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I'd like to ask everyone to remove themselves from all the numbers, and rethink this story, this game in the big picture.
It is called "The Fellowship of the Fourth Age: A New Beginning."
The goal is a new beginning for the slaves, a new settlement that will last, for which you need quite a number of people. Whether or not this settlement is successful is not a question we're asking in this game, it's not an issue being explored. It is already determined that this is successful.
The capture of Azhar and Kwell, their rescue, and the attack of the slavers are all (ultimately) part of a very interesting subplot, which was so interesting that it has taken up quite a lot of time. It's only been covered in such great detail because of the amount of interest that was shown through people's posting. We're on to the ninth page and we still haven't united the Orcs with the slaves and Fellowship - when this occurs was when the game was really supposed to start.
If over half of the slaves are dead before the game was really supposed to start...well, we have to question what we're doing.
"Realism" doesn't mean as many dead people as we can manage. And is it even realistic for slavers, who make money off of capturing slaves (and this is their only way of making money, such as enough money to have food), to simply slaughter the unarmed ones? Sure, Imak has a personal vendetta, but what about the others? I doubt they're the loyal type; I doubt they care what happens as long as they get food, drink, money, and fun...
We must remember that we are applying our concepts (which may or may not be true) of the "real world" and what "realistically" occurs in the real world to a fantasy world, and more importantly, to a game. Personally, I don't want to spend an hour or so looking through a game to find all the numbers of the dead, wounded, etc...and I don't think anyone should expect anyone else to do it. How we know these statistics can be considered unrealistic, as well. How does one character know how many people have been killed around them? Running in to dead bodies or watching people die is a nasty business, and though it's going to happen, it's not going to happen to everyone.
So why should everyone be describing and tallying death on a large scale, considering roleplaying means we play a character, and write from that character's point of view - on the small scale. Here on the Barrow-Downs, sometimes roleplaying is taken in a broader view, I think: sometimes people narrate more than roleplay. There's nothing necessarily wrong with that, but I think it's really detrimental to the game in certain situations.
We just have to remember we're roleplaying. Playing a role. Playing, having fun, as a part of a game.
Everyone's writing and participation has been absolutely amazing, and I want to thank you all for all your work and interest. And I also want to continue in the way we have been: having fun and writing a great story. So I ask that everyone will sit back and have fun with this, while realizing that this is a game, and an opportunity to have fun together thanks to Child's conception of the idea.
-Durelin
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