A flickering candle in the dark. (Inactive)

Game Master Helaman

A map of the town is up on the Obsidian portal page (it may take a min or two to load) - FYI the building you are in now is '6' and Rex is facing '4',

Sorry, my usual system was not alerting me that there were updates.

Fair enough - thats been happening to a few ppl.

Okay - cards on table time.

The first part of this game is going to be, as you've guessed, investigative. This will require you to RP, go places, talk to each other and NPCs etc.

Currently you are in the Inn discussing your next move and more importantly who to talk to.

There isn't likely to be a lot of combat, unless you guys go nuts, for some time to come.

I threw a lead out for one character based on their traits etc but it seems I was being too subtle or maybe recent events made them a bit gun-shy.

To move the story along you'll need to actively talk to people and there is a handful of leads/NPCs out there.

I can put you on the plot train but I'd prefer not.

Something I found over at WotC on grappling...

http://community.wizards.com/forum/player-help/threads/4142801

Just a heads up guys/gals. Been really busy and probably will be through the weekend. Please bot me as needed, and I'll try to keep up and post when able.

-Posted with Wayfinder

Things are quiet now so look forward to seeing you back soonish.

For the rest of you? What now?

Erastil is, among other things, the patron deity of archery. I assume Adran knows that. If nothing else the description of the stolen holy symbol would provide a clue. However this starts begging all kinds of questions.

The most obvious is, to what extent are clerics/clergy in general of the various deities supposed to use their deity's favored weapon? Given that we have a Priestess of a deity who is big into archery she should arguably be a fair hand with a short bow. If for no other reason than that's a "simple" weapon and all Clerics have proficiency with simple weapons. So if she is truly worried about security one would think that she and her assorted helpers would have short bows reasonably close to hand. Yet that does not seem to be the case. What she did was she got some guard dogs. Not a bad move in and of itself, but one would think that the primary use of the dogs would be to alert archers on guard of a problem, not to be the sole security measure employed.

Which brings us to Stephain, or somebody who looked somewhat like him, stealing the holy symbol. Again, the Priestess and her helpers should have had shortbows available somewhere. One guy by his lonesome stealing the holy symbol of the God of archery should have ended up with almost as many arrows in him as Custer got nailed with at the Little Bighorn.

I can't point to anything the Priestess said that appears to be an obvious lie, and quite a bit of what she has said is at least plausible. But there's a variety of things that have me scratching my head wondering what's really going on.

Andan, your doing what I hope ALL my players do. Think and post their thoughts and theories. Nice work.

Just wanted to point out that Erastil isn't really the patron of archery at all, but rather hard work, community, hunting (in the survival sense, and animals and plants.

As far as I can tell, 5E doesn't really give any room for Clerics to use "Favored Weapons" proficiently.

So it makes perfect sense that they would have dogs, (both as protectors and for hunting) as far as what I have seen so far in game. A bit odd, but not wrong.

Some of my confusion revolves around trying to figure out if some of this stuff is due to differences between how DnD 5 does things compared to earlier versions, how much of this might be due to the overlay of DnD 5 onto a campaign world originally set up for Pathfinder, and how much of this might be due to the GM dropping clues that there's something rotten in Denmark (or Faubourg as the case may be).

For instance, it is possible that the Priestess might not be a PC class cleric, but some sort of "expert" equivalent. In which case she couldn't do things the way a PC class cleric would and would need to figure out other ways you handle things. Or she could be a rakshasha or other bizarre nasty out to cause hate and discontent.

I'm right there with you, (for example the church being a stone building), but I'm willing to trust the DM. :)

You fools - you are making one of the classic mistakes. The first is never fight a landwar in Asia, the second is never go up against a Sicilian when death is on the line - only SLIGHTLY behind that is never trust the GM in a mystery game - mwhahahaha *cough* *wheeze* hahahah.

In all fairness, yes Adran is right - The Priest MAY be a mundane or even a level 1 like yourselves. At the moment there is no way to check it.

ALL Golarion lore is applicable - forget the D&D, its just the rule set. The Game World is Golarion, the place is Ustalav and you are in a small town that has people supposedly going missing in the middle of nowhere.

It could be anything. In case you haven't picked up on it, there is a discordant theme here. Things are sort of okay. Sort of. But there are things that are not quite right.

SOME of it is just local accent.

SOME of it may be something more significant. Dare I say 'sinister'?

Investigate my friends - peek behind the curtain... AND HAVE YOUR SANITY SHREDDED LIKE ROTTEN LINEN!!! Mwhahahaha-hahahaha.

Edit: Lets have a house rule as I have made allowance for Mala to use a scimitar. You can have access to your gods favoured weapon in this Setting - In this case for Clerics of Erastil, its a short bow - Longbows are too hardcore. However the Priestess never said SHE saw the man leaving, one of the people who serve here did and it does no good to have bow proficiency IF one isn't carrying a bow.

Ahem. Where did you get the idea we were sane to begin with? ;-)

Just here to say hi, I may not be able to get a meaningful post in today.

I really appreciate it when ppl call it out.

Thanks and all is well I hope.

As for as just walking back to town after dark goes, Mala is the only character who doesn't have darkvision. So we could either lead her by the hand or cast a light cantrip. The bigger questions are first, whether we want to be poking around outside after dark with no arms and armor for the characters that want it? The second is that if we delay until morning what are we going to do for Gustav?

Providing Gustav the help he wants is going to cost us two days' time we could put to other uses. However we now know the road between Faubourg and Hochoch isn't safe. Trying to find a silver lining, if we do go to Hochoch we could try to get a courier to take a message to Vennel so he won't be totally in the dark.

Adran would argue for going to see the hermit now to get that out of the way. But if the hermit is seriously up to no good, the Mayor's description of the hermit all but screamed "warlock", and the hermit could be a tough customer. Comments and suggestions welcome.

In regards to the 5 foot step, I knew Adran could potentially get nailed by an attack of opportunity. But he needed to get some distance back so he could cast a spell without being at a disadvantage, and Rex was 10 feet back IIRC. So, there you go. :-)

Play restarts tomorrow

I will not be available until tomorrow evening. I have a game to run then a family shindig.

Cool.

[ Lurker ]

Hey guys, enjoying lurking in y'all's campaign and wanted to give you some music for this encounter:

Campaign Music for the current encounter

[ / Lurker ]

I am sorry

Gusteelus is out.

Friends, lets recruit.

I've set this up so we can move in either a fighter, a rogue or a ranger in.

That leaves Beckett, Adran, Grimm, and I.

:(

Sad to see them go. So is Rex. It is a sad day to lose good companions.

That is unfortunately the nature of PbP games. Over time people drop out for one reason or another. Sad to see Gusteelus go, hope to see a replacement for him soon.

Yep - got one and this guy is solid as solid can be.

I've given him a lead that will take him to you at the inn. Best have your stories ready :)

Ok... thoughts on this?

Amour re-write.

and on any of the other house rules? Forget class archetypes for the moment.

Potential house rules

I'll slow things down for a day or three to give our new player some time.

hello and dotting

Welcome TarkXT

We've got an Elven Warlock, Half Elf Sorcerer, Dwarven Priest of Eratstil (Life) and a Dwarven fighter.

Your ranger will be a good fit

If you're going to add tower shields, why not bucklers as well? I would think that there might be more players/characters that would want to use bucklers than tower shields.

Why not... I'll do the update later.

Welcome TarkXT!

Background wise I'm going the safe route and making him an old vet from Lastwall.

I think I may have everything correct. Let me know if I'm missing some things.

Hullo. just the bar like we have i guess.

That should work, Im a vet from Mendev with a little time on tour in Lastwall and the area. Likely before your time, but who knows. I left it a bit vague on purpose to help fit with the others as needed and fill in as we go.

Ready to play Caithain? Can you please set up a status bar like the others?

Just about. I'll have a post up later today.

ohhhhhhh this is going to end in tears...

Possibly right. But given that my character has no in character reason to trust your character options are limited.

Rex is pissed. Normally he would be fine but he lost two friends. He is not rational

Oh dear... Let me intervene.

He's more pissed at the cult. Poor Barkeep. In my defense, I did give him a chance to surrender and tell us everything. That is what he get for working in the cult Rex vowed to destroy, I guess.

Now... This is where I hope Rex can redeem himself, and convince anyone in the cult to flee, and drop the cult. Because he will burn down every building related to the cult. Aside from the Inn, which I guess is our new base.

Come to think of it, this could be a good base, Though I would prefer the church, based on how it was described.

Final thought. If we were to make this our base, we should make sure we know where everything is, set traps, and get a new door.

The inn will not be the new base. If anything we may have to burn it down. Otherwise we've got 5 dead bodies that it looks like we can't explain to local law enforcement, and too many cult members who would potentially know the place better than we do. As well, too many cult members would be able to figure out their game had been compromised.

Best bet for a base is still an abandoned farm house somewhere. We need a place that has windows from which those of us with ranged attacks can defend it from at least partially covered positions.

Givem Rex has murdered his first man, and that he has essentially flipped out against the Good part of his alignment I'm gonna rule he's taken a failed Sanity save (rather than rolling for it). No effect for now but please note it on your sheet Rex.

Hi all

We are a weird situation ATM. Just bear with me a bit and we will have new players join old shortly, even if I need to use DM fiat to get it done.

The current delema with the aparent split will be mended in short order. Please continue to RP.

Rex has lost faith in weapons.

Allright. Rex has made an oath to do the best he can to try to get someone,anyone, out of the cult. He doesn't care for redemption. He is upset he murdered a man, and wants to save as many as possible.

Hi all

The player who was going to join as the rogue is running late and Beckett has dropped out now... that makes three of the original 6.

I am thinking that I will close this game. Its just not working out - Players dropping aside I am running a bit much atm and am about to get a new role that will put constraints on my time.