Shopping adventures are fun! Look forward to reading yours
Don’t forget a 100 gold holy symbol tattoo. I get one whenever I play a divine class. Can’t be stolen. Can’t be sundered. Can easily be hidden. And if you are ever naked so it can’t be hidden, you’ve got bigger problems.
"Guys, I don't know why it took so long for me to realize this, but our whole team is bizarrely above average on Charisma. The lowest CHA is 14 (Bashiel and Varor), then Zamanda and Pel with 16, and Ilsa and Kalem with 21 and 20. We should stop this adventuring thing and either open a modeling business in Magnimar or start running for public office. I'm not sure which would be better."
Careful. Now I'm tempted to start putting skill points into 'profession-model.'
Then again...public office? We certainly have the bluff score for it...
I haven't been making much use of Pel's Charisma score, to be honest. I probably should pick up some ranks in Diplomacy or Bluff next level. GM, are you okay with the 'Extra Traits' feat?
GM, are you okay with the 'Extra Traits' feat?
You mean this? Sure.
And if you are ever naked so it can’t be hidden, you’ve got bigger problems.
Not if you’re a Calistrian!!
*makes note for Calistrian cleric*
...or Zon Kuthon
I took the time to look over my long post, ugg so many spelling mistakes.
GM, are you okay with the 'Extra Traits' feat?You mean this? Sure.
Oops. Yep, that's the one. Thank you! There's a good chance I'll take it when we reach level 5.
Ok! This is a kind of situation which can split a party. This is of course OOC, but I think it would be useful to have everyone put down how their character feels about the situation. That way we can make a good story without stepping on anyone's toes or causing hurt feelings.
The Situation
* A revolutionary has interrupted an execution, freed the prisoner, and is screaming 'down with the monarchy.'
* The prisoner is quite obviously not whom the monarchy says she is
Kalem's view points
(1) We work for the queen. This is because our boss (the field marshall) works for the queen.
(2) The crown pays us *really* well. Well enough to move out of the gutters.
(3) He doesn't know if the prisoner is guilty or not. He *assumes* that the prisoner isn't innocent in general, even if she is innocent of what she is accused of. She was *probably* going to be executed anyways.
(4) Execution is pretty common occurrence. The world isn't a friendly place. And do you know who else gets executed? Traitors and revolutionaries.
(5) An anti-monarchy riot is going to get alot of people killed. And what would replace it? All nobles are corrupt. All merchants are corrupt. And the common man being in charge is too foreign a concept to even consider.
(6) So...it is both in the interest of the common good, and his own, to support the monarchy.
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Anyways, thats where he is coming from. Everyone else?
Yeah, if PCs are going to have divided feelings on this, might be good to get on the same page at least OOC. Honestly, I think it's very cool from a character development perspective that Kalem has gone from guttersnipe and thief to a leal queen's-man. Be interesting to see what happens next but yeah, don't want to split the party. That's no fun.
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Wow...that wasn't what I expected (well, I didn't expect Trinia to be there, but I didn't expect the vigilante).
In character, I see Ilsa as lacking enough confidence in herself to help either side. I think she will likely stand there looking shocked.
OOC, I think we're going to end up at blows with the Queen (like we've now seen, executing innocents). I just don't know if now is the time or place for that with all her guards here.
I'll let others weigh in on whether or who to help. For now, I guess I'm an abstain. :/
Dang did things move fast. With "Blackjack" already up on stage, having said his part to rile up the crowd, our options are well narrowed. Thankfully since it's PbP I have some time to brainstorm exactly what Bashiel would do.
Here's his perspective as far as I'm concerned:
To that end:
Zamanda's View:
--Her father is one of the people saying that the queen killed the king. She sort of believes him.
--She is rebellious by nature.
--The field marshall practically asked them to help with this situation, even if she didn't quite say it, because we are the only ones who can, working outside the chain of command. We work for HER, not for the queen, and she is trying to work around the queen where she can already.
--We know that the queen is willing to kill people whether or not they are guilty, and whether or not they are actually the person that she said they are. This is evil.
--This is similar to the choice to save Trinia. She is trying to sway the crowd to support a local legend who is doing the right thing and saving one woman's life. She isn't trying to start a rebellion.
--If it does turn into a riot, then sometimes riots are necessary to fight extreme corruption. It is in the interest of the people to be governed by someone who is not evil, and who won't throw their lives away.
You say terrorist, I say freedom fighter. Zamanda is doing what she thinks is the good thing to do.
If you think that this will split/harm the party, then let's talk about why you think so.
Pel's perspective:
He's a Caydenite. I think Zamanda's the only one who knows this IC. He's going to feel compelled to do something now that he knows the prisoner isn't Trinia. The Queen is lying, if nothing else.
He wants to be brave. While we could debate whether intervening would be brave or suicidal, Pel's going to see it as brave.
He's not stupid. IC at least, he's a very smart guy, so he's not just going to throw his life away. He's going to try to be strategic about any intervention he provides.
As strange as it sounds, Pel likes the Queen less because she's Chelaxian. From his experience, almost all of them are bad business. That's yet another reason why he sees the situation as unjust.
Pel's not concerned about who he's working for. While he likes Cressida, he hasn't known her as long as most of you and cares more about doing (what he thinks is) the right thing.
After the Queen's speech and Blackjack's arrival, Pel's going to think a riot is inevitable, regardless of whether or not we intervene. It's just a question of whether or not a dead body or two make the riot worse.
Pel doesn't intend to kill the executioner. He's likely a pawn in all of this, just like most of the other people on the stage.
Fundamentally, Pel is CG, so he isn't concerned with upholding the law, particularly if that law... or the one who makes the law... is unjust.
Not going to go against the will of the party. Just know that if Kalem thinks that he’s losing his only legit path towards social respectability, a decent home, and a good income...based on following an urban legend’s call for treason...he’s going to be quite unhappy.
Varor's View:
1: He is a follower of Sarenrae and execution is something that no follower of the Dawnflower would ever endorse, especially when it's against someone innocent of the crime.
2: He's been alive a lot longer than all of you so he knows more about the stories of Blackjack than you do and he knows that Blackjack has tended to be on the right side of things whenever he makes an appearance.
3: He works for a goddess, not queen and country. He's taking advantage of the fact that he's being paid to do this but he'd still try to do the right thing even without being paid.
4: The Queen hasn't been around long enough for him to get a understanding of if he should support her, Blackjack has.
5: Blackjacks appearance has already guaranteed that the situation is going to get worse, his declaration has done little more than make a clear dividing line.
6: This entire situation warrants suspicion. If the Queen was trying to quell rioting there were simpler ways she could have done that. Blackjack has made his first appearance in a decade and the girl who was about to be executed said nothing through everything.
7: This touches a personal note with him as he found his own redemption through a closed dodge with permanent imprisonment or execution.
How old is Varor anyways?
Also I highly recommend the Feat “breadth of experience” for Varor if you want to play up the ancient elf aspect of your character. +2 all knowledge and profession tests, can make all untrained. Not gamebreaking or anything...but give mechanics to the “He's been alive a lot longer than all of you so he knows more about...”
Since everyone has chimed in, I was going to go through and work out the "party position". But as I tried to pull together everyone's lists, you all focused on different things, so it didn't go smoothly!
I don't think we have any irreconcilable, party-breaking disagreements, unless Kalem plans to take direct action to either stop Blackjack or prevent "Trinia" from being rescued. Everyone else is either neutral or supportive. By that measure I think we're OK to proceed, with the understanding that for anyone planning to take action you won't have the direct/immediate support of Ilsa and Kalem. While the chaos will likely serve to hide the identities of any party member that helps Blackjack or "Trinia", I'm not sure if its going to be a sure thing (I suppose it depends how crazy Snow wants to make things :>). In any case, some degree of subtlety may be good in order to avoid pitting us directly against the queen's elite guards, who are presumably 15th level Hellknight Antipaladins or some such ridiculousness :D.
BTW Kalem, as far as social respectability, a decent home and a good income go, I think we have the first one already in the bag (based on the throwaway comment from the "populace" before the execution about us), and the other two might very soon be scare to come by for everyone.
Well, we are on our way for the former. So long as we don’t go full traitor/revolutionary, hopefully that won’t be lost.
“So, Cress. We accidentally murdered the executioner, helped incite an anti-monarchy riot and helped a well known demagogue escape. Sorry! Hey, about that pay...?”
"And by 'accidentally', I mean we stabbed him about 50 times. And by 'we', I mean them... I'm going to stand over here."
Kidding aside, I'm inclined to agree with Bashiel that it looks like this won't be a huge issue though I'm glad Kalem (the player) asked to have the discussion OOC so we don't get derailed in the gameplay thread.
For my part, apologies sorry if by putting that all into one post I added to any inter-player tension; limitations of PbP.
Hopefully the queen's elite guards went inside with her *hint hint* GM *wink wink*.
But seriously, I think we've done a good job of stating our individual positions on the matter. If nothing else, we're all on the same page as to our character's positions on the matter.
We finished book 1! Congrats everyone
And it only took nearly a year.
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Wow. Was it really? Feels like we just started a month or two ago. I’m getting old! Still, we’ll probably be finished before the next Game of Thrones book is released.
Yeah, congrats all! Its interesting that it took us 11 months to finish the first book. I think that's actually pretty good time for a PbP. Posting every day keeps the pace up.
For comparison, my face-to-face Rise of the Runelords got through the first two and a half books in 21 months. We met on about 2/3rds of the weekends due to various conflicts and other stuff. But thats an average of eight and a half months per book! So weirdly enough we're not much slower with PbP.
And no worries, the next GoT book won't be out for another decade at least :>
I know I've only been here for a fraction of that, but it really is quite impressive. Especially if you take into account the extra roleplaying with subplots, like with Ilsa's niece, and the unfortunate bit of turnover the group's seen. You all have proven to be exceedingly resilient. Grats, everyone. : )
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I’m aiming to have an update up today but it’s the best opportunity I see to weave in two subplots and alter the AP a little to fit your deeds thus far, so it’s taking me a little while to think through and map out. Hopefully work won’t be too busy today.
Ahh, the grey maiden full plate, a favorite amongst fans and staff alike and completely unrealistic in any way.
...and completely unrealistic in any way.
LOL. Pretty much but hey... points for style? Maybe. Aside from the "kill you quicker if you get hit"-problem.
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You're a real jerk Snow, you know that? :D
You are foreshadowing so much pathos for poor Bashiel, it should be a crime.
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Muahahahahahaha!!!!!
Soooo, way back when, we got two scrolls of Locate Object to track with in case something went wrong with the meeting with the cultists. I believe we only used one of the scrolls. Can I consume the other one to add the spell to my spell list?
Snow, I sent you a PM yesterday. The new format is shiny, but it isn't showing me when I have a message, so I thought I would mention it here in case you are in the same boat.
Yup! The last 36 hours have been kind of insane at work so I haven't had time to read stuff too deeply or think about that kind of stuff. I should have time today or this weekend, though. Thanks for the heads up/reminder.
No worries, definitely no pressure. I honestly just was making sure you knew, because I have missed a couple of messages lately since there is no indicator that there *is* a message anymore.
Soooo, way back when, we got two scrolls of Locate Object to track with in case something went wrong with the meeting with the cultists. I believe we only used one of the scrolls. Can I consume the other one to add the spell to my spell list?
*Bump*
Yup!!
Great, thank you! : )
I’m expecting a busy day at work today but will try to have an update up.
No one else has said it yet, so I figured I would. You all recently passed the one year mark for the game's start! That's quite the accomplishment considering how many dead games you can find if you scroll through the gameplay threads forum. A lot of games don't even come close. Well done, everyone. It's a privilege to be a part of it!
Did we? Wow. Good job all!
One year, one book! I feel we should get a fancy medal to put on our profile :>
I think we can have them roll over, yes.
The harrow point betrayal is real :S
Though TBH, I'd much rather everyone have 3 than some of us 2 and some 4.
Also, awesome Harrowing! I'm going to have to mull over what to comment on now and what to save for later.
Oooooooh, f#&@ing written record is my bane. >:-)
Hmm. Let me think. Made this last decision on a whim but I would like to incentivize y'all to actually use them instead of hoard them. But... not exactly fair to you guys to go back on something I previously said.
Nah, like I said, I'd much rather have 3 points on everyone. Plus I totally agree with use 'em or lose 'em being more fun.
I just like springing the OBJECTION! :>
Decided to do something very weird and hopefully interesting in honor of the second harrowing and because Bashiel's spirits trust Zellara about as far as she can be thrown. Hope people get something out of it :>
Give me a heads up if the image doesn't load correctly in the last post.
It's also (at least somewhat intentionally) hard to read, so if you'd like me to give you the line for your character in plain text, let me know.
Well I'd like the line but I also like whatever the hell you're smoking, or tell me who you're giving it from because he's obviously giving you the good stuff.