Bounty hunters of the apocalypse discussion

Well, I know I said tomorrow was going to be the deadline, but it turns out I'm going to be doing my computer upgrade tomorrow, and am going to be preoccupied with getting driver updates, installing software, making sure the computer actually works and doesn't have the same problem it's had for a long time now, etc..

So since I won't really be able to post the plot spoilers anyway, I guess we might as well add however long it'll take until I'm ready to start posting again to the deadline. Could be as soon as Saturday or a few more days after that.

Okay cool. I am looking forward to those plot spoilers. Could you also post why Shevon was so defensive when Coline and Red fought in the beginning. I don't think you ever told us that.

Well I'm back, which means I'm going to be calling it official now. This RP is over.

I'm recovering from being sick, so I don't know how soon I'll start doing the plot spoiling. It's definitely going to be more than one post, as there's a lot to cover; I'll also do it in chronological order.

So I'll do the Shevon thing first when I start, yeah.

RIP Bounty Hunters. You were a lot of fun while you lasted.

Yeah, thank you Firock. I enjoyed this.

It came up more obviously in the case with Coline, but if you were paying attention in general, you may have noticed that Shevon was particularly defensive of women. She reacted angrily when Flyer first went at it against Garnet, and even got mad when you guys suggested seducing a succubus to expose her.

You may be thinking she was a lesbian, but the answer is actually simpler: She was a rape victim.

I decided on this, if I recall right, shortly before it was brought up as a back story element for Anarchy/Molly. Unlike her though, this happened long before the apocalypse; Shevon actually became a cop before it all as a way to regain her confidence. This has led to her being particularly cold and defensive about things that start to remind her of her own case, which especially came up when Red started to beat up a woman in her bikini.

Also, somewhat unrelated, Officer Ken, who stayed in Green Fields? He had a crush on Shevon.

... I feel like there was something else to say about Shevon but I'm blanking and need to leave for work, but if I remember it I'll get back to it.

Oooohhh... that makes sense. And I had forgotten about Ken. Wasn't he pretty cowardly? Actually, wasn't he a lot like Earl now that I think about it?

Well, that explains the relationship between Shevon and Molly.

Hey what was the deal with that tiny box Red found in the secret compartment in the cabinet of the tiny house way back on Day 2? The one with the various legal identification documents and police report. He never picked it up and the house got messed up by the helicopter.

@Fantasy: Ken was a bit cowardly, yes, but he was always good intentioned. He was a cop after all; he just thought himself out of his depth with the apocalypse.

@Nman: I'm not sure if I remember my plans about that right, but I know it had to do with the Mongolian diner guy; I think I was gonna say he was an illegal immigrant originally, and that was his collection of false identification and such.

I believe next up in chronological order is Emerson.

Sorry, meant to be doing these more often but I got caught up in stuff today.

Emerson, back when he was in a gnome clan, once got into a rather angry, drunken argument with another gnome. Their drunken insults included the other gnome stating that Emerson couldn't even beat a "wee angel folk cherub" in a fist fight. Emerson countered this by challenging that he would prove the other gnome wrong by trying to defeat the very next cherub he saw in a fist fight.

As you guys should be familiar with the way Fair Folk are bound to their word, this is why Emerson was so fixated on Shinespark, and why he eventually attacked it.

Their drunken argument concluded with Emerson drawing a weapon and challenging the other gnome to a duel, which he accepted. Emerson then won, slaying the other gnome; he saw it as an honorable duel, but the clan saw it as murder due to all the drunkenness involved, and exiled him.

It was sometime later on that he got to where you guys first encountered him.

edited 5th Feb '15 5:17:02 AM by FirockFinion

And I'll put one more up before I go for tonight.

The original bandit you guys recruited, (Bill, if I remember right) was legitimate, though he was mainly just afraid for his life; had he lived until the Green Fields siege instead of being gunned down by the other bandits, he probably would have turned tail and run.

Kirk, Molly's original would-be rapist who only got stabbed for his trouble, was legitimate and probably would have stuck around the whole game. Unfortunately he was also a little caught up in proving his legitimacy as a good guy, especially to Molly (Since she was almost his victim, after all.) which of course led to his heroic-sacrifice-turned-pointless; it also likely could have led to a whole number of deaths for him, so he would've been lucky to live the whole game.

Dune was neutral, and only interested in his own hide, whatever that entailed at the time; it's why he was originally with the bandits, why he took Shevon's offer to have his name cleared, and why he capitalized on the exact agreement of said offer to bail as soon as the shit hit the fan.

Flyer was completely legitimate, and was telling the truth from the beginning about joining the bandits simply so he could get the chance to fly a helicopter. He'd tried through legitimate means and been shut down; no time to teach a kid to fly a helicopter in an apocalypse. The bandits presented an alternative as they were desperate to have someone, anyone, who could possibly cover if their only other pilot went out of commission, and couldn't exactly recruit through normal means. Time spent hanging around a bunch of racist, psychopathic, rapist assholes didn't do well for Flyer's personality though, which is why he's such a douche.

... Though, Flyer also has other issues, which I'll get to tomorrow, sometime after work.

edited 5th Feb '15 5:14:38 AM by FirockFinion

Cool. What was the deal with that elf guy Larry in the GPS base? I've always wondered about him.

He was just a lone elf trying to survive. He didn't want to draw attention to himself, just like many elves on Earth, hence the disguise. I planned for him to show up again later on, possible to recruit, but unlikely to agree to come along.

What was all the secret stuff about the factions that you could never tell us before? Like with the Coven and stuff.

And who was the President?

I'll get to secret stuff in the order they were going to come up in the actual RP.

As for the president, I never decided. I wasn't sure if I should pick a real candidate or make someone up, and I wasn't sure how people might interpret it either way. I didn't even want to decide what party they were running for, and ultimately that didn't really matter to the RP. (Though all things considered, I'd personally expect a Republican.) The only thing I did decide on is that it wasn't still Obama.

As mentioned time and time again, Flyer's Australian accent is fake as hell; it's obvious to pretty much anyone that he's a very American kid doing a fake Australian accent, and not terribly well either. I don't think you guys ever asked him about it or told him to stop, but maybe I'm forgetting it; either way, if you had his response would've been along the lines of "this is the way I normally talk" along with genuine confusion; if you asked if he was actually Australian, he would've answered no and said he was American.

But there's been a few times that Flyer's fake accent has waned, along with his composure in general, and I know I hinted before that there was a pattern to it. When he saw the dead policewoman, when he saw Molly naked and covered in blood, and when he saw Chiquita similarly covered in blood. The reason behind all of this stems from one event, something which Flyer just about yelled at one of you about, but you guys never pursued the whole story.

Back near the very beginning of the apocalypse, Flyer watched his mother get eaten alive by zombies, right in front of him. He was spared from the same fate only by the intervention of a genuine Australian man with an equally genuine accent; Flyer's mind, in the intense stress of it all, latched onto that aspect as something of comfort in an otherwise horrid nightmare. Ever since he "recovered", Flyer's spoken with the fake Australian accent, and can't help it. Bear in mind, he was eleven years old when this all went down.

Had you guys pursued trying to help him, you still wouldn't have been able to fix the fake accent, but you could've gotten Flyer to act like less of a douche and maybe not freeze up as much at the sight of dead/dying women.

Oh, and a related issue: Did Garnet and Flyer like each other?

Garnet liked Flyer; she had a crush on him back when they knew each other as little children before losing touch with each other. Now that they've met back up, she still has feelings for him, but thinks that he's grown up to be an asshole. (Because he has.) Them being able to get along better would be the primary benefit to getting Flyer to not be such a douche.

As for Flyer liking Garnet... He actually doesn't, but if you guys helped him out he would have accepted her anyway. Partially out of pity: Where else is she going to find someone her age she likes? And partially because, well, where else is he going to find any in the apocalypse?

edited 6th Feb '15 12:01:23 AM by FirockFinion

Sorry guys, I switched gears to my new RP for the last day or so. (And ashamedly got almost nothing done anyway due to writer's block.) Later tonight or tomorrow night I'll wrap up the last of the NPCs in the party; after that I'll only have one more thing to touch on from before the RP ended, then we'll get started on the future plot lines, set pieces, and spoilers.

Not much to say on for them, but for the curious:

Clark and Coline like each other, as you should know. They were previously in a Cannot Spit It Out situation about it, but after nearly getting killed by Anarchy, Coline realized just how quickly it could all end, and decided she'd rather enjoy her time before death.

Counter is pretty much as he seems; a bit of a glory hound, as much interested in a fat paycheck as he is actually saving the world. But, he is ultimately a good guy, hence why he'd rather be making money saving the world then making money any other way.

Jacob is legitimate in his claims of abandoning his cultist past and really being a good guy. That said, due to the actions of the party as a whole, he almost certainly would have tried to sneak away and leave after helping you guys clean out his old cult.

Jeff had before been dealing with having a desire to help fight for good but not really being physically capable of doing do. He was in the works to become a town guard when Goldilocks was found out as a succubus, which instead put him firmly in a position of, "we can't trust this guy, keep an eye on him." You guys probably couldn't have convinced him to date Goldilocks again, but in time and with some conversing, he could've let go of his animosity towards her.

Remember how you guys got a reward of a free pass on a battle up until a certain point in the RP? Well, you may have been wondering how that would happen. And now I'll tell you:

It was going to be a cameo appearance by a character of mine from another setting. Explaining him entirely would take too long, so I'll summarize by describing him as Doom Guy with a cynical attitude, working for an inter-dimensional version of the Stargate program, with the ability to regenerate ammo due to advanced technology.

He appeared in the RP already briefly; he was the tactical-as-fuck guy with the helicopter pilot helmet who bought the shotgun from Nman's merchant character. He was also the lone Human Mephisto's minion talked about in the cutaway post; the one still in the town who was still fighting despite being hopelessly outnumbered.

When you guys used the reward for a fight, he would've showed up going after some quarry of his own, which would just so happen to be among your enemies at the time. He'd run in, start fighting, and promptly die in some fashion.

He would then literally respawn out of thin air in a suit of robotic power armor◊ and proceed to lay waste to the enemies.

Then he'd leave, uninterested in the conflict of this dimension as it isn't his problem, and thus unable to be recruited. If you asked who he was, he would've identified himself as "Jack The Ripper." (Which is sort of but not really his name; again, long story.) If you guys tried to fight him, you would have lost; there's no way you would stand a chance.

Anyway, that should be everything from before the RP ended. Next up is on to stuff that would've happened later on, and spoilers.

edited 10th Feb '15 3:14:05 AM by FirockFinion

Yeah I was wondering who that guy was. That's pretty cool that we had a literal Deus Ex Machina on our hands.

Sorry about the lack of posting the last few days; I've been having that selective writer's block really hard. Gonna try to post at least one thing tonight.

Here's a preview list of what's coming up:

Alearth's hideout.

Encounter with another dominion.

Meeting your first witch.

Could you also say whether or not you intended the demon who killed Lynn to come back and whether or not Red could get his revenge. If he was even strong/skilled enough to get revenge.

She was gonna come back, yes, though Red would be hard pressed to defeat her alone as she was going to be a mini-boss. Also he wouldn't be the only one going for revenge against her.

If Red had gotten around to talking to Goldilocks about the encounter, he could've found out that the succubus who killed Lynn was the same one who screwed up Goldilocks' attempt to save the guy in her flashback; the one who stabbed the guy through the shoulder and threw him back onto the ritual circle before helping Esh attack Goldilocks.

Specifically, that was a succubus known as Dark Wing; (And yes, she was going to make a "let's get dangerous!" reference when her miniboss fight started.) a succubus specialized in fighting rather than plain deception, despite being another spawn of Mephisto. Speaking of succubi...

As a whole, this encounter was to be extremely open-ended, dependent on what you guys decided to do. I did plan out the basic generalities so I could work around whatever you guys did specifically though.

The cult hideout is in an abandoned mine, the first couple rooms of which have some traps. After that is some open rooms with old arcade machines and tables with various tabletop and wargaming stuff on them. The deepest rooms include Alearth's stash of magical ingredients, a dark room with cages in it for prisoners, and a few empty rooms for magical rituals.

If you guys went for a frontal assault, with the warning ahead of time from the traps, the cult would have hid one of the vampires in one of the cages, who would try to trick one of you into "freeing" her whereupon she would attack you; if Jacob were present, he would point out the trick as he would recognize the vampire.

If you guys tried to trick them, acting like Goldilocks was a normal succubus to get some free ingredients, Alearth would become suspicious and attempt disguising as Goldilocks while the real Goldilocks is busy taking magical supplies. Then she'd approach whoever came along to see how they acted when "Alearth" wasn't around.

If you tried to recruit Alearth, which both Goldilocks and Jacob would strongly advise against, she would join along. But it would be a trick, and the first opportunity she had alone with anyone besides Goldilocks and Israfel, she would kill that person.

Other than magical ingredients, some weapons, and Fantasy's third character, there would be no notable rewards from the hideout.

edited 13th Feb '15 2:21:46 AM by FirockFinion

I wish to reserve the 4000th post. Also, I am really enjoying these spoilers. After we had stopped Mephisto, what would part 3 of this game be?