Beyond the Tentacled Eye - A Pathfinder Greyhawk Tharizdun Campaign

Game Master GM Darkblade

Alias updated, though I still have 2nd level spells to choose, and apparently my third level feat...

To my understanding none of the magical treasures have been sold, so whomever is notated on the spreadsheet currently holds the item.

That's correct. All the money we're spending now was just the easy stuff. Haven't sold anything.

As a heads up to all, I have multiple members of my family in the hospital and ER right now. I will not likely be posting until Thursday. My apologies to all. When it rains, it pours.

I am pasting this to all my games.

All the best to you and your family. I hope everyone recovers quickly.

Take the time you need and best wishes to all your kin.

Thank you all for your well wishes. It's been an overwhelming time. My father and grandmother have been very ill at the same time. Nothing is certain yet other than "not cancer" fory grandmother and my father... My father is in another not cancer but bad catergory.

Needless to say, I have been busy with family stuff.

Take care of yourself, and take whatever time you need...

Sorry for the pause there guys, I am down with pneumonia again. Feeling on the mend, but I notice we are missing another cleric. Is Navith still with us?

Yup still here. Was sick for a little while, and then the getting back into the swing of things took some time...

Sorry for the illness, sympathies on the recovery, and glad to have you still with us.

Agreed on all fronts! Glad to have a healthy and on the mend team!

For Free Action speech outside of one's turn please limit the statement to only what is being "said," and to no more length than one line of text, like this.

It hasn't come up before now but this will keep everyone on the same page, both players and the villains you will be fighting.

All: I am sorry for my disappearance. The past few days have been a one-two punch for me and my family. I lost my job last Thursday. On Monday, my Paternal Grandmother was diagnosed with Terminal bone marrow cancer.

So yeah, I have had a bit of a lousy week. My apologies for disappearing. Thank you GM for keeping Fil in place with my plan for his combat. I am helping with care while unemployed, in addition to looking for work.

So,

I finally totaled all of the mundane stuff and the two magic items that no one claimed (the +1 cold iron shortsword and the +1 black studded leather), and the total comes to 8087.36 gold, divided in half for selling price is 4043.68, and divided 5 ways is 808.74.

So, if the GM approves it (when we have time to sell), we should each get an additional 808 orbs and change.

This doesn't include anything we recently found, since that wasn't on the spreadsheet yet. I also left some potions and wands on the sheet in case we need them in game. There are other things that I am holding or wearing, but which anyone can use instead if they want to. If you see something on the sheet that you want but it has my name on it, please feel free to ask, even if it doesn't specifically say it is up for grabs.

I think that brings us up to our current adventure. Sorry for not getting to it sooner. It's been a rough few months, but am moving next week to start a new job, so things should be a lot more normal soon.

I added a "Sold" tab so anyone can go back to see what was there previously, if interested (or if you want to claim something now before we sell it).

As before, our thoughts are with you. Take what time you need.

I wish you the best Fil.

Sorry all, I'm taking some artistic license with the descriptions of creatures and items uncovered from the dungeon, but they will adhere to the stats as appropriate to Pathfinder.

I'm not doing this to hamper the party, but to liven things up a bit. If every gnoll is a gnoll is a gnoll then things get kind of bland. But if Bristlebacks are different from Longsnouts are different from Dewlapped Howlers then gnoll tribes take on some flavor, and different types working together visually plays up the strange cohesion this cult is creating.

I also changed the image of a quasit, but it followed the racial stats as written on d20PFSRD. I felt something different looking was in order, to play up the alien and unwholesome nature of this particular cult you have discovered.

Makes perfect sense to me. The reskins, as it were, are not a problem for me. They add flavor to your world.

This concludes Zokama and Fil's Night at the Opera. We now return you to your regularly scheduled dungeon crawl.

Navith arrives late and provides commentary...

@Zokama - thanks for the tallying!

@Fil - ach, bad news. I hope you find something soon - having no funds is hard enough let aline when illness strikes your family...

In a metagame way, I think we can take the Moathouse, albeit with difficulty. The problem is that there is something at the bottom of it. That "thing" is the problem. It could be that the thing is the captured essence we have found, or it could be something else. What Fil is worried about is that, and his paranoia is driving him at the moment.

He has been quite harmed by the Moathouse, that clouded judgement is frightening. At the same time, what we have found is more than enough to take care of tent town and its rabble rousers.

As I stated, I am fine letting players drive the story as they desire. But I would not be doing my job if I didn't ask what happens next?

I would think Fil would want to keep the "emergency exit" scroll handy in case whatever is below decides to come up from below. What help can the party expect from Hommlet regarding the thing below, other than to start a panic, perhaps alert the spy, and in the process, attract attention from the other group of cultists that originally went north, past Nulb.

Neither Lord Burne nor Rufus are likely to come delving, they would be expected to stay and protect the town in case of an armed invasion, assault, or worse. Same for the elders of the Church. More powerful magical items? Hommlet doesn't have any, you would need to travel to a larger nearby city to search for such things, be it via magic or normal methods.

More powerful spells? Burne and Terjon might be able to pen a couple of scrolls, but that would take time and effort, so it might be better to retreat and request those without using one shot items.

Would Fil so readily abandon possibly Turuko and Xaod to the priest(s) still active here? The prisoners mentioned two priests, a lady Grenl who matches the description of the dead woman, and the pretty boy Lareth. You have accounted for one, uncovered evidence of the mystery cult, recovered an artifact possibly important to their aims, and are on the doorstep to further discoveries.

Had the party not decided to break with exploration by intensely examining magical items the thing below might not be aware of your presence. But now it is. Does it communicate with others? Do the priests?

That none of the bodies appears to be infested with the slime Fil was infected with suggests the cultists are not aware of that particular connection, so perhaps they are clueless to others.
The eaters of the dead do not seem particularly helpful to the cultists. They didn't warn them about your identities, or likely an ambush would have been awaiting your return.
The artifacts appear to be only recently unearthed, the magical blankets had not had time to fully clean the items on them.
Rather than risk talking the priestess killed herself. Why? What did she fear, or what was she trying to protect?

Is there a lot going on here, yes.
Do you have enough information to best judge it, probably not. Would alerting Hommlet really ease Fil's paranoia and fear of the thing below, not likely.

I can see proceeding with caution, you have enough materials to cloak yourselves as potential cultists, at least long enough to close on an adversary, so there is some benefit to that. I can certainly work that into the narrative. You still maintain a fair level of resources, and now understand a need to form up and proceed cautiously. But the choice is yours, I am good either way.

I would like to know, whichever way the party proceeds, what they hope to gain so I can best evaluate the circumstances and work with you to achieve those ends.

I would say we push further into the complex. We can be careful, but we are it as far as the town sorting this. If they had the resources they would have cleared it themselves.

As far as examining magic items, we could have waited, but we had no idea that would happen, and I didn't know until that explanation above that what tried to come through my magic was actually what was below here.

We had no way to know what the priestess was trying to hide, and examining these things was a way of trying to find out. We also didn't know that we'd have only part of a round to ask that other creature for information.

To me, the goal of being here in the first place, and in continuing, isn't exploration, but actually trying to figure out and remove the threat to the town/world. If what is here is the vast insane malevolent power, then I guess we die trying, unless we find a way to seal it off from the world again. But, in general, saving the world is the goal, right?

Just so I know, should it come to blows, this heavy mace is a +1 heavy mace (so far as we know). I'll add it to my sheet?

If you are referring to the priestess' weapon, yes.

It is the one that Musami is carrying to pretend to be a cultist. I am sure it is that one. It is better than my light hammer so I plan on swinging it.

[ooc]Busy with family, will post to Gameplay and Discussion in 5-8 hrs...

All, I will be at PaizoconAP this coming weekend, then work is sending me to China for just over a week after that. Apologies for the disruption. Feel free to bot and make liberal use of my abilities.

Trying something here to point out details in the room descriptions.

Bold for entry and exit points.

Big Bold for threats and dangers.

Italics for points of interest.

Big Italics for catch your eye points of interest.

Thoughts?

I like it.

Sorry about this, but life gets in the way sometimes...

I am moving to Texas next week, and won't be able to post for sure Monday-Thursday, and it just depends on what is going on whether I will be able to post the rest of the week. Hopefully will be back up and normal on Monday the 29th latest, since I start my new job that day, so things have to be resolved at least that much.

Please bot me as needed.

Stay safe during the move, I'll bot as needed. Where abouts in Texas?

Thanks. :) Moving to Austin.

I almost took a job in New Braunfels outside San Antonio but had to decline after my doctor smacked me a bit. My CF would have suffered under the allergens I would have to deal with there.

Friends who live there though love it. Hope it all goes well for you.

I will be AFK until Friday midday, hope everyone who partakes has a wonderful Thanksgiving.

Darkblade

Aye, you all as well. Hug your loved ones. Enjoy your food and drink! Watch the sportsball!

(This shall be a tough one to get through for me).

Sorry for the delay, ended up catching a friend's kid's bug over dinner. Having no respiratory immune system sucks around the holidays, germs galore.

GM Roll 1d100 ⇒ 31

Braggi, can you please update your stat line? I know you were really, really far down on HP, but I don't know where you are now in order to make an evaluation about whether to attack or heal.

Damn, that happens when I update from my phone. I can't find how to edit the alias from there, so I always say to myself "I must remember to do it later". I think I got healed for a big amount, a CMW, and that should be updated. After that, I caught an arrow for 8 hp which is not refelcted. If I skipped something, let me know, I'm going to update right now.

It's not listed under the rules you posted, but I thought I would ask anyway. Can Action Points be used to restore rounds/day abilities, like Rage or Performance? If so, how many rounds would a point grant? Braggi spent too many in this combat.

Accidentally answered this in the game-play thread, sorry. Re-posting here, for comments and considerations...

RE: Activate an Ability – A character can spend 1 action point as a Swift Action to gain another use of a class ability that has a limited number of uses per day. Examples include stunning fist, smite, channel energy, etc.

It could be argued that the points could be used on a 1:1 basis to extend a Rage while in combat. If the group sees no problem with this I would allow it. Thoughts anyone?

I admit my count may be off, We've gone through a few pages of posts since the day started and I had to reset my Herolabs file due to an update file corruption., but I thought Braggi had only just spent his last Rage round with this last strike, having none left to continue beyond the move phase after the swing.

I still need to count the last round, so to my knowledge I should be at 3/12, but let me recount. Not being able to change it on my cell phone might have caused a little disparity.

I think a 1:1 basis is good.

After a recount, I get:

-4 rounds of Rage spent against the ogre and the priestess, up until this post where Braggi flees like the coward he truly is and stops raging.

-6 rounds of Rage during recent combat (since at the beginning of the fight, like here, Braggi wasn't enraged).

That makes 10 in total, so 2 reminding. After revising all those pages, now I see double xD