[LP CYOA] Epic

[treave]

Information was requested and given. Remember the beginning of this LP? Foreshadowing of your currently dormant foresight ability.

Now you know what might happen, so it's time to break the chains of fate.

Well, more like going through the past updates I think that you guys seem to vastly prefer me to work this LP as a DM, responding to your own plans within a certain framework of choices (and rules-lawyering) rather than a CYOA gamebook, so I'm doing some revamping on the LP's style in order to give you guys the full C&C you deserve. Update on the way.

 

[newcomer]

WE NEED 1 MOAR FEED POINT TO FEED MARDUK RAWR

Anyway, I was wondering why you suddenly give an infodump treave ...
don't tell me you're going to end this LP

 

[treave]

Chapter 5.16: Lying in Wait

The garrison was scattered, many of them dead by your hand. The well-maintained Greek ships lay unmanned in port. When you tore their camps down in broad daylight you made sure to let them know that it was a single person who put their force of a thousand men to flight. Your gambit to take Pikuat was unmistakably a success, but how would Ares react to it?

There are two hundred soldiers from Tjaru accompanying the commander in his mission to convince the Delta cities to rise up against the Greeks. They are currently in Tanis – most of the places they visited have turned them down so far. Ares had begun besieging Memphis by the time you arrived in Pikuat. You are unsure if he will lift the siege to turn his forces towards you, though if he doesn’t, it will fall within a week. Less than a thousand Babylonian and Egyptian soldiers remain in Memphis to defend it. The Pharaoh is gathering whatever forces he has from Herakleopolis and Thebes for one last, desperate attempt to stop Ares, but gaining even another thousand soldiers would be a tough goal to meet.

To the north, Marduk has completed his conquest of Athens, and only Olympus remains, where the Greek gods gather to make their final stand. His forces are just weeks away from the great mountain, many Egyptians among them who have been swayed by Marduk to 'finish the job' before returning home 'in triumph'.

If you choose to commandeer a boat now, the currents at this time of year may allow you to reach the roots of Mount Olympus in a month, but what of Ares and Egypt? You could wait to see if he would come towards Pikuat. You could also capitalize on your recent show of strength and spend your time rallying the cities to your side so that they stop supplying rations to his troops… or you could head towards Ares immediately for a face-to-face confrontation, which would be the last thing he expects.

***

No more As or Bs or Cs. I'll lay down some basic ideas but feel free to do whatever you want then vote for the idea that is the best. To give sufficient time I'll slow down my previously 'try to update at least once every two days' rate to once in a week.

 

[Zero Credibility]

Information was requested and given. Remember the beginning of this LP? Foreshadowing of your currently dormant foresight ability.

Now you know what might happen, so it's time to break the chains of fate.

Well, more like going through the past updates I think that you guys seem to vastly prefer me to work this LP as a DM, responding to your own plans within a certain framework of choices (and rules-lawyering) rather than a CYOA gamebook, so I'm doing some revamping on the LP's style in order to give you guys the full C&C you deserve. Update on the way.

I see. Well, I can't deny that I personally do prefer a more DM style over a classic CYOA gameplay, even though it certainly makes your work much more difficult to prevent us from going completely off the rails.

And speaking of going off the rails, let's try to find some way to avoid where this is heading right now. But it would help to know how much of the info you just gave us is actually available to Ean (through the foresight ability or any other means) and how much is pure metagame knowledge for us only that Ean can't make use of.

Oh, and did by any chance Sekhenun really pack us some Gieloth affecting poisons as well as the toxin? It is after all her specialty and we were going after Marduk as well.

 

[Kattze]

Meet with Ares, see if he can be reasoned with (doubtful based on Greek mythology and gelding of the twins) and try to form an alliance with the Greek Gods. Otherwise, defeat him and gather what remained of the Babylonian-Egyptian army to confront Marduk.

Try to goad Ares into an alliance by saying that fighting Marduk would be a better choice for a 'so-called god of war' rather crushing a puny garrison in Memphis.

 

[treave]

But it would help to know how much of the info you just gave us is actually available to Ean (through the foresight ability or any other means) and how much is pure metagame knowledge for us only that Ean can't make use of.

You can make use of everything, metagame and all. Let's see how it goes.

Oh, and did by any chance Sekhenun really pack us some Gieloth affecting poisons as well as the toxin? It is after all her specialty and we were going after Marduk as well.

There's no place you can store most of her poisons safely, and the strong stuff (the useful ones) doesn't preserve too well in a vial. Sekhenun stores them inside specialized glands, which you don't have.

 

[Esquilax]

I see only two ways of reaching Olympus in time:

A) Meet with Ares immediately, challenge his honor again and challenge him to a duel to spare the lives of the men on both sides of the conflict. The duel will take place under the following terms:

• If we win, he relinquishes command of his forces to us to fight Marduk.
• Since we've gelded his sons, they are no longer "men", so our offer of mercy doesn't extend to his pathetic spawn. They are ours to do with as we please.
• If he wins, he takes the final piece of Vajra from our corpse.

Goad him and bait him into a duel, placing the toxin onto Anbar-Shi beforehand. After our inevitable victory, lead our Greeks to defend Olympus as the new god of war.

B) Alternatively, hop on a boat right away. Fuck this place, we never should have come here, we need that toxin for Zeus, and we need to leave now.

 

[Baltika9]

treave: how many feed points do we have? Also, if Mankind is left alone by the supernatural, they will develop according to the normal timeline, correct? Because if I understood it correctly, Ean introduced Roman Legion tactics before there even was an idea of Rome.
@Egyptfags: Nice.
Esquilax has the gist of it again. Devouring Marduk is our only hope right now. Too bad we didn't let Sekhenun feed, or don't know the location of Shulgi's (do we? DO WE?) tomb, or wherever he's buried. We really need some supernatural aid from other Immortals and Gieloth here, and Edem is the only one we can even remotely count on, if we reach him in time.

 

[Kipeci]

Alright, if that's what's going on, we should just cut our losses from staying in Egypt and head straight for Greece so that Marduk may be taken care of. If Ares cares about avenging his son's testicles or saving Zeus' pantheon from the massive threat of Marduk, he should be coming after us instead of storming Egyptian cities.

Consider what happens: if we stay, we save Egypt and Greece is quite possibly conquered by Marduk who consumes the souls of all those Greek immortals, which is bad. We would need to flee to make ties with the Chinese immortals if that came to pass, all of our Gutian bros would face destruction, and if he was threatening enough we risk the Earth being incinerated by those master folks. If we leave for Greece, we have a possibility of Ares conquering Egypt and also of him following us. We may damage our reputation by not personally delivering the Egyptian people, sure, but I think this is a better risk to take than the other.

 

[Zero Credibility]

At first I wasn't worried too much about the possibility of Marduk destroying Zeus. Instead of 2 super strong opponents, their super lieutenants and their armies we would just have to fight 1 super super strong opponent and what's left of his army. And we wouldn't make enemies of the rest of immortals. That actually sounded like a good deal to me. But then that chart treave put up really threw me off. Apparently there was to be no way to defeat the fucker except by surrendering to him and devouring him as he tried to do the same to us, and all our attempts to do so would be futile.

So yes, I too see meeting with Ares as one option that might get us somewhere (whether that is in the right direction is a different matter). See if he is willing to be reasoned with - he could be a powerful distraction ally in the fight against Marduk. Yes, we gelded his sons, but at least we left them alive. Tell him that while he is wasting time here his god is dying in Greece and that the only chance he has at stopping Marduk is by working with us. If that doesn't work a duel sounds like a good idea, but the problem is that the Vajra and the statuette are both in Babylon, so I don't know what we have to offer him in return (and why the hate against his sons? they are a non issue here). Maybe we wouldn't have to offer anything if he is pissed at us enough. If if he refuses that as well, then just kill him - preferably without using the toxin if we plan to eat him, but whatever gets the job done is fine.

We need to gather whatever we can to our side, and dealing with him is the first step.

 

[ScubaV]

To give sufficient time I'll slow down my previously 'try to update at least once every two days' rate to once in a week.

I do like the flexibility of a DM style compared to a strict CYOA, however as with Vernydar's LP I don't think all open choice updates all the time are a great idea. My preference would be something like an 80/20 split between traditional A,B,C's (with consideration given to minor alteration requests) and more open choices. If you still have the stamina for it, I would vote to sacrifice freedom of choice in order to keep the updates as frequent as they are currently. I'm sure open choice updates makes planning much more difficult.

I'm more of a storyfag than a LARPer. I'd rather see what interesting narratives an author can come up with than make my own. I already live in my own head every day.

As for the current choice I'm leaning toward Esquilax's plan. Using our meta/foreshadowing knowledge we need to do something about Marduk, but we can't just completely abandon Egypt to Ares either. It's time for swift and direct action.

 

[Baltika9]

Only place remaining that allows them to pass between dimensions without much hassle is many, many light years away, and this is why they usually seed their agents by space rock.

Dimension? Entryway? Gieloth?
Warp and the Eye of Terror!!! Eldar!!!
I have my 40K fapfic after all. Treave, you shouldn't have.
...Actually, yes you should have. Why is there no Doomrider?

Bros, these Masters are the real enemies here, any doubts I had are destroyed. At best, they do this because they must, at worst, because they can. The only Immortals we can trust are ones like Shulgi or Ean (IF we survive this, we'll have to discover how to make more "unbound"). The only other potential allies are Sekhenun and her faction for now. Yes, that means we really should release Sekhenun from the deal on the condition of a personal alliance and friendship, and only that.
treave:Say, can Ean accelerate the regeneration of another Immortal? Or can we use the statuette for that?

And, a rather inane question: what happens when an Immortal breeds with a Gieloth? I need to know, for things.

 

[Baltika9]

but we can't just completely abandon Egypt to Ares either. It's time for swift and direct action.

Actually, why destroy when we can conquer. Unless it's to get our last devouring point.

Why exactly are we trying to fight the Greek immortals, again?

We're an unbound immortal. Zeus is an avatar for the Masters. Get the tone?

 

[Kipeci]

Why exactly are we trying to fight the Greek immortals, again?

I get that we're mad about not being saved in the labyrinth, but that's really no reason to fight them. Let's take care of the horrible threat of Marduk before we begin any plans to weaken Zeus; with luck, we may secure them as our allies until that point. We may have gotten rid of our voices, but we're in this in part to help protect humanity, and honestly Marduk is infinitely more threatening to the well-being of everyone than Zeus and his pantheon, considering how too much acting up on Marduk's part gets our world nuked.

 

[treave]

Apparently there was to be no way to defeat the fucker except by surrendering to him and devouring him as he tried to do the same to us, and all our attempts to do so would be futile.

Once the process is complete there is no real way to beat him in the current chapter. Some fights are unwinnable. Fighting together with Edem right after he eats and is still some what vulnerable, or taking them down before that is doable. After that it's down to exploiting your nature, which he doesn't know about, to score a surprise victory.

Even Edem didn't know about the artifact, and you only find out in the other path by really getting into Marduk's good graces (doing things like slaughtering Gutians). It's his very well kept secret trump card.

 

[Storyfag]

Fuuuck.

I say we contact Ares and try to broker a ceasfire with Egypt. Then ride side by side to Greece. Maybe, just MAYBE we'll be able to stop Marduk with another war-god at our side.

 

[Kipeci]

We're an unbound immortal. Zeus is an avatar for the Masters. Get the tone?

We can't take on all the immortals in the world at once just because we aren't bound, that'd be suicide, and they apparently can't even tell that we're unbound. Should we keep them from getting too powerful? As with anything else, absolutely, but there's no decent reason to be fighting them now when Marduk is by far the bigger threat.

 

[Esquilax]

You guys proposing a cease-fire are misjudging Ares' personality. We can't broker an alliance with him because he isn't the type to put grudges aside and work together for a common goal. He's far too petty and arrogant for that, especially now that we've slighted him twice. No, the only hope we have here is to piss him off so badly that he abandons his siege of Memphis to come after us in Olympus, hopefully offering reinforcement against Marduk. This will give us another god to work with should it be too late against Marduk.

I've amended my plan to this:

C) Find one of the soldiers fleeing from Pikuat via telepathy, then tell him to deliver a message to Ares: We have decided that Ares is too weak to waste our time on, which is why we've opted to go to Olympus to find worthier enemies.

It's a good plan. Given Ares' haughty nature, it'll be the last straw for him. Even better, it doesn't waste another moment of our time, gives us a meat shield against Marduk, and it saves Egypt.

At first I wasn't worried too much about the possibility of Marduk destroying Zeus. Instead of 2 super strong opponents, their super lieutenants and their armies we would just have to fight 1 super super strong opponent and what's left of his army. And we wouldn't make enemies of the rest of immortals. That actually sounded like a good deal to me. But then that chart treave put up really threw me off. Apparently there was to be no way to defeat the fucker except by surrendering to him and devouring him as he tried to do the same to us, and all our attempts to do so would be futile.

But after the revolution, a duel against Marduk was winnable: why take the chance of either of them getting stronger? We could have dealt with them, Egypt had no relevance to our situation. Look, what's done is done, but this was all very obvious - the entire chapter was leading up to a confrontation with Marduk. You didn't need supernatural foresight to figure this shit out.

Oh, and we are going to make enemies of the other Immortals by our very nature, so you just have to accept this fact; we're an unbound Immortal with a Gieloth big sister. As others have said, the most likely person to ally with here is Shulgi - he'd be very likely to be curious about our condition, and he'd probably also want a way to make himself Unbound as well. Doesn't mean we can trust him, but there you go.

 

[Baltika9]

Treave, I really need to know if Ean can find Shulgi's tomb in time and use either his own regenerative powers or the statuette to wake him up. Aside from Edem, he's the only one who would be able to help us. Besides, by your chart, I have a feeling that he'll be waking up soon anyways, and if we would just pretend to be him, he would jump right into governing Babylon and fighting Marduk.

 

[treave]

Shulgi isn't asleep, he's active. Lulz.

 

[Baltika9]

And knowing our luck, Naram made him the conduit of the Masters. There goes that plan.
Edit: Staying in Egypt really is a zero-sum game. Ares' armies, and the Egyptian armies will be rather useless against Marduk. What can a human do to Marduk? The only reason to stay that I can see is to get that last hunger point and devour Marduk, a point we can get in Greece.
So, yeah, going with Esquilax's C.
And let's hope Ares really is as vainglorious as he thinks. Also, send a missive to Sekhenun, or at least Iltani and have her deploy the Gutians and the remaining Babylonian troops to Greece. They may be useless against Marduk, but his armies are another matter. However, sacrificing time for that would be stupid.
And tell her that if she, by any chance, can find Shulgi, send that guy straight to us.
Edit2: Actually, instead of telling one fleeing soldier, tell all of them how much they and Ares suck and are not worth the time of Runi. It will ensure that our message gets where it needs to go.
And I'm with ScubaV on the updates. Most choices don't need to be open-ended, too much hassle for both counting and voting. Others, like governance or general grand strategy are good places to do it, but otherwise it's pointless at best, counter-productive at worst.
Unless... you're making excuses to get a break.
Edit3: Seems to me the reason treave gave us the metal knowledge is that he is either fucking with us, big time (in which case, it is a most excellent troll) or just doesn't want this LP and Ean to end.

 

[Quetzacoatl]

Esquilax's C

 

[ScubaV]

Alright, Brosquilax's plan sounds good. C

 

[Storyfag]

Esquilax's C

 

[Zero Credibility]

At first I wasn't worried too much about the possibility of Marduk destroying Zeus. Instead of 2 super strong opponents, their super lieutenants and their armies we would just have to fight 1 super super strong opponent and what's left of his army. And we wouldn't make enemies of the rest of immortals. That actually sounded like a good deal to me. But then that chart treave put up really threw me off. Apparently there was to be no way to defeat the fucker except by surrendering to him and devouring him as he tried to do the same to us, and all our attempts to do so would be futile.

But after the revolution, a duel against Marduk was winnable: why take the chance of either of them getting stronger? We could have dealt with them, Egypt had no relevance to our situation. Look, what's done is done, but this was all very obvious - the entire chapter was leading up to a confrontation with Marduk. You didn't need supernatural foresight to figure this shit out.

I voted for Egypt because it seemed obvious to me that if we are going in a war we need an army. Babylon was in no state to provide one, but Egypt might be. It was also obvious to me that since we want both sides dead it would be best to let them duke it out and then take them out when they are exhausted. And if one defeats the other, great - less work for us. But the entire Marduk's plan that ends with him being invincible depends on a single thing - his secret artifact, that nobody, not Sekhenun and not even Edem knew anything about. Ean himself had only a remote chance of finding about it, and the only reason he "knows" about it now is the infodump. That's pretty much the opposite of obvious. If it was obvious that we need to take out Marduk right now, why didn't Sekhenun, who knew a hell of a lot more then we did about Marduk just say so during the choice? Why did she remain behind in Babylon? If it was obvious that time was of the essence, why did we even bother cleaning up Babylon after Marduk has left? Or why did we take a vacation with the Guidans?