Penny

What ideas have you backed off from, recently or otherwise?

<Snipped quote by Penny>

Penny and Prejudice

@swift

Penny With Extreme Prejudice

What ideas have you backed off from, recently or otherwise?

I've toyed with the idea of an epistolary RP (RP that takes the form of letters) before but haven't gone anywhere with it. I don't don't have a clear enough idea of what it would be and I doubt anyone has much interest in such a weird format. Similarly and weirder an in universe document that tells a story through a series of foot notes by two different editors.

I've also thought of doing a King Athur story but in SPAAAAACCCCE. I haven't attempted it because I have a very clear idea of what tone I would like to hit and I feel like I would need to be too proscriptive to make it work.

Finally I really would love to do a good investigative horror game ala Call of Cthulhu were the players actually generate the plot as the go along. I've made several attempts at this but they keep breaking down because I lose key players and depend on them for plot points.

Dogs of War: Old World Mercenaries

Camilla clucked disapprovingly but Cydric wouldn't be Cydric if he were willing to wait in saftey while an Imperial town was attacked. She Scooped up her clothing and dressed quickly, pulling on her white undershirt, black trousers and the leather armor that buckled over the top. Spying an axe dropped by one of the fallen guards she scooped it up, sliding her rapier back into its scabbard in favor of the heavier weapon.

"Lets move," Cydric directed Thor was hobbling on his wounded leg frantically ramming an improbable amount of powder into the barrel of the coach gun before emptying a milk pail sized handful of musket balls and assorted langridge into the bell mouthed muzzle. Camilla didn't bother to reload her pistols, having no time and having seen the limited impact the firearms had against these strange attackers. The four of them formed a rough diamond with Cydric in the lead, the two dwarves on the flank and Camilla in the rear.

A blast of cold air hit them as they stepped into the street. Men and women screamed as the animated tree things slouched through the streets with deadly grace. Bells told, and shouts and blasts of horns filled the air. Unearthly shrieks mingled with the sound of hard steel biting into timber. A number of bodies were already littering the street, bones broken and bellies opened with slashes of the long wooden talons. Fortunately it seemed that the creatures had goals in mind, they killed those who got in their path, they didn't seem to be eneterying building to slaughter the townsfolk who cowered there.

"Looks like they are heading for the the Graffin's townhouse," Camilla surmised, though in truth there were several rich mansions in that area of town.

"Right," Cydric declared, grabbing a fleeing guardsman by the scruff of the neck as he ran past, eyes wide and a glaive held in a death grip that mottled his knuckles.

"Fall in!" he barked, shaking the guardsmen to emphasise the point. The man, an boy of perhaps seventeen summers staired at him goggle eyed for a moment and then took a shaking step into place. They advanced up the street, which while blood spattered seemed mostly clear of the tree things. As they entered the square at the end of the street however things changed dramatically. The Graffin's mansion was at the far side, set off from the square with its statue of Sigmar by a low stone wall topped with considerably higher wrought iron spikes. The dryads swarmed against the wall, easily thirty of the things, trying to climb over in a tangle of branches and glowing eyes. On the other side of the wall a handful of retainers thrust and hacked at the mass with halberds, though they didn't have the height to really put power into the increasingly desperate strokes. As Camilla watched, one of the dryads seized a defender and pulled him forward, slamming him repeatedly into the iron fencing that separated them, till his shattered skull lost definition in a welter of blood. With a gap opened in the defenses the creatures began to swarm up and over the fence.

Cinnabar Forever! (RCN)

Fleet List for Alliance of Free Stars- Baden Diocese

AFS Hikendorf - Heavy Cruiser - Currently Damaged and on the ground on a moon

AFS K-21 - Destroyer - Carrying news of discovery by RCN forces.

AFS Halifax - Destroyer- On station above Hikendorf

Star Crossed: The Duke's Rebellion

Rene shook his head as much in exasperation as contradiction to Solae's wishes. There was no doubt that if she and the Stellar Empire survived this upheaval she would make a fine duchess, providing she didn't work herself into an early grave in an attempt to look after everyone else.

"It is the opinion of your Military Liaison that you should spend several more hours in the medicomp," Rene began dryly. Roasaria nodded emphatically. It was yet to become clear to Rene what the girl was making of the traumatic events of the morning, but by her repeated comments about Solae putting herself in danger to save them, it was obviously having an effect. Rosaria herself was not free of scrapes and bruises and could probably have done with some time in the medicomp herself, unfortunately the principle of triage dictated against it.

"However," he continued with a sigh, "it is the understanding of your fiancé, that such a thing will not happen." A slight smile crooked his lips as he bowed to the inevitable.

"The soldier... spacer? whatever, is still in pretty rough shape," Rosaria blurted.

"I put her back into Rene's armor after we took her out of the medicomp, you know, to keep her stable," the girl tumbled on clearly proud of herself. Rene nodded with slow approval.

"Good thinking," he told her, meaning it sincerely. It was a comfort to know that even when he had been unconscious with exhaustion someone was keeping their head. The armor supply of medications wasn't unlimited, but it was aimed towards stasis rather than healing, designed to keep a solider alive until professional medical help could arrive, it was very possible that the onboard supply had helped to keep Savachev alive after she had been withdrawn from the automated medical bay. Rosaria beamed with pride at the compliment.

"As for checking on everyone, I will have all the ships company present themselves to Her Grace," Rene joked as he gathered Solae up, the plastic gown which protected her modesty while she was in the medicomp crackling in his arms.

"After I get her to her room, and after I get Savachev back into the medicomp."

Penny's Pencils

Penny's Pencils

The Pavonis Campaign - Warhammer 40000

Katiya took her jacket wordlessly and pulled it on, feeling the familiar sense of purpose and resolve that it conveyed flow through her. If she was going do die now, she would at least be dressed to meet the Emperor. The interior of the maunfactorum was dark, scafolding and gangways reached up into the shadowed night and a soft red glow was cast from a dilipidated stained glass window depicting the Omissiah. The window was missing more glass than it still had, giving it a dappled and skeletal appearence. The air outside had a faintly frenzied quality to it, the energy and excitment of the mob lingered somehow in a sharp tang at the back of the throat.

"Well lets see what we can see," she said and swung herself up onto a gangway, clambering upwards into the superstructure with Connor behind her. As they rose more and more of the darkened city came into view. Electric luminators were rare, the grid having been disrupted, here and there a promethum lamp glowed, but the majority of light came from torches and small fires what had been set in the course of looting and arson. When they reached the fifth and final story she could make out the scholam where the regiment was billeted. It was surrounded by a ring of torch bearing protestors whose shouts mingled into a dull and distant rumble. Wordlessly Connors proffered a battered amplivisor, which she lifted to her eyes.

"Well they aren't shooting yet," she observed, "that is something."

The guardsmen at the scholam were drawn up between the buildings, chimeras had been turned into improvised cover, their side armor pointed at the mob so that one of the sponsons and the multilazer could bear on the crowd like miniature pillboxes. Sandbags and furniture had been piled on the roofs to create improvised parapets behind which guardsmen crouched with lasguns pointed. Even so they were outnumbered several hundred to one. If anything popped the standoff might turn into a bloody massacre within heartbeats. Whether the rioters had the stomach to overrun the tiny Imperial force really depended on how willing they were to take casualties.

"No way we can get through that without getting torn to pieces," Connors observed delicately. He might rightly be concerned that the question could be considered cowardice.

"Agreed," Katiya said, "and if we stay here someone will stumble on us eventually, we cant allow that. Tearing us apart might be the trigger for this all going to frak."

"Well we can't get there, and we cant stay here, so...?" Connors asked with a shrug of his shoulders. Katiya's white teeth glittered in the darkness.

"So, I think we best go visit your friend the Governor."

There's Always a Price: Sci Fi Bounty Hunters

Jocasta realized a moment too late that the crowd had melted back into the saloon the moment it was clear that Chalnarc had ordered his last drink. Partly that was because they were afraid of his killer, but mostly, she suspected, it was because people had their chance steal what they could, be it loot, influence, or position in whatever pecking order established itself after the outlawas corpse had cooled. Judging from the shouts of alarm and dismay, they had discovered her handy work with the directional mines. Accusatory shouts rang out inside, and her HUD flashed amber with several imminent gunshots, reports that flashed red as the owners pulled the trigger. From the snippets of conversation she was receiving as a text crawl, two factions were already squaring up, both blaming the other for this additional carnage.

Sighing she stood up and stepped out onto the dusty street. The clear high heels she was wearing sank a half inch into the dust and she was conscious of how out of place she must look, legs bare to the hem of the long jacket she had grabbed from the changing room. The heavy gauge plasma lance gripped in her left hand was horribly incongruous with the rest of her ensemble, the short boxy body and the long tapered probe that served as a barrel making it look more like a piece of dental equipment than a weapon. Plasma lances combined elements of traditional plasma weapons with the greater punch of cartridge based propellant weapons, taking the best of both worlds to cram as much punch as possible into a small package. The downside was that the capacity was low and the cost per shot was very high.

"I'm Jocasta Rayne," she called across the street to the stranger. Targeting solutions flashed into her HUD speculating on the best possible shots, measuring chances of a hit, vs probable penetration of armor, vs chance of death or incapacity. The best case, a 44 percent chance of death or incapacitation that would end the conflict, was a shot to the armor joint below the right shoulder, but those weren't odds that Jocasta was willing to play whilst talking remained an option.

"I'm here for the bounty on Chalnarc, though I guess the live capture bonus is off the table."

Dogs of War: Old World Mercenaries

Emmaline followed Amal's lead as they followed an alley a street back from the wall of the Imperial Palace. This close to the halls of power, the houses were grand mansions, three and even sometimes four stories with sprawling gardens and coach houses which would have been the envy of entire peasant villages. Fortunately they still needed to bring in supplies and thus tended to back onto shared alleyways that would allow the common bussiness of the house to be conducted. It reminded Emmaline of anatomy drawings she had seen which described veins, the houses forming the outer walls and the alley the blood filled hollow channel.

"I don't like this," she complained, not for the first time since they had struck out from the thieves hideout. They had been led through a series of tunnels blindfolded, so that, in theory, they couldn't find their way back, but the thieves didn't seem all that concerened about the possibility.

"It will be all right," Amal assured her, given the light in his eyes he was actually enjoying the prospect of breaking into one of the most secure buildings in the entire Empire.

"You hope," Emmaline worried, gnawing idly on a lock of golden hair that had escaped from the concealment of her dark hood. The idea of breaking into the Imperial palace did have an allure to it, but this wouldn't have been her preferred method of doing so. Emmaline's experience was with confidence schemes and con jobs, both of which required extensive planning and preparation. She would have been much more comfortable entering the palace masquerading as a Priestess of Shyalla or the mistress of some functionary. Rushing in under the time limit that Lucky Jack had set made her anxious. The moon was already passed its zenith and the sense of time pressing on was almost palpable. Once dawn came their difficulties would multiply exponentially.

"This looks like a good spot," Amal announced, pausing to rifle through the rucksack he had taken from the thieves lair.