but you can find loose indications here. The calendar will be updated, likely next week.

The location setup for Arc II, “team” and identity assignments and a small event will go up 6-8 August. Thank you for everyone's help with assignments — now no longer taking input.

Some characters will receive individual quests/aftermath instructions, following on mod talks or events in Arc I and the Stairs of Sighs. At this time, they are Five, Archeval and Eleven. Two other characters are slated for optional quests based on Taravast’s setup — Zhou Zishu and Wen Qing. Their agendas haven’t been forgotten, and all that info will be laid out when we hit Taravast. Bear with me!

If there is a longer-term character arc that you want to work on and need some environmental or mod help with, hit up the player suggestions area!

Moving forward, the Story So Far page will (hopefully) be updated with summaries on a monthly basis, to help our newcomers.

Lastly, given the clue and plot-oriented nature of Eastbound, some folks have asked about a potential game Discord chat. While I’d be happy to set one up, I’m not currently in a place where I could actively moderate a chatroom — if you have thoughts on how we could go about making a non-mod-led one happen (or if you feel one is needed to begin with), happy to hear them!

CHARACTER BADGES

We now have a slew of new Interlude Arc: Stairs of Sighs badges that can be added to your collection. Check’em out below!

To the newbies among us: character budges are optional OOC fun times markers for what you feel represents your character’s activity or milestones in an Arc. They are purely for laughs. You can pick, choose and display them as you see fit — here is the archive of general badges and the Arc I: Sa-Hareth set. We also have code for a badge wallet to showcase them.

STAIRS OF SIGHS BADGES

                

                

             

And a new general badge, beloved by all:

Comments

GAME CHAT

[groundrules]

For everyone's $0.02 needs.

[descendency]

There's a server Kalyn, Dulin, Kiki, Britt, Loren, Rose and I hang out in with an Eastbound channel I popped up for us to discuss the game in/post memes to. It's pretty low-key. It's also sitting in our greater Untamed fandom server so what I'm saying is I'd be happy to set up an Eastbound server for everyone to hang out in if they'd like. Have experience setting up channels/roles/bots etc.

[groundrules]

That would be brilliant, if you're absolutely sure it wouldn't be an inconvenience on your side!

Let's wait and see how many other people think it'd be worth having one, I don't want to impose on you unless there're a few folks who want a server!

[descendency]

Yeah, sounds good to me! Find us on discord for quality memes like these.


(courtesy of Kalyn via her iPhone)


(culprit is me)

[groundrules]

This reminds me to roll something awful for Tamaiu's niece. Thank you for that.

[jeoha]

that would be hot!

[wenderer]

this sounds great, thank you!

[thehoneybadger]

This would be rad

[weifinder]

I think a server's easier for me to access than plurk, for this or that reason, but I'd like it pretty firmly "all actual plotting happens in the OOC post" for the sake of easy backreading and tracking of what's happening. Since my read is you wouldn't be answering any questions there anyway, Ruxi, it's somewhat self-fulfilling, but also for characters plotting with characters, having in-progress plans posted where they're accessible to anyone no matter what social platforms they choose to use or not use would be great.

[groundrules]

Yes, in that sense: I probably wouldn't be available on that discord server at all, and generally try not to tackle plotting queries over discord anyway — so everything would be discussed on the plotting posts anyway. I'd also herd you guys back there as a rule, because I like having things "on paper," where I can see what everyone's doing and plan further developments based off that.

[weifinder]

Yeah, as long as that's the planned action of things I'm a go. Basically for me I don't care when people's private funtimes are plotted anywhere they please, but if it's related to the broader (instead of character specific) investigations, being able to see what's there or who is doing what for the purposes of striking up a "hey, shall our characters converse on this?" is helpful to me! I assume helpful to others too, but hey, realistically can only speak for myself.

What does make it nice with a server is possibly pinging people to look at a thing faster than they might be normally looking at character reading pages or the communities, or catch something on plurk, and the like. I know when I've been in servers, I take it as a shorthand for how to focus my attention when people link to x or y in plotting, which can make it easier.

[descendency]

Yeah I get that argument and I agree that like concrete, narrative driven for-keeps plotting definitely has to go in the mod posts, but declining a server or trying to make rules around where people are allowed to plot is counter-intuitive and probably a little futile. People already shoot the shit in private DMs, on plurk, etc. and often spitballing ideas in a chat format is just a lot easier to do.

I've personally done a lot of character plotting in DMS and private plurks, it just works better for me. I think it's important to have narrative-relevant plotting centralized for accessibility, but I don't think that's mutually exclusive of having a game chat room etc.

People can go nuts plotting whatever, wherever and can be reminded to post their final decisions on the plot post to loop the rest of the gang in.

[weifinder]

I apologise for being unclear, but I was only referring to narrative-relevant plotting that was not character-arc specific.

[groundrules]

No, that makes sense, and I probably failed to explain too — inter-character plotting, God help, you folks figure it out on whatever platform. But there's a level of plotting (like the Arha one) that I'll always encourage to be done publicly, as it affects things massively. So in that sense, people who don't want to utilise Discord (or can't, or just hate chats!) will always have visibility to that level of plotting anyway.

Hope that makes sense!

[descendency]

Yeah I'm also saying that I don't see why people can't plot whatever they want wherever they want as long as they remember to come share with the class/clear their thought process with Ruxi.

[somebadnews]

I am in this camp. Also I've been using discord for five minutes (maybe longer) and I'm still learning. I definitely 100% understand what a server is yes. Very up on this entire thing.

It sounds like a fun thing to have! But I'd definitely think I'd miss a lot that goes on there and just pop in from time to time. I very much like OOC posts for most plotting.

[groundrules]

Hey, that's a perfectly valid approach!

[somebadnews]

Also Tracking the above! Definitely referring to Major Plotting in OOC posts in terms of sharing stuff that goes on with the larger game, but goodness knows I ping people on my own all the time.

I have nothing to contribute to the discussion, but I do like fun things, let it be known.

[rumorate]

I am down for a server! Speaking as a new person, I'm still slowly collecting people on plurk and figuring out the general vibe of things when it comes to hopping on plotting so having a place where I could get to know folks better would be a plus!

But I could totally understand how it would get chaotic for a mod, so if we made it clear that it was just for chatting and all mod questions/concerns needed to be directed to existing mod channels that could work? Maybe have a channel labeled "mod questions" that links directly to a mod question post that people can't respond to? If that makes sense.

(I know in one of my writing servers they have a channel that only certain designated people can respond to/post in and if we have a space that designates mod questions, that might cut down the ones asked in general chat/the number of pings you get that are hard to track.)

[groundrules]

I'll be honest — I probably wouldn't even join the server. I've... got a bit of a thing with chat attention, so the best place to reach me would definitely still be official channels. But having that kind of "HERE YOU GO, IF YOU MISSED IT (LINK TO FAQ)" option would be fantastic.

Mostly, I'm trying to get a sense of whether people:

1. want / feel the need for such a server
2. would be okay with it even if it weren't mod-run
3. if it can be achieved (which Livvy very helpfully laid out as 'yes')


But it sounds like you guys would be keen on one (though I'm going to leave this open a few more days in case anyone has some very strong objections that we haven't given thought to yet), so we might have to impose on Livvy!

[rumorate]

That's totally fair! Just putting some suggestions out there.

[groundrules]

Yep! And I think they'd work, tku ma'am!

[lancifolium]

I'm not the best at paying attention to chats and am definitely guilty of wandering off, but that said there's a bunch of folks I've yet to meet either ooc or ic and I'd love to get a chance to intersect and plot. So yes, but also fully owning my penchant for meandering.

[silverneedles]

Chiming in with yes but adding that group conversations tend to be quite overwhelming for me, so I tend to stay quiet, and likely will, but having opportunities to meet people/general chatting is always good.

[darkeststars]

Won't lie, I've been dying for a server since this game started -- before it started actually lol -- I would be absolutely ecstatic to have one. I get the impression I'm one of the few players who isn't on Plurk and I'm not particularly comfortable over there, and I do occasionally get left out of things because of it. I accept this as the price of not being on Plurk, but since I don't have that central place where it's easy to get ahold of people for just a quick note here and there or informal getting-to-know-you, it would be wonderful to instead have the opportunity to do it on Discord. It would really, massively improve my game experience.

I would also like to volunteer my server running skills if needed -- I see Liv's taking care of most of it but I founded and ran a non-RP-related fandom server of 50ish people for a couple of years, handled the various hiccups etc. I'm reasonably familiar with what's needed in terms of technical, moderation, making best use of Discord's tools to foster a chill environment, all the sort of stuff one would need, so I'd be happy to help make this happen in that capacity.