I am still absolutely buzzing from the excitement of the vampire event finale!

It's been a long time coming, and definitely bittersweet because it was the event my characters have been around the longest for and most engaged in.  

Having 'the vampire, Velarius' as boogeyman story to spread around to new players and stir up curiosity and/or wariness was such a treat and fixture of Harris' character.  I will be sad to see it go but excited for more to come.

The game of telephone, trying to figure out who knew what, stirring up paranoia about who could and could not be trusted, it was all just very natural and gave a lot to work with RP wise.

I loved the building tension of "well he is scary- but just don't go out at night" to him actually coming by to hunt players down and being very much a real threat.

Strategically attempting to organize a countermeasure was a great opportunity to explore more game mechanics and try to find synergy and weaknesses of different builds.


I can't help but be absolutely giddy that poor brave little Harris, delirious and scrambling through the rain in the final hour had the answer in his grasp but wasn't quick enough to deliver.

There was a lot of angst and emotions with this one that got stirred up with this one so I hope players are managing their bleed. Everyone did their best you guys! The answer was indeed far easier than we feared.

I think my suggestion for mitigating that the finger pointing and neck wringing of the problem solving characters failing to find the answer doesn't boil over just IC conflict would be to perhaps set more clues a red herring is being followed?

And I am curious if there were any alternate 'win' states or if that might be a consideration for future events.

Oh man I am so heartbroken this long-running event is over. I have a LOT of thoughts, especially since this thing has technically spanned across the entirety of my time playing the game, so I'll try to make everything as concise as possible.

• LOVED the long-termness of this event. I loved being able to experience different phases of it; the rush, the lulls, and then the rushes rising again. Going from a player who knows literally nothing to actively being able to participate with a more well-built character.
• I enjoyed being able to interact with the villain more directly and it encourages me to do so in the future, especially compared to how my characters acted during the Silyna resistance arc. (I liked being given tasks. This made me feel very, very happy)
• I do think that the solution being so simple threw me off a lot, especially since the only other event "solution" I had previously witnessed was, again, Silyna, which required usage of game mechanics more directly (red magic, in this case.) That's more of a personal fault but still something I thought about once it was revealed how easy it was all that time.
• Also, with the solution involving real-world vampire superstitions (garlic) I did notice that Greenstalks don't actually seem to reference being garlicky at all. (I thought they were onions for the longest time.) This might've been resolved if, as stated in the discord, critters actually sat down and mulled over the prophecy and potential literalness or got fresh eyes involved, but it's still a small detail I wanted to note.
• I'm a bit sad that the conclusion, getting Veraius to conveniently leave such that the event could actually end, felt so abrupt. While it does leave some opening for him to return some time in the distant future, it did feel a bit rushed; especially so after the entire ending night saga.
• Even if the end felt abrupt, I actually did enjoy seeing a bad ending as opposed to the "good ending" (heavy quotations there) with Silyna's event.
• I would definitely love to see another sort of "ever-present baddie" in the future. Having the persistent threat of a vampire looming at night made for some good tension, even when plot stuff wasn't actually happening.

Overall: 11/10 cried actual tears multiple times in all the best ways. I am going to genuinely miss Veraius.

Also Harris nearly having at the end, being one of the few not enthralled, will forever live on in my head.

Unsurprisingly, I have some thoughts.

• As I've stated before, being on the resistance side of GM events really genuinely sucks for me to play. I was glad to have my character enthralled "early" in the actual meat of the event. I do wish there was a bit more for the enthralled to have done, it never really felt like my character was forced to play a more antagonistic role until the end. But I also know that was because the resistance was just... struggling already and probably would've entirely disolved if I got to shred them like that haha. Getting information while hiding and somewhat manipulating other characters is fun. It just wasn't quite as involved as I anticipated, but I was also prepared for like, anything short of their death.
• That being said, I really enjoyed having their personal morals called directly into question by the narrative. I wish I was capable of doing even more of that during the event. Playing a character who reacts so differently from myself is fascinating to me, and it allowed me to disect even more of their weird ideology of the world. Having them fight so keenly and silently over and over knowing that wouldn't be returned by anyone other than their gods was unique. It often felt like they were attempting to find the lesser evil in a doomed world. One of my favorite things became getting Blessings, since it felt like it had direct weight on the character. Moments of peace, nudges, messages, all in a silent mechanic only I can see.
• Veraius seemingly both having some measure of respect and distain for Quarrel was such a highlight for me. I usually don't have much of a chance to show how truly silvanic they are, but I had quite a few in this arc.
• I said before in the discord that I'd like some kind of list or something that gives more direction or ideas on how effects should make characters act. Everyone interprets things differently, and apparently one of my pet peeves has become players choosing to entirely ignore or "overcome" the effects. 
• Knowing when Veraius was active was very, very useful. I feel like it added to the gameplay and roleplay. I would like to have something like this continued in other events for lackies.

Might remember more things later, but that's it for now.

Also I did see the greenstalk in front of Cerridwen's shrine but I entirely assumed a certain character had accidentally missed putting it in the deposit box.