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Inactive [LP CYOA] Overlord

treave

Arcane
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11,370
Codex 2012
Kitchen Interrogations

After hauling the stripped and gagged survivors back to the village, you give them to Rin to do as she wishes.

“Finally. I can kill them now?”

“What? No, no, what do you usually do with prisoners?”

“I don’t take prisoners,” she says without even a hint of shame. “They do not call me the Black Deathaxe for nothing!”

“Okay, what do the other generals do with prisoners?”

A light goes on in her head. “Ah, you mean torture?”

“Your people are good at that, right? Interrogating someone for information?” You have taken prisoners, unlike Rin, but they were more like hostages used to guarantee your target’s good behavior until your teammates could move in for the kill. Torture was something you only saw the aftermath of, particularly in the demonic dungeons. Surely the crown princess of demonkind was more experienced than you in the art of torture?

“O-Of course I know how to do that! I studied under the Mistress of Pain after all!” Bravely, Rin rises up to your challenge; a challenge that exists only in her mind. The Mistress of Pain… that brings back memories. Uncomfortable memories where the line between pain and pleasure was blurred.

Oh well. If she did study under that hag, Rin should be competent enough. You’ll let her do the troublesome work of getting the prisoners to talk.

A very grateful Boss survives the rescue. You ponder briefly whether or not to grant him a healing potion, but it does not seem necessary: though heavily injured, he would likely recover on his own. Your actions in personally defeating the intruders and saving the chief further enhance your legend amongst the goblins, but they could hardly worship you any more faithfully than they already are.

In the meantime, you have some goblins retrieve the items that had been left behind by the humans. Many of the supplies had been damaged during the battle. You managed to get your hands on a map, which marked out the ruins and part of the kingdoms surrounding it. It seems that the humans call these ruins Camlann. You also get your hands on more food – bread and dried meat, mostly – as well as a casket of ale. Unfortunately there were no handy documents full of writing, with official looking seals, which would have shed light on their purpose here.

The armor and the weapons you divide amongst the goblins. The holy sword of the so-called paladin does not flame at your command. Strangely, it seems to burn the goblins if they try to hold it, but you can wield it just fine. For now, it is just a normal metal sword to you.

***

Besides those, the goblins also bring you something interesting from the loot:

A. A tattered spell book with a dirty white cover plucked from the camp. You do not understand the writing yet, but you can probably work your way through it.

B. A strange cylinder with a handle, with something that looks like a crossbow’s trigger. There is a faint hint of magic emanating from it. It had been found hidden under bedding in the camp.

C. A jewel-encrusted gauntlet, gaudy but solid in its construction. It had been in a chest, and strangely enough wrapped in scrolls.

***

The stripped and gagged prisoners had been sent to the only place suitable to hold them while Rin conducts her interrogations: a small kitchen at the back of the hall. You had been hearing terrible screams all day – it looks like she had been getting to work immediately, but the screams seemed to be growing fewer and fewer in number.

Would she kill them all before you get any answers?

You decide to take a look. The unearthly noise is interrupting your nap anyway. Long before you approach the door, the pungent scent of blood fills your nostrils. You pause, reminded of what happened at the ruins. There is a slight kindling of a desire to kill in your heart, but for some reason it is nowhere near as strong, even though the smell of blood is thicker this time. Perhaps… only on the battlefield? You shake your head. You will figure this out later. For now…

You throw the door open and walk in. You see Rin hovering over the body of a whimpering mage, a bloody kitchen knife stuck in his chest. It looks like he’s still alive for now. Rin gives you a sheepish look, and you cast a glance over the other prisoners. They are quite certainly dead. Blood spatters stain the walls and the floor: it will be difficult to clean. Some of the viscera have even gotten into the jars. A large pot has toppled over and smashed, spilling its contents – thankfully, just boiling water – all over the floor. It looks more like a butcher’s abattoir than a torture chamber; of course, there have been times where you could not differentiate the two. But still… within a day?

Dammit, Rin.

“It was an accident, I swear,” she says quickly upon seeing your disbelieving look. “My hand slipped once or twice. I’m… I’m just out of practice! And there are usually regenerative specialists at hand to assist!”

You silently look at the commander’s head, barely hanging on from a few strings of sinew. His eyes are open, his face frozen in a death mask that perfectly conveys the horrifying agony of his demise. Rin follows your gaze and explains.

“I tried using the axe at first, but it was too big and I accidentally cut one of them straight in half. That’s why I had to use the knife. But the blade was pretty dull, so I accidentally used more force than I needed to at the first go, and hit the wrong spot. Then I had to fix it, so…”

So she’s the chatty sort when it comes to explaining her mistakes. You make a note of that in your mind. “It’s alright, I don’t mind,” you say, putting on your best, most comforting smile.

She nods. “Oh, okay. If you say so.” But she does not seem particularly grateful or touched by your magnanimity over her mess-up. In fact, any slight stirrings of repentance in her expression fade away immediately, replaced by her usual charmless arrogance. Ah, well, baby steps.

You walk over to the last survivor and say, “I’m slightly sorry for leaving you here. How are you feeling?”

The mage gasps at your arrival. He gurgles blood, trying to get his words out. “I… I’ll tell you what you want to know. Just… just get this knife out of me! You want to know why we are here, right?”

That is one thing that you want to know, amongst many. You nod.

“We… the Confessor-Princess… she received a dream. Something would appear in the center of Camlann that would shake the earth and part the heavens. Whoever obtained it would be able to change the world… some sort of highly dangerous magical relic that could not fall into the wrong hands… We were already in the area on another mission, so an urgent message was sent to us along with some reinforcements. We split off from the main group to investigate the ruins…”

“The main group?” Could there be another force out in the forest? You had spotted no signs of them, but you could have overlooked something.

“They’re… raiding the local villages... about seventy of them in all, we were a third of the fighting force… that was our original mission… to frame the Galbaldians…”

If that is the case, they must not be too far away. You look down at the dying mage. His face is twisted in pain, and his breathing is ragged. He might not last long. “Please… I’ve told you everything I know… get the knife out of me…”

“Right, I hear you. I know, it's a bit of a pain, and I don't want to be here either, but... next question,” you say, giving him a sympathetic smile that offers the hope of reprieve after the next question.

He groans in resignation and nods weakly.

***

For your next question:

A. You ask about the nation he belongs to and his organization.

B. You ask about the Confessor-Princess in particular. What is she like? Does she get prophetic dreams often? Is she pretty?

C. You ask about the spells that he uses – they are spells you have never encountered before.

D. You ask about the current political status in the region: is it stable? Which of the states are unfriendly to each other?

E. You ask about angels, what they are, and why it is rumoured that Methuss has one.

F. You ask about the item that you retrieved from the camp.

G. You ask him about something else (think of another question).

H. You decide not to ask him anything, the poor man, and have Rin remove the knife.

***

As for the main force which he claims to be raiding the Methussian villages:

A. According to Runde, there is a human village nearby, about a day’s travel away from the goblins. You might be able to catch the raiders there, for more information and equipment. It would also give you another location you can teleport to.

B. They can do as they wish. You just got back from an unwanted excursion. It’s too much of a hassle to go out again for at least another week or so. You’ll just send a few goblins to keep an eye on things.
 
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Nevill

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Shadorwun: Hong Kong
:hmmm:

Interesting choices, for sure.

My first instinct is to grab a spellbook because it is the most easy item to understand. However, the other two are no less fascinating. A cylinder with a handle... a proto-pistol? Why was it hidden, is it unique? A jewel-encrusted gauntlet? That one I have absolutely no idea about. And what do the scrolls have to do with it?

Of the questions, most of them interest me greatly. The political status and the angels intrigue me most, while their nation and their Princess slightly less so. The spells and the item do not concern me - we are a powerful wizard in our own right and we might find out the function of the item by ourselves through experimentation.

We can easily inter that Methuss, Galbaldy and Barzam are in a sort of uneasy truce. That Barzam needs to organize a provocation and framing at all tells me that Methuss is not at war with Galbaldy yet, though Barzam might be.

1C
2D>B>A
3A


As for whether to involve ourselves further with humans... I am not sure, but I think we might at least take a look. I wonder if we might be able to upset the Barzam plot without showing our own hand. We might be able to decide who is going to be at whose throat in a nearby future. As long as they aren't concerning themselves with us, we should be good.
 
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asxetos

Augur
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Feb 11, 2009
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Location
Greece
A. Moar spells!
E. Lore is nice, but i might flop to a more practical option like F, C or B
A. its Gigadyne time :smug:
 

Grimgravy

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Codex 2016 - The Age of Grimoire
1B>A
2E>C - F would be hoping it's his basically. Most of the questions could be asked of Mooks from the main group. We've got a mage. Lets ask magicy questions.
3A - We don't have enough goblins to risk them on this. As much as I'd like to laze around.
 

Esquilax

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treave, what would we be doing instead in 3B? I have to ask because whenever a "do nothing" option comes up, it inevitably becomes difficult for people to give it a fair shake because the logic goes that doing "something" is better than just sitting around. I'm just curious because this situation commonly arises in these sort of LP's.

I'm curious about what would happen if we chose to leave the mage alive for now. He could potentially give us info on everything... or he could eventually escape and tell others what happened.
 

treave

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Codex 2012
treave, what would we be doing instead in 3B? I have to ask because whenever a "do nothing" option comes up, it inevitably becomes difficult for people to give it a fair shake because the logic goes that doing "something" is better than just sitting around. I'm just curious because this situation commonly arises in these sort of LP's.

Nothing much. Sleeping, eating, getting waited on by his minions, visiting the ice chamber, perhaps thinking of some other things to do depending on which question you ask and the answer you get. Sometimes doing nothing is also great because it allows you to relax. Relaxing keeps you calm, while going from mission to mission without pause will eventually cause you to become stressed, depending on the events that occur while you're there.
 

Esquilax

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Sometimes doing nothing is also great because it allows you to relax. Relaxing keeps you calm, while going from mission to mission without pause will eventually cause you to become stressed, depending on the events that occur while you're there.

Y'know, now that you mention it...

In the blink of an eye, you land in the midst of the camp. The first thing that hits you is the strong scent of blood and guts. It seems to seep into the very depths of your body, igniting a fire you never knew existed. Your heart begins throbbing painfully. You are… excited. It is an emotion that you have never felt before – at least, not on the battlefield. The blood that has been shed all over the camp is a brilliant, dazzling, beautiful red to your eyes. There is a desire; a simple yearning to see more of it spilled across the ground.
...
You decide to take a look. The unearthly noise is interrupting your nap anyway. Long before you approach the door, the pungent scent of blood fills your nostrils. You pause, reminded of what happened at the ruins. There is a slight kindling of a desire to kill in your heart, but for some reason it is nowhere near as strong, even though the smell of blood is thicker this time. Perhaps… only on the battlefield? You shake your head. You will figure this out later.

Constantly fighting and worshiping Khorne indulging in our bloodlust seems like a recipe for slowly going crazy here and being a lot less mentally stable as a leader. Maybe it's wise to take a break and become more accustomed to our new form before we step into another big fight again.
 

treave

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Codex 2012
You don't necessarily have to fight since running or hiding is an option, or you might find that the village is still unmolested. You didn't have to fight them at the ruins either, for example. But I suppose we're a bit beyond the pacifist route now. :M
 

Smashing Axe

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Divinity: Original Sin
A>C. No idea what of these I actually want. I'll go with this for now since we just learnt a language spell. Also Power Glove!
E. We need to know how the larger world is going to react to us
B - Fuck it option has returned!

 
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Kayerts

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Jan 28, 2011
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The holy sword of the so-called paladin

We are the TRUE paladin!

1A > 1C. Unlike PoE, a mage with guns in this setting seems dumb. If we're in battle and at range, it seems like we should be casting rather than shooting; hence, B is out. But the gauntlet is tempting because it's needed to handle the amulet.
2E, existing lore about angels will presumably affect our interactions with all humans going forward
3A; I appreciate the merits of the Fuck It option, but killing a third of enemy force, interrogating its higher-ups, and then deciding to spend the next two weeks jerkin' it to goblin porn while the enemy company does whatever they want in our back yard seems more like the Chaotic Stupid option
 

a cut of domestic sheep prime

Guest
ACA>CFA

As to why I'm not voting B: we may be a horn dog, but we aren't an idiot. We can always find out about this princess ourselves.
 

m4davis

Scholar
Joined
Jan 20, 2012
Messages
557
A.
B.
A.

Going for A just because it seems most likely to be immediately useful as has been mentioned
B cause its just in character
and A again because I agree we have to few minions to start throwing them away yet.
 

lightbane

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:hmmm: So, the Demon Princess isn't actually that good at her job. Who knows, perhaps some or maybe even all of the grotesque butchering our ex-Hero saw at the demon dungeons were her (unsuccessful) attempts at torturing someone :lol:

Moreover, I would like to ask why our Hero had something to do with that so-called Mistress of Pain. I'm sure there's a good tale about it. Too bad we can't ask our in-game character directly. Anyway, the choices:

1: The magic items seem to be the classical magic scrolls, a magic pistol and what I assume to be a magical power fist. Therefore, I'll take C>A just for fun.
2: E>H>B. Knowing more about ourselves might be useful to know what people expect from Carnage Pigeons Angels. However, chances are the mage will die in a few moments, so it's not really worth asking him anything unless we bother to heal him first (not a good choice IMO). However, if all else fails, we can ask about the pretty princess too.
3: B. Let's rest for a while to think about everything that has happened until now. After all, these inner monologues do not write themselves. Of course, we should be mindful to increase our security, just to be sure. Moreover, the goblins must be given instructions to remain hidden and not interfere. In addition, should they be discovered, they have to die rather than to be followed back to our village endanger our lives.

Last thing: We should let Rin touch the Holy Sword just to see what happens. Perhaps even Demons can use these weapons normally, which would be another hint that they're not so different from humans.
 
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treave

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Codex 2012
Moreover, I would like to ask why our Hero had something to do with that so-called Mistress of Pain. I'm sure there's a good tale about it.

Mistress of Pain was a boss fight, and a pretty difficult one too.

We should let Rin touch the your Holy Sword just to see what happens.

It's yours now. :M

But yeah, can be arranged if you're curious.
 

Smashing Axe

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Divinity: Original Sin
Have we done anything about healing our wing? Has the stump started to regrow? Have we considered what would happen to it if we drank a healing potion? Sorry if I missed something about it.
 

treave

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Codex 2012
Have we done anything about healing our wing? Has the stump started to regrow? Have we considered what would happen to it if we drank a healing potion? Sorry if I missed something about it.

It hasn't been mentioned yet. The potion can mend wounds but isn't strong enough to regrow missing appendages. You'd need a more advanced potion or healing spell for that.
 

Smashing Axe

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Divinity: Original Sin
With that question answered I'm leaning heavily in favour of taking the book. These guys have an entirely different magical tradition, and may very well have healing magic secrets that we haven't ever seen in our society due to the goddesses' manipulations. Also the book is white, so, probably healing magic. Even if there aren't healing spells, learning and leveraging knowledge of an entirely different approach to magic is bound to payoff later.
 

lightbane

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Mistress of Pain was a boss fight, and a pretty difficult one too.
We should let Rin touch the your Holy Sword just to see what happens.

It's yours now. :M

But yeah, can be arranged if you're curious.

Then please do so, let Rin touch our that Holy Sword for the lulz/curiosity/SCIENCE! Also, edited my last choice (B) a little. Gotta take advantage of these goblins' worship.
 

Nevill

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Shadorwun: Hong Kong
Also, there's some serious utility in not being noticed on the verge of diverse groups starting wars with each other rather than you.
This thought has some merit. However, it is also worth noting that:
1) Galbaldy is close to our location, because the presence of 'their' soldiers here seems believable enough for Barzam to try their provokation.
2) Barzam is close to our location, because I doubt they could attempt such a deep incursion into Methussian territory unnoticed if they weren't.
3) Methuss is right where we are.
It appears that our ruins are somewhere near the border between the three states. However we play it, if there is a conflict, we will be right in the center of it, and the current Barzam plot is to stir up such a conflict. It is a damned if you do, damned if you don't situation. In that case we might as well try and make the most of it.

Constantly fighting and worshiping Khorne indulging in our bloodlust seems like a recipe for slowly going crazy here and being a lot less mentally stable as a leader.
But there will be no blood if we electrocute our enemies to death. Isn't lightning magic our specialty? :M

So, the Demon Princess isn't actually that good at her job. Who knows, perhaps some or maybe even all of the grotesque butchering our ex-Hero saw at the demon dungeons were her (unsuccessful) attempts at torturing someone :lol:
I think this is going to be a thing:
treave said:
Dammit, Rin.
I think our princess isn't actually good at anything but swinging 'dat axe. :D
 
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a cut of domestic sheep prime

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It's one of her more endearing features. She may have C-Cup wings, but dayum dat axe! :M
 

Jester

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C
D
B

I suppose we're a bit beyond the pacifist route now. :M
We are quite efective pacifist, but bit unorthodox. I realy doubt those guys from ruins will do any war ever again. We making world safer place one jackass at a time. (Unless we are using peacefull spells. Its hundreds in that case.)
 

Tigranes

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BCA > BAB

I love the sound of the pistol/crossbow thing, and it gives us some extra character and options in addition to 'spells guy'. Not to mention it can easily be lended to some follower in a mission as backup.

I think we should probably check it out. We went out in the first place because they ventured too close to us for comfort, and that there was a risk that they'd learn something about us after investigating Gigadyne results. Both things hold true with the main force. If we do check it out, then we will have another chance to learn more about the nation and geopolitics; however, the most immediate information we will need is the kind of spells and magical power they possess (which will be info with long term uses, too).

If we don't check it out, then we may not have further interaction with this covert group, so we may as well learn more about them in 3A.
 

Jester

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I think our princess isn't actually good at anything but swinging 'dat axe. :D
She is a model basically, but with more grit. Overlord should veryfy if she learned from Pain Mistress those plesure parts better, although it might be dangerious.
 

lightbane

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Hm, what about if we take the third option? That is:

3C: We rest for a day or two or three to gather our thoughts, THEN we march to that quest location village.

Is that an allowed option, treave? This way we can get a little of everything with minimal effort, which fits our character.
 

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