Everyone but Dr. Fate is back in NY now. Dr. Fate can have something in his tower, like a magic portal, that takes him to Manhattan, so you don't have to burn through a teleport spell.
~Scott/Editor
Sandman's save vs. plot to heal faster: 1d20 ⇒ 18
Flash's save vs. plot to heal faster: 1d20 ⇒ 12
Sandman is at 21 out of 35 hp
Flash is at 10 out of 37 hp
Dr. Fate has never heard of O'Dell. He has read about the White Magician before, probably in his own library. The White Magician was one of the first wizards to come to America in colonial times. Baalrogs are not Goetic demons.
As for the other things being discussed in-character...I'll allow you all to continue to speculate on them...
Not 100% sure on what a Goetic demon is myself Sandman.
A quick google search implies they are the demons that Solomon bound to do his bidding and so can be bound by someone following the instruction in the Lesser Seal. Not sure how this applies here though.
Your quick Google search seems accurate for what Doctor Fate knows, off-hand. Goetic demons are more interested in the affairs of man than other demons. Whether they are interested in the affairs of man because of their vulnerability to being summoned and bound, or are so vulnerable because of their closeness to man, has been debated by occult scholars for a hundred years.
Now, about what comes next...Doctor Fate is going to be doing research for the rest of the day. How about Sandman and Flash? Do they also wish to try and research? Check in on their girlfriends? Just patrol?
This chapter of the Book of Secret Histories talked about early wizard settlers in the U.S., and perhaps the earliest of them all, Thomas Acererak. Shirking 'civilization', Acererak moved out West and tried to subjugate the Indians in present-day Wisconsin and Michigan. The book does not tell of how Acererak died, but it does say of how, before he died, he had his own tomb built on what is now the Bad River Indian Reservation.
You should see me on the Library of Congress, New York Public, and the British Library. Massive amounts of freely available, expertly curated, information.
Bacon, Newton, Einstein, hell even Feynman would have given important limbs to get half an hour on these sites much less a physical visit.
Dr. Fate is trying to get in touch the JSA'a FBI contact (J.Edgar?) in order to ask them to work with Dr. Clarence Addison Dykstra, current dean of UW Madison and head of the Selective Service System and National Defense Mediation Board. To clear the way for Kent Nelson/fate to work with UW Madison anthropology department and the Bad River Nation.
So...I'm considering the option of, come January, merging my two H&H campaigns. The one I currently run on rpol.net takes place 11 months behind this one. I'd like to move them forward through time to when this campaign is taking place and have their Heroes meet and team-up with your Heroes. But I'd also like to take it off of Paizo's boards and either to rpol.net or another site like it.
The question is, if this happened, would the three of you come along?
My work comp hates rpol portraits. Reports malware. Without them the threads are very difficult to read. I suppose I could get used to it but it would mean another site to watch for updates which would be a pain. Any work/life pressure ant it would likely be the first thing to go.
I am willing to give it a shot but I am not optimistic.
Sorry.
But an unexpected encounter in Chicago gave the Flash pause. On the North Side, he saw Jay's old friend Jim Dane getting into a taxi. He had last seen Jim down in Mexico just a few months ago when Jim's silver mine was in trouble.
No, but Jay has never been overly protective of his dual identity either. He wears no mask as the Flash and as Jay has set world records (though still shy of his max speeds) in front of other people. So it's entirely up to you how you want to play this.
~Scott/Editor
P.S. Looking back through some recent IC posts, I see on October 26th that I posted the day in game time is May 6, 1940. That was in error; this has always been 1941.
Curse your research skills. When I was trying to find a real life professor to have Kent Nelson talk to, I found this guy first. The years he was at University of Wisconsin are close and I couldn't resist that funky name. Chalk his longevity up to this being an alternate world.
Wish I'd known that sooner! We already played through Expedition to the Barrier Peaks in the Rpol campaign, but I placed it in the Huron Mountains of upper Michigan.
My understanding of the Golden Age Sandman has always been limited to later retcons because of my inability to get my hands on The Golden Age Sandman Archives. But, just recently, I found someone had put up the Sandman's first appearance up on his blog: http://diversionsofthegroovykind.blogspot.com/2012/11/groovy-age-gold-taran tula-strikes-by.html
Wesley has a butler named Humphries I never heard about before!
We're three weeks from wrapping up this scenario and merging with the other campaign. But where at? We've talked about Rpol.net with mixed reactions. On the Rpol campaign, I've had better responses lately to moving us here -- the Original D&D Discussion Board (http://odd74.proboards.com/index.cgi).
Sandman, Dr. Fate, any opinions about that board? I've talked to the forum owner, and he says he'd be glad to have us.
((OOC: Would Flash recognise/know Dr Fate as Kent Nelson?))
Good question. Up until now, Doctor Fate's true identity has been a secret known only to Inza. So it's going to be up to Kent to speak up and introduce himself next.
Since I've only heard positive things in the other campaign and no objections here...we'll do it. At the end of this month, we will close down play here on Paizo after just 19 months here and move to The Original D&D Discussion forum. I hope everyone here will be able to adjust and make the jump with us.
From what Dr. F knows could a conjured Earth elemental simply bash through the walls/etc. in a straight line to the heart of the tomb. Alternately Polymorph could turn Fate into an earth elemental allowing him to wreck things as an 8th level superhero. Assuming of course the wrecking things ability is gained along with the form.
Pity I can't manage move earth yet.
The reason I am asking is that if you really want the creeping through the tomb adventure I can go in a different direction. But the smash everything and sift the rubble approach does have appeal.
I remember long ago when I played through the tomb. Our party had a cleric who could create food and a couple of food creating magic items. So we hired a group of Dwarven miners to dig straight down from the crown of the skull shaped hill until they hit the tomb. We sank several shafts over the course of about a year on the dig. We finally got lucky and hit the main room. Half of us died but we figured that we would have lost more if we tried to run the tomb in the more traditional way. We called it the mountain top removal method of artifact recovery.
I once ran this module in reverse order -- the PCs all appeared in the main room, too low in level to confront the main villain, then had to try to escape by moving through the tomb backwards. Unfortunately, I had previously given them a Spade of Colossal Excavation and halfway through they found a chance to use it and escape early.
By the way, polymorph spells do not bestow the special abilities of the form you take. Though you might have already known that and assumed I might be willing to play fast and loose with the rules to wrap up the scenario faster. But I'm good.
The polymorph spell leaves the editor great latitude as to what abilities come with any given form. I thought there was decent chance the wrecking might come with the earth elemental given the granite fists and strength. I figured Dr. Fate would know do I thought I would check in before moving on. I was not expecting you to bend the rules. I am sorry if it came across that way.
The merger and moving forward of the two H&H campaigns will likely not happen on time, as originally planned, on January 1st. I've still got a lot of work to do on The Trophy Case vol. 2 #3 that will have to take priority.
I'll make sure to let everyone know before we switch boards. In the meanwhile, keep wrapping up your current scenario.
Sorry for the delay. Leaning strongly towards summoning the 16hd earth elemental and just having it wreck it's way through. Wrecks as a 14th level superhero which really means as a 9th level superhero because that is where the table tops out. Still that means walking through solid rock walls on a 10. The spell depends on the casters concentration but this term is not defined in the rules.
What can one do while maintaining enough concentration to prevent several tons of angry rock from squishing one like a bug?
P.S. Despite my earlier plans of ending both campaigns on December 31st and restarting the new one on January 1st...well, that isn't ready to happen yet. I still have the other campaign on fast forward to catch up in time to this campaign. Until that campaign catches up, sometime in the next two weeks (2 weeks at the most), we'll still creep along here in-character.
