Does anyone know if Atticus is active?
What do you think about taking a second new PC from your submissions? I'm comfortable with up to 6, so whether Atticus returns or not I'd be fine with Artegall and someone else.
Atticus has had some busy periods but he does come back.
Let’s get started and we can bot him as needed.
Does that work for you all?
If not I would be ok with the 6th if they are Oriana or Tawni.
I think we can try with what we have and if it isn't working we can bring in one more.
Also with respect to the current situation, Devan was with us when we were doing our hospice investigation. I just bring that up because now that we are faced with an angry crowd his skills as a bard might come in handy.
Can we still use his skills at the moment? Unless the DM had another idea, maybe this is why he leaves: after we (hopefully) calm the situation he offers to stay with the peasants to help calm them down?
I agree this is where we could use A Bard’s skill, though you seemed to do Ok.
I'm fine with any of you running Devan for this encounter.
FYI, I'm going to do this crowd thing as a skill challenge sort of encounter. Other PCs can roll checks other than just Diplomacy to assist in resolving the encounter, as long as they're reasonably related to the scenario (Heal, Knowledge, Sense Motive all seem relevant to this encounter but if you can make the argument for others I'll go with it). You'll have to make a certain number of successes, let's say 3, before you hit a certain number of failures, for this encounter also 3.
You have 1 success from Twilight's Diplomacy check.
When our home game runs skill challenges we normally let people do non-skill related things to influence the challenge.
Casting Prestigitation to give a bonus to the next character's diplomacy or performance check.
Having an animal Companion burst into the tavern to help another character's stealth check.
Dropping a Smoke stick around the corner so people think a building is on fire and maybe it gives a bonus to diplomacy to move people away.
Making a ranged attack to open the gate to a pig pen so the pigs come charging out making it easier to pick the pockets of the people in the market....
Are those kind of non-combat actions allowed in your challenge or do we need to restrict ourselves to skills.
Yeah, go for it. Do whatever you can think of to resolve the encounter.
@GM, I hadn't established what part of town Artegall lives in.
He is fairly well-to-do (having 6th-level PC WBL), so I would think he lives in one of the more affluent neighborhoods. His work might take him into Old Korvosa -- such as hunting down a runaway or kidnapped child -- but for the most part the residents of Old Korvosa can't afford to hire him. And while he might sometimes take on a case pro bono, it isn't the norm.
So perhaps he lives in (and works out of) an apartment in the Northgate ward of North Point. He has cause to deal with City Hall, the Hall of Justice, and the Bank of Abadar on occasion. They may hire him to work on cases, or refer clients to him for complaints that fall outside their jurisdiction.
Does that sound suitable?
Sounds good to me.
Ok all, how do we want to play this to get this moving.
We could play up the search for the musician or report back to Kroft what we are talking about with the coins.
I assume given the death sentance that is from interfearing with the doctors, tge party will not read any outsider into the information on the hospice.
I haven't read back through the campaign to date. I will if you think it best, but right now both player and character are a bit in the dark.
And being the new guy, I'd like to ease into the campaign following the lead of you all, before I start giving too much strategic advice on what we should do.
Depends on whether we can prove our theory on the coins.
If not, lets go seek the missing musician
I was going to go with doing at least on task with Artegal and getting to know him before asking if he was interested in a clandestine job which would be the hospice infiltration.
That is of course assuming that we have another task to attend to. It could be that until we deal with the hospice the plot won't move forward, but that is getting metagamey.
Right now without knowing what the future has in store I see the following:
Have a look at the smoke
Tell Kroft about the coins if we haven't already (we do have tainted coins and she can begin her own investigation to verify our find)
Turn in for the evening
The next day investigate the musician and tend to anything that pops up
Assuming that enough of something has happened to get to know Artegall, invite him to our evening infiltration.
...?
Profit!
That seems to make sense to me.
And hopefully it gives enough hooks for GM karlprosek to work Artegall into the group.
Just FYI, I'm slammed this week and next week and will probably only be able to do one post a week until the week of the 21st. Sorry!
Understand completely, thanks for the post yesterday!
Huh, what do you know. We actually do know someone named Davaulus! I"m going to have to go back and re-read what has happened recently (game time) to make sure that I didn't miss any more clues.
Twilight did take an evening to study the necromancy books when we got it but I didn't get these clues. I wonder if DrEvil either missed that or if he was tweaking the mod.
In fact, now that I em looking back, we have already told Kroft about the plagued coins. We also got a story about an Urgathoan priestess named Andaisin that had unleashed a devastating disease in Nidal a few years back and escaped capture. We discovered her name in a holy text found in the sunken plague ship. Throughout the text Urgathoa's name had been crossed out and replaced with Andaisin's.
So, we know that Rolth was interested in diseases, and someone directed him to talk to Davaulus about a disease, but we don't know if that is for nefarious purposes or just because Davaulus is an expert on such things (though it is curious that Davaulus' name was already being brought up before the outbreak of the plague). And we know for certain that Urgathoa is involved, likely this Andaisin person.
Upon closer reading about the coins it looks like at the time we told Kroft about our suspicions, but didn't have the spells at the time to confirm them. She was going to take the coins to the physicians to have them examined.
We have since confirmed that they are tainted, but I don't know if the physicians told Kroft anything yet or maybe just lied to her.
Mirela used the spells to verify our theory, and I would bet others can as well and we can swear that the coins came directly from the Physician's hand. I'd be interested to hear what they told Kroft.
As for name... I also didn't remember we heard the name, but even if she did, Mirela avoided reading any of those books. So that's a connection that Mirela would never have had a chance to make.
The way things are going we are going to need to bring Artegall into our confidences very soon at this rate. As soon as he connects that name to the head of the Physicians, well that is dangerous territory given the queens edicts for interfering with the physicians/maidens.
Thank you for your patience, folks. I should be able to post regularly again.
So, the Ruins of Azlant game that Nargun and I are in has just lost its GM (again). Any of you willing and able to take this on?
We are a year and a half into it and only partway through Book 1 (multiple GM changes and some player attrition), so I think the players would like a decently fast pace to get some momentum going. I will say that the remaining players are engaged and active.
To help with planning, I updated the Combat Map link at the top to show what I think your team has seen of the inside of the Hospice. It's a 3 story building, looks like a refurbished warehouse. The front door is at F1 and there are big warehouse doors in back; I don't think your team strictly went back there to look at them, though.
There a bunch of sick people on the first floor, a network of catwalks above, and stairs go up to a third floor that you can see from the outside but I don't think you saw when you went in.
All we saw was whatever was visible from the front office and the room with the patients.
Yes that covers what they saw.
All, I'm going to be in and out of Internet this week.
I should be able to post most every day, but if you we come to a plan, please move forward with it even without me confirming.
I'm good for pretty much any scouting method, the only question is if we are going in swinging, I'll bring Whisper. If we are going in quietly/in disguise I'll leave Whisper in the Inn.
From the map it looks like we can go in through the back, and then there is a door on the east side of the back room that would allow us to get to the other rooms without having to walk through the main room. Once inside we can have a stealthy individual quickly check that double door and single door and hopefully we can scoot across into the back rooms without too much trouble.
OK, it looks like you have your approach set up? Any more planning to do now or are you ready to move on? Any shopping or crafting or other prep you want to do?
We grab our stuff and I'd say we move on to the hospise, unless Twilight you want to do your scene first?
I think now would be a good time, I will put up a post this weekend.
Nice scene twilight!
Suddenly I’m happy I offered thanks to Calistria :)
Wow! Superb writing! A pleasure to read, really.
Very cool post, Twilight!
Artegall will join you at 11 pm, of course, but I don't want to interrupt the flow of the story with a post in Gameplay.
That was great, Twilight! Are we ready to move on the warehouse or did the other PCs want to interact?
Thanks, I've had this scene percolating in my mind for a while now. I'm glad I had the opportunity to put it out there. I really wanted to include everyone.
I'm sorry I wasn't able to include you Artegall, Twilight hasn't known you long enough to have been able to take offence at something you said yet;)
Mechanically speaking, this was the conclusion to my ecclesitheurge level advancement. Twilight's holy symbol which was her arcane bond item is now also a divine bond item, using the same rules but selecting from the cleric spell list.
No worries, Twilight. I intend to be in this campaign for the long haul so we will have plenty of chances to interact. It won't be the same as the camaraderie you had with the previous PCs but I hope it is still enjoyable.
I do have a sort of response in mind if, in the future, Twilight expects Artegall to praise or thank Calistria for her 'blessings.' A response that is, I think, in keeping with Artegall's nature and also respectful enough of Calistria. I'll let it come out in character.
Just for some context, Twilight isn't expecting anyone to pay for Callistria's blessings. What she took exception to was that people offered thanks, called for aid or pledged funds to other deities without making similar offers to Callistria.
Way back at the beginning Atticus was picking a lock and just as Twilight was going to use an ability to help him, he called out to Desna for guidance. In the necromancer's lair Mirella made a remarkable shot and Nargun was impressed enough to pledge money to Erestil's church for such a display of archery while he has never made a similar pledge for anything Callistria has done.
She held these what she considered small slights so that she could symbolically settle them as part of this ritual.
I remember! its just what Nargun would do. I don't feel pressured to do it
Just let me know when you're ready to move to the next scene.
I'm ready.
Ready!
Callistria's titles include
The Savored Sting
The Lady in the Room
The Unquenchable Fire
What is the light level like back here? I know the main room was dimly lit with lanterns.
Two of us have low light and one has darkvision.
Hmmm... Light level is important.
I can pull out my ioun stone torch from my pack if we need light.
We could also see if we could find something to cover that ioun stone so that it only gives light in a direction or can be covered completely if need be rather then just having it float around my head..
This storeroom is unlit but the walls are only 10 feet high so the light from the main sickbed area is leaking in over them. Let's call it Dim.
Oh, interesting. I didn't realize that the back room was just a set of walls without a ceiling. Does that mean that is it visible to the catwalks up above?
Yes, the catwalks look down on the entire first floor, including this room. There is a crane/gantry thing currently positioned over the middle of the room you're in, with a bunch of barrels in a net about 10' off the floor, that goes up as high as the catwalk level.
I have no wish to solo this, but I didn't want to lose the benefit of a surprise round. And it's not like we could whisper a plan to each other with the guards right there.
Well this will be interesting.
Twilight, just do you know, we knew those guards where here:
From the non spoiler text last time we were here:
Beyond the Physician, near the back of the room, you see two armored Gray maidens standing near two doors in the back of the area.
Away this week end