DM CH-P's CoT: The Bastards of Erebus
Game Master Are

Anyone object?

I'd like to get the team back together and get some answers.

Operation: Advance the Plot is underway.

Speak now or forever hold your side quests!

Operation: Advance the Plot is underway.

Speak now or forever hold your side quests!

Yep. Happy to advance beyond the individual quests, I find them less fun and engaging than RPing with others.

I love how accommodating Are has been about giving everyone time solo or in small groups to pursue side quests but it seems like it's been a long time since we've made any progress in dealing with the Council/Vampires/Pit Fiend/Werewolves.

For example, Maddok wouldn't have gotten his face to face time with the Mother Superior if the whole party had been along since Derek or Appario usually handles negotiations.

I really enjoyed those two meetings but Maddok has to think about his woman!

No objections here, once Yahirma gets a chance to catch up :)

I'm researching what I need to for the Ciucci butler diversion and compiling some notes about the noble houses (as I'm sure this will come in handy later).

Walcourt sounds great, and I'm also up for bashing the haunted terrors of the Mhartis manor. Either way, a bit of time with the whole group together would be great.

If there's anything I've forgotten/missed replying to, please let me know :)

Are, shouldn't you be asleep?

I'm guessing everyone is out enjoying summer? I hope you all have a better experience than our so far very rain-filled one :)

Are you waiting for us or us for you? Hmm...or are we were waiting for Yahirma?

So confuzzled.

Derek hasn't chimed in but I believe we're ready to investigate the haunted Mhartis estate.

You're always 'confuzzled'.

I hope you weren't waiting for me, at least. As long as there's IC-conversations going on regarding your next steps, I'm not going to jump in with a "you're suddenly at location Y" :)

What time of day are you planning on investigating the suspected vampire/werewolf hideout? Appario probably doesn't care, as long as there's no full moon, but the rest of you might :)

Yeah, whatever works.

I had assumed it was morning since Appario trained last night and then came back to rest.

Wouldn't a full moon make the werewolves easier to spot?

::Appario stares at Xerath (looking for hair growth) and detects evil.::

I agree. We should go on on a full moon so i can once again prove Appario wrong on both accounts. Still not evil BTW.

Morning works for me.

4 of us are online right now.

If it wasn't already past Are's bedtime we could get a lot accomplished!

When has that ever stopped him? :)

Why not? Isn't this all about us? :)

Absolutely, but where would the fun be if you didn't have to work for it? :)

Oh fine.

Sorry for making you repeat yourself Are.

I'm extremely dimensionally challenged so anything involving Wests and Easts will confuse me. =(

Maps help a lot.

I would get lost everyday if I didn't have GPS in my car.

Don't worry; I repeat myself far less in this PBP than I had to do the last time I DM'ed a RL game. When half of your players take smoke breaks at random intervals, and another is half-asleep most of the time, repetition is par for the course :)

Besides, it's my fault for not providing maps at all times. I keep forgetting that you can't see what I'm envisioning in my mind's eye :)

For me, I was already moving on to the outside/main house...and thought the "western doors" were the ones located at IJ:15/16, but that was my confuzzlement.

But yeah, maps can help.

So we're all confusing eachother then. Good times :)

The doors to the main building are locked, but the keys would work to unlock them :)

Diagramming the party members' distrust of one another is amusing.

- Appario doesn't trust Xerath and has passing suspicions about others' sources of supernatural power.
- Xerath doesn't trust Appario.
- Derek doesn't trust himself.

By the way, for future reference, Sense Motive isn't really a combat skill (and that's the reason I didn't let Yahirma immediately realize the guards were dominated in the earlier encounter, but waited until more conversation had taken place):

Action: Trying to gain information with Sense Motive generally takes at least 1 minute, and you could spend a whole evening trying to get a sense of the people around you."

I'm not going to enforce that right now, since I don't feel like retconning, but I will the next time you face a vampire who succeeds on dominating someone :)

That makes good sense. I'll keep that in mind for the future.

I don't know if Maddok can hear Yahirma's infernal babbling from the roof.

She didn't say she whispered, so Maddok would be able to hear it. Perception DC 11 :)

In any case, casting protection from evil on Appario would be a very sensible action regardless of what Yahirma heard or sensed, considering he's next to a vampire that can't move, and can thus only perform mental actions like attempting to dominate :)

Xerath will be at work for at least another 3 hours.

Just a heads up in case you were holding off on sleeping, heh.

Good to know, thanks! :)

I actually thought Maddok's plan was to threaten to destroy the vampire to potentially get it to reveal information. Especially since he suggested capturing it alive before the group entered the building :)

That plan applied to non-vampires.

Mr. Dominate at-will was deemed too dangerous for questioning.

Good choice; it probably wouldn't have ended well :)

I'm just in from a period of low internet access. I'll add what I can to the vampire discussion.

Aside from a potential response from Appario to Xerath's assertion of mental unstability, the Mhartis situation is pretty much done on both ends. Continue forward at will.

A bit of ledger keeping:

Appario's Ledger: 9983.5 New gold total
-2700 gp Glamering Indemnity
-5000 gp Untold business ventures, TBD
-50 gp Disguise Kit
-375 gp Scroll Remove Blindness
-150 gp Gold for Ruhk the Dandy
+934.5 gp Hagwood
---------
2643 gp total for Appario
-94 gp tithe to Church
-100 gp Air Crystals *2
-----
2449 gp new total
+750 gp Mhartis Estate Reward, gold
-75 gp tithe to Church
----
3124 gp

Appario ponders what to buy before Walcourt.

By the way: Most of the party have potions/scrolls/etc that could be useful in avoiding a frontal assault.

And yes, I know such things tend to be forgotten as soon as they've been written down on the character sheet :)

Leaves to check the loot sheet.

The loot sheet is too far; the potions of gaseous form are listed on your own character sheets (2 on Appario's, 1 on Maddok's) :)

Of the two potions from the loot sheet not currently listed on your character sheets, one was taken by Semenya. The other should have been on either Derek's or Yahirma's sheet.

By the way, might I suggest removing stuff from the loot sheet once they've been claimed/sold?

The sheet's not too far. I have a bookmark! =P

I like to keep everything on the sheet so I know who is supposed to have what. Not everyone is really quick about updating their sheets with their loot. There's a been a few times where I had to ask myself, 'Who had that wand?'

I guess that makes sense.. at least until the potions are used and/or the player who had the item in question leaves the game :)

Yeah, that makes things complicated.

You still need a plan, though, since there's not enough potions for everyone :)

Well we got 5 prior to Delvehaven and those were distributed among the party and never used as far as I recall. So we should have at least four (since I assume Semenya took hers with her).

That leaves us with one person that needs his/her own way in.

Can anyone invisible and/or fly their way in?

You have 4, yes. Appario has 2 on his sheet, Maddok has 1 on his sheet, Semenya had one on her sheet, and the last one is AWOL but should be on Derek's or Yahirma's sheet.

***

In any case, there are lots of options available to you; I don't have a particular solution in mind. Even if I did have one (or more), I learned a long time ago that players will always choose something I didn't think of :)

I only wanted to draw your attentions to your own character sheets, since I know players (myself included) have a tendency to forget the utility potions and utility scrolls listed there.

You could even just open the gate and walk in..

I'm all for breaking down the door and walking in.

If the stealthy/gassy route doesn't come to together soon Maddok may go that route.

You must be talking about me.