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It’s barbaric, but hey it's home!

Another day in the blessed holy lands of Allah

No, no, no, that won’t happen for awhile.

There we go, much better.

It was the Golden Age of Islam and it seemed like anything was possible in this world. Indeed this was a time where even the lowliest of ne’er do wells could go on to be a person of importance.

These are the tales of three such types.  Ma’aruf, Ali Baba and Scheherazade

Each one named after a hero of legend by unimaginative parents following the latest trends, they sought to better their own lowly status in life by potentially becoming just as great or greater than their famous namesake.

(And I’m calling you lot Ali, Aruf and Zade from now on because I’m not typing all that shit out all the time, especially Zade)

Will any of them succeed? Time will tell, but either way hopefully we get some good stories out of them otherwise this will have been a big waste of time.

Okay, there’s your intro.

Here’s the map.

You’re all currently in Baghdad. Depending on what quests you’re doing, your “location goals” may or may not be a specific. So yeah, sometimes you just wander around trying to achieve your current quest.

Now you’re probably noticing some special places like that Lake of Colors in Africa or The Undersea Kingdom in the Indian Ocean. Normally you can’t just go to those places unless you get a special encounter that allows you to do so.

And if you’re wondering what that discolored bit is off the coast the bottom of India, that’s a correction in the map since the publishers were supposed to put a pathway there.

Here’s your current stats.

TCat - Scheherazade

Current Quest:
Destiny: 0
Story: 0
Wealth: Poor

Quests to be completed: Seek Knowledge, The Call of the Wild, The Story of Stories
Quests completed:

Skills
Piety
Quick Thinking
Wisdom

Statuses
None

Treasures
None

Peng - Ali Baba

Current Quest:
Destiny: 0
Story: 0
Wealth: Poor

Quests to be completed: Purchase Slave, Seek Treasure, The Pull of the Sea
Quests completed:

Skills
Bargaining & Evaluation
Luck
Seamanship

Statuses
None

Treasures
None

Mizal - Ma’aruf

Current Quest:
Destiny: 0
Story: 0
Wealth: Poor

Quests to be completed: Contest for Marriage, Merchant, The Gourmet
Quests completed:

Skills
Bargaining & Evaluation
Courtly Graces
Scholarship

Statuses
None

Treasures
None

I’ll let you lot decide which quest you’re taking up first.

I’ll probably divide these into three separate threads since it’ll just be easier for you guys to keep track of your character that way. This thread can be for general questions/comments/etc or something.

Alright I got all three quests from you guys so I'll try to get around to making up your adventure threads either tonight or definitely tomorrow.

They'll be pinned in CC for easy finding.

Just a quick mention about the choices.

There's actually a lot of times where you'll get an encounter and have choice that doesn't seem like it makes sense at first, but usually the story passage ends up managing to incorporate the "logic" of the choice in some way.

One example I'm thinking of (And I might even be misremembering) is there's something involving a whirlpool and "Drink" I think is an option. Sounds hilarious, but it turns out it doesn't actually involve you attempting to drink the whirlpool (unfortunately) I think the result was you taking a drink of wine instead, though that's probably equally useless in the situation.

As a side note, I'm somewhat doing the same thing with the choices usually by expanding greatly on the actual passage given. Granted the general passage results are the same, but I have to write a bit extra so it makes sense from a narrative perspective.

Also you've probably noticed that I'm using some images not directly related to the game, that's because the encounter cards don't all have pictures on them and are reliant on just rolling the dice on a matrix and seeing what/who you encounter. Only about half the cards have actual pictures. So I'm improvising on some of these.

Oddly while I'm writing for 3 different people and multiple outcomes which is now probably even more when I set up Call to Adventure with Mara, this doesn't feel as much of a chore. 

Though it probably helps that there's more interaction.

Going to try to update everyone tonight, though I'm also going to probably try to make the current quests slightly more obtainable based on some of the cards you lot have already gotten. There's a game mechanic where some of the cards have a location on them and if you visit said location there's a chance for other rewards without the risk of an encounter for them, you just roll the dice and turn the card in (Though sometimes the dice roll might result in an encounter anyway)

I'll probably weave this into the narrative as clues and rumors to as whatever you're looking for (Seems to be a treasure for two of you)

it's still impressive nonetheless 

Alright seeing as a week has gone by with at least two people not making any moves, I'm guessing interest has been lost and or real life busy stuff is taking priority so I'll declare this game a wrap. 

This is fine since this really was a test run through mainly to see if running the game was feasible in the first place, which apparently it is with not too much complications.

I was a little concerned at first that maybe 3 players might be too many, but I was able to keep up with everyone. Required a bit more writing than I thought it might on my part since I figured the game itself might do most of the work, but I really had to account for integrating the gameplay and the independent storyline that was being created.

(Still was less work than just running Mara by herself during Call to Adventure.)

I think just one quest per character seems to be enough seeing as only Mizal managed to complete 1 out of the 3 she had.

Anyway might revisit this in the future if anyone is up for it again or try a different game. Just bought a small expansion pack for Dark Castle which should be coming in soon, so that's always a favorite.