Istiel |
I was thinking:
Keelboats docked on island
Supplies on keelboats (we're going to have to move both to the cliffs eventually, why bother unloading everything?)
Leave guards on keelboats
Let the Flight have free reign over the tower/town to scavenge, loot, gather or rest as they please while Shadeholme's Advanced Murder Squad (SAMS) pokes around the depths below.
We might want to tell them to leave the magic item creation area alone until we understand it better.
I have to say, this is the first time I've ever brought a whole town to loot a dungeon. Every adventurer wishes they could loot the chairs and tables, but now we can!
GM Belicose Poultry |
Okies. You may not want to let the townsfolk loot the library or the "magic item room." Just sayin'.
Some PC actions to think about, while things are being looted.
You can of course craft/train/whatever.
Deciphering the writing in the tower or deciphering the gist of the library (subject matter, aggregate knowledge, that sort of thing) will take 8 hours of work, each, and a linguistics check. Fulton can work on a room, or aid another. The Darhom book he's been translating will provide a +2 bonus to a check.
You may want to search some areas a little more closely than you have so far.
The "magic item room" can also be studied. For that, you'll need four hours, and a spellcraft or arcana check.
One check can be made per room. Others can aid.
Oios |
Oios will want any room remotely sensitive to be quarantined and searched only by vetted folks. I think we've got a fairly good idea of what those are.
How plausible is it to cart away the whole library?
Oios will want to very closely scrutinize the study to try and see what was taken.
Imix |
I have a theory that there is a tunnel out to under the falls.
If we can ameliorate the food problem for a bit, this means we might be able to scout around a little at the foot of the falls. I dare say there'll be things we wish we have.
I don't see a way to get the boats down; but with then engineering they have stranger things have happened.
GM Belicose Poultry |
Remember, food isn't an issue until you go over the falls. So the only "timer" you have currently going is the chance that the Frozen will come for you.
However, their survey team is dead or captured, and it stands to reason that they've got more pressing issues to deal with, like consolidating power, stamping out any pockets of resistance, etc.
You'll want to think about how your people are travelling south. Rafts shouldn't take long to build, flatboats a little longer, if you want to use the main river channel.
You can also go "overland" through the swamp. You can get started quicker, but the going will be slower overall, as you'll have to use the boats to ferry walkers when the water gets too deep.
Istiel |
I think we're going to be all right hanging out at the tower for a while. We have the mist to hide us, and their scouting party is dead.
Will think about the travel situation later, unless Imix (hopefully) beats me to it.
In the meantime, Istiel could go on a day-long solo scouting trip in a canoe to see what the next few hours out look like. Four hours out, fours hours back, so she doesn't have to risk camping alone. Unless she runs into something easily punchable she'll turn around if there's trouble. It might be able problem coming back given how powerful the current would be right at the falls, though?
Don't want to split the party unless everyone else really thinks it's needed though.
GM Belicose Poultry |
It won't be a problem getting to the boat landing. It is far enough from the falls that while hard work, people can come and go without fear of capsizing.
As for splitting the party, this is a good place to do it. There's lots of little strands to follow.
Scouting is a good idea. I need to refresh myself with the scouting rules, but there's no reason why you couldn't begin exploring the "hex" around the dwarf city.
Istiel |
That's a good point, there's a lot to explore, especially in the dwarf city itself.
We could each take an area to investigate?
Istiel could explore the hex of the falls, everyone else could pick something (library, tower scrawlings, magic item making area, whatever else BP mentioned)
Oios |
My sense of space and geography are turrrible (just ask my wife) so I'll leave it to others to figure out how to navigate away.
I'm getting a bit confused too in terms of areas of interest. There's the magic item room, the study, and the library. So there are three? Or two?
GM Belicose Poultry |
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My sense of space and geography are turrrible (just ask my wife) so I'll leave it to others to figure out how to navigate away.
Me too! I once got lost in my own neighborhood for what seemed like days (OK, I was a kid, so it was probably a couple of hours). It was August and hot. I drank water out of a birdbath.
The study/library are the same area. I haven't been consistent with nomenclature.
The "magic item room" is the area with the chain.
Along the floor, in a spiral pattern, more runes, carved in the same unsteady hand as the writing in the tower above this complex from which you descended. Far above you, a shaft, like a chimney, extends up into the darkness.
The entry tower has a lot of writings in it as well.
You actually entered the tower through a large window, rather than a doorway that had at one time lost its door. Given the lack of rubble, a quick peak outside confirms your suspicions. The island you sit upon was likely created by the piling of rubble from the tower and dirt around the base of the tower, many years ago. The actual entrance to the tower likely sits below you.
The most important - and intriguing - thing about the tower, is the writing, covering nearly every square inch of the inside walls. The runic script is familiar, especially to Drazan, who has studied it in his book. It is fine calligraphy, chiseled into the walls with precision, and still largely visible all these centuries later. Every now and then, the runes are punctuated with hieroglyphics, finely wrought images of the Darohm peoples, no doubt accentuating the text in places of importance.
Over the runes and hieroglyphics there is an additional layer of writing, also in the Darohm script, carved into the stone. This one is less precise, patently imperfect. It scrawls across the first writing with little regard to order or direction, snaking and changing direction and flow. Annotated to the second set of runes are hieroglyphics, though these are crudely drawn, little better than the stick-figure art of Takayan children.
The workmanship of this second layer of runes is shoddy, as if the author was not trained in the arts of caligraphy or stonecutting. But where the original text is finely crafted and thus has weathered in most places the years well, this second set of writing has weathered the years because of persistence. It is apparent someone - or something - has been working the carvings over many years, updating them, maintaining them.
Ayida-Wedu's light peaks over the walls of the tower, casting long shadows on the walls. The day dies soon, the air is humid, the sound of the falls a roar all around.
There's other stuff you can be doing as well. Crafting, training, etc. Scouting. Talking with NPCs. Putting NPCs to work, if they like you or understand the importance of what you want them to do. Etc.
GM Belicose Poultry |
Will think about the travel situation later, unless Imix (hopefully) beats me to it.
In thinking more about this, I don't think there's any need to break everything down to the micro level. We can say that if you decide to put everyone of able body on it, enough rafts can be built in 10 days to handle the remaining population, enough gondolas/canoes or flatboats can be built in 1 month.
Basically, rafts can only be poled at a very slow rate in stagnant water, or go downstream with a current. They are fragile and easily tipped. They can be portaged. Most sailor checks will be at a higher DC. They hold more people than gondolas/canoes but less than flatboats.
Gondolas/canoes can go upstream and can be portaged. They are less fragile than rafts but more fragile than flatboats. They can hold less people than flatboats, so will need more people to pilot.
Flatboats can go upstream slowly, be poled on stagnant water, or go with the current. They can hold large amounts of people, so you will need less people to pilot. The are not easily tipped and are able to withstand wear and tear. They cannot be portaged. Very shallow water cannot be traversed in a loaded-down flatboat. Some profession sailor checks will be at a higher DC.
Your keelboats can travel the main river and large channels, but otherwise are not able to travel in smaller channels. They can be repurposed into flatboats.
So, to make the decision less cumbersome, do you want to transport most of your people on rafts, canoes, gondolas, or flatboats? Do you want to repurpose your keelboats into other boats, to take advantage of the shallower draft of the other boats?
Istiel |
Btw, incredible descriptions BP. I wish Istiel had anything to do with those rooms so I could learn more about them!
Wow thanks for doing all the thinking for us! Well, unless we're going to devise some engineering system to lower the keelboats down, we should just cannibalize them and make other boats.
It would be REALLY cool to have a bunch of people traveling on canoes... but we should probably go with the majority on flatboats with some canoes for scouting.. I think we can risk hanging out here on the island while the work is completed.
It's a shame the flatboats can't be portaged, but eh... we're river peoples anyway.
Oios |
Yeah this is a wonderfully realized world to say the least.
Oios is pretty good with Linguistics and Arcana. With Aid Another rules it seems like all the investigators should work on one room and then another? Two or three days of work should be enough for the Flight to regroup and prepare to go off map as well as strip useful stuff from the ruins.
GM how do you feel about all the investigators making rolls per room and the one who rolls the highest becomes the 'lead' for that room, with the others turn into Aid Anothers? Would suck for an assigned leader to roll a 1 while the others roll really high.
We've got Fulton, Oios, and Imix at the least. How about Nat? And does Telowo have anything to add here?
I'm thinking after the investigators complete their investigation on a room they mark things to be taken and allow the salvagers to come in and strip the room.
GM Belicose Poultry |
Thanks for the kind words.
Oios, I think your ideas are fantastic. Yes, definitely team up on a room, and yes, take the highest PC roll as the lead roll. NPCs will always role to aid, however, when working with a PC in a team, unless they have a relevant skill that the team is otherwise lacking (same reason why they go on a 1 in combat - they're not the heroes).
So, Drazan is doing military stuff, checking in on loved ones, and hunting, Istiel is scouting, Oios (and Fulton, and I assume Imix, though I'll wait until I hear from the player) are doing linguistics work. Nat?
Telowo can add some knowledge rolls in the magic item room.
Other potential areas of interest:
* the room with the alchemical supplies (relevant skills: arcana, alchemy, herbalism),
* the barracks, shieldroom, etc. (relevant skills: soldier, wisdom check),
* the bone pit (relevant skills: local, nature, heal)
* the boat landing (relevant skills: perception, sailor)
These are just off the top of my head. You want to roll a perception check or craft (brewing) check in the tavern, for example, go for it!
Istiel |
Suuha is "supposed" to be/always has been a better Herbalist than Istiel is, so you could get him to help with the alchemical supplies room. I have no idea what he's up to though, because Istiel is a terrible friend and I don't know why he puts up with her b*@~*+!$.
Istiel can check out the docks once she's done scouting if you al ldon't get to it beforehand. I guess it would make sense, she'll be spending some time there.
Imix |
Sorry, I've been a bit sick, so out of it. This was not a post I felt I could phone in... though it's still not great.
If Oios orders Imix to work with others he will, but he's been cold almost every day since this started and he just found a sauna filled with mysterious writing called the 'magic item room', so he'll pout.
Best bet might be to do that first ;)
Oios |
Not quite ready to post yet. How's the following for breakdown:
Villagers allowed to set up camp for a week long stay and get comfortable, and give rest to the sick, wounded, and elderly.
Soldiers are posted as lookouts otherwise allowed to recoup in the barracks area.
The Treasurer NPC to make a quick and rough record of what's in the area before the villagers or soldiers are allowed to scavenge from them.
For the areas of interest I'm thinking Two PCs and an NPC aiding is good enough?
* study
8 hours of linguistics by Imix and Oios with Fulton aid
* magic item room
4 hours spellcraft/arcana by Imix and Oios with Telowo aid
* entry tower
8 hours linguistics by Imix and Oios with Fulton aid
* the room with the alchemical supplies (relevant skills: arcana, alchemy, herbalism),
Isitel and Oios with midwife aid
* the barracks, shieldroom, etc. (relevant skills: soldier, wisdom check),
Drazan with Isitel with soldier NPC aid
* the bone pit (relevant skills: local, nature, heal)
Nat and Oios with midwife aid
* the boat landing (relevant skills: perception, sailor)
Oios with perception and the the fisherwoman NPC that Oios saved from being executed.
Drazan of Peklenc |
With a that time, Drazan can take 20 for all his checks instead of rolling right?
Oios |
I think maybe we can take 20 on all our perception checks? Maybe not for other rolls though. GM?
GM Belicose Poultry |
I would say yes on the perception checks.
The other skill checks I had envisioned a successful check giving you the gist of some area. You'd have the option of undertaking additional skill checks if you'd like to uncover more, but but for timeliness' sake, that may not be the best idea.
For example, a successful 8 hour check will give the gist of what the writing in the tower entails, a successful 4 hour check in the smithy will give you the basic idea of how a forge works, etc.
You would then be able to make more checks to figure more out. So, a successful craft check on the forge, for example, would mean that you spent four hours tinkering with it, and figured out the purpose of the tools. The next craft check would mean you figured out the basics of the workings of the forge, and so on, until you had completed enough checks to have an operational forge.
As I said, that's pretty time-consuming though. It would probably be easiest for bookkeeping purposes if you could take 20 on every room for each check. I'll need to work out how long each room takes to get everything from it. They'll all be a little different in how many secrets they have to give up.
So, you could have Fulton work on the tower, Imix on the spiral room, Oios on the library, all taking 20, and basically have everything figured out in 20 days (the spiral room in 10). With the other rooms, things would be figured out in less time.
Sorry to muddle the waters more. I hadn't taken taking 20 into account, but if your PCs are willing to spend the time, it is probably the best route in terms of time management out of character.
Y'all want to take 20s?
Oios |
I guess the question is do we want to spend three weeks in the tower. I'm alright with that personally. There doesn't seem to be any real time pressure to go beyond the edge of the world and this will be the only chance to not only gain knowledge from this place but also prevent the Flame from getting it.
Imix |
I'm okay with it. I suspect Linguistics might also be needed on the spiral room.
I do want to suggest that rather than just rest and recover (which is likely to have people wanting to live here rather than abandon yet another home), we add the following.
The injured are allowed to recover.
Those needed to get the boats down do that.
Istiel, a navigator, a herbalist, and some scouts scout out the swamp. We want to know what lives down there, what the dangers are and ideally find one of these sentient beast people we have heard about.
Other able bodied split up into two sorts of teams; hunters and fortifiers.
For the first week we concentrate on taking every ounce of food we can from the surrounding area. We start out, and work in while the truce still holds.
Meanwhile after a few days of all-out hunting, and with the injured hopefully on the mend, we start switching teams to fortifiers.
The initial fortifiers look at making this place even more defensible, and keep watch. As part of this they look at making or adapting weapons and armour.
After the end of the truce we pull back. Hunt and gather only within sight of the tower. All able bodied build weapons or train. My preferences is bows (or crossbows, if we luck out and there are plans) or if necessary slings.
We use the time this gives us to ransack the place completely. I want to take those books with us, if we can waterproof them. Barrels of wax, perhaps?
Drazan of Peklenc |
If taking the books is the main concern and the waterproofing is for shielding against the waterfall, Drazan offers to aid Imix by flying the books down to a temporary, safe location if it helps.
With the additional week Drazan will want to work with Fulton to take as many notes and drawings of this place as well.
Istiel |
Imix, I have the feeling we'll need people working on converting our keelboats into flatboats mostly. It's up to BP how long that will take, but if building rafts takes 10 days then I'm assuming taking apart keelboats, transporting the pieces and supplies to the docks, making flatboats, and getting ready to leave is going to take all our peoplepower/time outside of those that are specialists/looking at rooms/gathering food.
I'm fine with Istiel scouting the surrounding marsh, it's what she wants to do anyway, but it's dangerous for her to go beyond this hex by herself even if she's an absolute badass. IF everyone thinks it's worth the risk I don't mind doing it, she's made it through worse.
In any case I'm fine with the taking 20's, though I think Istiel is better served scouting/patroling than doing skill checks. After the 3 days it takes to scout the current hex she could either go one further OR patrol the surrounding forest/waterways looking for Frozen patrols.
GM Belicose Poultry |
Yes, most of your common laborers will need to be put towards making boats/transporting boats.
So, you're going with a flotilla of flatboats then?
I'll get week one up today. Or at least parts of it. There's lots there!
Istiel |
Yeah, is everyone okay with flatboats? I suggested it but didn't see any other discussion on the matter.
I agree handling this by the week is the best way! Seems we have a basic plan hashed out, let's see what happens!
GM Belicose Poultry |
Took the day off work, the baby was calm, the weather is nasty (well, nasty for south Texas - it still like 45 degrees out). I was able to get Shadeholme's existing teams entered into the spreadsheet. It should be useful here in a bit.
I'm intending to intersperse this section with a little RP with some of your NPCs, but if you'd all prefer, we can do an infodump with the results and move on.
Imix |
Gosh dang GMBP, you're a machine! Great posts - I don't want to just rush an answer.
When you described those little icons I swore in my head.
@Istiel: sorry if I wasn't clear - yeah, stay in the hex. I'm hoping you can bring samples of stuff back (like the water, and maybe the insects) so we can get people to study them. Nice to know what's poisonous in the swamp before fifty people eat it.
Survey, more than Scout, perhaps?
Nat Oqueva |
Sorry, work has been ridiculous since I got back from my trip. Thanks for the bot, GMBP, will take a look at the post and get something up asap.
Nat Oqueva |
I wouldn't say it's calmed down, but at least I'm no longer in imminent danger of killing anyone with a sharpened memo.
Istiel |
Damn, BP, you certainly spoil us. Incredible posts. If you make a book out of all this just remember to send your old buddy Galorit some tubs of gold leaf truffles or whatever rich people eat.
For the record I don't actually like truffles or gold leaf, but the gesture would still be nice.
I was wondering when Istiel's disease would surface. When there wasn't any immediate effect for that fort saving throw she failed, I braced for the worst. Purity of Body isn't until level 5 monk nooooo.
GM Belicose Poultry |
I was wondering when Istiel's disease would surface. When there wasn't any immediate effect for that fort saving throw she failed, I braced for the worst. Purity of Body isn't until level 5 monk nooooo.
Well, that's because I forgot. You all should be diseased by now. But since I forgot, I was planning to keep forgetting.
Suuha is just concerned for your general well-being, that's all.
As for the truffles, don't worry about not liking them. When I'm rich, I'll eat your truffles. Because that's what rich people do.*
* OK, this card carrying member of the DSA may just be a little annoyed at this tax plan/wealth redistribution going through Congress. Ignore the fussiness and carry on.
Nat Oqueva |
Oh, not to worry - civil servants don't go to jail. We get put on gardening leave.
Istiel: Nat has the cure disease SoP talent, but that obviously requires Istiel to ask for assistance.
Istiel |
I just lost a huge post due to my own incompetence... damn it, I was proud of it too. The dangers of writing on your phone, folks.
Forgive me if it takes me a bit to whip up the gumption to rewrite it.
BP: You're not the only one grumpy...
Nat: Yeah, that's gonna be a problem.
GM Belicose Poultry |
Oh, not to worry - civil servants don't go to jail. We get put on gardening leave.
Oooh, that sounds nice!
I just lost a huge post due to my own incompetence... damn it, I was proud of it too. The dangers of writing on your phone, folks.
Forgive me if it takes me a bit to whip up the gumption to rewrite it.
Gah, sorry! Take your time.
Learning a new language was not just a matter of syntax and grammar. It was a matter of learning a new form of thought. Tkoyah wasn't just words, it was a way of thinking of the world that was formal and structured. Tooyah was not just sounds but pragmatism personified. Tsinyah was musical and sometimes eschewed clarity in favour of grace. The language of the Frozen reflected a blunt and harsh view of a bleak reality.
Darholm was very different again. It seemed to be a language of high concepts. Almost higher than language can grapple with and it made for a tongue that needed a very lateral way of thought that was foreign to Oios.
This is a really nice bit of world detail, Oios!
Istiel |
No problem BP, I'm really busy as well.
I have to say I'm really excited about the model canoe if it does what I think it does!. That is a super useful magical item for us!
Oios |
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Huh, Oios threw it away. He's got no time for toys.
Istiel |
Hah!
Super busy. Will post tomorrow.
Oios |
Oios didn't roll well on the canoe in any case. Anybody else is free to have a go at it. Oios would show it around.