Castle Caldwell and Beyond: (A 5e Campaign) - The Wrecking Crew (Inactive)

Game Master Terquem

Thanks for the clarification, for the record I wasn't calling you out for being wrong (though it sure looks that way now, see what happens when you post when you are grumpy)

What I was trying to say was Kerak is finished with the house, and has indicated he is ready to move on.

Apologies, I too don't want a dungeon crawl, but I haven't found something that takes my interest and wakes my muse. Perhaps if we get into a definitive quest, I'll be able to up my game.

Sorry for the disappearing act. Between work ramping up and NaNoWriMo starting, I've been less observant lately. Just realized in the last few days that it now seems to keep me permanently signed out so when I was coming in from my bookmark, it looked like there were no new posts on anything. :(

I think for me, I'm a bit lost as to what our actual purpose is any more since it was a fractured group when we started, then we chased the guy, and now we have the cursed ring and such. For some reason (and I don't think it's Terquem's fault by any stretch) the story isn't gelling in my head.

I also feel I'm a little lost too. Being given a huge file of lore to read through only gets so much across before my brain fizzles out. I appreciate how much effort that's being put in, I just am having a hard time *connecting* to the game.

There is a castle, abandoned for over a generation, to the east of Pawkatukit.

A man claiming to be Clifton Caldwell hired the solution society to clear the castle grounds of vagrants, squatters, and monsters.

The team selected for the mission was known as the “Wrecking Crew” for reason related to their track record of leaving a considerable mess everywhere they went.

The wrecking crew discovered a band of highway robbers living in the manner house, goblins living in the gate house, a strange young Baravkovian cleric living in the castle chapel, and various other monsters (the ghost of an Otyugh princess, giant ants, the usual things). When they found a means to enter the area below the castle ruin, they discovered a group of men and orcs from the City States of Tarule (south) who were in cahoots with the highwaymen and engaged in the slave trade.

Most of this team then disappeared

A new team was sent to the castle to rescue and warn the first team of a newly discovered danger associated with the castle involving a mirror

No mirror was found

The team discovered that the real Clifton Caldwell was a prisoner of the leaders of the slave traders.

While exploring the basement of the castle (which was once a budding Kobold Warren) they discovered that the former occupants of the castle, Baravkovians, had sealed behind a stone wall, protected by magic columns, a Baravkovian baroness who was cursed with vampirism.

Returning to Pawkatukit with the rescued Clifton Caldwel, three characters accepted the assignment to discover the imposter

These three

Wylla, Isaiah, Wolfgang

Met four strangers in the small forest south of the Chapel Hill on the outskirts of Pawkatukit

These four strangers have their own reasons for travelling to Pawkatukit. I sent each of them a PM working out those details, if those details are not enough to get you interested in the adventure and you still want to play, just let me know and I’ll try to add something else.

Otherwise

There is a Castle Ruin

A Vampire imprisoned in the basement of said castle

A missing Druid

A Powerful artefact

A Strange “Black Temple”

And an open world

I vote for looking for the missing Druid. :)

I am here and ready to post daily. Last week I was staying at my mother's house who had only just gotten out of the the hospital and was too weak to stay alone. I had less time to post than I hoped last week.

Lilly could likely be talked into helping with most any of these "quests" but from a motivation point of view cares about the druid and where she went the most. I could actually see her leaving the group if the group chose to go do something else first as he bond to the group is not at all strong, yet.

So, lets go look for the druid, or someone fast talk Lilly into believing that something else is more important. :)

I will be traveling this weekend, and only on mobile. Bot me if necessary.

Came down with a bad cold, maybe the flu, I'm not sure, on Thursday, feeling better now. Sorry for the delay I hope to work all game updates today.

Fighting off a cold myself. Get well soon.

I was also ill.

My character has a specific interest in the Temple and the artefact but will happily go with the rest of the group as well.

Let's look for the druid.

My character is more invested in resolving this issue with the two gangsters, as well as shapeshifter man. He'd rather learn a lot more about where the druid went before we do so - after all, this Temple or whatever may be more than we can handle. Plus, the gangsters may have information about it.

I am not trying to be pushy BUT Lilly does not know anyone in the group well and is not beholding to anyone yet. She is going to look for the druid even if that means splitting the group. Unless I am missing something she has no other motivations. She would offer to help the rest of the group with their quests after the druid is found.

I'm still waiting for an answer to how long the druid's been gone. We haven't heard anything about that yet, and we technically still have a prisoner we need to deliver to Pawkatukit.

If that druid's been gone for several months or something like that, I see no reason to rush off now. Obviously it can wait a bit.

Why is it so important for Lilly to find the druid, exactly? Is she a friend of Lilly's, or is this just a case of "She's a druid, I'm a druid, so I'm going to help her?" Cause if it's the latter, I think you'd have more obligation to the people you've actually met than a druid you've never seen before.

Also, at that point, you're basically removing your character from the game.

Lilly should be able to decipher the information in the journal to determine how long Caitrian has been missing.

Well I did ask for a hook. Kerak makes a point, but Lilly's connection to the others is just not that strong yet - two she just met and two she shared a road with. Druid has been missing for 5 weeks. Lilly has never met her but feels an obligation to try to help a fellow druid.

I apologize for the slow crawl of this game. However, if you are not interested in the adventure enough to read back just 14 posts to find out what your character knows, then that tells me it isn't because the game is slow, it's because the game is dull.

I'll try to find a way to make it better, I hope.

I find that criticism a little sharp. Was traveling for Thanksgiving and had little time but did not want to hold up the game. Plus the info the others were asking for had already been related. Lets try to have a good time and enjoy the game.

It was uncalled for, and I apologize. You didn't deserve that. I won't even try to claim my runny nose and chills gave me an excuse. Please accept my apology.

Of course. We all have good and bad days. Lets have a good time. :)

It's that time of year when a lot of people are busy getting ready for the holidays. I'll get a post up tomorrow that wraps up the day, getting ready for the morning and everyone ready to begin a new journey. If you need to work out any details with other players about what the plan is for where you are going and what you are looking for, go ahead and brainstorm here in the discussion thread. We don't need to role play every discussion the characters would have

I've thrown out a lot of information, a few leads, a few options.

I'm happy everyone is ready "to go"

But do you have a plan? Does anyone want to take a leadership role and declare what your party is going to do, where they are going to go, what they are setting out, specifically, to find?

Do you want to talk among yourselves, here in this thread, off line, as players, and figure out what the party will agree is the plan?

Okay. Plan:

Let's go visit the Limecracker Kobolds at their hovel and ask to speak to Marolyn so we can get the location of the Black Fortress in the City States of Tarule. We'll probably have to do something for the Kobolds, like help solve their problems with the red goblins, but once we've done that and we have the location of the fortress, we need to gather the supplies for making the journey to the City States of Tarule so we can find the Black Fortress. Once we've found it, we need to see if we can locate Caitriann, or at least find out her fate. If the Black Fortress turns out to be the temple Vash is looking for, we may also have to do whatever it is Vash needs to do with it, but once we've found Caitriann, we return to Pawkutukit with her - or her remains - and get the second half of our reward.

I think that, generally, is what we need to accomplish. Thoughts?

Works for me.

That sounds pretty good to me.

Yep.

My plan was to update games yesterday, but yesterday we had a fire at the facility where I am a system engineer. A Pyrophoric event in the sorting trough. I was assigned to the Emergency Response Organization and assigned to the Emergency Operations Center. I wasn't released from work until 9:20 pm (my day started at 3:45 am)

I'm a little tired and shook up, but I think I can get updates done today

I think we may have lost Wolfgang, but for now we'll carry him for a bit.

Oh, geez. I hope everyone's okay, and I'd say that's a bit higher priority than the game.

No one was hurt, and right now it looks like damage to the facility will be minimal.

We remotely handle (repackage) legacy waste (left over from the weapons manufacturing done in the 1970s) that has been recovered from buried locations in the dessert. Some of the drums are in remarkably good condition after being buried for forty years, and then when we crack them open, sometimes we get a surprise.

This was, after fifteen years of operations, our biggest surprise.

Wow. Glad no one was hurt.

I do some materials testing in Oxygen. We have literally blown the roof off our test building before. But we are testing for such reactions so we are at least somewhat prepared and all our people are on the correct side of the blast walls.

Happy New Year, everyone!

I've sent several messages to Atlas2112, but there have been no responses. I think we will proceed without him

I hope everyone had great Holiday Time, as it were, and this week I hope to post recaps of what is going on in each game, and then give everyone a little time to drift back into the games.

Here and ready to jump back in.

Still here.

There is not a physical "in game" map that the characters could purchase in Pawkatukit

There are men and women in Pawkatukit with experience in the wilds south of the river - role playing the time to track down the right person in the town, and then getting a sketch made could be done (but I tend to believe that many players find this type of Role Play, in PbP format, particularly with my slow posting habits, tedious)

So with everyone's permission, I'd like to assume the party searches, quickly, through the town for someone who has done trade with the Kobolds, or one of the local trackers/hunters, and acquires a crude map

I'll try to make one today and get it posted. It will, at best, show the general terrain south of the river between the river crossing to about fourteen miles west of Pawkatukit, which should get you to the Kobold hovel, and show the native wood elf camp sites

The Kobolds, in this setting stay in the warrens/hovels but the wood elfs are hunter/gatherers, so finding them at a particular camp site might be difficult.

Caitriann's journal mentions one such, more usually occupied, site by a waterfall and natural spring, but her journal does not describe any other features so it is not a guide to help you find that location.

As long as it helps us not get lost I am good. :) The only thing in the official equipment I saw that might help was cartographer's tools and without that skill I doubt they would help much.

There is a link, at the top of each page in this campaign, to a PDF file that is a crude map to Castle Caldwell and possibly Limecracker Hovel

It has been a week, so I am going to assume everyone has updated their characters with any extra equipment they wanted to buy from Pawkutukit before leaving.

Not sure where the other players are, but I will send PMs out to remind them we have started up after the holiday slow down.

Sent messages to Wylla an Isaiah, but got no responses'

I posted a transition post on Wednesday, and no one had anything to say?

Sorry. I am coming down sick. I’ll work on getting something up.

Oh, I hope it's not serious. I just got over an upper respiratory infection (getting better every day). Take care of yourself!

Wife had a respiratory infection that turned into bronchitis - now I’m getting it.

I reached out to Wylla but there has been no response

And, a reminder to all my games

I leave for Hawai'i (Oahu) on Monday, and return the following Monday. Our daughter's wedding is on Friday the 9th. Most of the week will be overrun with wedding planning and logistic (managing all the family and friends who are coming to the wedding).

I'll have my phone, so if I have to answer a question I will try to do that as quickly as possible, but I don't imagine I'll be moving games forward much.

Congratulations on your daughter's wedding! I hope you have a wonderful time!

Yes. Congrats. I'll be skiing the same week and will be at a slower posting rate myself.

I am back, and almost recovered, whew. The wedding was great, no one got food poisoning from the catering so I am calling it a win.

Game post to come soon

Sweet. Welcome back. I am ready to play. :)

Hello? Is this thing on?