All That Glints Series: Lvls 20 - 54

[Ankylosaur]

ANOTHER post-Praetorian series?!?! Yes, it's true! Having forged ahead exploring threads of a post-Praetorian Paragon, despite a conspicuous lack of interest from AE players, and a series of arcs so large that it makes any of it hard to consume,🙂  there was one set of "stuff" that still lingered and remained unexplored, and, well, I'm exploring it...

 

This time in a MUCH shorter series than the others of only 3 arcs. The three arcs in All That Glints will be:

• All That Glints 2.1: Let Go of My Ego - (20-29) - Final
• All That Glints 3.1: Beware The Ids That March - (30-40) - Final
• All That Glints 4.1: Super Ego Maniac (40-54) - Final

 

Let's review!

• All That Glitters (Tech/Sci - 12 arcs) - is the main (or at least) first story series. It is much less about Praetorians than it is about all their tech and its impact on the power dynamics in Paragon. In fact the "Glitters" originally referred to the Goldbrickers who play a key part in this. It ends in an epic arc that changes the dynamics of the Isles forever... 
• All That Glimmers (Magic - 9 Arcs) - is a fork off the main thread, and explores what the magic ex-Praetorians from First Ward do on Primal Earth. The story begins in Astoria, where the Carnival of Light and other First Warders find themselves reclaiming the now Mot-free zone. But behind all of it is someone pulling the strings to upend the balance of magical power and involves all sorts of magical mysteries - including Neo Tokyo. 
• All That Glints (Nat/Mut) - Another fork off the main thread, it explores the world after the Provost Marchand and Mr. G arcs - psi and Council and UPA related stuff. Fairly sure it's ending will not be quite as epic as the other two, but it's shorter!
• All That Gleams - is a single arc that serves as a punctation mark on all three paths - wrapping them up and suggesting the impact they have had on Praetoria. It is even inclusive of Police vs Aliens, which is part of all of this too really. So if you want to start at the end - start here! 

 

As with all of these, I ended up publishing one arc that gave me ideas to do others.

• Glitters - The Ghost in the Machine was an inspiration for who King Midas was (before the Aeon SF told us) and the core start of the idea behind Glitters - though that took all sorts of new directions. It's needed some rework since the Aeon SF changed who King Midas was, but I think I have that ironed out now.
• Glimmers - When Carnivals Collide was about the Carnival of Light vs. Shadow - it is Rogue / you're on the side of the Carnival of Shadow - and gave me some of the ideas for Glimmers, though Glimmers is also VERY different from its inspiration.
• Glints - In this case I am expanding on an idea in Return to Faultline, but it is also a VERY different take on it - what was crammed into a few missions of that arc has room to breathe with an infusion of a new plotline and players.

 

Edited July 24, 2022 by Ankylosaur

[Ankylosaur]

At the end of Mr. G and Marchand's in game arcs, a few key things are established:

1. The Council is ripped apart and weakened, opening the door to the Fifth Council returning.
2. Some of the lieutenants are missing or in prison - leaving a power vaccuum (Requium and Arakhn and the fifth column ns Nictus subplot I mostly dealt with in Police vs Aliens 2: Nictus Evictus)
3. The Council took some of Marauder's DNA and are working on a super-soldier program based on it.
4. The UPA, who under Calvin Scott teamed up with the Council, was without a leader.
5. Penny Mayhem is crazy powerful and mad - controlling all the Awakened.
6. Wu Yin gives up his memories and Vanessa Devore, still trapped in a mask on Desdemona's face wants to help her daughter. (Dealt with the trapped in a mask thing in Glimmers).

 

While I include Provost Marchand and the New Praetorians as allies in Glitters and Glimmers as those series in the later missions, they don't deal with the fallout of the in-game Marchand and Mr. G arcs - so that's what this series attempts to do...

 

All That Glints 2.1: Leggo My Ego - (20-29)

You meet Katie Douglas in Provost Marchand's arc. She has decided to go into retirement essentially. However, because of a cacophony of psychic noise she decides to try to find someone to shut it own - and that happens to be you. 

 

Spoiler

She seemed like a good first contact as she was easy to recreate, is an ex-Seer and is established as having made it to Primal Earth. 

 

If you played my arcs you know I also like to give a strong sense of "place" to my arcs, and most individual arcs tend to focus on a specific zone. With so many zones already used, there was little left to build off of. But, so you quickly make your way to Striga. This starts at level twenty since some of the more interesting mobs are at this level, but luckily, the Awakened as a mob actually go to level 50, but unfortunately, apparitions don't.

 

The primal earth Clockwork play a role here too, as they are run by a strong psionicist - The Clockwork King. But new "silver clockwork" are found fighting them in Paragon and the isles. To provide the fork, I went back and added Silver Clockwork to Glitters 1.3 and 2.1 - the latter had a great spot already with you spending so much time in Boomtown.

 

Much of this establishes the problem

 

 

All That Glints 3.1: Beware The Ids That March - (30-40) 

Having met Aurora Pena investigating the same thing on Striga, she takes charge.

 

Spoiler

We need Aurora as someone who knows how all this psi stuff works to explain the Apparitions and to provide info on how to beat the adversary. We also need her for her connection to Vanguard who can get us to Praetoria. We need Mr. G and gang to provide inside info on the Awakened because of Subjugator 5 and on the obvious adversary, Penny. Throw in Dr. Arvin's plot too, and of course more robots - cause - Council. 

 

I always like to use maps I have not used before, and this one is chock full of em. Not one of these maps is in any of my other arcs, but all fit super-well with the story. Mr. G and gang make a surprising choice here which helps weave them into All That Gleams...

 

 

All That Glints 4.1: Super Ego, Maniacal (40-54) 

 

Now that the villain is revealed and cornered, she lashes out!

 

Spoiler

No big reveal that the one behind all of this is Penny Mayhem - which is why its not nearly as "epic" a finale as Glimmers and Glitters - you probably knew all along and fighting her does not really change the landscape of the game world like the end of Glitters and Glimmers. But now she is fully enraged her psychic powers push her into new flailing plots. We get to revisit "Councilvania" from All That Glitters and expand upon some of the ideas behind Return to Faultline with several new locations and twists though. 

 

I'm hoping it turns out as a reasonable treatment of Marchand's and Mr. G's arcs while fitting in and expanding upon all the other ATG content I put out there...

 

And - if nothing else - its a lot shorter than all of that. 🙂

Edited July 23, 2022 by Ankylosaur

[Ankylosaur]

Part 2 is live now also, wherein I explore much more of the Mr. G and gang side of things while still in the overall pursuit of Penny Mayhem.

 

One to go - which is already taking ever-so-slightly different turns than what I had planned...

Edited March 14, 2022 by Ankylosaur

[Ankylosaur]

Part three - Super Ego Manic is live now too! (Finally @Icono04. 🙂)

 

Feedback welcomed as always!

 

And that wraps up that series, sort of...

 

Spoiler

Now that I have this bit done, it makes me kind of want to flesh out Glints so that this path has an even bigger finale, and is 9 arcs like the others. As with this, which took ideas from my Return to Faultline story, I have pre-existing stories I could rework in, plus some other ideas to expand some of this too.

 

Potential ideas I have thought of.

• Requiem / Arkhn / Nictus - they are part of the primal Mr. G story, where they have a big Nictus buddy falling out. Police vs Aliens tackles this already and is really part of ATG already too - bugs me that it does not have an ATG title 🙂 . I could better integrate those stories into ATG by reimagining them as part of this. Part 1 introduces a PPD cop - Buddy Bolton - who already has cameos throughout ATG. He evolves over the missions and levels, ultimately merging with a transcended, and that works in ATG where you span levels. PvA 2 which is also anchored in Nictus, but squarely in the 5th / Council Requiem Arkhn story. To be clear would just use  some of those ideas to fit into the stories here and his evolution would span the levels nicely.
• Marauder Super Soldier Story - I squeeze Dr. Arvin and the Marauder serum story into Glints already, but it is really just accommodate it - it does not do it justice. I could build that out. Also on the super-soldier front are the Nictus again, with Requiem making warwolves from N-fragments. Maybe something with an evolution of werwolves too? Plus the galaxies fit in - obvs.
• 5th Column / Council war - again - addressed in all this but just a backdrop. Do more with all of that?
• ConDev and Council Warwalkers / Neo Tokyo - Does the Council or maybe the 5th Column want to get Praetorian tech from ConDev or even just open their own portal to Neo Tokyo? 
• Marshall Blitz - I have a story that has some psychic stuff happening in it - could rework that to fit in.
• Is there a UPA - post Calvin story?

Truth is I probably won't bother since there is nothing that new in the above - just expanding or reworking stuff I have done. But, that may percolate into something new. One day, if still compelled to make stuff and out of ideas, I might just dig in here again. 🙂

•  

Edited July 24, 2022 by Ankylosaur

[Ankylosaur]

So - already thinking about expanding Glints.

1. It currently is a follow-up to the Mr. G Primal arc, but could also act as a follow-up to the Marchand Primal arc.
2. Can rework PvA to just be core here in a better way.

To make sure I have my ducks in a row and represent the whole Council and 5th Column conflict well here, I thought I would jot down where I think everyone is at the end of that Marchand story.

1. Maestro - You defeat him first and he is in the Zig
2. Nosferatu - Defeated - in the Zigq
3. Burkholder - fought by Aurora Pendragon on Striga
4. Arkhn - teleports away
5. Requiem - never on site but rebuilding 5th
6. Burkholder - defeated on striga by character - though maybe escaped by own hosp?
7. Vandal - defeated on striga by character - though maybe escaped by own hosp?
8. The Center - somewhere with...
9. Dr. Arvin - working on super soldier serum

Edited July 28, 2022 by Ankylosaur

[Icono04]

On 7/23/2022 at 4:58 PM, Ankylosaur said:

Part three - Super Ego Manic is live now too! (Finally @Icono04. 🙂)

 

Damn you! Just when I thought I had gotten out, you pull me back in! I finished Police Vs. Alien 2 a few days ago and thought I would take a break from goldside AE arcs, but now thanks to you...

[Ankylosaur]

It's interesting you just played PvA @Icono04 because I thought of weaving the PvA series into Glints to better explore the Post - primal Marchand side of things. As you saw in Gleams - its already woven in parts, and Buddy Bolton appears all over the series.

 

The PvA 1 experiment of an arc kind of begs to be redone, as the experiment of multiple paths with failed missions has not been received super well, and it is already spanning multiple levels, so fits in nicely. Would love your opinion on whether interleaving these would make for a more interesting and complete story or not.

 

Spoiler

In my head it is looking like this

1. Glints 2.1 - Nictus Among Us - Introduce the Nictus story from PvA 1, totally redone lead in, and intermingled with better Council v 5th  lead-ins to the Arakhn and Requiem stuff that you see in PvA - will lead into
2. Glints 2.2 - Let go of My Ego (the current Glints 2.1) - which will pivot back to 
3. Glints 3.1 - Nictus Exodus - more about the post-Marchand stuff and including some of the latter part of PvA1 - have some cool maps/groups for this range, which in turn pivots to
4. Glints 3.2 - Beware the ids that march (current 3.1)
5. Glints 4.1 - Super Ego Maniac (current 4.1) and turns back to
6. Glints 4.2 - Essentially PvA2

Of course then that makes me want to do 3 more to bring the story count in line with Glitters and Glints. That thread is on the UPA extricating themselves from the Council after the Calvin Scott stuff - but ideas are thin there.

 

Will I bother? unclear 🙂

 

Edited August 13, 2022 by Ankylosaur

[Icono04]

Funny you should mention that - I had wondered myself if the PvA series would be better off as part of the larger Post Praetoria campaign. I didn't have a clear idea of how that would be done, but the 6-arc make-over you listed makes a lot of sense. For some reason I can't figure out, the two PvA arcs didn't grab me in the same way that your other goldside (and goldside-related) arcs did, so mixing the PvA arcs directly in with the overarching Post Praetoria campaign might help in that regard.

 

That said, I think there are better uses of your time than creating 3 new arcs just to get to that magical number of 9 arcs. Your proposed combination of Glints and PvA looks like a coherent storyline, so no need to add anything to it. ...unless you already have one or more stories inside you that are just begging to be written, in which case by all means do so. What I am saying is, don't be a slave to the number 9.

 

 

Edit: Added the missing word 'idea'.

Edited August 14, 2022 by Icono04

[Ankylosaur]

Thanks for that feedback! 

 

I think you are right. I do like interleaving in the Kheldian story, but I don't have a strong enough story there to justify three arcs to a UPA story.

 

Spoiler

The UPA story would be around the UPA leaving the Council and merging with the Skyraiders, I think. At least one or two unique maps I can use, plus looking through the mobs, could Calvin Scott return? and the dual Sky Raider leaders (Primal and Praetorian) show promise to work together - they did in one TF already I think - Admiral Sutter?

If I do that may go back and extricate some of what I put into ConDev in Glitters too. But other than the idea of merging them - without a big motive or end goal - there's no story there yet.

 

Also - have thought of additional stories I could tell in Gleams since you mentioned wanting more there - maybe one day.

 

Edited August 14, 2022 by Ankylosaur

[Ankylosaur]

Some minor updates here for those that have played. It was always my intention to have some of the Council leaders to show up in Penelope Mayhem's view of victory. Totally optional to engage of course, but it was good to have their voices in there to connect the series. Also sprinkled in some Council set dressing since they have all their branded objects.

 

And because Glints has gotten a few plays, I'm jumping to the conclusion that is in part it is because it is so much shorter. A trilogy of arcs is just a much smaller commitment and easier to get into. I'm still thinking about redoing Police vs Aliens with the new story flow ideas I have, and if I do, I will just run it as a parallel trilogy - not try to integrate it into All That Glints.

Edited August 29, 2022 by Ankylosaur

[Ankylosaur]

Same story here in Glints as with Glows - renumbered it to be easier for the player to consume.

1. Let Go My Ego
2. Beware The Ids That March
3. Super Ego Maniac

Get your dose of Penelope Mayhem, Mr. G, and more Praetorian stuff in something much shorter than Glitters...

 

Edited July 22, 2023 by Ankylosaur