Emma's backstory has been a hoot and a half, but here's my personal favorite comment of Emma's, after two unknown hooligans have barricaded themselves in her makeshift clinic:
"Excuse me, but do you and your friend Ruby have a plan for escaping, once you've barricaded yourselves in my clinic?" Emma asked, indicating the back of the "clinic", a solid wall. "I don't precisely have a back door, and if you decide to change that, someone will have to pay my jingchang mei yong de landlord the damages. Someone not me."
Hooray for Chinese translation pages, and for various compilations of Mandarin used on the show.
]]>On the way, we found ourselves needing to cross a bridge--but unfortunately, beneath the bridge was a troll. Who felt that payment should be rendered before we could pass, said payment to be rendered in food, in the form of two party members. Now, we could have tried to fight him, but it would've been a tough fight. And besides, Catriona kept thinking, "If I can't outsmart a troll, then I just need to go home."
We debated various ways to deceive the troll, until Cat hit on the idea of wrapping up bits of refuse and old clothing and crunchy bits and such in a tarp, and giving "our servants", neatly bundled, to him. We did, he was happy, we crossed the bridge. (But not before I scared everyone else with my attention to detail in creating these little troll burritos.)
Unfortunately, we had to return the same way. The troll thought he had us beaten--we had no more servants with us! We convinced him that we had more servants waiting in the town beyond, and that if he would just wait, we'd bring them to him. I stayed behind as collateral (and rather amusingly--if ineffectively--tried to convince him to either stop eating people or move to a different bridge). So. Two more "servants" into the breach, and once again we go on our merry way.
In passing out experience points and reputation points (the latter is important to my character, as she can use her reputation to use magic), Jason tells me that I effectively lost two reputation points. Why? Because word spreads that I feed my servants to trolls! Even worse, the Seelie Court in my homeland gets word that I've been fraternizing with the Unseelie Court. Catriona has some 'splaining to do when she gets home.... (Of course, on the up side, the service at home is going to be much better now.)
]]>It should be at least mildly amusing for folks who are familiar with online fandoms, who are familiar with our Buffy game, or who appreciate mockery of online idiocy. (Of course, those of us participating think it's the funniest thing ever.) Everyone else will be frightened and possibly horrified.
Hey, there's even a quiz you can take!
]]>So I suppose it shouldn't have surprised me yesterday when we wound up deposing the Eisenfurst of Heiligrund, Gus's home province. We left Gus's brother in charge. And managed to piss off the Schattenman (again). I'm really wishing I had made Catriona a full-blooded Glamour mage right now, instead of only half-blooded. I mean, if the sidhe of Avalon really want us to drive the Schattenman out of Eisen, the least they could do is give Cat a little more power with which to do it. ;)
I'm starting to want to get into a full-fledged play by email 7th Sea game--just cause I wanna play around with other character concepts now.
]]>Ashtara says, "Catri!"
Carly says, "OMG Catriona!"
Carly pages: l sherri
Morse twitches. God damn it, Carly. Should have just told me to trust you.
Carly laughs.
Bryon snickers.
Bryon thinks he knows why a person walks towards them. Gravity.
So, of course, I looked at Sherri--who wasn't logged in.
You see her standing across the room, apparently oblivious to the silent commotion her presence generates. She is obviously a very attractive woman, with a confident, "femme fatale" aura about her, despite her deceivingly angelical features. Her long, dark blonde hair falls in silky gentle waves down her back and her magnetic green eyes sparkle with sensual innocence. However, you can almost swear that a tinge of mischief also becomes evident in them occasionally, whenever she allows her guard to come down. There's definitely more to her than meets the eye, you think, noticing her full lips smiling, politely but condescendingly, as she subtly tries to express her lack of interest to one of her admirers. You walk closer to her, attracted by something more than just her physical beauty, and as you get an unobstructed view of her body your tongue suddenly goes dry. You can hardly believe your eyes as they become riveted to what is clearly to you now her most prominent asset: her breasts. They are enormous. Immense. Even obscenely so, but somehow you feel more inclined towards the word "magnificent". Your mind boggles at their size, at the sight of them arrogantly stretching the fabric of her sweater, and you wonder if you had ever seen any this large. You can't really remember, but there is something about the way she carries them that tells you they're all natural. All you know now is how close to her - how close to those - you need to be.
Carly says, "They have their own gravitational pull????"
Bryon says, "They attract you to them. Gravity or magnetic."
Ashtara says, "Hypnotism!"
Morse, as a quantum singularity, is not subject to the Tit Moons of Sherri.
That particularly descriptive phrase stuck.
]]>Anyway, it was FUN. RPing online, in a instant text environment, is like absolutely nothing else. It has an immediacy that email RP lacks, and a chance for creative expression that face to face RP lacks. It clicks with me, I love it to pieces. And I want to do more of it.
It's not MUSHing. I don't want to MUSH. This is very focused, specific, limited RP. And I have absolutely no real outlet to do it. I've been a part of it before, but the games all fell by the wayside when people got too busy. Isn't there anyway for me to feed this big RP monkey on my back? :)
(Edited to add, there's an update over at
But I wasn't going to write about that, right? So yeah, 7th Sea was low-key (not a single die was rolled) but extremely enjoyable, at least for me. This is the first time in a long time, pretty much since the end of my hard-core MUSHing days, that I've had characters (Cat and Charity from the Buffy game) I'm so in touch with and that are evolving so much. Catriona is slowly but surely changing from a kind of shallow, scholarly, cowardly noble into a proactive, determined, good-hearted person. She's getting very complex on me, and I love it.
A good chunk of last night's session ended up with Cat's initial desire to help out in Eisen (think Germany after the Thirty Year's War) turning into something that isn't only helping out in Eisen, but is helping transform the economic structure of her own hometown. That's heady stuff, to realize that your character is literally changing the world, not by blowing something up or using magic, but just by problem-solving and careful investment of time and money. Then there was whole bit about her and her sister Rahne not only dealing with their own grief and guilt over their brother's recent death, but dealing with his widow (whose existence they just learned of), who blames them for his death as much as Cat, at least, blames herself.
This is the stuff of gaming that I live for. And it's not just me. Jason's managing to work this sort of thing in for everybody. I'm so impressed. I've bitched about his GMing before, especially when we first started playing, because it seemed so different from the type of gaming I like to do. I'm really starting to wonder if it isn't the game instead, i.e., the difference between D&D vs. 7th Sea. Sooner or later, he's gonna make me cry. I can just tell. To me that's the mark of an awesome GM. Is that so wrong? :)
So yeah, there were really only a couple of quotes:
On learning that Cat's philathropic activities are costing her some social invitations:
Dawn: The old Catriona would have been mortified.
Lisa: Well, the new Catriona is just pissed.
On being too close to sword and pistol practice:
Kelly: Besides, I don't want to be downstairs when she goes ting ting ting, "aw screw this." (Mimes pulling out a pistol.) BAM!
Jason: The seneschal says he can't die until his son settles down enough to take his place. Since this is Inishmore, he might not be kidding.
Two weeks after a whirlwind surprise visit from the Inish king, it finally hits Catriona:
Catriona: The King. The King was in my house. The O'Bannon was in my house. I never even got to offer him a drink!
Rahne: He never let you get a word in edgewise.
Rahne's first mate, Seamus, makes a very subtle pass at Catriona:
Jason: He's not too worried. He's pretty sure he's the only one on the ship you can't fire.
Bill: I dunno. How big's the cannon?
My comment on the above situation was, "I recognize dramatic inevitability when I see it." The sheltered, scholarly noblewoman slowly starting to come into her own and the lower-class first mate who isn't what he seems. Given the number and type of conversations they've had (not to mention the number of times she's seen him up in the rigging wearing just a kilt), the genre rules pretty much insist that some sort of romantic involvement occur. Which is going to be funny as hell to watch. Currently, Catriona is insisting to herself that Seamus didn't mean what she thought he meant, therefore she's going to ignore the entire situation.
I seriously love this game. The group is fun, and Catriona is a hoot and a half to play. Especially since she's starting to get delusions of herself as a woman of the world.
]]>Funny if you know 7th Sea's world:
Catriona: Gustav, we're from Inishmore. We know a little about crazy princes.
Jason complains that his 100-ft long sorcerous snake is rolling badly. Bill pantomimes playing a violin.
Kelly: The violin is too big.
Bill: It's a big snake.
Regarding other game systems:
Jason: Ah, knockback. How do I love thee...
Kelly: ...let me count the hexes.
Regarding the use of glamour to call for help:
Lisa: All three of us hear the call, right?
Jason: Yeah.
Lisa: It's three-way calling!
Bill: The sidhe have conference calling!
Jason: Carleon's a silly place. Let's not stay there.
Catriona warns Raven not to try to seduce the monks they're traveling with
Pietra: Don't people who've taken vows of poverty generally like things that are cheap?
Not a huge amount of hilarity this week. We were traveling through a war-ravaged country, and the mood was (for us) pretty serious.
]]>Spike made an appearance. Yes, that Spike. And he kicked Charity's ass mightily. And Max lost another roommate. But two people got staked in the ass (the second one was in retribution for the first), and someone else peed their pants. Unfortunately, it was Tobey, and she peed her pants laughing at Charity. Why was she laughing at Charity? Because Charity tried to headbutt Spike just as Spike was moving in to bite her.
It ended badly for all concerned. Suffice to say, Charity has a little dimple in her skull where she had a vampire fang stuck for several rounds of combat. It probably wouldn't have been so funny without Brandon acting out the situation (i.e., vampire with fang stuck in slayer's forehead).
I would say more, but I'm incoherent and I still hurt from laughing.
]]>The implication is made that Raven either was or visited a whore on our last shore leave.
Raven: We didn't pay, we seduced!
Why taking a potty break after an initiative roll is bad
Lisa: All right, I have to go, but I'm going to hold my two until later.
Jason: You shouldn't do that, it's unhealthy.
Bill: I'm binding his sword. Just call me cheese.
A few minutes later, Catriona uses glamour to turn said sword into cheese...
Lisa: You bind the cheese, it doesn't bind you.
I got the drama die for comedy for that, plus I got to make the evening's obligatory Buffy reference.
]]>We also all learned a valuable lesson about the swashbuckling genre: If you have a family member somewhere, that family member will turn up and cause trouble--and it doesn't matter if that family member died. We learned this twice over. Gustav's sister showed up first. She's 16 and madly in love... with the guy chasing us and trying to kill us. If she were a typical 16 year old girl that would be one thing, but as Gus's family owns a fighting academy... she could pretty much wipe the floor with most of us, except maybe Gus.
Then, just as the game was coming to a close, Rahne and Catriona (Dawn and I) both heard their brother Patrick calling for help somewhere on the other side of the world. That we heard him calling for help isn't so odd--it's a Glamour knack, and Catriona can do it. However--Patrick, as far as we knew, wasn't a sorceror at all. And even more, Patrick, as far as we knew, died several years ago in the war. So we're understandably flabbergasted. It was fun.
Explaining the dice system to Kelly, Pietra's player
Jason: Well, there are several times when exploding dice can be bad, for instance, when I'm throwing barrels at Bill...
Bill: Yeah, keep laughing, Donkey Kong.
Pietra: You must have faced horrible privation for a lady on this journey.
Catriona: It really hasn't been so bad, except for the tentacles.
Gustav: Captain, there's a boatful of fruit wanting to come on board.
Rahne: The whores are always greener in the next port.
(This one broke the room up for about five minutes.)
Still, high melodrama all around, which is always a bunch of fun.
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