Currently, counting the previous Bounder win equal to the 1 sp stake, at 4 gold eyes, 5 silver teeth and zero copper hearts. If he doesn't 'bound' here, he loses 2 silver. If he does, he gains 2.
If you'd prefer me to roll the two Bounder rolls in seperate posts, allowing you to roll the 3d6 in between, that's cool, I'm just trying to speed things along.
Counting the silver he didn't lose at Bounder, Mordecai is still at 4 gold, 4 silver and 5 copper. Noticing that the woman who was next to him has wandered off and is talking to someone else across the room, he returns to his gambling, dropping 5 more copper on the Ghoulette wheel, 1 copper heart each on 5, 6, 7, 8 and 9. Even if he wins, he's already 2 silver down on this game, and won't make it back, but the math eludes him. He just wants to beat the darn thing, and has stubbornly decided to keep throwing money at it!
While the wheel spins, he takes one last look at the Golem table he had 'marked' earlier, and decides exactly whose pouch he's going to mess with. Any minute now, he thinks, waffling yet again...
Mordecai turns to call for a hostess to make some change for him, and leans next to the strong woman next to him for a moment, saying just loud enough for her to hear him (he hopes!), "There's going to be a fight soon. Keep a hand on your coin."
As the hostess arrives, he changes 1 silver tooth for 10 copper hearts and places a new bet on the Ghoulette wheel, 1 cp each on 5, 6, 7, 8 and 9.
Spoiler:
He's not quite ready yet to cause a potential riot, working up his courage, more than anything, so he'll hold out for a few more rounds of Ghoulette before tugging someone's pouch with the Mage Hand, which is a Supernatural Ability for him (doesn't provoke an AoO, but I have no idea what it has for components. I thought it was a Spell-like Ability, which would have meant no Verbal, Somatic or Material components, but Supernatural abilities aren't described at all, so I have no idea how visible they are. The Mage Hand manifestation itself does not appear to be visible, per the SRD.).
He's continuing to spend more time looking around than paying attention to his bets, and seems distracted, or perhaps bored, although he certainly doesn't have the outfit or grooming he'd need to pull off a 'jaded aristocrat' look (which, in this town, would just make him bait on the hook for a mugging, anyway!).
Mordecai is going to repeat his bet at the Ghoulette wheel (1 cp each on 4, 5, 6 and 7 this time, for 4 cp total), but he's actually attempting to use his keenly-honed senses to look for any tempting opportunities or juicy looking 'marks.'
Spoiler:
If he spots someone cheating, he might cause the card they are slipping to jerk out of their hand and be exposed (using his Mage Hand SLA). If someone leans down to adjust his own belt pouch, he might cause the belt pouch of the person next to them to suddenly jerk, as if the other party was attempting to pick his pocket. He's still got enough money left that he's not likely to start something now, but he might be willing to see what sort of advantage he can gain by starting a fight when his stake is near gone. He also doesn't have some clever scheme worked out in advance, as he's no good at such things (and has no idea what variables exist here). He's more interested in causing a little chaos and seeing what opportunities present themselves in the confusion. Perhaps he'll help some wounded person out, only to divest them of their goods outside. Just wanted to give you a heads up, although I imagine that something exciting will happen long before Mordecai enacts any of his own perfidy!
It seems to me that it's going to be hard to run a tournament based on 'lose your stake and get thrown out' if everyone is just splashing down as much money as they want. I also thought that the 1 gp 'stake' was the entry fee, and if we lost that first gp, we were done for...
Mordecai first wanders up to the Bounder table, and puts down a silver as stake. He examines the 20 sided die curiously, having never seen such a thing, and then tosses it as the other patrons look on impatiently.
15, so no joy, I would have had to roll an 11 *and* the dealer would have had to have rolled a 10, for it to be a win, as I understand it.
Frustrated by the game, as he's just figured out (at the cost of 1 silver) how hard it is to win, he heads over to the Ghoulette wheel, which he also finds delightful, in a macabre way. Mindful that he's already a silver down, he'll only bet a copper on each of 4, 5, 6, 7 and 8.
4 gp, 4 sp and 4 cp remaining in gamblin' money.
As both Ghoulette and Bounder are games of pure chance, he's not really looking for cheating yet. Any thought of using his Mage Hand (Hand of the Acolyte) spell-like ability to move stuff around in his favor is dampened by the presence of the demon-thing in the cage *and* the undead head on the Ghoulette table.
Mordecai flags down one of the costumed hostesses to change some money into the appropriate chips.
"Can I trade these in for 4 Golden Eyes, 5 Silver Teeth and 10 Copper Hearts?" he asks, handing her 4 gold and 6 silver.
He'll have 10 gp left from his starting gold after this.
He's already written the money off in his head. He's not one for gambling, and expects to lose handily, but is hoping to spice up the evening by catching someone cheating and maybe starting a fight. The fastest way to make money in a place like this is by taking it off a body, after all...
"Just water for now, please. Wouldn't want to get too drunk, what with my soul hanging in the balance.," he replies with a rueful grin.
Spoiler:
Mordecai is looking around at the various games, looking for one where his keenly-trained senses might prove to be of some benefit, since he knows little or nothing of games of chance, and is not skilled in 'reading people.' It's far too late to develop a lifetime of skill, but perhaps he can avoid being eliminated in the first round by keeping his wits about him.
Satisfied, Mordecai signs the contact 'Thaeliss the Younger' and completes his registration as soon as possible, wanting to spend the remainder of his time checking out other gambling patrons and idly amusing himself with speculations as to whom is going to be a 'poor loser' and start something, and who among them would do the most damage, in such an event.
Basically, people-watching, only with a morbid slant.
Spoiler:
At this point, we're probably just waiting on the others to catch up, n'est ce-pas?
Mordecai would like to a Knowledge (Religion) check, taking 10 if possible (+5 modifier), to determine if signing this contract would actually endanger his soul! Not being conversant in Knowledge (the planes), he doesn't recognize the various 'circles of hell' listed, Nessus, Avernus, etc. and that makes him wary, since that seems to be a completely unnecessary amount of detail for a phony contract to spice up a gambling tournament for a bunch of drunken ne'er-do-wells, *and* to bespeak an unsettling familiarity with Infernal topology... A familiarity that Mordecai in no way wishes to share.
"Thank you, miss. I'll just get out of your way while I read this." he says as he steps out of the way so that they can register other entrants.
At the waitresses urging, Mordecai seems to start awake. "My apologies, I was lost in thought."
He gets up and goes over to the registration personnel and presents his red ticket with a flourish, "I was told this is the place to have a *sinfully* good time?"
Mordecai smiles conspiratorially at the waitresses whispered aside, appreciating the gallow's humor, but otherwise makes no comment, breaking eye-contact to return to his meal.
On second thought, perhaps I don't want to recruit others to help with the physical work. Interacting with the living has never been my strongest suit...
He tucks away his red ticket, irked that it's already drawn attention, and possibly marked him in the eyes of those who look for easy targets. He then nibbles at the bread, avoiding the spicy stew for several long minutes before he takes a few sips of the wine to cleanse his palate before stopping to slowly savor the rest of the wine.
Only after the wine is gone does he return to his meal, which has grown greasy and unpleasant as it has cooled.
Horrid choice. To hell with savoring the wine, finish the seafood first next time!
Mordecai considers heading to his room to have a nap before the evening's festivities, but realizes that anyone planning mischief may already be here, looking around discretely and marking the exits. Settling in to watch the surroundings, he orders a mug of water and gives the waitress a silver piece for the meal, telling her to keep the change, making sure to keep his face completely neutral, eye-contact brief and his tone flat as he does so, as he does not need the distraction of her thinking that he's propositioning her at this time.
Spoiler:
If he can Take 20 on a Perception check to 'case the joint' for *other people* 'casing the joint,' he will. Otherwise, he'll take 10. +8 for Perception checks. (+1 for feat, +3 for class skill, +3 for Wisdom, 1 rank)
Mordecai is surprised, and put on-guard, by the offer of a free entry into the competition. Nobody gives anything away for free, not in this town. What is the price you *aren't* mentioning, old man?
He smiles, perhaps a bit too broadly, accepting the ticket, "It would be my pleasure, sir. May it be a fortuitous night for both of us." he adds, raising the glass of wine in a toast.
The first time someone snatched food away from him or startled him with a hand on his shoulder with her unnatural stealth, it was his Dark Lady, and so Mordecai reacts like a well-trained dog, showing no signs of alarm or protest, only turning to look up at the one-handed proprietor with an attentive half-smile, which quickly fades.
Upon hearing of the contest, the barmaid-dressed-like-a-fiend suddenly makes sense to him, and his smile becomes genuine, if lopsided.
"How much gold are we talking about cheating the devil out of, sir?" Mordecai asks, thinking not of gambling, a pursuit for which he has no skill at all, so much as many drunken fools gathered together and throwing coin about, and the many opportunities that this presents for mischief. Someone will reach for coins not their own, and there *will* be bloodshed, I need not seek my Princesses counsel to divine this night's portents...
If I lose a coin, I lose a coin. But I'll earn it back tomorrow digging the graves of those who lost less gracefully.
Mordecai wrestles with the decision of whether to spend a lot of money or just a bit on lunch, since he has no intention of being a gravedigger for the rest of his life. He finally succeeds it wrestling down his impulse to blow his windfall on a celebratory feast (helped somewhat by the poor local cuisine, as he can't think of a meal in town that would be worth spending a gold coin on!).
He heads back to the Goblin to clean his hands, and ends up having the usual trencher of bread slathered with a thick peppery seafood 'gumbo' made from whatever parts of the fish and shellfish weren't suitable for sale. Wine would be wasted with such fare, as the heavily-spiced food sears taste buds into numbness, so he settles for an ale.
As his meal arrives, carried by a human serving-wench poorly disguised as a tiefling for some inexplicable reason, he quietly utters an incantation to his patron, calling for her blessing upon his daily meal. He doesn't invoke Urgathoa by name, but neither does he make any effort to conceal his 'grace.'
Spoiler:
Purify Food & Drink. Used on every meal eaten in this town, not out of any fear of being poisoned, so much as a fear that that the locals neither know nor care what a 'red tide' is, and the fish in the gumbo is only heavily-spiced to mask the taste of it being a few days 'off.' That, and the 'pale ale' has been said to render men blind, although that could just be a rumor, and he drinks the darker stuff anyway...
He glares at the meal in disapproval, regretting not seeking out something costlier, but more pleasing to the palate, before setting in, tearing chunks of the bread off and dipping it in the gumbo with a disgusted look.
Thrice-cursed Vudrans and their musky flavor! I should be dressed in silks and eating from plates worth more than this building!, he thinks bitterly.
After the previous bit of work, and the unsettling realization that this young woman's death was indeed senseless, Mordecai is almost absurdly happy to have not just an old-fashioned murder-for-hire on his hands, but also at the consideration of being given some coin for his work. Truly, this assassin was both a gentleman and a professional!
He takes only a moment to idly determine the cause of death, more out of curiosity as to how this professional works than any real interest in the deceased.
He then sets to burying the mark, whistling as he works. Somehow the hard work of grave-digging seems so much less onerous when the promise of cold coin and a hot meal follows.
Mordecai finishes up the service, with the more traditional litany for a 'sanctioned' death, "And may the Pale Princess hold your soul safe, so that no lesser terror may interrupt your final journey into the endless night and the sweet embrace of oblivion."'And don't come back,' he adds silently, collecting his 'pay.'
By the end of it, he's already salivating in anticipation of something with meat in it, a rare enough treat in this town, where the only meat commonly served is mucky-tasting fish, all-too-often of dubious quality. Shading his eyes, he checks to see if it's close enough to lunchtime to sneak off for a bite.
Spoiler:
Checking time to see if he's managed to use up the morning on these two burials.
The deaders usually show up in the morning anyway, barring accidents. Most people die in the evening or over the night, and nobody wants a dead family member lying around the house during the heat of the day.
Mordecai is unsettled. Not from the situation, more from his own uncertainty as to why something like this would be done. A ghoul wouldn't have needed to bash her skull in, and would have preferred only certain organs, as well as devouring as many major muscles as it could ram down it's gullet. A parasite growing within her and tearing free would have left the heart and lungs behind, and *also* had no reason to bash her head.
He could think of no arcane ritual or religious rite that would require such an act, certainly none that could be performed in an alleyway, or would be performed by someone who wouldn't have better uses for a corpse.
It may indeed be the worst kind of death. Senseless. The work of a deranged mind.
Or there may indeed be many arcane or religious rites of which Mordecai was utterly unschooled, which intrigued him, and made him wonder what sort of benefits one could gain through the use of human viscera.
In any event, her slight weight was growing heavier than he had expected, and he brought her to the grounds and dumped her on the first undisturbed section of ground he could find. In the course of carting her corpse halfway across town, he had lost interest in giving her anything but the most perfunctory burial, and kicked the body petulantly as he prepared a shallow grave for her and rolled her into it.
Taking a moment to let the fit of pique fade, he reprimanded himself and said a few words commending her spirit to Urgathoas protection, skipping the pretense of consecrating her body with 'holy water.'
"...and as the flesh that you wore for such a short time in this world feeds new life, may your eternal spirit find solace in the hopes of returning in a purified state, to sate the hunger that is revenge upon the flesh of the one who wronged you, young one, in Her Grace."
Mordecai then pushed dirt over her body and reflected, not the for the first time, that he needed to find some sort of flunky to do this sort of physical labor, as he was tired of washing graveyard soil off of his hands and feeling a tightness in his lower back.
Mordecai tilts his head and examines the scene, as if absorbing it's details for later recollection, eyes roving like an artists over the body of his latest subject.
How can these barbarians claim to be so opposed to the ways of necromancy, when they clearly have no respect for what they call the 'sanctity of life' or the disposition of their dead? Such wasteful arrogance and self-righteous hypocrisy!
Shaking his head at the incongruity of it all, Mordecai steps into the alleyway and examines the body more closely, firstly for hidden dangers, for whatever took this poor soul's life might remain dangerous, then for what precisely ended that life, and finally for any items of value that might remain unpilfered.
Spoiler:
Take 10 on Heal check to determine cause of death for a 17 final result. Invisible Castle, my ancient enemy, rolled me an 11 on my non-Take-10 attempt, so I'll go for the slow-and-steady follow-up examination. :)
Securing any item that may be of worth, or use, or merely of interest, Mordecai drapes the body over his shoulder, being careful not get any spilled fluids or waste on his tunic, and carries it to the burial grounds. It seemed unwise to leave it to rot, and possibly attract plague or pestilence, or worse, nosy authorities, so close to where he slept...
Man, I'm loving this group. All boozin' it up and whoring around and selling people into slavery and beating up peasant women in the street.
I feel like such a fuddy-duddy, making honest coin swindling grieving families out of their silver to speak some insincere platitudes and sprinkle some fake holy water over their dead. :)
So... No one wants to be my good for nothing big hearted oafish brother? Aww man.... ((pouts))
I think looking for "big hearted" in this group is a lost cause... ;)
I have a big heart! It's here somewhere... <rummages around backpack>
xdahnx wrote:
Mordecai, liking the new avatar muchly.
Yeah, describing him as 'pale' and then using such a dark avatar didn't work for me visually. Plus this one *screams* 'I vant to suck your blood!'
Mordecai, a day in the life.
Spoiler:
Mordecai had quickly come to the realization that this town would suck him dry long before he found the source of the Blot, and so he traveled to the Boneyard every morning, and ministered and advised those who had brought their dead for burial, taking whatever small coin the grateful poor could spare.
“I don’t have much coin, I’m afraid, but I know that Jaylin would want to be given the rites.” the worn-out looking woman pressed. “Can you commend his soul to Pharasma?” she asked.
With a tight smile, Mordecai agreed, scrambling to remember the empty platitudes and drawn-out tone of speaking preferred during funerary services to Pharasma. “Of course, and do not worry about the coin, I’m sure that your son would prefer you spend your coin on the living.”
“Oh.” The woman said, with a wounded look, “Jaylin wasn’t my son, he was my husband.”
Looking at the young man, who couldn’t have been much more than halfway through his second decade of life, and the woman, who had to be in the midst of her fourth, he bit his tongue, as he was no stranger to the touch of an older woman. A much older woman…
“My apologies, I thought I saw some resemblance,” he backpedaled, and was relieved to see the woman’s anger dissipate as he compared her weathered features to the smooth skin of her young lover.
Turning to the deceased, he arranged his limbs, palms facing upwards, and then corrected himself, and then folded them palms downwards, in the traditions of the faith of Pharasma, and began intoning the solemn words, his nose crinkling as her remembered the heady incenses that would traditionally be burnt during such rites.
Assuming that such rites weren’t being performed for a whore and her teenaged lover in the midst of a swamp, by a priest of another faith entirely, that is…
“Grey Lady, accept into your strong halls this young soul. Across the dark waters, carry him safely to his fated destiny and guide our prayers to his ears. Take away the fear and uncertainty from those he has left behind, as we await our chance to be reunited under your benevolent protection. Let us find solace in the shadow of his passing, knowing that he has a greater destiny to serve in your manse than in this place of tears.”
He sprinkled droplets of clean water, which he had never claimed specifically to be blessed, over the body of the young man and then moved closer to the woman, who was now openly sobbing.
“It is time. I have aromatic oils, which are said by the Osirioni to produce a scent pleasing to the gods, so that their attention be drawn to this moment, and ensure that his soul travels quickly and safely to its destination. It would only be a few coins more.”
The widow, for such she was, even if Mordecai was certain that she had never been married to her young ‘husband,’ pressed a few silver coins into his hand, and murmered, “I have no more, we will have to bury him here.”
Fortunately her eyes were still upon her lovers’ corpse, as a look of distaste crossed Mordecai’s face. Surely, the state of the other graves would be enough for anyone to realize that scavengers would be at the body? Perhaps even ghouls… Still, it was her decision, and a few silvers would not cover the cost of the oils, so he laid his hand on her shoulder, hoping to quickly make his exit before the obvious question followed. “Go in peace, lady. I am certain that Jaylin has.”
As he turned and hastily attempted to retreat, her voice rose uncertainly, cracking in her grief. “Could you? Would you help me to bury him?” She pulled her hair back from her face and arranged herself, as if unconsciously, and for a moment his gorge rose as he thought she meant to entice him to help her with the promise of her favors.
Tempted to hurl her silver back in her face, Mordecai struggled to maintain his composure before turning and saying in a strained tone. “Of course. It would be an honor to see this duty to its completion.”
And so it was in an ugly mood that Mordecai went back to his room at the Golden Goblin for mid-day, hands blistered from unaccustomed work and back sore from leaning, attempting to dredge enough muck from the moist soil to create a hole large enough for a body. How these people could bury their dead in a swamp, instead of wrapping them them in linens and bathing them in oils, was beyond him, but the silver would be enough to pay for a few more meals, and he spared no expense on rewarding himself for his day’s work, having the finest meal this wretched place could supply, and eating it in the gambling hall, which was still a tolerable dining place, as it had not yet begun to fill up with smoke and noise, as it would this evening.
Too many silver spent on these so-called ‘fine meals,’ and he knew that he should head back to the Boneyard, to see if he could make some more coin today, perhaps enough to have something special for dinner…
And my character is now in this profile for this alias.
Although I just now remembered that Humans get +2 to one of their attributes, so I'll have to figure out where I'm putting that now. Int it is. Yet more skills!
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