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Old 07-25-2006, 04:48 PM   #258
Child of the 7th Age
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Folwren & Hilde & everyone in this rpg.....

Durelin and I were thinking this may be a good time to stop and do some serious group planning, and make sure we're on the same page.....for the orcs and slaves as well as the fellowship. Folwren -- I hope this will answer your concerns plus a lot more thrown in as well.

I'll give below what Durelin and I had envisioned. If it doesn't work, we'll fiddle with things of course. Plus, there are many questions that still need answering.

The children were kidnapped during the night. So far everything that has happened to Kwell and Azhar occurred in the space of a single night: imprisonment and attempted escape. The fellowship has now arrived at the slavers' camp early the next morning. It's still fairly early....the sun has risen and it is daylight.

At this point in the storyline, most of the slavers are scurrying around camp trying to figure out who/what has stolen the horses/donkeys. Their attention is not on the children. I was going to do one post by the orc Makdush that would throw the camp into even greater turmoil with the theft of Imak's valuable sword. Because of this loss, Imak's attention will be diverted from Kwell and Azhar at the last minute, perhaps just when he is striding over to deal with them. This will give the fellowship a chance to rescue the children while only having to confront a few guards. Even aside from the timing and the theft, my feeling is that no matter what Kwell has done, Imak is unlikely to kill him. The slavers are motivated by money, and they want to get their due for the slaves they have captured.

I also think Imak will decide the most likely culprits who stole his sword and the horses would have been some slaves who'd managed to track them down. The slavers are out in the middle of nowhere and, as far as they know, no one else is nearby. Moreover, Imak could not imagine slaves willingly coming to the slavers' camp just to rescue two useless children. That is beyond the realm of anything he would do. He assumes most of the slaves will try and flee; a few might come over and try to steal from him. If Imak thinks even a small gang of slaves is stealing from him, he is likely to want to take revenge by assembling a war party and turning swiftly on the entire slave camp as he threatened to do initially.

Imak's idea of revenge would not be killing a single boy, but turning against all the slaves and leading an attack on them. The greater danger would be that Imak would be preparing to launch that attack very shortly after the fellowship arrived at the slavers' camp. Perhaps the members of the fellowship can notice that preparations are going on to launch an attack later that day?

Durelin and I originally talked about whether the fellowship should be the only ones to rescue the kids or whether the slaves would send a party to do that as well, and the two groups (fellowship/slaves) would meet up at the slave camp. (The main body of slaves would presumably be camped some distance away with some women, the children etc. --this would be a smaller group sent out.) We decided to leave that question up in the air. Since the slaves were very involved with problems of their own (that required some interesting character development), we agreed that the fellowship would go ahead and do the rescue, if they got to the slave camp first. However, both of us agreed it could go either way.

So we have several options here:
  1. The fellowship alone rescues the kids. They ride back as fast as possible to the main slave camp with the slavers almost following on their heels (or perhaps not quite as closely as that).,
  2. The slaves send out a party to try and rescue the slaves themselves. The two groups meet up and do a joint rescue. (If we do this, my personal preference is that the groups act together without questioning each other's motives/roles etc., which may happen later.) The slaves and fellowship ride back together to the slaves' camp with the slavers not too far behind.
  3. Something else entirely that I haven't thought of, and perhaps someone else will.

Either way, the next scene would be a major battle between the slavers and the combined slave/fellowship group with heads rolling and such where the slavers are defeated.

After that we would immediately bring the orcs into the picture. Durelin and I had originally discussed the slaves/fellowship occupying the slavers' old camp (perhaps getting the rest of the supplies for themselves?). The orcs will continue to rob for food --- slaves or slavers would make no difference to them, and several of the orcs (all of those actually played by people?) would likely be discovered.

There is an interesting statement by Tolkien about orcs in HoME. I'll have to find it later for the exact words. Basically it said that no orc had ever asked for mercy but that if one ever did, a "good person" would be obliged to give that mercy. That is the situation we were thinking of.....one or more of the captured orcs (possibly a woman?) would make such a request. The slaves/fellowship must decide what to do.

There is also the complication of Orc children. As much as the slaves hate the orcs, how are they going to feel about murdering a nine-year old in cold blood? That is what would have to happen if they decided to slay the orcs for robbing them. One other possibility I know about is being planned behind the scenes--the possibility of at least some independent and semi-positive contact between the captured slave children and the orc child. This is another complication to put in the pot.

In the long run, there has to be some reason for the orcs to stay together with the slaves/fellowship. Presumably that reason would have to be one or more threats too big for either of them to handle. They are forced together out of necessity. (Maybe the orcs even leave and then come back because of what they've seen or experienced??) That is the next thing we'd have to work on.

Durelin and I had some idea about what that threat might be, but would love to hear other suggestions as we haven't nailed this down. So if anyone has good ideas about this or something else in the plot, feel free to post here or, if you prefer, send a pm. I know there are individual "secrets" and I'm not asking for those here -- just general plot stuff.

At some point after the three groups join, there will likely be a time condense post where we chew up a lot of time and ground in getting north.

Folwren -- that's a long answer but does it help?

Hilde -- The scouting post doesn't have to go up today, especially since we've raised a planning issue here that will take some time for people to respond. Do you think you'd be able to do a post like that in the next few days in conjunction with one or more by Durelin for her Dwarf?
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Last edited by Child of the 7th Age; 07-25-2006 at 05:00 PM.
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