Previous Thread: https://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/qstarchive/2024/6134429/>>6134429Welcome back to False God Quest - a relatively text-light fantasy quest with simple hex art. Both new and old players are always welcome!
>10/12 - 2 Survivors>9/12 - Remain HiddenFlint raps against metal. Fresh snow glitters under torchlight. Father and daughter push forward, puffing vapor into the freezing air. "Here. Warm," says the knight to her daughter. "Beneath the tarp..."Inside a tightly-wrapped quilt, a shivering boy holds his unmoving sister tight against his chest. His eyes dart, gleaming with unsuppressed fear. "Look..." he scratches out with a frost-hoarse voice. "Behind..."You perceive what they do not.A hundred paces duskward. A shape solidifies and dissolves in tune with the movement of clouds over the cobalt-blue moon. A tangled figure sails over the snowfield, heralding a procession of unwound faithful as it carefully samples the earth with its nest of unwoven threads. "Please...please..." implores the boy quietly. "Do not let it take us...." The daughter clasps the boy's snow-pale hand with her own, but his eyes fail to meet hers as he whispers his prayer towards the clouds above.You wish to tell him that you lord over naught but the soft noonday breeze and the flow of dew upon bladed grass. You wish to tell them that you are a god of nothing - as old and as forgotten as the ruined shrine in which you reside.But perhaps...>[BREEZE] - Extinguish their torch. Guide your two followers to abandon the boy and her sister. [-1 FAITH]>[FOG] - Attempt to obscure their movement as they escape. [Difficult roll required] [-3 FAITH]>[MEMORY] - Prepare an action with a distant memory, now remembered. [-9 FAITH]>[NOTHING]
<<Current map with faith value.
>>6157469>>[MEMORY] - Prepare an action with a distant memory, now remembered. [-9 FAITH]
>>6157468>[MEMORY] - Prepare an action with a distant memory, now remembered. [-9 FAITH]
>>6157468>>[MEMORY] - Prepare an action with a distant memory, now remembered. [-9 FAITH]
>>6157468>[FOG] - Attempt to obscure their movement as they escape. [Difficult roll required] [-3 FAITH]
>>6157468>[MEMORY] - Prepare an action with a distant memory, now remembered. [-9 FAITH]More power? More power.Welcome back!
>>6157465>False god 2 instead of solstice 2
>>6157897I haven't forgotten about it I'm sorry anon.
>>6157469>[MEMORY] - Prepare an action with a distant memory, now remembered. [-9 FAITH]Whatever this is, looks like its going to be big.
>[MEMORY] - Prepare an act with a distant memory, now remembered. [-9 FAITH]The noonday breeze, the creeping fog, and the morning dew are neglected, oft-forgotten things. But their conjoining permits the opening of the sky, and the opening of the sky is never forgotten.You are a god of nothing, but you once knew another name.+++The tangled collector drags its ragged threads through splintered wood and bloodied snow. The boy breathes slowly through interlocked fingers. Father and daughter close ranks, raising shields against a mottled gloom that their eyes cannot pierce.The moon disappears. The sky darkens. Freezing rain sleets down from roiling clouds, sharpened by the driving wind. Slowly, threads appear within the torchlight, and the unwound faithful appear in indistinct ranks. Father and daughter drive heavy swords through the caraven's former inhabitants, blunting sword-points against bloodless bodies. The knight calls to his daughter. The daughter calls to you as you weave the currents and the fog.When she invokes you a third, desperate time, her flicker-stone crackles within its leather bracelet.You answer.The furious sky hammers a pillar of cobalt lightning into the cold ground. Heat flashes snow to steam, leaving behind the scent of burnt pine and acrid petrichor. The collector vanishes into pennants of burning cloth - a fading after mirage within a sea of solar white. The faithful procession collapses as their threads are severed.Father and daughter brush static-charged ash from their mailed armor. Thunder rolls through the midnight forest, echoing inside the atrium of your shrine like a heartbeat.
+++They bear the boy and the girl back on a sled of salvaged wood, placing them in the family's gentler, warmer hands. The knight joins his daughter at your shrine, his movements awkward and hesitant, worn joints stiff against the cold stone.But he prays just as she does, and when the rose-red dawn peaks over the horizon, he leaves a well-worn copper trinket in your offering bowl.[+2 FAITH]>[NOTHING]>[GUIDANCE/SACRAMENT - HUNTER] - Send the hunter skyward, to the migration. [-2 FAITH]>[GUIDANCE/SACRAMENT - HUNTER] - Send the hunter to explore the tents. [-2 FAITH]
>>6158179>>6158180>[GUIDANCE/SACRAMENT - HUNTER] - Send the hunter skyward, to the migration. [-2 FAITH]
>>6158180>[GUIDANCE/SACRAMENT - HUNTER] - Send the hunter skyward, to the migration. [-2 FAITH]
>>6158180> [GUIDANCE/SACRAMENT - HUNTER] - Send the hunter skyward, to the migration. [-2 FAITH]
The hunter dreams of hooves thundering beneath steel-grey mountains and antlers dipping between evergreen pinions. He departs at dawn, carrying his beloved yew-bow in the crook of his arm, a sheaf of oiled broadheads kept dry in a fine leather satchel. In the afternoon, he travels between the shifting pines that once guided him home, his body warmed by the provisions of the last harvest and the fine workmanship of his fellow faithful. Without difficult, he clears the frozen lake and gazes upon the heart of the migration, and the creases on his worn face crinkle into a smile.
+++The frost-season wanes. Snowfall grows sparse. Seedlings press their roots into the thawing earth. The corn-yellow moon waves high to herald the oncoming harvest. A fire crackles before the entrance of your shrine - a custom, if not a tradition."I can take them for now." says the trader, brushing snow from his ribboned cloak. "But I plan to depart once the route opens. Trade is trade."Brother and sister warm their hands over a crackling fire, bundled in oversized blankets. Their eyes trace embers as they flutter along the warming winds, their faces blank. The family is the first to lend their echoing footsteps to your shrine. The child has grown high enough to reach your pedestal without the help of her parents, and she lays her fingers below your shattered figure. She prays for the common harvest, and for the safety of the two orphaned siblings who never smile and rarely speak.The knight and his diligent daughter pray for their harvest, and for their own strength - for their mailed hands still tremble whenever they perceive a hint of black threading against the night sky.The trader is last. He adjusts his fine spectacles and places a woolen mat beneath the cold ground before he kneels. He lays a charcoal etching on the stone and prays not for himself, but for you. He prays for forgetfulness - for you to see the world as you do, not as you once did.For the thaw-harvest:>[DEW] - Lend minor assistance. [-2 FAITH]>[BREEZE/DEW] - Lend some assistance. [-3 FAITH]>[NOTHING]>NOT ENOUGH FAITH FOR OTHER OPTIONS.
>>6158671>>[DEW] - Lend minor assistance. [-2 FAITH]Let us keep some faith for an emergency. Just a bit, to lead someone lost home, for example.
>>6158671>[NOTHING]
>>6158671>not as you once didMethinks past us may not have been as swell a guy
>>6158671>[BREEZE/DEW] - Lend some assistance. [-3 FAITH]
>>6158671>[DEW] - Lend minor assistance. [-2 FAITH]
>>6158671>[DEW] - Lend minor assistance. [-2 FAITH]Either the lightning and his studies were enough to help him connect the dots on who we were, or every aspect was an asshole in the past and he doesn’t need to know us to wish us away from that.
>>6158671>[DEW] - Lend minor assistance. [-2 FAITH]Maybe we need to stick to what we do best for the most part...
The thaw-season comes. Sheets of rain drape the landscape. Early mornings run thick with sparkling dew.The hunter picks from the migration's trailing edge, his inclined hut thick with the smell of rendered fat and tanned hides. His face glows with satisfaction as he runs his paring knife through his latest kill.[+7 to hunter's harvest roll]Father and daughter join the family as they prepare for sowing, folding soft peat into their newly-apportioned fields. Their work is slow and their clothing is often stained dark by day's end, but this hardship is borne without complaint
+++When the thaw finally scrapes the forest floor, the trader prepares to make his leave. He bundles the siblings in patterned cloth, and bids thanks to his gracious hosts, distributing carefully wrapped gifts over his last campfire. The last parcel, he says, is meant for you - to be left at your shrine at the next harvest.His nighttime activities have been unknown to all - all except the child, who plays within your snow-covered shrine often enough to notice the tracks left by the trader's tasseled cloak."...what did you see..." she asks after the rest of her family is out of earshot. "...I...want to know..."The trader sighs, deliberating behind his polished spectacles. "The gods can change. Do you remember?"The child nods. "...like the seasons...""Yes. Our gods were birthed with us, child. But they are not the first to inhabit the sky, just as we are not the first to inhabit the earth."He pauses."...The shrine of the...patron here...is old. Ancient.""...before my parents?" asks the child."Before we could write. Perhaps before we could speak."+++>Roll 3d20 for the thaw harvest, best of three. Individual modifiers:HARVEST: 1d20 + 2 [FAIR] + 1 [BREEZE] + 1 [HARVEST-PENDENT]HARVEST: 1d20 + 2 [FAIR] + 1 [BREEZE] + 1 [HARVEST-PENDENT]HUNT: 1d20 + 1 [BREEZE] + 7 [MIGRATION]
Rolled 9 (1d20)>>6159366
Rolled 18, 20, 20 = 58 (3d20)>>6159366Almost missed this. Glad to see this back, QM!
>>6159394Goddamn, that roll was hot. And here I thought the villagers would have to go without a good harvest this time around...
Rolled 19, 10, 7 = 36 (3d20)>>6159366
>>6159395Welcome back!Damn these are good rolls.
Rolled 12, 2, 8 = 22 (3d20)>>6159366
23/20 - Magnificent Harvest [+7 FAITH]24/20 - Magnificent Harvest [+7 FAITH]28/20 - Magnificent Harvest [+9 FAITH]TRADER/PARCEL [+4 FAITH]+++Snowmelt trickles down from the jagged mountains to feed the lush fields below. Hatchling songbirds conduct recitals in the morning and eve, eagerly anticipating the buzzing warmth of summer. Fireflies dance in the star-streaked sky above your shrine. The trader takes his leave with his two new apprentices, traveling earthward towards more urbane lands. He speaks fondly of the coastal stilt-cities, where moth-silk is spun on the salty sea-breeze, whose learned people have developed a particular taste for his offerings in letters and scrolls. Yet despite the promise of fairer trade, he promises to return - to the warmth of the campfire, to the coldness of your shrine. The frank admission that he will miss these things surprises him as much as his humble hosts, and provokes the hunter to give him a final gift before his departure.The following harvest is more bountiful than any in recent memory. The dark soil yields baskets of jewel-red berries, to be washed clean in the afternoon rain. The knight and his diligent daughter preside over a magnificent harvest of of spring crops: rust-red tubers and robust sweetleaves, collected in tilted wagons. The hunter tallies ten animals with bow alone - a mass of salted provisions and a treasure trove of polished bone. The volume of offerings brought before you is almost nostalgic. There is the burning of incense, and the devout prayers. The ringing of your offering bowl, and the careful arrangement of glass and fur and polished bone beneath your plinth. But it is the unfamiliar things that you find most pleasant. The bright-eyed child laughs as she finally climbs onto your pedestal-proper, wreathing the broken stone with another circlet of freshly picked fog-tulips. Everyone takes turns with the hunter's spare bow, sending untipped arrows whistling into the evening haze. Father and daughter laugh as they spar, forgetting old fears with the careful practice of strike, block, and parry.
CHOOSE ONE:>[GUIDANCE-CIRCLES] - Brief expedition to the stone circles, led by the hunter or daughter. [-2 FAITH] [Exploration will be abbreviated]>[GUIDANCE-RUINS] - Another expedition to the ruins, led by the hunter or daughter. [-2 FAITH] [Exploration will be abbreviated]>[GUIDANCE/SACRAMENT - HUNTER] - Send the hunter to explore the tents. [-2 FAITH]>[MEMORY] - Examine a distant memory. [-4 FAITH]>[MEMORY] - Examine a yearning memory. [-8 FAITH]>[NOTHING]ALSO:>[DAWNWARD] - Look dawnward. (Right) [-2 FAITH]>[DUSKWARD] - Look duskward. (Left) [-2 FAITH]>[NOTHING][Also, as a note. From this point forward, you can always point out interesting features on the map to explore as a write in.]
>>6159988Given that the merchant prayed for our forgetfulness, I'll hold off on any memories for now>[GUIDANCE/SACRAMENT - HUNTER] - Send the hunter to explore the tents. [-2 FAITH]>[DAWNWARD] - Look dawnward. (Right) [-2 FAITH]>[DUSKWARD] - Look duskward. (Left) [-2 FAITH]
>>6159988>[GUIDANCE/SACRAMENT - HUNTER] - Send the hunter to explore the tents. [-2 FAITH]ALSO:>[DAWNWARD] - Look dawnward. (Right) [-2 FAITH]>[DUSKWARD] - Look duskward. (Left) [-2 FAITH]
Is enlarging our seen areas(domain) making actions more expensive?
>>6159999+1Nice digits.
>>6160009Thanks for asking! The cost increase is tied to the number of previous votes. So enlarging your seen areas will make seeing more areas more expensive, but it won't affect actions.Similarly, memory votes get more expensive as you get more of them.
>>6159999>>6159988+1 supportchecked
>>6159999+1 The digits have spoken
>>6159988>[GUIDANCE/SACRAMENT - HUNTER] - Send the hunter to explore the tents. [-2 FAITH]>[DAWNWARD] - Look dawnward. (Right) [-2 FAITH]>[DUSKWARD] - Look duskward. (Left) [-2 FAITH]
>>6159988>[GUIDANCE-CIRCLES] - Brief expedition to the stone circles, led by the hunter or daughter. [-2 FAITH] [Exploration will be abbreviated]>[DUSKWARD] - Look duskward. (Left) [-2 FAITH]
Update tomorrow. Apologies for the delay - have a big final coming up on Friday.
>>6160750Good luck Observer, sending good energy your way.
Dawnward. Fog collects over twinned lakes. Vigilent turrets jut from jagged outcroupings, watching the mouth of a shaded pass. Orange banners flutter like flames.Duskward. An old church endures beneath an appropriately ponderous gold-oak, serviced by an faded wagon path. Straw-yellow flowers ripple beneath rows of hand-tended graves.
+++The hunter walks where the wood grows lush, parting fresh leaves with careful hands. As he reaches the edge of the camp, he moves alongside the setting sun - contouring his body against the dappled shadows.The camp resolves once the sun burns slow. There is the winching of crossbows and the rasp of metal against whetstone. Laughter rings, almost loud enough to drown out the sobs that echo after. A cooking fire streams oily smoke into the night sky.There are twelve - bedecked in moss-green, their eyes hidden beneath hooded cloaks. And there are four others - four whose silhouettes seem far more familiar to the hunter.Peaked cloaks fit loose over heavy mail. Long-torches drip with black tar. >NOTHING. The hunter will leave.>[DEW]. Push the hunter to leave, but not before leaving something... [-1 FAITH]>[BREEZE]. Push the hunter to look closer. ROLL. [-1 FAITH]>[FOG]. Push the hunter to look much closer. ROLL. [-3 FAITH]
>>6161414>>NOTHING. The hunter will leave.I think 1 against 12 is suicidal odds, messing around in any way is too much to ask. Let our followers decide a course of action and support what they choose.
>>6161414>NOTHING. The hunter will leave.
>>6161414>[FOG]. Push the hunter to look much closer. ROLL. [-3 FAITH]
Gonna wait for 1 more vote to hopefully tiebreak and then call it.
>>6161414>>NOTHING. The hunter will leave.We must be careful.Also, is that a castle I spy in the top right?
>>6161828>>6161758>>6161591 >Roll dice+1d20+3, best of 10. DC: 10, 15, 18
>>6161829Yep :) Or at least part of one. Also sorry - I took the prior visit to break the tie, bit your vote is still appreciated.
Rolled 17 + 3 (1d20 + 3)>>6161906
Rolled 17 + 3 (1d20 + 3)>>6161906Er, best of 10?
>>6161928Best of three I'm losing my mind :C
Rolled 6 + 3 (1d20 + 3)>>6161906
>20/20 - Great Insight, UndiscoveredAs the old hunter tightens his furs and leathers around his thin frame, you weave him a second cloak from the evening mist. The breeze drapes it over his shoulders once the sun completes its evening course.The hunter approaches the camp with the cautious steps of a man who has been both pursuer and quarry. He circles through the underbrush, darting quickly through the few spaces kept open and barren by the lingering frost. He exploits the crackling of flames - the rare moments when their laughter grows loud enough to obscure the sound of padded steps. He studies the camp carefully. There are the gaps in the twilight watch, places where the light of the fire obscures the darkness of the forest. There are also the ransacked wares - trade goods in broken containers, some spread widely over the dirt, others resting on woven rugs and sorted into neat piles. Excess provisions lay in a loose stack, moldering next to a pile of split timbers.
And behind such things, a quartet of peaked confessors brace their long-torches against the hard earth. Three captives are brought forth, their laced trade-robes clotted with filth. A child dressed in apprentice-garb, her face streaked with tears. A man with defiant eyes; a woman quiet and tearful. For a moment, three new pyres illuminate the night sky. The family scream prayers as they burn - first to others, and then...to you. The embers smile until the three are nothing more than ash and bone-cinders, and even then as the hunter runs into the forest awash with disgust and feels the stinging wind tear into his skin, he still hears their ecstatic prayers carry like cloying oil-smoke. "All praises upon the FIRST god, the ONLY god, the BRIGHTEST god. All praises upon the god of MAN and his UNCOUNTED aspects....">NOTHING. >[RECLAIM]. A prayer is prayer. For the dead faithful, lest others take them. [-6 FAITH]
>>6162025In case this was not clear in the update, this is not the farming family next to your hex. They're doing OK still :)
>>6162025>[RECLAIM]. A prayer is prayer. For the dead faithful, lest others take them. [-6 FAITH]
>>6162025>>[RECLAIM]. A prayer is prayer. For the dead faithful, lest others take them. [-6 FAITH]
