The Blog of Roon

Renate finally did lose her temper with Aryk, confronting him with his poor judgment, unsteady temper, and unpredictability. They parted brass rags, Renate informing Aryk that she simply couldn’t trust him—but not for long, as Aryk’s angel Ricard quietly vanished to set up a test of character for Aryk.

Justifiably worried, Aryk went after him, and Renate went after Aryk, only to find the Church inviting Aryk to test himself against Kahan in Kahan’s own Demon World domain, the Red Palace. Offered the choice to go with him or stay behind, loyal Renate naturally went. To do otherwise would be to dishonor Godfrey’s hair-raising chase after her in her prologue, never mind what it would mean to Aryk.

Kahan did his level best to get under Aryk’s skin, by way of breaking Aryk down enough to stop him thinking. A representative sample:

Alan: “You’re here because the Church once saw promise in you, but now thinks that promise is running out. They think you’re an incorrigible loose cannon who can’t follow orders, has no fixed morality, and cheerfully reinterprets events to keep himself on the side of good no matter what happens.”
Alan: “They send people to me because they hope I’ll turn them to my side, thus giving them some opponents they can actually kill for a change.”
Alan: “I got wise to that centuries ago, though. I’m not convinced you’re Kahanite material. For one thing, you can’t rap.”
Aryk: “That’s…. I…. Fuck you!” Aryk balls up his fist.
Alan: “For another, you’re lousy with the comebacks.”

Renate called Aryk to order, whereupon Kahan started in on her. I think she gave as good as she got—little Rennie’s enviably hard to rattle in a social situation—but y’all can decide for yourselves:

Renate: “Aryk,” Renate says, calmly. “Language. And temper. Don’t prove him right.”
Alan: “Finally, you let women boss you around.”
Renate: “Mm. Terrible thing, that, indeed.”
Aryk: “Language, Rennie? Did you forget where we are?”
Renate: “I know where we are, Aryk. It’s a place where they want you to lose control. Think about that.”
Alan: “Just kidding,” Kahan says, laughing.
Alan: “This one’s a damn sight better than you in every category except the rapping.”
Alan: “We beings of Order are androgynous, did you know that? I just take on a male form and mannerisms because some time in the First Age, there got to be this stupid tradition about what men do and what women do.”
Alan: “Turned out, hitting things with big pointy rocks was a Man thing, so I ended up stuck this way.”
Renate: “How sad.”

I don’t know, but I suspect that Kahan’s wry compliment to Renate at Aryk’s expense was sincere, as far as it went. He definitely treated her with respect through the rest of the conversation. By his lights, she might well be a fairly desirable convert; she has definitely held to a strong ethic thus far, even when it’s cost her to do so. I think, though, that her ethics are too ambiguous, too difficult to articulate, too susceptible to constant re-evaluation to fit Kahan’s strict straitjackets. They aren’t well-suited, Renate and Kahan. Just as well.

Kahan turns out to be an unbridled individualist. I expect his faith is popular in Andragar, because they tend to measure everything by the individual also. (I hope Renate meets the Mute Lord, Dian Dan Shi, sometime. That’ll be an interesting conversation—assuming the Mute Lord knows sign language.) Renate has a far better and more nuanced sense of social context, social effort, and balancing individual and group needs; I shall have to figure out how to bring that into the action, because I myself think it’s an Andragarian weak spot. Perhaps some work on emergent behaviors…

Kahan also discussed heresy and schisms in the Church, and I plan to have Renate address that with Aryk. Heresy and schisms are disruptive, certainly, and they create confusion—but Renate differs from Kahan (or, at least, Kahan’s line to Aryk) in thinking them universally to be avoided. She in fact believes they are necessary to change, to adaptation, to growth—whereas Kahan the Uber-Lawful-Neutral, no doubt, considers them evidence of wishy-washy wobbling.

Perhaps schism and heresy aren’t the best change mechanisms the Church could conceivably come up with, but it’s what they’ve got, and rather than focusing on condemnation of the change mechanisms, she thinks Aryk should pay attention to the potential changes. We’ll see how that flies with him. (And I’ll see if we can’t turn Kahan’s stiff-necked changelessness against him. That should be possible.)

She’s also going to try to win Aryk back to the Church proper, which he’s rather down on at the moment. She may or may not succeed, but she thinks she needs to try; she now knows that Ricard, being intertwined with Aryk’s soul deeply enough to share his confusion, can’t really work on convincing him.

Aryk, notably, didn’t commit so much as a single bobble the entire rest of the conversation. He kept his temper, reiterated his faith, and resisted both Kahan’s casual insults and Kahan’s considered blandishments. Renate hasn’t had a chance to tell him so yet, but she is just wildly proud of him for how he handled himself.

The interview ended with the news that Rien had learned of their whereabouts and come hell-for-leather after them, only to be waylaid by his own particular demon enemy, Ghoster the trickster. As it turned out (the next session), Coris went with Rien, and Ghoster had a chamber of illusionary horrors ready for both of them—Aryk dead at Kahan’s hands, and Renate broken in spirit and permanently maimed.

Ghoster, however, overreached himself in his desire to see Rien strut his stuff; “Renate” focused her attention entirely on Rien, ignoring her lover Coris. (I, playing “Renate,” asked Alan whether Ghoster knew of Renate and Coris’s brand-new affair. He said no. So I played that up, as a clue.) Rien smelled a rat, Coris agreed, and the jig is up—until the real Renate and Aryk bust in next session.

She’s going to be ragingly furious. The lying whoreson, to use her likeness to torture people she loves! Aryk may have to hold her back for once, which will be an amusing change.

I think Monrroyo is about to wrap, unfortunately. It started off well, but it’s not dealing well with my scattered attention span (job-hunting is a cast-iron bitch), and I haven’t done a very good job at involving several players with the game.

I may be able to resuscitate it later, with some fresh blood and more work on my part to help the group pull together, but I don’t think this incarnation is going to last. Advice on plug-pulling etiquette would be helpful at this point…

I’m not calling it a failed experiment. I’m thrilled with the amount of inter-player drama we didn’t have (zero drama, in fact), and I got some very good writing out of a couple of people. But as new GMs will, I didn’t do the best work possible with what I was handed. So it goes.

Rennie and her pals have just fended off a fairly well-planned but otherwise inexpert kidnapping attempt on Rien. The deal is, a bunch of nobodies from nowhere are hunting Rien for (prophesied) reasons vague and very possibly nefarious—but it’s clear as the proverbial bell that Rien is not actually the one they want. The trick is going to be convincing them of that, preferably before they damage Renate’s pet Mage Knight.

Aryk abandoned a fourteen-year-old girl for whom he was specifically responsible in order to pitch in with the fight, which is about to earn him an epic telling-off from a horrified Renate. (I cleared this with Aryk’s player, of course, because I really don’t approve of drama.)

Coming up: the return of Dorothy Durai (which implicates Aryk as well as Renate this time), more happy-fun kidnapping attempts I shouldn’t wonder, Renate trying her sweet best to charm a Heaven Knight without going too far, Aryk growing the heck up finally (I dearly hope!), Rien coping with his jealous streak, and… possibly… a turning point in Renate’s life.