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The intro is a bit long compared to the rest of the book, so here's an obligatory tldr; we're out to avenge/rescue our Mayan twin. Also werewolves are involved, and Necklace of Skulls is a guy. Yes, I realize that Mayan=/=Aztecs, but I hit a creative block when titling the thread. :/ Prologue posted:Last night you dreamed you saw your brother again. He was walking through a desert, his sandals scuffing up plumes of sooty black sand from the low endless dunes. It seemed you were hurrying to catch him up, but the sand slipped away under your feet and you could make no headway up the slope. You heard your own voice call his name: ‘Morning Star!’ But, muffled by distance, the words went rolling off the sky unheeded. Welcome to the 4th installment of Virtual Reality Adventures! This series stood apart from many other contemporaneous CYOAs in that all random elements were removed. All branchpoints are directed by the player's choices, whether made in the moment or farther back, during character creation. You can find the previous books with archives: Green Blood, Down Among the Deadmen, and Coils of Hate. Necklace of Skulls, like Deadmen, is written by David Morris, known best in CYOA circles for Fabled Lands and Blood Sword. This book has also recently been re-released and adapted as an app for both iOS and Droid. But enough background, let's get into creating our guy. Choose One of These Characters posted:The Warrior As before, this last option is off the table to keep things rolling along: Glossary of Skills posted:AGILITY STREETWISE from our last adventure has been replaced by ETIQUETTE and TARGETING has come up in the place of MARKSMANSHIP from a book or two back. Otherwise things are similar to previously. Vote for our class, and we'll get this adventure rolling! Ratatozsk fucked around with this message at 01:16 on Oct 14, 2015 |
# ? Oct 12, 2015 03:31 |
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# ? May 3, 2024 05:21 |
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Let's be an acolyte, a jack of all trades will be fun.
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# ? Oct 12, 2015 03:54 |
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What good is an adventure without profit? Putting down a vote for Merchant.
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# ? Oct 12, 2015 04:05 |
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Ratatozsk posted:'And the symbol of Lamat is the death’s dad' Now there's an image to conjure with... Acolyte sounds fun.
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# ? Oct 12, 2015 19:39 |
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Yeah, Acolyte seems like one of the more well-rounded skillsets for the mission we're on, although I dunno how much use Etiquette will be.
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# ? Oct 13, 2015 02:42 |
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Acolyte it is!Page 1 posted:Seeking an audience with the Matriarch of your clan, you are shown into a narrow steep-vaulted hall. Sunlight burns through the high window slits to leave hovering blocks of dazzling yellow light on the whitewashed wall, but the room is cool. The Matriarch sits cross-legged on a stone bench at the end of the room, below a large painted glyph which is the symbol of the clan. A stout woman in late middle-age, she has a soft and even jolly appearance which is belied by the look of stern contemplation in her eyes. The beads sewn across her cotton mantle make a rustling sound as she waves you towards a straw mat. You bow in greeting before sitting, and a servant brings you a cup of frothy peppered cocoa. Character Sheet posted:Evening Star 'Nesquik' Sherman the Acolyte
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# ? Oct 14, 2015 01:16 |
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Honour demands that we don't let sorcerers mess with our people and get away with it.
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# ? Oct 14, 2015 04:35 |
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Thuryl posted:Honour demands that we don't let sorcerers mess with our people and get away with it. Yeah, worth a shot.
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# ? Oct 14, 2015 12:24 |
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Honor is a pretty hollow excuse and Star knows it. keep silent snd stew in your own shame.
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# ? Oct 14, 2015 13:27 |
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Yeah, let's be a silent protagonist.
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# ? Oct 14, 2015 15:57 |
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On the contrary clan honor demands that you go.
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# ? Oct 14, 2015 23:22 |
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Page 47 posted:What would others think of our clan,' you assert, 'if we meekly ignored the loss of my brother? Honor is like the sun: it cannot hide its face.' : This headdress is ridiculously uncomfortable. Character Sheet posted:Evening Star 'Nesquik' Sherman the Acolyte
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# ? Oct 15, 2015 01:48 |
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Loot!!
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# ? Oct 15, 2015 02:01 |
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Meet the priests. They probably have helpful advice on dealing with sorcerers. (Also secretly I wanna see if we can actually run into an Etiquette check before the end of this book, and that seems like our best chance.)
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# ? Oct 15, 2015 02:04 |
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Thuryl posted:Meet the priests. They probably have helpful advice on dealing with sorcerers. (Also secretly I wanna see if we can actually run into an Etiquette check before the end of this book, and that seems like our best chance.) Agreed. Time to hobnob with the big cheese!
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# ? Oct 15, 2015 03:07 |
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Companion. You expect us to travel without a servant?
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# ? Oct 15, 2015 05:24 |
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Talk to priests. Maybe they'll sacrifice some cows to increase our odds in this heroquest.
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# ? Oct 15, 2015 10:31 |
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If you think a companion would be useful. Servant, sleeping companion, also ablative shield and emergency food supply.
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# ? Oct 15, 2015 10:55 |
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I'm pretty sure we'll need some random codeword granted by some chunk of arbitrary loot.
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# ? Oct 15, 2015 12:27 |
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Page 116 posted:Which temple do you wish to visit: the temple of the War God (turn to 231), the temple of the Moon Goddess (turn to 254), or the temple of the Death God (turn to 277)? Character Sheet posted:Evening Star 'Nesquik' Sherman the Acolyte
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# ? Oct 16, 2015 02:36 |
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Moon God(dess)? They're usually all about prophecy and mystery.
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# ? Oct 16, 2015 02:43 |
Death God for a chance to die! @Tuxedo Ted: thanks for the heads up on the last thread
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# ? Oct 16, 2015 09:29 |
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Moon God(ess). Allah be praised?
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# ? Oct 16, 2015 12:42 |
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Comstar posted:Moon God(ess). Allah be praised? According to Wikipedia, it seems we don't even know what most of these deities' names were, or if they're definitively one sex or another or both or neither, thanks in no small part to almost all Mayan books being destroyed Anyway, I bet she knows what's what, so let's go visit the moon goddess' representatives. SatansOnion fucked around with this message at 13:35 on Oct 16, 2015 |
# ? Oct 16, 2015 12:56 |
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Death God priest may know if our brother has gone to Mictlan or not, which could be useful to know.
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# ? Oct 16, 2015 14:33 |
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Death God, as there was mention of a necklace of skulls.
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# ? Oct 16, 2015 20:15 |
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Coin flip: death!Page 277 posted:The high priest of the Death God is a portly short-sighted man wrapped in a black kilt. White paint is daubed in streaks around his belly as if to represent the fleshless ribcage of a corpse - though you cannot help smiling as you reflect how his own ribs are so well covered. His head-dress is a rather intimidating effigy of a skull without its lower jaw, with long earpieces of jointed fingerbones hanging on either side of his rotund face, but the priest removes this as soon as you are both seated in the shade of the outer shrine. : Dude, leave a cacao or two for Maya Charon! Character Sheet posted:Evening Star 'Nesquik' Sherman the Acolyte
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# ? Oct 17, 2015 02:12 |
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Let's not waste our meeting. Hand over the beans.
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# ? Oct 17, 2015 03:48 |
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Thuryl posted:Let's not waste our meeting. Hand over the beans. Absolutely.
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# ? Oct 17, 2015 11:42 |
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Great, not five minutes into this quest and we're already being shaken down by a holy man. Give him the beans
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# ? Oct 17, 2015 15:58 |
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Spill the beans.
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# ? Oct 17, 2015 18:11 |
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I love this book and also Heart of Ice. Please give the beans.
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# ? Oct 17, 2015 18:38 |
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Bean him. Though sweaty, peering into the shadows priest is giving off bad vibes.
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# ? Oct 17, 2015 20:00 |
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Page 408 posted:The high priest winds a white cloth across your eyes and leads you through to the inner shrine. A deep chill abides here; the thick stone blocks of the Death God’s temple walls are never warmed by the sun. The sweet tarry smell of incense hangs in the air. You feel a hand on your shoulder, guiding you to kneel. Page 93 posted:Realizing there are things you will need on your travels, you head to the market. Here, under a long colonnade festooned with colored rugs, you can usually find almost anything. Unfortunately it is now late afternoon and many of the traders have packed up their wares and gone home, driven off by the waves of heat rising from the adjacent plaza. Man, we could have had it ALL if weren't for that darned Cenote codeword... Page 389 posted:You decide to set out early the next morning, before sunrise. This will spare your family from farewells. By lantern light in the chill grey predawn, you stand in the antechamber of your family’s house and check your belongings for the journey. You are attended by only one servant, who silently fastens the straps of your pack. Your aunts have left out a parcel of maize cakes for you to eat on the road; note this as a single item on your list of possessions. : See? That bead'll do just fine for Mayaron! : I'm stuck with you for this adventure? : Could be worse. It's tough to sleep when moonie's in full. Page 25 posted:The causeway to Yashuna is an arrow-straight road of packed limestone raised on stone blocks above the level of the countryside. As you walk, you scan the swaying fields of maize, the orchards and the ranks of cotton plants that stretch off as far as the eye can see. Low stone walls mark the irrigation channels that ensure as much water as possible reaches the crops at this arid time of year. Peasant dwellings are scattered here and there across the countryside: oval single-story buildings with sharply peaked roofs of dry thatch. It makes you thirsty just to watch the peasants at their back-breaking work, gathering cotton in long sacks under the sweltering sun. So, please vote both for what we're picking up at the market with our 5 remaining cacao, and what we're doing with the tarantula here. Character Sheet posted:Evening Star 'Nesquik' Sherman the Acolyte
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# ? Oct 18, 2015 03:50 |
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Tarantulas aren't venomous! Grab it!
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# ? Oct 18, 2015 07:16 |
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Buy the rope and dye and grab that tarantula.
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# ? Oct 18, 2015 07:20 |
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Rope and waterskin seem like the most useful items. In real life tarantulas are covered in irritating hairs that would make grabbing one a bad idea. Of course in real life tarantula venom isn't very dangerous, so all bets are kinda off here. Eh, might as well vote to pull away.
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# ? Oct 18, 2015 07:32 |
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Agree with rope, pick a pack of peppers while you are at it. That way we have at least one bean to last us. Also, the market description reminded me, in the last story did you explain how we were supposed to know which Jade Warrior we were supposed to go after?
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# ? Oct 18, 2015 07:34 |
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Rope and waterskin, and slowly grab the spider.
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# ? Oct 18, 2015 08:03 |
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# ? May 3, 2024 05:21 |
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Cathulhu posted:Rope and waterskin, and slowly grab the spider. I like this combo.
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# ? Oct 18, 2015 12:44 |