Skills/plan for flames ritual

Latest Ritual Cliff Notes

Ritual Parameters (Modified for Puce Hegemon version) :

Note: as of ???, Dr Cain's Puce-Hegemon-ness (hegemon of Perception, the Tinoori Psi Special substat) has been successfully transferred to First Frost of Autumn. This means that unless we do something truly mad, we're committed to the Puce version of the ritual unless we kill FFA.

Here's the Puce Hegemon version of the ritual.

Note: a guiding principle of this ritual is "The Puce Hegemon may never touch the Star." (Even at other times than the ritual, having him touch the Star may be bad--note that Cain had underlings build his device and left the Star with them when he fled.)

A note on Gatherings: contrary to my previous belief, it turns out you can run a Gathering that doesn't include you. This means, e.g. someone else could do a Gathering for Donella and FFA without either of them needing the sctick. Frustratingly, Blue is not where we want to send our spare Gatherer (Mirris). Errata: this turns out to not really be the case after all (confusion over rulings). Most people's Gathering schticks must include themselves; it's possible that someone in the universe has one that doesn't, in which case they could be used this way. But presumably not Mirris.
Gathering 1: Red, Blue, Green, "do something to the Star" Katya? (Donella?) (Jayla?)
Gathering 2: Red, Blue, Green "do something to Puce" Katya? (Donella?) (Jayla?)
Gathering 3: Blue + Preservers, touch the Star, "any gathering". Donella
Gathering 4: Blue + Puce, "any gathering" Donella
Gathering 5: Red and Coordinators, in monitoring station, "any gathering." Mirris? Or Jayla, who says she's learning Gathering
Gathering 6: Green and Defenders, "any gathering." Katya

Red Hegemon (Jayla ). Participates in 2 Gatherings with Blue and Green Hegemons. Goes to Juice and into the monitoring station (death maze!). PrePsi with Psi Theory for 11's; successes = number of Attendants (er, I think it's Attendants + Red, here). Participates in Gathering with Coordinators (need not be the person running the Gathering). PrePsi Power Projection for 11's (group totals needed). PrePsi with Psi Theory for 11's, repeatedly; each time, successes = number of attendants or FFA takes damage.
Green Hegemon (Katya ). Participates in 2 Gatherings with Red and Blue Hegemons. Stays on Gateway in the Bowl (for days while others travel!) Participates in Gathering with Defenders (need not be the person running the Gathering). StrPsi Power Projection for 11's (group totals needed). StrPsi with highest-skill psi talent for 11's, repeatedly; each time, successes = number of attendants or FFA takes damage.
Blue Hegemon (Donella ). Participates in 2 Gatherings with Red and Green Hegemons. Goes to Craterrock with Puce Hegemon and Star (later separates from them, staying in sight but as far away as possible). Participates in Gathering with Preservers (need not be the one running the Gathering). Participates in Gathering with Puce (need not be the one running it, but really, might as well be). Participates in Gathering with Preservers (need not be the person running the Gathering). Fortune Power Projection for 11's (group totals needed). Fortune with highest-skill psi talent for 11's, repeatedly; each time, successes = number of attendants or FFA takes damage.
Puce Hegemon (First frost of Autumn ). Other Hegemons do a Gathering to him. Goes to Craterrock with Blue Hegemon and Star (Blue later separates from them, staying in sight but as far away as possible). MUST NEVER TOUCH THE STAR. Participates in Gathering with Blue. Perception Projectors PP into Puce--does this mean he can't PP himself? Or not? His physical location is IMPORTANT (but we can figure it out). PsiPerception with highest-skill psi talent for 11's, repeatedly; each time, successes = number of attendants or he takes damage; he also takes damage if the other hegemons fail their parallel rolls.
Attendants: racial and geographical distribution, minimal number ("suggest, rather than ennumerate, the people you want to cover"; major groups unrepresented will suffer from holes in sheild.) PrePsi with Psi Theory for 11's, each must get successes = Attendants. New ruling: can also use half of Xenopsi or Gathering Theory, up to level of your Psi Theory for each. May be Preservers, but are not required to? Blue/Puce party (actually, they're the "Star party," which I think means they have to go with Puce when Blue & Puce separate, but probably can still be in on the Fortune PP roll before that in any case). Ruehan, Kith, Sharra (replacing Eva), Cabry Tinoori (identified and sent teacher), Twig (now replaced by Dr. Spruinz) Some notes on possible sets of Attendants.
Preservers. Blue/Puce Party. Participate in Gathering. Only they and the Blue hegemon may touch the Star (after the Gathering) (which, again, means they sorta have to go with Puce when Blue & Puce separate. May include Attendants? Note that these people stay together until after the Blue and Puce PP rolls are made, then the Hegemons split up and presumably the Preservers can do so too. In particular, we want to send a healer (likely Kith) with FFA to keep him from dying, and we may well want to send Jim with the Tinoori party too, as ambassador/interpreter for human interactions.
Fortune Power Projectors. Blue party (Puce is present at this time, but two parties act simultaneously, so I'm treating them as separate groups. But there's no reason they can't recombine for the splitting-up of Blue and Puce, I think.) PsiFor roll with PP for 11's; total group successes = 10xAttendants. May include Attendants, Preservers. donella, ace, jim, eva, kith, twig, ruehan. hopefully the tinoori can go with puce.]
Extra Blue bodyguards. If the Preservers go with the Star, there had better be someone left to protect Donella! Can be Fortune Power Projectors, but not, I theorize, Presevers or Attendants.
Perception Power Projectors. Puce party (Blue Is present at this time, but two parties act simultaneously, so I'm treating them as separate groups. But there's no reason they can't recombine for the splitting-up of Blue and Puce, I think.) PsiPerception roll with PP for 11's; total group successes = 10xAttendants. May include Attendants. Tinoori only!
Defenders. Green party. Participate in Gathering. Only they and the Green hegemon may touch the Bowl (this means the entire quarry/lake) (after the Gathering). May not include Attendants.
PsiStrength Power Projectors. Green party. PsiStr roll with PP for 11's; total group successes = 10xAttendants. May not include Attendants or Preservers. Note that you may be present without being a Defender, and/or without making a PP roll. You can also make the roll for 0 successes, as long as other people get enough. See notes below for why you'd want to be present and helping, but not a Defender (mostly, you don't). katya, martan, akito, ciernan, probably a lot of the npcs we have so far
Coordinators. Red party. Participate in Gathering. Only they and the Green hegemon may enter the monitoring station (after the Gathering). Note that these people have to make their way through the death maze of the station! May not include Attendants.
PsiPrecision Power Projectors. Red party. PsiPre roll with PP for 11's; total group successes = 11xAttendants. May not include Defenders. Note that you may be present without being a Coordinator, and/or without making a PP roll. You can also make the roll for 0 successes, as long as other people get enough. See notes below for why you'd want to be present and helping, yet not a Coordinators. jayla, mirris, kye, max
Extra Red bodyguards. Also note that keeping anyone from entering the station, more so than protecting the bowl or the star, probably requires people physically guarding the outside of the station, while the Coordinators have been sucked into the death maze. i think this means a separate group of guardians (who will themselves not be allowed to enter!)
Buff-ers. If we can lower our target numbers, we'll be much happier. Ideally, we'd like at least one person who can lower targets for each group. (Note that most people we know can't buff a group en masse; 4-8 targets is about as much as is reasonable to expect. Kith (mostly for the Tinoori, presumably). Jayla (for her group, if she can hold down the substat she isn't using, ie. run it off strength).
Healers. At a minumim, one to keep FFA from dying. (presumably Kith.) More would be nice, as we expect to get hurt in this process...
Other people may be present to help defend the ritualists at each location. They need not participate. In particular, the Bowl and Station are both large-area things that need perimeter guards--for several days, at least in the case of the Bowl!

People assigned to groups.

Some interesting information (mostly justifications/explanations for why the ritual is the way it is):

Puce & Blue "seeing each other" means w/tech assistence, e.g. from separate moutaintops.
This stuff must happen on the planets, not in space.
Damage to Puce in the last step counts as a different source for each Hegemon/roll (important for healing purposes!).
The Puce Hegemon is a disruptive force; this is why his existence screws up the original ritual. The Puce Hegemon Version uses this disruption: basically, the original version involved flinging Power across the galaxy; in the new version, Puce stands in the way just so, scattering the Power into wacky, farther-reaching patterns. (This is why FFA can't touch the Star; why he has to be physically removed from Donella; and why the business at the end bites him if anything goes wrong.)
The Power Projection step is "priming the pump", i.e. prepping the Hegemons so that when "main power" is channeled through them, it doesn't fry them. (This is why Puce needs a PP step, even though he's not a charged bloodline and won't be accessing vast power on his own account; he's still getting hit with the combined power.)
If two people did a Gathering in the Bowl and one of them then left planet, the one remaining couldn't hold up the Gathering--but if three people Gathered and two stayed behind, the amplification of the Bowl would allow them to maintain it. (This is irrelevant for the purpose we originally thought about it for, but would possibly be an alternate way of communicating "now" among the Hegemons.
The reason, in the original ritual, that Green/Blue needed successes=10xattendants, while Red needed x9, was because Blue and Green were near each other, interfering with each other. Separating them would normally drop their difficulties to x9. However, the new ritual is unstable, so everything is more difficult; and Red, being all about control, has an even harder time, thus needs x11 while everyone else needs x10.
Oh yes, and the timing of the planets and so on should mean that there's a huge chance that things don't line up right and the whole thing is impossible....but that's what we have a Blue Hegemon for. :)

What do I need to do to prepare for the ritual?

Save up your karma! Lots of uses for it here! :) (e.g. more than doubling one's dice, re-rolling, possibly helping others, rolling on stats you don't have (hopefully unlikely)...
Buy Power Projection! (We don't currently have numbers for anything worked out, but this looks like it will involve everyone who possibly can making PP rolls, so if you have any Psi (including Fortune) dice to speak of, please consider pitching in.) New best guess (July): Buy at least 5 ranks. 10 would be better. The sky is pretty much the limit. (Note that 5 ranks is about a season-4-run's worth of SP. Note, too, that you're likely to be in only 4-5 before the ritual.) The more successes you rate, the fewer NPCs we have to find, train, trust, and bring along.
Tom says: If PCs all roll 9 dice, buying 15 skill is as good as 2 people with 9d/5s, or as good as 4 people with 3d/5s.
What group am I in?.

List of things to take care of

Update Jayla and get some idea from her what she will bring/prepare done. friends list and group stats list updated accordingly. she awaits our message to go.

Train FFA (see Puce Hegemon requirements) He and his parents understand the requirements of the ritual, and he's started learning PP.

Brief Donella, get her buy-in, and get her to learn what she needs to learn: PP, a consciously-usable Fortune talent (if she doesn't have one) that she can put buckets of SP into and that is appropriate for repeated use in the midst of a ritual, and Gathering (alternatively, we could teach FFA Gathering and also send a second Gatherer as one of the Preservers; but if Donella learns it, she can do both of these Gatherings). She has a gathering schtick and has been learning PP. Good to go. (er, we haven't checked on the talent front, but I'm going to assume she's OK there too)

Crunch some numbers to find out how many NPCs we're actually going to need (i.e. how few we can make it) and of what types. This includes "how much can we buff ourselves?" (Note that buffing 50 people is hard; buffing 4 is much easier.) See notes elsewhere on this page Most recent number crunching from Tom

Make a plan for recruiting and training the NPCs, and get to work on it. Here's a list-in-progress of people we might recruit, and which ones we've got so far. Highlights: we've got bulk outworld psis arranged, and are working on teaching them PP. We don't have exact numbers, and we don't know, e.g. what their stats are or whether they will leave us short of PRE (but being outworlders, that's a risk). Jim and the Tinoori have recruited on Cabry. We have not yet asked Shaddam or Donella for psis. Eva is making arrangements to bring the people training on Crux to Highguard to wait for our pick-up, so we don't have to go through Gateway to get them when the time comes. Update: with new Brocoah recruits, we should be all set.

Assign people groups/roles. Mostly done. A couple of PCs and a bunch of named NPCs are still unassigned. We also haven't finished recruiting bulk NPCs, so haven't assigned them yet. People in groups.

Train appropriately. Learn Power Projection!

Remember that step 0 of the ritual is to turn on the Bowl and Star. :)

Figure out what hoops we need to jump through, politically and logistically, to get everyone where they need to go with some chance of success. Potential issues include: Getting Donella to Gateway and then Craterrock (the former in Red, the latter requiring a trip through Red for any ship but Hippoc, which could go through Vircus); getting everyone to Gateway, and into the Bowl (Klothos controls both and currently hates us); setting up a plan for keeping non-participants out of the Bowl and Pole in particular (since those are areas rather than items; though at least the Pole just has an entrance (I think); generally not getting leapt upon by local authorities for doing wierd stuff. Then get it dealt with somehow!

To look into (answers we've discovered in boldface):

Rupert's Hole version of the ritual (perhaps unnecessary now)
Any and all ways to make those target numbers lower/reduce the number of people we need to involve in this.
How much movement of the Star is likely to cause badness? You think that the amount of movement generated by someone standing there and holding it in their hands would be fine. (so it doesn't have to be *utterly* still. Both large movement and fast movement are axes of trouble; fast more so to people nearby, large more so to people far away. Using it as a baseball (fast, limited area) would probably be very very disruptive to the people near it, and moderately disruptive to everyone. Having the whole group slowly walk a mile north (slow, larger area) would probably be mildly disruptive to the local person, and very very disruptive to the others. "Very very disruptive" is about the maximum that you think the ritual could *possibly* survive. Dodging while holding the Star, as an example, is likely to be a mild local disruption and not at all a faraway disruption.
Relative disruptiveness of someone who's not supposed to touch the bowl doing so, versus someone who's not a Hegemon using the psi-amplifying powers of the Bowl? This only matters once we're into the last part of the ritual. If we need to use the bowl while it's just "on", before everyone's in their final places, that's fine. The "nobody touches the bowl" is after the "go" moment. Like the moving-the-star question, it's mostly a question of scale and disruptiveness. Using the Bowl to hold down "detect life" is probably not very disruptive. Using the Bowl to hold down "Everything catches on fire" is disruptive. Someone touching the Bowl for a second with their pinky finger is a bit disruptive; someone hitting the Bowl with a hammer, or shooting it, is very disruptive, even if it doesn't break.
Once we've done the initial steps of the ritual (the bit in the bowl before everyone flies off to different planets), do Katya & co have to stay in the bowl from then on, or can they leave and come back later? You think if everything goes right, it should in fact be possible to start in the Bowl, and then leave, and then come back. If anything goes wrong and needs to be compensated for, you would need to have Katya in the Bowl to do so.
Will there be noticable effects of the first steps of the Ritual (the bit in the Bowl before everyone flies off to different planets)? As you speculated, you don't think the bowl will be glowing and thumping, but it will be the beginning of a Big Psychic Thingy, which may well cause people who notice such things to notice.
What happens if an attendent blows a roll? Are they out and we need another attendant, do they just make the umbrella leakier for their representations, does the ritual blow up completely, can they just try again? "This is the very first thing that happens, so until the first roll is made, there is no explicit time pressure (beyond the general pressure to get it all done before the Flames arrive). When the first roll is successfully made, then that starts up the ritual. Essentially, combat time will start up, and each attendant thereafter can make one roll to join as an attendant. If they fail, they are not an attendant, though someone else can attempt to join and become one. However, as this is the first thing to happen, you can shut the ritual down trivially and attempt to start it up again if someone misses a roll; upon restart everyone will have to make new rolls to join as an attendant as if from the beginning."
What happens if one of the hegemons doesn't get enough PP buffs? Do we have to drag someone else in to help, are they just wussy for their ritual function so the umbrella leaks more, or does something else mad happen? A Hegemon who hasn't gotten enough power projected into them is less functional in all ways. Other rolls may be harder, the protective ability of the umbrella will probably be decreased (not just more leaks, but less full coverage in the non-leaky bits), their ability to improvise in case something goes wrong will probably be impaired. (While the ritual will not fail utterly should the number be one less than is needed, there is likely to be a marked difference between "enough" and "nearly almost enough". And the more buff they're missing, the worse it will be.
What happens if someone touches an item (star/bowl/pole) they're not in the right group for? That would be "Horrible Awryage". At worst, the star/bowl/pole will explode, killing everyone nearby and causing the ritual to completely fail. More likely, the Hegemons will have to psychically improvise like mad, and only if they fail at that will things explode and kill everyone. This is the part of the ritual which has the most potential for "You die. The girl dies. Everybody dies" for a small mis-step."
Does screwing up the "don't kill FFA rolls" do bad things to theritual, in addition to maybe killing FFA? "Well, if you kill FFA, that does bad things to the ritual. Doing some damage to him but not killing him will not, by itself, cause problems to the ritual, but there may be some amount of feedback to the other Hegemons which could require more improvisation lest things go awry. This is the *unstable* ritual. Pretty much any time things don't go exactly as planned (or even if they are going as planned, and someone sneezes unexpectedly), the Hegemons may well need to do active compensation to try and keep it from spiraling out of control. This is one of those places, but other than that, missing those rolls by a little does not intrinsically weaken the ritual."
Is the North Pole melting likely to be in preparation for the ritual, or something unrelated that we should be worrying about? " It's possible that it's melting because it sees the Flames and has decided it's time to melt, but that would be a technical question rather than a psi-theory question, and so you're not sure."
Clarification on FFA "between the star and the bowl." Either in the air or "to the south" would probably be okay. In the air gives you more freedom of movement to position him and move the spaces around for the Gateway - Blue - Puce sightlines, but it would make him more vulnerable (to falling on the star, or falling and hurting himself, or being shot from farther away...)
Is it the case that even if we do everything right on the ritual, lots of people will die? The more completely the set of attendants spans the space of all possible sentients, the more completely everyone will be protected. You think you have a pretty good set of attendants, but you think it is probably not perfect enough to get you down to no casualties at all.
When we're doing the ritual in the bowl, will people in the bowl experience the amplification effects that we got when we were in it with the bowl turned on but no ritual occuring? You suspect that they will be *able* to. How disruptive *using* that amplification is to the ritual is a different question, and likely depends on the talent being amplified. Whether it causes any obvious disruption ("I put a shield around the planet!") or "touches" the Hegemon taking part in the ritual ("I read everyone's mind") are both things to worry about.
Power Projecting 'uses up' one's ability in some sense. Is that final, or do you 'recharge' over time? If the latter, how long does it take? It comes back over time - it's kinda like giving blood, except less physically dangerous if you do it a whole bunch.
Is there anything wierd about Akito and PP and/or the ritual? We (Ruehan) don't understand the potentiality part of it at all, but from playing with Akito in the xenopsi ritual, he doesn't appear to have any strange effects on big psychic rituals
How do Blue/Puce signal the other hegema when it's time to do stuff? (Suggestions so far: tech, psi, Star) The Star might well be able to be used this way. There might be tech devices that could do this - the Deciders seemed to have some sort of wacky communication. Bowl-powered mind link might work too. -- sounds like we want to run the Star through the monitoring station, or play with it, or something. Or set loose the mad scientists. Update: having turned the Star on, we know we can use it to pop the three Hegema into a 'phone call,' but this seemed dependant on one of us being right there with the Star, which won't work for the ritual. Thinking about it further was not so enlightening. Need to experiment?? Further update: At the final moment that needs signaling, Puce is the only Hegemon near the Star, and he's not supposed to touch it at all. So any use of the Star to signal will probably need to be done by Blue, when Blue and Puce are still together. Further further update: It sounds like it will work if Donella uses it to signal (i.e. phone call) before she and FFA split up, giving a countdown based on FFA's perception at that time.
Are the hegema free to take other useful actions once the ritual starts? (I believe the answer is: anyone, including the hegema, can take any action they want that isn't specifically disallowed in the text, and that none of the actions specified in the text are sustained ones, so whenever you're not actually making a specified roll, you can do other stuff.) Yes, they can take other useful actions. However, it's plausible that some of these actions will need to be ritual maintenance not directly specified, and you'll know at the time what needs to be done. Or that there will be emergency ritual-patching actions needed (i.e. "A bird flew into the Bowl and crashed into the side. Make a Str of Mind roll to not get distracted and drop the metaconcert.")
Does "don't go through the north pole" mean "don't enter the maze of death" or "don't enter the final whirlpool"? It's about the magic widget, not the water and the fish. Don't touch the monitoring station (which is to say, pass the final whirlpool that sucks you in).
When the ritual's been done, will people in the Linked Worlds know they've been protected? Will they know we did it? (Hypothesis based on little info is No. Ciernan points out that since the ritual won't save absolutely everyone, people will presumably know Something Happened.) Answer from our theorists: we have no idea!
Are Blue and Puce still the Gathering when the PP rolls happen? (I think the answer to this is No.) Can anyone else be in the Blue/Puce Gathering (e.g. someone with Gathering schtick)? Only them in the Gathering, but some other person can run the Gathering without participating themself--errata: only someone with a special ability to do a Gathering they don't participating, which is theoretically possible, but which we havne't encountered yet..
How do we know when it's time to start moving people into position? Jim thinks FFA will be able to tell us, with enough warning to do what we have to do. But we should verify this guess. GM: You should make sure that your ducks are mostly lined up and ready to go before season finale, and yes, you're likely to know that the season finale is coming as we schedule it. The stuff that you intend to do last minute you'll be able to do last-minute, but you wouldn't want to count on "well, next run is the season finale, we should convince Donella to go to Gateway and teach her power projection during puttering time." The thing about FFA is confirmed, and we have official instructions from the GMs to stop worrying about this point. .
Must the PP rolls of a group be made together, or can they go one at a time? They are simultaneous. If they're happening in combat time, "simultaneous" means "on your next action" rather than "all in the same phase, so yoink actions to get there."
Clarification: Does Red count in "Attendants" for counting purposes? For racial/spatial distribution purposes? Is this true even in the version of the ritual where Red doesn't go with the Star? Is the first PrePsi roll counted differently? Red hegemon does not count as an Attendant, either for the count or for the racial/geographical distribution.
Clarification about details of Blue/Puce separation. "You don't have to worry about whether you *can* see each other, just whether you have line of sight. In this example, the two of them both want to be on the planet, and they have other restrictions about what they each need to be able to see in addition to each other, but in general line of sight means no walls, or mountains, or planets, or tents, or structural elements in the way. (Note that you need line of sight between planets at the opposite ends of the Linked Worlds; all that's required is that you be standing on the right side of the *planet*, not that you have some super-powered telescope that views interstellar distances)."
In general, we have to be on planet, not in space. Can we be in a ship/building/vehicle rather than outdoors, as long as we have some way of meeting the requirements like "be able to see Gateway"? "You think as long as there's no opaque ceiling between you and Gateway, and no opaque walls between each other, you can be inside. You definitely want to be "on the planet" though, and not floating in space/air above it." -- Most recent ruling on "on the planet" contradicts this:floating off the ground is OK, anything up to orbit is probably OK, it's an aesthetic "would people say you're on this planet?" thing.
Clarification about details of keeping Star from Puce. "The Star has to be near Puce, who may not touch it. How near is near? -- It probably shouldn't get too far out of ZOC. Maybe ZOC?" "Your first thought is that that line of sight has been relevant to the positions so far, and it's probably important to keep him within line of sight of the Star. Your second thought is that he's the Hegemon of Perception. There's no way you're going to keep him from knowing where it is. Putting it in a sealed transparent box would probably be okay (being transparent to as close to all frequencies as possible would be good), though that might make it difficult to react to unforseen circumstances involving the Star."
When are participants 'expendable'? It will not break the ritual if they disappear or die. The main thing for the named participants is that they're the only ones who *can* touch the consecrated widgets. They are not required to touch the widget, but if they don't do the consecration bit, they can't touch it. You don't want the Hegemons to disappear or die before the end.
Does FFA have to stay conscious when taking damage, or just not die? He just has to not die. On the other hand, any round that he's unconscious he's taking (probably) 50 points of damage for failing his own roll, which is hard to survive when unconscious.
Do we have any reason to belive FFA will be compelled to try to touch the Star? "A compulsion to touch the Star seems pretty unlikely."
verify whether Attendants can be Preservers, etc. yes, only restrictions are who has to be physically present where.
which gatherings have to be maintained until which points? (not clear to me from the instructions. I can only presume they're getting put up and then dropped in following steps at least some of the time.) yes, gatherings are events, not things that need to be maintained throughout.
Modifications to the ritual now that it's bowl-at-gateway, star-at-craterrock. The only one I have offhand is what "only defenders can touch the spire" translates to for the Bowl; I suspect it means only they can enter the quarry, but we should verify that. yes (or stick their fingers into the quarry).
How many "races" is enough and which ones do we need to worry about? the general principle for races and geography is "suggest, rather than ennumerate." For races, Human + Tinoori + Brocoah (being mostly the ones the Tamorai had in mind at the time they designed the ritual) would be a bare minimum, but possibly sufficient. For geography, 3 points won't cover it, but 4 might; Outworlds/Craterrock/Gateway/Juice (or another middle planet) would maybe be OK. When we thought specifically about the combination Ruehan/Cassandra/Twig/Cabry-born-Tinoori (which is maybe barely sufficient), we realized that the most underrepresented group there is humans; but we weren't able to successfully compare that with, say, substituting Kith for Ruehan (except that then it's less alien-covering, obviously). I hypothesize that the bottom line is: a combo of 4 can be made to kinda mostly work; 5 can probably be made to work decently as opposed to tenuously (unverified). Some notes on possible sets of Attendants.
Can you do a Gathering with an AI? No, because he has no psi, and no fortune to add to his zero psi substats even if he burned karma to do so.
What about "overdamping"--i.e. doing something such that this ritual causes the next pass of the Flames not to come to pass? (Kate/Eva: the Flames are basically a damped oscillation and so since we're so close to the point where they'd damped themselves out (2 passes) we should look into damping them out entirely. All version of the ritual we've thought about so far are "shields," which bounce the Flames. To damp, we'd need a ritual that would absorb the Flames. It's conceivable that we could design such a thing, but it would require assets we haven't considered, and which may or may not even exist; it would be on the scale of teaming up with the Deciders to do a ritual.
If we have hegemons in more than 2 locations, do we need extra Stars to go with them? (if so: make them of black goo??) Or something else that isn't a Star? the third location is the monitoring station on Juice, which serves as a third "widget." Blue and Puce seem to share the Star.
Can standard buffing-type powers be used on participants in this ritual to make their difficulty numbers lower or give them more dice or what have you? (Psi ones? Non-psi ones?) What about psi-enhancing drugs? GMs: These are fine.

What about adding Fortune to rolls as usual? GMs: You think that for the specific examples where you're power-projecting Pre of Psi or Str of Psi, you don't want to "contaminate" that with Fortune. For the other rolls, adding fortune should be okay. Non-psi-theory questions to answer:

Now that we've got First Frost as Puce Hegemon, are we committed to the Puce Hegemon version, or is there a way to get rid of the Puce-Hegemon-ness altogether?
Investigate ways that Donella & FFA can pass the 'go' message from Craterrock to Juice/Gateway with the timing needed (we don't know what the timing needed is, exactly, at the moment). Current suggestions: make the jumpgates flash; some sort of telepathy-gathering among the Hegemons, started in the Bowl and maintained by having an extra person (people) in the gathering to stay in the Bowl with Katya when the others leave.

Group Data (in progress--now taking projections for what people will have by season finale!)

Name	PsiStr	PsiPre	Fortune	Power Projection?	Psi Theory?	Gathering?	Combat/protection?	Race	Origin	PC/NPC	Group(s)
Ace	none	low (3)	high (9)	yes (1)	no?	no	yes	Human	Well	PC	Blue
Akito										PC	Green
Cassandra	low?	high?	low?				no?	Human	Ridena	NPC	Red (stats)? (status still unresolved)
Ciernan	high 9	high 9	high 9 (ciernan caps @ 9 currently)	5-10				Human	Sparta	PC	Green (or swap with Max and go Red)
Donella	none?	low (3)?	high				Don't count on it	Human	New Light?	NPC	Blue. (hegemon)
Eon and Ella	?	?	9+9	learning				Human	Outworlds?	NPC	Green? are they STR based? Note: they combine stats and skill, making them 2 people in 1--but a pumped 1!
Eva	none	low (3)	high (9)	yes (5)	yes	yes	not really	Human	Highguard	PC	Attendant/Blue
First Frost of Autumn			None--PERCEPTION	yes				Tinoori	Crux	NPC	Puce (hegemon)
Hippocrates	none	none	none	no		no	yes	AI		PC	Red or Blue? (flying transport)
Janzur							yes	human		NPC
Jayla	9	9	9	~10	~10	yes	Don't count on it	Human	Pierogi	NPC?	Red. (hegemon) Note: Jayla says she can make her rolls with these stats, we don't know how
Jim	none	low (3)	8 or 9	5-10		no	yes	Human		PC	Blue-moving-to-Puce, to act as Tinoori intermediary.
Katya	high (12)	medium (7)	high (11)	yes (18)	yes	Yes.	Don't count on it	Human	Stannis Law	PC	Green. (Hegemon)
Kith	high (10+)	medium (10)	high (10)	yes (9)	yes (8)	no (?)	(buffs)	Human	Creek	PC	Attendant/Blue-moving-to-PucePuce (keep FFA standing!)
Kye	3	10	7 (has the implants)	5 (would buy more if convinced useful elsewhere	none, unlikely to buy	no	yes--high	Human		PC	Red
Martan	high?	low?	medium?	yes			yes	Human	Pierogi	NPC	Green
Max	high (9)	high (9)	high (9) (could raise stats if necessary)	yes (4) (could raise)	yes (3)			Human	Well	PC	Red (or swap with Ciernan and go green)
Mirris	medium (8)	medium (8)	medium (8)	yes (6)		Random: yes		Human	Well?	PC	Red
Moment Before Dawn	3	0	none--Perception (3)	yes		no	yes	Tinoori	Crux?	NPC	Puce
Night Blooming Wisteria	3	0	None--perception (3)	yes		no	yes	Tinoori	Crux?	NPC	Puce
Ruehan	high 12	high 10	medium 7	10-12	9			Vertak	Vertak	PC	Attendant/Blue
Sharra	none?	low (3)?	medium (5+)?			no	yes?	human	New Light	PC	Blue? (stats) Or somewhere that needs more guarding?
Sophia	none?	low (3)?	low (3+)?			no		Human		PC	??
Stormbreaker (in Vela's body)			(in dust nebula ~50 dice of psi; out of it, we don't know)			no		Human		NPC	Green?
Twig	5? (Resolution can make it 10)	~5?	~5?	yes	yes?						Attendants/Blue (unless we sub in another brocoah)

Notes:

Some notes on Power Projection

Sophia's translation of Vissarion's star maps, showing relative position of some planets. (If we want more specific details, we can ask for them.)

Rolling for 11's is harder than I thought. 12 dice and 10 skill rates not quite 4. Here's some statistical info from Tom. (Note, too, that rolling for 11s is much more about skill than dice, which is good: we can teach NPCs skill more easily than raise their stats.

Some notes and estimates about successes rated and needed.

Some notes on using Katya's Gathering ability for the 3 (or 4) Hegemon Gather

Charles/Maury: Cassandra's from Ridena, she should be an Attendant. Ruehan, Cassandra, some Tinoori, some Brocoah seems like the best possible set to me, if it's actually complete. I suspect we'll have to add at least one more to that to make it satisfactoraly span everything. I'm hoping that Ruehan is good enough to cover "the dust cloud" for geography. [suggestions from others: a psi-capable Hive member, someone from Rupert's hole] see above

This ritual includes *days* of interplanetary travel while some of the participants are hanging about in the Bowl etc waiting for the next bit. This is the part where people come to thump us. Note to self: bring a gun, and lunch. :)

Charles/Maury suggests recruiting: Vircans? Dmitri/loa?

Charles/Maury wonders: can we protect deciders in our space? What about Terra? Kith thinks yes to deciders in our space and that Terrans have own plan.

Derrick/Kye notes: Given that 12 dice and 10 skill rates only 4 successes for 11's, I think we have to consider using drugs like Black and Glitter as a potential last resort. Many people aren't going to like it, but the cold hard numbers indicate that we may have to. Andrea/Katya notes: these drugs give you extra dice, but don't decrease difficulties or add skill. Also, Glitter mostly helps STR; Katya guesses there's an equivalent for PRE, but that probably only Black/White help FOR (as those help all stats).

Kith/Heidi lists possible races/recruits: Sook's people, deciders, whales, isinglass, uplifts, brocoah, AI, and Stepchildren. Katya/Andrea hypothesizes that the races from the Juice visions are the ones to worry about. This question has mostly been addressed.

Ruehan/Brian: Based on your other analysis, I'd agree that initially it looks like Ruehan shou ld be in the red group, from being a different race, having a lot of psi theory, and because his PsiPre is his highest stat.

We are curious what happens if you overcharge one of the hegemonic lines.

Tom/Jim: Start teaching Twig PsiTheory ASAP, or get a different Brochoah psi. [Katya's working on it. :) ]

Tom/Jim: Look into Rosicrucian Academy teachers who might be able to speed up the learning curve on Power Projection/Psi Theory. They're going to have to learn PP, too. (Helpful for teaching people we recruit later, mostly, since we don't have a good feel for how long it takes to learn skills for NPCs.) Someone with teaching 5 and PP of 5 will be able to teach someone 5 levels of PP in fairly short order. (no exact time) If we want to get NPCs up to 10 levels, it'll probably require a serious training regimen, which implies more time and effort. I bet there are teachers who have schticks in "teach this fast" or "teach this fast without knowing the material well", which would be helpful.

Tom/Jim: Cabry Tinoori don't leave the planet, in general. We might be able to convince some (in particular, getting one for the Attendants would be good), but we should look for other Tinoori, perhaps. Next time we're on Cabry, we'll want to start dealing.

Groups:

The group of Defenders/Presevers (the ones who were in the gathering) is a subset of "any people present". As Charles was pointing out, you need a bunch more people present than number of Defenders.

Anyone who is present can make the Power Projection roll, but they are not obliged to. (And you can have people there who don't have the skill, or who have zero in the relevant stat - that just means even if they try the roll, they add zero successes to the total).

"I don't see why you'd want to be present and not a Preserver, given that info..." Well, one way to think of this is not as "Why would someone being helpful not be in one of the groups" but "If there's a bad guy, and they don't join a group, did they just destroy the ritual by showing up?" [In other words: no particular reason for a good guy not to be in a group, this is protection against hosure by people wandering in. Also, Hippocrates might turn out to be a special case, even if he does just have 0 psi substat like a human might--can you gather with a robot?. :) ]

Notes on rewriting the rituals:

See run log of Nearer My Hegemon To Thee (Season 3) for the images of the modified rituals, which we got from the station on Juice when we took the Star through.

GMs say: Gathering Theory and Psi Theory are the two skills that are going to be useful in rewriting rituals.

There are people you've met, like Ghier and the Architects, who have actual shticks in psi-ritual-construction, but skill and the descriptions in the Hegemonicon might suffice...

People with Gathering Theory: Ruehan, Katya, Kith

Mechanics of adjusting rituals:

Do the GM's have any preferences for how the Flames ritual is developed? I.e., are we expected to come up with a plan ourselves, or to seek out NPC's, inspiration, and the toilet bowl to contribute details?

GM: We expect you to do at least some of those options. We do not suggest that you consider any of them to be counter-suggested by the GMs. "The GMs are not encouraging you to rule out any of those choices"
Do the Gms expect us to a) come up witha plan and roll our theory dice to vet it, b) roll our theory dice to figure out a plan, or c) either of the above? :) (under the heading "come up with our own plan" that is)

GM: "We wrote this ritual. It says we put Dr. Cain on an asteroid and hit him with the star! We roll fifteen successes on making that be the successful ritual" is the Wrong Tool. :) So less a than b.

What about "we wrote this ritual, now we roll 15 successes to be told what's wrong with it"? :)

GM: That would be OK

Gatherings

I've been assuming that the two Gatherings not specifically noted as "any gathering" should be done via the Psi Construct Gathering schtick we discussed way back when (which at the time was described as the thing one would probably use for a wacky ritual to stop the flames). (The two in question are "Red, Blue, and Green (only) must participate in a gathering of all three, that does something to the star. It really matters not what." and "Green gets in Gathering with Blue.") Is that assumption correct? Or are these also "any old gathering will do" situations? Or is some third thing the thing that's needed?

GMs: The first of these can be any gathering, as long as it does something to the Star. (So Mirris's gathering talent that sucks people's psi dice to her isn't sufficient, as nothing happens to the star as a result of the gathering). The second is any gathering.

The basic ritual doesn't appear to require any very complicated gathering setups; the crazier outworlds-protecting versions could require something more specific.

Q: for the hegemons-affect-the-star Gathering in the Ritual, it doesn't actually specify anything about what substat anyone is using. Do I think they each need to use their particular substat, or can we just all use STR (or whatever Tinoori get a baseline 3 in)? GM: "Any sort of gathering at all as long as it affects the Star" is supposed to suggest that you have a lot of leeway there. :) Whatever substat is fine.