Agents of the Darklands, Part 2: In Company of Forgotten Evils

Game Master thunderbeard

Isn't Zura the first vampire in Golarion canon?

A vampire succubus would be scary. Especially with two anti-paladin levels.

Sure, also that. Vampires are confusing, and there are multiple canon origin stories.

We ready for the monster now? :D

Unless anyone else has questions, yeah, go investigate it. Or telepath at it. Or magic jar it from 800 feet away. Or whatever you guys actually do, it's hard to keep track these days.

I'm ready, once i actually get notified IC

I teleported right to the quarry. My plan is to run inside looking for a fight.

Meridian nailed it. My magical way of creating vampires is "find me a vampire"

Only problem with vampires is that they tend to, y'know, eat people.

If anyone other than Illia- is also scouting ahead, let me know.

Some ideas for rune guardians (Prices vary, but use should be apprent);

- Mages private sanctum - 10 min casting, but 270 SF per casting. Could cover a lot of area per day and repeat
- Make whole
-Lesser simulacra - Temporary servants
- Wall of ________ - 1001 uses
-Tongues - 30 min per cast wherein everyone understand everyone
-secure shelter - temporary housing
-infernal healing / Cure spells - Infinite healing
-levitate - move big stuff and/or elevators
- Gentle Repose
-Whispering wind + another that can write = Telegram/mail
- MW transformation
- Command undead - to keep lots of undead in line without taking up your control pools
-Continual flame -
- Book ward - Protect the library
- crafters fortune
- Detect ____ - Detect all kinds of things depending on what the specific spell is
- Abundant Ammunition - infinite ammo at key positions
- Endure elements
- Unseen servant - Meridian has one of these, which basically means she has unlimited servants within the spell range. Could be useful for large projects requiring unskilled labor and a low strength.

reposting this because these ideas are more for the benefit of the city than me specifically.

Also, one more idea

- Telekinesis, because yea.

Guess I should finish leveling up the Graveknight tonight.

I knew I should have taken Evasion and Stalwart.. I'm getting those next..

No worries, Illia. If your saves had been two 1's in a row, you'd be dead either way!

Oh, Mind Crush must have a nasty effect.

Anyway, now it's your turn to have a five percent chance of suffering bad stuff! Unless you're immune to stunning. Then I'll just do piddly damage.

So it turns out aberrations have bad fort saves...

And if his armor class is lower than 35, he just took a fair chunk of damage.

Alright, so... profane damage isn't a real thing. It was introduced in PoW, but as a result it's mechanistically terrible, because nothing in the Bestiary resists it at all. Is there any strong objection to me treating profane damage as standard weapon-typed physical damage that deals extra damage to (good) creatures?

Why don't you treat it as Unholy damage? I'm pretty sure it's intended to be that, because PoW doesn't introduce anything that blocks profane damage.

However, if you do treat it as physical damage, I ignore his DR. :P

yeah if i had to translate it, it would have gone to unholy. since the change doesn't affect me, i wont vote on it though

Unholy damage also isn't a type; it's just weapon damage that overcomes DR/evil.

I'm not sure how I feel about your armor being able to cast GMW at a level higher than the party. Then again, if Anaxian cast it, it would give you a +4, so okay.

Unholy/holy damage is indeed a type, called collectively "divine power", else there wouldn't be a specific resistance against it.

Straight from Paizo, a monster with " Resist acid 30, cold 30, divine power 30" From Pathfinder Campaign Setting: Inner Sea Gods

It even has a note to explain it, "(such as from flame strike)".

There's even a Prestige Class that specializes in making your spells deal Unholy Damage.

"Profane" isn't a damage type. It's a kind of bonus. The energy type that corresponds to it is almost always Negative Energy.

For example, in an Unhallowed area, evil creatures get Profane bonuses and Negative Energy is amplified.

I'd use Negative Energy in place of whatever profane damage is supposed to be.

There's also Flame Strike which deals divine damage.

Holy and unholy only deal their extra damage vs the opposing alignment.

Anaxian, the same word is often used differently in different contexts.

Take the Magic ability "Defiant". It means completely different things in the context of Armor enhancements and Weapon enhancement.

Flame strike is a holdover from 3.5, hence doing "divine" damage. It's the only thing that does that sort of damage; the creature that lists it seems to have a special, unique resistance to flame strike (possibly from being a herald).

In any case, yeah, I probably would've sent like 3 Neothelids after you guys, but Kingdom building rules dictated that it must be CR 15 and hostile.

...also, you didn't really *try* to negotiate with it as much as taunt it.

I should also point out that, should you so wish, asking a powerful monster "How much will you pay me if I resurrect you" is a perfectly kosher use of Speak with Dead.

Radiant Charge
When you charge, you do so with the power of faith.

Prerequisites: Lay on hands class feature.

Benefit: When you hit with a charge attack, you can expend all of your remaining uses of lay on hands to deal extra damage equal to 1d6 per use of lay on hands expended + your Charisma bonus. This damage comes from holy power and is not subject to damage reduction, energy immunities, or energy resistances.

Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Ultimate Magic

Flame Strike is by no means alone, although it is the most famous example.

Also, if you need an opponent for us, I've still got Tiffany and Sūn Xíngzhě* hanging around. :P

Also, "The stuff you broke was pretty cheap, so it probably wouldn't take much to get on talky-terms."

*for realzies though, I wouldn't mind throwing down some statblocks to fight. Especially some Path of War ones to match our schenanigans. :P

So... we're approaching the end of Month 1, and I don't recall if Drisquar/the party ever picked a building to construct.

Currently we have:
1/1 hex claim (did you want to move towards the river, or claim hexes around the city?)
1/2 terrain improvements (quarry, and?)
0/1 buildings
1/1 bonus houses (mansion)

upon reading more of your words and drinking more of my beers, i would say negative energy, vice unholy, yes.

regarding buildings, i would say that Inubrix is obviously interested in a generator

We're building a barracks this month. I posted that above, but it might have gotten lost in the shuffle.

Also, can I get a personal list(2-3 each) of what each player would like built, to either help their goals or just good suggestions?

Finally, are we using the settlement rules at all?

Do we actually have a road(ala KB rules) for our trade caravan that goes to Lavosha? Cuz if we do, that's a massive bonus to Economy and Stability.

Otherwise, perhaps we should start building a legit road up to Lavosha.

As to claiming hexes, let's move towards that tiny forest/water area that's a bit North-ish of us.

1. Generator
2. Cybernetics Lab
3. Production Lab

1) Lair
2) Mint
3) Bank

1) Lair
2) City Wall
3) Moat (of Lava!)

Hmm, let's see.

@Road: No, there's just traversable caverns, many of them difficult terrain. Note that the first caravan from Lavosha left approximately 3 months ago in game time. Building a road would be nice, but that happens to be an uninhabited portion of the Darklands, which is both good and bad; if you really wanted to, you could establish small vassal kingdoms along it by, for instance, licensing tax collection along the road to a tribe of Azers in exchange for keeping away Gugs, etc.

It may be generally easier to trade by water. Luckily, you're not terribly far away from the largest subterranean river in all of Golarion.

@Settlement rules: Yes, but only where they don't conflict with Kingdom Building rules (so "Academic" isn't a modifier they can get, but "Magical Academy" is, and its Lore bonus has the same effects). Your settlement's stats from kingdom buildings absolutely apply (with the additional note that, as a partial Necropolis, Escarra halves both local consumption and society).

@Hex improvement: Farms are off limits (as the sun don't shine down here) until you have recruited a sufficient druidic presence to re-cultivate cave crops.

Could the mansion have been built during month zero? The devils arrived week 2, so we could have built it, unless we don't get a free building during month zero for some reason.

If so, Month 1 will be as follows:

Free: Housing for drow.

Building: Barracks

Terrain Improvements: Quarry, an aqueduct(in the hex southeast of what I'm guessing is the quarry)

Important

When month 2 starts, should I start rolling the various kingdom checks??

Yes, mansion got built during month zero, no worries. You also got a hex claim during month 0—hexes will start out slow going, but it's basically just like two dudes and a Shoggoth clearing the land, so...

Roll checks now, I'll repost modifiers below (technically, I think they get rolled at the end of the month, not the beginning of the new one?):

End of Month 1

Spending: 5 BP (and 13 "free" LBP)

Kingdom Changes: Unrest -2

Treasury before taxes: 20 BP (26 +2 income -3 consumption -5 building)

Rolls to be made:

(Any last-minute edicts can be made before)

Control DC: 24

Economy: +39 (consumption-income = -1 BP)
Stability: +35
Floating Leader Bonuses: +13 (Jiator), +6 (Drisquar)

Err, what was the aqueduct building towards? The river, or the lake?

Off to bed, so will roll those tomorrow. I forget, do we have a royal enforcer?

Aqueduct is towards the lake, I think? There's a hex just southeast of I believe the quarry and just under a water hex.

You have an enforcer (Anaxian II), but unrest is already 0.

I updated the map; feel free to draw in the aqueduct, show where you want to place claims and improvements, etc.

1) temple

I just need the one building and some surrounding grounds for fortifications.

Illia- currently just wants a 1 BP per month grant for her research.

Dapper, have you already factored in our Stability BP to our treasury? And taken care of consumption?

Withdrawing 1 BP(2k) for Illia, Unrest goes up by 1.

Withdrawing 1 BP for myself, Unrest goes up by 1.

Collect taxes(adding mine and Jiator's bonus to the Economy check): 1d20 + 58 ⇒ (2) + 58 = 60 vs I believe a DC of 24. Add 20 BP to treasury. Add +1 from mine.

Is the quarry active now, or next month?

Current treasury: 39 BP, 40 if we get the +1 from the quarry this turn.

Oh wow, 1 BP is 2k? Then I'll only need one ever 5 months then.

I have not factored in Stability BP yet. You do get the Quarry this month, but I already counted it. So current treasury is 39 BP, which is not bad at all.

Well then since we can't fail the stability check, we add +1 BP, for a nice even total of 40 BP.

We really can't fail any checks, hmm. Clearly this city is a model of civic virtue.

Dapper, any chance a least a few of the souls I've gathered are 'Noteworthy souls'?

It's the model of "fifty or so drow slaves and unintelligent undead have no chance of getting away with anything against ten demigods".

Of course we're a model of civic virtue. A city of unrepentant evil people knows that no one is actually being judged by their actions except in how they effect the city itself. Everyone does whatever they want except for things which screw with social order, because if they do those things they're going to be horribly killed.

Libertarian Despotism, in the short term, is the most stable government system ever devised.

@Drisquar: not this month, unless you and your cacodemons specifically went after important people. Generally, level 1 commoners/artisans are going to be a lot easier to ambush and kill without drawing attention than, say, level 8 bards and paladins.

Question before I continue: How long would it take me to get to Katapesh(City)?