Welcome to Gaia! ::

I'm up for it. ^^

Alright, I've now received a response from everyone involved, and the conclusion is much as I had expected. James is still backing out, but everyone else is still interested. Unfortunately, as some of you may have noticed in other threads, Kris won't have internet access for a while, so the roleplay won't really begin in earnest until she returns. However, we left off very close to the point at which I had planned on writing out James' character, and since Kris' character has already settled in to rest, we'll be continuing the remainder of the day until she gets back. Which means those few whose character is still up need to put it to rest, or post its actions throughout the afternoon if you for whatever reason decide it won't rest. Once we're through that, James and I will set to writing him out. With any luck, Kris'll be back by time we finish.
In any case, we left off on Josh's turn. So, you're up.

As an added bonus, I have an addition to the opening post. Not the first entry, but the one that introduces Adustes. Think of it as a (very late) prologue. It's set up as a quote, to simplify distinguishing the new part from the old.

James' character has now been written out. And with my post for Adustes, we've arrived at the following night. Alex and Kris, you two are up to post, and it will be Josh's turn after that.
To everyone who is still playing, when your character awakes, he/she will feel sleep-dazed, as if regaining consciousness after being drugged. (That's not quite what happened, but the result is about the same.) And you all should share Adustes' unexplained apprehension over the campsite, though not quite as keenly as he felt it.

Oh, right. I forgot the half-dragon's sleep immunity was different from the elf's... Yes, Matasoga and Furian are excluded from that.

Zac has returned to Gaia and the RP. Provided that he checks in often enough to post when his turn comes up, he will be retaking his spot.

But there is still one open spot, if anybody is interested in joining.

...So. I'm thinking I may cancel Apotheosis.
We're not making any progress beyond a post or two, once every several weeks, or with a month or two in between. As far as why our pace is so slow... it looks like one of the players won't be coming around Gaia anymore; and another, I imagine, is being kept over-busy with schoolwork. It seems like the easy solution would be to simply cut them out so the rest of us can continue, but that would have its issues as well. The most obvious of which being that the remainder of us would be left with a small, severely unbalanced party. A rogue and two spellcasters (one of whom bearing a hefty level adjustment) will have a lot of trouble just surviving what I had planned for us, and would only leave Apotheosis to deal with the same problems MRP faces. And the lack of interest from prospective new players means never rounding out the party.
More than that, I've realized I came to rely on Zac's character to keep the game going, quite a lot more than I should have. Of course, a melee combatant is important during encounters, and at least one of the high-powered sort that Zac often plays would have become instrumental to the party's success and survival later on in the story. But Furian especially has held my interest since his conception (for reasons I'll leave unsaid, for now). I found numerous ways to tie him, as well as Adustes, into the plot I had laid out, and wasted no time in developing these ideas to the point of becoming more interested in relating the characters' story, and the overarching plot became secondary. Which, really is a good thing. Or, would have been, except that I can't seem to do the same for the rest of the party. Writing out Furian means cutting out so much of the ideas I'd come up with, that what's left seems very little, and not nearly as interesting.
But the biggest difficulty I'm having is, I don't know how to hook the rest of you into the plot. Even if everyone were to log into Gaia everyday, and post in a timely manner, this would prove just as great an obstacle. Because I can't see any reason for any of your characters to get involved, beyond this first arc. I see no reason they would ever want to involve themselves in any way, nor can I see any means of coercion being enough to push them in the right direction. Especially not without giving everything away.

In any case, I haven't reached a final decision yet, so the topic is up for discussion. I welcome any concerns, questions, and comments you guys might have.
I should note, however, that I don't currently intend to allow Apotheosis to die off completely. If it is canceled here, chances are pretty high that, sometime after my return to Pittsburgh, I'll take it offline and restart it as a regular D&D game.
If I do cancel it, I'll be starting a new roleplay in this subforum, provided it gets interest from enough players. I've learned a bit about GMing since starting this game, and I'm hoping that a new approach will keep us from the same difficulties Apotheosis encountered.

Clovis or Vivek?
Yeah, I figured out of anybody who played, it'd be Zac's character who'd always stick around. :


Those had all occurred to me, as well as a couple other things. Yet even on as large a scale as I was considering, I think his sense of self-preservation would get the better of him.

Oh, I forgot to answer your question.
I meant Vivek. I didn't run the game with Clovis.
I only hated Vivek at the beginning. I mean after he became a ghoul with the Far Realm permanently impressed upon his being and was scarred (both physically and emotionally) well beyond the point of disfiguration, I got to like him a lot better... But Clovis hasn't had to make many difficult decisions and is the same humorless a** that he always was.