May POTM

[Admin Dirk]

Wow, it's May already, and I don't know about you, but my year is flying past!

But, not so fast that I couldn't stop, and appreciate my fellow gamers, and some of their amazing posts. If I wasn't a judge, I would certainly be nominating someone every month... Why aren't you?

If you spot a great post, nominate it! Who knows, it could win Post of the Month, and bring great praise and accolades to the original poster. Even if it doesn't, it still means a lot to just be nominated by your peers.


But, it can't happen if you don't do your job. Nominate a post from May!

[4eyedBadger]

Player: Odyssey
Game: The Breaking of Exandria
GM: 4eyedBadger
Post: Link

Reason for Nomination: This is my first nomination, and for that I have been remiss. My players have made many amazing posts over the last seven months, but this post by Odyssey forced me to learn the PotM nomination process. Odyssey’s character, Cyprian, has just been smashed to near death by an ettin’s flail and is forced to make death saves. Odyssey takes this opportunity to give us a glimpse into his assassin’s shadowy past and personal demons! Even better, he incorporates his fellow player’s Bless spell into the vision!

 

Originally Posted by Odyssey

[Dressedtojazz]

Player Nominated: Insacrum

DM: Dressedtojazz

Game: Reign of Winter

Reason: Reading 4eyedBadger's nomination above, it looks like May is the month for death post nominations. Now there's a new concept, eh? Take that Movember! Insacrum takes a moment, in the heat of the epic battle, to write a post describing the pain felt when run through by a spear. His character is a goblin and Insacrum, who in general write good posts and awesome death posts, make sure to sprinkle that special goblin seasoning all over the post, making it just right. I encourage all to follow the little cleric of Zogmugot on his journey, either in the realm of the living or in the eternal ever after.

Link: Here

 

Originally Posted by Insacrum

[MeredithS]

Player: Retry
DM: MeredithS
Game: Waeveran Legends (Outlaws subgame)
Reason: Retry is one of the most creative writers I've ever come across. He crosses an active imagination with humor and sincerity in every post he makes. Recently I challenged him to a humorous role that was a Sentient Tumbleweed. Not only did he embrace it, but truly made me crack up, being able to envision this role. Only Retry could pull this off as well as he did, in the context of which it was done. Though the situation the posts he made are still in progress, his input and side role captured what playing D&D is for me. Fun, Interesting and Unique.

Note: The link is currently set on private because the scenario isn't finished yet. But I've included a copy and paste that offer's one of the two posts he's made as TUMBLE the 45th of his name, The Adventures of a Tumbleweed.
The Adventures of a Tumbleweed.

 

Meredith made me do it! The world was spinning - no, I was spinning. This was my new life. Plucked from the land I was born and grew up on and thrown into the unknown by a disasterous gale. Woe be those who speak ill of their lives for the fates are always listening and plotting. It mattered not though, I was becoming accustomed to this new life and getting to experience so many things I haven't witnessed before. The dirt was all the same no matter where the wind lead me though, too dry for me to take root - if I could ever again. Not too sure on that part. This might be my fate to roll forever. Ah, whats this up ahead? A town? I think I've heard of those. Well, adventuring is my new life it seems, mayhap I explore where the wind takes me? Ah, what are those two things ahead? What are adventurers to do with strange monsters? I believe we attack, right? Yeah. That sounds about right, here goes my everything CHAAAAAAAAARGE!! >CREACK< AH-HA!! I've got it by the foot! Take that you foul beast! Taste the pointy wrath of Tabet Ungathal Mercurio Bhruu Levo Eclair the forty-fifth!!! {see UF's end of first paragraph of UF's post}

[goatmeal]

Player: Feldring
Game: Wave Echo Cave (and Beyond?)
GM: goatmeal
Link

Reason for Nomination: There have been many fine introductory posts that have won POTM over the years for the care taken in presenting the character for the first time. This post does that and more. Not only does Feldring do an excellent job of presenting the nervousness felt by his character the night before leaving on a daring quest, but he also highlights the connection between his own character and each of the other characters in the game. Particularly interesting is the “food fight” that goes on between his character and the gnomish rogue character while the very serious NPC is trying to give them their quest. whether PbP or live action.RPGs are at their best when a scene is not just highlighting what one character does but makes a story involving all the characters. And this post does exactly that.

 

Vesper-Song "Accept the things to which fate binds you, and love the people with whom fate brings you together, but do so with all your heart." – Marcus Aurelius, Meditations The night before they left Neverwinter, Vesper couldn't sleep for trembling. The window was open but there was no breeze. Her things were piled on the bed and she lay in one corner, the day's events playing in her mind over and over, first one conversation, then another, like tunes from a roomful of different music boxes all tinkling together. She heard again Nurion expressing with eloquent warmth his pledge to get to the bottom of the Rockseeker brothers' disappearance, charting the road between here and there as it ought to have been done the first time and as only a son of the Guild of Cartographers, Surveyors, and Mapmakers could do (had he said "son"?). She felt the eagerness radiating from Braum Jorim as clearly as one can sense the lightning in the air before its bolts are loosed, a cool, clean, taut anticipation she could almost smell. Thirsts he for something, she had thought then; and now, with a curious sort of realization: And he knows of the thirsting. She stirred from her huddle, abandoning the latest attempt at evening rest. Braum and Peep. That was a pair, to be sure. As close as brothers and with a bond even stronger than the circumstances of its forming could explain, as sometimes happens with deep friendships. Braum Jorim the mercenary turned pilgrim, and Peep, who had experienced drow cruelty so personally, so penetratingly... The stars seemed to press their cold faces down, right to the window. Another tremor ran through Vesper and she hurriedly pulled the window closed, rocking the ancient casement such that it creaked. She peered out into the dark. The stars, friendly again and remote, had receded to their proper celestial seats. She wondered at her fancies. "H'rit, voistinu pelkokeer," she said softly. "I may never be ready. Yet grateful am I for such companions – bright their souls are, and no fear is in them. Autta hr'reen! May they rest better than me this eve." She was proud of the wholehearted way they had accepted Sildar Hallwinter's almost hesitant offer of a quest. The man's every expression, every word, was guarded, and clearly he had many responsibilities. He had admitted that others died earning his coin: perhaps wariness of refusal was one of those burdens. It probably didn't help Sildar's impression of them, Vesper admitted, that she had begun flicking raisins and other dainties from her pottage toward Peep (it was a game she had delighted in playing many times on the road, watching the nimble gnome dart out a hand or utensil to catch whatever prize she sent slinging his way) as soon as they were seated in the inn's private room. She smiled at the memory. What an odd destiny, to suffer so much and then uncover the wound to one who had been there – and Peep too, in that ever-calm voice he had, both airy and solemn, had shared much when they met, surprising her. And now they played peep-bo with candies, and she played music for him, pouring her love into it so that they all might share and be nourished, just as she was nourished by the presence of each friend in turn. Stretching gingerly, mindful of her left wing brushing the wall, Vesper regarded her baggage on the bed. She still feared the quest, or rather feared dying in a cave, pierced by whatever fell weapons this Spider possessed. But her fortitude was strengthened by the knowledge that she was not alone anymore, and that whatever happened in the next days, she would face it with gleaming eyes and a heart filled with song. "'To spite death, to laugh with the wind,'" she murmured, running a finger along the black feathers attached to her harness. You said all things happen for a reason... Suddenly weary, Vesper nestled back in the corner, head against her good wing, and slept. In her dreams, a laughing dwarf with shining eyes painted a map of the glorious wide green world all over her walls, and it spilled over into white clouds that streamed under her, and glowed in the sunlight.

[JackinIrons]

Player: JackinIrons
Game: Portage: Rising from Ashes
GM: Kapera
Link to Post

Reason for Nomination: This one was fun to write. The character, Thomas, is unlike many other vampires and heroes. He's timid, shy and somewhat of a coward. He also talks to spirits and is absolutely insane. In this scene, the group is meeting with a powerful and potentially dangerous informant and Thomas decided to talk to a spirit rather than acknowledge the situation. But hearing the lyrics of a Rammstein made him think of things. So he tried to decipher the bits and pieces he knew, in a broken way, and his insane mind put together some pieces, just in time for him to speak the the dangerous woman in his shy, stuttering way.

 

Originally Posted by JackinIrons

Thomas shivered as he stood apart from the others, his mind dancing between the voice that sounded his head and those from the others he didn't really want to be with. He heard Alec speak, and he seemed to be trying to force the Hydra to speak more clearly. He almost cringed at the way the man seemed to be mocking the strange looking woman. The Gangrel couldn't help but wonder if it was something like that which drove the Dragon to withhold her help before.

But Thomas didn't have time to think about the others. His mind was still distracted by the voice, by the presence. He wished that things would stop speaking in riddles, though he usually liked riddles. The word games helped to sharpen, to strengthen his mind, and he had always needed it to be strong.

Still muttering, Thomas did his best to think like a Malkavian in the face of the riddled words. He repeated the core of what he heard, "Truth... Possibility... Don't get trapped...Trth... possblty... dn't git trpp... Hmmm..." He tossed several thoughts in his mind, loose bits of sayings, phrases and proverbs. Something that might make the Malkavian worldview normal.

His train of thought was interrupted by the woman he had been trying to separate himself from. Thomas didn't know much German, but he knew music. And he knew that this particular song was inspired by cannibalism.

Thomas looked down and scuffed his feet as his mind raced, and he shook as he tried to get himself to put the pieces together. From before, from his companions, from the Hydra, from the voice. The spirits spoke of quarreling with her. As he tried to compose his own shattered mind, he could hear Alex continue his own quarrel with the other. Thomas shook his head hard, as if her were trying to cast off his own misgivings.

'Truth... What is Possible... Traps the Mind... Steals the Soul... You are what you eat... Listen... Crimson Crown... Warnings... It hunts in Shadows... Five kept the veil taut...'

Thomas screwed his eye shut as he took his head in his hands. Internally he scolded himself. He needed to keep it together. He tried again, trying to put it all together, 'The Malkavians look into the mirror. Hold it in high regard. They see true things, they see possibilities but if they look too much... Could it be? Is the mirror the glimpses into the future? Maybe... maybe not...'

The young Gangrel finally looked to the other, though he shrunk back even as he did so. The Hydra had answers, but one had to know how to listen. Thomas bit his lip then did his very best to speak, even if it wasn't very impressive, "S...So... what do y..you eat? Why do the sp...spirits oppose you, who g...guard the d...dead of island? What part did my... m...mother play? Or Charlotte? She... was the c...crimson crown, right? And do y...you see in the m...mirror? The... future?" Thomas was visibly shaking in fear as he spoke, though it wasn't only the Hydra that frightened him. He hoped that his own simple questions, paired with some of his guesses, would amuse her enough to get something back.

[kaylara]

Player: Xian
Game: The Forsaken Plane: The Plane of The Elder Evils
GM: Xian
Post: Link

Reason for Nomination: This is one of the first times in PBP that I have seen an entire group go thru court hearings. Xian has done a beautiful job at bringing out the scene that had been worked up to for months. (Not including some followup scenes right after but those fall in the beginning of June)

 

Originally Posted by Xian