Palantiri fixings!
Various people have been sent to various destinations. The way it seems to me, the list is as following
Isengard - Will
Dol Guldur - Aes
Havens of Sirion - Greg
Gundabad - Az
Zelgadis has directions for both the Havens and Gundabad, and I'm not sure if Vairë is planning on doing anything
My current idea would be: I would like to coordinate Aes and Will. For this, I would need to know when they arrive at their palantiri. The way in which we would log it would be that I'd log the palantiri
encounters independently with each of you until the threads would merge. Wouldn't be a long thing, but it makes more sense to log it than to explain it.
Greg, Az, Vaire, Zelgadis: Who goes where, and how long will it take them/who will arrive first, who will travel together, etc?
Greg will be traveling with Curufin and Tauriel, if the players are up to it. I should be clear headed myself after my medications are out of my system this weekend. More than happy to co-ordinate.
IC to deal with my medical issues, Greg's been waiting till his voice came back.
//likes this, the better to sort it out once he has coffee//
Zel hasn't made up his mind since I've been out of it, so I'm open to covering whatever we need.
I think the easiest would be if in the discussion after the Arien encounter they just agree to all go into the same direction, whether that is Gundabad or the Havens.
OK now that my brain is working more, Gundaband is fine for Az! Anyone who'd be up for going with him is fine by me, also! He'll probably be marching it, but he can get a hella long, fast march in a day...
tangyminx You know better than I Greg and Curufin's plans.
ChickletLARP: Curufin does want to go along with Greg, and also, he's gotta go kill werewolves in Tol Sirion. I'm still figuring out how to fit both adventures in. This is Sunday, are you gonna be around?
I'll make another plurk where we can consider the options.
Sunday as in the day that just ended, or....?
Sorry, I only just now saw this. Aes's airship is ready for use - she'll be using it to get her group to Mirkwood. tangyminx suggested using it to ferry groups to their respective locations, and I think
that sounds like a good plan, if people are willing?
It can hold eight to ten people (plus the pilot and navigator) and their gear, plus food for a week's journey. No mounts, unfortunately, and this model has no weapons so someone will have to stay with it.
someone competent with a bow, by preference.
(or a gun)
As for when they would arrive - she plans to set out no later than two weeks after the Arien meetup, but that can be altered to fit Will's schedule (I'll figure out some interesting way for it to malfunction)
Actual arrival time would depend on how fast mods are willing to allow a new, untested airship to travel. Certainly nowhere near as fast as a natural flyer.
(...there's a thought, wonder if certain beings of an eagle-ish persuasion would be willing to give her a tug start)
Also consider that there is probably a prevailing west wind in this part of the world. . . this is a northern hemisphere kind of thing. That oughta give the ship a boost, and it will be traveling eastward.
On the first leg of the journey, anyway.
And if there is room, Curufin will be going. He did tell Aeslyn when he helped her build the ship, that he would also help her sail it.
But that depends on the number of Arien plot characters who take Aes up on her offer. . . since Curufin is not technically a character in this plot.
Well, it depends on the latitude. It would be west only at the mid latitudes. (In the tropics and polar latitudes, it would be the other way.)
Since this is a Tolkienian tale, I'd assume high mid-latitudes
He did tend to make his environments like the ones he knew.
Looks like west winds, then.
My preferred way of this going would be if m_logan_2k2 and leloipa were the only one for the Mirkwood/Isengard palantiri. It'll just make things a lot easier.
The other group (Gundabad/Havens) I have no preference on.
I would also like to throw up a log for both those things this week so whatever happens it can be done by the end of this month.
sorry I'm caught up in RL things but hopefully I can get back to this soon 
If Aes' ship can board that many people and you folks go with using it to get to the Havens or to Gundabad, you can just pretend that Az is there and if you manage to come back while the thing is going he'll
just come off autopilote, so to speak? maybe?
whatever you guys decide is fine by me. this is kinda why Aes built the thing in the first place, so using it to its fullest potential would be right up her alley.
(and I'm perfectly willing to have her stay aboard after her main bit in fixing the Mirkwood orb so as to keep plot threads neat.)
narwa: he'd be fine going along for the ride and/or helping out, if it gets him where he's got to go faster!
...buddying up with people in an airship to get things done promptly was actually sort of a big part of the military strategy in his war back home... XD
m_logan_2k2: then maybe we could start threading everything at the same time, if Aes went to Mirkwood alone and then stayed with the ship in the second palatir fixing so no knowledge confusion happens?
Exacerangutan: well at least he won't be afraid of falling off the ship?
sounds good to me.
(there are handrails)
hers is a fair bit less... elaborate than this one, but this should give a decent idea what the airships in FFXIV are like.