My Little Pony D10 International Relations Group B

Welcome to the second playtest of my My Little Pony D10 RPG.

This is group B‘s thread (and yes, the “B” stands for something secret). The other group will start with similar events, but the events will have a different cause and divergence should accumulate over time.

I am Hasbro and will be running the game.

The OOC thread is over here.

I ask that you make the difference between in-character and out-of-character dialogue distinct.

Group B consists of:

Madcap, played by Japanese Teeth

Gneiss Foundation, played by NE Sgamer 190

Cardicia, played by Luminosity

Penumbra Dewdrop, played by Basettete

Captain Seaheart (with reduction of HES to legal levels), played by Enlong

and Hobble Hooves, played by Plumbum

Okay. Celestia’s sun rises over the little town of Tampaddock. The factories are not stirring yet and normally the thatched houses would also be quiet, with only the farmers out in their fields to great the day, but recently, the town has been busier than usual. Everypony (and the camel family) wants to impress Celestia who will soon be visiting. The bells of town hall ring and ponies begin making there way over to hear why the mayor has summoned them.

What do you do?

edited 7th Apr '14 2:04:54 PM by Sereg

Gneiss Foundation staggers out of her bed, awakened easily by the bell as she looks out of the window. After shaking her head a little bit, her eyes shot wide open after taking a look out of her window, the ears sinking as she viewed.

"Is our town... in trouble?" Gneiss wondered, a look of worry evident on her face as she viewed a couple documents of her own. "Did I somehow make a miscalculation and cause somepony's house to collapse? Oh, I've got to stop worrying, and get right to it!"

With a deep breath of air, an assortment of architectural tools, and a few architect blueprints, Gneiss headed down the stairs, not even stopping to admire any art within the vicinity, and opened the door with a bit of a hasty nature.

"Whatever that bell's ringing for, it must be important." Gneiss concluded, getting into a trot to get to the source of the bell's tolling. "I really doubt the mayor'd ring the bell to let the town do her shopping now..."

Madcap does not wake up, because he is already awake. He has been up all night tweaking his solar powered pipe◊ and getting the patent papers together.

As he hears the bells, he pauses to make sure the sound isn't just in his head. He switches his goggles to "day" mode and heads outside to see why the bell is being rung off-schedule, bringing along his oversized coffee mug for fueling purposes.

edited 5th Apr '14 9:28:11 AM by JapaneseTeeth

Cardicia strolled into the town in high spirits, imagining all the wonderful tricks she'll dazzle the ponies with, until an annoying bell interrupted her pleasant journey to dreamland.

She began to pull her wagon in the bell's general direction to teach it the error of its interruptive ways.

"What would your bell dad think?" she said disapprovingly to nopony in particular.

@JT: If you've been up all night, you're going to be low on energy. But take a character point for an awesome character introduction.

Among the many other detrimental effects of an inverted circadian rhythm, it made the inevitable issue of bed head an absolute nightmare to deal with. Hard to properly groom oneself when you were honestly more exhausted upon waking up than you had been trying to go to sleep in the first place. Only in the loosest of senses was Miss Dewdrop, better known by her widespread town name of Penumbra, functionally comparable to a pony. In most senses she was essentially a sentient hairball with the oddest aroma of dust and mildew about her.

At least she'd already done her job. In theory. Given that the twilight hours of the morning before the crack of dawn were typically her peak, she'd been able to focus all of the nonexistent mental power and prowess she possessed into what she thought was an especially decadent and artful morning mist of dew. Which would promptly vanish with the sun's coming rendering the whole exercise moot for the Princess' arrival, but at least it had been self actualizing as an activity. Or something.

Still, the bells were tolling. Doubtlessly a whole number of jobs had been put off to the last second in a fit of incompetence that seemed to grace all political leaders short of the Princesses themselves and they were now scrambling to get them done. They'd probably be looking for her, even knowing that her typical morning energy crash made her about as useful and reliable as a parasprite swarm. Such was the price of being awesome, or at least enough of a nuisance to always draw attention even when she didn't deserve it.

So it was out the door, still in a downright contemptible state of appearance. Her mane was contorting and tangling in a manner that would have left the great Dadaist artists of old scratching their heads. Her coat was ragged and scraggly and sagging and other words with the weird sounding hard 'ag' in them. Her eyes were so bloodshot she seemed to have taken a wrong turn out of a vampire flick into the world of technicolor ponies. And her eyelids were severely weighted.

All in all, a good start to Penumbra's day. Or at least, about as good as she could hope for.

@Sereg: Hence the coffee. I'll add the CP to my character sheet so I remember it for later.

Madcap sees the other ponies heading towards town hall. He vaguely remembers hearing about something involving a foreign dignitary, but he wasn't really paying attention, being far too busy. He remembers the last time he was at town hall, embroiled in a patent dispute over whether a pedal-powered railroad car is sufficiently different from a hoofcar. He won out in the end, if only because the patent officer was sick of dealing with him.

A tan-coated mare strides toward the town hall at the sound of the bell. Her saddlebags laden with timber and tools, it appears as though the bell called her away from her plans for the day.

"Not back in town two days, and something's happened," she mutters to herself. "This had better not take long. I've got repairs to make."

On her path to destroy the annoying bell Cardicia sees a crowd of other ponies heading to the town hall.

"Oh, that must be why the bell is so noisy, something important." she pulled the wagon in that crowd's general direction.

"What can be so important that it just happened to... happen when I'm entering the town? Did somepony invent a new flavor of chocolate but is unwilling to share with anypony else? I bet Canterlot has lots of them secret chocolates."

The relatively rust-colored mare continued on her way, before having caught sight and sound of a purple mare with a card for her cutie mark. Without hesitation, she trotted over to the purple mare, proceeding to talk with the purple mare.

"Huh... A new flavor of chocolate nopony's going to give?" The rust-colored mare asked the purple mare, a tad dumbfounded with that conclusion. "Wouldn't it be a little silly for somepony to ring a bell about chocolate?"

"Very true, unless..." Cardicia observed her new conversation partner. There was something... opposite about the pony. Maybe it was the colors, or something deeper.

"Unless it's an unofficial announcment! Somepony snuck up there and now strikes the bell in declaration of keeping all the secret chocolate to themselves!"

She imagined the kind of pony that would do that: a black-and-red monstrous pony with bat wings, horn shaped like a lance, red glowing eyes, and an evil chocolate-stained grin.

"We must apprehend that intruder!" Cardicia stood on two legs, pointing one of her upper hooves at the belltower. "Think of the publicity we'll get!"

The rust-colored mare looked at the pony in purple, before looking a little unamused. In response, she spoke:

"I can understand the possibility of an unofficial announcement, but we don't exactly know if that is the case. Maybe you've got a little more of a solid foundation for that guess?"

It also appears that the rust-colored mare had her ears lowered just a tad. After noticing the wagon that the purple mare was pulling, she wondered about the purple mare, curious about many details about her.

"I'm just a good bit curious, but just... who are you?"

Madcap continues to make his way through town. On the way he overhears two mares discussing chocolate, and how it might have something to do with the bell ringing. He doesn't really get the connection, but it gives him an idea. He makes a mental note to look into the possibility of whether or not chocolates molded into the shape of bells might be marketable. He could use the extra bits to fund his long-defunct time-machine project.

A CP each to Penumbra and Cardicia.

I can tell that I'm going to enjoy Madcap.

As you approach Town Hall, you see the mayor ringing the bell with her mouth. Her mane is unbrushed and her eyes are red and bulging. She drops the bell onto the floor as the crowds assemble before giving a sigh.

"Thank you for coming, everypony. As you should all know by now, Princess Celestia is coming to visit our humble little town today. We have all been rushing to get everything ready and perfect for her visit. This would be important under normal circumstances, but as you know, we have to really impress her in order to help convince her to support our town after our sudden competition from Saddle Arabia. Unfortunately, she has sent me a notice apologising and saying that she has to reduce the length of her visit due to unforeseen circumstances. She has also asked to move the visit a few hours earlier. Now, we mustn't panic, but this is a potential disaster. We need to prepare! We need to organise! What do we do!? Suggestions?!"

Cardicia wanted to answer, but the mayor's speech interrupted her.

"There goes that theory." she said after seeing the bell was in fact with the mayor all along.

Then her mind processed the mayor's speech. She rushed through the crowd, the wagon still being pulled behind her much to the crowd's potential annoyance.

"Rejoice, fair ponies! It just so happened that the Master Magician Cardicia is here to help you out! My spectacular performance will leave a memory in the mind of Princess Celestia for a lifetime! I guarantee you, my grasp on magic will leave an impression forever!

Well at least it turned out that Penumbra wasn't the only one suffering from exhaustion. At least, from what she could tell through the distinctive and slightly artistic blur of her vision. Not like she was seeing things that weren't there or doubles or anything like that, it was just... unusually hard to focus. To say nothing of her inability to hear. It was like she had immersed her head into pool water, only this pool refused to be a dear and shock her into wakefulness.

Suddenly there was the broad side of a wagon clipping her cheek with a creaking of both wood and bone. Penumbra was rebuffed, suddenly in pain, suddenly irate.

"Hey watch it! Who do you think you are?!" The pissed off pegasus yelled after the as-of-now unseen to her puller of the cart. Her temper was quite potent when she was wanting for sleep. Which was essentially all the time.

Madcap blinks a few times as he processes the information. He could swear that Celestia wasn't going to be arriving for another few days, but when he doesn't leave the basement, he tends to lose track of time. He yawns, takes a swig of his coffee (which is, of course, black), clears his throat, and decides to gather some more information.

"Exactly how much time do we have before she arrives?" he asks, his voice scratchy.

`"Urgh.... What's all the fuss?" Hobble gently opened her eyes, straining them against what seemed to be daylight. Daylight? Why daylight? She could hear some kind of.... commotion? No. Probably not worth waking up for. She turned over onto her other side, making all the motions to pull a blanket over that simply wasn't there. Then making the same motion again. Okay. I'm definitely not at home...

With a resigned sigh, she raised one hoof above her eyes, shielding them from the sun and finally accomplishing the mammoth task of opening them completely, laying one hoof on the ground at a time to bring herself into a standing position. As she caught her bearings and looked around, she figured out two things: One, she was on some kind of rooftop and two, she could hear what who seemed to be the mayor. Although the mayor was a stuffy and boring lady, it was usually worth hearing what she had to say, if only to know where to begin the next mischief. Quickly surmising that she must have fallen asleep causing whatever last night's mischief might have been, the sleepy filly dragged herself over to the edge of what turned out to be Town Hall's rooftop stared down at the congregation - of what seemed to be everypony in town.

The mayor turns to face Cardicia. "You'll entertain Princess Celestia for us!? Thank you! Thank you! She said that she can't bring her whole retinue with her. Just a few guards. But perhaps that'll be better. No Canterlot snobs to look down on us. Maybe this can work..." She turns towards Madcap. "Oh! Madcap! Right! She should be here in around five hours. Let's hurry, everypony!"

Two CP for Cardicia and one to Hobble.

edited 7th Apr '14 11:51:28 AM by Sereg

Heh. Even some honest work might have something in it for me.

"Hey! Hey! Miss Mayor Lady! What about me?" The young filly stood on her hind legs, waving her front hooves around to, with any luck, gain the Mayor's attention and find if there was anything to do to help.

But taking her front legs away from the edge of the building had some unforseen consequences that really should have been obvious - waving her hooves threw Hobble Hooves completely off balance, not only falling over but pitching from the side of Town Hall in the process - falling straight towards the Mayor!

Okay time for some action.

Madcap rolls his eyes. Magicians aren't really his thing. Then again, this whole deal with the visiting royal is outside the scope of his interest anyway. What does pique his interest is the pony way up on the roof of the town hall. The one who doesn't seem to be maintaining their balance and is presently toppling from the roof. He might not be interested in helping out a great deal with all the diplomatic hoopla, but surely saving somepony from splatting on top of the mayor would be enough to exempt him from having to participate. He begins to muster up his telekinesis.

What would I roll to figure out if I can catch (or not catch) Hobble?

Also, could we have links to each character page in the OP, for reference. Make it easier to keep track of what all the other characters are like.

edited 7th Apr '14 1:18:04 PM by JapaneseTeeth

@JT: Catching things is dexterity + combat (-1 die for her smaller size)

I'll put some links up.

Also, already done Hobble's rolls. If you miss, she's faceplanting into the floor.

She also gets a CP!

Okay, what all do I roll, then?

edited 7th Apr '14 1:51:12 PM by JapaneseTeeth

You get one die for combat, plus three dice for dexterity (plus an extra one if you want to use fine telekinesis, which you have to pay for. Then again, you have to pay to use telekinesis at all, so your choice on how much to spend). Minus one for size differences. Minus another one for being down an energy track already. So, two to three dice, depending.

EDIT: You need to get two points.

edited 7th Apr '14 2:14:53 PM by Sereg

Sorry for popping into this thread but telekinesis is free. Just a reminder.