Kvestions I have, and their number be two.
One: I solicit suggestions on how to develop Dhorain spiritually. I picture him as growing up in a village where people offer general, frequent, casual prayers to the gods of the fields for a good harvest, to the gods of the winds for rain and sun, and so on, and that the gods are sufficiently laid-back to, as a general rule, not bother manifesting. Those who disrespect the gods may be punished, and those who please them may be rewarded, but by and large, the gods are happy to do their own things, content with the low-intensity but very steady and very low-maintenance prayer flow. The result of this is that Dhorain is inherently very much unused to the idea of formal worship, and especially sacrifice. To him, gods are supposed to be distant and mysterious. He is totally fine with the idea of praying to the god of the forest for safe passage, and making an offering a few times a year. If the god happens to manifest and say “Yeah, that’s great and all, but I’d really like you to send these three villagers to serve me for three months and three days.”, he will move from polite negeotiation, to impolite negeotiation, to trying to talk the village into finding out what happens to the god of a forest when you make large, obvious, and heartfelt sacrifices to the gods of wind (to come forth) and rain (to stay away), and start several big-ass fires right on the edge of the wood.
Are the actions (or lack thereof) of Dhorain’s domestic gods and Dhorain’s subsequent mindset*, appropriate to this area of Creation? (Side note: obviously, the Immaculate Order needs to not be in this area at all. I assume they’ve had better things to do than try to convert this particular hamlet.)
*Specifically, "Good gods get prayed to and offerings made. Less-good goods get prayed to for clemency. Really bad gods get avoided and have taboos followed to avoid offending them. Gods that actually get in your face aren’t proper gods and therefore slip through the centuries of accumulated folklore that all says ‘Don’t fuck with gods.’ "
Question the second: Is there some way of setting up synchronous communication, such as IM, for the purposes of back-and-forth dialogue? Could we all share IM names and, if we want to have dialogue happen on our turn, message either the GM or the other PCs?
Here’s some dialogue I’d like to insert into my most recent post, for example:
The martial artist stopped short at Dhorain’s words, turning to face him. “Foolish boy.” she said. A hint of amusement had crept into her expression. Without turning to look, she lashed out with lightning-fast side kick, bowling over the last of the drunkards. “You stand no chance against me, and you know it.”
“Do I?” asked Dhorain, grinning more widely to conceal his nervousness. “Come over here and prove it, then. If you can.”
There was a barely-noticeable flicker from the corona of searing air around the martial artist. The spark of amusement in her face vanished, replaced by something else.
Dhorain just barely managed to conceal a nervous swallow, and re-readied himself. Really, really going to hurt. he thought.
Am I allowed to post dialogue like this for other people without consulting their player directly? I use this as an example because it doesn’t actually involve the other character taking any action (other than polishing off the last drunkard, which I assume is going to happen regardless, and doesn’t actually rule out any response.
Ideally, I’d like to fire up IM, say “Hey, I’d like to have a bit of verbal posturing while the martial artist stunts away the last Extra. Is this good?” and get back either “Yes, go ahead.”, “Yes, but she’d respond differently. How would Dhorain respond to this instead?”, or “No, that doesn’t work, just go ahead and post your own actions only for now, and I’ll respond in-thread.” Is something like this desirous of anyone else?
If not IM, should we have exchanges like this in email?
