The first rule of Romantic RP: Talk it over with the other player.

Let me perfectly honest here: You might think this RP idea is the best thing since D&D, but if the player of the character isn’t interested, you don’t force it. If they are interested, you need to do the following things:

In short, treat this RP like you would any other RPing partner. The major difference between this kind of RP and “traditional” RP is that you have to allow your character to grow and change based on what occurs in the in game relationship.

Not following Rule Number one isn’t cute or ground breaking RP. It is a serious breach of boundaries. Just because it happens in a romantic comedy does not mean its a good idea in game.

What are some other good rules for romantic RP? Do you have a story about Romance Gone Wrong? Fill us in!

Listen to theme.

Write 140 word story.

Post it.

Azeroth has a variety of alcohols, tobacco products, and it has coffee, but what about other, more illicit narcotics? In Dalaran we can see the washed up mage, a victim of Kungaloosh:

Shattrath had it’s own down-on-their-luck NPCs, and let’s not forget the Blood Elves. I’d be remiss if I didn’t include herbalism and alchemy as well. Addiction is a real thing in Azeroth, my question is what are people using?

I know there are people who will be up in arms about drugs (either for or against legalization) but that is neither here nor there. What we want to talk about is the seedier side of RP. Have you run a story where people were using narcotics? Do specific races–like the Belfs–have specific narcotics? What if the Tauren have a hallucinogen that is extremely addictive (and damaging) to gnomes? What are the policies of the factions regarding drug use?

Can Forsaken really get wasted?

Stories involving illicit substances can be personal–one character’s struggle to over come addiction–to a large scale story pitting guilds against guilds–I’m thinking of Traffic. The Riders have examples of both of these stories: Bricu’s work to overcome alcoholism and dealing with a lotus peddler. Fallout out from both stories will be examined in our regular RP event.

This kind of story is worth looking into. But there are also pitfalls. Addiction is exceedingly common, and a number of people have their own attitudes towards the personal, legal and societal implications of drug use. Be understanding when plotting these kinds of stories, otherwise, your story may never get off the ground.

Does anyone have examples of drugs in Azeroth? Anyone care to share their stories involving the illicit substance of WoW? Let us know!

In the next xpac, we’re headed towards not just towards Pandas, but an elevated level of conflict between the Alliance and the Horde. On a more depressing level, we also need to realize we are going to loose people as WoW hits 7 and other games launch. During these next few months, before we run out of Cata Steam,long for Mop or say goodbye, we should lay the ground work for the next chapter of our game.

Right now, we can begin to think of how our toons can fit into the Horde-Alliance conflict. Granted, some of us will avoid all the spoilers we can while MoP is building; however, it is not a huge stretch of the imagination to begin to think of how our toons will react as the war heats up. Now is the time to approach players about building rivalries and future Rp events. For instance, I may have talked to someone else about setting up future issues.

IF you are saying good bye, think about how you are leaving the game. Are you killing off your toon? Is your toon riding off into the sunset? Is your toon just going to retire? Keep in mind that as circumstances in real life change, your decisions to leave WoW may change. In short, keep the door open if there is the slightest possibility that you may want to return.

We have said it many times before. RPing is collaborative story telling. OVer the next few months, either a chapter–or a story–are going to end. Give this ending the same care as you did your “golden age” of RP.

Darin House's Poker Photo

Photo courtesy of Darin House’s Flickr Stream

So you have a room full of shady, reasonably wealthy characters, each of whom who have a tendency to bluff and exaggerate, smoking in a bar stocked with expensive booze. How long before they start gambling?

I’m sure its possible to come up with a narrative method for card games. Rules would have to be ironed out and someone would probably figure out how to utilize the RNG to address ties…but why bother when you can just download an addon?

Back in Vanilla, people played a few hands of Anzac between pulls (or wipes) just to pass the time. But a poker game can be an RP event in and of itself. A small, illicit game can be part of a regular RP night. Imagine a regular, floating game that people try to find in a major city.

But a full on poker tournament can be a large scale event. It could be a charity event or just a damn big game. Right now on Feathermoon, the regular poker game is phase one of a big story… But that’s a post for a differnt story.

A mini game like this can add another dimension to RP. Are there other mini games available now, or are we going to wait for Pokewow?

This week, we get the real deal on Shad, the official midwife of Feathermoon.

Celesse was his first. He never counted Eurydice, because no matter how she plead, promised, or punished, he always refused her that final step. No, it was the woman he chose to be his wife with whom he finally joined under the shade of a great oak on the shores of Lake Elune’ara. She was beautiful, graceful, so much the ideal woman that he’d been sure that it was love. That it was forever. He didn’t regret those six months, two of whirlwind courtship and four of everything men bemoaned when they shunned marriage. Was it any surprise that he also didn’t regret the kiss that had ruined it all?

In an occupation where these things should have been months preplanned, his first was a surprise. He’d offered some help at the start, but to be there for the terrifying, bloody end of it hadn’t been on the menu. To this day, he’d still never had one that bled as much as that first one. It had taken all his training not to run, but in the end, it was worth it. Most Riders made their way in the world by killing. He considered it a blessing that he’d found another path to take. Nerida O’Connaugh was a most satisfying first child to have to his midwifing credit.

Like most boys, he could count his father as his first. And like so many boys he was so certain that No Really, His Father Hated Him. Why else had he been such a draconian instructor? He’d once made his son sit for three days and nights in the freezing cold of Winterspring, refusing him shelter until he’d felt the pulse of a pine. Even then, he’d never been satisfied. Never once praised him. But he’d show the Dreaming bastard. He’d be twice the druid his father ever was.

There was no question that Fells was his finest. Though his mother had taught him about love, it had been Fells who taught him how, and in the flickering shadows of the waterfall that blurred the bliss of fireworks into a shimmering glow, he’d thanked her for her patience in spades. She wasn’t everything he’d ever dreamed of, but it turned out everything he’d ever dreamed of was pretty stupid, and he never could have fathomed what it was like to actually be happy with someone. She didn’t try to make him into someone he wasn’t; she transformed him effortlessly into who he was supposed to be. Even if she’d only live sixty years more, he knew they’d be the best he’d ever see.

If he had to pick just one, it would have to be Felicia that was his finest, as she demanded that she be born all of fifteen minutes before her twin. Regardless of who’d come forth first, they’d both been his greatest triumph: twins gotten on a once-barren woman thanks to his magics, and a difficult delivery for which he didn’t have to call in more competent help. She–they–were proof that he wasn’t a failure, and the best gift he could offer to the woman he loved. And during the long nights full of screaming infants, that was the thought that kept him sane.

Era was definitely his finest. After the months they’d struggled for control of the plague-ravaged body they shared, the panther would surely have felt fully justified simply slaying his captor and/or taking over entirely. Instead, he’d taught the lonely child what it meant to be a cat, and gradually helped shape him into a man. That they’d grown into equal brothers only made Shad all the more grateful that Era had endured his years of obnoxious condescension. How had he failed to see then that he’d never really been in charge at all?

His last was something of an awkward topic, at least outside of their little family. Sure, he’d been the one to propose the arrangement and insisted that all things had to be equal, but that didn’t make it any less strange to be pulling Zeve down to the mattress with him. But oh, he’d moved as slowly and gently as he would have while treating a wounded tiger, forestalling both flight and fight from both sides of the dance. Of course it wasn’t perfect; he’d have been concerned if it was. But in the end, Zeve’s words always put it best: it was Right.

Technically, his last wasn’t finished yet, but it was his most recent. Baby Boy Windwhisper (as he was presently known) would not come into the world for months yet, but he’d already made his mark. Shad didn’t get many kaldorei clients for obvious biological reasons, and those he did had always been, if not ready, then grateful for the blessing. But in so many ways, his last was also his first. Corrienda was the first to complain of being too young. She was the first for whom he’d researched the remedies taught by whores who’d disposed of unwanted baggage. And even though he hadn’t had to put them into practice for her, she was the first he had to struggle not to despise.

Tarquin was his last. The Riders pledged allegiance to the black and red, not directly to him, but all jobs and orders ultimately filtered through the Boss’s nimble fingers and trickled off his wicked tongue. Shad didn’t know him very well, but did anyone, really? He knew enough; he’d put his life in the man’s hands as both ally and adversary over the years, and his heart still beat, and that was all he needed. Really, if anything made Tarquin special, it was that: Shad didn’t need a damned thing from him other than trust.

The Rider’s resident Midwife and all-around stand up cat, Haemon Shadowind, was the second to write up First, Finest and Last. Here is another brilliant sample for your own FFL.

This is Era. There are many cat spirits, but this one is a favorite. Enjoy!

Any one of them could have been his first; they died and were born so often, who could even tell? And who cared? It had been millennia ago, before there were even trolls to pay their Mother worship, that the fire of instinct first seared his loins and forced him to chase down a mate, dig teeth into her scruff, and make her the unwilling bearer of his first cubs. No, it wasn’t good for him, and less so for her. It was merely the means to a necessary end: brutal, quick, repeated several times, and just like every subsequent encounter for thousands of years in thousands of lives. He couldn’t remember a single one.

His intelligent mind couldn’t remember his first, hidden away in the depths of time and feline memory, but it had been a troll only for lack of any other upright creatures to encounter first. There’d been no malice, of course. Only tame cats had the luxury of expending energy on hunting for sport. It was hunger that brought his weight down on the unsuspecting scout and shoved his fangs through bone and into brain. Remarkably merciful, really; a lesser cat would have taken whole minutes to kill by asphyxiation. He’d devoured the man’s heart (among other viscera), and months later when the man’s brother brought him down in a flurry of arrows, the honor was returned.

Mother had been his first, and should have been his only. She whom the trolls knew as Bethekk had given him life after life as well as death in between, and in return had asked nothing but eternal servitude. None of her children had ever had a choice, but neither had they any understanding to resent the lack of it. In recent years, with sentience as his sharpest weapon, he’d often wondered whether his new place was her choice, and if so, why. More seldom, and only in the quiet darkness when sleep and Shad had both abandoned him, did he ever think to wonder if she’d actually relinquished her control.

There was no question that Fells was his finest. His first too, in many ways, though thanks to Shad’s memories he was no stranger to the mechanics nor the sensations that awaited him in her arms. But flesh was one thing and love quite another, and not a damned thing could have prepared him for the rapture that took them both. It’d taken him three years to realize he loved her, another two to admit it, and six months more to get it right. It was all fucking wasted time, and with the first beatific smile she’d granted him in the darkness he vowed not to waste a second more of what little time the loas might leave them.

Laurus was his finest, a beast of a man who deserved nothing more or less than the most gloriously gruesome death he could deliver. As the slights both large and small piled one atop the other, Era spent his days groveling and his nights imagining the unending pain he’d inflict someday. Someday. But his revenge came unintentionally in the form of a thousand days of strained kindness that had only riled the mage further and chipped slowly away at the patience of his wife. For all he’d tried to steal her, it was none of Era’s doing when Laurus’s life finally walked out the door, leaving him with the empty silence of a house that was no home. Restraint proved to be the sharpest weapon the panther had ever wielded, and the only one that could salvage for himself the benefits of a life worth saving.

Shad was definitely his finest. When the priestess finally fell after months of battle against panthers both physical and spiritual, the elf should have used that staff to force him into absolute submission. Instead, the Will of Arlokk had been laid at his paws. Funny, how the offer of freedom had been the one thing that could have tamed him. He’d been appropriated to teach the elf the ways of the cat, but in the end he’d learned far more from the calm, patient kaldorei on whom he patterned his sentience. Even once they’d become equals, he’d learned the hard way that he couldn’t do it alone. For all his bluster, Era needed his elf like smoke needed flame.

Fells was his last. She was! No, he hadn’t come out for that. He was asleep. No part in it at all. Fuck you.

His last had been a hell of a fight, a fire-wreathed druid with more fury than skill, not that the latter was lacking. They’d circled one another, snarling, after Era’s pounce had been skillfully dodged and elven flesh had melted into fiery fur. The spirit he faced was a magnificent, beautiful beast, and he could see a bit of himself in it. Had things been different, he might have been on their side, serving Ragnaros for the lack of Hakkar. As things were not different, he felt absolutely no remorse for the dive nor the rake of claws that had blessed the charred dirt of the Firelands with a rain of blood and a bit of intestine to boot. He’d taken no specific joy in the kill, but eating the heart always did bring a smile to his red-stained maw. It was nice, sometimes, to be reminded where he came from.

His last was a council of three. Shad may have been employed by the Riders, but Era’d never taken one order from the man he called “Boss” purely in jest. He answered only to the three sets of all-too-observant eyes and ears that learned to echo his every sin, and to the three mouths that declared without words when he would eat, sleep, and have even an instant of privacy. They could be excruciatingly cruel masters, driving him like a mule for days on end, but the reward they granted him was beyond compare. He’d wouldn’t trade their smiles, their hugs, or their shrieky cries of “Dada!” for anything in all the universe.

This is the post that started it all. Very much a brilliant piece of work and a fantastic introduction to Tarquin.

Em had been his first, though even then he’d not known if she was Emily, or Emma, or something stranger. She’d been at least twenty, with a brittle smile and fine dark hair and legs nearly as long and rawboned as his; he was a bundle of knees and elbows and ill-considered intentions at fifteen, but even dogs and idiots could figure it out and so had he. They’d done it in Sickie Croy’s garret, which he rented out for any purpose for a handful of coppers at a time. Tarq, thinking himself clever, had learned a time when it was standing empty and talked Em up there, glib even then. In the course of an hour he learned the mysteries of the universe, and skated up against its limits as well. But someone grassed to Sickie Croy, and he’d found Em and taken a knife to her cheeks, and told her to pass along to the northern boy his lesson. Someone always pays.

Gunnar Glasper had been his first, a Tiresian captain who’d run blockades in the war and was now running harbors in the rebuilding. Evading the King’s tax was one thing, but when he’d taken van Cleef’s bloody coin, Reznik the Shiv had put his name on the Tally. Jasper had found them the ship, and Clobber had stood watch, but it was Tarquin and Loche who’d slipped aboard. They flipped for it, and Tarquin won, or lost. It was strange that he couldn’t remember if they’d flipped to do the deed or avoid doing it; in any case, it was moot to Gunnar Glasper. The knife had gone in under his ear, by his jaw, clean and perfect, but it had come out with a sloppy rip and he’d had to dash out of the harbor red and dripping. Jasper had laughed. The rest of them hadn’t. It took at least another four or five before he could start laughing about a murder.

Orwend had been his first, an old tyrant even when he was young, more master than father – they were much the same in his mind, in his spirit, in his iron bones. The girls had been luckier, Tarquin thought as a boy, left to their own devices; it was only when they went south that he realized how battened-down they were, how bereft of opportunity. The old man had seen opportunity for his sons, so he curbed and bent and hammered them into the shape of those chances. Gyles had broken, and Orvain had bent, but somewhere along the line Tarquin had slipped loose of the frame. He regretted only that he hadn’t taken any more of the old bastard’s chattel with him.

Ceil had been his finest, that storm in the form of a girl, from shy dreamer to scarred sleek killer, madly and inhumanly beautiful all the way along. Their bed had been a haven even when things were bad with them, maybe especially when they were bad; when it was no bed at all and their fingers had clutched at wood or grass or marble, nails digging for the threads of hope and hurt that bound them. They’d pulled each other laughing and calling out through that sweet, aching madness, and attacked life the same way, and there’d never been a thought in Tarquin’s head that it was too good to last. Even now, he wouldn’t fill that hollow place with trite thoughts of inevitability or some such shit. They’d fucked it up, that was all.

The grinning man had been his finest, the slick soiled monster that had stalked his godsdaughter to the end of the world. There was, Tarquin prided himself on knowing, a long list to choose from – the mad Scarlet archmage on whom he’d made his name, Hinote Kirase (shameful or not, it was a hell of a fight), the slickear lord he’d opened from gullet to crotch on the day the Bloody Prince fell, and of course the Butcher. Maybe it should have been the Butcher; after all, he’d never fought like that in his life, before or again. It had been a duel, and the grinning man had been a mad rattling brawl. He’d beaten the man to death with a fireplace poker; what kind of professionalism was that? It was amusing that someone else had finished the job for him in both cases, and when you threw in that Uthas had killed the grinning man for him, well, the pattern spun out of control entirely. In the end, he had to choose the grinning man, because he’d been fighting and bleeding for the wee hen and her mother and father and for everything she represented; for the idea that what he’d built could make things right.

Nikolai had been his finest, of that there was no doubt, that great wind-carved glacier of a man. Osborne had trained him, and Shaw had shaped him over those long years, but in the year he’d worn the Diaconescu raven he learned more about being a man than those esteemed cutthroats had ever managed to teach him in ten. Even now, should the Unfeeling trod through the door of the Pig with a thin tired smile on his battered face, demanding to know what his halfwit lad of a right hand was about, there was a chance that Tarquin would answer him avidly and eagerly, whiskey at the ready. Though he’d more than likely knife the old monster first.

Annalea had been his last, two nights ago, both of them drunk on old John Bell’s good brandy. They’d meant to go over the books, but somewhere during that ever-continuing poker game it had become clear that that certainly wasn’t happening, and when they extricated themselves from the table it suddenly seemed that they couldn’t get to her little room above the street fast enough. Tucked into each other like shells, fingertips to knuckles, here and there a muttered instruction or a bad joke. Annie was nearly thirty, and he could see the crow’s feet starting to gather by her eyes, knew that her breasts would sag and her hips would broaden (just as his hair would go gray and slough out, and his clever fingers would knob and bend). She did not try to fill his hollow places, and he did not try to soothe her scars, and together they were happier than they believed they’d any right to be.

Some mad bugger in the Highlands had been his last, a Tauren in an ill-fitting robe singing down fire from the skies and horror from the deeps. It’d felt good to do field work again, the magic crackling over his skin and Annie’s potions coursing in his veins, keeping him as swift and strong as he’d been fifteen years ago, but ten times the bastard. Big Feliche held the front, arrows and sorcery whipping back and forth, making it easy for him to duck from doorway to alcove to the cultist’s own shadow. The silly fuck had never even seen him, only felt one knife in the back his knee and then, if he was unlucky, the other one going up into his throat as he buckled. It had gone in just as smooth as if he were Gunnar Glasper, and just like Glasper, it had been a mess, the Tauren writhing and bellowing in his death throes. By the time Tarquin had gotten the knife out, the rest of his lot were broken. No matter how many times he’d done this, it still got messy.

He was his last, finally; maybe thirty-four was young yet compared to most masterless men, but Tarquin had done far more living in those years than they, and what the fuck did they know of him anyway? He’d served kings and warlords and preachers and lunatics, schemed and cajoled and snuck and killed, danced for them like the song was ending and the Spring Maiden was just bare yards away. But now he had the fiddle, and when he didn’t know the tune, he’d learned to fake it. Sometimes he shuddered at the things he’d given up, or at the things he’d taken that weren’t precisely his by right. But that was the world. Tarquin was just trying to live in it, without any other bastard telling him what it was he had to do; the money, the lady, the pub and the Riders and the dim hope that he might leave something worth having after he was done, those were all just the benefits of living a masterless life. It wasn’t in him to be content, likely for the same reasons that had driven him to this stage. But he could look at the tally sheet he carried in some glutted red place, see his own name on the header, and decide that he was still winning.

And that would just have to be good enough.

A few weeks ago, the GM of our guild posted a story of Tarquin entitled First, Finest and Last (FFL). This brilliant piece summarizes and presents the history of Tarq in a new, vibrant way: Discussing Tarq’s first, finest and last bosses, loves and kills. It inspired dozens of similar posts. The format changes slightly for each character, but the major points remain: Who, or what, was the first, finest and last? How was this character shaped by other people?

Bricu’s isn’t finished yet. Normally this would just be an example of my slacking; however, my slacking can be your gain. If you want to write up your own FFL, you can my processes for writing Bricu’s story and apply it to your own.

I started by listing names of persons and places that matter to Bricu:

Then I looked for natural groups. For instance, Teigue, Threnn and Soli have all been romantically involved with Bricu. Aelflaed, Tundale and Uthas have managed to give Bricu some sort of a beat-down. Arthas is a particular example of where this can get sticky. Arthas was Bricu’s prince and commander, but he also put a beat down on Bricu (as well as everyone else alive in Azeroth). With a few additional names: Tarquin, Ulthanon, The Roses, the Maunts, Bricu’s groups start to firm up.

Once the name and the groups are structured, it’s easier to assign the First, Finest and Last. Aelflaed delivered a mighty fine (and well deserved) punch to the face, but was it the Finest or the Last? Looking at the other names in that group, it is clear that Aely is most recent, so for now, she’s clearly the Last.

FFL can be considered an epilogue. It might be the highlights of the RP and a way to say goodbye. I, personally, think its just a way to take stock of the character. It’s a chance to revisit what has been done and see how the RP has shaped your character. That may be what you need to get the RP flowing once more.

Share you FFLs with us. What are you going to write about? Loves, losses, fights, deaths? Something else? Share the works in progress and the completed story with us!

Naiara Bittertongue

The usual haze of smoke that hangs in the Pig and Whistle has dissipated. Even the chain smokers are careful to light up outside. Bricu and Threnn Bittertongue are at the front of the table, pouring over a map and sipping mugs of tea. Sitting in between them, in a high-chair built to look like King Llane’s Throne in Old Lordaeron, is chubby, happy baby. She smiles and gurgles, occasionally blurting out a few words that may not be appropriate for mixed company. As you get closer, she stops babbling and starts watching you. She has her father’s eyes–today she has her mother’s face–and if she wasn’t a toddler, she’d look like a card player. She’s all together serious while still discerning another’s cards. Toddlers’ cannot be that clever…

Naiara Bittertongue is the youngest, unofficial, Wildfire Rider and does not have a character model. She certainly has a presence in WFR RP. People interact with her through emotes and whispers. Characters watch their language when she’s around–using the phrase Earmuffs instead of their favorite profanities–and they even spoil her with presents. She’s an example of an NPC without a character model that has a direct effect on game play.

Even before Naiara had a name, before Threnn and I discussed how to handle her as an entity, she had stories. Vague stories to be fair, but they’ve all turned into something relating to the game: Diaper changing, post-partum depression, the drive to become better parents. Each one of these ideas stem from discussions on how Naiara interacts with the game world. Sometimes these interactions are for everyone in the circle. For instance, her kidnapping was a huge plot of 2010. Sometimes we resort to forum fic to show another interaction (like tomorrow’s Friday Fic).

Her future is vaguely defined right now, but right now she can do–or become–anything that the WoW universe would allow.

Its child-rearing in abstract, without the downsides of dirty diapers, sleepless nights and the constant worry that new parents have. She is also a way to expand the game in a way that supports RP without breaking lore or game mechanics.

Does your circle have a character like Naiara? Has your circle addressed children and child birth in game before? Fill us in!