Cavern Quest : The City That Never Sees The Sun

[Biigoh]

[X] Magocracy : Rule by mages. Anyone with sufficient magic talent and training may vote on issues.
[X] Enchantment Hall : A dedicated facility for the local mages that improve their ability to enchant the gear of themselves and other heroes when requested. Would make a small profit for the town from rental fees as well.

 

[Redon]

[X] Magocracy : Rule by mages. Anyone with sufficient magic talent and training may vote on issues.
[X] Enchantment Hall : A dedicated facility for the local mages that improve their ability to enchant the gear of themselves and other heroes when requested. Would make a small profit for the town from rental fees as well.

 

[Pipeman]

Stuff that was posted in the chat a while ago:

(11:01:59 AM) Happerry: While I'm unable to get myself to lay down, have some crunch from the view of you as a Player Character Hero in Cavern Quest and stuff you get from choices.
(11:01:59 AM) Happerry: Delver's Guild : Unlocks the Bestiary Menu and prefills it with most common enemies and some uncommons.
(11:01:59 AM) Happerry: Hall of Blades : Increases the Max Party size and makes it easier to find party members of classes you want (Argh, not another rogue!)
(11:01:59 AM) Happerry: Champion's Hall : Increases max level cap, and unlock some new high level quests.
(11:01:59 AM) Happerry: Enchantment Hall : Allows for basic item enchanting (Temporary version) and the construction of low level magic items. (Misc Slot Type)
(11:02:26 AM) Happerry: This being from the ground level adventuer view, and not the city builder view, of course.
(11:03:47 AM) Happerry: Oh, right, and the Hall of Blades allows for more random low level quests to be on the hob board
(11:03:50 AM) Happerry: job board/
(11:04:09 AM) Happerry: you know, the basic chore of killing giant rats in the garden type quest.
(11:04:59 AM) Happerry: (Which, while not touching the frequency for such directly, does give the rare ones of that type more chances to turn up.)
(11:05:55 AM) Pipeman: Still preferring the hall of blades.
(11:06:07 AM) Pipeman: I'd rather have more adventurers to go around.
(11:06:19 AM) Happerry: just spelling things out.
(11:06:29 AM) Pipeman: Understood that.
(11:06:37 AM) Pipeman: Is interesting.
(11:07:08 AM) Happerry: (Also, at least one group of adventurers killed a vampire by luring him into the city and sunlighting him. Including despairing scream of "But we're undergrouuuund...")
(11:08:30 AM) Happerry: Theirs a 'metagame' of adventuring going on underneath the city building view as the game goes on. Be glad the epic quest plotlines haven't been triggered yet...
(11:09:24 AM) Happerry: (Well, adventuring as if this was a MMORPG where Shopkeeping and stuff was also perfectly valid, so theirs an economy too and such. Improve the cities to let the players do more things for said cities...)
(11:10:22 AM) Pipeman: Silly vampires.
(11:10:57 AM) Pipeman: Wizards don't care about things like that.
(11:14:30 AM) Happerry: The classes currently available are Fighter, Mage, Rogue, Priest as the basic classes, with the Cartographer's guild unlocking rangers, Cointown unlocking the Fighter/Rogue class of Skirmisher with their mercenary guild, Midway allowing Monks with their new religion order, and the Iron Guard Prestige class showing up in Tibero's Castle.
(11:15:45 AM) Happerry: and a varity of economy focused low level stuff I don't feel like paying enough attention to make up.
(11:21:03 AM) Happerry: (And Midway is highly likely to break out the Fu Ro Dah/Dragon Speaker monk prestige class sometime soon, as fair warning)

Click to shrink...

 

[Vindictus]

(11:21:03 AM) Happerry: (And Midway is highly likely to break out the Fu Ro Dah/Dragon Speaker monk prestige class sometime soon, as fair warning)

Click to shrink...

WE COULD HAVE HAD THE THU'UM?

 

[Happerry]

WE COULD HAVE HAD THE THU'UM?

Click to shrink...

Well, what else do you expect a cult of Dragon Worshipers would be using? 8)

If you had chosen the bible thumpers, there would have been a mini-vote where you choose what kind, and if you'd voted for the dragon cult then...

 

[Latewave]

This space is for buffering so Happerry can update.

 

[Happerry]

[X] Magocracy and Enchantment Hall

And as time goes on and the arguments continue, the mages take a firm lead, by means of community service. Monster in the garden? A mage will burn it out. Need some help fixing a wall? Someone has a spell for that. Someone broke into your house and robbed you? Hey, look, it's a scrying expert!

Such is the goodwill and favor they have earned, they only end up needing to set a few people on fire when it becomes plain that they are the ones in control of the city. And with the new Enchantment Hall, the benefits to the city only increases, as now the mages have started adding minor beneficial enchanted items to the infrastructure at a rate that actually offers a noticeable improvement. While the low hanging fruits they are currently working on will probably all be picked soon enough, for now it gives the town a minor but distinct increase in local morale...

As well, the adventurers flocking to the city are now coming in even greater numbers, as while Firepoint offers the most superior equipment, only in Citadel can they cheaply and easily get such weapons enchanted, even if such enchantments are only lasting about a month at the current level of skill and facilities. This advantage is offering a noticeable increase to heroes survival rate in bad situations.

Meanwhile, the new day night cycle is proving to be quite worthwhile, as actual farms are now being created around the cities limits, allowing for crops such as wheat and corn which can not be found anywhere else, granting the city a Luxury Food Trade Good, increasing revenue and drawing more caravans to the city.

Of course, with more traders and more food, monsters too are being drawn to the city, and a distinct rise in monster attacks have been recorded over the last few years, drawing closer and closer to a city. The local City Guard, having no great effort put into increasing their numbers or training them, are not enough to withstand this greater number of attacks, and so far only the local heroes have kept disaster from striking.. a situation which will not last forever, you are sure.

In better news, with the Magocracy having taken official control over the city, a new Guildhouse is being constructed for them, and as normal, arguments over what the construction efforts should best focus on are already arising..


Current Population: 650 (+150)
Transient Population: 200ish (+100)

Choose one Security Effort
With the increased number of monster attacks, several options have been suggested as a responce..
[ ] Increase the Ranks of the City Guard : A belated measure to make up for the generally low quality of the City Guard, a mass recruitment drive could be underdone, to by the time to train and equip them enough that you don't have to resort to mass tactics any more.. or just keep with them. it is cheaper then giving them the good stuff after all

[ ] Train Battlemages : Assign several promising apprentices and journeymen to the city guard, to make up for their lackluster equipment and training with immediate and powerful magic support.

[ ] Hire Adventurers : Officially hire a number of adventurers to patrol the outskirts of the city to prevent monster attacks

[ ] Upgrade Equipment : Officially admit that we lack the local metalworking facilities for mass deployment of high level gear and order a selection of masterwork weapons and armor from Firepoint to equip our militia such that their gear makes up for their lack of skill. And we can enchant said gear when it gets here.

Choose One Focus for the New Guildhouse
[ ] Dormitory : Install large internal Dormitories for housing mages, giving apprentices and journeymen dedicated living quarters instead of forcing them to find housing in town, and a selection of advanced rooms for officals who work for the guild to live in said guild. (Without this, their will be a limited selection of basic rooms for anyone who is utterly down on their luck in the guildhouse)

[ ] Blasting Range : Construct a dedicated testing and practice hall for combat spells, giving combat focused mages a group area to train and practise, as well as try out new spells, generally increasing magical combat skills (Without this, there will be a basic testing hall, but it will lack fancy features such as moving targets and only be large enough for single small groups to use at a time.)

[ ] Archives : Add a dedicated hall for a in guild library, where members may store experimental data, recovered rare books, tomes they themselves have written, and advanced grimores to potent to be let out in public. (Without this, only a small basic storage room will be designed for books, and most mages will just have to use the public libraries in town)

[ ] Spellforge : Taping into the hearthstone, a dedicated advanced enchantment forge will be created. While it will not be useable to create such mass jobs as the Enchantment Hall allows, it will allow mages of the guild to enchant their own gear to a higher rating and quality then the mass production focused Enchantment Hall does. (Without this, mages will just have to use the general public Enchantment Hall.)

[ ] Mana Fount : Taping into the hearthstone, it will be possible to create a focused 'fountain' of Mana in the guild, allowing local mages to rapidly refill their reserves, and making the distillation of mana potions, with proper equipment, cheap enough they can be handed out on a weekly basis, for free, for accredited journeymen or higher ranking members of the guild. As well, the increased level of local mana will make more potent then normal spells castable within the guild hall. (Without this people will have to buy mana potions like normal, will not gain any bonuses to their skill levels, and will only regain their energies at the normal rate while in the guild.)

 

[Merior]

[X] Upgrade Equipment
[X] Mana Fount

Since we have the faculty to enchant things it makes sense to try and use it to our best advantage and upgraded equipment which we enhance shouldn't be something which degrades. It's an investment of sorts.

The Mana Fount, OTOH, should help our mages improve by letting them practice more. Whatever they're doing takes energy, whether it's doing enchanting or helping blast monsters, and more energy can't hurt.

 

[Biigoh]

Security Effort
[X] Increase the City Guard and restructure : Battle Mages
- - [X] It is not just enough to hire guards en masse. No, what is desired is quality. Hire more non-magus for the rank and file. Start up a battle mage division to provide magical support for the guards who'll work at protecting the mages as they cast spells, a symbiosis. More importantly, training the guards so that they are more skilled and ensure that they have leaders who are skilled at leading military or milia units.

Focus for the New Guildhouse
[X] Mana Fount
- - [X] While it is regrettable, domintories, libraries and even blasting ranges and spell forces can be constructed in the future as expansions of the Guildhouse. Rather, a Mana Fount will allow mages to do more... as mages.

 

[Happerry]

I note that the energy bonus would only apply in the guild. It's big benefit is that it lets you practice more, being able to spend, say, two minutes casting for practice and one minute recharging, instead of a one for one ration. As an example, and not claiming those are the exact ratios. It would help with enchanting though by letting mages spend more mana on said enchantments, and will help even more once the guild is built it's own enchantment facilities.

And yes, you can build the mana fount later too. Of course building it now will allow for it's upgrades next time around, but that applies for all the options.

Edit: Though, yes, the potions will work anywhere, just like normal potions.

 

[Pipeman]

[X] Train Battlemages : Assign several promising apprentices and journeymen to the city guard, to make up for their lackluster equipment and training with immediate and powerful magic support.

[X] Blasting Range : Construct a dedicated testing and practice hall for combat spells, giving combat focused mages a group area to train and practise, as well as try out new spells, generally increasing magical combat skills (Without this, there will be a basic testing hall, but it will lack fancy features such as moving targets and only be large enough for single small groups to use at a time.)


Basically, not choosing the battlemages will make it seem like the mages, who just took control of the city, now let other people die to defend themselves.
Adventurers are not quite as bad as the last two, but it also means relying on outsiders. Who are also murderhobos. Not the most reliable people.

And, since we have the battlemages, we should choose one of the three addons, that helps them.
The worst option however would be the dorms. Special living quarters for our mages and especially the apprentices will only isolate our future leaders from the populace and depen the rift between our people.

 

[Carrnage]

[X] Biigoh

happery could we do a project to make some degree of magical ability universal in the town?

 

[Emral282]

[X] Train Battlemages : Assign several promising apprentices and journeymen to the city guard, to make up for their lackluster equipment and training with immediate and powerful magic support.

[X] Mana Fount : Taping into the hearthstone, it will be possible to create a focused 'fountain' of Mana in the guild, allowing local mages to rapidly refill their reserves, and making the distillation of mana potions, with proper equipment, cheap enough they can be handed out on a weekly basis, for free, for accredited journeymen or higher ranking members of the guild. As well, the increased level of local mana will make more potent then normal spells castable within the guild hall. (Without this people will have to buy mana potions like normal, will not gain any bonuses to their skill levels, and will only regain their energies at the normal rate while in the guild.)

A good mix of now and later benifits.

 

[Happerry]

Basically, not choosing the battlemages will make it seem like the mages, who just took control of the city, now let other people die to defend themselves.
Adventurers are not quite as bad as the last two, but it also means relying on outsiders. Who are also murderhobos. Not the most reliable people.

And, since we have the battlemages, we should choose one of the three addons, that helps them.
The worst option however would be the dorms. Special living quarters for our mages and especially the apprentices will only isolate our future leaders from the populace and deepen the rift between our people.

Click to shrink...

I will state that not choosing battlemages will not make you look like evil bastards, as you'd still be enchanting the arms and armor of the town watch for free, even if said arms and armor aren't upgraded, and dorms will not isolate everyone from the community, as if they want to do things like get fed and buy clothing and go earn some money they will have to leave the guildhall.

In short, this is no rift, and choosing any of these options will not risk making a rift at this point in the game.

[X] Biigoh

happery could we do a project to make some degree of magical ability universal in the town?

Click to shrink...

You already did. It was your what population will we start with option.

 

[mc2rpg]

[X] Train Battlemages : Assign several promising apprentices and journeymen to the city guard, to make up for their lackluster equipment and training with immediate and powerful magic support.

[X] Blasting Range : Construct a dedicated testing and practice hall for combat spells, giving combat focused mages a group area to train and practise, as well as try out new spells, generally increasing magical combat skills (Without this, there will be a basic testing hall, but it will lack fancy features such as moving targets and only be large enough for single small groups to use at a time.)

 

[nick012000]

[X] Train Battlemages : Assign several promising apprentices and journeymen to the city guard, to make up for their lackluster equipment and training with immediate and powerful magic support.

[X] Blasting Range : Construct a dedicated testing and practice hall for combat spells, giving combat focused mages a group area to train and practise, as well as try out new spells, generally increasing magical combat skills (Without this, there will be a basic testing hall, but it will lack fancy features such as moving targets and only be large enough for single small groups to use at a time.)

 

[Redon]

[X] Train Battlemages : Assign several promising apprentices and journeymen to the city guard, to make up for their lackluster equipment and training with immediate and powerful magic support.


[X] Mana Fount : Taping into the hearthstone, it will be possible to create a focused 'fountain' of Mana in the guild, allowing local mages to rapidly refill their reserves, and making the distillation of mana potions, with proper equipment, cheap enough they can be handed out on a weekly basis, for free, for accredited journeymen or higher ranking members of the guild. As well, the increased level of local mana will make more potent then normal spells castable within the guild hall. (Without this people will have to buy mana potions like normal, will not gain any bonuses to their skill levels, and will only regain their energies at the normal rate while in the guild.)

 

[Jiven]

[X] Increase the City Guard and restructure : Battle Mages
[X] Mana Fount

 

[Wing101]

[X] Train Battlemages : Assign several promising apprentices and journeymen to the city guard, to make up for their lackluster equipment and training with immediate and powerful magic support.

[X] Blasting Range : Construct a dedicated testing and practice hall for combat spells, giving combat focused mages a group area to train and practise, as well as try out new spells, generally increasing magical combat skills (Without this, there will be a basic testing hall, but it will lack fancy features such as moving targets and only be large enough for single small groups to use at a time.)

 

[Ephemeral_Dreamer]

[X] Train Battlemages : Assign several promising apprentices and journeymen to the city guard, to make up for their lackluster equipment and training with immediate and powerful magic support.

[X] Mana Fount : Taping into the hearthstone, it will be possible to create a focused 'fountain' of Mana in the guild, allowing local mages to rapidly refill their reserves, and making the distillation of mana potions, with proper equipment, cheap enough they can be handed out on a weekly basis, for free, for accredited journeymen or higher ranking members of the guild. As well, the increased level of local mana will make more potent then normal spells castable within the guild hall. (Without this people will have to buy mana potions like normal, will not gain any bonuses to their skill levels, and will only regain their energies at the normal rate while in the guild.)

 

[Vindictus]

[X] Battlemages
[X] Blasting Range

 

[Liam-don]

[X] Battlemages
[X] Blasting Range

We need some real Dakka before something seriously dangerous shows up or another city decide a bunch of bookworms can't rule themselves right.

 

[Redon]

Personally, I figure that mages that can cast spells more often thanks to the mana pots, can be trained into battlemages faster after this turn.

 

[fitzgerald]

[X] Battlemages
[X] Mana fount

 

[Robotninja]

[X] Battlemages
[X] Mana fount

We should start investing in effort in getting some books underground translated sometime soon as well. Or at least recovered and stored in a dry warehouse.

Are we getting any legendary/high level adventuring parties yet?

 

[Happerry]

Are we getting any legendary/high level adventuring parties yet?

Click to shrink...

For those interested, I will now expound a bit on the 'game underneath the game' that the adventurers function on.

I'm mentally modelling it on a vague memories of when I used to play Ragnarök Online a few years ago with a dab of Pathfinder for stats and such. It uses a Ragnarök Online inspired system of classes, with basic classes that can upgrade to higher tier classes, but it also invokes DnD style Prestige classes as well. In general, you can take one prestige class per 'rank' of normal classes you have. For Example, the Murderface Prestige class is a Tier 1 Prestige class that requires you to be at least Tier 1 on the Rogue class path to take. It fills up the Tier 1 Prestige class slot for the Tier 1 Rogue class, keeping you from taking another unless you want to junk it and loose it's bonuses.

However, once you level up to a second tier class, you'll be able to take a second tier prestige class for that rank.

"New Players' as those just thrown down the pit, can choose between the tier 1 classes of Warrior, Rogue, Mage, and Priest. With the current improvements Last Laugh allows 'players' to respec as the tier 1 class of Ranger (A ranged combat class with some survival abilities) through the Cartographer's Guild, and Midway allows people to Respec as the tier 1 Monk class through it's Five Fangs Brotherhood. Meanwhile, Tibero's Castle has the Tier 1 Iron Guard Prestige class for Warriors, that focuses on defense abilities and heavy armor.

Cointown, at this point, has the only Tier II class in the form of the Lizard Rider, which can be Ranked Up to from either Rogues, Rangers, or Warriors, and is focused on... well, riding a lizard, with abilities like Poison Bite, Ride By Attack, and Scent Monster.

On the more equipment side of things, Fort Salvation is currently the master of medical based supplies, with their wonder, Firepoint offers the best equipment, and the only steel equipment in the game (Other towns have Bronze as their best), and Citadel is the only town with a Mage Shop as well as offering low level item enchantment service. And Midway is the only real source of Religious type gear.

Now as the Settlements rank up and expand they increase the amounts of missions they offer on their Job Boards, which is the main source of paying adventures (As apposed to wandering randomly until you find monsters to kill or things to loot). Currently no town is set up to offer high ranking adventures, with the highest ranking adventures being rare missions to explore the Ruins Citadel is built over, as well as PvP options in the Coin Town gangwars, as well as both mandatory and anti bandit operations.

Indeed, there are rumors that an entire town of Bandits is popping up somewhere.. but if it did, they sure wouldn't tell the people they were robbing about where their home is.

Of course, all this ignores the part where you can go play in the economical side of the game too, but I haven't fleshed out the merchant classes and stuff in as much detail.

Or, if you don't want to read all that...No, because the only rank 2 class currently available is in Cointown and is somewhat difficult to get into anyway.

Oh, and current Votecount.

[1] Upgrade Equipment
[11] Train Battlemages
[3] Increase the City Guard and restructure : Battle Mages
[9] Mana Fount
[6] Blasting Range

Vote will be called when I wake up, but it's looking suggestive as Mana Fount finally gets a clear lead. (Though really, Bii's write in is a good idea more of you should have payed attention to)

As always, questions are welcome.

Edit: Oh, right. Currently planning on normal classes only going up to Tier 3, with limited access to Tier 4 (Epic) classes through quests and events but never as something available as a standard from a town. (You know, the ones with Names like Arch-Lich, Master of War, Genocide Priest, Thief of Souls and so on). As always, not all classes are equally twinked out.

 

[Liam-don]

I thougt Biigoh's write up was a given when voting for battlemage.

[X] Bii's

 

[Pipeman]

Same thing here.
Well, that and being too lazy to switch votes until now.

[X] Bii's

 

[Wing101]

[x] Bii's

 

[Robotninja]

Bii.