Shades of Grey (OOC)

Is this where I should let you know what Willow is hoping / thinking

Though don't want to influence your decision in any way of course.

Sure. Player feedback is often one of my greatest sources of storytelling inspiration. Though, before you do, I'll tell you this: you have not seen the last of Ajaoh.

Inside the GM's Mind
Or Why Ty is Such a Jerk to His Players

When I first sat down to design this adventure, I decided to approach it differently than my usual method. Most often when I design an adventure, it's pretty linear. There may be choices and branching paths along the way and player's can take any course they want, but it's generally pretty obvious which way to go to achieve their goals.

For Necessary Evil, I wanted to make more of a sandbox approach. I designed the location and fleshed it out: a potentially mutinous and power-hungry Baron, his vast network of resources, some connection to the mysterious Men in White, and the whole "terrorist" angle of a pack of loyalist vampires stirring up dissent and fomenting rebellion. With a setting in place and relatively alive, I set a goal for the players and dropped them into this setting.

While I had an "ideal" method in mind as to how you could approach this situation and resolve, I did not write up any encounters beforehand (which I always do) or stat out any NPCs or plan anything. I was going to sit back and let you guys dictate the direction the story went, which I have, and deal more in reactions than proactivity.

So, now, we have found ourselves in a situation where the party has potentially made enemies of everyone on the island and they still have a situation to resolve. It will be interesting to see where things go from here.

Willow is thinking (and hoping) to find the men in white (who she is also hoping hate the vampire whorde more then her and hers), thus the enemy of my enemy is my friend (sort of) ???

I know we haven't seen the end of Ajaoh ...

The problem here of course is that both the whorde and the men in white work for the Emperor, but they are seperate factions (I think -- we still don't know if we can trust the info from batgirl) ...

We'll see what happens I guess

Why are you thinking the Men in White work for Emperor Ferren? The Black Isle Loyalists do, but the Men in White are supplying the rebellious Baron who opposes the Emperor. Thus far, you guys have no clue as to who the Men in White are, who they work for or what they are up to.

Doh ... yah, my bad

Have just reread through the posts where batgirl said that

Either way, the men in white and the whorde aren't friends ...

Would have been a really, really big faux pas had I said that. "Oh, that plot I wrote? Forget about it, I'm going to just going to toss it out the window and do something different now..."

Yah ...

/looks around with shifty eyes

Is it wrong that I'm taking a real sick glee in this current circumstance? Probably.

Anyway, Willow is off to try and find the cove (although Ajaoh did not say the boat would be there currently; she has, after all, been imprisoned for six weeks, give or take) and the rest of you are gods know where and there may or may not be a pack of vampires hunting you.

So...what now? What's your plan?

I'm guessing Willow at quite a high altitude can look for ships quite quickly ??

She will head out to the coast and do a sweep, then continue along it for a while before circling back past her companions to check for movement, if she doesn't see any, she will sweep back to her friends.

Not sure how long that will take, she will also look for any buildings / farms / etc along the coast where they could possibly take shelter.

I'll copy that over to the narrative after / when you give the thumbs up Ty ... or change it as required