BTW I’m back from my work trip, but got a lot of catching up to do and dead tired. Not sure yet how much I’ll get a chance to post for the next day or two.

Well, in this cosmic cloud of crap, this is cause for optimism.

ghost post

No worries - I've still got jetlag even after four days so I'm not fantastically energetic at the moment.

Me neither....
I've been on call for 7 days, and 2 to go.
I'm kinda a mess right now.

That doesn’t sound fun.

I had a flight out to Hicksville at 7am yesterday, followed by a 3.5 hour drive out to the site, then the same drive back to town and look at another site. I live in the city, so I don’t need to drive much, at least long distances – that was a lot of driving yesterday!

Yeah; I hate driving that much.
I have a 20 mile commute to work; if I can ever figure out how to not do that any more I sure will.

Live closer? Or too obvious?

It seems inevitably wherever I am in the U.S. that living next to or near a hospital is either two swank to afford or too much of a dive to want to expose a family to.
My first job I lived right around the corner from work. That was nice.

It could be worse - my commute is a minimum of an hour and a half.

Just a thought on burials, for what its worth. The Buddhists of Tibet have an "air burial". They lay the body on a mountaintop, for the animals to consume. The belief is that the soul has been reincarnated, and the remains are brought back into the natural cycle.

It could be worse - my commute is a minimum of an hour and a half.

Yeah....one d!%+*@% gets in a fender bender and I'm looking at that.

Yeah; I hate driving that much.

I have a 20 mile commute to work; if I can ever figure out how to not do that any more I sure will.

Man, that’s a long drive every day. I’m never going to complain about my 5 km bus ride to work again. Well, not for the rest of the day anyway. Unless the buses are stuffed again this afternoon, like they usually are. Bloody stupid Sydney public transport.

Ok, so that didn’t last long.

It could be worse - my commute is a minimum of an hour and a half.

The difference is that you're on a train and can do nice stuff like read a book or take a nap.

True, but if it goes wrong I'm also stranded eighty miles from home. With the snow we had I ended up staying the night in London unexpectedly. I had to buy a new set of clothing and since there was an important meeting the next day I had to buy a damned suit and tie from Marks and Spencer too - not a cheap day.

My place....I think the economy goes bad so they apply the thumbscrews. Bastards.
Now we wear scrubs. Used to wear streetclothes.
Now we wear scrubs like a McDonalds uniform.
The administrative staff wears streetclothes, but we wear pyjamas.

I had to buy a damned suit and tie from Marks and Spencer too - not a cheap day.

Cor blimey, that’s posh guv!

True, but if it goes wrong I'm also stranded eighty miles from home. With the snow we had I ended up staying the night in London unexpectedly. I had to buy a new set of clothing and since there was an important meeting the next day I had to buy a damned suit and tie from Marks and Spencer too - not a cheap day.

That's what expense accounts are for. ;)

Aubrey the Malformed wrote:

I had to buy a damned suit and tie from Marks and Spencer too - not a cheap day.

Cor blimey, that’s posh guv!

Actually it was a pretty horrible suit, but the shirt and tie were alright.

Wow. What a mediocre display of sadness. About the only one who has rolled high so far has been Runzyl and it was a waste since he has no ranks in diplomacy to take advantage of it. If I knew those with better scores in diplomacy would flub their rolls, I would have certainly have used an AP for this occasion.

If this keeps going the way it has, Jalana will get a common funeral instead of a heroic one that will inspire other Valenar to emulate her.

It all comes down to Mothman and Lightbringer.

Cheer up, man. It's just a dead n.p.c.

Sorry, it's my first Valenar funeral. I didn't have a thing to wear.

Just a thought on burials, for what its worth. The Buddhists of Tibet have an "air burial". They lay the body on a mountaintop, for the animals to consume. The belief is that the soul has been reincarnated, and the remains are brought back into the natural cycle.

By the way, Old Guy, thanks for the suggestion - it's basically what I'm going with, mixed in with a bit of Plains Indian.

Old Guy GM wrote:

Just a thought on burials, for what its worth. The Buddhists of Tibet have an "air burial". They lay the body on a mountaintop, for the animals to consume. The belief is that the soul has been reincarnated, and the remains are brought back into the natural cycle.

By the way, Old Guy, thanks for the suggestion - it's basically what I'm going with, mixed in with a bit of Plains Indian.

np, great stuff btw.

You know Aubrey, when I chose aberrant mark (chill touch) I was planning a whole touch of death theme. I was going to pick lesser aberrant mark (vampiric touch) at 9th level and greater aberrant mark (enervation [but as a touch attack with your approval]) at 12th level (13th level in Pathfinder, now). Then you pull out Gaorhaxithreza and I find myself speculating on which powers to pick for the lesser and greater aberrant marks to connect them to the quori.

However, whichever powers I pick, my least aberrant mark (chill touch) will be the odd one of the group. So I’m wondering if I should change my picks or continue along with what I’ve decided. Right now touch of idiocy and feeblemind/dominate person are starting to make sense for the lesser and greater aberrant marks, respectively but chill touch doesn’t go with the them as you can see. unless I can have your permission to change it when next we level up. Even so, the power I change it to would have to inflict damage since I’ve already posted that Rolund inadvertently used it to kill his mother. Or perhaps we can pick powers from the psionics list as psi-like aberrant mark abilities to better tie them to the quori.

Or perhaps I’m reading too much into this and the Gaorhaxithreza will turn out to be a false prophecy and that’s that.

Without wishing to give too much away, I would suggest you go with what feels good for you character - both outcomes would be appropriate in the context of the campaign. As for replacing Chill Touch due to its un-quori-ness, we could simply consider it to relate to the cold interplanar spaces between Dal Quor and the material plane and leave as is. In fact, going all Enchantment could be a big surprise for Rolund in-game, and his "Mark of Death" could prove to be something quite different from what he was expecting.

I'm still here, just not feeling the need to jump in with Gil. She's sitting quietly listening to the exchange.

No probs.

OK, just to let you guys know, I will be about for the next two days, though interrupted by travel (heading back to the UK tomorrow evening US time). Then I will be incommunicado for a week while on holiday in France. Then I will be back, but patchy (travelling back to the US again) for a week after. Hopefully, after all of that, my great journey will be over.

Wow, that’s a lot of travel. Whereabouts in France are you holidaying?

Perpignan, which is in the south by the Med near the Spanish border.

Yes, the travel is an annoyance at the moment. Andrea is expecting so can't really fly, and I just went to a load of cool places she would have liked and would rather have been at home making sure she is OK. However, I think I have wriggled out of a week and a bit in Singapore towards the end of next month, so hopefully that will be more or less it, at least for the first half of the year. However, my company has bought the Asian business of AIG, and the deal will probably be finalised in July, so who knows where I might be going in the second half of the year.

Big Daddy!
That was some nonchalantness.

You know me - I define nonchalant.

Wow, congrats man. When is your lovely wife due? (To give birth that is, in case there was ambiguity in that statement)

August.

Excellent! So … make sure you get in a few good night’s sleep before then ok?

Congratulations!

Back to the same old haunts in the US, or somewhere new and (possibly) exciting?

Wow, just tossing it in there so casually...

Congratulations, indeed, sir. I prefer to travel with significant other, but for me, it doesn't really work out that way. So I very rarely travel for work -- always someone else excited to go somewhere to get away from their wife.

Haven't figured that out, myself, quite yet.

Congrats again!

Wow, just tossing it in there so casually...

Yeah, that's what the wife said too.

Thanks for all the congratulations, I am very touched.

Yeah, that's what the wife said too.

Zing!

Congratulations!

Back to the same old haunts in the US, or somewhere new and (possibly) exciting?

Lansing, Michigan. It's pleasant enough, but hardly exciting. Anyway, I'll be there less than a week this time.

A vile plot is being hatched over on the discussion thread to Heathy's game to run 4e Dark Sun and a 4e Kingmaker, for those interested.

A vile plot is being hatched over on the discussion thread to Heathy's game to run 4e Dark Sun and a 4e Kingmaker, for those interested.

Oh, I shouldn't even consider it, but considering the crew involved, I am. I have no books or interest in purchasing same, but if you think I can make a go of it blind, I'll give it a shot if you will have me. Do I need to reply in the other thread, or will this suffice?

I think this will do - it's only in a very formative stage at the moment.

Ah, finally, internet service is back up in my house. A belated congratulations to your wife’s upcoming due date. Do you already know whether it’s going to be a boy or a girl or do you like to be surprised?

I’ll probably have to skip those 4e campaign invitations. I can’t seem to work up the same energy and excitement for 4e gameplay that I have for 3.5e and Pathfinder.

We don't know yet. The scan where they can tell is coming up in about two weeks.

Whoo hoo! Congratulations!

As far as the other pbps... hmmm. 4e...

I'm pretty curious about Kingmaker and haven't read anything yet. With 4e are you going to keep it Golarion specific or will there be warforged and dragonmen running around? (I like warforged, but I like them in Eberron where they make sense to me. Dragonmen I don't much care for, but it is just me being stuck in what is familiar I guess.)

The fact that you run such sweet pbps is the first time I've ever been tempted to consider a 4e game.

I was planning on nudging players towards more Golarion-friendly races, but if someone really, really wants to play a shardmind, I'd let them. I was planning on keeping the deities and other Golaion stuff the same, though that might slightly (very slightly) limit some divine characters (in that, unless I do a conversion, they won't get access to one feat related to their specific deity).

To my mind, even if Aubrey allows these ‘left field’ races in the game, they don’t really seem to fit with the campaign style. As I understand it, the idea is that the PCs, over the course of the campaign, become the rulers of their own nation. I think you’d run into a lot of problems with the good people of Brevoy if you tried to set up a dragonborn as the king or a tiefling as the nation’s chief spiritual adviser.

Given that we’re going to be in a human-centric part of a human-centric campaign setting, I’ll probably stick with human (says the guy who’s playing one of the few non-humans in our other Golarion game).

Aren't the elves gone? Or are those eladrins the elf equivalent? To me, it looked like they got rid of a bunch of traditional fantasy races and replaced them with a bunch of odd creatures like dragonborn and tieflings.

Having said that, I think a human-centric approach suits the campaign (or at least the previews I've seen) rather well.