Alrighty, redo on the loot tally. Thank you for checking my math, I'm doing this one handed with a baby on my lap! Hocum's cash found: 282.2 gp
Hi again, I'm back! We are all home from the hospital and doing well. I should be able to post fairly regularly again. Looks like this is a decent point for Leora to jump back into the story line again too.
As Homer Simpson once said, "Ah beer... the cause and solution to all of life's problems."
Thanks everyone! @GM - Haha, maybe priestesses of CC just have to party extra hard without booze to show their dedication! Despite the character I'm playing, I actually don't drink much. I miss eggs over easy, sushi with raw fish, and being able to take medication that actually does something against a cold more than I miss booze!
I want to share some exciting news and give you guys advance notice-
"Yeah! Drunken Hero, guide Arani's arrows straight!" Leora thumps Arani encouragingly on the shoulder.
"Ugh, ghouls again! Just like the ones that attacked the Red Jills!" Leora moves around to the other side of T'chazzar. Drunken Hero, protect T'chazzar from these evil ghouls!" Leora splashes some of the whiskey from her flask towards the dark elf. It forms an amber bubble that glints around him, shielding him from the ghoul attacks.
As much as Leora wants to make room for Mortan, she knows she needs to take care of herself and get to her feet first. "This drink better heal me, not make me see stuff again!" Having emptied her whiskey flask earlier, she takes a swig from a different flask. (It's a surprise Leora doesn't slosh when she walks around, though perhaps that's why she's not so good at stealth...) After casting her spell, she tries to stands up, but between the booze and the slippery floor, Leora stays down.
With all these things going on, Leora doesn't even try to make sense of Jessi's comment.
Leora searches the room, trying to find if there are any clues that the Asmodeans brought this stuff here, or if someone else had been living here. She pauses by the book for a moment, but shrugs, not recognizing anything about it.
now or later, re: the Victocoras: When there is a moment of quiet, Leora respectfully says a prayer over the remains of the Victocoras. "The Victocora family has always been all about bringing truth and freedom to Kintargo. We will miss the wisdom and knowledge of the history of our city that they taught us. We pray their souls find peace, because they lived their lives fully, bringing information out from under Asmodeus's shadow. And we pray that we survivors find peace knowing the fate of the Baron and Baroness, who lost their lives in honor of the very cause they championed." She pauses for several moments of silence, before blessing their remains.
Thanks Arani! I put it on the loot sheet. We have a bunch of stuff to sell once we are done here.
"Ugh, that's a lot of spiders!" After T'chazzar explains just how dangerous such small creatures can be (and seeing the corpse), Leora decides to cast a spell on her friends before attacking the spiders. Raising her flask in the air, she says "Take heart! These little spiders might stop a Queensman but they won't stop us!"
Leora also moves in front of Arani, so the spiders go after her first.
"Zach's place isn't too far away, we could spend the night there," Leora suggests, hoping her friends realize what she's hinting at.
Wrap Up at the Vashnarstill Estate:
Leora listens to Jessi and Phenio explain what happened upstairs. "Aaah, that explains a lot of the yelling and screaming. I was afraid he was torturing you guys or something. Might as well have been, ruining a perfectly good party." She pushes away the mirror when Angus offers it. "How many people got marked? He must be pretty powerful if he can cast that spell a bunch of times in a row." "Well, I hope we can meet again soon, and with less Thrune," Leora says to Angus."Glad we got to hang out a little bit. Thanks for the invite to the party, even if things went south pretty quick." She kisses him and then leaves with Jessi. "Thanks for the ride. I'd probably walk into a wall or something on my way home, I'm still in a bit of a daze. I'm glad everyone made it out in one piece," she says to Archbaroness Aulamaxa. On the carriage ride back, Leora thanks Jessi for her amazing distraction and help with hiding things from the twins. "You probably saved my life back there, or at the very least, from a stint in a doghouse. Man, this sucks. I don't really want to lie to them, so I told them as much as I could without putting them in a tough spot. Guess I'll have to work on my story about being an alchemist some more. That was way too close for comfort. Stay out of trouble and we can hang out more often," Leora advises, hoping her friend stops getting herself grounded at some point. "Is there anything you can do about that brand? It kinda creeps me out. It's like Asmodeus is staring right at me. I hope it's gone by the next time you visit!" back at the Nest:
Leora returns to the Coffehouse and meets up with the other Ravens in the Nest. She's less drunk and more serious than you'd expect after a party. "Welp, Thrune continues to be a complete @$%@*&^#." Seeing the worried looks, she quickly adds "We're all fine, just pissed off. Jessi and I got over to the festival at the Vashnarstill Estate, and after like half an hour, Thrune showed up and made all the young nobles compete in his days of wrath stuff, right in the middle of the party! Jessi saved my butt by distracting Thrune for a minute so I could sneak off and hide - yes Dom, she did trip and fall, how did you guess?" "Anyway, while I was hiding in the wine cellar, Jessi and her buddies got branded with a mark of Asmodeus- right on their foreheads. She and her grandma- I mean Archbaroness- think it will wear off in awhile, and won't really do anything besides show off how badass Thrune thinks he is." After answering any questions the group has, Leora rummages around for some more wine. "Well since Thrune ruined the party today, let's say we have our own party down here. I'll pour drinks while you guys tell me about the Days of Wrath. Dom, did you win any prizes? Spit on any Queensmen? Falina, meet any interesting people?" Once the drinks are poured, she raises her glass "To Cayden Cailean. Thanks for giving me a wine cellar to hide in, and great friends to celebrate with."
Wine Cellar
When Jessi and the twins come downstairs, Leora comes out right away. "Holy $%!*&, are you guys alright? What did he do to you?!" While Leora appreciates Jessi's cover-up, she decides to tell them as much of the truth as she can. She hugs the young man, and then takes one of his hands in hers while explaining. "Angus, Jessi is totally right. This has nothing to do with you, and everything to do with me being scared to death of Thrune and the stuff he's done. I mean, he throws people in dog houses, a bunch of stuff burned down on the Night of Ashes and people went missing, and here I am, just some commoner, in your family's noble estate. I didn't want him to start asking questions, give the wrong answers, and get you guys in trouble or anything. I totally freaked out and came and hid down here. I'm sorry."
Once that is done, Leora asks "What was that about choosing a bottle of wine? Want to hang out down here a bit and calm down?" If Angus agrees, Leora will choose a bottle, pass it around with her friends, and snuggles up next to Angus for a bit. She asks her companions what happened upstairs, and thanks Jessi for her amazing distraction. After a bit, she takes a closer look at the markings on their foreheads. She can't help but wince a little at the sign. The marking of Cayden Cailean's archenemy, smack dab in the middle of their foreheads. "So how long will those last? What do they do?" she asks, in case Thrune explained any of it to them.
Leora isn't sure what time it is, but after awhile, she would attempt to head back to the Coffeehouse before curfew, or find some way of sending a short message to Falina and Davina saying that she and Jessi are okay and will be back in the morning if it's too risky to return now.
Speaking of bad ideas and freaking terrible ideas lol And of course Leora fails the one roll that matters for this. Guess her inly choice is to kick his ass!
Leora thinks fast. She briefly considers telling the Dottari the almost-truth. Sorry, occifers, I was just tryin' to get back to the Grey Heron, before taking a swig from her flask. But she decides on a different lie, hoping she can pull it off. Standing up straight, she says "Thank Hell I found you! Queenswoman here, I need backup. I was just patrolling undercover in Aria Park and overheard three traitors talking about breaking into City Hall tonight. No way I can take all three of em, or even make it there in time to stop them in this armor. If you hurry, you can likely beat them there!"
Leora nearly spits out her coffee a second time at Kiri's revelation. She grins, refilling Dom's mug , waiting for him to give the motion for enough. "I didn't realize it either," she says to Dom. She agrees that Rexus's idea to buy a hooded lantern is a good one, and purchases one on their way to the Grey Heron. Knowing that she is nowhere near as sneaky and quiet as Kiri or Dom, Leora says a quick prayer before they slip out of the Grey Heron for Cayden Cailean to quiet her steps. But she's too busy thinking about what she should bet with Dom on next to realize that she's just walking down the middle of the street while her friends quietly stay in the shadows...
"I guess we should wait until tomorrow to check out the Silver Star. It's a long walk, and if we find something interesting, I'd hate to get stuck out after curfew. The Star's on the other side of Bleakbridge, kind of near the Opera House, right?"
twin things: "You've got time in your busy schedule for a festival and Phenio?" Leora asks, raising an eyebrow at Jessi. "Cool, date night! I'll write Angus back."
Later, Leora sits down to pen a reply to Angus.
Leora puzzles over the signature line, tapping the quill against the table for a minute. "Lovingly Yours" was waaaay too sappy. Cheers!
PS - Might be busy this week, not sure yet. If I'm free, we can meet for drinks one night, I'll let you know.
Leora opens her mouth to tell Dom to wait before opening the door, but then realizes that first, he can't hear her, and second, most of her spells won't work with the silence going on anyway. Since she can't see what's going on yet, she thumps Kiri on the back, giving her a thumbs up, and if Kiri is any any good at lip reading, she might see Leora mouth something that looks suspiciously like "Try not to spill too much beer in there!"
"Hey, whichever of you is gonna break down the door, hang on a sec." Once Dom and Davina figure out what method they will use to open the door, Leora says a quick prayer over both of them. "A locked tavern is sacrilege, Drunken Hero! Help us take down this stupid door."
Leora is about ready to tear her hair out by the end of the week when the dissent in their ranks sets the Silver Ravens back, and slams her mug of ale on the counter when Morgar storms in and explains what happened at Clenchjaw's. "Morgar, um, what kind of drinks and discussions do you guys have at Clenchjaw's?" Leora asks, after he's had a chance to calm down. She offers him another beer to make up for the one he didn't get to finish at Clenchjaw's before he got thrown out. She is hoping to find out if maybe they'd been talking about the rebellion and perhaps someone caught wind of it. . She follows her companions to Clenchjaws to see if they can learn anything at the tavern. "Ugh! Seriously! Can't we catch a bit of luck? Just when we were getting things going again! Maybe I'll start praying to Pharasma too..." Leora listens carefully to the stranger checking out Clenchjaw's Tavern to see if she can get a read on his feelings on the closing of the tavern. Is he a regular there, a potential ally, an under-cover Queensman, or what? "Glad it was the devil's horns this time, and not the devil's fire," she comments to him in return. She also walks around the building to see if anything looks odd, or if she can see anything in the windows.
"It'll take more than that to gross me out!" Leora says, ignoring the puke from the fairies. She doesn't ignore the other fluid leaking out from the living and dead demons- black demon bile. Taking a few steps towards the unholy altar, she raises her flask and dumps some of its contents on the ground. "By whiskey be purged!"
"Kiri, were you able to see where the fairies went from your spot on the roof? How many were left?" Leora hopes Kiri saw something. Otherwise, she fears they'll be back to patrolling the streets and waiting for the few remaining fairies to ambush them again. If there is time before they chase after the tooth fairies, Leora will see if there is any chance of saving the dog. She can't help but think of Cayden Cailean's loyal hound, Thunder.
"You got it, Davina!" Leora heals the group and then herself further while Davina explores the kitchen. "Yeah, this place is messed up. I'll look around out here." Given the kitchen's small size, Leora stays in the main room and searches there for any clues about the homunculus or what may have happened. Cayden Cailean, help us figure out this messed up mystery so we can make sure the demon bile doesn't infect anyone else! She particularly checks around the fire place and on the table and shelves for any hidden drawers.
"Alright! Thanks Zachrin!" Leora is thrilled that the priest can remove the demon bile from Gavin and Blackfeather. "We'll put this wand to good use!" "We didn't see see any sign of Jessibel. Hey, wait- Leora asks any of the teens who are done with their baths- "Do any of you know our friend Jessi? She went missing a few days after you guys did and we haven't seen any sign of her. We think she might have gone to look for you but the only clue we have is that she went missing between Songbird Hall and the Opera House."
Leora rolls her eyes. "Geez. Maybe if let me see, what was the name of the alchemist's apprentice Gavin Brassvane's gotten himself into enough trouble, we will need to buy some more spell components to properly rescue him. But we need to know what we're getting ourselves into before we buy anything." In case that isn't enough to convince Ms Paqshari, she adds "Plus, once we're done getting him out of whatever mess he's in, I'll have some time to brew up another batch of beer. Do you sell beer brewing stuff? Hops, yeast, that kind of stuff?" After she's done, Leora realizes Did I just roll my eyes? Jessi must be rubbing off on me... aside to Dom: Once they are far, far away from the Potion shop, Leora tries to answer Dom's question about the shorter races a little better. "Yeah. gnomes and halflings. Totally different. Let's see. Gnomes are really curious, and wait, so are halflings. Umm... well... Gnomes are super colorful, like that alchemist lady. Halflings usually wear pretty normal stuff. Oh and the feet. If they have bare feet, they're probably a halfling."
This is what I always think of when someone mentions possums.
"I'd like to meet the Sootscales. I've seen them and their tracks but never spoken with them."
Very nice! Thank you for the suggestions. My PCs have just started the Free Captain's Regatta. How did you determine timing during the race? For example, how long does it take to get from one obstacle to the next? How long did the race take, overall? Did your PCs decide to rest or sleep? Overall, my PCs built characters that were pretty focused around sailing, so they already have over 10 race points and have just reached the Iris Splinters. The druid is about out of weather and water control spells though, so she is considering resting. Should be interesting to see what happens while she is asleep. I let the group roll Knowledge(Geography) checks to estimate how long it would take to get to the next obstacle based on the map that the Master of Gales provided and their current speed. Of course, the map doesn't tell the complete story since some events (like Harrigan's attack) aren't marked on it. Results being:
I estimated the following based on the map and assuming a ship was going about 5 mph, the race would take about 31 hours. Of course, I didn't take into account time spent at each obstacle. If you assume one hour per obstacle, that's an additional 10 hours, for a total of 41 hours). I'll probably tweak it more as we get through the race
I converted some of the ship upgrades and magical ship-enhancing items to better fit with Fire as She Bears. Haven't had a chance to try them all out yet, but here's what I've come up with so far. I know it's not much but will do more as we use the rules more and I get a better feel for them Jalhazar's Wheel: (fluff is the same)
Silk sails Overland speed increased by 10%; gain +1 to rolls to gain the weather gauge Overall, many of the items in the Player's Guide and in the AP are still applicable. In most other cases, FaSB items directly replace things from the Player's Guide, such as the hull plating.
My players just fought Zarskia. For RP and character backstory reasons, they decided to capture her and sell her into slavery. Any suggestions on her being a recurring villain? Couple of my very basic ideas are below. 1. Would Zarskia join Harrigan's crew? Would she somehow connect with him for her desire to get revenge on the PCs? Would they see her in the Regatta, or hold out until a later encounter with Harrigan? 2. Being a powerful alchemist, would she captain her own ship (probably not, she doesn't seem like a great leader), or build some awesome/crazy siege weapons and ammo for someone else's ship? This could also be included with #1.
Humiliating the PCs can work better than lashes alone... some events that happened on our Wormwood: Spoiler:
-Our magus, whose backstory included some previous pirating, kept asking Scourge to see the ship's papers to make sure he got a fair share of the loot. Eventually, Scourge brought him some papers to sign in front of the crew. They were actually pictures of scantily clad orc maidens... As an unintended consequence, now there are some rumors about him and Grok. -The magus likes to show off his knowledge about ships and sailing, so Scourge sometimes gives him very specific instructions of how to rig the sails incorrectly, which of course pisses off the magus. To add insult to injury, Plugg comes by later and notices, then tells Scourge to lash the magus for messing up the rigging. -The barbarian of the group served as the witch's bodyguard prior to joining the Wormwood. When the witch failed at her task for the day and was about to get lashed, the barbarian jumped in front of Scourge to take the lashes for her. Scourge happily whipped him into unconsciousness and sentenced him to the sweat box the following day. The next day, while the barbarian was in the sweat box, Scourge lashed the witch anyway, then broke the barbarian's great axe, threw the axe head overboard, and returned the broken stick to the barbarian after his time in the sweat box. -Animals keep popping up to cause problems, so Scourge sends the druid PC to scare them off in any violent way he can think of (a flock of seagulls lands on the Wormwood to take shelter from the storm - here's a bucket o rocks to scare them off.) -Our cleric was interested in playing an undead-type creature, so we created a custom template for him using the rules in the ARG. Anyway, Scourge eventually caught on, but has no way to make this creepy undead guy get off his ship. Instead, he occasionally asks Sandara to say a prayer to Besmara over the daily rum ration (essentially casting bless water), making it also have the properties of holy water. He hasn't figured out what to do about it yet since asking Sandara to stop would probably get her lashed. As for showing off Harrigan's power level, I'm planning to add a giant enemy crab in a bit of a different way. I'm hoping it's a good way to show off some of the other officers, who I've done a poor job of including in my descriptions so far. I'm also hoping it will deter the crew from trying to explore the officer's and captain's cabins - despite repeated warnings from their friends, they've been saving up to buy some thieves tools from Grok to pick the locks they see around the ship:
Spoiler: After going crab fishing, several crab swarms, reef claws, and a giant enemy crab follow the PCs back to the Wormwood. At night, they attack! (DC 15 check to notice them climbing on board if you are on the deck. DC 20 if you are belowdecks). A round after the crabs get on the ship, whoever is on night watch rings the bell to summon everyone to the deck. Harrigan kills the giant enemy crab in a single stroke. Plugg and Scourge take on a reefclaw each and kill them quickly. Peppery casts some chain lightning, which takes out a few... Cue the PCs to take out three more reef claws.
Introductory post to come shortly. |
