Installment Two now ready to download!

[MOB]

Check your email for a Chaosium message from Dustin with a download link to Installment Two of A Time to Harvest - we hope you and your players continue to enjoy Part Two!

[mmaenza]

The maps are not particularly legible. Can we get the images separate or can part two be updated with better quality maps?

[morganhua]

I'm reading Episode 2 and it's clear that the Geological Survey group has to know about Pasquallium since they return and talk to Prof Learmonth about it.  I'm surprised this wasn't spelled out in Episode 1.  I assumed the Geological Survey group was just told to get soil samples for Prof Learmonth to examine.  With the Geological Survey group returning and telling Prof Learmonth that it was from a meteorite, it seems like the Geological Survey group must have been told about what they were looking for.

Well, I'm not going to retcon what had happened at the dig sites, so I'll assume Blaine who is in charge was told about Pasquallium, but he didn't tell the Geological Survey group about it, keeping it a secret since he was working for the Mi-Go and the whole thing was to keep their mines a secret  But once the students have been brain replaced, the Mi-Go came up with this story to tell Prof Learmonth who has no clue that the original students weren't told about Pasquallium.  Blaine could say he was told to keep it hush-hush and was going to disclose more if the students found some evidence of Pasquallium.  And once they found the meteorite (a fabricated lie), he told them to take a sample for Prof Learmonth.  Of course, any surviving PCs might have some issues with this lie.

[mibagents]

Okay, 8 new NPC's inside 8 old NPC bodies?  You guys are maniacs!  This is going to be so much fun, and so challenging to NPC well.  Anybody ever have "guest NPC's" to help run extra characters?

[mibagents]

11 hours ago, morganhua said:

I'm reading Episode 2 and it's clear that the Geological Survey group has to know about Pasquallium since they return and talk to Prof Learmonth about it.  I'm surprised this wasn't spelled out in Episode 1.  I assumed the Geological Survey group was just told to get soil samples for Prof Learmonth to examine.  With the Geological Survey group returning and telling Prof Learmonth that it was from a meteorite, it seems like the Geological Survey group must have been told about what they were looking for.

Well, I'm not going to retcon what had happened at the dig sites, so I'll assume Blaine who is in charge was told about Pasquallium, but he didn't tell the Geological Survey group about it, keeping it a secret since he was working for the Mi-Go and the whole thing was to keep their mines a secret  But once the students have been brain replaced, the Mi-Go came up with this story to tell Prof Learmonth who has no clue that the original students weren't told about Pasquallium.  Blaine could say he was told to keep it hush-hush and was going to disclose more if the students found some evidence of Pasquallium.  And once they found the meteorite (a fabricated lie), he told them to take a sample for Prof Learmonth.  Of course, any surviving PCs might have some issues with this lie.

Morganhua, the way I read that bit was, it's the Mi-Go agents inside the bodies of students who feed Learmonth the false information; the students didn't know about it, and perhaps even Blaine never knew about it either.  The PC students on those digs would find this bit of information surprising since they had no idea what Pasquallium is/was or that they were supposedly looking for it.  In fact that would be a clue for them that something is amiss and the other geology students are not to be trusted.  

Anyone else see it this way?

[sverbridge]

or it could be something like "  Professor Learmonth, look at this odd rock we found in the middle of a crater. "  Personally, I am going with it being a slip up by the mi-go agents.

[morganhua]

What I'm worried about is that Prof Learmonth seems to think nothing is amiss when the students come back with Pasquallium and pictures of a meteorite crater and then try to argue that all Pasquallium in that area is from the meteorite vs native to the area.  And it is clear that Harold Higgins is allowed to experiment with the Pasquallium samples in Prof Learmonth's lab, so it's not such a hush-hush thing unless Harold Higgins is one of his grad students (which was not indicated in Episode 1).

sverbridge's suggestion might work about just bringing back samples from the meteorite crater as a standard operating procedure for a geological survey, but the additional papers and experiments with Pasquallium seem to come out of left field unless the students know about it.  Prof Learmonth would think something is fishy and according to Episode 2 events, he seems clueless (innocent, see p.27 brain knapping ruse).  Maybe if the timeframe is stretched out more, it would work.  If the samples and pictures are brought back without that report.  Then time passes and after the samples are analyzed, the students write that report that is accepted by Prof Learmonth.  Also the brain swapped students are humans, not Mi-Go meat puppets, they have above normal intelligence (most of their EDU is very high, and INT is high), but are insane from being stored in a jar for years (note they all have 0 SAN), but basically they were human.

I guess I'm worried that Prof Learmonth (who has a high INT and EDU, 25% psychology) didn't notice anything wrong.

Also several of the mind swapped students have high psychology skills, so they wouldn't make a mistake that would trip Prof Learmonth's alarm bells since he's one of their main targets.

[Mike M]

Hi

The ore comes from the mi-go base. A little bit of it was found (pre-campaign) by FOC and sent to the professor for study.

Scenario 1 - geology students don't find any ore (and are not told about it) - if, in your game, the ore was mentioned to the students then fine (they either find a bit or don't find a bit - it makes little difference).

Scenario 2 - the students (Higgins) are now brain swopped. They return to the professor with another ore sample with claims it came from a meteorite. They want the professor to believe the ore comes from the meteor so he will tell FOC (so they will stop hunting for the ore in Vermont and elsewhere around the world - thus, the mi-go areas of interest remain hidden with less risk of FOC or someone stumbling into them). The geology group in scenario 1 don't need to know about the ore  - in scenario 2 the geology group are 'not' the same people (their bodies are the same, but the brains are mi-go agents - who do know about the ore because the mi-go told them about it). 

Thus, when the agents return with the ore (after the PCs have been sent home), there is nothing amiss - they found the ore 'from a meteor' at the end of their trip - the 'story' being that they found this 'strange ore' while taking soil samples and 'discovered' a meteor crater and wanted to bring it back for the professor. 

The professor is dealing with the samples - he did not collect any of the samples himself, and so is reliant on those who found the samples to tell him where they came from - the meteor story is plausible. 

Morgan - I'm not sure I'm following your logic here. 

 

 

 

 

[morganhua]

On page 9, col 1, para 7:

Quote

feed false data to Professor Learmonth, convincing him that Pasqualle’s Ore originated from a meteorite rather than being a rare Earth element.

On page 12, col 2, para 5:

Quote

Higgins, Noakes, and Thurber have returned from the second field trip with evidence the Pasqualle Ore is not native to Earth. The students claim it must have come from a meteorite that struck the Vermont mountains thousands of years ago. To prove their point, the students have brought another small sample of the mysterious ore they claim to have found in an old crater. There are also photographs of the crater, as well as pages of dated field notes and calculations.

I must have read more into this than was intended because I read it as the Students showing Prof Learmonth that the earlier sample must have come from this same meteorite due to the flight path of the meteorite.  I misunderstood this from the "pages of dated field notes and calculations."  If the students had no idea about Pasqualle, they would have just brought back the sample, pictures, and measurements of the crater.  To actively try to discredit the origin of the earlier sample would require previous knowledge of Pasqualle Ore.

For clarification, I would have instead written it as:

Quote

Higgins, Noakes, and Thurber have returned from the second field trip with manufactured evidence that the Pasqualle Ore is not native to Earth, but from a meteorite that struck the Vermont mountains thousands of years ago. The students bring back photographs of a crater and their falsified field notes and a small sample of mysterious ore from the meteorite they claim to have found in the old crater.  They think this is enough evidence for Professor Learmonth to decide that earlier samples of Pasqualle Ore were from the same meteor shower.

I also found it odd that Prof Learmonth would let Harrold Higgins experiment with the Pasqualle Ore unless Prof Learmonth had a prior history with Harrold.  I assumed a random dig-monkey wouldn't be allowed to touch it and only a grad student under Prof Learmonth would have access to the Ore, especially for experimentation.

Edited May 16, 2016 by morganhua

[joggiwagga]

On 5/15/2016 at 4:35 PM, mmaenza said:

The maps are not particularly legible. Can we get the images separate or can part two be updated with better quality maps?

This was actually the entire reason I logged on to the forums today, to ask if there was some way we could get maps with legible text.

[Mike Lay]

Likewise; the maps (particularly the complicated ones from pages 43 onwards) cannot be read by mortal man...

It looks as though the maps have been scanned in at too low a resolution.

[Mike M]

Okay - I'll ask Nick to see what he can do regarding the map resolutions.

[morganhua]

Hey, just got an email that a new download with higher map resolutions are available.  Yay!  My players thank you.  :-)

[Mike Lay]

Much improved.

[Bazil]

thank for better maps. is it possible to get future maps as separate PDF or PNG for printing? 

[joggiwagga]

Thanks SO MUCH for the readable maps

[Morgan Blackhand]

Thank you for the new version. Now we can print the maps and handouts! 

[misterc]

That's much better, thanks.  And the tunnels seem to have gone from the library map as well.  I wasn't sure why they were there, have I missed something?

Edited May 18, 2016 by misterc