I’ll start working on Kages epilogue then. This has been awesome!
Mey Hem RPG: Sword & Sorcery After the End of the World!
- Thread starter GodSentinelOmega
- Start date
So...this final arc has had several changes. One of them involves what was original climax. And Tijuego is to blame. 
The original plan (well, part of it) was to have the final fight against Lucidas on top of YPNR. If he was allowed to keep talking he would start insulting the "backwards ice people" of Viknadia and make Cher mad. She would try to smite him with ice lightning and miss but missing Lucidas would still hit YPNR and it would start losing altitude. The final roll of the game was planned to be stopping the altitude loss or at least softening the crash landing. Kage and Tijuego have decent Technology and Dexterity scores but Tijuego is a Carmen Sandiego expy. I planned for the campaign finale to revolve around Carmen Sandiego "stealing" a city to save it. The plan kept getting adjusted several times due to changes--the most obvious of which was was Tijuego leaving the story. I maintained part of the plan for pretty late, though. The storm that started as the party got on the hover platform to YPNR existed because it would become a raging hailstorm after Cher's ice lightning and the sky would clear upon the finale.
The original plan (well, part of it) was to have the final fight against Lucidas on top of YPNR. If he was allowed to keep talking he would start insulting the "backwards ice people" of Viknadia and make Cher mad. She would try to smite him with ice lightning and miss but missing Lucidas would still hit YPNR and it would start losing altitude. The final roll of the game was planned to be stopping the altitude loss or at least softening the crash landing. Kage and Tijuego have decent Technology and Dexterity scores but Tijuego is a Carmen Sandiego expy. I planned for the campaign finale to revolve around Carmen Sandiego "stealing" a city to save it. The plan kept getting adjusted several times due to changes--the most obvious of which was was Tijuego leaving the story. I maintained part of the plan for pretty late, though. The storm that started as the party got on the hover platform to YPNR existed because it would become a raging hailstorm after Cher's ice lightning and the sky would clear upon the finale.
The original plan to break Patch free from her demonic transformation involved an epic confrontation with Destron. Destron would summon the other Viknadians and form an impromptu 80s hair metal band and launch into a rousing rendition of "Run With Us" which would break Moscareina's spell with pure awesomeness.
(This is a joke)
(This is a joke)
Hehe. The less serious nature of our side stories could’ve done that. And it would probably have been awesome.
It is a shame that Tijuego was lost. A Carmen Sandiego style heist victory sounds awesome. Also Cher getting angry. Overall, despite alterations and site reboots, I’d say this arc has held up pretty well. In worldbuilding and story.
Also, despite going home, I’m sure Night Cap will take a stroll down 2nd Hall H again.
Also also, the idea that our adventures became a peculiar adventure story over in STOMP. Including a portrait, feels oddly fitting.
It is a shame that Tijuego was lost. A Carmen Sandiego style heist victory sounds awesome. Also Cher getting angry.
Overall, despite alterations and site reboots, I’d say this arc has held up pretty well. In worldbuilding and story.Also, despite going home, I’m sure Night Cap will take a stroll down 2nd Hall H again.
Also also, the idea that our adventures became a peculiar adventure story over in STOMP. Including a portrait, feels oddly fitting.
On Night Cap, the plan was always for him to disappear as suddenly as he appeared to make it easy to fit him into the story. But an adjustment to this decision was made a couple of years ago after reflecting on STOMP ending. Night Cap had mentioned that a lot of desire for "shinies" was as a memento that the things that happened to him actually happened since he's constantly moving between the dream world and the waking world. So, I decided that if Night Cap survived, he'd get to keep his hat. It was a gift from friends so it would have different weight than some artifact.
One thing about the original "heist" ending and how things progressed in the final arc is that I've always felt like Mey Hem worked best with a mix of the goofy and serious and the final arc had fewer appropriate places for goofiness. Way back after the first arc ended and I started to plan some things with YPNR, I wasn't sure if I was even cut out for GMing the arc.
One thing about the original "heist" ending and how things progressed in the final arc is that I've always felt like Mey Hem worked best with a mix of the goofy and serious and the final arc had fewer appropriate places for goofiness. Way back after the first arc ended and I started to plan some things with YPNR, I wasn't sure if I was even cut out for GMing the arc.
Last edited:
He'd rather have that hat than a bar of gold.
Zam, I think you’ve done a dmn fine job of dming Mey Hem.
Indeed. While I'm sad to finally let Dee go, it was an amazing run and I thank you all for letting me have such a wonderful time with you all.
and If I could sing Patch... I would for sure do a cover of that for you.
and If I could sing Patch... I would for sure do a cover of that for you.
I'm happy you thought so GSO. I'd planned to include more stomp callbacks... but it didn't feel right to bring too much of that back into the epilogue for May hem... rest assured, the books in the gift shop were written by a good friend of Mr. Night Cap's, and they were the basis for some scripts filmed by another of his good friends.
also I couldn't help but have another another hall H joke
The mysterious second Hall H. What a legend.
Thanks. It's been a while since the planning stages but running two campaigns at the same time took effort. BTW GSO, you were right--Liquid Smile makes people weak to mind control if they drink it. There's more wrapped up in that but I wanted to mention it while it popped in my head. If I (or the players) remember questions that were asked in OOC and I stated I'd get to it when the campaign ended, I'm ready to answer if I remember the answers.
In a somewhat similar way to how Brigadier Left was the first created member of SAVAGE but the last revealed, Correspondent 251 was the last created member of YPNR but the first revealed. That's why she wound up with a differently structured name than the other three. However, the other part of this is that Elizilah was originally going to be an honorable villain that the party convinced to help them. I pivoted when the party didn't wind up going to YPNR immediately after the second arc. I needed someone who would communicate with ground operations so a lot of the negative traits went to 251. I also lost a reference. Around this time I had a lot of Twilight Zone references and the Chief Librarian would be found "obsolete". In how the campaign ended up, it was determined she wasn't obsolete offscreen with 251 being the deciding vote.
In a somewhat similar way to how Brigadier Left was the first created member of SAVAGE but the last revealed, Correspondent 251 was the last created member of YPNR but the first revealed. That's why she wound up with a differently structured name than the other three. However, the other part of this is that Elizilah was originally going to be an honorable villain that the party convinced to help them. I pivoted when the party didn't wind up going to YPNR immediately after the second arc. I needed someone who would communicate with ground operations so a lot of the negative traits went to 251. I also lost a reference. Around this time I had a lot of Twilight Zone references and the Chief Librarian would be found "obsolete". In how the campaign ended up, it was determined she wasn't obsolete offscreen with 251 being the deciding vote.
Two things were going on:
First, a certain level of Schrödinger's RPG Plot was in play. While I wasn't fully decided if it was all three, just one, or none of them, the plan of their origin was that they were from Beathra's village. I was trying to run with the concept of more people being out there since YPNR wasn't as thorough as they thought with the extermination. Some hesitation was due to not knowing where to go with the plot for them, Beathra himself not being there, and not getting a good read on what to do with Patch. It was all for naught with Beathra eventually leaving the story and then TDW leaving the campaign altogether.
Second, is the big secret. While YPNR's power source is a generic raw energy, they get that power from converting magic. So in the end, the magic fearing floating nation of YPNR runs on magic. Those people Patch rescued were fuel. That's also what was going on with Cinniúint, it's just that she's an infinite power source since she's a goddess. Capturing her sped up YPNR's plans and research considerably. This is also one of the three reasons why the children were kidnapped (with the second being test subjects if the third reason didn't work out). Extremely few people in YPNR know about the conversion of magic to fuel though slightly more (like Ronny and Palin) know mages are experimented on.
First, a certain level of Schrödinger's RPG Plot was in play. While I wasn't fully decided if it was all three, just one, or none of them, the plan of their origin was that they were from Beathra's village. I was trying to run with the concept of more people being out there since YPNR wasn't as thorough as they thought with the extermination. Some hesitation was due to not knowing where to go with the plot for them, Beathra himself not being there, and not getting a good read on what to do with Patch. It was all for naught with Beathra eventually leaving the story and then TDW leaving the campaign altogether.
Second, is the big secret. While YPNR's power source is a generic raw energy, they get that power from converting magic. So in the end, the magic fearing floating nation of YPNR runs on magic. Those people Patch rescued were fuel. That's also what was going on with Cinniúint, it's just that she's an infinite power source since she's a goddess. Capturing her sped up YPNR's plans and research considerably. This is also one of the three reasons why the children were kidnapped (with the second being test subjects if the third reason didn't work out). Extremely few people in YPNR know about the conversion of magic to fuel though slightly more (like Ronny and Palin) know mages are experimented on.
considering how often it happened, it never felt to me like I ever noticed you scrambling when people left Zam,
it is nice to hear what plans were going to be though.
it is nice to hear what plans were going to be though.
Agreed. The plot flowed really well, even when players left. It is extremely sad that not everyone made it to the end.
The idea of YPNR literally running on magic is a horrific twist, thats makes perfect sense. It’s the ultimate hypocrisy and is exactly how I’d imagine Lucidas. Kudos Zam.
By the way, what was in that capsule Jezejandra was trying to run off with? Also, was there a connection between Fridays magical evolution and Monday getting more and more independent, or was she simply a really smart AI?
I will see, even having not written my epilogue yet, i am very sad to end this. Honestly, i’d love to carry on. But I admit, all good things come to an end. Even if you wish they didn’t.
The idea of YPNR literally running on magic is a horrific twist, thats makes perfect sense. It’s the ultimate hypocrisy and is exactly how I’d imagine Lucidas. Kudos Zam.
By the way, what was in that capsule Jezejandra was trying to run off with? Also, was there a connection between Fridays magical evolution and Monday getting more and more independent, or was she simply a really smart AI?
I will see, even having not written my epilogue yet, i am very sad to end this. Honestly, i’d love to carry on. But I admit, all good things come to an end. Even if you wish they didn’t.
I sorta needed to stop GMing the campaign since my greatest strength in play-by-post is simultaneously my greatest weakness--I don't stop thinking about the campaign. I can build around problems but I'm constantly worried about those problems happening. And these campaigns have gone on for years and posts aren't daily. However, unlike STOMP, I've never considered Mey Hem as "mine" and more of belonging to the players. So, one of the reasons for the planned crash landing ending was I that was going to redraw the map as a way to give the campaign back to players due to the story possibilities of a grounded YPNR interacting with the rest of the setting.
But there's another problem with the campaign for me in that I grew out of love with Wanderlust as a RPG system. A lot of that is getting experience with other RPG systems that have better GM support. Particularly, examples and monster manuals. It's no secret that I don't roll dice for most enemy attacks but the reason for that is to lessen the liklihood of just pasting a player on accident on Round 1. And while the system theoretically has some of that built in with the Energy system, crits can sidestep it. Also, I stopped designing enemies around energy cost for ease of use. I don't hate Wanderlust at all but the devs themselves admitted that they never got to truly finish it.
Putting a pin in this because I'd like to come back to it later. For now, let just say I had a thought process for a character (and leader of a nation) whose name was a combination of Lucifer and Judas...
There was some Schrödinger's RPG Plot in play but it had a weapon in it. If she got it, she was going to start attacking and a true combat round would have started.
A lot of stuff with Friday, Monday, and Oracle was meant to tie back to the "Am I alive?" discussion and the overall theme of humanity. There wasn't a connection and in fact, Monday is probably closer to Oracle than Friday in achieving sapience. Oracle is an interesting wrinkle since she mostly doesn't care about this but Friday did talk with Oracle after the "Am I alive" discussion with Kage. There's an open question on if Oracle has emotions that's supposed to be just as open ended as the exact nature of how these three achieved sapience.
Before I write Patch's epilogue, I have questions regarding how YPNR goes forward from here. Do they continue to use mages for fuel, and if they don't, does that mean they switch to alternative fuel sources or just land somewhere? What does the post-campaign leadership structure look like and is there still some hostility to magic users? Is Monday still hanging out there?
While Lucidas and Jezejandra wasted a fair bit of it, YPNR has reserve power to run for long enough to figure out what to do afterwards. Elizilah would definitely be in charge but I'm not sure who would be next in line. Maybe Sue'zhan and Judeen are elevated in rank? Elizilah wouldn't use mages as batteries because how inhumane it is but would accept mages willing to cast magic as sort of electrical engineers and pay them. Though she would look into alternate power sources. The thing that would put them in contact with the ground would be restarting their agriculture so they could conserve power on food production in YPNR itself. Monday would stay in YPNR because Elizilah is in YPNR, though she would visit places Oracle has a network to. Most of the populace of YPNR is fearful of magic but Judeen was explicitly meant to be an example of how they could be accepting if shown that magic isn't is the danger but people using it for evil means. There still are hunters like Ronny and Palin who genuinely hate mages and would be loose ends but I never thought about that since that was supposed to be content for other people to hash out if they GMed a following campaign. I will say that with Elizilah at the helm, Correspondent 251 could be trusted with some tasks in her old role but I don't know how willing or desperate other characters would be to allow that.