GM Deuce's Mythic Reign of Winter

Game Master A_Deuce

Works just fine for me, thanks! Should make our lives a little easier.

Indeed! I've got access to it now

Loot sheet works for me.

What kind of sword is it?

How do you all want to handle the language barrier? On one hand, I think it is very flavorful to have people from different places speak different languages. This was one of my recruitment criteria/goals.

On the other hand, now that we have been through one encounter where it is important to the outcome, I could see it being annoying if one or two people have to copy and paste a lot of text just to change the in-game language. We could assume that the people who are capable of translating do so without explicitly putting it in the gameplay thread.

Opinions on explicit -vs- implied translations?

Also, I changed the introduction of the Yuln character significantly because I didn't like how it was presented in the AP as written. Did it feel right to everybody? Opinions/feedback on that would be appreciated as well.

Good point on the sword.

Cold Iron Longsword. It is old and has sentimental value for Yuln but it not otherwise magical or valuable.

I can't speak for anyone else but I didn't have any problems with how we handled the language issues with Yuln. That said I'm fine if we want to do it the other way as well.

I have no idea what Yuln's introduction looks like as written but I was happy with how it played out for us. A little tension, promise of violence not long past, a chance to help a lost survivor. Good stuff in my book.

Seconding everything Sildur said. I know nothing about the AP, but that was a great entrance. Also, the language thing is cool either way for me.

Well damn, things have been busy...

Also, if anyone else wants to use the sword, just ask. I'm not particularly attached to it

Even if I could use it, I probably wouldn't have had use for it...

Well agatha was holding the sword, but she will let rikael take it. Remember it has a name now. We should check out the black smith for more cold iron weapons.

Actually, I never took it. At least, not until someone else said I did. I was commenting on it while Agatha had it. But really, I'm cool with anyone using it.

Well, Agatha can't use it. But it will be useful against fey.

Yeah, my reasoning too. As long as someone is using it, the whole party benefits.

On the use of other languages, using spoilers for it is handy. Why not say if someone is translating don't use spoilers, otherwise use them. This method is great in pbp to show the use of linguistics and knowing languages. It doesn't work well in table settings without lots of note scribbling.

Fair point indeed lol.

I'm fine with Agatha's suggestion. Makes it fun for the rest of us who don't have that language.

A quick run through of our characters.

Thorn - Taldane,Skald, Elven, Sylvan
Agatha - Taldane, Orcish, Skald, Giant, Halit, Sylvan
Izumi - Tien, Teldane, Halfling, Celestial
Sildur - Taldane, Druidic, Sylvan, Skald
Rikael - Taldane, Elven, Skald
Urga - Common (Taldane I presume), Orc

3 of us can speak Skald. (Thorn, Agatha, Sildur)
2 of us Elven. (Thorn, Rikael)
2 of us Orcish. (Agatha, Urga)
3 of us Sylvan. (Thorn, Agatha, Sildur)
Izumi, Sildur and Agatha have the other languages like Tien, Drudic, Halfling, Celestial, Giant and Halit between them.

For the longsword, Thorn already has a Cold Iron Hooked Lance.
The intro with Yuln was well done though. Much different from the AP.

Thanks for doing that, Thorn. I was going to make a list myself; you saved me a fair amount of digging around.

I'll do what Agatha suggests, so spoilers if nobody understands it or just in text with a note that it is in another language if somebody can translate.

Lol, darn martial weapons, the only two characters who can use them already have cold iron weapons.

I laughed a little bit when I saw those rolls too. I was more afraid I would end up with crazy exotic weapons or polearms that nobody could use either.

At least he didn't have a cold iron gnome hooked hammer. That would have been hilarious.

One of my players have that.......The others were like What?

Sildur had 40 gold remaining if anyone has use for the other two weapons?

Just a note. Where I am is about to be hit by a cyclone. It is not big (category one) but the power may go out and I may not be able to message for a while. Deuce you can bot me if you have to.

Take care Agatha.

Good luck with getting through it, Agatha. I hope this is an uneventful one.

Yea, that would suck losing power due to one of those. Hope you stay safe!

Be careful!

Best of luck! Here's hoping you stay safe and the lights stay on!

I'm going to let the rest of the party check in before continuing. It looks like everybody is ready to go after Yuln's attackers. If you want to do anything else before we leave town, now is the time to do it.

Stay safe Agatha!

Urga doesn't need anything further from town.

Hey Urga, I just noticed in your header. How in the world did you get a +7 with your falchion as a 1st level oracle?

Yeah, how did you get weapon focus, greater weapon focus, and improved critical? Class abilities?

Yeah, that's not right. Should just be str and weapon mastery ... good catch.

I'm back. Lost power for a while, but no damage.

That's great! I'm glad you're safe

Truthfully, compared to cyclone yasi a couple of years ago, it was not so bad. Back then we lost power for 8 days, and had a huge mess to clean up.

Sorry bout yesterday guys. I'll post today when I get back home from class.

Glad you're ok, it must be crazy to live in an area like that. Keep things interesting at the very least.

Actually, it's a lovely place. Great for holidays, if you can get here. Beaches, places to see and do things, kangaroos. And the occasional cyclone. That's hurricanes for you northern hemisphere types. Or typhoons if you're from asia.( If you already know that sorry, but it's depressing how many don't). Still, the houses here are built for it, so we just batten down. Power loss is a pain. And floods can be bad too.
still I would live anywhere else.
oh I suppose I better tell where I am. The city of Townsville, north Queensland, Australia.

I've got the second map up and made tokens for everybody, as well as Dru. If you want different ones, feel free to go crazy and make them.

So, my big question is: why didn't you just take the road? I tried to make it clear that Yuln's party was attacked while they traveled the road to Heldren. Do I need to do a better job of making things like that obvious in the text?

Now, you can retrace Yuln's steps or go up and down the road without too many issues of getting lost.

Adventurers.

Doing things the hard way ever since someone found out about the easy way.

lol Sorry, I thought we were going along the road.

LOL, funny quote.

I don't think I can show a large scale map without letting other information out, but I'll do that after all the important areas have been discovered. If I can find a straightforward way to do a fog of war type map, I'll display it earlier.

The road out of Heldren goes fairly directly north-south. The party (and Yuln) just made a detour to the west through some fairly open land. Either way, the trip is easy.

I'm not certain why we left the road come to think on it.

Honestly, I never even thought about it. It never occurred to me that Yuln's caravan would have been traveling on, you know, a road meant for caravans. Lol. I had it in my head that Yuln's caravan was off the beaten path when it was attacked and he just wandered into the road and the merchants found him there. Derp.

Lol, I hadn't really considered where the attack must have happened either. I just seemed most logical to follow the path of the guy who was part of it.

On that note though, I'm curious. If the merchants took the same road, why didn't they find the site of the battle as well? Yuln certainly took a winding route so they must have passed by the spot after the attack took place? Or is there something I'm missing?

Sildur found a hole in the plot that I created when I changed the introduction of Yuln. I don't want to go into all of the details until I'm sure that there won't be any spoilers, so here is what I did:

- Battle site is on the road south out of heldren by about 90 minutes travel/6 miles.
- Sildur is right that the caravan could not have taken the same road or they would have seen the battle site.
- So, I had the merchant caravan come in from the west.
- Yuln ran from the battle to the northwest.
- Yuln and the caravan met between the battle site and Heldren, but to the west of town.
- The caravan moves east and then hits the road, where they turn north. They traveled up the same road together.

Basically, Yuln wandered around and took the long way to Heldren (which is why it took 2 hours or so to go a fairly small distance). This can be attributed to being wounded or in fear from the battle, but is not well explained (my fault there). Despite that small issue, I still feel that it is a way, way smaller problem compared to the AP as written. Ask me about this again when you are level 2 or 3 and I can explain it in more detail.

No worries, I think it actually worked out just fine. Honestly, if you hadn't mentioned anything in the first place I would never have noticed at all :P

Hey we took the scenic route. Heres an excuse for the GM to wax lyrical about the lovely taldane countryside, and the historical sites (LOL).