Origins 2018 AAR, Part 2: Thursday and Friday

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4

Thursday

I was around 5am when I gave up sleeping and opened my computer to go over a story I wrote at some point last year. The story features a lonely night for my Arcanis character. I wrote the story for me, to remind me of some of the elements of her story and background, why she is here and her motivations for doing some of the things she did.

The idea was not simply personal, but my good friend Tom-C approached me with the idea of having our two characters get married. Since we are both of high social status and our characters have a lot of synergy together. So we got to talking and I told him I had a short story for him. This was the story. I cleaned it up some and expanded a few passages, still needs a little work, but it works for the purpose of letting him know what is going on.

My morning table was of Exalted Pains for Tyrants of Saggakar. Great group, a lot of fun. The guys really got into the backstabbing element the houses of Faremh do to each other. Good stuff.

My afternoon table did not make, so I jumped on a table of Arcanis (again) this time. I joined a party of Peter-P, Eric-G, and Mary to play one of the adventures we missed earlier in the year. Investigation? Alcohol? Yes!

For the evening, my table did not go off, so it was the first of the adventures leading into the special two-round Saturday interactive. I was very curious because the adventure was set in a region that was considered mythical and where nothing was ever written for it. Psionics and other nastiness.

The adventure was very intriguing, with alien encounters and meeting cultures completely different to others on Arcanis. A fair amount of lore here and many things to do: find the missing legionnaires.

One thing I really loved about this one, and how my GM Ryan-W, from Colorado, allowed me to play it is that the adventure starts with a scene, then you jump back to the past. Since I have oracular powers, I was able to warn the party of what was coming. Really cool stuff, made me feel like a million bucks! Thanks Ryan!

I retired to the room and wrote a little before being kept awake by the multi-snoring machines...

Friday

I gave up on not being able to sleep again at 5am, when the snoring machines stopped their infernal racket... I wrote some more, starting a new story, one that followed the previous story, "when Kermina was told of her marriage." For that one, I had to go back and review my old 3.5 Arcanis characters, their special abilities, their histories. It was a trip down memory lane I thoroughly enjoyed!

Again, my morning slot went off. This time since I did not have all the handouts for the Saggakar adventure, I offered the guys to instead play the Akhamet intro: Lost Pyramid of Neferheket which was very fun. I really like that adventure. These guys did the adventure in the opposite order that all other groups have done so far. It was interesting to see how some encounters play with different information.

The afternoon, my table did not go off, so I jumped on a table of the second hard point for Arcanis.

This one was not as enjoyable.

I hate to say, but there was very precious little making this one fun in any way. To avoid spoiler, I will say that three over-the-top climactic battles in a row is not climactic. I am not certain we would have survived. This was unpleasant, and not in a way that you remember fondly. This was the first Arcanis adventure in a VERY long time that I did not see a point for characters that were not uber-twinked out (which I am not one of them, I'm more of a toolbox). Attack rolls that only check for crit/crit fail. Now I don't care about my own character (I'm always surprised when I am NOT hit, but that was just going above and beyond).

We got saved by the marshal kicking us out of the room. Thanks Josh! Again... Not fun.

I heard a few people talking about quitting Arcanis, which I thought was over-the-top. I told them that "everyone can write a Star Trek VI once in a while". Not enjoyable. Not having tickets for the next day's mega battle interactive, I seriously wondered if I should instead try to find a seat for Shadowrun or something else...

Next up was the "interactive"... not a battle, but one made up of mini-missions. I met up with Nicole-G (who plays my BFF Dessa) and her kids and my good friend Paul-G ran us for two mini-missions and Paul-B ran us through two more.

The fun I had on this one soothed my doubts about the previous adventure. I resolved to be back for the BI, if I could find a seat.

Next up: 5h of interrupted sleep

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4