Traveling Performance Group Idea

[Cynnya]

Hello fellow Mizaharians!

I posed this idea in the Chat earlier and it generated some interest, so I decided to make a thread to develop the idea more!

Here it is:

A traveling band of performers who do everything from singing, dancing, acrobats, to sword-swallowing and other strange things that people might pay money to watch. They stick together on the road and have a variety of talents that help protect them and help generate a crowd for performance days. There are pickpockets who travel amongst the crowds and lift a Miza here and there to help pay for the group's expenses as well. I was thinking we could start in Zeltiva and go from there, but other suggestions of where to start are welcome!

If you are interested in your character being part of this group or interested in making a character to be part of this group, feel free to post here and discuss ideas that you have to flesh out this idea.

Thank you and safe travels!

p.s. I will be making a new character to join this group so I will post with that account when she is a fully fleshed out Character Sheet.

[Gale Austin McCenry]

I think this is a great idea! There are a lot of performers around Mizahar that I'm sure would be interested. However, traveling is dangerous, even with a group sometimes, so I suggest people who are going to join start working on skills to help aid their survival or be trained by someone in the group who knows more about those subjects. And if no one currently has any skills in anything to help them then I would think it would be best to stay in Zeltiva until they get a decent amount of skills to help them. Speaking of teaching, perhaps there could be a overall leader (think like a ring master in a circus) who would be in charge of assigning mentors to new members and general things like when to leave the city to head for the next, etc. I think a PC or an NPC would work for that particular job. Just something to consider. Also, along side the Pickockets, perhaps before the show starts they could round people up so they have a bigger crowd to pick pocket from? Like people who could make fliers or people who can just go about town spreading the word and such? Just some more things to consider. I hope this idea works! It would be awesome to see it IG.

[Cynnya]

I like the idea of having promoters to get the crowd to the performance and then work the crowd until the performance starts. I'm going to start my character off with some wilderness survival skills and works on other skills that will help them when they travel. We could also have a recruitment IC thread where she/a couple of people are trying to recruit performers to join them.

[Cassandra Southwind]

I'd like to pop my head in and show my interest! I'm open for filling whatever role may be needed and of course training in all the skills that it would entail.

[Quint Caravel]

I like this idea as well!

Assuming we can figure out a way to do this without getting our noses eaten by cougars.

I rather think this idea has merit!

I do have one question: Why Zeltiva? I ask as a newbie who doesn't know most locations yet-- what are the pluses and minuses of starting off in Zeltiva?

[Cynnya]

Well honestly the only reason for starting there is that several characters who have shown interest are there. Plus its not as crawling with guards as Syliras, its a port city with new people arriving to entertain and its relatively safe.

[Gale Austin McCenry]

Zeltiva has shown over the past year (that I have been here) to have lots of artistic like PC's in it. There are people who can use magic in Zeltiva, their are "sailors" who can do strength shows or some other type of performance, as well as a lot of Kelvics. Kelvics are pretty popular in Zeltiva, which would also aid the show. Plus, if the group decided to travel by ship, Zeltiva has the largest navy in Mizahar (If my memory serves me right), thus giving the group lots of opportunity to travel. And the Karaban road( Is that how you spell it?) as well. So from Zeltiva, we can travel to virtually anywhere easier than we can while starting in another city. At least that's my take on it. Though, Zeltiva does have it's flaws, just like any other city.

[Traverse]

Hey guys. I really hate to be the kid with the needle popping the idea balloon here, but I'm going to do it. Travelling shows and circuses have been brought up before now, and they have been shot down for the very same reasons I am going to bring up here.

First of all, let's take your proposed starting location Zeltiva, the closest cities being equidistant away from this bustling port are Sunberth and Syliras, which are 1375 miles away, and pretty much a straight shot. Walking it would take you around 343 days to get there, without ever resting at an average speed of 4 mph, riding there at a brisk canter would get you there in 91 days, also without ever stopping to rest.

This means that most of the people in this proposed party would have to be master level in Wilderness survival just to be able to survive out there long enough to feed and care for everyone (without worrying about the combat skills you'd need for self defense), and 1375 miles? That's a short distance compared to a lot of other cities you'd be traveling to, which could mean the potential of entire seasons passing by without any pay or income.

Mizahar is still a land recovering, it is not well populated enough to support frequent travelers, especially if your business, which sounds a wee bit on the shady side with the theft and probably wouldn't be welcome again after people realized they were being robbed, needs to go from city to city, which means crossing vast distances of terrain filled with plants, animals, and monsters that can easily kill you, and would consume way more time than actually performing in any one place, even if you were to take boats instead, and avoid some of the dangers, the travel times would still be very long in comparison.

[Tapestry]

Alvadas would welcome a mischievous performing troupe, however

[Twister]

In response to the concern that staying in a single city would bore the crowds and make them stop paying after a while:

(16:59:55) Twister: Something you could try is to get a set employer. Rather than having the audience pay you, have a random patron do it. Then you do so-called flash-performances.
(17:00:05) Twister: Random sketches, scenes and fun performances in the streets of the city.
(17:00:16) Twister: Unscheduled. Just in random places with random crowds.
(17:01:02) Twister: There's probably someone willing to pay you for doing that, and you'd probably be able to get some change from people as well.