September Guided Quest Sign-up and Discussion

[Skie and Avery]

Welcome to September's Guided Quest! The Guided Quest is put in place for new characters to join an adventure to help kick-start your journey on Althanas! My name is Manda and I'll be your tour guide this month!

What can I expect from a Guided Quest?

An easy, fun environment in which you can focus on character development and establishing relationships with other players and characters! Every quest has clear beginnings and goals, and is a place where you can take your new character and let them shine.
Continuous moderator feedback through the quest. With each round of posting, the moderator leading the guided quest will offer insight, both publicly to the group through this thread or privately through PM. Also, as there is a specific moderator working with the quest, it is easy to ask any questions that may arise!
Learn more about the World of Althanas! Every month the Guided Quest will focus on a region or subregion and try to showcase the culture, history, and ecology of that area.


Requirements:

Upon signing up and entering the thread, your character must be level 0 (having less than 2,000 experience). Having participated in or completed another thread is just fine!
One character per player, please! While it is common and wonderful for members to have multiple characters that they write in, I ask that each player only submit one character per guided quest. This will allow as many players as possible to be able to participate.


September's Showcase Region is Scara Brae! Our adventure will land players on Neverscale Beach, wind through Brokenthorn Forest and up to Mountain-Tear Falls. Our story begins with a wealthy merchant who deals in antiquities having used advertisements to gather a band of interested parties (that would be you!) to go after fabled pirate treasure hidden in a cliff-face cavern behind the Falls. The reward for bringing back the treasure is lucrative - the merchant is rich in both coin and enchanted items. However, what could the cost of such an aquisition be, and what trials lurk in the dark shadows and deep caverns of Scara Brae?

Recruitment goes through today and tomorrow - our journey begins on September 1st. Note: Past September the 1st, more players may jump in, but only with permission from the moderator running the quest.

[Tourneymant]

I want to see the world Of Althanas before I leave to sleep.

[Anke/Varg]

I would very much like to register my interest in taking part.

I'd like to partake in the quest as Rouge, sans Leper, on the volition of the Scourge's interest in acquiring...shall we say, new acquisitions for it's political endeavours.

Should be a hoot!

[Elthas_Belthasar]

I'm game for this too.

[Luned]

Heck yeah, I'm in!

[Itera]

I'm in!

[Skie and Avery]

I'm really excited with the turnout we've got! I didn't expect to have five people hop in in the first 12 hours, ha ha. I think I'm going to continue registration to two more people. I fear more than seven participants will make for a very bogged down thread. Upon thinking further about limitations that a large thread like this carries with it, I do have some new rules for this that I would like to make clear now.

48 hour posting rotation - When I make a post, that will signify a new round of posts. I will post again in 48 hours. This is to ensure that the story stays moving along and that the group is not waiting days or weeks for all participants to post. If someone misses three consecutive posting rounds, they will be written out of the quest at the beginning of the 4th. They may re-enter by contacting the moderator running the quest. That gives everyone a once a week minimum to post in order to stay active in the quest. I feel that this rule is necessary to keep a large-member quest like this moving along with as little frustration as possible.

Therefore, there is no posting order. So don't feel that you can't post if someone hasn't posted yet just because they posted before you in a previous round.

If you know that you're going to have to take a break from posting and are afraid of being written out, let me know beforehand and we can work something out to keep your character with the group until you can return.

By the way, to all participants, you can always feel free to contact me via PM or through my AIM - countingcrowds. If we do hit that seven member cut off tonight, we will begin the thread a day early. :)

[Caelan Bolish]

I am game to join.

[black shadow]

I'll take spot 7

[Skie and Avery]

Fantastic! Alright my pets, I will be posting our thread tomorrow, along with the link here. Please feel free to use this thread to discuss strategies and ideas amongst yourselves as well. :)

[SirArtemis]

Are you going to write one thread with 7 authors or are you likely to break it up into parallel projects? 7 In one seems heavy but it's your call obviously.

[Skie and Avery]

This is actually something that Zook and I have been talking about most of the day when I told him I was cutting it off at seven and he said, "Seven? I'm not judging that monster." Ha ha. I'd really like to keep it to one thread, but I think with all the interest that this month that won't be happening.

As such I'll be splitting you into 2 groups, one group of 3 and 1 group of 4, with two quests for this month. Both quests are going to be located in and showcasing Scara Brae. After the quests are set up, I'll be posting here with the group assignments.

[Skie and Avery]

Our threads are up and ready for the first round of posting:

For Group A: Treasure Troved

Luned
Anke/Varg
Caelan Bolish
Itera

Your thread can be found here (http://www.althanas.com/world/showthread.php?24697-September-Guided-Quest-A-Treasure-Troved&p=200894#post200894).

For Group B: All the Queen's Horses

Tourneymant
Elthas_Belthasar
black shadow

Your thread can be found here (http://www.althanas.com/world/showthread.php?24698-September-Guided-Quest-B-All-the-Queen-s-Horses&p=200895#post200895).

Have fun, jump in and get your characters introduced and I'll see you lovelies in 48 hours. ;) By the way, on top of the no posting order, if you feel that writing another post (without double posting) is warranted, by all means go ahead. We're keeping this casual and writing fantastic threads. As always, if you have questions feel free to post them here, PM me, or IM me under the username crowdcounter.

[Elthas_Belthasar]

Let's make this a good one! I have already posted and so did a teammate. I took the liberty of having the key so I figured it would get the ball rolling. Anyway, any of you guys wanna hit me up, I have AIM. I am Creno05051978 so just send a message my way. We can plan things out and work it from there.

[Skie and Avery]

Sorry I haven't been around much today. I managed to get sick and all I've been doing is sleeping. :(

Group B, I know I said no posting order, but could I request that you guys wait for black shadow before progressing the thread too much? I would also like to note that if you guys get in another round of posting before I wake up, there should be a very heavy and active guard presence to contend with before you are actually able to leave the castle grounds, including the presence of mounted guardsmen.

[Skie and Avery]

Double posting like a boss! Group A, I'd really like to see everyone get their intros in before the next round of posting to avoid some "hey we're at the cottage, and suddenly this guy shows up!" confusions. :)

Group B, something I'd like to point out here because I feel it's something you can all work on as a group is thread timing. Hopefully everyone can find this information useful, but I'm going to use Group B as my example. ;)

We should be thinking about travel time and travel thoroughfares when we post. In the thread, it was stated that the characters started off from the shack and then the next thing you know, they're at the castle. Black shadow did talk about using flight through the trees to travel, but you guys are on foot. There's going to be a period of travel between the lake that's nestled in the forest and the castle. The teamwork here was non-existent - although I will say that I was happy to see that Elthas mentioned that in character and also that Tourneymant gave a reason to split up. You still had an entire walk while forest gave way to cultivated land, buildings arose and the city began to make an appearance with the castle in which to think about your strategy, expand on your characters, and even start laying the foundation for your heist.

This isn't to say that you have to write every step. There are things that you don't need to write because it's assumed they happen. The majority of your character's lives will never be written - the majority of travel, eating, drinking, sleeping, pooping. Ha ha. However, you have to understand that going from forest to the midst of the castle so suddenly is very jarring. We also have this problem when going into the castle, there is no description of running down hallways, the sneak and battle from the front of the castle to the back stables is short, as well as the escape. Everything is hurried, losing what grip on tension and climax that we had.

Again, these are just suggestions, something to keep in mind. Every post, you should be mindful of the time that you take up in character with your writing. When you're building suspense, think in term of dramatic flair, and lots of description that heighten your reader's senses. In high action, you want to focus on writing about three to five seconds worth of action at a time. This isn't to say only to write about three to five sentences. You can fit a lot of description and character into those seconds. Moving through an entire fight with an opponent who is supposed to be skilled in the space of a few paragraphs or taking out a handful of enemies in the same time frame is too fast. However, spending four paragraphs on a single sword swipe is too slow. Finding balance will come with time, but keeping in mind where you are in the story and what you want to achieve with the flow of your thread will come in incredibly handy. Anywho. I probably rambled, sorry! I hope you found it helpful.

[Elthas_Belthasar]

Sorry for my delays gang. I been a little busy IRL of late. But I am able to finish posting now. I just finished my post so hopefully things can pick up again. Apologies for my delays with the post. Also, as an FYI, I edited out the word counts of my posts :D . The Word Counts I keep track of as a personal thing, but I know it's not needed on Althy. Anyway gang let's get this show on the road.

[Skie and Avery]

Sorry Elthas, I've been away for school reasons, though I'm back now. I'll be making my posts tomorrow and we'll continue on our way!

[Elthas_Belthasar]

Yeah its cool real life always comes first.

I can post tonight a lot so just let me know what's up on AIM :D .