h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

If you are not playing the role of the Ship's Cook, then DO NOT READ ANY MORE OF THIS THREAD!!!!!

"It's not easy being green..."

THE SHIP'S COOK

Albert Head -AKA Glug Gloop of the Gillmen

YOUR STORY -You have been among humans for several years and you have found that, taken individually, humans aren't bad for mammals. Some of your best friends are humans. Taken as a whole... well, the planet is big enough for both races, because it's big enough to stay out of each other's sight. Humans can't get along with each other; the last thing humans need is someone else to not get along with and the last thing your people need is to be someone the humans don't get along with. It would be best if the gillmen just found a place at the bottom of the sea and stayed there.

That is why the sinking of Atlantis was the greatest moment in gillman history. If only your people had been invited to the sinking.

About a thousand years ago in what the humans call the Bahamas, a squad of your people were being chased by a kraken. Your people are always being chased by kraken. Chased almost to extinction. A kraken will cross an ocean to get one gillman; the damned squids will pass up whole pods of whales to get one gillman. And so, there was a squad of gillmen being chased by a kraken. They tried to lose the kraken in the shallows but it was no go. Then they found a half submerged building, a great big thing made of stone. Your people hid inside and slammed the door.

It worked. Wow , what an idea, build stone buildings with heavy doors and kraken can't get to you. Unfortunately, your people are not builders. You have little stone and no metal tools to shape what stone you have. You cannot build kraken-proof structures from sea bottom ooze. If only a few more buildings could be found, a bit lower in the water line.

There were books in the few dry areas of the building. It took years, but your kind learned to read. You learned that this was a lost Atlantean outpost. You learned about the Black Wizards and the White Priests and the Soulstone. And you learned about the sinking.

What a wonderful thing! A whole country full of buildings of stone, with just the right atmosphere (i.e. at the bottom of the ocean). Not to mention a large supply of fresh meat in enchanted cold storage (gillman law considers killing a human murder, but clearly these Black Wizards deserve what they get, and human are the only mammal worth eating).

Now if your people could just find the place.

Hundreds of years of searching have produced nothing. Atlantis is clearly off the beaten path, nowhere near the fish migration routes. It is a big ocean and your people could search forever or until a kraken ate the last of you.

On the other hand, you could get the humans to show you where Atlantis is.

Among the books your people found were books of magic. Gillmen have no aptitude for magic, magical study was mostly fruitless. Gillmen can't cast spells. There is a simple ritual which seems to work naturally for your people. It's your only spell.

Gillmen can assume human form and walk on land.

Very useful.

It would have been nice to just be able to trace the Soulstone from family records. Humans record everything (your people have been spared from this only by the fact that paper is not waterproof). Supposedly the Soulstone stays in the same family, handed down from mother to daughter. Unfortunately, you got into the game a 1000 or so years too late and the records of the first Atlantean families are long gone. It would have to be done the hard way. You traced rumours. Rumours of magic, rumours of sunken islands, rumours of strange gems, all manner of stupid rumours told by drunken sailors; it was getting you nowhere. It also meant spending a lot more time on land than your kind enjoys (but then, gillmen consider any time at all on land too much).

You got another lucky break. It was noticed that several times when a gillman agent was checking out an unusual gem rumour there would be a break in at the local records office. Was someone else looking for the last High Priestess of Atlantis? Gillmen began checking out other mysterious break ins at records offices.

Whoever was behind this was certainly ruthless about covering their tracks. Offices were ransacked, often clerks were murdered. Not a few times the whole building was burned to the ground. It was easy to follow the path of destruction, but impossible to discover what whoever it was was looking for. Finally a copy of one of the stolen documents was left behind, Lizzie Briggs' birth certificate.

So, the Briggs family has descended from the White Priests of Atlantis? Then who has the Soulstone; Sarah Briggs, Little Lizzie, or the Captain?

The odds are they all know where Atlantis is; human families are pretty good about sharing secrets. Well, Lizzie might not know anything, three-year-old humans are pretty ignorant (unlike gillbabys, who have to escape from kraken as soon as they can swim). Lizzie's sharp, though, so you can't rule anything out.

Now, how do you get them to help you? All the records say that the White Priests are saving Atlantis and plan to raise the place sometime in the future. From your people's point of view that would be bad. So how far would the White guardians of Atlantis go to protect the place? You are all friends and ship mates, but how far does that go when your respective duties make you enemies? Not very far, if you've learned anything about humans. Also, you are dealing with magicians who have you out-gunned. Over the years they may have forgotten a few tricks but you bet they still know a few spells that do a lot more than change your shape. The records say the White Priesthood was all peace-loving and pacifistic; and such, but you take that with a gram of salt water. Humans on the winning side tend to portray themselves that way.

To get Atlantis' location you will need co-operation and you haven't figured out a way to get it. The second half of your mission is comparatively easy, you have to destroy the Soulstone. Without the soulstone Atlantis can't rise. Unlike your first goal you have several options for success, but you don't like any of them. Co-operation isn't necessary, you don't need to see the damned Stone to destroy it, you can just sink the whole ship and the Stone is lost with it. Or blow the ship up; the 1700 casks of alcohol in the hold ought to do it. You won't be sure of success, but sure enough.

Atlantis will stay sunk forever and your people will probably find it. Someday.

Duty says do it for your people, conscience says the Hell with duty, these are your friends, and you don't know what you say.

Maybe you'll have help. Someone else is tracking the Atlanteans, someone who bums buildings and murders record clerks. Someone not nice at all. If whoever this is makes a move, the Briggs' may find that helping you is the lesser of two evils. This assumes, of course, that you don't get killed in the crossfire.

GOALS AT A GLANCE - Discover the location of Atlantis. Destroy the Soul Stone to ensure that Atlantis never rises. Find out what the Atlanteans are up to. In the meantime be a good cook and shipmate.

ROLE-PLAYING HINT - You are basically a pretty good fella, but your attitudes are coloured by the fact that you are a fish. You love being wet, you hate the sun, you prefer seaweed to roses, etc. You show a general disdain for all things land bound and have a marked preference for anything from the sea.

STATISTICALLY - Gillmen are tough, it comes from hanging around under two or three miles of water. Being out of water makes you sluggish and a bit weak but you're still tougher than any human. In the water you are strong, agile and tougher than any human. You know nothing of guns or swords, but in your hands kitchen cutlery is deadly.

THE OTHER CHARACTERS

CAPTAIN BENJAMIN BRIGGS - While establishing, your cover as a sea cook you've met plenty of ship's captains. Briggs is the best of the lot. You have had only one complaint from him, when the crew objected to getting fish every night (mammals insist on eating red meat, yeech!)... A good man, it pains you that technically you are on opposite sides.

FIRST MATE RICHARDSON - He's head-over-heels for the Captains's wife, and she's not happy about it. No one else has noticed, but you are a student of human nature (being, non-human gives you a wonderful perspective for this sort of thing).

SECOND MATE GILLING - You don't like him. He has never given you any reason to dislike him, you just don't like him.

SARAH BRIGGS - High Priestess of Atlantis? Nice lady, she'd probably help you if it wasn't her duty not to. You will protect her from all harm unless it becomes your duty to harm her. But then, gillmen have a weakness for attractive human females (it's a gillman thing, you wouldn't understand)

LIZZIE BRIGGS - Dear child, but surPrisingly silent. Spends a lot of time just staring, soaking everything up. Reminds you a bit of when you first stepped on land 5 years ago. She's absolutely unlike any five-year-old human in the world. Could it be just because she's so smart or are Atlantean magics at work here? She does not like fish, but you tend to like her anyway.

THE FOUR JOHANS - The Mary Celeste's German seamen. You use last names because they're all called Johan (a common name, sort of like Bloop among your people)

Volkert and Goodschad are fine men and totally loyal to the Skipper and his family. You'd hate to oppose them, especially Volkert, he's one tough customer.

Martens is crazy. He sees things. He's rattled you a few times with his talk of sea monsters, but he describes serpents not squids so you try to ignore him (though you've had a few nightmares about kraken because of Martens).

Lorenzen hates you and it's mutual. He's loudly insulted your finest fish dinners and that is almost (not quite, but almost) justification for murdering the b*****d.

THE CASTAWAY - No land in sight and she's in a canoe?! If this woman loves the sea that much you just have to talk to her. Better yet, you can smell fish in the pouch on her belt. This woman and you could easily become friends.

THE STOWAWAY - You have trouble keeping your objectivity here. Another case of the effect good-Iooking human women have on your kind. Still, you get good vibes from her.

THE CAT - Nobody likes the cat, except you. How can you fault a creature that appreciates fish-heads?

ITEMS

You do not carry any items on your person, but you do have the run of the ship, especially the galley. The following utensils are to hand:

CLEAVER

BUTCHER'S KNIFE

SPECIAL ABILITIES

HUMAN FORM - Your only spell, allows you to live on land and pass as human. You can dispel it yourself automatically. The spell ends instantly you are immersed in sea water. Without this spell you can last 30 fairly uncomfortable minutes out of water.

NIGHT VISION -W here you come from there isn't a lot of light.

GILLS - You live under water. The cold and vast pressures of the deep do not effect you. You can also swim faster than a human can run. None of this is of any use if you have the HUMAN FORM spell working.

CRY FOR HELP - You can communicate with your own kind over great distances, much as whales do. Just dive in the water and yell. 20 gillmen will come to your aid in 10 minutes. The importance of your mission is known only to your people so they will come even if it's a suicide mission (though only ten will come if you are facing a kraken).

COOK - You are the best chef in the world so long as the main course is fish. Anything else and you are mediocre at best.

KITCHEN FIGHTING - A technique taught to you by a Japanese sailor. A butcher's knife is equal to a sword in your hands and you can strike with a knife in both hands with no penalty.

You should also read fact sheets 1 and 2, but not 3. The fact sheets can be found here:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/h2g2/guide/A598412

[Gloop's Brain] Right ... just behave like Albert Head and everything'll probably be fine.

Exactly! Glad to have you aboard, Glug ... I mean, YK.

Bad news: I can't be here from August 10th on, so you might need to find someone else. In fact, I think you /will/, because I seem to be quite important. (Well, duh.)

Hey GL, didn't hear the starting gun, so I've had to pick up a few days late. Can you clear something up for me, please?

The essence of the game is that you can only be in one place at a time, right? So if I leave the galley to go up on deck, I should leave a note on the galley thread to say I've left, and start posting on the On Deck thread. But I couldn't have heard anything that's gone on before I arrived, so I shouldn't read anything before I post, right? And I have to try to find out what's going on purely by asking other crew members or eavesdropping? Sorry to be dumb, but I think some of these things only come out when you actually start playing.

I think that is generally correct, but it might be a bit cumbersome. I was thinking that for "public" threads, where lots of people are together, you could read the backlog to get yourself oriented, but your character wouldn't know what had gone on when you weren't there. For conversation threads, however, you shouldn't read the backlog - there has to be a place for people to do private things. You can read the post immediately before you enter the conversation area, since you might have overheard that when you arrived, but no more than that.

We may need to refine this as we go along. Maybe it might be better to do it just as you said, with no reading of backlog in threads where you haven't been. Actually, the more I think of it, the more it makes sense. That way, all threads are treated the same. I think I'll post that to the announcements thread. Thanks.

As for leaving a note when you leave the galley - that would work just fine. Simply posting that you leave would also work.

Yep, I think the guiding principle is that you can only be in one place at a time, so you can only gain knowledge of events elsewhere on the ship by having been there when they happened, by asking people (who may or may not tell you the truth), or by eavesdropping. It should be possible to be discovered eavesdropping as well, to add the element of risk, but I'm not sure how that works.

Question: where do people eat? In their cabins individually, or is there a communal table where meals are served and everyone except the Captain eats together?

Hmmmm. Eating arrangements. I haven't seen an actual layout of the ship, so we'll have to invent here. I think it makes sense that the Captain might eat with his family in his cabin. Perhaps the rest of the crew would eat in the forecastle, where they bunk.

Alternatively, we could invent a mess room, where everyone eats - with the Captain and family at a separate table. I'm not sure which would be more interesting for this scenario...

*flips coin*

Okay, we'll go with the mess room idea. (unless you strongly feel the other way would be better).

No, I like the mess room. It gives a focus for everyone and me a chance to hear what everyone's up to.

Will I announce that the meals are ready, or is that your job?

I think you could announce it now - everyone has had some chance to have private conversations (if they want more, they can step outside). You might describe the mess, too, so that everyone starts on the same foot.

Oh, one other thing I forgot to mention.

The Captain is an ardent tea-totaller and you are very unlikely to have any alcohol. In fact, it is very unlikely that there is any aboard at all - except for the raw, undrinkable stuff in the cargo hold. Just thought I had better let you know.

Keep up the excellent acting (This is a lot of fun, particularly since I can read ALL of the threads )

Must be a bit like having a bank of security cameras in front of you, and we never know when we're being watched!

So we also need to have a means of alerting everyone to something simultaneously, like a gong for dinner, or if there's a disturbance on deck that everyone would be able to hear. Should we use the Announcements thread, or maybe we could tell you and you could post everywhere?

Using the announcements thread would work, but that thread has become more of an actors thread rather than a playing thread, if you know what I mean (i.e. we are usually ooc in that thread). This is the oldest new thread I have right now, so it is the first I am checking today - perhaps you already found a way around this problem. When I was last here on Tuesday, almost everyone was in the "on deck" thread, so an announcement there would have worked. Perhaps you could announce it there and ask for the message to be passed on - I'm sure between everyone there, they know where everyone else is. If someone still misses the call, I'll let them know in their private thread.

I'm off to read the rest of the backlog now.

Well, to save you the leg work of telling everybody that something's happened, perhaps we could keep the Announcements thread free for just announcing things that influence everyone (the weather changes, there is a loud noise, a vibration is felt throughout the ship, and so on), and tell everyone to read the thread first whenever they log on (unless they're somewhere they couldn't be aware of things). If there's a need for an out of character thread, maybe a new one could be started?

I think the announcements thread could still work for both. When I first set it up, I had envisioned it as more of a playing thread than an ooc thread, but then I went and used it as an ooc thread myself. There isn't really much need for an ooc thread, since everyone has their private thread, so the announcements thread should be fine for both.

Well, given that everyone's now sitting at dinner, I guess it works as both . No need to create another thread then.

BTW - thanks for helping iron out the bugs. I appreciate having someone else thinking about the mechanics too.

No problem GL. It's useful to me anyway to know what my character can and can't do.