(5c) A World Apart - Team Stag (Inactive)

Game Master mdt

The group moves through F6, and into F7. However, partway through their explorations, they encounter a vast chasm that seems to run east and west as far as they can see. It looks several thousand feet deep, and the inside walls glitter faintly with quartz. It's varies from about 30 ft at it's closest side, to about a hundred at it's farthest width.

Hmph. More hassles.

Goragg glances east and west, and down the chasm. He ponders a moment.

I say we continue east.

map updated with proposed route.

sure, you are the one leading after all he says with a smile

"We're taking your lead after all." Cale snorts.

The chasm may not be a good place to be after all. He considers.

The group continues to walk along the edge of the ledge through G7, and into H7, where it finally closes up about half-way through the area. This is actually faster than normal exploration as they can only explore part of a hex.

Moving through H7 and into I7, they are brought up short again by an eruption of stone from the savannah floor. Shard like onyx deposits thrust up through the savanna grass, eventually forming a 30 ft high wall of razor sharp onyx shards, like millions of blades thrust up from the ground. The wall goes roughly nne to ssw. The light of the sun glitters in the semi-transparent crystal.

"Grim?" Cale turns to the one most likely to identify this.

For himself, he stops not wanting to risk more of the strange shards.

"I feel like I'm being herded. Or hunted." Kalasin cast Detect Magic, and looked around for anything and everything magical in range. She was sniffing about as she did so, on guard and leary.

Perception: 1d20 + 6 ⇒ (2) + 6 = 8 She must be getting sensory overload or something.

Hum ? he says absentmindedly Ah yes my expertise i take are required.

Grim will carefully come and inspect the shard wall. he scraps a few pieces of it. and after close inspection

Shard like onyx deposits thrust up through the savanna grass, eventually forming this high wall of razor sharp onyx shards. Most likely there was an important deposit that was heated by a techtonique crust movement and some magma that heated and trust up the deposit and as it cooled it formed that wall. Lets see if we can move around it ?

Goragg waits expectantly, watching as Grim speaks for some sort of magical effect to appear.

When it doesn't, he shrugs and says,

Well, that was a useless spell. He glances at the others. Yes, move around it. Sounds good.

But first, he scans for any pieces small enough to be fashioned into arrowheads. He will gather as many as two dozen if he finds that much.

he turn around and looks up and down at his Everyone, Seize Goragg he is now under arrest he says moving next to him Glaive out.

When have you EVER seen me cast spell you or everyone else since we got here? he shouts

You better surrender so that i can check if Goragg has been replaced or is under a compulsion / enchantment effect. he looks at him straight in his eyes You wouldn't stand a chance, so i really hope you will surrender so that i can examine you.

LOL

Assuming Goragg isn't executed, he can easily find two dozen shards. He could find a couple of thousand shards if he wanted.

Goragg draws his falchion.

Whoa. Hold on there. You're the one babbling in wizard-speak. Don't get mad at me because your tekto neek crustmoov ment spell failed. It's not my fault.

I don't wanna hafta kill ya, so let's just calm down.

Eyes turned gold and half hunkered over amongst the tall grass, Kalasin looked up hearing Grim ordering them to arrest Goragg. Blinking twice, her eyes faded back to blue. She had been trying to find the hearding 'predator' that was after them. Realizing a fight might be about to break out between them, she deemed it more important and rushed to stand between them. "Calm down. Both of you. Inner fighting will only get us killed. Grim, his scent hasn't changed. And I see nothing to suggest a magical compulsion. This is Goragg. No compulsions. No replacements. I know you didn't cast a spell, but others might interpret it differently."

"As much as I'd love to see the misogynistic hobgoblin get magic'd up or whatever it is you do to your enemies, I think you need to calm down...BOTH of you. There's no mistaking his...'unique' brand of idiocy, and if you bunch the tiefling, Goragg, I swear I'll lodge an arrow between your cheeks!" she threatens the pair of males, facial features growing increasingly annoyed with the infighting.

Goragg i would suggest not drawing your weapon, Grim is right in front of you with his weapon out and menacing you with it. While the action of drawing a weapon does not draw an AOO you might want to be carefull

Ever Heard of Dooplegangers and other creatures that can assume form, shape and everything else ? No ? Well i have. Not only I have but i have seen one and there is magical/chemical research aiming to give the same abilities to normal humanoid in order to make the perfect spies. I know that for a fact. If i wanted Goragg dead i would just have killed him instantly and wouldn't have bothered to tell him to surrender so that i could verify his identity. Now i will not take any chance with a possible shapeshiffer.

he doesn't look at the others What he is currently saying should give you all cause for concerns to if you really listen to what he just said. Kalasin you should open your ears. If that was really Gorrag he would indeed grumble and then tell says something about being the leader here and order me to get this verification done quickly so that he could resume leading up on exploration and not about a failed spell casting that isn't he isn't responsible for

he addresses Goragg again

Surrender now ! or i will have to knock you out in order to carry the verification. he says drinking the content of a small vial that was concealed in the inside of his hand

I didn't understand a thing other that a wall grew here. Besides pointing sharp weapons at each other, the obvious being that spells are hard to cast. Isn't shapeshifting magical as well? If you wish to you know...vent your frustrations.....don't let me stop you. Cale valmy points out even as he makes no move to draw any of his weapons patient enough to let them resolve this among themselves.

Lots of creatures can naturally shapeshift on top of those that can use magic to acheive the same result . There are even whole races that can do that naturally and even transmit that ability to others. Like Lycanthrope gave birth to the Skinwalkers and Dooplegangers with changelings.

He's serious! I've got to calm him down before blood is drawn between us.

Goragg lowers his falchion. In game mechanics, this is probably equivalent to ceding initiative.

Grim, you mistake me. I am Goragg, same as I always was. Come on, you know me!

Let us both put down our weapons. We have enemies, but they are not us. If we fight between us, our enemies win.

That usually works when a fight breaks out between squads. I hope it works on Grim. I don't want to kill him.

You might be Goragg. Now since you are surrendering I will need from you just a tiny bit of blood and some skin sample. Also I will drop my weapon and come next to you in order to conduct a simple test on you. There will be minor pain and it shouldn't last longer than a minute or two.

He says dropping his weapon 5 feet from him next to Gorrag Now drop your weapon he says moving 5ft in order to be right next to him

Should Goragg alow grim to proceed he will draw some blood from the tip of his finger and some skin sample. Placing each of them on separate vials. He also medically inspect the Hogboblin once done he will take some distance and open up his portable lab and starts working on the vials.

I need at least 2h to complete initial examination

"I know scents, Grim, and I trust my nose. I know all of your scents. I've known them since I met you. Scents are hard to get the complex nuances right when copying someone, because most lack the nose to pick them up. And Goragg here, well," Kalasin proceeds to make a show of smelling Goragg. "He smells like Goragg. Lycanthropes have elements to their scents that distinguishes them from other humanoids. I would have smelled that on him long ago."

"You question this because of what he said, about a failed spell. Well, it appears that he believed you were casting a spell. That is was your spell that failed. You are the one that has so much magical knowledge. You are the one studied in magic here. It makes you look like a wizard, even if you really aren't one. People make assumptions, be they right or wrong."

'This, this is why I stay away from others. So quick to judge and turn on their own. So quick to gain that mob mentality...'

Yeah, what she said. Sheesh.

Goragg spits exasperatedly.

Come and take your samples, then, if you trust me that little.

He places his weapon on the ground and reaches a hand out to Grim for a handshake.

Once the handshake is done grim will answer him Well trust never excluded Control once in a while when something give rise to concern

Grim will answer Kalasin while working You ready to make a bet on this? A wager with your life possibly on the line ? Because if you do then I can prove it to you on the morning that you could be dead wrong. I can make something that will get rid of my scent, something so strong you won't be able to pick up or track me even if you are right next to me. How hard do you think it will be for me to give me his scent and odor when I can complete negated my own that no lupine can check ?

Cale shrugs.

"So this looks like a good place to camp a while?" Waiting for the affirmation from the rest before he sets up to rest.

Aside from the razor-sharp stones everywhere and the induced paranoia...he glances sideways at Grim...it's perfect.

Once tempers have eased, he says,

I think Kalasin is right. I feel like I'm being herded in a particular direction, and I don't like it.

I think we should move crossways -- he makes a hand gesture indicating "perpendicular" (which is a word he doesn't know) -- to the wall. And I like not to be resting at the foot of a wall when we know not who or what is on the other side or even roaming on the top.

He points to a spot (assuming there is one that's appropriate) about 100 yards away from the wall.

I'd rather rest there.

Just a note, I describe it as wall, but it's more like this

We can rest later or here, it doesn't matter to me but we should definitely go around This "wall" after two hours have past

Well i am pleased to say that Goragg is indeed Goragg. My apologies then and while i do know a lot about magic and stuff i am by no means a wizard and probably never will be

Her lips pulled back and a low growl started to escape. Realizing what she was doing, she took a deep, but tense breath. Looking back at Grim, she focused on not losing her temper with him. "Scent still degrades when taken away from the source. So unless you managed to find a very strong essence of Goragg..." She gave a small shrug letting the matter of scents drop. "It is one thing to be paranoid and cautious of non-comprads. But to so quickly judge one you have known and traveled with leads to destruction. In this case, it could lead to our deaths. It's quickness to judge that causes people to do horrible things. I do not want you to do something regrettable because you judged so quickly." She took that moment to walk away. If she stayed that close to Grim much longer, she might really lose her temper and that never went well. She needed to calm down first.

She took a spot to watch for anything coming from behind them and have some space. "It could anywhere, anything. Based on what we've seen so far, I wouldn't put it past it being the land itself herding us."

Ok, given the disruption, as the GM, I'm not sure if you are going north or south or trying to make your way through the shards...

I like not what this land does to our squad loyalty.

And I like even less being herded like a hoofed beast.

Goragg wipes his brow and pauses wearily.

I want away from this wall. If the wall goes northeast-southwest, I say we go northwest.

Map updated with proposed route, not really northwest but easier to track via hex map.

@GM, I think we were following the chasm's north side when we came to the shards, so unless the chasm closed up we can't go south. What am I missing?

The chasm you were following going east/west closed up half-way through the hex, then you ran into this. So, if you want to go south, you can, it's open now. You can even go back west along the southern side of the chasm if you want. Map is updated, purple is chasm, gray is onyx deposits.

Grim will follow the rangers lead as to were the team goes in order to cross the chiasm

Ah, in that case Goragg probably wants to go south, since going north is just going to lead to ocean either way. So, party agreeing, we will cross to the south side of the chasm, travel west one hex to get away from the shard wall, then travel SW to the bottom of the hex.

Map updated.

We follow the ranger's lead

The party moves to the south of the ravine from earlier, and begins to move back to the west. They encounter no difficulties the first two days, and have pleasant hunting weather.

In F8, they find a natural rock formation that's not something they've seen before in this hectate. It looks as if something pushed it's way up, forcing stone to shoot up. Almost like a volcano, but not. Picture

Goragg signals "halt" and brings the others to see the formation.

Knowledge Geography: 1d20 + 5 ⇒ (12) + 5 = 17

D'ya know what that is?

Depending on whether he passed the Geography check or not, he may be teasing them or actually asking them.

Knowledge (Nature) 1d20 + 7 ⇒ (5) + 7 = 12

Cale considers the Rock formation but holds back his thoughts to see if teh others know anything about it.

Grim stops to ponder for a second

KN Nature: 1d20 + 7 ⇒ (15) + 7 = 22

It's a freakin' big rock formation! Har har har har har!

Y'all didn't forget that Goragg is a hobgoblin, right?

Goragg continues laughing for several minutes.

Kalasin stood there confused, she didn't get what was so funny.

Shall I assume you go around the giant protrusion?

Goragg sees no point in scaling it, even if the meta-gamer in me thinks he should.

So yes, go around it, assuming all agree.

Go around it.

Unless there's something unusual that bears further attention.

Perception: 1d20 + 7 ⇒ (4) + 7 = 11 Yeeeeeaaaaaah, anyone else wanna take a look?

Perception: 1d20 + 12 ⇒ (9) + 12 = 21 [ooc]Yummy.[/dice]

Aldrah peers around, investigating the surroundings carefully. She keeps her ears open for any strange noises, but more importantly, makes a note not to touch anything.

its too bad that grim isn't a great climber cause i might have a go at it... Yup go around it

Perception: 1d20 + 6 ⇒ (2) + 6 = 8
Kalasin has yet to understand what Goragg found so funny. Yes it's a big rock formation. 'This sort of thing is funny?'

Going around it is fine with me. :)

@Kalasin, hobgoblin humor is approximately equivalent to 3rd-grade boy humor. But the 3rd-graders are little more mature on average.

@Goragg: I felt confusion was appropriate for Kalasin. And it makes a good argument as to why she's not that perceptive right now.

Gotcha. Your role play was too good. :-)

Goragg uncharacteristically catches on to a social cue and notices Kalasin's confusion.

Y'see, it's funny because...it's a freakin' big rock!

He collapses into another round of uncontrollable laughter.