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Jill: Update 3

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atcDave

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We’ve continued to grow and develop as a team. Jaheira seems confident we can face a range of threats, the sort we’re likely to face as we explore more deeply into local bandit problems and the iron crisis.

As we worked our way up towards where we thought the bandit camp would be, combat against a range of enemies became more common. In one area there were more Gibberlings than I could even count! (Yeah, yeah, I can hear Imoen commenting that isn’t such a large number…)
I’ve had to learn a lot about camping out. I guess I’ve lived a pretty easy life with my father and friends until now.
I like Minsc! He makes me laugh. And he is so gentle with Boo. The furry guy really does seem to know things Minsc couldn’t? Wierd.
We made it into the bandit camp. Those guys do not scare me as much as just a couple weeks ago. I hated to have to hurt so many of them, but they are dangerous bullies. And we’ve seen too many people hurt or killed by them all to the south of here. They won’t do that any more.
Alora is like a mini version of my sister! And she fits right in with the two of us. I think Imoen likes not being the little sister.
After the bandits we had to go into the dark Cloakwood Forest to shut down a mine. Christopher thinks this is important, that the bosses of the bandits may be there? They seem a long way apart. But if it makes the roads safer for travelers I’m all for it!
We did a lot of fighting in the forest. Christopher kept us going in every way.
We found the mine was being worked by slaves. So we freed the slaves and flooded the mine. Jaheira wanted to talk to the boss man, but he started casting a spell so we had to fill him with arrows. His papers said something about a business in the city of Baldur’s Gate, so I guess that’s where we’re heading next.
Imoen and I had never seen anything like the city! It is huge! and sooooo many people. Imoen really wants to go shopping. Alora and Christopher were laughing at us.
We spent a couple days exploring around Baldur’s Gate. We were able to help a bunch of people. In one Inn, we got dragged into, well, it should have just been a brawl. But they wanted to use real weapons, and soon we had to get serious to stop them. That sucks.
The biggest thing we found was a Priest of Oghma told us someone was ruining their books. They were all moldy and rotten and just, icky.
That led us to something really evil down in the sewers. Those purple Mind Flayer guys. Christopher says they aren’t really demons, but I hope to never meet that sort of wickedness ever again.
There were only three of them, but it was a tough fight for the six of us!
Getting clean after that was hard work! We relaxed and had fun after. Tomorrow we have to help the Watchers… um not the Watchers! Whatever the guard here is called. But we’ll be busy for a while yet.

*****

Some major party growth in this period, but I’d still rate this crew as one of the weaker teams I’ve run. Significantly, I now have Jaheira equipped with the Boots of Speed and Gauntlets of Ogre Power. Her share of experience has jumped from around 20% to over 30% for this chapter. She is now the deadliest member of the team. Basically she has become the sort of alpha I always want on point. Jill’s percentage of kills has dropped, but she still is dangerous in her own right. She doesn’t hit as hard as Jaheira, but she hits more often.
My role playing challenge at this point is to show Jill’s growing confidence and capability, while still keeping her pretty simple and uncomplicated. I want to keep her as my primary narrator all the way through, and as I indicated before, she’s the leader in a charismatic sense and because the plot centers on her. But Jaheira and Christopher are the brains of the team. I don’t think its fair to describe any one of them as the leader.

2 responses to “Jill: Update 3”

  1. Zeno Avatar
    Zeno

    You know, I don’t think I’ve ever tried rendering Gibberlings. They came out pretty well I think. In my head they’re maybe a little shorter, a little hairier, but pretty close.

    Jill looks great as an archer, and that Alora pic came out pretty nicely. Much more “halfling-y” than the first one I saw in this run.

    So you do all your videos in OpenAI? I see that Copilot has a video feature now, but I haven’t really played with it yet. In both of those videos the brief motion adds so much character to the scene… Its surprising to me how much difference that makes.

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    1. atcDave Avatar
      atcDave

      My first attempts at Gibberlings all came out more dog-like, or badger-like. Interesting, but I wanted more of a humanoid look. So pushed that direction, feral humanoid. I was pretty pleased with this one!

      It also made Jill a little more “halfling-y”! You know how it is, very tough to get *everything* just so. I did like Alora there, and Jill was passable so its a keeper.

      I have not played with Co-Pilot’s video maker yet. I like that OpenAI lets me import a source picture, so I can tweak and even edit the image first to get what I want. Then import it and describe the movement/action I want. At that point, the percentage of good renders is very high (80% maybe, depending on what you want). I still get weirdness, like a character told to walk towards the viewer, walking nicely backwards. ?!? On that previous Update’s “Jaheira fights an ogre” it actually merged his club with her shield in one take, and soon he swinging an axe-like thing from the two elements merged together. In another of Imoen she just suddenly was wearing armor! Very odd.

      I’ve learned a little about being clear, complete, precise… simple helps (as both of these were very simple). But I want to do longer and more involved things, but all of those cost more points (up to 10 seconds and three stages of AI sophistication, can cost up 500 points for a single render). I’m now out of points until next weekend. So I’ll try another couple videos next week.

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