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This is (as the title states) the OoC topic for the Blazing Trails TS.

A cast list and some other information will be added to this post in the next day or two.

Ruffians it is. I have an idea:

The man who struck fear in every black-hearted villain in Cythera is gone, and everyone knows it. So would it be strange for the scattered Ruffians to regroup and rebuild? Maybe even better than before. Our heroes stumble upon a recently fortified encampment and realize too late they may have bitten off much more than they can chew. Plenty of opportunities for creative thinking since we couldn't take the place down with a frontal assault, and it will be easy for other characters to have a reason to drop in and help when their writers are ready.

I'd get working on it but I don't know the game well enough to describe the encampment with any loyalty to the canon, even one changed by reinforcement.

It's starting to sound a little like a Ruffian Encampment repeat. :\

Sorry, that one was before my time I didn't realize.

I'd be happy to go along with any other ideas.

Plus, they were funded by House Comana, who are probably not doing so well right now...
As Selax mentioned, your posts are brilliantly scribed, (at least compared to the average ^_~). However your grasp of the currency situation detracts from an otherwise excellent experience. Therefore, I make it the goal of this post to enlighten any who suffer from this handicap.

The Monetary unit of Cythera is the Obol, plural Oboloi. Made of Iron, Oboloi are made of iron which cannot be worked into that shape except by magic, (They are rumoured to be round, like ball-bearings, but I don't remember why). The mages are important officials in the government, having the role of Judges (therefore, no counterfeits.) On a more speculative note, Copper is unused because it is so common & too easy to work. Gold is also too easy to work, & too rare for mundane uses.


For the purposes of your post, a kid might have put his mother's ring in the hat... etc...

Gasp!

Thank you for the correction. I believe I will apply this knowledge to all future posts, but I do not think I will change the earlier ones. Why? Entertainment value and laziness, more than anything else. The coin-toss trick doesn't work without coins so changing the heart of that post will be tough indeed. I don't know (offhand) a trick I could use to replace it. Not and have the same effect. This is my own fault.

Sorry for the mistakes. This feels like a bone-head move on my part. In all future posts I will write of money (and mages) appropriately or just write about something else. Thanks Jehezekel (for the compliments too of course)

Now we just have to wait for someone to take the reins and choose a path for the story in their next post. Someone not me, lol.

I have written a post that I plan to submit in a few minutes. It proposes a change of direction for the TS, and I decided to leave the proposal open so that other people have a say in the matter ^_^ Shorty and Wizzy both told me Sely wouldn't get mad, so if my post makes you mad, Sely, blame them :P (I guess I should've spoken up about my opinion on what direction the TS should take earlier, but I felt like I should join the TS before I had a say in it.)

I'm guessing one or two of our TS participants aren't very familiar with the in-game characters, so I'm just going to briefly say here who the ones I mentioned are. Matron Thuria is the head of House Attis. In the game, House Attis and House Comana were struggling for power of the city of Cademia, but Bellerophon pretty-well put an end to House Comana. Lindus is the headmaster at Pnyx, and Selinus is the librarian. The ghost in the iron mine is really a Seldane, and if our characters do attempt to communicate with it, they'll have to learn Seldane-language.

I have no problem with that, Ragnar. ^_^

I may have slightly over-simplified the role of the Mages in the Cytheran society, (for instance there appears to be a few evil mages, most if not all of whom have turned themselves into Liches. They live in fortresses in the wild NW quarter of the island.) Pnyx is the one place that the Mages consider home, being founded by their forerunners in the time of the Exile, & still being the only place where they are fully accepted. It is also known as The Magesterium (sp?). Pnyx is approximately directly west of Cademia across the mountains.

At one point during the Exile, a group of mages attempted to found a new mage-friendly city toward the South of Pnyx on the coast. During his travels, Bellerophen discovered that it failed due to an agreement forged between the mage Tavara & the Undine (Water-Elementals). Tavara is currently a lich hiding from everybody in his mountain citadel. (I don't remember how much of this was discussed during the Missing Sorceress TS, but it bears repetition since we're trying to stick closer to Canon.) Abydos is inhabited by Ghosts these days, & nobody cares to spend the night with them.


House Attis owns the only Iron Mine on the island. It is found lodged on the West side of the mountains toward the South of Pnyx, guarded by Ruffian-friendly woods. Since Oboloi are made of Iron, the mine is important not only to Attis, but also the whole Society.

That's all I have for now! I'll say more as it seems pertinent/I think of it. I welcome further input by those who have made more of an effort to understand Cythera.

P.S. There's a pretty map of Cythera in the OoC Topic for the other TS.

For the sake of future posts I have some obscure and detailed questions that you may (or may not) be able to answer for me. I'll need to know before I continue writing.

Compared to money in our world how much is a single Obol worth? It's an odd question that but important for a character like Alon. At least important enough to bring up in posts.

It strikes me that carrying around a large bag of iron spheres would be inconvenient because they would be heavy and noisy. So in Cythera are there Obol which are worth more than normal, and how are they distinguished from regular Obol?

I would imagine since the iron is worked with magic more expensive pieces would be a different color, have special markings, be heavier, or be made of a different metal.

Again the questions look silly, but consider this: Suppose a drink at the tavern costs two or three Obol. Now a horse should be much more expensive so that should cost you a reasonably sized bag of Obol. A house would be far more expensive still, so that would cost you a wheelbarrow full of the stuff. I suppose you bought the horse to pull the barrow.

In any case this brings me to our enterprising thief. If he steals a small sack of Obol (enough not to encumber him or make much noise while employing his ninja skills) he won't make off with very much money. If he steals a whole lot of Obol it would be too heavy for him to escape with. Not and still remain a "realistic" character anyway.

I'd understand if no one knew the answers here. It's possible the answer doesn't even exist. I've never played an RPG that bothered to explain why my character can walk around with 1,000,000 pieces of gold without the need for a caravan.

If such an answer doesn't exist I'd like to wing it for the story, it isn't really violating canon if the information was omitted. I'm thinking obol worked with different magic and having roman numerals stamped onto them made of other metals would have varying values. Like so:

I - iron stamp, 1
V - bronze stamp, 5
X - silver stamp, 10
L - gold stamp, 50
C - platinum stamp, 100
D - ruby stamp, 500
M - diamond stamp 1000

The obol are all still made of iron, but made with slightly different magic and marked by a different metal. The value of the metal in the stamp isn't important it's just symbolic the way a dollar is made of paper but I can't buy a car with a marble notebook (very unfortunate).

Let me know Yay or Nay before I gum up the works and write it in.

Yes, are we allowing the Chest Feat?
I think we should leave the Fetch spell as is, only with more reasonable parameters, (no Fetching towns, etc.)

On to answer your questions Ragnar:
A drink costs 1 Ob
A meal runs at 5 Ob per person

Most prices can be haggled down, I didn't get all of the minimums here.
Cademian Marketplace prices:
Bread 5, 3min
Cheese 9, 6min
Cloak 48
Cape 32, 28min
Kabobs 5
Sausages 5
Roast 9
Ribs 13
Grapes 3
Pomegranate 2

Dagger 20
Axe 90
Short Sword 70
Buckler 34
Light Shield 46
Helmet 28
'course it's cheaper to get them off dead ruffians ^_~

Tavern Keeper's Prices:
Cheese 9
Bread 6
Fish 6
Ribs 17

15 Ob for a Meal for 3 & a bed at the Two Tailed Rat
3 Ob for a meal

House in Cademia: 10,000 Ob

A mercenary would be ashamed to state a hiring price of any less than 50 Oboloi.

As to Horses, there aren't any. Goats & chickens were the only livestock brought onto the island. All the native fauna are reptilian in nature, with six legs. Supposedly ferocious are Unicorns & Titans, though in the game the fiercest thing they do is run away. I say we make them dangerous. Oh yes, crabs are also fairly common, including giant crabs in a cave south of Kosha & sometimes in a temple to the scylla in the wilds of NW Cythera on the sea.

I'd be fine with an updated money, but I'd say skip V & X, move Silver to L & Gold to C. Part of my reasoning there is that Platinum doesn't seem to fit the Iron-age culture, & Bronze is too mundane in such a society. Also, that feels like too many denominations. (Actually I'd prefer making it a base 60 system, {1, 60, 360, 600, 3600} ^_^)

I think Shorty's covered the question, but I'll throw in my opinion that I'm fine with updating the oboloi too. The game really doesn't explain how you could carry so much iron. If you're carrying a full inventory, you're still allowed to fill any containers you're carrying (like a chest or a sack), and you're always allowed to move something from a container in your inventory, into your inventory, if that makes sense. I think that's a pretty common inventory-overstuffing technique in RPGs?

Anywayz, say your inventory maximum is 50, you could easily overstuff it to 1000/50. If you get passed 32767, it goes to -32767, so then you can add things directly into your inventory again. That wouldn't make much sense in a TS though, I don't think. (Also the maximum amount of oboloi you can have in one pile is 32767.)

Shorty's also leaving out some creatures by saying they all have six legs, but that's probably not relevant right now. ^_^

If memory serves me correctly, Rubies and Diamonds could fetch you a pretty penny (eh, round piece of iron) if you talked to the right guy. There was a guy in Kosha who would buy your diamonds, and sell them to you too. Perhaps instead of an obolo thief, one might have a diamond thief on his hands?

I used base 10 and roman numerals only because they're simple and familiar, whatever base/symbols you guys want to use is fine with me. heh heh, base "n". I only need a break down of Obol for ease of theft. The fact that it fleshes out the world slightly is just a bonus.

Shorty, is there any particular reason you want base 60? I figured base 10 is easier for common prices but maybe I'm wrong.

I think I did get carried away with the different variations of Obol. Who walks around with a 1000 dollar bill? Hows about:

I - iron
V - silver
X - gold
L - ruby
C - diamond

1, 5, 10, 50, 100. Almost just like regular currency.

If no one has issues with this I'll get cracking on a post.

Sexagismal number systems were used by Sumerian artisans somewhere between 3000 and 2000 B.C. I think that's where Shorty's getting the base 60 system from, but I think something like what you've got makes more sense.

Personally, I think the base 60 sounds more fun, but whatever is simplest for the people using it is cool with me. ^_^

You guys could vote on it? heh, it's cool with me either way. I just needed to have variation in how much each piece was worth for the sake of my writing. The specifics of precisely how much everything is worth is less critical to what I'm writing. I think ^^;

So, I separated the group for a few minutes but placed them so they can reunite easily. Hope I didn't crush anyone's time/place sensitive plans. Just in case I made sure not to say that the talks within House Attis were done, so Shorty you can still take Pirro on inside if there was something you wanted to do there. Similarly anyone could leave the house, but Alon wouldn't be going in unless something chased him there. heh, not trying to give anyone ideas.

So I looked around for images of House Attis and only came up with what was in Slayer's guide on the map of Cademia. I kind of extrapolated from that, but it's all just winging it on my part. If there is a canon description of the place that I've terribly mauled let me know so I can adjust. I also made the assumption that the "Houses" are nobility. Can't have castles and kings without nobility. If that's wrong let me know too. Alon would still see them as such if they are technically not, I'll just need to adjust the backstory he tells people. I think that covers everything... maybe.

I imagine I'll be learning a lot about Cythera through trial and error in this TS, lol.

This post has been edited by Ragnar0k: 06 July 2009 - 11:50 PM

Indeed, you seem to have the measure of the Houses, though some of them are probably poorer than the common farmers of the Catamarcan Peninsula.

Jacabyte is right as to my inspiration for a base 60 system. Also, I resent the incursions of the decimal system. The well-ruled measurements of the meter & its ilk are too sterile, I favour the gangly organic nature of the Imperial systems. Base 60 is a sort of compromise to me ^_~ That said, the use of Roman Numerals is also highly appealing ^_^ In the end, I'm fine with whatever.

All the little buildings around the Attis residence are the Cademian homes of the other Houses, which I gather you realize, though Comana also owned a large building near the city gate. However, I think it's probably empty at this point.

I hope to post again soon, but please don't wait for me, Thursday may be the next day I have that sort of time >_<

Even though I won't be a part of this TS, and I have yet to actually join the other one (so shoot me) I think you should use Base 2 or Base 17.

I've created my character for this TS, and I'll try to join it soon.

I don't think are any denominations of oboloi, but I don't object to the introduction if it's convenient. However, I would prefer a Base-10 system for convenience.


Oh, and—

*Selax shoots Mackilroy.*

Heh, I only just noticed that Pirro has the physical stats of a rogue.

How about:
1, 10, 100?
I think that gives us the somewhat needed variety of denominations, without drastically increasing the variations.

The people of Cythera have an old wives tales sort of knowledge of the Temple of Scylla, but the presence of liches was totally unknown before Bellerophen, (except in magical theory), & is probably being kept under wraps. (Not asking you to change that note in your post Ragnar, Alon seems to be the kind of guy who might well have found out.)

I've joined! It was longer than I was hoping for, but I think that's because the introduction takes some extra background stuff. Also, I had Anonymous do most of the talking because he's been the one trying to convince all the new people to join. I had Erica ask him about his experience because I figured she could do it the most innocently, and Zak would find her more approachable as the only girl in the group, since all the others are fighters who seem bigger and stronger than him. I haven't quite figured out how to have him interact with the others yet. As you can probably tell, Zak is a little shy, with a tendency to stutter a tiny bit when he's nervous or surprised. Ill leave it up to everyone else to write how their character would respond to him.

He hasn't said too much yet about his fear of diseases, so everyone probably just thinks he's really shy or something. I'll write some future posts with his book and him discussing his fear, but for the moment, feel free to incorporate it or play off of it somehow.

And, one last note, I actually think his condition is closer to mysophobia, fear of germs, but while he is convinced that "tiny creatures" that spread disease exist, I don't plan for it to be his main problem. Mostly, I just want him to be concerned that he's catching new sicknesses.

Pirro would probably be interested in hearing his theories, & would be happy to share his method of avoiding sunburn, though he wouldn't offer a fair price on his supplies, (at least not before he built some sort of amicable relationship.)

I don't remember what Pynx is supposed to look like and the map in Slayer's guide is lacking in detail. Does it have any distinguishing features aside from being 2 floors, or should I start making things up?

It was arranged so you could go pretty much anywhere going in any direction; you could walk in one direction down the main hall and end up where you began. Same for the second floor. There's a courtyard in the center of the first floor, which is lit by some type of light, even though it's sealed off from the outside, and the library is in the center of the second floor. Student quarters are west of the library, and there's a locked door in the center of the south hallway on the first floor that may or may not go to the basement. I honestly don't remember if there's a basement or not, but the door went somewhere interesting...