Molten Aether FFRP

Pushing the Investigation

We are looking for 2-4 players to participate in a 2-3 hour long session that will be scheduled in about 2-3 weeks from now, to allow me time to finish with the semester. We will be playing off of non-combat areas of mental illness, classic horror concepts, and a much darker universe than we’ve been going with before.

So the introductory thread for the Angelic Sins setting was supposed to have been over and done with years ago. However, we have been having trouble getting players to consistently want to participate. We’ve tried to do it on the forum and such since times don’t like to add up so people can do things. However, this is a plot that I’d like to finish. At this time, I’ve put out a call for players to volunteer for an as-yet-unscheduled event in Angelic Sins.

If all participants are able, we can arrange for the session to last longer, but right now I’m looking at doing several short sessions that deal specifically with this in an episodic kind of way. Rather than trying pack an TV style episode of content into the game, these will focus on one or maybe two concepts important to the whole plot, closer to a small MMORPG Quest style of episode.

If anyone knows any players who may which to participate who may not be on the server, please invite them and see if we can build a following.

Attack on Mars Devastates Federation

Some are saying the last safe haven for synthetics could be the Serenity Concord. The Concord has issued a statement saying that they are not considering any legislation against synthetic lives at this time, certainly will not act without more information about the causes for and details of the attack on Mars. The ALFRE act of 2384 is now the only legislation in known space to protect the rights of artificial life forms.

Yesterday during celebrations of First Contact Day, an apparent terrorist attack against the Federation colony on Mars occurred. Few details are as yet known, but what is known is that synthetic workers played and instrumental part in the attack. Any reasons for why this might have occurred are unclear at this time. Synthetic workers deactivated the planetary deflector shields and turned the defensive satellites against the surface in orbital bombardment. Casualty reports are still coming in but early reports estimate over 90,000 dead in the attack.

A rescue armada being constructed by Starfleet to assist in the evacuation of Romulus before the Romulan sun is predicted to go super nova was also attacked and destroyed along with the entire shipyards. The surface of the planet has been devastated and early reports suggest it could take decades to properly rebuild. It is unclear if the Federation will choose to rebuild its rescue fleet, though Admiral Jean Luc Picard has stated the devastating attack has nothing to do with the mission to save the Romulan people from destruction.

The Federation Council held an emergency meeting this morning and have issued a preliminary ban on synthetic research and development. Admiral Picard could not be reached for comment. Such an act could have unimaginable consequences for any synthetic life forms currently living or working in Federation space. It is known that since the android known as Data was discovered on Omicron Theta that many have been fighting for synthetic rights. The events of the past 24 hours are sure to have a lasting impact on the lives of any artificial beings currently in Federation territory.

Changes Made

While there were some reservations about the changes to be made, I still believe we can increase our total player count and activity across the 3 settings by splitting them across different servers. Over the last week or so, that is what we’ve done. All 3 servers are now operational and set up. All content on the original Molten Aether server has been configured to be archived and read-only until such time as we feel comfortable deleting it.

The server Molten Aether will remain online and be a centralized hub for all the settings / servers. All the OOC channels are intact and while the roles have been heavily simplified, it maintains the same idea of who can get where. The “Founders” role will also now contain those who run additional servers as well as those who have contributed a lot to the setting, since those are also mostly the same thing.

Those who run other servers will be granted access to the #staff channel on Molten Aether. I have also simplified our bot experience, we have 3 core bots on most of the servers, and a few more on Molten Aether itself. The main addition is the bot called Alyssa, which is an instance of Nadeko Bot that I host myself. If anyone is interested, it is open source and pretty easy to configure. The primary reason for this bot is that it provides some “global” options for when running a self-hosted version on multiple servers, as such we have use of the following global commands:

.start
.end
.pause
.resume
.links
.servers

These commands replace the Dyno commands which were similar. In addition, on Blazing Umbra there is the command .welcomekit which gives links and a description of a welcome kit for new arrivals to the station. More commands will be forthcoming as they are needed.

The server invites can be displayed with the .servers command for all of the Molten Aether servers. Soon, I will begin posting advertisement links to the Portal and we’re already listed on Dynobot’s site for all the servers. The hope is that we will attract people for each setting who may or may not want to do other settings and each server gain increased membership that way.

Proposal for Server Changes

I have considered server changes for a while now. Everyone knows that the server has gone through many iterations. For a good while now I have seriously considered doing something we did previously… That is to go back to having a server for each setting. Not only that, I would like to allow those people who have starships to have their own servers for their ships and thus allowing people to play around more with time-fudge (as is kind of becoming a term in my brain) so that people could more easily break away from the constraints of being all on the same server at the same time.

At this time, the changes outlined here are a proposal awaiting commentary from the group. If no commentary is given, we will proceed with making the necessary changes, otherwise consider this post an engraved invitation to comment and / or complain about these ideas. I am especially interested in peoples concerns both with how we do things now (which feels excessively complicated at times to manage) and how I am proposing to do things in the future (which might also feel excessively complicated to manage to some). I would like any and all constructive commentary.

Setting Czars

I have decided that each setting is going to get its own “Czar” who will be in charge of said setting in its entirety, except for accepting some co-input from myself when and if it became necessary to do so. Though the intention is for whoever is in charge of that setting to have a server dedicated to that setting where they are in charge of character approvals, story line choices, and even setting / background choices.

Reality Czars

Along those same lines, since we have Janus Gate in operation, I would like to give people the opportunity to (again on different servers) run a linked-reality with even more control unto themselves. This is the framework I imagine for servers to partner with ours. A prime example is a pure Star Wars, Halo, or Troy Rising universe along with other customs (including Cyber Star’s custom setting if he wishes, or Winter’s setting if she wants). Within each of our 3 settings we have methods of traversing realities and such partnerships would come with a “full faith and credit” kind of clause. This would allow approved characters, ships, and technologies / concepts from one reality to traverse to another reality unchecked so long as it has been previously approved in one of our servers.

Reference Material / Game Mechanics

I have always found participation points to be an important part of any setup. Thus, servers joined together in this way would need a bot (similar to Tatsumaki in this feature) to accumulate points and displayer server-only points and network-wide (as I think we could reasonably call a set of servers a network) points. We would still all share the same Wiki (though reality-specific servers would get the choice to reference their own Wiki should one exist).

The in-game mechanic of the Janus gate or even a singular Stargate works for me for transit between realities within Blazing Umbra, and magical solutions in the other 3 settings, the Umbral Passages / Drochaid stones in Embers of Soteria along with generalized magical spells and such in a more advanced world such as is in Angelic Sins.

Since Discourse (our Forum solution) and WordPress (thus, duh) have an extensive capacity to be customized and provide a unified front for all things, those people who are running external servers could use the forum and/or word press to unify announcements and the like. Some adjustments would need to be made, in all likelihood, in dealing with cross-posting and such but that all can be dealt with on the technical side at a later date.

What and Why?

My life is quickly getting more complicated and my personal life is blooming out into something I am really enjoying. I don’t want to give up Molten Aether nor any of its sub-settings but I am becoming too busy to properly manage it (and I didn’t really have time before to do all 3). Also a lot of other people have a lot of other ideas that are far better than mine when dealing with things like Fantasy and Modern Horror and even SciFi that isn’t Star Trek and Stargate (which I know an obscene amount about). Doing it this way allows people to be creative and benefit from our combined creative talent which is, well I think it is an impressive amount of creativity we have here.

Taking Applications

So what is going to follow is going to be the draft application for doing a partner server to ours:

Server Name:
Link:
Admin:
Description:
This should be a paragraph or 2 at least.
Base Universe:
If the reality / universe is based on an existing one (such as Babylon 5, Star Wars, Star Trek, Firefly, Halo, Troy Rising) or anything that we can look up specifically as the base for the setting, it would go here include existing resources for if an original setting is being used here as well.
Special Information:
Anything we need to know about the in-universe game play and rules, be as detailed as possible if there is anything unusual outside the rules outlined on the Molten Aether Wiki that needs to be considered.
Additional Notes:
Anything else we need to know.

Application Terms and Conditions

These terms and conditions apply to every partnered server, of any type, which is added to Molten Aether. All partner servers should aspire to the same overall feel, our goal is to create a network of servers to cater to the creative desires of everyone who may wish to join and support those people in becoming better role players, writers, and such.

Full Faith and Credit

Any and all characters approved on any individual server are valid for every server within Molten Aether and its subsidiary servers and our character creation guidelines must be met as outlined here. All servers must follow the rules of conduct as outlined here, at a bare minimum, this does not mean that individual servers cannot have more strict rules of play so long as they do not violate the rules specified. Interpretation of rules should be as uniform as possible, but server admins do retain the ability to interpret the rules as they see fit while minimizing conflicts with other servers.

Moderators vs. Administrators

Moderators are defined as those who work within a server to assist in role play, producing plots and stories, going over applications, and enforcing the rules of an individual server. Administrators are defined as those who administer the server’s framework, channels, bots, roles, and other such things. Administrators also, under this plan, will assist in unifying all the servers in the network should some kind of conflict arise.

Admin Sharing

While each server will have its own administrators moderation privileges will be extended to administrators from the other servers. This does not have to include moderators getting similar privileges on all servers. However, anyone who is an Admin on one of our core servers (currently defined as SysOp we currently have on Molten Aether) will be expected to be administrators on subsequent servers unless there is sufficient reason not to. Moderators can also be shared, but it is not required and individual server owners have the final say on if a moderator of a partnered server is allowed to be moderator on their server.

Comments

In addition to our normal comments being on the forum, there is a Google form for extended comments and voting for these changes.

Time and Time Again

I’ve always told everyone that real life comes first but I never had much of a real life to contend with before. I can’t say that I’m familiar with balancing my time the way I have had to recently. Along that vein I’m not able to keep up with my obligations as the head of the various story lines that we have going on. As such, I am officially handing the reigns for all ongoing / upcoming story lines to our SysOps, @jumpingscript and @ks0908 who will coordinate with our Moderators and Founders in order to get our role play back into swing. I will likely give advise and ideas, the primary approval and focus for RP will be our collective Staff.

First off I’d like to apologize to everyone for my limited time over the last few months. School this semester has been brutal and especially demanding on my time, I’m spending roughly 70 or so hours a week on classes, class requirements (in class room experience), homework, and actual work (paychecks are nice). Even before my personal life got more complicated, the demands on my time were significant. As most of you know I have also become involved with someone, this person has quickly become very special to me and thus most of my free time (what little we can line up together) goes to her.

What to do about unfinished stories…

We have many unfinished and ongoing story lines, what I have documented is all contained in the following OneNote Notebook, this link is a view-only link and shows everything I have gathered that has yet to be posted for the game. I know a lot of people don’t care for Microsoft products but OneNote is entirely free, has apps for Android, Windows Phone, iOS, Windows, Mac, and web. The server staff has been given an editable link to allow them to make changes to all notes and read all content.

For those players who are in RP-Lock with my characters and given storylines. Overall, we can put those RPs on hold and continue them later (likely after my semester ends) when I have more time. The time-frame on that is mid-May, since finals week is the end of April / start of May. For anyone with specific concerns on how to deal with ongoing storyline issues due to my absence, I encourage you to contact me directly and we can work out specifics of how to deal with it. A few people I am going to contact privately myself.

For those wondering some of the details for things; I have compiled a rough list of who is where of the important figures…

Blazing Umbra

Sal D’Amico has been recalled to Markab Prime to oversee Solas Tempus operations from HQ.
Asher / Rosary have been ordered to stay on ready-alert during the Zone exploration from the Continuum in orbit and monitoring the situations / providing intel.
Lance Thomas is still listed as deceased, overall the general population does not know anything different and his passing has been mourned slowly and operations have really gotten back to normal. There are rumors throughout the station and abroad that he is still alive, most of these focus on some urgent mission that is revealed would do some horrible thing, the horrible things varies of course. Of course the core of our playable characters within Blue Team of Solas Tempus know the truth, that he is alive and being searched for.
Drem Confuscho has been assigned to assist with the Solerian people at the bottom of the Soterian ocean to rebuild their society. The USS Drakon has been largely left to Emily Damion to command.
The STV Galatine is commanded commanded by Siv Quinn who has been promoted to Admiral and made the head of Blue Team / Temporal Operations. The Galatine has been placed on a classified mission and has not been seen in the Schatten System in some time, neither has Siv.
Amber Cross herself is still in the system and active, she can be played as an NPC if necessary by staff but please read up on her character before playing her.

Command Structure in Schatten System

Nimbus Station remains the command outpost for the system and oversees all operations within the system under its current command structure.
The Civilian Government still maintains its primary offices on Nimbus Station for the time being, Andrea Maddox is a Human (female) and is Governor of the system while a Romulan (female) is the Senator of the system. These are both NPC’s so they can be played by anyone.
Sal D’Amico is largely unable to be reached at any given time, but if his orders are needed they probably take a few days to a week (real time) to get as the players in question will have to drop me a line and I can write up orders or some such. He does have a secretary and aids who can be NPC’d if necessary — I’ll leave any names up to everyone playing.

Angelic Sins

This is much easier to untangle. Lance Thomas himself has been heavily reprimanded for his behavior and for the moment is mostly working out of the Ad Undas base near Los Angeles and is investigating the supernatural occurrences that happened recently, he is essentially unreachable. My other characters there are just not present right going on other jobs, in the case of Trevor Arnell he is most likely unavailable because of having just gotten married and now has to learn the history and culture of Erica Larsson who is not human and has a significant amount of stuff that Trevor has to learn.

I will leave it up to the staff and players about the murder mystery that has been going on for a really long time, notes on that should be in the notebook linked above.

Embers of Soteria

The main story here should hold but can be used. Notes on the story are in the above mentioned notebook. Lisa Thomson herself has been leading the Souls Templar across the countryside seeking to defend the kingdoms against the horrors that are starting to come through the veil as the Peace of Ages dissolves. This plot element will remain static for the time being and can also be used by players as needed to conflicts, storylines and anything else.

Good People, Good Writers

We have a lot of good people here and good writers. I hope that everyone can continue to role play and have fun even when I’m not around. Please, create new stories, have fun, alter things, nothing would please me more than having to learn new lore and new things that happened. Don’t be afraid to break things, don’t be afraid that I’m not going to approve, run it past the staff and so long as they give the OK, then you have my blessing.

I’ll be around to chat and such periodically and I might RP now and again.

Until then. Happy plotting.

Homicide on the Drakon, Captain on Leave

On January 1st, 2385, Drem Confoscho took leave from her duties after the incident involving her newlywed husband, Fleet Admiral Lance Thomas. She was rarely seen in public within the past month and most expect she’s been staying home, although nobody answers the door.

A month after her leave, on February 11th, at 1200 hour’s, a splice was reported on the USS Drakon in the transporter room. Michaela Graeson, a close friend of Drem Confoscho. Graeson was on break in the transporter room talking to Captain Confuscho and the Second in Command of the Solerian security when she was shot nine times in the chest before being chased down by Drem Confoscho herself. Unfortunately, Graeson passed away as she was going into surgery. Security camera footage has not been released due, officials with Solas Tempus Security cites privacy concerns.

The suspect has since now been detained and is under heavy surveillance until further notice. More news will be given out as the situation unfolds.

Souls Templar Regroups

There is talk that the cataclysm is a result of the Mistress’s liaison with a demonic creature, which has rendered her unholy.

The Souls Templar have begun to regroup after the insanity brought forth from the simultaneous eruptions of four peeks bordering the valley where the Rose Palace was located. What is clear is that they have suffered an incredible number of losses. What is unclear yet, however, is why there were not more losses. The palace was entirely covered in the molten rock from the bowels of Elder Soteria. There is much talk throughout the 10 Kingdoms that such an events indicates the Old Gods are upset with the Templar in some way. The Grand Mistress of the Templar has not indicated how so many did survive, tales from within the palace when the eruptions happened tell that most were unable to get out fast enough, those outside were killed instantly. The only thing to protect the inside were powerful wards of protection put on the palace long ago. The vast majority of those from the palace suffocated as the air ran too thin.

The Grand Mistress still has not identified the creature which rescued so many of them;While we are of course grateful to the gracious help provided us, if they wished to be known to the public, surely it is clear they would have made themselves known. I myself did speak to them in person, however, I feel that after being done such an honor it would be the height of treachery to speak of them with such familiarity without knowing why they wished to not be known. Rest assured we give this brave soul thanks for the efforts which has saved so many, even in the light of such loss, the Gods provide hope.
Grand Mistress Lisa Thompson

Those close to the Mistress report that she may have even known this person for some time, described as part demon and part woman. There is talk that the cataclysm is a result of the Mistress’s liaison with a demonic creature, which has rendered her unholy. Growing unrest among the monarchs at such an idea has driven some to wonder if a woman is really the best choice to lead the group during such troubling times.

Salvage Begins in Los Angeles

In Los Angels, while the US Government has repeatedly stated that it believes a natural gas pocket was breeched during routine construction of an underground bunker facility, there are serious questions that have yet to be answered. Government officials have been unresponsive to further inquiries, however, first responders were finally allowed on scene to the site of the desert explosions which took place recently just outside the city. So far, no survivors have been found, the bodies recovered have been burned beyond recognition.

On site details are sketchy and the first responders have only been allowed to investigate the areas of the first basement level with other levels closed, supposedly for decontamination. It is unclear at this point how deep the facility goes, military personnel have been bringing out bodies in various states of being burned, though all of them are burned so bad that dental records will have to be used for identification.

Anomalous Effects

The anomalous effects in Los Angeles County that accompanied the explosion in the desert also appear to have abated, though it is estimated over 100 supernaturals or those with supernatural abilities were injured or killed during the unexplained event. Investigators from the local government who deal with supernatural events have begun to look into possible explanations, but so far have found nothing.

Unexplained Deaths

Within hours of the explosion that ripped through desert tonight, supernatural entities have reported deaths as they fleet the city, unable to call upon their abilities. It seems the explosion has caused a swath of some 50 miles around the site to become some kind of area of exclusion to supernatural abilities, including magic and psionics. Creatures who rely on their supernatural abilities have scant time to leave as the effects begin to worsen over time. Undead creatures are the most susceptible as their supernatural nature keeps them alive.

Older and more powerful supernaturals seem to have more time, however, the exodus of the Los Angeles area continues, without access to their abilities many are scrambling to find conventional means of transportation.

Cataclysmic Eruption at Rose Palace

The Rose Palace were the keepers of the Peace of Ages and without them it is feared the great war which tore apart the world may begin anew, and restore Elder Soteria to the smoldering ruins from before the Ageless Ones came.

While the exact reasons for this are unknown, the Rose Palace has been engulfed in fire and molten rock as the mountains surrounding it has erupted, casting fire into the skies and burning rock down the slopes of the mountain. At the end of this last evening, the palace itself has been entirely enveloped in brimstone and molten lava. It is unknown if anyone escaped, but wizards have been trying to contact the Palace via the Airgid Drochaid though they fear that the palace has been destroyed or the stone shattered as no connection has been possible. Knights from the 10 Kingdoms have been dispatched to the Rose Palace in accordance with the Peace of Ages, they should arrive in a matter of days.

In the nearby towns on the night of the eruptions, many townsfolk described the heavens opening up and the Gods shooting blue lightening down from clear skies into the mountains. Though no one closer than 200 miles away has come forward, though many advisors and monarchs have dispatched people to gather information and see how bad the damage is. The Rose Palace were the keepers of the Peace of Ages and without them it is feared the great war which tore apart the world may begin anew, and restore Elder Soteria to the smoldering ruins from before the Ageless Ones came.

Members of the Souls Templar who were on assignment have been released from their charges by the monarchs they reside in, and are set to gather in the mountains at the Ruins of Wulfre Keep, not far from the Rose Palace itself, though given the old ruins location in the mountains, it may not be possible to meet there. If this is the case, it has been said that they will meet at the town of Rawold.

If the Souls Templar and the Rose Palace have been gutted, all the realms may be in dire trouble and the Peace of Ages is likely to be broken. After that, all out war is likely to follow.