Dedonus — Roleplayer Guild

Aubrey Adkins

	Before Icon (or Eikon, as Athena called him) could even discern anything that the Goddess of Wisdom had said, the servant of Ares, Polemos, launched a counterstrike against the blue-clad hero.  Athena, nevertheless, just stood by while the brawl between these two powerhouses continued to rage on.  “Fickle mortals,” Athena thought to herself as she watched with amusement, “all they know is punch, punch, and punch some more.  Eikon did not even have the time to listen to my advice!  Well, I am the Goddess of Wisdom, of course.  I’ll think of some way to steer them towards my plan.”

	Leaving the two superhuman juggernauts behind, Athena returned in a blink of an eye back to the alleyway where she had left her young pupil, Arachne.  However, when she returned, Athena was welcomed by a giant spider web, although it resembled a cobweb more than the pristine architecture of the orb-weaving spiders.  But since Athena knew that Aubrey's physical form was mainly based on the Widow Spiders, which did not weave orb-styled webs, the Goddess of Wisdom gave her avatar a pass on the messiness that characterized the web.  Athena walked up to the web and tapped one of the threads with her spear, sending a vibration throughout the structure of the web.  As Athena suspected, the disturbance in the web ousted the creator of the web.

“Oh, it’s only you,” Aubrey said, ”So, where’s the welcoming committee?”

	“Unfortunately, our friend Eikon seems to have taken this battle elsewhere.  From my own personal observation, it seems like he rocketed the ally of Ares away from this populated area.  East-northeast, I do believe was the direction.”

“Wait, did I just spin this entire web for nothing?  I know it’s nothing great, but seriously?”

	“Oh, I said nothing about it being constructed in vain.  We just need to redirect them again.”

“Redirect them?  Wouldn’t that be putting everyone back in harm’s way?”

	“As long as your web holds out, no more harm should be done to anyone here.”

“And how do you suppose we ‘redirect’ them back here?  Don’t you remember the last time we tried to confront that crazy Greek dude?

	“I always have a plan.”  Athena turned her head towards the small owl that had perched itself on her shoulder.  She lifted her arm parallel to her shoulder, prompting the owl to hop from her shoulder onto her arm.

“Wait, you’re not sending that into the midst of the battle between Icon and that Greek guy, are you?

	“We need to be a little more, flamboyant this time around.  However, I will not let it go unaccompanied, as someone has to tell Eikon what the plan is.  Plus, Bubo here has faced much worse before.”  Athena then held out her arm, extending it towards the sky.  The small owl, apparently called ‘Bubo’, flew off her arm and headed in the general direction where Icon and Polemos had gone.  Afterwards, Athena turned back to Aubrey before she left.  “I’ll be back, child, hopefully with more success than last time.  In the meantime, you might want to reinforce that web some more.

	Once again Athena disappeared, teleporting herself to Settler’s Park, leaving behind her disgruntled avatar.  When she arrived there, Athena could already tell from the condition of the surrounding environment that she was in the correct place.  Several feet in front of her Athena saw Polemos pressed against the ground by Icon, who was throwing a barrage of punches at the servant of Ares.  At the same time, Bubo the Owl had just arrived, darting towards the two combatants, being extremely cautious about the potential blows and counterattacks each man could make.

	 Bubo first landed on Icon’s shoulder, where it flapped its wings and hooted.  However, soon it realized that this was no place for a small owl to perch, resulting in Bubo hopping into the sky and hovering nearby the blue-clad hero.  Then, it began to circle Icon, periodically stopping in mid-air and hooting at the blue marvel.  However, once the fire that Polemos had caused began to make the environment uncomfortable for the small owl, Bubo darted back towards Athena, who had in the meantime calmly walked over towards where the two men had been brawling.  Bubo perched upon Athena’s shoulder, where it clung close to its owner, hooting everyone once in a while.

	“Mortal,” Athena began to speak, trying to get her message across a second time.  Even though she was so close to the fight between these two heavyweights, the Goddess of Wisdom was in no risk of danger, as only Icon out of the two combatants could see her.  Also, to ensure that Icon actually got her message this time, Athena planted her foot against Polemos’ clavicle, pressing him down so that he could not counterstrike while she was talking to Icon.  “Do not be alarmed, for I am not in league with this madman, even though our choice of attire might cause you to think otherwise.  While it is indeed noble of you to confront this man, the battle between you two is like two Nemean lions brawling it out.  While each could harm one another with its own claws, neither beast could kill the other.  This battle between almost indestructible men will only bring more collateral damage to this city.  However, there is another way.”

	Prompted by what Athena had just said, Bubo once again launched itself from Athena’s shoulder and headed back whence it came, trying to gain a considerable head start.  “I would suggest following my little owl friend there, if you wish to finish this battle.  Once you have arrived at your destination, you shall see what you must do.  Finally, you might want to extinguish this mortal’s flame.  It might become problematic for this plan to work.”  Yet again, once Athena had bestowed what she considered her sound advice upon Icon, she disappeared from Icon’s line of sight.

I would like to talk about the issue of the lack of an ending in sandbox roleplays, as @Ether mentioned.  I could see the concern that a roleplay without an end point could make things fizzle out due to there not being an end in sight.  

One solution I have seen elsewhere is to break up the roleplay into "seasons".  These chunks allow players to wrap up whatever they are doing so that there would be some sense of closure until the next "season" starts back up again.  Also, one other thing that help makes this work is that eventually there will be an overarching story arc that the GM/co-GMs cooked up.  While not everyone is required to partake in the event, the event helps tie everything together at the  end.

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